Freddie #2
My fingers twitch involuntarily, then I tentatively reach for Ryker’s waist. I hold on to him and let my eyes slip shut.
I don’t fear I’ll fall over with Ryker as my anchor, and that means I can concentrate on the sensation of them touching my skin, stroking and caressing.
I groan and their touches get harder. Four hands work me over until I’m practically purring.
I’ve had massages before, but never standing upright, naked, with soap suds running down my legs, and never from my two best friends.
Ryker’s hands cup my arse; his fingers rub down my crack and brush my hole.
I don’t react how I thought I would. I’m far too relaxed, and kitten weak.
I let him touch me, clean me, but his fingers get firmer, more insistent.
I think of the sex toy. I think of pushing it in while Ryker rubs my hole.
He withdraws his fingers with a curse.
“What?” I whisper.
“You know what,” Ryker replies.
“Do I?”
Liam pinches me.
“Ow!”
The shower shuts off abruptly.
“Hey,” I whine. “Why did you do that?”
Ryker laughs. “Liam and I are getting a little overexcited about having you in our shower.” A rare blush hits his cheeks.
Liam yanks the shower door open, and I shiver as the steam escapes. The shiver, the steam . . . I don’t know what exactly, but it triggers a coughing fit. I muffle it with the towel Liam holds out to me, then pop my head up to apologise.
“There’s no need,” Liam says. His eyes flick to Ryker, who’s still standing in the shower with one hand rubbing his back as he watches me choke on my lungs.
“I’m fine,” he says.
“Bullshit,” Liam replies.
Ryker sighs as he gets out and catches the towel Liam throws his way. After a quick rubdown, he grabs one of the gowns hanging from the peg on the back of the door.
“I’ll go take some more ibuprofen.”
Liam turns away from the door, missing the wink Ryker directs my way as he leaves. Liam wraps a white fluffy towel around me and pats me dry. I’m still holding the first towel, the one I coughed all over. When I try to keep eye contact with Liam, it’s he who breaks it.
Ryker told me about what Liam said in the hospital while I was sleeping, the suggestion that’s he’s not good enough for me and the fear he’ll let me down. That thought has settled in Liam like a stone on the ocean floor, but I’m the hand that’s going delve down to grab it.
With Liam, his defences need to be lowered for me to breach him, but tired or not, I’m going to try.
“Nine years old,” I whisper.
He pauses, then continues to pat me down. Maybe I should be offended at being treated like a wet dog, but I can tell Liam likes that he’s got something to do, otherwise we’d both be standing here waiting for Ryker to return with this odd tension in the air.
“That’s a long time,” I say. “A long time to think, and fantasise, and hope . . .”
Liam’s nostrils flare. He lays the towel over the top of my head, then squeezes my hair to get the moisture out.
“What if . . .”
I let the two words hang there for what feels like minutes.
“If?” he says, and I’ve got him hooked, now it’s time to reel him in.
“If we start whatever this is we’ve started, and I don’t live up to it. What if I can’t live up to it . . .”
He frowns. “You have nothing to live up to—”
“Of course I do. You’ve been in love with me for over two decades, that’s a hell of a lot of expectation. What if it’s not what you imagined? What if you prefer the fantasy?”
“No,” Liam says firmly. “That’s not—it won’t—”
“But what if it does? What if I’m not good enough?”
HIs lips twitch. “Freddie—”
“I’ve got nothing to offer you.”
“Yourself,” Liam snaps, and he’s growing frantic. He rubs the towel over my head like he’s trying to start a fire. “That’s what you’ve got to offer us, that’s what we want.”
“But Ryker, he’s a fucking firefighter, he saves people. And you, you’re a police officer, you catch the bad guys. I make plastic and metal components for machines—correction, I made them. Now I’ve got no job, I’ve got no home—”
“Stop this,” Liam hisses. He takes a step back, no longer towelling me down. It slips from my head and hits the floor with a wet smack. Liam’s lips open but no words come out, then he shouts over his shoulder. “Ryker!”
Ryker’s better with words, better at expressing how he and even Liam feels. I’ve backed him into a corner and it’s instinct to call to his brother for help.
“How do I know I won’t let you down?” I say. “How do I know I can be what you need?”
“Because you always have been, just as you are.”
I raise my eyebrow at him, and at first, he glares—and it lasts rather a long time—then he closes his eyes and his brow smooths out. “You little shit.”
“Language,” I whisper, and now the defences are down, I go for the castle. “You kept calling me. If you hadn’t, I would’ve died.”
“Ryker told me to.”
“You would’ve done it anyway,” I counter. “Wouldn’t you?”
His nostrils flare.
“You told me to get to the window. You told me to shout for Ryker.”
“I should’ve done more.”
“You literally couldn’t have.”
Liam stiffens his jaw. “I could hear you struggling to breathe. You had your phone pressed to your ear, listening, waiting, and I couldn’t speak. I wanted to—oh, fuck did I want to—I wanted to reassure you, comfort you, I don’t know. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t.”
“Couldn’t,” I correct. “I wasn’t expecting you to say anything. I didn’t need you to. You were there on the other end of the phone and that was enough.”
“Ryker got you out.”
“Yeah, he did, but you saved me too. And I know you’ll find out what happened, how and why that fire started.”
“I will.”
It leaves his lips as a vow.
“I know. You look out for me.”
“Yes.”
“And I want to look out for you too.”
He frowns. “You do.”
I bite my lip, and toy with the idea of whether to push for more or just settle for what I’ve got out of him, but the dark way he spoke about Keiron nags away at me. I think of his arms writhing like snakes across Liam’s chest.
“I need to ask you about Keiron.”
“No,” Liam says.
My stomach drops at that blunt rebuff. “One thing?”
Liam clenches and relaxes his jaw a few times, then nods.
“Were you ever happy with him?”
He looks me in the eye. “No.”
I lower my gaze gradually, until I’m frowning at his torso. “Then why?”
“That’s two questions.”
I concede with a huff.
“Punishment,” he says quietly. “Unhappiness loves company.”
I don’t understand, but I know one thing . . .
My eyes burn. “I hate that you’ve been unhappy for so long.”
Liam’s lips lift with the tiniest of smiles. “I’m happy now.”
“Really?” I snort.
He nods, steps closer, then presses a kiss to my forehead. “Really.”