Chapter 14
Nora
When Dante finally returned to us that evening, Luca shocked me to my core.
My husband extricated himself from my arms and stood to face Dante, his hulking body swelling with tension that I feared might turn violent. I was instantly on my feet, placing a restraining hand on his shoulder.
He glanced down at me. “It’s all right, Nora. I have something I want to say.”
Drawing himself up to his full, impressive height, he faced Dante with something like grim determination. “Nora wants you,” he said tightly. “I will try to allow you to touch her without wanting to kill you. For her.”
“Luca,” I breathed, stunned and more than a little hesitant. “You don’t have to do this.”
After our fraught conversation earlier, I wasn’t going to push him further. I hadn’t decided how I was going to deal with my growing feelings for Dante when I was deeply in love with my husband, but I’d reasoned that I couldn’t hurt Luca.
He turned to me, eyes shining with desperate desire. “I’ve been selfish, Nora. So fucking selfish. I’ll prove that I can be worthy of you. From now on, I’ll always put you first.”
I caressed his stubble-roughened cheek. “Putting me first doesn’t mean that I’ll allow you to torment yourself. You said that what we did last night hurt you. If I’d realized—”
“Seeing you submit so completely was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced,” he rumbled. “My feelings about this situation are complicated. I still hate him. But I love you more.”
I stared up into his eyes, willing him to see the truth in my heart. “Nothing will ever come between us,” I swore. “Nothing will change the way I feel about you. And that fact that you’re willing to try for my sake…” I swallowed hard, staving off a rush of emotion. “It makes me love you even more.”
Hesitantly, I turned to face Dante, who hadn’t said a word in response to Luca’s proposition.
“Are you willing to share me too?” I asked, scarcely able to breathe for fear of rejection.
I needed them both. I was the selfish one, the perverted one.
But each of them gave me something that was utterly essential.
I wouldn’t have survived my ordeal with the Bratva without both of them holding my broken soul together.
Now that I knew what it was like to have them, I didn’t think I could ever exist with only half of my heart.
My breath caught, the revelation stunning me.
I pressed my lips together to hold in the intense declaration.
Things were still too raw between the men for me to declare the depth of my feelings for Dante.
Mere hours ago, Luca had admitted that he didn’t think he could share my heart with another man.
I wouldn’t hurt him with the complicated truth.
Not yet. Not when there was so much pain that still separated them.
Dante had been silent for too long, studying Luca and me. My heart twisted. I might be asking too much of my dark protector.
After what felt like agonizingly long minutes, he finally stepped toward me, closing the distance between us. Two fingers touched beneath my chin, lifting my face to his.
“I would do anything for a chance to touch you one more time,” he said with the weight of an oath. He looked to Luca. “She belongs to you. If we do this, know that I don’t have any right to claim her. I understand that.”
My heart ached for him. Dante had done terrible things, but he wanted to atone.
He deserved to be loved.
I placed my hands over both their hearts, connecting all three of us. “We do this as equals or not at all,” I insisted. “Everyone has to consent. No more violations. Never again.”
Luca placed his hand over mine. “I love you far more than I hate him,” he promised.
“I don’t hate you at all,” Dante told Luca, his green gaze steady and shockingly earnest. “I wasted years loathing you, all for the sake of my revenge. I’m paying for my sins now with my broken marriage: the union I destroyed before it could even begin.”
My eyes burned. All Dante ever wanted was a family of his own, someone who loved him. Someone he could protect, the way he couldn’t protect his brother. I understood him now: the depth of his loss and his anguish.
Drawn to ease his pain, I went up onto my toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. He didn’t respond to my tenderness. Instead, he grasped my shoulders and forced me to turn to Luca.
“Hold her.” His command was cold and clipped, and he immediately stepped away from us.
“Where are you going?” I tried to reach for him.
He narrowed his eyes at Luca. “I should’ve expressed myself more clearly: restrain her.”
“Dante!” I protested, even as Luca grabbed my wrists, shackling them in one hand and pinning them at the small of my back.
“You wanted to play a game, little bird,” he said, still cool and aloof. “And I make the rules.”
Luca pulled me close and nuzzled my neck. His rough stubble lightly scraped my sensitized skin, making my nerves crackle and dance.
“I’ve got you, kitten,” he murmured, a threat rather than a reassurance. He nipped at the shell of my ear. “You’re at my mercy now. Isn’t this what you wanted?” he crooned. “To be helpless? To be used by two men?”
“No,” I countered breathlessly. “Not just by two men. By you and Dante. You’re the ones I need.”
“You like how he makes you suffer,” Luca said, the words heated with lust rather than jealousy. “I could never hurt you like that, but watching you come apart is the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen. That’s what you need from him, isn’t it?”
I bit my lip and nodded. There was so much more to it than simple physical connection, but now wasn’t the time to confess my intense feelings for my men.
They’d agreed to share me, and I wouldn’t risk shattering this chance for us to be together as equals, even if I would be forced to submit in the end.
I craved the release that only Dante’s sadism could give me, and I needed Luca’s unconditional, fiercely possessive love more than I needed my next breath.
Dante tossed something on the bed and returned to us. I tried to crane my neck to see what he’d retrieved from his closet, but his hulking body blocked my view.
“Give me her wrists.”
Luca didn’t flinch at the order. He released me from his firm hold, and Dante immediately grasped my hands in both of his. He directed me to twine my arms behind Luca’s neck, and I happily leaned into my husband’s sculpted chest.
Something soft and silky wrapped around my wrists, drawing them together and binding them in place. Shocked, I tried to pull away, but I was shackled to Luca, locked in an embrace.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, but there was no force behind the words.
My voice shook slightly, and my knees grew weak at my predicament.
Lust began to pulse through me, tightening my nipples so that they peaked against the thin cotton shirt that had provided me with modesty before my men had started toying with me.
Dante ignored my question and addressed Luca again, cold and utterly composed. Unfeeling.
“Hold her hips. Don’t let her feel your cock. She hasn’t earned it yet.”
My belly flipped, torn between alarm and desire.
I hated the emotional distance between us, the walls that Dante had erected to protect his heart, but I was just as helpless as Luca had said. I was powerless against them, and they’d barely begun to torment me.
A shudder of trepidation raced through me, an erotic anticipation that made my fingers flex and my toes curl.
Luca’s hands bracketed my hips, guiding me away from his stiffening cock. My arms were still bound behind his neck, and I had no choice but to lean on him for balance as he positioned me where Dante wanted me.
Cool air rushed over my bottom when he fisted the soft material of my yoga pants and yanked them down my legs, exposing me. I stepped out of them and spread my legs in wanton invitation, letting him see how aroused I was for him already.
Dante swatted my thigh in a stinging rebuke.
“You don’t get to come until we’re both inside you.
You’ll beg for our cocks before we finally give you what you want.
You’ll scream for me until you’re hoarse, and then Luca will fuck your throat so that you can show him how badly you want him.
You’ll take him any way he wants to use you because all you want is to please him. Isn’t that right, pet?”
His fist sank into my hair, tugging my head back so that I was forced to stare up into Luca’s glinting ochre eyes.
“Tell him,” Dante growled. “Tell him that you’ll do anything for him, anything he wants.”
“I’m yours,” I panted. “I’ll give you anything, Luca. I’ll give you everything, all of myself.”
His jaw sharpened with hunger. “Such a sweet kitten,” he purred. “You’re my good girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I breathed, clit pulsing with need. His filthy words of praise had become an erotic trigger, and desire washed through me even though neither man was touching me sexually.
“Yes, Sir,” Dante corrected me, his voice a deep rebuke. “Address Luca with the respect he deserves.”
“What?” My mind reeled at this new turn of events. For so long, Dante had degraded Luca and told me that he wasn’t worthy of being my husband. Now he was demanding respect for the man who had once been his most hated enemy.
A line of fire lashed my thighs before I registered the sound of the cane smacking my delicate skin. I screamed at the shock of pain, then gasped for breath, struggling to understand what was happening.
Another fiery brand across my thighs, closer to my bottom this time. Luca’s jaw ticked as he studied the way I sang Dante’s perverse song.
“Does it hurt, kitten?” he murmured, sounding almost concerned.
“Yes,” I squeaked, shifting my body toward his as though I could evade the next hit.
His merciless fingers sank into my hips, and he forced me to stand exactly where Dante wanted me. His eyes flicked past me, finding my tormentor.
“Again.”
The cane branded me, and a harsh cry ripped from my chest.