“I hate that you felt weak before coming to me, but I’m so damn proud of you for where you are now.”
Langston stepped up beside us, glaring at Oliver like he wanted to test his punching skills on his face.
“You’re going to make some woman beyond happy one day,” I said to Oliver while wrapping both arms around Langston’s waist. “I wonder what she’ll be like.”
He waved me off with a grin and turned to follow Hudson out the front door.
“I’ll be back later tonight.” Gripping my chin, Langston held me in place as he pressed a hard kiss to my lips.
My heart raced, heat filling my veins as desire had my lower belly flipping. A pitiful whimper escaped when he broke it off, pulling back just enough that our lips brushed.
A cocky smile curved his lips. “Tonight, we’ll finish this.” A deep chuckle escaped him at my dramatic pout. “And no playing together while I’m gone. I want to be here to watch it all when I get home.”
A hard chest pressed against my back, a hand sneaking around to dip beneath my shirt and rest on my bare skin. I sucked in a tight breath as West’s fingers brushed along the seam of my low-rise sweatpants.
“We’ll be waiting,” he said, nipping at my earlobe.
Cursing under his breath about sleep being dumb and asshole friends, Langston stormed out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
With a wide smile, I shifted to look up and behind me. “That wasn’t very nice,” I admonished West.
With a quick kiss to the end of my nose, he stepped back and shrugged. “Keying him up now will make tonight more fun for all of us.” He waggled both eyebrows suggestively as he pushed his thick frames up his nose. I loved those glasses on him and had almost asked him to stop wearing contacts altogether so they would be a permanent accessory. “Don’t worry, I’ll ask him to take all that pent-up frustration out on me.”
I slapped his arm with a laugh, his wide grin making his dimples pop.
After grabbing the dirty mug off the coffee table, I started for the kitchen, unable to stop grinning from ear to ear. Placing it in the sink to wash later, I leaned back against the counter, taking in the small cabin. The living room looked different from that first visit, a little more disorganized with all my gaming systems around the TV, my shoes by the front door, and the several throw blankets I couldn’t live without lying in piles on the couchand floor. It looked warm, lived-in, and the warmth filling the space had nothing to do with the fire I’d begged the boys to start earlier to help distract me from all the dark thoughts racing through my head.
This was what a happyhomefelt like.
This was what being loved for who you were, true partnership and friendship, was meant to be.
I worried my lower lip. Maybe, just maybe, this time the good wouldn’t fade away or end.
With Langston and West, us three, we were the real thing.
What we had was beyond love. It was a beautiful, perfect mixture of love, trust, and respect that we would never let slip away.
This kind of life, truly living out loud, was everything I’d always wanted and finally had.
I loved them with all that I was. Every cell in my body, every beat of my heart was theirs. And it wasn’t because of the orgasms or pretty words or fickle feelings. They loved me for me, saw my quirky and irritable and introverted sides and still loved me. Neither wanted me to change for them or hide parts of myself.
And maybe now, with their help, I could finally figure out how to love myself too.
27
LANGSTON
Beads of sweat dripped down my spine as I raised the axe over my shoulder before swinging it down with a grunt. The sharp edge landed in the middle of the log, splitting it in two. Dropping the heavy tool, I grabbed both pieces and added them to the firewood stack. Gripping the rag stuffed in my back jeans pocket, I wiped the sweat about to drip into my eyes.
Loud laughter poured from the open windows of the cabin, and a genuine smile pulled at my lips at the sound. Juno and West were inside having aFriendsmarathon, which I’d opted out of so I could get some work done that only someone with two good hands could do. We needed the extra firewood since Juno requested a fire almost every morning despite the nice weather we’d been blessed with the last few days.
It made it hotter than Satan’s asshole inside, but the fire made her happy, and West and I loved seeing her happy. I also think she secretly enjoyed seeing us walk around the house in nothing but our boxer briefs all day in our desperate attempt to not die of heat exhaustion.
Chuckling to myself, I reached for the axe handle, ready to continue, when movement out of the corner of my eye had me reaching for my pistol instead. Pointing the barrel at the people coming toward me, I cursed and slowly lowered the weapon when I recognized who it was.
“You trying to get shot, assholes?” I grumbled to Oliver and Ethan.
When they didn’t respond, I froze, studying their rigid body language and grim expressions.
