The bond between us pulsed. Want, sharp and sudden, mixing with tenderness.
I looked away. Felt my cheeks heat.
James tossed Cal a blanket without comment. But I caught the look that passed between them — something knowing, almost amused. Cal caught the blanket, wrapped it around his shoulders, but not before I'd seen... everything.
The bond didn't let me forget it. Images flickered through our connection — not from Cal, but from my own traitorous mind. What it would feel like to touch him. To trace the lines of his body. To press my mouth against the hollow of his throat and feel his pulse race.
Stop it,I told myself firmly.He's fragile. This isn't the time.
But the wanting didn't care about timing.
"Can I—" I stopped. Started again, my voice too thick. "Can I hug you?"
Cal went still.
I waited. Didn't move toward him, didn't pressure. Just held the question open, giving him space to answer however he needed to.
The bond between us pulsed. His uncertainty, his longing, his fear of being touched and his desperate need for exactly that. And underneath it all — an echo of the same want I was trying to suppress.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
I slid off the bed. Crossed the small space between us. Knelt in front of him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his bare skin.
"You can say stop," I said. "Anytime. For any reason."
He nodded again. His eyes were dark. Hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.
I reached out. Let my arms wrap around him, gentle, careful.
The contact was electric.
His skin was warm against my palms. I felt him tense — a full-body flinch — and then, gradually, relax into me. His head dropped to my shoulder. His breath ghosted across my neck, and I shivered.
The bond roared.
Not just mine and Cal's. James's too — I felt him react, felt the spike of heat that shot through him as he watched us. Not jealousy. Something else. Something that wanted to be part of this, that ached with the need to touch and be touched.
Cal made a sound against my throat. Not a word. Just a breath, shaky and wet, carrying everything he couldn't say. His hands found my waist — tentative, trembling — and pulled me closer.
I could feel him. All of him. The blanket had slipped, and there was nothing between us but my thin shirt and the desperate wanting that pulsed through the bond.
James moved closer. His hand found Cal's back, rested there — warm, solid, present. His other hand found my hip, fingers curling into the fabric of my jeans.
The three of us, tangled together. Breathing the same air. The bonds between us singing with heat and longing and something that felt dangerously close to need.
That's when Neal walked in.
He stopped in the doorway.
For a moment, no one moved. Neal stared at us — me pressed against Cal's bare chest, James's hands on both of us, the three of us wrapped around each other in a way that was clearly more than comfort.
His eyes darkened.
The bond between us — the one he kept trying to ignore — flared to life. I felt his want slam into me like a wave. The desperate, denied longing of a man who had been holding himself apart for weeks. Who watched us touch each other and ached to be included.
Who was terrified of how much he wanted this.
"I can come back," he said. His voice was hoarse. Strained.
