CHAPTER SIX – SECOND THOUGHTS #2
But for the first time in days, I don’t feel like I’m about to break. If anything, I feel steadier, like the world is narrowing to just two choices, and I’m the lucky girl who gets to pick.
I’ve never understood people who say their kitchens are “the heart of the home.” Mine is a galley barely wider than my wingspan, strung together with peeling Formica and a fridge that howls at night like a dying wolf.
The floor is always sticky, no matter how many times I mop.
There’s no heart here, just a lot of pacing and the residue of midnight panic attacks.
Tonight, I pace the linoleum like a caged cat, phone pressed tight to my ear. I’ve dialed Eliza three times already and hung up before the first ring, but this time I force myself to let it connect. She picks up on the second try, her voice tinny and warm, “Hey, Marnie. Everything good?”
I blurt, “I have to tell you something,” before I can change my mind.
My pal laughs, like she’s not already halfway into a bottle of white wine. “Spill it. Is this about the partners? Please say it’s about the partners.”
I grip the phone until my knuckles ache, turn a slow lap around the counter. “It’s… Yeah, it’s them. Both of them. Brent and James. They—they made me an offer.”
Eliza’s quiet, not even a breath.
“What is it? You can tell me, Marns.”
I take a deep breath.
“They want me to—to spend a night with them. Both. At once.” I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the shame blossom across my cheeks. “They said I’d get the files. Everything I need, if I just—” I break off, unable to say the rest out loud.
When I stop talking, the silence is thick enough to spoon.
Eliza finally sighs. “Marnie, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest. Would you be doing this just for the information?
For your dad, I mean? Or is there part of you that wants to be used?
Because it’s okay, you know. It’s okay to want to be with two men.
It’s okay to want to be degraded, even.”
I halt mid-stride, one palm pressed flat to the counter, the phone slick with sweat against my ear. My pulse is so loud I barely hear her. Used. Degraded. The words pin me in place.
I try to speak but nothing comes out but a muffled gargle.
“Marn?” Eliza’s voice is gentle, but unfailing. “You don’t have to answer. I just want you to know I’m not judging. Not ever.”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see it. I feel heat climb my neck, pooling at the roots of my hair.
She waits, patient as a saint.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s all of it.”
“That’s fine,” Eliza says in a soothing tone, like it really is. “That’s human. That’s called being alive. Just promise me you’re doing it for yourself, too—not just for your dad.”
The glass above the sink throws my reflection back at me: hair wild, face pink, eyes huge and scared and shining. I look like a stranger.
“I promise,” I say. “On my honor.”
We stay on the line for another minute, just breathing together, and I don’t realize I’m crying until I feel the wetness on my wrist.
Eliza says, “You’ll be okay, Marnie. No matter what. You’re amazing, girlfriend, and there are no wrong answers. Just decisions, and you know it.”
“Thanks,” I mumble tearily. “I appreciate you, Eliza. I really do.”
Then, I hang up and slide down the cabinet to the floor. I’m not sure how long I sit there, but the clock is past midnight when I finally crawl to bed.
Sleep doesn’t come for hours. When it does, my dreams are thick and hot and full of large, masculine hands that twist me this way and that; deep, throaty growls; and the feel of James and Brent with me, cradling my curvy form close while whispering in my ear.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember the dream. It starts with the smell: not just cologne, but forest and whiskey and the musky scent of an aroused male animal. There’s a sense of being watched, but it isn’t menacing—just a heat at the back of my neck, a gravity pulling me deeper.
I’m at the firm, but it’s different. The walls are glass, but they shimmer like the surface of a lake at midnight.
The city outside is on fire, lights burning in every window.
I’m nude except for my heels and the necklace I wore to my dad’s funeral, the gold chain glinting like a warning.
My breasts bounce, and to my shame, my pussy’s already slick and slippery, ready to be taken.
Brent appears behind me, huge and immutable, his arms wrapping my body from collarbone to hip.
His hand clamps my jaw, tilting my head back until my throat stretches tight as a violin string.
The press of him is so real it’s almost painful.
His stubble rasps my neck. His mouth is at my ear, the voice a low hum that vibrates all the way down my spine.
“You want this, sweetheart,” he growls. “You want to be ruined.”
Before I can answer, James is in front of me, eyes bright as blue ice, hands on my hips, sliding up to cup my giant tits.
His fingers are cold, then hot, then electric as they squeeze and tug at my nipples, making me moan.
His lips crash into mine, brutal and perfect, tongue forcing me open.
Four hands grip and squeeze and knead, mapping every contour of my skin until I’m nothing but raw nerve endings.
Somewhere in the dream, the floor disappears.
I’m floating, or falling, or both at once.
The world is just bodies and voices and the hot, wet ache between my thighs.
Brent bends me over, ass in the air, legs wide.
He leans over my back, pinning me in place with one palm while the other hand fists in my hair.
“You want this,” he rasps, a repeat of what James said earlier. “This is the real you, Marnie.”
James kneels next to me, mouth at my breast, tongue swirling my nipple until it goes diamond-hard, then biting down and making me gasp. He pulls away and strokes himself, then angles his cock at my mouth, slapping it against my lips until I open up and let him in.
There’s no preamble, no slow buildup—just the immediate, desperate press of a massive cock inside me, one at my mouth, one at my pussy. My body takes both, greedy and bottomless. I try to speak, but all that comes out is a moan, half-choked by the thickness stretching my two holes.
“Unnh!” I moan, half in panic, half in ecstasy. “Ohhhh!”
The world shatters into a million shards of pleasure.
There is no time, no space, just the collision of sensation: teeth in my shoulder, fingers bruising my waist, the burn of my pussy as Brent fucks me slow and deep, the sting and then the stretched, pulsing fullness as James shoves his veiny cock down my throat. I can’t breathe, but I don’t care.
The two of them sync, a rhythm as old as hunger.
Each thrust feeds the other, one cock driving me forward, the other dragging me back.
My whole body tenses, then shakes, then explodes—orgasm after orgasm, each one louder and sharper than the last. They don’t stop.
The two men fuck me through my release, over and over, until I’m limp, drooling, weeping with relief and need.
When I wake, it’s 3:17 AM. My sheets are twisted and damp, my body shaking with the aftershocks. I gasp for air, hands already between my legs, slick with sweat and arousal. My cunt is throbbing, desperate. I rub fast and hard, hips bucking up into my palm, the pressure building to a scream.
“Unnh!” I gasp. “James! Brent! Ohhhhhh!”
I come so fast and so violently I bite through the inside of my cheek.
The pain just makes it sweeter. I arch off the bed, knees locked, jaw clenched as my holes clamp violently, desperate to be filled.
For a minute, there’s nothing but the white noise of release, the pleasure so intense it almost hurts.
After, I curl up around the pillow and breathe slow, waiting for my heart to remember what it’s supposed to do.
My thighs are sticky, my lips bitten red, my whole self buzzing and electric.
I close my eyes, but the dream won’t leave.
The two men hover behind my eyelids, their huge forms a deliciously dirty promise to make me truly feel.
I don’t sleep again that night. Not really, because I need James and Brent. And now, I know what I need to do.
Dawn splits my apartment into zones of pale gold and shadow.
I stand at the foot of my bed, nude and lush, letting the light trace my ivory curves.
The ache in my muscles is real, even if the hands that left it were not.
I flex my fingers, ball them into fists, and open them again.
I want to feel powerful. I want to feel new, and yet used at once.
I need to be with these men in order to live my fantasies to the fullest.
I choose my armor with care: a blouse of pale silk that’s almost transparent in the sun, a charcoal pencil skirt that emphasizes the sway of my wide hips, and heels that add three inches to my height and sharpen every stride.
My reflection in the bathroom mirror is half-finished—makeup on one eye, lipstick only sketched in—but the mouth is set, the eyes bright and glittery.
I practice what I’ll say to them. “I’m in. I want the files.” No, that’s too eager. “I accept. But it’s on my terms.” Too hostile. I try a dozen lines, but none of them sound like me until I finally look at myself and whisper, “I want to know the truth.” That lands, real and final.
The city outside my window is still blue with dawn when I leave, the air cold enough to sting the back of my throat.
I walk the blocks to the firm on autopilot, dodging puddles, ignoring the sidewalk philosophers and the dogs straining at leashes.
The lobby is empty except for the cleaning crew and the single, silent security guy behind the glass.
My heels echo on the marble, each step a countdown to the moment I stop being afraid.
Upstairs, I stride past Ms. Jenkins’s desk—she’s already working, tapping at her tablet, face frozen into its usual rictus. I stop, just to savor the surprise when I say, “I need a private meeting. With both partners. Now.”
She blinks once, and it’s the most human thing I’ve seen her do.
“I’m not sure if Mr. Gibson and Mr. Grant are here yet,” she minces. “It’s early still.”
I stare at her, blue eyes pointed.
“I saw their cars in the lot. Now.”
For once, the office manager gets the message.
“I’ll arrange it,” Jenkins says in a clipped tone. “Wait by the main conference room.”
The glass corridor is quiet, the sun not yet strong enough to light the city through the windows.
I smooth my skirt, adjust my hair, and take a breath so deep it fills every part of me.
Am I insane? I’m just a lowly paralegal and yet I’m ready to take on two powerful, dominant alpha males. I must be losing my mind.
For a second, I see myself in the reflection: standing straight, chin up, nothing left of the scared girl in the restroom stall. Just a woman who knows what she wants.
You can do it, Marnie, the voice in my head whispers. You have nothing to lose.
Nothing to lose except my sanity, that is. I stand at the door, heels planted, and wait for my name.
The conference room is all polished surfaces and after-dark quiet.
I close the door behind me, flip the blinds until the city disappears, and for a moment, the only light is the blue buzz of the table’s LED runner.
Brent sits at the head, hands steepled, face carved from shadow.
James leans against the credenza, arms folded, suit jacket undone, the blue of his eyes barely visible through the dim.
Both men are massive, and I suck in a deep breath, remembering the feel of those two, powerful male bodies.
But they don’t stand to greet me. They just watch as I cross the carpet and grip the back of a chair. My palms are damp, but my voice is clear.
“You were right,” I say, meeting Brent’s eyes first. “I was having second thoughts about our deal. But I’m not anymore. I want this. One taboo night in exchange for all the evidence in my father’s case. And this stays between us.”
The silence that follows is so total it’s almost a sound. Brent doesn’t blink. James’s lips pull into a slow, feral smile, as he raises a brow. “No hesitation?”
I shake my head. “None. But I want your word.”
James pushes off the credenza and circles the table, deliberate and unhurried. “You’ll have everything you need, sweetheart,” he says, coming to a stop just behind my left shoulder. “You’ll get the whole record, start to finish. Even the stuff we kept off the books.”
Meanwhile, Brent leans back in the chair, arms spread along the table’s edge. “Saturday,” he demands in a hoarse voice. “My place. Penthouse. We start at seven. You show up hungry.”
I know he’s not referring to food when he says “hungry,” but as I process, James’s hand finds my wrist, his grip warm and gentle.
Yet there’s an iron underneath. He bends close, so that I can smell the faint lemon of his soap, and murmurs, “You know you made us wait, right? That’s bad form.
We don’t generally let other people do that to us. ”
I feel a shiver, part thrill, part terror. “You’re going to punish me?” I ask, forcing my voice to sound bored, even as my pulse jackhammers.
His mouth is at my ear. “You’d better believe it.”
I yank my hand away, but it’s not much of a fight. “Not now,” I say. “We wait for the main event because we’re at the office right now.”
James’s laughter is soft, approving. Brent’s eyes never leave my face.
“Sweetheart, this is our firm,” Brent says in a silky tone, blue eyes gleaming. “And these people work for us. We say what happens, and being at the office has never stopped us before.”
“Besides, you owe us,” James adds in a throaty rasp, his gaze so dark it’s almost black now. “Women don’t make us wait. We do that to them. So we need to punish you for your bad behavior, sweetheart.”
I gasp. Punishment? Now?
But the two men merely smile, flashing even white teeth, as James locks the door to the conference room.
“Yes, now,” he hisses. “Get ready, sweet girl, because your world is about to be blown wide open.”