Chapter Nine—Andrew
Night eleven.
Seven years, and I thought I knew what it would feel like if I ever got back here.
I was completely wrong.
She's laughing at something Liam said. I remember that laugh.
I forgot how hard it hits.
I take a measured sip and look away. Anything to keep from staring at how the black bikini clings to her wet skin.
When she leans forward to set her glass on the edge of the hot tub, the neckline dips lower than she probably realizes, offering a glimpse of soft curves I have no right to crave this badly.
Under the churning water, my cock is already thick and aching, heavy against my thigh. All these years and my body still hasn't gotten the memo that she's not mine anymore. Not exclusively. Not ever again.
“Careful,” Riley says, tipping her glass toward Liam. “You're going to give me a complex, complimenting me like that.”
“That's the plan,” Liam says easily. “Wear you down. Death by flattery.”
“It's not going to work.”
“It's working a little.”
She laughs—light, teasing—and Liam grins like he's won something. Her cheeks go pink. There she is. The one who knows her timing is perfect. The one I'd burn cities for.
The shift happens so gradually I almost miss it. Or maybe I don't miss it at all. I just stop fighting it.
The second bottle of champagne is nearly empty. Steam curls around us. The city lights flicker indifferently below.
Liam moves first.
He reaches across the water, slow enough that she has every chance to stop him.
His fingers brush a damp strand of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear.
They linger at her jaw, thumb stroking the delicate line there with aching tenderness.
Riley goes perfectly still, lips parting on a silent inhale.
She doesn't pull away. She doesn't lean in either.
She stays exactly where she is. Like she's standing at the edge of something she already knows she shouldn't step into.
Ethan stays perfectly still.
I do the same.
Liam waits. Just long enough that the choice is hers.
Riley exhales slowly.
Then she turns her face into his hand.
Liam brushes her hair back from her face. “You have no idea what you do to us, do you?”
She answers something soft I can't quite hear, but how her eyes flutter half-closed tells me everything.
I'm not supposed to watch this. I should look away, give them that. I keep watching, pulse hammering in my throat.
Ethan hasn't moved from his side of the tub, but his gaze has gone dark and hungry, fixed on Riley's face.
This is the worst decision I've ever made.
I lean forward.
Liam kisses her first, unhurried. His hand slides from her jaw to the nape of her neck, tilting her head exactly how he wants her.
Riley melts into it with a soft, needy sound, fingers curling into the hard muscle of his shoulder as if she's been starving for this exact touch.
Her lips part for him, and I see the flash of tongue, hear the wet slide of mouths meeting again and again.
She breaks the kiss, breathing hard, and turns those hazel eyes straight to me.
Dark. Dilated. Asking.
The question she doesn't say is written all over her face.
I cross the hot tub in two powerful strokes, water sloshing around us. My hands frame her face, thumbs brushing her cheekbones, and I crush my mouth to hers.
She moans into the kiss, soft at first, then raw and desperate.
Her fingers fist tight in my wet hair, tugging hard enough to sting in the best way.
I taste champagne and heat on her tongue.
She presses flush against me, slick skin and barely-there bikini, her heat pressed tight against every inch of me.
My cock throbs against her stomach, trapped between us, and she rocks once, instinctively, pulling a guttural groan from my throat.
Behind her, Ethan's large hand settles possessively at her waist, fingers splaying wide over her ribs. She gasps into my mouth at the new touch.
We don't discuss moving inside but somehow it’s decided.
Liam takes her hand first. I follow. Ethan opens the door.
Inside Riley’s room, the only light comes from the city glowing through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It paints everything in cool blues and golds, turning Riley into something I can't put into words as she stands in the center of the room.
She looks at the three of us—me, Liam, Ethan—taking her time with it. Her chest rises and falls with quick, shallow breaths. The black bikini top clings to her. The bottoms sit low on her hips, the ties begging to be pulled.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Yes.”
That one word is enough.
Liam steps in first, crowding her gently.
His fingers find the tie at her neck and tug.
The bikini top falls away with a soft whisper of fabric, revealing full breasts, heavy in his hands, nipples dusky and tight from the cool air and sheer want.
He groans low in his throat and bends, sucking one peaked nipple into his hot mouth.
Riley cries out, back arching. Her hands fly up, one tangling in Liam's hair, the other reaching back blindly for me.
I press in behind her immediately, chest to her back, my mouth finding the sensitive spot where her neck meets her shoulder.
I kiss, lick, then bite gently, savoring how she shudders against me.
Her ass grinds back against my aching cock, and I hiss through my teeth, gripping her hips to hold her steady.
“Andrew,” she breathes.
Not the way she says anyone else's name. Like she misses me. Like she shouldn't.
I turn her face to the side and kiss her again, deep and slow, while Liam works his way down her body.
His tongue traces the underside of her breast, then lower, over the soft plane of her stomach, dipping into her navel.
Ethan steps in from the front, tilting her chin up with two fingers and claiming her mouth the second I release it.
His kiss is thorough, possessive, one broad palm sliding up to cup her bare breast, thumb circling where Liam's mouth just was.
She's trembling between us now, legs unsteady, soft whimpers and gasps spilling from her lips every time one of us touches a new spot.
We guide her to the bed without breaking contact. Hands everywhere. Mouths finding skin. Wet kisses and ragged breathing and her need building for all of us.
Liam hooks his fingers into the ties of her bikini bottoms and pulls. The scrap of fabric falls away, revealing her smooth, glistening pussy. She's soaked. The scent of her hits me like a drug.
Ethan lays her down gently in the center of the bed, and we follow.
I settle between her spread thighs first, pushing them wider with my palms. She's pink and swollen and dripping for us.
I drag my tongue up her slit in one long, slow stroke, savoring her cry and how her hips jerk.
Her taste hits my tongue, sweet and musky.
I groan against her and dive in, drawing firm circles over her clit with patient, teasing pressure while two thick fingers slide deep inside her tight heat.
Liam and Ethan take her upper body. Liam latches onto her other nipple, sucking hard, while Ethan kisses her senseless, swallowing every moan.
Her hands fist the sheets, then our hair, then whatever she can reach.
Her thighs tremble around my head as I curl my fingers against that spongy spot inside her and suck her clit in building pulses.
She comes with a broken sob, back bowing off the bed, pussy pulsing around my fingers. We don't stop. I keep licking her through it, gentling only when she starts to whine from overstimulation, then building her right back up again.
When she's shaking and begging incoherently, we switch.
Ethan takes my place between her legs, his broad shoulders spreading her wide. He doesn't rush. He watches her. Adjusts once. Then again. Like he's learning her in real time and refusing to get it wrong—methodical, devastating, the whole of his focus narrowed to exactly this.
Liam presses his grin against her inner thigh. Then it fades, just for a second—like even he didn't expect it to feel like this.
He moves to her mouth, feeding her his cock inch by slow inch while I kneel beside her, stroking myself, letting her watch. Her eyes are glassy, lips stretched around Liam's thick length, cheeks hollowing as she sucks him with desperate hunger.
I lean down, mouth at her ear. “Riley.” Her name, first. Then: “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. Not this time.” The things I should have said seven years ago, said now into her skin like they might still count for something.
She whimpers around Liam, hips grinding frantically against Ethan's tongue.
The second orgasm rips through her even harder. Her muffled scream vibrates around Liam's cock, and he curses, pulling out just before he loses control.
We're all breathing hard, skin slick with sweat now instead of water. Riley looks wrecked in the best way—hair wild, lips swollen, eyes heavy-lidded with lust.
She reaches for me with trembling hands.
“Andrew,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “Please. I need you inside me.”
I don't make her repeat it.
I settle over her, caging her in with my arms, and slide into her in one long, smooth thrust. She's scorching hot, silky tight, and so wet I bottom out with a groan that comes from my soul. Her walls flutter and clench around me like she's trying to pull me even deeper.
Liam and Ethan flank her on either side. While I move in deep, rolling strokes, deep enough that she feels every inch, Liam feeds her his cock again and Ethan sucks marks into her breasts, pinching and twisting her nipples until she's writhing.
This isn't just me. It's all of us. Her between us like this was always where she was meant to be—and that thought should terrify me more than it does.
We trade places again and again, drawing it out, never letting her come down completely.
One of us buried inside her while another fills her mouth.
Hands and mouths everywhere. When she comes the third time, it's with my cock pounding into her and Liam's fingers on her clit, Ethan's mouth on hers.
She shatters so hard her whole body locks up, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes as wave after wave crashes through her.
Only then do we finally let ourselves go.
I pull out at the last second and come across her trembling stomach in thick ropes. Liam follows. Ethan last, quiet.
Riley lies there afterward, chest heaving, skin flushed and glistening. She looks thoroughly undone—and somehow, impossibly, like she belongs here.
She reaches for me first, tugging me down beside her. Her forehead presses to my jaw, breath warm and shaky against my skin.
“Stay,” she whispers.
Not the worst decision.
The only one.
I'd make it every time.
The only sound is Riley breathing.
In here everything has settled into a different dark. After-quiet.
Riley is asleep.
She went under fast, between one breath and the next, as exhausted people do when the body finally decides it's done. She's on her side, tucked against my chest, one hand loose near her chin. Her hair is still damp from the hot tub. I don't move. I don't want to be the reason she wakes up.
I stare at the ceiling and take stock of what I've done.
The deal is still on the table. Connor is still in the Maldives. The three of us still have weeks left living together. Riley still has a life in Portland she's planning to go back to.
None of that has changed. I keep staring at the ceiling like it might.
I went through fourteen houses before I was eighteen, one collapsed company, one moment in a hospital corridor where a doctor told me my father wasn't going to make it, and the night I looked Riley Monroe in the eye and burned the best thing I'd ever had to the ground.
I know what fear feels like. How it moves into your chest and doesn't ask permission.
This is different.
Because with every other loss I could name what I was afraid of.
Could build around it. This—Riley's breath against my chest, her hand an inch from mine, a calendar already running out of time— I can't build a plan around this.
I don't know how to protect something I didn't admit I still wanted until forty minutes ago.
That's the lie I've been telling myself for eleven days.
Liam is out cold on her other side—the deep, uncomplicated sleep of someone with a cleaner conscience than mine. Lucky.
Ethan is on Liam's other side, and he's awake.
I can tell by his stillness—the held-back kind, like he's somewhere else inside his head. He's on his back, one arm behind his head, gaze on the ceiling. Or on her. Same bed. Same dark.
I keep my gaze forward.
He does the same.
Neither of us says it.
We don't have to.