The Skull dropped his chair forward with a deliberate thud. The sound cracked through the quiet like a warning shot. “You’re thinking too loud,” he said, voice still rough from sleep and the hours of groaning while he’d fucked me. His eyes—sharp and unfairly beautiful—narrowed on me. “Stop it.”
The Stag slid a plate across the table: bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast cut diagonally like someone’s mother had taught him manners once upon a time.
“Eat,” he said, trying to soften his tone. Not a suggestion.
I picked up the fork because it was easier than arguing. Because my stomach was hollow, my thighs still trembled when I shifted on the hard, wooden chair, and my pussy was sore as hell in the best way. The tenderness between my legs throbbed every time one of them looked at me like they were still starving.
The Black Mask stayed standing, hip against the counter, sipping his own coffee black. He hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words since I’d walked in, but I felt him cataloguing every move I made.
I swallowed a bite of eggs and nearly choked when The Skull reached over and brushed a crumb from the corner of my mouth with his thumb. He brought it to his tongue without breaking eye contact and licked it clean.
Jesus Christ.
“So,” I managed, setting the fork down before my hands shook too obviously. “What happens now? You guys make me breakfast, lunch, and dinner from now on? We play house until the roads clear?”
Silence. Thick, dangerous silence filled the cabin.
The Stag turned off the burner and leaned back against the stove, arms folded. The sleeves of his thermal were pushed up, ink flexing over muscle every time he breathed. “We’re not leaving, Gwen.”
Just like that. Flat. Final.
My pulse stuttered. “I don’t even know you. You broke in. You can’t just?—”
“We already did,” The Black Mask cut in, frighteningly calm. “Storm’s dumped another twofeet overnight. Generator’s got maybe thirty-six hours of fuel left if we’re careful. No one’s coming up here for days. Maybe a week.” He said it as if he were reading my future or, hell, the weather report.
I looked from one to the other waiting for the punchline, the wink, or just to wake the fuck up because this was the craziest dream I’d ever had.
The Skull leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You want the truth?”
I didn’t know if that was a trick question, so I kept my mouth shut.
“You want to know what the fuck is really going on?” The Black Mask said ominously.
“You want us to be truthful about why we’re here?” The Stag finished.
I looked between all three of them, my eyes feeling wide. Fear of the unknown, of what they were about to say, made my pulse pound wildly.
“Here’s what you need to understand, sweetheart. Last night was supposed to be a job. In and out. Masks, some mind-fuck theater, give you the scare of your life so you could finish that goddamn book.” The Skull smiled, slow and filthy. “Kaithought immersion therapy would break through your writer’s block.”
My stomach dropped so fast the room tilted. Kai. “W-What?” I blinked rapidly, bounced my gaze between them, and finally leaned back in my chair. I grabbed the mug and tried to down the rest of the coffee, but it was hot as hell and I sputtered.
The words hung in the air like smoke I couldn’t wave away.
Kai. My editor. My friend. The one who’d laughed with me over margaritas about deadlines and panic attacks and how I hadn’t written a decent sex scene in six months. My hands were steady. That was the scariest part.
“You’re telling me,” I said slowly, tasting every syllable, “that Kai hired you? Paid you… to break into my cabin, scare the shit out of me, and then… what? Leave?”
The Skull’s mouth curved, lazy and cruel. “That was the original contract, yeah.”
I stared at him. At all three of them and waited for the punchline that never came. A laugh cracked out of me—ugly, incredulous, nothing like amusement. “You’re serious.”
The Black Mask didn’t blink. “Dead serious.”
Another laugh, sharper this time. “She hiredactors? Like some kind of fucked-up haunted house experience for writer’s block?” My voice climbed. “Do you have any idea how insane that is?”
The Stag moved to stand behind me, his hands now on my shoulders. His thumbs pressed in harder, grounding, possessive. “She said you were drowning. Said immersion has worked for others before.”
I shook my head hard enough that my hair whipped my cheeks. “No. No. This… this crosses every line. This is crossing every fucking line. This is—” My throat closed. If I were being honest, this hadn’t felt like crossing lines when I was begging them to fuck me harder. Or when I was coming apart under their mouths and hands and cocks.
