Chapter 203: Madeline
We must’ve been out for over an hour or two. The room is quiet when I blink awake—AC humming, curtains breathing. We’d put on a movie “for background,” but the guys were asleep in minutes; I held out longer, tucked under Reid. Even in sleep he’d hauled me closer, nose in my hair, arm a band at my waist like I might float away.
Now the bed beside me is empty and warm where he was.
I roll toward the other bed and—oh. Jake’s propped against the headboard, reading. Bare forearms, veins like topography, a battered paperback in one hand, thumb hooked in the spine. He looks… ridiculous. All those muscles, the whole “runs a research institute, good with his hands, good in bed, respectful” thing—and he reads novels? It’s like he was written by a romance author and left here on purpose.
He feels me staring. He doesn’t look up. “You’re staring.”
“Can you blame me?”
He turns a page, mouth tilting. “If you bite your lip again, I’m going to have to do something about it.”
I freeze, guilty. My teeth are on my lip. I let it go. “Where’s Reid?”
“Woke up, saw it was five, panicked about feeding you.” He taps the clock with the edge of the book. “He went to grab food. Back soon.”
“Mm.” I sit up and stretch, spine popping, then sink into his bed when he opens an arm. He doesn’t stop reading; he just shifts so my head slots against his chest, book angled for two. He smells like mint and cotton and sleep. The print blurs because I’m not reading. I’m cataloging: the steady lift of his breathing under my cheek, the low drum of his heart, the way his mouth moves a little when his eyes catch on a line he likes.
“You’re still staring,” he says, amused.
“Not fair to look that hot while reading,” I mutter.
“Noted.” He keeps going for another paragraph, maybe two, then slides the bookmark in and sets the book aside. His eyes are warm and dark when he looks down at me. “What’s going on in that head?”
I pick at the hem of his T-shirt. “Is it… okay if… it’s just you? Without Reid?”
Both eyebrows lift. “You think we’re tallying?”
“I don’t know.” The words trip, earnest and embarrassing. “Do we… only do things all together? If not, will it feel uneven? Will you keep score?”
He frowns—not angry; thinking. Then he pulls me into his lap like I weigh nothing, swings my knee over his thigh so I’m straddling him, settled and owned in a way that makes my pulse trip. His hands bracket my hips, warm and sure.
“You really gave it a lot of thought,” he says, studying my face.
“I did.”
“Good.” He tips his forehead to mine. “Here’s the deal. Reid and I already talked. We know we can’t both be on you every second. It’s not ‘both or nothing.’ You’re allowed to want one of us. You’re allowed to want both. You’re allowed to want neither and make us watch a movie.”
I huff a laugh despite myself.
He keeps going, voice low and even. “No tally. No scorekeeping. No jealousy games. If either of us ever feels off, we say it out loud. Otherwise? Private moments with me, with him, with us—are all part of the same thing.” His thumbs stroke once, slow, at my waist. “We want you wanted, not managed.”
Warm climbs my throat. “And Reid’s okay with that?”
“He is,” Jake says, certain. “So am I.” One corner of his mouth lifts. “You can always ask. We can always say, ‘Sure,’ or ‘Later,’ or ‘Let’s grab him too.’ But you don’t have to wait to want me just because he’s not in the room.”
The knot in my ribs loosens like it’s been waiting to hear that exact sentence. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoes, and kisses me once—unhurried, reverent, a bookmark slipped between now and later. His hands stay respectful at my waist; he lets me set the tilt, the depth, the length. When we break, he rests his forehead to mine and smiles. “We can read,” he says softly, “or you can keep staring, or—”
“Kiss me again,” I cut in, already breathless.
His eyes flick to my mouth. “Yeah,” he murmurs, and then he does.
It’s unhurried at first, like he’s tasting a line he wants to memorize. One hand comes up to my jaw, thumb stroking once at the corner of my mouth before he tilts my face and fits us together properly. Mint, warmth, the low hum he makes when I open for him—heat rolls through me like the room just turned up a degree.
His other hand slides to the small of my back and settles, broad and steady, easing me closer until I’m molded to him, knees bracketing his hips. He doesn’t rush; he anchors. The heel of his palm presses at my spine, coaxing that slow arch he likes, while his fingers span my waist like they were built to measure exactly how much of me he can hold.
I touch him back—cheek, throat, the soft hair at his nape—and he answers by deepening the kiss, a careful claim that turns greedy for a beat and then eases, like he’s reminding both of us we have time. He tastes like toothpaste and something I’ve started naming as him; the sound I make lands against his tongue and he swallows it like a secret.
“Good,” he says against my lips, not quite words, more praise. His thumb smudges over my lower lip, slow, then draws my mouth back to his. When I chase him, he smiles into it, wrecking me.
He shifts his hand from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair to guide the angle, not force, just that gentle insistence that turns my bones to spark. The other hand maps me—up my side, under the hem of my shirt in a warm sweep that stops at safe and makes my breath stutter anyway. He feels it; his grip firms by a fraction, and the kiss goes darker, reverent and a little mean, exactly the way I like it.
I break for air and he doesn’t go far—mouth trailing to the hinge of my jaw, the hollow below my ear, a slow press that says mine without leaving a mark. His breath is hot on my skin. “Tell me if you want more,” he murmurs, and I feel the words as much as hear them, thumb still drawing lazy circles at my waist like he’s tracing constellations he already knows.
“I want—” I start, and he kisses me again, softer this time, a promise folded into it. My hands fist in his T-shirt; his fingers flex at my nape; the room narrows to heat and the quiet sound we make when we find the same rhythm.
Somewhere in the hall, a key scrapes a lock. He steals one more kiss—quick, possessive—then rests his forehead to mine, breath ragged, hands still gentle where they hold me.
“Later,” he whispers, and it feels like a vow.
The lock clicks. Footsteps. Reid shoulders in with a paper bag and the smell of fries and something herby, eyes lifting, mouth curving when he sees us. “Room service,” he says, all casual like he didn’t just walk in on me straddling his twin in a sweater and socks.
Jake squeezes my hips once, a promise that doesn’t need words, and I slide off his lap with a grin that won’t quit. “What did you get?”
“Everything,” Reid says, and sets the bag down like an offering. His gaze flicks between us, lands on me, and warms. “Hungry, Trouble?”
“Always,” I say, and it’s not about the food at all.