The final orgasm is devastating.
She comes screaming, body locked rigid, pussy and ass clenching around us in long, milking waves, a flood of wetness that soaks my thighs and the sheets beneath us. The sound rips out of her like it’s being torn free.
I spill inside her pussy with a guttural groan. Donovan follows seconds later, pulsing deep in her ass. Kai pulls from her mouth at the last second and comes across her tongue, her lips, her tear-streaked cheeks.
We collapse in a tangle of limbs, sweat, and shaking breaths.
She’s marked everywhere, bruises blooming on her hips, bite marks on her shoulders, handprints glowing on her ass. I pull her into my chest. Donovan curls behind her. Kai sprawls at thefoot of the bed, chest heaving. The room smells like sex and tears and absolution.
She burrows into me, face pressed to my throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispers again, softer this time. “I’m so sorry.”
“We know,” I murmur into her hair.
Donovan’s hand settles over the slight curve of her stomach. Kai’s fingers lace with hers.
She falls asleep between us, utterly spent, utterly claimed.
And for the first time since she confessed, I believe she is finally, completely, irrevocably ours.
34
KAI
I’m dreamingabout skiing when the knife pierces my chest.
In the dream, I’m flying down the mountain with powder spraying around me and Samantha laughing behind me on her own skis. Then something sharp drives through my sternum, and I look down to see a blade buried to the hilt between my ribs.
I wake gasping.
The pain is real. Sharp and brutal and radiating from the center of my chest like someone actually stabbed me. I lie frozen in the darkness with Samantha curled against my side and Dad’s steady breathing filling the room, trying to convince myself this is just another episode that will pass if I breathe through it.
It doesn’t pass.
My left arm goes numb. Sweat breaks out across my forehead. The room tilts sideways even though I’m lying flat, and when I try to draw breath, my lungs won’t expand properly.
I need my pills.
I slide out of bed carefully, trying not to wake anyone. My feet hit the floor, and standing sends a fresh wave of agony through my chest that makes my knees buckle. I catch myself on the nightstand and wait for the world to stop spinning.
It doesn’t stop.
Every step toward the door feels like walking through deep water.
My heart is beating wrong. Too fast, then too slow, skipping beats like it’s forgotten its rhythm.
I push off the wall and keep moving because staying still means collapsing, and collapsing means someone finds me before I can get to my medication. I’m almost out of the bedroom when my foot catches on something solid.
Someone’s leg.
I stumble, barely catching myself on the doorframe. Behind me, whoever I kicked makes a sleepy sound of protest. I don’t look back, just lurch down the hallway and into my room, closing the door behind me.
The hidden cabinet. I need to get to the hidden cabinet.
My hands shake violently as I fumble with the panel, and when it finally opens, the pill bottle slips through my fingers and hits the floor. I drop to my knees and grab it, twisting the cap with hands that won’t cooperate.
Pills spill across the hardwood. I scoop them into my palm without counting and swallow them dry.
Nothing happens.
