Chapter 3
3
Anya
Y ou’re not safe here.
I know that voice. I know her. The long, grey hair she keeps combed into a tight bun at the back of her neck. Her waspy figure wrapped in black satin and lace. A dress befitting a mother in mourning. The tears in her tired, blue eyes. Blue eyes like mine.
You’re not safe here, Anya, not anymore.
Why? I ask her.
There’s a photo on the side table to my right. A mahogany frame holds everything I knew about my life before it was shattered. I see the photo clearly now. A man and a woman, smiling at the camera. The look on the man’s face used to make me feel safe. The woman’s eyes inspired faith in my heart. And the two children standing between them. The tall boy with platinum hair and the sky in his gaze. The little girl holding on to him with a toothy grin. That’s me. I’m the little girl.
We were happy.
Why can’t I stay here?
Because he’s in town, Anya. He’s been spotted by the library.
Where do I go?
As far away from here as possible, the old woman says . I’m sorry, Anya. But you have to go. He’s coming for you. And you know he won’t stop until he finds you.
He won’t stop until he finds me.
Who is he?
Where am I?
I know this house. I used to come here in the summer for days at a time. There was a swing in the backyard made of wood and painted white. My brother would fling me as high as that thing would go.
And then we’d sit in the garden. He would watch me paint.
Aleks, I whisper. He’s not here.
Anya, you have to leave. Take this with you, the old woman says. I can’t keep you safe. I wish I could.
I cry out when his face emerges from the shadows. I’m having a nightmare wrapped inside a memory, because I have lived through this. I remember the dread, the horror of having to leave again. It broke me having to say goodbye to her.
The fear of losing her, too.
But he’s coming. I can almost hear him laughing.
You should be thankful I’m willing to marry you. No other man would want a fat girl like you .
Tears stream down my face as I wake up crying. The house is gone. The photo with its mahogany frame… gone. Everything is gone, and I’m left with the gaping holes in my memory once again, with no understanding of who I am or where I came from. I’m crying my heart out, face-down on the pillow before I hear Booker’s voice.
“Hey, hey,” he coos gently as he takes me in his arms.
The fine wool of his sweater tickles my burning cheeks. “I wasn’t safe,” I manage, trying to make sense of what I can still grasp from the dream. “I… I wasn’t safe.”
“You’re safe now,” Booker says.
The fear subsides, and the comfort of his protection brings me back into a full, calm consciousness. My head hurts, but the migraines are getting milder with each passing day.
It’s been four days now.
Four.
A lifetime for me.
“It was just a bad dream,” I mumble as I start taking deeper breaths.
My body reacts to Booker’s, surprising me. After what happened with Chance, I didn’t imagine, I didn’t consider… Yet here I sit, in the same bed, my temperature rising slowly. The chemical reactions are beyond my control, but I’m startled, nonetheless, and pull back.
He gives me a curious look, his dark hair falling over his forehead. It casts a shadow over the wilderness in his eyes. “Are you okay?” Booker asks.
“I don’t know how to define okay at this point,” I reply with a deep sigh.
“Do you remember anything more?” Booker shifts closer to the edge of the bed, his gaze set on mine. “What was the nightmare about?”
“It’s fading already,” I say. “That’s the sucky part. One moment, I feel like I’m grasping everything so firmly in my hand, and the next… poof! Gone. Go back to bumbling in the dark, Anya.”
I pause, realizing I did retain a few bits and pieces, however. “Hold on. My mom and dad. I saw them in a picture. And my brother, Aleks.”
“You remember a photograph.”
“Yes, and an old lady. I think we’re related. She had eyes like mine. Maybe my grandmother? I can’t find a name for her.” I gasp as a burgeoning headache threatens to ruin everything.
Booker covers my hand with his on top of the furry pelt. “Don’t force it.”
“Still no cell signal?” I ask him.
“I’m sorry, no. It’s inconvenient for us, too, because we have no idea what’s going on out there. But it does look like the blizzard is beginning to slow down slightly. There are longer pauses when the snowfall stops.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the clouds are scattering. We should be seeing some clear skies in a couple of days, tops,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
I give him a warm smile. “Much better, thanks to you and your brothers.”
“We’re just doing the best we can with what we’ve got.”
“Why won’t you tell me everything you know about me? I can take it.”
Booker gets up and walks over to the window. There’s not much to see out there. Nico cleared some of the snow at some point earlier in the day, but it’s piling back up against the glass, frosted flowers stretching all over.
Carefully, I slip out from under the covers and let my bare feet touch the hardwood floor, welcoming the subtle chill as it travels through my heels and up my calves. The right ankle and knee are still giving me some trouble, but I’m regaining more and more of my mobility as I eat, sleep, and drink plenty of water.
“Tell me,” I insist. “I need to know. And don’t think I didn’t notice how you’re all tiptoeing around the subject.”
“The doctor said it’s not healthy for you to force it. All you need to know, for the time being, is that you are safe here, and that we will do everything in our power to take care of you.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to do for now,” Booker replies.
Anger gets the better of me. “You’re keeping things from me. You’re keeping my life from me!”
“I’m sorry, Anya. Someday you’ll understand. It’s for your own good.”
“I’m not sure what’s good for me anymore,” I snap. Just as I’m about to take a step in his direction, the floor vanishes from under my feet.
Booker reaches me with lightning speed and helps me sit back down, his strong hands making my body surprisingly obedient. “You stubborn girl.”
“I’m fine,” I grumble, annoyed at my own inability to heal faster. Yet another impromptu bout of vertigo. I’ve had a few of those since I first woke up in the car. “I’ll be fine.”
But he doesn’t leave my side. I feel tiny, sitting next to him. He’s big, packed with muscles underneath that sweater. The ease with which he and his brother can lift me up and carry me around makes me feel like I’m light as a feather, but every time I look at myself in the mirror, I feel… uneasy.
“Anya, for what it’s worth, I can tell you one thing.”
“What’s that?” I mutter, slightly pouting as I stare at my feet.
“You are the strongest and most resilient woman I have ever met,” Booker says. “You’ve been through a lot, and by some miracle, you’re still kicking and breathing. This accident? It’s just another bump in the road for you. And I know you’ll get over it.”
I give him a curious look. “What am I like?”
“Good question,” he laughs lightly, and I love how his eyes shine as he remembers things I cannot. “I can answer that. Let’s see… You’re sensitive.”
“Oh.”
“Not in a bad way. You’ve got an artist’s soul. A keen eye for detail. You see beauty even where others only see misery. You were always like that, even when you were little. You were always looking for the bright side.”
“You’ve known me since I was a kid, right. You mentioned that,” I mumble, trying to remember him. But every time I knock on that door, no one answers, and it makes me wince in pain.
Booker stretches an arm out and wraps it around my waist. “You’re stubborn as a mule. Your stubbornness would often get you in trouble.”
“Okay, that feels right,” I chuckle, softening against his hard frame. “Sensitive, artsy, stubborn. What else?”
“Like I said, resilient. Should the apocalypse swallow this whole planet, I know you and the cockroaches are going to survive.”
That makes me laugh. “So, I’m kind of a badass, eh?”
“In my book? For sure,” he says, his eyes searching my face. “I’m glad you’re here, despite the circumstances.”
I don’t know what to say. My words have left me, replaced by the intensity of the way he makes me feel. The comfort, the reassurance, this crazy idea that I’m welcome and wanted here, regardless of how our paths crossed.
“I’m so lost,” I confess, on the verge of tears.
“You’re never lost for too long,” Booker says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. My gaze drops, mesmerized by the shape of his lips, framed by a thickening brown beard with specks of gold.
Either he can read my mind or he’s acting on his own instincts.
But he kisses me.
It’s a short and sweet kiss, yet so telling, so revealing.
He smells of burnt wood and a tobacco-infused cologne that’s absolutely inebriating in such close proximity. Without realizing it, I lean into him and deepen the kiss, my lips parting to welcome his tongue. I taste the hint of coffee and lose myself in the moment.
His breath thickens, his hand working its way up my side; his touch gentle yet decisive on its quest.
As he reaches the side of my breast, however, I pause and pull back. “I’m so sorry,” I gasp.
“I should be the one to apologize, behaving like this,” Booker replies, putting a bit more distance between us. But I feel cold without him. “Anya, it’s not your fault.”
“It is,” I insist, my face burning red with shame. “I… It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s… Oh, God!” I cover my face with both hands, unable to look him in the eyes.
Yet Booker sits beside me, calm and composed, waiting for me to blurt out the unfathomable as I wrestle with my own emotions.
“Anya, talk to me,” he says gently.
I decide to go for complete transparency. “I kissed your brother. Chance. I kissed Chance. I’m sorry.”
A moment passes in the heaviest, most uncomfortable silence. He’s going to walk out of here any minute now.
“Did you like it?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound upset.
“What?”
Maybe I heard him wrong, so I look up to find Booker gazing at me, a twinkle of arousal in his amused eyes. What’s going on here?
“I’m sorry?” I rephrase my question. It could be that the blow to my head impaired my hearing or my ability to understand words. I don’t know.
“Did you enjoy kissing my brother?”
“I did,” I whisper. The words come out before I can stop them.
“And did you enjoy kissing me just now?” he asks.
“I… I don’t understand.”
He smiles and gets up. “Give me a second. Stay here.”
I watch, dumbfounded, as Booker steps out of the room. I sit in the crushing silence for a few moments before Booker returns with Chance, and the whole world comes crashing down on me at once. This can’t be happening. “Oh, crap,” I mumble, my blood running cold.
“It’s okay,” Chance says, sitting on my left side as Booker takes the right.
“What’s okay?” I ask, flanked by two, gorgeous, bearded mountain men, one of whom has already made me climax once since they pulled me out of my wrecked car. “What’s going on here?”
“My brothers and I share pretty much everything,” Booker tells me in a gentle, patient tone, his hand resting on my knee. “I don’t mind that you kissed Chance, and it certainly doesn’t make me want you less.”
“You… want me?”
“ We want you,” Chance says. “Like Booker just explained, we share everything, including the affections of a woman. Especially the affections of a woman like you, Anya. It’s okay. No harm done here. On the contrary…”
“When the woman feels right to us, all bets and all limits are off,” Booker adds. “You feel right to us.”
I shake my head slowly. “Maybe it’s because we’re isolated here, in this cabin, in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“No, we’ve always been like this,” Chance explains with a faint smile. “Though it’s you that’s different this time.”
“Different?”
“The last time we saw you, you were still just a teenager,” Booker says, his hand coming up. I remain still, my spine tingling as he traces a delicate, invisible line down the side of my neck. “You’re a grown woman, now… And you taste like fucking heaven.”
He kisses me again.
Possessively. Earnestly. My defenses are quick to shatter. My doubts fall apart as I surrender to him. But then Chance clasps my chin between his thumb and index and turns my head so he can kiss me, too. I’m lost between them, eager to devour both as heat rises in the center of my ribcage.
My mind fizzles away into a deluge of red-hot ideas as the twins take turns commanding my mouth, and I welcome each with passion and complete abandonment of self. Still, a fickle thought does manage to worm through, and I soon become overwhelmed.
Chance is the first to sense my hesitation. “What’s wrong?”
“I… This whole situation; it’s strange,” I manage, finally catching my breath.
“We didn’t mean to overwhelm you in any way,” Booker says.
“It’s not you. It’s… It’s me.”
I stand up again—this time with more self-control, and I succeed in remaining upright, too. Moving away from the twins, I walk to the window with steady steps, then turn around to face them.
“It’s not… this that bothers me,” I add, motioning to the two of them. “It’s the fact that you all seem to know me better than I know myself. It’s weird. It makes me feel empty and vulnerable. A piece of me missing and I want it back.”
Footsteps outside my door announce Nico’s arrival. He pokes his head into the room, his eyes quick to scan the full picture. “Everything okay in here?”
I reply with a question of my own. “What exactly did the doctor tell you before the line got cut off?” I remember bits and pieces of one side of that phone call, but it’s not enough.
“Without a proper diagnosis, he wasn’t able to tell us much other than what we told you. There’s a good chance you’re suffering from something called retrograde amnesia,” Nico says. “He doesn’t know how long it will take for you to remember everything, but he did advise against any attempt at forcing the memories back.”
“Your headaches are also indicative of the same issue,” Booker adds. “On top of that, we don’t know how you’ll cope with a deluge of memories in these particularly delicate circumstances.”
“Particularly delicate circumstances?” I scoff, crossing my arms in response. Admittedly, I’ve grown impatient and restless, but being stuck here with no memory of myself feels like a justifiable reason.
Nico steps into the room, his massive frame casting a long shadow across the floor. “Anya, I promise you the last thing any of us want is to hurt you. But you need to be patient. Give yourself a little more time. Enjoy the not-knowing part. I promise, you’ll miss it when it’s gone.”
“Now, that just makes me more curious,” I grumble.
“Be patient with yourself,” Chance says. “It really is for your own good.”
“I need to find my family. They must be worried sick about me,” I sigh deeply.
The brothers exchange glances, then Chance and Booker get up. “We’ll let you rest,” Nico says, picking up on their movement. They’re avoiding telling me all I should know. Something that tests my trust in them. But I can’t force it out of the brothers, and since I’m rooted here, at least for a while, all I can do is be patient. “I’ll let you know when dinner is ready,” Nico adds with a soft smile. “Perhaps you’ll join us downstairs now that you’re up and about.”
“Thank you,” I reply, my voice barely a mumble.
I watch them leave.
The memory of Chance and Booker’s kisses haunts me, my skin still ablaze as thousands of peculiar yet wonderful sensations trickle through me. It’s all too much because I’m letting the fear and anxiety of the unknown get to the core of who I am. It doesn’t matter where I’ve been, not here, not in this moment.
What does matter is what I will do next.
Whatever the past holds, part of me is adamant that I shouldn’t let it dictate my future.
I’m alive. And healing.
And insanely turned on.
* * *
As the hours pass, I grow restless.
Much like a lioness in her cage, I pace my room for a while. Outside, a sea of white snow unravels in the darkness, a moon shyly peeking back at me from behind the thinning curtain of clouds. The blizzard is on its last legs, and so is my patience.
The fire Chance and Booker started has been impossible to put out. Their kisses linger on my lips. I need more, and in this wintry isolation, in the absence of my own memories, I can’t think of a better way to get through it all.
Without hesitation, I come out of my room.
My entire right side still gives me some trouble, but I can move better. My breathing has improved as well, and I’ve either gotten used to the pain from my head injury, or the pain is actually subsiding.
“She’s looking better each day,” I hear Booker say from a nearby room.
“All that sleep is surely helping,” Chance replies.
My heart flutters with anticipation as I draw closer to their door. Judging by the sounds coming from the kitchen, Nico is busy. I wonder what he’ll say once he learns what I’ve been up to, but the thought only serves to arouse me even more. Where is this coming from, though? Have I always felt this way about them?
Slowly, I move in, my feet bare on the rustic, soft carpet.
“I do agree with the doc, though,” Chance says. “Though I’d love it if we could get cell reception back so we could get more advice out of the man.”
Booker sighs. “I don’t know. I guess. I think she’s strong enough to take the whole truth.”
“I’m not doubting her strength but rather her ability to process the truth without working herself into a migraine or something much worse. Until we get her into town for a CT scan, we don’t know the extent of her head injury. What if learning everything about herself suddenly triggers some kind of aggressive response? We could make things worse.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” Booker says. “But I guess you’re right. Better safe than sorry. Right now, keeping Anya safe is what we want to focus on.”
What the hell kind of life was I living that I need protection from remembering it? The frustration is building as I reach what turns out to be another bedroom.
Chance sits in a chair by the window, book in his hand. Those grey sweatpants give me a naughty suggestion of his manhood, while the white tee stretches neatly across his massive chest. By contrast, Booker is fresh out of the shower, wearing only a black cotton towel wrapped around his waist, and I’m licking my lips in response.
They both give me a surprised look.
“Anya, is everything okay?” Booker asks.
I nod once. “I was just tired of being in my room. Same four walls can get really boring after a while.”
“There’s nothing fancy about these four walls either,” Chance chuckles softly. “But I suppose it does count as a change of scenery.”
“How are you feeling?” Booker takes a cautious step forward.
My pulse is racing. I can’t find the words to express what I need from them, but maybe I can let my body do the talking for me.
“I’m good. Better every day,” I say, my voice a whisper as I summon the courage to unbutton the top of my flannel shirt.
That’s enough to get Chance to set his book down. “What are you doing?”
“It’s kind of hard to put into words,” I manage. A moment later, the shirt falls to the floor, and goosebumps dance on my skin.
Their green eyes darken, the air shifting in the room.
Thickening.
It becomes damn near impossible to breathe until Chance gets up and reaches me. I gasp as he captures my mouth in a burning kiss, the hunger overwhelming us both. I hear the ruffle of the towel falling off Booker’s tight hips just before he joins us.
“Anya,” Chance whispers against my lips, his fingers hooked into my pants. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m not sure of anything except this,” I moan as Booker takes his turn and kisses me deeply. I feel their hands roaming up and down my body, my curves full and eager to be explored.
For a moment, I’m wary.
Uncertain.
And they sense it.
Chance stills and looks deep into my eyes. It’s as if he’s reaching for my soul. Nothing else matters. Not my shadowy past. Not the blizzard outside. Not even the aches in my body. All that matters is that I see myself reflected in his gaze, and I feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.
“You’re full of surprises, you know that?” Chance chuckles softly, then cups my face and consumes me yet again.
Booker growls subtly as he finishes what his twin brother started. My pants vanish, leaving me naked and wanting. My temperature spikes and my stomach tightens as these two men begin to peel away my layers. One at a time.
“I didn’t know it would feel so good, so strange,” I mumble against Chance’s lips.
“What, exactly?” Booker asks, then licks and suckles my earlobe, shivers dancing down my spine until I push my ass back into him.
I’m sandwiched between the two of them, arousal making me drunk and desperate for more. Booker’s hands come to the front, fingers registering every inch of my skin in the process. Touching, squeezing until they reach my soft, wet core.
“Fucking hell, Anya, you’re so wet already,” he says, finger sliding between my slick folds.
Chance takes hold of my breasts while his mouth devours mine. Our tongues clash as he fondles my flesh, pinching my sensitive nipples until I whimper in his hold. I feel Booker’s massive, hard cock simmering between my buttocks.
I ache for him, but I need to get his brother naked. And fast.
My hands fumble, yet I manage to help Chance out of his t-shirt. I let my palms rest on his broad, muscular chest, fingertips tingling with delight as they roam through the soft, dark curls covering his pecks and stiff nipples.
“Come here,” Chance beckons me closer to the bed.
He slips out of his sweatpants as I follow him, my legs weak but still able to support me. Booker stays close, his erection wedged between my buttocks as his fingers work me into a trembling frenzy. Liquid heat trickles down my inner thighs as Chance kisses me again and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Don’t move,” he whispers, then gives Booker a slight nod. “Make her come for me.”
“My pleasure,” Booker replies and slips two fingers inside me.
I moan harshly as the bottom of his palm presses against my clit. The swell thickens as I’m pushed beyond my limits, my back arched as Booker finger-fucks me into oblivion. I hold on to Chance’s rock-hard shoulders while he watches me, our eyes locked in the buildup of what I know is coming.
A shockwave of pure pleasure explodes through me as I climax, and Booker throws me off the edge of reality before he thrusts himself inside me. My pussy stretches, eager for more, gushing hot and wet and stretching around his considerable girth.
“Oh, yes,” I hiss, but feel Booker stiffening for the longest moment. “No, don’t stop,” I beg him, my core in need of so much more.
Chance gives me a curious look, his breath ragged and his lips parted. “Anya…”
“You’re a virgin,” Booker gasps.
“Don’t stop,” I insist, though I am startled by his statement. “I don’t care.”
“We do,” he says.
Chance kisses me again. “Anya, this is your first time. It needs to be special.”
“But it is,” I say and swing my hips back.
That’s enough to get a feral grunt out of Booker, who has yet to find the courage to pull out. I don’t want him to pull out. Despite the sharp pang of pain in my core, I need him to go deeper, to conquer it all, and to fill me until I’m sated.
“I want this. Now,” I add, clenching myself tightly around his throbbing cock, my gaze remains locked on Chase’s handsome, rugged face. “I want this. Badly. Can’t you feel me, Booker?”
“Fucking hell, I feel you,” he groans and wraps his arms around my waist.
I bend forward slightly and part my legs to better receive him, my knees shaking and my center still rippling in the aftermath of a delicious orgasm. Chance takes my breast in one hand, while he moves the other down to my clit, still swollen and in need of another release.
“He’ll go easy,” he whispers. “And I’ll watch and enjoy every goddamn second of it.”
Our tongues wrestle for dominance as bright stars emerge in my eyes. Slowly, Booker moves. Out, for only a moment, his fingers digging into my hips, then in with a smooth and well-controlled thrust. The sharp pain subsides and melts into mind-crumbling pleasure as Chance’s fingers flick my clit harder and faster.
“You’re too beautiful for this world,” he says, desire burning in the green forests of his eyes, while his brother goes deeper and faster.
A rhythm grows between us.
I look at Chance, my breasts bouncing as he is hell-bent on inducing another orgasm. I reach down and wrap my fingers around his cock, wondering what it would be like to take him as well. He hisses as I stroke him, slowly but surely with a firm grip, while he pinches my nipple between his index and thumb until the sting dissolves into devastating delight.
It spreads through my body like wildfire as Booker pounds into me, his cock filling and stretching me until I lose my damn mind.
“Oh, God, this is incredible!” I cry out on the brink of another orgasm.
“That’s it, baby,” Booker manages, holding me tighter by the hips as he rams into me. “You’re fucking perfect… so fucking tight and wet…”
“Come for us,” Chance urges me and circles my clit.
The sensation quickly overwhelms me as he rubs it harder and faster. I let go of everything as Booker pounds me into oblivion.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Chance growls as I stroke his cock tighter and faster, unwilling to tumble into the madness without him. “Don’t stop…”
“Don’t stop either,” I moan, wanting him to squeeze my pussy dry as I feel Booker stiffening deep inside me.
He comes hard. The heat spreads as he fills me to the brim, as I ripple around his gargantuan erection, hugging his manhood with my slick heat until we’re both motionless and breathless.
A split second later, I realize I’ve tightened my grip around the base of Chance’s cock, and I glance down, hearing his gasp as he, too, joins us in this soul-shattering climax. His seed spurts all over my hand, trickling over my wrist as I feel him twitching, pulsating in a wonderful release.
His eyes are hooded and his chest rising with each ragged breath.
“I’ll say it again, Anya… You are full of surprises,” Chance chuckles and kisses me softly, his hands coming up to caress my face.
Booker plants kisses all over my back as he gently pulls out. A few seconds later, we’ve moved under the hot shower stream, and the twins take such good care of me that I am rendered speechless.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I mumble as Chance takes his sweet time lathering me with a lavender scented foam.
“Me, either, but I’m not going to complain,” Booker says.
His fingers glide across my wet skin, carefully massaging my hips and thighs before I turn around to wash him. I revel in this idea of taking care of the men who are so selflessly taking care of me. I don’t know what tomorrow might bring or what the past holds. But I do know that I belong here.
“You’re safe here,” Chance tells me as he guides me back to the bed. His bed, I think. “You know that, right?”
I nod slowly and hook my arms around his neck, my naked body glued to his as we slip under the covers. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“Good, because we’re just getting started,” Booker says as he joins us. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m still coming down from the clouds.”
The afterglow feels like the sweetest haze, but then Chance rolls me over. I end up on my back, sinking into the mattress, as he lifts my knees and spreads my legs so he can dive face first into my pussy. Booker’s lips lock around my nipples, taking turns with each as his tongue swirls, as he licks and suckles and teases me right back into a delicious frenzy.
Before long, I’m coming again, ecstatically writhing as Booker nips the creamy skin of my breast, and Chance presses his tongue against my clit, while his fingers curl up inside me. Before long, Chance buries himself deep in my pussy, fucking my lights out until I explode, over and over.
Outside, the blizzard settles, and the silence of the first stormless night wraps itself around the lodge. Inside, I am comforted and sated, falling into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.