Chapter Thirty-Five
Delilah
This day is going to be perfect. Planetary-alignment, thighs-quivering, spontaneous-orgasm perfect. I mean, I woke up in Benji’s bed, naked and fully smug, to a note from him basically saying, “make yourself at home and mount me anytime, unconsciousness be damned.” Sir, yes, sir.
And now I get to go to therapy, which I usually hate, because consequences, but today I get to be in the same goddamn building as all three of my men.
The soft one, the stoic one, the professional boundary I keep humping with my mind.
They don’t even have to be in the same room.
Just breathing the same filtered air could trigger a holy-ghost-style climax.
I’m not saying I’m going to come in public, but my panties are wearing a goddamn floatie and whispering prayers to Saint Clitilda.
I round the corner toward Rhys’s office, smug and glowing and there he is. Benji. In the hallway. Guarding or waiting just to see me. Yes, baby. Yes.
His whole face lights up like a golden retriever just saw a squirrel made of boobs. I don’t even think, we both step in, his hands catch my waist, and suddenly I’m airborne, lifted straight into a kiss that says you wrecked me and I’d let you do it again on the floor of this government building.
Not a chaste hello. Not a quick peck. This is a deep-tongue, dick-first hallucination kiss. I make a sound that would get me banned from network TV. He tastes like sugar and orgasms.
And then a throat clears. Not polite. Not awkward. A threat.
Benji sets me down like I’m precious, but also like he’s preparing to throw hands.
I don’t have to turn. I already feel the rage-glow that belongs to one man only.
Jett.
He’s not just looking at me. He’s looking through Benji, scanning for weak points to break open. His whole body is still, tight, vibrating with don’t-make-me-kill-a-man energy.
But his face. God. His face.
There’s a fresh bruise purpling under one eye, a split at the corner of his lip, and his jaw’s a little swollen.
My stomach drops.
I didn’t do that. But something I did got him into that fight.
His eyes flick to Benji’s name tag, and then just nothing. Emotion wipes from his face. That’s worse than rage. That’s the pre-murder calm.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I puff up my chest, which isn’t saying much, I’m still a tiny little snack wedged between two walking murder weapons. “Jett,” I say, breathy and hopeful and probably the dumbest thing I could whisper right now.
Benji’s hand lands at my waist.
Jett’s eyes snap to that touch like it’s a detonator.
He turns his head, neck popping, jaw grinding. He’s stretching. A predator limbering up for combat.
“Jett?” I try again, like that’ll help.
His voice is low and venom-dripping. “Benji.” He says it like it tastes rotten in his mouth. As if Benji just committed an unforgivable sin by existing near me.
I turn toward my sweet tank and rest a hand on his chest. “Can you give us a minute?”
Benji doesn’t move. His eyes never leave Jett. “Not a fucking chance,” he says.
God. His loyalty is so hot I might die.
“He won’t hurt me,” I whisper. “Not me.”
Benji looks down at me, soft for half a second, then glances back at Jett like he’s doing a calculus problem that ends in blood. “You good?” Benji asks.
Jett’s eyes don’t budge. “No.” No hesitation. No lie.
My body wants to be pressed between them. My heart wants to fix this. My brain wants to escape into a pocket dimension where emotional threesomes are easier.
But right now I’m standing between a loaded gun and a wall of muscle who doesn’t know how to back down.
How do I stop a war when all I want is to kiss both generals?
“We’ve got group,” I manage to say, voice breathy like that’ll soften the murder in the air. Spoiler: it does not.
Benji doesn’t back off. Not even a little. But he does take two steps back, still a shield made of muscle and righteous possessiveness. Then he opens the office door.
Jett glances at the door, then at me, then at Benji. Benji who is still not leaving me alone with a man who might explode or break down or kiss me again in a way that shatters us both.
I step back, slow, like I’m trying to de-escalate a feral animal and not two emotionally fragile sex gods with gorgeous jawlines.
Benji shadows me perfectly, like we’ve practiced this hallway ballet. I feel his heat at my back, and it makes me feel a little safer and a lot more feral.
But I can’t go in first.
God knows what they’d do to each other if I left them alone.
So I pause. Tip my head back. Try to will Jett to look at me.
And when his gaze finally meets mine, Oof.
All that hurt. All that betrayal I didn’t mean to cause but definitely did hits like a punch to the soul.
But worse. He’s still wearing my fucking scrunchie on his wrist. A charm from a girl who ruined him.
My emotions take a crowbar to my knees.
I start to drop, but Benji catches me around the waist with an ease that says mine.
And Jett’s there. Down low, on the floor in front of me like I’m the one bleeding.
“Hey,” he says, voice ruined, “Princess. Look at me.”
Oh, god. Oh, fuck.
They’re both looking at me like I’m the thread holding them together. And I’m not strong enough for this, but I also want it. Want them both. Want this. Want to fix it and fuck it and cry through it.
And we still have group.
Jett stands, towering, and fixes those dark, murder-simmering eyes on Benji. “I got her.”
Wait. What? Was that... a peace offering? A grunted olive branch wrapped in testosterone and unspoken trauma?
I feel Benji draw a breath behind me, big and slow and don’t-fuck-around-with-this serious. His hand’s still warm at my waist, like he’s not actually letting go, even if he’s about to.
“Jett,” Benji says, soft and full of layered meaning I will never in my life decode without a Rosetta Stone and three therapists. It sounds like: okay. But also like: fuck around and find out.
Then he leans in, voice just for me. “I’ll be close.”
Jesus, Mary, and restraining order, that protectiveness.
I reach behind me and squeeze his hand. “See you in an hour,” I say, because I am strong, I am capable, and also I am one misplaced growl away from bursting into emotional confetti.
The second Benji steps back, Jett’s hand slides to my waist like it never wasn’t there. And I didn’t shatter something we can’t unsmash.
He steers me toward the office with all the gentle menace of a man who could cradle me or kill for me, depending on how the next sixty seconds go.
I don’t even know what just happened. Some kind of man code détente just occurred and I missed the subtitles. Does this mean he forgives me? Or that I’m about to be metaphorically waterboarded by feelings?
“You get your gifts?” I ask, voice way too casual for someone trembling inside like a shaken soda can.
“You broke into my house,” he says, like he hasn’t been jerking off to my perfume in his space. Then he veers off to the counter to sign in.
I pull a pen out of my bra like a slutty magician and scribble my name beside his.
Susan looks at us like she just read the deleted scenes from Fifty Shades of Mess, all bad eyebrow arch and judgey silence. I still need to file a complaint. Maybe slash her tires. Her Rhys fantasies can fuck right off.
No sign of Rhys, which makes this even more uncomfortable somehow. The silence is heavy enough to bench press me as we walk toward the group room.
The Rage Brigade’s already seated, full line-up of emotionally constipated men with varying degrees of facial hair. Eyes track us as we enter. Some linger on Jett’s bruises. Some on the hand he’s still got clamped on my waist, staking a claim. At least one pair lingers too long on my tits. Rude.
Rabid Randy shakes his head like he’s disappointed in my life choices. Please, sir, you once threatened to marry a parking meter.
Dr. Dickblock looks up from his little power trip clipboard and blinks. “Mr. Ryker. You’re injured.”
Yeah, no shit, doc. And guess who’s about to emotionally bleed out?
The only seats left are across from each other. Jett walks me to one, then takes the other, drags it beside me, and nudges Randy’s out of the way.
Dr. Dickblock opens his mouth. Then closes it, deciding living is more important.
He starts the group by asking Randy about his week, which sounds like the world’s most boring episode of Cops. A few more men go. Blah blah blah rage. Blah blah blah toxic masculinity. Then Dr. Dickblock’s gaze lands on Jett.
“Mr. Ryker, can you please share with us what happened this week?”
I brace, but it’s already too late. My whole body’s gone still, keyed up like a dog about to bark at a thunderstorm. Jett shifts next to me and God, he still smells like sex and danger and sandalwood soap.
“Didn’t kill anyone,” he says, voice flat.
A win. I think.
“Said some shit. Rude shit. Meant it all. Hated that it hurt someone I care about.”
My heart goes full trampoline. That’s about me. That’s definitely about me.
“Hate that I fucking care,” he keeps going, like he’s talking to the wall across from us. Like he’s not gutting me with every word.
I sit on my damn hands because if I don’t, I’ll touch him. I’ll reach for his wrist, my scrunchie still there like a neon sign that says, “this man has been sinned against and is still simping.”
He inhales sharply. “Took it out on some shitheads in a bar.”
Oh. Oh. I knew he was beat up but hearing it? Knowing he bled for me while I was crying into a pint of Cherry Garcia and spiral-texting Rhys? My stomach flips.
“Chad pushed my button.”
“How did you respond to Mr. Petergrind?” Dickblock asks, pretending he doesn’t get off on this shit.
“Forgot my mantra,” Jett says. “Last line won’t stick. I knocked him out.”
The room tilts. My lungs decide now is a good time to half-work.
“Jett,” I whisper, soft and sorry and useless.
“Miss Darling,” Dickblock snaps, “how was your week?”
Oh. We’re doing this now. Public execution via oversharing. Cool.
I sit up straighter. My spine is a mess, but my lipstick’s still perfect. “Chad called me very rude things.”
Dickblock checks his notes, because it’s just now occurring to him that I’m not here for Chad, I’m here for Hank and his crusty-bitch-woman from hell.
“Mr. Petergrind?” he asks. “How did you respond?”
“I smacked my name out of his mouth.”
“Right on,” Rabid Randy grunts.
“That’s not the appropriate way to respond,” Dickblock says, clearly unfamiliar with the restorative power of a slap.
“Well you never gave me a mantra, so really that’s on you,” I say sweetly.
The man across from me snorts and hides a laugh in his arm. Good. I hope it haunts Dickblock forever.
“Anything else?” the good doctor asks.
Yes. So many things. But I don’t tell him about Chad’s car or Kira’s door or the chicken man incident.
I look straight ahead. Jett’s knee is a heat source beside mine. My fingers twitch with want.
“I hurt someone I…” I pause.
The room goes quiet. A chair creaks.
“Someone I love.”
Jett stiffens.
Yeah. Feel that, baby.
“I handled them wrong and I ran my stupid, stupid mouth and I made everything worse,” I continue, voice wobbling now. “But I meant what I said. Every gift, every note, every time I touched him, I meant it. And I’m sorry. I’d carve an apology in my own thigh if I thought it’d help.”
The room gasps. Someone whispers “Jesus Christ”.
But Jett doesn’t move.
And I don’t look at him.
Because if I do, I’ll fall apart right here in front of Dr. Dickblock and his rage minions.