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Even Better (Stripped 2.50)

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We drift asleep, held safe in each other’s arms.

Chapter Eight

The next night it feels almost inevitable to wake up, hearing that unearthly animal sound and drifting down the hall. I climb into the bed beside West, as if it’s the most natural thing on earth, Blue on my heels.

West wakes up startled, half in his dream and half awake. “Shit. Again?”

It’s a question that doesn’t need an answer. Probably it will happen for a long time, but while he’s here, he has us. I feel him struggle to regain control, his tension palpable.

At least he isn’t pushing us away.

Blue strokes my hair from behind while West holds my hand, playing with my fingers. It’s a strange sensation, being between two men. I still feel the tension in West’s body, but I know he’s trying to act normal.

“You can talk about it,” I say softly. “It helps Blue.”

Blue chuckles. “She’s telling the truth. Not sure about talking in general but something about this girl makes it okay.”

He presses a kiss to the crown of my head, and I shiver. Some of the things he’s told me were violent, others just sad. All of it came from a deep well inside him, an experience I will never fully comprehend. All I can do is be here for him—sometimes by listening and other times by being a distraction.

West is silent a moment. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that someday. Right now I’m too wired. I really just want to forget, to not think about it for half a second.”

I understand that desire. That had been dancing onstage, the ability to forget, to transport myself into another body, one with power and confidence. During his darker memories, Blue sometimes needs to forget too. Of course, the way I usually distract him is with my body, and I can’t do that with West.

As if his thoughts went the same place, Blue’s hand smooths along my hip and up my side, his fingers resting against the lower curve of my breasts. My breath catches. It’s one thing to be close to West with Blue nearby.

Another thing entirely for me to be near West while Blue is touching me sexually.

Blue’s voice is somehow casual. “Lots of ways to forget where you’ll be working.”

The Grand, he means.

“Yeah?” West still sounds strained. “Not sure I can trust myself with that. With a woman. Woke up one night with the mattress half off the bed frame and the lamp on the floor in pieces.”

It’s my turn to tense up, imagining the scene. There have been plenty of broken things in my past, angry voices and fists. Blue’s hand tightens around me, reassuring me and marking me as his. “You want to leave?” he murmurs into my ear. “You can wait in bed until he’s chill.”

He’s giving me an out. I can hop out of bed, give both these boys a breezy wave, and drift off into a dreamless sleep. I don’t have to face their demons. Blue won’t make me.

Except I have demons of my own, ones I can’t quite shake, even here with him.

Demons that make me question everything, that put my future at risk. How can I turn my back on West? And Blue? He may not even know what he’s really asking, what’s really at stake. Are you okay with this? Can he touch you?

Will you be there for me too, when I’m sweating and panting from a nightmare?

This is what Blue wants to know.

I put my hand on West’s chest and feel the rapid thump of his heart. His words are still heavy in the air, wrapped around his body like chains. Not sure I can trust myself with that. “I trust you,” I tell him.

Because it’s true. I do trust him. I know what cruel men are, how they feel and laugh and hurt. Blue tried to do that to me, because he hated me. He hated himself. But in the end, he failed—because what we shared was deeper than what pushed us apart.

West’s dark gaze flickers from me to Blue. “Don’t let me fuck this up,” he mutters.

What is this? Their friendship? My relationship with Blue?

I don’t know, and I’m just as afraid. That’s what pricks me every day, the thorns to this beautiful rose. Don’t let me fuck this up.

We wait with held breath, the room in silent stillness. Heat courses through my body, from Blue to West and back again. I can feel every hard line of Blue’s body, familiar and feared and beloved. He molds around me, defining me, becoming my edges, so I can let go and become something more.

West is waiting for an answer, and I am too. How much am I worth to you? Do you love me enough to hold me tight? Do you trust me enough to share me too?



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