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His lips were against her as she came at his mouth, screaming their names. He placed two of her fingers inside, wanting to feel her as she did, her flesh hot and quivering. He hooked them upward, stroking her and bringing her back to the brink, extending her pleasure for his pleasure.Theirpleasure.
“That’s it,” he said, kissing her stomach as she lay completely spent, wrapped up in him and Jude. “Like I said, you can trust us.”
Chapter 18
Delilah
Delilahthoughtbackonthe past day, her mind full of euphoria and conflict. She could still feel the sensation of being embraced by Jude and kissed by Graham. She couldn’t believe what had happened, finally… that she had been seen by somebody wholly for who she was and not for what she offered or looked like.
No, not just valued by somebody—she was valued by two men, who were capable of caring for her simultaneously, noncompetitively, and selflessly. She was cared for by two men, who she could feel in her gut, would lay down their lives for her and never betray her.
Her mind couldn’t stop playing back the previous night. She remembered the smells of the vanilla candles as Graham and Jude embraced her in tandem. She remembered the sensations of the two men rubbing against her, caressing her skin.
But with her recollections of the previous night, which never stopped, she also remembered her reason for meeting with Graham and Jude in the first place. She rememberedhisvoice—the true reason she had run away and come to the city.
He was her captor and her lover. He was everything she hated, and everything she had once loved. She remembered his threats and the bile he spat. She remembered her imprisonment. And then she felt cold and hollow, and she wanted to crawl back into the corner she had worked so hard to escape from.
She wanted to be strong and fight for herself as well as for Miranda, Jude, and Graham. But a part of her was still buried deep, a part which remembered life before this place. It threatened to unravel everything.
She couldn’t let that part of her win.
So even as she wanted to savor the sensations of the night before and let them envelop her, she needed to keep moving. It was her day off, and she wasn’t going to spend it longing for a perfect moment on the edges of her memory, even as she fought back the trauma in the nooks of her mind.
She picked up the phone and called Miranda.
“Hello?” She heard the ambient noises of the cafe, of pouring coffee and idle conversations among strangers.
“Hey, Miranda,” Delilah said. “When you get off, do you want to hang out?”
“You haven’t been letting me in. Are you finally ready to talk? What happened yesterday.”
“You get off in about an hour?” Delilah asked. It had been a late night, not that she was complaining. She had fallen asleep in the small hours of the morning.
“That seems about right,” Miranda answered. “Why don’t I meet you outside the teahouse, and we can have that girl’s day we always talked about?”
Miranda hung up. Delilah had a hard time finding the right clothes for the occasion, her head still spinning. She eventually settled on a light-yellow sundress with a brown straw hat.
She sat outside the teahouse waiting for Miranda, watching birds flutter by as the wind chimes spun with the gentle breeze. She appreciated that even as her life was changing rapidly on so many fronts, nature moved at the same pace as it always did. She took time to enjoy the tranquility, and then turned to watching other shifters move into and out of shops, each absorbed by their own victories and fretting over their own worries.
“So, where to first?” came Miranda’s familiar voice from somewhere behind her.
She spun around and saw her friend in an adorable pair of brown overalls hanging loosely over a yellow tee. It was definitely a youthful look, but Miranda had a way of making every style work.
Delilah shrugged. “I thought you were gonna show me around.”
“Well, if I want to get you to talk, the spa’s probably the best idea,” Miranda said.
The small but luxurious spa was just off the Fang District, tucked away in a corner near the main drag. They stayed in the sauna for twenty minutes before heading to get manicures and pedicures. She felt a perfect combination of vulnerability and serenity as she finally began to truly feel relaxed with her friend..
“So, what the hell was up with you yesterday?” Miranda asked bluntly.
“Oh. My ex called,” Delilah said.
That problem felt miles away. Miranda looked shocked at this revelation. “No way!” she cried. “What did he want?”
“To come here and abduct me.”
Miranda stared back at her wide-eyed, trying to figure out if she was serious. Delilah chuckled at Miranda’s bewilderment, even though in another world, without this afternoon and last night, she would probably be weeping.
