Chapter 41 Taryn
Taryn
I open my eyes slowly, my mind still caught in the dream I was having and my body sluggish to respond.
Where the fuck am I? What’s going on? A quick glance around me shows me the big picture window.
The dresser where I keep my clothes. The ceiling where Gabe and I once stuck a whole sheet full of stickers so it looked like the night sky.
I’m in my room at Gunner’s house, but I have no memory of getting here.
There’s a gasp to my right, and I freeze, realizing that I’m not in this bed on my own. Now that I’m focusing, I feel a heavy weight next to me, warmth that doesn’t belong to me seeping into my skin. A large, muscular arm makes its way across my body and I finally turn, wondering who’s with me.
Whether they can tell me how I got here.
When I look down, I realize I know that arm.
I know those tattoos, the fuzz along the back of his hand.
I remember how those fingertips scratch when they drag across my skin.
How those hands feel when they grasp my hips and pull me toward him.
The brush of his lips on mine. The warmth of his nose when he nudges at my neck.
The way he whispers my name when he slides inside me.
“Gabe,” I murmur.
I turn and see him laying so close that I can smell him, and God, he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Dark circles smudge the skin under his eyes and there’s a long scratch along his temple. Tear stains streak down his cheeks.
He’s been crying.
I put a gentle finger to one of those tracks and frown. “Why are you crying?”
He looks at me like I’m asking the stupidest question in the world, then closes his eyes and gathers me quickly into his arms, holding me like I’m his only tether to the world. Like his life depends on having me as close as possible.
I turn and fold myself against him, reveling in the feel of his body against mine.
I don’t know why he’s crying or why he’s holding me so tightly, but it doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is that he’s in my bed with me, offering me his warmth and his body, and that he needs me.
Something’s wrong with my Gabe, and he’s come to me for comfort and protection.
I grow still when I realize he’s actually talking to me, his words a constant murmur against my hair. But I can’t understand what he’s saying.
“What?” I whisper. “Gabe, what are you saying?”
“Almost lost you,” he says more loudly. “Too close. Way too close. We almost lost you.”
He’s sobbing now, his body shaking, and I freeze.
Because suddenly I remember what he’s talking about.
Gabe and Gunner were fighting and suddenly I couldn’t stand it.
I couldn’t take the shouting or the anger or the conflict.
I had to get out of there. I escaped through the bathroom to my room, the two of them still shouting, and though I wanted to lay down and cover my head with a pillow, pretend it wasn’t happening, my phone buzzed in my hand and distracted me.
When I looked down, I found another text from my mother, and this one said she knew where I was and was coming for me. Coming to ruin Gabe and Gunner.
And that decided me. I had to get out of there. I’d packed everything I could grab, throwing it into the bag I stole from Stella, and ran. I grabbed keys on the way out and took Gunner’s remaining truck, thinking I’d leave it for him in a larger city. Call and tell him where it was.
After I was on a train bound for some other city where my mother would never think to look for me, someplace where she couldn’t hurt Gabe and Gunner.
But the night was darker than I expected, the road icy and the temperatures freezing, and I’d been upset.
It hadn’t taken me long to realize that I’d made a terrible mistake.
I couldn’t control the truck against the ice and snow, and I’d been going far too fast. When the wheels started sliding, I’d tried to stop them, but had known I was fighting a losing battle.
I hadn’t even been surprised when I lost control and started heading for the cliff.
I’d known I was going to die, and that Gabe and Gunner would never forgive me.
Then I’d looked to my left, just after I hit the tree, and seen my men somehow right there, jumping out of an ATV with their eyes on me, their arms and legs pumping as they sprinted toward me. A glance further to the left and I’d seen why they looked so terrified.
The mountain above me was coming down, snow and trees heading for me in a slow, unforgiving slide that was going to take out the road itself. The truck.
Me.
My eyes went back to my men, the blood slow and sluggish in my veins as I got ready to say goodbye to them.
But they weren’t stopping. They were running faster, shouting to each other as they ran, and then they were sliding toward the truck, their hands out as the snow started to come down around us.
“You came for me,” I breathed. “You didn’t let me die.”
Gabe sobs aloud, though it’s part laugh. “Let you die? Taryn, that would have killed us both.”
I close my eyes on an emotion too big, too intense, to name, and let it wash through my body like a wave of pure feeling. They came for me. They came for me. Into the snow and ice and avalanche, into the face of guaranteed death. They chose me.
And that means everything.
I open my eyes and see Gabe, love shining so sure and true in his own eyes that suddenly nothing else matters. His expression is honest and vulnerable, and the emotion already rushing through me grows in waves and eddies until I can’t feel anything but the love I have for this man.
I don’t answer him. I don’t bother with words.
Instead, I strip out of my clothes—pajamas, which makes it easier—and then strip his pants off as well.
He doesn’t move to help, just watches me with those warm, electric blue eyes of his, his hands clasped into fists at his sides and the muscles and veins standing out in his forearms. I pause as I take his pants down over his feet, and run my eyes up his legs to his cock, and then beyond.
The muscles of his belly, taught with need, and the bulge of his chest. Shoulders broad enough to carry the world, and a face sweet enough to make that world weep.
God, I want to pause here and take him in my mouth. Suck him down my throat and let the taste of him coat my tongue. I want his hands in my hair, guiding me as I take him, his groans in my ears.
But I want him inside me more.
I climb up his body, dragging myself over him and reveling in every brush of his skin against mine. This man is mine. Mine. He chose me and came for me when I needed him most, and he never even questioned it.
He’s mine. And I’m his.
I straddle his lap, holding his gaze, and sink down so slowly that I want to scream with the tension. I want to cry and laugh and beg and lecture and tell him to never, ever let me go.
“Baby,” I whisper.
“Little Bird,” he groans back.
When I start moving on him, it’s more than just physical. My heart is swelling so fast I think I might be having a stroke. Or maybe a heart attack. It’s too big to hold. Too big to understand. His cock is hard and straining inside me, reaching deeply enough that I can barely breathe.
My God, I’m going to die. This is how I go. I die making love to my Gabe.
When his eyes flash over my shoulder, I want to scream at the break in his attention. I want to hammer him with my fists for daring to look away from me now.
But then I feel the breath on my shoulder. The tickle of fingertips on the small of my back. The smell of wood and smoke and dark, cold ice.
I glance back quickly and find Gunner right behind me, his eyes glowing nearly as hot as his son’s, his lip caught in his teeth.
And though I should be horrified that he’s just caught me riding his son—my stepbrother–—all I can think of is that I’ve never seen him look more in love than he does right now.
He takes me by the chin and kisses me deeply, claiming my mouth like he has every right to it. He spreads my lips and squeezes at the hinge of my jaw, forcing my mouth to open for him, and then pushes me down on Gabe’s cock as his tongue sweeps into my mouth.
And if I thought I was going to die before, I had no idea what dying would be like.
Gunner pulls back and stares into my eyes, his own eyes shifting back and forth as he considers me. “We came too close to losing you, little girl,” he murmurs.
I can’t speak. I have no voice. No words. No thoughts. I just nod wordlessly, too caught in the moment to do anything more.
He leans in and nips my lower lip once, hard. When he rears back again, his eyes aren’t hazy anymore. They’re glittering with strength and determination.
“Don’t leave us again.”
This time, I know the words.
“I promise,” I breathe.
He turns me back around and pushes my chest down against Gabe’s, and for a moment I’m confused. Is he finished with me? Was that all he wanted to say? He just came in to make me promise never to leave them again?
I’m fighting tears at the thought that he might leave again when I feel his hands on my ass. Spreading me wide open and exposing me. I hear him spit on his hand and frown, my mind taking forever to understand what’s going on.
Then I feel the slickness of his saliva on my ass and I understand.
He pushes me down on Gabe’s cock, then pulls me up again.
Down, up. Down, up, until I’m breathing hard again, Gabe stretching me open while Gunner controls my action.
I look down at Gabe, positive that I’ll see him hot with jealousy at his father’s sudden presence, but he looks. ..
Hot.
He looks so turned on he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
He reaches up and tweaks my nipple, making me gasp, and actually grins. And when he pulls me down to his face for a kiss, I don’t fight him. I kiss him like my life depends on it. Like he’s the only safety I’ve ever had.
But a piece of my mind stays with Gunner and his fingers.
He’s spreading his spit over my other opening, now, edging me in a slow, teasing movement that has me caught between slamming down on Gabe and pausing to wait for Gunner.
He slips one blunt finger inside me, and I do freeze, fighting the intrusion.
Then he slips it deeper and my body accepts what’s going on.
And oh my God, I want more. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, thick and pushing and throbbing and so, so forbidden. When he adds a second finger, moving as slowly as he can, he bends over my back and starts whispering.
“Is this okay? If it’s too much, you’ll tell me. Little Bird, you’ll tell me.”
“Yes,” I gasp. “It’s not too much.”
“What do you want?” he growls, sounding pleased.
And there’s only one answer to that.
“You,” I whisper. “Please, Gunner.”
He growls deep in his chest, the sound dark and ecstatic, and something inside me jumps with pride at having pleased him.
He pushes me back down on Gabe again, until I’m chest to chest with him, and spreads my ass cheeks even wider.
The head of his cock nudges against my opening and I tense, suddenly terrified.
He spits on me again and slides his saliva through my crack, and I nearly tell him to stop.
But I don’t. I want this man. I want them both. Need them like I need air to breathe and sun to see.
When his tip finally enters me, I want to scream. He’s bigger than I expected and the feel of him and Gabe being inside me at the same time is almost too much. I can’t handle it. I can’t.
But I do. Gunner holds my hips steady, spreads me one more time, and slips deeper inside me, and suddenly I’m so full, so deeply held, that nothing else matters. I adjust my hips to take more of him, pushing my ass up for him, and he slides deep until I can feel his balls against my pussy.
This is it, I realize. Gabe in my pussy and Gunner in my ass, both of them holding me tightly and showing me exactly how much they love me.
This is home. This is love.
When they start moving, fucking me in tandem, I nearly cry with pleasure, and it’s a matter of minutes—seconds, maybe—before my body is climaxing, the orgasm so intense that it takes my breath away.
I see stars against the darkness, colors in the light, and though I can’t hear it, I know I’m chanting as I come for them.
“Baby, baby, baby...”
I’m mindless with pleasure, shattering with love for my men.
And I never want it to end.