Page 48 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

Y eah, I’m out of my fucking mind. Because my feelings for Harriet are so raw, I couldn’t even speak while I had my fingers inside her.

I choked out words against her ear. She only let out these cute little raspy fucks .

Her scowl melted into this overcome expression I’ll engrain in my head for all fucking time .

All her guards, all her defenses dropped into this fragile surprise.

The emotion stunned her as much as it obliterated me. It took everything not to take her all the way. My throbbing cock strains against my sweatpants now, and my breath sounds more ragged because I’m terrified to love her and leave her.

I’ve never been in love in my life, and of course this is happening to me now. Maybe it’s been slowly, imperceptibly happening for longer than this moment. Love probably isn’t a flip of a switch. It’s not a malady contracted overnight. Beckett would say I’ve been diseased, and didn’t I ask to be?

Didn’t I want to roll around in this feeling with her?

Yeah.

I’m already going to leave five siblings who I love more than planet Earth.

What’s one more love lost?

I pinch my eyes that try to well. “Sorry,” I breathe.

She shakes her head now. “It’s a lot…I get it.” She’s never felt this before either, but I can’t change the expiration date…it needs to stay. For my family. She glances around, making sure no one is creeping, before she whispers, “Thanks for the orgasm, Cobalt boy.”

I try to smile but end up just nodding to her. I want to hold Harriet, to remind her that I’m here. Right now.

Bending closer, I lift her in my arms and bring her higher up the pull-out. I place her head on a pillow.

Harriet eases into the mattress, and this tranquil, teeny-tiny smile tics up her lips. It’s a new one that I drink in and treasure.

I’m grateful that none of my brothers needed a glass of water or a midnight snack. Tonight, with her, was worth the risk, and I wouldn’t take it back.

Under the sheets, we lie on our sides, and I curl my arms around her small frame, drawing her back into my chest. She burrows against me and clutches my forearm. Everything about us is so natural, I’d almost think we’ve been together for years.

I wish we had been.

She yawns, exhaustion tugging her. I stroke sweaty blonde hair out of her face, behind her ear, and I rest my chin on her head. Feeling her body slacken against me is untensing my muscles.

I just need to stop revisiting her full-body convulsion when she climaxed. If that’s how she reacts with my fingers, I wonder what it’d be like if I— Jesus. Not tonight, Ben.

Maybe not ever.

I blink away that thought.

Soon, she’s completely knocked out.

Seeing Harriet so quickly and so easily fall asleep in my arms catapults me to cloud nine.

My chest rises as my lungs inflate, and a smile edges across my mouth.

I’m in some kind of paradise, just existing with her in this second.

Where worries can’t find me. Where fears don’t flourish. Where panic doesn’t thrive.

I want to live here.

I want to stop time again.

I want to freeze this peaceful moment with this one girl.

Very softly, I breathe, “Bonne nuit, petit oiseau.”

Being this close to her body heat while pent-up has set me on fire, and I gently pull away, bringing the quilt higher up her shoulders before sliding out of it.

My feet touch the ground. I stand and inhale a few deep breaths through my nose, glancing back at Harriet. Forceful emotions barrel into me.

How do I leave her in two months? I have to leave her.

Warring sentiments. I’m at odds with myself, but this clash is nothing new. My mind has been a battle zone for the past three years with no winner.

I walk away from the pull-out. The microwave clock glows in the dark kitchen. Flicking on the sink faucet, I wash my hands hurriedly, trying not to waste water. I hear the soft creak of a door down the hall that leads to Tom and Eliot’s rooms.

Seconds later, Eliot emerges in nothing but deep-red boxer-briefs. His bare feet pad quietly along the floorboards.

I shut off the faucet with my elbow. Even in the dark, I can see the gleam of sweat along Eliot’s toned muscles.

Running two hands through his damp hair, he slicks back the wavy strands, then flashes me a wry smile that personifies debauchery. “Greetings and salutations.” He meanders to the coffee pot like it’s eight in the morning and not two .

My forehead creases. “Coffee?” I ask in a whisper.

“The night is young.” He wags his brows.

I smile from his infectious energy.

Eliot comes to my side to fill the reservoir with sink water. “I’m only on round two. You?”

He’s talking about sex. I know he is. Oversharing is commonplace with Eliot, and I’d like it more if I didn’t feel like it was a tactic for me to spill my guts too.

I lean on the counter. “I didn’t need to know that, man.”

“Knowledge is power, little brother.” He tilts his head to me, then toward the couch where Harriet sleeps. “Do you know what you’re doing with that one?”

His question is a slingshot to my brain. I don’t fully understand what he’s asking. If he were inquiring about whether I hooked up with her, he would just come out and ask if we fucked.

“Doing?” I lower my voice.

“Yes, doing.” He returns the filled reservoir to the machine and grabs a bag of Colombian coffee from the cabinet. His gaze drops to the beaded bracelets on my wrist. The ones that belong to Harriet.

My head whirls. I grip the marble counter. “She’s my friend.”

Eliot slides me a darker grin as he shakes out a generous amount of grounds into the paper filter. “So you’ve said.”

I’m not in the mood to argue with him, especially not when I just made Harriet come.

It’s one thing to defend myself from a baseless accusation, but now…

I don’t know what to call this. We are still friends.

But I definitely don’t give orgasms to all my friends.

I definitely don’t imagine sliding my cock in my friends.

I’m definitely not this emotionally invested in my friends.

I’ve definitely never fallen for any friend.

Fuck.

I scrub a tensed hand down my hard jaw. I should just call it a night and return to the couch, but something roots me in the kitchen. Maybe it’s Eliot’s calmness. He’s rarely ever this subdued. It relaxes me in a way that usually only Beckett can.

Once he starts the coffee machine, he rotates to face me fully while it brews. “There’s a reason I tend to keep my flings short-lived.”

“Yeah,” I nod. “You get bored.” Once he’s figured someone out, the interest wanes and Eliot moves on.

“True.” His grin softens. “But that’s not all. I’m not in the occupation of breaking hearts, and the longer you keep them around, the more attached they inevitably are. Not just to you.”

Now I want to argue with him. Tell him he’s full of himself. He’s wrong. But the words glue to the back of my throat. Sometimes I forget that the whole “Cobalts are gods” saying isn’t much of a joke. Not to some people. It has nothing to do with our wealth, our fame, or our limitlessness.

It’s the love.

The loyalty.

The unfailing, undying, unblistered power of family. It’s how there’s light in each of my siblings so bright that it’s not a question of whether they can illuminate the night sky. They just do. Being around them is like finding a way out of darkness, a way home.

“The gates to our family rarely open,” Eliot warns. “You bring them closer and closer, they start seeing what’s inside and believe they’ll have it one day. It’ll break them knowing they can’t.”

“Could the gates open for her?” I ask him.

My family’s fierce devotion—it’s everything she’s never had growing up, and I want her to experience love that never leaves you cold. To not just look up and see a constellation, but to be among those eternal stars.

He casts a glance toward the couch, the coffee machine gurgling softly behind him, then looks me over. “Oh, to be nineteen again.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

He picks up a mug, tossing it in his palm. “Girls will come and go out of your life, little brother.”

His words stab me. “She’s different,” I say, my voice hostile. “She’s not coming or going. She’s here, and she’s staying .” I say this from my absolute core. I want her to stay. I want them to be there for her. I need them to let her through those gates without trouble, and it’s asking a lot.

I know it is.

He lets out a weighted breath, and his gaze no longer pins to the pull-out. He’s staring at me. Through me. He processes for a long moment, squinting in the dark. All I can hope is he can see how much I care for her. How much she means to me.

Then he breathes out, “Well, shit.”

“What?” I frown.

“I’ll have to put her on my fuck with her and die list.”

I start to smile. It’s very much what I want. “Tu promets?” You promise?

“De tout mon être.” With my whole soul. He comes closer and curves an arm around my head, bringing our foreheads together before messing my hair and letting go.

I smile even wider. Promises from Eliot carry the most weight in my family. He’d choose death over breaking one he made to us.

He’s grinning off my happiness. “It’s not too long of a list, just so you know. One cannot go to battle for every soul.”

I nod strongly. “Thanks, Eliot,” I tell him with depth.

He nods back, holding my gaze for another beat, as if seeing there is something deeper at play. But the coffee machine beeps. He spins around and pours himself a cup, then raises the mug to me. “Off for round three.”