Chapter 31

THIRTY-ONE

brAXTON

B eing home regulates me. The sounds and smells are calming. There's no more beeping or a hard bed. The red lights above me bathe me in the glow of their comforting hands as I lie on my bed and take in the feeling of my safe space covering me like a heavy blanket.

"Do you need anything before I go to sleep?" Aella asks.

If I had any windows, the light would stream in surrounding us. It's only noon. But Aella swapped to the night shift to get more time in the factory while the administration wing was empty. So far, she hasn't ventured off the line. Not that I blame her. The shit she volunteered to do for us is dangerous. Part of me wants to tell her she's done trying to get information for us because there's always a price and consequence; she doesn't need to pay it.

"No. I'm fine, Bambi," I grumble, not taking my eyes off the ceiling .

She's moved back in. Her father already knows she's connected to us, and Miles and I didn't want to be apart from her any longer.

A twinge near my wound makes me hiss, and Aella jerks with awareness before rolling over and meeting my eyes with hers. Panic has her alert, and guilt crushes my soul as I watch her go from sleepy and ready to knock out to physically prepared to take on the world for me.

"I'm fine," I tell her, "just a little pain. I won't die."

I regret the words as soon as they're out because I could have.

Her lips turn downward grimly as her hand cups my face gently. "You could've, Brax."

"I know," I relent. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way; it's just… I'll be fine."

I'm not used to anyone caring—other than Miles. The way she looks at me, the way she handles me like I'm made of glass. Sometimes, it's overwhelming because I can feel her becoming more to me. To us. I don't know what to do with all the feelings inside. She's becoming our universe in the way Mom was. In the way that a woman should be to the man who loves her. But there's two of us. Even though we think we can make it work, I wonder if we can.

I also wonder if I shouldn't step back. Let them have their lives together. Even though I know I'm likely falling in love with Aella, he's the best for her.

"What's going on in there?" Aella asks, narrowing her brows as her finger ghosts across my temple.

"Nothing. "

"Something. Enough of something to make you look the saddest I've ever seen you look."

I fake a smile, taking time to look over her beautiful features. Her pouty lips and wavy hair that's a mess because she's letting it air dry. Her cheeks glow in the red lights of the room. Her pulse is hammering behind the flesh of her throat, and her breathing speeds the longer I take to ogle her.

"How can I be sad with someone so beautiful beside me?"

She smirks, hand cupping under my chin as she leans forward. Her lips hover over mine as she whispers, "That's what I'm wondering."

Her confidence makes my lips lift as a chuckle slips past them. "Cocky little thing."

"Mmm, not until I met you two."

There it is. This is a reminder that we will never be just Brax and Aella. We'll always be Brax, Aella, and Miles. While I'm wholeheartedly excited—and thrilled—that Miles has finally admitted his feelings towards me, I'm eager to see where things go.

While Aella is becoming something I can't see myself living without in the future, Miles has always been that for me.

Since the night that he helped me wash off the cold of winter and made me hot cocoa when we were small, even then, before puberty confused my already different brain, I knew he would be a part of my life for the duration. If something goes wrong between us, I'll lose them both.

Miles is home .

Safe.

"You should get some sleep. You had a long night at work."

Her exhaustion is palpable to me as the heartbeat in my chest. She's beat. It's only been a couple of shifts since she swapped to nights. She's not used to the change yet. None of us are.

"I'm not tired," she whispers against my lips, giving them a light peck afterward. I know I need to let her sleep, but she's squashing all the good sense I have inside me right now with how close she's hovering. Her left hand is lying on my thigh; that's also not helping.

"Aella," I groan as she peppers me with small kisses that make my brain feel like it's going to implode if I don't have her tongue against mine in the next five seconds.

"Braxton," she echoes, and it's as if my name is the catalyst in the experiment that causes the reaction. My lips claim hers, head lifting off the pillow. My hands thread into her hair, tugging slightly to give me something to ground myself against her electricity.

When she moans into my kiss, my cock throbs behind my pants.

She slips over my lap beneath the covers we've been lying under, sliding her heat over me.

I pull my lips from hers, and it feels like I have to use every ounce of strength I have to do so. "You really need some sleep."

My throbbing stomach reminds me I was stabbed recently, but I try not to let her know how much the pain affects me. Because as much as I want her to roll over and go to bed, my body wants her to strip my t-shirt she donned for bed off and ride me until she's satisfied.

"I can't sleep," she replies, grinding her slit over my aching cock.

It twitches in answer to her siren call.

I laugh. "I wonder why you can't sleep, Bambi." I hiss as she continues to torment me.

"I think someone needs to help me. I'm too amped up, you see." Her hips gyrate as she glides herself over my raging erection. I don't know if I can hold myself back from coming. She has to stop. It's not the feeling of her grinding on me. It's the dreamy way she's looking at me, as if my giving over to her, my being here, is what she needs most in the world right now. I'm her solace, her landing pad. It's so fucking hot.

"Is that right?" I manage through gritted teeth.

She nods, breathless, as she leans back and lifts my shirt over her beautiful breasts. Her nipples are hard, and her cleft is bare, wetting my sleep pants the higher she takes herself.

"Mhm, that's right," she whimpers, cupping one of her full breasts into her hand. She pinches her nipple, and I nearly combust.

"Fuck, Bambi." The facade of the innocent man slips away as I grip her hips and meet her next thrust with one of my own.

Her head lolls back, and a beautiful song of lust reverberates through the room as her throaty moan escapes her throat. Gripping her hips firmer in my hands, I lift her enough to use one hand to slide my cock out of my pants .

She looks down, watching me as I pump my dick twice. I was caught in her stare. In the pulsing atmosphere of us. I can say it's her all I like, but this feeling, this need to surround ourselves with a bubble and sink into one another at every turn. This is us. It's what we're becoming. It's what we already are.

I can say I'm falling for her all I want. I can deny the truth to myself when faced with it head-on until the end of time, but it's now that I realize I am already in love with Aella Montague. She's the fucking vegetation that's producing the oxygen for the world to feed, and I'm but a speck of life in that world, needing her more and more as each day passes. She is life. She's what's feeding my soul. My lungs. My heart.

When she lines up and slides me inside her, the world tumbles around us.

"Brax," she moans, and I flip her over, driving deep inside her body where I feel she needs me.

It's not like our first time or even the lust-filled moment we had in the hospital room with Miles. This is everything I've never let myself feel before.

The guard wall is shattered, even if only for tonight. She's beyond its bricks, dancing before me like a Greek goddess. Like Aphrodite coaxing Adonis into her bed for the eve.

"God, it's…" her words trail off, but I understand what she means. Each moment we share lately seems like we're adding boards to a house we're building together. The closer we come to the end, the more nervous I get because I don't know if we'll settle into sa id house for the rest of our days or sell it off for profit and go our separate ways.

If this is how love feels, I don't know how people survive it.

Even in the room's silence, only littered with her pants of pleasure, I'm overwhelmed.

Her body grips my cock firmly, and my brain scrambles as I crash my lips to hers, forcing one of her legs up with my hand, pressing into her deeper and deeper with each thrust.

"Fuck," she whimpers, waves of her walls fluttering around me.

"It's too much," I admit, fucking into her harder still. We need more and need it to stop all at the same time.

"Harder, Brax. God… don't stop…"

As she nears the precipice of orgasm, my body and mind near the edges of somewhere scary. Somewhere dark and murky. Uncharted and unclaimed. I'm becoming a new man with her beside me—a new man in a world where she exists.

"Come for me, Bambi. I can't…" My orgasm rocks my body, cum shooting into her before I can think twice.

She arches off the bed as if begging for it to go deeper as she comes around my cock.

During this shared moment, it feels as if the world is telling us something.

Like the universe wants us to see how right this is—this thing between us.

When I finally stop moving, I look down at Aella.

A tear slides from her eye and over her face, heading right for her ear.

My brows furrow. "What's wrong? Did I hurt you?"

The pain of my wound comes back to me now that bliss is moving out and adrenaline is calming. I hiss as I pull out of her and lie beside her, tucking her into my body tightly.

She wipes at her fresh tears. "Nothing. No, you didn't. It was overwhelming. It's felt so… raw. Didn't it? Maybe I'm being stupid."

"No. You're not stupid. I felt it, too."

She nods, locking her eyes on mine. Snuggling into me, she closes them.

On a small sigh, she says, "I love you, Braxton."

I close my eyes, letting her words wash around my battered soul, filling in the cracks and making them whole again.

She's snoring when I finally say, "I love you, sweet Bambi."