27. Dakota
DAKOTA
Iwake to warmth pressing in from every side.
For a few seconds I don’t know where I am.
Just heat and weight and the slow rhythm of breathing that isn’t mine.
Then the memory filters back in pieces. Hands, mouths, being filled until there was no room left for fear and I remember.
Dante’s bed. All five of us crammed into a mattress built for two.
Dante’s chest rises under my cheek. Cruz curves against my back, one leg thrown over both of us like he’s staking a claim, his face buried in my hair. Brady lies curled in front of Dante, and Eli has Brady wrapped up tight, guarding him.
I don’t move. Maybe if I stay perfectly still, I can soak up a few more minutes with them like this. My hips ache. My thighs ache. There’s a soreness between my legs that sends heat rushing up my neck even now, alone with my own thoughts while four men sleep around me like a wall.
I watch them in the light bleeding through the curtains.
Dante’s face is peaceful, unguarded in a way he never lets it be awake.
Cruz’s mouth hangs open, a light snore rumbling low in his chest. Brady’s forehead stays creased, working through his dreams the way he works through everything.
And Eli looks younger without the weight he carries when his eyes are open.
I’m falling in love with all of them.
The thought doesn’t crash into me. It just settles, quiet and certain, warm in the center of my chest. Eli’s steadiness. Cruz’s ridiculous mouth and the gentleness underneath it. Dante’s way of being the quiet and steady anchor. Brady’s intensity and dominance he’s finally letting breathe.
Two months ago, I climbed onto a Greyhound with a duffel bag, running from a man who wanted to own me in all the wrong ways. Now I’m in a bed with four men who’ve claimed me in all the right ones.
Eli wakes next. I watch the shift in his breathing, the flicker beneath his eyelids and then his eyes open and find my face like they knew exactly where I’d be. His expression softens.
He doesn’t speak. His hand slides over Brady’s hip and comes to rest on my thigh under the covers, one gentle squeeze.
I smile, and his mouth curves in answer.
Then he eases himself out from behind Brady with the care of a man who’s spent his life not waking people, and tilts his head toward the door. I peel myself free of Dante’s arm and Cruz’s leg, inch by inch, holding my breath.
We make it to the hallway before Eli pulls me in. His kiss is tender and yet desperate. His hands cradle my face like I’m breakable, which I’m not, but I let him believe it for a minute.
“You okay?” Barely above a whisper. “Last night was… a lot.”
“I’m perfect.”
“Princess.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “You sure?”
“I’m sure, Daddy.”
The name visibly affects him. He kisses me again, deeper, walking me backward until my spine meets the wall. His body presses full against mine and I feel him hardening against my hip.
“The others are still asleep,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I know.”
“We could be quiet,” he suggests.
“Could we?” My hand is already sliding into his boxer briefs, wrapping around him.
His breath stutters. “Maybe not.”
He lifts me anyway. I lock my legs around his waist and he carries me into Dante’s bathroom, shutting the door with a soft click. He sets me on the counter and the cold marble bites my bare thighs. I gasp.
This is different from last night. Last night we were starving. This is desperate but with less bite to it. Just the two of us and the light coming through the frosted window.
He strips the oversized T-shirt over my head and his hands map me like he’s memorizing the curve of my breasts, the dip of my waist, the flare of my hips. His mouth finds my collarbone. The hollow of my throat. He takes his time.
“You’re so beautiful.” The words land against my shoulder. “Do you know that? How beautiful you are?”
My throat tightens. “Coach.”
He drops to his knees on the bathroom floor, and the sight of it undoes me a little. Eli Morgan, forty years old, always the one in control, kneeling before me.
He spreads my thighs and puts his mouth on me like it’s worship.
Slow, thorough licks, no hurry in him at all.
I’m still tender from last night, and the drag of his tongue over my clit jerks my hips off the counter.
His hands hold me steady, strong and sure, and he teases me with a patience that borders on cruelty. I bite my fist to stay quiet.
When I come, it rolls through me soft and deep, nothing like the sharp detonations of last night. He gentles me through it, then stands and kisses me so I taste myself on his tongue.
“I love the way you taste. I love making you feel good.”
He settles between my thighs and slides into me in one lazy roll of his hips. We groan into each other’s mouths. I’m sore. I want him anyway. I want the intimacy of just us when we’re usually part of a larger constellation.
He moves slow and deep, forehead pressed to mine, hands framing my face. Every thrust is deliberate. His eyes never leave mine, and I can read everything in them—the love he hasn’t spoken, the fear of losing this, the wonder that I’m his.
“You’re ours.” A whisper. “Our girl. My princess. Ours to protect. Ours to worship. Ours to love.”
The words crack something open in my chest. “Yours. I’m yours, Daddy.”
“And I’m yours.” He drives deeper, finds the spot that sparks white behind my eyelids. “All of me. Everything I am. All of yours.”
I come again, clenching around him, and it drags him over the edge with me. He buries his face in my neck and spills into me with a muffled groan, marking me his even though I belong to three other men too.
We stay like that, breathing together, his hands still gentle on my face.
“I’m falling in love with you,” I whisper. “With all of you. But you—Daddy, I’m so in love with you.”
His eyes close. When they open, the corners shine wet.
“I’m in love with you too, princess. Have been since the day I fucking saw you, I think. Was just too scared to admit it.”
“Don’t be scared.” I kiss him. “Not of this. Not of us.”
“I’m trying.” He eases out of me, helps me down from the counter. “It’s new. Being this vulnerable. But I’m trying.”
We clean up together with warm water, a washcloth, his hands careful between my thighs.
We move around each other in the small space like we’ve done it a hundred mornings.
Before we leave, he pulls me back against his chest and just holds me, his heartbeat steady under my ear.
“We should get back before they wake up and panic.”
“They’re probably already awake.” I grin into his chest. “Cruz doesn’t sleep past seven-thirty. Ever.”
I’m right. The bedroom door stands open and voices drift from the kitchen. Cruz’s laugh, Dante’s low rumble, Brady saying words that make them both answer at once. The rich scent of coffee hangs in the air.
We find the three of them in various states of undress. Cruz leans against the counter in boxer briefs, mug in hand. Dante fights a pan of eggs in nothing but sweatpants. Brady sits at the small table fully dressed, like a man ready to bolt.
“There they are.” Cruz’s grin spreads wide. “Bathroom plumbing working okay, Eli?”
“Shut up, Bennett,” he replies.
Cruz shrugs. “Just checking. You two were in there for a while.”
Heat climbs my face, but I don’t apologize. I cross to the coffee pot, pour a cup, add cream and sugar with four sets of eyes on me. The attention should make my skin itch, instead I feel so safe.
Brady stands and comes to me, presses a kiss to my forehead without a word. His hand rests on my lower back a beat before he moves to refill his own mug. Two months ago this man couldn’t look at any of us. Now he touches me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Dante plates the eggs that are only slightly burnt, and we crowd around his tiny table, knees bumping, forks raiding each other’s plates. Cruz makes a joke about water conservation and shared showers that earns him my heel against his shin.
Domestic. Mundane. Perfect.
The rest of the morning dissolves into logistics. Showers get arranged—Cruz and me first, then Brady and Dante, Eli last. We dress, gather bags, scrub the apartment of evidence like criminals leaving the scene of a felony. Which, professionally speaking, we kind of are.
When it’s time to go, we end up standing in Dante’s living room in a loose circle, and nobody moves for the door.
I grab my gym bag, and when I turn back, Eli’s there, pulling me in for one more kiss.
“Be careful today.” His mouth brushes mine. “No lingering looks.”
“That was one time,” I protest.
“Once is enough to get caught.”
“I’ll be good, Daddy.”
“I know you will, princess.”
I drive to Oath alone and park in a different section of the lot. Inside, Cruz is already warming up, and we trade the briefest nod—teammates, nothing more.
But I can still feel where Eli was inside me an hour ago. Still carry the ghost of Brady’s hand on my back, Dante’s arms around me, Cruz’s laugh vibrating through his chest against my cheek.
Eight hours. We just have to make it eight hours.
I pull on my hand wraps and get to work, pretending my heart isn’t across the gym with four men I fall deeper in love with every single day.