Page 44 of Come As You Are
“I’m so sorry, Olivia. I really am.”
“I know you are, and I am, too.”
The cops arrived eventually and took Aaron into custody. The following day was going to be a mess of lawyers and going through Illyria’s records to figure out everything Aaron had stolen, but for now, we had some peace and time to regroup.
We didn’t leave the club until close to two in the morning, and it wasn’t until we were in the car, that Vee asked, “So, who hired me? Was it Aaron or Andrew? Orsino said he had an inside person, so I didn’t have to worry. I had the job at Illyria. That would mean it was Aaron, right?”
Olivia and I looked at each other, and I saw her expression cloud as we both remembered the day Vee arrived in Illyria. Honestly, I couldn’t recall much more than the way Olivia looked at him and how jealous I’d felt.
“That was the day you noticed the inventory was off,” Olivia said to me. “So, I’m going to go with it being Aaron in the clubthat day. But I’m still going to ask Andrew about it.” She sighed and let her head fall against the headrest. “What a fucking day. I can’t imagine what I would have done without the two of you with me.”
“Luckily, you don’t have to,” Vee said from the back seat. “We’ll always be with you from now on.”
Olivia smiled, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment that I’d helped make that possible.
At Olivia’s house, we tumbled into bed with a minimal amount of preparation. I think I actually fell asleep while brushing my teeth, and Vee was already dozing off by the time I made it into the bed. Olivia lay between the two of us, and despite a level of fatigue that was almost painful, I rolled onto my side so I could see her.
“Relax, Liv,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do now, and you need to rest.” I stroked my fingertips down her cheek, and she turned her head to brush her lips over my knuckles.
“You ever have one of those moments when everything you thought you knew about yourself turned out to be wrong?” she asked.
I chuckled darkly. “Almost every day until I met your brother.”
I’d been trying for levity, but my comment brought tears to Liv’s eyes. Apologizing, I wiped them away, but Olivia shook her head.
“I miss him so much,” she said.
Gathering her in my arms, I stroked her hair. “I know. You’ve been working so hard to live up to who he was and what he wanted.”
She nodded against my chest. “I think I forgot about what I wanted because all I could feel was my grief and this deep-seated fear I was fucking up.” Lifting her head, she stared at me. “Thank you for sticking around.”
“Oh, God, Liv, you’d have had to have done a lot to get rid of me.” I took a deep breath. “In case you didn’t realize it, I’ve been in love with you for quite some time.”
At first, I thought I’d pushed too far, my exhausted brain getting away from me and spilling truths I wasn’t prepared to express, but then Olivia lifted her chin and brought our mouths together. It was a sweet and lazy kiss that went on forever, a slow and sultry tango that warmed my core and sent tendrils of desire to all parts of my body. This wasn’t about getting off, it was about expressing how I felt to one of the most amazing people I’d ever known.
When we parted, Olivia sighed. “I was so pissed with you for being such a man-whore,” she said. “But I think it’s because I wanted you so much.” She leaned in and kissed me again.
This time, we began to explore each other’s bodies. As we touched, I became aware of another set of hands running over and around, and then Vee was tangled up with us. “Is this a private party, or can anyone join?” he asked.
“It’s a very exclusive party,” I said as I leaned over Liv’s shoulder to get to his mouth. “Only people I love are allowed.”
Vee stilled, his eyes searching mine. “You love me?” he asked.
“I do.”
“And I do, too,” Olivia said. “Both of you.”
He let out a deep breath. “Thank God, because I’m right there with you.”
And then we were back to kissing and touching, exploring each other with our hands and mouths. Vee was like an otter, twining around us, his teeth and tongue and hands finding their ways into unexpected places that made both Liv and me gasp and redouble our efforts to drive Vee out of his mind.
Exhaustion was forgotten, driven out by the sheer and unmitigated joy of having these two extraordinary people in my arms. I remembered how, for years, Olivia had been my guidinglight, my North Star, my queen, and it humbled me to discover that not only could I be her champion, her ground, her center, but Vee’s as well. My love for this beautiful young man had snuck up on me so stealthily, that I had not been aware of its existence until I spoke the words and named what had been living in my heart.
If I thought about it, I might have fallen for him the day I found him sleeping in the storeroom and asked him to come live with me. But I had other things on my mind.
I rolled up on my elbow so I could watch Olivia and Vee. They were a tangle of legs and arms, Vee’s cock riding the crease of Liv’s thigh. I leaned over her and tugged a nipple into my mouth, loving the softness of her small breasts, the round places on her body. Beneath the ministrations of my tongue, her nipple hardened and stood erect against my teeth.
Her moan as I teased at it was music to my ears, and I loved her gasp as I slipped my hand between her and Vee to take hold of her click and give it a gentle stroke. The hormones Olivia took meant that her click rarely got hard—something Vee and I had had to adjust to—and we were still discovering how to tell she was turned on, just as we were learning a new vocabulary for her body. We still had a ways to go, but tonight, Liv wasn’t difficult to read at all. As soon as I touched her click, she moaned and rocked her hips toward me to get more contact. Vee followed after her, his cock brushing my hand and leaving a damp stripe of precum in its wake.
