Page 93 of Veil of Night & Flames

She was Adric’s.

And despite his fucked-up history with his brother, he could live with that. More than live with it. He actually liked it, probably more than he’d ever admit even to himself, though he could hardly hide it. Certainly not from the one man who’d feel every bit of it as deeply as himself.

What astounded him was that he didn’t care. For that matter, he actually welcomed it.

And how the hell had that happened?

He walked her back three steps to the sofa, then broke the kiss to look at her—her swollen mouth, the wildly tousled hair, and far too much clothing still in the way.

She bit her lower lip. “Are you okay? If you don’t want⁠—”

He pressed a fingertip to her lips. Then he turned to his brother and, with a single tilt of his head, invited him in.

He heard Cora’s small gasp, then leaned in to kiss her forehead. “I want this,” he whispered. And I know you do, too.”

She met his eyes with just the tiniest of nods, and then he looked at his brother. “Take her shirt off,” he said, in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own.

Adric’s brows arched, but he didn’t hesitate. Instead, his hand came up, and Cora’s eyes cut to him as Adric’s fingers caught the hem of her shirt. Then her lips curved, and Chase watched the pleasure dance over her face. Heard her startled little inhale from the brush of Adric’s fingers against her bare skin as his brother drew the shirt up over her head and let it fall.

She wore one of the thin cotton bras she favored. Plain, no lace, and her nipples were already hard against the fabric. Chase felt his cock ache, and beside her, Adric made a sound at the back of his throat that wasn’t a word, but seemed to echo everything Chase was feeling.

Then Chase moved closer and pressed his lips to the soft place where her neck met her shoulder. She drew in a ragged breath twined with a sigh of pleasure as her hand locked in his hair, and she pulled Chase closer, then moaned as Adric’s finger stroked her nipple through the cotton.

She arched between them—her back against his chest, her breasts hard against Adric’s hand. And in that moment, with a clarity that almost stopped him cold, Adric knew that this was going to work. That he and his brother could share her without breaking each other, because it was what she wanted, and because they both wanted her.

“Bed,” Cora said, her voice breathless as she glanced at the open sofa bed. “Please. The bed.”

They wasted no time getting there, and Chase had her jeans open by the time her knees hit the mattress, though not quite as quickly as Adric had managed to fully remove her bra.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, then turned to face them both, half-naked and glowing and looking from one to the other with a wild hunger that Chase had never seen in her.

“Come here,” she murmured, her hand extended to Adric.

“You, too,” she said to him, and he felt his heart flip over. He looked from her heat-filled eyes to the smugness of Adric’s grin.

“You heard the lady,” Adric said. “Join us.”

So he did.

Not since their years as the Guardian had Adric shared a bed with his brother, and he could fairly say that he had never expected to again

And yet here he was, though he supposed he could play word games and say he was in a bed with Cora that his brother simply occupied as well.

Honestly, it didn’t much matter. He would take his pleasures however they came, and in this moment, the pleasure of having Cora meant sharing her.

Whatever the lady wanted.

He moved to her left, leaving Chase at her right as Cora knelt on the bed in nothing but her open jeans and her hair gleaming in the moonlight that streamed in through the curtains. A bland white light without the character of the orange glow of his home.

But bland light didn’t much matter at the moment. There was enough light to see her, and that was sufficient. And, of course, to see her with his brother. That was a show for which he was surprisingly happy to have a ticket.

Now, though, he simply looked at her. Her swollen lips. Her tight nipples. The smooth skin revealed by her open zipper that led down to her delicious, wet core.

“Undress,” she said, looking between him and Chase.

He inclined his head. As you wish, Beloved.”

He stripped, letting his clothes fall casually to the ground in a way he never did. At the foot of the bed, Chase was going through the same brisk, unceremonious business of getting undressed. Honestly, Adric felt like a human teenager. And rather liked the sensation.