You’re All Grown Up Now

Liliana Grace Harlan POV

Dante didn’t move, but the shift in him was instantaneous. "Stop," he said. His eyes swept over them in a slow, deliberate arc: Jaxon first, then Nikolai, then Elias half-lost in the shadows by the wall. “Could you both stop being so fucking inappropriate for five seconds?” The profanity sounded almost foreign in his velvet mouth. “She’s sitting right here. Listening to every filthy word you’re throwing at her like she’s not even in the room. Back off."

Though they didn’t. The room crackled anyway with their barely restrained argument, voices overlapping in that dangerous, possessive rhythm that made my pulse thunder in my ears and every shallow breath feel stolen from someone else’s lungs. They were debating what I needed, what my body was screaming in silent, humiliating pulses, while I burned alive under the weight of their scrutiny.

Dante kept quiet through all of it. He didn’t interrupt again. Didn’t snap back. He simply studied me, noticing how their words made fresh shame bloom hotter across my cheeks, how my shoulders tried to curl inward like I could disappear into myself, and how I kept trying and failing to hide the restless little shifts of my hips against the damp sheets. He saw the embarrassment they were stoking, and something in his expression tightened, concern sharpening into quiet, unyielding resolve.

He glanced at the others, eyes narrowing with sudden, unmistakable authority.

“Back off,” he yelled. “Drop it. Now. Give her space," and immediately Jaxon’s mouth snapped shut mid-breath. Nikolai’s lazy grin froze, then slowly faded. Elias straightened off the wall as though someone had pulled an invisible leash taut.

The room went still suddenly with the thick hush of men who knew exactly when the line had been crossed and who had just reminded them who held the leash tonight.

Dante didn’t soften, he simply held their stares until each one dropped away, one by one.

Jaxon’s jaw ticked once, but the corner of his mouth still twitched upward, dark amusement refusing to die completely. Nikolai raised both brows in mock innocence, though the hunger in his stare never once dimmed. Elias stayed silent, arms crossed tight across his chest, but the tension rolling off him said he was only waiting patiently for Dante’s leash to slip even a fraction.

They retreated a single step in unison. Nikolai raised an eyebrow but stepped back without argument, hands sliding into his pockets with that lazy grace that always made him look like he was indulging them rather than obeying. Jaxon moved aside too, giving ground with obvious reluctance. Elias exhaled roughly through his nose, arms uncrossing as he leaned back against the wall, eyes still locked on me, memorizing every tremor that ran through my body like he was cataloguing evidence for a crime only he understood.

The sudden absence of them felt like surfacing from underwater. Though Dante stayed exactly where he was, his gloved thumb never stopped its slow, steady stroke over the inside of my wrist, like he could lend me his heartbeat until mine remembered how to beat without panic.

Then Dante turned back to me, the hardness melting instantly into that familiar, sad tenderness, his voice dropping to a whisper meant only for my ears.

“Better?” he asked, and I looked away.

Shame crept hotter across my cheeks, burning brighter than the flush Dante had just diagnosed. Every part of me screamed that he shouldn’t see this version of me, desperate, legs trembling, breath hitching on little broken sounds I couldn’t swallow. 

Dante was the one who’d always been so careful, so controlled, so achingly gentle even when the others turned feral. How could I let him witness the wreckage they’d made of me? How could I bear those sad, tender eyes seeing the mess I’d become?

Then Dante’s voice softened, just for me, a private thing wrapped in quiet command. “Look at me, Liliana.” My name in his mouth was velvet and impossible to disobey.

I lifted my gaze slowly, heart slamming against my ribs so hard I thought he must hear it, and there he was, blonde strands catching the dim light, making him look even younger, even more unfairly adorable. Those big, soft eyes held mine without flinching. No judgment. No mockery. Just him, concern etched so deeply into the gentle lines of his face that it felt like caring too much might break something inside him. The sad, tender pinch of his brows, the gentle parting of his lips like he was afraid one wrong word might shatter me completely.

His gloved hand rose again, slowly, fingertips brushing the underside of my chin with the lightest pressure, enough to guide, never to force. He tilted my face up so I couldn’t hide anymore, so the shame had nowhere left to run.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his thumb stroking once along the edge of my jaw. The latex was cool against my fevered skin at first, then warmed almost instantly.

Slow and soothing, the motion felt like he was petting the storm inside me into stillness, coaxing the frantic rhythm of my pulse to match his own steady one. “Just breathe with me. In… out. That’s it, baby.”

Behind him, the others had gone still, watching and waiting, but for once they didn’t speak. No dark murmurs, no taunting observations.

Dante’s hand slid down to my wrist, fingers encircling it clinically, checking my pulse again, the way he always did whenever I was sick when I was little.

His touch was medical, professional… but it lingered. His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, tracing the frantic flutter there while the others held back waiting, because once Dante said it was okay… They weren’t holding back anymore.

Then Dante spoke calmly. “She’s… she’s fine,” he said to the others, the words almost reluctant, like he hated giving them permission. He turned back to me, softer. “You’re okay,” he repeated, thumb still tracing slow circles over my wrist as though he could smooth the truth into something gentler.

The room shifted. The reverent hush cracked open. Jaxon moved first, that slow, predatory roll of his shoulders carrying him another step closer to the bed. The black silk top stretched obscenely tight beneath the open leather jacket, every carved line of him on obscene display, abs flexing with each breath, pecs rising sharp and defined, nipples peaked and shameless against the clinging fabric. 

He stopped at the foot of the bed before he spoke. “Enough coddling, Doc,” he said but directed at Dante without looking away from me. “She’s not fragile glass. She’s soaked the sheets calling our names. Let her explain what we walked in on.”

Elias pushed off the wall, every line of him coiled tight beneath loose limbs. His hazel eyes had darkened to near-black, pupils swallowing the gold.

“Look at the mess she made on the sheets,” he muttered. “She came so hard she soaked through everything. We hear our names called from the hallway. That’s not an accident. That’s a fucking invitation.” He tilted his head, staring at the dark wet spot like evidence already entered into record. “So tell us, sweetheart. How many fingers? How many times did you come before we got here?”

I yanked my shirt down to my thighs in a frantic, sheepish tug, knuckles white around the hem.

My face dropped, staring at the rumpled bed like it could swallow me whole.

My voice cracked when it finally came out. “I—I thought no one was coming yet…” The words died.

Heat flooded my cheeks, my chest, everywhere. I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t breathe.

Nikolai laughed once, soft, dark, and delighted. His presence pressed in without moving an inch. “Yeah, princess, we gathered that much.” His gaze dropped deliberately to where my thighs clenched together, then lifted slowly back to my face. “Loud. And very, very clear. You weren’t whispering our names to the walls, you were moaning them like a summoning spell.” He licked his lower lip once. "The question is… did it work?”

Dante’s hand tightened fractionally on my wrist, not to hold me down, just to remind me he was still there. His big, soft eyes flicked toward the others with a protective edge. “She doesn’t have to answer anything until she’s ready,” he said quietly, but the coldness beneath the calm was unmistakable.

Jaxon’s sinful grin widened, slow and devastating. He leaned one hand on the footboard, leather creaking, body angled toward me like gravity had changed direction. “She already answered, Dante. With her cunt dripping and our names in her mouth.” His voice dropped lower, intimate, filthy. “Say it out loud, baby. Tell us exactly what you were imagining when you came so hard you ruined these sheets. Was it my mouth? Elias’s hands? Nikolai’s teeth? Or all of us at once?”

My breath hitched sharp and involuntary. The air felt too thick, saturated with leather, smoke, cedar, my own musk, and their combined heat. Every question landed like a touch I hadn’t earned yet.

Elias stepped closer now, “We’re not leaving until we hear it from your lips,” he murmured, voice gravel-rough. “Not the version you think is safe. The real one. The one that had you shaking and soaking and begging for us by name.”

Nikolai tilted his head, his grin turning almost tender in its cruelty. “Come on, princess. You already gave us the performance. Now give us the confession.”

Dante stayed silent, thumb still stroking my wrist in that slow, steady rhythm, like a heartbeat I could borrow when mine refused to behave.

His sad, adorable eyes never left my face, watching, waiting, and ready to catch me if I fell apart completely. He didn’t look shocked. Not even a flicker. Those big, soft eyes simply held me with the same quiet sadness, the same aching tenderness, like he’d already known every filthy, secret thing I was trying to bury beneath layers of shame. He’d known and he still looked at me like I was something worth protecting.

My cheeks flamed so hot I thought I might combust. The others weren’t waiting anymore. They just wanted to hear me say it out loud for them.

Then something snapped me out of the haze.

“Wait…” The word escaped before I could stop it. “Why… why are you all here?” The question tumbled out in a stammer, “I wasn’t expecting… Neither of you.”

Jaxon scoffed, “Your dad asked us to come get you."

My stomach dropped. What—without my permission?

Why the fuck didn’t Dad just call me? Why send them of all people?

First day meeting them, first real moment alone, and now they were seeing me like this. Fuck.

“You don’t have to be ashamed,” Dante said quietly.

He straightened, then lowered himself to sit beside me on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight, drawing him too close. My pulse spiked instantly, hammering beneath his thumb like a trapped bird desperate to break free.

“It’s normal,” he continued, voice calm, slipping into that clinical tone he used when he was trying to soothe. “For adolescent and young adult females post-menarche, masturbation is a common and physiologically healthy method of sexual self-exploration, particularly during periods of heightened hormonal activity such as ovulation or stress response. It serves as a natural outlet for libido, reduces tension, and has documented benefits for mood regulation and pelvic floor health.” He said it so factually, so gently, like he was reading from a textbook he’d written himself.

Trying to make me feel better and like it was normal for me to do.

Though, it only made everything worse because he was right there, seated so close his knee pressed lightly against my thigh, those soft, adorable eyes set in that unfairly youthful baby face staring straight into me.

He looked far too young for a man pushing forty, and beneath it all lived something dangerous, something that made my breath hitch when he looked at me like this, like he could dissect every filthy thought I’d ever had and still find me worth saving.

My pulse thundered louder. My nipples tightened against the damp shirt. I wanted to disappear and crawl into his lap at the same time.

“Yeah,” Jaxon drawled from the foot of the bed, a crooked grin promising every kind of trouble. “You’re all grown up now.” The words dripped with a dark, teasing, possessive filth.

Dante’s phone buzzed sharply in the pocket of his white coat. He dipped his hand inside and pulled it out. I peeked through as I couldn’t help it, and my heart seized when I saw the name lighting up the screen.

Dad.

The phone vibrated again in Dante’s palm, insistent.

Oh fuck no. He was going to tell him. He was going to tell my father what he’d walked in on, as he had always done whenever I was little and got into trouble or probably fell sick.