I forced my mind away from the heat of their bodies that were pressed full-length against mine. I tried not to think about the way The Stag breathed against the side of my head, or the heavy warmth of The Black Mask’s arm drapedover my body like he was still claiming territory. I couldn’t ignore the way The Skull dragged his tongue along my calf, then gently bit until pain and pleasure became one.
“I need,” I said, not sure what I was even asking for.
Three bodies shifted at once.
The Black Mask loosened the arm around my waist, carefully and slow. The Stag’s hand tightened on my hip first, then loosened. The Skull rolled off the bed entirely, stretched until his spine cracked, then stepped aside without comment.
The bedding slid down my torso as I sat up. Heat crawled up my neck and chest at the fact I was naked. But I reminded myself they had seen everything. Done everything. And yet, the exposure felt sharper in daylight.
My legs wobbled when I stood. I wrapped the blanket around myself like makeshift armor.
“You okay?” The Skull asked, leaning a shoulder against the wall, his dark eyes scanning me with quiet calculation.
“I can’t answer that honestly,” I said.
The Skull’s lips curved in a slow, knowing smile. “We’ll take that as a win.”
I didn’t let myself look at any of them again as Icrossed the room. It felt too much like admitting how much I… loved this.
Inside the bathroom, I braced my hands on the sink and forced myself to meet my gaze in the mirror. My hair was a wreck. My lips were swollen. My pupils still too wide. Faint red marks circled my throat. Smudges of bruises bloomed along my hips. I’d expected to look broken.
Instead, I looked like someone who was finally awake.
“What the hell am I doing?” I whispered to myself.The mirror didn’t answer, but the air shifted behind me. There was a slow creak of floorboards followed by the quiet, unhurried murmur of men who knew exactly what they’d done to me and what they meant to do next.
I closed my eyes, just for a heartbeat, letting the truth settle like heat under my skin. Last night and this morning weren’t an accident. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a line crossed, burned, and buried.
Whatever waited outside that bathroom door—the three of them, the storm’s aftermath, and now the consequences of my actions—I knew one thing with bone-deep certainty.
I wasn’t done with them. And they sure as hell weren’t done with me.
10
When I came back to the bedroom, my clothes weren’t scattered anymore. They wereplaced.My sweater folded neatly at the foot of the bed. My leggings beside it. And on top of them, a long black shirt I didn’t own. Soft. Worn. Heavy with warmth from someone much bigger than me.
The Skull leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. “It’ll be warmer,” he said with a nod toward the shirt.
“You went through my stuff?” I asked. I tightened the blanket around my body.
The Stag’s voice drifted lazily from down the hall, and I looked over my shoulder to see him standing right on the other side of the door, a smirk on his face. “Modesty clocked out hours ago.”
Heat flushed my cheeks, but I said nothing as all three men watched me when I pulled on the leggings, my sweater, and then the oversized shirt. It hung almost to my knees and smelled like soap and smoke and something unmistakably male.
I shouldn’t have liked that. But I did.
By the time I got my bearings, all three men were already in the kitchen, coffee brewing.
The Black Mask stood at the counter with the quiet, economical movements of a man who didn’t waste energy. I watched him silently. Mug. Cream. Stir. His broad shoulders moved under his dark shirt, tattoos slipping in and out of view.
The Stag flipped bacon at the stove like he lived here and hadn’t broken in last night. The Skull sat at the table, shirtless, chair tipped back, staring out the window as if he were challenging the storm to be violent again.
It felt absurdly domestic. Domestic coated in dread. I felt like this was a scene from a horror movie, and I was waking up after the climax to find the masked killers calmly making breakfast.
“Sit,” The Black Mask said, gesturing to the chair across from The Skull.
I obeyed and sat. A mug was placed in front of me, and for a second, I was only focused on the scentof hot coffee inches from me.The steam curled up from the mug like a question I wasn’t ready to answer.
I wrapped both hands around it, letting the heat bite my palms, and tried to look anywhere except at the three men who now owned every inch of the cabin’s air.
