20. Holden
TWENTY
HOLDEN
My alarm goes off at five, and Sage is wrapped around me like a vine.
Her face is pressed into my chest, one leg hooked over mine, her fingers curled into my T-shirt like she grabbed hold sometime in the night and never let go. She’s breathing slow and even now, but that wasn’t the case when I got home.
I’d come through the side door around two-thirty. Keys palmed, quiet out of habit. The stove light was on. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and stopped.
Micah was chest down across the counter, Eli fucking him from behind.
Neither of them heard me come in.
I stood in the dark for approximately four seconds. Assessed the situation. Determined that intervention was neither required nor desired. Backed out of the kitchen, went upstairs, and opened Sage’s door to check on her.
She was tangled in the sheets, making small, choked sounds in the back of her throat, her hands clawing at the pillow.
Nightmares. I’d seen it enough times by now to know the drill.
I kicked off my shoes, took off my jeans, and climbed in beside her.
When I pulled her against my chest, she fought me for about three seconds—rigid, gasping, hands shoving—and then her brain registered who I was and she collapsed into me like a building with its supports cut.
“Holden,” she’d whispered. Half asleep. Half drowning.
“I’m here, wildcat. Go back to sleep.”
She did. I didn’t. I lay there with her hair in my face and her fist in my shirt and ran scenarios until the alarm.
Tuesday. Meeting with Odin at seven. The agenda has only two items—the Sage Situation, and our next target.
We have two hours to get everyone fed, caffeinated, and into the city without killing each other first.
Given the current state of this household, that’s ambitious.
I silence my alarm just as Sage stirs, blinks, squints at me like she’s confused.
“Morning, wildcat.”
“Mmm.” She stretches against me, catlike, then settles back into my chest. “What time is it?”
“Five.”
“That’s inhumane.”
“We’ve got Odin at seven.”
She groans into my shirt. Then lifts her head. Looks around the room. Frowns.
“Where’s Micah? He was here when I fell asleep.”
“Last I saw, he was downstairs. With Eli.”
“With Eli?” She pushes up on one elbow. “Is everything okay?”
“Define okay.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear because it’s in her eyes and because I want to. “I got home late last night. They were in the kitchen.”
“Talking?”
“Not exactly.”
I watch the information land. Sage is smart—she doesn’t need me to draw a diagram. Her eyes widen. Her mouth opens, closes.
“Oh,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“They were— In the kitchen?”
“Against the island, from what I could tell. I didn’t stay for the full performance.”
She pulls the sheet up to her chin and stares at the ceiling, and I give her the space. This is one of the things I’ve learned about Sage—she needs thirty seconds of silence before she knows what she feels. Push her before that and you get the deflection. Wait, and you get the truth.
“Huh,” she says finally.
“Huh?”
She wraps her arms around the sheet. Whatever moves across her face, it isn’t jealousy. It’s closer to two puzzle pieces she’s been holding in separate hands clicking together.
“You okay?” I ask. Casual. Like the answer doesn’t matter, when we both know it does.
“Yeah. I’m—yeah.” She turns onto her side, facing me, tucking her hands under her cheek. “I think Micah really needed that. To clear the air, I mean. They’ve had a lot of unresolved stuff. From before me. Before all of us.” She pauses. “I’m glad. If it helps them.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“The Eli situation. You and him. That’s unresolved.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then she shifts closer, closing the gap between us, and her hand finds my chest. Palm flat, right over the sternum, like she’s checking my heart is still there.
“I have you,” she says. Simple. Direct.
“You do have me.”
“Then I’m fine.”
It’s a deflection and we both know it. But it’s also true, and right now, with her hand warm on my chest and her eyes soft and her mouth close enough that I can feel her breath, I decide not to cross-examine.
I kiss her. Slow, testing, almost sleepy, like we’re kissing through a dream. She answers by sliding her hand up my chest and into my hair, pulling me closer, her mouth opening under mine.
“We really need to get out of bed, wildcat.”
“We have two hours.”
“We have less than two hours.” I trail my lips down the curve of her neck, my hand cupping her breast. “And we need to drive into the city.”
“Then stop wasting time.” She hooks a thigh around my hip. “Fuck me.”
I roll her onto her back and she pulls me down on top of her, her legs wrapping around my waist, her fingers already working the hem of my shirt up my ribs.
I let her pull it over my head then pin her wrists over the pillow with one hand, and she arches into it, testing the resistance, her breath catching.
I drag my mouth over her collarbone, taking a moment to suck each nipple into a peak before I release her hands and work my way down her stomach, my mouth on the soft skin below her navel. Her hand finds my hair and grips.
The door swings open.
“Rise and shine, people! We’ve got—”
Milo stops. Takes in the scene. Me between Sage’s legs. Her flushed and breathing hard.
A normal person would apologize and close the door. Milo has never been a normal person.
“Well, well, well.” He leans against the door frame, arms crossed, grinning like a man who’s won a bet with himself. “Starting without me. That’s rude.”
“Milo,” I say. “Get out.”
“Sure. Absolutely. Just one quick question.” He’s already pulling his shirt over his head. “How late can we be?”
“Milo—”
“Because I’m doing the math and I think we can shave the drive down to forty minutes if I take the back roads, which gives us—”
“Milo. We don’t have time for—”
Sage laughs. It’s the first full laugh I’ve heard from her in days.
“We can be a little late,” I say.
Milo kicks the door shut, and his shirt hits the floor. “Kitten. Permission to join the party?”
“Permission granted.” Sage props herself up on her elbows, and Milo crosses the room in four strides, drops down on the edge of the bed, and traps a lock of her hair between his fingers, twirling it slow and lazy.
“Kitten,” he says, “you look like you’ve been very, very good. Or extremely, irretrievably bad.”
“Both.” She flashes him a reckless smile. “Depends on who you ask.”
Milo leans in and kisses Sage before I can object—his hand sliding into her hair, tilting her head back, playful and deep, and the small, needy sound she makes goes straight through me.
He pulls back just enough to look at me over her shoulder. “You just gonna watch, detective? Or participate?”
No. I’m not.
His hand covers her breast as he locks eyes with me and goes back to kissing her.
My dick throbs.
I sink my teeth into her hip, just hard enough to make her jolt, and she jerks her head to the side, breaking the kiss, her eyes flying open. I pin her with my hand flat on her stomach and meet her gaze as I kiss lower.
She’s dripping. When my fingers find her she rocks into my hand with a sound that makes Milo groan against her skin.
“Fuck, kitten. The sounds you make.”
“She’s been making them for a while,” I say. “You just have bad timing.”
“I have exceptional timing. You were wasting valuable minutes on foreplay.”
“Foreplay isn’t wasting—”
“Boys,” Sage says, breathless, her hand tightening in my hair. “Less talking. More—” She gasps as I swipe my tongue over her clit and curl my fingers inside her. “That. More of that.”
I work her slow and deliberate—two fingers, then three, my tongue circling while Milo pins her back against his chest, his hands roaming her body, his mouth adding new marks on her neck that she’ll need the scarf to cover.
She’s caught between us, writhing, her head falling back against Milo’s shoulder.
“Holden— I need—”
“I know what you need.”
I pull my fingers free and she whimpers at the loss. Milo reaches past her and pulls the lube from the nightstand drawer because of course he knows where I keep it.
“You went through my nightstand?”
“First week we moved in. Don’t worry, I judged you silently and moved on.”
“Thoughtful of you, Milo.”
“Just doing my part for team synergy.”
Milo squirts lube over his cock, grinning as he slicks himself up and gets in position behind Sage.
She’s already writhing, flush down her chest, her mouth open on a gasp as I push inside her—slow, inch by inch, watching her face—and the sound she makes is worth every early alarm and sleepless night and complicated morning in this house.
“God,” she breathes. “Holden—”
“I’ve got you, wildcat.”
I set the pace. Deep, controlled, rolling my hips the way that makes her grip the sheets. Milo is behind her, working his lubed-up fingers into her tight ass, getting her ready while he watches me fuck her over her shoulder.
“That is genuinely the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” Milo says, staring at the space where my dick disappears inside her. “And I grew up in a house with multiple dads and no boundaries.”
“Milo. Shut up.”
“Shutting up.” He reaches his free hand around and pinches her nipple. She cries out, clenching around me so hard my rhythm stutters. “Actually, no. Kitten, tell Holden how good his cock feels.”
“So good,” she manages, and her hands find my shoulders, nails digging in. “Harder. Please.”
“Please what?”
Her eyes flash, desire and challenge. “Please fuck me harder, Holden.”
I give her what she wants. Pin her hips and drive into her, and Milo shifts behind her and growls approvingly against her ear, his hand sliding down her stomach toward where we’re joined.
“Let me in,” he murmurs, and his fingers find her clit while I’m inside her, stroking in tight circles that make her whole body shake.
“Oh fuck— oh God, that’s—” Her back arches off Milo’s chest as he inches his length inside her.
“I need you to relax for me, kitten.” He strokes her hip, slow, coaxing, and when she relaxes around him, he pushes in gradually, working himself deeper until she’s full up from both sides and her mouth drops open on a jagged cry.
“Fuck—oh fuck—” Sage buries her face in Milo’s arm, trembling. Her body writhes between us, every muscle alive and taut. Milo’s hands steady her, one on her waist, the other gripping her hair, and he leans forward so his lips are at her ear.
“Good girl,” he says, voice low and rough. “Look how well you take us. So fucking perfect, kitten. You’re shaking.”
“She loves it,” I add, nipping her collarbone, dragging my teeth and tongue up her throat. “Don’t you?”
She nods, desperate, flexing around me as Milo moves in shallow thrusts to match my rhythm, his cock dragging along mine through the thin wall that separates us.
“Yes,” she gasps, and her head tips back, eyes wild, cheek flush pressed to Milo’s jaw as she braces herself for the next thrust.
Milo picks up his pace, steady and relentless, his eyes on me—goading, competitive, some wordless contest to see who can make her unravel first.
We lock eyes over her shivering body, neither of us willing to cede control, and for a moment there’s a standoff. She’s the prize in a tug-of-war, and her moans spike with every flex and push.
I lean into her, lips at her ear. “You can come, wildcat. Let go.”
She shakes her head, mouth open on a voiceless plea, so I hold her face, palm on her cheek, and make her look at me.
“Don’t hold it,” I say. “Give it to us.”
She shatters. Milo follows almost instantly, swearing, his hips snapping up as he buries himself in her. The feeling of them both—her clenching, him pulsing—drags me over the edge, and I come with a groan.
We collapse. A tangle of limbs and sweat and heavy breathing on a bed that was never built for three. Milo is flat on his back with Sage draped across his chest. I’m on my side, one arm across her waist, my face in her hair.
Nobody moves for a solid minute.
“So,” Milo says. He’s staring at the ceiling, grinning, looking profoundly pleased with himself. “That was productive.”
“Shut up, Milo.”
“I’m just saying. If the meeting’s half as good—”
“Milo.”
“We’re going to be late.”
“Very late,” Sage murmurs against his chest.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Knox:
ETA? Odin doesn’t like late.
I type back one-handed.
Me:
On our way.
I roll out of bed and start hunting for pants. “Showers,” I say. “Do them, and do them fast. I’ll make coffee, but if either of you wants more than an energy bar, you’re on your own.”
Milo sits up, raking a hand through his dark curls like the morning’s events have achieved a spiritual efficiency.
“You’re no fun after sex, Holden. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Move.”
Sage laughs into Milo’s chest, muffled and real.
I reach for my pants and start the process of getting this circus to a meeting.