Chapter 183: Jake
We stand over her like two monsters over an angel.
Twisted. I love it. And the look on her face—wide, hungry, holy—says she does too.
Reid holds the line. I can feel the leash in him, bit between his teeth. My brother’s capable of control; I’ve watched him choke on it for years. But this? This is a wild beast asking to be let off, and he still keeps to his own rule: not here. Not yet.
She looks up at us. Then she works.
My belt first—leather whispering through metal, a clean slide that steals the breath right out of my chest. Her knuckles graze my skin; I feel it everywhere. She moves to Reid. Buckle. Pull. The quiet, precise tug that makes his jaw tick. She comes back, sets her fingers on our zippers, and eases both down—one, then the other—like we’re something delicate, like she’s unwrapping a secret she earned.
We let her.
Jeans drop low. Candlelight licks over the cotton of our boxers, nothing left to pretend with. She gasps—small, helpless—eyes going bigger as the shape and weight of us leave the dark and live right in front of her.
It hits me then. She’s felt us; at her back, on her legs. But she hasn’t seen us like this. She hasn't seen what we have to offer her.
We say nothing. We make her a cathedral of silence and let her worship.
Her hands hover, then descend. One to each of us. A press through thin fabric, tentative first, then sure. She traces the hard lines of our lengths with her fingers, before closing them around our cocks. The noise Reid makes—low, ruined—scalds through my spine. Mine isn’t a noise so much as a warning: a growl I can’t stop.
I catch her wrist—not to take it off, to slow. To make it last. Her pulse hammers against my fingers; she doesn’t pull away.
Reid’s voice, rough as the wind at the window: “Look at us.”
She does. The room tightens around it.
I lean in, let my mouth brush her temple without kissing. “How does it feel to see us like this?” Not gentle. Not kind. A promise wrapped in a question.
Her lips part. She can’t seem to decide where to look, and the greedy part of me wants to choose for her.
Reid tips his head, eyes black in the candlelight. “We’ll teach you how to take every inch of us, Trouble.” It’s not loud. It doesn’t need to be. It lands in the center of her like a mark.
She swallows; her hands tighten. My grip climbs her wrist to her forearm, anchoring her, owning the tremor that runs through her as she tests pressure, tests us—what makes my breath hitch, what makes Reid’s control fracture for a heartbeat.
“Slow,” I murmur, because I want slow to hurt. Because I want it carved into memory that we gave her reverence before we gave her ruin.
Her eyes cut up to me, bright and obedient. She slows. Twists. It’s worse. Better.
Reid doesn’t touch her. He lets her make the story, and it costs him. I can see it in his shoulders, the way his breath saws once, twice, then evens out like he’s choking down fire.
I release her wrist and lay my palm over the back of her neck, warm, possessive.
I kiss her.
She meets me like she’s been waiting—no hesitation, no shy. Heat straight to heat. Her mouth opens under mine and I take it, slow at first, then rougher when she leans in and makes a small noise that rakes straight down my spine.
Her hands don’t leave us. Gripping Reid, testing the edge of his control with the same steady pressure as she has on me. I feel him shudder through her touch—feel it, want it—and deepen the kiss until she has to breathe against my mouth.
Reid’s breath hits her cheek. He doesn’t steal her away; he claims the space beside her, jaw grazing her temple, his hand braced on the mattress so he doesn’t break his rule. The restraint is a live wire. I can hear it in the way he growls when her fingers press harder, in the way his chest lifts against her shoulder like he’s caging the urge with air.
I angle her chin and take her again, slower now—possessive, deliberate—until her lips are slick and her lashes are low. When I break, Reid finally tips her face and takes what I left, mouth deep and sure, control turned into something that sounds like worship. She exhales into him, hands still on both of us, like she refuses to let either tether go.
“Madeline,” I warn, because I want her to hear it, want her to feel the edge, “you keep touching like that and we’re going to stop pretending we’re civilized.”
She smiles against Reid’s lips, wicked and soft at once, and squeezes—one of us, then the other. The answering sound we make isn’t civilized at all.
She pulls back—cheeks flushed, mouth swollen and shining—and she’s ruinous like that. Beautiful in a way that hurts.
“Lie down,” she says.
It comes out soft—like she’s still testing the shape of giving orders—but there’s heat under it. A tremor, then a dare. It shouldn’t work on men like us. It works immediately.
We go without speaking. I ease back first, shoulders to the headboard, the comforter rough under my spine; Reid mirrors me on the other side, jaw tight, eyes on her like a hand around her throat and his own. Candlelight throws our torsos up in bands of gold and shadow.
She turns and crawls up between us, knees denting the mattress. Jake’s T-shirt hangs off one shoulder; those cotton shorts ride high on her thighs when she settles. Her braid’s half undone—enough to make me want to fist it, enough to make Reid breathe in through his teeth and hold.
She places a palm on each of our sternums—light, testing—then presses us the last inch down. My muscles jump under her hand. Reid’s do, too. She watches, fascinated, like she’s cataloging reactions for later.
She looks us over, slow, unapologetic. The length of us under thin fabric. The cut of obliques, the V that disappears into heat. Her gaze drags lower, then back up, taking all of it in like she’s measuring how much want the night can hold.
My brother doesn’t move. He won’t touch her first. It’s killing him and he’ll still let it. I know the cost of that kind of control because I can hear it in his breathing—measured, wrecked.
She wets her lip, voice roughened. “Let me explore you.”
It lands like a mark. I feel my groan before I hear it. Reid’s answer is a darker sound—more beast than man.
We nod at the same time.