Chapter 24: Claimed
The word hung between them, a fragile bridge over the chasm of everything unsaid. Dex’s smile faded back into its usual grim line, but his eyes stayed warm, watching her. Cole rocked back on his heels, the tension in his shoulders easing a fraction.
“Okay,” Cole said, his voice softening. “An ‘I don’t know’ we can work with.”
He moved then, not toward her with force, but toward the workbench. He grabbed the half-empty whiskey bottle by the neck, found two relatively clean metal cups among the tools, and poured two fingers into each. He handed one to Dex, who took it without looking away from Jade. Cole held the third cup out to her.
She stared at it. The liquid was amber in the dirty glass.
“A drink,” Cole said. “Not a contract. You look like you’re gonna bolt or puke. Maybe both.”
A shaky laugh escaped her. She took the cup, her fingers brushing his. The whiskey burned her nose, a familiar, smoky scent that now smelled like a door closing. Or opening.
Dex knocked his back in one swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Cole sipped his, watching her over the rim.
Jade took a small sip. Fire traced a path down her throat, settling in her stomach like a lit coal. It steadied her.
“So,” she said, her voice less wispy now. “How does this… ‘circle’ start?”
Dex set his cup down with a deliberate click. “It already has.” He nodded to Cole. A silent signal.
Cole placed his cup beside Dex’s and walked toward her. His steps were slow, measured. He stopped just inches away, well inside her personal space. She could smell the leather of his cut, the faint, clean sweat on his skin, the whiskey on his breath.
“First,” Cole murmured, his blue eyes darkening, “we see if you meant it. That you’re not scared.”
“I am scared,” she breathed, not breaking his gaze.
“Good,” he said, a ghost of his old smirk returning. “You should be.” His hand came up, not to grab, but to gently tuck a loose curl behind her ear. His knuckles grazed her cheek, a touch so light it was almost worse than force. It made her skin prickle with awareness.
Behind him, Dex remained a still, watchful pillar. He had shed his leather jacket earlier, and now he pulled his black t-shirt over his head in one smooth motion. He tossed it onto the bike seat, the movement drawing her eyes.
His torso was a map of ink and violence. Intricate tattoos swirled over hard muscle, but it was the scars that held her: silvered lines, old knife wounds, a knot of burn tissue near his ribs. They were stories in a language she couldn’t read, but understood on a primal level. This was a man who had been carved open and survived. The sight stole her breath.
Cole’s fingers slid from her hair to cradle her jaw. He turned her face back to him. “Eyes on me, baby,” he said softly. “For now.”
He leaned in and kissed her.
It wasn’t like the kiss in the storage room, which had been hard and frantic. This was slow, deliberate. A claiming. His lips were soft but insistent, moving over hers with a confident pressure that demanded a response. Her hand, still holding the whiskey cup, trembled. She let him tilt her head back, let his tongue slide along the seam of her lips. She opened for him.
The taste of him flooded her senses—whiskey, mint gum, something uniquely Cole. Her free hand came up, fingers splaying against the worn leather covering his chest. He made a low sound of approval deep in his throat, his other arm sliding around her waist to pull her flush against him. She could feel the hard line of his belt buckle, the press of his erection through his jeans.
He broke the kiss, leaving her lips tingling. “Still scared?” he whispered, his forehead resting against hers.
“Yes,” she whispered back, her heart hammering.
“Still here?”
She nodded, a small, desperate motion.
He smiled, a real one that reached his eyes. “That’s all we need.”
From behind her, she felt Dex move. He didn’t touch her, but his heat enveloped her back. She was caged between them, Cole’s arm around her front, Dex’s presence solid and immense at her rear.
“Take off the jacket,” Dex’s voice rumbled, close to her ear.
It was an order, but his tone was low, almost coaxing. Her fingers fumbled with the zipper of Cole’s leather cut. She shrugged it off, letting it fall to the oil-stained floor with a heavy thud. The cool garage air raised goosebumps on her arms.
“Now the shirt,” Cole said, his hands moving to the hem of her thin knit top.
She didn’t stop him. He lifted it up and over her head, dropping it to join the jacket. She stood in her jeans and a simple black bra, exposed under the harsh, swaying light. She felt hyper-aware of every pore, every breath.
Dex’s hands settled on her bare shoulders. His palms were broad, warm, calloused. They slid down her arms slowly, a rough caress that made her shiver. He was touching her for the first time without anger, without haste. His thumbs traced the line of her spine through her bra strap.
Cole watched, his eyes hooded. He reached behind her and with a deft flick, released the clasp of her bra. The straps fell slack. Dex’s hands caught the garment as it slid down her arms, taking it away.
The air felt different on her skin. She wanted to cross her arms over her chest, but Cole’s gaze held her, appreciative and dark. He didn’t look away. Neither did Dex, whose hands returned to her waist, his thumbs stroking the sensitive dip just above her hip bones.
“Beautiful,” Cole murmured, almost to himself.
Then his hands were on her breasts, cupping their weight, his thumbs brushing over her nipples. She gasped, arching into the touch without thought. It was overwhelming—Cole’s skilled hands on her front, the hard wall of Dex at her back, the contrasting textures of calloused palm and rough denim.
Dex leaned down, his mouth finding the juncture of her neck and shoulder. He didn’t kiss so much as taste her skin, a hot, open-mouthed press of his lips that quickly turned into a suck. She cried out, her head falling back against his shoulder. He bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to send a jolt of pure, electric pleasure-pain straight to her core. A mark. His mark.
Cole bent his head and took one tightened peak into his mouth. He sucked hard, his tongue lashing the sensitive tip. The dual assault shattered her remaining composure. A low moan tore from her throat, her hands flying up to clutch at Cole’s hair, to reach back and grip Dex’s thigh.
“That’s it,” Cole muttered against her skin, switching to her other breast. “Let go. We’ve got you.”
Dex’s hands moved from her waist to the button of her jeans. He popped it open, dragged the zipper down. The sound was obscenely loud. He slid his hands inside, his rough palms cupping her through the thin cotton of her panties. He palmed her, his fingers finding the heat and wetness already gathered there.
“Soaked,” he growled into her ear, his voice thick with satisfaction. “You’re fucking soaked for us.”
Shame and desire warred within her, a violent, beautiful conflict. He was right. She was. Her body was betraying every one of her protests, weeping for them.
Cole straightened up, his lips glistening. “Jeans off,” he said, his voice now edged with raw hunger.
Between them, they made quick work of it. Dex guided her to step out of her boots while Cole pulled her jeans and panties down her legs in one motion. She was naked then, standing in a pool of discarded clothing, bathed in the garish neon light bleeding through the cracks in the door. BLOOD & BONES. The sign’ reflection painted streaks of red and blue across her skin.
She felt utterly bare, more than just physically. Every pretense, every defense, was stripped away.
Dex turned her slowly to face him. His obsidian eyes raked over her from head to toe, a blunt, possessive appraisal that left her breathless. “On the bench,” he said, his voice leaving no room for question.
The workbench was cleared of tools with a rough sweep of Cole’s arm. Metal clattered to the floor. Dex lifted her as if she weighed nothing, setting her down on the cold, scarred metal surface. The shock of the cold on her heated skin made her gasp.
Cole was there instantly, climbing onto the bench to kneel between her splayed legs. He pushed them wider, his hands firm on her inner thighs. He looked down at the heart of her, exposed and glistening in the uneven light.
“Fuck, look at you,” he breathed, his thumbs spreading her folds. “Perfect.”
He didn’t wait. He bent his head and licked a broad, flat stripe through her slit.
Jade jolted, a sharp cry tearing from her throat. His tongue was hot, insistent, and devastatingly skilled. He worked her with a focus that was almost clinical, alternating between soft flicks at her clit and deep, penetrating strokes that made her hips buck off the bench. He held her down, his arms like iron bands over her thighs.
Dex stood beside the bench, watching, one hand stroking himself through his jeans. He unbuckled his belt, the metallic click another punctuation in the symphony of her unraveling.
She was dissolving under Cole’s mouth, coherence splintering into pure sensation. The rough wood of the bench against her back, the dizzying scent of oil and sex, Cole’s groans of pleasure as he tasted her, the sight of Dex freeing his thick, rigid cock from his jeans.
“Cole,” she begged, not knowing what she was begging for.
Cole pulled back, his chin wet. “Yeah, baby? You want more?”
She could only nod, her body trembling.
“Greedy,” Dex said, his voice a dark caress. He moved to the head of the bench. “Sit up.”
Cole helped her, pulling her up so her back was against Dex’s chest. Dex’s arms came around her, his hands covering her breasts, pinching her nipples with just the right amount of pain. He kissed her neck, his erection pressed against the small of her back.
Cole knelt before her again, his blue eyes blazing. He guided his cock, slick with her wetness and his saliva, to her entrance. “Look at me,” he commanded.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his gaze as he pushed forward, burying himself inside her in one slow, inexorable thrust.
She cried out, her head falling back against Dex’s shoulder. He was thick, stretching her gloriously, filling the desperate, empty ache Cole’s mouth had created.
“Fuck,” Cole hissed, his head dropping forward for a second as he seated himself fully. “So tight. So fucking perfect.”
He began to move, a deep, rhythmic rocking that hit a spot inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids. She could only cling to the arms Dex had wrapped around her, her mouth open in silent, ragged gasps.
Dex’s hand slid down from her breast, over her stomach, into the wet, tangled heat where Cole was pistoning in and out. He found her clit, rubbing rough, tight circles against the swollen nub in time with Cole’s thrusts.
The double stimulation was too much, not enough, everything. A scream built in her chest, trapped by the overwhelming pleasure. Cole’s pace increased, becoming harder, faster. The bench screeched on the concrete floor with each powerful drive of his hips.
“You take him so good,” Dex growled in her ear, his fingers working her clit mercilessly. “You were made for this. For us.”
His words unlocked something. The last fragment of her resistance shattered. She came violently, her body convulsing around Cole’s driving cock, a raw, screaming orgasm that tore through her like a lightning strike. Cole swore, his own control breaking, and with three more brutal thrusts, he spilled into her with a groan, his body shuddering against hers.
He collapsed forward, catching himself on his hands above her, breathing heavily against her neck.
Before the aftershocks had even faded, Dex was moving. He pulled her off the bench, turning her to face him. Her legs were jelly. He held her up, his hands gripping her ass, and lifted her effortlessly. She wrapped her legs around his waist.
Without a word, he carried her to the wall beside the tool chest, pinning her against the cold concrete. She felt Cole’s release trickle down her thigh.
Dex positioned himself at her entrance. His eyes locked on hers, black and burning. “Mine now,” he stated, simply.
He thrust up into her.
He was bigger, thicker. The stretch was intense, almost painful. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders.
“Say it,” he grunted, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The impact drove the air from her lungs.
“Yours,” she choked out, the word ripped from her.
He fucked her against the wall with a single-minded ferocity that was completely different from Cole’s passion. This was a claiming, a statement. Each powerful stroke seemed to drive her higher up the wall, to brand her from the inside. He was everywhere—his scent, his heat, the hard plane of his chest against hers, the brutal, perfect rhythm of his hips.
Cole appeared beside them, his hand stroking her hair, her face. He kissed her shoulder, her cheek. “Take it, Jade,” he murmured, his voice rough with post-orgasm haze. “Take everything he’s giving you.”
She was spiraling again, a new coil of tension winding impossibly tight within her. Dex’s rhythm became erratic, his breath hot and ragged against her neck. With a final, deep drive that seemed to touch her very core, he came with a guttural roar, his body going rigid against hers, pumping his release deep inside her.
He held her there, pinned to the wall, both of them panting, slick with sweat.
Slowly, gently, he lowered her until her feet touched the ground. Her legs buckled. Cole was there instantly, catching her, supporting her weight. He guided her, trembling and spent, to a ragged couch against the far wall, a relic covered by a tarp. He pulled the tarp off and laid her down.
Dex followed, kneeling on the floor beside the couch. He fetched a relatively clean rag, dampened it from a water jug, and began to wipe her stomach, her thighs, with a startling tenderness. Cole sat at her feet, his hand resting on her ankle, a silent, steady presence.
No one spoke. The only sounds were their slowing breath and the distant hum of the city. The neon light continued to paint its red and blue warnings across the ceiling.
Jade lay there, her body a map of new sensations—aches, tenderness, deep satisfaction. The fear was still present, a low hum in the background. But it was now inextricably woven with something else, something darker and more compelling.
She looked from Dex’s bowed head as he tended to her, to Cole’s watchful, sated eyes. The circle was closed. She was inside it.
There was no going back.