Chapter 18
Eighteen
N erine
Four days.
Four days since I became a widow…since I killed him.
I took a deep breath as I stepped out of my shower into the bathroom of the suite of rooms I now occupied.
This one was triple the space of the one I’d used for the last nearly five years, and ten times more opulent. Everything was designed to exact specifications and brand-new—newish, since it sat here for five years without use and occasional cleaning.
Not a single soul had utilized this section of the house after the completion of construction—well, until now.
I’d moved in the evening everything went down with Andraius. It was on the renovated side of the mansion, as far away as possible from where I’d spent the last few years.
Papa and Mama had planned to update the entire mansion, section by section. They’d started with new living quarters for them and all their children.
Maybe it was good that Andraius never wanted to stay on this side of the house. This section remained pure of his touch, his stench, his evil.
When Mama and the girls arrived in the next few days, they’d have a place to sleep without the taint of the horrors committed inside the old rooms.
Pulling a towel from a rack, I dried my body before wrapping it around my wet hair. The pain in my calf had finally eased to a dull ache. It was a state I could manage while wearing heels at the funeral in a few days.
Moving before the double sink vanity, I stared at my reflection in the mirror above it.
I wanted to laugh, and at the same time, the desire to cry pushed at the edges. I’d gotten everything I begged God to give me. Except for the escape I so desperately wanted.
And it was time to accept that it was a childish dream anyway. I was the eldest. My sisters and I were the last of the Angelos line in America. If I ran, my sisters and mother became even bigger targets.
I forced myself to study my body and the ugly jagged word carved into my stomach. I had allowed Andraius to win and add to my pain by constantly avoiding looking at them. Never again.
He was dead. He deserved to die. I’d survived. I’d won. Fuck him.
Plus, the cream had faded the lines to lighter shades of brown. Soon they’d be barely visible, and they weren’t anywhere near as puckered as before.
These were my battle wounds.
I knew I had a long way to go, but baby steps.
I grinned to myself. No baby for you, jackass.
I angled my face to the side and traced the bruises down my neck. They’d turned an ugly shade of yellow-green, something I’d have to continue to hide, at least for another little while.
The fact Theo and Xander had only made one or two passing comments about my choice of body-covering clothing in the middle of a heatwave in Boston meant they suspected.
Who the fuck was I kidding? They knew. Their eyes gave it away. They watched me, scrutinized my moods, and analyzed my words.
Plus, they’d gone beyond the standard protocol of cleaning up the scene and making it seem like Andraius passed in his sleep. Instead, they’d restaged his body at another location far from the house and passed it off as a hit.
Were they waiting for me to broach the subject with them?
Outside of the comments from the night of Andraius’s death, they hadn’t mentioned anything regarding my involvement.
What would I say to them?
My husband threatened to put me in a coma and impregnate me, so I gutted him.
Out of nowhere, dizziness rushed through my head and bile rose in my throat, nearly choking me.
I doubled over, the towel tumbling from my hair, and purged my stomach into the sink as I realized what he had planned as my future washed over me. He would have destroyed me to have a baby. A child he’d never view with love, only as a commodity.
He planned to steal my life, my legacy, everything from me.
It was all for money.
He deserved to die by my hands. Why had I waited so damn long?
Once I had nothing left inside me, I lifted my head. Tears flowed freely from my eyes, and the color of my skin looked pale and so lifeless.
He had destroyed me.
A hiccup escaped my lips, and I slowly cleaned up my mess in the sink, brushed my teeth, and washed my face. I continued to cry for the broken woman I refused to be anymore.
I’d spent the last four days in a haze, going through the motions, numb and emotionless. But maybe that’s what I needed to make all the decisions, take on my new role, and deal with the attention of other “well-meaning” families.
As if I needed any of them to come to rescue me when not a single one of them stepped in to help me when the fucker destroyed my family.
Fuck all of them.
It was time to use my lady balls and take on that role Papa wanted me to fill but I no longer desired.
I desperately needed his guidance, and it wasn’t possible.
I missed the numbness that had washed over me after Andraius’s death.
Now the floodgates were open, and the pain, the heartache of everything I’d endured overwhelmed me. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, and I had no one to share it with.
One thing I had no problems admitting.
I felt not an ounce of guilt for killing Andraius.
No. Guilt. Whatsoever. He deserved to die.
“I don’t regret it,” I whispered. “I don’t regret it.”
I stared at my face in the mirror again just as a laugh bubbled up, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, “I’m glad you’re dead, you fucking bastard. I don’t regret it.”
I screamed even louder, “I hope you burn in hell. You deserved ten times worse than you got. I fucking hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you.”
Suddenly, loud banging vibrated through the bedroom door, along with shouts.
First, it was Theo. “Nerine. Open the fucking door.”
Then, Xander. “What the hell is going on in there?”
Next, I heard, “Screw it. I’m going through her lounge side.”
I barely had the chance to grab a towel and wrap it around my body when Theo stormed into my room, coming to an abrupt stop as he saw me in the open doorway of my bathroom.
His gray eyes heated briefly and then narrowed. “Why the hell were you shouting?”
“Because I felt like it.” I charged into my bedroom, glowering at him. “I can do what I like in my suite. I needed to get it out of my system.”
“You needed to get it out of your system? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” He ran a frustrated hand through his dark hair. “I thought something happened to you.”
Before I could respond, Xander said, “Angel, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Why were you—” He trailed off as he took me in.
Desire prickled my skin, and I tightly clutched my towel to my chest.
Shit, shit, shit. I should have kept the shouting to a manageable level.
“Stop staring at me like that.” My heartbeat accelerated, and my cleft grew slick, seeing the undisguised carnal lust radiating from the men before me.
Xander clenched his fists by his sides. “Tell us to leave, Nerine.”
I took a tentative step backward, my breath growing shallow, the need building deep in my core. Licking my lips, I stopped my movements.
“I’d run if I were you and lock myself in that bathroom,” Theo warned.
I couldn’t help but challenge him. It was my base setting. So I asked, “Why?”
“Because we know all the secrets you are hiding, Angel.” He advanced toward me.
“You think so?”
“We know so.” Now Xander prowled in my direction as if I were prey, making me swallow to ease the dryness in my throat. “And we cleaned up so nothing traces back to you.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“So the bruises on your neck and shoulders just appeared out of nowhere?” He cocked his head to the side. “Or explain the limp you’ve tried and failed to pretend doesn’t exist for the last few days.”
“I don’t have to explain anything.”
“To us, you do.” Xander stood a foot from me, his dark eyes cool, almost menacing.
I’d never had this kind of banter with him. Theo, yes. Xander, no.
It was arousing on a level I hadn’t expected. Xander had a volatile reputation, but he was the opposite with me, tender and patient. And in the past, he’d been a demanding lover, but never a storm cascading over me like Theo.
This man before me simmered with pent-up energy, ready to burst.
I lifted my chin. “Keep dreaming. I’m the Angelos now.”
“Wrong,” Theo said, now flanking me from behind. “You’ll never just be the Angelos Angel to us.”
“We can’t go back to the past. I’m not that girl you knew.” I peered over my shoulder and then faced Xander. “I’m not even the woman you knew a few days ago.”
“No, you’re not.” Theo’s presence, the heat of his body against my back, sent a shiver down my spine.
Xander moved in closer. A flush covered his face, and his dark eyes looked almost pitch black as his pupils swallowed his irises. The throbbing in my pussy grew to a pulsing ache as the arousal between my folds felt as if it was dripping along my inner thighs.
He reached up but stopped when his fingers were a fraction away from skimming my cheek. “This is your last chance, Nerine. Tell us to go. Tell us this isn’t what you want. Tell us this thing we have isn’t possible.”
It was what I’d repeated over and over to them. I tried to convince myself of it. But it was such a lie. These men called to me in a way I couldn’t express.
I wasn’t married anymore. I wasn’t breaking any vows, even if they had been forced upon me.
I could take this, take what they offered.
“Will it make it easier for you if I do?”
Theo’s hand settled on my hip, and goosebumps broke out over my skin. “You haven’t made my life easy since you were fourteen. I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.”
“Theo,” I whispered, unable to help myself.
Xander cupped my face, bringing my attention to him. “Yes or no.”
“You’re touching me. Haven’t you already made the decision?”
“The choice is yours. We can walk out of here the second you command it.” Xander leaned down, his breath coasting over my mouth.
Then at the same time, Theo glided his palm up my torso and over my fingers where I held my towel closed between my breasts.
“What is your answer, Angel?” Theo’s hand flexed over mine.
“You know my answer.”
“That’s not how this works. Xander, put it in terms she may understand better.”
A feral light entered Xander’s eyes, and a tremor shook my body at the sheer possessiveness I saw on his face. “Who do you belong to from here on out?”
“It doesn’t mean you get to boss me around.”
Theo’s grip tightened over mine. “Say it.”
“You will keep your promises to me.”
Xander’s hold on my face intensified as his nose brushed mine. “How about this, who do we belong to?”
The backs of my eyes burned at the intensity of what was happening. So much, so fast, I couldn’t keep up.
My lips trembled as I said, “Me.”
“Correct.” Theo pressed his body to my back, kissing the juncture between my shoulder and neck. “Tell us who you belong to, Nerine.”
Knowing with my following words I’d open a vortex I’d never emerge from, I whispered, “Theo and Xander.”
“We’ve waited a long fucking time to hear you say it.” Theo jerked the towel from my body.
Xander’s mouth came down on mine as he pressed his front to my naked breasts. He tasted of berries, a tiny reminder of his morning smoothie.
God, how I missed this. The feel of him, the way his tongue rolled against mine. He was all-consuming and overwhelming.
At the same time, Theo pinched and worked my straining nipples while his lips and teeth grazed down my spine, nipping, kissing, and licking.
The sensations were everything I’d dreamed about and craved for so long. It was as if I was drowning and flying at the same time.
Four hands roamed my body, giving it what it had wished for all these years.
My pussy quickened and contracted, desperate for something to take the edge away.
Theo’s fingers glided between my legs as if reading my mind, rubbing up and down through the dampness and to my swollen, aching clitoral nub. He circled and teased.
Then, when he thrust two fingers inside me, I cried out, breaking my kiss with Xander, clutching his shoulder to keep from losing my balance.
“Fuck,” Theo groaned. “You’re so wet.”
“Only with the two of you,” I admitted.
He abruptly pulled out, and I couldn’t help but cry out in protest. “What are you doing?”
“Suck,” Theo ordered, standing and bringing his fingers to my lips.
I stared into his mesmerizing gray eyes, opened my mouth, and then closed my lips around his wet digits. My earthy essence filled my tastebuds.
“You’re so damn beautiful.” He pulled out and fisted my hair before kissing me in the dominating, owning way he’d mastered years ago.
While Theo feasted on me, Xander walked me backward, lifting me and then laying me on my bed. Then, in unison, they stepped back, intense want humming around them.
They were so different from each other. Theo was so lean and tall, built like a street fighter, and Xander’s body resembled something more in line with a boxer, all muscle and brute strength. Both of them were lethal in their own right. These weren’t the men of my youth, my first loves, but ones who’d done things beyond anything the young Nerine of years past could have comprehended.
As if they had planned it, they undressed in a synchronized flow of movements.
First, their shirts came off, revealing honed, sculpted torsos, arms, and shoulders. Next, they reached for the belts of their pants.
Watching their movements was a hedonistic sight that sent wave after wave of blood pumping through my pussy. The muscles of my core spasmed and clenched, wanting desperately to have them inside me.
And soon I wouldn’t have to live in the memories of what we’d had any longer.
As if I’d lost sense of time and place, they climbed onto the bed clad in their boxers with their thick, hard cocks a heavy presence before me.
Xander grabbed my thighs, pulling me forward, and Theo spread them apart. They stared at me, slick, open, so aroused.
“God. I’ve dreamed of you like this. Open, ready, wanton. Ours to do whatever we want.” The hunger on Theo’s face gave promises of things I’d only fantasized about.
“Stop staring at me and do something.”
Xander took hold of my wrists and pinned them above my head as he loomed over me. “Let’s get this straight. You’re the Angelos only regarding your role in the organization. Otherwise, you are our Nerine. You submit to us. You belong to us. We aren’t men you can control. Never have been and never will be. Is that understood?”
This ultra-dominant side of him he rarely showed me aroused me more than I ever expected. I preferred this version of him. Maybe he realized I no longer needed the gentleness of the old Nerine.
I lifted my head, bringing my mouth a hairsbreadth from his. “Crystal clear. But it doesn’t mean I won’t voice my desires. I do have a mind of my own.”
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” A smile tugged at his lips a second before he kissed me, silencing my retort.
At that exact moment, Theo descended on my clit, taking it between his teeth and biting down with just the right amount of pressure. My back bowed as a pleasure-filled pain I hadn’t experienced in forever coursed through me.
“That’s right. Let us hear what only we can give you,” Xander growled as he deepened his kiss.
His tongue battled against mine, thrusting, rolling, and tasting all the while.
Theo sucked and teased my pussy. What these men could achieve with their lips, others couldn’t accomplish with their entire bodies.
They held my arms and legs captive, giving me no choice but to take the onslaught of their demands.
Heat built in my belly, and my pussy clenched.
“Oh, God. Oh, God.” I jerked my arms in Xander’s hold, eliciting a chuckle from him as he pulled back.
“Too much for you, Angel?”
I shook my head, the desperate need to come pushing at me. “It’s been so long. I need.”
“She needs, Xander,” Theo said and blew against my pussy, causing a hard spasm to rock through me but not quite push me over. “Let’s give it to her.”
“Next time, we’ll make her wait for her pleasure.”
“Agreed.” Theo thrust his tongue into my vaginal canal, flicking in and out, driving me higher and higher.
“Theo.”
“That’s it, Angel,” Xander crooned. “Now come for us.”
He grazed his stubble along my jaw and neck, then scored his teeth over my breast right before taking my aching, swollen nipple into his mouth.
“Oh, Xander.” Immediately, I detonated.
Everything in me clenched and contracted as wave after wave of delicious ecstasy washed over me. I’d waited so long for this exhilaration, this euphoria, this complete bliss with the men I loved.
I was still riding the freefall of release when I felt Theo lift me and heard him say, “You ready for me?”
My brain barely comprehended what he meant until the crest of his thick, hard cock pressed through my wet pussy lips.
My gaze met his, and all I could think was the Theo of before was a boy compared to the man before me.
Goosebumps prickled over my skin as my arousal reignited, and the burning need grew by leaps and bounds.
“Yes,” I gasped. “I want you to fuck me. I’ve waited for this.”
A feral glint entered his gray eyes, and he licked his thumb and settled it over my clit. “I get you first, once again. I need to make sure you can take me as easily as possible.”
My breath caught, remembering how big he was. This wasn’t going to be anything like fucking the asshole. Being with either Xander or Theo wouldn’t be anything in the vicinity of sex with Andraius.
“You’re enjoying this way too much.” I glared at him.
Xander released my arms and relaxed, ready to watch the next few minutes of interplay.
Theo leaned forward, moving his hands away from my hips and clit, caged me with his arms, and then brought his forehead to mine. The menacing and wicked intent I saw looking down at me should have scared me, but it had me ready to tell him to fuck me already.
“If I don’t enjoy the moments before I’m about to be balls-deep in the viper that’s mine, what should I enjoy?”
I brought my palms up to cup his face. “I suggest you get to the balls-deep part. I won’t break.”
“You never learn.” He thrust forward.
Stars overwhelmed my vision, and a fullness filled me beyond anything I expected.
“Regret not letting me take it slower?”
“No.” And immediately, I gritted my teeth as he pushed in farther and I realized he still had so much more to go.
I dug my nails into his shoulder, both wanting to push him away and keep him deep in my pussy. My nipples tightened further, and the pleasure-filled pain he elicited caused me to grow slicker and wetter.
“Did you get bigger?”
“Nope. This is what happens when you play with fire, Angel.”
If it felt like this with Theo, Xander would tear me in half. He had an even more enormous cock. I turned my head toward Xander. Humor lit his dark gaze as he fisted said cock, up and down.
“It’ll fit. It always has.” Xander stroked harder on his erection. “Now, be a good girl and let Theo fuck you.”
“Ass—” My retort became lodged in my throat as Theo jolted forward, nestling himself to the hilt.
“No more talking.” He pumped in and out in shallow plunges, rolling his hips against my clit with each pass. “I’ve waited years to be inside you. From now on, be ready for me to fill you up with cum every chance I get.”
“You’re out of your mind.” I lifted my hips to meet his pistoning hips. “I have a syndicate to run, or did you forget?”
“Do you have to argue about everything, even when I’m fucking you?” His thrusts grew harder, relentless, driving my desire to the point where I couldn’t breathe.
“Theo, please.” I thrashed, jerking on the back of his head and pulling him forward. “I’m almost there.”
I arched, unable to shift my body to force Theo to give me the friction I needed to fall over the edge where I hung. His body was too big, and his thrust perfectly measured to keep me hanging, drive my desire higher, and make me crave more.
Bastard.
That’s when I realized Theo and Xander held gazes, lust burning in their eyes. They refused to give in to what I knew they wanted. It made no sense, but I couldn’t think about it now. I had to come. Dear God, I had to come.
“Xander, do something.”
“No.” He shook his head, focusing in on me. “I don’t think so. You need to work for it a little longer.”
“What? Are you crazy?” My nails dug into Theo’s neck, and he hissed, gripping my wrists and pinning them to the bed.
He peered down at me. “No matter how much I want to wear your marks, you need to sheathe those claws. For the next little while, anyway.”
Understanding settled into me—the funeral, the transition of power, facing all the families.
As if sensing the worry creeping in with his words, he sat back and pulled me onto his lap, his thick cock still tucked deep inside me, and threaded his fingers in my hair.
“You’re not alone.” The intensity of his gaze gave me a small kernel of comfort.
“I’m not trying to make your life harder with my antics.”
A smile touched his lips. “I know. It’s your base setting. I’ve gotten used to it.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew him to me. He tasted of me and his natural essence. In his arms was acceptance, comfort, love.
“I believe it’s time to have your orgasm, Angel.” Xander’s hands settled on my hips. “Ride him. Take your pleasure.”
Theo leaned back, and with slow, meticulous movements, I rose and slid down on his steely length.
I threw my head back, closing my eyes. The tingle started as a tiny spark deep inside and grew with each lift of my hips. Then when Theo sucked my nipple into his mouth and Xander’s fingers stroked my straining clitoral nub, my mind clouded, and my pussy contracted on Theo’s cock, first in tiny quivers and then hard spasms.
My back bowed, and I cried out. I gripped their arms, losing myself in what only they could give.
It was glorious, filled with the reminders of the three of us from the past but with the knowledge of the present. Lifting my chin, Xander covered my mouth, drinking in my pleasure as Theo took over the pistoning, keeping my release rolling.
“You ready?” Theo asked.
“For what?” I opened my eyes and realized the question wasn’t for me.
In the next second, he pulled out. But before I could beg him to stop, Xander replaced him, and my heartbeat accelerated.
“For this.” He pushed in, sliding deep and filling me so completely that I felt as if I’d explode.
“Fuck me.” I clenched my teeth and then willed my body to relax.
Xander pulled my legs tighter around his waist. “That’s the plan.”
“How could I forget you’re hung like a horse.”
“He’s the length guy. I’m the girth one,” Xander corrected.
After a few moments, my body calmed, and I stared up at him. “Are we having this discussion now?”
“You’re the one who keeps talking.”
I narrowed my eyes and lifted onto my elbows, ready to take over, but Theo grabbed the back of my head and placed the soft, velvety head of his cock to my lips.
“Open up, Angel. Filling your mouth will stop any further discussions.”
Instead of arguing, I followed directions, took him back, and swallowed a few times to open my throat. It had been so long since I’d done this, only with them.
They’d taught me everything I knew. I’d refused to do anything in this vicinity for the bastard. Even when he tried to force me to do it, I’d threatened to bite it off, and he never pushed again.
“Fuck.” Theo’s groan and clenching of my hair snapped me back to the present. “I forgot about your nonexistent gag reflex.”
I hummed and rubbed my tongue along the vein under his length as I bobbed up and down.
Xander waited until I’d set a steady rhythm on Theo to move again. He started with slow glides in and out, a gentle lulling meant to torment and build my desire.
My pussy quickened, flooding with my arousal and soaking his cock, and my breasts swelled to an almost painful level as my nipples strained.
I gazed up at Theo, who watched me, noticing how my body reacted to Xander and him.
A wicked smirk touched his lips. “Flip.”
He and Xander pulled out, and I found myself on my stomach. The next second, Xander pulled my hips back and impaled me on his cock, beginning a relentless assault on my pussy.
“Oh, Xander.”
“That’s right. I’m about to pummel this cunt. Mark it as mine.”
My pussy convulsed at his words.
“Liked the sound of that, did you?”
I said nothing.
Theo moved in front of me, and without instruction, I opened my mouth and continued my ministrations on his hard erection. I worked him with sucks and licks, eliciting groans from his lips.
His hands grabbed hold of my hair, taking away my control and changing the pace to his liking. At the same time, Xander’s thrusts grew harder. My pussy wept, and my core spasmed with each pass of his cock.
I needed to come. Fuck, I had to come.
Xander’s fingers grazed my clit, and the fire ignited. I moaned and whimpered around Theo’s cock as each caress of Xander’s fingers along the sensitive bundle of nerves sent a shockwave of unbelievable rapture through every cell in my body.
“Take every drop. Swallow every drop,” Theo gritted out.
I nodded, not truly focused on anything but riding out my release.
Moments later, I heard Xander call out my name, pushing into me, the heat of his orgasm pumping into my body. Then Theo’s palms tightened on my scalp.
“Look at me.”
I peered up into his piercing gray eyes, and in the next second, he came. I drank down everything he gave me, not diverting my gaze from his at any time.
When he’d finished coming, he said, “You belong to us now.”