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“You could have stayed in bed and had the real thing wrapped around you.”
Ryth’s voice is a low rumble much like the thunder beyond the pane of glass at my front. He turns me in his arms and walks us back to the glass wall. I replace the shirts in my hands with the feel of his warm skin beneath my palms.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” I say in a hushed whisper. His eyes drop from my lips to the way I’m touching him. It’s when his eyes move back to my lips that my breath stills.
His hand comes to rest beside my head. The way he leans into me is endearing if not a fraction intimidating. I slide my hands over his body as he kisses me slowly at first. A gentle, chaste kiss of lips touching. But suddenly the beast in him rises and he takes my mouth hungrily.
And I kiss him right back with the same level of raw need. This man. He takes so much of my energy, but he gives equally, too. I can feel it pouring from him into me. I feel stronger in his arms. Yet, I can’t depend on someone else to make me whole. Can I?
I wrap my arms around his neck and let him pull me up his larger frame until I have my legs wrapped around his thick waist. He’s still naked from our lovemaking. Beneath the shirt, so am I. His growing arousal slides against mine and I groan into his mouth, moving my hips over him in slow, steady strokes. Like this, he only glides through my wet heat, without entering. But it feels just as good. Maybe more. The promise of pleasure is there, but just out of reach.
He takes mercy on me and finally breaks the kiss. I pull in copious amounts of air and just breathe him in with every heavy inhalation.
His dark brows narrow moments before he presses his forehead against mine. His arms are around me and there’s not much of my skin not making contact with his. He grips my ass with one hand and the small of my back with the other. Like this, pressed together so tightly that not even air can slide between us, I feel grounded in ways I didn’t realize I needed.
“What’s wrong?” he asks
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He presses his lips over mine. “I can feel your sadness. Talk to me, pussy cat. Tell me what you need so I can make it better for you.”
My eyes widened. No one ever asked me how I was feeling. Not even Wolfe. Much less offer to make anything better. Not even my parents before they died. It was more about work for them which never really bothered me until this second. Whoa. I can’t believe I never realized just how lonely I feel.
I grow still in his arms and just stay like that for a moment taking it all in. “Is this what it will be like? With you, Alaric, and Marco? Just a sex fest and told to be quiet like a good pussy cat when I have questions?” Okay, that’s not how I wanted to phrase that question, but it’s out there now and the way he’s looking into my eyes says I’ve caught the big bad mafia man off guard.
But instead of laughing or shaking his head and dismissing me, he lowers me to the floor. Over his shoulder, I see the other two stirring. Marco sits up a second before Alaric does. It’s almost like they can sense their names being spoken or my distress. Both? I don’t know, but the timing doesn’t seem coincidental.
My chest tightens. Ryth’s hands come to rest on either side of my face, and I bring my hands to rest on his. “What if I am nothing more than a toy to you? Is that why you and my brother don’t trust me with the truth? I’m only good in bed, pretty arm candy for a fling and or your baby momma?” Oh my God. I never thought of that. Wrapped up in the moment I thought they wanted me for me. Not some incubator.
And my brother. The son-of-a-bitch is always only talking about keeping me on the sidelines. Did he think a girl couldn’t handle the truth? Do I look or sound weak to everyone?
Ire boils up and the bands on my chest turn scorching. White dots flutter across my vision and suddenly I am across the room being sat on the edge of the bed.
Someone shoves my head between my legs, and I am told to breathe in slowly.
“In through your nose, first, pussy cat. Fuck, you’re scaring all of us. Calm down.”
I sit up in a rush and the room whirls around me, but I can see the blackness of Ryth’s eyes just fine. I home in and lay it out in black and white.
“I am no one’s toy. You got that? I’ve told you that. You three want to see me as a bedroom toy and my brother thinks I’m useless. Why else would he just up and leave to do whatever he is doing? He didn’t trust me enough to bring me into the fold. That hurts. Fine, okay. I have no control over that or him. But you three…I don’t have to put up with being put down. I’m better than a quick fuck.” I grit my teeth and sling my anger at him.
Like an invisible hand, it whips out and smacks him across the cheek and he looks just as angry as I feel for a minute with his eyes boring into mine, his brows angled downward. But it’s the crease at the edge of his eyes and across his brow that has me realizing I’m reading him all wrong. He’s not mad. He’s worried out of his mind. Marco and Alaric’s expressions mirror Ryth’s.
My shoulders slump with defeat. “Shit. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I…I’m just worried out of my mind.”
“Pussy cat,” Ryth starts, and I turn a flaming look on him. He grins. “Nyx, you have nothing to be sorry for. Your worries are valid.”
Alaric kneels in front of me, takes my shaking hands in his, and pulls me to my feet. Each of them surrounds me. The waning storm beyond the window and the fading of the night to morning blur into my subconscious mind as I stare into his eyes. “That you even think we see you as nothing more than a conquest, says we messed up in conveying how important you are to us.”
The sincerity in his eyes touches a part of my soul I didn’t know existed.
“The way you just took me off the street and the way you talked about just waiting to take me no matter what my brother thought lacked explanation for sure.”
Marco brushes the hair from my shoulder and wraps his hand around my neck.
“Yeah. Shit. We messed up.”
Marco pulls me close and rests my cheek against his chest. The rhythm of his heartbeat is strong and soothing. He steps away and tips my chin up with the bump of his thumb. “Look at me, Nyx.” When I do the force of his power hits me face-on. It wraps around me, and I feel pulled into a protective bubble.
