He kneels on the bed, grips my dick with his lubed hand, and collars my throat with the other.Then he holds me there, staring into my eyes and jerking me with ruthless strokes.
Within seconds, my stomach clenches, and my balls tighten with an overpowering need to come.He edges me right up to the cusp and stops.
I open my mouth to complain and shut it when I see his expression.
Slowly, he releases me, drags his pinkie along mine, and hooks our fingers together.Then he looks at Dove as if asking permission.
She sits with her knees bent against her chest, her features creasing, half-anger, half-ache, one-hundred-percent beautiful as she glares at the tiny connection between our fingers.
“Dove, what’s wrong?”Jag watches her closely.“Use your words.”
“I’m thinking about our cardboard forts, when it was just you and me, when that…” She nods at our linked pinkies.“That was mine.I claimed that.”Her voice cracks.“Why are you sharing it with him?”
The room falls still.
“It’s still yours.”He twitches his finger against mine.
“So is this.”I touch the scar under his ribs with my free hand, tracing the familiar edge.“It’s yours.”
Tears hover in her eyes, unshed and confused.
“You don’t want to share him with me?”I lower my hand.
“I do.Of course, I do.It’s not that.It’s just… The memories were all I had left of him, the only connection I had for so long, and I’ve fiercely guarded every fragment, every piece of Jag that I lost.I know you’re not trying to steal that from me.My jealousy doesn’t make sense, especially since we’re all naked, and you two are about to have sex.I don’t want to be territorial or difficult or whatever this is.”
Jag shifts to go to her.
“Stay.”She lifts a hand.“Please, stay right there.”
He freezes, looking conflicted and torn.
I feel the pull in him, the instinct to fix, to gather her up and make it stop hurting, but he swallows it for her.
“You’re not wrong for guarding that.”I hold her gaze.“You survived on those memories.”
She squeezes her arms tighter around her knees.
“I’m not trying to reach back there and take anything.”I tilt my head.“What I am is here now, with both of you.You don’t have to stop feeling what you’re feeling.You don’t have to be cool or evolved or generous about it.You’re allowed to be messy and protective.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”Jag lowers his chin, regarding her from beneath hooded eyes.“Not from you.Not from us.This isn’t a trade, and you will never be replaced.”
“I know.”She pulls a breath through her nose.
“Do you want us to stop?”He nods at our entwined pinkies, our erections, everything implied.
She shakes her head fast.Too fast.
“Do you want to join us?”His voice drops, careful again.
Another head shake.
“Tell us what you want,” I say.“Not what scares you.”
“I want you to keep going.”She rests her chin on her knees.“I need to feel my way through this.”
“Keep going?”Jag flips me over, sets me on my knees, and presses my face into the mattress.“Like this?”
“Yes.”Her eyes lift, searching, wanting, her breath quickening.
