“You mean before Dom nearly murdered me?” I attempt to joke, but he stays unusually serious, waiting.
Damn it. I don’t want to talk about this now. I don’t want to talk about him, or Jasper, or any of it.
“Should I fetch the potato?” I touch my hair, but there’s nothing to fix; it’s tied securely in its proper bun again. “You made a side, didn’t you, Lucky?”
Lucky and Beau both fall quiet, looking at me.
I swallow, then nod. “I’ll just go get that.”
Beau pulls me back in, my back to his chest, his arms an unyielding vice. “Talk to me, darlin’。 Did things not go well?”
I force a light laugh, and hate the way it sounds.
“Don’t go charging after him with a knife or anything. I promise nothing happened.” My throat is made of splinters. “Jasper was a perfect gentleman.”
“That’s when he hurts the most.” Across from me, Lucky’s face darkens, and the look is unnatural on him. The comedy mask turns to tragedy. Spring to dead, decaying autumn. “What did he say to you?”
“We just realized we aren’t a good fit, that’s all,” I insist. I’m stretching the truth of “we” a bit far, but I think Jasper will forgive me for it.
He was very gracious, even while telling me I’m not enough for him.
Beau’s hands run up my hips, and I try to let myself sink into his touch.
At my words, Lucky freezes. “You aren’t a good fit for him? Or he isn’t a good fit for you?” A strange look crosses his features. “Did he say . . . why?”
“Does it matter?” Beau says. “There are a lot of us. It’s no surprise that it’s not going to work out for everyone. As long as they’re happy, then there’s no problem.”
Happy.
Right.
God, I need a distraction. Isn’t it enough to have my past, my wants, and my soul flayed open, examined, and discarded? I have to rot away in front of everyone else too?
“I’m happy to see the two of you,” I say rather than lying outright.
I draw Beau’s arms around me more firmly, sure—fairly sure—that Beau, at least, has no interest in rejecting me. My hips nestle into his stirring interest, and Beau laughs low in my ear. The sound sluices over my stinging insides, drawing out the hurt like his very presence is enough to heal. I shiver as his hot breath tickles the sensitive skin below my ear.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” Beau purrs, then he snags my earlobe in his teeth and a furious roll of pleasure tumbles through me.
I squirm against him, and my gaze tangles with Lucky’s. The frosty disbelief lingers, but curious heat begins to melt it. His sky-blue eyes flick to the man behind me, a questioning light to them. Beau’s nod has his stubble catching the strands of my hair, sending quivers down my spine, and Lucky edges round the table. Taking Beau’s lead, he takes my chin and tilts it up farther, helping his friend get better access.
Beau releases my ear, and his lips move to my neck, like a whisper over my skin, and my eyelids droop. It’s okay, isn’t it?
To bury my pain in someone else? It’s okay if I want to use them as a cure for my loneliness and hurt pride? After all, they’re using me too, right?
Would they want me without this deal? If they had to answer all the questions they want to hide? If they had to reveal themselves as nakedly as Jasper just did?
“I’m sorry if he hurt you,” Lucky whispers to me. “I know how he can be.”
There’s something in that. Something that niggles at me, but my thoughts are starting to slip away under their hands. Their lips.
Lucky’s thumb rubs across my mouth. Both of them move slowly, leisurely, not like they’re trying to stir me up, but more like they’re exploring, worshiping me with their hands and mouths.
It hurts.
It helps.
I kiss Lucky’s thumb.
“You’re so pretty like this,” Lucky tells me on a sigh, resting his forehead against mine.
Everything in me grows soft and warm. In the next instant, Beau’s tongue slides, slow and silken, over my sensitive flesh. I gasp, knees weakening, and Lucky ducks his head to brush my mouth with his, kissing the sound, rubbing his lips against mine.
The competing sensations are too much—the wet heat against my neck and mouth, their bodies all over me. I remember the way they pinned me, sweaty and shirtless in the sitting room.
I whimper in pleasure.
Dom’s clipped voice cuts through the snuggly, slick fog. “Is dinner ready?”
No. I don’t want dinner.
I want kisses for dinner.
Lucky presses one more brief peck to my lips, then pulls back. I attempt to frown at him, but he just winks, twinkly eyed and flushed, and leaves for the kitchen.
Beau makes a frustrated sound against my neck—and I swear he mutters, “Like clockwork.”
Whatever that means.
He nips me lightly before straightening, though his arms stay wrapped around me.
I clear my throat. “Yes, sir. Lucky’s just finishing with the potatoes.”
My pulse quickens at the electric flash in Dom’s eyes. Oh. I called him “sir” again. It’s slipping out as naturally as breathing now.
And he likes it.
The, ah, pressure in his jeans tells me so. Not that I’m looking. It isn’t my fault it’s just . . . there. Demanding attention.
Pretty damn worthy of it too.
Realizing my attention has drifted—and not at all subtly—I snap my eyes back to his face. He’s studying me in that intent way of his.
“Not such a prude then after all,” he mocks.
Does that really need to be the first thing he’s said to me since beating up on Jayk? Even then, he wasn’t really talking to me.
Embarrassment rocks me, and it follows a little too closely on the heels of today’s earlier humiliation. He doesn’t seem to be looking for a response, but the words slip out of me anyway.
“I really hate that word. Why is it that when women embrace their sexuality they’re demonized as sluts, but when they don’t, they’re condemned as prudes and called frigid? There’s no winning.”
Flinging the door open, Jaykob stalks through and plants himself in a chair without a word. The door hits the wall with a clang, making me jump. He doesn’t look at anyone as he pulls out his knife again, not even at me.
The lack of acknowledgement stings after we spent the whole day together yesterday—especially after Jasper—but I force myself to push the feeling down. I know Jayk had fun working with me.
Okay, “fun” might be a stretch. But he tolerated me yesterday.
And that was nice.
“The angel or the monster, no?” Jasper strolls into the dining room with a disdainful look at the still-swinging door, controlling it with a neat catch and closing it with pointed, deliberate care. Which Jaykob ignores.
There’s not a hint of our earlier conversation on his face . . . except that tiredness. That seems like it’s there to stay. His dark gaze slides over me, coolly appraising, and he nods at Beau before moving to fix himself a drink.
“I— Yes. Exactly,” I stutter. My pulse trips over itself, but I try not to seem too affected by him.