“Look at me,” I demand, fucking into her hard and frantic. Her lashes, wet and dark, flutter as her eyes open. “Talk to me, tell me you’re back.”
Her lips tremble, but she raises her knees, winding her legs around my hips. “I was drowning,” she croaks.
I chase her gaze, not letting her hide. “There’s nowhere you could be that I couldn’t get to you. You understand me?” If my voice weren’t so sharp and punctuated with a smash of my hips, that might not sound like a threat. “Nothing can keep you from us, Little Bird.Nothing.”
I crush my lips into hers and thrust my tongue inside. If I could burrow into her I would, but then her nails dig into my bicep, teeth bearing down on my lower lip, and finally, everything is right.
Loving Lavinia should never be painless.
“Ah!” she cries, arching her back. I run my hand between us, down her stomach to the liquid heat between her legs. I find her clit, throbbing and slick, and fall into rhythm.
“Come for us, baby,” I tell her, wanting to feel more of that clench building around me. “Let me feel you. Let us hear you.”
Her head falls back, and she turns, swinging glazed, heavy eyes on my brother.
“Give it to him.” Sy’s voice is pure gravel, but the way he touches her, pushing her hair off her damp forehead, is slow and gentle.
She finally comes, the orgasm shuddering through her. I feel her tighten around my cock, her muscles tensing and drawing me toward my own release. I fuck her harder, unleashing the emotions of the day; fear, want, anger, loss, until I’m on a pinpoint, the sheer face of a cliff–one that doesn’t lead to death.
Maybe it leads us to destiny.
It’s on that last punch, the last thread of control, that I grab her chin and force her to look at me. “You’re mine.”
“Yes.” Her fingertips ghost over the tattoo of her lips on my neck, eyes sparkling up at me. “I’m yours, Nick.”
The sound I make when it finally happens–when my cock begins filling her up–is raw and frayed. I bury it into her neck, and there’s no way she comes out of this without bruises, because I’m clutching her like a punishment I’m not even intending to give.
We stay like this for a long moment, her pussy milking my cock for every last drop. As much as I hate it, I pull out, afraid that if I stay one second longer, I won’t be able to stop myself from telling her that I love her again. She didn’t believe me before. I don’t know if she’ll believe me now.
I kiss her and ease out, rolling her toward Sy. Their fingers are still linked, but not in the same death grip as before.
Beneath the hard lines of his face and the tension of a body desperate for relief is a worried frown. He whispers, “You okay?”
Nodding, she tugs at the sheet, fixing her gaze on Sy’s bare chest. “I could hear you, talking him through it. Thanks.”
I feel his shrug on the mattress, but I also see the pleased flush behind his ears. We got through it. We’ll get through everything else tossed our way, too. I have no doubt.
That confidence is what propels me to say, “We could have lost you.” She starts to argue but I shoot her a look. “And don’t tell me it couldn’t happen. It already has. To Tate. To Leticia.” Lazily, I skate my fingertips over her chest, the death’s head moth dark against her skin. “The cliff does terrible things to powerful women.” My hand wanders under the sheet, pushing back to the heat between her legs, feeling my warm cum between her thighs.
Beside her, Sy’s eyes zero in on the motion, like he’s wishing for x-ray vision.
She sighs against my touch, voice lax and sated. “You’re right. It was scary as fuck. We were scared, but at the same time… we weren’t. We had each other, and somehow I just knew we’d make it.” She tilts her head, flashing me a weak smirk. “Fifty-fifty shot.”
I snort, remembering saying that in the Baron’s crypt. We can’t keep putting our lives in his hands.
Sy’s eyebrow arches and he says, “Those are shit odds.”
“Agreed,” I say. “That’s why, starting with your meeting tonight, we flip them back in our favor.”
My brother’s eyes meet mine over Lavinia and he nods in understanding. No more jealousy, no more pettiness, no more rash decisions. From now on, we fight as we were always meant to. We fight as one.
We fight as a family.
3
Sy
I only sleepfor a few hours, dipping in and out of awareness every time Lavinia shifts, rolling back and forth between me and Nick. In sleep, she seems conflicted about who to press up against. I lift my arm to welcome her when she turns my way, clearly seeking out my heat, and for a good while, I’m halfway to contentment, pressing my nose into her hair as I doze off again to the feel of her skin against mine.