“Because you love us,” Noah said softly.
“Noah, don’t,” Emily grimaced, not willing to go down this road and chance losing them because she confessed her true feelings. Better to have their friendship, she’d always told herself, than to put it all on the line and be forced to say goodbye and watch them walk away from her. Emily honestly thought the last of her internal reserves would crumble if she heard them say that they loved her, just not in the same way she loved them. As friends, and nothing more.
“Yes,” he countered, just as determined as she. “You heard Gabe, we’re going to talk. About all the things we’ve left unspoken between us for years now. No more running and no more hiding for any of us,” Noah said and stared intently into her eyes.
“What are you saying?” Emily asked in a hushed voice. Oh God, she thought, please don’t do this. She begged Noah with her eyes not to force her to talk about her feelings and end their friendship now. Not now, when she felt so raw and vulnerable.
“You know exactly what we’re saying, Emily,” Gabriel said solemnly, watching the fear play out in her watery eyes. A fear that he hoped his next words would wipe away.
“When Noah says you love us, he doesn’t mean that you care for us as though we’re your big brothers and we’re just there to look out for you from time to time. Just friends who share an occasional meal or cook-out together. No, he means you’re in love with us - with me and with Noah. As in the kind of love that means permanency, a relationship that lasts a lifetime, and one that sets you on fire from within. That kind of love, Emily, is what you feel for us.”
“Now, ask Gabriel how he knows and understands what you feel,” Noah urged her in the gentlest tone she had ever heard him use.
Emily looked from Noah back to Gabriel, and what she saw there took her breath away. It was the look she had longed to see in their eyes for years. Since she had first started to notice other boys her age, and realized none of them would ever measure up to her two best friends. No one else would ever be her Noah or her Gabriel.
Now there was recognition in their eyes. As if they finally saw her – really saw the woman she was – and they wanted her for their own. Both of them.
“Ask him,” Noah said again and gave her a tender squeeze.
Emily wet her lips, noticing that the motion caused both men’s eyes to dilate and track her tongue’s movement. She swallowed hard and then did either the bravest or the most stupid thing she’d ever done in her life. She asked.
“How do you know that I’m in love with you both, Gabriel?” Emily murmured.
“Because we’re in love with you too, Emily,” Gabriel replied without batting an eye. “Because we feel the same way, and we know that there shouldn’t be another day that we go without saying it. It’s time for us all to stop running and admit that there will never be another love like the one we’ve steadily cultivated for the last fifteen years. We want you, Emily, heart, mind, body, and soul. And if you want us, half as much as we want you, then there’s no more looking or running for any of us here, ever again.”
“You both love me, too?” she asked in disbelief, her bottom lip quivering almost violently now.
“So damn much it hurts, baby,” Noah grinned. “It hurts to think of letting you slip through our fingers, because we weren’t brave enough to tell you what we’ve known was true for years. That there’ll never be another woman who gets us, likes us, and loves us like you do. You love us, faults and all, and we couldn’t ask for a better friend than you. You’re it for us, Emily. Say you want us and we’re yours, one hundred percent, for the rest of our days.”
Emily began to nod as another sob broke free. It was several more minutes before her newest torrent ran its course. Noah continued to hold and slowly rock her, while Gabriel used his fingers to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“Is that a yes?” Gabriel finally asked and grinned as Emily struggled to form her words.
“Yes,” she laughed and cried at the same time. “Yes! I love you both so much. I love everything about you. I always have.”
“Thank God,” Noah sighed and rested his forehead against hers. “Em, I’m going to kiss you now. Is that all right with you, baby?”
“Yes,” she said again as his lips descended on hers.
Emily gasped from the sheer intensity of the kiss Noah bestowed upon her. She had dreamed many a day and night about what it would be like to kiss either of the men she loved, but this was so much more than she’d ever experienced with another. It was all-consuming, and she felt his tongue tracing the outline of her lips before he delved within. Noah’s hands crept up into her hair and he angled her head so he had better access to claim her mouth.
She moaned and heard him return the sound, swallowing hers up as she did his. Noah slowed the kiss and began to penetrate her mouth again and again with his tongue, almost in promise of other ways he hoped to share his body with her. Emily tightened her hold on his hair, then loosened her grasp, worried that she might have hurt him.
She leaned back a bit, trying to catch her breath, and stared into Noah’s green eyes, now hooded and almost slumberous after their ravenous kiss. She reached up and slowly traced his swollen lips, amazed at how soft they felt. How many years had she longed to do just that? He smiled, and captured two of her fingers, eliciting another gasp from her.
“Em,” Gabriel called her, and she turned her head to face him. “Come here, honey. My turn,” he said and pulled her from Noah’s lap.
As he settled her on his legs, Emily finally remembered that she was without clothing. Her skin flushed a deep crimson and she ducked her head to see if the water was covering her breasts. But Gabriel tucked his fingers under her chin and redirected her gaze back to his.
“Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed in front of us, Emily. You’re ours now, and that means all of you. I want to kiss you and touch you. Are you ready for that?” he asked, and moved his fingers along her jaw as he awaited her words.
“I’ve never…,” she began and then tried to find the courage to tell them the truth about herself.
“Never what, Emily?” Gabriel asked softly, though he thought he knew. And he prayed he was right.
“Never made love with someone else,” she admitted and blushed even more. “I couldn’t, not when my heart already belonged to the two of you.”
Gabriel smiled and framed her face with his palms. “Then you will be ours, and ours alone. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, honey? Noah and I want you tonight, if you’re ready. If not, then say so, and we’ll only kiss and hold you for now.”
“I’m ready,” she smiled in return, so much hope burning in her eyes. Hope that had, of late, been extinguished. “I’ve been ready to love the two of you for years. I just thought that you wouldn’t want to share. That it wouldn’t be fair to you or normal enough of a relationship to give you everything you might need from a partner. Or that it might embarrass you if you were to say to your families and colleagues that we were all together.”
Noah laughed and shook his head. “Em, my dad and stepmom think you walk on water. And they even thought once that I was in a relationship with Gabe, because we’re so damn tight with each other. They won’t even blink an eye if Gabe and I each commit to you.”
“My parents and brothers have already told me that they’ll come to whatever commitment ceremony the three of us have,” Gabriel added. “And that was over two years ago, honey. They’ve seen this coming for a while. But what matters most is what we think – the three of us. And I think we just gave each other our word that we want this. So as far as I’m concerned, from this moment on, you belong to me and you belong to Noah. Right?”
“Is this really happening?” Emily murmured as she searched first Gabriel’s eyes, and then Noah’s. She reached up to cup Gabriel’s cheek and watched his gaze soften. He nodded slowly.
“All of this is real, Em. Don’t doubt us or yourself. Just answer my question. Are you ours from now on, honey; and
do you want us as much as we want you?”
“Absolutely, I’m yours. I’ve always been yours and no others.” She nodded and smiled while fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Then like I said, it’s my turn,” Gabriel breathed and then pulled Emily closer.
CHAPTER 8
Gabriel moved in and hovered over her lips, drawing out the anticipation for them both. He smiled as he lightly settled his lips on hers, making slow sweeping passes that made Emily sigh and smile in return. He kept her face in his hands as he began to pepper soft kisses over her top lip, then he moved to do the same over her lower lip.
“Oh my, gosh,” she whispered, only to hear him chuckle before he melded his lips fully with hers.
Now he became the aggressor, as Noah had, and Gabriel wholly claimed her mouth. His lips slanted over hers again and again and his tongue swept in to duel with hers. His hands left her face and traveled down her back and then around to her waist, before they slowly began to glide upwards.
Emily held her breath as his fingertips grazed the underside of her breasts. But her breath stuttered out unevenly when his hands gently cupped the soft mounds and his thumbs rubbed lightly over her nipples. Gabriel’s lips moved down the column of her throat, kissing and nipping delicately at the skin there, as he continued his tender massage of her breasts.
“That feels…” she began, and then registered Noah at her back and his hands beginning to move over the skin there.
“How does it feel, Emily?” Gabriel asked as he kissed and tongued the shell of her ear. “Tell us.”
“Divine,” she sighed with a smile.
“How does this feel?” Noah asked, and let his hands fall to her waist and then lower to gently cup her backside, kneading each cheek.
“Amazing,” she confessed. “I want to touch you both, too. I’ve wanted to for so long.”
“Trust me, baby, we want that too,” Noah said as he began to kiss and lick the other side of her neck. “I want your hands all over me.”
Gabriel lifted one of her hands and placed it on his muscular chest. He nodded, giving her permission to explore him as he was her. Emily took the invitation and moved both of her hands over the dips and curves that formed his chiseled chest. She knew both men worked out diligently to maintain their strength and well-honed physiques, but actually exploring their bodies was something she had fantasized about more times than she could count.
“Noah, come around here, please,” she whispered, and felt him leave her back to do as she had asked without delay. “Sit by Gabe.”
He grinned and winked at her, settling himself on the ledge to Gabriel’s right. Emily reached out and placed a palm on his chest, and then began her exploration of his body. Where Gabriel had a light smattering of dark hair on his chest that tapered to a line, which went further south than she’d ever seen, Noah was the opposite. His broad chest had no hair, except for a faint line that always dipped below the jeans and shorts she had seen him wear over the years.
Noah let his head fall back as her hand skated down and brushed across his abdomen. “Go lower, Emily,” he urged her.
She swallowed and glanced at Gabriel to see his blue eyes smoldering with need and want. He nodded slowly and then placed a hand over her palm and began to help her delve further down his body as well. It was the single most erotic moment of her life, as she stared into Gabe’s intense gaze and felt her hand delve into his briefs and then brush against the hardness of his erect cock. Emily gasped and would have pulled back, but he shook his head and guided her fingers to close around him.
“Just like that, Em,” he murmured and groaned as she tightened her grip on him.
Noah did the same then, clasping his hand around hers and helping her delve into his briefs to take his erection in hand. She couldn’t see them under the churning water, but she could feel them, and somehow she liked this initial introduction to their bodies. They each felt so thick and so long, that Emily worried over how she would take them into her body.
And would they want to share her at the same time, she wondered, or be in separate rooms and alternate who had an evening alone with her. The possibilities were endless, but could also be a minefield of danger if someone felt left out or shunned. Emily began to worry over how to proceed with what she’d always wanted and hoped for, because she had no clue how to have them and enjoy such a relationship so that both men felt equal in her eyes and heart.
“I know that look,” Gabriel said and reached up to cup her cheek. “You’re worrying and fretting over something. And since you have a very specific portion of our anatomy in your hands, I can imagine what’s going through that mind of yours.”
“How do we do this?” she asked.
“Well, you see there’s this little talk we could have called the birds and bees…” Noah began playfully, trying to lighten the mood and take her worries away.
Emily teasingly squeezed his cock and he groaned, a sound of pure male pleasure.
“God, do that again!” he begged, and moaned loudly when she closed her fingers around him and then drug them up to the head.
“What do you mean, Emily?” Gabriel asked, feeling the same touch now on his throbbing cock as she began to massage him. “Damn, honey. I won’t be able to concentrate for long if you keep that up.”
“I’m asking… how do we make love if there’s three of us? I don’t want to assume anything or hurt someone’s feelings, because I don’t know what you want or what you prefer. And I don’t even begin to know if you’ll each want privacy with me, or if you…”
“Shhh,” Gabriel cut her off and leaned forward to kiss her. His tongue darted inside Emily’s mouth and he swept it around hers until he knew he had thoroughly distracted her. When he drew away, Emily looked slightly dazed and he smiled that his ploy had worked.
“We intend to share you, Emily. And that means we’ll be together at times, and at others we’ll have moments alone with you,” Gabriel began. “No one will be keeping score or an official count of how many times I hold you versus Noah. And we never, ever want you to worry that one of us is jealous of the other. As long as you’re committed to us both, we’re good.”
“I second that,” said Noah. He reached out and ran his hand over her hair and tucked a lock behind her ear. “I’m going to be looking at you, and only you, so I can block out old Gabe here from time to time. But I won’t lie and tell you it’s not a turn-on seeing you in his arms, because just watching you kiss him minutes ago got my blood pumping. I don’t think I’d feel the same way with any other guy on this planet, but Gabe and I have been together for so long, that we’re brothers. And seeing you with him doesn’t make me jealous, angry, or turned-off. Quite the opposite is true, I gotta say.”
“And there’s no way either of us is leaving the room tonight, Emily,” Gabriel assured her. “This is your first time. Not just with a man, but with us. So, unless you’re completely uncomfortable with having us both in the bed with you, then you’ll be right between us where you belong.”
“I want that,” she nodded. “I could never choose between the two of you. It’s why I never made a move towards either of you. I was so afraid of losing one, if I had the other, that I decided I’d take your friendship if that’s all you could offer me. And I tried to let the dream of something more fall away.”
“Oh, we’re going to have something more. Starting right now,” Gabriel assured her, and then took her in his arms and began to walk out of the hot tub.
Emily wrapped her arms around his neck as he left the water, and she peeked over his shoulder to see Noah only one step behind. Gabriel gently placed her on her feet and then bent to retrieve one of the towels she’d stacked nearby. He set her revolver to the side without comment, determined not to ruin the moment. He tossed Noah the second towel, and together, the two men began to lightly blot the moisture from her body.
“God, Em,” Noah muttered, a mixture of wonder and adoration sounding clear as day in his voice. “You
are so damned beautiful, baby. Do you have any idea?”
“No,” she blushed. “My breasts are too big and my hips are too wide…,” she started to list her flaws, but Noah lightly smacked her butt, startling her from her catalog of complaints. Emily gasped and looked over her shoulder at him.
“None of that, Em,” he warned. “Ever. You’re perfect and I won’t listen to you tear yourself down.”
“Listen to him,” Gabriel rumbled, and then dipped the towel he held between her legs, brushing the plush cotton against her most sensitive folds. “You are absolutely gorgeous. Your breasts are just the right size for us to hold and kiss, and your hips will fit perfectly into our hands when we make love to you. You were made for us, honey, and in just a few minutes you’ll see.”
“Don’t make me wait,” she said breathlessly and reached out to caress Gabriel’s chest. “I’ve waited for you both for so many years. And these last weeks have been the worst. I’ve been terrified that you might get hurt protecting me if you found out what was going on. And I’m still scared to death that you will be. I don’t want to wait, Gabe. Please?” she begged.
And that’s what it was, Emily told herself, begging. She was begging for the chance to finally know what it felt like to be loved by the two men who meant the world to her. Because if she had to hide again or go into some kind of protection program, she could very well be separated from them for God knew how long.
Maybe she was being too impulsive, Emily thought, for following through with the yearnings she’d had forever. This would change everything. Without a doubt. And yet, even with that quiet part of her mind warning her to use caution where her heart was concerned, it was that same heart that won out. It overrode her mind and shut the door on any objections she might voice. She was theirs – that was all that mattered.
Theirs To Claim (Predatory Desires Book 1) Page 6
