Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
ISLA
My pulse quickened, but it wasn’t from fear. It was from awareness. Julius leaned back slightly, his arm resting along the back of the couch behind me. He wasn’t touching me, though he was close.
Kraven stayed where he was. Solid. Steady.
After what felt like forever, Julius nodded toward me. “You’re quiet.”
I eyed him. “I could say the same about you.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well… I’m trying not to say the wrong thing.”
Kraven scoffed with a smile. “That must feel like fire on your skin.”
Julius smiled back. “Don’t fuck with me.”
Kraven shrugged with a shit-eating grin. “But it’s what I do best.”
Without thinking twice about it, I reached for Julius’s hand, and then I reached for Kraven’s, setting them both on my lap. They watched my every move.
“This is what I want.” My voice didn’t shake.
Julius’s gaze dropped to where my hand held his.
“So last night wasn’t a one-time thing?” Julius asked, his tone neutral.
I threw his own question back at him. “Do you want it to be?”
Kraven didn’t move. I did feel his attention sharpen, waiting for his answer as much as I was.
“I don’t know how to make this work, Isla. I’m not going to lie and say last night wasn’t hard for me, but I’m also not going to lie and say I didn’t enjoy it.”
Trying to find out as much as I could, I asked, “What part did you enjoy?”
With his other hand, which was still on the back of the couch, he started rubbing the nape of my neck.
“The part of being with you.”
I nodded in understanding.
“I don’t know if this is going to work.”
Kraven cocked his head to the side. “Then why are you still here?”
Julius didn’t answer right away. He just looked at me, admitting, “I don’t want to leave.”
No one fought.
No one pushed back.
We just stayed there like that.
The three of us.
KRAVEN
With the way she sat between us with her hands still resting on top of ours that were comfortably placed on her lap, it mattered. She wasn’t hiding anything anymore, and it gave me hope for the future.
Julius hadn’t moved either, which mattered just as much. I knew he struggled with all of this, and the truth was, I was too. I had no idea how to make any of this work. We were all experiencing this together for the first time, and I took comfort in that.
There were no set rules for something like this. We’d make our own along the way, and if I knew Julius as well as I claimed, it wouldn’t take long until he set some boundaries. It was the control freak in him.
My relationship with Isla had always been much different from theirs. I didn’t care if I came in second place in her heart. All that mattered to me was that I was there and that she loved me. It was good enough for me.
As far as who the father of the baby was, I thought I’d need to be the one, mostly because I didn’t want to lose her.
Now that we had an arrangement, it didn’t matter as much as it did.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for her to be carrying my baby, but in the end, I’d be in their life, and that was good enough for me.
Julius was always quick to react when something didn’t sit right with him. He pushed, he fought, he instinctively tried to take control of the situation. This was probably driving him up a fucking wall, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.
It just proved how much he really did love her. He wasn’t reacting in any way I assumed he would. The second I had my dick in her mouth last night, I thought he was going to throw me across the room. Except he didn’t pay any attention to what was happening with her and me.
He was too focused on her.
Julius’s stare met mine. “You really think this is sustainable?”
I asked the real question. “I guess it depends on whether you want it to be.”
None of this made sense. It wasn’t normal by any means. It all came down to whether he wanted it or not. Silence stretched again.
“And you’re just okay with this?”
“I’m not okay with losing her,” I replied.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s what matters. We both understand that, right?”
He sneered under his breath. “Sharing the woman I—” He cut himself off, but it was too late.
“The woman you want?”
He didn’t waver. “The woman I love.”
She shifted between us, her fingers tightening where they rested on both of us.
“I’m right here,” she said softly, making us both look at her.
“I’m not someone you pass back and forth.
I’m not someone you fight over. I’m not asking any of us to figure everything out right now.
I just know that I don’t want it to stop.
” Her gaze shifted between us. “I’m asking you to please not tear this apart before we even understand what it is. ”
“This isn’t how relationships are supposed to work.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
He was caught off guard, his eyebrows pinched together. “So you’re not even going to argue with me?”
“There’s nothing to argue about. It's true, nothing about what we’re doing is normal.”
“Then why are you acting so nonchalant about it?”
“Because we’ve never been fucking normal,” I snapped. “Our whole lives have been one big clusterfuck of ‘this isn’t normal.’ How can you not see that?”
“Kraven—”
“You know I’m right. You’re just going to try to make excuses that I’m not. Normal isn’t something I’ve ever cared about as much as you have. I just want to be happy, Julius. If that means this is our new normal… then so be it.”
“To share her?”
“Okay.” Isla abruptly stood. “I’m literally sitting right here, and you guys are talking about me like I’m not even in the room.”
Julius asked, “What do you care about, then?”
I didn’t falter. “Her.”
“And you think this is what she needs?”
“I think this is what she already chose.”
“It is,” she firmly chimed in. “This is what I want. I want both of you.”
“And the baby?”
She smiled. “We raise it together.”
“That’s going to be one fucked-up kid.”
“Julius…” she coaxed. “With everything we’ve endured, I would have chosen being raised in this life.
” She pointed between us. “With three people who’d love me over everything I went through with not having any stability or guidance and being thrown away from home to home like I was nothing more than a paycheck. ”
She was right, and he knew it.
He shook his head. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple.”
Julius said all in one breath, “Until we find out who the father is.”
She shrugged. “Then we don’t find out until we’re ready, until we know the results won’t change anything.”
“What if that never happens?”
“Then he can decide when he wants to know, if it even matters to him at that point.”
My eyes widened, winded, and Julius mirrored my composure.
“He?”
She bit back a smile. “Yeah… we’re having a boy.”