Midsummer

23. Lex

“Something is seriously wrong with us,” Ivy said the next morning from her spot across from me at the table. We were in the dining hall, surrounded by dozens of curious eyes and ears, hardly the right place for this conversation. Carter looked up from his oatmeal and raised an eyebrow. Miri picked at her fruit salad. I drank coffee, hoping it would nurse away the headache brewing between my eyes.

“We all felt it.” She raised her eyebrows and looked between us.

“Understatement,” Carter winced and rubbed at his eyes, like they burned as much as mine did.

We’d spent a large portion of the night rehashing everything we’d already talked about. No one knew anything more than what we’d already said. No one remembered anything differently. But whatever had gotten us so messed-up in those woods was still in our system. The lust, the overwhelming need to consume and devour my three spouses, that feeling of being unable to stop…I’d never experienced anything like it before, so its sudden reemergence, after all this time, terrified the shit out of me.

Ivy cleared her throat and glanced at the table between us. Despite it all, the thought of Carter and Miri together on their own kind of ticked me off, but I didn’t know if that was because I wanted a piece of Carter or Miri. Or because I’d been left out of it to begin with.

And Ivy? Sweet hell.

What happened was only a problem because of the urge, the high, the dreamy whacked-out state that had overtaken us until we were together. Dubious-consent didn’t even begin to describe the levels to which we’d taken bad kink etiquette and made it worse. Even I had to admit, being with the three of them at the same time seemed…right.

In any case, we had to figure this shit out because we only had a few days left until we went back to reality. Performance week was here. We were in the final push. None of us had the time for this bullshit.

“We should go to a doctor,” Ivy said. “Run some tests. See what we were dosed with.”

Under any other circumstance, I might have agreed with her. But I had a secret, one I’d planned to share with Ivy last night before this happened, one I now considered keeping to myself. I should have left well enough alone. I should have convinced myself we’d been drugged and we’d done some depraved shit while we were high and moved on with my life. Except—I’d done everything under the goddamn sun, and nothing had ever affected me like this. Nothing had ever made me feel so out of control, and now that it had, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

What was it?

I didn’t know, so yesterday, while Ivy was in the library, I’d gone in search of the ruins. Stephens had forbid us from going back into the woods and it was raining its fucking nuts off, but I lied about where I was headed and went anyway. There was a good possibility I’d get lost and never find my way out again, but fuck it, because I had to know. I had to stand in the spot where it happened and force myself to remember.

I followed the path until I reached the beach where Carter and I had fought and made up…many times. Smiling to myself at the haughty memory of holding him down and finally taking what I wanted, I continued on to where we’d met with the girls and bathed. Which meant the ruins had to be close.

For hours, I had trudged that fucking trail up and back, my shoes soaked through and my shirt and pants heavy with water. Nothing. No crumbling, moss-covered stones. No opulent decaying staircase. No hearth containing the remains of a fire Carter and I built. Which had sent me straight to the library looking for records of anything being out that far.

Anything.

A mill. A stable. A whorehouse for woodland creatures. Something. There never had been. It had been preserved land since the college bought it. That meant that not only had we gotten so high we’d fucked and branded each other, but we’d also hallucinated an entire building that had never existed. All of us. Hallucinating the same building.

I had no other explanation. I didn’t know what to think. One thing became clear almost immediately. No one could ever know about this. Our parents would slam a psychiatric hold on us so fast, we’d get whiplash from how quick we’d end up in a padded cell.

I needed Ivy to keep her mouth shut. No doctor could fix the can of oh shit we’d opened. No high-quality therapist could repair what had already been damaged. The best thing we could do would be to forget this ever happened and hope for the best.

“And what exactly are you planning to tell them?” I cut in. “That we had an orgy in the woods which none of us remember?” She glared at me, preparing for a retort I could already see building on her lips. “That we get random intense urges to fuck each other?” I lit a cigarette, raising an incredulous brow at her as I bit out a harsh laugh. “Jesus, Ivy, it sounds delusional. We sound delusional.”

“Well, I can’t shove my head in the sand, Lex,” she snapped.

“What do you suppose your mother will do when she hears?” I tapped ash out in the crystal bowl between us, refusing to back down now. “Or my father? Do you think they’ll approve of us running around telling a bunch of doctors and psychiatrists we randomly disassociate and screw around with our exes?”

“Lex,” Carter cut in, grabbing onto my shoulder. He gave me a look that said, knock it off. But I had never backed down from Ivy, nor did she want me to.

“And Miri’s gran? You think she’ll ship her off to America again like it’s no big deal? What if The Puck gets a hold of it?” I blew out a breath, pretending to be dramatic. “You think my reputation’s fucked right now?”

“You’ve made your point,” Carter said.

“Of course you would feel that way,” Ivy hissed, ignoring Carter’s attempt at peacekeeping. “As long as you get what you want, right? What happens when we get back to the States, and you’re stuck with only me? You sure you want to be the only one in the house the next time something like that hits?”

“Stop it,” Miri cut in. “Arguing like this solves nothing.”

No one said anything for a moment, too humbled by Miri’s rightful chiding.

“Does anyone have any other ideas?” I tapped ash out and looked between my spouses.

“Ivy, you said you found some books in the library, right?” Miri pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows, seeming to work through something in her mind.

“I don’t know.” Ivy sighed and shrugged, returning to poke at her cereal. “There’s no orgy-with-your-best-friends section.” She filled us in on her research—the disappearances, the fairy lore, the history of the woods and the castle. “Maybe I’ll go down a more psychological route,” she said. “I’ve heard of intense empathetic responses, like being so close to someone that you can feel when they’re in pain. Maybe it’s something like that.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that usually with twins?” I asked.

“Sometimes with mother and child,” she said. “I don’t know. I’m heading back to the library after rehearsal tonight.”

“We have eight shows over the next five days,” Carter cut in. “When are you planning to do this research?”

She took a deep breath and softened her features. “In the evenings, I guess.”

“Weeds, it’s our last few days together.” He said it so low that I was sure he only meant for her to hear it. But once he did, her features softened and she hung her head between her shoulders.

A heavy weight settled in my gut when I came to the same realization. Miri and I hadn’t talked about what would happen when we got back to the States, and now that she planned to go to California with Carter, I didn’t know if the conversation was worth it. For four years, she’d been that rock I broke myself against—the steady, calming force in the avalanche of my life. I struggled to think what it might be like without her. Not to mention, whatever had been rekindled between Carter and I would only have this time to burn bright before we’d have to smother it out again. It would be difficult to say goodbye to both of them.

“I know,” Ivy said, resigned.

“Table it until we get home,” I said. She snapped her gaze up to me. “When we do, I promise I’ll help you figure it out. I’ll help you fight our parents. I’ll help you do it all.”

“You hate me,” she balked, scrunching her adorable features together. “I hate you. Why would you help me?”

“We’ll be stuck together,” I said. “I won’t have a choice.”

Carter and Miri shifted the conversation to how tough they thought the two-a-day shows would be, but Ivy crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me like she could read every guilty thing on my conscience. Like she was rifling through my memories until she figured out what it was I was keeping to myself.

“What?” I said.

She shrugged and shook her head.

“Nothing, I guess,” she said, returning her attention to our friends.

* * *

When Ivy and I leaned in to the relationship between Mercutio and Tybalt, Stephens lost his mind with excitement. It was the last dress rehearsal before the matinee tomorrow. We’d do two shows a day for the next three days, and then two final evening shows before we headed home. He seemed pleased that we figured it out, even if it was on the last day possible.

But that night, as I showered and thought about the plethora of ways my life was completely fucked, the sinking weight in my chest grew heavier. I didn’t want to face Ivy’s relentless pursuit of the truth or Carter’s and Miri’s inevitable departures or what it meant that the ruins didn’t exist.

Shove it down, I told myself. It helped no one to spiral so close to the end.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked back to my room, thinking maybe I’d spend tonight here to get some space, but as soon as I walked through the door, I froze.

Carter sat on his bed in his boxers, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his weight balanced on his hands behind his back, displaying all that skin just for me. The fading remains of my bite mark glowed on his shoulder, sending a strange sense of pride and longing through my chest. I wanted to sink my teeth into the rest of him.

I closed the door and took a few steps closer.

“We need to talk,” Carter said.

“Oh?” I tossed my toiletries bag over by the closet and raised my eyebrow, curious about where this was headed. Talking wasn’t even in the top five things I wanted to do with my mouth after finding him practically naked and alone in my room, and as I stalked closer, I licked my lips with the thought of which one I’d get to do first.

“About Ivy,” he added.

“Oh,” I said again, this time disappointed. I went to stand between his knees and looked down my body at him, memorizing the curve of his pouty mouth and the shape of his fucking cheekbones. What a beautiful boy. I ran the back of my fingers down the side of his face, relishing in his stubble and the way his jaw became his thick strong neck. “What about her?”

“About how you talk to her,” Carter said. “About how you’ll talk to her after I leave.”

“Are you defending her honor?” The thought almost amused me.

“No, I’m making sure you two don’t kill each other.”

I narrowed my eyes and assessed him. Despite how good of a liar Carter could be, I’d always been able to read between his lines. He loved Ivy. I didn’t see that changing any time soon. He wanted to make sure I was prepared to treat her right, that I wouldn’t go too far and hurt her, and honestly, his apprehension might have been warranted.

He saw Ivy as something he had to protect.

I saw Ivy as fully capable of protecting herself, even against me.

I made a noise that sounded like a growl and a hum, leaning down so I could hover centimeters from his lips, the heat from his broad chest reinvigorating my chilled skin, still wet from the shower.

“Why would we kill each other?” I tucked my nose against his throat, inhaling him deeply, reveling in the summer and soap and sweat, and I ghosted my lips across his shoulder, just barely touching him in a decadent test. It took everything in me to keep from licking him, and when he trembled, I smiled, pleased I still unnerved him.

“You need to go easier on her.” Carter put a hand on my chest, trying to shove me away. “She acts tough, but she’s fragile.”

Ivy? Fragile?

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I grabbed his hand and brought it to my mouth, my gaze catching his as I took his index finger between my lips. “She likes when I’m mean to her.”

“Sometimes.” He gulped, watching as I sucked his digit into my mouth and licked like I ached to do to other parts of his beautiful body. Then he closed his eyes and gulped before continuing. “But after you’re mean, you have to kiss it better. Or it festers.”

I let the first finger go so I could move on to its longer, thicker neighbor. “Are you telling me to play nice with my favorite enemy?”

“No, Lex,” Carter said, tensing his shoulders to try to hide a tremble. “I’m telling you you’re going to have to put her back together after you two are done tearing each other apart. I won’t be around to do it.”

“Ivy’s fine.” I balked, only half paying attention to him so I could kiss the remaining fingers on his hand before dropping to my knees, nibbling down his chest to his stomach. “She’ll be fine.”

My cock throbbing, I grabbed at the waistband of his boxers, frantic to get my mouth around him. He grabbed my wrists. Hard. Hard enough to make me wince and send a pulse straight to my balls.

“Stop it, Lex,” he said. “Look at me.”

I glanced up, damn near blinded by the intensity in his expression.

“You have to take care of her, do you understand? If I find out you hurt her, if I find out you neglected her, I don’t care what pact we made in the woods?—”

“Threats, Chicago?” I didn’t know whether to be pissed or turned on…and in a fucked-up way, I realized I was both. “And here I thought we were friends.”

“Lord knows I could never threaten you,” Carter said. “But if you break her heart, this ends. You get me?”

Yeah. Got it. Loud and clear. In the war between me and Ivy, no one would ever come before his Weeds. The thought shouldn’t have squeezed my heart as much as it did. Hadn’t I laid claim to him first? Hadn’t he been my secret love affair in London? Didn’t Carter belong to me before anyone else?

They all did, my dark possessive monster thought. Ivy and Carter and Miri. They’re mine. They belong to me.

“All right,” I said, shoving that voice aside to accept my defeat. “What do you want me to do?”

One side of his mouth pulled into a grin, and my gut churned because I knew that look. It meant he had an evil mastermind plan that would probably make me want to shoot myself in the face, but I’d go along with it because I doubted there was anything in this world that I wouldn’t do for him. He stood, bringing me with him, and switched us so I was the one with the back of my legs against his bed before he dug his warm fingers into my lower stomach to tug the towel away. My cock sprang against his and I buckled at the hips, letting out a small groan before I could stop it.

Fuck.

“Be gentle,” he said, one hand on my shoulder, bringing me back to our conversation. He wanted me to be gentle with Ivy, and as I sat on the bed, I wondered if that was something she and I would ever be capable of. Then he lowered himself between my legs, pushing me back with his big palm on my chest, urging me to submit to him. I thought about fighting it, some toxic part of me wanting him to force it out of me, but I ultimately relented because who the fuck wouldn’t want their cock in Carter Scott’s mouth? My spine hit the mattress and his scent plumed around me, reeling me in and making me dizzy.

“Dealing with Ivy is a lot like dealing with you.” He dug his teeth into my inner thigh and coasted his other hand up my leg to my hip and over my stomach, soothing and steady, like how one might calm a skittish horse. “Like trying to disarm a bomb.”

I huffed out a laugh and dug my palms into my eyes. “I don’t know whether to be proud or offended.”

“Try being silent.” The hand on my chest slid up my neck and clamped over my mouth.

My heart pulsed at his dominance, sending a jolt straight down to my cock. He’d play this part with Ivy, but never with me, and fuck, it thrilled me.

“You can’t go in guns blazing,” he said, flicking his tongue over the tip of my shaft. I moaned, excitement mixing with whatever this thing was in my chest that kicked at the sight of him like this. “You have to take your time. You have to be patient.”

He ran the length of me, kissing and sucking at the place where my dick met my balls. I shook like a virgin, so amped up and shamefully desperate for him that by the time he took me in his mouth, I hissed and squirmed against his hold like I might explode.

“If you set off the bomb…” Carter said, releasing me with a pop that sent sparks through my bloodstream. I took a deep breath in through my nose, the crook of his palm pressed against my upper lip. The rough scabs of our vows scraped against my mouth, making this experience even more demented than it already was. “You have to clean up the mess.”

He worked me harder, sucking and handling me like he’d been doing it for years, and my whole body lit on fire, like I’d been frozen in ice since the last time he’d touched me. I trailed my fingers through his hair, but he smacked them away, clearly wanting to maintain control. Which was fucking fine by me.

“Don’t make me hold you down,” he growled, glancing up with those shimmering indigo eyes, curling his lips into a grin. “Unless that’s what you want? You want me to hold you down while I take what I want from you?”

“Fuck,” I mumbled against his hand.

A sharp sting zapped up my right side as Carter bit my thigh harder—marking me.

“I said be silent,” he murmured. “You make another fucking sound, and I’ll edge you all night.”

Promise?

“Believe me, I get it. You like to rile her up.” He lazily stroked me, teasing and toying with me. Like we had all the time in the world. “She’s cute when she’s pink and fiery.”

Cute wasn’t the word I’d use. More like annoying. Or mesmerizing.

“But you play too rough, and if you don’t take care of her when she breaks, you don’t deserve to break her.” Another long lick had me moaning and arching forward, desperate for more, despairing for him. “Do you understand?”

He looked up at me, his eyebrow raised and his fist closed over the tip of my dick, expecting a response. I was in the most vulnerable position a man could find himself. A pulsing, aching erection in someone else’s grip and a willing mouth inches away, but unable to move or speak.

I nodded.

“Good.” He slowly sucked me, warmth and adoration spreading through my torso at the sight of his lips around my dick. I took a deep breath, trying to slow the pounding behind my ribs, but I couldn’t help bucking against him, urging him to go faster and take me deeper. He held my hips down with his forearm and drew it out, making me sweat with the need to come. And finally, finally, he let me put my hands in his hair and fuck his face the way I wanted. I took him, my balls throbbing as my orgasm claimed me hard behind the eyes.

Good. Fucking. God.

He let me do it, swallowing me down like a good fucking husband, and when I was a panting, shaking mess, he stood and shoved his boxers down to his ankles. He didn’t let me breathe. He didn’t let me pull myself together. He clawed at my hair and tugged my face to his hips, shoving his dick past my teeth.

Which I gladly obliged. I took him the way I knew he liked, hard and fast and deep, like I couldn’t get enough of him. I couldn’t. I would stay here all night if it meant I wouldn’t have to go another four years of wanting him.

He moaned and thrust hard into my throat, making me gag. My eyes watered. But I let him do what he wanted. He ran this scene, and I’d given my control over to him with very little fight. He fisted his on the top of my scalp and yanked me off him.

“Lie back,” he said, leaning down to kiss me. “I’m going to fuck you now, Lex, so that you’ll remember.” He cupped my face, pressing his forehead to mine to give me a sweet peck on the lips. “You’ll remember your promise to me.” He tasted like me and him, which made me want him even more. “To protect her. To keep her safe. To put her back together again.”

He climbed up my body as I lay back, his torso hard and hot against mine. He tucked an arm under one leg, hooking my knee in his elbow. I reached into the nightstand next to the bed, retrieving the lube and tossing it down to him.

It occurred to me as he dripped the cool liquid down his fingers and over my ass that I’d be losing him in a few days. I never got to fully have him. Just like last time, I’d get a taste, barely a sampling, before he slipped through my grasp.

He pressed a digit inside of me, balancing his weight on his other hand by my ribs while my legs spread for him. My cock pulsed back to life, squeezed between me and Carter’s big body, but fuck, even that ramped up my excitement. Carter controlled my body, my pleasure, and I never wanted it to stop.

“Do you like that, DC?” He tucked his nose under my chin, tilting my face up to his, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Do you want me?”

“Jesus Christ, Chicago,” I teased. “Fuck me already.”

He made an adorable chuckling noise and nipped at my jaw.

“You’re impatient and spoiled and uncontrollable.” He pressed another finger inside of me, all the way in, and I gasped at the pleasure and pain of it, a half-hearted jerk hitting me in the balls. “She’s going to eat you alive.”

“Why are you being such a prick to me?” I bucked my hips against him, urging him on. “Go lecture her.”

He smiled and shook his head, positioning his cock at my entrance before he slowly, so fucking slowly, pushed inside of me—just the head at first, letting me adjust—and then all the way in. God, I felt so full and so achingly aware of every agonizing inch of him. It hurt, and it sent ecstasy sending through my body. I loved it. I’d been dying for him to fuck me since I met him…since the beginning of time.

“I want you to remember that you love her,” he murmured, pressing his lips to the corner of my mouth, tenderly caressing my skin with his mouth.

I started to argue, but he bit my bottom lip to shut me up, and the contrast of his gentleness to his roughness made me melt further into the mattress.

“You love her,” he continued, “and you love me, and you love Miri. What we have is special.” He rocked against me, inside me, sweetly taking over my senses until all I knew was him. “Even when you want to destroy it. Especially when you want to destroy it. I’m asking you not to.”

I realized what was happening as it was too late to stop it. Carter held me down, kissing and caressing me…making love to me. My chest tightened as panic uncoiled in my stomach. I didn’t know why it scared me, but it did. I loved him, and perhaps I never wanted to lose him.

“Hey.” Carter froze against me, perhaps sensing the shift in my mood. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

I opened my mouth to say something horrible, to tell him something terrible to get him off me, to stop being so tender. But when I did speak, it wasn’t what I expected.

“I never get to have you, do I?” I said. “Every time I get close, you fucking disappear.”

Carter flashed that boy-next-door grin and hung his head, touching it against mine again. “You get to have me for the rest of your life, Lex.” He thrust again. “Just call, and I’ll come running.”

He held me down by the chest with one hand and stroked my cock with the other, fucking me, reaching places inside me that radiated with complementing sensations. I scratched and bit at him to egg him on, but he refused to give in. He wrestled that feral part of me into submission and kept me there, panting and moaning and begging for release. My toes curled when he slipped his hand over my tip, gripping me just right and when I finally came in hot shooting spurts up his stomach, the weight of world lifted off my chest for one brilliant moment.

After he found his release deep inside of me, we clung to each other, breathing each other’s exhales like they were all we’d ever need again.

I found his lips, and he smiled into our kiss.

“Now you promise me something,” I murmured.

“Anything.”

“You go and be a big movie star and I’ll take care of her. But when you’re done, you come home to me. You understand? You come home to me, and you come home to Ivy and Miri. In the end, it’s us.”

His eyes darted between mine for a moment before he grabbed my right hand and flipped it over, revealing the matching words on both of our hands. “Until the end.”

“Until the end.”

* * *

It hit home three days before we left. Miri and I lay on a blanket in the gardens behind the college, staring up at the cloudy, overcast sky. We only had an hour break before we had to get back to the auditorium, but at least it wasn’t raining anymore.

“Are you upset with me?” She furrowed her brow and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “That I’m going to California with Carter?”

I sighed, ignoring that ache in the center of my chest.

“No, Princess.” I gave her hand a squeeze and leaned in to kiss her. “Are you upset that I’m staying behind with Ivy?”

“I was at first,” she said. “I thought it would work out differently. Though I suppose that was ridiculous now in hindsight. You and I would never have made it.”

“Why is that?” I recalled that vision of us, the one I’d had in the woods. She’d been a big part of that, we all had. There was no us without Miri.

“Because I won’t have a choice either,” she murmured, her beautiful eyes dropping to look at the ground between us. “When the time comes. Our lives are not our own.”

Maybe not right now, but we were young. We still had a lot of our lives ahead of us, and despite what our families might want, I wouldn’t let either of them go that easily.

“You promised us until the end, Miri.” I shook my head, steeling my jaw when I ran my fingers down the side of her face, forcing her to meet my gaze. “And we promised you. Go to California. Take care of our boy.”

Miri smiled and blinked back tears, visibly swallowing before clearing her throat and muttering a quiet, “You too. With Ivy.”

I lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke. Miri rolled over on her side to face me, stealing it from me.

“Ivy can take care of herself,” I said.

“Oh, I know,” Miri giggled and wiped at her cheeks before inhaling on the cigarette. “I meant you, darling.” She poked me in the ribs and handed the smoke back to me. “I know how you are when I’m not around. You’re positively obsessed with me, and my absence makes you cranky.” I rolled my eyes, trying to hide my amusement when she threw herself across my ribs and stared up at me with that dreamy grin. “My prince of darkness. You’ll be okay, right?”

“Yes, Your Highness.” I tapped her nose and chided her with a tsk of my teeth. “I walked and talked and fed myself before you came along.”

She laughed but seemed unconvinced, leaning down to give me a kiss. “Good.”

I put on a good show, but the thought of my life without her made my chest ache. At least I’d have Ivy. At least we’d have each other.