Chapter 18
18
MARI
“Robe won’t play with you, huh?” Alan stared at me beneath the soft glow of the bar. A twinkle lit his aquamarine gaze—his standard response to life, it seemed. His low-level sarcasm nicely underlined the pity party aimed my way.
Light failed outside beneath heavily pregnant cloud cover, leaving the woods in a dim, not-quite-dark haze.
“I have no idea what you mean.” I pressed smooth, manicured hands to the clean beermat.
French nails were as fussy as I let Alan go, despite the array of colors he insisted I try. It didn’t seem right, somehow, and the nude gloss suited my mood. Maybe tomorrow I’d try midnight blue.
“Uh-huh.” Alan uncapped a top-shelf whiskey and emptied an eighth of it into my coffee mug.
Notes of peat and honey filled my head, giving imagery of an eighteenth-century Highland clan roused for battle. Or maybe the after-party.
“That’s enough.” I held out a hand to ward off any more alcohol. “Alan, it’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
A cheeky smile curved his sassy lips, showcasing his popularity in his on-again, off-again job—both at the strip club and the one he did for Robe. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, sweetcheeks.” Alan tipped the bottle back, swallowing a healthy double slug, and managed to give me a sexy ass wiggle at the same time without spilling a drop.
“Talent.” I giggled, then clapped my hands over my mouth. “Inappropriate much?” I said to the coffee that burned my tongue, the back of my throat, and my stomach but left me in a happy insta-glow that threatened premeditated trouble later. I wondered what he put in that whiskey and how long he’d been tippling my coffee without my knowledge.
“Gets you right there.” Alan smiled knowingly.
I tossed back a healthy dose of my intoxicated coffee under his watchful gaze and then threw my hands in the air. “Fine! Robe is impossible. The silent, still sentinel one minute, all black mood and dark thoughts. You can see his thoughts swirling around. His head is like a fishbowl,” I informed my bartender.
Alan leaned over his forearms where they were braced on the stainless steel bar. “If he only knew…. Oh, Mari, Mari. It’s so obvious.”
“Right? Then that mood changes. He goes from protective bear to… to…” I pressed my lips together and collected my thoughts. “To a sinuous fairy-tale beast in the next breath, royally capable of pissing me off. His emotions are a one-way door, and it’s infuriating. If I approach him, the fire goes out and he shuts off.” I sounded like a petulant child, but I didn’t care.
Alan comprised my safe zone. Even knowing he collected information like other people collected flowers or toys, his charm worked as well on me as it did on anyone else. In a house full of borderline psychotics at best and full-on sociopaths at worst—including at least one murderer, per Jon—I needed to trust someone.
Anything for the cause, right? I needed a clarity check on what heeding my cause came under. Beneath the healing process Robe had set me on, I knew more than one thing had changed about me. Not that any of that was his fault, exactly, but I still struggled with those deep-level alterations.
I also still struggled on occasion with having the freedoms I used to take for granted whisked away, but not half as much anymore. My newfound need for constant physical comfort to prevent the nightmares, relying on others for basic survival and life beyond simple needs like food and shelter for the first time in my life. The men of Recurve Ridge protected me, and I didn’t want to be without them. The cage I initially clawed against and whenever I fought against Robe’s need for control had become my refuge.
A pale reflection of the figure that should resemble me stared back as I struggled to reconcile with the girl who shared my skin. But my reflection no longer suited my shape or shared my name. She died sometime during my race through the forest before I found myself entangled in Robe’s arms. I adapted as best I could to circumstance, but I’d had enough of waiting and reacting.
Alan smiled. “Sweetcheeks, he’s so enamored with you that when you approach him, he runs like a six-year-old boy.”
I snorted, an unladylike sound, but the whiskey had sucked away my worry over decorum in this place. “Robe was never a six-year-old boy. He was born a full-grown man with six beards to choose from.”
“Cheers to that.” Alan clinked his glass against mine.
I pressed the alcoholic coffee against my lips, savoring the burn that sank down my throat. The sensation made my head swim and my eyes water at the same time. Spice and all things so, so nice, or something like that. “Alan, do I run from him? Do I try to hide? Or do I?—”
Alan raised an eyebrow. “Robe is more than you can ever imagine. He’s done things for all of us, helped us across that line we can’t cross back over. Not one of us would—not even for him. Can you hide from a man like that, Mari Merripen?”
His first use of my full name since the day I walked into Robe’s house hit me like a slap to the face. Despite the shock value he intended, I knew his words were truthful. Those same words also had an opposite, almost arousing effect. Robe had the resources to hunt me back to NYC and beyond. No matter where I went, I would always end up back on Recurve Ridge and back in his bed, even if I slept there alone.
The difference between him and Gideon lay in a moral choice. Robe wouldn’t use me. Still, I wanted to wallow, and so wallow, I did.
“I’m a prisoner.” I whispered the three words, wondering which truth Alan would throw at me next.
He paused. “If you choose to be.”
I nodded, drinking the rest of my coffee in silence. Did I want to be Robe’s prisoner or return to a different life? No matter which way we swung it, I had little choice in where I headed other than to go in the direction Robe pointed me.
Maybe I could make that happen on my own terms instead of on his.
An idea formed in my mind, aided by a cheeky bartender and the power of his wares. I pushed off the barstool and stood on unsteady legs. My feet pressed into ground that was spongy despite the fact that it looked as hard as it had been before, no matter which eye I closed. The floor wobbled, or maybe I did, and I grabbed at the bar for support.
Alan’s warm hands closed over mine. “Are you all right there, sweetcheeks?”
I looked up at him and gave him a dazzling smile. “Alan?” I asked in my sweetest, most alluring voice. His eyes narrowed, but he nodded once. “Can you teach me how to lap dance, please?”
I wished I asked weeks earlier. The smile that split his face with mischief and mayhem filled the room with a glow. I’d put my trust in the right man.
* * *
My legs ached by the time I perfected the moves Alan taught me. My everything ached. Muscles I didn’t know I had hurt, and it felt almost too good after days cooped up in a house in the middle of nowhere with nothing to dispel the energy that coiled inside me without Miller’s training.
My body awakened with the new activity, even if it was grinding away at an empty chair while the rest of the occupants were absent for… whatever they did. While I didn’t often stand under the shower for long, I opted to embrace the luxury of the endless hot water system Robe had provided and let the steam clear my head while the heat unwound tension from my body.
Could I seduce Robe? Alan seemed to think I’d healed enough to take on the mountainous—pun intended—task. Even I had a degree of confidence over my scheme, once the effects of the alcohol wore off. And the head of the household did his damnedest to create moments he designed to drive me mad and then walk away, time and again. If what I was planning worked out, I’d have a definitive answer one way or another.
My skin still steaming from my volcano-level hot shower, I wandered into Robe’s bedroom, patting myself down. His towels were massive—they had to be for someone his size. They were also fluffier than any I’d used in the executive hotels we booked when I traveled with Gideon.
My hand froze over my heart at the thought of my old boss. Ex- boss. Tormentor.
Nightmare.
I’d managed to keep the chaos at bay for the few scant days since my last nightmare through pure distraction.
Never be alone.
Never stop talking.
Don’t stop.
The ceaseless activity around and inside the cabin made that an easy task, and my usual short shower backed that up. Until I’d decided to do something out of my crafted routine and take a break.
Note to self: no more breaks for Mari.
I stared at myself in the mirror, taking in the no-longer hollow cheeks and the damp strands that clung to my shoulders and wound their way around my throat in a parody of a noose.
The pair of eyes behind me that burned with a black fire deep enough to seek out my soul.
His warmth radiated against my spine, tingles working their way toward my extremities until my fingers curled into fists at my sides. No man had the right to affect a woman the way my body reacted to his presence. I stared back, lost in Robe’s gaze for a long moment. Then, in a delayed reaction that should have been rib-crackingly hilarious, I screamed the house down and scared the shit out of us both.
“What the—” Robe swore beneath the towel I threw over his head, peeling it back layer by layer, then patting his hair as though to make sure nothing had landed on him. “Fuck, Mari.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled in a small voice, wiggling my nightgown over my head. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
I tugged at the hem, but the thing refused to drop any farther. Lace crinkled in my hands. At the same time as Robe’s head emerged from beneath the towel, I realized that I hadn’t grabbed my nightie but the negligee I’d asked Alan to source for me earlier in a somewhat desperate plan to seduce my mountain man and never got around to deploying.
He stared at me in utter, breast-blushing silence that abetted my humiliation while his expression morphed from bemused to starving man in milliseconds. “I’d ask if you had that lying around, but… that’s a moot point.”
I giggled, then clapped a hand over my mouth. His eyes slitted, too focused on me, and the giggle became a full-blown laugh until even Robe cracked a rare smile.
“That’s better.” I poked his chest, aware that flirting with the beast might get me what I wanted—if not in the way I expected.
Maybe expected didn’t apply to this situation. Hoped , or perhaps wanted might suit the outcome better. Desired ….
His gaze darkened as it tracked over the sheer material, then lingered at the hem. “Isn’t that supposed to cover more of you?” His tone was strained, reflecting what I read in his eyes—undiluted, raw lust.
That same gaze had a distinct effect on my own body. A warm flush started at my throat and sank lower, heat pooling between my thighs. I pressed them together and told myself that nervousness at my first sexual encounter since?—
Alan.
The reset worked. I cleared my throat as the heat turned to cold stone in my belly. Forcing the nightmares back, I focused on the man in front of me, willing my arousal to return.
“Everest,” I whispered, then shook my head, damp tendrils flicking side to side, showering us both in a spray of droplets.
No . I could do this on my own terms.
Time to woman up, Mari.
I threw on my best British attitude as his gaze narrowed further.
“It came with a pair of knickers, but, uh….” I offered a feeble wave in the direction of a set of drawers he’d allocated to me and wished he’d take the hint.
Or maybe I didn’t.
Flee.
I took a step back, making room for breathable air between us.
Robe stepped forward.
His eyes glowed with intent as we promenaded across the room in a one-way defense—or offense, depending on which side of the equation I stood on.
Turned out my side ran defense, and I was shit at it.
Heat rolled off him as he shed his jacket to the floor, the need for its warmth expunged by this room that was already a thousand degrees too hot. Regardless, I kept backing up until a sharp edge jabbed my ass. I cursed the unidentified piece of furniture, but I refused to risk taking my eyes off Robe.
A predatory smile curved those sinful lips as he advanced, stealing my space. Both arms surrounded me in a thick cage, his large hands framing either side of my waist against whatever pointy object I’d backed into.
A big fucking mountain.
Also a very sexy one.
“What are you doing in here?” I gasped at thin air, unable to suck in a full breath when he stood so close. Nothing in this world came close to the feeling of curling up against his warmth, all comfort and sweetness and innocence. I’d broken my habit of sleeping with him to poke the literal bear, and look what happened. My eyes closed as I offered an undying pledge that I’d never deny my OCD needs ever again.
“I’m going to bed, Mari Merripen. Care to join me?” His breath brushed my cheeks, and the fire rekindled low in my belly.
Thank you, Everest.
My heartfelt gratitude resulted in a hooded gaze. His sexy-as-sin offer wavered between us, solid yet not.
Robe freed one arm to extend a hand. I stared at it, unable to lift my frozen one for too long a moment. Worried he’d withdraw his offer, my palm rose of its own accord. Long, roughened fingers curled around my softer ones.
I let him draw me the few paces to the hard mattress I now thought of as soft, crawling backward onto its surface and tucking my knees beneath me to stare up at him.
“This wasn’t what I had planned,” I whispered.
Unable to tear my gaze from his, I fidgeted with my lacy covering as he shucked his shirt into a puddle next to his jacket. His pants went next, and he advanced on me, closing the meager space between us. The wrist-thick erection that protruded from his groin drew my attention and held it.
Because who could take their eyes off a log like that?
I’m insane. I’ve been assaulted, and this is what I think will heal me?
He could rip me in two. Or three. Or four.
Chest heaving, I scooted back a few inches, as if that would protect me from the beast I’d incited, and reclined on his bed.
The lace negligee seemed a wonderful temptation on my behalf and a terrible accident all at once.
Robe loomed over me, his forearms braced on either side of my head where I lay on the pillow. The space between us shrank, allowing a sliver of air to pass beneath him but in no way large enough to permit me a full breath to combat his overpowering presence. His knees fell to encase my hips. The warm, rock-hard mass of my Everest arced over me, though not a single square inch of our bodies touched.
My chest clenched, waiting for his rejection to cleave my heart. Would it sting or offer relief? A large part of me knew that as daunting as being loved by him seemed, it would break me if he pushed me away now.
We hadn’t come this far together before. Every time we flirted, he disappeared or shoved me away before we made it to this point. My heart tried to hope, but I quashed the tiny seed before it could bloom, knowing the negative that hovered between us should he hold to his impossible—his untouchable —standard.
Refusing to let him go this time, I lifted my head, lips parted. An offering in the silence that permeated the sliver of light against dark that flitted between us.
A steely glare flattened me back to the pillow.
I wanted to growl at him or tug at his hair until I got a different reaction from him. The one I wanted. “Robe, I don’t know what you want.”
He surveyed me in the darkness. One corner of his lips moved, working upward as though he might smile. “Then that makes two of us, Mari Merripen.” He dipped his head. His lips were millimeters from mine as his breath kissed my lips. “Something involving diving in without thought.”
His words came out musingly, and I wondered if he’d spoken to himself or to me.
I didn’t have to wonder anymore when his mouth covered mine in a gentle pressure that sent tingles rioting through my body. Nerve endings fired up all over me, pleasure lancing straight through my center until every surface was stripped raw and aching.
Robe pressed his forehead to mine, heat emanating over me from the single point of contact. Breath sighed from lips feathering and light. What started as a soft, sweet kiss changed within seconds. A groan ripped from his chest as his tongue swept over my bottom lip before he delved deeper.
Exploring became devouring, and devouring twisted into something deeper, darker, a whisper that etched itself on my soul, bearing his name. I arched into him, linked my arms around the back of his neck, and pulled his mouth down to mine. Our tongues danced and swirled as he let me press my body to his. A soft sigh left my lips, matching the thunder that rumbled in his chest, unvoiced.
Robe held to his frustrating position above me, unyielding. I shoved the nagging what-ifs aside and lost myself to him, letting the world and all my doubts fade beneath his onslaught. His skin heated from my touch along the back of his neck. I dug my fingers into his scalp, massaging the delicate flesh there, tracing over the heavy lines of muscle that extended into his hairline.
Robe groaned into my mouth and broke the kiss with wild eyes. His fist slammed into the pillow next to me, jostling me with its violence.
I squeaked, loosing the sound of something terrified of its impending fate.
He is more dangerous than the man I escaped.
The thought thrashed through my mind in a disjointed stream. I saw truth in it, but also something that existed between us—something I never had with Gideon but fought and ached for with Robe.
Trust.
The tiny sound I made hovered in the air between us, lost in a rush of breath and words.
“Mari, I’m… not suitable for someone like you.” Breath hissed between his teeth as he twisted the pillow beneath my head. “I’ll hurt you.” Lust raged in dark, glittery eyes, leaving me a hot liquid mess below his enormous frame.
Still, his rejection stung like a motherfucker. My hand stilled behind his neck. I tried to draw him down to me, but he refused me— again .
Fine. Two of us can play this game.
I raised myself onto my elbows and grazed my lips against his before he could protest. “You’re a different kind of dangerous, Robe Huntingdon. Your moral compass may not point north, and it might be a different shade of black, but you aren’t anything like them .”
The words scattered to ash in my mouth. I’d run out of innocence, that critical part of my soul ripped from me without choice. My choice. Not the virginal sort, but the part of me that believed horror movies were the stuff of the silver screen and nothing more. Now, I knew better.
The monsters lived among us.
Robe Huntingdon wasn’t one of them.
“You have no idea who I am,” he grated, his voice harsh and unforgiving.
Robe couldn’t give my innocence back or take away the harm I’d suffered at the hands of another. No one could. He could give me love, new memories to replace the terror of those hours. He had given me the time and space to heal, and now I was ready to move forward with my choice of who . Maybe even somewhat ready to heal in my heart.
Tears filled my eyes, but I refused to let them flow—not anymore.
“Please, Robe.” Help me.
His black gaze cleaved straight through me. “I can’t be your therapy fuck, Mari.”
Robe’s stillness shattered as he pushed back till he was kneeling on his haunches at the end of the bed. A giant mountain god living in a house never built to fit such a demand. He dwarfed the building with his presence alone, even though it suited his physical form. But there was so much more to Robe than what the eye could see. I followed him, rising onto my knees, and crawled toward him.
His breath came faster. He watched me in silence, rock still, his hands resting on his knees. I’d called him a stone sentinel to Alan, so full of life, too full of energy, regardless of how he channeled it in dark ways.
When my hands brushed his thighs, I stopped. Looking up at him, I curled my feet beneath me. “I don’t want your therapy. But I could use a teacher, a guide—someone to take me back to real life. A f-friend.”
Someone to love and to be loved by.
I said all of that without extending an invitation for more, scared of what would happen if he threw me away, but I knew I could offer him something missing from his life. From all their lives. I wanted to be given the chance to try. I couldn’t force those words past my lips, so I lay back and waited. Hoped.
Prayed .
Even if no god could want a twisted thing like me.
I knelt before him, begging.
His fingers rose from his knee to graze my cheek. “I’m not the man to take you back to reality, Mari.” This time the corner of his lips did work, and he smiled.
The change in him was instant, ripping away the man who threatened torture and murder. He ran his household of broken misfits with an iron fist. That smile replaced him with someone he thought dead, ruined, but I saw him in a shot of clarity.
“I think you are.” I leaned into his touch until he curved his hand around my cheek.
A dark gleam in his fathomless eyes was all the warning he offered.
The hint of a smile remained on his lips as that dormant growl rose in his throat. Robe’s brand of fierce had become my standard, what I measured everything else against, but this kind of intimidation settled low in my stomach. A searing shot of arousal zinged through me, lips to tiptoes.
His fingers curved, brushing over my throat in a protective claim that promised violence to anyone who threatened me. Every caress staked a deeper mark on my soul, seeking possession. His touch verged on pure temptation, everything I wanted but knew I shouldn’t take.
If we did this, our world would change.
Too late, I caught on to what Robe had been trying to say every time he pushed me away. His darkness clashed against whoever I’d become during my months in his house, and the heady mix threatened to consume us.
I shifted in front of him, lost in the dark glitter that surveyed me with humor and seduction. “Robe?—”
“Too late, little lamb.” He swept his arms around my body, locking me to his chest as he settled me onto his lap.
The energy coiled inside him thrummed against me, his movements fast enough to shock, silent enough to ripple the air as he moved. Everything I needed to know existed in the dark promise his eyes laid bare before he whisked that away too.
His sheer size and muscle mass stretched my thighs wider as I sank onto the hard ridges of him. Talented hands tangled in my hair, pulling my mouth down to his in a kiss hard enough to bruise, yet sweet enough to leave me sighing, pulsing on air, and needing more .
I rocked against the hard rise of his cock, my negligee a useless barrier between us. One of his hands dropped between us to squeeze the sensitive spot at the curve of my thighs as I writhed against his unyielding form. A moan dripped from my lips to sweep over his.
Robe caught the filmy material as I rose, drawing it over my head with care; then his hands were on my bare skin, dragging my tingling breasts over ridges of hard, inked muscle. My body became its own weapon. I used it the way Alan had taught me, grinding and undulating in a rhythm of my own.
Though Robe fisted my hair, drawing my head back, I never stopped dancing. His breath stuttered against my mouth as he held me in place, and the room disappeared into the fathomless depths of his gaze. Everything stilled between us. He slipped his tongue into my mouth, searching and tasting, finding my rhythm and matching it with his own as he released my hair and let me kiss him back, tasting him the way I needed to.
Firm hands curled around my hips, slamming me against him. The deep ache between my thighs intensified. Swollen, needy skin connected with his hardness as I moved over him and slicked his flesh with my arousal, soaking us both.
I wanted to say his name, something profound, but nothing came out other than an animalistic cry. The set of his jaw warned me not to break the moment, and my body obediently conveyed the conversation I couldn’t voice. I squeezed my thighs tight against his hips, linking my ankles around his back, and let him show me what he wanted most.
The sheer size of him wasn’t contained to his height or muscle mass. Robe’s presence rippled with unleashed power as he ground me against his body, the extent of his arousal evident as he held my eyes. Lust overwhelmed his earlier hesitancy, and I drowned in the deluge of him.
A whimper whispered past my lips as he let me up for air, then claimed me again until I twisted into a writhing, hot mess on his lap.
And he hadn’t even fucked me yet.
Robe broke the kiss, raising both hands to my cheeks as he drew away from me. “I’ll tear you, Mari. I’ll do more damage than any one of them did, even if you’re ready for me. And I can’t hurt you. Not you, precious girl.” His lips grazed over my mouth once more, tender and lingering, and then again.
The insatiable urge that rose in me consumed any rational thought, leaving emotion and desire strung out in an impasse between our bodies. I shivered in the cradle of his hands, clinging to his shoulders as I wound my body over his. My limbs were fluid from hours of practice in front of the bar under a critical eye that had annoyed me then but made me thankful now.
Robe groaned, his touch turning rougher as he held me close, watching my movements with hungry eyes as I danced for him. His cock thickened between my legs, and I gasped when he pushed me down to grind my swollen flesh against him again. Sensation flooded my system. I arched into his brutal touch, craving him deeper.
“I. Will. Break. You.”
“No.” Insanity gripped me, the sort of madness that beckoned with pleasure and promised a different sort of pain. “I want you. Please, Robe—” My breath hitched as my brain caught up, but the words were already in the open.
Robe’s hands swept my body, brushing my breasts, then moving over the globes of my ass cheeks, stroking and caressing. Every motion left me lust drunk on him. Eyes closed, head tilted back, I sought my own pleasure. His harsh moans reverberated inside the deep cavity of his chest with every undulation of my body against him. I danced until I edged onto a precipice, and I knew that once I tumbled over that limit, I would never be able to recover—not from him. And I still wanted everything he offered.
His movement halted, and I paused midgrind.
I opened my eyes to stare deep into Robe’s. He panted at the same rate I did, as though he had been the one dancing. The air stilled around us, the moment suspended as my body throbbed, burning and needful.
His touch became firmer, and the moment broke as he grazed roughened knuckles along my spine. Those same hands caught me in an inescapable grip. He slammed my body against his, hitting all the right places where I teased myself into a frenzy, grinding against his rougher touch.
Once, then again.
Waves I reached for and then held at bay now splintered over me. I screamed, uncaring if I roused the house. The reaction of a woman who had discovered safety, trust, and acceptance, who craved his brand of fierce.
In the arms of a man she loved.
I snapped back as the thought penetrated my hazy mind. How could I fall in love? I had healed to a degree—on the outside, at least. Inside, my mind broke into a chaotic mess whenever silence fell. Whenever I wasn’t with him, or with Jon.
Warmth filtered into my chest at the memory of his best friend’s arms wrapped around me, my brief sense of peace absorbed by a sensible dose of guilt.
How could I think of one man while in the arms of another? And Alan, with his silver kisses and clever fingers. Will leaning into me, talking of strawberries as he watched my lips. Miller’s eyes on me while we trained, me wearing his shirt beneath the sweater Alan bought me, a secret I kept for myself.
Guilt provided a double-edged sword that razed me in both directions. My body tightened, fear tautening my muscles in painful twists as I gasped for breath. Perhaps I didn’t need silence for the chaos to consume me after all.
This madness tormented me in different ways. I gripped Robe’s shoulders tight, shock warring with recognition as my gaze mirrored his glittering one.
I love him.
And I want them all.
Every thought swept away as Robe rolled me onto my back, pressing his body over mine. His weight sank into me as a comfort rather than a threat. I wriggled beneath him, arching up for greater contact. His hips thrust against me, the coarse hairs on his thighs rasping against my curves as I wrapped my legs around his waist, tilting my hips up.
He pressed his cock to my opening and held himself there, pulsing. Animalistic and wild, he claimed my mouth in a savage kiss that left me with no doubt that we shared the suffering of our combined epiphany.
Robe tore away with force. A bellow rose from his throat, and a single word jolted me out of my haze.
“ Jon. ”
My hands tightened on his back. “Robe, please?—”
The door swung open, Jon’s mass filling it as he gripped the lintel above his head. Breath wheezed from his chest as he surveyed the room with a clinical, assessing glance.
Until that gaze rested on me.
“What? Is she hurting?” Jon asked, his tone terse as he strode into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.
The bed dipped with his weight as he settled behind me. Robe lifted me enough for Jon to scoot beneath my body. Denim scratched the backs of my thighs as arms the size of tree trunks wrapped tight around all of us, sandwiching me in the middle.
The pressure of being crushed between two giant chests might have been a pleasurable torture, except for the one thing I lacked.
I flapped at a shoulder, choosing the nearest one without bothering to check who owned it. “Air.
“Oh.” Jon released our group, rocking back a few inches. Hands grazed my spine, stroking the healed scars there with a gentle reverence that shot heat through me as he took in my naked state. “Mari….” His voice turned husky and rough, so different to his sweet touch when he calmed my nightmares in this very bed.
I fixed my gaze on Robe, my brow dipping as I tried to process too many sensations and thoughts at the same time. Guilt still gnawed at me, but under his tense expression, I pushed that aside to focus on him.
He smiled, reaching around me to cover Jon’s hand and press his palm to my body, though he kept his gaze locked on mine. “It’s okay, Mari. This is who we are, who we want to be with you.” He dipped his head to kiss me long and slow while Jon’s hand curled around my ribs, his touch supportive. “We share what we love, and right now….”
Intensity was pinpointed on me as his mouth curled in a wicked, sinful smile.
Desire slammed into me at that look. I shivered in their arms, trying to work out why my body wanted the impossibility of what my brain had heard but struggled to process. The hints were there—the glances over my head, their dual touch… but it was more than that.
“You mean… all of you? Not just you two?” I squeaked.
Jon’s chest rumbled at my back. “If that’s what you want, too, Mari. We will never rush you. I didn’t think we were going to—” He broke off the brittle words aimed at the other occupant in the room.
“Things got out of hand,” Robe growled, his eyes full of violence as he flicked his gaze over my head.
I knew he remembered that day in his bathroom when he’d watched Alan play us both. His fingers dug into my skin, offering a deep, sensual massage to tender flesh in a touch designed to drive me mad with need for him.
Pressed between them as I was, my breath evaporated, basic body functions overrun with emotion and arousal. I let my mind turn that over for a long moment while they waited with patience for me to reach my own conclusions. I searched for a reason not to, but… the emotion I was lacking was fear.
I trusted the two behemoths as much as I did at any other time. Both men had developed our trust, crushing any doubt about what I wanted, what would be acceptable to them all, though I still trembled at the thought of what my body could take.
“I will break you.”
I had no doubt that Robe’s promise meant something to him, but I was ready for that challenge. Managing both him and Jon? Another impossibility to face for another time.
Not reassured by a long shot, I swallowed beneath Robe’s watchful gaze and glanced over my shoulder at Jon. “I’m not hurting. Robe freaked out. I think.”
“Robe did not freak out.” The amused voice at my front belied the tension in his tone, though I knew he spoke the truth. Something else was there… but I couldn’t pick it out. Robe broke the dark gaze he’d been using to lock me in place and tilted his head to one side. “Doubt. One very big doubt. I need to know I won’t ruin her,” he rasped.
Pinned between the two enormous men, the fact that they spoke over me about me without speaking to me was a nice reprieve. I settled between their twin masses, my thighs draped over Robe’s hips, and leaned back into Jon.
He took the light pressure—I couldn’t be more than that to him—without question, leaving me to think through the men’s relationship once more. “This is who we are.” I knew Robe shared everything with Jon; he rammed that point home enough times. I just hadn’t listened.
It served to highlight my earlier doubts about my own loyalty to Robe, and my—at the time—ridiculous attraction to Jon. As I leaned back into him, letting the large blond man’s roughened touch glide over my body, the thought no longer offered the same level of guilt.
My head cleared along with my heart. Did I want this? I turned my face to rub my cheek against Jon’s semi-bare chest where his shirt hung to the sides of his body, testing my theory.
The big man’s heart beat a little faster than I expected. I arched, pressing against hot skin. He removed his open shirt one-handed over his head, leaving his chest smooth with a smattering of fine golden hair over his heart. I hadn’t noticed, caught up in my own thoughts and the way his hands caressed me in an intimate, loving touch.
Lost in them both.
Robe held a charismatic power over everyone, and I was no exception. The intimacy turned up another notch, though, when Robe’s and Jon’s fingers interlocked around my body. My breath shortened as I overheated in an instant. The thick ridge of Jon’s denim-covered cock pressed into my lower back. I rubbed myself shamelessly against him, heady with their dual attention.
I discovered I had fallen in love with Robe, and now I was having a reaction to his best friend… the best friend welcome in Robe’s bed—and mine.
Too many hands—but not the wrong sort. Not the sort from before , clinging and twisting. I’d asked Robe to provide me with new memories to banish the old, and he was rising to that challenge. An untempered stillness filled the room, bringing with it the potential for chaos, raising the tension being built between us all too fast.
Jon shifted behind me to provide stability. As he rocked me back onto him, his erection pressed against my ass through his jeans, and the mad thought of what it would be like to take them both at once flitted through my mind. If he let me go, I might have swooned.
Jon drew damp hair back from my neck and grazed his fingers over my shoulders. “Tell her, Robe.”
“I’m scared of damaging you. That I’ll tear you worse than they did.” Robe’s voice broke.
I froze. Not at his words, but at the brutal honesty he displayed as he exchanged a glance with Jon over my head. I was no more than an object pinned between two men whose closeness meant far more than a few impassioned moments between a man and the girl he wanted to fuck.
“You won’t. We’ll go slow. Together.” Jon stroked my stomach in long, soothing caresses. His fingers passed my face to touch Robe’s cheek in a tender, sweet gesture, leaving me suddenly certain of the nature of their relationship. Jon leaned forward, his lips brushing my hair. “Don’t be scared of him, Mari. He’ll give you the most wonderful loving you’ll ever have.”
Desire shot through my body as my gaze connected with Robe’s. His lit an insatiable craving within me. Though I understood his fear, I wanted to do the best I could to give him new memories too.
I let Jon tilt my head back to look into my eyes. The warmth and understanding I found there left me high on the sensation of being safe in the arms of two men I knew who, without a single seed of doubt, would protect me—would kill for me.
Two pairs of welcome hands roamed my body, removing the damage done there with each sweet, sensuous caress, begging off old memories, creating new ones to cherish. Together these men succeeded where everyone else had failed in breaking down the poor barriers I’d erected to protect myself, my heart, my mind.
And willingly, I gave all three.