The boy’s head tilts. I’m desperate to see him, like his face is the key to my salvation. He pivots. I stop breathing, holding it in against the crescendo of physical pain.
Then suddenly it stops.
Shocked, I look down at my body, but it’s not mine, it belongs to a child. Before I can look up to find the boy again, before I can discover who he is or why he feels so important to me, I’m hooked through my middle by some unseen force and yanked away from the memory.
I drop back into myself, and everything is dark. I’m leaden, dead weight, and I think I’m being carried. A tiny whimper slips out of me, and I’m pulled tighter against something warm and hard.
“It’s okay, we’ve got you. You’re going to be just fine,” a deep, soothing voice comforts.
I don’t know what’s happened to me or who we is, but for some reason I believe him.
I’m going to be just fine.
3
NOAH
Consciousness slowly trickles in, little droplets of sensation seeping into my mind as I realize I’m warm and more comfortable than I think I’ve ever been in my life. The cottony softness of a perfect dream seems to cloud my mind as I press deeper into a downy pillow and lush bedding. I feel dazed, kind of out of it, but I can’t find it in me to really care. I’m too comfy. I snooze, half awake, half not, as I try to recall what my perfect dream was about, but it slips through my fingers like strips of silk.
I hear low male voices mumbling words that are far too hazy for me to make out.
Maybe I’m still dreaming?
This might be one of those dreams where you know it’s not real and yet you’re stuck until your subconscious ejects you. The voices are deep and decadent, the tones dripping over me like warm candle wax. I want them to be closer, and the dream suddenly responds to my desire.
The muffled thud of footsteps draw nearer, and a delicious baritone floats in the air somewhere above me. “Ellery was called in for an emergency, but he said to stay close and watch for any signs of Fading.” The voice has a rich soothing quality to it, like warm honeyed tea, and I want to sip on it.
“Not a problem,” a gravelly voice agrees from behind me, and I slowly become aware of a large, hard male body that’s pressed close to my back. “I’ve never been happier to lay around in bed all day.”
An arm tightens around my waist, pressing me closer to the person spooning me—someone with very defined pecs. As much as I like it, something about the sensation gives me pause. I try to work through what’s pinging my instincts, but my soggy brain is lagging. My entire body feels like mushy cereal that’s sat in a bowl of milk for too long. There’s something I should be paying attention to, but I can’t figure out what it is.
The mattress dips in front of me, and a gentle hand brushes a lock of hair from my face. My dozing sense of safety and security trills happily, but I’m starting to think all of this is too vivid to be a dream.
Who are these guys? Why are they in my bed? Not that I’m really complaining. I just wish I knew what was going on. Did I go out last night and fall vagina-first into a threesome?
“Don’t get too possessive, Perth, she might not like that,” the honeyed-tea voice advises, and the big spoon behind me nuzzles my neck.
Perth? That’s an unusual name, one that doesn’t stoke the tiniest ember of recognition.
“That didn’t stop you from holding her for hours,” Perth points out, clutching me closer.
Fuck. How drunk did I get last night?
The weight of another warm and hard body presses against me from the front, and soft chest hair grazes my rapidly hardening nipples. I realize then that I’m not wearing anything. I’m naked.
The man behind me shifts a little and the cotton of his pajamas—which I mistook as my own clothing—slides against my ass. Along with something else. Something large and thick and quite hard.
A small mewl of appreciation slips from my lips, and a deep growl suddenly responds. That sound slashes through my nerve endings. It’s as jarring as a set of cymbals crashing together. Something about it sends alarm blaring through me, and just like that, I’m fully awake.
My eyes fly open, but the sight of the most delicious, intimidatingly hot guy I’ve ever seen fries my immediate need to bolt.
Bright green eyes stare down at me from a very masculine face. He has a jaw boasting a five o’clock shadow and messy, unbrushed brown hair that adds to his appeal. His handsome face alone is worship-worthy, but his body? This man’s body was sculpted by a master. I swear that someone must have revived Michaelangelo from the dead and told him to do one better than his sculpture of Hercules. The bicep propping up this guy’s head as he leans on the pillow has to be the size of my thigh. His arms are huge, and every delicious inch of them is covered in black tattoos.
I suck in a breath as his hand touches my bare hip, fingers wrapping back around me until they’re most definitely on my ass.
“Oh shit, you’re awake! How do you feel?” he asks, surprise ringing in his voice, and worry glinting in his green eyes. He offers me a warm smile and it makes him look so soft and sweet that my heart instantly turns to butter. The grin is a complete contrast to his badass appearance. This man looks like he was meant to be a soldier, a general—no, a gladiator. But he’s staring down at me with this sort of tender pride that makes my lungs forget how to function.
I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me quite like that.
“Good, I think,” I answer, wincing at the dry rasp in my voice.
Damn, they must have had me screaming last night.
I return the gladiator’s smile and try to kickstart my brain. I tug at the threads of memory, trying to recall what happened. I only find frayed strings that I can’t seem to tie together to help me make any sense of things.
I’m no stranger to an occasional one-night stand, but when I do need to scratch that itch, I don’t usually stumble across men who rightfully belong on firefighter calendars. I also don’t usually drink a lot.
If the look this guy is giving me is anything to go by, we had a very, very good time. In my experience, a guy doesn’t give a girl soft doe-eyes and argue about cuddle time unless he’s looking for a repeat performance.
But this can’t be real, right? That level of adoration doesn’t happen after one night. Especially not a wild, no-holds-barred drunken threesome.
I must have been good. Like, really good.
Drunk off my ass but serving Os and showing these two what my throat can do. That has to be it. I’d high-five myself but my arms feel heavy and I’m too comfy to worry about moving.
Although, what the hell did I do with my hands that has my arms feeling like I went too hard at the gym?
Shit, I hope I didn’t try to prove how flexible I am. I can rock complex yoga moves with the best of ’em, but letting someone fuck you in crow pose is never a good idea.
Come on, brain, don’t fail me now. These are the kind of memories that will sustain us in our old age.
I try to push past the fog in my head and remember what happened, but it’s all annoyingly blank. Did I fuck them both at the same time? My ass doesn’t feel sore… Damn, what did we do?
I mean, it’s not hard for me to imagine falling for a bad boy’s smile and some tender touches. But the thing is, I can’t pull up a memory of any of that, or drinking, or even going to a bar.