It’ll be better for her if she’s lost in Akara for a second, so I’m glad they’re kissing.
I edge my fingers into her entry. Her arousal pumps my blood harder. Jesus. She breaks from his lips in a pant. And once her eyes descend down to me, I remove my fingers and grip my shaft.
“Breathe,” Akara coos against her ear.
She inhales, her eyes fastening to mine—like the very first time we kissed. And I don’t desert her gaze. Not even as I slowly push inside her pussy.
She is so…fucking…tight.
Fuck.
The pressure is almost immediate. Wrapping around me in a vice. Her thighs tremble as I slowly slip in, our eyes still latched.
“You alright?” I whisper.
She nods, lips parted. She reaches for Akara’s hand, then mine.
It’s in the soft seconds of her breath. His. Mine. That I feel like this moment is transcendent. That there’s no going back after this. I thrust, but I don’t give her the full length, and still, an involuntary noise flies from her lips.
A cry.
A whimper.
Those noises are gonna fuck me up. Holy hell, are they like a drug. I want to hear more. I rock against her in a slow, hungered movement.
“Please,” she moans, about to buck her hips, but Akara grabs her waist to keep her from taking more of me. If I hit her cervix, she’s never gonna want to have sex again.
I’m careful with every emotion-packed second, every sweltering beat, and I extend the moment to earth-shattering minutes upon minutes, soaking in the feeling of being inside her. And then Sulli explodes. Her eyes roll, body shudders, and she clenches. The pressure around my cock is like being knocked out with a baseball bat. I’m struck to the fuckin’ moon as I come, and I flex to keep from a natural instinct to push deeper and milk the climax.
Can’t go any deeper.
I breathe hard, my cock twitching as she keeps pulsing against me. “Sulli,” I groan, and gently, very fucking gently, I pull out.
She’s exhausted, trying to smile. A smile passes through me, my mouth curving. That feels good. Akara rotates the faucet, refilling the tub with warm water after I discard the condom.
We all ease back.
“That was…” she says in soft breaths. “…so fucking…amazing.” Her eyes close fully. “I can just sleep here.”
Akara and I share a smile.
“I’m living here now,” she yawns. “The tub is my new home.”
I stretch my arm over Sulli. “Rent will be cheaper.”
“Spacious,” Akara quips. “I can definitely fit my whole office in here.”
“You would be thinking about your fuckin’ office,” I laugh at him.
He splashes water at me as the tub fills.
Sulli curls up against him. “Mmhhh. So many donuts.”
“Sad to say, we can’t live here, mermaid.”
“The water though…”
Akara and I exchange another look. This time, our smiles fade, knowing this is drawing to a real close too soon.
We wash off. Dry off. Sulli is half-asleep.
Akara says, “We’re taking you to bed, string bean.”
I stand up and easily lift Sulli into my arms. She cocoons her head into my chest. “I can sleep here, too.”
I’d like that, but she needs an actual bed. I step out of the tub, careful not to slip. Akara tosses the used condoms in the trash, grabs a couple towels, and follows me into her bedroom.
He knocks off the majority of her pillows before I can lay her gently on the mattress. She curls up into the velvet quilt, and sudden-fear springs open her eyes. “You two are staying over, right?”
I bob my head. “Right.” I’m not about to ditch Sulli after making love to her. I crawl in next to her on the bed and wrap an arm around her broad shoulders.
“Of course,” Akara says, but he’s texting on his phone.
“Kits…” Sulli’s concern mounts.
“I have to set an alarm, Sul. Your roommates might come back early. They can’t see us leave.”
That sobers the room. More reminders that this isn’t lasting. What feels like a forever type of moment is just an illusion. Forever ends tomorrow.
She pushes wet hair off her forehead, turning on her back. “Can you set it for 5 a.m.? I’ll just wake up at that time too.”
His eyes flit to her. “We’re not running out on you.”
“I know. But this way it won’t feel like you are.”
I kiss the top of her head.
Akara nods, then returns to the bed.
Sulli curls up against my chest, and Akara holds her against his. He presses his lips to the back of her neck. Once more, sleep comes for her, but this time she doesn’t fight it.
None of us do.
54
SULLIVAN MEADOWS
What have I fucking done?
I’m hopelessly in love with two men. And today I have to make a choice. Last night, I thought it’d be an impossible one. But this morning, when I watch them leave my penthouse, everything starts to become clear.
I think I’ve made my decision.
But before I confront Akara and Banks, I need to make one stop. I dress quickly, still feeling the soreness between my legs. Like they’re still inside my pussy. It’s a new, strange feeling that I don’t hate. Maybe even like.
I text Akara where I want to go today and hit send. Fuck, there’s something else. It’d be crass to text him about it, so before he can respond, I decide to call.
He answers on the first ring. “Sul?”
“Hey, sorry. Did you get my text?”
“Yeah. When do you want to leave?”
“Soon.” I put my phone on speaker and grab a pair of running shoes from the closet. “Do you think you could put a temp on my detail today?”
The air strains. “Is everything alright? Last night—”
“Was fucking perfect,” I say quickly. “Better than anything I could have imagined. It’s just I think you two should talk things over while I think things over alone.” In case they want to choose each other. That option still exists.
He exhales a breath of relief. “Okay, yeah. That’s a good idea.”
My stomach does a somersault. Nothing about this is going to be easy. I might have made a decision, but it’s not simple or easy or will leave everyone happy.
Not in the slightest.
He adds, “Gabe will be over there in five minutes to take you.” Gabe is one of the better temp bodyguards that pre-dates Michael Moretti, though Oscar mostly uses Gabe to protect Jack.
“Thanks, Kits.”
* * *
Beckett’s bedroom in his New York apartment is a mixture of deep blues and gold tones. He’s a minimalist through and through, but his style still shines bright in the abstract gold etchings framed perfectly on his wall. I get lost in them for a second.
He returns with a couple cans of Fizz Life. When he notices me observing the etchings, he stares longer at them, then goes to the wall. He adjusts the frame by a hair.
I don’t mention that the frame was perfectly aligned before. Or else he might spend the next five minutes readjusting.
Beckett comes over to me, soda still in hand.
Seeing him in the flesh is so different than our phone calls over the past weeks. We didn’t even FaceTime. Just heard each other’s voices.
He’s all lean muscle, and a shadow of stubble lines his jawline like he hasn’t shaved yet this morning. Most girls swoon over his floral tattoos inked down his arm, his dark-brown hair with a good amount of wave, and his unique yellow-green eyes.
His jeans are ripped today at the knees, and I recognize the Carraways band T-shirt as one of their first merch designs.
He’s twenty-two.
My best friend.
Former best friend.
He hands me the can of soda. “Charlie really didn’t put you up to this visit?”
I pop the tab and hear the familiar fizzy sound. “He reall
y didn’t,” I say. “I’m here of my own free will. I have something to tell you.”
I want his friendship back—and I figure, if I want it to be what it was, then I need to confide in him like I used to. And I want that. God, I fucking want that.
His brows rise. “Before you start, I have something to tell you too.” He motions to his bed. “Take a seat.”
“This is a sitting kind of conversation?” I plop on his mattress, crossing my legs. Being in his room feels more comfortable than I thought it would, but his declaration seizes my pulse. Deadens it for a second. Is he going to tell me he doesn’t want to be friends? Maybe something happened to him.
Something I missed again.
“It’s an overdue kind of conversation,” he says. “I just didn’t want to have it until I saw you again.” He winces. “And I probably should’ve been the one to come to you, but ballet and…” He stares down at the can of soda in his hand. “That’s a shit excuse. It’s all pretty shit, really.” His eyes flit to mine. “When I started using cocaine before shows, I always thought about you.”
My mouth falls open for a second. He’s talking about cocaine. My hand is cold from the condensation of the can.
He continues, “I kept imagining what you’d do. Not what you’d say to me, if you knew about it. But if you had a drug that wouldn’t disqualify you from competition, and it’d take away all your pain, make you a better swimmer—I wondered what you’d do.”
“It’d be an easy out,” I say. “I wouldn’t have done it. We always said we wouldn’t.”
“Not even if you didn’t retire?” he asks me, brows knitted. “Imagine you’re still competing for the next ten years, Sul. Imagine you didn’t medal. Imagine you’re still fighting for that dream at thirty, and your body isn’t the same as it was. What then?”
I’d take it.
For gold, I would take anything.
“You’re not thirty, Beckett.”
“I’ve been dancing since I was four, Sul. My body is fucked.”
Tears pool in my eyes. “You’re at the top of your career. You already have gold.”
He takes a small sip of his drink and swallows hard. “I guess that’s the difference between you and me. You can get a medal and call it a day.” He shakes his head. “I can’t live without ballet.”
Ballet for him isn’t just dancing. It’s the art. The whole performance. The craft. The audience. The passion. The soul. I don’t try to convince him that he can live without it. But there’s an expiration date—and I don’t want the day he ends ballet to be the end of him, too.
“Are you still using?” I ask.
He shakes his head and sets his Fizz Life on the desk. “No. I made a promise that I wouldn’t.” His eyes hit mine. “I’m not going to bullshit you, it’s hard.”
“I know. I get it now.”
That almost breaks him. Tears filling his eyes. “Do you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d have taken it, if I was still competing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fucked up. And I would want you to tell me to fucking stop.”
He rubs at his eyes. “I’m glad you were mad at me.” He takes a step forward. “I’m so, so sorry, Sulli, for what I said to you.”
I inhale sharply. I stopped waiting for this apology a long time ago, and so I didn’t think I’d hear those words now.
He continues, “I don’t think you’re pointlessly destroying your body. I think you were just experiencing shit at twenty-one, like a twenty-one-year-old should.”
I rub at my eyes. “So why’d you say it then?’
“Because I thought you’d understand why I was using. Maybe I even convinced myself you’d agree with me. It’s why I didn’t tell you earlier. I thought…if you were on my side, you’d get heat from my brother, my sister, Maximoff. I didn’t want it to be us vs them. I didn’t want to put you in that position. When I realized you were already on their side, I was angry. So I lashed out.”
Silent tears slip down my cheeks. All this time…Beckett thought I’d betrayed our friendship first. That I chose them over him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, rising from the bed.
“No, you were on the right side, Sul.” He bridges the distance and we hug. “I need to stop using. I’ve stopped.”
“Good.” I part from him as guitar chords sound from another room. Tom must be practicing. I dig in my pocket and dangle out the turquoise, red, and blue friendship bracelet. “For you. I made it in Yellowstone. I thought about giving it to you if this day ever came. And I honestly thought it might take years, but I’m happy to say, it didn’t.”
He holds out his wrist, his lips rising. “Me too. And I thought about giving you my friendship fries if this day ever came, but Eliot just ate the last bag I’d been saving.”
Beckett used to always share his fries with me. It’s always been his favorite mid-day snack. And so we used to call them Friendship Fries.
I smile big and tie the threads of the bracelet around his wrist. “I’ll just take some imaginary friendship fries.”
Once I finish the knot, Beckett asks, “What do you need to tell me?” He smiles more. “I want to hear it all. I feel like I’ve missed decades of your life.”
It kinda fucking feels like that for me too. I don’t know how to do this, so we both sit cross-legged on his bed, and I just start from the beginning. The funhouse where I told Banks and Akara that it’d be cool if they took my virginity. The motel where Banks kissed me. Then the morning run where Akara kissed me too.
I talk about how we’ve been dating. Bachelorette style. How they make me feel. Our easy banter, even when we’re all together. How scared I was to lose them in the cougar attack.
How they’re so different, but I like that they’re different and not the same. And every day with them just makes inexplicable sense.
I leave out the other sexual moments. Just for now.
He listens.
He’s always been really good at listening.
We move down to the floor and bring in snacks as I continue talking. My throat grows scratchy, but it’s like everything just flows forth. I only stop when I reach the wedding.
“And we agreed,” I say. “That today I’d make a decision.” I circle my thumb on the soda can rim. “I think I’ve come to one. But first, I wanted to hear how stupid you think I am—”
He smiles. “Why would I think you’re stupid?”
“Because I decided to become the fucking bachelorette to two bodyguards!”
“To me, and this is just my opinion”—he puts his hands on his chest—“it sounds more like you were in a polyamorous relationship.”
I frown. “A what?”
He scratches the back of his head. “How to explain this…?” He takes out a green M&M. “This is you.” He sets a blue M&M beside it. “This is Banks.”
“That’s his favorite color,” I note.
He smiles a little as he chooses an orange one next.
“It should be red,” I say quickly. “Akara’s favorite color is red.” Well, candy apple red. But I don’t go into that much detail.
Beckett glances at the friendship bracelet I made, the same colors I listed, and we both laugh hard. He shakes his head, “You’re so in love.”
He says it like a disease.
“You want to cure me?” I ask him, tossing the green M&M in my mouth. Fuck, I’m cheating on my vegan streak just this once.
“No. You’re too far gone.” He smiles, replacing the green M&M. “Stop eating yourself.”
“But it’s so much fun.” I swig my soda, a pit of anticipation forming in my stomach. “You can keep going.”
“Okay, Akara is red.” He puts the red M&M at a diagonal to my green. With the blue M&M, they resemble a little triangle of candy. “There can be all different kinds of poly relationships. You can have partners that have other partners.” He moves a yellow and orange M&M next to Akara’s red.
I’m immediately shaking my head.
He la
ughs. “This is a demonstration.”
“I don’t even want to imagine it.”
He brushes away those extra M&M’s. “Or you can have a closed relationship. Where however many multiple partners you have, they’re only romantically connected to each other. It sounds like that’s what you, Banks, and Akara had in Yellowstone.”
“But we weren’t in a relationship. We were just casually dating.”
He tilts his head. “I casually date. And I would never talk about my dates how you talk about Akara and Banks—but you can use whatever labels you want, Sul.”
“I am interested in these labels though.” I point to the three M&M’s. “What is this fucking called?”
“A triad.” He crisscrosses his legs on the floor.
“Even if we didn’t do anything sexually, the three of us would still be a triad?”
“Yeah. It’s not about sex,” Beckett says. “You can be in a relationship and be a virgin your whole life. People tend to only think about relationships with what they know, and it’s bullshit, Sul. Two people, three people, ten people—if you can make it work, and it’s consensual and loving, why would that be wrong?”
Wow.
I take a deep breath. “I just didn’t think it’s possible for three people to all be together in a serious relationship.” And I know that was my ignorance. From what Beckett tells me, there are people in the world in happy polyamorous relationships.
“I didn’t say it wouldn’t be hard. There’s lack of time. Jealousy. But every relationship, even monogamous ones, have complications. In the end, it just takes effort and commitment. That’s the hardest thing for all people—commitment.”
It’s an overwhelming thought to have this new possibility. This new option. I stare down at the M&M’s. “But what if the green one had sex with the red one and the blue one?” I blush a little, meeting Beckett’s eyes.
His brows have risen. “You lost your virginity?”
“Last night,” I say. “It was fucking epic.”
He laughs. “I’m glad. They didn’t hurt you?”
I shake my head. “They weren’t…together. I mean they were together in the same room but not together in me. And sorry for the TMI.” I don’t even know why I apologize. Maybe because we haven’t been talking much lately, but sex isn’t an off-limits topic for us. Even if he’s super private about his sex life with most people, he’s shared with me.
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