The Skull leaned forward, forearms braced on the table, voice low. “Listen closely, Gwen, because we’re only saying this once. The job was simple: three masked men, a blizzard, a few hours of controlled terror to rattle your cage and kick your muse back to life.”
“We were paid to scare you, not to touch you. Not to taste you. Not to put a single finger on you,” The Stag started in. “Kai made that part crystal-clear in writing, and we signed it. When you opened that door with the knife shaking in your hand, the plan was already crumbling. When you looked at us likeyou were daring us to cross the line instead of begging us to leave, we knew you’d be ours.”
The Black Mask growled the next words low and heated. “We didn’t plan the sex. We didn’t plan to strip you down, tie you up with Christmas garland, or come inside you until you forgot your own name. That wasn’t the job. That was us deciding the job was over the second you moaned for more instead of screaming for help.”
The Stag moved back enough when I shoved up from the chair so fast it scraped back and almost tipped. He was a wall of heat at my back.
“Sit down, Gwen,” The Black Mask said—ordered—quietly.
“Fuck you,” I snapped, voice shaking. “All of you. Get out. Get the hell out of my cabin right now.”
The Skull stood too, slow, unhurried. Now, all three stood in front of me staring with unflinching, stoic expressions that should have terrified me instead of turning me on. “We’re snowed in, sweetheart. Roads are gone. Even if we wanted to leave?—”
“I don’t care.” The words tore out raw. “You don’t get to,” I stuttered. “You don’t get to do what you did and then tell me my editor thought it was a good idea.”
Tears burned suddenly and furiously. I hatedthem. I hated how my body still hummed, how every bruise felt like proof I’d wanted it. I hated that part of me was already trying to rewrite the story so it made sense, so I wasn’t the woman who’d let three strangers wreck her and then asked for more.
The Black Mask moved first. One step, two, until he was close enough that I had to tip my head back to keep glaring. His hand lifted. It wasn’t fast, not threatening, as he cupped my jaw like he’d done it a hundred times.
“You’re angry,” he said, low. “Good. Be angry. Scream at us. Hit us. We’ll take it.” His thumb swept over my cheekbone, smearing the tears I hadn’t realized were there. “We’ll probably fucking get hard because of it. But don’t lie to yourself about what happened after the masks came off.”
I jerked my face away. “You don’t get to tell me what I felt.”
“No,” The Stag said, stepping forward now, voice rough. “We felt you come apart repeatedly. You stopped counting before we did.”
I pegged him with a hard glare. “That doesn’t make it right.” I was seething. I was getting wet.
“Never said it did,” he answered, unflinching. “But it makes it real.”
The Skull watched me as if he were waiting forsomething to break. “Things didn’t go exactly as planned, Gwen, but it is what it is.”
The Black Mask’s grip slid to the back of my neck, firm, steadying as he stared into my eyes. “You’re right,” he said simply. “We’re keeping you because the second you looked at us like you’d been waiting your whole life for exactly this, the job ended and something else started.”
I hated how steady his voice was. Hated how my pulse stuttered under his palm. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly freezing despite the cabin’s heat radiating from the fireplace. “I need… I need space. I need to think.”
All three stepped back without a word, clearing the path to the living room. I walked away from them on legs that felt loose and unstable. The Christmas tree lights blinked lazily red and green, obscene in the morning light. I stopped in the middle of the rug… the same rug where they’d held me down and filled and ruined me. I stared at the faint stains we hadn’t cleaned up yet.
So fucking nasty. So fucking hot.
Behind me, no one followed. No footsteps. Just the inaudible murmur of their voices too soft to make out words.
I pressed my palms to my eyes untilsparks burst behind my lids. Kai had betrayed me. They had betrayed the job.
Yes, I… I had betrayed myself somewhere between the first scream and the last shattered moan.
The storm outside had quieted to a gentle, persistent fall. But inside, something louder was gathering, and I had no idea which of us it would destroy first.
11
Istood on that rug until my feet felt numb.
Behind me, the low rumble of their voices rose and fell. Not arguing. Planning. I caught fragments—“call her”, “tell Kai it’s done”, “no signal anyway”—and each word landed like a stone in my gut.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. I wanted to crawl back into that bed and let them erase the last ten minutes with their mouths and hands and the kind of sex that made reality irrelevant.
Instead, I walked to the window and felt the cold through the icy glass.
The snow fell more like a whisper now. The world outside was blinding white andperfectly still, like the mountain had decided to hold its breath. No tire tracks. No plow. No rescue. Just miles of nothing between me and the rest of my life.
