Page 89 of By All Accounts
“Tell him what?”
“The thing you haven’t told me yet.”
Sophie opened her mouth and closed it again, eyes widening as she searched Daniel’s face for some hint of what he’d meant. He lifted her hand toward his mouth, kissed the diamond at the heart of her engagement ring, and nodded encouragingly.
“Daniel, I?—”
He made a soft noise in the back of his throat that stopped her from whatever she was about to say, and then Sophie turned toward me, a shadowed mask of hope and uncertainty painted across her face. She still had lines on her cheek from the pillow, and I wanted to trace them away.
“I love you,” she whispered, sounding very surprised by the confession as she turned toward Daniel again. “I love him.”
“Me too.”
I screwed my eyes closed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. There was certainly no way I’d heard her right.
“What?” I croaked, arm falling limply to my side.
“I love you,” she said again, sounding far more sure of it than she had the first time.
The air left my lungs in a rush, and I sank down to my knees, and then onto my ass. I propped my forearms on my knees and let my head hang between my legs. It was easier to breathe when the only thing I could see was the intricate pattern of my rug and not the inquisitive want in the depths of Sophie’s eyes.
“Is it a lot?” I muttered.
Daniel laughed, and I dared myself to look up at them.
“The most,” he promised me.
I had been many things in my life to many people—a payday to my mother, a problem for my father, a bandage to Neil and Annette. One thing I’d never been was so completely loved asI felt in that moment, and was it wrong of me to accept it? To pretend the vows Daniel and Sophie planned to speak meant nothing knowing that I had a place in their bed—in their hearts.
Vows can be changed, Lincoln’s voice whispered in the back of my head, which was annoying of him to be right all the time. I realized in that moment both of my brothers, Hunter and Marshall, had found themselves the love of amazing men. Smith, too, of course, but there was something so unique in the way Lincoln moved through the world, it was impossible to be on the receiving end of his affection and not be a step above the general population. And I pressed my fingertips against the corner of my mouth, the place he’d kissed me at lunch the day before and understood I was part of that group, not an exception.
I deserved to love Daniel and Sophie at the same time if that was what I wanted, and I deserved to have their love in return…rings or not.
With a cracking hip, I rolled onto all fours and crawled toward them, resting my forehead against Sophie’s thigh. She threaded her fingers through my hair, and Daniel laid his hand against my shoulder blade.
“I’m in love with you too,” I told her, kissing the top of her knee.
A quiet, content noise fell out of her mouth, and if it was the last thing I ever heard in this life, it would have been enough.
“We’ll figure out the rest together, right?” she asked.
“Right,” Daniel said, fingernail dragging across my shoulder. “Okay?”
Sophie gave my hair a soft tug, and I let myself relax beneath their touch.
“Okay.”
CHAPTER 31
DANIEL
We finished our coffee and Finn gave us a tour of his house, ending in the bedroom instead of the office where we’d started. There weren’t words exchanged, but Sophie took Finn’s hand and led him to his own bed, stripping out of her pajamas on the way. I pushed Finn’s pants down to his ankles and struggled out of my clothes, and then the three of us were on the bed, naked and breathing hard.
I pressed my chest against Finn’s back and reached around, taking his cock into my hand and stroking him from root to tip. He moaned and dropped his head back against my shoulder, entire body shuddering. Sophie crowded him from the front, peppering kisses up his chest and the long curve of his throat.
The distance made sense, and when he’d told me he loved me, alone in his office, I understood him with a startling clarity. Even though he knew Sophie and I were not likethem, Finn still carried the hurt from his last relationship. He did an amazing job at trying to shove it to the back of his mind, his heart, but it was still there. It would always be there, or at least for a very long time. I was lucky to have had so many years with Sophie. There was no chance of heartbreak with her, and I found myself wishing Finn had met her sooner, that I had met him sooner.
“We have to be quick, I think,” Finn murmured, words thick with want. I jerked his cock with long and measured strokes, the tip of his dick grazing over Sophie’s clit with each pull. She writhed in front of him, against him, like the goddess she was, raising her leg and hooking it over mine and Finn’s hip.
