Page 86 of Five

Her knees straddle my head, her hips rocking softly back and forth, stimulating herself as I suck her clit and lick her folds.

My hands press against the soft skin of her ass. Digging in and guiding her over my busy mouth.

“Yes,” she begins to moan. “Oh, fuck… yes.”

I have learned every bit of her body over the summer. Memorized it and burned that memory into my brain. I know what she likes. I know how to make her scream and writhe in every way imaginable.

I play with her asshole. Just a little, just enough, and I know she likes this. It drives her wild and if we weren’t in so much danger right now, she’d be wailing with pleas. So I know she’s biting it back, her teeth pressing into her lip to keep her wildness at bay.

And then I feel her shudder. Her spine goes stiff and her upper body leans all the way over my head. I know she’s pressing her face into the soft comforter, and any moment she will…

“Ahhhh,” she moans into the blanket. Stifling herself. Cutting off the scream that really wants to erupt as she comes all over my face.

I make a promise to myself in this moment.

When this is over, I will never make her stifle that scream again.

Chapter Twenty-Six - Rory

Five slaps my ass and says, “Roll over.”

I have a wild grin on my face when I obey him. Just a big, stupid smile. “Are we done?” I ask.

“Done?” He huffs out a soft laugh as he turns his head to look at me. “We haven’t even started yet.” And then he reaches for me, pulls my arm and says, “Come here,” in that rough voice that makes me instantly melt.

I scoot over, my hand automatically going around his waist, my fingertips tracing the taut muscle edging down into the waistband of his open jeans, until I find his cock. Hard. Practically throbbing.

I glance up at his face, which is filled with his joy. Maybe at what’s coming next, but maybe it’s just the fact that we’re back together again.

When he walked out on me back at the farm, I chased his ass down the stairs. “Fuck you, Five Aston. Just fuck you if you think you’re doing this alone. We. Are. Partners. In life. In death. For eternity. And you don’t get a say in it, mister. Because this is fate. I’ve been yours and you’ve been mine since the beginning of time. And it’s gonna stay that way, whether you like it or not.”

He stopped on the bottom step. His shoulders hunched a little in defeat. But not because he wanted to leave and I was stopping him. I know him better than that. He felt defeated because he knew right then, right there, that whatever was happening, we were gonna handle it together.

I know he just wants to protect me. I get it. But my daddy didn’t raise me to let a man take over. And Five Aston knows this better than anyone.

So he stopped and he listened. His back to me. His head down, eyes probably looking at the floor.

“Whatever’s happening, Five, it’s happening to both of us,” I said.

He looked over his shoulder at me, frowning. “It’s all my fault,” he said.

“No,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He reached for it. Squeezed it. Then glanced over his shoulder so I could see the worry in his eyes.

“It’s got nothing to do with us, Five,” I said. “It’s not our fault that our parents got mixed up with the wrong people when they were our age. We can’t help that. We can’t do anything but deal with the consequences. But we’re gonna be OK,” I say, leaning down to place my head on his shoulder. “We’re gonna come up with a plan and we’re gonna execute it with Aston precision, and it doesn’t even matter if it works, ya know? Because we’re smart. And we’re prepared. And we’ve got people on our side who would turn the whole world upside down to help us get through this. It’s very stupid to think you can do this alone. Very. Fucking. Stupid.”

He let out a long wave of defeat with his breath.

“Because whoever is plotting against us is going to use every resource at their disposal. And we should do the same. Every fucking resource we have.”

“It’s gonna get ugly,” he said, turning to take me in his arms. “It’s gonna get ugly and it’s gonna get people hurt.”

“People are gonna get hurt no matter what we do, Five. And it sucks, I know. But keeping me out of it won’t make that danger go away. The best we can hope for is to keep everyone else back here safe. My sisters and brother. Your sisters and brother. Sparrow and Starling and our parents. I’d do it for them, ya know? And I know you would too.”

“I’d do anything to make it go away, Rory. But—” He reached up to cup my face. We bumped foreheads as we stared into each other’s eyes. “But I can’t lose you in the process. I could live without you if I knew you were safe. But I can’t even imagine living without you if you’re… gone.”

I placed my hand on his chest and felt the wild thumping beat of his heart. He was scared, I realized. Really, really fucking scared. “Then maybe we just give it our all and if one of us goes down, we both go down.”