Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 21796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
I jerked my face away. “You don’t get to tell me what I felt.”
“No,” The Stag said, stepping forward now, voice rough. “We felt you come apart repeatedly. You stopped counting before we did.”
I pegged him with a hard glare. “That doesn’t make it right.” I was seething. I was getting wet.
“Never said it did,” he answered, unflinching. “But it makes it real.”
The Skull watched me as if he were waiting for something to break. “Things didn’t go exactly as planned, Gwen, but it is what it is.”
The Black Mask’s grip slid to the back of my neck, firm, steadying as he stared into my eyes. “You’re right,” he said simply. “We’re keeping you because the second you looked at us like you’d been waiting your whole life for exactly this, the job ended and something else started.”
I hated how steady his voice was. Hated how my pulse stuttered under his palm. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly freezing despite the cabin’s heat radiating from the fireplace. “I need… I need space. I need to think.”
All three stepped back without a word, clearing the path to the living room. I walked away from them on legs that felt loose and unstable. The Christmas tree lights blinked lazily red and green, obscene in the morning light. I stopped in the middle of the rug… the same rug where they’d held me down and filled and ruined me. I stared at the faint stains we hadn’t cleaned up yet.
So fucking nasty. So fucking hot.
Behind me, no one followed. No footsteps. Just the inaudible murmur of their voices too soft to make out words.
I pressed my palms to my eyes until sparks burst behind my lids. Kai had betrayed me. They had betrayed the job.
Yes, I… I had betrayed myself somewhere between the first scream and the last shattered moan.
The storm outside had quieted to a gentle, persistent fall. But inside, something louder was gathering, and I had no idea which of us it would destroy first.
11
Istood on that rug until my feet felt numb.
Behind me, the low rumble of their voices rose and fell. Not arguing. Planning. I caught fragments—“call her”, “tell Kai it’s done”, “no signal anyway”—and each word landed like a stone in my gut.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. I wanted to crawl back into that bed and let them erase the last ten minutes with their mouths and hands and the kind of sex that made reality irrelevant.
Instead, I walked to the window and felt the cold through the icy glass.
The snow fell more like a whisper now. The world outside was blinding white and perfectly still, like the mountain had decided to hold its breath. No tire tracks. No plow. No rescue. Just miles of nothing between me and the rest of my life.
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 leave until 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.