Page 73 of Single Mom's Daddies
I press my lips together, trying to keep it together. But Roman holds me tighter, and Victor’s hands are impossibly gentle, and I can’t stop the tears that rise up, thick and stupid and hot.
Ivy should be here. She should be asleep in the other room with her stuffies and her books and her dreams.
Instead, I’m holding on to three men like they’re the only thing keeping me from floating off into the dark.
“You’re allowed to be tired,” Nikolai says. “You’re allowed to want more than a life of hospital visits and pain.”
I turn toward his voice, and he’s there, close enough now that I can feel his breath. I meet his brown, puppy-dog gaze, and I’m not sure why I’m angry with him. “How can you say that? She’s my whole world!”
He leans in and brushes his lips against my temple. “She is. And it’s okay to want something for yourself too. You’re a woman, Saffron. Not a machine. You deserve more than suffering. You deserve the world.”
My heart hurts. I know he’s not wrong—my brain knows it. But my heart screams at me for agreeing with him. How could I want more than to be Ivy’s mom? Isn’t that a betrayal?
It’s not. I know it’s not. And letting them hold me, comfort me…right now, that’s all I want. I pull back from Roman and Victor just enough to look between the three of them. “Stay,” I whisper. “Tonight.”
Victor helps me sit on the edge of the bed. Roman kneels to untie my shoes. Nikolai steps into the bathroom and returns with aglass of water I didn’t ask for but drink anyway. They move around me like a team. Like they’ve done this before.
Like they already know what I need.
I change into a long shirt and leave the bathroom door cracked. When I return, they’ve turned off most of the lights. Only the bedside lamp remains, casting everything in gold and shadow.
I crawl onto the bed and sit back against the headboard.
They follow. Victor sits beside me, Roman at my feet, Nikolai on my other side. No one speaks. I don’t know who moves first. Maybe me. Maybe one of them. But the space between us disappears.
Victor kisses my shoulder—soft, like a question. Roman presses his forehead to my thigh, his breath warm through the fabric. Nikolai’s hand finds mine and threads our fingers together.
The stillness becomes something else entirely.
I lean into Victor and kiss him. His hand cradles my face like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he grips too hard. Roman moves up the bed, his hands on my calves, then my knees, then my hips. His mouth presses over my shirt, the heat of it searing through the cotton. Nikolai shifts closer. His free hand finds the hem of my shirt and slides beneath, palm warm on my waist.
For the first time all day, I really breathe. I don’t know why being surrounded by them means my lungs are working again. I should feel stifled or something, but when I’m in their arms, my body goes loose, and I feel free.
I stop trying to keep track or analyze. I don’t want to. There’s nothing clinical about this. No sequence. No logic. Just sensation crashing through me all at once.
Nikolai kisses the side of my neck, like he’s trying to learn me in inches. Victor’s fingers draw slow circles across my ribs, one hand curled behind my back to pull me closer. Roman is kneeling between my legs, his mouth on the inside of my thigh, hot through the thin cotton.
They don’t rush. They don’t speak. They just move around me like I’m something sacred.
Victor whispers, “We’ve got you, Saffron. You can let go.”
It unravels me. My voice is a ghost. “If I let go, I might lose everything.”
Roman’s voice rumbles between my thighs. “If you don’t let go, she might loseyou.”
Hot tears stream down my cheeks, but they don’t stop. Nikolai helps pull my shirt over my head, and when it’s gone, I suddenly forget how to breathe. The air is thick. The heat between us is dense enough to drown in.
Roman leans up and kisses the space just below my navel. “Beautiful.” Victor kisses the inside of my wrist. Nikolai mouths at my collarbone. Hands everywhere—thighs, hips, shoulders, ribs. They don’t fight for access. They just…move like water around each other. Like they’ve done this before. Like this is natural.
Because somehow, it is.
Roman lifts my hips, and Victor slides my underwear down. Nikolai strokes my cheek as I arch up, trying to remember how I got here. And then Roman’s mouth is on me.
I gasp, head falling back against Nikolai’s chest as he supports me from behind, one arm around my waist, the other cradlingthe side of my face. Victor is beside me, pressing kisses down my arm, along my shoulder, across my breast.
I moan. Quiet. Desperate. Roman’s tongue moves with devastating precision, and my body answers before I can stop it. That tongue of his is deadly, killing my fears with every stroke of my clit. His fingers add pressure outside of me, petting me softly and gradually working their way inside. And then, they’re in. One, then the other, until both press in, spreading me wide. Stretching me. Preparing me.
Then they flip around, dancing on my G-spot until I can’t see straight. He latches onto my clit with his lips and suction, and my moans go ragged. My body heaves on Nik’s lap as the waves near their crest. I’m shaking again, this time for a much better reason. The tears still find their way down my cheeks, and I don’t care anymore. Heat builds, tension throbs, and I’m out of my mind?—
