He leans in to kiss me and there’s nothing tentative or slow. He bullies his way into my mouth and licks my tongue like he owns it. The kiss is sloppy and passionate, and I feel it down to my toes. He pulls back, then rubs his thumb over my wet lips. “And I want to be on my best game when I have you.” He smirks as he glances at his brother. “Which means more painkillers and more of these heat-rub sessions. I think it’s helped a lot.”
Liam smiles and strokes a hand through my hair. “There’s no rush to do anything more.”
Ryker reaches over me to shove Liam’s shoulder. “Says the guy who got his dick in him first.”
Liam winks, which is rare, almost flirtatious behaviour for him. “If you want to wait, oh, I don’t know, four, five months—”
“My cock will fall off,” Ryker says. He shifts closer, sandwiching me between him and his brother. “And Freddie liked playing with my cock. He wants to take it inside him, don’t you, babe?”
My cheeks burn, and I hide my face against Liam’s chest. Liam takes a deep inhale, smothering me between his and Ryker’s pectoral muscles. I like it but can’t articulate why. But they know, of course they do. It’s their bodies, their warm skin around me, and their fingers carding through my hair that lure me to sleep in their embrace.
My best friends have turned out to be the bestloversI’ve ever had.
25
Ryker
Waking up in bed with Freddieandmy brother is the best feeling in the world. Rolling over with the intent to rush downstairs and make them breakfast isn’t.
The flare of pain in my back isn’t. It’s so bright I’m blinded for a moment. I manage to stand but it doesn’t help my situation. Beneath the horrible ringing in my ears, I pick out my name.
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
“You’re not fine,” Liam whisper-growls back.
He gets up and comes round to my side of the bed looking thoroughly unimpressed at my bent-over stance. I’m most comfortable at a forty-five-degree angle, but I straighten under Liam’s judgment to prove I am in fact fine.
He shakes his head. “You’re an idiot.”
“It took you over thirty years to realise that?”
“Ryker, I knew you were an idiot before I knew what words were . . . What were you doing leaping out of bed like that anyway?”
“I wanted to make you both breakfast.”
Freddie’s still out of it in bed, and we take a moment to gaze at him before remembering we’re mid conversation.
“Heat rub,” Liam orders.
We glance around and Liam finds the tube beneath the bed. I can do it myself, but Liam has other ideas and squirts a generous amount into his palm.
“Turn around.”
I sigh as I do, and he rubs it into my lower back with efficiency, not sexiness. “Was it the window hitting you?”
“That, and how I picked Freddie up off the floor. I didn’t have much leverage on the ladder.”
“Don’t they teach you to bend your knees to life heavy items?”
“Hey,” Freddie murmurs. “I’m not heavy . . .” He sits up, blinks owlishly, then says, “Or anitem.”
I smile his way. “You’d be worth a million dollars if you were.”
“Only a million?” he asks. A deep crease appears at the top of his nose as he takes us in and what we’re doing. “I can do that,” he says, flinging off the duvet.
“No,” Liam says. “He’ll get overexcited if you start touching him again and mess up his back even more.”
Freddie pulls the duvet back over himself—over his crotch to be specific—but neither Liam nor I mention it. Without arousal or heightened emotions, he’s still self-conscious being naked around us. He goes one step further and draws his covered knees up to his chest as he rests against the top of the bed.
