Chapter 206: Reid
We step out of the bathroom with her wrapped in my towel and my arms banded around her from behind. Jake looks up from the table—brows lifting with the question—and I give the smallest shake of my head. Not now.
She let me in. She named a color. That’s farther than she’s ever taken me when the panic’s close. I’m not about to drag her back through it because I’m hungry for answers. Jake and I have our own ghosts—men going over in bad weather, names turned into buoys, the kind of losses you learn to carry in your shoulders. Saying it out loud isn’t relief; it’s replay. I plan on a goddamn eternity with her. Time’s an easy price.
I turn her, palms warm at her waist. “What do you want, Trouble?”
“Hands,” she says, voice small and brave. “I want your hands on me.”
Everything in me tightens. Jake’s mouth curves, wrecked. “Color?” Because apparently that's our thing, now.
“Green,” she answers, steady.
“Good girl.”
We keep the towel around her hips because she asked for touch, not more, but we let her perfect breasts out for us to admire. I turn her and sit at the headboard, draw her back against my chest; Jake kneels on the mattress in front of her, close enough that the lamp throws gold at the edges of his shoulders. The curtains are tight, the chain set. The world can wait.
“Breathe with me,” I murmur into her hair, palms sliding up to her ribs—warm skin, the soft give of the flesh right under her breasts—slow circles until her shoulders drop. Jake takes her face in both hands and kisses her like he’s been fasting for it—unhurried, claiming—and she melts, fingers curling in his shirt.
“You want your mind off it?” I ask at her ear, voice gone low. “We’ll take it.” My hand spreads over her stomach, a rougher pass now, thumb grazing the edge of the towel; her breath snags and then finds a new rhythm. Jake’s mouth trails to her jaw, her throat, careful where the world could see, not careful anyplace else.
“Wider,” I tell her, and nudge my knee between hers from behind. She obeys without thinking; I pull her down so she’s riding the press of my cock through the towel, perfectly placed. “There,” I say, satisfied. “Take what you want.”
She rocks once, startled by her own hunger, and a sound breaks out of her that makes Jake swear into her mouth. I set my hands at her hips and guide, slow and merciless, just enough pressure to make her chase it. “That’s it,” I praise, breath hot at her ear. “Use me.”
Jake slides a palm over her knee and up, dragging his thumb along the inside of her thigh in a line that turns her bones to spark. “Eyes on me,” he orders softly. She looks, pupils blown; he smiles, dangerous and reverent. “You’re gorgeous when you’re greedy.”
“Greedy,” I echo, mouth at the hinge of her jaw.
She moves in our hands—small, helpless circles that get hungrier when I tighten my grip, when Jake’s fingers stroke just where she needs the promise of more. Her head tips back to my shoulder; my teeth graze her pulse and she shivers like a live wire. “Words,” I remind, because I have to.
“Don’t stop,” she gasps. “Please—don’t stop.”
“We won’t,” Jake assures, thumb stroking again, slower, meaner. “You tell us when.”
I slide one hand higher, palm cupping her perfect, perky heat, the other anchoring her low and firm so every roll gives her exactly what she’s chasing. She answers with a soft, broken noise that lives in my spine. I keep my hips steady and press up into her as she rocks down, pace coaxed into something relentless and filthy with control. She's rubbing herself on my cock, chasing her own pleasure, and when her clit slips off Jake meets it with his thumb. Then she rubs again, and he meets her once more.
“You're perfect,” Jake says, and when she moans, he kisses her hard—praise and possession—while I murmur against her ear: “Good girl. Take it. Take all of it.” My fingers lace with hers and pin them above her head to the headboard beside me, not trapping, just owning the tremor when I do. “Perfect.”
Her breath shreds. The towel shifts higher on her waist with every drag; the cotton at her hips is hot under my hand. Jake’s mouth finds hers again and again, stealing the sounds she can’t hold. Every time she stutters, I tighten; every time she chases, Jake rewards; between us she builds—higher, tighter—until she’s shaking in our hands, until the only word left in her mouth is yes.
“Color?” I rasp, last check, even as I keep her moving. It's a fucking miracle for me not to slip my dick inside of her and fuck her the way I want to, but she didn't ask for that. So I won't.
“Green,” she cries, eyes on Jake, body on me. “Green—don’t—”
“Then finish for us,” Jake tells her, dark and gentle. “Let go.”
She does. It hits like surf breaking—her whole body bowing, mouth gone sweet and ruined against Jake’s, my name and his tangled into something only the three of us will ever understand. I hold her through it, thigh steady, hands sure, voice a low litany in her ear: “That’s it. That’s it. Ours. Good girl.”
She collapses back into me, boneless and bright, chest fluttering under my palm. I ease her arms down, kiss the damp at her temple, and feel her laugh, shaky and victorious, against my throat.
“Better?” I ask, rough.
She nods, still catching air, eyes shining. “Better,” she whispers, and the smile that follows is pure trouble.
Jake’s thumb strokes her knee once more, tender now, and he grins like a man who just watched the sun rise.
“I should do the same to you,” she says, looking at us.
“Later,” I answer for all of us, kissing her hair. “Don't overwork us, greedy girl.” She laughs. The truth is, we could never get enough of her, but she's sore, and she's tired, and all I want is to see her safe and happy. Jake pulls a shirt over her head and replaces the towel with her panties, I pull the duvet up over her legs, and keep one hand at her waist while her pulse slows under my mouth. Whatever was clawing at her a few minutes ago is gone. Right now there’s only heat, breath, and the quiet truth that we’ll give her this—again, and again, and every time she asks.