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This was when she told me she loved me too, right, right? Where she threw her arms around me, but instead she just stared, as if unable to believe what we were saying. Hunter stepped forward then, wrapping her up and pulling her close.

“You must be feeling pretty damn overwhelmed right now. It’s OK. You’re OK.” His hand rose and fell, sliding down her spine each time. “That’s a lot of big feelings to try to process.” Brock and I watched our brother attempt to settle Jamie, and I was willing to bet he was eating his heart out, just like I was. “Maybe you think you’re safe with me.” Her head rose up off his chest and she stared at him then. “You’re not. You never were. I hid it from you, Millie, even Hayden, but I was just as gone on you as my brothers are.” He shot her a small smile and brushed her hair away from her face. “I know you don’t know how to cope with someone actually loving you, treating you well, but… maybe this time you could try?”

She pulled away from him slowly, gazing at each one of us, those keen eyes taking in every detail. It felt like I was being subjected to some kind of silent interrogation. Jamie was looking for signs, I realised, of a lie, unreliability, because there was something wounded in her that had never been allowed to heal. I guess it wouldn’t, with her family always picking at the scab, forcing her to bleed over and over.

“Try?” Her voice was thin, little more than a whisper, and a death’s head smile formed and faded away in seconds. “Try? You make it sound like I’ve got a choice.” When her hand started to claw at the other I was forced to grab it, lest she hurt herself, and so I felt the thrumming tension inside her. “I…”

I didn’t want my girl to cry ever, but seeing those tears right now gave me a strange kind of hope. It was as if the hard but brittle shell she’d constructed around herself shattered in that moment, and all I wanted to do was crush the shards. Let her never have to build up such tall walls to protect herself again. Let her breathe freely knowing she didn’t need a single defence, not with us beside her. We’d fight every enemy she might face, clearing the way for her to step forward like a queen.

“I think I caught feelings too…” she said finally.

“What feelings?” Hunter was being a prick, pushing her right when she felt vulnerable, but I understood why. We needed to stop her from collecting the shards of her cocoon and patching them together again once the mood was gone. This was a step we all had to take if we were to have a future. “What feelings, Jamie?”

“Love.” She nodded, her head dropping down as her whole body went limp. “I…” A sidelong look at all of us before she forced herself to straighten up. “I think I love you too.”

I was like a dog that had been let off its leash, lunging at Jamie then. My arms went around her, my mouth on hers as relief washed over me. It was a merciless wave, pounding into me, forcing me to surrender to everything I’d been holding back. My kiss was hungry and desperate, and she was right there with me. Her teeth nipping at my lips, her hands raking across my shoulders, her need was finally given a place to go.

But I would never be its only recipient.

“Got some of that sweetness for me too?” Hunter asked and she answered him in kind, kissing him just as hard.

Brock knew it was his turn now, staring down at her with a slight smirk. Jamie wasn’t going to stand for that, but when she reached for him, he gripped her wrists.

“Let's get in the car. What I need can’t be satisfied in this alleyway.” He looked down the road, and we all noticed the traffic, the sounds of people passing by as if for the first time. “Not without someone calling the cops. We’re going to my place.”

Brock said he was the one in charge right now, so we all moved as one to do as he said, but getting in that car? Jamie wedged between Hunter and I, it felt different. There was no coming back from this, and I think even my girl knew that, because when I grabbed her hand, she held on tight.

“Ready?” Brock asked as the engine roared to life.

We all stared at Jamie.

“Ready,” she said with a nervous smile and a nod.

Chapter 55

Jamie

I loved them. I loved them. Every time we passed under a street light it hit me again, the rumble of the engine, the sound of the tires on the road all telling me the same thing.

I was fucked.

My brain told my muscles to lock down, clench tight, get ready to run, but then Hayden reached for my hand. When our eyes met, I let out a long, shuddering breath, feeling the tension dissipate.

“Just like that.” I glanced sideways to see Hunter turning to face me, smiling when he held my attention before reaching over and drawing me forward. “That’s it.”

A kiss stopped the frenzied spin of my mind cold. I couldn't fret when I felt his mouth moving against mine, his tongue sliding between my lips, and that quiet, that peace that followed had me going back for more, even when he pulled away.

“Now you’re feeling it.” There was something self-congratulatory about Hunter, but it was a generous feeling rather than a selfish one. “And so is Hayden. I think he needs a kiss too.”

“I don’t need…”

Hayden started to protest at his brother’s interruption, but that stopped the moment my hands hit his chest. His went around my wrists, stopping me from pulling away. We moved then, tilting our heads to one side, drawn together like magnets until my lips touched his. His grip tightened, his fingers digging into my skin, marking me as his just as his mouth did. The hold on my wrists loosened, his hands going to my hair, then my seatbelt. He reached for it blindly, taking an intervention from Hunter to click it free, before he pulled me onto his lap. Jammed between the car seat and him, this felt exactly right.

“Goddammit…” Brock growled. “We’re still about fifteen minutes from home.”

“Better put those fifteen minutes to good use then.” Hunter undid his own seat belt and slid across the vinyl seat to get to us. “How a bit more over here, sweetness.” When he tapped his bottom lip I lunged forward, ready to claim it.

When I was kissing them, everything was right in the world. I couldn’t overthink things, and my overactive parasympathetic system was forced offline for just a moment. There was only his lips, his tongue, then Hayden’s sharp inhale of breath as I ground down against him. Hunter was fanning the flames of something hot, but as Hayden’s hands slapped down on my hips, he was directing it. Back and forth he moved me, forcing me to grind down on him and feel the dull explosion of pleasure with every pass.