Page 89 of The Triple Play

She pulled back from me, her hands on my shoulders, her gaze strong butbrokenas she looked at me. Tears rimmed the edges of her vision. “What?” she croaked. “This—All of that—Why… Why didn’t youtellme?”

“Darling, what on earth was I supposed to do?” I asked gently, taking her face in my hands like she was made of glass. “You needed space, and we were under the impression that it was over. None of us wanted to be another Elliot and bother you. We didn’t want to make anythingharderfor you.”

Her mouth parted, a choked little sob coming out, and I suddenly wished I could take it all back, every bit of it. I wished I hadn’t told her. I didn’t want her beating herself up over it.

“Annie,” I said softly, my thumbs dragging through the tears that had started to fall. “It’s not your fault. We’re grown men, we would have figured our shit out eventually. Please don’t?—”

She surged forward before I could finish, her lips crashing into mine like she was trying to undo every second of time we’d lost, as if she could fix it all with the desperation of her mouth alone. It was messy, frantic, wet with tears. Her hands pushed through the short ends of my hair at the back of my neck like she didn’t know what else to hold on to, and I let out a shuddered breath into her mouth, my arms closing around her tight enough to try to fuse us together.

I kissed her back harder than I normally would, the numbness I’d suffocated myself with for weeks broken, every rush and surge of emotion hitting me hard and quick and all at once. I tilted my head, catching her lower lip between my teeth, pulling on it, reminding myself that she was real and here andoursagain.

Her sobs had morphed and turned into soft, broken little sounds that made my stomach clench but my cock harden, a confusing whirlwind of sensation as she arched into me, gripping me so hard I worried she’d break the skin.

“I thought I lost you,” I said, my voice breaking as I spoke the words against her lips, my breathing heavy and chest cracked open. “I thought… I didn’t know how to?—”

She kissed me again, hungrier this time, shutting me up before I could stumble over any more words, like we could burn away the upset of the last six weeks if we just kept going. I let my hands roam, let one slip under the sweater, trailing across her waist, her ribs, her breasts, the other slipping around the back of her neck and tightening like I could keep her from vanishing with that alone.

She kissed me like she’d missed me just as badly as we’d all missed her. Like she’d been drowning without us. Like this was the only way she knew how to saysorry.

I didn’t care that we’d all already had her tonight, didn’t care that she’d woken me up at three in the morning with nausea, didn’t care that we were outside in the dead of night. I needed her.Now.

“Off,” I rasped, tugging at the sweater and pulling it up and over her head, needing the feel of her bare chest against mine. I pulled her back flush against me, not leaving a single space left, feeling the way her heart hammered against her chest.

She hadn’t said it back, but right now, it felt like she had. Everything about her was desperate — the way she gripped onto me, the way her completely bare body ground down on my barely covered cock, the way her frame arched into me like she didn’t just want this, but needed it.

I lifted her carefully, just enough to put a few inches of space between her spread thighs and my pajama bottoms, and pushed the elastic waistband down, untucking myself. I lined myself up, not bothering to take my time, not bothering with foreplay or gentle touches. I needed her. We needed this.

She sank down on me like a live wire.

I growled low in my throat as I kissed her harder, my hand around her back, gripping her hip, pulling her body forward and guiding her. I anchored myself to her, or maybe her to me — I didn’t know anymore. I was losing track of everything that wasn’t her mouth, her breath, her heat.

“You can’t leave again. You can’t,” I rasped between breaths. I didn’t care if it was insane, if I was running the risk of sounding like Xavi when he got going. “Fuck what it did to us,Ican’t do it again, Annie. I couldn’t fucking breathe without you.”

A ragged sound pulled for her as my lips found her jaw, the space just below her ear, my teeth and tongue grazing the spots I knew she liked. Her hips moved on their own now, no need for guidance, her body chasing as I moved to meet her.

“You’re everything,” I whispered, my voice rough from the lump in my throat and the need coursing through me, all tangled into one beast I didn’t quite know how to control. “You’re it for me. The three of us, you, the—fuck, thebaby.”

I trailed my hand down her arm, finding her palm, pushing her fingers open and slotting mine between them.

“I love you,” I rasped against her skin, biting back a moan. “I love you.”

Her free hand gripped my jaw suddenly, dragging my mouth back to hers. She kissed me again, like she was on fire, like she was burning for every second we’d lost, the taste of her mouth minty and salty from her tears. She kissed me like she was trying to say it back in every way she could without using words.

And I took every fucking bit of it she would give me.

I always would.

Chapter32

Colton

Viktor clapped me on the back so hard I nearly spilled my beer on the sticky floor of Smokey’s. “You look like a man at a funeral,” he said in his thick Russian accent, eyeing me with amusement. “What’s the matter? Too many pretty girls throwing themselves at you and you just don’t have the time, Miller?”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t want to risk an STI tonight,” Sam said, rolling his eyes as he leaned forward onto the standing table. “Just be glad the three of them even came out at all. Buzzkills lately.”

A cluster of flames were hovering nearby, their dresses tight, their makeup done perfectly, fake laughs and giggles aimed our way. But I was barely paying attention to them, barely paying attention to anything besides Annie behind the bar. “Just been tired lately,” I said as an excuse, raising my glass, trying to keep my glances at her few and far between to not draw too much attention.

“Bullshit,” Viktor said, slamming his beer down on the table with a massive grin on his face. “You scored two goals tonight, Miller. Brokethreesticks. You deserve to get laid. Are you in love with your right hand or something now?”

---