31. Lena #2
Inside, the air is cool and still. The entrance hall is bright, and absurdly normal.
Not empty in the abandoned sense. Prepared.
A table by the wall. Fresh flowers that no one here seems sentimental enough to actually enjoy.
A staircase curving upward. A second note on the entry table with a simple line directing us toward bedrooms upstairs and food in the kitchen.
Havoc stares at it. “This is getting creepy in a very organized way.”
I stand just inside the doorway, looking past them into a house clearly ready for us, and feel the back of my neck go cold.
Vale turns the second note over, but the back is blank.
Knox shuts the door behind us softly, and the sound of it closing feels more final than it should.
We check out all the rooms. The guys don’t stop till they’ve made sure that there’s no one inside waiting to ambush us. We’ve barely been inside ten minutes when Havoc’s voice carries down the hall. “You two need to see this.”
There’s something in the tone that makes all of us look up at once.
Knox is first out of the room he was checking. Vale comes a second later from farther down the hall, slower because of the bruising, but alert immediately. I follow them up the corridor, half expecting a body, a trap, another note, something awful waiting behind the next door.
Instead we find Havoc standing in a doorway, one shoulder against the frame, grinning.
He doesn’t say a word this time. He just hooks his thumb behind him toward the bathroom.
I step past him and stop. “Oh.”
The word comes out before I can help it.
The bathroom is ridiculous.
Marble floor. Double sinks big enough to wash dogs in.
Mirrors everywhere. A bathtub I could probably sleep in.
And a shower built like a glass room in its own right, with enough space for a small meeting and, judging by the number of showerheads, enough water pressure to drown every bad decision I’ve made in the last forty-eight hours.
Havoc laughs softly behind me. “See?”
I turn and look at him. “Who lives like this?”
“People with money or bad instincts,” he says. “Sometimes both.”
Knox’s eyes move over the room once, quick and practical. Towels. Cabinet. Possible exits. He doesn’t let himself be impressed for even a second.
Vale leans against the doorframe and says, “At least there’s hot water.”
That gets my attention more than the marble does.
I look down at myself. I still smell like smoke under everything else. Sweat. Ash. The motel. Them. The whole past day clinging to my skin in layers. For one second, just one, the thought of stripping all that off feels so good it almost hurts.
I say, “I’m taking the shower.”
Havoc’s mouth curves. “Bold.”
“I will drown in that giant bathtub.”
“Promising start.”
Knox goes to the cabinet and opens it. Fresh towels. New toothbrushes. Wrapped soap. Everything lined up like someone knew exactly what state we’d arrive in.
That should bother me more than it does. Instead all I can think about is hot water.
I step fully into the bathroom and turn back to find all three of them still standing there. “You can leave,” I tell them.
Nobody moves. Vale’s one good eye drifts over me, then the shower, then back again. “Can we?”
That’s a terrible question. Mostly because I know exactly how he means it.
I hear myself say, “Or not.”
Havoc’s grin widens instantly.
Knox says my name in a tone that suggests I’m being reckless again.
I look at him. “You’re all filthy too.”
That gets a beat of silence.
Then Havoc says, “I love it when you make practical arguments.”
I start with my shirt. It sticks a little coming off, the fabric tacky against skin that still feels overaware of everything.
All three of them watch, and this should still feel strange, should feel like too much attention, but by now it just feels true.
I peel the shirt away and toss it onto the marble floor.
Havoc’s eyes drop at once.
Vale exhales through his nose.
Knox goes very still.
I’m not wearing a bra.
No one comments, but the air changes.
I reach for the button of my jeans next, slower this time, and when I push them down and step out of them, Havoc says, softly, “That’s very generous of you.”
I look at him. “You’re still dressed. So rude.”
Knox is the first to move.
Of course he is.
He comes toward me with that calm, deliberate focus of his and stops close enough that I feel the heat of him before he touches me. Then his hands settle at my waist and slide upward, slow and sure, until his palms are cupping my breasts.
I suck in a breath.
“Still want us to leave?” he asks.
“No,” I say immediately.
His thumbs brush over my nipples, not rough, just enough to make them tighten, and I lean into him before I can stop myself.
Havoc laughs under his breath. “That answer was suspiciously quick.”
I turn my head enough to see him stripping off his shirt, and then Vale is moving too, though slower.
Knox lowers his mouth to mine while he rubs my breasts, a warm wet kiss, one hand squeezing, the other sliding over my stomach.
I moan into him, and by the time I open my eyes again, Havoc is already behind me, opening the glass door to the shower and turning the water on full.
The spray comes down hot and immediate, steam rising almost at once.
“Inside,” Havoc says.
The tile is warm under my feet within seconds. Water hits my shoulders, my hair, runs down my chest and over my stomach, washing smoke and sweat into thin gray rivulets at the drain. I close my eyes and tip my head back for one second, just one, and the relief is so sharp it almost makes me groan.
Vale steps in behind me.
Then Knox.
Then Havoc shuts the door and joins us last, and suddenly the huge shower does not feel huge at all.
Vale is the one who gets my hair first, fingers combing through it under the water while Knox reaches for the soap. Havoc crowds in at my back and drags his hands down my sides in one slow pass that makes me shiver even through the heat.
“Hold still,” Knox says.
“That’s never how this goes.”
“Try.”
He works the soap between his hands and starts with my shoulders, practical for about five seconds before his palms slide down over my breasts again, slick now, rubbing the soap into my skin in broad, slow circles that are definitely not necessary for hygiene.
I laugh breathlessly. “Very thorough.”
Havoc kisses the side of my neck. “We’re all about service.”
Vale takes over the hair properly, massaging shampoo into my scalp, the pads of his fingers firm and careful.
It should feel domestic. Instead it feels filthy in the most luxurious way possible, all three of them touching me under hot water, washing smoke and motel and fear off my body while letting their hands linger everywhere they shouldn’t.
Knox soaps my breasts again, this time slower, thumbs circling my nipples until I arch into him.
Havoc’s hand slides between my thighs from behind, testing, stroking once through the wet heat there. “She’s still sensitive,” he murmurs.
I look over my shoulder and say, “You sound surprised.”
“Not surprised. Pleased.”
Vale rinses my hair, one hand bracing at the back of my neck so the water falls where it should. It runs over my face and chest and down my body in hot sheets while Knox’s hands slide over my stomach and Havoc keeps touching me just enough to make standing still impossible.
“This is not cleaning,” I say.
Knox kisses my mouth once, short and warm. “Who said we’re here to clean you up?”
I laugh and that gets water in my mouth, which makes me cough once, which makes Vale smile in the smallest, most ruined way.
He reaches around me for the body wash this time, and then he squeezes it into his palm and starts rubbing it over my back, over my shoulders, down along my spine, making me shiver.
Then Havoc ruins that by sliding one hand up over my stomach and using the other to rub my clit. The sound that comes out of me bounces off all that glass and tile and comes back echoing.
Knox braces one hand on the wall beside my head and watches my face while Havoc works me from behind.
Vale keeps his palm on the small of my back, moving the soap in long strokes down to my ass, then up again, and the combined effect is absurd.
Every part of me being touched, washed, held, worked open to sensation under hot water while steam turns the whole room hazy and close.
I reach for Knox because he’s in front of me and solid and there. My fingers catch on his shoulders, drag down his chest, then lower, wet skin under my hands, all of him warm and slick now too.
He says, very quietly, “Need something?”
“Yes.”
“Use words.”
I glare at him through the steam.
Vale drops the soap bottle and it bounces once on the tile. Nobody bends to get it. His hand has left my back now and joined the others, palm flattening over one breast, thumb brushing over my nipple while Havoc rubs me faster and Knox kisses me deep enough to take the breath out of me.
My whole body is hot and slippery and overfull of sensation.
Knox’s hand slides down over my stomach and between my thighs, replacing Havoc’s for one measured, devastating pass that makes my knees weaken.
Havoc catches my hips. “Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Vale says, voice rough and low near my ear. “That’s why this is fun.”
I make a helpless sound and hide my face against Knox’s throat for a second while the water pounds around us.
I come with my forehead against Knox’s shoulder, gasping into his skin while Havoc talks me through it in a voice too amused to be kind and Vale keeps me upright and Knox’s hand stays exactly where I need it until my legs give enough that all three of them have to catch me.
For one blissed-out second, I let them. I just sag there in the steam, wet and trembling and cleaner than I’ve felt in days.
Then somebody laughs.
Havoc, obviously.
“We should move this,” he says.
I lift my head slowly. “Move what.”
He and Knox exchange a look over my shoulder.
Vale’s arm tightens around my waist.
And suddenly the floor is gone.
I yelp as someone lifts me, solid hands under my thighs, another at my back, and the last thing I see before I bury my face in wet skin and start laughing despite myself is Havoc grinning and saying, “Things. We’re moving things to the bedroom.”