Page 14 of Crush & Byte (Grim Road MC #9)

“You know, I used to want a real family. I used to daydream about it. Having Christmas mornings with presents under a tree and birthday cakes with my name on it in icing meant only for me.” The admission tasted bitter, like admitting to a childish fantasy.

“But dreams like that are dangerous when you don’t control any aspect of your life. They make you vulnerable.”

“Not everyone will use that power to hurt you, River,” Crush said, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it. He reached out again, his large hand coming to rest over mine once again. The weight of it was grounding, an anchor in the storm of memories I’d unleashed.

“Some people are worth the risk,” Byte added, his expression thoughtful. His eyes, so eerily perceptive, seemed to see straight through to the heart of me, to all my fears and defenses and carefully constructed walls.

I shook my head, not in disagreement but in wonder. “How can you be so sure? How do you know who’s worth the risk and who isn’t?”

“You don’t,” Crush said simply, his hand still warm on my shoulder. “That’s the risk part.”

“But sometimes,” Byte’s gaze captured mine with intent. “Sometimes, you just know. Like instinct. Like something clicks into place and you think, ‘Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.’”

The way he said it, with such quiet certainty, made my heart stutter in my chest. No one had ever looked at me the way these two men were looking at me now -- like I mattered, like I was worth seeing, worth knowing, worth the risk.

And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I found myself wanting to stay.

The cabin fell silent except for the low crackle of the fire.

My confession hung in the air between us, words I couldn’t take back, vulnerabilities I couldn’t hide again.

I’d just laid myself bare to two men I barely knew yet somehow trusted more than anyone I’d ever known in my life.

Other than possibly Maggie. The realization terrified me yet somehow felt liberating.

I drew a shaky breath, suddenly exhausted from the emotional excavation.

Byte shifted forward in his seat, the movement drawing my attention like a magnet.

His eyes, so startlingly blue in the firelight, fixed on my face with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

There was something different in his expression now.

Like he’d made a decision or crossed some invisible threshold.

“River,” he said, my name sounding different somehow in his mouth, weighted with meaning. “What if I told you that you don’t ever have to choose?”

I blinked, not comprehending. “Choose what?”

“Between us.” His voice was steady, matter of fact, as if he were discussing the weather rather than something that made my heart stutter in my chest. “What if I told you that you could have both of us? Always. You’d have the two of us putting you first. Above even each other because you’re ours to protect.

Which means, we work together to keep you safe and happy. ”

The words hung in the air, impossible to misinterpret.

I froze, my body going completely still as my mind raced to process what he was suggesting.

My lips parted, but no sound emerged. I couldn’t have spoken if my life depended on it.

My heart raced with a kind of terror reserved for the slasher films of the eighties.

And, oh my God, as much as I wanted to close my eyes against the carnage about to ensue to my heart, I sat there transfixed in horrified fascination as I watched the emotional trainwreck about to happen in my near future.

Crush was watching me closely, his expression unreadable in the half-light. “Breathe, River,” he said quietly.

I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it out in a rush. “You can’t be serious,” I finally managed, my voice barely above a whisper.

“We don’t joke about this,” Byte said, his eyes never leaving mine. “Not with you. Ever. This is as serious as it gets.”

My gaze darted between them, searching for any sign of mockery or manipulation.

Finding none, I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the fire’s warmth.

“Why would you… I don’t understand.” I had a moment to wonder if they thought I was opposed to the situation they were proposing or even repulsed by it, but I was too stunned to give it more than a passing thought.

In my wildest imagination, this situation didn’t even make the top fifty.

OK, that’s a lie. It was in the top three.

But at the bottom because there was no way actually being with the two of them at the same time was a real possibility other than for casual sex.

Mrs. Walsh would definitely not approve of casual sex with her beloved grandsons and, OMG, why did I have to think about Mrs. Walsh at a time like this ?

The brothers exchanged another of those silent looks, a whole conversation compressed into a glance.

After a moment, Crush nodded slightly, as if giving permission.

“We lost our parents when we were kids,” Byte began, his voice taking on a detached quality that couldn’t quite mask the pain beneath.

“We were in grade school. They stopped at a convenience store on their way home one night. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“There was a robbery,” Crush continued, his deep voice taking over the narrative.

“Three men with guns. Our dad always stressed to us that a man takes care of the women in his life. Protects them. No matter what.” His hands resting on the table slowly curled into fists as he spoke.

I watched his knuckles whiten, a physical manifestation of a decades’ old grief.

“Years later, when we were teenagers, Maggie told us what really happened that night.” Crush’s voice dropped lower, rougher.

“Our father fought them. With everything he had. But it was three against one. And they were all armed. Our dad wasn’t.

” The flames popped and hissed in the silence that followed, shadows dancing across Crush’s face, highlighting the hard angles of his jaw, the furrow between his brows.

“They killed Mom first,” Byte picked up the thread, his voice eerily calm. “Made our father watch. Then they killed him too.”

I felt tears spring to my eyes, unbidden. For these men, for the boys they’d been, for the parents they’d lost. For Maggie. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, knowing how inadequate the words were.

Crush nodded, acknowledging my sympathy without really accepting it. “Maggie raised us after that. Taught us everything we could coax from her. How to fight. How to think. How to survive.”

“How to protect,” Byte added.

I remembered what Crush had said about their grandmother being CIA, about the skills they’d learned, and suddenly it all made a terrible kind of sense. They hadn’t just been orphaned. They’d been forged.

“We made a pact,” Crush continued, his fists still clenched tight. “As boys, after Maggie told us. We decided that when we grew up, we would train to kill and protect. That we’d never let what happened to our mother happen to anyone we loved.”

“And we decided we’d find a woman -- one woman -- who we both loved, and we’d both marry her.” Byte’s gaze was intent and very, very serious.

Crush shook his head. “He’s the one who said the word marry. I pointed out it was illegal. He said, ‘Watch me.’ It was a whole thing.”

The uncharacteristic humor -- or sheer number of words in consecutive order without much of a pause -- from Crush was so unexpected I snort-giggled once before shaking it off, my breath catching. “Both of you?”

Byte nodded. “So there would always be someone to protect her. So she would never be alone against the world.”

The conviction in his voice, the absolute certainty, stunned me. This wasn’t some casual suggestion or passing fancy. This was a sacred vow made by traumatized children, carried into adulthood with unwavering dedication.

“We’ve shared women before,” Crush said, his tone pragmatic. “But never like this. Never someone we knew would matter to us beyond the physical.”

My mind reeled with the implications. “And I might matter to you?” My voice sounded small, disbelieving.

“You do matter, River. More than you know,” Byte said quietly.

I stared into the fire, trying to process everything they’d told me.

The tragedy of their past, the intensity of their bond, the staggering proposition they were offering.

It was too much, too fast, yet not nearly enough.

It wouldn’t be enough until it was all mine.

And that was even more terrifying than the aforementioned eighties slasher movies.

“This is crazy,” I murmured, more to myself than to them. “We barely know each other. We don’t know each other!”

“Sometimes you just know.” Crush echoed Byte’s earlier words, the ones that had resonated so deeply with me. “Like instinct. Maggie knew it. Her instinct was to push you to us. Our instinct is saying you’re ours.”

I looked up at them, these two men who’d survived unimaginable loss and emerged not broken but transformed.

Stronger because they were somehow fused together, forged in fire.

They watched me with identical expressions of patient expectation, waiting for me to catch up to a conclusion they’d already reached.

“You’re serious,” I said, not a question this time but a realization. “Both of you. With me.”

Byte nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Both of us. With you.”

“Not just sex,” Crush added, his voice low and intense. “Everything. All of it.”

My heart thundered in my chest so loudly I was sure they could hear it. Fear mingled with a wild, unexpected hope, the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I’d found a place where I wouldn’t have to make myself into something I wasn’t. Where I could be seen and chosen and protected.

Where I finally belonged .

“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted, my voice trembling slightly. “This isn’t… I never imagined…” I shook my head. “OK, that’s not true. I imagined.” I looked up at them both, my gaze bouncing from one to the other. “I imagined quite a lot.” I shook my head again. “But that’s not the point!”

Byte chuckled gently. “You don’t have to decide right now. We’re not going anywhere.”

Crush nodded in agreement. “Take all the time you need. Weeks. Months. We’ve waited this long. We can wait a while longer.”

“Weeks or months, huh?” The corner of my lips lifted. It felt kind of maniacal, but who could say? “That long?”

Byte grinned. “That’s us being generous. Besides, we’ll have a part to play in your decision-making process.”

“We do our job right,” Crush added, “you won’t need weeks or months.”

They were offering me something I’d never had before.

A choice. Real choice in something that would affect more than only me.

Without pressure or manipulation. Choices in my life affecting more than myself were always made by the other party.

Not because I wanted it that way, but because I’d never been in the kind of position of power it took to make those decisions.

Maybe it wasn’t exactly true Crush and Byte wouldn’t try to manipulate me.

Or pressure me. If they were going to try to convince me with deeds rather than words, wasn’t that the same as both pressure and manipulation?

I’d have to think about that one a while.

I looked from one to the other, these beautiful, damaged men who somehow saw something worth choosing in me.

The fear was still there, the instinct to run, to protect myself from the inevitable heartbreak.

But underneath it, like a current pulling me toward deep water, was a yearning I couldn’t ignore.

For the first time in my life, the thought of staying felt more exciting than the prospect of leaving. More terrifying, yes. But also more real, more alive, more everything than the half-life I’d been living.

“I’ll think about it,” I promised, my voice stronger now. And I meant it.

The way they both smiled at me then -- Crush’s slow and sultry, Byte’s quick and bright -- made me think that maybe, just maybe, this wild, impossible thing could work. That maybe we could build something beautiful from the broken pieces of our pasts.

That maybe I’d finally found a reason to stay.