I grab the front of his shirt and kiss him before I’ve decided to.
He makes a sound low in his throat—surprised, then not—his hand sliding up my spine, pressing me closer until there’s no water between us, just warmth and salt and the slow pull of the current trying to take us somewhere else.
“Yeah,” Cruz calls from behind us, voice edged. “Just so you know, this is bullshit, and I call foul!”
I smile into the kiss. Rafe doesn’t let me drift far. He angles us toward another cut in the rocks, smaller than the one Cruz pulled me into, just enough space to break the current, the water going still around us, the noise of the open drop muffled to almost nothing.
My back meets the stone—sun-warmed, rough, the heat of it a shock against skin that’s been cold this whole time. His handpresses flat against my waist and I feel every point of contact separately: palm, fingers, the heel of his hand.
“You’re trouble,” he says.
I tip my chin up. “You just figured that out?”
His mouth curves, but his eyes don’t move off mine. “I figured it out a while ago.” His thumb drags slow along my side, tracing the edge of my ribs. “I just didn’t realize how bad it was going to get.”
“Bad for who?”
“Everyone.”
That should feel heavier. It should echo something Bishop said. But it doesn’t land the same way—because Rafe doesn’t sound like he’s warning me. He sounds like it’s his favorite thing.
“You say that like you’re not part of the problem.”
“Baby, Iamthe problem,” he says, and then his mouth is on mine.
It’s different than Cruz. Still deliberate and focused—but warmer underneath, like he’s claiming me instead of asking permission. Salt on his lips. The faint chill of the water still on his skin and the heat underneath that. His arm locks around my waist and I feel the shift in his breathing when I press closer, the way it catches, just slightly, when I drag my fingers up the back of his neck and hold on.
Rafe’s mouth drags along the side of my neck, slower now, teeth grazing just enough to make my breath catch—his hand sliding along my wet skin like he’s deciding something.
I don’t mean to look. But once I do, I can’t stop.
Gage is a few feet out, watching me and not pretending to hide it. Water runs down the center of his chest. His jaw is set, expression steady, but his eyes are dark in a way that pulls heat straight through me.
Cruz surfaces from the water close, pushing his hair back with one hand, water sheeting off his shoulders. His eyes movefrom me to Rafe and back—slow, deliberate, like he’s reading something. Then his mouth curves.
“Good luck, man,” he says to Gage. “Rafe’s a thief. He never learned how to share.”
Gage looks at me, a slow exhale leaves him, his chest rising and falling with it. “That so?”
Rafe lifts his head just enough to look at both of them, his grip tightening at my hip, fingers pressing in. “Fuck off.”
Cruz huffs a quiet laugh and moves closer, the water shifting warm against my legs with the displacement of his body.
Gage does too.
Now they’re both there—close enough that I can feel the heat coming off them despite the cold, close enough that the current moving between all of us feels like something else entirely.
Gage’s gaze flicks back to mine. “But she doesn’t want us to. Do you, Bell?”
My pulse spikes. Every instinct says answer him. Pick a side. Shut it down before it becomes something you can’t walk back from.
The water moves slow around my waist. Rafe’s thumb is still tracing that line along my ribs.
Then a splash—cold spray catching my shoulder—and Bishop cuts through the water toward us like he’s ending a meeting.
“Thought we were cliff jumping,” Bishop says. Dark eyes moving over all three of us like he’s taking inventory. “Not passing Bellamy around.”
The words drag a nail down the moment.
