Chapter 14
My veins bubbled with heat, and I burst out of the car like I’d won a championship. Perhaps it was the damp, midnight scent in the air, or the way the wind dragged goose bumps to my skin that made me wistful. A grin spread across my face as Ray exited the Bugatti with a pout.
“Don’t even suggest I cheated.” I wagged my finger at him.
He held up his hands in surrender.
“Didn’t even cross my mind.” He took a cooler bag from Jonah. “I’m just a sore loser.”
Beck lurked behind me. His intense energy rolled down my spine and made my skin sting.
His confession left me raw in a way I hadn’t expected.
I couldn’t imagine him begging for anyone, and to find out that was the reason for his fake tattoos.
My bruised heart might harbor a well of hurt toward his betrayal, but it still ached for the boy he once was.
We were both shaped by trauma. A heady, earthy scent settled over my shoulders as Beck wrapped his jacket around my shoulders.
I pulled it close and dipped my head in thanks.
Was it our conversation that made him look like a frayed thread?
His pulse throbbed under his tight jaw, and his skin was paper-thin and colorless.
“Cheers to the winner,” Jonah offered me a beer.
I took it, lifting it to my lips. The chilled liquid slid down my throat, and I sighed. The race had done as I hoped, and dissolved the churning knot in my stomach. A warm buzz throbbed in my veins.
Beck shook his head when Ray offered him one. His dark gaze landed on me, and something flickered in the fathomless depths.
“I’ll head back. Enjoy your drink.”
My chest tightened as his stare burned into the side of my head. Like he wanted me to ask him to stay.
I wouldn’t.
Ray tossed him the keys to the Bugatti, eyebrows raised. But Beck didn’t give any further details. He stalked to the car and sped away so fast the wheels squealed in protest.
“I take it things didn’t go well?” Jonah spread out his jacket on the heated Lamborghini and beckoned to me.
I leaned against the car, sighing as the lingering heat of the motor rolled through me.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
The roar of the Bugatti in the distance faded. I stared up at the sky, and the stars embedded in the silky dark. Ray and Jonah squeezed beside me, and for the space of a drink, we stared at the stars and sipped our beer. My heart fluttered with what could have been.
“At least the moon is out tonight. Romantic.” Ray twirled the last of his drink and swallowed it.
“Should I give the two of you space?”
“No,” Ray and Jonah’s voices clashed.
“I was just joking around.” Ray sighed, rubbing his shoulder against Jonah.
Jonah grunted, winking at him. I sat up, fixed on their easy warmth. I couldn’t deny that it intrigued me. The beer loosened my tongue enough to ask.
“When did this happen?”
The two of them shared an electric look. I felt the zap between my ribs. Longing for what they had throbbed there.
Jonah reached out and ruffled Ray’s hair with a soft smile.
“I think it’s always been bubbling there. I thought I hated him, but it was attraction.”
Ray smirked. “Big guy fell for my charms, just like you did, mia volpe.”
His confidence slipped through my ribs. I was drunk on adrenaline, danger, heartbreak, and a little alcohol.
Enough to lubricate it into a decision I shouldn’t act on.
The moonlight felt like ink on my skin, and right or wrong, I wanted to write a different story than the one I was living right now.
Oh, delusional Lyra, you’re going to regret this tomorrow.
“Would you… show me?”
Jonah fumbled with his bottle, and it hit the ground with a clunk, intact. But his composure was gone, blown like his pupils and flushed cheeks.
“We’ve only kissed.” Ray’s hand landed on Jonah’s meaty thigh, and he squeezed.
The implication was clear. He wanted to do more. I knew what Ray’s kisses were like—domineering, cheeky, and passionate. His body was made for pleasure, and he never denied himself the opportunity. My pulse echoed between my thighs. I was thinking with my clit.
“So, kiss.”
“You don’t care?” Jonah’s voice was strained.
I tilted my head. The question was two-pronged. I had no right to jealousy, because we didn’t belong to each other anymore. But even if they were, I wouldn’t care. I was a greedy girl with three boyfriends. Ex-boyfriends. If they wanted to love each other as well, I welcomed it.
Love in all its forms is beautiful.
I didn’t tell them my racing thoughts about the hurt pressing against my ribs. Love wasn’t in the cards for us anymore. The Unseen had cursed me to lose those I loved, and I couldn’t forgive them for turning on me so thoroughly.
But passion? Bodies? Orgasms.
“I bet you look perfect together,” I whispered.
“Our girl isn’t wrong,” Ray slipped his hand behind Jonah’s neck.
I didn’t correct him, mesmerized by the way Jonah’s tongue swiped his lower lip.
Jonah gripped Ray’s collar and yanked him close.
They panted in unison, tasting each other’s breath.
The waiting made my skin tighten with anticipation.
As their lips met, I knew I’d never recover from the sight. I had never encountered them like that.
Bone-deep hunger. Animalistic passion. They fought for dominance, and I slipped off the car as they tangled together.
They tried to best each other, rolling, tugging, and tearing.
Their lips never let up. I tasted salt on my tongue as Ray licked Jonah’s thick neck.
My pussy throbbed with fierce want. Ray groaned into Jonah’s open mouth, and his fingers trailed to Jonah’s jeans.
Jonah slammed Ray onto his back and loomed over him.
I didn’t care that I was forgotten. Not as Jonah fit himself between Ray’s legs and ground his hard cock against the lump in Ray’s pants.
Their desperate desire echoed into the night.
My heart crashed harder than it had in the race.
Ray slipped his hand into Jonah’s pants, and the big guy faltered with a groan before wrenching himself away. He panted, wide-eyed and disheveled. He rolled off the car opposite me, digging his hands into his hair.
“Why?” Ray’s eyebrows pushed together, and he caught his kiss-swollen bottom lip between his teeth as it trembled.
Rejection was always Ray’s biggest fear. From his parents to his friends, to the men he’d been supposed to lead as the previous Donato heir. Jonah pulled all of that to the surface.
“I-it’s not what you think,” Jonah held up his hand as he fought to catch his breath.
Was he struggling with feeling attracted to a man?
“Jonah?” I prodded when he didn’t elaborate.
They might not be my favorite people in the universe right now, but if he didn’t say something soon, Ray was going to curl into a ball and combust. Jonah gripped Ray’s knee and urged him to slide over. His touch was tender, even if his silence said otherwise.
“I never told you why I ran away from home.”
He sucked in a heavy breath and stared up at the sky. His eyes glimmered until he blinked the moisture away.
“What is it? What did I do?” Ray rasped.
“Nothing, fuck,” Jonah cursed. “The reason I fought my attraction to you for so long is because of what happened to me when I was younger.”
My stomach tumbled off a cliff and splattered on the ground.
“My stepdad tried to touch me when I was younger. It started with gifts and sweets. My real dad left before I was one, and Mike was the first man who’d ever shown pride in me.
I was so desperate to please him. He took me on ‘dad outings,’ but I’d always have to sit on his lap.
Then his hands would go places that made my stomach hurt.
My mom didn’t believe me when I told her.
She said it was an accident, and there was nothing wrong with touches if they stayed over my clothes. ”
Jonah paused, and his neck worked hard. Ray grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers.
“The more I dodged Mike, the angrier he got. He’d drink and beat me instead.
Each time, he’d give me a choice. A beating or ‘dad outing.’ In the end, I gave him a beating, and afterward I ran.
I swore I’d never let someone take what I didn’t want to give, or give me that sick feeling in my stomach.
I became someone who could protect the weak and was ruthless enough not to care about the rules. ”
My throat constricted, refusing to release a knot.
“What about your mom?”
“I called her once after Antoni Orazio took me in. She said Mike had left her for another woman. A single mom with two boys.” His gaze was dark like a gun barrel. Haunted.
I clutched my stomach and swallowed a heave of acid.
“Sick fucking predator.”
“Dead, sick predator.” Jonah’s smile held no warmth. “I got my revenge and made sure he never hurt anyone else. But a part of me still…”
My arms ached to hold Jonah, but I held back as Ray did instead. My intestines were a tangle, and every harried breath Jonah took made them tighten.
“When I touch you…” Ray’s cheeks drained of color.
“No,” Jonah exploded. “You make me feel amazing, but my brain takes me back there. I spent so long shoving what happened down, but I can’t ignore it anymore.”
His expression was so defeated, like a tunnel falling down, down, down.
I couldn’t stand by and let him crumble, so I wrapped my arms around his waist. I wasn’t thinking of my hurt, but of his.
The tangled cords of darkness around his heart stopped Jonah from taking the happiness Ray offered.
I saw the boy in both of them, who longed for love and protection and had found it in each other.
My fingers clutched around Ray, until we were just three.
The world shrank to the space of our lungs.
I swore I wouldn’t ever open myself to them again, but I shoved the promise aside and offered my heart on a platter.
Just for a moment.