~ 42 ~
PEYTON
The best thing about hiding in Iceland was that it didn’t feel like hiding at all.
It felt like finally getting a chance to breathe.
A whole week passed in our gorgeous glass house, flanked by spectacular blizzards on either end. During the lull between storms, time seemed to slow down. There were no black SUVs, no infrared drones, no threats from Donovan or his men. Just snow, and wind, and warmth — all of them silent, and seemingly endless. A week walking around inside our comfortable safe house, barely clothed, dancing along floors that kissed the soles of my bare feet with a humming, geothermal heat.
Mornings were coffee, and breakfast, and laughter. By day, Ripley turned the snowy plain just outside the house into a martial arts training ground. Afternoons were spent warming up by the pot-bellied stove, or finding out we all loved cooking together. To our surprise, Colson was better than all of us. His Italian heritage had imparted him with the knowledge of how to make fresh pasta, along with an innate mastery of flavorsthat seemed almost too good to be true.
Up in what quickly became Theo’s office, the work on his laptop was never done. Money slowly trickled from Donovan’s accounts; millions being slowly and silently drained from various shell companies. Theo continued unlocking hidden partitions from the encrypted drive, discovering new weaknesses and attack points we could use to destroy my billionaire ex-fiancé when we were ready.
And believe me, we were pretty fucking ready.
Somewhere during the middle of the week, we snuck into Reykjavik. Wool hats were pulled low, and scarves high, making us nothing more than four simple tourists enjoying the narrow streets lined with colorful shops and houses. It was during this time we felt more normal than ever, and I could really get a sense of who these men were. Silently I watched as they interacted with each other, seeing who and what they might be in normal, everyday life.
And for the first time since running down the aisle, I could actually sense a future.
Until me, these men had only tangentially existed in the same orbit. But now they were bonded, their fates aligned. Together, the four of us were an all-new weapon; one forged in the fiery crucible of Donovan Prescott’s shady, twisted empire.
A weapon determined to ultimately take him down.
Our evenings were spent unwinding, usually by curling up on comfortable couches, or soaking in the mineral springs masked by curls of steam. Floating on my back beneath the Aurora Borealis, I felt infinitesimally small. The sky stretched in all directions; an endless dome, shimmering and shifting above us. A visual representation of the thousands, even millions of possible paths our lives could take from this moment on,forking outward in limitless directions. And yet no matter how many paths there were — no matter what choices we’d make from this moment on — the only paths I was interested in pursuing involved walking alongsidethem.
It was on one such night, watching the three of them laughing together at the entrance to the glowing blue grotto, that my heart realized something quietly terrifying:
I really, and truly loved them.
Not one of them. Not some of them.
Allof them, together.
At once.
It seemed almost an impossibility; a one-in-a-million constellation formed by just the right set of circumstances, at exactly the right time in each of our lives. But I could feel the same emotions within them, too. It was in Theo’s eyes, every time he’d look up from his laptop and beam at me, no matter how late the hour. It was in the way Ripley touched my body, possessing it with those calloused hands like he’d always owned it, or in the way Colson trembled, ever so slightly, when I’d hold his face between my palms and slowly kiss him.
And of course, there was the sex. Hot, dripping, steamy sex; as much of it as I wanted, and I’d grown pretty fucking voracious. It came in the mornings, as I woke up with various, clothing-free men in my bed. It came at night, as I was carried off by one or more of them to some corner of the house, where I’d be plundered and sated, my every far-flung fantasy, totally fulfilled.
It came in the shower, where I’d be bent over and used by whoever popped in next, sometimes having to rewash certain areas because they’d grown dirty again. I was laid on the couch, fucked in the kitchen, turned out in the hallway.They’d pick me up and ravage me wherever I happened to be standing, or roll my shorts down and shove me up against the nearest wall.
And it was times like these, when I’d be taken at will, that I found to be particularly hot.
I loved to be used. I loved to be taken.
Still, nothing beat dragging all three of my boyfriends into bed at once. Because as I lay there kissing one ridiculously hot man, while a second one spread my thighs wide so the third could rail me more deeply? All thoughts of guilt went out the window. Lust and greed and sheer sexual gluttony took over, turning me into the relentless, insatiable nymphomaniac I’d happily become. And as they took turns gripping my hips, remarking at how I never seemed to get enough, I reminded them that this was a monster of their own creation.
In truth though, I knew I was every bit as culpable as they were.
