Chapter 13
13
Anya
A s evening falls over the mountain, it brings a layer of clouds that drowns out the stars and leaves the moon beams struggling to reach earth. In the kitchen, the wall sconces burn bright amber, joining the candles Chance has set up at the center of our dinner table.
“Civilization is nice,” I mutter as I slice into my medium-rare steak. It makes my mouth water before I even taste it.
“The weather reports aren’t too clear about the next blizzard,” Nico says, “but they’re certain we’re going to get at least a couple of more in these parts before winter’s end.”
Chance nods. “It’s a good thing we restocked everything.”
“There’s enough food in the pantry and the freezer boxes to host an entire banquet.”
“A month’s worth of supplies,” Booker adds. “Give us credit, though. We were careful to diversify our food options.”
“Fair point. The frozen fruit is a much-welcome bonus,” I concede. “But until then, I plan to enjoy all the fresh food we can eat. This wagyu beef is exceptional.”
Nico gives me a playful wink. “Complimenting the chef, are we?”
I stare at my plate for a moment, lost in thought about another meal in another time.
“Where’d you disappear to?” Nico asks me.
I give him a curious look. “What do you mean?”
“Just now. Where’d you go?”
“Oh. I keep seeing snippets. It’s never a full memory, and I can’t always piece them together in a way that makes sense,” I say with a heavy sigh before I dig into my roasted potatoes. They smell delicious.
“What do you remember?” Booker asks, his green eyes twinkling with curiosity.
And as I look at him, it feels as though I truly see him. For the first time, somehow, I look at Booker and recognize him. Not from earlier, not from three weeks ago when they first rescued me. I recognize him from all the years before, from when I was a child, and the Hayes brothers played soccer outside our apartment building. I’d watch them, sitting on the top step of my building with my Barbie doll, and fawn over them.
“Wow,” I whisper as tears fill my eyes.
Nico looks worried. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I… I know who you are,” I reply with a warm smile.
The familiarity is overwhelming. The longing is intertwined with every act of intimacy we’ve engaged in thus far. What we have now feels like the dreams I nurtured when I was younger. Secret desires. Daydreams of the Hayes brothers sweeping me off my feet.
“You recognize us,” Chance says.
I nod slowly, and he covers my hand with his. “I do,” I tell him with a tremor in my voice. “I remember you from when I was little. You used to play with my brother outside. All the time. The four of you were practically inseparable.”
“We were,” he says. “We loved Aleks so much, Anya. He was our brother, too, in a way.”
“And you were so protective of me.” I laugh lightly. “I think… I remember this one time, you were all on leave, I think. You still had your uniforms on and all that. And there was this boy at school I liked. I don’t remember his name—”
“Otis,” Chance scoffs. “Yes, Otis. Funny name, funnier guy.”
“You scared the bejesus out of the poor guy when he came to our apartment building to ask me to the junior prom. You practically interrogated him.”
“And he was shaking like a twig in the wind,” Nico laughs as he, too, remembers. “It was all in good fun, though.”
“He didn’t ask me to go to prom with him,” I reply. “He actually avoided me altogether afterward.”
The brothers exchange glances. Part of this story is missing. A part that hasn’t come to me, yet. “Your father didn’t want you dating,” Booker cuts in. “We were just looking out for you at the time. Aleks was busy that day, but he asked us to keep an eye on you over the weekend. It just so happened that Otis worked up the nerve to ask you out that afternoon.”
“My father was overprotective, wasn’t he?”
Chance nods once. “Perhaps a little too much, but Aleks respected that. He emulated that, actually. They were both overprotective. But it was their way of keeping you safe.”
“Mom was never happy with the way I looked,” I sigh deeply.
“Just some old Eastern European crap she brought over when they moved to New York,” Nico says. “You were always a beautiful girl, Anya.”
“But fat,” I mutter, gradually losing my appetite as more and more distressful moments come back to haunt me. “She used to pick on me for the way my dresses fit. She’d pick wide, flared pants and skirts to cover my rolls of fat.”
“Anya, listen to me,” Chance says, squeezing my hand. “You are and always have been authentic and beautiful. It’s not the size of your clothes that makes you special, and that’s something your mother never understood, because she, too, was constantly chastised about her figure. She carried that with her and projected it onto you through no fault of your own.”
A gasp escapes my throat as dark words echo in the back of my head.
“You should be thankful I settled for you,” the man said.
God, the words cut deep.
The man with dark hair and cold blue eye, like Max’s.
And then I find myself sitting in the tearoom with Aleks. Chance, Booker, and Nico have joined us. I’m so excited. Still miffed about Otis, but I put that behind me. I care too much about them to be mad for too long.
“Anya?” Nico’s voice calls out to me.
I’m slipping deeper into the memory.
I’ve got a firm grasp of this particular scene. I feel as though I’m watching a scene from a movie I’ve already seen.
“Give her a moment,” I hear Chance whisper. “I think she’s remembering something.”
The Hayes brothers take their seats, and my brother is wearing a fine, custom-tailored suit. He looks so much like our father. He’s working hard to rise up to his level, to his aesthetic. Deep down, I’m disappointed, but it’s the way of our world. He just stopped fighting it.
“He gave up on the Navy,” I mumble, “to come back and work for Dad, to take over. And his first order of business was to reach out to the three of you as soon as you were honorably discharged.”
“Come work for me,” Aleks told them. “Head our security detail. Your experience, your knowledge, your expertise. I’ve seen your value, firsthand. You guys would strengthen the Asimovs to the point where not even Leo Sokolov would have the balls to take us on.”
“And you promised him you would think about it,” I add. “You didn’t sound enthusiastic about the whole deal, though. The pay was more than attractive. It would’ve set the three of you up for life. You could’ve bought three towns like Seeley Lake.”
My eyes open, and I take a deep breath as I look around at the dinner table. The Hayes brother sit quietly, Chance’s hand still firmly holding mine.
“You said no,” I whisper.
“He warned us there was a war coming,” Nico says. “We knew what a civil war within the Bratva might look like, and we knew that if word got out that Aleks had hired Navy SEAL muscle, it would only rile the Sokolovs more.”
“We advised him on ways to defuse the situation,” Booker adds. “For awhile, we thought he was on the right track.”
I give him a curious look. “He was afraid of Leo Sokolov, Max’s brother, right?”
“Yes,” Chance admits. “But Aleks wasn’t afraid of Leo himself. He was afraid of what Leo would do if he didn’t get his way.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Leo is a psychopath,” Chance says. “And your father tried to broker a peace with the guy. He wanted to align their syndicates, to project strength and unity to the rest of the Bratva.”
“The Asimovs’ tradition and history, the Sokolovs’ tenacity and influence,” Nico says. “It made sense. But the terms and conditions they agreed upon were faulty, and when Aleks earned a seat at the table, he worked hard to convince your father to renegotiate.”
“And you said that, for awhile, it looked as though they managed to do just that,” I reply, my brow furrowed as I try to dig deeper into my memory for the details.
Yet again, the harder I try, the more unpleasant the pushback from my own subconscious. I already had proof that being told about my past doesn’t necessarily mean it rekindles my own memories of the events. I think the process is still natural and subject to shadows; shadows that are clearly trying to protect me.
Much like the Hayes brothers.
I cannot fault them for that, and I’m a little too tired to push.
“Leo had different plans,” Booker says, “and we were too far away and out of the loop to predict a move like what happened at the Dalton Festival.”
A smile tests the corner of Chance’s mouth. “But we’ve got you now.”
“You certainly do.” I lean into his shoulder.
“And we’re not letting you slip through our fingers ever again,” Booker adds.
Gently, he beckons me to stand up and takes me in his arms, kissing me firmly on the lips. I welcome his heat, my tongue eager to play with his, while his brothers quietly join us. Before long and unable to contain ourselves, we move out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.
My bedroom, this time.
Our clothes are left behind, strewn across the floor and up the wooden stairs. My panties are slick with wanting as Nico peels them off me. “So, you remember us for real,” he says, his voice low as he comes up to kiss me.
“I do, and I have a confession to make.”
“Go on.”
“I had the biggest crush on the three of you for the longest time.”
Nico stills and looks at me. Chance and Booker flank me, their body heat overwhelming mine, but they, too, stop moving, their matching green eyes searching my face.
“And, yes, I know I was much younger,” I add, blushing as I stand naked and turned on between these three, gorgeous men. “I knew it wasn’t appropriate at the time, and I kept my feelings to myself, but part of me always wondered what it would be like if…”
“If you could be with one of us?” Chance asks, his voice barely a whisper.
“I distinctively remember feeling super weird about wishing I could have all three of you,” I admit, lowering my gaze for a moment, though I’m not sure what there is to be ashamed of at this point, after everything we’ve experienced.
Booker gives me a devilish grin. “You were fantasizing about us, Anya?”
“Yes.” I place my hands on Booker’s broad, muscular chest, letting my fingers play with the curls of dark hair that surround his hardened nipples. “Did you imagine the three of us inside you at once?” he asks.
“Yes, though I wasn’t quite sure of the logistics at the time,” I say and laugh lightly.
Nico gets behind me, his hands roaming up and down my torso. His fingers dig into my flesh, memorizing every inch of skin as he squeezes it. Each touch ignites a fire deep within my core, and when Booker grabs my breasts and mercilessly fondles them, I feel my head fall back.
I gasp as Chance’s hand slips between my legs. My right hand finds his cock, hard and ready. Slowly, I wrap my fingers around the slick tip and stroke him. I feel him growing even stiffer, even bigger in my hand.
“And here we were, thinking we were the only ones dealing with such depraved thoughts,” Nico growls and turns my head to kiss me.
I give into the hunger with lightning speed as my core tightens.
Booker’s fingertips pinch my nipples until a whimper escapes my throat. The stinging sensation is delicious, traveling through my torso and adding to the mounting pressure between my legs.
I kneel before him.
“I want all three of you,” I demand, satisfying one particular fantasy I remember having about them. Quietly, the men gather before me, their cocks twitching under my gaze.
Nico is the biggest in every sense of the word, but Booker and Chance are gifted as well. Ripped muscles stretch across their ribcages, and massive shoulders and strong arms make my spine tingle with arousal. I stroke the twins at the same time, while Nico slides into my mouth.
I taste the pre-cum, the saltiness making me drunk with desire as I relax the back of my throat and let him go deeper.
“It seems we have similar fantasies,” Chance manages as I cup his rock-hard balls and play with them. A split second later, I take him in my mouth, while tightening my grip on his brothers.
On and on it goes, the tension rising and the air thickening between us as I feed on their gruff moans and revel in the sound of their ragged breaths, while the veins on their magnificent cocks pulsate against my tongue.
Booker finally hisses and pulls out of my mouth before his release. He rolls his eyes as he takes a step back and holds the tip of his cock. “Not yet.” He looks down at me. “Make yourself come, Anya. I want to watch.”
“We all want to watch,” Nico adds.
Without hesitation I smile as they help me up and guide me to the bed. I turn around to face them, reveling in every inch of sculpted muscle and sheer masculinity, the overhead lights casting an amber glow across their rippling pectorals.
“Like this?” I teasingly ask as I lay on the bed and part my legs so they can see everything.
“Precisely like that,” Nico instructs me.
They’re stroking themselves, watching me with dark hunger in their eyes as I circle my swollen clit with two fingers. The other hand is up, focused on my breasts, massaging and kneading, as I prime myself for what I know will be an explosive orgasm.
“Look at that; she’s so fucking wet,” Chance manages, admiring my glistening pussy as I glide two fingers inside.
“Oh, this is nice,” I moan, pressing the bottom of my palm against my clit, while I use my fingers to prime myself for them.
The pressure builds quickly. This is so hot. So shameless. Making myself come while my lovers watch me is hotter than I could have imagined. I come so hard and so fast. I’m finger-fucking myself like a savage, crying out their names.
“I need you all inside me,” I mumble, quivering from the inside out. “Right now. Right fucking now.”
Nico gets on the bed and rolls me over. With two swift moves, I end up riding his cock, Booker takes me from behind. I scream in sweet pleasure as they stretch and fill me to the brim. The sting is delicious and quickly subsides into mind-numbing pleasure.
“Don’t forget about me,” Chance says as he climbs on top of the bed. He holds on to the bedposts for balance as I take him in my mouth.
An avalanche of overwhelming sensations unravels.
I lose my mind and turn into my purest self, a sizzling hot beast in desperate need of release. My pussy clenches as I ride Nico, while Booker fucks me from behind. Their hands hold me steady while my clit is pressed against Nico’s groin, and each rocking motion brings me closer to the edge.
With my mouth full, I hear my muffled screams as Chance deep-throats me into madness.
I come again, my orgasm gushing as my men pound into me in decadent unison. My breasts bounce with each decisive thrust.
“God, you’re so fucking hot when you come,” Booker growls and slaps my ass.
The sting sends white sparks to my eyes, and I ride the wave like there is no tomorrow.
Chance stiffens and shoots his load down my throat. I guzzle every drop and swallow, never breaking eye contact, while Nico and Booker fill me with their seeds as well. I feel them, deep inside me, hot and heavy, as the world around us dissolves into a quiet kind of nothingness.
“Jesus, Anya. You’re incredible.” Chance pulls out and caresses my face, bending down to kiss me. I’m still coming, violently shaking, as Booker gives me the last of his thrusts.
I collapse into Nico’s arms as he and his brothers shower me with kisses. I welcome every touch, every gentle stroke, every finger running through my hair.
“There’s a lot I don’t remember yet, and I know it will eventually come to me,” I say after basking in the golden afterglow as beads of sweat drip from my temple. “But I do know one thing.”
“Hm, what’s that?” Nico asks me.
“This is a dream come true.”
Before long, we’re at it again, fucking like ravenous beasts, unable to keep our hands off one another. It’s wild and all-consuming. Addictive as hell. I welcome every thick inch inside me, I beg for a new release every damn time.
Because when I’m with them, everything else disappears.
The painful past. The future and its many unknowns.
All that remains is the present, and the present has our bodies tangled, sweaty and heated.
There’s another thing I know for sure.
I don’t want this ever to end.