17. Cruz
CRUZ
Dante’s apartment smells like garlic and red wine, the leftover residue of a dinner none of us really ate.
Dakota pushed food around her plate the whole time.
Eli barely touched his. I cleaned both their plates because waste pisses me off and because shoveling food into my mouth gave me something to do with my hands.
Now we’re sprawled across Dante’s sectional, Dakota tucked between my thigh and Dante’s, her bare feet hooked over Eli’s knee where he sits on the ottoman across from us.
He keeps brushing his thumb along her ankle bone.
Three weeks ago he wouldn’t have touched her in front of us if you’d held a knife to his throat.
She breaks the quiet first.
“We need to talk about Brady.”
Dante’s hand stills on her hip. Eli’s thumb stops moving. I let out a long breath through my nose because, yeah, no shit we do.
“Bad day?” I ask, even though I watched half of it from across the gym.
“Interesting week.” She picks at a loose thread on the cuff of my hoodie—the gray one she’s claimed without asking. “He’s coming apart, but not the way you’d think.”
“I noticed.”
“We all noticed,” Dante says. He pulls her closer, fits his chin on top of her head. “He won’t look any of us in the eye anymore. He left the locker room without showering today.”
“He got hard during mount with me this morning.” She says it flat, like she’s reporting a weight cut. Then her voice drops, goes rougher: “And I ground myself on him. Felt every inch of him through our shorts. Told him how wet he made me.”
The room goes absolutely still.
Eli’s hand tightens on her ankle. Dante’s fingers dig into her hip. I feel my dick start to fill.
“Jesus Christ, sweetheart.”
“He didn’t panic. Didn’t apologize.” Her eyes are bright now, remembering. “He groaned. His hands went to my hips and he looked at me like he wanted to devour me right there on the mats.”
“Fuck,” I breathe.
“Then he got control of himself. Locked it down. Finished the drill like nothing happened.” She shifts on the couch, and I can see the flush climbing her throat. “But I saw it. That split second where he wanted to just take what he wanted. Before the guilt kicked in.”
Eli’s jaw works. When he speaks, his voice is strained: “You’re playing with fire, princess.”
“I know.”
“He’s twenty-five years old, fighting everything he’s been taught to believe, and you just showed him you want him back.”
“I know, Daddy.”
“He’s going to obsess over it. He’s going to touch himself thinking about you. He’s going to fight himself.”
“Good.” Her chin comes up. “Let him fight. Let him want it so badly he can’t pretend anymore. Then I’ll catch him.”
Dante’s hand slides from her hip to her thigh, squeezes once. “You’re going to seduce him.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“End of the week. Friday night. I’ll invite him to my place. Just him and me.”
“And after you fuck him?” Dante’s tone is careful, neutral. “What then?”
“Then I tell him the truth. About all of us. About what he could have if he stopped denying how he feels.”
I’m grinning before she finishes the sentence. I can’t help it.
“I fucking love it.”
“Of course you do.” Dante huffs a laugh. “You’d love anything that ends with Brady in our bed.”
“Damn right.” I shift on the couch, adjusting myself. “But sweetheart, you telling me you’ve been grinding on him during drills and I missed it?”
“You were busy with Dante.”
“Could’ve watched that and watched you torture Brady at the same time. That’s my favorite kind of multitasking.”
She laughs, but it’s breathless. “Next time.”
“He’ll spiral,” Dante says, serious again. “Sweetheart, listen to me. After you tell him, he’s going to feel like you used the sex to manipulate him. He’ll hate himself for wanting it. He’ll question you for offering. He’ll be angry at the rest of us for being part of it.”
“I know.”
“So we have to be ready. All of us. The second you tell him, the rest of us need to be reachable. Not lurking, not hovering, but there. The second he texts, the second he calls, whoever he picks—we go.”
“He won’t text right away,” Eli says quietly. “He’s going to need time to process. To fight with himself. To decide if he’s willing to risk everything he thought he knew about himself.”
Dakota reaches across the gap between the couch and the ottoman and takes Eli’s hand.
“He won’t run. Daddy, I promise you. He’s too far in.
” She squeezes his fingers. “I watched him today. He wasn’t fighting his attraction to me.
He was fighting his attraction to you. To Cruz.
To Dante. Every time one of you touched each other, he stared.
Every time he caught himself, he looked away like he’d been caught doing something unforgivable. ”
“He wants all of us,” I say.
“He wants all of us,” she confirms. “He just doesn’t know it’s allowed yet. Doesn’t know he’s allowed.”
“And you’re going to give him permission,” Eli says softly.
“I’m going to give it to him.”
The room goes quiet. Dante looks at me. I look at Eli. Eli looks at Dakota for a long time, and then he nods, slow.
“End of the week.”
“End of the week,” she echoes.
“Friday night.” I crack my knuckles, restless, already half-hard thinking about it. “I’ll make sure his schedule’s clear. Tell him you wanted to talk about training. He’ll come. He’d come if you sent him a postcard with the word hi on it.”
She laughs and the sound loosens a knot in my chest.
“Settled, then.”
Dante’s hand slides higher on her thigh. “You’re going to torture him the rest of the week, aren’t you?”
“Every single day.” Her smile turns wicked. “Every drill that puts me on top of him, I’m making sure he feels it. Feels me. By Friday he’ll be so wound up he won’t know what hit him.”
“Christ, sweetheart.” My voice comes out rough. “You’re dangerous. I can see the headline in the paper now, Death by Dicktease.”
“He can take it.” She tilts her head back against Dante’s shoulder, looks up at him. “He’s stronger than he thinks he is.”
Dante’s dark eyes are full of heat. “He is. But after—after you tell him and he processes—that’s when it gets complicated.”
“I’ll be honest with him.”
“You better be.” Eli’s voice has dropped into Daddy-voice now, the one that makes my spine straighten. “Because if you’re not completely straight with him, princess, he’ll never trust any of us again.”
“I won’t lie to him.” She sounds certain. “I’m going to show him he’s wanted. Show him he’s safe. Show him that what he feels isn’t wrong.”
“And then you’re going to tell him he can have all four of us if he’s brave enough to ask for it,” I finish.
“Yes.”
Dante cups her jaw, turns her face toward his. “You sure about this, baby? Once you start, you can’t take it back. He’ll know. He’ll know today wasn’t an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.” She holds his gaze. “I wanted him to know I was wet for him. Wanted him to go home and touch himself thinking about it. And I told him as much.”
“Fuck,” Dante breathes. Then he kisses her hard, his hand tight on her jaw.
When they break apart, her lips are swollen and her eyes have that lusty gleam in them that we all have come to know and love.
Eli’s watching them with heat in his eyes. “What if he decides he can’t do this?” His voice is quieter now. “What if he chooses his faith, his family’s expectations. What if he walks away? Not just from this, but everything? The gym, his oath, his fight coming up?”
Dakota looks at him over Dante’s shoulder. “Then we let him go. But Daddy, I don’t think that’s what will happen. I saw his face today. Saw his hands on my hips. He didn’t look guilty. He looked hungry.”
Eli tilts his head. “And you’re going to feed that hunger.”
Dakota nods. “I’m going to show him it’s okay to be hungry.”
The room holds that for a moment.
Then Eli nods, slow and certain. “Alright. Friday.”
“Friday,” she confirms.
I lean back against the couch, grinning. “Gonna be a hell of a week.”
“For Brady or for us?” Dante asks.
“Both.”
Dakota laughs, and the sound fills Dante’s apartment like sunlight.
I reach for the wine bottle on the coffee table and refill her glass, then Eli’s, then mine. Dante’s still nursing the same pour he started with an hour ago—the man drinks like he’s auditioning to be sober.
Eli clears his throat.
It’s a small sound, but I’ve spent enough of the last weeks tracking every shift in his body to know that little throat-clear means he’s about to say something that costs him.
“I want to talk about something else.”
Dakota’s smile flickers, curious. “Okay.”
He sets his wine down on the floor beside him. Wipes his palms on his jeans like he’s about to step into a cage.
“I’ve been thinking.” He looks at me first, then Dante. “About us. About what I’m—what I’m comfortable with. What I want.”
“Coach.” Dante’s voice has gone soft, the way it does when someone’s standing on a ledge.
“I’m not there yet. With—” his throat moves “—with full penetrative sex. With either of you. I want to be clear about that.”
“No one’s pushing for that,” I say.
“I know. I know you’re not. That’s why I can think about it without—” He breathes out. “Anyway. I’m not there yet. But I want more than what we’ve been doing. I want to—” He stops. Starts again. “I want to experiment. With both of you. Hands. Mouths. Bodies. I want to play.”
The room shifts. I feel it in my dick before my brain catches up.
“Coach,” I say, and my voice has gone rough. “You wanna play with my cock, all you gotta do is ask.”
His green eyes lift to mine. There’s a flush climbing his neck.
“Then I’m asking.”
Dakota makes a small sound against Dante’s shoulder. Heat, that sound. Pure heat.
Eli holds my gaze for one more beat, then his jaw squares the way it does when he’s about to call a round. Coach-voice. Daddy-voice. The voice that’s started to dismantle me in ways I didn’t know I could be dismantled.
“Get over here, Cruz. On your knees.”
“Fuck.”