The reflection in the glass showed all four of us: me in the foreground, arms wrapped around myself like I could hold the pieces together, and behind me three huge and dark silhouettes filling the space.
Watching. Always watching.
The Skull was the first to move. Slow footsteps, bare feet on wood, until he stood directly behind me. Close enough that I felt the heat rolling off his chest.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured.
“I’m furious,” I corrected, voice raw.
“I know.” His hands settled on my shoulders, thumbs brushing the nape of my neck where the garland had bitten in. “Being pissed off looks good on you.”
I spun so fast my head swam. “Stop. Just… stop.” I waved my hand between us. “Stop acting like any of this is normal.”
His hands dropped, but he didn’t step back, and his expression stayed stoic and dark. None of them said a word or moved an inch for so long the silence became uncomfortable.
The Black Mask spoke next, breaking the tension, his voice like quiet thunder. “We can’t leaveuntil the roads clear. That’s three, maybe four, more days. You want to spend them hating us from across the room, fine. But you’re not spending them alone.” He shrugged as if that was that.
I laughed—sharp, brittle. “Leave the same way you came here.” I felt my face heat from my wrath. “I don’t even know your names.”
The Stag’s mouth curved. “You know the ones that matter when we’re inside you.”
More heat flooded my face, then trailed farther down. And settled right between my thighs to pool in my traitorous pussy. My body remembered every second.
I turned back to the window so they wouldn’t see the effect their words had on me. “I need my phone,” I gritted out. “I need to call Kai.”
Silence.
Then The Black Mask was the one to move closer. “Tower’s still down.”
I closed my eyes. “Of course it is,” I said under my breath and through my confusion and frustration.
A soft clunk sounded on the coffee table behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. My laptop sat open, screen glowing.
The Skull spoke again. “Write it out, Gwen. All ofit. The rage. The betrayal. That you came so hard for all three of us last night and this morning that you saw stars. Rant about how we broke every rule your editor paid us to follow. Write it. We’ll wait.”
I didn’t move, but I stared at the open laptop. They made it sound so fucking easy, like this would solve my problems. It was preposterous, yet I was walking over to it, sitting on the couch, and looking at the blank document waiting for me. The cursor blinked as if it were daring me.
I slammed the lid shut. “No.”
The Stag moved this time, crossing the room in three silent strides. He didn’t touch me, just crouched, so we were eye level. Pale blue eyes, no mask, nothing between us now except the truth.
“You think we’re the villains here,” he hissed. “Maybe we are. You wrote men who take what they want and never apologize. We just… answered the fucking call.”
My breath hitched.
He stood. “We’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready to stop pretending you want us gone.”
They left me there. I lasted ten minutes before I opened the laptop and started typing so fast my fingers ached.
12
Iwrote until all I could focus on was the blur of words I furiously added to the story.
I wrote about fear. Rage. And finally, the moment I realized Kai had weaponized my own fantasies against me, whether she realized it or not.
I wrote about the first time one of them had kissed me like he was claiming territory. Then when the second growled against my throat right before he bit down. Or when the third man looked at me when he slid deep inside and whispered I was his like he prayed to a god for.
I wrote until the document was pure, filthy, and unadulterated truth.My truth.
