“Fuck,” he says beneath me, sounding uncharacteristically close to breaking, too. “Aiden, she’s… Need you to—” I’m lifted again before I’ve had a chance to come down, whining at the sudden emptiness until I open my eyes to see Aiden kneeling between my legs once he lays me out on my back, Cypress at my side while he takes himself in hand. They’re so beautiful like this, Cypress’s head tipping back as he groans and grips himselftighter, Aiden leaning over to press his mouth against his throat before he takes over, his hand stroking Cypress up and down until he comes with a low moan, painting my stomach with streaks of white.
As the tension leaves Cypress’s body, Aiden’s mouth goes back to his, their kiss still tinged with an edge that makes me wish I could press my legs together to soothe the quickly returning ache. I would, if Aiden wasn’t still occupying the space there, holding himself over me now as he runs his fingers through the mess Cypress made, rubbing it into my skin and onto my bottom lip like rouge the way he had that night after the poker game.
“Would rather see this dripping out of you,” Aiden murmurs as I taste it, almost transfixed by it. “But probably not wise to push our luck any further.” His eyes meet mine as he brings his fingers to his mouth to suck them clean. “At least not tonight…”
I make a small sound of protest, frankly too far gone to consider consequences if it means feeling them inside me like that, but I’m also surprised by how little it scares me.
With them, everything feels different. Like they really are mine and I’m theirs. Like anything we made as a result would be a gift rather than a curse, which is how it always should have been.
“We’ve got time,” Aiden murmurs, as if he can read my thoughts before he takes a firm grip of my thighs and pulls me toward him, positioning me just how he wants before he reaches down to notch himself at my entrance, his thumb gently stroking my already oversensitive clit in a way that makes my breathing pick right back up. His eyes find mine. “Deep breath, baby.”
My brow creases in confusion, but then Aiden starts to push in and I understand, gasping at the stretch as my legs move to hug his waist the way they had on the bank. He bends down to kiss me, slow and easy, murmuring to me and surrounding me with his body, rocking only a little deeper into me each time. His breathing grows more labored the longer it takes to work himselfinside, his chest heaving as he still fights to hold himself back despite everything that’s happened since he carried me out of the water.
“It’s okay,” I tell him as my mouth grazes over his. “Aiden, take what you need.”
“Can’t,” he argues, eyes squeezing shut as he pulls back and hesitates before pushing in again. “Fuck, I…I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not going to.” I wrap my arms around his neck, my fingers in his hair as I hold him close. “You feel so good. Sogood. I love feeling you and Cy like this.” The words are right there on the tip of my tongue. Three words I’m not sure I’ve ever heard, let alone said to another person. “Aiden, I—”
His forehead presses against mine before our gazes meet again, that unspoken understanding in his eyes that I had so often seen him share with Cypress now reflected back at me. “Say it, Cora,” he says softly. “Please, say it.”
And because he needs me to, I do. “I love you,” I murmur to him. “I love you both. So much.”
His eyes close, but this time his expression is relieved. “I love you, too. Scares the hell out of me.” He looks to Cypress and I follow his gaze to where he lies next to us, a content and unworried smile on his face as if us ending up here was always inevitable. “Seems like too much to get to have you both. To get to love you both.”
I smile, thinking of that night I’d unknowingly followed them.Too much.Aiden had said it was too much to have me with them, and it’s hard to believe how the same words can sound so different. How everything can be so different now.
“Too much?” I repeat, smiling more broadly as he nods, and I lift my head to murmur in his ear, “You can take it.”
Aiden is grinning when I pull away, shaking his head at me before addressing Cypress. “I still hate that you get to be right.”
“I know you do, wolf,” Cypress says, his fingers reaching out to brush my cheek and I tilt my face into his touch. As drawn to him now as the first time I saw him as he tells me, “I love you, little bird. Always have.”
Aiden exhales, nodding before his arm hikes my right leg higher, and my eyes are on his again when he finally thrusts in deep. I roll my hips to meet him as he does it again. And again. Until we find our pace.
Aiden groans, feeling me grip him tighter. Tells me that he loves me again when I come and waits until the last moment to pull away, streaking my stomach with his release the same way Cypress had. Uses his thumb to rub it into my skin the same way, too, as Cypress watches. “No matter where the road leads, wolf.”
Aiden smiles, kissing him and me before he lets himself settle down on the bed with me on one side and Cypress on the other. “No matter where the road leads.”
How long?
A few months have come and gone now while the three of us have been holed up in the four walls of that cabin. Weeks running by like a slow-moving river, the still water on the surface concealing a deep unrelenting current beneath.
I exhale, barely rustling the leaves and dusting of snow that lies on the log beside the long barrel of my rifle. My steadying breath the only movement I allow myself as I stretch out on the forest floor and watch the deer in the clearing ahead of me, its antler-laden head bent to search for food in much the same way my own had been while I followed its tracks here. Both of us in pursuit of enough to keep ourselves fed through the winter.
How much longer will we be here? How much longer before we can pack our things and move on? Take our chances in the world again and hope we haven’t already run out of them?
For so long now, I’ve looked at the days ahead and wondered what they would bring, and I’m still adjusting to the idea thatnow I’m not just wary but also impatient for them. For their possibilities.
Which is why I keep reminding myself that moving on from this stalemate isn’t a matter ofifbutwhen.
That’s the way it’s always been before. We get ourselves in too deep, hunker down, and wait for it to blow over before we resurface. Except, no matter how hard the wind blows this time, the posters are still posted whenever I dare venture into town, the reward on them only getting more enticing the longer the charges sit unanswered and the jail cells sit vacant.
Apparently, me sending that kid to Preston hadn’t done a lick of good. Nor have the hours I’ve spent trying to figure out precisely what had gone wrong. I have my theory. No proof of it, but it is the only thing that makes sense in my mind…even if it is the worst of the options in terms of guaranteeing a quick path to resolution.
My jaw clenches tight at the thought, my eyes squeezing shut as I try to block out the anger and the sickening dread that always comes with the idea of either Cypress or Cora locked away. Instead, I force my mind back to the task at hand, demanding my body relax before I ready my shot.
It won’t happen. I won’tletit happen. We’ll be okay. We’ll find a way.