Nyx turns next, a slow smirk spreading across his mostly-shaven face. “I know what he wants to talk about,” he chuckles.
Madd’s head snaps to the side as he shoves to his full height. Nyx doesn’t balk. The big fucker barely even blinks. Instead, his chuckle turns to a full-belly laugh.
“Madd’s thinking about how hot his ass looks in those tight jeans, isn’t that right? How badly he wants to rail the little fucker.”
Maddox gapes, and I choke on the air in my lungs.
“Wh-what?” He shakes his head rapidly and punches Nyx in the gut when the big guy continues to laugh his ass off. “Fuck off! I donotwant to fuck Hunter, no matter how hot his ass is!”
My eyes narrow as Nyx’s widen. He bats Maddox away like he’s nothing more than an annoying gnat, even though they aren’t that far off in height.
“So you think his ass is hot,” he points out, grinning when Madd turns red. “Knew it.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “You want him.”
Madd throws his hands in the air. “I don’t want him, for fucks sake! Ella does!” He shoots an accusatory finger at the car. “Or isn’t it obvious? They’re probably in there fucking right now!”
Nyx lets out an exhausted sound and glances away. Stone says nothing. He doesn’t move or show any sign he’s listening beyond the tick of his jaw. And me?
I’m staring at my brother like he has three heads.
It’s not like I haven’t seen the way Hunter and Isabella interact. The way they ebb and flow around each other, showing how deep their friendship really is. I haven’t missed how he looks at her, his eyes filled with so much longing and love, he wears it like a second skin.
And Ireallyhaven’t missed the same expression on her face whenever he’s around. Except for with Ella, it’s tinged with something else, something buried deep inside where she thinks no one can see it.
I see it, though.
Maybe because I’m always looking, always wanting to anticipate her next move, her next thought, before she makes it. Wanting, noneeding, to give her everything she could ever desire and so much more.
Maybe that’s why I see how scared she is.
But I don’t think it’s Hunter she’s afraid of. I think it’sus. The way we’ll react to her feelings for him. Her love.
To how badly she wants him.
I’ve seen it since the day he stumbled into our lives, screaming for her, begging us to let him see Ella. The pain in his eyes, the love written on his face. And last night, when she bared her soul to us, told us her deepest, darkest, and most painful secrets, ones that involved him,I knew.
Knew she’d never let him go, pain and fear be damned.
So, maybe that’s why I answer the way I do instead of how Maddox expects me to.
Swallowing down the wave of jealous possession that rises in my chest, I look him dead in the eyes and murmur, “I love her enough to let him love her, too.”
Madd blinks at me in shock but it’s Nyx who surprisingly responds, his head bobbing. “I know I have a lot to fix where Isabella is concerned.”
I scoff, but he goes on.
“I’m not giving up on whatever exists between us. I am beyond in love with that girl, and we all know it, but I won’t stop until she does. I won’t stop trying to heal the hurt I’ve caused, to fix what I broke. And that starts with accepting the fact that if, by some miracle, she can find it in her big heart to love me back, I won’t be the only man she loves.”
“So,” my brother drawls, fucking up his hair for the tenth time. “You’re allowing her relationship with Hunter just so you can get in her pants?” He shoots him a disgusted look. “I know you can be an ass, but that’s low, even for—”
He doesn’t get the sentence out before Nyx rounds on him, shoving him into the SUV with a forearm to his throat. I step up, my hands outstretched between us just in case I need to intervene. Stone presses his body against Ella’s door as if to silently keep her safe from a threat that’ll never touch her.
“Let me stop you right fucking there,” Nyx rumbles, his voice low and lethal.
He presses his arm harder against Madd, making his cheeks turn pink, but my brother doesn’t fight back. If anything, I think he needs this—the steady, if not forceful, reassurance from his best friends that everything will be okay. That we aren’t going to lose her.
Maybe we all need it.
“I do notallowher to do a damn thing. If she wants to be with Hunter, it’s her fucking choice, just like I told you at the house. You need to stop this shit, Madd. She’s a person, first and foremost. She deserves her freedom—”
