by Ophelia Bell
“Talk to me, hermano,” I say. “I know you’re keeping something inside. Something about last night.”
His eyes have dark circles under them, and his hair sticks out in wayward spikes. He leans on the edge of the steel countertop watching steam rise from the mugs between us.
“Thought it was a dream,” he finally says, then chuckles as he shakes his head. “It still feels like a fucking dream.” He pins me with a direct look, eyes narrowed. “You thought I slept with Drake, didn’t you?”
“Did you?” I ask.
His nostrils flare and he looks away again, eyes haunted. He always seems so fragile after one of his dreams, like if I push too hard, he’ll break. “Sort of. I mean, we slept together. With Elle between us. Holding her …”
He heaves a breath, and his tortured look is back when he returns his gaze to mine. “I don’t know if I can stay away, Baz. After being with her, she’s all I think about, and you know as well as I do that she monopolized our thoughts already. But now there’s Drake too… It doesn’t make sense that I want them both so much.”
I silently curse and reach for my mug, dipping the teabag a few times before lifting it to test the temperature. It’s not too hot to drink, so I take a swallow while I gather my thoughts.
“Well, we know for a fact that kind of thing can work. Look at Leo with Mad Dog and Celeste.”
“But it can’t. Not right now, anyway. I just don’t know how to move forward after last night. How are you managing it?”
A bitter laugh escapes and I shake my head. “You think I’m managing? Jesus, you must not be paying attention. Knowing you both slept with her—together—is killing me. I wish I didn’t know. I could’ve at least kept up the same old ruse that she doesn’t affect me as much as she does. We’ve managed to fake it so long it’s second nature by now. But knowing she wanted me for even a split-second in the middle of all that... It’s fucking torture, brother. I don’t know how long I can stay sane with this. I want her so much I can taste it.”
“Fuck. I didn’t know,” he says in a subdued tone, reaching for his mug. He leans back against the opposite counter with a dejected look. We don’t speak again after that, just sip our tea in silent misery until we head back to our rooms to sleep alone.
The next day is much of the same, with Elle joining me to continue hunting for leads on who’s trying to blackmail Drake. Drake and Ben hole up in Drake’s office on a lower deck, discussing the security plan for the gala. I almost hope the pair are taking out their frustrations on each other, but when they reappear for dinner, neither look any more relaxed.
That night is a repeat of the night before, but this time Ben and I liberate a bottle of tequila from Drake’s liquor cabinet and sit up on the bridge deck overlooking the water. The twinkling lights of Two Harbors sparkle like fallen stars in the distance.
“Nothing like a little tea-quila to settle your mind late at night,” I say, grinning as I crack open the cap and take a healthy swallow straight from the bottle. “Should’ve thought of this last night.”
Ben chuckles and sits back, propping his feet up on the rail. “Man, I don’t look forward to Saturday. You know Sam’s going to be there with Toni. I still can’t fucking get used to seeing those two together, and I definitely can’t stand the looks he’s giving us, like we might sully his sister’s honor.”
“Maybe it’s time to let the high school drama go. He was dead to rights when he confronted us about those photos of Elle. It’s no wonder he thinks we haven’t changed.”
“She sent them, though. It was none of his business. And they were innocent. She was sixteen then; she didn’t know what dickheads we really were. But Sam knew.”
“That he did. Little did we know he already had designs on Toni.”
“The way I see it, we’re square with him, and if he gives us shit, we’ll be justified in putting him in his place.”
I glance at him as he hands the bottle over after taking a swig. “We’re bigger men than that, hermano. Besides, Elle’s too close to him. If we care about her happiness, we have to let that shit go. Maybe friendship isn’t in the cards for us with any of her brothers, but we can at least try to be civil for her sake.”
He looks sullen as he takes his turn with the bottle. “How did she seem today? I admit I’ve been avoiding her. It’s too hard to be around her. Drake’s in the same place. If anything, he seems like he’s worse off than I am. Like he isn’t sleeping any better either.”
“You know her. She buries herself in work or school when she’s avoiding something. Used to be her shitty home life when her dad was on leave.”
He nods. “I guess there are worse ways to cope.”
I lift an eyebrow at the nearly empty tequila bottle he hands back to me, and we both laugh. But when we make it back to our beds, I can’t help thinking that keeping our distance is ultimately doing more harm than good.
I’ve seen Elle spiral when she’s stressed. It’s nothing like the tantrums she threw after a week of being cooped up in the penthouse. She finds the nearest project to occupy her mind and digs in, devoting every last ounce of energy to it until she’s nothing but an exhausted husk.
When I make it upstairs the next morning, I find Elle in her pajamas in the dining room, glued to her laptop with a half-full cup of coffee in front of her. Her top is a loose, baggy thing falling off one shoulder, and I don’t think she’s wearing a bra.
I have to pause to gather my wits before she notices me, because even when she’s a wreck, she’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever set eyes on.
“Hey, how long have you been up?” I ask, not sure I remember whether she was here when Ben and I came back down last night.
“Since about when you two went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. Is Ben okay?”
“He’ll survive. But you’re going to hate life if you don’t get more sleep. I know how you get when you’ve pushed too hard.”
“We don’t have time to slack,” she says, barely looking up from her work. “I think you need to look into Drake’s old head of security. He had access—maybe he still does. Do you know who he works for now?”
“No, but it’s as good a lead as any. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
We eat breakfast while we work, Elle’s coiled tension keeping me on task even though my concern for her is overwhelming my thoughts more than the desire I kept tamped down over the past two days.
Just when I’m starting to feel relief that the longing has finally taken a back seat to something else, Elle rises and comes around to the back of my chair like she did two days ago.
My neck tingles with anticipation seconds before she digs her fingers into my shoulders, her touch reigniting every dormant thread of need to have her. I let out an involuntary groan, because her fingers are fucking magical, and my fucking brain immediately strays to thoughts of what she’d do with them on other parts of my body.
It’s a challenge to pull away, but I do, only to turn and face a very frustrated, but beautiful Elle glaring at me.
“Are you trying to wear down my defenses? I don’t know if I’m strong enough, Elle.”
She sits down, looking dejected. “I know I’m not. But what’s worse: letting it eat at us like we’ve been doing for the past three days, or getting it out of our systems? Ben slept that first night because of what we did, but he hasn’t since. None of us are sleeping.”
“Elle… It isn’t just about letting off steam. We can’t let ourselves go down that road if we want to keep you safe.”
I sigh and turn my chair halfway around to face her. Taking her hands again, I stare up into her eyes, trying to find the words to tell her all the reasons why we can’t. But I’m lost; she’s so fucking beautiful I want to cry.
It’s never been like this before. I’ve always been able to maintain distance, both emotionally and physically. She’s a friend. She’s Sam Santos’ younger sister and my brother and I don’t exactly have a stellar history with him, probably because we’ve been fri
ends with Elle all this time. We’ve been forced to let go of any bad blood now that Sam’s with our sister, and it would get supremely complicated if we were to turn around and start dating his sister.
Who is also our sister’s half-sister…
I groan and swipe my hands over my face as the tangled mess of our family trees sweeps over me again. But it doesn’t change a thing about how I feel, and I’ve never been so painfully aware that I can have her—if I’m willing to cross a line, both professional and personal.
“Baz, trust me, I know, and it isn’t that bad,” she says again, crouching in front of me and squeezing my hands.
“No, Elle, it’s worse. It’s fucking reckless to want you so much. Seeing that little dance you put on for the cameras on Monday … it kind of broke my brain.”
Her cheeks flush, and her lips purse contritely as if she’s about to apologize, but that’s the last thing she should do. I put a finger over her mouth and shake my head.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. You were in your element. I’ve never seen you so fully you. It was fucking spectacular, and it made me wonder why you ever gave up dancing. I’m also going to dream about it for the rest of my life. But you were already with Ben, and I’d be a supremely inconsiderate asshole if I horned in while he’s keeping his distance.”
Her eyebrows twitch. “No one said I had to choose between you, and why would I?”
I frown at her. “Because that’s just how the world works.”
The argument is weak, and I know it, especially when I was trying to use the same one on Ben just the other night. But my point was that it could work for him and Drake. Not me. And only after we’re past whatever threat we’re hunting down.
“Is it, though? My father—Arturo, I mean—was polyamorous. Celeste is with both my brother and Leo. Maybe it runs in the family.”
“Then how do you explain Toni and Sam?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “I guarantee you her love for Manny didn’t just evaporate. Sure, he’s not around, but I have a feeling even if he were, Sam would’ve found a way to be with her. He’d have forced Manny to make room for him. He would share just to have her, if it came to that.”
She swallows and continues staring up at me, her unspoken question hanging between us. Would I share if it meant having her?
I glance toward the deck where Drake and Ben were having lunch a little while ago, but they’ve disappeared. I’m afraid to ask my next question, not sure I want to know what really happened that night while I wasn’t here, but I can’t let it go. “What about Drake? I’m not imagining that there’s something between you two, am I?”
“No, you aren’t.” She drops her gaze and rises to sit back in her chair. “You heard his story, right? About how he needs to watch.”
My eyes widen. “You let him watch you and Ben?”
“No… just me, at first. But I liked it. Enough that I’ve been video chatting with him at night, letting him watch me get ready for bed. He says it calms him, even though he knows he can’t touch me. When I was with Ben…” She looks up at the ceiling, her voice shifting to a sultry lower register. “…Drake wasn’t just watching. They… shared me, and it felt so right. The only thing missing was you.”
She drops her gaze back to me, and it’s bright with desire and expectation, some of the weariness gone. “Let us have this, Baz. I think we all fill a need for each other. If it’s easier for you, we can let them watch the first time instead of being involved. I want you, but I don’t want to leave them out to have you.”
Her confession leaves me spinning for several seconds. This is nothing close to how I imagined I might finally be with her, if it were even possible. Now she’s offering herself to me with one huge catch. I don’t have any issue sharing with my brother, but Drake is another detail to wrap my mind around. Except I know there’s already something between Drake and Ben, so would I be compromising my brother’s sanity by making him choose?
Elle’s the only one I want, but she’s right—we’re surrounded by alternative relationships. We never questioned it when Mad Dog basically moved in with Celeste and started sharing a room with her and Leo. Never flinched when we’d catch the casual affection between the two men.
The fact that Papá Flores didn’t take issue—acted like it was perfectly commonplace—gave us our cue for how to react, so Ben and I barely batted an eye. Except I’m fairly certain seeing Leo with a man gave Ben the confidence to acknowledge his own latent sexuality. I won’t take that away from him, if Drake is who he wants. If Elle is also who he wants. Fuck, I need to talk to him to make sure. One thing I am sure of though is that we can’t keep letting this torture go on. We’re all suffering, which is just as much a distraction as falling in love.
“Okay,” I begin, a surge of adrenaline flooding my veins as I let myself give in. “Meet me in your room in fifteen minutes. I need to talk to Ben and Drake first.”
I stand, only half-aware that my dick is as hard as steel. I only hope that getting this out of my system—and knowing it isn’t a one-time thing—will finally allow me to focus on finding the asshole blackmailing Drake.
16
Baz
When my brother and I first met Elle, we were barely old enough to be interested in girls. She was younger than us, but in an accelerated learning program at our school that put her into some higher-grade classes, and one of her teachers recommended her for the school’s coding team. I was pissed at first, because until she came on the scene, I was the alpha dog in that group. Then she arrived and didn’t give a single fuck that she was the only girl among a bunch of STEM guys, or that we were all eventually intimidated by her skills, though if I’m being one hundred percent honest, it was her burgeoning femininity that distracted most of us.
My animosity evaporated the day I stopped by her house after school to talk about a team project and found her sitting hunched over on the front step, silently crying. The reason for her mood was immediately apparent; a man and a woman were fighting inside the house—her parents, I guessed—the vitriolic outbursts making me wince when I heard them drift through the open windows.
She had her school bag with her, so I urged her to leave. She hesitated because Sam was on his way home from whatever after-school shit he did—probably banging the hot girlfriend he had at the time—but I talked her into sending him a text and escaping. We went back to school and spent the rest of that afternoon in the computer lab, brainstorming ideas to make our team project shine at a regional competition.
Ben met her the next afternoon when he joined us after soccer practice, which I’d missed to spend time with her. They hit it off too, which was comforting to me because I’m possessive of my twin and the concept of girlfriends was starting to become a reality, and I wasn’t willing to admit I hated the idea of losing him to some girl.
But Elle wasn’t just some girl to me, and soon she wasn’t to him either.
Perhaps it was because she grew up with four older brothers, but she felt like a missing piece to our puzzle… a piece we never even knew was missing. Our dad had been dead a while by then, and Toni had been preoccupied with her career for a few years already, so at first it felt like she was filling the shoes of our absent sister. At least we both pretended that’s the role she filled for us because after a brief run-in with Sam Santos one summer afternoon when we were eighteen, we realized it might be safer if we didn’t get too close.
It was easier to maintain distance after we graduated from high school, since Papá Flores had us training and working for him full-time from that moment on so there was little time to socialize, not to mention, Elle had moved to San Diego by then and we were still in LA. We’d still text and she’d send the occasional selfie our way, but that was the extent of our interaction.
At least until the shit hit the fan when Toni got kidnapped. Neither Ben nor I could stomach being in the same room with Flores, knowing he’d fucked our mom. It didn’t matter that it’d happened decades earlier, before
she’d married our dad; it still felt like a betrayal.
Now it feels like the fucking planets have aligned or something, like every moment in our lives was somehow leading up to this. Our falling out with Flores made him reassign us to Elle’s detail, a job we were too stunned to say no to when he offered it, though half of that was due to just having learned she was his daughter.
But here we are, determined to protect her, yet fighting a losing battle against our crush on a girl we’ve known since high school. Ben gave in once already, and I can feel my will crumbling with every step I take to find him. On the way, I rehearse a speech that involves talking him out of being with her, emphasizing the fact that we need to do our fucking jobs.
But that little voice in my head keeps telling me the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Protecting her, protecting Drake, and being with Elle can coexist. And we’re safe where we are too. Ben does daily patrols, checking every inch of the yacht and assures me we’re good.
Until we learn who Drake’s true enemy is and what they actually want, we won’t know what kind of danger he’s in, or if they’d be a threat to Elle too. At least this yacht is remote enough that she’s in no danger from Amador or Delgado.
I finally locate Ben and Drake down in the small gym, chatting amiably while Drake spots my brother on the weight bench. He sees me just as he’s lowering the loaded barbell to his chest.
“What’s up?” he puffs out, grunting as he lifts, managing five reps, then ten. I wait so I can look into his eyes when we talk. Drake stands wide-legged at his head, and we lock gazes for a second. He sees something in my face that makes his mouth twitch.
“You were right,” he says to my brother. “She wore him down.”
“No…” I begin, then huff a breath out through my nose. “Fucking hell, she’s relentless.”
Ben racks the barbell and sits up, chuckling at me as he swipes a towel over his sweaty brow. “She knows what she wants, and evidently it’s all three of us.”