Chapter 10
10
MARI
My skin glowed with the addition of quality products, regular showers, enforced workouts with Miller thanks to Robe’s continued influence, and the good food the boys—read Alan—provided afterward. The last of my bruises had faded entirely, though my scars, some still pink or whitened at the edges, others darker marks that shadowed beneath my skin, remained. Even so, I almost felt like a new woman, or at least some semblance of the one I had been before.
But thinking about before hurt, so I stopped. My eyes hadn’t quite lost their haunted stare. If I closed them, I could retreat into the comfort of Robe’s scent, his warmth, and the physical presence he exuded. He had become my everything, my new source of safety when the grasping hands obscured my vision, stealing a tentative peace away from my grasp.
Outside of him, the bathroom became my place of refuge. When the house’s usual occupants got loud and I crumbled, I excused myself politely, rounded the corner to the hall, and dashed into the confines of the small, bright space.
Then I stood in front of the mirror without staring into it and tried not to hate the woman opposite me who looked more put together by the day while I shattered on the inside. If I got lucky, the room stayed still. Or I puked.
Dealer’s choice.
A creak behind me and a brief whisper of air was all the warning I had before the bathroom plummeted into pitch blackness. The distinct lack of windows in Robe’s room made his en suite a coffin of darkness without the addition of safe, secure artificial light.
Fake—like the sense of security I wrapped around myself here.
I froze, invisible tendrils curling around my skin in phantom eddies as the terror resurfaced. Memories brought a twisted brightness to my mind’s eye. Scrolling images of being pinned down in Gideon’s house swept over me, all-encompassing. I opened my mouth on a scream that twisted into a thin pant as my lungs sucked at the meager air my throat afforded them, clenching tight on itself to deny me what I needed.
The room swayed, or maybe I did. It didn’t matter, because the rabbit hole of memories spread open beneath my feet, and I tumbled forward. Cold hands caught and righted me. The contact jerked me out of my fantasy of reaching hands only to throw me into a new terror, this one unknown, the touch indifferent, almost clinical.
My heart beat too fast in my chest, my body heating though my cheeks remained cold and numb. The floor shifted beneath me again, though for a different reason.
He promised me his home is my safe place…
And I believed him.
A sob tore from my throat. I bit my lips, the sharp metallic tang that trickled into my mouth adding a level of pain to my hyperawareness.
Why aren’t I running?
Where the hell would I go?
“You are so pretty, Mari,” an icy, unrecognizable voice whispered in my ear.
Almost unrecognizable.
Because that same voice belonged to Alan, though none of his usual sharp humor etched the edges of what I’d come to suspect covered a damaged man beneath the camaraderie, showmanship, and snark.
No, his voice sliced through the air as cold as the heat of him behind me seared my skin. A single knuckle brushed across the nape of my neck, raising shivers and goose bumps across my skin. He trailed the digit along my spine, leaving a harsh, searing path of pain and ice in its wake.
“Alan? What do you want?” I shivered at the contact, the whole situation so wrong. Twisting, the other half of my body anchored to the floor, I tried to face him, but that one finger on my nape turned me back to face myself in the full-length mirror I couldn’t see. “Turn the light on.”
“You know that’s not going to happen, don’t you?”
A dull rush of white noise filled my ears. For all my panic, jarred somewhere between a will for flight and the inability to access those primal bodily functions, Alan’s movements—or lack thereof—were the opposite: laced in tight control, a cruel smirk concealed in his words.
As though he was enjoying this moment, knew his touch brought me back to that place, and that amused him.
All of that sat at odds with the man I thought I knew.
“I trusted you,” I croaked.
He laughed, a low sound that rippled across my body in an intimate caress of its own. “I know. Shall we?” One unyielding, cold hand flexed on my shoulder, holding me in place so I had no choice but to face forward.
Like a Mari-sized statue, I let him.
I faced the blacked-out mirror I couldn’t see, my senses reduced to a hollow void at my back that was anything but empty. Alan’s touch centered in two places, arms cocked around my throat and upper body to pin me in place, though my rigid stance made his icy prison redundant. Fear locked me tight as a statue as his fingerprints seared pensive marks at my neck and shoulders, waiting.
My own contact offered nothing so kind. Ragged nails curled into my palms, the harsh edges biting into my skin. Something trickled between my fingers. In the pitch blackness that pervaded the small space, I couldn’t tell the difference between salt and iron.
Alan’s touch disappeared, leaving me alone.
Mustering every inch of my courage that rooted my feet to the floor— I’d be dead if Alan were a bear or Gideon or something worse—I tipped my chin up, though he likely couldn’t see the small act of defiance.
“I’ll scream, and Robe will come running. What would he do to a man who broke his trust?” I bluffed, fighting the urge to deny the event and to sink back into Alan’s warm presence, into the man I knew.
Alan won’t hurt me. He won’t .
My heart thrummed in my chest, fear’s cold touch embracing me anew, etched with an awareness of the man I called friend. Despite all evidence to the contrary, my brain clung to the new truth I’d created for myself. That I could trust Robe and his men; that they would protect me.
Or maybe they were just men, like the others who hurt me.
“If you were going to scream, you would have done it already.” A lilt in his voice added a strange musical element akin to laughter to his tone. The cool draft of his breath kissed the back of my neck, though he didn’t touch me.
The absence of his usual endearments, no sweetcheeks or sweetcakes , removed the personal aspect I’d come to adore in Alan, who was my retreat when Robe and Jon became too overly everything to my senses. This new version of the personable man stripped away my shitty belief system, leaving me barer than ever.
I’d created a fantasy world, weaving myself a pretty, happy ending that would never happen for a broken creature like me. Now, he trapped me within that reality.
A torn sob jerked in my throat, the barest sound making it past my lips. “What do you want?”
I expected his phantom fingers to return to tracing across my body, but he gave me nothing. Only that void of cold air at my back where he still stood, though his chest never made contact. Then cool fingers encircled my throat, holding me in place by their disembodied touch.
“I want to see if little Mari Merripen is worth the trouble she’s caused.” His tongue flicked out, licking the shell of my ear in a delicate, tasting touch.
The sob lodged in my throat met with a scream that vied for cramped space while I forced two words past them. “What trouble?”
Alan’s fingertips rested over my windpipe, his touch lighter, more familiar, like his usual brand of flirtation. “Oh, you know. The sort of trouble that can ruin a man, a brotherhood. A friendship. The sort that could fuck up this house, including Robe and every man in it. All because you’ve got a pretty little cunt they all want to fuck.”
I reeled, swaying where I stood. The unchecked dark desire in Robe’s eyes, the way Jon watched me, even Will…. But Miller sure didn’t count in that group.
“What about you?” I don’t know why I said that. Of all the things that could have come out of my mouth, those words seemed the least reasonable.
Alan’s cold lips brushed against hot skin. “Oh, Mari. I’m first in line. Robe denied me, wanting to claim you for himself, but that’s not how we play here. We’ve always shared… everything. You should be no exception.” He trailed his knuckles over my shoulder, crested the curve of my breast, and paused at my hip. “I’ve learned to take what I want to survive. What I need to enjoy my fucked-up life spent far away from everything I love.”
“He’ll kill you.” And probably me too . But death’s shade and I had become used to each other. I doubted adding Robe’s penance to my life-threat collection would be any more daunting.
“Maybe it’ll be worth it to taste you.”
The morose thought of losing Robe’s trust, so hard earned yet freely given all at once, the complex man he was hidden behind a wall of muscle and checked shirts, tore at my heart.
“You might have given up faith in him, but I haven’t,” I snapped.
My body returned to itself. Sensation slithered along my arms and wakened numbed legs. I thrashed away from the fingers encircling my throat, kicking out at anything at all. But my tiny personal-assistant ass couldn’t compete with the trained killer at my back.
Alan’s arms imprisoned me against his lean frame that seemed far too strong for his sleek body. I’d become complacent, trusting in the bulky mass of wild mountain men like Robe and Jon, not understanding the threat of a lesser-built man who could still overpower me. So I fought, but my throat still wouldn’t let me scream.
I scratched and hit and flailed until Alan laughed, catching my chin to force my head back. He propelled us forward until my cheek hit a cold, flat surface that halted our progress. Gripping my wrists in one hand, his other found my hip and delved beneath the slinky material of my top to touch bare skin.
“ No— ” I choked, my voice cut off as he tipped my chin back, arching my neck at an unnatural angle, and placed his mouth over mine, stifling my words, snuffing out my air. The contact curled around me with intimate fingers, but he didn’t kiss me. Rather, his sharp mouth muffled the cry that finally came to my aid, torn out of me by shock.
Too many hands, so many touching ?—
But the phantom prickle didn’t come. Alan’s slinking hands replaced the many, only two to focus on as he pushed long, artistic fingers beneath the waistband of my borrowed sweats to slip lower.
My breath caught in my throat as he leaned forward, his body arcing over me so I could feel him right there . The evidence of his raw need pressed into me from behind. His mouth brushed mine in a sweet kiss so out of place with the threatening environment he’d created by blacking out the room and pinning my front to the wall.
Hot lips vied to contest against the mirror’s cold surface pressed to the rest of me as he flicked his tongue into my mouth when I dared part my lips and suck in a shattered breath. His kiss was brief but potent, and my legs trembled with strain and a thin thread of need. No one touched me apart from Robe, and Jon that once. Contact was maintained at the barest minimum, like I’d explode or destroy Robe’s fragile world if I allowed Alan to push me too far, except for the one night Robe had let me sleep with him.
Now I’d never get the chance to discover if I had that power alone or not.
Alan stroked a single finger along the center of my panties, grazing my clit to settle over my heat. Wetness pooled there, my nipples tightening beneath the flimsy material barrier between us, my body taking over while my mind screamed a withering protest. Arousal stoked low in my belly, and my hips jutted forward, needing the release he offered.
Broken, broken, broken.
I whimpered, heat flaring in my cheeks, drying the tears that touched them. “I’m so fucking ruined.”
“No,” he cooed, cold lips searing my mouth as he swallowed my shame. “You’re like us.”
My heart exploded as his fingers slipped lower, slicking along my heat. I cried out, a splintered sound. For the first time in so long, my body’s reaction to touch from another human came from need over fear.
I want this.
Alan knew. Somehow he understood what I needed more than I did when it came to my own body. That made it so much worse and better all at once.
I wanted to cry at the revelation. A moan lodged in my throat from the simple touch of his clever fingertips. He dragged his knuckles along my slit, taking his time. No sense of urgency layered his caress as pressure and desire built within me, aching for release while he continued at an inordinately slow pace.
“My sweet little Mari. Such a beautiful slut.” He licked the shell of my ear and bit down on the lobe, sucking and nibbling.
I sighed, leaning back into him. “It feels so bad.” The moment his hand stilled between my folds, I knew I said the wrong thing. “I shouldn’t be able to get aroused after what happened.” It made everything in me so ruined .
“You’re like us.”
But the comforting thought Alan had given me that I fit here, like every one of the broken men in the house, coated my residual fear in a sugary sweet temptation.
To be licked off and savored.
Alan’s finger worked me again while the heel of his hand ground at my clit. My legs parted a little for him, easing his access.
“Such a good girl,” he murmured.
One arm banded around my chest, crushing the tops of my breasts. Frissons of pleasure rippled over my body, hardening my nipples to impossible pain-filled points.
I wanted to beg him to touch me there, though fear froze my lips. Every part of me thrummed with heat and energy, so sensitive there that any caress would hurt, no matter how gentle or tender his touch. For some horrible reason, that thought got me off too.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Mari Merripen?” Alan asked idly, still swirling his fingers around my needy flesh.
His other hand drifted across my ribs, grazing the undersides of my breasts. Those same fingers wound around my throat in a light circle not meant to restrict my air or threaten me, but rather to hold me closer in an intimate sort of gesture I’d never experienced before him.
“That feels good,” I murmured, leaning my head deeper against his shoulder, letting him hold me up.
Alan’s breath hitched, and I knew he was enjoying this too. His hips rocked against me, his thickening erection resting against my ass. “Which bit?”
All of it.
Those clever fingers teased around my nipple, stroking in slow circles that left me swollen and aching. I pressed my thighs together, but the action did nothing to suppress the arousal that spiked through me. A moan escaped my lips despite my biting them.
Broken, broken, broken.
Alan laughed against my neck. His torture ceased for a moment as his fingers traveled lower again, rolling beneath the thin material of my pants to dip inside. Smooth pads drifted over my clit, circling just once, which was enough to tease my splintering mind. I swayed on my feet, parting my thighs to give him access as he slipped two fingers twisted together inside me straight to the second knuckle.
I cried out, a shocked, wanton sound that echoed around us in the incessant blackness. Alan stopped moving, letting me get used to the intrusion. My pussy ached and pulsed, desire washing over me in a wave that both shocked and elated me.
I’m broken… like them.
The new mantra was enough for now.
“You want this, Mari?” His fingers shifted a little inside me as he moved his thumb up to play with my clit, rolling over the slippery nub with ease. “Like this?”
He pinched my clit lightly. I clenched around his fingers in response, unable to voice my pleasure. My brain refused to process anything more than the soul-searing touch he offered, teasing me until my mind frayed. Sensation arced through my body as I met the gentle swirls he swept over my folds, my hips undulating to match. I could feel his smile near my ear, his lips pressed to my neck.
Arching a little, I raised both hands behind me to wrap around his neck, giving him all the access he could want to my body. Granting him permission where he would have taken it.
Both sounded good to my pleasure-warped mind.
Those long, cool fingers tightened, constricting the slightest amount around my throat. I should have been scared, but deep inside, I now knew I could trust him. Alan wouldn’t hurt me. That had never been his intent. Despite my restricted airflow, I sucked in a larger breath than I’d been allowed before.
“All this.” I whispered the words to the empty air. “I want all of this.”
“Good girl.” He squeezed my throat again, teasing pulses that halted my air and gave it back again as his fingers stayed still inside me.
I gasped with the strange beat he favored, flexing his fingers within me as I sank against his body. My legs trembled as he squeezed a little harder, my pussy clenching down outside my control. I came, bearing down on his fingers, and he hadn’t even moved them inside me yet.
“Such a beautiful little slut for me.” His cold voice grew rough as he held me against his hard body. My body shook in his grasp that loosened around my throat, offering a sweet caress over the faintest marks there that still hadn’t healed.
But now, even the invisible scars were on their way to healing.
A sense of power and strength swept over me, a skewed version of control. “A pretty cunt for us to fuck.” Wasn’t that what he said before? The knowledge he offered was a weapon I armed myself with, his desire bolstering my ability to become more than the victim in his arms.
Alan’s twisted fingers worked in and out of my hot pussy, crooking and stretching me as he hit a sensitive spot. Still coming down from my first release, he brought me back to the edge I’d escaped. He pulled me against his chest, his heart beating out of sync, too fast against mine though he kept up the pretense that his touch didn’t excite him as much as it did me.
Shoving the thought aside and letting him play his game that I craved as much as he seemed to, I clutched the lean muscle of his forearm to my chest, letting him support me. I didn’t pull away, clinging to him to stay upright.
Alan wouldn’t let me fall.
Still pulsing one hand inside me, he turned the arm I clung on to. His knuckles brushed against my chin as he tilted my head back once more. I stared into the darkness, knowing I was looking at him but unable to see anything at all.
The void remained impenetrable around his hands as his body worked against mine. The invisible touch erased the phantom memories, replacing them with now. His hips pressed against the swell of my ass, his hard length against my back.
Who’s in control here?
I didn’t bother to bite back the smile he couldn’t see anyway.
“I wasn’t going to do anything more than tease you, Mari,” he grated. “But you’re too sweet, little temptation.” Alan’s breath brushed my lips—and then he moved.
Maybe the lack of vision belied his speed as his mouth crushed mine, but nothing prepared me for the searing intensity of his lust, his need to dominate.
I had the sense from my still sometimes scant interactions with them, despite my months in the cabin, that those boys—Robe, Jon, even Miller—knew how to play the domination game. They made no bones about that. Alan’s style of seduction whispered where their natural characteristics blared, and I wondered if that would carry over into the bedroom with each of them.
Then the chance to wonder about anything at all was stripped away as Alan coiled himself around me until I bowed backward in his arms while he played with my body, leaving me to weather his lust.
Arousal blossomed in jolts of need across my flesh. My skin prickled as I rocked onto his hand, arching up into his kiss. Those sharp lips moved over my mouth, and his tongue sliced inside when I whined my protest at the sensations roiling over my body.
I couldn’t think, couldn’t see. He corralled all my remaining senses and melded me into a palpating creature until, sweaty and moaning, I came all over his hand a second time. His tongue danced with mine in long, hard strokes, his own need undisguised.
Raw.
I cried out as he ground his palm against my clit, working my body for his pleasure, pinning me against his hips. His movements jerked as he brought me closer to the frenzied edge again. This time, when I moaned his name into his mouth, I didn’t fall alone.
Alan hissed his release against my throat, licking and sucking there as he slapped wetly against my back. Through my own haze, I vaguely perceived the way his touch gentled, soothing rather than ripping pleasure from my body, easing the tender flesh that fluttered around roughened fingers. He flicked against my inner walls in a languid motion I never wanted to stop in time with the aftershocks pulsing through me.
He wound his arms around me in the close embrace of a lover, perhaps with a side serving of obsession. I suspected my destination ended there too. My mind wandered for the first time to Robe, and I froze.
“Don’t do it. Don’t overthink it. I’ve told you, little hell girl, he’s into you. We share everything. He’s fine.”
“But am I?”
The searing light to Robe’s en suite flicked on. I hadn’t even heard the door open. My eyes watered as I stared at my reflection, all kiss-bitten lips, cheeks stained high with color. Alan’s arms were wrapped around mine, his hand still in my pants, a wet stain coating his fingers where I’d drenched everything.
Unable to make eye contact with the wanton creature in the mirror who looked nothing like the broken woman I associated with myself, I tipped my head sideways to stare at Robe. The man in question filled the doorway, his presence looming over us even though he hadn’t stepped a foot over the threshold.
Those deep green eyes conveyed a shadow of too many parts, letting me glimpse the fury that burned within, then whisking away that glimmer of truth. I didn’t need to glance back at Alan to confirm my thoughts. I focused on the tall mountain man who stood mere paces away with the presence of a grizzly while he eyed the bartender with his hand down my pants.
I am in so much trouble.
Something flickering in the depths of Robe’s gaze told me his might be the sort of trouble I’d enjoy.
My eyes watered under the glaring heat lamp of the variety Robe favored. I suddenly remembered that I stood in his private bathroom off the room he’d given me to sleep in while I recovered.
His. Room.
My body clenched around Alan’s fingers. As though reminded of the compromising position we were in, he began to move his hand inside me again. Echoes of the knee-trembling pleasure he had given me warmed my body until I again bore down on his intruding fingers, my attention still locked on Robe.
His expression never changed, though he stared at us with ravenous eyes.
“Oh, do you like that?” Alan’s drawl slid down my body in a series of sweet, sensual shocks, leaving me more boneless than ever. “Robe likes to watch.”
I wanted to deny it, but a strangled moan tumbled free. My hips rocked against Alan’s touch, moving with him like a puppet. Dazed, I tilted my head back onto his shoulder and turned to face Robe, still reacting to the pleasure another man wrung from my body.
He stood there, Robe Huntingdon, broad, scarred hands open at his sides. A foreboding sentinel to protect or to block a path of escape, though I didn’t need either right now. His gaze dropped to Alan’s hand tenting my pants with his knuckles, his wrist exposed out the top of the material, working my body with his fingers to his own rhythm.
Robe’s heat-filled eyes glowed with desire. He brought one hand over the front of his jeans. His slight smile turned to a feral grimace as he gripped his cock with white knuckles and rubbed himself roughly as he focused on the scene before him. Those forest-dark eyes fixed on me alone.
“Mari. Show him how beautiful you are when you come,” Alan cooed seductively in my ear.
The temptation to do as he demanded slammed into me. Alan worked me faster, the base of his hand grinding against my clit. My eyes drifted shut as I floated between the two men, one of them touching me, one observing. Each sense was heightened the way they had been with the light off. Part of me wanted to go back into that darkness, to hide. The other part of me liked Robe’s lust-riddled gaze.
Alan circled his hand around my throat, restricting my air for a second before letting go. “Open your eyes, Mari.” His voice roughened again, his cock pressing hard against me, though he’d already found his first release.
A part of me reveled in commanding the pleasure of both these men who demanded authority in their own right. What should have seemed wrong felt so right. Tension left my body as I arched into Alan’s movement. My shoulders dropped back, which pushed out my breasts as I ground down onto his hand.
Robe’s audible pants grew faster, every breath matching mine as he rubbed himself through his pants. His lips parted, his desire mingling with ours. Despite not being a physical part of the act Alan performed, Robe’s presence consumed every viable inch of air in the room.
“Mari,” Robe rasped. His hand pulsed around his denim-encased cock as he fisted himself. A deep moan tore from his mouth as I watched him succumb to a bodily need as he witnessed our debauchery that held his attention.
The urge to curl around his body and touch and lick and suck on him the way Alan was doing to me consumed my mind. My knees buckled, but the man at my back didn’t let me fall.
The bartender looked up from where he nibbled on my neck, then resumed his activity, biting down hard. The sharp pain combined with Robe’s groan in a headrush of pleasure. I cried out as heat smashed over my body, aching as my orgasm hit with the power of both men, though only one of them was touching me.
Alan licked at my throat where I bared it to him as I sank into his arms. “So beautiful.” He brought my mouth to his in slow, deep kisses. “So perfect for us. Isn’t she?”
Robe’s chest heaved as he stared through me, possession exposed raw on his face.
My head swam as Alan withdrew his fingers, stroking the engorged nerve-filled bundle to soothe the oversensitized ache he’d left there. The scent of sex swirled around us as he brought his knuckles first to my lips, glossing them, and then his. I tasted myself while he sucked the orgasms he’d drawn out of my body from his fingers.
Alan split his tongue between them, making a meal of it and acting the memory out, like I suspected he would do onstage. He brought clean fingers out of his mouth and kissed the middle one, aiming the gesture at Robe, who looked like he was struggling to remain standing.
I understood the feeling.
“Maybe next time.” Alan winked.
After making sure he propped me safely against the wall, he strutted away, crossing the room until he reached Robe. The giant woodsman didn’t move, still squeezing his spent cock as he stared straight at me.
Alan rose on to his toes at the doorway. Pushing his mouth up, he kissed Robe, smearing the taste of my pleasure against the bigger man’s lips. I watched as Robe opened his mouth to accept his tongue and kissed the cheeky stripper back deeply. He raised one hand to grip the dancer’s nape possessively until Alan moaned, his dominance ripped away in a single kiss. Alan reached for Robe’s crotch, but the mountain man batted him away with a deep growl. My body thrummed with heightened need before Robe broke away, his gaze still locked on mine.
Shifting aside, he made just enough room for Alan to slip through the gap between man and wall. Alan shot me another wink over his shoulder and disappeared.
I opened my mouth to say something, but my courage depleted without my wingman at my back. Robe didn’t help. My Everest crossed thick arms over his chest, impassive and unmoving despite the scent of debauchery still floating in the thick air between us.
His cock tented a dark spot on his pants. I had no idea if he wanted me to ask to finish him or cover up and leave his house altogether. Lost on everything, the confusion seemed so much worse than before Alan touched me. The tentative pleasure and healing he offered dissipated.
Alan helped me conquer my fear that I would never be able to take pleasure from a man’s touch ever again. Now… I didn’t know where we stood.
Alone. On the other side of a small bathroom from the man I trusted.
A man I thought I could trust. But from the way he looked at me, I wasn’t sure if he wanted to devour me or kill me for what I just did with one of his friends. His men.
None of Alan’s whispered platitudes meant anything in this moment as Robe watched me through hooded eyes, his face an indecipherable mask.
That break in trust hurt me as much as it did him.
“I’m sorry.” Nothing else in my mind seemed valid.
In the event that my brain thought up something else fun to do, I closed my mouth and pressed my thighs together. My body ached to collapse onto his bed, preferably sandwiched between Robe and Alan, and sleep.
Just sleep.
Robe raised his fingers to his mouth, rubbing them across his lips. Desire still raged in those dark eyes, green flames wreathed in emotions as indecipherable as their master. He inhaled my scent, then licked his fingers, a simple gesture that copied Alan’s earlier show and signaled his style as slower, savoring.
More intimate.
Then Robe dropped his hand and pushed away from the door to follow Alan’s exit strategy, leaving me alone.
I stood in his en suite, reeling from the loss of both men and wondering at the pleasure they helped me rediscover. My legs trembled once more and then gave out. I slid to a gentle stop on the cold floor, gathered my limbs about me in a huddle, and closed my eyes.
Mountain men were going to kill me.