by R. R. Banks
"Gabrielle? Are you with us?"
I looked up and saw my mother staring at me from across the table. I had been so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even realize how long I had just been sitting there staring at the table, ignoring everything that was happening around me. I was supposed to be having dinner with my parents, but I looked down at my plate and realized that I hadn't even taken a bite of the meatloaf that my mother had made.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Yeah. I'm here."
"You aren't eating," my father said. "I thought the meatloaf was your favorite."
"It was when I was seven."
"Oh," my mother said.
I felt guilty for the comment.
"I'm sorry," I said again. "I'm just really distracted tonight."
"I can see that," my mother said. "Is there anything that you want to talk to us about?"
"No," I said. "I mean, I don't really... I'm still trying to work through it."
"Does it have anything to do with that chocolate shop?"
I looked at my father.
"What do you mean?"
"We've driven by there a couple of times in the last two weeks and noticed that it hasn't been open."
"I know," I said. "I've been taking some time off."
"Oh," my mother said. "I didn't realize that business was doing so well that you could take that much time off."
I knew that she didn't mean anything by it, but the words cut into me.
"Business is doing fine," I said. "As a matter of fact, I was taking time off because I catered a large event and I needed to devote all of my time to preparing the chocolates and desserts for that, and they paid me enough that I didn't need to open the shop for a few days."
I felt like I was justifying myself, like I was defending myself against them, and I hated the feeling. I had hoped that telling them about the gala would show them that there was something more to my business, but it only seemed to make them more suspicious.
"Well," my father said. "That's very nice. Maybe that will get it out of your system."
I looked at him strangely.
"What do you mean get it out of my system?" I asked.
"Oh, honey," my mother said. "He didn't mean it in any bad way. He just means that maybe now that you have gotten to do something exciting and serve your chocolates to people that you will get through this phase and move on. It'll be like when you took ballet when you were little. By the time you had your recital, you felt like you were done and you didn't want to take lessons anymore."
She was laughing, but I didn't feel any levity in the moment.
"You still think that this is just a phase?" I asked.
"Of course it is, Gabrielle," my father said. "At least, we hope it is."
"You hope it is?"
"We just mean that we love you so, so much and we want to see you happy and successful. It disappoints us when we see that you aren't living up to your potential and using the education and skills that you have."
"I am using the skills that I have," I said. "I am good at making chocolate. I'm sorry that that disappoints you."
"We just wouldn't want to see you suffer a failure. We want to make sure that you are well taken care of and can live a good life. You've done this now. You've proven to everybody that you can open a shop and that you can even get a catering job. Now it's time to move on. If you can, maybe keep the shop as a little hobby, but we think that you should start looking for a career that actually means something."
"Or maybe a husband who could take care of you and who would be able to support your hobby."
They weren't trying to hurt me. But knowing that somehow made it worse. The sincerity and care in their voices made the words cut more deeply. I felt like if they were truly attacking me, if they were being insulting or really vicious, I would have been able to handle it better. I could have simply shut off my emotions and defended myself. But the fact that they really seemed worried about me and as though they thought they were doing what was best for me only made me more upset. It made me feel like they couldn't see me and what they were doing to me.
Jackson's words came back to me as I lay in bed trying to sleep that night. He had told me that I was important, that what I did mattered. It was something that I needed to hear and that resonated more deeply in me than he could ever know. I knew now that those words meant even more than he probably thought they did. I knew that if I wanted the life that I had envisioned for myself, it was something that I would have to continue to do without the support or encouragement of my parents. They didn't understand, and I couldn't blame them for it. I couldn't be angry with them about it. I had to accept it and know that pursuing my dreams was something that I would need to do on my own. I owed it to myself to follow my heart, and that meant pursuing everything that felt right to me. The men were offering me an incredible opportunity. I wasn't thinking about a fairytale. I was just thinking about the life that I wanted. They were offering me a life of passion, comfort, prosperity, and the ability to raise a child while also knowing that I could pursue the dream that I had held within me my whole life. With them, I had a reliable future ahead of me. I felt like the decision had already been made.
Chapter Eleven
Jackson
"I'm in."
They were the first words out of Gabrielle's mouth when she walked into the lounge, but they were all that I needed to hear. I jumped to my feet and rushed towards her, scooping her up in my arms and spinning around before closing my mouth over hers in a deep kiss. I lowered her to her feet and took a step back so that I could look into her face.
"Really?" I asked.
She nodded. My brothers had gotten to their feet and come over to us, each of them sweeping her up into a hug in turn.
"I am," she said. "I thought about it and I really want to do this."
"Let's get started," Talon said with a playful growl. He scooped Gabrielle up off her feet and started carrying her toward the door to the lounge, but she tapped his shoulder until he put her down.
"I think there are a few things that we need to talk about before we get started," she said.
I walked up to her and leaned down to kiss her along the side of her neck.
"But I don't want to talk," I said.
She laughed.
"I know," she said. "But we need to. There's some things that we need to figure out before all of us can start."
"She's right," Lucas said. "As much as I don't want her to be. Let's go into our wing so that we can talk about it."
"Your wing?" Gabrielle asked. "I thought that you didn't want to talk about private things there because there could be people listening."
"That's true," Lucas said. "But that was before. It's alright if people hear about it now. They'll know soon enough, anyway."
Gabrielle looked slightly confused but she fell into step behind Lucas and Talon. Aiden and I followed behind her and soon we were in the lounge of the Griffin wing. My chest was swelling with excitement. I have been hoping for days that she would come back and tell us that this was what she wanted, but every day there had been a little bit of doubt in the back of my mind. The longer that we had to wait, the more that I began to worry that she would never agree to it. Now that she was here, I could barely contain my happiness.
We sat down in the lounge and Gabrielle looked at Lucas.
"What do you mean that you don't care if people hear about it now?" she asked. "I thought that you didn't want people to know."
"I didn't want them to know until we knew that you were on board," he said. "If you had decided that this wasn't for you, we would have had to look for someone else, and frankly that could have taken a very long time. There's no one else that any of us are interested in. But if anyone had heard us talking about it, it could have caused a lot of headaches for us. Now, though, it doesn't matter who hears about it."
"That's something that I wanted to ask you about," Gabrielle said. "How ar
e we going to handle this?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"People are going to see us in public" she said. "If I spend any time around here or anything, they're going to see me. They're going to see me with the four of you. How are we going to explain that?"
"We're not," I said.
"What do you mean we're not? There has to be some sort of explanation. People are going to wonder who I am and why I'm around all of you. And once I get pregnant, they're going to notice that too. They're going to have questions."
"Just because people have questions doesn't mean that they need to have answers," Aiden said. "A lot of the people around here have already met you. They know your name. Who's to say that they need to know anything else? At events or when you're around here, we'll introduce you to people by name. There's no need to give any more explanation as to who you are or your relationship to us. If anybody needs to know, then they'll know. But very few people need to know."
"And when the baby is born?" she asked.
"We just go about our lives," I said. "Of course people are going to notice that we have a baby with us, but again, that's really all they need to know. Other people don't have any claim over us or any right to know about our lives. They know what we tell them about us and what we let them know. If people figure out what's going on, and they will definitely figure out what's going on, that's fine. I'm not ashamed of it and I'm not going to be. If they have questions then they're free to ask them. Whether or not I answer them is up to me at that time."
"And that's going to work?"
"Why wouldn't it?" Talon asked. "Frankly we are far too wealthy and powerful to care about what anybody thinks. For the most part, nobody in this Club, or anywhere else for that matter, has the balls to question us about anything. And even if they do, what they think doesn't matter. We're not doing anything illegal. We're not doing anything that could hurt anybody else. There are plenty of children who are born out of wedlock these days. It doesn't have the same stigma that it used to. And even in those families where it does still have the stigma, they're just going to have to deal with it. Our father stipulated that he wanted an heir in place, and that's what we're doing. It's our right to decide how many children are in our family and how we handle distributing our inheritance. It's nobody else's business. I don't care what anybody in this Club, or anybody outside of it, thinks about me or who I choose to spend time with."
Gabrielle looked stunned. I remembered how she had talked about her family and I knew that making this decision was a tremendous step for her.
"I can't imagine ever being that complacent," she said. "I've always cared what people thought about me. I thought that was just what life was."
"Not anymore," Aiden said. "Your life is yours. And we're going to make sure that it's better than you could ever have imagined."
Gabrielle smiled, a glint of mischief in her eyes. She stood up and looked at each of us.
"Then maybe you should show me what that life could be," she said.
Without another word, she turned and walked out of the lounge, turning toward the bedrooms. I looked at my brothers and the four of us jumped to our feet, quickly following her.
Gabrielle
I rushed toward the bedroom that I had slept in after the Valentine's Day Gala and kicked off my shoes and socks, stripping out of my jacket and tossing it aside. I had only been standing in the room for a few moments when the four brothers appeared at the door. They stopped there, staring in at me, as if waiting for me to invite them in. I stared at them with a smile on my lip, silently offering myself to them. Talon was the first to step forward across the room to me. He crossed it in long strides and scooped me up with one arm around my waist, carrying me back the few feet and up the steps onto the platform where the bed was sitting. He pressed me back onto the bed with an intense crushing kiss and I wrapped my arms around his neck to hold him there. After a few seconds, he straightened and pulled his shirt off, reaching down to pull mine away as well before stretching across me again.
The warm, smooth skin of his chest molded against my breasts and touched my stomach, and I held him closer, wanting as much of the feeling of his body as I could have. As our mouths played almost frantically across each other, I felt the mattress beside me dip down slightly and realized that one of the other brothers had climbed onto the bed with us. I looked over and saw Jackson. I took one hand from Talons back and ran my hand along Jackson's chest where he knelt beside me. I grabbed a handful of his shirt and nudged it up, impatient with the fabric, wanting him to be bare. He complied with the pressure of my hand, grabbing onto his shirt and pulling it off so he could toss it aside. He took my hand and rested it to the middle of his chest so I could feel his heart pounding through his skin. I ran it down onto his belly to feel the chiseled muscles there. I could feel both men on me and it was like indulging myself in the layers of a sinfully decadent dessert. Talon pulled his mouth away from mine and began kissing his way down my body until he had backed his way off of the side of the bed and stood. I lifted up onto my elbows so that I could watch him as he kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt. Before he took his pants off, he headed back toward the door so that he could close it and lock it. I used the opportunity to slide up into a sitting position and turned so that I mirrored Jackson's kneeling position on the mattress. Our bodies just brushed against one another and he reached around behind my back to release my bra. It dropped away from me and my nipples touched his skin.
I heard Jackson draw in a breath as I leaned forward to touch my lips to his neck and continue to run my fingers down his chest and belly. Finally he tucked one finger beneath my chin and lifted my face to his, lowering his mouth to cover mine and coaxing my lips to part with his tongue. I opened my mouth and felt his tongue slip between my lips and against mine. We kissed more languidly than I had kissed Talon, exploring a different feeling. Talon climbed back onto the bed behind me and I felt him wrap his arms around my waist, so that he could guide me back to lean against him, taking possession of me.
I leaned back against him luxuriously, enjoying the feeling of him surrounding me. I nestled my hips back into him and he groaned slightly as I felt his erection nudging against me, even through my pants. He tucked his hips forward to press it against me harder and Talon dropped his mouth to the curve of my neck and shoulder, the tip of his tongue flicking across my skin. One of his hands closed over my breasts, filling his palm as he kneaded the sensitive flesh gently but insistently. Aiden came to the side of the bed and reached between Jackson and me to take hold of the waistband of my pants and ease them down over my hips. Talon used his arm to support me as I rose up off of my knees so that Aiden could remove my pants. I had worn nothing under them, so now I was fully bare, fully open and vulnerable to them. It was exactly the way that I wanted to be, and I gave myself over to it completely.
One of Talon’s hands slipped around my hip to dip between my thighs and he eased them apart so that he could finally touch me. The sensation of his fingers slipping through my folds brought a gasp from my lips and Aiden met it with a kiss. My body was hot and wet, and Talon’s fingers slid easily across me as I looked up to meet Jackson's eyes. He watched Talon touch me for several long seconds before he too climbed off of the bed to finish undressing. My eyes trailed down his body and I whimpered slightly when I saw him wrap his hand around his shaft and begin to stroke himself. I parted my thighs slightly further at the sight and felt Talon twitch behind me. He kissed along the side of my neck and I felt his mouth come to my ear.
"Do you want him?" he asked.
I nodded, but I also arched my back so that I could press my hips harder against him, making sure that the connection between us was not broken and he understood that I wanted him just as much.
"Me too?" he asked.
I nodded.
Aiden leaned forward and ducked his mouth down to close it over one of my breasts, sucking the nipple into his teeth and then tracing
it with his tongue. He kissed up the front of my throat and then looked me in the eye.
"And me?" he asked.
I nodded, feeling my breath catch in my throat and my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode from my chest.
Finally Lucas climbed up onto the platform with us. He had already undressed and his hand was grasping his cock like Jackson's.
"How about me?" he asked.
"Yes," I breathed. "I want all of you. Now."
I turned over my shoulder to kiss Talon, reaching to my side to grip Aiden's thigh. Talon kissed me back passionately. When he ended the kiss, he stroked his hand up through my hair to grip it then pushed me forwards so that I caught myself on Jackson's hips. His erection stood thick and mouth-watering away from his body and I immediately indulged myself by licking along its length from the base to the engorged tip. Finally I opened my mouth and took him in completely, settling him against my tongue and closing my lips around his shaft. In that moment, Talon pulled my hips back and buried himself inside me in one hard thrust. I cried out, but didn't release Jackson. I didn't want to lose even a moment of the decadence of cradling both of them within me. We fell into a perfect rhythm, Talon's thrusts and the strong, controlling pressure of his hand on the back of my head leading me along Jackson's length until the room filled with the moans of both men.
After a few incredible moments, Talon stopped and I felt him withdraw from my body and his hand slide out of my hair. Jackson ran his fingertips down my neck and onto my jaw, carefully easing my mouth away from him. He lifted my chin and leaned down to kiss me. Both men climbed off of the bed, but I had only seconds to feel alone before Aiden and Lucas took their places. Aiden guided me up off of my hands and pulled me up against him for a long kiss before he guided me back to stretch across the bed. Lucas was sitting on the edge and I laid down with my head on his thigh.