“No, I’m fine. I’l just go in?— ”
I squealed as he lifted me into his arms.
“You’re not going to miss this because you’re scared,” he said.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him as he moved forward, his arms tight around my back and under my knees, his muscled body like an iron safety net securing my body.
I held on tight as he stepped into the hot tub, then felt the hot water touch my ass, my thighs, my toes.
Then I was all the way in, sighing with pleasure as I was enveloped in the steamy heat.
“Lay back,” Hawk said, loosening his hold on me.
“What… what do you mean?”
“Lay back and float so I can eat your pussy.”
“Don’t worry,” Jagger said, slipping his arms under my back. “I’ll hold you on top of the water.”
“My arm…”
“Hold it on your stomach,” Jagger said. “It will be okay. Vigo sealed it up tight.”
I moved my arm onto my stomach, tried to lay back, then panicked. “I can’t.”
I was falling back into nothing, counting on the fact that something — or someone — would catch me.
“You can,” Hawk said, his voice hard. “You will. We don’t let the darkness control us, Cass. That only gives it power. Embrace it. Sink into it.”
“Trust us,” Jagger said. “We’ve got you.”
I relaxed a little at a time, letting Jagger take the weight of my upper body as the back of my head dropped into the water and Hawk held my legs. I was allowed to get the tape on my torso wet, and the ache of my healing ribs eased as the water made me buoyant and the pain that had become a constant backdrop to every waking minute subsided.
I should have gotten in the hot tub a long time ago, when the Hawks had suggested it.
After a couple seconds, I started to feel secure, Jagger’s arms solid under my upper body, Hawk’s under my legs. I felt like a baby learning to swim, my parents holding me securely in their arms while I got used to the water.
I was looking up at the sky but I couldn’t see the stars, and a tear slipped down my temple and into my hair.
One of Jagger’s hands cradled my head, his voice right over my face. “It’s okay, Cass. It’s okay.”
“I’ve lost so much.”
“And the people who took it from you are going to pay.” Hawk’s voice held a fevered promise.
Jagger stroked my temple. “It’s going to be okay.”
His mouth pressed against mine in what started as a chaste kiss. Then I opened for him and our tongues tangled as he stroked through my mouth, the kiss turning from tender to heated.
I left my sorrow behind in favor of a hunger that filled my body to overflowing, meeting every sweep of his tongue with one of my own. The water lapped around my body, the kiss somehow more erotic for the fact that our hands were otherwise occupied — mine at my sides as I floated in the water, Jagger holding my head and upper body.
I felt safe and warm, cocooned by the water and the big hands of the men who suspended me in it.
Safe against all reason.
The clamps maintained a steady pressure on my nipples, but without anyone tugging on them it was mild and pleasant, a bonus to the heated sweeps of Jagger’s tongue in my mouth.
His kiss was setting me on fire and I barely noticed when Hawk took hold of my knees to rest my calves on his shoulders.
