She took his hand as they waded to shallower water, and she got down on her knees in front of Bennett and looked up at him.
“You don’t have to…” he started to say.
But she gripped both hands around his base and slowly guided him into her mouth, eyes fixed on his the whole time. Bennett had never felt anything better. He had never felt more on fire, more in love with a set of eyes.
Harry appeared at Bennett’s side, peering over his shoulder. “Isn’t it the best? Especially when she looks up at you. Ugh, I want to melt right then every time.”
This made Snow White smile and she pulled back and stood up again. Bennett immediately kissed her deeply as if to say thank you, or I love you, or both.
“Okay, now it’s your turn, Snow. Let Bennett taste you,” Harry challenged Bennett.
Snow White wasn’t sure what Harry really meant, but Bennett took her hand and led her to the riverbank. He laid her down on the soft moss with the rush of the stream chanting a rhythm for their coupling. Harry joined them and lay naked by her side. His touches turned more focused, his kisses more sensual. Bennett moved between her legs and spread her thighs with his gentle hands. Snow White wasn’t sure what was about to happen. The men had occasionally used their mouths on her body, kisses down her torso, licking her nipples, but none of them had ever kissed her down there.
“Hold on tight, Snow. You’re in for it.” Harry said, excitedly watching.
Bennett started slowly, kissing her inner thighs and moving to the middle. The sensation was electrifying for Snow White. His lips sent tremors through her body, reminding her of the first time her breasts were ever touched. She felt his warm tongue slowly drawing circles and then slowly licking up and down as if not wanting to miss a spot. She let out a loud moan, and then another, her voice growing stronger.
He continued licking and sucking as Harry watched, kissing her, caressing her breasts, and tugging on himself so as not to interrupt her pleasure, but soon Harry couldn’t wait any longer. “Ok, get on all fours, Snow,” Harry said. And he positioned himself behind her as she moved.
“Bennett, will you let me finish what I started?” she asked, waving him over to her face. Bennett nodded and moved around to her face, full and throbbing from the enjoyment he derived from the taste of her juice on his lips.
“Okay, let’s make this fun. Ready?” Harry said, “One…two…three!” On three both men pushed into her at the same time, gently, but firmly—Harry from behind and Bennett from the front. “Amwh,” she screamed, sounds muffled from Bennett’s erection in her mouth. The men tried their best to make the moment last. They took what they needed from her mouth, from her breasts, and from the heat between her thighs and finished by pooling a collection on her back.
As they lay in a tangle, catching their breath, Snow White’s fingers clenched and unclenched until her knuckles turned white. While the men drifted into a quiet riverside nap, spooning Snow White’s body, her own blood still raced with a frantic, static energy. She stared at the sky, jaw clenched, the heat between her legs pulsing with a question that had received no answer. She didn’t understand the feeling. She didn’tunderstand why she felt angry. This had been happening more and more. She was like a stallion, ready to run, but caged in a stall. She needed someone to unlock the door.
Springturnedtosummerand summer to fall. One day after lunch Dax pulled Snow White aside. “It’s been almost a year since you’ve been here with us. We’ve loved having you, but I want to make sure you’re happy here, too,” he confessed. “I sense that you are, but I wanted to be direct and ask. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”
They sat down on the front porch bench as they spoke.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be. You have given me a life, given me a family. Something I haven’t had in a very long time,” she said.Should I tell him about my father? My mother? I think I can trust Dax. I know he will know what to do. But he’s also the sensible one, the one who makes the decisions for the good of the group. What if he decides I need to leave?
“Ok. I’m glad you feel comfortable. I want you to know you can tell me anything. I will always look out for you,” Dax assured, looking down at her with eyes bright and certain. She smiled, heart twisting.
Over time, their hands had learned her more carefully. What had once been taken without question was now offered with pause, with listening. They learned her body and noticed when she winced or when she smiled, when she pushed closer to them or withdrew. She noticed the difference not in the moments themselves, but also in how she was treated afterwards—as ifsomething unspoken had shifted. For the first time in her life, the attention she received didn’t feel like a weapon being used against her—it felt like a choice she’d made. Not a perfect one, not a safe one in every sense, but one that had given her, here in the middle of the woods, something she’d thought she’d lost forever: A home.
Chapter seventeen
Line Crossed
SnowWhitefoundthatshe liked honest toil and hard work. She enjoyed her time with Grimm at the river washing clothes. She liked cooking, experimenting with new herbs and spices. But she especially liked sweeping. It was strange, maybe, to prefer such a simple task after having grown up among marble floors and servants who materialized at the first speck of dust. But here, in the miners’ cottage, sweeping meant she could see her work. She could watch the day’s grit and crumbs and stray bits of coal gather into piles she could banish out the door. It was satisfying, this small control over chaos.
The men were at the mine. The cottage was quiet in a way it never was when they were home. The beds lay unmade, the sheets twisted from the tangle of bodies that had slept the night before. The fire was down to embers, giving off a gentle warmth instead of a crackling roar. Sunlight pushed through the small windows in soft bands, carrying dust motes that danced lazily in the air.
Snow White hummed under her breath as she worked. Her hair, grown past her shoulders now, tickled the corners of herjaw when she bent. She’d tied it back with a strip of cloth, but strands still escaped to fall into her eyes. She’d long since given up on keeping it neat.
Her mind drifted as the broom whispered against the floorboards. This was her life now: wood smoke and bread dough under her nails, men’s laughter at the table, the creak of the beds at night. The idea of balls and banners and jeweled hairpins seemed like something from a book she might have read once and then forgotten. She wasn’t unhappy. She wasn’t in love, but she wasn’t hurt either. Here, her body was part of the bargain, yes—but each day she felt less and less like a toy and more and more like a partner.
She reached the table and bent to sweep the last few crumbs from beneath it. The door opened. She startled, straightening so quickly her back gave a little twinge. The men weren’t due back for hours. For one jolting second, her mind supplied the image of Hunter in the doorway, knife in hand. It wasn’t Hunter.
Gage filled the frame, broad shoulders blocking out the light from outside. His beard was dusted with coal, his hair damp with sweat where it curled at his neck. He’d shed his outer layer on the hook by the door; his shirt clung to him, outlining thick arms and a torso built from years of hard work.
“Gage,” she said, more breathless than the sight should have warranted. “You’re back early.”
He shut the door behind him with a heavy thud. The sound seemed to cut the cottage off from the rest of the world. “Dax cleared some of us out,” he said shortly. “New tunnel needed shoring; they didn’t want too many bodies under it until it’s braced.” He shrugged, a crack of tension easing, then fixed his gaze on her. There was a gleam in his eyes she wasn’t used to seeing there. He always looked intense—scowling, frowning, glaring—but this was different. Bright, almost… excited. Ahalf-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, not soft, but sharp. Snow White’s pulse skipped.
He let his gaze trail slowly down her body, taking in the simple dress hitched up a little at her calves, the bare arms dusted with flour from the bread she’d kneaded earlier, the flush on her cheeks from her work. “I’m going to have you now.” No preamble. No question.
Heat shot through her, confusing and immediate. Gage had always gotten under her skin more than the others. His roughness, his bluntness, the way he refused to pretend he didn’t want what he wanted—it all irritated and thrilled her in equal measure. Her heart beat faster. She swallowed. “Here?” she asked. “Now?”
