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When he finally speaks again, his voice is so soft it almost blends with the sound of our breathing. “I’ll be part of your deal. Helping you save your bakery.”

It takes me a second to process it.

My brain has to rewind to make sure I heard him right. I push back just enough to see his face, searching for any sign that I imagined the words. “You will?”

“Yes,” he says simply.

Then his gaze holds mine, steady and unreadable. “Whatever this…arrangement you have with Reece and Liam. I want in, too.”

Relief slams into me so fast it’s dizzying.

My throat tightens, and I swear I could almost cry. I don’t think—I just surge forward, catching his mouth in a hard, grateful kiss.

“Thank you,” I breathe against his lips.

His thumb brushes along my cheekbone, his touch gentler than the kiss we just shared.

There’s a pause, just long enough to make me wonder if he’s thinking about taking it all back, before his voice cuts through the quiet again.

“On one condition,” he says.

I tilt my head slightly. “What condition?”

His eyes stay locked on mine, unwavering. “When you’re with me…you’reonlywith me.”

The words hang there between us, heavy, drawing the air taut.

It’s not a request.

It’s a boundary.

Aclaim.

And the way he says it makes something deep in me stir, a quiet surrender that I’m all for leaning into.

21

HOLLY

From there, everything becomes a haze of heat, laughter, and tangled limbs. Time stops mattering for the rest of the weekend.

Hours bleed into each other until I can’t tell if it’s afternoon or midnight, if the flush in my cheeks is from the fire in the hearth or from one of them whispering in my ear as they slide into me.

It’s indulgent. Filthy.

The kind of thing women lean over tables in dim bars to confess after too many glasses of wine, their voices low and conspiratorial while their eyes sparkle with reminiscences.

My weekend turns into the kind of fantasy you don’t expect to live through with your sanity intact.

Not with this much intensity and this muchwantcoursing through my veins at every second.

Sometimes it’s me with Liam and Reece together.

Those are fast and rough, their banter spilling into the air between groans and curses.

They handle me like they’ve been doing it for years, like they know every place to touch to make my voice crack around their names.

They laugh, tease each other, tease me, and it’s impossible not to get swept up in the push and pull of them both.