Page 66 of The Last Call Home (The Timberbridge Brothers #5)

Chapter Sixty-Two

Cassian

There should be a rule about this.

Something in writing. Signed, stamped, notarized—fuck, maybe even tattooed on someone’s ass if that’s what it takes.

Don’t let the man you love announce he’s cleared for sex while the woman you’re obsessed with is already naked under one of your goddamn flannels.

Because right now?

Delilah is curled on the cabin couch, legs bare, smirk loaded, hair still damp from the shower, looking at me like she wants to ruin my fucking life. And Malerick—leaning against the doorframe, he just shrugged and said, “Clean bill of health. I’m good.”

Good.

He’s good.

I’m seconds from losing my mind.

“By good,” I ask, slow and dry, “you mean?—?”

“He means,” Lilah interrupts, her voice sweet as sin, “he’s officially allowed to have sex again. You know, the thing you avoid because we’re hurt.”

She stretches like a cat, the hem of my shirt riding dangerously high, and smiles up at me with that look—the one that makes my knees lock and my restraint damn near snap.

He is? Because he was shot, lost blood and . . . okay, I’m still working on the part where he didn’t die and is still with me. Do I spend hours holding them both at night barely sleeping because I’m afraid someone’s going to take them away from me? Oh, yes, I do every fucking night.

I am going to therapy, but it’s evident that my protective personality isn’t going to catch up with reality any time soon. At least not today. Do I want to have sex with them? I’ve been sporting a hard-on for the past month that might be the death of me, but I will wait until they’re fine.

Obviously, I glare at Lilah. “And you believe him?”

“I do.”

“So what do you expect then?” I ask both of them because I don’t know if I can let it go that easily. They’re lucky I haven’t shoved them in glass cases so nothing happens to them.

“Well, since we’ve been so patient . . .” she purrs, eyes sliding from Malerick to me, “I think we deserve a little celebration, don’t you?”

Mal grunts in agreement, his gaze already dragging over her like he hasn’t touched her in a year.

She doesn’t move fast.

Delilah just sits there—bare legs curled beneath her, my shirt hitched high on her thighs, her mouth tilted in that light, wicked curve that always communicates more than her words do. Her eyes are on me, dark and calm, yet charged underneath.

Like she knows precisely what I’m thinking.

And she does.

Because we haven’t touched—not really—since the hospital. Since Malerick nearly died in my arms and . . . no.

“I said I’m fine,” Malerick repeats, voice low, voice meant to convince me.

He shrugs off the last layer of his jacket, pulling his T-shirt up just enough to expose the scar—a faint pink line on his side where the bullet passed through.

“Doc cleared me. You want me to pull out the discharge paper? Call Sims so she can tell you I’m fine? ”

“Maybe I will,” I mutter.

Delilah shifts forward slightly, her fingers brushing the cushion beside her like she’s warming up the spot for me. Like she’s giving me a choice: Come here or keep punishing yourself.

And, God, I’ve punished myself enough.

I cross the room without saying a word. I sit beside her, thigh to thigh. The couch dips under our combined weight, and she sighs—just a breath—but it slides under my skin like a fucking blade. Her knee brushes mine. On purpose. Her hand trails up my arm, resting lightly on my bicep.

I feel it everywhere.

“How’s your shoulder?” I ask her, voice rougher than I meant.

She doesn’t answer right away. Just drags her fingers higher, up to my neck, to the line of my jaw. Then she leans in, whispering against my mouth.

“I’m not made of glass.”

I close my eyes.

Her lips don’t touch mine, not yet. She just waits. And that’s worse.

Worse than the nightmares. Worse than the silence.

I turn my face slightly, letting my nose brush hers. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Then I look at Mal. “I don’t want to hurt either one of you.”

“You won’t,” she assures me.

“You’ve both been through hell?—”

“So bring us back,” Lilah whispers. “Cass . . .” Her voice breaks on my name. Just enough to kill what little distance remains between us.

I kiss her slow.

There’s no rush. No grabbing. Just lips against lips, heat blooming between us like something sacred. Her mouth opens beneath mine, soft and familiar and new all at once. I taste the mint of her toothpaste, the wine she barely touched with dinner, and something that belongs only to her.

Want.

She kisses me like she’s been starving for it. Like her lips have nowhere else to go but mine.

And, God, I let her. I let her take whatever she wants. My mouth opens to hers and I groan as her fingers slide into my hair, gripping the back of my head, tugging just enough to make my whole-body shudder. The sensation shoots straight through me—tight, aching, raw.

I’m wired like I’ve been touched by electricity, like this is the contact I’ve been begging for since the day she smirked my way, charging me for a coffee that wasn’t mine, and made me forget how to breathe.

Behind us, the cushion shifts. The frame groans, and I know it’s him. I feel the pull of air change, the air thickening with something feral and alive.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Mal’s voice cuts through the heat, low and rough like gravel dipped in honey. “Am I supposed to sit here and watch you two devour each other?”

Delilah doesn’t miss a beat. She pulls back from me, breathless, her lips slick and swollen, and turns just enough to glance over her shoulder. “Stop complaining and come over,” she says, voice husky, threaded with mischief and a command she knows he’ll obey.

Mal doesn’t just move—he prowls closer. Drops down behind her so his knees are on either side of her hips, his chest to her back. One of his hands finds her waist, and the other rises, slow and reverent, to cradle her face.

Then he kisses her.

And it isn’t a kiss—it’s a goddamn reckoning.

His mouth meets hers like he’s trying to inhale her soul, like the world has ended and she’s the only thing keeping him alive.

Their lips move together with a rhythm that’s anything but casual—it’s desperate and deep and full of things neither of them says out loud.

Loss. Regret. A hunger that never quieted.

A thousand moments they almost had but never took.

She melts against him. Her head tilts, exposing her throat. Her arm reaches back, curling around his neck, pulling him in tighter like she needs his weight to stay grounded.

I sit there, watching, my cock straining against my jeans, my breathing wrecked. It’s obscene and beautiful. Watching her kiss him like that—like she belongs to both of us, like she was made for this. For me. For him. For the space in between us where none of the rules exist anymore.

Her free hand finds mine. Fingers intertwined. She drags me closer until I’m pressed to her front and Mal’s flush to her back. Her body trembles between us.

And then she whispers it—just loud enough for both of us to hear.

“Touch me.”

Fuck.

We’re past the point of no return.

And I’ve never wanted anything more.

She repeats, “Touch me,” and something inside me detonates.

The request isn’t soft. It’s not coy. It’s need. Undeniable need.

She’s still damp from the shower. Her skin smells like vanilla and heat, and the flannel shirt she’s wearing isn’t buttoned.

It clings in all the wrong ways—barely hiding anything.

When I slide my hand beneath the hem, my fingers meet warm, damp thighs, and fuck me, there’s nothing underneath.

No barrier. No underwear. Just her. Bare. Ready.

Mal lets out a sound behind her—something halfway between a groan and a growl—and presses his mouth to her neck. “You wore this for us, didn’t you?” he murmurs against her skin. “You wanted us to see you dripping, half-wrapped like a fucking present.”

She tilts her head back onto his shoulder, and that flannel slides open just enough to bare the soft curve of one breast.

I can’t stop myself.

I lean in, close enough to feel her breath hitch, and brush my mouth over the swell. My tongue finds her nipple—already tight, already begging—and she gasps, arching into my mouth like I’m the only thing she needs.

But I’m not.

Mal’s hand is already between her thighs, coaxing them open, whispering filth into her ear as she whimpers.

Her legs fall apart like she’s forgotten how to hold herself together.

He sinks lower behind her, kissing down her spine, pausing at the base before dragging her back to lie against the couch.

His eyes meet mine as he spreads her wide.

“Together,” he says, voice like smoke and gravel. “She deserves both of us.”

I drop to my knees in front of her, shoulder to shoulder with him, and my mouth waters at the sight. She’s flushed and glistening, hips shifting like she’s already aching for relief.

I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh, while Mal moves to the other side. She twitches, hips jerking, and I pin her there with a hand on her belly. Her skin is fever-warm, her pulse thrumming under my lips.

“Hold still, sweetheart,” I murmur, right before my mouth finds her.

She cries out—low and wrecked—and fuck if that doesn’t go straight to my cock.

Mal mirrors me on the other side, and it’s chaos in the best way: two tongues, two mouths, devouring her like we’ve both been starved for the same thing.

Her hands claw at the couch cushions, her thighs trembling, her flannel pushed open now so her breasts rise with every panting breath.

She’s moaning, helplessly, hopelessly, head tossed back as she tries to process too much.

I pull back just long enough to reach up and take one nipple into my mouth while Mal keeps working her clit with his tongue. She arches, writhes, a wreck between us. My teeth graze lightly—just enough for her to shatter against it.

But I don’t let her.

Not yet.

Because I feel it—the way her body coils. The tremble. The breath she holds like she’s on the verge of a scream. She’s close, too close. Seconds away from falling apart.

I slide my hand down her belly, fingers already slick from her—fuck, she’s so wet I could lose myself in her.

But I don’t push inside right away. I tease.

Trace the curve of her, just barely dipping in before pulling back, again and again, until she’s writhing with frustration.

Mal’s tongue is relentless, his grip on her thighs keeping her open while he hums low against her clit like he knows exactly what he's doing to her.

I press one finger in—slow, deep—and she gasps.

“Cass,” she pleads, hips canting up. “Please.”

“Not yet,” I murmur, my voice wrecked and rough with restraint. “You don’t get to come until I say.”

Her eyes flutter shut. She moans like that denial is its own kind of pleasure. And then I give her a second finger, curling just right. Her walls flutter around me, begging for more, for release.

But I’m not done teasing her.

My other hand comes up, brushing against the round swell of her ass, palming it, spreading her just a little wider. She’s flushed, glistening, and utterly unguarded. I drag one wet finger from her pussy to the tight pucker of her ass, circling it lightly.

Her whole body jolts.

“Oh my—” she starts, but her voice chokes off as I press my fingertip there. Just the tip. Just enough to make her curse and twist and forget her name.

“You want that too, sweetheart?” I whisper against her breast, my mouth still on her nipple. “Want both of us inside you? One in your pussy . . . one in this tight little ass?”

She makes a noise I’ve never heard before—somewhere between a sob and a moan—and Mal pulls back from her clit, eyes flicking up to meet mine, dark and hungry and wild.

“She’s close,” he says, his voice thick with desire. “You feel it?”

I nod. “She’s shaking.”

I slide both fingers back into her pussy, fucking her slow while my thumb keeps teasing that other entrance. I don’t breach it—not yet—but she’s dripping, trembling, mewling like she’s about to come apart from just this.

And she tries.

God, she tries.

But her body’s trembling like a live wire stretched too tight, and we’re nowhere near finished.

I feel it—the quake of her thighs, the way her breath catches on a sob, the clench of her pussy fluttering around my fingers like she’s trying to obey but her body’s long past logic.

“She’s not going to last,” Mal murmurs, licking his lips as he watches her come undone.

I look down at her—this woman spread out before us, flushed and panting, lips parted in a silent plea. Her hands grip the edge of the cushion like she’s holding on for dear life. She meets my gaze, eyes wild and pleading, and something inside me breaks.

“Let go.”

That’s all it takes.

Her back arches like a bow. Her cry tears from her throat, raw and uncontrolled.

Her entire body convulses as she comes—hard.

Shaking. Clutching. Fucking devastated by it.

She whimpers my name, then Mal’s, then a broken gasp as her legs try to close and we don’t let them.

We hold her through it. We keep touching her, gentle now, coaxing her through the aftershocks until she sags into the cushions, ruined and perfect.

She blinks up at me, dazed. Boneless.

But we’re not done.

I lean in, brushing her temple with my lips. “You think we’re letting you fall asleep out here like that?”

Mal’s already rising, one arm behind her shoulders, the other under her knees.

She whimpers softly as he lifts her, still shaking, still wet between her thighs.

Her flannel hangs open, slipping off one shoulder, her nipples peaked and flushed from everything we did to her. From everything we’re going to do.

“Bedroom,” I say, heading for the door before Mal has to ask.

She clings to him weakly, cheek resting against his chest as we carry her through the hallway. The light from the bathroom still flickers behind us, casting long shadows on the walls. My fingers trail her thigh as we walk, brushing over the marks I left, and I feel her twitch under my touch.

“You okay?” I murmur, voice low.

Her head turns, and even through the haze, her eyes lock on mine. “You’re both insane.”

“But you liked it,” Mal says with a grin, setting her gently on the bed like she’s the most precious thing in the fucking world.

She stretches, arms overhead, letting that shirt fall completely open now, baring everything.

I crawl over the mattress, coming up beside her, while Mal unbuttons his jeans behind me. I press a kiss to her knee, then her inner thigh, tasting her all over again just to hear her gasp.

“You’re not sleeping yet,” I whisper against her skin. “You’re not done.”

Mal climbs onto the bed on the other side, eyes dark, voice wrecked.

“Not even close.”