Make My Move

by J Bree

  I carefully shift forward to cup her face in my hands and then finally I kiss her.

  I start out slowly, no matter how badly I want to just fucking devour her. I force myself to stick with slowly nibbling at her lips and gentle sweeps of my tongue on hers to taste her, but the second she pushes back against me I lose myself in her. I can’t get close enough—no matter how much I press against her. Her body is fucking trembling into the kiss like she’s about to fall apart in my arms, and there’s nothing I want to do more right now than make her come. Fuck, I need to hear her gasps and groans as she comes all over my hands and against my mouth and fuck, fuck, I have to force my hips not to rock up into her right now. Her hands clutch at my wrists as my thumbs stroke her cheeks reverently, the kiss turning desperate as I forget where we are and why it’s a really fucking bad idea to be grinding on her right now.

  Then my asshole cousin ruins the moment.

  “Avery is going to fucking murder you,” whispers Ash, and Lips startles away from my lips.

  Fuck.

  Even in the dark I can see her face flush scarlet, and she squirms with very obvious shame. I lean forward and breathe, “Shh…” onto her lips as I kiss her again, trying desperately to distract her and reassure her that everything is fine.

  We agreed to share her.

  There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.

  She wriggles against me for a second but then suddenly she stills in my arms, and Ash pulls her back into his body a little more firmly as he kisses his way along her neck. I might’ve wanted a moment just for us but this is probably exactly what she needs, a quiet and secret moment with both of us to test how sure we are about this situation, and I know we’re passing with flying colors when she groans quietly into the kiss. Ash tugs her shirt collar away from her neck to find more skin and mumbles, “I’m blaming you if she catches us.”

  I only pulls away from Lips long enough to whisper back, “Fucking worth it,” and then I’m sucking her bottom lip into my mouth and dragging my hands down her throat possessively, a thrill of pure lust spiking in my blood when she squirms in our arms again. Ash grunts and grabs her hip to stop her from grinding on him, and I have to take a second to breathe so I don’t blow in my shorts like some inexperienced, horny teenage boy.

  I catch sight of the alarm clock on Avery’s nightstand. “Fuck. I’m going to be late for training. I was supposed to be at the pool ten minutes ago.”

  I can’t tear my eyes away from her lips and when she licks them I groan.

  “That sound had better be an oh-I-hate-waking-up sort of sound and not a my-dick-is-so-hard kind of sound, Harley Éibhear Arbour,” Avery snaps.

  Well, fuck if that isn’t like a bucket of ice over my head.

  I sigh and roll out of the bed to the sounds of Avery screeching as she throws a pillow at me. Like I give a fuck. I head to the bathroom laughing. “I can’t help having morning wood, Aves. Better get used to it because me and my blue balls will be here all week.”

  I take the quickest shower I possibly can, mostly just trying to lose my erection, because Coach will not be impressed by it, and then I get dressed and head out of the bathroom.

  Avery is in the kitchen scowling and I kiss her cheek with a grin, accepting her cussing me out viciously because she hands me one of her reusable takeaway cups full of perfectly brewed coffee to take down to the pool. I duck back to the bed and kiss Lips chastely on the cheek, with a wink, and then I’m out the door.

  I could definitely get used to this.

  Coach raises his eyebrows at me when I get to the pool, because it’s the first time in two years that I’m the last one down there for practice. I don’t say a word to him and he doesn’t push it. I’m not explaining myself to anyone in this hellhole.

  I swim until my entire body is screaming, until my muscles feel like jelly and my lungs are on fire. It’s only when every last bit of energy and tension has been worked out of me that I finally crawl out of the pool and head to the showers.

  The other students all listen to the Coach and do actual training, but I established a long time ago that I’m here to work myself into the ground and that system gets results.

  I text the group message to say I’m on my way back up to eat with everyone, and then I enjoy the quiet walk to the dining hall on legs that are barely holding me up. I’m so used to feeling this way that they’re steady, the tight control I have over myself doing wonders to mask that shit, and the other students are so fucking terrified of me that they steer clear, so I don’t have to worry about being bumped or jostled.

  When I get to the dining hall everyone is already there and someone has already grabbed me breakfast so I can just take a seat.

  “How are the blue balls?” Avery says sweetly, and Lips groans, burying her face in her hands like she’s still mortified about this morning. I don’t want Avery making her feel like shit about this though so I put a firm stop to it the only way you can.

  I give her a haughty, disinterested look and drawl, “I’ll worry about my own balls thanks, Floss.”

  Lips nudges her French toast to the side and grabs an apple instead like she’s not planning on actually eating this morning. Ash’s eyes narrow at her as he pushes the plate back in front of her and, surprisingly, she just sighs and tucks back into it without a fight.

  I share a look with him.

  “Well, my balls aren’t blue. Harley will just have to learn to jerk off a bit more often,” Morrison drawls, and Ash snorts at him.

  Avery’s response is swift and frosty. “Not in my shower he won’t. Keep those activities in your room.”

  Morrison grins and hands Lips his iPod, watching her carefully as she nods in thanks and taps at it. It’s such a small thing, but I would’ve lost my shit over their closeness two days ago, now though? Now I’m glad Ash is making her eat and Blaise is distracting her from Avery’s pissy mood. Now I’m glad we’re all still family and no one is going to go off the fucking rails.

  When Lips pulls a face at whatever is on the iPod, Morrison laughs and says to Avery, “It’s fine, we’ll just tempt Lips into our room for the rest of the week.”

  Lips blanches, freaking the fuck out, and I kick the asshole in the shin so hard his chair scrapes back. He grunts and cusses me out so loudly that the students around us take notice, but fuck him and his idiot mouth.

  “Are you fucking dense? We’re surrounded, there’s an ongoing bet, and Lips is still being watched,” hisses Ash, while Avery laughs so no one around us can hear him.

  Morrison finally figures out what the fuck he’s done and cringes, glancing over at Lips apologetically while the rest of us are in damage control, because suddenly I can see just how close the other students are around us and all of the eyes that are glued to us.

  I fucking hate this place.

  “Don’t bother. Lips has no interest in fucking a guy from Hannaford, she’s said it a million times. Find someone who’s actually up for it,” I say, laying it on thick, but the students around us eat that shit up and start whispering among themselves.

  Lips shoots me a thankful look and Avery takes over, babbling about her dance recital that we’re going to on Monday that she’ll no doubt be the only shining star of. It takes Lips another ten minutes to get back to eating, but eventually she tucks back in. Every time it looks as though she’s about to stop eating, Ash stares her down until the entire plate is empty.

  None of us are in a rush to split up and head to class, so we stay put even as the entire dining hall starts to empty out. Now that we’re done with exams I don’t want to go to class at all but Lips has to thanks to her day off yesterday, and I’ll go to watch out for her.

  She looks around the room, a little too tense for my liking, and then clears her throat. “I feel like we should be talking about the dangers of doing this. I mean, we can’t even sit here and have a conversation without my…baggage coming into it.”

  Fuck.

  Here it is, here’s her attem
pt at giving us all a ‘get out of jail free’ card; I should’ve known it was coming.

  Avery takes one look around the table and decides she wants nothing to do with this conversation so she clears her throat, kisses Lips on the cheek, and then walks off with her phone to give us all some privacy.

  I wasn’t expecting it from her, but fuck I am glad to have it.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “We’re not in this for the bet and until you get the Jackal situation under control we’ll just be more… discreet about what's going on. Our only other option is to wait until he’s not a problem anymore and I don’t want to do that. ”

  Ash hums under his breath as he watches Avery across the room, ready as always to charge over there and kill anyone who dares to speak to his twin. “Is there a plan to get him to back off? Do we have any idea of how long it will take?”

  Lips shrugs nonchalantly as she pushes her plate away from herself. “There is a plan but it’s not underway yet. It hasn’t been my focus. I’ve been working on more pressing issues.”

  More pressing than being stalked by the Jackal?

  Highly fucking doubtful.

  Ash is the one who says, “I think it’s now the most pressing issue.”

  Her cheeks flush. “I understand that it’s important but there’s still other things that need to be dealt with. Joey, Senior, the O’Cronin family, all of them are important to take care of as well.”

  Fuck my family and their manipulative bullshit getting in the way.

  I shake my head, but Morrison answers for us all. “No, top priority is now dealing with the Jackal. Your life is the one at stake and the other situations are…survivable.”

  She nods and blinks like she’s worried she’ll cry, and once again I want to charge down to Mounts Bay and kill anyone who’s ever made her feel like a worthless little Mounty girl.

  Myself and my family included.

  I spend the entire week in Lips’ bed.

  I’ve never slept so well in my life, and it terrifies me. I find myself panicked at the idea of leaving her behind to head up the coast to see my mom for more than just the obvious reasons, because after living on so little for so long, I don’t want to give this up.

  The week passes us by too quickly.

  On Friday, Avery demands that we clean out all of our shit from her room while she heads out for her end-of-year ballet party. There’s boxes fucking everywhere because she has a fucking ridiculous amount of shit.

  I have never seen her wear a scarf, why does she have dozens of boxes of them stashed in her closet? It’s just fucking stupid.

  Lips sits on her bed and radiates stressed-out energy the entire time we search for and pack our shit away. It’s nothing overwhelming or obvious, but I’ve spent too long watching her to miss it.

  I start folding shirts that Avery left in a pile on her bed for me and shoving them in a bag to stay close to her. “Where are you staying in Mounts Bay? Like I said, I’m taking two weeks to visit Ma and then I’m staying in the Bay. I can get a hotel or stay with you, your choice.”

  She glances around at each of us slowly like she’s reading the room. Avery is throwing things into her dance bag so she can head out, and Ash is digging through her closet to help her with her packing, pulling down the big and heavy items so she doesn’t hurt herself later doing it. Morrison is raiding the fridge for beer, because he’s barely left a thing here thanks to Avery’s constant nitpicking at his messy ways.

  Lips takes a breath and says, “Look, Avery’s informed me that there's going to be… wooing.”

  She says it like the word tastes wrong in her mouth and, as a fellow Mounty kid, I understand why. “What the actual fuck is wooing?”

  Morrison roars with laughter at us both, the type that makes him throw his head back and clutch his stomach. Lips eyes him appreciatively, something she does just a little more openly to us all now, and he hands me a beer as he stalks over to the bed and lounges on it.

  Ash sounds smug as he calls out, “Avery is secretly eighty years old and thinks that wooing is the current terminology for—”

  “For what, Ash?” Avery cuts in sweetly. He pauses for a second because we all know what game Avery is playing with us all now and then he smiles at her, his eyes still that same icy cold. “For starting something important.”

  Lips clearly has no idea how to process or function with that sort of information so she turns and tugs on the front of Morrison’s old band tee. “I really don't care what we’re calling it. I'm taking this shirt. I'm also taking that black one of Ash’s and Harley’s gray sweatshirt. I'll give them back after the break.”

  We all should’ve seen it coming, she only wears oversized men’s shirts when she’s not in uniform, but the fact that she’s picked out the exact shit she wants shocks me for a second.

  She really is just as obsessed as we are.

  Morrison blinks at her, just as stunned as I am, and then strips off his shirt and hands it over to her. I try not to laugh at her, but I can practically see her brain melting at the sight of him.

  Fuck. We’re going to have some fun with her, just as soon as the summer break is over and we’re back here together again.

  “Thank you,” she squeaks, and he winks at her before rooting around in his bag to pull on another one.

  Avery gives her a look as she comes out of the closet, packed and ready to head down to her party, then she grins. “How long have you wanted that Vanth shirt?”

  Lips shrugs, all fake nonchalance. “Oh, you know, all my life. I'm totally lying, he’ll have to pry this from my cold, dead hands. I know at least eight Mounty girls that would gut me for it so I’m going to wear it to the next party I have to go to.”

  I laugh with Avery, fishing out the sweatshirt she wants and tugging it over her head. She takes a deep, gulping lungful like she’s trying to breathe me in, keep me buried inside her chest while we’re separated. I want to press her back into her bed and mark her up, make sure there’s no doubt in any Mounty’s mind of who she belongs to.

  I can’t and it kills me.

  Avery waves at us all and then heads out for her party. Ash stalks back over from the closet with an armful of his clothes.

  “You're taking our shit so you can smell us while we’re gone? That's horribly sappy, Mounty,” he drawls as he hands over the black shirt she wants and then gets back to packing his shit.

  “I'm weird. I wear guys’ shirts and sweaters with booty shorts and skirts. I listen to the same three albums on repeat. I like French toast, coffee, and cherry anything. I don't function on my birthday or Christmas. I can kill a grown man eight different ways with nothing but my bare hands. I’m never going to be normal.”

  It’s a challenge, a test like she’s still not sure how serious we’re taking this, and Ash rises to the bait perfectly.

  He grabs her chin and stares down at her, the blank mask that’s permanently on his face gone and he’s staring down at her with that same need to brand her, own her, that I’m feeling.

  “If you're trying to warn us off it’s not going to work. We've never agreed to anything as quickly as when we agreed to share you. I'm not planning on wooing you, I'm planning on doing whatever I need to do to get to keep you.”

  She swallows, and he licks his lips subconsciously, like he’s just barely holding himself on a tight leash.

  “I want us to keep you. I don't want you all to myself, I want to share you with my best friends and I want you to love every fucking second of it.”

  She blinks and then nods, completely transfixed as he eases up from her a little with a smirk.

  “I won't get out of bed before the coffee machine is on. I hate blues music and listen to Vanth as religiously as you do. I run track because it makes me feel like I'm dying and sometimes I need to feel like that. I miss my mom and I hate my father. My brother is trying to kill me and my father is taking bets on how long it’ll take him to succeed. Finding Joey standing over Avery's lifeless body broke som
ething in me that I don't think I'll ever be able to fix. I’m a bigger monster than you because I don't give a fuck who you've killed or why you did it. In fact, from here out I’m helping you bury the bodies.”

  I glance over at Morrison, and he’s just as shocked as I am at this honesty. Fuck, that’s the most he’s ever said to me about Joey and his fucked-up father. He’s never once talked about that close call we had with Avery before freshman year started.

  This is huge.

  Naturally, Lips doesn’t pry. She’s the expert at knowing what wounds shouldn’t be poked at. “I cannot believe you're a Vanth super fan and you've given me all that shit about it. You're a real piece of work, Beaumont.”

  Morrison sniggers at her like it’s some big fucking secret they’ve been keeping; everyone knows Ash is Vanth obsessed.

  Then Ash smirks at her. “I told Blaise he should get you to sing on his next album. I'll listen to that on repeat, too.”

  She freezes and for a second I think they’ve hit a nerve, but then she has this hopeful look on her face. Morrison grins at her. “I’ll write you a song, Mounty. While you and Arbour are shacked up and loving every second of the break, I’ll mope around New York with my parents and write you love songs.”

  I throw an empty hanger at him for being a jealous asshole, and Lips hands him the iPod. “I’ll video chat you guys. Harley can stay with me and if you guys can get away to the Bay you can stay, too.”

  I can’t fucking wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ash

  Leaving Lips to return to the Bay while the rest of us are forced to return home to our fucked-up families is my new version of hell.

  What if she gets hurt?

  What is she going to do in the Bay as the Wolf while we’re miles and miles away in luxurious, but deadly, houses?

  I can’t stand the thought of it, and Avery is very quickly pissed off with my nagging about finding a way back to the Bay as quickly as possible.