28. Eden #3
Beau licks my lower stomach, right above the line of my panties, still holding my legs back over Dom . “ I’m gonna pass on that one, darlin’. You’re looking like a much better option, all wide open and wet for me.”
I hiss in rage, even as my stomach quivers.
His head drops lower, and Dom spreads my lips under the clinging cotton so that Beau’s mouth brushes right over my clit through the fabric.
Then he sucks . Twisting violently as pleasure decimates me, I manage to tear one of my legs free and kick out, clipping Beau on the shoulder.
I throw my head back at the same time, and Dom’s grip loosens around my neck as he shoves me aside to avoid the headbutt.
I roll away, and the three of us stare at one another, crouching in the grass, breathing hard.
Beau rubs his shoulder. His eyes are still filled with dark promise. “ Nice hit, darlin’.”
“ That how you took him down, killer? You kick him off that tree?” Dom smirks. “ Or did you just use your little knife?”
“ Oh , this little knife?” Beau says. He pulls my stained pocketknife from Dom’s discarded belt and tosses the stained, guilty thing at my feet.
I recoil, staring at it. My heart takes on an unsteady rhythm. “ Help me.” The memory of his voice lacerates my thoughts. It eviscerates my arousal.
“ Fuck you,” I snarl, except instead of spitting venom, my voice breaks. There’s still blood on the blade.
“ Hmm ,” Dom says, watching me, and I tear my eyes away from the knife to watch him back.
The smirk is gone now, for some reason, and I can’t read his expression.
“ You wearing all that blood as a trophy, pet?” Beau asks softly. “ Or are you ready to wash it all away?”
I clench my bloody fingers and glare at him, at both of them. My vision is blurred and my breaths are starting to hitch. Using my forearm, I swipe at my eyes, not wanting to cry in front of them. Somehow that makes me feel more exposed than the breasts spilling from my bra.
Dom starts circling me again, and I tense. “ What do you think, Beau ? She might taste better nice and clean.”
Beau nods, moving around me. “ Maybe you’re right. She looks like she needs to cool off.”
My head whips around as I try to keep them both in view. “ This isn’t funny. I don’t want to play this game. I just... I just want to go home.”
My heart aches . Abruptly I feel more alone than I have in years. I bite the inside of my lip against the hot, thick pressure in my throat.
“ Home ,” Beau muses. His voice becomes gentle. “ Where’s home, darlin’?”
I open my mouth, then shut it, off kilter. Dom steps closer behind me, always moving. I’m not sure why, but I can’t make the word leave my lips. Bristlebrook . One word and I know they’ll take me home. They’ll stop.
I shake my head once.
Dom scoops me up from behind with surprising tenderness and takes me over to the water. I turn my face away.
“ I don’t want to,” I mutter thickly.
“ Too bad,” he says, but he’s not teasing anymore, or nasty. He sounds almost... kind.
He lowers me into the water until my feet brush the coarse sand.
The crisp water laps at the mangled bra beneath my breasts.
Without a word, he reaches around and unhooks it then tosses it to the side.
His hands linger on my back, tracking small circles up and down my spine.
When he reaches my panties, he eases them down my legs until I step out of them.
I’m completely bare, now, and I shiver. The chill of the water takes me over, seeping in deep.
Killer .
“ Why did you kill him?” Dom asks in a low voice.
I pull back from the question and find my back pressed up against a wall of warm, naked muscle. Beau . I don’t understand why they’re pushing me like this. I’m stinging with shame and anger and a new, sour kind of self-loathing.
Turning around, I look up at Beau , wanting to believe he’ll make this torture stop, wanting him to take control and make it all go away again.
Please .
“ Ah , darlin’.” He cups my cheek. “ You’re breaking my heart.”
Dom’s hands flatten over my back, and his thumbs start moving more firmly, washing the cool water over my sweaty skin. He’s close enough that his heat warms me.
“ You did it because you liked it, right?” Dom muses in a low voice. “ Because you wanted to see him hurt. Did you want to watch him die, Eden ?”
I shake my head numbly, and a tear slips down my face. Beau wipes it away with his thumb. He wets his hand again and grasps my chin, then starts wiping and rubbing at my face in smooth, deliberate motions.
“ Then you did it because you wanted to be the hero?” Beau asks. “ You wanted to prove to everyone that you could do it?”
Every accusation is a bullet, and those awful feelings dig deeper.
Help me, please.
“ No ! Will you just l-leave it alone? It’s done now.” I hate the way my voice trembles. I try to work up a glare, but I’m empty of rage.
I might throw up again.
Help .
“ It is done,” Beau agrees, though he sounds pained. “ Done for him. Forever .”
“ Stop it!”
“ Why ?” he demands.
“ Because I didn’t want to kill him!” I yell, and my voice breaks on the shout.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry , I beg the boy in my head.
The tears spill over like acid, as though all of the painful knots in my chest have liquified into some bitter fluid I need to eject from my body.
My knees buckle, but Dom catches me from behind, lifting me from the water. Beau wraps his arms around my waist, and my arms and legs twine around him like that’s their natural place. I sob into the crook of his neck, and one sob turns into dozens of heaving, ugly hiccups.
“ I know,” Beau whispers. “ I know, Eden . We’ve got you.”
His cheek nestles against the top of my head, and another set of hands starts washing down my back with the rough sand, then moves to the nape of my neck and down my arms. The scrapes of the coarse granules in direct contrast to the soft, rhythmic caresses.
“ I didn’t want to,” I choke out between sobs. “ I didn’t want to do it. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Beau lets me shatter, and Dom tends me, and after a while my tears start to slow until I’m raw and hollowed out.
Beau lets me down, my body as limp as a marionette.
He turns me until I face Dom , then starts unbraiding my hair.
Pressure I hadn’t realized I was feeling eases, and his fingers running through the strands make me shiver.
Dom tilts my chin up. “ Front now,” he murmurs.
I sniff and look up at him between my lashes, embarrassed by how blatantly I’m breaking down in front of him.
He seems to have no such worries; he scoops up more sand and picks up my arms, rubbing them down and rinsing them off at the same unhurried pace, apparently unfazed by my tears.
Between Beau’s hands in my hair, and Dom’s on my body, the last tension bleeds out of me, and I let myself drift, safe and secure between them again.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever felt so... cared for.
Or how little I felt like I deserved it.
After a while I start to notice the droplets clinging to Dom’s chest, the stubbled line of his jaw... the bloodied gash along his arm. Lips tightening, I reach up to touch it gently, rubbing some of the blood beneath it away.
“ That’s a present from that sniper, you know,” Dom tells me, not taking his eyes from where he’s sluicing water over my neck.
My fingers pause.
“ I was caught between the trees. A few more shots, and he might have had me.”
I study his face but see no sign he’s lying to make me feel better.
He meets my eyes. “ You very well might have saved my life, doing what you did.”
Dom’s words burrow beneath the numbness. Shaking my head, I keep wiping at the blood on his arm. His arm. Just a slight change of angle and it could have been his chest.
“ He didn’t need to die,” I whisper, finally. “ I could have stopped him without... doing that.”
He turns my chin so I can’t look away from him. “ Why didn’t you?”
“ What ?”
“ If you could have just stopped him, why didn’t you?” he repeats.
“ I —” I try to pull my chin away, but he has a good grip. Beau’s hands are soft in my hair. “ He attacked me, he... he tried to throw me off the tree.”
Dom nods. “ So you stabbed him.”
I flinch. “ I just tried to stop myself from falling. I didn’t mean to. He — I —”
“ So he threw you off the tree and you tried to catch yourself and you both ended up falling. Seems to me like he made his own bed.”
“ Stop . You’re making it sound like—”
“ Like you were defending yourself,” he interrupts. “ Like you were defending us. You saved your own life, and mine, and the only reason he’s dead is because he tried to hurt us.”
I swallow, hard. Another memory flickers. Not of brown eyes, but an ugly snarl. “ Bitch ,” he’d called me, right before he threw me to my death.
Beau tugs my head back until I’m looking at him, almost upside down. “ Dom and me, we killed eight between us out there. You hatin’ on us as much as you’re hatin’ on yourself right now?”
“ Of course not,” I say impatiently. It’s not the same thing.
As if he can see the thought on my face, his eyes flare. “ It sure is the same thing. You don’t get to be down on yourself for doing what you had to unless you’re going to put the same blame on us.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the words don’t come. My brow tangles. What else could I have done? I could have stayed where they left me, or stayed in my tree, but then what would have happened? That sniper had them pinned. Would I rather Dom or Beau be killed? My gut lurches at the thought.
I decided weeks ago that I didn’t blame them for shooting the men hunting me. They kept me safe.
I kept them safe too.
Another wave of water washes over me and this time, it washes away more than the filth on my skin. The acid in my gut seems to ease away with their words, their care. It’s like my doctor just punctured my flesh and let the poison out, right before it could fester, and Dom bandaged me back up.
A sweet, heavy pressure rolls into my chest. Gratitude , and maybe something else. Something I’m not quite ready for just yet, but wonderful and hopeful all the same.
Leaning forward, I press my lips against Dom’s wound.