25. Charli
25
CHARLI
“That looks painful,” Callum remarks, reaching up to press a damp cloth against my cheek where James hit me.
I wince, but shake my head. “It’s really not that bad,” I assure him. “I—it could have been a lot worse. I didn’t even realize he had a gun till he pulled it on you, Dax.”
“I’m fine,” Dax grunts from the bathroom door. He hasn’t let me out of his sight since the moment we got back to the cabin, and I guess it shouldn’t come as a shock. His kind of protective is almost possessive, insistent on making sure I don’t get too far from him. I can only imagine how tough it was for him to just stand back and let James speak to me like that, but judging by what Chuck has shown me on the recording, it seems like we have everything we need to take him down.
“And besides,” I add, managing a small smile. “Whatever he did to us—it’s nothing compared to what we’re going to do to him.”
All three of the guys grin when I say that part. They know as well as I do that it’s true. We’ve got him, dead to rights—that recording is going to wreck him. Not just him, but his father’s career too. I can’t believe we’ve really done it. We still need to find someone to expose it all, of course, but we’re closer now than we’ve ever been, and I can’t believe how near I am to finally being free of that fucker for life.
“You did so well,” Callum murmurs to me, gently lifting the cloth from my cheek. Behind me, Chuck is running a bath so I can scrub the remnants of this day off of me. Beyond the cabin, James and whatever guards were conscious enough to run have sped back to the town nearby, probably planning to make a break for it from there, but they have no clue what we have on him.
“I didn’t,” I reply, shaking my head. “I just sat there, let him talk at me. You were the ones who took out the guards and got me out of there?—”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Dax replies, his voice almost sharp. “You handled him. You got him to say what we needed him to say. Without you, none of this would have worked.”
“Yeah, but without me, you wouldn’t have been stuck in the middle of all of this either,” I reply. I’m joking, mostly. But I can’t help but feel some guilt, knowing that these guys wouldn’t have been involved in something as dark and dangerous as this if I hadn’t turned up on their doorstep out of the blue.
Callum frowns at me, and Chuck finishes running the bath. The sudden quiet in the air as the running water stops rings heavy in my ears.
“You really think that’s how this works?” Callum murmurs to me.
“What do you mean?”
“You think that the only reason we helped you with this was because we had to?”
I glance between the three of them—Chuck sitting at the edge of the bathtub, Dax in the doorway, Callum leaning on the sink in front of me.
I shake my head. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” I point out. “If I hadn’t—I mean, if I hadn’t crashed my car so close to you, then I would never have been here. I would never have pulled you into it. You would never have had to get involved?—”
“We didn’t have to do anything,” Chuck shoots back, cutting me off. “It doesn’t work like that, Charli.”
“Yeah, I don’t do shit that I don’t want to,” Dax cuts in. “You wanted to leave. You were begging us to let you go. Not like we didn’t have any choice but to just go along with you.”
“We wanted to help you, Charli,” Callum adds, reaching out for my hand. “We still do. That’s why we did all of this.”
I feel a lump rise in my throat. Today has been so crazy, my emotions so close to the surface, that it’s hard to control them. Hearing James speak to me like that, being pulled back into the memories of everything I tried to forget about him, it’s…a lot to take on, that’s for sure.
But then, coming back to this place, and being surrounded by these guys—knowing that I can rely on them, knowing that there’s not a damn thing they won’t do to keep me safe, it’s everything I could have asked for.
“Hey, are you alright?” Callum asks, concerned, as he notices the shift in my attitude.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assure him quickly, covering my emotions with a smile. “I just…I just can’t remember the last time that someone…anyone…was really there for me the way the three of you have been.”
Silence settles over the room for a moment. I know that’s a big statement, but it’s true. I’ve spent so long feeling like I’m utterly alone in the world. Being with James, it was as though I was cut off from every other person, knowing I had to keep his secrets at the risk of my own safety.
But here, I don’t have to try and hide that. Here, I can be honest with them and myself. After all, they’ve seen me at my worst, my very, very worst. I crashed into their lives fleeing a wedding in the middle of a blizzard, certain that I was doomed to be dragged back there one way or another. And they have shown me, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is so, so much more to the world than that. So much more than I could ever have imagined.
And I am beyond grateful to them for it.
“Thank you,” I whisper, looking around the room at the three of them. “Thank you for…for everything. I don’t think I would have survived this without you. Any of it.”
Callum leans forward and presses a kiss against my head. There’s something so intimate about the way he kisses me, even when the others are watching. I know I don’t have to hide how much I like all of them—there doesn’t seem to be that jealousy, that questioning about whether or not I’m serious about all of them when one of them touches me like this.
“Well, you did,” he murmurs.
“And I’m proud of you,” Chuck adds. I can feel Dax watching me from the other side of the room—his gaze is intense, and I’m sure he’s silently telling me that he’s right there with them. That he’s glad that they found me, and that I came here, and that we’ve finally taken the first steps to bringing down James for good.
“Now, let’s get you out of these clothes,” Callum murmurs. “You need to rest up.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I can manage the bath,” I reply, laughing lightly—but then I see the way they’re all looking at me, and something shifts in my stomach. Oh. Oh.
“I’d like to help too,” Chuck adds, moving in behind me. Slowly, he slips his hands around my shirt and begins to undo the buttons, one at a time. As each one pops open, Callum’s gaze drops down to my chest, my breasts exposed in the warm, steamy air—and as soon as the last one falls apart, he leans down to draw my nipple into his mouth.
I gasp at the feeling of his teeth against my breast, Callum’s tongue swirling around my nipple as Chuck wraps his arms around me and presses his lips to my neck. I can’t believe this is happening. Of course, I’ve been with all of them individually, but this…this is something else entirely.
I feel a pair of lips close over mine, and I reach up to pull them closer—it’s Dax. He’s kissing me. All three of them, their mouths are on me, exploring me, teasing me, like they can’t get enough, and all I can do is sink into the sheer pleasure of this sensation and let it get the better of me.
Chuck pulls me to my feet, and Callum drops to his knees and undoes my jeans, tugging them down, his breath just an inch or two from my pussy. Dax pushes a hand into my hair and guides my head back toward him as I step out of my jeans and underwear, his tongue snaking past my lips with a barely restrained hunger that sends shivers all the way through my body.
“Come on,” Chuck murmurs softly against my ear, and he guides me toward the bath—the water is warm and steamy as I sink beneath the surface, all three men gathering at each side of the clawfoot tub to gaze down on me.
I flick my eyes between the three of them, trying to work out if this is really happening, if this can actually be real, all three of them wanting me like this. These triplets, these physical copies of one another who are so different in who they are as people—but the one thing they seem to have in common is that they’ll do anything they can to pleasure me, and I don’t see why I should deny myself that for another instant.
“Fuck, you look so gorgeous like this,” Chuck murmurs, trailing his fingers over the water and staring down at me. There’s something about the heat of their gazes on me that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, pleasure prickling through every inch of my body at once.
“You think so?” I reply, playing at innocent as I let my hand move between my legs. I want to put on a show for them—I want them to see how much they turn me on, how grateful I am that they’re so willing to let me break into this perfect little world they’ve built just to keep me safe. And as their eyes follow the movement of my hands, I watch as Callum moves his hands to the zipper of his jeans, pulling out his cock. I can see a glint of pre-cum glistening at the tip of it already, and I let out a gasp as he strokes himself a couple of times at the sight of me.
I begin to trace my fingers around the edge of my clit, just teasing myself—I’m in no rush to go over the edge. No, I want this to last. Glancing to Chuck and Dax, I raise my eyebrows with a playful expectancy.
“I want to see all of you,” I breathe to them, a little nervous—is this too much?
But then, without another word, both of them do the same as Callum, and draw themselves into their hands. Chuck’s cock is rock-hard, and he grips it tight, holding himself still, while Dax moves his fist up and down his shaft a couple of times, clearly keen to relieve some of the tension that seeing me like this has built up in him.
Once I’m sure they’re all ready, and I have every bit of their attention, I move my fingers to my clit and start to play with myself.
I let out a soft, demonstrative moan, the sound filling the room along with the steam still rising from the bath. I can feel their eyes on me, even as my own drift shut, and it’s the most erotic thing in the world—being on display for them in such an intimate moment, allowing them to see me like this, to drink in the sight of me getting myself off for their viewing pleasure.
“Jesus,” Chuck growls, and he reaches down into the bath, his hand slipping beneath my ass and squeezing hard. The way he touches me, it’s like he wants to own me—not to control me, but to make sure that everyone knows I belong to him, to them.
Dax’s hand moves into my hair and he guides me toward him to kiss me again. I can feel him moaning against my mouth, the sound of it sending a shiver of pleasure through my body. Callum moves his hand beneath the water to begin to massage my breasts, his fingers brushing over my nipples and occasionally pausing to pinch and tug at them.
The sensations that are coursing through my body are so intense, so hard to control, that I find myself unable to think straight—all I can focus on is the way it feels, the way I want to give myself to these men completely and utterly. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do in this moment to please them, because they have shown me that there’s nothing they won’t do for me. The commitment, passion, care, and protectiveness they’ve given me since I arrived here…it’s more than I ever could have imagined.
My fingers are moving with more intensity against my clit as Dax sinks his teeth into my lower lip, Chuck’s hand moving a little further beneath the water to graze my asshole. Callum grabs my breast, squeezing softly, sending a shock of pleasure through my body beneath the water.
And when Dax pulls back, I open my eyes once more and take in the sight of them all around me. I have never felt more powerful in my entire life—seeing these three men on their knees around me, stroking themselves to the sight of me, kissing and touching and grabbing at whatever part of me they can get their hands on, it’s the sexiest thing in the world. I still my fingers against my clit, but the orgasm has already hit hard, a shock wave of pleasure coursing through my body as another whimper draws out from between my lips. I can’t control it, can’t even pretend to. My body bucks against my hand beneath the water, grinding into my fingers as I go over the edge and into the release I need so badly.
And it seems like the sight of me like that is all it takes to push them over the edge and into their release. Dax comes first, his mouth just an inch or two from mine, and the sound he makes when he reaches his release is everything to me—the low, deep growl, as though the pleasure is rising up from some place deep down inside of him that he can’t even begin to control. And then, a few moments later, Callum goes over the edge too—his eyes lock onto mine as he finishes, his body tensing for a moment as he reaches his release before he sinks back on his heels to catch his breath.
Chuck is the last to go, his hand grabbing tight to my ass as though he’s drinking in the feel of me one last time before he comes. And when he does, a smile cracks over his face, blissed-out, as he tips his head back and inhales deeply.
The four of us take a moment to come back down to earth, the intensity of what we just shared almost more than all of us can take. None of us can speak right now—but there’s nothing that needs to be said, not really.
No, all that matters is that we’re together. And I don’t know what this new development means for our relationship, but I know I could seriously get used to having these guys lay all their passion at my feet.
And I can hardly wait to see what else I might be able to enjoy when it comes to the three of them soon. But for now, as I sink back into the bath, a blissed-out smile spreading up my face, I know that all I really want in the world is to get some rest.
And linger under their gazes just a little while longer.