CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23
His fingers move away from my clit, and my eyes widen as I watch him slide from his seat. He can't possibly have meant that... He did. He settles between my thighs, smirking at my shocked expression as he parts the fabric of my dress. I see Jeremiah's fingers slide in and out of me, and I hear them move through my wetness. But they let me, as his mouth releases my nipple and he moves his mouth to mine. Just in time, because his kiss muffles the moan I'm sure everyone would have heard when Ezekiel thrusts his tongue inside me. My thighs clench around the sides of his head, and I don't give a damn what he said before. I shift, circling my hips, desperate for more, desperate for the orgasm that's just out of reach.

Jeremiah's tongue circles mine as his hand slides down to my breast, rubbing my wet nipple in circles while his brother devours me. I was worried about my sounds, but I think everyone could hear Ezekiel's now as he moans against me. His hands wrap around my thighs, pulling them away from the sides of his head and spreading them wide. I whimper into Jeremiah's mouth, and he pulls his mouth from mine, bringing it to my ear.

"I think you want the waiter to find us like this," he says hoarsely. "Ezequiel between your thighs, my hand under your dress, and you writhing between us."

I shake my head, though... I'm not so sure I would actually care anymore. It turns me on even more to hear Jeremiah talk like this. Normally, it's Ezekiel who swears, but hearing it from Jeremiah fills me with a new wave of desire. However, all thoughts of words vanish from my mind when Ezekiel licks my lips. A loud moan tries to escape me, but Jeremiah's hand covers my mouth.

“Come for us,” he whispers, tempting and pleading.

Then his lips move to my neck, sucking where my pulse is racing, up to his mouth. Ezekiel sucks on my clit at the same time, causing me to come apart between them. Jeremiah's hand barely contains my gasps as I come, arching into Jeremiah's hand on my chest and Ezekiel's lips around my clit.

“Will you make those same sounds for us later?” Jeremiah asks, licking circles on my skin.

The mere promise of all this happening again, and more, makes me let out a shaky breath as I nod. Ezekiel gives me one last long lick before smiling at me from under the table. Jeremiah fixes my dress as Ezekiel gets up and returns to his seat. And just as Jeremiah sits down, the curtain opens and the waiter walks in, a plate in hand.

He frowns at me, and I can imagine what I must be like. Slouched in the chair, my dress still a little disheveled, I'm sure, and my lips red and swollen from kissing the two men next to me, but he doesn't say anything about my appearance as he places the plate on the table in front of me. My hand is still shaking as I pick up one of the three small forks next to the cake.

"Aren't you going to eat too?" I ask when neither of them takes a fork.

"Yes, but you eat the biggest portion," Ezequiel says. "You'll need energy for when we get back to the room."

Before I can say anything, Jeremiah chuckles. "Room? I think you mean the limo. We won't get home without fucking her on the way."

Oh my god.

Suddenly, all I want is to finish this cake so we can go.

“You do realize you’re going to have to pee in five minutes, right?” Ezekiel asks, turning around in the front seat to hand me my drink.

I take the 900ml slush and wave her off. "It's not my first time. And how can you pass up when a drive-thru offers a drink this large for two dollars?"

—Yes, because it's probably 90 percent sugar, Jeremiah laughs.

—I'll take it. Maybe some of you will lick the syrup off my lips later.—

"I think I remember one time you accused me of making everything sound sexual," Ezequiel says.

—Well, that was back when your mere presence still irritated me.

Ezequiel bursts out laughing. "Oh, my presence never irritated you. It excited you, and you hated it. Every time you looked at us, you breathed faster, and that blush crept across your skin. Not even squinting could hide your desire."

Or was it all in your imagination until I got desperate enough to end up in your hotel room and changed my mind?

"Desperate?" Jeremiah exclaims. "If I remember correctly, that night you were just craving an orgasm."

—Orgasms—, Ezequiel empathizes. —Plural—.

I roll my eyes and know Jeremiah sees me in the rearview mirror because of his laughter.

“Are you still in denial?” he asks.

—Denial about...—, I ask immediately.

—Your ability to have these little things called feelings—.

I sigh, because there's no way I can deny it. But even so, I don't tell them that I've realized I love them. That I'm no longer running away from my feelings. That I am completely theirs. Still, it feels weird proclaiming my love when they still see me as the woman who's avoided it like the plague my entire life. Maybe it'll be easier if I start by explaining why I never wanted to have feelings.

"I was never in denial," I begin, sidestepping the issue. "More like... I just never wanted to end up in the situation that, in my opinion, loving someone put you in."

"What is it?" Ezequiel asks.

Love has always seemed to me—it seemed to me because it doesn't seem like anything to me anymore—like a shackle. A word people said to make you easily submit to their molding, to their desire to make you into what they wanted you to be. To blind you to the fact that they were constricting you, making you smaller and less until you fit into their perfect little box. On the other hand, I've seen people use love as an excuse to lose themselves and become what the other person needed, sacrificing part after part of themselves until they don't even notice who's looking back at them in the mirror.

"Have you observed?" Jeremiah asks. "Who have you observed?"

Sigh. My mother. Over and over again, falling for what she considered love, falling for who she thought could love her. She changed the way she dressed, the way she spoke, her likes and dislikes—everything, each time, for the new love of her life. With one man, she loved basketball, and with the next, football. With one, her favorite food was Italian, with the next, French. And so on, as I watched the new version of my mother evolve each time. As I watched these men let their perfect woman mold, all the while knowing they wouldn't stay. That they would let me pick up the broken pieces. Because it was always me she cried to, the one she counted on, the one who brought her tissues and cleaned up when she spent the next few weeks in bed, mourning the loss of love. So yeah, it wasn't denying that she might someday have feelings—it was rebuking them because I never wanted to end up like this. Or be the person who traded everything about herself for someone else and ended up broken. Not even the one who let someone change completely for me, only to break their heart in the end. If that was love, I wanted nothing to do with it.

“But that’s what it’s all about,” Ezequiel says. “That wasn’t love. It wasn’t real love. Real love would never want you to completely change who you are, but it would tell you that what you are is enough. Real love wouldn’t point out all the ways you’re worthless, but it would let you know how perfect you are. Real love wouldn’t make you doubt yourself or feel inferior.”

"But you said all of this in the past tense," Jeremiah points out, making me gulp nervously. "So, you don't feel the same anymore? Have you changed your mind about what love means?"

I lick my lips and let out an anxious sigh. “Yes.”

Ezequiel looks over his shoulder at me and smiles, so I ask him something I've been wondering about, especially a lot during the previous night and the way he seemed so much more comfortable being with me and Jeremiah by the time we left the restaurant.

—And you, have you decided to trust again?—

That smile fades instantly, and her gaze narrows on Jeremiah. "What did you say to him?"

I stay still. I had assumed Jeremiah had told him about our conversation, since he'd surely told him about our meeting in the shower afterward. Clearly, I was wrong. Jeremiah's hands grip the steering wheel as Ezekiel glares at him.

"She deserved to know," Jeremiah defends himself.

"You know what?" Ezequiel snaps.

"Why are you so distant sometimes? Why do you draw her in and then push her away?" I needed to know it wasn't her fault.

—So you decided you should have a conversation about me without including me in it?

"I asked," I try to intervene, but neither of them seems to hear me.

"You had no right," Ezequiel growls.

—He had every right. We're all in this relationship.

"What relationship?" Ezequiel barks, and I flinch at the sound of his voice rising as high as the pain his words inflict on me.

What relationship?

I feel my heart sink right now, wondering if I fell in love after all this time, only to end up right where I never wanted to be. I feel my mind mocking me, wondering if I really believed what I felt would last. And my body starts to shake with the onslaught of both of them.

“It’s you, her, and me, doing exactly what we said we would do from the moment this all started,” Ezekiel continues, each word like a piece of glass cutting me.

—Are you really going to sit there and act like you're not as involved in this as we are?—

Ezequiel shakes his head and turns to look out the window. I stare at his reflection, trying to convince myself he doesn't mean it. That it's just the pain talking, but that falls short when I'm suffering too. I'm suffering, and I can't imagine throwing the same words at Ezequiel he just threw at me. Then his reflection is obscured by the raindrops that begin to fall. It seems appropriate that it should start raining right now, that the sound of rain on the car roof should break the tense silence that fills it.

—She's not... her. It's not fair to treat her like that, Jeremiah says.

—Yeah, well, I didn't think our ex was like that either. And look how it ended.

Jeremiah's eyes rest on me in the rearview mirror, but I look away.

—Lau… —he starts, but I interrupt him.

"I'm fine," I said through gritted teeth.

“Damn it, Ezekiel,” Jeremiah whispers.

I see Ezequiel's shoulders slump, but he doesn't say a word.