Chapter 22 #2
Mine. Ours. This woman who kills without hesitation and loves with her whole heart, who matches my wit and challenges my strategies and makes me want to be better than I am.
"Asher," she says, and her hand is reaching for me even while Zay's mouth is on her breast and Xavier's fingers are between her legs. "Stop analyzing and get over here."
I smile despite myself—she knows me too well, knows that I have a tendency to observe and catalog instead of participate when I'm trying to process too many emotions at once. But she's right. There will be time for analysis later. Right now, there's just this.
I join them on the bed, my hand sliding up her thigh to join Xavier's exploration, my mouth finding hers for a kiss that tastes like want and promise and home.
She gasps against my lips when both our fingers slide inside her, when Zay's teeth find her nipple with just enough pressure to make her back arch.
"Already so wet," Xavier observes with satisfaction. "Were you thinking about this during the whole meeting?"
"Maybe," she admits breathlessly. "You all looked very commanding. It was distracting."
"Good," I say against her neck, my teeth scraping gently. "You're supposed to be distracted by us."
We work her toward orgasm with practiced efficiency—six months of learning exactly what she likes, exactly how to touch her, exactly how to coordinate our efforts to drive her absolutely wild.
Xavier's fingers curl inside her while mine circle her clit, while Zay divides his attention between her breasts and her mouth, and within minutes she's coming apart with a cry that she tries to muffle against Zay's shoulder.
"Beautiful," Xavier murmurs, withdrawing his fingers carefully. "But we're just getting started."
He's right. We have—I check the clock—thirty-eight minutes left before Georgia presumably abandons us to our fate. Time to make them count.
What follows is a carefully orchestrated dance that we've perfected over months of practice.
Valentina ends up on her hands and knees with Xavier beneath her, his cock sliding into her with a groan that suggests he's been thinking about this as much as she has.
Zay positions himself behind her, taking his time working her open with patient thoroughness that makes her whimper with need.
I settle in front of her, my hand finding her face to guide her mouth to my cock with gentle insistence. She takes me eagerly, her tongue doing things that make my vision blur at the edges, and I have to grip the headboard to keep myself steady.
The sight of her like this—filled by all three of us, completely surrounded and claimed and loved—does something to me that I don't have words for. Something primal and possessive and tender all at once.
"Fuck," Zay breathes as he finally pushes inside, his hands gripping her hips. "She's so tight like this. Can feel Xavier through—"
"I know," Xavier cuts him off with a groan. "Can feel you too. It's—fuck."
They find a rhythm together, alternating thrusts that make Valentina moan around my cock in a way that sends vibrations straight through my nervous system.
I watch her face, watch the way her eyes flutter closed and then open again to meet mine, watch the pleasure and love and complete trust in her expression.
This is what trust looks like—letting three men surround you completely, fill you completely, know you completely.
This is what love looks like—choosing this every day despite all the reasons it should be complicated, should be difficult, should be impossible.
This is what home looks like—four broken people who found a way to fit together perfectly.
"Close," Valentina gasps when I pull out to let her breathe, her whole body trembling. "I'm so close, I need—"
"We've got you," I promise, my hand sliding down to find her clit while Xavier and Zay continue their coordinated rhythm. "Let go, Val. We're right here."
She comes with a shout, her body clenching around Xavier and Zay rhythmically, pulling them both toward their own releases.
I feel Xavier go first—the way his rhythm falters, the groan that tears from his chest. Zay follows seconds later, burying himself deep and holding still while he pulses inside her.
I'm still hard, still aching, and Valentina seems to realize this because she reaches for me with shaking hands.
"Your turn," she says, her voice rough. "Please, Ash. I want all of you."
The others help arrange us—Valentina on her back with me between her thighs, still oversensitive but reaching for me with desperate hands. I slide inside her carefully, mindful that she's already wrung out, already trembling with aftershocks.
But she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper, her nails digging into my shoulders in a way that will definitely leave marks.
"I love you," I tell her, the words coming easier than they used to, than they ever have with anyone else. "I love you so fucking much, Valentina."
"Love you too," she manages, her hand finding my face. "All of you. Always."
I move inside her with slow, deep thrusts that make her gasp and cling to me, while Xavier and Zay flank us—touching, kissing, whispering encouragement until I'm coming with a groan that she swallows with her mouth.
We collapse together in a tangle of sweaty limbs, none of us capable of moving, all of us breathing hard.
"We definitely just missed our reservation," Valentina observes into the silence.
"Worth it," all three of us say in unison, and her laugh is the best sound I've heard all day.
We clean up quickly—washcloths from Xavier's bathroom, clothes retrieved from various corners of the room, hair finger-combed into something approaching presentable.
Valentina's cheeks are still flushed, her lips swollen from kisses, and there's absolutely no way anyone looking at the four of us won't know exactly what we were doing for the past forty-seven minutes.
But I find I don't particularly care.
Six months ago I would have been concerned about appearances, about maintaining the proper image of control and professionalism. Six months ago I would have calculated the social cost of being so obvious about our relationship, would have strategized the best way to maintain plausible deniability.
Six months ago I was an idiot who didn't understand that loving Valentina—loving all of them—was worth more than any carefully maintained facade.
"Ready?" Xavier asks, shrugging back into his cut with practiced ease. He looks satisfied in a way that has nothing to do with club business and everything to do with the woman currently trying to tame her hair into something less obviously sex-mussed.
"As we'll ever be," Valentina says, giving up on her hair and just pulling it into a messy bun that somehow makes her look even more beautiful. "Though I'm pretty sure everyone we pass is going to know exactly what we were doing."
"Let them," Zay says with a grin, pulling open the door. "We're not hiding anymore, remember?"
He's right. We're not hiding. Not from the club, not from each other, not from the world that wants to tell us our relationship doesn't fit their neat little boxes.
We make our way through the compound together—Valentina in the middle with Zay's arm around her waist, Xavier on her other side with his hand at the small of her back, me following close enough that we're clearly together, clearly united.
A few members we pass do double-takes, knowing smirks appearing on faces that have gotten used to seeing the four of us moving through the world as a unit.
Jackie catches my eye from across the common room and just shakes her head with fond exasperation, but she's smiling.
She's been our biggest supporter from the beginning, the one who shut down dissent before it could gain traction, the one who reminded the club that love is love and family is family no matter how unconventional the configuration.
The evening air hits us as we step outside, cooler now that the sun is setting.
We pile into Zay's truck—Valentina in the middle of the backseat between me and Xavier, Zay driving with one hand while the other reaches back to rest on Valentina's knee.
It's comfortable, familiar, the kind of easy intimacy that comes from six months of learning how to exist in each other's space.
"I'm starving," Valentina announces. "That meeting lasted forever and then you three attacked me before I could eat."
"We attacked you?" Zay laughs from the driver's seat. "Pretty sure you were very on board with being attacked."
"Semantics," she says, but she's grinning. "Point is, I need food. Real food. Not whatever protein bars Xavier keeps in his office."
"Those protein bars are perfectly adequate nutrition," Xavier protests.
"They taste like cardboard and sadness," Valentina counters. "I'm getting the steak. And the potatoes. And probably dessert."
"Get whatever you want," I tell her, my thumb stroking across her knuckles where our hands are linked. "We're celebrating."
"Celebrating what?"
"Six months of successfully not killing each other," Zay offers.
"Six months of the best sleep I've had in my life," Xavier adds.
"Six months of you making us late to everything because you can't keep your hands to yourself," I say, and Valentina swats at me with her free hand.
"That's rich coming from you," she says. "You're the one who initiated that thing last week in the—"
"We don't talk about that in public," I interrupt quickly, and all three of them laugh.
"This is public?" Valentina gestures around the truck. "It's just us."
"Still counts," I maintain, but I'm fighting a smile.
The restaurant is busy when we arrive, all warm lighting and the smell of expensive food and wine.
We're underdressed—Valentina in her jeans and tank top, the rest of us in our cuts and boots—but the hostess doesn't even blink, just leads us to a table in the back corner where we can sprawl without bothering the other diners.
Valentina ends up between Zay and Xavier with me across from her, and she's right—we absolutely spend most of dinner eye-fucking her across the table. But we also talk and laugh and steal food off each other's plates and exist in that comfortable space we've carved out for ourselves.
This is us—stealing moments whenever we can, loving each other in ways both tender and intense, building a life together one stolen hour at a time.
And I wouldn't change a single thing.