Page 184 of Filled

The cork pops. Cruz whoops. Eli distributes glasses and Dante pours, golden bubbles rising in the candlelight, and we settle into our natural configuration—me in the center of the couch, Brady on one side, Cruz on the other, Eli in the armchair, Dante perched on the couch arm beside Brady.

Dante raises his glass.

“To us. To surviving. To whatever comes next.”

“To us,” we echo, and the glasses chime together, and I drink and the bubbles tickle my nose and I think about a month ago, sitting in Victor’s office convinced I’d destroyed everything by existing.

Now this.

The champagne flows. Conversation wanders—Brady’s fight in three weeks, Cruz’s new conditioning program, the house Eli found twenty minutes outside town with five bedrooms and afenced yard and a kitchen big enough for all of us to cook in without elbowing each other.

“Five bedrooms.” Brady turns his glass between his fingers. “Like we’d use five.”

“Guest rooms,” Eli says.

“Office,” Dante adds.

“Sex room,” Cruz says, and Brady chokes on his champagne.

“We are not calling it that,” Eli says.

“What would you call it, Coach?”

“A multipurpose recreational space.”

Cruz’s laugh booms off the walls. “That’s so much filthier. I’m putting that on a plaque.”

I laugh with them, warm and loose from the champagne, and somewhere in the middle of it the energy starts to shift. Cruz’s hand drifts higher on my thigh, thumb tracing lazy circles through my jeans. Brady’s lips brush my bare shoulder, barely a touch, there and gone. Across the room, Eli watches me over the rim of his glass, and his eyes have gone dark in the way that makes my stomach drop through the floor.

I set my glass on the coffee table.

They all notice. Of course they notice. Four sets of eyes find me, and the conversation dies mid-sentence.

“I want to celebrate properly.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “I want all of you. At the same time. The thing we talked about.”

Cruz’s hand freezes on my thigh. Brady inhales sharp through his nose. Dante and Eli exchange a look that holds an entire conversation.

They know what I’m asking. We’ve mapped it out in whispered late-night conversations, discussed positions and preparation and logistics that seemed impossible. Talked about it the way you talk about climbing a mountain you’re not sure exists.

“Princess.” Eli sets his glass down, slow and deliberate. “Say it plainly. I want to hear exactly what you’re asking for.”

Heat crawls up my neck, but I hold his gaze.

“I want all four of you inside me at once. Two in my ass. Two in my pussy. I want to be so full of you there’s no room left for anything else.”

The silence that follows has weight. Cruz exhales, slow and unsteady.

“Fuck,” Brady whispers.

“You’re sure.” Eli’s not asking. He’s confirming.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything. You’ve given me everything. Safety. Family. I want to give you this. I want to feel you claim me so completely that every ghost I’ve got left gets evicted.”

Eli rises from the armchair. He crosses to me, takes my hands, pulls me to my feet, and kisses me slow and thorough, a question and an answer wrapped together. When he pulls back, his eyes search my face.

Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it, because there’s no doubt in me anywhere.

“Okay.” His voice drops, quiet and absolute. “Then we do this right. Slow. Careful. You safeword the second anything feels wrong, and I mean anything.”