Chapter 19 Phoenix #2
“Tomorrow you describe a face,” he says as we turn back. “Tonight you only have to look at mine.”
I look. His expression is open and easy, but not light. He knows better. He brings comfort the way he brings a joke—on purpose, when it is needed, with more care than he will ever admit.
“Thank you for the peaches,” I say, just to have a small thing to offer for everything that he’s doing for me.
“Anytime,” he says. “Tomorrow you can insult my coffee.”
“Never,” I say. “I intend to be grateful for my coffee for the rest of my life.”
“Atticus just fell in love with you again from the other room,” he says, pleased with himself.
“Good,” I say, and mean it.
On the way back inside, Spencer meets us at the door. He looks at me, not through me. “You holding up?” he asks, simple and honest.
“I am,” I say. “It helps that you are here.”
“Then I will remain here,” he replies, as if I have asked him to pass the salt. “My son sleeps more soundly when I sit near a window. I can do that.”
The words land in me like a steadying hand. “It is good to hear a father say I will remain,” I tell him. “That is not what I am used to.”
“I know,” he says. “There is time to get used to different words.”
Night brings new quiet to the world around us. We do not pretend it’s the same as peace, but it is closer than last night. The operators trade places like ghosts who have been told to be kind.
We keep the house lights low, Storm and Atticus talking softly in the den. I hear Wolfe and ten a.m. and then nothing that sounds like pressure. Conrad sits in the chair outside my door with Zeus at his feet and reads the same page three times.
I brush my teeth and catch my own reflection in the mirror. The bruises are changing to yellow and green. My eyes look clearer than they did yesterday.
I do not look like a victim. I do not look like something that cannot break.
I look like myself, and that is the victory for today.
Before I climb into bed, I open the door fully and lean on the frame. Conrad looks up at once. He sets the book on his thigh and waits. He doesn’t reach for me.
I should close the door.
I don’t.
Instead, I leave it cracked—just enough that the strip of light from the hallway cuts across the floorboards like a line I can step over or not. His silhouette is a solid shape in the chair. A sentry. A promise.
It helps that you’re here.
Fabric rustles at my window, then knuckles tap the frame—two quick touches that make my heart jump at first.
“Kitten?” a voice whispers. “You decent or should I come back in…five minutes?”
I cross the room and slide the window open a few inches. Cool island air slips in, carrying marsh and ocean.
“I’m in pajamas,” I say, bemused. “So, no. Why the hell are you slipping in through the window?”
Atticus smirks up at me from the little bit of porch roof outside, one hand braced, one thigh bent. “Thought I’d try something different. Is that no a challenge or a rejection?”
“Depends,” I say. “You coming in or not?”
His eyes flare behind his glasses. “Color?”
“Green,” I answer. “The door stays how it is.” My throat tightens. “I… want him there.”
Something flickers in his expression—understanding, worry, and a flash of sharp protectiveness that isn’t for me this time, but for the man in the hall. “Yeah, kitten,” he says softly. “We can do that.”
He swings himself in easy, bare feet silent on the hardwood. He’s in a soft T-shirt and joggers, hair a little spiky from his hands. He smells like soap and something exotic and spicy—his cologne.
He doesn’t crowd me. He comes close enough for me to reach and then stops.
“Rules?” he asks.
“Slow,” I say. “My pace. If I say stop, you stop.”
His mouth curves. “You say stop, I’ll go sit my ass in that chair next to Conrad and we pretend I came up here to talk about taxes and excel charts.”
It pulls a short laugh out of me. It helps. “No taxes.”
“Deal.” He tips his head toward the door. “You sure about him?”
“Yes.” I don’t have to think about it. “He’s not leaving. Might as well let him be part of the reason I’m not afraid.”
Atticus’s throat works. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Then we’ll give him something to be jealous about.”
He reaches for my hand, fingers brushing mine first, giving me a second to change my mind. I take his hand and hold on. Heat slides up my arm, settling low and heavy in my belly.
He draws me to the bed, not with dragging force but with an easy sway, like we’re dancing and I’m leading even if it doesn’t look like it.
“Climb up,” he murmurs. “However you want me.”
I do. I sit on the edge, then scoot back, spine propped against the headboard, legs bent. I can see the slice of hallway from here, the outline of Conrad’s shoulder and the top of Zeus’s head in my periphery. I don’t stare. I just…register. Anchor. Remember.
Atticus removes his glasses and sets them on the bedside table, then kneels on the mattress in front of me. His hands go to the hem of my T-shirt.
“This okay?” he asks.
“Yes. This is…outside the lines for you, though. The roof, asking permission.” I search his eyes. “Is this what you want?”
His hands still. “Phoenix. If you were wheelchair-bound and unable to have sex for the remainder of our lives, I’d still want you.
I want you…your spirit, your…acquiescence…
your submission in any form that it arrives.
” The corner of his mouth ticks up. “Do I want you on your knees choking on my cock? Fuck yeah. And we’ll get there again.
But right now it’ll be heaven just to sink into your tight pussy and feel you strangle me. ”
I swallow. “Good enough.”
Returning to his task, he peels my shirt up slowly, knuckles skimming my ribs, thumbs stroking the sides of my waist. The shirt goes over my head and drops somewhere on the floor. Cool air licks at newly bare skin, followed immediately by the heat of his gaze.
“Fuck, kitten,” he breathes. “You’re gonna ruin me.”
He leans in and kisses my collarbone first. Not my mouth. The move is almost reverent. His lips trail along the ridge of bone, down to the hollow at the base of my throat. Each press is a question: here? here? still good?
I answer with the way my fingers slide into his hair, the way my back arches, offering more.
He smiles against my skin. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
His hands are everywhere—up my sides, down my arms, cupping my hips. His thumbs draw slow circles that make my breath stutter. He kisses higher, finally catching my mouth, and the methodical, analytical Atticus I know tips over into something hungrier.
But he still doesn’t touch my nipples, or anything else that might drag me closer to climax before he’s ready.
I lose a little time in that kiss, forgetting everything and anything but his touch.
When I blink, I’m already under him, my back flat against the sheets, his body a warm, solid weight between my knees.
One of his hands laces with mine, pinning it gently above my head.
The other charts a path down my side, over the curve of my hip, settling at the back of my thigh while he spreads me open.
“Still green?” he murmurs against my lips.
“Still green,” I breathe.
He grins, shaky around the edges. “Good, because I have been thinking about this for so long it’s starting to qualify as a medical condition.”
I huff out a laugh that turns into a gasp when his hand slides between my thighs. He takes his time, touching my slit like I’m precious and like I’m driving him out of his mind, both at once. He knows what I like; he listened in the shower, watched what worked, filed it away behind his eyes.
“You’re so worked up,” he murmurs, awe in his voice. “We didn’t even have to do much, did we?”
“You’re doing plenty,” I manage.
He hums, pleased. “Gonna do more now.”
When he finally pushes into me, it’s slow and careful, giving me every second to adjust to the heat and size of his cock. I feel my body stretch around him, the sharp, sweet burn of it sliding through me, and for a breath my vision goes soft at the edges when my orgasm dances just out of reach.
His forehead drops to mine. His hand tightens on my thigh.
“God, kitten,” he groans. “You feel—” He cuts himself off with a bitten curse, breath shuddering.
I breathe with him. In. Out. The way he taught me. My nails drag down his back, not to hurt, just to say yes, yes, yes.
“You okay?” he pants.
“Move,” I say. “Please. Make me come, Atticus.”
He obeys.
His rhythm finds me faster than I expect—like a song we both somehow already know the words to. Each roll of his hips drags a new sound out of me. Little broken moans. Sharp curses. His name.
He watches my face like it’s the best show he’s ever seen. Every hitch in my breath, every twitch of my mouth, he adjusts to meet it. Deeper, slower, sharper, whatever I need.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, eyes burning. “Taking it. Taking me. You know what that does to a guy, sweetheart?”
I glance sideways on a gasp and catch the briefest flash of Conrad watching through the crack in the door—his head tipped back against the chair, eyes shut, jaw set hard. His hands are folded on his chest, book abandoned. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t intrude.
He just stays.
The sight punches something inside me loose. I look back at Atticus and let it show.
“I feel safe,” I blurt, breathless. “With you. With him there. With all of you.”
His expression breaks open, raw and tender. His thrusts stutter for a second, like he’s overwhelmed.
“Yeah?” he whispers. “Then I’m doing something right.”
He drops his mouth to mine again, kissing me through it, swallowing my sounds when the pleasure starts to crest. His hand leaves my thigh, slides up to cradle the side of my face, thumb brushing away a tear I didn’t know I’d let go.
“Let go for me,” he says, voice rough. “C’mon, Phoenix. Take what you want.”
I do.
The wave hits hard—heat flooding my body in one fierce rush, every muscle going tight then loose. I clutch at him, nails digging in, back arching. The world narrows to his weight, his voice, the way he says my name like it’s a promise and a prayer and a dirty word all at once.
He follows me over the edge with a strangled sound that breaks into a laugh on the end, hips jerking, his precious control snapping. His body shudders against mine as he comes, breath torn out of him in ragged bursts.
For a long moment, all I can hear is our breathing and the ceiling fan.
Atticus finally collapses, careful, bracing most of his weight on his forearms so he doesn’t crush me. He buries his face in my neck and just… breathes me in.
“Fuck,” he says softly. “You’re gonna be the death of me. Best way to go, though.”
I huff a weak laugh, still boneless, still buzzing.
The door creaks almost imperceptibly. Conrad doesn’t come in. He doesn’t speak. I just feel the shift in the air, the faint scrape of chair legs as he stands, then the soft pad of his footsteps as he moves closer to the door, like he’s checking that I’m really laughing, really okay.
“Still green?” he asks from the hall, voice low, careful.
“Yeah,” I call back, my voice rough but steady. “Still green.”
There’s a pause, then a quiet, “Good,” and the chair cushions sigh as he sits again.
Atticus lifts his head enough to meet my eyes. “You know he’s not gonna forgive himself for not stopping it before it happened,” he says.
“He didn’t know,” I answer. “None of you did.”
“Yeah, but he’s Conrad.” He brushes his thumb over my cheek. “We’re gonna have to show him.”
“We?” I echo.
He grins, lazy and satisfied now, eyes soft. “I mean, I’m happy to volunteer as tribute for more hands-on demonstrations of you being very, very okay.”
I snort. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’m actually a Mensa level genius, thank you.” He kisses my nose, then my mouth, then my chin. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Outside the door, the house is quiet. Storm and Maverick murmur in the den, low and distant. Conrad keeps his watch. Zeus snores.
Inside the room, Atticus settles along my side, dragging the sheet up over both of us, tangling our legs. I tuck myself into the curve of him, my palm resting over his heart.
“Stay?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
He laughs softly, pressing his lips to my hair. “You’re joking, right? You’re gonna need a crowbar to get me out of this bed.”
For the first time in longer than I can count, the idea of closing my eyes with a man still in my bed doesn’t make my stomach clench.
It makes me feel…full.
Held.
Safe.
Conrad shifts in the chair, just a shadow beyond the door. Atticus’s heartbeat thumps steady under my hand.
I let myself drift, wrapped in the warm, ridiculous fact of both of them:
The man in my bed.
The man at my door.
And the quiet certainty that this time, when I sleep, I’ll be kept safe.