Chapter 42

FORTY-TWO

MILES

T he room is still, other than the overly dolled-up news anchor on the screen trolling on and on about something neither of us cares about. Aella just dropped the bomb about Mom, and I'm reeling.

The doctor had just given me two different medicines and told me they'd both kick in and make me a little loopy. For a moment after she told me Mom was alive, I hoped it was a hallucination, but I know it's not. I feel alright so far, even as the warm fingers of the meds dance in my veins.

She's alive.

She left us.

With him.

Dad had turned into an angry drunk about the time we got Braxton. Sure, he'd have his days where he was lucid, and glimpses of the remarkable man he used to be would shine through. But he usually had a bottle in his hand, and anger fueled him .

Mom usually caught the brunt of it, so Brax and I didn't even see his ire until she left. When the cops came to the house to tell us he was arrested for murder, it was the best day of our lives.

He'd built the Cobras in an alcohol-induced stupor, his anger wanting Mom back so much that he'd give anything to find her. The years he was focused on finding and getting her back were the best because he'd only come for us when he was far too in his cups to remember his mission.

I don't blame her for running. I know Brax, and I will need to process this further, and it will hurt for a while, but I don't blame her for it. She saw a chance and ran. She probably thought he'd never hurt us. She thought she was the problem.

But she wasn't, he was.

Tingles move through my body as narcotics do their job and take away the throbbing pain in my back. There are stitches galore, and the doctor had been adamant I refrain from anything other than laying here like a useless piece of shit. But with Aella over my lap, she's giving me the perfect out.

The perfect distraction is not only from the external pain but also from the internal pain.

"Princess," I plead as she lifts her head off my shoulder and looks deep into my eyes.

"Are you okay? Am I hurting you?"

Even though a small part of me loves that she's worried about me, I'd instead flip her over and show her how much she's not hurting me. She's what kept me alive while I was dangling on those hooks. Thoughts of her between Brax and I. Images of her on her knees before me, making the pain go away.

She's what kept me going.

"I need you to pull my cock out of my sweats, and then I need…"

She gasps, cutting me off. "I don't think the doctor will like?—"

"I don't give a fuck what that quack wants or likes. I fucking need you. Are you going to deny me?"

She bites her lip, and I growl. "Aella," I plead, my eyes begging her to give me anything.

She leans forward and kisses me again; like before, the kiss deepens. Even with Mom alive, the world is still right because Aella is here.

Her tongue skates against my lips as it passes them, finding mine with swirls of movement, and my hands squeeze her ass cheeks through Braxton's boxers.

Brax took her because he wanted her. I kept her because she was a way into that fucking company. Now, she's more than a pawn. She keeps us moving when everything else is going to shit. She's the connection between Brax and me.

The link.

She pulls back, panting, her pupils blown. "No. We can't. You'll hurt more."

I give her a goofy, medicated grin. "Princess, I don't feel shit. But I want to. I want to feel your warm, tight pussy slide down the shaft of my cock. I want to feel how each tug takes me closer to spilling inside you. I want to feel your shallow breaths on my face as you ride me. But you're being a stubborn princess," I taunt .

She's breathing shallowly. My words have affected her as they had me. I'm hard as fucking steel beneath her, and each of my heartbeats throbs through my dick.

Her eyes calculate for another moment before she reaches down and pulls me out of the sweats Brax and the doctor had gotten me into once I was cleaned and stitched.

I hiss at the soft feel of her hand gripping me. "That a girl. Now take Braxton's boxers off and let me feel every inch of that wet pussy. I know you're wet for me."

She strokes up and down me a few times, testing my reaction.

She looks towards the door, likely wondering if she should lock it. "Leave it open, princess. Let them come in and watch if they'd like. But if they do, don't you dare fucking stop."

She turns to me, breathless, before moving off me to remove Braxton's boxers, tossing them onto the floor.

"Are you sure…"

I smack the side of her ass, which costs me a twinge of pain that overrides the painkillers. "Don't toy with me."

She bites her lip as she uses my shoulders as leverage. I could tell her it hurt, but she'd stop. Fuck, if she stops, I'll surely die.

When the tip of me meets her heated, drenched center, I moan a little too loudly. "There you go. God, take all of me," I beg, greedy for more.

She painstakingly sinks into me in one fluid motion that makes my eyes cross .

"Fuck," I groan, letting my head drop back and my hands grip her hips.

When she's acquainted with how my dick stretches her, she finally rides up and down my length, and I'm fucking gone.

My eyes drink in how I disappear into her body while simultaneously feeling her grip around me as she fucks me.

"God, even if this kills me, this was the way to go," I tell her.

She looks at me with fear, but as she picks up her pace, my injuries are forgotten. She wraps her arms behind my head, leaning forward a little, and then loses herself. Rocking back and forth on me while her clit brushes over the top of me, she kisses me hard and deep.

"Didn't the fucking doctor tell you not to do a thing that would open your goddamned stitches?" Braxton's voice sounds off through the room.

But Aella doesn't stop, and it's why I have no words to answer.

I look at him over her shoulder, his dick hardening in his pants as he watches us.

Our moans and panted breaths are all we can give him. But he's quickly under the same spell and forgets his anger. Brax gets on the bed, coming up behind Aella in between my spread-open legs, and his hand comes around and disappears under the shirt she's wearing.

She falls forward, her forehead landing on mine as he toys with her clit .

"Neither of you can behave to save your lives," he grumbles, even as he's helping her come close to climax.

"Behaving is for the weak," I grit out as Aella lets out a moan that has my eyes rolling back in my head.

"God forbid you admit defeat, hm?" Brax taunts over Aella's shoulder.

I open my mouth to retort, but I feel his fingers against my dick, pressing up against it and adding friction.

Aella stops moving. "What… No, it's too much."

He has two fingers against my cock, angled to shove inside her when she fucks me. It'll stretch the shit out of her pussy, and I can't fucking wait.

"You'll take what we give you, Bambi. Now, fuck my brother so I can watch," he tells her, a teasing smirk added in for my pleasure.

Thoughts of his mouth on my cock have played on my fucking brain since it happened. But this, this is going to live in my head for the rest of my days, rent-fucking-free.

She sits down, testing. Her moan tangles with bliss and pain as we both stretch her pussy to its limits. But by the fourth stroke, she's acclimated and leaning back into Braxton's body as she screams unbidden into the room.

"Good girl," he praises, and my cock jerks against his fingers.

Our eyes meet as he bites the shell of Aella's ear, causing her to scream louder.

"You're going to come for my brother and me, aren't you, Bambi?"

"Yes!" she breathes. "Yes! "

It has my balls tightening.

"This wrecked pussy is ours, princess!" I add, orgasm racing through my veins like lightning.

"Yours!" she agrees. She's on another plane of existence. One where betrayal doesn't matter; all that matters is us three.

I'll spend the rest of my fucking days there with her. I know Braxton will, too.

"That a girl," Braxton says as Aella throws her head back and screams through an orgasm that has her crushing his fingers against my dick inside her.

I lose control and follow, pulsing against Braxton's fingers, cum shooting inside Aella.

I never thought I'd have someone I felt so strongly about, and somehow, I got lucky enough to have two. So even when the pain slams back to me, when adrenaline clears out, I feel blessed.

I'll spend the rest of my life chasing sunsets with the two people who mean the most besides me.

No one's speaking since what happened in the bedroom. Brax brought a table and chairs into my room so that we all could have breakfast—that Sully cooked—together. The mood in the room is strange. The vibe has me on edge.

Aella is pushing eggs around on her plate, all while Brax sips coffee and eyes both of us over the rim of his mug .

Aella sighs, exasperated with tip-toeing around whatever this odd mood is. "I think we should just bite the fucking bullet."

Brax narrows his brows over his mug. There's still a skittering tension between us all. Especially after what had just happened between the three of us.

I think we just needed it. We're also getting more comfortable together as a whole. That moment showed us all that. So, I'm glad it happened, even if the doctor had to give me more pain medicine afterward, with a narrow, knowing gaze.

"Bite the bullet about what, Bambi? You'll need to be more specific." Braxton's lip curls into a sinful grin, and she rolls her eyes.

"You know what! Don't act ignorant." She bites out.

"No. We don't," I add. "For all we know, you could infer you want to bite the bullet and let one of us fuck that plump ass of yours."

She bursts into laughter, in utter disbelief at the two of us and how we can play off something so profound—masters at evading.

"I mean, we should meet with your mother and my father. Sort this out."

A look passes between Brax and me, one that tells me there's something else I don't know. I steel my insides. I don't know if I can handle any more.

"There's something we should probably tell you, princess."

"Yeah," Brax adds, scrubbing his hand through his hair before pushing his plate away. "She should know beforehand. "

"I should know what?"

Nerves toil in my stomach the longer they look. I look at Brax, silently deciding which of us will tell her.

I sigh, losing the stand-off. "Your father is involved with the Jackals. I don't know how much he knew about my capture."

"But," she pauses, working things out in her brain before speaking again, "he told me you were missing. Why would he come and tell me?"

Brax shrugs. "To paint the portrait of innocence, most likely."

"The man in the bathroom?" she asks, voice cracking.

I sit forward, wincing against the pain in my back. "We don't know that he was involved in that, princess. That was more than likely Vito trying to get back at me. But we don't know for certain. What I know is your father has gotten himself tangled with them, trafficking drugs through his company for them. With them."

The news slams into her, and I can almost see her ripple against it. "You thought it's what happened to your mom, right? That she found out too much?"

I nod. "As soon as I worked it out, I thought that was the answer. Then, I got home and discovered that her disappearance was completely unrelated. It seems we stumbled on this drug operation amid the other investigation into our mom."

She takes a deep, steadying breath. "I thought that eventually we could come together. You'd have your mom, and I could get onto better terms with my dad…eventually. But, this? "

"We know," Brax says.

"What do we do? What are the next steps?" she asks.

"That's what we need to figure out," Brax says, giving me a look that says no Cobra is making a fucking move until their leader is back on his feet.

Because we strike as a quiver.