Page 197

Michio pulled away. His rigid length tented his sweatpants, but the arousal I used to see so clearly in his eyes struggled to peek through the mounting clouds on his face.

Jesse licked and nuzzled, following my seam downward, toward my ass.

I held back the urge to bow my back, my attention on Michio. “What’s wrong?”

Roark pressed kisses over my mound and glanced up at Michio though his lashes. “Too much, lad? Too soon?”

I reached down and stroked Roark’s whiskered jaw, silently thanking him for his compassion.

Jesse moved his mouth to the back of my spread thigh, pressing a kiss there as he waited for Michio’s response.

Michio regarded them intently for a long moment. “Are you two…?” The sharp slash of his cheekbones were stark with discomfort. “I don’t care what you do. I’m just trying to understand your relationship.”

I didn’t fully understand it either, but I was hopeful. With my fate hovering over me, I wanted my guardians to love one another so much they would satisfy each other in every way. Because a bond between them was more likely to pull them through my death than one they might find in a fragilely new relationship with another woman.

Eventually, I would start planting seeds about the future, assuring them of my acceptance of them moving on with another woman or women or with each other in the same way Joel had done for me in the letter he’d left me. But right now, it was too early, the news of my pregnancy too raw. Right now, I simply wanted to show them how much I loved them.

Lifting up on an elbow, Jesse met Michio’s gaze with a challenging one. “We’re still trying to figure it out.”

I wasn't so sure Michio's hesitancy had to do with what was happening in this bed. I lowered my legs to the mattress and sat up, bending my neck to put my face within an inch of Michio’s. “This is about Elaine, isn't it?”

Michio looked away. “Evie, I’m fine.”

The darkness shadowing his eyes and the straining tension in his shoulders were anything but fine.

I touched his cheek, turning his face back to mine. “If you’re not ready, we can take this slower. We can wait—”

“Like hell.” Roark rose to his knees and rubbed a rough hand over his eyes. “Jaysus, Doc. She’s all laid out, primed and ready for ye. I can see you’re as chubbed up as we are, so wha’ever this is, it’s in your head. Let’s hear it.”

“Roark.” I glared at him.

“Wha’? He needs to talk about it.”

Michio slid off the bed, adjusted his pants, and strode toward the door. “I just…” He turned the knob, facing away and hiding his expression as he stepped into the hall. “I need to walk.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

“Bloody hell.” Roark climbed off the bed. “Feck!”

“I’m going after him.” I dug through the bedding, searching for my shorts.

Jesse located them and hurled them across the room, where they landed in one of the boxes by the door.

“Dammit, Jesse.” I moved to go after them.

He rolled on top of me and pinned me to the mattress, craning his neck to glare at Roark over his shoulder.

“I’m going.” Roark braced an arm on the wall by the door and stared down at the hard bulge pressed against his shorts, his tone frustrated and resigned. “Just give me a bloody minute.”

I’d seen the look on Michio’s face before he retreated and recognized the vulnerability, confusing anger, and aching loneliness, having suffered in the grip of those emotions after I was raped in my father’s basement.

I pushed against Jesse. “I’ve been through what he’s feeling. I can relate to him. It should be me who talks to him.”

Jesse grabbed my wrists and held them above my head, the hard weight of his body distributed over the length of mine. “Roark would be better for this conversation. Doc is your guardian, your protector, the kind of man who doesn’t get raped by a woman—”

“But—”

“He’s not thinking about the circumstances, only that he failed to stop it.” Jesse closed his eyes, opened them. “He’ll choose sulking and hiding over vocalizing his weakness to the woman he’s supposed to protect.”

“Damn male egos,” I mumbled. “They’re like fragile, hormonal teenage girls.”

“That’s right, and the wrong word, the wrong silent non-word, will make him feel like he’s not the man you need him to be.” He brushed the hair from my face. “Let the priest handle it.”

A sharp pang twisted in my gut. I hadn’t considered that Michio would be worried about my opinion of him.

“Okay. Just…” I met Roark’s eyes across the room. “Tell him I love him?”

Roark nodded. After another glance at his softening erection, his gaze traveled over our bodies and fastened on Jesse’s eyes. “Try not to finish before I get back.” A grin spread across his handsome face. “Ye should tell her how horned up ye get when I watch ye stroke your flute.”