50. Sage
FIFTY
SAGE
Iwake up sandwiched between a furnace and a space heater.
Milo is behind me, one arm slung heavy over my waist, his face buried in my hair, breathing slow and deep.
Every exhale ruffles the strands against my neck in a way that’s both soothing and maddening.
His body is curved around mine, knees tucked behind my knees, chest warm against my spine.
He smells like popcorn and sex and everything I can’t believe I’m letting myself have.
Holden is in front of me. On his back, one arm bent behind his head, the other resting on his stomach.
Even in sleep he looks like he’s on duty—jaw set, brow furrowed, like his subconscious is running threat assessments.
The moonlight through the blinds cuts his face into sharp planes of light and shadow, and I watch his chest rise and fall for a few breaths, mesmerized by how still he is.
Milo twitches and mumbles in his sleep. Holden doesn’t move at all.
He sleeps like a weapon someone set down carefully and forgot to put the safety on.
I need to pee.
How does one extricate themselves from a man sandwich in the middle of the night without waking said men up?
I start the delicate process of pushing down the sheets. Milo’s arm is heavy, his fingers curled loosely against my hip, and when I try to lift it, he makes a disgruntled sound and tightens his grip.
I freeze. Wait. His breathing evens out again.
I slide sideways, inch by inch, like I’m defusing a bomb made of limbs and body heat. Once I’m on top of the cover, I shuffle to the foot of the bed and I’m home free. Then Holden’s hand catches my wrist.
“Where are you going?” His voice is sleep-rough, barely a murmur, eyes still closed.
“Bathroom,” I whisper.
He tugs me back up the bed, just enough to press his mouth to mine. The kiss is lazy, unhurried. Warm lips, the faintest scrape of stubble, the taste of sleep and darkness. It lasts three seconds. Maybe four. Long enough to make my stomach flip.
“Don’t be long,” he murmurs against my mouth, then releases me and rolls onto his side, already sinking back under.
I stand there for a second, barefoot on the cool floor, pulling my T-shirt over my head as I watch them both sleep.
My body aches in ways that make me blush, but the memories make me smile.
My lip is swollen, and there’s a mark on my collarbone—Holden’s teeth, his little brand—proof that last night happened and wasn’t some fever dream conjured by my deranged subconscious.
The bathroom is a blur. I pee, wash my hands, splash water on my face, and stare at myself in the mirror. The woman staring back looks different. Not just post-sex different, though that’s there—the tangled hair, the swollen mouth, the faint bruising. It’s something in the eyes.
She looks like someone who chose both men in that bed and did not apologize for wanting either of them.
I don’t know what to do with that yet, so I file it away and pad out into the hallway.
The kitchen is dark. I move on muscle memory—three steps to the counter, reach left for the cabinet, grab a glass, fill it from the tap. The water is cool and clean and I drink the whole thing standing there in the dark, eyes closed, letting the quiet settle over me like a blanket.
Then I see him.
A dark shape on the couch. Big. Still. The kind of still that only Knox achieves.
He’s not relaxed, not sleeping, just existing in a state of perfect, predatory calm.
He’s sitting upright, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
His eyes catch the thin strip of moonlight from the window, and they’re already on me.
My heart does something complicated.
“Knox?”
“Fury.” His voice rolls through the dark apartment like distant thunder, and every hair on my body stands at attention. I will never get used to the way that voice hits me. It’s not fair. No one should be allowed to sound like that while just sitting on a couch.
“What are you doing here?”
“Fury duty.” He says it like it’s obvious. Like sitting on someone’s couch at—I glance at the microwave clock—3:18 a.m. is a perfectly normal thing to do in the early hours of a Saturday morning.
“Fury duty? Is that what you’re calling me? Fury?”
He nods once. “Everyone has their name. That one’s mine.”
A smile curves my mouth as I lean against the counter, glass pressed to my chest. “I like fury.”
He doesn’t respond, but I see it—a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth, almost a smile.
“How long . . .” I set my glass on the counter and shift closer to him. “How long have you been here?”
He sits back. “Since my shift at the club ended. Did a perimeter check, came inside, decided I should watch from the couch for once—like you asked.”
Gosh. The night I invited him up here feels forever ago.
“What, um . . . what time was that?” I inch closer again, heart hammering in my chest.
“If you’re asking if I’m aware you have guests, the answer is yes. I heard.”
Heat creeps up my neck as I think about him sitting out here listening. To the sounds I made. The things Milo and Holden said to me. The way the bed frame complained like it was filing a noise violation.
I take a step closer, into the thin spill of moonlight separating the kitchen from the living room. Knox watches me, gaze unwavering. The intensity of it does things—complicated, embarrassing things—somewhere deep in my chest.
“Did I embarrass myself?” I ask, half-joking, half-hoping he’ll say no. That he didn’t hear every sordid, needy sound that left my throat. That maybe the couch is soundproof and this whole conversation is unnecessary.
But Knox isn’t the kind of man who blinks away a hard truth.
“No.”
“Did it bother you?”
He considers that, silence stretching so long I start to feel like an idiot for asking.
“No.”
“Did it turn you on?”
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t blink. But his thumb drags once over the inside of his wrist, slow and punishing, like he’s locking something down before it can show on his face.
“Go back to bed,” he says quietly. “They’ll be missing you.”
I take a step toward the couch. Then another. Knox watches me approach.
“What about me?” I say, stopping in front of him. Close enough to touch. “Maybe I’m missing you.”
Knox doesn’t answer me. Not with words.
He reaches up, fingers closing around my wrist, a gentle manacle, and pulls me in until I’m standing between his knees, cradled in the bracket of his body on the too-small couch.
“I haven’t seen you much lately.”
“Been busy. You have been too.”
I look at him for a long time. “Does it make you jealous?” I ask. “When I’m with them?” I incline my head toward my bedroom, where Milo and Holden are still asleep.
He shakes his head. “No.”
His grip stays on my wrist, thumb circling the skin there. Heavy, but not holding me hostage.
“You think it should,” he adds.
“No,” I say. “Not with us.”
His eyes hold mine, dark and steady. “They’re yours. So am I. Doesn’t make you less mine.”
“I’ve missed you,” I admit, surprised at how easy it is to say, even though it burns on my tongue. “You pulled away. I wanted to call, but I . . .” I pause as my mouth tugs into a smile. “Did the camera show have anything to do with you coming inside this time?”
The corner of his mouth quirks upward. “Might have played a role.”
I bite back a grin. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
His hands go to my hips, one on each side, huge and steady.
The heat from his palms bleeds right through the thin cotton, burning into my skin.
I feel it everywhere, all at once—the solid wall of his chest, the controlled power in his arms, the absolute stillness that makes every tiny movement feel seismic.
We don’t speak. The air between us is made out of secrets and want. I can smell the clean, cool scent of him, soap and something metallic and dark, like the echo of blood in memory. He pulls me forward until I’m straddling his lap, knees braced on both sides, my pulse thundering in my own ears.
I think he’s going to kiss me. Or maybe I just want him to. But he holds me there, caged in his arms, the distance between us a held breath.
I reach out and touch his face.
My fingers trace the line of his jaw—rough with stubble, warm, solid as bedrock. He goes perfectly still in that predatory way, like he’s waiting for the smallest provocation, the signal to attack.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, shocked by my own honesty. It feels daring, like touching a bruise or poking a bear. “I bet no one tells you that.”
His jaw shifts. His hands tighten minutely on my hips, and I feel the length of him growing hard between us.
“You are,” I whisper. “Beautiful.”
Still nothing, but his breathing is a little less regular now, his eyes a little hungrier.
I lean forward and run my hands up the sides of his neck.
The skin is so warm, textured with fresh stubble, the muscle underneath like rebar.
He lets me trace the column of his throat, the sharp horizontal line of his cheekbone, the scar above his eyebrow—a pale line, maybe an inch, as if some other life tried and failed to split him in half.
My thumbs rest on his jaw as I lower my face toward his. I move soft, slow, afraid he’ll vanish if I break the tension too fast. Our noses bump. My mouth hovers a whisper above his. I wait, one heartbeat, two, not sure if he wants this.
He answers by catching my mouth with his.
This kiss is nothing like I expected. After all the restraint between us lately, I thought it would be rough or devouring, all blunt force and heat.
Instead, he kisses me like he’s learning the shape of my lips, like he’s mapping my mouth cell by cell.
His tongue barely grazes mine, a shiver so light it sends every nerve in my body sparking alive.
I melt, just a little. His mouth opens under mine and the sound he makes, a low, deep vibration I feel in my sternum, sends liquid heat pooling between my thighs. His hands tighten on my waist, thumbs pressing into the soft skin above my hip bones, and I rock forward against him on instinct.