Divine Milking System

Chapter 291: 291 | Gratitude is Measured in Future Threesomes

Aurora’s eyebrow went up a fraction of an inch. She looked at me with something new in her expression, something warm and private that lived in the space between what she’d allowed me to see before and what she kept locked behind the playful masks she wore for everyone else. The look said: You gave her what she actually needed, not just what she asked for.

I didn’t say anything. The moment didn’t need my voice in it.

"Well." Aurora set the popcorn down and stretched her arms above her head, the cropped sweater riding up to expose a strip of tanned stomach. "I’m glad my plan worked. You’re welcome, by the way. Both of you. I accept gratitude in the form of chocolate, coffee, and future threesome consideration."

"I’m sorry, what?" Addison said.

"Just throwing it out there."

"Aurora."

"For future reference."

"Aurora Fitzgerald."

"Moving on." Aurora uncurled from her end of the couch and stood, collecting the popcorn bowl and her glass. "I’m going to get more wine. When I come back, I expect you to be wearing clothes, or at minimum a blanket."

She padded into the kitchen. Cabinet doors opened and closed with the unhurried rhythm of someone completely at home in their own space.

Addison and I sat on the ruined couch in silence.

"I should probably." I gestured downward.

"Yeah."

Neither of us moved.

"Your legs still don’t work?"

"My legs work fine. I just." Addison’s jaw tightened, and then something in her face shifted, the armor trying to reassemble itself over the vulnerability I’d spent forty minutes stripping away. The walls wanted to come back up. The sarcasm wanted to reload. The girl who threatened everyone within arm’s reach wanted to return and pretend that the version of her who cried against my chest and whispered please had never existed.

I put my hand on the side of her face.

The armor stopped mid-reconstruction.

"Hey," I said.

"Don’t."

"Hey."

"I said don’t."

"You don’t have to put it back on."

Her brown eyes found mine. The violet contacts had given up entirely at some point during the last forty minutes, one of them folded in the corner of her eye and the other probably lost somewhere in the sheets that no longer existed. Without the purple, her eyes were dark and warm and absolutely terrified in the specific way that only people who desperately want something and have never been allowed to keep it can manage.

"Aurora’s right there," she said.

"Aurora literally orchestrated this."

"I know that. I just." She exhaled, and it was shaky, and she looked furious about the shakiness, which made her jaw clench, which made her look dangerous, which made me want to kiss her again. "I don’t know how to do this part. The fighting and the biting and the, you know, the rough stuff. That’s easy. That’s familiar. But sitting on someone’s lap afterward and being looked at like. Like whatever the fuck you’re doing right now. That’s. I haven’t. Nobody has ever."

She couldn’t finish.

I kissed her forehead. The same thing I’d done with Naomi the first night, the gesture that meant something different from extraction, different from points, different from survival math. Just a person telling another person: I see you. You’re safe here.

Addison Baxter, who carried twin scythes into combat and called her death metal album collection a personality trait and maintained a knife collection of over forty named blades on her dormitory wall, made a very small noise against my chest and pressed her face back into my shoulder.

We stayed like that for about thirty seconds before Aurora returned from the kitchen with a fresh glass of wine and a blanket, which she draped over us without comment.

"Blanket for the naked people. Wine for me. Everyone’s covered."

"Thanks," I managed.

"Don’t thank me yet. You still owe me couch money and I fully intend to collect in the form of future dates." Aurora dropped back into her spot on the couch, this time close enough that her knee pressed against my thigh through the blanket. "Also, Addison. Your left contact is in the corner of your eye. It looks like you’re possessed."

Addison lifted her head, blinked, winced, and pulled the folded contact out with one finger before flicking it onto my chest. It sat there, a tiny transparent disc, because apparently my body was now a disposal surface.

"Better?" Addison asked.

"Much. Your real eyes are prettier anyway."

"Shut the fuck up." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"Love you too, babe."

Addison made a sound in her throat that existed somewhere between a growl and a purr, shifting her weight forward on my lap. The movement sent another jolt through my oversensitized nerves, reminding me exactly where we were still connected and why my brain had temporarily forgotten how to form coherent thoughts.

"Okay," she said, lifting herself up. "Time to be a functional human being."

She pulled off me with a wet sound that was probably the least dignified noise either of us had made all evening, which was saying something considering the last forty minutes. I felt the absence immediately, cold air hitting sensitive skin while my body registered the loss of her warmth with what could only be described as betrayal.

Addison stood on legs that shook slightly but held her weight, grabbed a pair of black lace panties from the floor where they’d been abandoned during the strip game, and pulled them on with the focused efficiency of someone trying very hard not to think about what was currently running down her thighs.

Then she turned around and straddled me again, settling onto my lap through the blanket with her knees bracketing my hips and her hands braced on my shoulders.

"There," she said. "Decent."

Aurora snorted into her wine glass.

If you ignored the milk stains. And the bite marks. And the fact that I had been balls deep in the scariest girl at the academy while her best friend sat three feet away eating popcorn and watching a cooking show.

Aurora changed the channel to a horror movie without asking. The first scene featured a group of teenagers entering an abandoned house while ominous music played. She settled deeper into the couch, her leg still warm against mine through the blanket, and sipped her wine with the contentment of someone whose entire evening had gone exactly according to plan.

My phone buzzed from somewhere on the floor. I ignored it.

It buzzed again. I kept ignoring it.

Third buzz. Addison reached down with one hand, fished the phone out of my crumpled jeans on the floor, and held it up to my face.

Three messages.

Belle: Did you die? Naomi is worried.

Naomi: Are you okay? It’s been hours.

Misato: Monroe. Check in. Now.

Addison read them all over my shoulder and snorted.

"Your other girlfriends want you home." frёeωebɳovel.com

"They’re not all my—"

"Tell them you’re busy." She tossed the phone onto the coffee table without waiting for my input. "You still owe me coffee jellies and I’m not done with you yet."