Chapter 20
Xavier
“Careful,” I said as I helped Milo out of the backseat of June’s car.
“Where are our bikes?” he asked, looking around, like they might be in June’s driveway.
“Dani trailered them back to the barndominium. They’re safe,” I said. “We came in June’s car.”
“I’ve got him,” June said, positioning herself on Milo’s good side and tossing me her keys. “Xavier, you get the door.”
I jogged ahead, fumbling with her house key and held the door wide as they made their slow way up the porch steps. Milo was trying not to show how much it hurt, but I could see it in the tight lines around his mouth, the way he leaned more heavily on June than he wanted to.
I followed behind them, hyperaware of every step Milo took, ready to catch him if he stumbled. The stairs seemed impossibly steep, each one a potential disaster.
June’s bed was neatly made — part of the reason she’d insisted we come here. According to June, clean sheets would be better for preventing infection, but I wondered if she just wanted to keep him close and make sure he was okay.
“Sit,” June instructed Milo, and he complied, lowering himself carefully onto the edge of the bed.
She crouched in front of him, unlacing his boots with gentle efficiency and tugging off his jeans.
“Xavier, can you look for a clean t-shirt in the bottom drawer? I tossed some things in there that you guys left behind.” She carefully helped him out of his shirt, making sure not to jostle his shoulder.
His body was a map of scrapes and bruises, and guilt twisted in my gut.
June looked up at me. “Xavier, I need your help. Go get the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink. Let’s clean his abrasions, okay?”
The task gave me something to focus on, which might have been her intention. Her first aid kit was easy to find in her neatly organized bathroom and very well-stocked.
June took the kit from me and set to work with the same focused efficiency she brought to everything. “This is going to sting,” she warned before dabbing antiseptic on the worst of the road rash.
Milo hissed through his teeth but didn’t pull away. I stood there watching June tend to injuries that were my fault.
“Done,” June announced, applying the last bandage. “Now let’s get you properly into bed.”
Between the two of us, we got Milo settled against the pillows, his injured shoulder propped carefully with extra cushions.
“I’ll get water,” June said, squeezing my arm as she passed. “Stay with him.”
I sank down on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle anything. Milo’s eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. “Need anything?”
“I need you to stop freaking out and to stop looking at me like I’m dying,” he mumbled without opening his eyes. “I’m fine. Dislocated shoulder’s set now. It’ll heal in no time. And everything else is cosmetic.”
“You could have—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Could have died. Could have been paralyzed. Could have lost so much more than a few weeks of riding.
His eyes opened, finding mine. “But I didn’t. I’m here. We’re okay.”
“We’re not okay,” I said, my voice cracking. “Nothing about this is okay. I almost got you killed because I’m too fucked up to know when to quit.”
June returned with water and pain medication, setting them on the nightstand. She stood there for a moment, looking between us, then held out her hand to me. “Come here.”
I let her pull me to my feet, let her lead me a few steps away from the bed. And then she wrapped her arms around me, holding tight, and something inside me shattered.
“You did good tonight,” she said against my chest. “You stayed calm. You called for help. You got him to the hospital and did everything in your power to make sure Milo was safe.”
I shook my head violently, pulling back. “I almost got him killed. I should have—we shouldn’t have been there. I’m poison. I ruin everything I touch. You should—you should just let me go before I destroy this too.”
Her hands came up to frame my face, forcing me to meet her eyes. “You’re being stupid,” she said bluntly, no sugarcoating, no gentle letdown.
“June—”
“No, listen to me.” Her grip on my face tightened slightly.
“No one who is poison would care as deeply as you do. No one who is poison would have done that stupid five senses thing to calm me down in the hospital. You’re just human like the rest of us, and you deserve love.
You deserve happiness. You deserve to have people who care about you.
These are facts, Xavier. Not opinions. Facts. ”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly,” she interrupted. “You’ve internalized years of negative messaging about your worth. But that doesn’t make it true.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re valuable. You’re talented. You’re loved. Get used to it.”
“Hey,” Milo called from the bed, his voice rough. “Are you two just going to stand there having an emotional crisis, or are you going to come over here and fuck already so I can watch?”
The absurdity of it broke through the tension. I let out a startled laugh, June’s lips twitching into a smile.
“He has a point,” she said, her hands sliding down to grip my shirt.
“You want to—” I gestured vaguely at the bed where Milo lay injured. “Now?”
“I’m on drugs,” Milo said cheerfully. “Good drugs. And I may be temporarily broken, but my dick works fine. So yeah, I’d like to watch my two favorite people fuck.
Preferably before these painkillers knock me out again.
Wait, you didn’t fuck earlier in the hospital room, did you?
I remember fantasizing about it there, too. ”
“No, we didn’t.” June was already pulling me toward the bed, her fingers working at the buttons of my shirt. “If Daddy wants a show, we should give him a show.”
“I’m not calling him Daddy.”
June snorted. “Not until his dick is in your asshole again, anyway.”
I let her undress me, too wrung out to protest, too needy for comfort to resist. When she pushed me down onto the bed beside Milo, I went willingly, watching as she stripped off her own clothes with efficient movements. No ceremony, no performance—just June being practical about getting naked.
She climbed onto the bed, straddling my hips, her hands braced on my chest. “Focus on making it sexy for Milo.”
I looked over at Milo, who was watching us with heavy-lidded eyes, a slight smile on his face despite the pain he had to be in. “This okay?” I asked him, needing his permission even though he’d suggested it.
“More than okay,” he said. “You’re going to have to entertain me like this for my whole recovery.” He reached out with his good hand and squeezed my balls. “What if we edge you for hours just so I get to watch you fuck our girl.”
Our girl. He was looser with his words, and I watched the subtle way June’s eyes widened when he said it.
June reached down between us, wrapping her fingers around my half-hard cock, stroking slowly until I was fully erect.
The sensation was grounding, pulling me out of my head and into my body.
She positioned herself over me, and I felt the wet heat of her as she sank down, taking me inside with a soft sigh.
“Fuck,” I breathed, my hands finding her hips, holding on like she was the only solid thing in a tilting world.
She began to move, rolling her hips in slow circles, and I watched her face—the way her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parting, that little crease appearing between her eyebrows when something felt particularly good.
She was beautiful. Not in some abstract, distant way, but in a real, immediate way that made my throat tight.
“That’s it,” Milo murmured from beside us. “God, June, you look amazing riding his cock.”
She smiled at his words, her movements becoming more deliberate, more showy. She arched her back, displaying her small breasts, her hands sliding up her own body to cup them. “Like this?” she asked, her voice breathier now.
“Just like that,” Milo confirmed, running his uninjured hand over her breasts, squeezing and tweaking the nipples.
She grabbed his hand, threaded their fingers together, and held it against her.
Something about that—the way she kept him included, made sure he was part of this—broke something open inside me. This wasn’t just sex. This was us, the three of us, taking care of each other in the only way we knew how right now.
I thrust up to meet June’s movements, my rhythm matching hers, and she gasped, her grip on Milo’s hand tightening. “Xavier,” she breathed. “Oh god, right there.”
I did it again, angling my hips to hit that spot inside her that made her moan, and she rewarded me with a roll of her hips that sent sparks up my spine.
Milo was watching us with an intensity that added another layer to the pleasure—knowing he could see everything, see how June’s face flushed, see how my cock disappeared inside her with each movement.
“Tell me what you see,” June gasped, looking at Milo. “Tell me what it looks like.”
“Beautiful,” Milo said, his voice rough. “You’re taking him so well, June. Your body stretched around his cock, your pussy so wet I can see it glistening. And X—fuck, X, you look wrecked. Like she’s destroying you in the best way.”
He wasn’t wrong. I was wrecked. Every thrust, every clench of June’s body around mine, every soft sound she made—it was all stripping away the armor I’d worn for so long.
This was what making love felt like. Not just fucking, not just getting off.
This overwhelming connection that went beyond physical pleasure into something that scared me even as I craved more of it.
“I’m close,” June warned, her movements becoming more erratic. “Xavier, I need—”
I knew what she needed. One hand left her hip to find her clit, rubbing tight circles as she rode me. She cried out, her body tensing, and then she was coming, her pussy clenching rhythmically around my cock as waves of pleasure washed over her face.
The sight of her, the feel of her, Milo’s ragged breathing beside us—it all combined to push me over the edge. I came with a groan, my hips jerking up as I emptied myself inside her, pleasure so intense it bordered on painful.
June collapsed forward onto my chest, both of us breathing hard, sweat cooling on our skin. For a long moment, we just lay there, connected, coming down together.
“That was even hotter than I imagined,” Milo said softly, and we both laughed, the sound shaky but real. “No wonder June enjoyed watching us fuck, X.”
We settled into bed—June in the middle, her head on my shoulder, Milo’s hand in hers. For the first time, everything felt right. Even with the fear pressing at my chest, for once I didn’t want to run.
June tilted her head back to look at me, her green eyes serious. “You should see a therapist,” she said, matter-of-fact as always. “About your fears. Your self-worth issues. All of it.”
I tensed instinctively. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” she said. “But you could be. Therapy helps—I know, because it helped me. Sometimes you need someone who understands what you’re dealing with and how to help you heal.”
“It’s not like that. I’m just—”
“Just suffering from trauma and deeply ingrained negative self-beliefs that are affecting your ability to accept love and build a healthy life?” June finished.
Milo chuckled softly. “She’s got a point, X. An oddly specific point. As if she’s been studying you like a science project.”
She giggled. “I like to gather data. And you deserve to feel okay, Xavier. You deserve to not hate yourself.”
The words hit somewhere deep, somewhere I usually kept locked down.
I thought about my father, about all the years of being told I was worthless, that I’d never amount to anything.
I thought about Marisol, about how I’d failed to protect her.
I thought about every reckless decision I’d made, every time I’d courted death because some part of me believed I deserved it.
And then I looked at June, solid and real in my arms. At Milo, injured but alive because I’d called for help instead of panicking. At the evidence that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t completely worthless.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “I’ll go. To therapy.”
June’s face lit up with a smile that made my chest ache. “Really?”
“Really.” I pulled her closer, felt Milo shift to press against her other side. “But I’m going to suck at it.”
“I was so bad at it,” June admitted. “Naming my feelings is not my strongest skill.”
“Thank you,” I whispered into June’s hair. “Both of you. For not giving up on me.”
“Never,” June said firmly.
Milo made a sound of agreement, already half-asleep, his breathing evening out.