Chapter 29 #2
“A bus I can work and sleep on. A desk that isn’t a joke. A door. A driver I trust. An assistant when I ask for one. Security that doesn’t treat me like cargo. Control over what goes out under my name. If I have to pick between your optics and my safety, I pick safety.”
“Done,” Knox says. He means it. “I’ll call counsel and start the draft. We’ll build a budget with the bus company this afternoon.”
“I also still want the option to stay put,” I say. “If I need to stay put for a few days and catch up later, no guilt.”
“The option is yours,” Salem says. “We’ll miss you. We’ll live.”
“And I want to keep the door open to not sing on a given night if my throat or my head isn’t there,” I add. “No hard feelings.”
Houston nods. “We’ll have a pad track ready for those nights and run the house mix clean.”
Feels like I negotiated myself into a different world. I breathe and let the idea land in my body. My own space, rolling with theirs. My own desk, doors, calendar. Their rooms when I want them. My rooms when I need them.
“Say yes,” Salem says, impatient in the way that’s funny now.
“Yes. With a contract. With all the lines we just said written down where the world can’t pretend we never said them.”
Houston reaches across the table and rests his hand on mine, not pinning, just there. “Thank you. For asking for what you want.”
“Thank you for answering straight.”
A knock at the door breaks the moment. Room service forgot the jam and came back with three tiny jars. It’s absurd. It helps. Things got too heavy for a moment.
The door shuts. The room steadies. I look up and find three faces watching me with their version of soft.
“What?”
“You look like home,” Salem says.
“You look like our partner,” Knox says.
“You look like yourself,” Houston says.
I don’t cry. There’s too much to do. I reach for my laptop, but Salem rests his hand there.
“What are you doing?”
He says, “There’s a stipulation I want to discuss.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He stands and takes my hand. “Up.”
I stand too. “Where are we going?”
“To my office, so we can discuss further negotiations.”
“But we were discussing things right here just fine.”
“It’s better in there. Trust me.” He walks me down the hall, his brothers behind us. Then he leads me into his bedroom.
I glance around and point to the door I thought was a closet. “In there?”
“No.” He gives me a light shove onto the bed.
I laugh, still bouncing. “What are you doing?”
He smirks and tugs my pajama bottoms off. “Negotiating.”
“This is not negotiating.”
“Sure it is.” He strips his shirt, his lounge pants off. Naked, ripped, pierced. Glorious. He splits my legs apart at the ankles and climbs between them, lifting my right leg around his waist. “You see, I’m what some call an expert negotiator.” He cups my pussy, and I gasp. “And I get what I want.”
I moan. “What do you want?”
“A successful arrangement on both sides.” He strums my clit slowly. “A deal that tells the world we’re partners. Deals like this can take time, so I’m going to go slow so we get it right.”
“Mm, you’re getting it right.” I ride his hand, rocking back and forth.
“Not so sure about that.” He slides between my legs, his cock poised at my entrance.
He motions with his eyes behind me, and the next thing I know, his brothers have my wrists above my head.
“You’ll see we drive a hard bargain.” He enters me with a hard thrust and growls. “That’s how we get what we want.”
“I want it too,” I purr.
He smirks. “All the better.” He drives in and out of me in slow strokes, watching where we’re joined. “Fuck, you cling to me when I pull back, do you know that? Like your body doesn’t want to let me go.”
“I don’t. Not ever.” Too much truth. Fuck. How do I backtrack—
“Good. Don’t.” He buries deep, and I can’t move to hold him, so I wrap my legs around him and keep him inside of me. He pumps gently and murmurs into my hair. “You like it when we hold you down. When we have you. We like holding you down. Taking care of you. Match made in heaven.”
Those words crumble something inside of me. My heart knots up. The room shimmers, and then I feel it. Tears welling. I don’t know why I’m crying. But the tears make the world wobble.
I take a quick breath, but it doesn’t help. “Halt!”
They back off instantly, and I sit up, then race to his bathroom and slam the door shut. I brace on the counter and sob. How…how can I do this? How can I let them do everything for me? It’ll go wrong. It always does. I can’t—
“Lou,” Houston says behind the door. “Are you okay?”
How do I even answer that?
“Need a minute.” I try to sound strong. I sound like I’m dying.
“Coming in,” Salem says as he barges into the room.
“Oh my god, what if I was peeing?”
“You think I haven’t seen a girl pee? Do you know how many dive bars we played at?” He shakes his head. “Not the point. What the fuck is up?”
Knox and Houston stand in the doorway, watching and trying not to crowd.
I wrap a towel around myself. I don’t know why. Then I sit on the closed toilet. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“No, you know exactly how to do what we were doing. I promise you.”
I have to tell them. We promised honesty.
But I don’t want to. It’s too hard.
“I don’t…you said that thing about taking care of me.”
Salem shrugs innocently. “So?”
“We love doing that,” Houston says.
Knox nods and listens.
“What happens when you stop loving…that?” Me. I mean me.
They glance at each other, confused. Then Salem kneels on the bathroom rug at my feet to make me look at him. “Lou. What makes you think we will ever stop loving that?”
I shrink inside myself. My voice does too. “Because everyone always does. My parents did.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, before he surges up and kisses me.
His hands weave into my hair, and he doesn’t let up until we need to breathe.
He doesn’t move back much, just enough to speak.
“You are it for us, angel. There is no one else. There is nothing we want to do more than take care of you for the rest of our lives. After this tour—”
“Salem,” Knox warns. “It was going to be a surprise.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“She needs to know,” he says without looking away from me.
“Yeah. Okay. She does. Houston?”
“I told you we should have already said it, man.”
I’m so lost. “What is going on?”
Salem takes a breath. “After this tour, we want to buy a house for you. For us. To build a life there together. Dogs, cats, a zebra—”
“A zebra?” A little laugh pops out, and I wipe a tear away.
“If you want one. Kids too, if you want them. The whole nine. If you’ll have us. We’re kind of a mess, so I understand if you say no.” He pauses for a second. “Say yes instead.”
“We can’t get married—obviously,” Knox says as he comes closer. “But we want to enmesh you into our legals as much as we can, so you’re secure.”
Houston steps in behind him, making the bathroom feel even more crowded. “This is our version of a proposal.” He smiles and shrugs. “Didn’t plan on doing it naked. But here we are.”
I snort a laugh and close my eyes. “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
“That sounds like a yes to me,” Salem teases.
I throw the towel off and wrap my legs around him. “Take me back to the bed.”
He stands and carries me there again, this time laying me down gentler. We lie next to each other, and the other two join us. Knox behind me, Houston lying at our feet. Salem rubs my arm while staring into my eyes.
I’m trapped and free at the same time. “You three really mean it, don’t you?”
“I will always mean what I tell you,” Salem vows. “I know life has been shitty to you. I get why you have low expectations. And we will do everything in our power to raise them every fucking day.”
There’s nothing to lose, and everything to gain. All I have to do is say yes.
So, I kiss him and pin him to the bed, straddling him. The tension flows out of his body as his hands circle over my ass. He’s hard again, so I take him inside of me. His piercing hits my clit every time I move. He fits perfectly. They all do, in their own ways.
I motion for Houston to join us. “I want you in my mouth.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He crawls to the head of the bed to take position.
I turn to Knox. “And you in my ass.”
“Fuck yes,” he says before disappearing behind me.
When Houston pumps into my lips, Salem growls, “Fuck, I love watching that.”
When Knox enters my ass, I’m sure he says something else, but I’m too lit and loud to hear it.
We move together, the heat building inside. It’s like music, flowing at its own rhythm. Let it lead, and you find the meaning.
I’m coming before I know it, shocked by the quickness and ease. It’s not like before. Not like when it took time to get into a comfortable headspace and then let go. I’m already there.
They have me. I have them. They’ll hold me down and let me fly.
When they come, the world pulses wet, and I’m so full of them that I can’t think straight. They set me between them, dripping, sated. Blissed out of my mind.
This is my new life. I’m with them. They’re with me. Safe. Protected. Happy.
Home.