Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
KIT
C onvincing people that Jax and Scott were working on their own was easy. My mother didn’t have friends she confided in and she’d cut us off from family long ago. Like I predicted, there was no one to miss Noreen Salazar. Alana and I were witnesses to what Grant and Rafe had to do to keep us safe, even if the bodies of Scott and Jax showed my men had been enthusiastic, Grant more so than Rafe. There wasn’t much anyone could say against the deaths of two murderers that had stalked me and tried to kill us all. Things had gone quiet after that. Or, as quiet as anything could really be, everything considered.
So much death in such a concentrated area had made the news. That attention had brought eyes to By The Way, with some people even calling it cursed. That had only made the fans of my book all the more rabid to help the movie succeed.
It released two weeks ago at the top of the box office. There’s no movie bigger than By The Way right now. Grant and Rafe have offers coming from a couple of dramas and Grant landed another romance role. This one is a drama. I think I heard of Jasmine going to Italy for an indie film but I haven’t seen or heard of her since the premiere. The success is sweet but it could also be because I’m not looking over my shoulder anymore. There’s no reason to be scared that my mother is going to pop up or that the ghost of my past is going to take everything away from me. Nothing can touch me. Not anymore.
“Hey.” I smile when Rafe wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. “Been looking for you.”
“I needed some fresh air.”
Rafe tips his head back and looks up at the stairs above us. “I can see that.” He smooths his hand through my hair and kisses my neck. After By The Way premiered we came to Connecticut, back to the home I love so much. We’ve been here for two weeks and everything has been so blissfully normal. We’re in my garden now.
I smile and lean my head back on Rafe’s shoulder. It’s a beautiful crisp autumn night and there’s a sweet cool breeze that makes me shiver. It’s not too cold for us to be outside the way we are but in a month it will be. Rafe and I watch the stars for a minute before there’s a soft footfall behind us.
“You going to stand there or come over here?” Rafe asks.
“Enjoying the view is all.”
I look over Rafe’s shoulder to see Grant walking towards us carrying a blanket. He’s shirtless and moonlight slides over his body the way I want to. He drapes the blanket around Rafe and I when he reaches us.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I’m fine.”
We’re all quiet and it’s in that quiet that the secret I carried around feels like it’s finally bubbled up to the top. I didn’t bring up Mark to either of them after we got rid of my mother, I wanted to tell them but filming was moving so fast. No time ever felt like the right time and then I thought it would be easier when we were alone again.
We’re alone now.
“I killed someone.”
Rafe is the first to speak. “We know.”
“Kind of hard to miss it with your mom going on about it.”
I bite my lip. “You know?”
Grant clears his throat and looks at me. “The second we were free of the cops I looked it up. Mark Dixon, huh?”
I drop my eyes, because I don’t know if I can take seeing how he might look at me now that he knows the secret I’ve carried. “Yeah.”
“Nobody missed him. Saw some shit about him on a few survivor blogs,” Rafe tells me softly. I’d never searched his name. I was too scared to even think about Mark, let alone put his name in a search engine.
“Really? I-I didn’t know that.”
“Guy was a predator, shy girl.”
“So am I,” I whisper and my eyes well up with tears. I don’t know why I’m crying or why I feel emotional. It feels like every part of the person I tried to be is gone now. When I was younger I used to pray to be someone else. I dreamed of the life I have now, so much so that I wrote pages and pages trying to create it. Now that I’m here, it’s scary.
No one tells you just how terrifying it is to get exactly what you want. How easy the urge to pull it down until there’s nothing left gnaws at you. Because you know what the past holds, you know who you’ve been and what to expect. There’s safety in that in comparison, in knowing that there are no limits on you. Not really.
“I don’t think I’m a good person.”
Both men go still and it’s a second later that they’re both in my space. “You are fucking perfect,” Grant growls, cupping my face in his hands.
“You’re the best person I know,” Rafe whispers in my ear and kisses my temple. I don’t know what that means, when he makes it a point not to know anyone.
“I-I-how can you love me? I killed Mark and I killed my mother.”
Grant tilts my head back to look up at him. “And they both deserved it. You did the world a favor and I’m fucking proud of you.”
“What?” He’s proud of me. Out of all the things I thought he might say, I never thought he would tell me he was proud of me.
“ We’re proud of you,” he says again.
Rafe hums in agreement. “I knew you had fight in you, but I’m impressed you got rid of your mother and fuck that douche.”
Fuck that douche.
He says it so flippantly, like I just told him I threw my drink on a handsy date, not had him fall and break his neck and then bury him in the woods with my mother when I was sixteen. I swallow hard and a laugh bubbles up in me.
“I was scared you wouldn’t want me if you knew,” I confess. “That you’d think I was, I don’t know, tainted. Dirty. Wrong.” The words I’m using are the ones my mother gave to me. They’re not mine but they are how I thought of myself for so long. Rafe is the one to gather me close with a gentle sigh. He kisses my cheek and strokes my hair. Every touch makes another one of those fucked up words fall right off me and vanish. I don’t know how to explain it but having him be this tender with me, even though he knows my secret, makes me feel more in control of myself. Just because I’m overwhelmed by what a future with Grant and Rafe means, just because I don’t know the woman I’ll be a year from now, doesn’t mean that it’s not good.
It doesn’t mean that I’m not ready.
I swipe at the tears that have formed at the corner of my eyes and drop my head against his shoulder. “I love you,” I tell them.
“We love you.”
“We’re yours forever.”
I close my eyes and sit in their love. It feels solid and real, like I could take it in both hands and bring it close to keep me warm instead of the blanket over my shoulders. I open my eyes and look at them. Rafe has his eyes closed, he’s relaxed, his features soft right now. He looks like this a lot lately. I trace the curve of his lip while I watch Grant. He’s standing guard the way he normally is, eyes constantly scanning the area for threats, back straight, hands loose and ready at his sides.
Nothing would ever get past him to us. I know that brings him comfort.
Grant crosses his arms and stares out into the darkness. The breeze blows his hair back and I reach out to touch it. “Come here.”
He catches my hand and looks at me. “How do we ask, sweetheart?”
“Please,” I say immediately and smile at him. “I want you.”
Grant comes forward immediately. Rafe tosses the side of the blanket over his shoulder and Grant moves under the blanket with us. His skin is cool from the night air. I shiver and lean into him as tension I didn’t know I was holding onto melts out of my body with both of my men holding me. Rafe’s touch is hot on my skin as he gently slides a finger under my tank top and presses the palm of his hand to my flesh. That touch is all that’s needed to shift the energy between all three of us.
Grant kisses me and the kiss is sweet and gentle. He’s taking his time with me tonight. Rafe’s touch is slow, he trails a finger along the side of my neck and drops a kiss there. They’re both taking their time with me. I open my mouth to Grant and moan when he deepens the kiss. He pushes me back into Rafe’s arms and slowly lifts my shirt up and over my head. When he drops my shirt to the ground, the blanket goes with it.
I raise myself up on my tiptoes and wind my arms around both men’s necks to pull them in for a kiss. First Rafe, whose kiss ends with a stinging nip to my bottom lip and then back to Grant, who soothes my lip with a swipe of his tongue. Rafe’s hand moves to the waistband of the silk pajama pants that I’m wearing. They were a gift from them both when they went shopping in town earlier today. No one has ever bought me something this thoughtful before. Dresses and jewelry are one thing, but pajama pants?
That’s more of a promise of forever than even the bracelet I wear on my wrist. There will be countless nights like tonight between all three of us. They are capable of giving me what I want—that perfect happy ending I’ve always dreamed of. When Rafe pulls my pajama pants free, we all go down onto the fallen blanket and I settle between them.
Grant drops to his knees beside me and fists a hand in my hair to pull me to him in a kiss while Rafe ends up between my legs. He nudges my thighs apart and hooks a leg over his shoulder. It’s hard to not move the way I want but I know if I do Rafe won’t give me what I need. He grabs my hips and positions me how he wants me before he starts painting the inside of my thighs with kisses. He turns his head and inhales and the scratch of his stubble against my skin has me moaning and grabbing onto Grant’s shoulders when he moves over me.
“I love you,” he whispers against my lips before he kisses me. Rafe licks into me and strokes my clit while he devours me. When I cry out, it’s Grant that swallows the sound and kisses me deep. When he lifts me up and shoves Rafe back, I’m a gasping mess, desperate for more of my men.
I grab at Grant’s shoulders. “ Please ,” I plead and he shushes me with another kiss.
“I know, sweetheart, I know. Let me see you take him.” He moves me over Rafe and his hard cock slides between my thighs when I straddle him. The warm head of his dick nudges my entrance and I bite down on my lip when Grant comes to my side and kisses my cheek. He grabs my jaw in one hand and tightens his grip when he whispers in my ear. “That’s it, beautiful. Put him inside of you. Can you do that for me?”
I nod, the need to please him fills my body until it’s the only thing I want to do. He could tell me to do anything right now and I would rush to do it. I know Rafe would do the same. We’re in Grant’s thrall and the pair of us move together. Rafe groans when I slide down an inch, spearing myself on his cock with a whimper. Grant comes up against my back and hugs me to him while directing my movement.
“Show me how good you can fuck her,” he tells Rafe and grabs the other man’s hand. Grant settles Rafe’s hand on my hip but neither of them force me down. He stays where he is and Grant guides me down.
He moans when I move. “Fuck. That’s it. Take me deeper, shy girl.”
Grant turns my face to kiss him and pushes down on my shoulder. My thighs tremble as I lower myself another inch and then another. The delicious stretch of Rafe filling me has my eyes rolling in the back of my head and I give myself over to Grant, letting him move my body as he whispers in my ear.
“So fucking beautiful. You’re perfect. Perfect for us.”
There’s no one out here to watch us. My house is tucked up on a few acres of property that ends in woods. It’s just us and the night, perfectly safe and hidden from anyone that would try to touch what we have.
“I love you,” I whisper.