Dominic stands up slowly and walks over to me. “You have one week to get comfortable here, then we’re drawing straws to work out the roster. Two days on, one day rest, continuous—unless you and those involved agree to swap days, or take more than one per day, but you sort that out between yourselves.”
He leaves with me still gaping after him.
Chapter 8
Eden
SURVIVAL TIP #124
Everyone has a past.
Make sure theirs won’t come back to bite you.
M ore than one of them in a day? How in the world does he imagine that working? Though, I mean, I guess it just had.
I shift, looking down. My etiquette lessons didn’t cover this kind of thing, and embarrassment is fast swallowing my brief moment of abandon.
Beau stands behind me. My cheeks feel hot. He just . . . His hands were just . . .
He bends and presses a firm kiss against my lips. Shockingly chaste, considering what he was just doing to me. I can taste myself on his mouth. He pulls back and makes to leave, and I clutch his arm, feeling like I should say something—thank him, maybe? Demand an explanation?—but my tongue feels clumsy in my mouth.
Beau misinterprets. “I need to cool off, darlin’。 Lucky’ll get you sorted.”
Letting out a slow breath, I nod. With a final squeeze of my arm, he leaves as well.
Not able to look at Lucky directly, I stare at his shoulder as I squeak a request for the bathroom. With a far-too-cheerful bounce to his step, he shows me the way and tells me to meet him in the kitchen when I’m done, giving me brief directions I pray I’ll remember.
Closeting myself in the bathroom, I quickly relieve myself and clean up, feeling swollen and tender from my encounter. My head is spinning slightly, whether because of the ridiculous drink Lucky gave me or my combustive orgasm, I’m not sure.
Washing my hands, I study my face in the mirror. The cheeks that were ghostly pale less than an hour ago are full of color, my blue-gray eyes luminous and glassy, my lips pouty and roughed red.
I run a finger over the pink mark on my neck, examine the one on my breast—while trying not to examine why I feel a sneaky sense of pride when I look at them. My hair is a mess around my face, kinked at the back where it rubbed against Beau’s shoulder as he— The tap is still running.
I turn it off with a curse and take a deep breath, bracing myself on the sink. I can’t remember the last time I looked so . . .
pleasured. Have I ever looked like this before? Why does it make me feel just a little bit . . . pretty?
A frown crinkles my forehead. What is wrong with me? Years of propriety and reserve melted in moments under Beau’s touch. Jasper’s lips. Dominic’s kingly, heavy gaze. Lucky’s intense, playful heat. My thighs clench.
If I’m brutally honest with myself, I even responded to Jaykob’s rough handling—though that had to be some sort of post-traumatic reaction, I’m sure of it.
I meet my own lust-drunk gaze in the mirror.
“You’re behaving like a slut,” I admonish myself.
Yeah, well, apparently being slutty is really fun, my heavy-lidded reflection purrs. Let’s be slutty again. Right now.
Despite the glee of my vixen twin in the mirror, my long history of disillusionment warns me not to get too excited. My situation isn’t so simple, after all. The things they want to do to me, what they expect . . . it’s overwhelming.
My reservations cast shadows across my features, dimming some of the rosy glow.
How can I possibly juggle the needs and desires of five men when I haven’t ever been able to hold even one man’s attention?
I swallow, thinking that over. I can’t. That’s the simple fact. I won’t be able to, even if I can bring myself to do all the things they’re asking. Who could? That has to be a superpower reserved for gorgeous sex sirens with mystical ambrosia vaginas and charisma on par with Santa Claus.
But how can I leave?
I slept in an actual bed last night. They have real drinks, and I’m about to eat a proper meal. Made in a kitchen. Comforts I forced myself to forget about for years are now a very real possibility.
My mind flashes to the ease with which they handled the men who’d hunted me.
I wouldn’t have to watch over my shoulder constantly, could stop flinching at every broken twig, stop wondering if the animals are just a touch too quiet for safety.
I wouldn’t have to be lonely anymore.
A thick lump lodges in my throat. It’s so damn nice to have someone to talk to. Day after day, that was what threatened to pull me under. For someone who lived most of her life as a loner, it had stunned me how much I craved casual conversation. A passing touch. All those little things I always took for granted. Those things I left behind without a second thought.
Over the years, as the quiet grew deeper and colder, there were times I considered seeking out one of the packs of armed, careful men that occasionally prowled by. I was almost willing to take the chance that these ones were good and honest, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with that biting, wintery loneliness. If I’d seen any women among them, I probably would have taken the risk.
I was sorely tempted by a group of about fifty I saw in the city about a year after everything went down—children and men and women all banded together. They were casual. Barely armed. I followed them for a while, soaking in their affection for each other. They laughed. The kids played in the street as they walked. Men and women flirted.
But deep in my heart, I didn’t believe they would make it. They stood out too much. They were too slow. Too noisy.
They were prey.
Worse, they were stupid prey. And they were going to die.
So, in the end, alone and grief weary, I crawled back to my cave. For months afterward, stinging with loneliness, I cursed myself. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they were fine. Maybe I could have reasoned with them, showed them how to be careful.
Maybe I could still have tracked them down. I was sick and ashamed of myself.
But I never went after them.
The thought of returning to that quiet, hungry existence hollows my stomach. I can’t start over, not alone. Not again. Even having a home for a little while—until they tire of me—has to be better than going back to that, right? My body seems such a small price to pay for company. For safety. Especially if that is what they plan on doing to it.
I can always leave if it’s too much. If the loneliness ever seems like the better option, then I’ll take it.
But I have to give this a shot.
Straightening my shoulders, I finger-comb my hair again as best as possible and go in search of the kitchen.
Three wrong turns later, I finally find it. It’s on the ground floor—and it’s massive. Spacious and kitted out with every modern convenience, it’s a chef’s dream. I’ve always been more of a utility cooker, but even I start plotting what I might be able to make on that stove.
Lucky is sizzling baked beans in a pan and the fragrant smell of garlic and onion almost has me swooning. There’s a kettle heating on another burner beside it, and two mugs sit like little temptresses on the counter. He shoots me a dimpled grin and the sight of it tightens my throat.
Those dimples could do more damage to me than any one of their fancy rifles.
“A Lucky specialty,” he declares, and I could kiss him for not bringing up the porn show from earlier.