Chapter 18 Sai #3
I soften my voice. “That’s a lot of questions, Red, and I’ll try my best to answer them all, I promise. But I need you to rein it in a little, okay?” I cast a glance over the shadows, then her dark tendrils slithering over her skin. “Can you do that for me?”
She follows my gaze, and seems to agree because there’s a flicker in the shadows.
I take a deep breath. This is it. Now is my time to prove myself, to try and soothe my girl, show her I’m not a dickhead all the time.
That I can be useful.
“Julien and I have shared before,” I say, watching some coils flicker into darkness again. “But we’d only share someone once. It was always casual, never meant anything.”
Okay, hard bit out of the way, but her eyes are still like little scarlet daggers.
“But the brothers? I’ve honestly no clue, Red. I’ve never seen either of them with someone, and we don’t really talk about this kinda thing together. Never had any need to, until…” I let my words trail off, and her sharp eyes latch onto my mouth.
“But there’s four of you,” she repeats, still staring at my mouth and I’m finding it awfully hard to remember Imaginary Julien telling me to be patient. Then her gaze darts back to mine. “I—One wouldn’t be enough. You’d need… others.”
Oh.
Our girl really has no idea.
My lips slip into an easy smile that makes her scowl.
“You don’t like that thought, do you, Red?” I tease, her gaze narrowing even more. “You don’t like imagining us with others.”
Her eyes flash scarlet red, ringed by burnt edges, and her voice lowers, edged with gritty darkness. “I’m not imagining anything.”
Fuck yeah, she is.
“You’re hot when you’re hypothetically jealous, Red.”
Her eyes and mouth pop open, but I never stop smiling. My baby is jealous because she fucking wants us and she knows it.
“Jealous?” She scoffs, shaking her head. “Jealous? We’re friends, remember? Why would I be jealous of you having… of the four of you needing…” She can’t finish her sentence, eyes drilling holes into her coffee cup.
And I. Am. Ecstatic.
She huffs. “I’m done with this conversation.”
But I’m not.
Teasing Red is fun, but I need her to understand that she never needs to be jealous. How laughable that idea is.
I scoot even closer and her angry eyes flit to mine like a neon warning. But I like the burn.
“Hypothetically,” I begin, nice and soft, but her scowl remains. “If you ever decided you wanted to be more than friends.”
She likes that, the way I’ve worded it, her gaze eases up a bit. One point to me.
“If you ever decided to give the four of us that honour.” I’m laying it on thick now, but she likes it, and I like that. “Then there would be no one else, Red.”
She blinks, her tendrils fading in and out.
“Only you,” I say. “Only ever you.”
All her sharp, narrowed expressions melt away, leaving nothing but a soft furrow between her brows. She swallows, eyes flickering between mine.
“But… but how would that work?” Her voice is so soft, so calming, so pretty—fuck—I want to listen to her speak all day.
Then she wets her lips and I lock onto the tiny movement like she’s just begun a strip tease.
“Hypothetically?” I murmur, my voice suddenly husky.
She nods, eyes locked with mine.
My power hums in my veins as I force my brain to work overtime. “You ever been with more than one person at the same time, Red?”
She immediately shakes her head, and my markings flare ecstatically.
Fuck. Me.
Wait till I tell Julien—rein it in.
I swallow. “We’d ease you into it, take it slow, maybe start with one of us and see how that felt. Then two.” Her gaze drops to my mouth. “How would you feel about that, Red? Having two of us at once?”
It sweeps back up, and she doesn’t need to say a single word, it’s all there in those pretty red flames—she likes the idea.
Hell, more than like by the way her coils engulf our hands and curl around my bicep.
“You like that idea, huh?” My voice rumbles. “Maybe we’d take you in pairs first, get you used to the feel of it. That many hands, mouths...”
The room darkens but it’s no longer just Red, it’s us both, this verbal foreplay tipping us into the dark.
“Eventually, when you were ready, when you deemed us worthy.” Her pulse thrums beneath my fingertips, and mine’s right there with it.
“The four of us would share you. We’d show you how well we work together, and we’d take such good care of you.
” Her eyes haze over, and mine drop to her parted lips. “Hypothetically.”
Fucking smashed it.
I lean forwards, ready to claim my reward…
“But there’s four of you, wouldn’t you feel…” She blinks and the haze softens.
“Jealous?” I nearly laugh the word. “Sure, we’d wind each other up every chance we could. Maybe make it a competition, get the leader board back in place.”
She smiles a little at that and I take a moment to compose myself, levelling my gaze with hers.
“I can’t speak all poetic and fancy like the others, Red. But I’ll try my best, okay?”
Her fingers tighten around mine. That silent action is all I need.
“I can’t put into words what those three guys mean to me. There just aren’t any. Our relationship’s… complicated.” I bite my lip but push myself to keep going. “What we’ve got is built on a lot of pain, on trust, on all the shit we’ve survived—alone, and together.”
I pause, glancing away, then force myself to meet her eyes again.
“But the idea of you being the centre of us all… holding us together? Our anchor. But so much more than that, Red. Not just someone we desire, but someone we worship and share. Someone who completes us—and, maybe, we could help complete you too?” I pause for a second.
“If you’d let us. That’s it. That’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
A real unit. And a love like that doesn’t leave room for jealousy. It’s too big for that.”
That was… hard.
I study our hands, turning them slightly to see how perfectly our fingers fit.
“Sai.” She’s a siren. The soft caress of my name lures me to her.
I look up and fuck, she’s so close, one tiny movement and I could brush my lips with hers.
“That was beautiful.” No, she is beautiful. “And… hypothetically.” Her small smirk is so tempting, but I’m trying to be good. “What you described would be… incredibly hard to resist.”
“Then don’t resist,” I murmur, my desperation so clear as my eyes flit from her mouth to her eyes.
She wants this.
Me.
Us.
But she keeps resisting.
Fuck being good. Maybe if I just show her… just make her remember how we felt together, how we could feel again. Everything is rushing through my head so fast that I’m closing the distance without giving a fuck about the consequence, I just need to—
I frown, eyes shut. I’m touching something soft, but not soft enough to be lips. I open them and find myself staring straight into hers.
“Sai,” she purrs, slowly shaking her head.
I groan against her fingers. I was so close, so fucking close to her lips.
But I’m still touching her, and I’ll take every scrap she lets me have.
I lift my other hand, clasping hers against my mouth, holding it there even when she tries to pull away.
Never breaking eye contact, I kiss her fingertips. The length of each finger. The top of her palm. The centre. I only lose her eyes when I reach her wrist.
“You’re going to tease me like this?” I whisper, kissing my way back along her palm, over her fingers, before locking onto her heated gaze.
“Isn’t this what you like?” Her voice is soft and rough, but she still manages to quirk a brow. “Edging?”
I moan, loud, right against her hand. Fucking hell. How did this get so dirty?
She’s smirking, red gaze gleaming. Then her hand shifts, and I let mine drop, ready for her to pull away.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, her palm cups my jaw, and I lean straight into it.
Her thumb brushes along my lips, and I part them without thinking. The tip edges into my mouth, and I close my lips around it.
My hands stay down—one still holding hers in my lap, the other twitching with the need to drag her into me, onto me.
But I know I’d lose her. Lose this. So I don’t.
Slowly—teasingly slow—she pulls away, dragging my bottom lip out with her thumb, then presses it back against my mouth. She pauses, studying me, then pats my cheek with the rest of her fingers.
Once. Twice. Like I’m her pet.
And I can be.
I’ll be her dog, her pet, her fucking plaything—anything, if it means she keeps her hands on me.
She cocks her head at the tray of coffees. “Be a good boy and bring those.”
Then she hops off the stool and steps away, and I’m too stunned to hold onto her.
Oh, I’ll be a good boy. Fuck, I’ll be the best boy she’s ever had.
I’ll show her exactly how good when she’s writhing beneath me, begging to come, Julien holding her trembling legs wide open as I lower my mouth—
“Sai?”
I scrunch my eyes shut, take a deep breath, then snatch the tray off the side and turn. She’s waiting, hand out, that burning glimmer in her eyes telling me she sees right through me, into my head.
Fuck, I wish she could see exactly what I was imagining. Just to see her reaction.
Then she wiggles her fingers, and I can’t close the distance quick enough.
***
I thread my fingers through hers, and in the next breath we’re flitting into Zeek’s office. And there’s Kane, sat waiting like a storm cloud in a chair.
Daddy Darkness is fuming. Doesn’t look much different from his usual face, except his eyes are narrowed a little more, and it’s all aimed at me.
I guess our coffee date overran. But her fingers stay threaded in mine, and Kane sees. I grin, wide and shameless.
Then he looks at her face, and everything in him shifts.
His dark eyes actually soften. Huh. Didn’t even know they could do that.
She’s pulling me with her, and Kane stands, closing the small distance. When her fingers slip from mine, they hover over the coffees in the tray I’m still diligently holding.
When she picks one, she holds it out to Kane, her full smile on display. “For you.”
Kane shuts down. He cannot compute. Can’t really blame him.