Page 45 of The Triple Play

She let out a shaky, breathy laugh that died out quickly, her teeth raking over her lower lip, her eyes glued to him as he stepped back, making space.

Three sets of eyes turned to the one person who had barely spoken.

Xavi still leaned against the counter on the other side of the island, his beer abandoned beside him, his gaze trained on her. He was hard to read — brows knitted, hands in his pockets, his jaw flexing, his mouth pressed into a thin line. He looked like he was either about to vault the counter to get to her or nope out of all of this in a second.

His eyes warred with hers.

She looked at him,reallylooked at him, the silliness she’d tried for earlier gone. My heart pounded in my goddamn chest as she slipped off the barstool and rounded the counter toward Xavi, her movements slow, steady, like she was worried she’d scare him off. If he freaked out, if he panicked and ran and called it off, I had no idea what the fuck we were going to do.

But he’d agreed to try. I had to keep faith that he’d uphold that.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice quiet, almost a whisper. She stopped a few feet from him, testing the waters, making sure he wasn’t going anywhere. His chest rose and fell a little sharp, a little quick, his nostrils flaring. “‘Cause I… I don’t feel comfortable doing this if you’re not.”

Xavi didn’t say a word.

I took a hesitant step forward, but Cole’s hand entered my space, stopping me. “Give him a minute,” he murmured, his voice barely audible.

“Xavi,” Annie breathed. “Please don’t make me guess how you feel?—”

He moved.

Not slow, hot hesitant — helunged, like her words had struck a chord in him and the only thing he could think to do was move. One second he was standing stiff and silent with his hands clenched in his pockets like he was holding himself back, and the next, those same hands were grabbing Annie by the waist and hauling her in hard enough that her feet actually stumbled.

She gasped, caught off guard, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t expecting it either.

Her hands flew up to his chest to catch herself, but he was already there, keeping her upright, his mouth crashing down onto hers with force. I couldseeit — the anger in him, the softness too, the things he’d been shoving down since that first night with her.

It was feral. Raw. Not sweet, not careful, justneed, and I wondered if I’d looked like that the first time I kissed her, too. It was desperate, so intense that she moaned into his mouth, that she faltered for all of half a second before she gripped him back just as fiercely. Her fingers cupped him around the back of his head, knotting in his hair like she was trying to anchor herself, her surprise melting in seconds. She chased his mouth, head tilting, mouth opening, taking anything he gave her.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Xav kiss a girl, but it was the first time I’d seen him likethis. And still, there wasn’t a hint of jealousy flaring in me.

He growled low in his throat, grabbed her tighter around her hips, and lifted her up instinctually, taking one quick step before setting her ass down on the countertop like it was nothing. And itwasnothing, for us at least. He slotted himself in between her legs, leaning over her, one hand braced on the higher ledge of the island behind her.

I stared, stunned. Cole was too — his eyebrows were up, his lips parted, that single hand still frozen in front of me.

My grin snuck up on me. I loosed a breath as I watched them, something akin toprideswelling in my chest. Good for him. It took him long enough to do something.

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath, the sound half a breathy little chuckle, and Cole snorted.

Xavi broke the kiss immediately, his gaze shooting to us, his hand cupping the back of Annie’s head. He was breathing like he’d run a goddamn marathon, but the stress he’d been holding onto all evening had lessened just a little — his shoulders were more relaxed, the little lines between his brows smoothed out. He looked back down at her, dropped his forehead to hers, and stayed there for a moment, all of us lingering in the silence.

But then he spoke.

“I’m in, baby,” he said, his voice hoarse and low, like it cost him something but gave him far more. “I’m fucking in.”

Chapter19

Annie

“I’m fucking in.”

Xavi’s voice was low, almost guttural, and my chest tightened impossibly. He was willing to try. We all were. And thank god for that because I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

He kissed me again, and Imelted. It was harder, deeper, like a dam was breaking inside of him, like all the tension he’d been holding back since I walked in had finally snapped loose and he didn’t care who was watching. Xavi’s kisses were so different from Cole’s and Colton’s, and it wasn’t that theirs were particularly worse, but Xavi was almost animalistic in a way that made me never want to let go. The scent of him, heavy and thick, woody and leathery with something sensually sweet underneath—the same scent that had lingered on his hoodie that shamelessly sat on my bed at home—surrounded me and burned me like a roaring fire.

Xavi held the back of my head, his fingers twitching at the base of my skull, and kept me leaning back as he loomed above me. I clung to his shoulders, to his hoodie, to his hair, to anything I could grab. He kissed me like a goddamn storm, like he was making up for every second he’d spentnotkissing me, and I couldn’t stop myself from moaning into it again, not when I could feel the front of his jeans pressing into me between my thighs. He was already hard as a rock, and the feel of it, even through clothes, made everything else fade into the background.

Until Colton’s voice cut through teasingly. “Would you two like me and Cole to leave the room, or…?”

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