Maybe himself?
Or maybe he was waiting for someone to stop him.
Kraven didn’t move away from me. He just watched him like I was. Julius’s hand landed on my shoulder. It was firm, steady, but also conflicting.
My breath caught.
All of a sudden, Kraven moved his hand to my thigh. Now they were both slightly touching me. No one was pulling back, no one was choosing. They were both on me. His stare shifted to Kraven’s hand, then back to meet my eyes.
What’s happening?
I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t stop it either. For a moment, I thought he was going to step back. Instead, he moved closer to me.
I gasped as he closed the space between us. The invisible line was gone, and none of us said a word about crossing it. This was the one thing I couldn’t ignore anymore. They weren’t the same. Not in the way they touched me, in the way they looked at me, in the way they felt me…
Yet still, I didn’t want either of them to move from me.
My breath came slower now. It was deeper, too aware of everything that was happening. Too conscious of both of them and how they made me feel. Julius’s fingers pressed firmer against the side of my neck as if he had decided on something he wasn’t saying out loud yet. Like something in him had finally stopped fighting long enough to try whatever he was doing right then.
My grip on his wrist tightened without meaning to, and he looked down at it.
“Isla…” he began, but the word didn’t go anywhere
What is there to say?
Kraven’s hand moved. Slowly at first, from my thigh to my hip. In a way that made my heart skip a beat from what was happening.
Julius saw it. I felt him see it too.
That old instinct, the one that was ready to react, ready to push back, ready to take control…
Except he stopped himself with his thumb brushing lightly against the side of my face. Almost like he was trying to adjust to this new reality instead of rejecting it.
My breath caught. This was new.
I should have said something. One of us should have, but nobody did. I was caught between them. However, this was different. I wasn’t being pulled or torn or held. I was being balanced in a space that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
My eyes closed for a second, just enough to feel it, to feel them. I tried to register it fully. To realize I wasn’t trying to get out of it. Whatever they were trying to do to me, I was along for the same ride they were. I was just too shy to admit it, what I was feeling, what I desired…
It was both of them.
At the same time.
When I opened my eyes again, Julius was watching me closely. He wasn’t guarded.
He was once again searching for something in my presence until he declared, “Tell me to stop.” His words were rough.
My heart hammered as I instantly begged, “Please don’t stop.”
Julius exhaled, his shoulders loosening. Not fully, but enough. Kraven didn’t react at all, expecting this. The way their presence settled deeper instead of pulling back from me. The way they were both watching me.
Waiting.
It wasn’t for permission. It was for direction.
For truth.
This feeling that had been building inside me felt overpowering.
