26
JUNO
My entire body throbbed, especially my knees and elbows, which took the brunt of the fall when I dove from the chair to avoid the bullet spray and landed hard on the unforgiving deck. Sweat soaked my palms, coating my ears where they were sealed tight as I continuously swallowed to keep my stomach contents down. The panic and terror filled every cell, making my heart race so fast that I almost couldn’t breathe and locking my muscles so tight with tension that they quivered, almost a full-body shiver in my tight ball, like it was below freezing out here.
My sluggish thoughts tried to process what the hell had just happened. The ship clearly wasn’t stranded and had actually been doing something they didn’t want anyone to know about. Then came us, the damn cavalry, thinking we would help them. But they didn’t need rescuing. So what did they do? They fuckingshotat us. Not just once but dozens of times, as if trying to actually hit us, not just scare us away. West’s theory of the boat and its crew taking part in illegal activities didn’t seem so far-fetched now.
A squeak forced its way through my tight throat when a firm grip clamped around my shoulders and easily hauled me into the air. Smothered against a solid chest, I breathed in West’s cedar and spice scent, allowing it to calm my frayed nerves enough to peel my lids open. Blinking several times to clear my vision, I gazed up into his worried face.
“Fuck, you scared the shit out of us.” The obvious relief in West’s trembling voice had me tilting my head, not understanding why. “Why weren’t you answering me or Langston?”
Even now, blood pounded in my ears, making his words distorted, but I could still decipher what he was trying to say. “I couldn’t hear through my hands and—where is Langston?”
I sagged against West when Langston popped up from where he hung over the side of the boat, no doubt inspecting the hull for damage. Bullet hole damage, because we were just shot at. My knees shook, followed by my thighs. Patting behind me, I found the seat I’d occupied pre-gun battle and fell into it before I took another tumble to the deck.
“Anyone have any idea what the hell all that was about? If I didn’t hear the bullets hitting the boat, I would have thought someone was punking us.”
West moved in close, pressing his body against mine. “We’re just as in the dark as you. All I know is we need a plan to get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m working on that.” Langston’s deep voice soothed a sliver of the anxiety still thrumming through my veins. “I’m just checking the hull, seeing what the damage is and making sure she’s seaworthy.”
Resting my head against West, we waited in silence while Langston did what he needed to do. Arms wrapped around his narrow waist, I tightened my hold on West. I needed the reassurance that he was okay. Langston too, but I didn’t want tointerrupt him. As I waited, chewing on my lower lip, the urge to touch him, to feel the safety of his embrace, finally became too much.
“Langston?” I said, just barely over a whisper, but he paused what he was doing and turned to me. “Can you… I mean, when you have a second.” The confusion on his features made me realize I was being unreasonable. I shouldn’t have interrupted him. “Never mind.”
Furrowing his brow, he strode toward me, gripped my chin in a soft but controlling hold, and angled my face up to his.
“What do you need, Juno?”
“It’s stupid. I’m fine?—”
“If you need something from me, it’s not stupid, but I can’t help unless I know how.”
“A hug,” I rasped. “Can I have a hug to know you’re okay and?—”
He hauled me against him, arms banded around my back as he clutched me to his chest. My legs went around his waist, arms looping around his neck. Just like with West, I inhaled his unique, all-masculine scent, allowing it to ease more of the tension pulsing through every inch of my body.
For several seconds, we just held each other before another body stepped up behind me and pressed against my back.
And just like that, the last bit of worry and fear drained out of me. Between these two, I was safe, always, from anything attempting to do me harm. How did I even consider breaking it off with them? They were everything I needed, now and maybe even forever.
“I was so scared,” I whispered against Langston’s neck, his hold on me tightening. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to tell you, tell you both, that this is so much more than I’ve ever felt for anyone. I’m safe with you two, from others and sometimes even from myself. I know I’m a work in progress, but I need you to know.” Iswallowed hard, the next words clogging my throat. “I think I’m falling in love with you both.”
My heart hammered in my chest, a mix of relief at finally admitting my feelings and fear that they would reject me. But I was tired of playing it safe to protect myself, expecting the worst. It was time to be honest, both with myself and with them. The worst that could happen was we didn’t work out; the best would be the best life I never could have imagined.
“Thank fuck,” Langston mumbled in my hair, making me smile. “The depth of what I feel for you, shortcake, should be alarming to you.” A snorted laugh escaped. “For me, I know what I want, and it’s you and West, all three of us together. I was terrified tonight for the first time in a long time, because my life was here on the boat with me in the center of the danger. I was afraid we wouldn’t get a chance.” Fingers in my hair, he pulled my face off his neck so I could look up at him. “A chance for our own cheesy-romance happy ending.” He sealed his lips to mine in a demanding kiss before pulling back. “There is no falling for you. I’m already there, deeply submerged, obsessively in love with you.”
Happy tears leaked down my cheeks, which West wiped away for me. After one more kiss, where I could feel Langston’s love pouring off him, West extracted me from his arms and pulled me into his.
Even with his healing hand, he supported my weight, tucking a forearm beneath my ass to keep me wrapped around him. His dark eyes searched my face, all the worry and tension from earlier gone.
“You really mean it?” he rasped.
“I do, West. I feel so much for you, it’s like I might explode with it.”
“Even though you know it won’t be easy loving me, Juno? I have my bad days where I’m very hard to love, and I don’t think I could survive you leaving me if it gets too difficult.”
I nodded. “I have the same fear, West, but I can’t stop this. And you know what? I don’t want to. I want to build a life where I matter, where the people who love me do that with respect, patience, and a lot of effort. That’s what I want to give too, to both you and Langston. I want time to figure all this out so that someday we can look back and realize how going through the hard times together made us that much stronger, together.”
