Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
I understand what she’s asking.
She’s been angry with Jag for seventeen years. Even though he has now begged for forgiveness and laid every ugly truth at her feet, there are still miles between what they were and what they want to be. She’s not going to leap from guardian and ward, brother and sister, and enemies with history, straight into lovers and call it healed.
Jag’s already there. He crossed that line years ago in his head and heart. But Dove hasn’t. Not yet. She needs room to move at her own pace, to choose him without feeling shoved or cornered by time or expectation.
But she doesn’t want to be shut out or pushed to the sidelines while her insides are rearranging. She wants to witness stability in our fragile threesome and experience the pleasure of watching us fuck instead of being inside the storm of it. She wants participation without the pressure.
Jag gets it. He looks at me, and our gazes tangle, refusing to separate. His dick thickens against my hip, and I curl my hand around it, giving him a teasing stroke.
“Remove your clothes.” He smacks my thigh and climbs off the bed.
Grabbing a chair, he sets it close, right beside me. Then he turns to Dove.
“One request.” He rests a hand over hers on the towel. “Take this off. Let us look at you while you’re looking at us.”
She nods, staring up at him with so much trust in her eyes. He earned that, and I’m stupidly happy for him.
He pulls the towel free, lets it fall from her body, and spreads it over the seat of the chair.
She stands there naked, unguarded, and so fucking arresting that my heart seizes. Jag lets himself look, too, hungrily, brazenly, cock straining his jeans, and a groan vibrating in his chest.
He’s seen her naked more times than I have, but always through a camera lens. This must feel surreal to him. To both of them.
Taking her hand, he guides her to the chair and positions her on the towel as if to protect her from invisible dirt.
While he does that, I shed my clothes and leave them where they fall, settling back on the bed with my hands braced behind me.
My pulse thrashes in my ears, and blood pounds in my saluting dick. I don’t know how the mechanics of this will work or how I’ll respond. I just know that I trust him.
He pulls off his clothes, revealing a physique carved in bold, vascular lines. Broad shoulders, shredded torso, washboard stomach, and a long, thick cock, all strength and endurance, built for stamina.
“Trust me?” He snags the bottle of lube and squirts it onto his palm.
“Yeah. Fully.”
He kneels on the bed, grips my dick with his lubed hand, and collars my throat with the other. Then he holds me there, staring into my eyes and jerking me with ruthless strokes.
Within seconds, my stomach clenches, and my balls tighten with an overpowering need to come. He edges me right up to the cusp and stops.
I open my mouth to complain and shut it when I see his expression.
Slowly, he releases me, drags his pinkie along mine, and hooks our fingers together. Then he looks at Dove as if asking permission.
She sits with her knees bent against her chest, her features creasing, half-anger, half-ache, one-hundred-percent beautiful as she glares at the tiny connection between our fingers.
“Dove, what’s wrong?” Jag watches her closely. “Use your words.”
“I’m thinking about our cardboard forts, when it was just you and me, when that…” She nods at our linked pinkies. “That was mine. I claimed that.” Her voice cracks. “Why are you sharing it with him?”
The room falls still.
“It’s still yours.” He twitches his finger against mine.
“So is this.” I touch the scar under his ribs with my free hand, tracing the familiar edge. “It’s yours.”
Tears hover in her eyes, unshed and confused.
“You don’t want to share him with me?” I lower my hand.
“I do. Of course, I do. It’s not that. It’s just… The memories were all I had left of him, the only connection I had for so long, and I’ve fiercely guarded every fragment, every piece of Jag that I lost. I know you’re not trying to steal that from me. My jealousy doesn’t make sense, especially since we’re all naked, and you two are about to have sex. I don’t want to be territorial or difficult or whatever this is.”
Jag shifts to go to her.
“Stay.” She lifts a hand. “Please, stay right there.”
He freezes, looking conflicted and torn.
I feel the pull in him, the instinct to fix, to gather her up and make it stop hurting, but he swallows it for her.
“You’re not wrong for guarding that.” I hold her gaze. “You survived on those memories.”
She squeezes her arms tighter around her knees.