Page 276 of What We Bury

He lifts the shirt off her in one slow motion, like he’s unwrapping something. The shirt comes over her head and she’s bare from the waist up, hair tangled around her shoulders, her breasts flushed and heavy. Milo makes a small reverent sound.

“Look at our girl,” he says, quiet. Almost to himself. “Look at her.”

Knox does. So do I.

Sage stands in the middle of three men looking at her like she’s the only thing in the world, and I watch her face do something I’ve never seen it do—she ducks her head, suddenly shy, like she can’t hold all of us looking at her at once. Like the love is too bright.

Knox catches her chin with one enormous finger and tilts her face back up.

“No,” he says, soft. “Look at us looking at you, Fury. Don’t hide from this.”

She breathes out, shaking. She looks at him. Then at Milo. Then at me. Her eyes lock on mine and I feel it—the moment shechooses to be in the room with us instead of in her head with what Eli said.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Okay,” I say back.

I drop to my knees in front of her.

I’m not the man who makes a production of this. Holden would carry her to the bed. Eli would tell her to obey. Knox would do it slow and silent. Milo would joke his way to her thighs. I just kneel. I press my mouth to her belly, just below her navel, and I breathe her in.

She shivers.

“Micah—”

“I’ve got you.”

I hook my fingers into the waistband of her panties and slide them down. She steps out of them, one foot, then the other.

I press my mouth to her hip. The bone of it. The soft place just inside.

“You’re so beautiful, baby girl,” I murmur into her skin. “Every part of you.”

“Micah.”

“I know.”

I press my mouth to the inside of her thigh and she makes a sound I want to keep.

Above me, Knox shifts so her back is against his chest, and he’s supporting her, hands on her waist. Milo moves in beside them, bends his head to her neck and starts there. Light kisses. The hollow under her ear. The slope of her shoulder. His hand comes up to cup her breast, his thumb dragging across her nipple, slow, and she gasps—sharp, broken—and her hand flies back to grab whatever she can reach, which turns out to be Knox’s head.

He leans over her shoulder and kisses her. She whimpers into his mouth.

“Sensitive,” Milo murmurs, leaning in to replace his thumb with his mouth, sucking her nipple while he teases her other breast. She arches.

I slide my hands up the backs of her thighs while Milo works her chest and Knox kisses her deep. I’m not in a hurry. The whole point of this moment isnot being in a hurry—every man in the room has to be the opposite of fast and rough and cruel, because fast and rough and cruel was what the morning was, and we are nothing like the morning.

I press my mouth to the seam of her thigh. The very top. Where her leg meets her body.

She trembles, tears her mouth from Knox.

“Please,” she breathes.

“Please what, baby girl?”

“Please. I need—Micah, please.”

“Tell me what you need.”