Chapter 17 Phoenix #2
Their eyes go hungry in four different ways.
Storm sits on the mattress beside my hip, one hand splayed on my thigh, thumb tracing lazy circles. “One last time,” he says quietly. “You say no, we stop here. No questions. No guilt.”
My heart squeezes.
“I said green,” I remind him, meeting his gaze. “I meant it.”
Conrad’s jaw flexes like he’s swallowing every argument he wants to make and replacing it with trust. Atticus’s shoulders ease. Maverick’s grin goes softer around the edges.
“I want you,” I say, letting my eyes track over each of them in turn. “All of you. Here. With me.”
I swallow, the truth like a live wire on my tongue. “I want to feel you. I want to watch you lose it because of me.”
Something hot and electric runs through the room, snapping across bare skin.
Storm is the first to move this time.
He eases me onto my back and shifts over me, braced on his forearms so his weight doesn’t press too much. His eyes search mine one more breath, then he lowers his head and kisses me slow and deep, taking his time, stealing the air out of my lungs and giving it back rearranged.
When we’re both breathless, he pulls back just enough to look me in the eye as our bodies line up.
“This okay?” he asks, voice shredded.
“Yes,” I say, no room for doubt.
He joins our bodies with a slow, steady push, every inch deliberate as his cock slides home.
My hands fly to his shoulders, nails digging in. It’s intense in a way that sends my brain offline for a second, then everything slams back, double bright. He holds still, a tremor running through him, forehead pressed to mine while my pussy trembles around him.
“Breathe,” he whispers. “With me.”
I do. In, out. His rhythm. Our rhythm. Once I nod, he starts to move—measured at first, then deeper when my hips lift to meet him. The sounds leaving my throat are not polite. I don’t care.
The pleasure builds fast, rising in hot, rolling waves.
When I tip over the edge with him, it’s sharp and clean, a detonation that leaves me shaking. Storm follows me down with a harsh, guttural sound against my throat, his body going tight and then shuddering apart.
He kisses my jaw, my cheek, my mouth, like thank you is a language made of lips and breath.
Before I can fully come down, Atticus is there, trading places with Storm in a practiced, careful choreography. His hands are steady at my waist, eyes locked on my face.
“Color?” he asks, even though he heard me.
“Still green,” I pant. “Atticus, please.”
His control fractures on the please.
He shifts me, changing the angle just a little, and slides into me with agonizing slowness, like he’s calibrating every fraction of movement. His jaw clenches. A vein jumps in his neck.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he grits out, breath hot against my cheek. “I stop the second you say.”
I test it. When sensations spike a little too sharp, I grab his wrist and choke out, “Wait.” He freezes instantly, chest heaving, every muscle trembling with the effort of not moving.
When I whisper, “More,” he exhales a broken curse and obeys like it’s a commandment.
He rides the line perfectly, relentless in how he matches me.
The pressure coils and coils in my clit until it snaps; when it does, it rips through me so hard my vision goes white.
My core tightens, and everything explodes.
He follows with a strangled groan, buried deep, coming apart with all that carefully leashed control shredding at the edges.
“Fuck, kitten,” he gasps into my neck. “You’re gonna kill me.”
I’m still catching my breath when Maverick slides in, all hot skin and hungry eyes and a smile that’s turned a little wild.
He kisses me like he’s drunk on me—messy, adoring, a little too eager. His hands roam everywhere: cupping my face, tracing my throat, skimming down to grip my hips like he can’t believe this is real.
“Look at you,” he says, voice wrecked. “Our girl. Taking us like you were built for it. You were, you know. You were created to take each and every one of our dicks. Such a perfect little Firebird.”
When he sinks into me, there’s no pretending he has Storm’s restraint or Atticus’s precision. He’s shaking, breath catching in sharp, uneven bursts. Every thrust gives him away—too honest, too open, all worship and no disguise.
He whispers the filthiest, sweetest things in my ear, a nonstop stream of praise and obscenity that makes my toes curl. It’s too much and not enough and exactly right.
I come again, dragged under by the combination of his voice and his body and the way he says my name like it’s his favorite sin. He breaks right after me, laughing a little, moaning a lot, clinging like he thinks I might vanish.
By the time he’s done, I’m limp and buzzing, nerve endings half-melted. I don’t think I can take anything else.
Then Conrad touches my ankle.
Just that. Just his fingers, sliding from my ankle to my calf in one long, slow stroke. My whole body lights up like a live wire.
“You sure?” he asks, eyes storm-dark, voice low like he’s afraid of the answer. “You can tap out, Phoenix. Nobody’s keeping score. You’ve got nothing to prove. It won’t change anything, Princess. You’re still ours.”
I haul my gaze to his face. He looks like he’s been standing on the edge of a cliff this whole time, waiting for someone to say jump or don’t.
“I’m sure,” I say. My hand finds his chest, slides down over the scar under his ribs, lower still until I’m wrapping my fingers around him. His breath stutters, eyes slamming shut for a second as his body goes taut. “I want you, Conrad. I want all of you. Fuck me, right now.”
The last of his restraint snaps.
He comes over me, big and solid and impossibly gentle as he settles between my thighs. He kisses me like he’s signing a contract, slow and deliberate, before lining us up.
When he pushes into me, it’s deep and sure and so right my throat closes around his name. He holds still, panting, watching my face like he’s braced for any hint of regret.
All he finds is yes.
He moves with a steady, claiming rhythm, one hand catching mine and pressing it into the mattress over my head like he’s staking out territory in cotton and skin. “Mine,” he rasps, the word torn out of him when the tip of his dick hits the end of me.
“Yours,” I gasp back, every muscle tightening, my body arching up to meet him.
The last climb is brutal and perfect. Every thrust, every kiss, every whispered “you’re safe” spoken into my skin stacks until the whole world narrows to the burn in my muscles and the pressure under my ribs.
When it breaks, I shatter.
Pleasure detonates, ripping through me in waves that leave me shaking and half-sobbing, fingers clawed into his shoulders. The room blurs. The only things that feel real are the weight of him, his voice in my ear, the other three pressing in around us with hands on my skin, grounding me.
Conrad goes with me, body locking up, a raw, helpless sound spilling against my mouth. He comes apart like he doesn’t know how to hold himself together without me anymore.
When it’s finally over—really over, no more edges waiting in my nerves, no more cliffs to jump—I collapse back into the mattress, lungs burning, muscles loose.
They don’t leave.
They rearrange.
Atticus pulls me half into his lap to take the strain off my legs, one arm banded around my waist, the other splayed over my stomach.
Storm lies along my other side, chest to my shoulder, hand resting over my ribs, counting breaths.
Maverick sprawls at the foot of the bed, cheek on my thigh, fingers drawing lazy shapes on my skin.
Conrad tucks himself in at my back, curling his body around mine, his arm a heavy, solid line across my middle.
We’re a tangle of damp skin, tangled limbs, and fucked-out breathing, the sheets twisted under us.
For a long moment, nobody speaks. The ceiling fan hums. The house settles. My heartbeat slowly climbs down from the rafters.
Then Maverick huffs a weak laugh. “So,” he says, voice shredded but pleased. “Bed and shower are yours now. Gonna have to build you an altar in both rooms, sweetheart.”
Atticus snorts. Storm’s mouth curves against my temple. Conrad presses a kiss into my wet hair like he’s sealing something.
I close my eyes, surrounded on all sides by their bodies, their warmth, the beat of four hearts that chose me, and let myself believe it:
I’m not a victim anymore.
I’m not a story that ends in a locked metal box filled with blood and hate.
I’m the center of this circle.
And every single one of my men just came apart for me—and with me.
“I’m not made of glass,” I remind them when I can speak in whole words.
“No, kitten, you’re not glass,” Atticus agrees. “You never were.”
“The key to the cage you’ve put me in is mine,” I say, because that’s the only rule that matters. “I stay because I want to, not because you’re forcing me.”
“Always,” Storm answers, promise edged in threat for anyone else.
“But we’ll never let you go,” Maverick says, soft and certain.
Conrad puts his mouth against my temple. “Test that as often as you like.”
I hum, mean and pleased. “I plan to be insufferable.”
“Good,” he says, and I feel it all the way down into my toes.
The house resets to a kind of quiet that isn’t vigil anymore. My body hums with aftermath in that sweet, heavy way that makes sleep possible. Four heartbeats settle near mine—different tempos, same song.
“Say it again,” I tell them, drunk on relief and power and the way they look at me when I’ve ruined them.
“Which part?” Maverick asks, already grinning.
“The part where you think I’m yours.”
“We don’t think,” Atticus says. “We know.”
“Mine,” Storm says.
“First and last,” Conrad says. “Only.”
I smile, sharp and soft. “Good boys.”