“Green,” I say. It comes out steady. I’m proud of that.
Atticus exhales, something like tension bleeding off him. Maverick’s smile tilts wicked.
Storm doesn’t move yet. He looks at me like we’re alone.
“Even with them here?” he asks.
“Especially with them here,” I answer. My pulse stutters. “I want you. I want them to see I’m not scared of wanting you.”
Something dark and soft flickers in his eyes. “Okay, Bird,” he murmurs. “Then we’ll give them a show.”
Maverick lets out a low whistle. “Don’t mind me,” he says. “Front row seats to the best thing that’s ever happened to this bed.”
“Shut up,” Atticus mutters, but he doesn’t look away.
Storm shifts closer, slow enough that I could bail at any point. His hand finds my jaw, thumb grazing the corner of my mouth. The touch is so careful it almost breaks me.
“Stop me when you need to,” he says. “Not when you think you should.”
Then he kisses me.
It’s not a soft kiss. It’s a claim. It’s everything we haven’t done yet and everything we almost lost, poured into the press of his mouth and the way his fingers tighten at my throat—not choking, just holding, justthere.
Heat punches through me. My hands find his shoulders, sliding over hard muscle, pulling him closer before I can second-guess it. The rest of the room narrows to peripheral blur and sound—Atticus’s breath catching, Maverick muttering a reverent “holy shit” under his breath.
Storm angles his mouth, deepens the kiss. When I open for him, his quiet groan brushes my tongue.
“Still green?” he asks against my lips.
“Neon,” I whisper. “Just move.”
He smiles, wrecked and slow, and obliges.
He eases me onto my back and comes over me, braced on his forearms so he doesn’t crush me. I’m acutely aware of Atticus at my side, close enough that our arms touch, and Maverick hovering near my knees, watching like he’s memorizing every second.
Storm kisses a path down my throat, over my collarbone, each scrape of his mouth drawing a new sound out of me. My back arches. When his fingers dance over the tips of my nipples, the whimper that escapes shocks me.
“More.” I breathe. “More,please.”
“Remember you asked for it.” He grunts and then I’m screaming as his entire length is pushing into my core at once.
The climb is fast and brutal and perfect.
Every thrust has his balls slapping against my skin and something he’s doing with his hips is dragging the tip of his cock against that spot inside me.
When my orgasm breaks, it tears through me, bright and overwhelming, and I cling to Storm like he’s the only fixed point in a sky that just came unpinned. I hear my own voice, high and raw, and his, wrecked in my ear. Atticus’s grip tightens around my hand. Maverick curses softly, almost reverently.
We ride it out together—Storm above me, Atticus at my side, Maverick at the edge of the bed, all of them holding me in place while the tremors work their way out of my body.
When I finally blink my eyes open, Storm’s forehead is resting against mine, breath gusting hot and uneven. Atticus is watching us like his entire nervous system just rebooted. Maverick looks like someone just handed him proof of miracles.
I’m loose and floaty and wrecked in the way that meanssafemore than anything else. Zeus has given up and is starfished on the rug, content to supervise from a respectful distance now that the humans are speaking in full sentences again.
Conrad has been patient the way only Conrad can be—an exercise in restraint and hunger, jaw tight, eyes darker than the room. He doesn’t make a speech. He just gathers me up against his chest and kisses my forehead like a vow.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do. It steadies me.
