22. Annie
Chapter 22
Annie
I pulled at my falling sock in my boots as I walked past a row of glinting shopfronts, the early afternoon sun baking the LA sidewalk, my phone warm in my hand. I wasn’t used to the dry heat at all , but I wasn’t going to complain when I at least didn’t feel like I was breathing in water while outside. Georgia was too humid.
“No, I’m not joking,” I said, grinning like an idiot. “I’m literally in LA right now. I can send you my location if you don’t believe me. They’re playing the Raiders tonight.”
“Hold on. What ?” Zoe’s voice shrieked in my ear, and I had to move the phone away from it to save my eardrum. We hadn’t spoken in months, not with her off doing her masters in New York, and I figured now was as good a time as any to update her on my life. “I’ve been gone for, what, two months? And now you’re casually road-tripping with pro hockey players?”
“It wasn’t casual!” I laughed. “It’s been a whirlwind. I don’t even know how it happened, to be honest. It all just blew up.”
“You’re going to have to slow the hell down and explain everything to me, like, now . Who are these guys? And where the hell is Elliot?”
I stopped at the corner of the street, adjusting my purse on my shoulder and waiting for the crosswalk light. “Elliot’s gone, dumped him. He was an ass, it’s a long story. He’s still blowing me up every time my phone is switched on. But you remember my boss, right? Gabriel?”
“Yeah, obviously.”
“So, Xavi Moreau is his son. Well, adopted son, but I don’t think that really matters. He plays for the Fire, so…”
She paused as I crossed the street. “Are you sleeping with a Fire?”
My cheeks heated a little. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to hear her, but even admitting that to her felt like admitting to the biggest secret in the world. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Oh my god, you are.”
“Are you gonna judge me if I answer that honestly?”
“Yes, but I love you, so it’s fine.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s, uh, not just Xavi. It’s… kind of… three of them.”
Silence.
I pulled the phone back, checking the call hadn’t dropped, and put it back to my ear.
“I’m hanging up,” Zoe deadpanned. “You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not!” I laughed, stopping a couple of blocks from the hotel and leaning against the brick exterior of a tattoo parlor. “It just kind of happened. I don’t know how to explain it. They were there at Smokey’s the night everything exploded with Elliot, and then it just kind of spiraled. They’re all friends, they all know about it, it’s kosher. It just… I don’t know, Zo, it just kind of works. It’s been weirdly good. Better than good. Fantastic.”
“Is this, like, a serious thing? Or an Annie’s having a midlife crisis at twenty-five kind of thing?”
I chewed at the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know. Both?”
“Tell me everything. Names. I need to Google them.”
I laughed again, my cheeks heating further, my eyes scanning the people on the street on the off chance one of their teammates was walking around. “You’ve got to keep it to yourself if I tell you, okay?”
“Obviously,” she said, and I could hear her grinning.
“Cole Maxwell, Colton Miller, and Xavi Moreau.” My words were whispered as if anyone out here cared or was paying attention. “I’m staying in their hotel room. I’ll send you pictures, it’s insane , it’s got, like, waterfalls inside. And I wrote a new song last night after they all crashed out after practice. Just sat up and scribbled it out in my notebook while Colton slept beside me. And I think it’s actually good .”
“Jesus Christ, Annie,” Zoe chuckled, her voice tinny in my ear. “You’re holed up in a luxury hotel, getting railed by three NHL players, and writing music like some kind of tortured poet? You sure you didn’t slip on some spilled beer at Smokey’s and fall into a coma? Am I real?”
“Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that had happened to me,” I muttered. I picked at my thumb’s nail with my teeth, my eyes still scanning the sidewalk. “But it’s real. Got little fingertip-sized bruises on my hips from Colton, he’s a bit fan of leaving marks apparently. I can send you pics if you don’t believe me.”
She made a wheezing sound, her stifled laughter barely contained. “You’re actually glowing. Like, through the phone. Can’t remember the last time I saw this much personality from you.”
My cheeks hurt from smiling. “It’s been a lot. Like, it’s amazing , but it’s also chaotic. I’m trying to stay under the radar, you know? A bunch of the guys from the Fire come into Smokey’s pretty regularly, so I don’t want someone to recognize me or see me coming and going from their room like I’m some kind of flame.”
“ Flame ? Look at you, using Fire lingo.”
“Shut up.”
“How’s staying hidden going then?” she asked with a snort.
“Nearly got caught this morning,” I chuckled. “I went down to the lobby in one of Xavi’s hoodies, no makeup, hair in a bun, looking like a goddamn raccoon because I forgot to take my makeup off last night. I just needed a snack and a coffee, and I thought I’d be safe ‘cause the guys had already left for practice, and I spotted Sebastian Blue with his wife and kids in the lobby.”
“No!”
“Yes! I panicked, like, wholly and completely. Ducked into this little nook behind the waterfall and crouched there like a goblin, holding a hotel banana like it would somehow save me. I swear he looked right at me.”
Zoe wheezed again. “Not the banana .”
“Oh, it gets worse,” I laughed. “I tried to sneak out last night to get fries and a milkshake from the McDonald’s across the street before the guys got back, hoodie pulled up, sunglasses on like some kind of D-list celebrity?—”
“ Annie .”
“—and I ran straight into Samson Antonius. Which is so much worse ‘cause the guys are like, actually friends with him. I full on panicked and ran down the alley beside it, hid behind the industrial-sized trash can. Xavi said I smelled like chicken nuggets.”
She lost it then, full-blown cackling into my ear. “You’re such a mess,” she gasped between laughs. “I love it. This is the best thing you’ve ever done.”
I chuckled alongside her, my cheeks heating a little. “It’s not even been twenty-four hours. If I survive the Raiders game tonight without someone spotting me, it’ll be a miracle.”
Zoe giggled. “You’re happy, though?”
I paused mid-breath, her words making me falter. “Yeah,” I said, my voice a little quieter, but I meant it. “Weirdly, yes. Completely.”
————
The boys crushed it.
I’d spent most of the third period on the edge of my seat high up in the stands, one hand clutching the hem of my hoodie and the other digging half-moons into my thigh, as I’d watched Xavi send a pass clean across the ice. Colton had slammed in the first goal with that stupid dimple popping out on the live screens above, and Cole, quiet and calculated, had closed out the game with a wrist shot so filthy it made a grown man behind me scream like a child.
But they’d won. The Fire scored four, LA Raiders scored two.
I’d beat them back to the hotel, slipping out with the crowd the second the final buzzer sounded, my body vibrating from the adrenaline. I’d taken the world's fastest shower, scrubbing myself like a crazy person, cursing myself for not leaving enough time to reapply at least some makeup. I wrung my hair out, tossed my towel over the rack, and walked back out into the main living area of the massive hotel room naked as the day I was born.
I grabbed my baby Taylor that I always traveled with and dropped down onto the sofa, slotting the body of the guitar between my crossed legs, using it to barely cover up my important bits. I didn’t care that the massive floor-to-ceiling window behind me showed off my bare back to the entirety of LA — we were high enough up that it didn’t matter.
I played it a few times to myself, practicing it, counting down the minutes, the chill only barely starting to sink into my bare skin.
But then I heard it — the keycard in the lock, the sound of the door opening, the heavy footfalls of three exhausted men.
And then nothing.
I looked up, grinning at the three of them. “I wrote a new song. Want to hear it?”
They stared at me, fresh from their post-game showers in the locker room, like they’d walked into a dream they weren’t entirely sure was legal. Cole with his damp, salt-and-pepper hair pushed back, the short little strands curling out around his temples, a soft gray shirt covering his top half and a pair of deep blue jeans that hugged his thighs in a way that made my mouth water. Xavi looked carved out of tension, his brows raised as he stood there in his black hoodie halfway zipped over his bare chest and his navy joggers, his overgrown black hair hanging limply around his cheeks. And Colton, comfort over style when it didn’t matter, stood there in a pullover and sweatpants that left far too little to the imagination, his longer hair pulled back in a low bun for once instead of a ponytail.
Cole took a deep breath in through his nose. Xavi’s jaw clenched tight, his arms crossed over his chest like he needed to hold himself together with brute force. Colton just stood there, wide-eyed and breathless, his mouth opening.
“You’re gonna kill me, sweetheart,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “Just straight up end me right here in this hotel room.”
My grin turned wicked as I lazily plucked a chord on the guitar. “That’s not a no…”
Cole scrubbed a hand over his face and dropped his bag on the floor. “She’s trying to kill all of us.”
I shrugged. “I saw you guys win,” I said softly, fluttering my lashes as if I was completely innocent. “I thought you deserved a reward.”
That got a reaction.
Xavi took a step forward, and then another, and another, pausing on the other end of the low, glass coffee table. “You think this is a reward , baby?” he huffed, his gaze crawling over every inch of bare skin he could see, then staring at the guitar like he could somehow see through it to my breasts and core. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to hear your song. But this feels more like a tease than anything else you’ve done.”
My cheeks heated a little. “The reward is more than just a song if you play your cards right,” I taunted, my fingers dancing across the strings again.
He practically groaned.
Colton and Cole walked up together, and Colton dropped onto the couch with an exasperated sigh, his head falling back onto the cushion. But his eyes, tired but so intensely playful, never left me for a second. “Play it. We all want to hear it. But I swear to god, if that guitar moves, I can’t promise I won’t lunge for you.”
I beamed at him. “Touch me before I’m done and I’ll be playing a song at your funeral.”
Cole barked out a strangled laugh and perched on the arm of the couch, trying but absolutely failing to look anywhere but my thighs. “You know you didn’t need to be fully nude for us to listen to you play, right? We all gladly would have sat down the moment we walked through that door if you’d been in the baggiest pajamas you could find and told us you’d written a new song.”
I blinked at him, a little taken back for a second. His words hit a nerve that I didn’t even know existed. It wasn’t necessarily that I assumed they wouldn’t have done that, but Elliot had needed that extra bit of incentive to sit down and listen to me, and I couldn’t remember a single ex who had ever been that interested. Even my dad needed prompting. But Mom…
No. I didn’t want to think about Mom right now.
I pushed it back and away and righted my guitar, feeling the weight of three sets of eager eyes on me and letting it drive me forward. I cleared my throat. “I’ve been in a bit of a writing slump recently so I’m sorry if it’s a bit rusty.”
Xavi sat down on the floor on the other end of the coffee table, stretching out his legs beneath it and leaning back on his hands. “Don’t apologize. Just play.”
“Okay, okay,” I chuckled. “I wrote it last night so it’s not, like, completely finished?—”
“Sweetheart,” Colton smirked, his hand twitching like he wanted to reach out. “You’re stalling.”
I held up my hand. “You’re right, sorry.”
So I started to play.
I didn’t look at them as my fingers moved and my voice started to carry. It wasn’t nerves — performing wasn’t new to me. I’d been performing to anyone who would listen since I was a kid, and god knew I’d sung to bars packed with tipsy strangers more times than I could count. But this wasn’t a crowd. This was three people who’d gotten under my skin faster than anyone had a right to, and even know I knew they already liked me, already wanted me more than they should, I still wanted them to see me, the real me, not just the naked girl on the couch cracking jokes to hide her insecurities.
So I kept my eyes on the strings, let the rhythm flow into a slow climb, a minor lift, then a slow descent. I’d memorized the chords and lyrics while they were at practice, playing it over and over until my fingers had started to hurt. It was a song about the in-between, the hazy place between who you thought you were and who you might still be. It was honest in a way I hadn’t been with them up until now, and I didn’t know how closely they’d listen, how much they’d hear of it, but I’d made my peace with them hearing every bit.
I could feel the room shift as I kept going, and I let myself look.
Colton sank further into the cushions beside me, his cheek pressed into the cushion, his lashes low. He watched me, just listening, as if he’d done this a million times before and hadn’t grown tired of it.
Cole didn’t move. His spine stayed straight, one elbow braced on his knee, his head angled down slightly but his eyes trained on me, wide and unblinking, drinking me in like I’d sprouted wings and leaped off the balcony.
And Xavi…
My voice cracked when I looked at Xavi, but I didn’t pay the error any mind for once. He looked affected, his gaze trained out the window instead of on me, his jaw tight like he was holding his breath. His brows were furrowed, not in confusion but with something else, and I knew just from his reaction that he was hearing it a little more than the others. Like it resonated with him.
He was the first one to move when I slowly finished, the last note hanging in the air before cutting out into silence. He sat forward, slowly, carefully, pulling his legs back in until he was sitting cross-legged and leaning down on his forearms. His mouth was parted as if he wanted to say something but hadn’t quite figured out what yet.
I watched them all as the silence stretched. “You guys are really bad at clapping,” I teased.
Colton blew out a breath and sat forward, dropping his head into his hands. “Jesus. Okay. That wasn’t fair.”
Cole still stared directly at me. “You wrote that last night ?”
I shrugged, a smile tugging at my lips from the awe in his voice. “Yeah.”
“ Yeah , she says,” Cole muttered, finally blinking as he stood from the couch, directly quoting me. “I feel like I just watched a TED Talk that made me want to cry and rethink my entire life, and you’re just casually saying yeah .”
My cheeks heated, but I took the compliment. I looked back at Xavi, studying him and his silence. His eyes slowly met mine, and his throat worked, his words still caught. “You’re not real,” he rasped.
“Do you want me to pinch you?” I offered, grinning at him softly as I laid my arm across the top of the guitar and rested my chin on it.
“I mean it. You just, you sit there like that , and then you sound like that , and you write like that .” He shook his head. “Fucking unbelievable.”
I chuckled. “And here I thought I was about to be booed by all of you.”
Colton snorted beside me, his hand reaching out a little, the back of his fingers brushing against my knees. “Only thing I’m booing is that we’ve never made it to one of your performances at Smokey’s.”
I shrugged. “Not my fault Gabby only lets me perform right after a game.”
“You got more songs like that one?” Xavi asked, pushing himself up off the ground and brushing off his hands.
I smiled up at him. “So many more.”
“I want to hear every single one,” Xavi murmured, stepping around the coffee table and closing the distance between us, dodging Colton’s legs. He grasped the neck of my guitar and gently lifted it out of my hold, revealing my body entirely to them, and set the instrument down against the other arm of the couch. “But right now I want to kiss you.”
Xavi grasped my cheek before he leaned down to me, one hand bracing himself on the back of the sofa, and kissed me.
“No fair,” Colton pouted. “I wanted to kiss her.”
Cole thwacked him on the thigh. “This was your idea, remember? Have some patience.”
“Patience doesn’t exist when she’s sitting there looking that good.” Colton’s hand wrapped around my out-turned thigh, his fingers and thumb digging in harshly, and my breath caught against Xavi’s mouth.
“Do that again,” Xavi murmured, parting from my lips for half of a second to glance at Colton. “She sounds so pretty when she’s gasping.”
Colton squeezed again, his hand sliding up my thigh a little more, his body shifting on the couch beside me until he was leaning close to me. On my other side, a heavy weight lowered onto cushions with a grunt, and I knew this was going exactly where I’d wanted it to.
A hand snuck around my waist from my left, and in less time than it took me to blink, I was being pulled away from Xavi and Colton, lifted, and lowered onto Cole’s lap, my bare chest pressed against his shirt, my knees on either side of him.
“Come on , man!” Colton protested, his head falling back onto the cushion.
But Cole was already cupping my jaw and pulling my head toward his gently, his mouth meeting mine in a languid kiss that made me melt into him as if he could solve every problem I’d ever had. His other hand stayed around my back, his fingers splayed out across my skin, tracing soft little patterns over my flesh and making me shiver.
“Are we just going to pass her around, then?” Xavi sunk into the spot where I’d sat seconds ago. “How long do you think we can keep her from Colton?”
“Do not even joke,” Colton said, a bite beneath his words that I wasn’t used to hearing from him. “Besides, she’ll run out of stamina if we all take her in turns.”
Cole kissed down the side of my neck, taking his time, making my head feel heavy and my eyes go unfocused, but I looked over at Xavi and Colton. “Rude. I have so much stamina.”
“Annie, baby , you could barely keep your eyes open by the end of it the last time we all took you.” Xavi’s little smirk as he reached out and brushed his thumb over my lips showed me he was perfectly at ease for once, and I almost felt a flicker of pride in my chest that he was learning to share better than he had before. “Don’t think you could take the three of us back to back. You’d be comatose by the time Colton got to you.”
“Why am I last?”
Cole huffed a breathy chuckle against my throat, hot air fanning across my skin. “Then we take her together again,” he rasped, completely ignoring Colton, “since that’s clearly what she was hoping for.”
My cheeks heated. “Guilty as charged.”
Colton surged forward, his hands braced on his knees as he pushed himself up. “I’ll carry her to the bedroom?—”
Hands grasped me again, yanking me back toward Xavi but up , and before I could giggle at Colton getting shorted again , Cole started full-belly laughing in a way that was so infectious I could barely keep my grin at bay. He helped Xavi gather my legs up, hooking them over his arm so Xav could carry me bridal style, and I looked over his shoulder at Colton’s reddened cheeks and furrowed brow.
“Seriously?” Colton muttered.
“Consider it payback for fucking her before I’d even had the chance to kiss her,” Xavi smirked, turning us around and starting to walk toward the master bedroom.
Cole shrugged. “I’m just doing it to rile you up. Plus, you had her last night.”
I wrapped my arms around Xavi’s neck, resting my chin on my arm, and grinned at Colton as he slowly stalked after us. “Someone getting jealous?”
Colton rolled his eyes, holding up his finger and his thumb so close together they almost touched. Little bit , he mouthed, that dimple popping back out like it had a bone to pick.
Xavi kneed the door open to the master — the same room I’d shared with Colton last night — and carried me to the bed, setting me down gently as Cole and Colton came up on either side of him. He slotted himself between my thighs on the edge of the bed, pushing them back, and I placed a single hand on his bare chest between the two sides of his hoodie. “Wait,” I breathed.
The room seemed to hold its breath as Xavi paused.
“You’re the only one I haven’t… uh…” I racked my brain, trying to think of the best way to say it, “…sucked off.”
Xavi snorted. “ Sucked off ? Are we sixteen?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Right, right,” he chuckled, rolling his eyes as he backed off a little. “Heaven forbid I want to focus on you and not me.”
“Me, then,” Cole grinned. He pulled off his shirt in one fell swoop and collapsed over the side of the bed, his head right near the edge, one hand reaching out for me and the other working at the button of his jeans. “Come here, darling.”
Darling .
I pushed up onto my hands, my eyes trained on him, the quiet bickering between Xavi and Colton as they undressed completely fading into the background. He was the only one who didn’t call me by some kind of pet name — just Annie or An or Ans.
He didn’t even look phased by the shift in the slightest.
I swallowed and moved over to him, climbing on top of him, my eyes flicking between his chest, his open jeans, his face. He fisted his jeans down, his eyelids lowering halfway, his gaze locked on my face like it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen in his life, and I wanted to ask him why now about the pet name, wanted to make him open up like a book, but I held myself back.
His cock sprung free just in front of my hips then fell against my groin and stomach, resting there like a promise, and he reached up to me instead of touching himself. “So beautiful,” he murmured, pulling me down to him. “And the perfect reward for a win.”
He kissed me, lazy and slow and needy, guiding my hips up and positioning himself just beneath my entrance. I barely noticed the weight of someone else on the bed, but I felt the rough hands at my waist, felt the way they pushed me down onto Cole’s length with one insistent shove, and I knew damn well it was Colton.
I moaned into Cole’s mouth, my body adjusting to the size of him, one hand braced beside Cole’s head and the other on his chest. A hand went into my hair, tentative, soft, and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was Cole’s or Xavi’s until it cupped under my chin and raised me gently, lifting my head and stopping the kiss.
Xav stood in front of my face off the bed, and I couldn’t tilt my head far enough back to look up at him — but I knew his body, knew his stance. The presence of a foreskin was the most obvious giveaway, though, and I salivated as his thumb dragged across my jaw, his touch light but insistent.
“This what you wanted, baby?”
I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t answer with anything but my body.
I pushed forward, dragging Cole out just a little, and wrapped my lips around him, cushioning my bottom teeth with my tongue. Xavi groaned, his hand slipping back into my hair again, his fingers tightening in the strands just enough to show his need.
“Christ, your fucking mouth ,” he murmured.
I took Xavi deeper and shifted my hips again beneath me, pushing Cole further in, the friction of his trimmed hair against my clit making my nerves light on fire. My hand moved from Cole’s chest and wrapped around the back of Xavi’s thigh, giving myself a bit more leverage, my body working out a rhythm to drive both of them into me as I moved, one sliding in while the other slid out.
A different hand gathered my hair up and moved it to my back, clearing up the view, and spun it into a little twist before wrapping it around his palm. “You look so pretty like this, sweetheart,” Colton cooed, leaning in to press a kiss to my shoulder. “Like you were made for this.”
“Made to be touched by us,” Xavi added, his hand tightening at my scalp. Colton pulled on the ends, snapping my head back a little further, the position slightly uncomfortable — but my throat opened a little more, giving Xavi more room, giving me the ability to look up at him, and the way his eyes rolled back in his head was worth it. His muscles flexed as he pushed his hair back from his face, his lips parting on a ragged breath. “Shit, you were made to be fucked by us.”
A muffled whimper slipped out of my mouth around the rigid intrusion, and Xavi gasped , my throat vibrating slightly around him from the sound.
“You want to try to go a little further tonight?” Colton asked, lowering his head to my level, his grin mischievous.
Xavi pulled himself from me for a moment, letting me breathe and opening me up to answer Colton, and I felt Cole’s hands traveling up my sides, his breathing growing more and more ragged with every shift of my hips. “Further?” I rasped, turning my head to my left.
“ Further .” Colton looked up at Xav, a silent request written all over his face, and before I could question it, Xavi’s hand slipped from my hair, and he stepped away to the two bags sitting on top of the dresser.
“Where?” he asked.
“Black bag. The inside pocket, on the left, I think,” Colton answered.
I swallowed. “Colton?—”
Cole pushed up onto his elbows beneath me, pushing me up a little, his mouth latching onto my breast like it was air. His arm wrapped around my waist, guiding my hips forward faster with his hold, urging me for more as if it wasn’t already ruining me and making my head swim.
“Fuck, I—Colton, what do you mean by further?” I asked, struggling to concentrate from every thrust of my hips that drove Cole deeper, deeper, deeper .
Colton’s hand went out as Xavi came back and dropped a little bottle of travel-sized lube into it, Colton’s grin spreading like wildfire, his dimple popping out and teasing me. “This answer your question, sweetheart?”
My pulse hammered as I stared at it, my half-lidded eyes going wide. “Like, all the way? At the same time?”
“I’ll work you up to it,” Colton murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to my cheek, his hold in my hair a juxtaposition. “Not gonna throw you in the deep end right off the bat.”
“You can say no, baby,” Xav reminded me, his hooked finger tapping gently beneath my chin to draw my attention back up to him. “Don’t feel like you have to.”
Cole’s fingers dug into the fleshy bit of my hip as his teeth grazed my nipple, and I couldn’t hold back the moan that escaped me, couldn’t think straight to save my life. “Fuck it, okay,” I breathed. “We can try.”
Colton’s grin morphed into a smirk as he gave my hair a sharp tug, and I winced at the sting of it. “Atta girl.”
He shifted almost instantly, releasing my hair and moving down my body instead. Xavi’s hand came back up under my chin, his thumb brushing across my lips in a silent request to open back up for him as Cole lowered himself back down, letting me angle myself right again.
“Can you thrust up into her? Keep her mostly still?”
Cole nodded beneath me and his legs shifted, the backs of his thighs pressing against my rear, and his hands moved to my thighs, urging me to move them up closer to his sides instead of on either side of his hips. A second later, he was lifting my rear slightly, angling me so I was raised enough for just the tip of his cock to still be inside of me, and I groaned in frustration from feeling too empty, too needy?—
Cole’s lower body surged upward, his length slamming full force back into me, and I practically shrieked .
“That’s it,” Xavi grinned, prying my lips apart. “Stay just like that, baby. Don’t move a muscle.”
I opened my mouth, letting him back in, my eyes fluttering closed the moment I felt Colton’s hands gripping the malleable flesh of my rear, massaging it, his lips pressing a kiss to my lower back.
“Hit me if you want anything to stop,” Xavi rasped, his hand shifting back into my hair. I tilted forward just a tiny bit more, arching my back and grasping Xavi’s hips, getting Cole to the perfect angle that made my body burn . “Hit me anywhere. Don’t care where. I’ll tell them.”
The sound of the cap opening and closing rang out.
My body coiled tight with tension the second Colton’s slick fingertips pressed against my empty hole.
He’d done it before, the last time it was all four of us, but he’d said further . And I knew exactly what that meant. It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited, because dear god, I was — it was the panic that I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“Relax, sweetheart,” Colton purred, pressing another kiss to the swell of my ass as Cole drove up into me harder, faster, his grunts making my head swim. “We’ve got you.”
A single digit pressed in, and I moaned around Xavi’s length, feeling his fingers twitch in satisfaction at the back of my skull.
Slowly, it moved in and out, the movement so languid and smooth, in direct opposition to the way Cole was thrusting into me. It was almost enough to send me to fucking orbit on its own, but then Cole’s hand slid down the front of my body, dipping over the swell of my mound, and found my clit in goddamn record time.
They were trying to kill me. They had to be.
I dug my fingers into Xavi’s hips as another one entered me, stretching me a little more, the sensation not unfamiliar but intense . My release was already coiling, my mind swimming, my brain turning to absolute mush, my sounds muffled around a mouthful.
“Fuck, she’s close,” Cole grunted.
Another finger, and I shattered without warning, pushing my head back off Xavi before I did something stupid like accidentally bite down. I moaned my release against Xavi’s stomach, pleasure ripping through me like a tidal wave, but neither Cole nor Colton stopped . Even Cole’s fingers kept their pace after I’d gone sensitive, my body twitching on him, my hand instinctively coming down to his arm to silently beg for a pause, but he didn’t.
“You’ll need it,” he grunted.
“God, sweetheart, you’ve opened right up,” Colton groaned, slowly pulling his fingers from me. “I think you can take it.”
I could barely hear him over my pulse pounding in my ears, my body broken already, and Xavi knelt down on the floor in front of me instead, bringing his head level with mine, his hand fisting his length instead. “You’re good, baby,” he murmured. “Kiss me.”
I didn’t think, just acted.
My mouth met his, sloppy, uncoordinated, adrenaline coursing through my veins the second I felt something far larger than three fingers pressed against the same hole he’d just slipped out of. Cole paused beneath me, his cock nearly all the way out, but his fingers didn’t stop their movements against my aching, sensitive clit, and I tried not to brace myself for what I knew was coming.
“Deep breath in,” Xavi rasped against my lips, pulling back just enough to give me room to follow his order.
I took in a deep, nervous breath, my eyelids fluttering open too close to Xavi to be able to focus on him, and nearly lost all the air I’d just stolen the second I felt Colton break past my entrance.
Oh my god.
Oh my god .
“Oh my god?—”
Xavi’s mouth met mine again, harsh, insistent, distracting.
It was just an inch, but it felt like he was tearing me in two.
“ Fuck , Annie,” Colton hissed, his fingers digging into my sides like he could keep me there forever. “Xav, make sure she’s breathing. Cole, don’t fucking move.”
Cole snorted, his free hand coming back up to my breast, his fingers still moving across my clit. “Don’t worry, I’m taking a much-needed break.”
Xavi broke away from me again, his hand still stroking himself, his other on my cheek. “Breathe, baby. Keep breathing. Relax . Do you need to stop?”
“No,” I croaked. “Don’t stop.”
Colton sank another inch, and I gripped onto the back of Xavi’s neck, my fingernails digging in for dear life. He winced, then his mouth parted, almost as if he enjoyed the feeling of my nails tearing him to shreds.
“That’s it,” Colton murmured, leaning over my back, pressing kisses into the divot of my spine. He sank in another inch, and I breathed through it. “Good fucking girl.”
Just hearing that made my body relax like I’d just gotten the nicest, most expensive massage money could buy.
“ Yes .”
Inch, after inch, after inch, after inch — his hips finally sat flush against mine all at once, all of us hanging there in the stillness.
He was so much bigger than anything I’d ever put inside there before.
“I’m going to move, now, sweetheart,” Colton said quietly, his lips brushing against my back. “Can you handle that?”
I nodded weakly, my eyes unfocused, my forehead against Xavi’s chin.
“Tell us the second anything feels uncomfortable. Understand?” Cole murmured beneath me.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “Got it.”
I nearly came again just from the feel of Colton slowly withdrawing a few inches, his body lifting from my back and his hand trailing my spine instead. He gripped the back of my neck gently, far more gentle than I was used to with him, and I knew he was waiting until I’d fully become accustomed to this to unleash himself on me.
He pushed back in.
Dragged out.
Pushed back in.
Dragged out.
“Please don’t stop,” I breathed, the words running together, my head a mess of fog and pleasure and them . “Please.”
Colton’s grip grew stronger. Harsher. Harder . “Wasn’t planning on it, sweetheart.”
Hesitantly, Cole pushed up into me, slowly testing the waters, and if I was under the impression that I was going to make it out of this intact, I was absolutely mistaken.
My head jerked up at the intrusion of them both, Cole in front and Colton in back, and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel. “Xav,” I croaked, trying to focus my eyes on him, his grinning face a blur in the mess they were making of me.
His hand in my hair moved, cupping my face instead, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone. “God, you’re blissed out,” he chuckled, his teeth catching his lower lip. “Want to know a secret?”
Cole started to move properly then, both of them shifting, one in, one out, one in, one out. Release tugged at me from every angle, beckoning me toward it.
Xavi brought his lips to my ear. “I know I said I wouldn’t be, but I’m jealous,” he whispered, a hint of a growl in his voice. “But only because I’m desperate to be inside you again.”
My orgasm slammed into me, tearing me apart, breaking down every last wall I could have ever built. My moans were more like sobs, lost in the sounds of the room, and Xavi pushed up from his knees, bringing the tip of his length back to my lips and coaxing them open, slipping in the second my body started to relax.
Three of them.
Inside of me.
All at once.
What the fuck was happening?
“I can’t—” Cole panted. “Shit, I—I?—”
His thrusts up into me were jagged, unrestrained, choppy. He groaned, loud and long and guttural, before he slumped beneath me, gasping for breath, his fingers still moving against me but the rest of him still. Colton kept going, a little harder, a little more reckless, and my body bent for him, giving him what he needed.
“My turn,” Xavi rasped, pulling his length from my mouth before I’d even gotten much of a chance to get back into it. “Colton, readjust.”
Things moved before I even had a chance to process.
Colton’s arm wrapped around my front from behind, his cock still buried in my hole, and hauled me up and off Cole. The world spun, and we were down, down, down, Colton on his back, my body laid out bare on top of him, his chest against my spine, his breath in my ear. His hands grasped my thighs and hauled them up, taking the entire weight of me on his stomach, spreading me open.
Cole had barely caught his breath on the bed a few feet away before Xavi was crawling across the mattress toward us, his knees between Colton’s spread thighs, his heated gaze aimed directly at me.
Neither of them gave me a moment to breathe anymore.
Colton started to thrust again, burying himself in me, before Xavi took the weight of one of my thighs in his grasp and dragged the tip of his cock along my clit before dipping down into my entrance, teasing it menacingly.
“Beg me,” he rasped.
“Who are you, Colton?” I teased, watching the way Xavi’s nostrils flared.
Cole barked out a laugh behind him.
“Annie, baby ,” Xavi growled, leaning over me as Colton kept pressing into me relentlessly. “I wanted to fuck you first. You wanted them to. Beg me for it.”
I rolled my barely focused eyes, my head lolling back onto Colton’s shoulder. “Please,” I begged, my tone sickeningly sweet, half giving him what he wanted but teasing him all the same. “ Please , Xavi.”
He slammed into me without warning.
“ Fuck !” I shrieked, but Colton’s hand came up and covered my mouth for a second, his chest shaking beneath me as he chuckled.
“Sweetheart, someone’s going to think we’re murdering you if you keep shrieking,” he rasped, his teeth nipping at my earlobe.
“You are .” My words were barely more than a moan as Xavi started to thrust into me unrelentingly, each drive of his hips beating back Cole’s comparatively calmer ones. “I can’t—I?—”
The feel of a hand on my cheek had my head turning toward the source, and Cole was there, his mouth catching mine to shut me up. Colton’s hand moved down to my throat, wrapping around it, just enough to make me feel the presence of it and not enough to make me panic, and Xavi, god , Xavi raked his nails down my inner thigh before thumbing my clit. Cole’s mouth barely absorbed the sounds I was making.
It didn’t take long for us all to break in succession.
I was first, tumbling over the edge with another loud sound that Cole devoured.
Colton was next, heat flooding my rear in a way I’d never felt before, his breathing ragged and untamed beneath me.
And last, tripping and falling over the cliff, was Xavi, his hands shoving Cole out of the way so he could kiss me himself, his body breaking on a broken moan I was sure he hadn’t meant to make.
But I never wanted to stop.