Chapter 67 Adela
I wake up when it's still dark.
Not from a nightmare. Not from pain. I open my eyes, and I'm awake completely.
Cody’s behind me with his arm across my waist and his face in my hair. He’s holding on like nothing has changed. Beckett is beside me, already awake. His hand is near mine on the blanket. Not holding it. Just there.
Theo is in the chair by the window.
Looking at me.
I look back at him in the dark, and I think about how last night I said, “I choose all three of you.”
And I think about the complete silence from three large men who have been fighting for months. They said nothing, and they’re all still here in this lake house.
And I feel it.
Something I didn't feel last night when I said it.
Last night I felt like it was a trap. A weapon pointed outward.
I said it because I knew Cody Ravenshaw's possessiveness better than he knew it himself, and I was certain — completely certain — that he would blow up and give me my exit.
I thought I would walk out of this lake house having won something.
He didn't explode. He didn’t even get mad.
None of them reacted the way I thought they would.
And I lay here in the dark between all three of them, and I feel the trap disappear. I thought I was the one caught in it.
But that's not what this is.
I look at Theo's face in the dark. I think about the margin notes, and I would burn every other thing down before I'd take it back. I think about Beckett's safety net. He truly helped me heal during those hard days. And Cody’s ridiculous and outrageous ways of showing me he loves me.
I think about what it means that all three of them are still here.
That none of them said no to me.
I have three men.
Three.
And not ordinary men. These impossible, infuriating, devastating men who have been circling me since before I knew they existed and have never once looked at me like I was anything less than the thing they would rearrange everything for.
I am the thing they would rearrange everything for.
I lie in the dark, feeling that settle into me, and I think—
I have all the power here.
Not the performed kind. Not the kind I've been using as a weapon since the hospital. Real power.
I just have to decide what to do with it.
I look at Theo.
He's still looking at me.
I hold his gaze in the dark for a long moment.
Then I sit up.
"Prove it," I say.
My voice is quiet just for him. Cody doesn't stir. Beckett goes still beside me. Theo looks at me from the chair.
"Prove what," he says. His voice low. Even. The controlled version. The version I have been trying to crack since a library on the third floor.
"That you mean it," I say. "All of it. The margin notes, the strawberries, the pendant, and everything you said in this book.
" I look at him steadily. "Prove that I'm not something you planned for and executed.
Prove that right now in this room it's real and it's mine and I didn't just walk into your trap. And in the end, I’m just a way to get back at Cody. "
He's quiet for a moment and then he stands up from the chair.
His tall body crosses the room slowly. I don't move. He stops in front of me and looks down.
"Every single thing I have ever felt about you has been real," he says. His hand comes up to my face. His thumb at my jaw. "You want me to prove it."
"Yes," I say.
"Okay," he says.
He leans down and kisses me.
Beckett removes himself from the bed, and Theo’s body looms over me in the new space.
I reach for him and pull his shirt over his head. I let my hands map his chest, shoulders, and I feel the tension coiled in every muscle.
He catches my wrist.
Just briefly. His fingers wrapping around it, holding it still.
I look up at him in the dark.
"Are you sure, Adela?" he asks quietly. “Is this what you want?”
It's the first time I've ever heard him ask permission for anything. The first time I've seen him uncertain.
And I realize that this is what I needed to see. Not the performance. The person underneath it.
"Yes," I say.
His grip loosens. His hand slides up my arm, my shoulder, finding the side of my neck.
And then he lets it go.
Whatever control he carries in every room he's ever been in — it goes.
I feel it in the way he kisses me again, deeper this time, no restraint left. His tongue slides against mine and I open for him completely. Feel it in the way his hands move over me — not calculated, not strategic, just wanting. He cups my breast through my shirt, and I arch into his palm.
I've never seen this version of him.
The one that doesn't plan three moves ahead. The one that just feels.
He pulls my shirt over my head, and his mouth finds my collarbone, my shoulder, the hollow of my throat. His teeth graze my skin, and I gasp. His hands are everywhere — my waist, my hips, sliding lower to hook into the waistband of my underwear.
He pauses.
I lift my hips in answer.
He slides them down slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, and then his hand is between my thighs, and I stop breathing.
"Look at me," he says quietly.
I already am.
His fingers move against me slow at first, learning what makes my breath catch, what makes me grip his shoulders. He watches my face the entire time, reading every reaction, and when he finds the rhythm that makes me moan, he doesn't change it.
He keeps going, focused entirely on me.
I feel the power of it. Not power over him. Power with him. That he's choosing me completely.
His thumb circles and presses and I feel myself climbing toward something inevitable. My hands find his hair, his shoulders, anything to anchor myself.
"Theo," I breathe.
He makes a sound low in his throat, and the control I've always seen in him fractures completely.
He pulls his hand away and I almost protest until I feel him positioning himself between my thighs. He's still wearing his jeans, so I reach for his zipper, fumbling with the button until he helps me, shoving them down just enough.
Then he's there, at my entrance, and he pauses.
"Adela."
Just my name.
Once.
In a tone I've never heard from him before.
I pull him down to me and kiss him. He pushes inside in one slow, devastating thrust that makes us both go still.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Just breathe together in the dark.
Then he starts to move.
Not slowly. Not carefully. Like something in him finally broke open and this is what was underneath — this raw, desperate need that he's been holding back since the library, since the coffee shop, since every moment we've stood close enough to touch and didn't.
I wrap my legs around his waist and meet him thrust for thrust. His mouth finds mine again and we kiss like we're trying to consume each other. His hand slides under my knee, hitching my leg higher, changing the angle, and I cry out against his mouth.
"Yes," he breathes. "Like that."
He moves faster, harder, and I feel myself climbing again, higher this time, closer to the edge.
His forehead drops to mine. His breathing is ragged. Every muscle in his body is tense with restraint that's barely holding.
"I can't—" he starts, and I feel him trying to slow down, trying to wait for me.
I reach between us, my fingers finding where we're joined, touching myself the way he did earlier.
His eyes go dark.
"Fuck," he breathes, and the control shatters completely.
He drives into me harder, and I feel it building — that tight coil of heat low in my belly pulling tighter and tighter until it finally breaks.
I come with his name on my lips, my body clenching around him, and I feel him follow half a second later, his entire body going rigid as he buries himself deep and lets go.
Afterward, I look at him.
His breathing is still uneven. His hand is in my hair, his forehead pressed against mine. We're both slick with sweat, both still trembling slightly.
I look at him in the dark and I see the undone quality of a man whose composure went somewhere it hasn't been before.
I did that.
He looks back at me, and for the first time since I've known him, there's nothing calculated in his expression. Nothing three steps ahead.
Just him looking at me like I'm the only thing in the room.
"Was that proof enough?" he asks quietly.
I don't answer immediately as I reach up and touch his face — his jaw, the sharp line of his cheekbone, the place where his hair falls across his forehead.
"Yes," I finally say.
He exhales long and steady, like he's been holding his breath for longer than he realized.
Then he pulls me closer, tucking me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me in a way that feels protective and possessive and entirely clear of choice.
And I lie there in the dark, feeling his heartbeat slow against mine, knowing that something fundamental just shifted between us.
Then I remember that Beckett is awake.
I look over at the light in the kitchen, and his eyes are already on mine.
He brings his hands up and gestures for me to come over.
I look at Theo and then point at myself. "Me?" I whisper.
He nods, gesturing again.
I attempt to leave, but Theo pulls me back.
"Where do you think you're going?" he whispers.
"I'll be right back," I murmur and then sit up, but before I can get away, Cody's hand locks around my arm.
"You're not going anywhere," Cody says in a sleepy voice. "Not after the show you just gave me."
My heart stops.
He was awake.
He pulls me down to him, and I go—not fighting it, just letting him guide me until I'm against his chest. He kisses me differently than last night. Last night he was aggressive, claiming, almost punishing. Right now he's delicate. Soft. Like I'm something precious he's afraid of breaking.
"I've thought about this a lot," he murmurs against my lips. "And I had no idea you were such a bad girl."
The words make something hot and shameful coil in my stomach. I feel naughty. Alive.
I kiss him harder, my teeth catching his bottom lip.