Chapter 34
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Iris
W akefulness comes in stages and, this time, I’m no longer in a haze, feverish, out of my mind for a man—for one of my two men. I’m no longer in pain and driven by the urge to rut.
My body does ache, but in places I didn’t know could. Between my thighs, my throat, my ass, the muscles in my thighs. Strange muscles like they’ve sprung up new.
What’s it been? A day?
I look around.
I’m alone. And thirsty. I clamber to my feet and pull one of the soft blankets around my naked, bruised and marked body.
Exhaustion hits me in a wave and my legs almost crumple. I might be out of the woods with the heat, but I’m not all the way through. I’m both lead and boneless but my throat and tongue demand slaking to stop that ache.
So I try to focus, pushing my tangled hair out of my eyes and stagger to the door.
It’s not locked.
I turn the handle and wobble like a drunk up the stairs. The hall I’m in is narrow, but I know it. There are the stairs to the rest of their home, and the short part of the hall to the bar. I can’t face the stairs and the bar has water.
I push into there, and it takes me a few moments to adjust to the light. Not a lot, but more than in the basement.
The bar’s empty, and I glance at the mirror where the bottles are and nearly shriek at my banshee-like state.
I fumble for a glass and grab the gun and hit the button named water, filling it to the brim and then gulping it down.
Better, I sag against a stool.
Where are they?
They must be upstairs. No way would they leave me.
I breathe in the clean air, and it holds the faintest scent of cigarettes, cigar smoke, spilled beer, but over that is lemon from whatever they use to clean it. And the scarred tables gleam black.
It’s nothing like the leather and berry scent imbued with the musk of sex in the nesting room. And somehow I need that. So I turn and stumble out, down the stairs again, and as the light from the open door streams in, it catches on two bottles.
I’m still thirsty.
I close the door, drop the blanket and basically crawl to them, dragging other blankets with me. There’s a lamp that I turn up so the room glows a golden hue to the orange it was before, and I pick up the water and sip it.
Then I almost knock over a glass, reaching for the bottle of whiskey.
Not caring it’s straight, a part of my mind latching onto I’m still in heat, the dregs, anyway, and the booze is going to help knock me out. I fill up the glass and down it, sputtering. Then again.
A heat spreads similar in a way to the aftermath of sex, where things are languid, warm, fuzzy. And then my stomach rumbles.
The last thing I want to do is face more stairs.
Climbing the stairs from the basement to the ground floor took a lot.
I don’t want to go searching for a kitchen.
And why haven’t they come looking for me?
You’d think they know I’m awake, like I know Xavier’s moving about on the top floor, even though I can’t hear him, I can feel him like he’s in my marrow.
But I spy a package of crackers. Salty, plain, and I rip into the cardboard and then the foil, stuffing a handful into my mouth.
After a while, I slow down my little round table of eat, drink water, drink whiskey, and repeat. My stomach’s full and my eyes can’t stay open.
I snuggle down, and in my head I call out, Where are you?
But before I get any kind of reply, the world fades to dreams.
Blue eyes are on me when I wake.
My heart skips a beat, and in the golden light his tattoos come alive. The scar somehow softened.
Good. You’re awake. Better?
I rise to my knees and crawl to him, the flick of fire in those blue depths lick at my clit. “I’m good. I think. Sore. You and Killian were gone when I woke.”
He smiles and nods next to me, and I pick up the mini, the screen is slightly cracked but it works.
Xavier pulls out his, eyes on my breasts for a long moment before he sighs and focuses on the tiny tablet, ridiculously small in his hand. But his fingers fly over the screen.
Xavier
Good evening, cupcake, how do you really feel?
“Fine.”
Xavier
Mr. Scarsby would like to extend any formal apologies if a lady of your standing was harmed in any way.
Is he being funny?
Xavier
Your thighs are a little bruised, and for that, I apologize. The heathen Mr. Black probably does not.
I think he’s being funny, and it makes my heart squeeze. I press my thighs together. The muscles are sore but… Shit. Something blooms hard in me as I push them together, like a light or…I don’t know how to describe it.
I look down and my heart starts to beat like a bird’s wings as it works to gain height to soar.
Two sets of teeth marks on each inner thigh. Perfect, beautiful, almost…glowing.
The glowing part is just the light on my juices as they slick my thighs, because the man is a complete turn on. And now I know what he can do.
I suck in a sharp breath as he turns his head.
Xavier pulls down the neck of his black tee. A smaller set of teeth prints on him.
I know what it all means. We’ve marked each other. Like mates. But are we mates?
I’m filled with a sense of right, of belonging, but some people mate and mark and then abandon. It’s harder, but it’s done. I’ve seen those sad angst-filled romances. I’m pretty sure Stephan starred in some as the one who picks up the pieces and wins and re-bites the girl.
But for now…
I’m theirs.
Are they then mine?
He seems to pick up that part.
My screen lights up.
Xavier
Mr. Black has the same, on his side. Left if you’d like to know, on the ribs. You’re a violent thing. I can let it slide but I’m sure he’ll punish.
“Punish?”
Xavier
Something tells me you’ll like it.
He pauses then writes some more.
Xavier
And I like to watch. Both Mr. Scarsby and Mr. Black are depraved.
Now I throb.
“He isn’t here now, though. So are you just going to stare?”
The corner of his mouth lifts.
Another deep throb so close to my memory of orgasm I want to melt.
I type back.
Miss Gardener would like to know what Mr. Scarsby intends to do.
Xavier
Do?
I nod. “Now.”
Xavier
This.
He dumps the mini and mine, and he stands, unbuckling his pants. Oh his cock is beautiful, thick. Gently curved. I’ve only seen them in those stolen moments of porn, but this is the best one ever. Well, okay, so is Killian’s but he isn’t here and right now, this one is the one I want.
I take him in my hand and lick a path up his length, his cock twitching and the sharp intake of breath sends shivers down through me. I lick the head and the pearl of precum.
I want to see how deep I can take him, if I can fit this man’s cock all the way in when he knots.
But as I go to suck him in, I hear him.
No.
Xavier takes me and pushes me down, spreads my thighs, and I’m not prepared for his onslaught, how slow and deliberate he is with each stroke of his tongue.
He sucks on my outer lips, then licks along them, pushing his tongue into me. I want his mouth on my clit. I want his cock.
You are mine. Ours. Fuck, you’re delicious. You taste so good, sweet, salt, and that magic Iris taste, something that haunts.
Oh god…those words, the light accent, the savage need.
Echoing in me.
I clutch at his head, fingers slipping over the stubble, and I’m suddenly winded as he moves one arm up, sweeping back mine to pin them over my head.
His gaze burns into me.
I don’t spank. Killian does. But I also know ways to punish, brat. Watch it.
The shiver that ripples through me is pure, unadulterated want.
Then he pushes two fingers into me. He hits home hard and the rough stretch and slam as he takes me steals my breath. Xavier doesn’t just hook his fingers to rub against that spot but he hooks something in my soul that makes me rock up into him.
“Fucking suck my clit, you ass.” I push the words out.
His laughter reverberates through me. Miss Gardener. Are you treating me as your servant?
“If it’s for this, yes. Do my bidding.” And something breaks because he’s pushed me to the edge, but he won’t take that final step. He’s letting the pressure linger, but I can’t fall and burst into wild pleasure without his mouth on my clit. “Please.”
Anything for you.
His mouth clamps over my clit, and he sucks, his tongue beating against that nub and I come hard, convulsing and clenching down on his fingers.
I’m lost in the orgasm, and it rolls through me as I move through the air. My back hits the wall and he loops my legs over his arms and then he fucks into me. One deep push until his balls touch my skin.
I’m still coming so it takes me a moment to realize where he is. My ass. He went from zero to balls to the damn wall in seconds and these aren’t even my words. They are his in my head and I’m thinking them with him.
He’s in me deep, and he thrusts hard, and the orgasm is toppled by a second one. He suddenly starts to knot, and I scream out as the pleasure it unleashes makes the orgasm right before it pales.
“Yes, yes!” I cry as he bites hard on the edge of my shoulder.
When we’re done, someone claps. I open my eyes.
“I think,” Killian says, walking up to us as Xavier pulls out, and I slide a little, “I’ll add watching to my list of things to do. That was hot.”
He takes me from Xavier and eases me down onto the nest, on wobbly hands and knees and he gets behind me, the sound of his zip sending delight swirling. I’m a monster, a deviant, because I want more.
His cock pushes at my pussy, but he doesn’t plunge in. Not yet. And I quiver.
“Know what’s better?” he asks.
My voice is thick when I say, “No.”
“This.”
And he slams in, sending me tumbling into bliss all over again.