Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
RAFE
She’s ours?
I knew it. I fucking knew he and Keane wanted her. That’s why I claimed her first. Kissed her first. Made love to her first. Then that night with Max happened, and she was taken from me. Because I wasn’t strong enough to protect her. I’m still not. I’ve got a bullet wound in my chest that proves it.
I can’t help the upwelling of anger at my two best friends that suddenly erupts like a firestorm.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Hey, watch your mouth,” Keane says, which is seriously asinine since every third word that comes out of his mouth is fuck.
I helplessly watch him turn Andie around until she and I are facing one another, and I want so badly to throat punch him when he curls his hand around her hip and pulls her back to his chest, kissing her neck as a direct challenge to me. My jaw locks, teeth clenched, when her violet eyes cloud with arousal. My dick wars with my emotions, clearly on board with what I’m witnessing since it hardens against my permission. Seeing Andie in another man’s arms, albeit one of my blood brothers, shouldn’t turn me on, but fuck me if it doesn’t.
“Keane, not now,” Andie tells him, but she doesn’t pull away.
Jax moves in front of her and to the side, giving me a clear view of his hand sliding under the waistband of her tight leather pants. That outfit she’s wearing is lethal. Tight leather that hugs every toned, muscled, and curvaceous inch of her bottom half. A sexy red halter encasing her gorgeous tits. The sight of her draped between my two friends, ruby-stained mouth parted as Keane delivers another nip to her neck. Her hair a sexed-up mess. All of it will live in my spank bank for the rest of my life.
“I think now is the perfect time,” Jax replies.
I know the moment he slides a finger inside her because her head falls back onto Keane’s shoulder, a delicious moan coming out of her mouth in the form of Jax’s name. My cock jerks eagerly behind my sweatpants.
Those moans used to belong to only me.
Her breath hitches, and she sighs when Keane bites behind her ear.
“Rafe deserves to know where we stand,” she weakly protests.
“Princess,” he whispers across the soft skin of her shoulder as we glare at each other, “he knows.”
I helplessly watch Jax’s hand move behind the tight leather of Andie’s trousers, and her soft, breathy pants increase. Her hips raise, seeking more of what his fingers are giving, and a noticeable tremor shakes her body.
“Like I said—she’s ours,” he says, slowly removing his hand.
Andie makes a disappointed whimper, but then moans loudly when he sticks his fingers in her mouth and commands her to suck them clean.
It’s clear as fucking day that the three of them have been together, and I rack my brain to figure out when. How did I miss the signs?
Jax removes his fingers from her mouth, then licks a path up the curve of her throat. Andie smiles at him, brushing fingertips over his lips and cheek. Jesus. How can I be so angry and so turned on at the same time?
“You’re going to finish what you started, Reaper,” Andie tells him, and he smiles devilishly at her. Jax never smiles. When the hell did he start smiling?
“Always, Angel.” He wrenches her from Keane and sits with her in his lap on the armchair across from me.
Her face flushes, and she can’t meet my intense stare when his possessive hands splay around her middle; one resting across her stomach and the other on her thigh.
“Andie, look at me.” She eventually does, and the pleading for understanding coming from her is palpable.
But it’s the vulnerable expression on her face that gives her away. It’s a mien I know all too well because it’s how she used to look at me when I made love to her. Shit, this is really happening. She’s in love with them. I can see it with my own damn eyes. I’ve lost her. She’s not mine anymore. It’s your own fucking fault.
“Andie wants to talk, so let’s talk,” Keane says, sitting down next to me on the couch.
I thrust shaky hands through my hair, giving the strands a good pull in frustration. “Someone get me a drink first. Preferably vodka. The entire bottle,” I say.
Huffing like a diva, Keane reluctantly gets up and goes into the adjoining kitchen. I have a feeling that I’m going to need it to get me through the conversation we’re about to have.
Wanting something else to distract me from the visage of Jax holding Andie and the heart-breaking revelation I just came to, my attention bounces around the room. This is all Andie’s now. The entire building, actually, and all the men in it. The helicopter. The private jets. The palatial homes scattered across the globe. The money. The control. The power. She’s now become the most dangerous woman in the world. She kind of already was, if I’m to be honest. The girl I’ll never stop loving changed over the five years we were apart.
How could so much have happened in such a short amount of time? Lies, betrayal, blood, death. I’d wanted out of this miserable life so badly. Take Andie with me and run away somewhere to a place Max and my father could never find us. Be happy for once in my fucking life with the woman who has owned me completely since the moment I saw her. But bad shit keeps happening and people keep erecting roadblocks in that path. And now this. There’s no way I can compete with this , I helplessly surmise, finishing my perusal of the room and the men in it. Men who are my brothers.
A half-empty bottle of Irish vodka drops in my lap when Keane comes back. I’m tempted to ask Jax for one of the joints I know he always carries, but don’t when an image of my mother’s frothing mouth and limp, emaciated body pops in my head. Technically, I know I’m being hypocritical because alcohol is a drug, but it’s the only one I’m comfortable with. Alcohol didn’t kill my mother.
Removing the cap, I take two large swallows and shudder as the burn races down my throat and settles warmth in my belly.
“You sharing that?” Keane asks, and I give him a deadly look.
“I think we’re sharing quite a lot, don’t you?” I take another swallow, refusing to pass him the bottle.
“You’re such a bratty shit sometimes,” he replies.
“I was planning to tell you.” Andie’s hands fidget in her lap, but it’s what Jax is doing that pisses me off.
“I swear to God, if you don’t stop molesting her in front of me, I’m going to shank you up the ass with this bottle.”
“Sounds fun,” he quips and cups Andie between her thighs.
“Jax, stop trying to rile him up,” Andie huffs, full of annoyance. But then again, she doesn’t do anything to remove his hand from her crotch.
He rolls his damn eyes, and it’s so similar to what Andie does. Another small smile slips free when he kisses the side of her head and relents. “Fine.”
What the hell alternate reality have I woken up to? Jax smiling and being playful. Keane and Andie in the same room without trying to kill one another.
Deciding that vodka isn’t going to help after all, I shove it at Keane. “I guess this is it.”
Andie leans forward on Jax’s lap, her now golden-brown hair falling forward over her shoulders. I do miss her natural blonde, but only because it reminded me of sunshine whenever I looked at her. But the darker color looks good on her too and makes her light purple eyes stand out. Those eyes of hers are unique, remarkable, and rare, just like she is.
“What is?” she asks.
“Us.”
She did warn me. Said she actually hated me and didn’t trust me. What were her words? I don’t fuck guys I don’t trust. I don’t blame her for any of what happened between us. The destruction of what we had is all on me because of the choices I was forced to make.
It’s as if someone hooked a defibrillator to me and amped up the power to max when she replies, “It doesn’t have to be.”
“I can’t share you, rosa .” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them, caused by a knee-jerk, jealous reaction.
I jump at Keane’s loud bark of laughter. “That’s what Liam said at first.”
Perhaps the vodka is working after all because the room goes topsy-turvy for a second. “You’re fucking Liam?” I shout at her.
Her pale skin flushes red, but her chin juts stubbornly. “Liam and I met in Switzerland over a year ago. Years after we ended. You don’t get an opinion about that.”
And the plot thickens. I had no clue the two of them already knew one another. Liam has a damn good poker face for me not to pick up on it. I’m usually able to read people better.
“And you’re both okay with it?” I ask Keane and Jax in utter disbelief.
Jax’s arms tighten around Andie’s waist like he’s trying to shield her from the hurt of my question.
“I wasn’t, until I was,” Keane states cryptically. “In the end, it was an easy choice to make.” Keane looks directly at Andie with such visceral want and desire, I’m surprised the room doesn’t spontaneously combust into a ball of fire.
“I can’t do this right now.” Struggling, I lift myself off the couch, weaving a bit when I stand.
“Can’t or won’t?” Keane says.
“Keane, it’s okay. Let him go,” Andie tells him.
“Fuck that noise,” he declares, standing up as well. He throws his arms wide. “You run away from every goddamn thing,” he says in disgust. “Fight for what you want for once in your life! You love her. You’ve always loved her.”
“So have you! So has Jax!” I spit the hard truth back at him. Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore if I love her. She chose them. Not me.
Andie sucks in a breath when Keane doesn’t deny my accusation.
Great. Me and my big mouth. I can’t listen anymore. It hurts too much.
I’m walking away when Andie quietly says, “You know damn well how I feel about you.”
I turn my head and glare at her, my heart ripping open at seeing her in Jax’s arms. “Yeah, I do. You said you hated my guts.”
“You’re a stupid, jealous man, Rafael Ortiz. There has never been a day since I was thirteen years old that I haven’t loved you.”
My feet refuse to move and stop me in my tracks. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” she sasses with her fuck-me lips I want desperately to kiss. “I’m not going to hide how I feel anymore.” She takes a deep breath. “I lied.”
“You lied?”
“Yes, I lied.”
I suppress a grin when she throws eat-shit vibes at me and cross my arms over my chest like I have all day.
“About what?”
I need to hear her say it again. I need to be sure.
Growling, she replies, “I still love you. I never stopped.”
“I—”
“I’m not finished,” she says. Her hand tightens on Jax’s arm. “I also love them.”
The silence that hits the room is short-lived when Jax bites her on the neck like a rabid animal. “I want to fuck you so bad right now.”
Andie’s breath hitches when Jax turns her lips his way and devours her. His eyes remain open, and I can see the challenge in them. The dare he throws at me. And fuck me if I’m not hard as galvanized steel right now.
Keane tries to step around me to get to her, but I shove him back. “Don’t.”
I won’t stand on the sidelines and watch my two best friends kiss and touch my woman. Be forced to watch as their hands cup her breasts. Their tongues delve into her mouth. Their fingers stroke her pussy through those skin-tight pants she’s wearing. Marking her as theirs as her moans fill the room.
Something dark and primal inside me takes over. A gut-wrenching need to punish her for hurting me and punish them for touching what’s mine. But underneath all the hurt is the desire to have her kiss me the way she’s kissing Jax. Moaning for me like she used to as I fucked her under the stars at our favorite spot in the park.
“You still love me? Prove it.”
Andie abruptly ends her kiss with Jax and gets up from his lap, flinging attitude at my ultimatum. They may say she’s theirs, and she may say she loves them, but I own every part of her. Lips, pussy, and heart.
“On your knees, rosa .”