16. Charli
16
CHARLI
“Well, that’s me for the night,” Chuck sighs as he gets to his feet and stretches. I glance up at him and smile, and he reaches down to give my shoulder a squeeze.
“You alright?” he asks softly, and I nod. It’s late now—late enough that I’ve entirely lost track of time, and of how many drinks the four of us have put away from the bottle of scotch Chuck brewed up. I’m a little tipsy, but in that warm, comforting way that makes the whole world feel a little softer around the edges.
Or maybe that’s just the aftermath of the conversation I shared with the three of them.
Chuck heads through to his room. Callum has already retreated to bed, and I guess I’m going to be joining him there tonight. I don’t know exactly where I stand with these guys in terms of our physical relationship, but in truth, I’m not sure I really care.
I glance over at Dax, who’s still sitting in his seat, staring into the fire, his hand wrapped around his glass on the edge of the chair. I get to my feet and slip into the spot next to him—I still haven’t had a chance to talk to him one-on-one since I came clean about my past, and I really want to know where he stands with all of it.
He looks over at me and cocks an eyebrow, offering me a small smile. “What do you want?” His words might sound harsh on the outside, but the way he delivers them is nothing but sweetness.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “That’s no way to talk to a lady.”
“You’re no lady,” he chuckles. “I saw how you put away that scotch. No lady could manage something like that.”
I giggle, and take another sip.
“You’ve got me there,” I agree. “It’s just kind of…moreish, when you get into it, though, right?”
“Or maybe you just get drunk enough that you stop noticing how noxious it is.”
“Maybe that too.”
The two of us fall into a companionable silence as we both look into the fading embers of the fire before us. Even though there’s still tension in the air, it feels like we’ve gone a long way to beginning to clear the worst of it, and I’m beyond grateful that he’s been willing to give me another chance to prove myself to him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, catching me off guard.
I look over at him, confused. “What about?”
“I’m sorry for the way I reacted when you first got here,” he admits, and he turns to meet my gaze. Beneath his shaved head, his eyes look wide—piercing, as though he’s doing his best to see what’s going on inside my head.
“You’ve got nothing to be worry for,” I assure him. “I would have reacted the exact same way, if I’d been in your shoes. Someone turning up out of the blue like that, with no warning, someone you didn’t know?—”
“Yeah, but I should have given you more of a chance,” he mutters, turning away from me once more. “I was too quick to judge you. If I could change that?—”
“Hey,” I murmur, reaching over to give his arm a squeeze. “You didn’t know who I was. As far as you were concerned, I just dropped out of the blue to make your whole life harder. You were within your rights to be pissed about it.”
“I wasn’t pissed, just…worried,” he replies, and he looks over at me again.
“Worried?” I laugh. “About me? You thought I was going to come in here and cause chaos?”
“Not quite,” he replies, a smile curling up his lips. “It was…different.”
“What kind of different?” I ask him curiously. This is the closest he’s gotten to telling me what he really thought when he first laid eyes on me, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested to find out just where his reaction had come from.
He stares at me for a long moment, as though considering whether or not he’s actually going to come clean with me about it. And then—much to my frustration—he turns away and shakes his head. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Hey, don’t play mysterious like that!” I protest, reaching over to nudge his arm. “You can’t just walk right up to telling me the answer and then change your mind at the last minute.”
He shakes his head again. “I don’t know if you want to hear it.”
“I’m telling you that I do.”
“Yeah, that’s because you don’t know what I’m going to say?—”
“And how the hell am I going to know whether I’ll like it or not if you don’t tell me?” I demand. The alcohol has me feeling a little reckless, a little daring. Normally, I would never risk talking to Dax like this, but he’s leading me on, trying to get me to coax more out of him.
“You sure you want to know?” he asks, flicking his gaze to mine again.
I nod. “I’m certain.”
He slides his tongue over his bottom lip before he replies. I find my eyes drawn for a moment to his mouth—wondering how it tastes, if it tastes of the scotch we’ve been sipping on, or the smoke from the fire, or something else, something deeper, something more dangerous.
“I was worried,” he admits, “because I haven’t wanted a woman like I wanted you in years.”
Fuck. Now that those words are out there, it’s as though both of us have been pulled back to that moment in the kitchen, the moment he kissed me—his lips on mine, his mouth exploring my own, his hands on my body, pulling me in like he couldn’t imagine anything that he wanted more in the world. And now, here he is, telling me that’s true—telling me that there’s nothing he craved more than my body.
I can feel a heat rising deep in my belly, the same heat that rose when his brothers made their moves on me. And I know this is crazy, I know this is ridiculous, but I still want him. I can’t sleep with all three triplets—can I? That would be insane. But…
But he’s looking at me with those dark eyes, his lids heavy, his mouth curled up into a smile. He knows what he does to me. And he knows just how much I want him too.
Before I can stop myself, I put my glass on the table before us and slip out of my seat and onto his lap—catching his face in my hands and kissing him all over again.
His hands move to the buttons of my shirt at once, as though this is what he’s been waiting for all evening. The thought of him sitting there, imagining me like this all night sends a shock of excitement through my system—I can’t help it. I know this is insane, that I should try and control my passion, but between the booze and the warmth of the fire and the burning heat that his gaze drives into me, I don’t stand a chance.
His tongue parts my lips slowly, and I moan against his mouth as he slips his hand beneath my shirt, cupping my breasts, brushing his thumbs over my nipples so they swell to hardness beneath his touch.
He strips me down slowly, tossing aside my shirt and then reaching for my pants and underwear—the warmth of the fire against my back is nowhere near as hot as the way he stares at me when he has me naked on top of him, our legs tangled, my body utterly exposed before him.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs as his gaze traces from my eyes all the way down to the puff of dark pubic hair on my mound. I can’t take my eyes off of him, my chest rising and falling quickly as I try to make sense of what’s happening.
Can I really want him this badly? Is this right? Is this wrong?
Am I crazy, or am I falling for all three of these men at once…?
But before I can think any longer on this mess, he kisses me again, and moves his hand to the zipper of his pants, pulling himself free from the confines of the denim and stroking himself to full hardness. He presses himself against me, his cock against my folds—teasing, a promise of what’s to come if I just keep this going a little longer.
And I want it. Oh God, do I want it. I pull back and gaze down at him, lifting my hips so he can guide his erection inside of me. The embers of the fire send shadows dancing on the contours and planes of his face, and I watch his expression as he pushes just the tip of his thick cock past my entrance. His expression shifts into one of something like relief, as though this is what he’s been waiting for since the moment he set eyes on me—and the thought of it, the thought of him wanting me that much and barely able to hold himself back, it’s almost more than I can take.
I sink down my full weight on top of him, enveloping his length inside of me, feeling the pressure of his cock spreading me open for the first time as I take hold of the back of the chair for support. He gazes up at me as he rests his hands on my hips, letting me set the pace, letting me move exactly as I want to—and with my hair dangling into his face, creating this cocoon for the two of us, that’s exactly what I do.
I want to drink in every second of his reactions, every moment of the way he looks at me. I can’t hold back, can’t even pretend like I want to anymore. His brothers might be just in the next room, but that doesn’t matter to me. How can it, when the two of us coming together like this feels as damn good as it does? My body is already starting to boil over with pleasure, the passion and need getting the better of me, and I can hear his own breath starting to grow more ragged and needy with every movement.
Soon, he’s grinding himself back into me, his hands on my hips to pull me down on top of him as he fills me with his cock. He stares up at me like he’s burning the sight of me like this into his mind—like he never wants to forget the way I looked when I first took him inside of me. Our lips brush against each other, just for the barest moment, and the heat of his breath on my skin sends a near-painful spasm of pleasure through my body.
“Oh God,” I whisper, and he kisses me again—probably to keep me from making too much noise and waking his brothers, but honestly I don’t care. I just want to make out with him for hours like I did when I was a teenager, utterly given over to the way it feels to be wanted this deeply by someone again.
His hand comes to the small of my back to hold me against him, and he drives himself into me deep and hard, sending shock waves of pleasure through my entire system at once. My body is teetering on the edge of this delicious release, and I need to come so badly it seems to have pushed every other thought from my mind. I grip tighter to the back of the chair, using the leverage to push down on top of him, needing him as deep as I can take him—needing as much of him as he’s willing to give…
And it’s at that moment that I feel his body spasm beneath mine. He lets out a long, deep groan against my lips as he reaches his release, his cock twitching inside of me as he fills me with his seed, and all I can do is hold myself there and soak up every second of this sensation. I can feel him panting for air against my mouth, and something about hearing him totally lose himself to me, even for a moment, is all it takes to get me where I need to go.
My pleasure crests and bursts just a few seconds after his does, and I have to press my lips together to keep from crying out and waking Callum and Chuck—though maybe there’s some part of me that wants them to hear it, some part of me that likes the idea of all the brothers knowing about what I’ve been up to. My pussy clenches around his cock, over and over again, the pleasure stretching out for what feels like a lifetime before I finally come back down to earth.
And when I do, it’s to find his arms wrapped around me, pulling me close, his head resting against my chest, cheek right above my heart. As a blissed-out smile spreads over my face, I reach down to cradle his head.
I might not know exactly what comes next. But I know one thing for damn sure. Between the three of these brothers, I am never going to be left unsatisfied.
And in this moment, it’s hard to think of anything more important than that.