Chapter Seven
Wolfe
Eyes on you - SWIM
Her room’s small, but cleaner than I expect.
One bed. Lamp on. Beaten-up chair in the corner. AC humming loud enough to cover a silence if anybody lets one happen.
Echo kicks off her shoes by the door and sweeps one arm out dramatically. “Well? Go on then. I was promised a proper safety inspection.”
Thorne snorts and heads straight for the bathroom like he’s fully committing to the joke. “Right, yeah. Lemme just make sure there’s not some psychopath hiding behind the shower curtain.”
I laugh under my breath and glance around the room again, taking in the thin curtains, the cheap dresser, the motel art bolted to the wall. Still don’t love it.
Echo catches that too, of course she does.
“What?” she asks, already smiling. “Still judging?”
“A little,” I admit.
She shakes her head and moves deeper into the room while Thorne opens the bathroom door.
“All clear,” he calls a second later. “No murderers. Bit disappointed, honestly.”
Echo laughs, turning back toward me. “See? Not so bad.”
I walk over to the bed and crouch, lifting the edge of the duvet just enough to look underneath.
That gets a laugh out of both of them.
“Oh my God,” Echo says. “You’re actually checking.”
I glance up at her. “You said monsters under the bed.”
“Anything good under there?” Thorne snorts.
“Just dust and carpet stains.”
Echo leans back against the dresser, arms folding loosely over her middle, eyes bright with amusement. “What about the wardrobe? Could still be something absolutely terrifying hiding in there.”
I straighten up, smiling despite myself, and for a second it’s easy. Just the three of us in this tiny room, the night still warm under our skin, the joke still half alive between us.
Then Echo looks from him to me.
Not casually, either.
Slow, like she’s been watching us all night and has finally decided to stop being subtle about it.
Her head tips slightly. “So.”
Thorne lets out a laugh under his breath. “So?”
I lean back a little against the foot of the bed, crossing my arms. “Go on, trouble.”
Her gaze flicks between us again, and there’s that same wicked little glint in it from downstairs. “Am I imagining things, or have you two been dancing around each other all night?”
I huff a laugh before I can stop it.
Thorne looks personally attacked. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“What?” Echo asks, all innocence she absolutely does not possess. “I’m just asking. I sensed some tension.”
“No, you’re stirring shit,” he says.
“Maybe a little, but you can’t blame a girl for picking up on what you two are giving off.”
“That obvious is it?” I ask, because apparently I enjoy making his life harder.
Echo looks at me first. Then him. “To me? Yeah.”
Thorne drags a hand over his face. “God, this might be the worst night of my life.”
Echo grins. “Oh, relax. It’s not the worst night of your life. You’re just having a crisis because someone finally called your bluff.”
Fuck me she’s having way too much fun with this.
I should probably be more embarrassed than I am, but honestly, I’m fucking not. If anything, I’m a little amused. Mostly because she’s saying out loud the exact thing me and Thorne have been skirting around for way too long, and she clocked it in one night flat.
One fucking night.
Thorne shifts his weight, eyes going everywhere except me and that gets me right in the chest.
Because under all the swagger and noise, I know exactly what's going through his head. The edge of panic. The instinct to laugh it off before it turns into something real.
Echo seems to catch that too, because when she speaks again, her voice is still playful, but softer around the edges.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
His eyes flick up.
Then to me, and there it is again, that tight pull low in my chest. Buzzed head, sharp blue eyes, neck ink crawling up his throat, mouth still kiss-swollen and a little wrecked—Thorne looks dangerous even when he’s the one coming undone.
I step closer, careful not to crowd him. “She’s right.”
Thorne’s throat works once. “You’re both being very calm about this.”
I smile. “Should I be less calm?”
“That would honestly help.”
Echo laughs softly and pushes off the dresser.
“Maybe you two should stop thinking it. I mean it’s obvious you want each other.”
She steps right between us when she says it, one hand catching the front of my shirt, the other finding Thorne’s wrist and tugging him closer too. Then she turns toward me first, her body slotting into the space she’s just made, and rises just enough to press her mouth to mine.
It’s slow and intentional.
I kiss her back, my hand settling at her waist while she keeps hold of Thorne with her other hand, like she already knows he’s the one more likely to slip if she lets go.
When she pulls back from me, it’s only far enough to turn her head and body toward him.
Her fingers slide from his wrist to the front of his shirt, and she kisses him next, easy and unhurried, giving him room to meet her halfway.
Thorne lets out this soft, surprised breath against her mouth, and the sound hits me low and hard, a sharp jolt straight to my cock that catches me off guard with how fast it happens.
Fuck.
I don’t know if it’s him making that sound, or the sight of him finally letting himself lean into something instead of joking his way around it, but it gets me bad.
Echo kisses him again, still patient, still coaxing more than taking, and I watch the way his hand tightens at her waist, the way his lashes lower, and his whole body seems caught between nerves and fucking want.
Watching them together sends a chill through me in the best way, the kind that starts at the back of my neck and rolls all the way down my spine.
She shifts again, turning so her shoulder brushes my chest while she faces Thorne, one hand reaching back for me without looking, keeping me close while she kisses him once more.
Then she pivots the other way, her palm gliding over my sternum as she comes back to me, pressing another kiss to my mouth before glancing at him through her lashes like she knows exactly how tight she’s pulling this fucking line.
By now I’m hard enough to be annoyed about it, and very aware I’m not the only one feeling this.
I catch his eye over her shoulder, but he quickly looks away.
Echo notices, and a faint smile touches her mouth, as then she plants a hand on each of us and draws us in closer, her body the only thing between ours now.
“There,” she murmurs, like she’s half talking to herself.
Thorne laughs under his breath, all rough edges. “You’re taking the piss now, you know that?”
“Maybe.”
Thorne looks completely wrecked by it.
Not in some dramatic, cinematic way. In a real one. His mouth pink from Echo’s kisses, chest rising a little too fast, as his eyes flicker to mine and away again like he wants this badly enough to hate himself for it.
He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh, all frayed around the edges. “You are an actual menace.”
“Mm.” She tips her face toward him, brushing one last kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You want him. I want you both. So let’s stop pretending.”
That gets his eyes back on hers.
Then on me.
He doesn’t say a word, and yet his eyes say everything.
Echo’s hand slides from my chest to my shoulder, then from his shirt to his jaw, holding us both in the moment for half a second longer. “There’s no prize for resisting something we both know you want,” she murmurs.
Thorne swallows hard.
The room feels tiny now. Cheap motel air. Hum of the AC. Lamp throwing everything in gold. My goddamn pulse is pounding like it’s trying to get out of me.
Echo looks between us one more time, like she’s taking stock, then slowly lets her hands fall away.
Not all at once.
Just enough.
Just enough that there’s nothing left between us but the choice.
Thorne’s eyes drop to my mouth.
Stay there, and Christ, that nearly undoes me by itself.
I hold his gaze and let him see that I’m here, that I’m not about to laugh this off in the morning, that if he wants it, I’ll meet him there.
Echo leans in close to his ear, her voice low and pleased. “Go on.”
That breaks whatever thin thread he’s been hanging from.
He steps into me and kisses me like he’s done fighting it.
It isn’t careful and it sure as fuck isn’t tentative.
It’s hot and hungry and a little angry around the edges, like he’s got hours of tension and a dozen swallowed thoughts caught behind his teeth and this is the only way he knows how to let any of it out.
My hand is on the back of his neck before I even register moving, and I kiss him back just as hard, because there’s no world where I’m giving him anything less than everything I’ve been holding back.
He makes this rough, helpless sound that goes straight through me.
My other hand catches his waist and drags him closer, and he comes without hesitation now, one fist tangling holding me by my hair like he needs the anchor of it.
There’s nothing polished about the way he kisses me. It’s just want. Real, messy and so fucking overdue in the best way.
“Fuck yes, There we go,” she murmurs, eyes moving between us. “That’s better.”
Thorne lets out a rough exhale, still close enough that every breath brushes my mouth.
His hand is still fisted in my hair, like he hasn’t remembered how to let go yet.
Echo’s fingers smooth over his chest, then up into his hair, grounding him while she kisses the corner of his mouth, slow and coaxing.
“You feel that?” she asks softly.
He laughs under his breath, a little wrecked around the edges. “Bit hard to miss, innit?”
Her smile curves. “Good.”
Then she looks at me, still holding him. “Don’t let him run.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I say.
That gets me a look from Thorne. He's flushed, and overwhelmed but fuck me, he’s never looked hotter.
“You two are being deeply annoying.”
Echo grins and kisses him again, slower this time, drawing him back under before he can joke his way out of it. When she pulls away, her forehead brushes his for a second.