Chapter 22
Elle
A heartbeat later
I’m still on Sterling’s lap. My back’s against his chest. He hasn’t loosened his hold of me, only tightening it, since I told him and Stan what I want, what I need. Both of them, at the same time, all at once.
Even with my blindfold on, I can feel Stan standing in front of me. I can sense the static of his attention. My hand’s on his chest, tracing the fresh ink above his heart. That E. Raised, tender, and unmistakable.
“Touch it,” he whispers, pleading and pleased. “Don’t stop.”
I drag my fingers lightly along the edge, feeling the loops carefully. He shudders under my touch, and I can’t help the little thrill that rolls down my body.
Without a word, Stan takes my hand again and lowers it. So much lower, and so swiftly, that I suck in a breath the second I feel the heat and hardness straining beneath his boxers. His other hand finds my jaw. His thumb presses at my lip, as if he’s waiting for resistance.
There isn’t any. Simply because Sterling doesn’t stop me. Instead, his warm mouth grazes my ear, his voice rough with the same restraint from earlier. “Take what you want, Elle. Say the word. Whatever you want.”
Sterling moves me with care, lifting and lowering me, guiding my hips until I feel the press of him at my entrance. His hands travel to my waist, tilting me forward until my palms land on Stan’s thighs.
They speak to each other, but I can’t follow their words. The silk blindfold still clings to me, and my thoughts are too scattered to hold shape. All I know is movement. I’m being repositioned. Knees on the cushion. Back arched. My cheek rests against the armrest. I’m on all fours across the couch.
Stan’s fingers find the base of my spine. I know it’s him, touching me rougher, without hesitation. His hand trails up my back, brushes my neck, and gathers my hair. Now he’s so close, his breath warm across my face.
I barely take a breath when he kisses me. Stan doesn’t kiss like Sterling does. Where Sterling’s patient affection, Stan is hurried hunger. He takes and tests, his mouth urgent, lips and tongue moving against mine.
My moan disappears between them, caught in their breath, their hands, their mouths. Sterling steadies me with both palms at my waist. I feel the shape of his hands glide down to cup the globes of my bottom. His mouth drags slow kisses along the back of my shoulder, down my spine, so slowly.
I don’t need to see. I feel it all. Stan’s kiss. Sterling’s heat. My body between them, breathless and waiting.
Stan breaks the kiss, his mouth brushing my cheek. “You feelin’ good, babe?”
I nod, dazed. “Yes…”
He chuckles, sounding satisfied, while Sterling leans in to press a kiss behind my ear.
Then I stop thinking altogether when Sterling aligns himself again and presses in deeper.
It’s only the tip, but I’m already crying out, caught between Stan’s eager encouragement and Sterling’s gradual thrust, every inch more intense.
He gives me time to adjust. To take all of him.
I moan at the way he hits every sensitive nerve, filling the very core of me.
Stan’s hands trail the sides of my breasts. His mouth moves to my throat. He kisses, then sucks, his tongue flicking against my pulse.
Behind me, Sterling drives himself forward. I let out a broken cry when his crown kisses my womb. He pushes forward more and more, until his thighs rest flush against the back of mine.
“Sterling,” I breathe. His name is a whispered gasp, a pleading call. It’s all I can manage. My voice is wrecked from everything. From his cock moving inside me. From both of them kissing my body. From being held open like this, filled and taken. Claimed and cared for.
Sterling groans in response. His hand slides down, finding the tender bud between my folds.
The second he touches me there, my whole body reacts.
My back arches. I shake. His fingers move in slow circles, matching the rhythm of his thrusts.
I whimper. My forehead drops to the armrest. The pressure is unbearable in the best possible way.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please, I—”
“I know,” Sterling murmurs behind me. His lips brush the base of my neck. “I know what you need.”
Stan’s hands move to cup my breasts, thumbs rubbing over pebbled peaks. I whimper, my hips swaying back against Sterling in helpless reaction.
“That’s it,” Stan coaxes. “Keep making those sounds for us, Elle.”
Sterling takes in a sharp inhale when I move with him in a rhythm I can’t control. His grip tightens on my hips. “You’re driving me crazy,” he mutters, each word edged with strain. The sound alone makes me clench my core. Sterling lets out a strangled sound in return, sending shivers down my spine.
Stan leans close, lips brushing my ear. “You want both of us, right, babe?”
My breath catches as I lift my head. “Yes…” The word escapes before I can even form a thought.
I hear the soft shuffle of fabric. Stan steps closer. I feel the heat of him right in front of my face, and then his tip nudges at my lips. I breathe against it. He groans, long and pained.
“I knew you would.” Stan’s sultry voice sends another shiver down my spine. “Always so sweet. Always so good. Such a good girl.”
Smiling at his praise, I slowly wrap my lips around him and take him into my mouth. My cheeks hollow immediately, sucking him in. He makes a choked sound of content I feel more than hear.
From behind, Sterling growls under his breath.
His mouth claims the back of my neck again, this time with teeth.
It’s enough pressure to pull a gasp from me.
I rock back into him as I suck Stan deeper down my throat, caught between hunger and heat, mouths and bodies, devoured and adored all at once.
When Stan lets me breathe, I whisper their names.
They answer in motion. In hands and mouths and breath.
They find a rhythm between them. When one pulls out, the other fills me.
Stan presses deep into my throat, then lets me gasp for air before Sterling takes me again.
I feel Sterling’s firm chest against my back as he keeps driving forward into me.
Stan’s voice is rough and amused. “That’s it, baby. Feel our cocks deep inside you.”
He slides into my mouth much less carefully. His hips move so much faster than Sterling’s thrusts now. Stan’s grip teases my breasts, fingers pinching and rolling until I whimper.
While Stan pushes into my mouth, Sterling whispers against my skin. Low praise by my ear. Soft kisses close to it. His fingers circle between my thighs in slow strokes that match the motion of his hips.
“Still feels good?” Sterling asks, his voice a warm murmur into my hair.
I nod, almost sobbing, as his touch quickens. The pleasure builds, soothing the way he’s stretching me, nearly past my limits.
Stan chuckles, his thrusts more intense, making me gag around his girth. “If you could only look at her face from here, Silver…”
Sterling’s response comes in the form of flicking the most sensitive part of me so swiftly that I feel myself clenching around his thick shaft and choking harder around Stan’s.
They both let out pleased, longing noises that make me melt.
Their movements blur, but I always feel the stretch and pulse of their cocks inside me.
My body bristles between them. I gag on a moan, pleasure climbing through every part of me.
It builds faster and faster. My core quivers.
Every breath shortens. I’m nearly there, so achingly close to coming undone.
And when I do, Sterling finishes with me, spilling deep while holding my hips still.
He plants his lips on my shoulder. Every single thing Sterling does drives me wild that I can barely breathe or barely stay upright. But Sterling secures me in his arms.
Stan’s hand’s in my hair. He murmurs something I can’t catch, his voice low and satisfied. In a second’s notice, his release fills my mouth, salty and thick. I swallow what I can, struggling with how much goes down my throat.
He pulls out of my mouth and leans down to kiss me, to share the taste, to clean my lips off him. He moans, and I can feel him smiling against my lips while we share what’s left.
A few breathless moments pass. We take our time to catch our breath. Theirs ragged, mine uneven. Then I feel warm hands wrapping around my waist. They lift me effortlessly.
Sterling. I know it’s him by scent alone. That clean, crisp stillness that always settles in my chest when he’s near. His arm slips beneath my thighs, the other steadies the arch of my back.
I know in my heart it’s him by the way he holds me.
Strong yet gentle, like he’s worried I might slip off if he’s not careful.
My limbs stay limp, too spent to move, so I let him carry me.
My cheek finds his chest, and I listen to his heartbeat.
It’s beating so fast. I hope it’s for me. I smile at the thought, imagining so.
He walks us down the hall. Past the last embers I can hear crackling in the fireplace.
A brief moment later, I hear a door swing open. Then Sterling lays me down. The bed under me is cool at first. The sheets are soft. The pillow catches the shape of me. My body aches, but in a pleasant way that lingers.
Sterling’s hands brush my sides. He tucks the blanket over me with care.
I let out a slow breath. And I almost drift into slumber.
But his fingers find the knot of the blindfold.
He touches me with such care that I crave his closeness again.
He unties the blindfold slowly as though this moment deserves our full attention.
The silk scarf slips away. Though I’d use any excuse to see his lovely face, I don’t open my eyes yet.
I want to feel his quietness first. How much he cares.
How he gives without expecting anything in return.
He didn’t have to say yes to sharing me.
But he did. It’s astounding how he always gives me what I need, even when I don’t know how to ask for it.
Sterling adjusts the blanket around me. I feel the dip of the mattress where he’s sitting. When I finally blink my eyes open, he’s the first thing I see.
Sterling watches me, gray eyes cool as steel. He looks at me like I’m not in a wildfire that’s tearing through everything. He looks at me like I’m worth saving from the flames. And somehow, he makes the inferno in my chest settle into embers.
That’s when it hits me. I love him. So much that it scares me. So much that I can’t breathe around it. The words rise like smoke, curling up my throat, lingering on my lips. I want to tell him. I want to say it and watch how he reacts, just to see if he feels it too.
But something holds me back. Perhaps it’s the weight of the moment. The quiet of the room. The heat still lingering on my skin.
This isn’t the right time. I know that. And he deserves more than a half-broken confession whispered in the dark, smudged by exhaustion, and everything that’s passed between us. So I don’t say it. Not yet, at least.
I lift my hand instead, barely managing to reach him from how heavy my sated limbs feel. My fingers brush his jaw before he can pull away. It’s a whisper of a touch. A quiet plea for him to not leave just yet.
“Thank you,” I whisper. The words leave me raw and breathless.
He leans in, his lips barely grazing my forehead. “You don’t have to thank me,” he whispers back.
But I do. Because I know him. I know what he won’t say. I know what this meant.
However, not long after, sleep pulls me under. Still, I feel safe. I know Sterling will stay by my side. I’m relieved, breathing easily. I can rest, knowing Sterling is doing everything it takes to walk through my fire without getting burned. And I’ll love him forever for that.