Chapter 22
a girlfriend and a boyfriend
Dax
"Are you okay back there, Saige?"
"I just don't like the bridge," she says. "I don't like dark water like that. Maybe on some subconscious level, I knew I'd end up moving to this side of the bridge, and subsequently, ruin my life."
"Don't be dramatic," I tell her. "So, you accidentally killed one dude, and your stepbrother is a little sadistic. That's not really enough to ruin a whole life, Saige."
"I don't understand how you can downplay literally everything."
She's still a little off, but that's okay. She trusts Nolan, so she'll come around. I just want every day to be like it has been for the past few weeks with the three of us.
"I think it's called having a positive mindset. Nolan likes my mindset, don't you, Nolan?"
Nolan shrugs. "The contrast is needed at times, yeah."
We roll through downtown Aurora Cove before I turn onto the coastal highway leading to my family's cliffside home.
"Do you really think Elias is sadistic?" Saige asks a few minutes later.
"I don't know. I think he's fucking hilarious and fun at parties."
I also think he's a dick who's trying to get between me and Saige after he practically handed her to me on a silver fucking platter, but I won't say that.
Elias and I have never fought over a woman.
Neither of us is the type to get attached, and we've never had a problem passing a girl back and forth.
This territory is already too fucking foreign to me.
It's complicated, and I don't do complicated.
I can't add the extra layer of fighting with my best friend to the mix.
I glance at the girl in the backseat through the rearview mirror. Maybe it is because I hurt her; I don't know. I feel oddly possessive of her—the same way I do with Nolan. I don't know what that means, but I know they're mine.
Saige used the word love. She thinks Nolan loves me, but I haven't really thought about it that way.
I just kind of thought I was a placeholder for him.
I mean, of course we care about each other.
But I assume that someday Nolan is going to find someone more serious than I am—someone who can be his peace, and then he'll slowly slip through my fingers until one day, he's just gone.
And I'll have to be okay with it, because he deserves peace.
It's a grey, windy Saturday evening when we pull up to the house. I look back at Saige again, who rolls her eyes, when I pull around the circle driveway and into my spot in the four-car garage.
"This place is ridiculous," she says.
"Have you really never been here before?" I ask as we get out of the car. "Not even for a party?"
"Dax, why would I have ever come to a party at your house? Hazing?"
I shake my head and laugh, throwing my arm around her shoulders. "You're so cute, Saige. I l—ook forward to showing you around the house."
What the hell was that? I've been thinking about that word too much.
"How oddly formal of you."
Nolan has been here hundreds of times, so he makes himself at home, heading through the kitchen to the bar while Saige slows, taking it all in.
"It feels like a museum," she says. "And it's so clean. And cold. I mean, no offense."
"None taken. You pretty much just described my mother's aesthetic, and I'm pretty sure that's what she was going for, anyway."
"I feel like I need sunglasses in here."
White marble floors, white walls with white board and batten, white bookshelves with vaulted ceilings and chandeliers. Yeah, I guess I can see how it might take your eyes some time to adjust if you aren't used to it.
"Did you paint that?" she asks, pointing to the canvas above the fireplace.
"No. My mom did, actually. Anyway, my parents hate my art—they think it's a distraction, even though they were the ones who enrolled me in art classes as soon as I could hold a pencil so that I'd be well-rounded.
They even sent me to study art in Paris two summers in a row, so they have only themselves to blame.
Ironically enough, my parents actually met at an art gallery there.
Mom was an art dealer, and Dad was there on business. "
I get a text and take out my phone.
ELIAS Where is everybody?
Saige and Nolan are with me. See you tomorrow.
And you're not fucking invited.
Saige moves toward the back of the main room, which is lined with folding windows leading out to the patio. I watch her push one open and step outside.
"Does the cliff bother you?"
"Yeah," she says. "How'd you play out here when you were a kid without falling over?"
"We didn't move here until I was eleven, and there wasn't a lot of playing when I was a kid. I mean, definitely not out here. Our nanny took us to the park."
"How many bedrooms are there? Fifteen?"
"Nah, only ten."
"Only?"
Nolan comes up behind her and kisses the top of her head. "I made you a drink," he says, handing her a daiquiri. In his other hand, he holds two whiskeys. "Made you one, too."
"Yeah, we also have a fully stocked bar," I tell her. "It's a stressful life."
She scoffs. "I bet it is. You seem very stressed out."
"That's why you like me, though, isn't it?" I lean over a kiss her lips. "Act like you like me, Ripley."
"You already know I like you, Dax. It's actually really embarrassing for me." She walks over to the hot tub, sits at the edge, and rolls her jeans up to her knees before sticking her feet in. "I guess it isn't that bad out here, though."
She takes a drink from her glass and then sets it down, staring out over the cliff, watching the sun set behind the water.
Nolan sits beside her and does the same, pushing his joggers up to the top of his calves.
She stares while he does it and then looks away when he dips his feet into the hot tub, too, like she's just seen something explicit.
Right. Saige has never seen his legs before.
She's going to kill me. Oh, well.
I turn the jets on and then sit beside her before casually pushing her into the water.
"Dax, what the fuck?!"
I shrug. "Whoops. Guess you'll have to take your clothes off now. Oh, well."
"You're an asshole!"
I pull my shirt over my head and toss it aside. I don't appreciate the attitude, but if she needs to get it out of her system, I'll allow it—for now. "I've heard worse."
After stripping down, I get into the water with Saige, who's tossed aside her wet jeans and top, and now sits between Nolan's legs, not touching him.
I fucking love seeing them together. They're my favorite fucking thing to look at.
Mine.
"I think you'd be even more comfortable if you took all of your clothes off," I tell her. "That bra looks really restrictive. It can't be comfortable."
Nolan reaches behind her and unhooks it, pulling it from her shoulders and tossing it onto the concrete.
"All right, fuck it," Nolan says. He sets his glasses and his drink aside and slides into the water behind Saige, fully clothed, and pulls her onto his lap.
"This is how it feels to be me all fucking summer, anyway.
" He leaves an arm wrapped around the front of her body and presses his lips to her neck.
She laughs before closing her eyes and sinking into him.
She looks really fucking happy, and also really unsure of what she's supposed to do with her hands. I move to the other side of the hot tub, sitting beside them. Then I pass her the drink, and she holds the bowl with both hands.
"Are you good?" I ask Nolan.
This is a lot, especially after what happened yesterday. He says Saige isn't pushing him but…maybe he's pushing himself to make her happy.
He shrugs. "I'm fine."
"What about—"
"Eight. Maybe nine."
Okay…I guess he's really good.
"Hey, Saige," he says, turning her face toward his with his thumb under her chin. "Come here."
His mouth meets hers, and it makes me fucking nervous. Turned on—yes—but still nervous. I can tell Saige is apprehensive, too. I watch her pull away from the kiss, putting an extra centimeter or two between them, as if to say, Are you sure about this?
But it doesn't seem to bother him. He closes the space between them, pulling her lower lip through his teeth, kissing her slowly, sensually.
She finally lets her eyes close, and my dick swells as I watch his tongue slip into her mouth.
Saige sets her drink aside and then throws her leg around his waist, shifting her weight until she's straddling him.
Nolan grabs her wrists with his left hand, holding them behind her back before he starts grinding between her legs.
Saige yelps a little, and then I watch her rock her hips underwater, her perfect ass bouncing in just a pathetically thin white thong while she rolls her pussy over his cock.
And then his free hand slides down my abs before fisting my hard dick.
"Oh, fuck," I groan.
I lean back, spreading my legs, watching the two of them grinding and licking each other while Nolan pumps me at the same rhythm as Saige's hips.
It's fucking heaven. But I need more. I need to sink my dick into something.
Saige cries out, arching her back, and I realize that's exactly what Nolan just did. Fuck.
"Oh, god," she whimpers. "Oh, my god…"
She sounds like a desperate little whore. She looks like one, too—with her hands held tightly behind her back while she tries to ride him.
She wants more, and so does he. He pulls out and flips her over, and she kneels on the bench seat with her ass in the air, gripping the ledge of the hot tub, impatiently waiting for him to fill her pussy again.
Saige watches over her shoulder as he positions himself behind her, and then he buries his perfect fucking cock in her tight pussy.
Her back arches, her body going limp against the ledge, arms splayed out on the patio as he mercilessly fucks his dick into her. I watch it slide in and out, slick and dripping with her pussy juices, her thick ass bouncing every time he slams into her.
"Yes…" she squeals. "Yes…fuck."
"Fuck, you feel so fucking tight like this, Saige," he groans.