26. Jade
JADE
Ryan comes through the door and stops.
He takes in the room—the lamp, the blanket pulled to my hips, the state of me—and I watch him take in the full picture of the night and what he's walked into. He's been on those stairs long enough to hear everything. Both of them. All of it.
He doesn't look away from any of it.
He's still fully dressed. Like getting undressed before he was allowed in the room would have been taking something that wasn't his yet.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey." Rough. A long pause. "You okay?"
The question. In the middle of all of this. After hearing both his father and his brother through the door and sitting there anyway. He asks if I'm okay.
"Yes," I say. "Come here."
He comes to the edge of the bed and stops. Giving me the window.
"Ryan."
"I know," he says. "I just—" His jaw works. "I've been sitting on those stairs since Killian came up. I need a second."
I wait.
He looks at me. Really looks—takes in my face, my throat, the flush still in my chest—and he takes in the full truth of the night and what's warm inside me and what he's being offered last.
"My father told me," he says. "Your window. Before he sent me to my room."
"I know."
"I've been sitting there knowing that." Low. "Knowing he went first, and then Killian, and your window open, and either of them could have—" He stops. "I didn't leave."
"I know you didn't."
"It wasn't easy."
"I know it wasn't." I hold out my hand. "That's why you're here."
He takes it. Sits beside me. Holds my hand in both of his and looks at our fingers for a moment, something working through his face.
"Tell me what you want," he says. "Whatever it is. I need to hear it."
Two years. He spent two years not asking that question. It's the first thing out of him now.
"I want you," I say. "Here. Tonight. For as long as you want to stay."
Something breaks open in his face—relief and grief and wanting, none of it performed.
He reaches up and touches my face. Just his hand, cupping my jaw, his thumb at my cheekbone. Tracing me the way you trace something you've been afraid to want.
"I've spent two years thinking about what I'd say if I ever got here," he says. "What the right words were." A beat. "I can't think of a single one."
"You don't need words."
"I need to say one thing." He meets my eyes. "I wasted the time we had. I'm not going to waste this."
I pull him down.
He comes carefully—still careful, even now—and lies beside me. I roll into him and he wraps his arms around me and holds. His face in my hair. His whole chest moving.
"You heard both of them," I say.
"Yeah."
"All of it?"
"All of it." A pause. "I was hard the entire time. I hated it and I couldn't stop it and I sat there on those stairs and I didn't move." His voice is rough. "Because this is what I get if I hold on. And I wanted this more than I wanted to not feel what I was feeling."
I pull back enough to look at him.
His hand comes up to my face again—jaw, cheekbone, the corner of my mouth. Like he's learning it by feel.
"Tell me what they felt like," he says. Low. "I want to hear it from you."
I look at him. He's not asking me to pretend he didn't sit on those stairs and hear everything. He wants the version from inside the room.
"Cormac was slow," I say. "Deliberate. He looked at me the whole time."
His throat moves.
"And Killian was—" I hold his eye. "Killian. Urgent. Competing. Even just with the idea of you."
He exhales. "And now I'm last. And you're?—"
"Warm," I say. "Still warm. Both of them. And my window is still open."
Something crosses his face that I don't have a word for. Not jealousy. Not quite. The grief of a man who knows exactly what he threw away and is being handed it back anyway.
"I want it to be mine," he says quietly. "I know that might not be fair. I know it might not be mine. But I need you to know that I want?—"
"Ryan," I say. "Come here."
He kisses me.
Not the careful version. His hands in my hair, his mouth warm and urgent, two years of restraint running out all at once. I open for him. Press closer. His breath goes to pieces against my mouth and his hands grip me harder and I pull at his shirt until he gets it over his head.
He gets between my thighs and stills.
"I can feel the warmth," he says. Bare, his cock right at my entrance, not inside yet. "Just from here. Both of them."
"Yes."
He presses forward slightly. "And you want mine on top."
"Yes," I say. "Ryan. Please."
He pushes inside me.
The sound he makes—low and fractured, something that's been held back for two years—and he seats himself fully and goes completely still with his forehead against mine and breathes.
I feel the warmth of Cormac and Killian around him—and now Ryan, and all three of them, all three bare inside my pussy, and the fullness of it is extraordinary. I'm clenching around him in small pulls before he's moved a single stroke.
"God," he breathes. "I can feel them."
"I know."
"I can feel both of them around me." His hands are shaking where they grip my hips. "You're so warm. You're—" He can't finish it.
"Move," I say softly. "Please."
He moves.
Long slow strokes, his eyes on my face the whole time.
Not his father's command. Not Killian's urgency.
Something completely his—like he's trying to memorize every sensation at once, two years of nothing distilled into this.
I wrap my legs around him and tilt into him and he goes deeper and makes a broken sound.
"You feel so good." His rhythm builds. "Jade. You feel?—"
"Don't stop," I say against his ear. "I want to feel you. All of you. Don't hold back."
Something lets go in him.
His pace deepens—heavier, more weight behind each stroke, his whole body into it.
His breath goes rough at my temple. Nine days of being careful and now he's not being careful and I feel everything: his cock moving through the warmth both men left in me, the friction of him, the stretch of the angle changing when I tilt my hips.
I look down between us. The visual of it—his cock disappearing into my pussy, three men's worth of want in this bed—and the sound I make is not controlled.
"Say my name," he says. Desperate. "If you want to."
"Ryan." Right against his ear. "Ryan."
A broken sound and he drives deeper and I'm clenching around him, every stroke, my body gripping and trying to pull him further and he feels every single clench and it's destroying him.
"I can feel you," he says. "Every time you—" Another stroke. "God, Jade?—"
He gets his hand between us. His thumb on my clit. And I've been close since he walked through the door.
I come.
Clenching around him so hard his pace stutters and a raw sound tears out of him into my neck. I say his name. Just his name, over and over, through every pulse while I grip him and shake.
When the wave starts to ebb he's still inside me. Still moving. Slower.
"One more," he says. His voice is wrecked. "Please. Let me feel you one more time."
"Ryan—"
"Please." Not a command. Not a demand. Just the word, stripped bare. "One more."
His hand doesn't move from my clit. He presses gently—not the aggressive circle from before, just steady warm pressure—and keeps moving inside me and I feel it building again, slower, deeper, coming from somewhere lower than the first one.
"Ryan," I say again. Differently. "Ryan?—"
"I know," he breathes. "I've got you."
The second orgasm takes me apart quietly. Not the sharp crest of the first—a deep rolling wave that has me clenching around him in long slow pulses, and I feel his cock kicking against my walls with each one, and his breath goes completely ragged.
"I need to—" He's driving now, losing the rhythm. "Jade, I need?—"
"Yes," I say. "Give me your cum—bare, please—want to feel you fill me?—"
He drives in fully and holds.
Not Killian's sounds. Not Cormac's control. Rawer than either—a low broken sound against my neck and his whole body shuddering and the heat of him filling me in long slow pulses, each one distinct, his cock pulsing against my walls as he empties. He stays buried. His arms come tight around me.
Somewhere underneath the pleasure a thought arrives—not chosen, not dirty talk, just there, enormous and simple: stay. put something in her that lasts. make it yours.
He doesn't move.
He's still inside me and his arms are still around me and I press my hand flat against his chest and feel his heart going.
After a long while his hand comes to my belly. Open. Light. Trembling slightly. Asking something he doesn't have words for yet.
We lie still.
"I'm sorry," he says finally. Into my hair. "For every night that wasn't this."
I press my palm over his on my belly.
"Stop counting them," I say.
He doesn't say anything else.
We stay like that until we both sleep—his warmth inside me, his hand on my belly, all three of them now, the north slope dark beyond the window, harvest in five days.
All of it. Mine.