Chapter 44
Lili
Victor picks me up at ten in the morning, which should have been my first clue this wasn’t a normal visit.
“Where are we going?” I ask, sliding into the passenger seat of the Audi instead of the driver’s seat like he always makes Grace take.
“Somewhere that’s just for you.” He pulls out of the Pink Sapphire’s parking garage without another word, and I know better than to push. Victor Serrano reveals things exactly when he wants to, not a second sooner.
We end up at a private range twenty minutes outside the city, the kind with reinforced walls and a membership fee that probably costs more than my old apartment.
“A gun range.” I stare at the building, then at him. “Vic, I already know how to shoot.”
“I know you do. That’s not why we’re here.” He leads me inside, past an attendant who clearly knows him, into a private bay at the end of the row. “I want to watch you be good at something that has nothing to do with surviving him. I want to watch you be good at something because you chose it.”
That lands somewhere soft and unguarded in my chest, and I have to look away from him for a second so I don’t do something embarrassing, like cry in a gun range.
“You planned this.”
“I plan everything, Spitfire. You know this about me.”
We spend two hours out there, him loading magazines and adjusting my stance with his hands on my hips, correcting my grip, saying nothing when I outshoot every target on the first try.
Apparently four months of processing rage in Rhode Island turned me into a hell of a shot.
By the end of it, I’m laughing. Actually laughing, for the first time in months.
Afterward, he takes me to lunch at a quiet restaurant where nobody recognizes either of us, and he lets me order for both of us and pick the wine. He doesn’t take a single phone call the entire meal.
“This is a date,” I say somewhere over dessert, watching him carefully.
“It’s been a date since I picked you up.” He reaches across the table for my hand. “You’ve had one with Grace. I wasn’t about to let you go without one of your own.”
“I didn’t realize I was owed one.”
“You’re owed a hell of a lot more than one date, Liliana. This is just where I’m starting.”
He drives me back to the house as the sun starts dipping, and for once I don’t argue when he pulls into the driveway instead of dropping me back at the Sapphire.
“Just for tonight,” he says, reading my hesitation. “Grace already knows.”
Grace meets us at the door, already changed for the party, and the moment she takes in both our faces, her expression softens, and she doesn’t have to ask how the day went.
“Good day?” she asks, looping an arm through mine.
“The best one I’ve had in months.”
“Good.” She smiles, then glances at Victor, and the look that passes between them makes me instantly suspicious. “Because he told me what he’s planning tonight, and I have some thoughts on how to help.”
Victor’s jaw tightens. He looks caught somewhere between anticipation and nerves, which is not a look I have ever gotten from him, and I forget to ask what they’re talking about until Grace is already pulling me toward the bedroom.
Once inside, Grace shuts the door and turns to face both of us. She’s nervous, which never happens to her in this room.
“Victor asked me to help him with something,” she says. “For you.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No.” Victor’s voice comes from the closet doorway, and when he steps out, he’s already shirtless, and his face is doing the thing it only does right before he tells me something that costs him. “I want to give you something tonight. Both of us do.”
“You’re both worrying me now.”
Grace takes my hand and draws me toward the bed. Victor doesn’t follow. He stays where he is with his arms crossed, watching me the way he does when he’s already decided something and is waiting for me to catch up.
My chest goes tight. “Victor.”
“I’ve been thinking about this since Rhode Island.
” He doesn’t move. “You spent six years with a man who took and took and never once asked what you needed. So we’re doing it differently tonight.
You’re going to tell me exactly what you want.
Out loud, in front of Grace, no hedging and no making me guess.
Then I’m going to give you every bit of it. ”
Grace squeezes my hand. “I’m here to make sure he doesn’t let you off easy.”
Heat floods through me so fast it’s dizzying. Six years of learning to want things quietly, and he wants me to say it out loud in a lit room. “That’s the whole game? I just have to ask?”
“You have to ask.” His mouth curves. “That’s the part that costs you something, Spitfire. Not me.”
I look between them, my two constants for months now, and my chest cracks wide open.
“Fine.” I lift my chin so he doesn’t get to see me lose my nerve. “Get the cane. The one in the bottom drawer, not the club one.”
His eyebrow goes up. Then he crosses to the dresser without a word and comes back with it, and my whole body goes warm at how little argument that took.
“Anything else?”
“Grace stays on the bed where I can see her.” My voice holds, barely. “And you don’t stop when I go quiet. You stop when I say red.”
“Done.” He says it flatly, like I’ve asked him to pass the salt, and somehow that’s hotter than if he’d made a production of it.
It’s the first time in my adult life I’ve named exactly what I wanted and had someone simply hand it to me.
He strips me himself and puts me over the end of the bed with one hand flat between my shoulder blades. Grace settles cross-legged near the headboard, close enough that I can see her face the whole time.
The first stripe lands and I stop thinking about Phineas entirely.
He works me over slowly, checking each mark with his thumb between strokes. I count out loud because he tells me to, and because hearing my own voice stay steady through it is its own kind of proof.
“Color.”
“Green.” My voice cracks on it. “Green, damn it, don’t you dare stop.”
“Bossy tonight.” He sounds almost amused, and the next one lands harder for it.
By the time he sets the cane down I’m shaking, and every nerve I own has gone bright and loud.
He takes his time after that, gentler than the marks he just left, and when he finally pushes his cock into me I’m already so far gone that I come almost immediately, Grace’s hand knotted in mine the whole way through.
Afterward, I collapse against his chest, Grace curling into his side, and he wraps an arm around each of us like he’s afraid we’ll disappear if he lets go.
“Thank you,” I whisper against his skin.
“Don’t thank me for that.” His voice rumbles low under my ear. “You asked me for something out loud tonight and didn’t apologize for it once. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you do that?”
I fall asleep tangled between both of them and don’t dream about Phineas once.
By the time the three of us finally head to the club, the sun’s long gone and I’ve got a smile I can’t quite wipe off my face.
The club is alight with cheerful energy as club submissives move about setting things up. Tyson has a catering staff working tonight. It’s a pre-wedding celebration for Skylar and Matteo despite the fact that many of us will be traveling to New York for the wedding itself.
After the bookstore opening and seeing Kara hold Grace at gunpoint, I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
So I’m back in Las Vegas, but I’m not sure what my next move will be.
Victor wants me to stay at his house, but I’ve been staying at a suite in The Pink Sapphire thanks to the generosity of Hunter Novak.
Victor visits me when he’s at work, and Grace and I have spent the night together twice. It’s almost like dating them separately, but they aren’t making me feel odd about it.
Last night, though, I stayed at Victor’s house… Victor and Grace’s house… she’s fully moved in now. My face heats as I remember the orgasms and the sensation of being with both of them again.
Grace blossoms when Victor and I top her together, and I come completely undone when Victor puts his energy into hurting me while Grace watches. Is it a fucked up dynamic?
No one here seems to think so, and I’ve decided that’s all that matters.
“What are you thinking about, Spitfire?” Victor asks from behind me.
I turn and face him with a smile.
“Your nails on my thighs last night,” I admit with ease.
He grins and pulls me close for a kiss. “Was it good enough to convince you to leave the suite at the Sapphire?”
I let out a happy laugh. “Oh Vic. You really don’t like that I’m not at the house with you do you?”
“I hate it. Grace does too. You belong with us Liliana. And you know it.”
“Maybe,” I tease. But it’s hard to keep a straight face.
“I’m just not ready yet, Vic. Give me time.”
He nods and brushes hair behind my ear. “You have as much as you need. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to complain about it from time to time.”
“That’s acceptable.”
I tuck the words away to hold onto later and let myself get lost in the noise of the party for a while. Champagne, familiar faces, Grace’s laugh carrying across the room every few minutes.
As we’re talking, Tyson approaches with a worried look on his face.
“What is it?” Victor asks, suddenly in no-nonsense mode.
“It’s Griffin Price. Our suspicions that he’s in New Orleans is correct.”
Victor nods. “OK. What do we do about it?”
Tyson drags a hand through his hair. I get the vibe that there is something he’s not telling us about Price, but Victor isn’t pushing.
“I’m taking the job there mostly so I can keep an eye on him.”
Victor nods. “You will be missed here, and you can return any time you get sick of the humidity.”
Tyson chuckles. “I’m definitely not looking forward to that. But nothing is as bad as the dreary weather that was in London. They have a great club there and Sabrina loved it, but the city just wasn’t for me. We’ll see how I fit in New Orleans.”
His tone is easy but his eyes aren’t, and whatever happened between him and Griffin Price runs deeper than professional curiosity. I don’t ask. He’ll tell me when he’s ready, and cornering him at a party won’t speed that up.
Across the room, I catch sight of Zara laughing with Skylar over a phone held between them, and when I ask what’s so funny, Zara shows me a photo of a woman in a modest studio apartment, a cat curled on her lap.
“My sister,” Zara says, and her voice is lighter than it usually gets when she talks about Monica.
“She’s in a program now. Stable housing, a case worker, the whole thing.
It’s not perfect. We’re not exactly close yet.
But she called me on my birthday this year, and that’s more than I’ve had from her in five years. ”
I squeeze her hand. Getting even a small piece of someone back is worth more than people think.
Samuel Carter finds us not long after, Erin at his side with a photo of their son already open on her phone, and the two of them fold into the group like they’ve always belonged in it.
“How’s Hunter handling impending fatherhood?” Victor asks, passing Samuel a drink.
“Terribly.” Samuel laughs. “He’s already interviewing security teams for a person who doesn’t exist yet.”
“Sounds about right,” Victor mutters, and I catch the look he throws my way, amused and pointed at the same time.
I pretend not to notice.
Across the room, Grace has gone quiet, watching Sabrina lean into Tyson’s side while he says something low against her ear that makes her flush all the way to her collarbone.
“They’re going to be insufferable in New Orleans,” Grace says when she catches me watching too.
“They’re going to be happy,” I correct her. “There’s a difference.”
Grace’s smile softens. “Yeah. I guess there is.”