Chapter 18
Nobody moves for a long time.
My words hang in the air—I want to belong to all three of you—and three brothers standing in the grass, silent.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand. My cheeks are wet and I'm suddenly aware of how I must look—a pathetic fool at the edge of a pond with snot on his upper lip and his heart in his hands, asking three grown men to love him in a way that goes against all of our instincts.
Pathetic. Linda's voice. Always Linda's voice when I'm lowest. Begging people to want you.
I'm opening my mouth to take it back—forget it, I don't know what I was thinking—
Atlas moves first. He closes the last few feet of distance. His hands find my face—both palms, lifting my head, thumbs near my cheekbones. The gesture so familiar it aches.
"Okay," he says.
My breath catches. "Okay?"
"Okay." His thumbs trace my cheekbones. "I'm done saying no to you."
I look to my left. Bane. His hazel eyes bright in the fading light. He’s moved close enough that I can smell him—amber and sandalwood.
"I walked into a cage for you, Max." The polish stripped clean. "You think I'm going to walk away from this?"
Zero. To my right. Those dark eyes steady on mine. "I'm here."
Two words. From Zero, that's a fucking soliloquy.
Atlas's scent wraps around me—cedar and leather—and my body responds, warmth spreading low in my belly, my skin going sensitive, my cock thickening against my thigh because three men just said yes and my body heard it before my brain did.
"Inside," Atlas says. His voice has dropped into the register that makes my spine tingle. "Come inside."
We go. The four of us up the slope, across the lawn, through the back door. Nobody speaks. The house is dark and quiet around us—Margot and Richard out for date night, jazz band, won't be back until midnight.
We enter Atlas's bedroom. The same room where he kissed me and kicked me out two weeks ago. The same bed. The same cedar-scented sheets. He closes the door. Locks it. The bolt slides home loud in the empty house.
I’m so nervous I can barely stand it, an energy coiling through me like a current.
Bane stands near the foot of the bed. Arms at his sides. His eyes move between me and Atlas with a calm I didn't expect—as if he imagined this. As if he wanted this too.
Zero heads straight for the chair in the corner. The leather wingback near the window. Legs spread. Arms on the rests. His eyes already on me.
He reaches between his legs and rubs himself through his pants, then winks at me.
Atlas's hands find my face again, tilting my chin up, gray eyes burning.
"Tell me to stop," he says. "At any point—"
"Atlas." I grab the front of his shirt. Pull him closer. "If you say that one more time, I swear to God—"
He kisses me.
Atlas Graves with the walls down and months of denial pouring through his mouth into mine.
His hands slide from my face to my neck, my shoulders, my waist—touching everything, his fingers pressing into my skin hard enough that I'll feel it tomorrow.
I kiss him back with equal force. My hands fisting in his shirt, yanking buttons, not caring when one pops off and skitters across the hardwood.
I need his skin. Need to know this is real and not another night that ends with an open door.
The shirt comes off. His chest—broad, solid, so fucking warm. I press my palms flat against his sternum. Feel his heart slamming. His scent this close is overwhelming—the deeper alpha note underneath that makes my knees buckle and my cock ache.
"Off," he says, spinning me around. Tugging my t-shirt.
Easing it over my head, his fingers careful around the faded scars on my back.
He sees them. His jaw tightens. He bends and presses his mouth to the longest one between my shoulder blades, his tongue tracing the raised line, and the shudder that rolls through me is full-body.
His mouth traces up my spine. Vertebra by vertebra. His hands hooked in my waistband, thumbs pressing circles into my low back just above the hem of my pants. Every touch deliberate. Precise. He's reading my body, cataloging what makes me gasp and what makes me shake and adjusting in real time.
"Atlas—" Breathy. Wrecked. His mouth is at the nape of my neck and his hands are sliding my sweatpants down, the fabric dragging over my cock on the way, and then his palms are on my bare hips pulling me back against him.
I feel him. Hard against the small of my back. His cock pressing through his dress pants, thick, insistent, and the whimper that escapes me fills the room.
"I've wanted this." His mouth against my ear. His voice shaking. "You have no idea how long I've—every morning, every night, every time you walked through a room and I had to pretend you were my stepbrother instead of the person I—"
I turn in his arms. Press my mouth against his throat, the hollow below his ear where his pulse is hammering.
"Show me," I whisper. "Stop telling me and show me."
"Shirt off, Bane."
Zero. From the chair. His voice low, carrying the authority of a man who's used to being obeyed. I glance over—he's sitting with his legs spread, watching us with dark, lidded eyes. His cock is straining against his jeans, the outline thick, a single hand on himself stroking through the fabric.
"If we're doing this," Zero says, "we're doing it right. All of us."
Bane strips his henley in one motion—the broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the body that's all discipline and dedication. He crowds me, then grabs me. He twists me so my back is against Atlas’s warm chest again, then grips my jaw.
"Hey," he murmurs.
A laugh escapes me. Broken and wet. "Hey."
He kisses me. Deep and warm and unhurried—the way he kissed me in the facility, like we have all the time in the world.
His tongue slides against mine and his hand trails down my chest, my stomach, fingertips tracing the line of hair below my navel and then lower.
His hand wraps around my cock and strokes—slow, firm, his thumb dragging through the precome at the tip—and my hips buck.
"Bane—" Into his mouth. My hand gripping his hair.
"Let him." Zero again. "Let him take care of you first."
Atlas makes a low sound behind me and a shiver tears down my spine.
Bane's mouth leaves mine. Travels down my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. Open-mouthed kisses, wet and deliberate. He reaches my chest. Takes my nipple between his teeth—gentle, then harder, a bite that makes me gasp—and his hand tightens on my cock, stroking faster.
Then his mouth keeps going. Down my stomach. Down the line of hair. His breath ghosting over the head of my cock. Atlas wraps his arms around me from behind, holding me steady.
"Can I?" Bane asks. Looking up at me through his lashes. His lips an inch from my throbbing tip.
Fuck, he looks so hot. On his knees in front of me.
"God, yes—"
He takes me in his mouth.
The heat is immediate. Wet and tight and devastating—his tongue flat against the underside, his lips sealed around the shaft, sinking down until his nose presses against my pelvis.
I cry out—loud, raw, my hands fisting in his hair, gripping, holding on.
Bane's mouth is obscene. The suction, the rhythm, his tongue working the ridge beneath the head on every upstroke.
He moans around me—the vibration traveling up my cock and into my spine—and I realize he's hard, straining against his pants, getting off on tasting me.
Holy fuck.
Atlas watches from behind me. His arms still around my waist. His cock still pressed against my lower back, throbbing.
I can feel his restraint—the tension in his body, the grip of his hands on my hips, the way his breath has gone shallow and ragged against my neck.
He's watching Bane's mouth on me and he's not jealous.
He's hungry.
"Fuck—Bane—I'm going to—if you don't stop—"
He pulls off. Slow. A string of spit connecting his lip to my cock. His eyes blown. His jaw wet.
"Not yet." Zero's voice cuts through the haze. "Don't let him come yet."
Bane sits back on his heels. His hand replaces his mouth—loose, light, just enough contact to keep me on the edge without pushing me over. I whimper as he keeps stroking me.
"Atlas." Zero again. "Get him ready."
Atlas's hands slide down my hips from behind. One hand moves between my thighs. His fingers find the slick—I'm soaked already, my body producing enough that his fingers glide without resistance.
"You're drenched," he breathes against my ear. His voice wrecked.
His thumb circles my hole. Presses. Sinks in. I gasp, my hands gripping Bane's shoulders where he kneels in front of me. Atlas works me open—one finger, then two, curling, stretching, his other hand steady on my hip. He finds my prostate within seconds and strokes it and my vision whites out.
"Fuck—Atlas—right there—"
He adds a third. Stretching me wider. His mouth against my ear, his breath hot, his cock throbbing against my lower back through the fabric.
"He's tight," Atlas says. To Zero. Like I'm not between them. It makes my cock leak.
"Bane." Zero's voice drops. "Fuck him open. Get him ready for Atlas."
The words hit the room like a match. Atlas withdraws his fingers—I whine at the loss—and his hands find my waist, walking me backward until the backs of my knees hit the mattress.
I sit. Then lie back. The sheets are cool against my overheated skin, cedar-scented, and Atlas shifts to the side of the bed.
His hand finds my hair, his mouth pressing against my temple.
Bane strips the rest of the way. His cock springs free—long, thick, flushed. I've had him inside me before, but this is different. This is Bane in the light. Bane with his brothers watching.
He climbs onto the bed. Settles between my thighs. Lines up where Atlas's fingers just were—slick and stretched and aching.
"Put it in," I say. "Bane. I need you."