"Andyou'retelling me. Not him. You."
"Because it's my truth to tell. It happened to my body." I hold his gaze when he turns from the window. "And because I was hoping—" My voice catches. The honest part. The terrifying part. "I was hoping it wouldn't change anything. That you could hear it and still want to be here. That maybe this could be the first step toward something that doesn't require anyone to give me up."
The words hang between us.Something that doesn't require anyone to give me up.
The implication is clear. All three. Not a choice. A sharing.
Atlas's jaw works. His eyes are red but dry.
He turns from the window. Crosses the room toward me and for a half-second I think he's coming back—think his hands are going to find my face again and his mouth is going to find mine and we're going to pick up where we left off because the want is still there, I can see it, written across every tense line of his body.
But his eyes—his eyes are wrong. Not soft. Not tender. Something hard and wounded and angry, aimed at me or at himself or at Bane or at all of it, I can't tell. His jaw is locked. The vein at his temple pulses.
He bends down. Picks up his shirt from the floor. Pulls it on without looking at me. Buttons it—each one deliberate, precise, the armor going back on piece by piece. Then he crosses to the bedroom door. His hand on the doorknob.
His eyes on the floor.
The message is clear.Get out.
I stare at him. Half-naked in his bedroom, my lips still swollen from his mouth, my body still aching from his hands, and he's holding the door open like I'm a guest who's overstayed. The humiliation hits me like ice water—sudden, total, floodingthrough my chest and turning everything that felt good thirty seconds ago into something that burns.
One step forward. Two steps back. The Atlas Graves waltz.
"You're doing it again," I say. My voice comes out harder than I expect. Flatter. Typical. I’ve been here before with every person who ever got close enough to matter and then decided I wasn't worth the complication.
His hand tightens on the door. He doesn't look at me. Jaw working. Eyes fixed on the floor beneath his feet like it holds answers he doesn't.
"You just had your tongue in my mouth and your hand on my cock and now you're ready to see me out." I grab my t-shirt from the floor. Pull it over my head. My hands are shaking but my voice isn't and I'm holding onto that like a lifeline. "Last time you said no because you thought you were protecting me. What's the excuse this time?"
Nothing. His chest rises and falls. The controlled breathing. The sieve.
"Because this time it's not about me, is it?" The anger is building now. Real and raw. This was mutual, this attraction, this care–and now I’m getting shoved out the door because Atlas Graves can't handle the idea that he's not the only one. "This time it's about you. About the fact that I've been with your brother and you can't stand it. About the fact that sharing me means you're not in control of this, and Atlas Graves doesn't do things he can't control, does he?"
He flinches. Small. Almost invisible. But I see it—I see everything, I always have. It’s my superpower.
"You know what? You were right." I step toward the door. Toward him. Close enough that he has to smell me—vanilla and honey and his own cedar still clinging to my skin. "Downstairs. When you said you only know how to love by building a cage.You were right." I look up at him. Hold his gaze. Watch him flinch. "You're selfish. And you're fucking cruel."
He opens the door and I walk through. Don't look back.
"Coward," I say. Quiet.
I hear the door close behind me. Soft. Controlled. Even now.
I stand in the hallway with his scent on my skin and the taste of him still on my lips and the ache between my legs where his hand was and a hollow, furious heat in my chest that has nothing to do with biology.
I press my fingers against my mouth. Feel the ghost of him. Feel the humiliation and the want and the anger braided together into something I don't have a name for.
He wanted me. That wasn't fake. His hands, his mouth, his cock pressed against me through his dress pants—that was real.
All of it was real.
And he still kicked me out.
Because Bane got there first. Because sharing means Atlas isn't the only one. Because the eldest brother, the one who controls everything, can't control this—can't strategize his way into being okay with the fact that I belong to more than just him.
I go back to my room. Lie down. Stare at the ceiling.
This is so fucked up. My heart aches in my chest as the rush wears off.
