Chapter 46 Heat and Haste
HEAT AND HASTE
Heat wakes me—Griffin’s solid body is curved along my spine, and Daire is pressed flush to my front, their bodies a cage of warmth. Yesterday feels like someone else’s life. The conversation we had as a group unraveled things I’d been holding on to for forever too long.
My pulse is already at a gallop, and then I realize why: Griffin’s long, hard erection is nestled between my ass, and Daire’s is pressed against my stomach.
Holden’s tee that I’d fallen asleep in is gone, though I don’t remember removing it, leaving me in the thin camisole and underwear I’d changed into before bed. I thank the stars that I kept them on.
Or maybe not.
Because all I can imagine is their hands on my skin. Daire teasing my nipples before scraping his teeth across the sensitive flesh like he had the morning we went into the maze. I want to feel that sensation again. Feel it everywhere.
Griffin’s hand on my waist tightens, and then slides higher, inching my camisole up as his fingers climb my ribs with gentle swipes of his thumb. He stops just beneath the swell of my breast, the pause a silent question echoed in the tension of his breath.
I cover his hand with mine, guiding him—inviting him—until his fingers graze my nipple.
His hips flex as I release a silent moan, the friction of his rough skin so delicious. So right.
Desire thickens in my blood, making my skin feel too tight as my core pulses and my nipples harden.
Griffin hums against my neck as he coaxes the sensitive peak and then rolls it between his fingers.
I arch into him, helpless to resist the way he touches me.
“I’m obsessed with you,” he murmurs, his voice dark and reverent. “Every fucking part of you.” He palms my breast, his calluses adding to the sensations that have every nerve ending lighting up with pleasure and need. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough.”
Daire’s golden eyes open, and his words from last night—the one he’d said when he thought I was asleep, assuring me I belonged, that he’d do anything to keep me safe—play in my thoughts again. I trace a hand down his broad chest.
He lowers his gaze to where Griffin runs his fingers languidly over my nipple beneath the stretched black fabric.
“She wants you to kiss her,” Griff says, pinching my nipple, pulling my attention back to what he’s doing—back to the lust still thick in my blood.
Daire’s eyes dance back to mine. His cock twitches against my stomach. “I know. I feel her desire. I was just hoping you weren’t here.”
Griffin chuckles as he slips his hand from my breast. My heart beats a silent objection, but rather than shift to leave, he gathers my camisole, pulling it high.
A soft tsk leaves him before something cold and sharp presses against my skin.
The foreign object slices clean through my camisole.
Griffin brushes the ruined scraps aside, inviting cool air to dance across my exposed chest.
Daire’s gaze snaps to my breasts, and he releases a long, guttural groan. “We should talk about this. About the bond and what’s happening,” he says, his jaw tight as he watches Griffin ply my exposed nipple.
“We will,” Griffin insists. “This is just taking care of our Keystone a little.”
Daire groans again, and then, without another protest, he’s kissing me. His mouth is surprisingly gentle, taking his time as he licks and explores, repeating any move that draws a reaction from me, as he cups my other breast, tweaking my nipple.
I moan, grinding my hips over Griffin’s hard length, dragging a hiss from his lips before he bites my shoulder.
Daire flicks my nipple, the sensation so intense, I arch my back and suck in a breath, breaking the rhythm of our kiss.
He chuckles, a low, gritty sound that I feel in my chest. “You like that?”
I love it.
I want—need—more.
I am desperate to touch him, for them to touch more of me.
I’m swimming in desire as I wrap my hand around Daire’s length.
His breath hitches before he says my name in a long exhale.
His cock is so large, there’s a sizeable gap between my thumb and fingers, but I don’t get to stroke or learn more because he grips my wrist and pins it above my head.
“Let us relieve you, Spitfire,” he grits as Griffin palms my breast fully, the angle of my arm granting him complete access. He swears, dragging his teeth over my ear.
It’s all too much and not nearly enough. I’m restless, desperate for more.
I lean forward, catching Daire’s bottom lip between my teeth with a challenge I don’t know how to voice.
He growls, kissing me back, pummeling my mouth. He doesn’t let me meet his pace, taking control over the moment—my mind, my whole damn body.
I yield to him completely. Entirely.
He cups the back of my neck—anchoring me as heat spirals low and fast, making me dizzy.
A rasp at the door has me tearing away from Daire and grasping for the blankets, but Griffin already has them pulled up to my chin.
“Change of plans,” Kai calls from the other side of the door. “Kandi got back early. We need to head out.” There’s a pause. “Lochlan’s in a mood, so I suggest we eat on the road.” His footsteps echo down the short hall.
Daire curses. “Why in the hell isn’t she in Faro yet?”
Griffin runs a hand down my covered hip.
“And why does she have the worst timing?” He leans down, claiming a kiss on my neck.
“We’ll make it up to you, Trouble, but the things I have planned for you are going to take hours, not seconds.
” He trails a path of kisses to my shoulder before releasing a long sigh and peeling himself from the bed.
Every nerve in my body feels like it’s been pulled taut, waiting for what was coming.
“Fuck Kandi,” Daire says, flinging off the blankets. “You need a release, and I have to taste you.”
My underwear become ribbons that slip away from me, and then Daire’s mouth is on me.
I suck in a breath as my back bows, pleasure racing down my spine.
“Damn,” Griffin mutters, walking to the side of the bed, pushing my knee down to the mattress. “Give him better access to that sweet pussy, baby.”
My breath is a rasp as my hands fist in the sheets.
Daire groans as he slides his tongue through my folds.
My thighs clench, but Griffin keeps my knee pinned, the sensations so intense I garble out a cry—or maybe a plea.
Daire hums. “That’s right, baby,” he says, shifting. He flicks his tongue against my clit at the same time he slowly presses a finger inside of me, the combination of the stretch and sensation of his tongue is pure ecstasy.
“She’s so close,” Griffin says, lowering his mouth to my breast, trailing his tongue over my nipple while Daire alternates between sucking and flicking my clit until my thighs are trembling and I can’t remember how to breathe.
Pleasure consumes me as my release hits.
It feels like I’m floating feet above the bed.
“Stars,” Daire says. Licking me again, making me tremble.
A door slams downstairs.
Griffin ignores it as he leans forward, kissing my mouth. “How do you feel?”
“Like jelly,” I admit.
He grins before kissing me again. “Good.”
They saunter to their bags. I don’t move, memorizing the bulk of their shoulders, the long lines of their muscles, the myriad of runes across their backs.
As though feeling my inquisition, Daire turns, glancing at me as he pulls a tee over his head. “Keep looking at me like that, Spitfire, and you’re going to be riding back to Mysthaven on my lap with my fingers between your legs.”
Heat pulses through me.
Griffin laughs, a low, soft sound. “She likes that idea.”
Daire adjusts himself, then grabs a pair of jeans. “Good. Because the next time we travel, that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Melancholy follows me as we leave Portelina.
The small, warm bungalow was an oasis—somewhere that fun and rest took priority over my progress, where I didn't feel like a problem to be solved. I saw different sides of the Vestra here, their easy banter something I find myself already reaching for. Even the conversations after the maze held weight. The lake and those creatures should be haunting my thoughts about this trip—and maybe they will, but it will be later, when I can’t keep them at bay anymore.
Daire tucks me against his chest as he, Holden, and Kai talk about the schematics of runes used to close the property, while I dive back into one of the books about bonds Lochlan lent me.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Griffin says, swiping my crystal link from my hand.
“I’m literally in stasis mode,” I object, waving a hand at how I’m reclined in the seat, wearing the same green dress I arrived in.
“Where did you learn to play basketball?” Griffin asks, ignoring my protest and pocketing my crystal link.
I have to repeat his question in my head before it registers, the change in direction throwing me off balance. “You’re asking me about basketball?”
“Kai mentioned it was a big part of your childhood, and while you were recovering, you sent me some memories of playing,” he says, almost sorrowfully.
The unexpected interest in my past creates a strange mix of warmth and wariness. “My gym teacher had a daughter my age and suggested I sign up after we did a unit at school.”
His blue eyes hold mine captive. “And you continued playing?”
I blink, caught off guard by the slight swell of emotion that fills my chest when thinking of the sport that was my escape for so many years, but I conceal it with a nod. “Until I was seventeen.”
“Why’d you stop?” Griffin asks, watching me too closely, like he’s reading how my thumbs press against my second knuckles, and my breath thins.
“It stopped being fun.”
“Kai says you were good,” Griffin prods.
My gaze shifts briefly to Kai, but he gives no reaction.
“Do you guys play basketball here?” I ask, forcing a half-smile as I turn back to Griffin. I already know from Gideon that they don’t.
Griffin doesn’t bite. His focus stays on me. “You played most of your life. Something had to have happened.”
The easy deflection I want to give withers in my throat.
Their honesty has come in pieces—rare, precious things—and if I’m asking for theirs, maybe I owe some of mine.
“I played because I was good at it. Because everyone liked me more when I was a winner. But it was never about me. It was always what I could give.”
The truth hangs between us, heavier than the silence that follows. For years I’ve excused why I quit, but never once admitted the real reason: that even the thing I loved most was just another way to be accepted.
“Tell us more,” Griffin says. “Tell us what we got wrong on those damn reports that were brought back from Montana.”
“My first job was a camp counselor,” I admit. “At a basketball camp. I was sixteen, and later that summer, I got a part-time job at Lou’s Grocers. I’ve never set foot in Montana. I had a severe allergy to penicillin. And I was arrested once when I was twenty-one.”
I feel their silent questions and Lochlan’s thinning patience, waiting for me to share the details he no doubt sees as most relevant to this conversation. He isn’t the only one. Kai’s brow is knit, his jaw clenched.
“We should go back,” Kai says. “Let her show us.”
Daire shakes his head. “No way in hell.”
Once more, I rely on that growing ledge of honesty Kai and I have slowly been carving out, one question at a time, as I turn to him. “Go where?”
“Earth.”
“It’s not happening,” Griffin says, placing a hand on my thigh as though he needs to feel the assurance of my physical presence.
“We have no idea who fucked with her documents, and she nearly died three days ago. I’m this close to blockading Mysthaven.
” The gap between his thumb and forefinger is paper-thin.
I take in the myriad of expressions as they continue to argue points, stopping on Kai again. “What would going change? What questions would it answer?”
His light blue eyes are surprisingly unguarded. “We need to find out why and who changed your background.”
“What more do we fucking need?” Daire asks, his voice teetering on the edge of an explosion. “How much fucking redundancy do we need? She could have grown up in Perth, and it wouldn’t change the fact that she’s our Mate.”
My chest tightens, my heart doubling in size with his proclamation.
“We both know that if we file a claim through the channels, it will do one of two things,” Kai says, raising his index finger.
“We’ll get more lies, or,” he raises a second finger, “we’ll tip whoever is doing this off, and give them a head start that we can’t afford.
We need to go to the source and hope that whoever did this fucked up somewhere along the line—so we can figure out who in the hell is behind this.
If they sent a godsdamned wraith our way, what else they have access to?
This could be someone we know. Someone who has access to Portelina. To us.”
My blood chills.
Beside me, Griffin swears, clenching his fist. “Then we’re all going.”