5

CHAPTER

Five

Mick ran the backs of his fingers down her jawline, to her throat. “That’s the worst part. The part I regret the most. I wasn’t here for you when you had rough times, and I hate myself for it.” He leaned in close to brush his lips over hers as Adam watched greedily.

“I’m pretty sure more self-loathing is the last thing either of you needs,” Jessi muttered, pushing back to sit straighter on Adam’s lap and look between Adam and Mick.

“You changed in the last four years too.” Mick got hot all over seeing it on her. An independence and sass she hadn’t possessed before. It fit just right.

“I have. We’ll talk about that later. Look, I don’t want either of you to hate yourselves. That’s a lot of weight to carry. I want to look forward, move on, and we can’t if all this negative stuff gets between us.” Jessi took each man’s cheek in a palm. “I love you and I forgive you—both of you—for everything that’s happened.”

Mick let out a breath as the words settled in. They needed to do whatever it took to be together and that was that.

Adam looked to Mick and then at Jessi once more. “Thank you. I needed that. And what do you want, then, Jessilyn? We might have run away, but you loved someone else.”

His favorite crooked-Jessi smile had Mick’s mouth returning the expression even as she’d had her attention on Adam. “I’ve loved two people in my entire life and I’m looking at them. So, what I know is that I didn’t want to live my life without trying to heal this wound between us. You and Mick are my best, closest friends, and pride is a small thing to sacrifice if I could just have you back because nothing has been the same since you left me behind.” Jessi wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and Adam pulled her close. “Even if we were just friends I’d be all right because we’d be together again.”

Mick swallowed back emotion as he hugged her around Adam. He put his head on her shoulder. “Baby, I’m not worth your pride. But I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. All of you.”

She turned her head to look at him, remaining wrapped around Adam as he rubbed big circles over her back again and again.

“No one is worth my self-respect. But you and Adam are worth swallowing my pride and making a leap of faith.”

Mick kissed her again, calming, relaxing even as his cock was harder than he was sure it had ever been.

“No one has ever made me feel this way,” he said against her mouth.

“We’re long past the just-friends stage,” Adam said, kissing the top of Jessi’s head and then, on his way past, Mick’s mouth.

Casual. But it staked a claim as well.

A shiver worked over Mick’s skin as he licked Adam’s lips for one last taste.

“You taste like Jessi. My favorite,” Adam said as he moved away once more.

Mick snorted. “My favorite too.”

Jessi’s eyes had gone half-lidded and glossy. Christ.

Adam stood, putting Jessi on her feet, keeping a hand at her hip. “I should probably warn you both. I’m very possessive,” he told them.

Jessi harrumphed and one of Adam’s brows rose imperiously slow.

“Did you have something to say?” Adam asked Jessi.

“I said it when I harrumphed.”

Adam’s smile made Mick’s cock throb in time with his heartbeat.

“Love, why don’t you use words for me?” Adam’s tone had gone down a few octaves, a teasing sort of growl.

The catch in Jessi’s breathing was like a tug on his balls. “I don’t need to because you know exactly what that sound meant,” Jessi taunted.

Mick closed a hand over his dick through the sleep pants he had on, squeezing just so. The interplay between Jessi and Adam was so hot, Mick’s cock was already smeared with pre-come.

“Well, here’s a thing.” Adam tucked her hair behind her left ear. “We’ve all changed over the last four years. As it happens.” He then slid his hand through her hair, sending it into disarray for a moment before grabbing it in his fist and pulling her head back, exposing her neck to his mouth.

“Ohhhh,” she said, slow like honey.

“I like to be in charge.” He bit and she moaned. “A lot.”

“You’ll need to earn that.”

Jessi’s response had Adam standing straight to get a better look at her. “I do?”

“Yes.” A smile touched her mouth, not that crazy happy Jessi, this one a seriously sexy one. Cocky even. “Like you said, we’ve all changed.”

Adam’s handsome face darkened into a frown.

Jessi’s laugh had Mick pulling her into his embrace. “Hi.” He kissed her and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “This is the best thing in the world. Right here, right now with you and Adam.”

“Yes.” Jessi nodded.

“Tell me who you submitted to,” Adam said as he pressed himself to Jessi’s back.

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“I really can’t understand why you’re trying to pick a fight right now, Adam. She’s always been our girl.” Mick wanted to shake him, demand he stop trying to poke at her.

“Ours.” Adam pressed closer, close enough Jessi gave a little grunt as she got squeezed between them.

“Ours,” Jessi agreed.

Jessi’s head spun with the sexuality in the air. Even before, their first time together and the few days they’d had were more clumsy and wonderful than seriously hot and sweaty. Though that had been part of it.

No, what she’d experienced as a twenty-five-year-old with her two childhood best friends had felt like an extension of what they’d had. They’d stumbled into it, and while it had been amazing, it didn’t hold a candle to what it was just then as the air seemed to shimmer with desire and anticipation.

She hadn’t actually submitted to anyone. Ever. But she wasn’t stupid. Or naïve. If Adam wanted it, he’d earn it. Otherwise why would she do it?

The memory of the sting as he’d grabbed her hair and bent her back rushed through her.

Her boys were there. With her. Their hands and mouths on her. The ache she’d pretended away for years had been slowly easing as just being around them had made her feel better.

She’d eaten, had ice cream, and now was about to have a hot-damn three way with the two people she loved most in the whole world. And they looked even better than they had when she saw them both last.

Between the inked-up, rough-and-tumble Mick and Adam, the debonair dom, she was totally screwed. But like, in a good way. This sort of thing they made together was a kind of magic, and there was nothing she could do but love it as much as she loved them.

“Did you both learn lots of things to do to me?” she asked, unable not to laugh at her good fortune.

Adam’s growling laughter was met by Mick’s groan.

She tipped her head back to stare up at Adam.

“I’ll endeavor to keep you satisfied,” he told her, kissing her forehead.

“It’s a big job,” she assured him.

“I probably need to get started then. Come on up to my bedroom, where we can spread out. Mick, bring the liquor.” Adam stepped back and held a hand for her to take, which she did.

Mick took her free hand and they let Adam lead them to his lair. She tried to pretend she did this every day, which was naturally a pretty big lie. But it was Adam and Mick. They wouldn’t hurt her.

Not in a way she didn’t like anyway. It was pretty clear to her that Adam ran to the uber–alpha male territory, so she was fairly sure he could hurt her in ways she would like a lot.

She’d deal with the uglier feelings about him touching anyone else later. Right then every part of her just wanted to be with them, bare and exposed.

His bedroom took up half the second floor. A big bed dominated the room, but there was a sitting area near the fireplace with shelves, an overstuffed love seat, and a lamp perfect for a rainy day of reading inside by the fire.

The rugs on the hardwood floor were Persian. She’d been with him when he bought the one she stood on. The room was a sanctuary. A really luxurious one, no doubt. But this was about Adam’s inner life. Sumptuous fabrics, leather, gorgeous textiles created a space she knew without even asking he spent a lot of time in.

Probably not always alone. But again, she shoved that aside because it didn’t matter. Not right then and most likely not anymore.

“I want to smear all your make-up.” Adam said this as he drew the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.

“Do I have any left?”

Adam’s severity seemed to wisp away, replaced by a sweeter expression. “You do. Enough that you’re going to have smudged mascara when I’m done.” One corner of his mouth hitched up and she sort of forgot what she’d been thinking about. Make-up? Whatever. When was he going to take his clothes off?

Mick burst out laughing—most likely at the confusion on her face as Adam got her all sex addled—as he tugged his shirt over his head and her mental dialog skidded to a halt.

Shoulders that had grown impossibly wide ridged with muscle. The muscle of a man who worked with his body on a regular basis.

And a lot of that taut, muscular skin was covered in tattoos. She held one hand out to stay him while she clutched at her heart with the other. “You’re enough to startle a girl.”

“Or a boy,” Adam said.

She was so lucky.

It was Mick’s turn to wear that cocky grin as she and Adam looked their fill at him. His belly sported a snarling, badass orangeand-black tiger’s face with numbers below it.

He slid his palm down his belly, over those numbers, and she huffed a sound, like a desperate wheeze. More please and oh-my-god-stop all at once.

“Look at you,” Mick said with the tip of his chin.

“I’d rather look at you,” Jessi said, meaning it with every fiber of her being. “The tiger is new.”

“Your nose ring is new.”

“It is. The numbers, it’s my birthday.” She crept closer, looking at the roses and thorns rippling down his forearms, ending at his wrists.

“I had it added year before last.”

He’d kept himself apart from her for years, but he hadn’t let go of her in his own way.

“The way you look at me…” Mick drew a deep breath he slowly exhaled as if trying to center himself. “I’m different now. But you look at me with that light in your eyes. Now I’m just nervous about regular stuff, like how long I’m going to be in you before I come.”

Heat flushed across her skin at his words.

“I’ve got faith in you,” she murmured. “You’re not all that different. More ink and piercings, but it’s sexy. Your heart is the same.”

Mick looked over her shoulder to Adam, who nodded.

“What? What does that mean?” She pointed a finger back and forth between them.

“Nothing,” Adam said, but he laughed and blew his cover.

“Oh really?”

“Really,” Adam grabbed her around her waist and pulled her back against him. His cock seemed to burn against her skin. “We’re going to look at one another like that because he and I love you.”

Well. She liked that.

“Now you.” Mick gestured her way.

“Shirt off, Jess,” Adam whispered in her ear like a fallen angel luring her to temptation.

“Just because it’s off doesn’t mean it has left my custody,” she told Mick as she whipped her shirt up and over her head. If she was expected to give back all the clothing she pilfered, she’d be naked a third of the time. She stole them, they were hers. That was the rule.

Mick’s grin made her tingly and swoony. Honestly, how could she ever have thought happiness was possible without these two people in her life?

“I’d never think to steal my shirts back once you have them.” Mick stepped close enough to slide his upper body against hers.

“Oh!”

Laughing, Mick reached around her to get Adam’s shirt free as well. “You too.”

Jessi turned in their arms so she could get a look at Adam, and holy cow was she glad she had. Tawny skin played over his upper body. No ink but on his inner forearm at his elbow.

Jessilyn. In her handwriting. He’d shown it to her the last time she’d seen him.

“I never told you why I put your name there,” Adam said as she slid her fingertips over his skin.

She waited for the telling and when she did, he smiled, grinding his cock into her.

“You’re my addiction. The thing I need more than anything.”

Always so tough. So taciturn and grumpy. And yet, so very tender it broke her heart sometimes. Hell, he’d broken her heart more than once too. It came with loving him, she’d finally accepted.

“Is that why you denied yourself?” She gave in and combed her fingers through his hair. “And denied me too, I might add.”

“I had to work through a lot of shit, and I couldn’t do it with anyone else. I had to do it alone.” His voice was rough, full of guilt and anguish.

“I hear the guilt in your voice. Let it go.” Selfishly, she wanted him to be unfettered when he came to her at long last. So she’d know he was there for good.

“So you don’t hate me?” he asked.

Startled, her eyes widened and she tugged on his hair to get his attention. “I could never hate you, Adam, and if I did, I wouldn’t be here. I’m here because I’ve always been here, just waiting for you to remember that.”

He pressed into her body as Mick gave no quarter at her back. Being squeezed that way kept her immobile.

And it was delicious.

He said nothing else before he bent to kiss her. At first slow, teasing, sexy kisses that heated her belly and made her knees feel like noodles. He licked at her lips, teasing her mouth open until she sighed happily.

Mick played his fingertips up her sides, brushing over the curve of her breasts. “When I saw these tonight I knew you’d worn that dress for me.”

“I admit that when I tried it on and it had all that tasteful side boob I knew you’d appreciate it,” Jessi said as Adam moved away from her mouth.

“Who doesn’t appreciate it?” Adam asked as he stepped back enough to grab the waistband of her pajama bottoms and shove them down her legs, along with her panties. “As far as side boob goes, yours is aces.”

Jessi laughed and then got nervous because they both still had pants on and there she was naked as a jaybird.

“Mick, why don’t you lead our angel to the bed?” Like a switch had been thrown, Adam took charge. He drew authority around himself like a cloak.

Mick backed her up slowly, caressing her shoulder before pressing kisses across her skin.

It was really happening. After years of going through the motions, here it was, the moment she’d been waiting for since she’d woken up to find out Mick had reenlisted.

Desire made her limbs heavy, left her movements languid as Mick shifted to lay her back on Adam’s big bed.

“I’m naked and neither of you are,” she said, proud she’d remembered all her words. She got snagged up in the details. The muscles and ink. Both men’s gazes roamed her face and her body and there was no mistaking just how happy they were to be right there.

The inner walls of her pussy contracted on nothing, sharpening the ache.

“Patience,” Adam said.

She raised a brow his way. “Are you new here?”

Mick, laughing, bent to kiss her.

A crack sounded and Mick groaned into her mouth as he moved forward. Did Adam just spank Mick? Jeez, they had to hold some of this super hot stuff back or she’d burn to cinder.

She opened her eyes to watch Mick straighten, a flush on his neck. Adam liked it too, getting caught up for a few moments before turning back to Jessi.

“I’m not new here, no. I know you’re impatient and greedy when it comes to orgasms.”

Jessi grinned at Adam, knowing there was a but coming along soon.

“But I’m in charge. You’ll get what you’re begging for. When I’m ready to give it to you.”

One of those sort-of orgasms, the kind you had in dreams, stole through her as she squeezed her thighs together. He was going to kill her from desire. Or something. She really couldn’t wait.