Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
His voice has gone dark, the question demanding. I don’t know why Maddox is pushing her. He’s usually the one who keeps things playful, and I’m the one asking the too-deep questions and assigning meaning where there’s none. But the water’s moving and his biceps are flexing with how hard he’s finger-fucking her beneath the surface. Above, he’s going even harder. “Why, Kayla?”
Is he trying to make her admit she came to get fucked? I mean, it’s pretty obvious, so I don’t know why he’s making a sudden power play.
“Because I knew that I could just… be me.”
I don’t think any of us expected those words to come out of her mouth. Shock jolts down my spine, Maddox’s lips lift in a surprised smile, and Kayla immediately bites down on her bottom lip like she didn’t mean to say that or maybe wishes she could take it back.
But she can’t. It’s the truth. She knows it, and so do we.
Some people need places they can wear different masks or costumes, like they’re trying on personas and façades for fun or to see what fits best. Kayla is the opposite. She puts on an aura of aloofness every day, as a way to protect herself from others’ judgments and preconceived ideas about who she is or isn’t. For her, somewhere to not pretend, where she’s able to simply be herself, is the most tantalizing comfort we can offer her.
“What does that mean for you?” he asks. She shakes her head, not answering.
Maddox has slowed down, the water no longer rippling with his movements, and she whines for him to give her more, shifting her hips to fuck herself on his fingers and get the release she wants.
“Tell him,” I say encouragingly. “Tell us.”
A whole-body shiver works through her, like she’s hanging on to the edge, and I think that’s what prompts her to admit, “No games. No strategy. Just real. Just… easy.”
She thinks this is easy? How fucking hard has her life been? Because what we’re doing, blending three personalities, histories, needs, wants, and lives is gonna be rough. But with her? I can’t wait for all of it, especially the no-games part. Other than hockey, I refuse to play games. I can’t do that to my heart again.
“You can be yourself with us,” I rumble, tilting her face toward me and waiting for her to open her eyes, making sure she hears that loud and clear. “We want you to be.”
“Even though I’m a cold-hearted bitch?” she challenges breathlessly. She’s putting up walls, re-erecting the defense that crumbled a bit with her admission, and pushing us away with the reminder of what she thinks she is.
I wonder how many times she’s been called that? How long it took before she started calling herself that? Based on the number of times I had to be called a worthless piece of shit before I internalized it, my bet is a lot, and that makes me angry as hell at every single person who dared to dilute Kayla down to such an untrue conclusion.
“Woman, the last thing you are is cold,” I grit out, “and if you act like a bitch, it’s a warranted reaction to someone else’s bullshit.”
Yep, poetry in action over here in my head.
But it’s what she needs to hear as her lips slam against mine, her fingers diving into my hair to pull me in harder like she needs to taste those words. I’ll say them over and over until I overwrite her own internal narrator, though I have no idea how long that’ll take considering my own fucked-up inner voice still gives me shit regularly.
While I have her mouth, Maddox moves in to growl in her ear, “We like who you are, Princess.”
Her head drops back, ending our kiss, and I meet Maddox’s eyes. Something changed tonight, for all three of us. We’ve been taking things slow—or as slow as we could—but that ended with her admission that she’s not here to get fucked. She’s here to be… loved.
MADDOX
“Aaaaah!”
Crash.
The scream wakes me from a deep sleep, but it’s the crash that gets me moving.
Time slows as I look to the middle of the bed with bleary eyes, finding a Kayla-sized gap between me and Riggs. I meet his equally confused gaze and without words, we’re both running, naked as the day we were born, toward the living room, where the sounds came from.
“What the fuck!” Kayla shouts.
“What do you mean, what the fuck? What are you doing here?” a male voice answers.
In the living room, I find Kayla in the open sliding back door, one arm across her breasts and her other hand at the apex of her thighs, standing in a puddle of coffee and broken cup pieces, looking somewhere between horrified and murderous. There’s also a guy glaring at her, one arm outstretched like she owes him some explanation and the other covering his eyes, which only minimally saves his life because who is this fucker and why is he on my patio?