Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
It doesn’t.
My pulse is everywhere. My mouth is too dry, and my core is too heavy with heat and want. I’ve been starved for too long.
Three years without a vacation.
Eighteen months without sex.
And now three men are watching me like I’m made of flame, and they know how to fan me into an inferno.
They don’t hide what they want. They’re not tempering their desire with polite disinterest or soft apologies. When they look at me, they feast.
I stare at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are flushed from the fire, pupils wide with attraction. My hair’s a halo of red waves they could wrap around their fists. There’s a part of me, the part raised by warnings and worst-case scenarios, that tells me I should get out while I still can.
But my body?
My body has already made up its mind.
When I return to the living room, Reed is still on the arm of the couch, Finn on a worn leather chair opposite, and Nixon standing with his arms crossed like he’s barely holding himself together.
The air thickens as I step inside.
“Better?” Reed asks, voice lighter now, less teasing and more curious.
I nod, sinking slowly back onto the sofa cushion. “I needed a moment.”
Nixon’s eyes track me like a compass needle swinging north.
Reed passes me my wine. “Still with us?”
I take a sip, slower this time. “Yeah. I am.”
Another pause. Then Finn, voice low: “You said you hadn’t had much… spice. That you’d been with men who didn’t know what you wanted.”
I swallow. “Yeah. That’s accurate.”
“Want to tell us what you want?” Reed asks.
I hesitate.
I could say no. I could make a joke and blame the wine for my loose lips, but something raw is opening up inside me, and I’m too tired of being quiet to go back now. Chances like this don’t come along often, and this trip was always about stepping out of life for a few days.
“I don’t know if I can,” I admit.
Nixon moves first.
He walks forward, stopping in front of me. Then he crouches to my level.
“We’d like to please you and watch you,” Nixon says, voice smokey and magnetic. “If you want it, all you have to do is say. Whatever you want, we’ll give it to you.”
My mouth opens, but no words come.
Nixon’s fingers reach out and brush a strand of hair from my cheek. His touch is feather-light and surprisingly reverent.
Then he leans in and kisses me, and all breath and sense leave me in a rush.
His lips are soft, but the kiss is deep, commanding, and patient, all at once, a kiss that doesn’t ask for permission so much as it offers a choice. Pull away, and everything we’ve talked about could become memories. Fall deeper, and they’ll make all their promises come true. My hands find his shirt before I realize they’ve moved, gripping hard, pulling him closer.
I spin into his orbit, my mind drifting through the sky and stars, into the brightness of the full moon. My body is liquid, loosening and priming for everything I fear these men could deliver.
When he finally pulls back, I’m panting and dazed.
Reed and Finn have shifted. They’re seated opposite me now on the other couch, drinks abandoned, eyes locked on my mouth.
I sit there between them, lips swollen, heart racing, wine forgotten, like prey that’s been trapped in a snare.
11
NIXON
There are two ways to claim a mate.
The first is through force, the old way, hard and fast, rooted in dominance and instinct. It’s primal, involving teeth, strength, and possession, and once done, it can’t be undone. That permanence is both its power and its poison. A claim like that leaves marks that go deeper than skin; bruises of the spirit can be a bitterness that festers in the bond. I watched it happen to my mother. Her devotion to our father was rooted in tradition only. She submitted because she had to. He conquered because no one ever told him there was another way. His claim worked like fire, fiercely consuming without restraint, leaving the ash of their potential underfoot.
I never saw her look at him with softness in her eyes.
I won’t have that with Scarlet.
She’s bright and sharp and stubborn in ways that make my wolf rise and my hands ache. She’s a challenge in all the ways that make all our spirits want to fly free, and if we do this right, if we take our time, it’s my hope she’ll bend to our will without breaking the potential for real love within our bond. She’ll soften without losing any of that fire. She’ll give herself over not because she’s overpowered, but because she wants to submit.
The second way is through patience. Through care. Through pleasure. Through love.
It’s a slower path, yes, but the result is unshakable. When a mate truly chooses you, she doesn’t stay because she has to. She roots herself to you, her devotion climbing around her mates like ivy around a great oak. They become one with the earth and sky.