The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood Book 3) by Nikki Sloane (top e book reader .TXT) 📗

My pulse quickened. “About?”

“I told him that if he truly cares about you, he’ll step aside.”

I stopped breathing. “You did what?”

He gave me a look that I didn’t understand. It was like he’d faced a difficult decision, made his choice, and now he had to see it through. “By his own admission, I can give you things he can’t. Lilith, we can be in a relationship that’s more than just scene partners.”

Clay’s tone was curt. “Has she said she wants that?”

The question momentarily derailed Travis, and he blinked, lost. But then his expression firmed up. “I’m not just talking about dating. I’m talking about,” he took a deep breath, “love.”

It was the same reaction as if Travis had dropped a bomb on the center of the table. I froze, while Clay inhaled sharply.

Love.

The word activated something in Clay. A fight-or-flight response, but instead of getting up and leaving, he leaned forward and spread his hands on the table. He looked like a man willing to fight, to go all in, and it left me breathless.

“Yes,” he glared at Travis, “in the beginning I said I couldn’t give her those things, but now everything is different. The rules keep changing. Every plan I draft gets altered.” His focus snapped to me. “The only thing I can expect is the unexpected.”

My hands were in my lap, and they balled into fists from the way his intense stare drilled into me. “I don’t understand.”

His voice dropped to a hush. “Yeah. Me, either.” His gaze fell to the table. “It feels like I’m building a house and all of a sudden, this entire new section got added and now I’m scrambling to keep it together. To understand how to make it work.”

I got what he was saying. We’d started to build a relationship together, and when Travis was added, it upended that. Didn’t he know he didn’t have to figure it out alone? Yes, he was my dom, but I’d never expect him to have all the answers.

Just as I opened my mouth to tell him, his eyebrows tugged together, and his attention flew to the other man. “The reason why I told you I don’t do dating or love is because my arrangement with her excludes those things. She assured me she didn’t want them. We had a rule that if one of us started to develop feelings, we’d tell each other.”

I somehow sensed where he was going, and tingles washed down my back.

Clay spoke confidently, as if ready to lay it all on the line. “When you kissed her, you broke the rules of the arrangement you had with me.” His gaze flicked my direction. “I broke mine with her a while ago. I’ve had feelings for weeks and not said a thing.”

I gasped. “Why not?”

“Because you told me the harder a guy falls for you, the faster you want out, so I kept the way I felt a secret. I don’t want to lose you. Shit, Lilith, you’re all I can think about these days.”

“But,” I sputtered, “you said you don’t get feelings. You don’t do love.”

“Apparently, I do.”

“Yeah?” Travis’s tone was irritated. “Well, I fell in love with her first.”

I blinked. Really?

“I highly doubt it,” the other man fired back.

How was this possible? I had gone into this relationship not wanting to fall in love, and now both men were saying they were in love with me. It created a war in my head. One side was ecstatic they felt this way, and the other was beyond terrified.

I hated how they both turned and looked at me as if I had to choose, right here, right now. And it seemed like they each expected me to pick them over the other man.

I laced my fingers together and moved, slowly and measured, to set my hands on the tabletop. As I considered how to answer, I stared at the way my hands were joined.

“I think I’m love with you too,” I said.

Since my head was tipped down and I wasn’t looking at either of them, it wasn’t clear who I was talking to. They shifted uneasily in their seats, both ready to ask me who I meant, but I sucked in a deep breath, letting it fill my lungs with air—and hopefully courage.

“I’m in love with both of you,” I admitted. “Together. As a unit.” I looked at one man and then the other. “So, please don’t ask me to choose because I won’t. I can’t. The night when all of us were together? That’s what I want.” I had to revise that, to make sure they understood. “It’s what I need.”

I unlaced my fingers and pressed a hand to my chest in a desperate attempt to shield my heart from tearing in two.

“I’ve never been in love,” I said softly. “Maybe the reason it hasn’t happened before is because I never felt . . . complete.” I declared it in the strongest, most sure voice I possessed. “But I feel that way now with both of you.”

They looked at me as if they’d been tied to their chairs. I saw the struggle raging in their eyes. Maybe they wanted to leave, but also they seemed desperate to stay. Their unwavering gazes were pinned on me.

“And the thing is,” I added, “I think you love each other too.”

Their eyes went enormously wide before narrowing to slits and they turned their suspicious gazes on each other.

I raised my hands, gesturing for them to hear me out. “Maybe it’s platonic love. Clay, you said Travis is your best friend, but you guys are more than that. You both care deeply for me, but you also care about one another. You’re partners to each other, just as much as to me.”

Travis’s expression was unreadable as he considered what I’d said. He didn’t necessarily agree with it, but he didn’t disagree with it either.

His tone was skeptical. “Okay, so . . . how does that work?” He made a face, displeased with himself. “What I