Chapter 19
Cat
This was so wrong. I should have looked away, but the sight of Tor pinning Misery beneath him captivated me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Miz’s face was flushed, pink crawling down his neck as it arched, his mouth parted as Tor said something I couldn’t quite hear.
But I’d heard them teasing, bickering, flirting like they’d been doing it for years, and it smoothed a tangle from my chest to see them like that.
Eased the guilt I’d carried since Miz snapped at Tor earlier.
Soothed the sharp slice of anxiety that followed me from my dream, too.
In it, I’d been running through a dense forest like the one we slept beneath, but there’d been someone following me.
A woman with a lilting voice that haunted me, calling out taunts and threats in a tone sweeter than syrup.
Then I woke up, and Miz and Tor stole all my attention, chasing the dream far away.
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth when Tor moaned softly, clearly trying to keep quiet but loud enough for his voice to reach me. The husky moan brushed its way down my body like it had intimate knowledge of Tor’s pleasured sounds, and a rhythm of need began to throb within me.
“Shit,” Misery hissed, and I burned to know what had coaxed that response from him, but their bodies were too tightly tangled for me to see. But Tor’s low, gravelly laugh conjured all sorts of images in my mind.
I might not have remembered my family and my past, but there was no black hole of memory when it came to sex, and I pictured hands grasping cocks that dripped precum, needy hips writhing. I pinned my stare to the flush on Miz’s face in time to watch his eyes roll.
“Greedy boy,” Tor laughed softly, and when he shifted them in the grass, I could finally see.
Tor had two fingers buried in Miz’s ass, the undulation of his hand enough for me to imagine the way they would move inside me.
I clenched hard, soaking wet. “You took two fingers like you’ve been desperate for them. Do you need another?”
Miz nodded, his eyes a little hazy, and my heart jolted when he looked in my direction.
I prayed it was too dark for him to see my eyes slam shut; when I cracked them open, his eyes had rolled all the way back so he couldn’t see mine open fully.
Devouring the sight of his pleasure, the way tendons strained in his neck, his back arched, a shudder working its way through him.
“No,” Tor rumbled. “You’re not allowed to come yet. Not until I said so. Understood?”
“Tor,” Miz whined, thrashing his head from side to side, blades of glass adorning his long hair.
I should look away. I will. In a moment, when Misery wasn’t ripping fistfuls of grass from the ground, a powerful convulsion wracking his body.
“Please,” he blurted. “I’m sorry for snapping earlier, I didn’t mean any of it. I love you as you are, I love you so much it physically fucking hurts. Please, Tor.”
Tor snorted. “No.” But he leaned over Miz to kiss him, so beautifully sweet that my heart ached. “And I love you, too.”
The words grabbed my heart in a vice grip, and when I blinked, it was to find myself standing, bathed in the warmth of Tor’s arms, his embrace tight and protective. Like he’d fight the whole world’s population of monsters just to keep me here in his arms.
“I love you,” he said, his voice like melted chocolate—rich and decadent and honeyed. “My cute little succulent.”
In the dream, in the memory, I shoved at his arm before I kissed him.
“The name’s gonna grow on you, one of these days.”
I groaned. “Grow on me? Was that a plant pun?”
Tor’s grin was swift and unapologetic, filling his whole face with wickedness. He was so handsome, so dear to me it hurt.
Something vast and painful hollowed my bones to create a home for itself, slashed my heart into ribbons so it could seep into every crack. Longing. Yearning. I missed him. Or rather, missed who I’d been when I knew him, even if I could only barely grasp the person that was.
Would I ever remember them, or would I just create new memories and pretend the black hole wasn’t there?
Miz whimpered in the forest, and I blinked until my eyes focused on the carnal scene across the small clearing.
His head was thrown back, neck arched, and Tor’s teeth dimpled the flesh of his throat.
Marking him in a way that made my beast vibrate with a possessive growl.
She wanted to mark him, too. So did I. I wanted to leave the impression of my teeth in his neck so there could be no doubt that I was here, that I’d existed. Just in case I forgot everything again.
“Please,” Misery blurted, squirming as Tor’s fingers moved in and out of him, transforming the composed, glare-eyed man I’d ridden beside all day into a gasping, pleading creature.
“Hm.” Tor tilted his head, considering him. “What do you think, Cat? Should we let him come?” he asked with such soft severity that my heart skipped.