Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Ember
I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me last night. I’d danced with Nick and Oakley until my eyes couldn’t stay open any longer. Between the alcohol and the delicious warmth of the two of them on either side of me, I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so relaxed.
But that was then. By the time breakfast rolled around on Christmas Eve? Doubt and embarrassment had set in. What did Nick think about what had happened? Maybe it would have seemed innocent if not for the way he’d teased me the night before, making me come harder than I think I ever had in my life.
I was hyperaware of Oakley’s presence. We had pastries and hot drinks for breakfast, and every small piece of eye contact, every brush of our hands, made me want to run and hide.
Nick didn’t seem to think anything was wrong at all.
He hummed cheerfully as he poured milk into his coffee, told anyone who’d listen what a great night they’d had last night, and had smiled at me all morning.
If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was overcompensating, or bottling it all up to yell at me later, but this was Nick. Closed off, yes, but a liar? Never.
Except when he didn’t tell you about his parents’ estate.
I shrugged the thought away and licked chocolate off the tip of my finger from where it had leaked out of my pastry. Finger in my mouth, I looked up and found both Nick and Oakley watching me — the former with a smirk on his mouth, the latter with heat in his eyes.
What the hell had I got myself into?
“The snow has eased off a little,” Rachel said, smiling brightly as she looked around the table at all of us. “So I think we’ll be able to go on our usual walk. Ember, darling, did you bring boots?”
I nodded. “I’m all set, thank you.”
I was actually looking forward to getting out of this house, away from the two confusing brothers, and into the fresh air.
Plus, it looked like a winter wonderland outside.
The snow behind the house was crisp and untouched, glittering lightly in the sun, and the forest looked like it could have graced the front of a Christmas card.
Apparently there was a trail that ran through it that the Hart’s hiked every year on Christmas Eve.
It sounded festive and fun and, if I was being completely honest, made me feel a little sad imagining what holiday traditions my parents might have had before I’d lost them, earlier than my memories stretched back.
“I’ll pack a few flasks of hot tea and coffee,” Rachel murmured to herself, like she was making a list. “Go and get your warm clothes on, everyone. Be back downstairs in ten, okay?”
We all mumbled our assent and I gulped the last of my hot chocolate before following Nick upstairs to our room and adding on extra layers. Though his dad insisted it was pretty mild outside, which I didn’t believe for a second.
Nick smiled at me from opposite the room before he rounded the bed and picked up my red scarf, winding it gently around my neck and fluffing it to make sure it fell just right. He kissed my nose. “Ready?”
I nodded. “My coat’s downstairs.” I hesitated in front of the door before turning around to look at him. “Are we going to talk about last night?”
He raised a brow. “What about it?”
The words died in my throat. Maybe I was making a bigger deal of things than was necessary. It was just a dance after all. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
Everyone was waiting by the door, bar Harper who insisted she was too hungover to walk anywhere. I half-wished I’d made an excuse too as I followed behind Nick’s parents with both Nick and Oakley on either side of me.
The air was cool and dry, the wind practically non-existent, and I had to admit that maybe Lyn had been right — it was relatively mild, considering all the snow surrounding us.
Bare trees were interspersed with firs, all coated in a large layer of white that crunched underfoot.
It was the beautiful powdery kind of snow that gave easily while we walked, not like the kind I’d once broken my ankle in thanks to the ice hidden below the surface.
Nick’s parents pulled up ahead, sipping from their flasks of tea and chattering to each other. In fact, they had a faster pace than I’d anticipated. I’d thought this would be more of a leisurely stroll, admiring the trees and the frozen lake, but they seemed content to power walk the forest away.
By the time we’d been walking for ten minutes, Lyn had found himself a large stick he was using to walk with and he and Rachel were so far ahead of us that we would have had to run to make up the distance.
The brothers seemed unworried though, likely having done this walk a million times. But when Nick reached out and gently held mine and Oakley’s arms to bring us to a stop, nerves suddenly made my stomach swoop.
“Everything okay?” I asked, folding my hands together despite them being fairly warm.
Nick nodded, his eyes looking darker than usual against the bright white of the snow on the trees behind him.
“Yeah, I just wanted to show you guys something.” He stepped off the path and Oakley and I shared a look before following him into a small clearing tucked away behind a row of trees with only a small gap to walk through.
Even if his parents hadn’t been so far ahead, there was no chance of them seeing us through the thicket.
The clearing was empty and small, only just about big enough for the three of us to stand in, but Nick was looking at us expectantly so I smiled.
“Ah, nice,” I said slowly. “You come here often?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I thought we could use some privacy.”
“For what?” Oakley said, and I was glad he seemed to be just as in the dark as I was.
“To talk, for now.”
“Nick, can we just do this back at the house—” I began and closed my mouth abruptly when Nick cut me off.
“Oakley’s in love with you.”
I fell still, uncertainty making my limbs go heavy as I kept my eyes on Nick, not even daring to glance at his brother. The forest fell still around us, like it too could sense the enormity of what Nick had just said. “Nick—”
“It’s true, isn’t it, brother?”
My eyes slid reluctantly to Oakley, who looked paler than usual. “Don’t—”
“Yeah, it’s true,” Oakley said the words curtly, like he’d rather die than say them aloud but also refused to lie.
“I’m sorry, okay? I know I’m an asshole.
I promise I’ve tried to stay away, to stop thinking about her but…
” My heart thundered in my chest as he looked at me, pain wrinkling his eyes at the corners.
“I want you. I have since the moment I first saw you.” He lifted his face to the sky, blinking rapidly.
“What do you want from me, Nick? You want me to leave?”
Nick looked at the both of us, a slow appraisal that for some reason made a slow wash of heat roll through me. “What I want… Is for you to touch her.”
Say what now?
Oakley made a choked sound and I knew my mouth was hanging open as Nick looked between the two of us. He raised a brow, cocky, confident, and I was instantly wet.
“Problem?” he said smoothly and I swallowed hard, because the truth was that no, there wasn’t a problem. Not at all. And maybe that should have concerned me, to want someone so much who wasn’t my boyfriend, to want his brother, but instead all I felt was heat, want, need.
Oakley was silent, and I wasn’t sure what he was thinking until he looked at me and I saw the indecision on his face. Raw desire battling with some sense of duty he felt toward Nick. So I straightened my shoulders and looked him in the eye as I repeated Nick’s words.
“Touch me.”
Oakley shuddered and then he was reaching for me, hand trembling like he was worried I’d be snatched from his grasp at the last minute.
His hand cupped my cheek and swept down toward my jaw, his thumb stroking across my bottom lip before it dipped into my mouth and I sucked it eagerly.
His eyes darkened and I could tell that whatever self-control he had was moments away from snapping.
“Show him, sweetheart,” Nick said, startling me. “Show him where you want him to touch you.”
My breath rushed out of me and I shut my eyes briefly, trying to regain some composure, before I took Oakley’s hand and guided it down to my breast. “Here,” I rasped out and a muscle in his jaw ticked as he looked between me and Nick.
“Are you sure about this, Nick?”
Nick walked forward, that cocky little smirk still on his face as he reached me and bent his head to kiss me.
It was a messy kiss, dirty, with tongue and teeth that left me panting afterwards.
“You want Oakley to kiss you like that, don’t you, baby?
” I nodded. “You’re not going to make her beg are you, Oak? ”
I looked at him and found only hunger on his face, written in every line of his body. “Oakley?”
He prowled toward me and Nick backed out of the way as Oakley hesitated a breath away from my lips before finally covering them with his own.
We both groaned and our hands reached for the other at the same time.
When I breathed, all I could smell, taste, was Oakley.
His mouth was ravenous on mine, wringing whimpers and moans from me as he kissed me like he’d thought he’d never have the chance.
When he pulled back, my face cradled between his palms, we were both breathing hard.
“My turn,” Nick said, and Oakley released me, the slow drag of his fingers against my skin feeling like reluctance, but I was too caught up in Nick to protest. Hot kisses nipped at my lips, down my throat, as Nick tugged aside the scarf he’d so tenderly wrapped me in earlier.
He turned my head and my mouth was caught by Oakley once again, his tongue teasing me, tasting me, taking the time to explore after the first frenetic meeting of our mouths.
“You take us so well,” Nick groaned and when he backed me beneath a snow-laden tree, I didn’t protest. “Do you think you can take more, baby?” I nodded eagerly and he unzipped my long coat before dropping to his knees in front of me in the snow. “And what about Oakley? You want him to join us?”
I nodded and when Nick continued to look at me, I opened my mouth. “Yes.”
“What do you think, Oak? Shall we make our girl come for us?”
Oakley moved closer, eyes roving my body before he leaned in to kiss me, long and lingering. “Whatever our girl wants.”
“Please,” I whimpered, as Oakley joined his brother on the ground, the two of them looking up at me in a mirror image that made my breasts tighten.
Nick flicked open the button on my jeans and eased down the zipper, his hands stroking down my legs as he eased the jeans past my thighs and toward my ankles. “Isn’t she gorgeous, Oak?”
Oakley nodded, eyes enraptured as he reached out and stroked one finger over the visibly damp spot at the front of my pink panties. “So wet.”
“For you,” I gasped out. “Both of you.”
Nick pushed the material to one side and the cold air slid over me, making me shiver.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll keep you warm.
” The pads of two fingers pressed gently to my clit, stroking it in a circle before dipping down to push inside of me, shallowly fucking me while Oakley watched.
“Oakley already knows what you like, don’t you Oak?
We gave him quite the show in the corridor the other night. ”
My eyes flew wide as I looked between the two brothers. Oakley barely reacted beyond a side glance at Nick before he refocused on me and the space between my legs where Nick’s fingers moved.
Oakley retraced Nick’s path, starting at my clit and then moving lower until they both had two fingers inside me, pumping in tandem. My thighs opened wider, needing more, and Nick laughed, a dark possessive sound that made arousal rush between my legs.
“She’s so greedy,” Nick mused. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
Oakley nodded. “You wanted me to watch.” It wasn’t a question, but when Nick’s grin widened, Oakley sighed. “You let me pine all this time, when all along you wanted to share her?”
Nick lifted a shoulder, leaning in closer to me so that I could feel his breath on my clit when he spoke.
“I had to make sure you both wanted this.” He looked up at me and my breath caught in my chest when he curled his fingers against the spot inside that always brought me to the edge.
“And now I know you do.” His mouth lowered and I cried out when his mouth closed around my center, sucking hard before releasing me in favour of long, teasing licks while their fingers worked me.
When Nick pulled away, there was only a moment of relief before Oakley took over, feasting on me in long luxurious tastes that sent a bolt of heat straight to my clit.
“Yes,” I panted. “More.” They obeyed, stretching their fingers out inside me until I writhed, disturbing the lower branches of the tree and showering us all with snow. “I’m close—”
“Come for us,” Nick said and Oakley groaned into my wet heat as he drove me to the edge and I ground myself against his face, chasing the high with every rock of my hips until it crashed down around me.
“Good girl,” Nick rumbled and I smiled sleepily as my body relaxed completely, my muscles like jelly. “Come on. Let’s go and get warmed up.”