Chapter 11

Atlas

"You're acting like Rome," Luka says a little while later, as we stand outside the house waiting for everyone else. "You never act like Rome. You should be happy."

I look at my second-oldest brother—my favorite if truth be told. Luka is practical and kind. He's even, like I usually am, and he usually offers me wisdom that helps me reset. There's no resetting after this. "Why?"

"You found your incitare. Your fated calix. So many sentinels want that and never find it."

I grunt a sound at him and think that some do, and their calix doesn't want them, my gaze sliding to Samson, who's walking from the garage toward us. "She thinks what we have is temporary, no different than a fucking one-night stand. She asked if I did it for the wings."

Ivy appears at the open front door to the house, drawing my gaze. She lifts her duffle and stops to look behind her. That tell-tale tingle spreads in my belly just at the sight of her, and I figure the gratus is beginning now that incitare has been achieved, that echo of what bonded us now wreaking havoc on my concentration. In the old days, those new to the bond were sequestered away to protect them, because newly bonded sentinels aren't safe. They're rash and impetuous with the need to protect, but they also can't focus with the need for their calix, all- encompassing.

Tate appears in the door with her and takes the strap of her duffle. She says something and offers him a smile.

I growl a sound and stalk up the walkway, Samson laughing behind me. "I've got it," I snap, taking the bag from Tate, swinging it over my head and settling it on my shoulder, then stalk back to my bike, still parked at the end of the walkway. Rationally, I know I don't have anything to be jealous about with my brothers, but there's nothing rational about gratus. I imagine someone talking to her, smiling at her, touching her, fucking her, and that heat of desire shifts to rage.

It's a new feeling. I've never experienced jealousy in my life.

Luka has watched my progress. He might not have experienced incitare, but we have all studied it. We grew up with the stories. Observed Samson go through it. So when he says, "You'll just have to show her how serious you are," I don't discredit him.

"That's what Samson said." I glance at him as he ties on a bag to his bike.

He lifts his chin. "Listen to your older brothers."

Luka nods. "Remember what Gramps used to say about Grams?"

I shake my head. "Gramps said a lot of things."

"That she had him by the balls, but he never wasted an opportunity to show her who was boss."

I smile, imagining his voice saying it. He's been gone many years now, but his presence is never far. "I wonder if he ever said that within Grams' hearing."

Luka and Sampson both laugh. "Doubtful." We all know Grams.

"Hey." Ivy's voice draws me in. She's stopped an arm's length away, but I can feel the bond between us as clearly as if we're touching. It feels like a caress underneath my skin, and is distracting. "Where do you want me?" she asks.

On his cock,Samson's voice rings through our family bond.

Ivy's eyes widen, and she looks at Samson. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Samson throws back his head and laughs. "Welcome to the family." He climbs onto his bike, then fastens the strap of his helmet at the same time Rome stalks from the now-closed house to the rest of us waiting in the drive. Sammy starts his bike, the rumble breaking up everything else.

"Wait," Ivy says and looks at me and shouts. "He did say something. Right?"

Yes, I think to her.

"What the?—"

Luka and Tate start their bikes.

Telepathy. Remember?I say to her inside her head as I hand her the helmet, then climb onto the bike. I scoot forward so she can climb on the back with me.

"How?"

But I start the bike, the engine barking to life and joining the rumble of my brothers' bikes. "I can't hear you," I yell, but I know she can't hear me.

Her brows scrunch up. How? Is this real?

Rome leads us out of the drive, my brothers fall in behind him. I lurch the bike forward, causing Ivy to clamp her arms around my waist, then smoothly guide us down the road after everyone else.

Very real, I say inside her head.

Her arms tighten around me, and for the first time in an hour, I smile.

We ride all day and into the night, not a demon in sight. We're moving fast and with purpose. Just after midnight, Rome pulls off into a little roadside motel with a vacancy sign. It's one of those bungalow-style places with separate buildings for each room, each shaped like little A-frame cabins. There aren't any streetlights, but the dim overhead lights of each cabin illuminate the green doors and the numbers. There are ten of them.

What's going on,Ivy asks only me.

I shrug. We've spent most of our ride practicing the art of telepathy. She's had to learn how to open and close channels so she can keep her thoughts focused to where she wants them. In those hours on the road, she's gotten pretty good, a quick study for someone who hasn't grown up this way.

We need sleep, Rome says through the link and stops his bike right outside the lobby.

I've got more in me,Samson says.

Rome removes his helmet and tucks it under his arm as he walks into the lobby. I don't want to meet a strange family of Sentinels without any sleep, he replies.

Wise big brother.

I follow Rome into the lobby a few minutes later.

Turning and looking at me as I push through the door, he asks, "What are you doing?"

"Getting my own room," I say, slapping the leather gloves I've taken off against my leg.

He tosses a key with a huge plastic number at me, and I catch it against my chest. "Did you really think any of us would share a room with a bonded pair in the first stages of gratus?" He scoffs then nods at the key. "That's the one at the end, the furthest from us. I need some sleep."

I laugh, because he's right. Riding all day long with Ivy's legs framing my hips, her arms wrapped around my waist, practicing telepathy, the only thing I've been thinking about is answering the call of the heat pulsing under my skin. It took every ounce of discipline in me not to pull off the side of the road multiple times to fuck her senseless. "Don't lie. You wish it was you."

"Fuck off and go take care of your calix. She looks like she's about to drop." He nods toward where I've left Ivy. She does look tired, leaning against my bike.

"Thanks," I tell him and turn toward the door.

"Atlas," he says, drawing my attention back to him. "Silence what isn't important. Focus on her."

I nod, perplexed by his strange advice, but grateful nonetheless as I leave the lobby. "Ready?" I ask her when I reach her.

Yes, she says inside my head, but she's forgotten to close the channel.

Yes! Yes! Yes!Samson's voice shouts in our heads with his fake orgasm. He laughs out loud.

"Fuck off, Sammy," Ivy says, flipping him the bird over her head as she walks away.

He shouts another laugh.

I turn toward my brothers with a grin, then push my bike after her. I set the lock on it, then follow her through the doorway into the last cabin on the lot. It's dated on the inside. The walls are faux-wood paneling with a cheap mountain landscape print hanging over the bed, covered with an orange and yellow plaid bedspread, and framed by two bedside tables with all lit wall sconces. There's a small round table, two chairs, a long console with a tiny TV and a door. The room looks old as fuck, but no worse for the wear.

Ivy has dropped her duffle at the end of the bed and appears in the doorway across the room. "A bathroom."

I close the door behind me and lock it, and resist every impulse to jump her, even if my body's thrumming with it. My needs and wants are overshadowed now by my feelings on the matter. I don't know what she wants. She believed what we experienced earlier was a one-time thing, and despite all my efforts to help her see differently, my confidence feels cracked.

"Mind if I take a shower?" she asks.

"Go ahead," I say and remove my jacket. My back is tingling, the wings wanting to be loose. I'd like to test them out, but I have no intention of leaving Ivy alone even if she is safe now. Demons might not be hunting her, but that doesn't mean they aren't around.

She pulls some things from her bag, then retraces her steps to the bathroom, and disappears through the door.

I notice the creak of the door as she shuts it, and when I look up, my heart bursts alive in my chest. The door is cracked open, the light from inside the bathroom slicing through the opening. She starts the shower, and I hear the faint sound of her humming. Indecision slides through me. Did she mean to leave the door open? Is she inviting me to join her? Fuck.

Focus on her, my brother had said.

And I'm not indecisive.

So I act, walking across the room, stripping out of my clothes as I go, ready to face rejection if I have to. At least I'll know. I push the door to the bathroom open. It's a narrow room with a single sink set in a counter where Ivy has laid her things, a mirror with a wall of lights lining the top, a toilet, and a bathtub with a yellow liner with bright orange flowers.

I push it open, just enough to step inside.

Ivy turns, her hair wet and her beautiful body dripping. It's the first time I've seen all of her, and my mouth dries out. I swallow.

"Took you long enough," she says, grabs my face, and kisses me.

I kiss her back.

It isn't gentle.

We're frantic.

Her hands are all over me. Arms, my back, my ass, tugging me against her. "I need you," she says against my mouth.

My hands slide across her wet skin, gripping her hips, then one hand slipping between her legs with purpose. My finger splits her open and pushes into her. "I've been thinking about this all day, beautiful."

She gasps, then skates a hand down over my abs until she's wrapping it around my cock, and the other glides into my hair at my nape, her tongue finding an addictive rhythm with mine.

She breaks the kiss, presses her forehead against my shoulder, and mewls as I insert another finger, as she slides her hand up and down my cock. I grunt. "You're in my head, Atlas. All. Fucking. Day."

"You have no idea," I answer, then press her back up against the wall. "I'm going to fuck you so hard." I grip her thigh, lift, drape it over my hip, then position the head of my cock at her entrance and drive into her.

She cries out. "Oh… yes! Atlas."

She's got a hand between her legs, fingering her clit, as I fuck her, my hands squeezing a hip and a thigh as I drive into her pussy with demanding strokes. Water drips from her hair, coats her body, making her slippery and lush. I want her fucking tits in my mouth and bend to take a drink.

But it isn't enough.

I pull out, turn her into the water spray, force her hands to the front wall of the shower so she's bent at the waist, and pound into her. There's nothing romantic about what we're doing, but fuck if it isn't hot. I withdraw and use the head of my cock to flick her clit.

She pushes back against me, her hands leveraged on the wall, arching her back as I thrust back into her, giving me more angle. "Yes. Fuck me," she says. "Fuck me, Atlas. Harder."

She doesn't have to ask me again.

I grab her hips and slam into her as she gasps, moans, cries out, the frequency gaining strength and momentum.

"Fuck. Fuck," she screams. "Yes. I'm coming. I'm coming."

I slam back into her, gripping her hips and riding out her orgasm by thrusting into her until I find my own release. "Fuck." I grind the words out like rocks through my teeth, as everything built up inside me spurts into her, and her cunt clenches around my cock, spasming with the remnants of her climax, milking me dry. "Ivy! Fuck." I pull her up, her back to my chest and wrap my arms around her, my nose pressed into that space between her shoulder and neck, and bite down and suck. My body tightens, and I feel my back burn with the need to let my wings go, but I concentrate to keep them contained. They'll break shit in this small space. When our shared orgasm passes, and my breathing slows, I hold onto her as if she'll dissolve in my arms. I release the spot I've bitten, lick and kiss her.

She doesn't say anything, just breathes and draws my arms tighter around her, almost as if she wants to keep me.

The hot water sprays us.

Eventually, I grab the soap, and slide it over her arms.

"Here," she says, holding out a hand. "I can do it."

"Let me," I say.

She doesn't argue.

I release her, and soap her back, running my hands across its plains and valleys. Then I drop down, sitting on my heels, and use my hands to soap her perfect ass, kissing each cheek as I do. She giggles, looking at me over her shoulder. With my lathered hands, I wash each of her legs, her feet, and when I'm done with her back, I stand and turn her to face me.

"Atlas…"

"Shh," I tell her. "I'm not finished."

The water rinses the soap, I've left behind, and I lather my hands once more. I start with her neck, sliding my palms down, over her shoulders and arms. Lifting each one, I wash under her arms. Then I give attention to each of her gorgeous breasts. I tweak her nipple and she huffs out some air. I do the other one too—equal treatment—and grin at her.

She blinks, the water having collected in droplets on her eyelashes.

She's so fucking beautiful.

I crouch down, and lather her belly, her hips. With special attention, I concentrate on each leg, drawing up the first foot into my lap to wash it once more. Then the final leg, which leaves one more spot on her body I have yet to pay attention to. I lean forward and slick my tongue over the seam of her pussy.

"Atlas," she gasps, her hands drifting into my hair.

I hum my approval against her, and lift her leg, draping it over my shoulder. Then I spread her apart with my fingers and use my tongue to speak to her—to focus on taking care of her.