Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
DAKOTA
Micah’s words hung between us like suspended frost, a sharpness in the air. He didn’t want to hurt me in this way, but he was, and neither of us were certain he’d ever be able to stop. I wanted to fucking fight him because of it. Scream at him. Hit him.
It was so much simpler for me to accept my death at Mason’s hands than my death at Micah’s.
But I didn’t shout or hit.
I just cried harder.
I thought about the emptiness of my womb, and how the possibility of my baby had disappeared almost as quickly as it’d arrived.
Maybe that was a kindness. I’d never had enough time to build a future around it, never had enough time to imagine Micah as a father—but I was imagining it now, so it hardly mattered how short-lived the knowledge of my pregnancy had been.
I imagined his blue eyes and his strong hands and his soothing voice.
A tiny baby sleeping on his chest.
A peace on his face I so rarely saw now.
My eyes squeezed shut, a sob lodging in my throat, more tears streaming warm down my temples to bury themselves in my hair. Micah held the side of my face and leaned down, pressing his lips to my hairline.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I’d known in my heart that I didn’t really want a child. Probably. Maybe.
But I’d realized now that believing I didn’t want one wasn’t the same as wanting to lose one. Maybe that was why it hurt so strangely. I’d felt so uncertain and scared for those few days, unsure of what to choose. And then the universe chose for me.
It had been such a brief, strange, fragile thing.
Endless tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes, my voice tight when I spoke. “I wish I could’ve given you a baby. You know, if—”
“Dakota,” Micah said, framing my face with both hands, shaking his head. “Baby girl. You never fucking apologize to me for that. Never.”
“But I feel like you wanted it,” I cried.
“And if I’d been human, I might’ve gotten it, but I’m not. This was never on you. Not even a little bit. Do you understand me?”
I wanted to understand him, but I couldn’t help feeling responsible for this. My attitude at the beginning could’ve been the reason the baby had been taken.
I got what I deserved.
“Masters,” Micah said, his voice low and soothing. “I love you so fucking much, and I’m sorry for putting you through that. I’m sorry I didn’t know it could happen. I’m sorry that I’m an angel and this is just what happens to angels. It never should’ve happened to you.”
It never should’ve, but it did.
I was shivering, the coldness of the ground seeping beneath my coat.
“You’re cold,” Micah said softly.
“No I’m not,” I insisted. His body kept me warm, but I just…I’m weak. Fragile. Slipping away.
“How did you get here?”
“I took the bus and then walked. I left when Mason was in the shower.” I didn’t hold a grudge against him for failing to hide his distaste of my pregnancy at the start—it would’ve been completely unfair—but that didn’t make me want to be excessively vulnerable with him about it now that it was over.
He took care of me well. But it was different with Micah. It’d been his child, after all.
“You shouldn’t do that. What if I wasn’t here?” Concern flitted through his irises.
“Then I’d walk back. I’m okay.”
“Can I take you home?”
I hesitated, then nodded, still crying.
But through the trees, I swore there was something glowing in the forest.
━━━━━
Micah drove me to my trailer, and I texted Mason to come over, too.
Not because I really needed to do anything with both of them, but because I needed the comfort.
Mason arrived with Chinese takeout, and I could tell he was sad that I’d left him the way I had, sad that I’d ended our week of isolation without Micah.
But I’d never lied to him about my love for them both.
He knew this was coming.
We all sat on the couch to eat, the TV playing some sitcom rerun at a low volume.
I had an extra blanket wrapped around my shoulders over my clothes because the trailer wasn’t insulated all that well, and it got colder inside during the winter.
The body heat from the men on either side of me helped, though.
Before long, Mason and Micah’s scents had woven themselves through all the air in the room, comforting me and turning me on in the same breath. But I was still very nervous. So I didn’t say anything.
Mason’s hand slid onto my thigh, squeezing gently, inching higher slowly enough that I’d be able to stop him if I wanted to.
But I wasn’t sure what I wanted. A soft gasp escaped me when Micah turned my head and brought our mouths together, gently at first, giving me opportunity to resist him. I didn’t resist him, either.
He kissed me slow, hand moving beneath my t-shirt to settle on my waist. I leaned into him for only a moment before Mason was turning me in his direction, running his mouth along my throat while holding my hips.
I liked this. The sound of the TV playing low in the back, the light dim, all three of us on the couch, both of their hands on my body. Cuddling, but more now.
“Good?” Mason murmured, his fingers curling in the hem of my shorts.
“Okay. Yes,” I breathed. “Good.”
Mason pulled off my shorts, leaving me in only my cotton t-shirt and underwear. Micah’s fingers slid down my stomach, slipping just below the waistband. My pulse spiked.
“No,” I whispered. “Don’t take them off. I’m scared of that.”
“Scared of me putting something inside of you?”
I nodded, a bit stressed out. “I looked it up. The internet says to be careful.”
“I looked it up, too. I wouldn’t do something that would be unsafe, baby girl. You haven’t bled in a few days?”
I shook my head.
He looked it up, too. He loves me.
“I’m not going to take your underwear off or put anything inside of you. I’ve got you. I’m here with you.”
“Okay,” I said quietly. “I trust you.”
Micah glanced away and I watched the motion of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.
How can I trust you? He shut his eyes for a brief second, then turned his gaze back on my face, his focus completely dialed in to me.
The torment that’d momentarily claimed his mind was pushed off in the pursuit of making me feel good now.
Micah put his hand between my thighs, his fingertips brushing over my cotton underwear. He rubbed back and forth over my swelling clit, gentle but insistent enough to make me squirm.
Mason was close behind me, his hands lingering on my hips, the bottom of my stomach.
His fingers inched lower, seeking the place Micah was idly petting me.
Their knuckles brushed together, and I could feel the tension in both of them, could see the way they kept glancing quickly at each other while their hands grazed on my body.
Yeah, I hadn’t seen Micah at all this week until now. But neither had Mason.
I thought about the shower.
The things I’d seen that we’d barely discussed since then.
I hadn’t brought up any other questions since that morning, and neither of them had offered any information voluntarily.
The pregnancy had been a distraction, but distractions didn’t erase my memories…
and I had a lot of memories. A lot of moments where it felt as though Mason and Micah had an additional layer of their own sexual tension while they touched me.
Seemingly, my feelings and suspicions about that had been correct.
A while.
Mason’s words, his response to my question when I asked how long they’d been doing this behind my back. I still didn’t know exactly what that meant. Exactly how long was a while?
I brushed Micah’s hand off of me, directing him silently to Mason.
He hesitated, and I felt him looking down at my face. Mason, too.
But I guided his hand farther, his fingertips on Mason’s collarbone, skimming the cotton of his t-shirt. Mason’s hand had fallen limp between my thighs, distracted by Micah’s touch on his chest.
Nobody spoke.
Everything else in the world diminished, the glow of the TV dimming, the voices coming out of the speakers smearing into a dull hum of noise I wasn’t paying any attention to.
Even the coldness of the air seeped away.
The three of us were in our own bubble. Warm and quiet and dark, made of hitched inhales and seeking fingers.
And nobody else on Earth had to understand it except us.
I loved both of them. Equally. Always. Forever.
No matter what happened.
No matter how much pain the universe tied around us, threaded through us. This was at the very core of me. The most essential, vital part of my heart. I couldn’t imagine anything else would ever make me feel as deeply as this.
Micah skimmed his knuckles down Mason’s chest, then extended his fingers to brush down the rest of the way to Mason’s waistband, lifting his shirt to trace his abs and the slanted line of muscle over his hip.
Micah hooked his fingers in the elastic waistband and pulled it down without further ceremony.
My breath caught in my throat as Micah took Mason’s cock out, tugging his boxers down far enough to expose his balls too. Heat rushed to my face, pooled low in my belly.
I watched Micah’s hand, transfixed as he shifted his grip to wrap around his shaft, and started to stroke him.
Slowly, at first. Not really teasing, but testing.
Rubbing his thumb along the underside of the tip, circling his fingers tighter, watching all of Mason’s reactions almost like he expected them.
Mason was breathing harder now, but he wasn’t watching Micah’s veined hand stroke him like I was. He was watching Micah’s face.
His eyebrows pushed together, his lips pressed in a line, a look of angry desperation in his brown eyes as his chest rose and fell more rapidly.