Page 58 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

Then

“I… I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, so sorry.” Elliott sobbed those words repeatedly as he crawled over to me from the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry, M-Miguel.” He ran frantic fingers over my face, my tears soaking his fingertips.

I looked at the cum stain on his nightgown, then glanced over his shoulder to Quentin. He’d gotten to his knees, eyes filled with panic. My eyes blurred even more when I saw his boxer briefs.

“Please, M-Miguel,” Elliott cried, wrapping his arms around my neck. I snapped out of it, hugging him to me, murmuring in his ear.

“It’s okay, Ellie. It’s okay.” I whispered it on a loop, believing it more and more each time.

I kept my gaze locked with Quentin’s, only looking away when Elliott drifted to sleep in my arms. I laid him down, brushing his damp hair off his sweaty face.

I stayed by his side until his soft snores filled the room.

“Guelly.” Quentin’s voice cracked. I stood slowly as he rushed to my side of the bed, clamping my face between his hands. “I’m fucking sorry, Guelly. Say you forgive me. Please .”

I backed away, but he followed, refusing to let me go, no matter how hard I tried to pull his hands away. “Let me go.”

“Not until you say you forgive me.” He was on edge, the volume of his voice rising.

“Stop it. You’ll wake him up.”

“ Please , Guelly,” he begged, smashing his lips against mine. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

“Quentin—” I couldn’t get a word out. He’d already backed me into a bookshelf, holding me in place by my hair while he tugged at my boxer briefs.

“Stop,” I tried again, shoving at his chest.

“I n-need you,” he stammered. “I need us to be okay.”

We were always okay when we had sex. It was how we connected best, how we expressed our love the best. When Quentin was inside of me, we became one soul, one heartbeat, one body and mind. He needed that now, we both did, but we needed to talk about what just happened even more.

“Quentin, don’t. Just… wait.”

He’d fallen to his knees, mouthing my cock through my underwear when he couldn’t get them off. I fisted his hair, yanking his head away.

“Para,” I whispered quickly, but he was too far gone to hear me. “?Para!” I repeated with more force, glancing over at Elliott.

As fast as a lightning strike, Quentin fell back on his haunches, throwing a hand behind him to catch his fall. He breathed fast and hard, staring up at me with the saddest green eyes I’d ever seen. “Say you don’t hate me. I-I—”

“I don’t hate you, Quentin.” The rush of adrenaline made my whole body shake. “I could never hate you. But we need to talk.”

Quentin settled at my feet with a sigh of relief, his quiet tears soaking into my skin as he circled his arms around my legs. “I’ll do anything, just please don’t leave me, don’t be mad at me.”

I stroked his hair. “I love you, Q. That never changes. It never ends.” I didn’t know what to do from there. Now that I’d gotten him to calm down, my own emotions were affecting my ability to think.

“Come on.” I pulled him to his feet, leading him to the closet.

He lifted me into a hug as soon as I closed the door behind us, burying his face in my neck.

With his body pressed so hard against mine, I could feel the dampness from his orgasm seep through my boxer briefs.

I wriggled free, moving several feet away.

“That wasn’t my fault,” he said. “You know it wasn’t my fault.”

I held a hand up when he went to rush me again. He stopped with one foot in front of the other, still ready to pounce.

“I need to hold you, Guelly. I just need my fucking hands on you.”

“You like him,” I said, needing to get to the point before he stopped giving a damn about anything but having me. “You like him as more than just a friend, don’t you?”

“What?” Quentin did his best to look offended, but I knew him too well.

“I like him too,” I added, because I wanted to skip the denying and lying part. “I like him as more than just a friend, too.”

Quentin recoiled. “Since when?” Jealousy, anger, possessiveness… It all came through in those two snarled words. More than anything, though, he sounded confused, and maybe even a little relieved.

“The first night we showered together. It was the way he stared at you afterward. It was the same way I stared at you. Like… Like you were everything , Quentin.” I’d psyched myself up into believing I’d imagined it since then.

But it didn’t stop me from wanting it to be true.

Fantasies of the three of us being together in a new way ran wild in my head.

Quentin stepped into my space, and I let him, resting my hands on his hips as he slid his palms along my neck.

“What about you?” I asked as he gently squeezed. “When did you know?”

“At Darren’s party after the game. Troy asked if the three of us were a thing. I shot him down, but then…”

“Then what?”

“It was the way he looked at you as you danced.”

“How did he look at me?”

“Like he wanted to fuck right there in front of everyone. It’s the same way I look at you. But…”

“Go on,” I whispered.

“But then I figured the shit Troy said had just gotten to me. Darren piped in, too. I shrugged it off. Only…” He frowned, and I squeezed his waist encouragingly. “I don’t know… I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and after a while, the idea didn’t seem so bad.”

Quentin stroked his thumbs up and down my jawline.

“He’s ours, you know? He feels like ours.

That same part of me that feels missing when I’m not with you feels missing when I’m not near him.

He completes something inside of me. He makes me more of what I already am.

” He exhaled, shaking his head. “I’m not making sense. ”

“You did good, Q.” I kissed him on the chin, so proud of him, proud he was able to process his feelings so well. “He adds to your purpose.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s it. But I’d die for you , Guelly.” His hands compressed tighter around my neck before easing up again.

“I think you’d die for him, too.” I lifted a hand to his cheek.

Quentin sighed, closing his eyes. “I would. In a fucking heartbeat.”

“You don’t ever have to try to convince me you love me more, Quentin. I love that you love him the same.”

“The same, but different,” he corrected.

“Yeah, that sounds right.” Because I loved Elliott the same but different, too.

I loved them equally, but my love for him felt softer than my love for Quentin.

It felt protective, and the love I had for Quentin felt primal.

I wanted to hold Elliott in the palm of my hand like a baby bird. I wanted to go to war with Quentin.

“So, when do we tell him?”

“ Tell him? We don’t even know what that was out there.” I gestured toward the bedroom as I backed away from him. “He wasn’t even awake, was he? What if we tell him and screw everything up? I-I don’t want to screw everything up, Quentin. I’d rather just keep him as a friend.”

He scratched his head, baffled by this. “Uh, so what do we do?”

“Nothing. We tell each other the truth about how we feel from now on, and we don’t act weird around him. That’s the best plan.”

He nodded but didn’t seem convinced. “What are these fucking nightmares even about, anyway?” He crossed his arms, leaning a hip against the island dresser. “What if this happens again, Guelly?”

I’d been about to answer him, but then he jumped in with an even scarier thought.

“And what if he likes us too? I mean… What if he feels the same way we do?”

I hadn’t thought about that. I went over all our interactions, trying to see if there were signs that Elliott’s feelings for us had changed. I couldn’t find any, not really. Nothing outside of typical behavior for the three of us. But what if…

“If he does feel the same way,” I started, “he’s gonna have to make the first move. Because we can’t be wrong.”

“And we can’t lose him,” Quentin added with a sigh.

“Right.”

Quentin jabbed a finger at me. “If he doesn’t want us, and we have to sit back and watch him date dudes and—”

“Let’s not think about that right now. Please.” I rubbed at my temples, a new fear added to the long list of terrifying things now. “I can’t deal with anything else tonight. I need some sleep.”

The air inside the closet thickened, and I swallowed as Quentin whispered, “No sleep tonight, Guelly.” His cock hardened in his underwear. “I gotta fuck you.” He sounded broken up about it, maybe because he knew I was still achy from last night.

“We don’t have any lube in here.” I sidestepped him when he reached for me, backing deeper into the closet until my shoulders met a wall.

“Of course we do.” Quentin dug a bottle from his top drawer before pulling his dick through the wet pouch of his boxer briefs. “They’re all over the house. You know that. I need to be able to fuck you wherever and whenever I want.”

He stalked over to me, his dick fat and long, slick and shiny with his cum. He reached into the briefs again to scoop out whatever hadn’t soaked into the cotton yet. He painted my trembling lips with it, leaving me to lap it up as he lowered to his knees to drag my underwear off me.

My dick bobbed once it cleared the waistband, a drop of precum waiting for him at my slit. Quentin licked it clean with a moan, positioning one of my legs over his shoulder.

He took his time inserting one, then two, then three lubed fingers inside of me. More precum gushed from my tip. Quentin caught it with his tongue.

“Q,” I panted, riding his fingers.

“Whose ass is this, Guelly?” He brushed a finger against that special spot inside me, making my eyes roll back.

“Yours,” I breathed, grabbing his hair.

“And this cock?” he asked next, fisting my dick and stroking it.

“Yours, Quentin. It’ll always be yours.” Even if he ended up having to share me.

“Fuck yeah.” Quentin lifted me into his arms, and I wrapped my legs around him. “I’ll take it easy,” he promised, spreading my ass cheeks and lowering me onto him.

“Please don’t,” I whispered, biting down on his shoulder to hold in my moan. The stretch and burn consumed every cell of my body as he bottomed out.

“Oh, fuck ,” he groaned. “I feel better already, Guelly.” His breath caught, and my own emotions turned to tears again. “Hold on tight, baby.”

I held on for dear life, readying myself for the reconnection of our souls as he moved inside of me.