Page 56 of The Triple Play

“You could fit usandthe whole team in there,” she chuckled.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I teased, coming up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist, the warmth of her body heating my bare chest and cutting straight through the sleeves of my zip-up. “Are three men not enough for you, Annie? Do you needtwenty-three?”

She laughed, full-bodied and bright, and it was like music to my goddamn ears. “I’m barely surviving the three of you,” she said, her arms resting on top of mine as she walked toward the shower, dragging me with her. “I think twenty-three would send me to an early grave, like,tomorrow.”

I tried to hide my smile in the crook of her neck, breathing in the warped scent of her that still held hints of all of us. “Maybe just one for now, then,” I muttered, unable to keep the grin out of my voice as I fisted Cole’s shirt at her stomach, slipping my other hand beneath it as I worked the fabric up and over her head.

I let my zip-up fall off my shoulders and down my arms, the zipper clattering on the tile as it landed behind me, and grabbed her by the waist again to pull her bare back into my chest. Heat on heat. Flesh on flesh. It made my head go light, and from the way I could see her flushing in the mirror to my left, it was affecting her, too.

“Christ, look at you,” I murmured, pointing idly toward the mirror. Her head turned, taking in the sight of us, me in my boxers and her in nothing but her underwear, wrapped up in my arms. My thumb stroked the curve of her waist, my hand splayed out across her skin, my heart pounding in my chest. “I think I’d burn the whole goddamn world down to keep you like this.”

The pink in her cheeks spread down her neck, her mouth parting as she stared at me in our reflection. “You can’t just say things like that,” she whispered, not pulling away, but blinking like I’d knocked the air out of her.

I froze.

Shit.

I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Or at least, hadn’t thought it through before the words had come out. It should have stayed buried in the echo chamber of my own head, not laid bare between us like some stupid, irrevocable confession. I opened my mouth, closed it, my pulse roaring in my ears.

“I know,” I said quietly, feeling like I was a second too late. “That was… Fuck, I’m sorry, that was too much. I didn’t mean?—”

“No, you did,” she swallowed, her hand moving to mine and holding me to her before I could try to let go. “You meant it.”

She wasn’t accusing, just… quiet, curious, maybe a little stunned. I let out a breath, chastising myself internally, and leaned down, letting my forehead fall against the crown of her head. “Yeah, I did,” I admitted, my voice barely more than a whisper. “Doesn’t mean I should’ve said it, though.”

Her fingers traced over the veins on the back of my hand, down each finger and back up. “You’re intense, Xav,” she murmured.

“Yeah. That’s the polite word for it,” I said dryly, trying to steady the roar of self-deprecating thoughts starting to rise in my head. I took a deep breath and peeled myself from her gently, my jaw a little tense. I reached out and hit both switches for the water, each of the shower heads roaring to life instantly, and did my absolute best not to look at her as I pulled off my boxers and walked in.

I hated that I doubted whether she’d follow me. I hated that I’d said that in the first place — I knew better, had been too much to too many people in my life before, had taught myself how to rein that in and keep things to myself when things were so fresh. But even as I stood with my back to the shower’s entrance and my head under the steaming water, I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that maybe she was feeling as insane as I was, maybe she fell hard and fast too.

The gentle tickle of a hand on the small of my back had me drawing in a breath, and I turned, soaked and waterlogged. She stood there, just out of reach of my showerhead, her body completely bare with a smattering of stray water droplets clinging to her skin like diamonds. Everything about her, from the way her hair fell around her shoulders, the way her pouty lips were parted in confusion, the way her obnoxiously, devastatingly blue eyes locked onto mine — to the way her breasts curved, the way her waist came in and her hips flared out, to the waxed skin of her groin and the way her chest rose and fell a little worriedly… it made me barely able to form a coherent thought.

I took a step forward and wrapped my arm around her waist, pulled her back into the water with me, and kissed her like she was going to be the death of me.

I was pretty sure she would be, anyway.

My mouth crashed against hers, my hand coming up to cup her cheek, my other digging into her back. She folded into me immediately, her arm hooking around my neck, and for a moment, the tension in my body drained, washed away down the drain with the rest of me. She was too much. I knew she was, knew what was happening to me because of it, but with her mouth on mine and her bare body against my chest, I couldn’t find it in me to care.

I kissed her like I didn’t know where I ended and she began. My lips dragged over hers, greedy and full and aching with every bit of restraint I’d lost the moment I’d actuallytouchedher last night. Her fingers played with the damp hair flattened against my neck, tugging just enough to make me groan low in my throat.

She pulled me closer to her, the water cascading over us, between us, around us, and the soft gasp she let out when I traced my hand down her spine and stopped just shy of her ass had my blood pooling in my cock. It was a fucking miracle I was still upright.

I turned, my feet almost slipping on the soaked tile, and pushed her up against the wall, making sure my hand cupped the back of her head to cushion it. My mouth explored hers the way I had last night when she’d been on the counter, mapping it like a cartographer, wanting to memorize every inch. She set me on fire by just beingalive, and I didn’t know any other way to dull down the flames that wasn’t this. Didn’twantto find another way.

I knew I needed to slow down, needed to pull back, needed to not be too much. But when I broke the kiss to breathe and looked down at her blissed-out expression, her lips parted and swollen from me, I didn’t knowhowto do any of those things.

“You have no fucking idea what you do to me,” I rasped, letting my forehead fall to hers, wincing at my own words. My nose brushed against hers, my mouth so close I could taste her breath. “I’m trying, genuinely trying, to not be too much.”

I pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, her jaw, her throat, lingering there like I could hide from how out of control I felt. But her head turned toward me, her chin nudging against my cheek to coax me back up, and I couldn’t ignore her unspoken request. I pulled back a little, still flush against her, but enough to meet her gaze.

Her eyes searched mine, serious and steady despite the warmth in her cheeks and the droplets of water dripping down the sides of her face. “You’re not… you’re not too much,” she breathed.

I stared at her, every part of me trying to read between the lines, my chest tightening like a madman.You’re not too much. You’re not too much. You’re not too much.

But I was. I knew that. Always had. People left because of it. My birth parents left because of it.

She wasn’t running, though. At least, not yet.

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