My mother makes dinner, and we end up eating in the living room with Cat. It’s awkward and weird, but I get the idea that the world has tilted on its axis again. After my sisters died, Cat and Nellie changed everything about the way we lived. They were home more—Nellie especially—and they started watching me like a hawk. Started trying to actually parent me. Well, sort of. I mean, if your idea of parenting is shooting your daughter’s dog and pretending to kill her.

Anyway, before that night, I essentially did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But things changed. Things are changing again. Going missing for three months seems to have endeared me to Cat. Just barely. But it’s there.

“You can help the other wives set up for the party tomorrow,” Cat tells me as I stare at him, seated on the leather sofa across from him and Nellie. Thankfully, Gaz is absent tonight. I’m not sure I can look him in the face over dinner and pretend to be civil. He strangled a prostitute to death. And not because she’d done anything wrong, but to get rid of evidence.

He’s as wicked as they come.

“Should I dress up in an apron and heels while I do it?” I quip, and Cat gives Beast a look, pointing at me with his fork.

“Last chance to back out of this. You’re sure you want to deal with this brat?”

Beast inclines his head slowly. He may as well have screamed for the impact that it leaves in the room. His expression brooks absolutely zero argument from anyone, including Cat. My mind flashes to the possibility of a real wedding night with Beast. It wouldn’t be a game to him. It wouldn’t be just another fuck. It’ll mean something.

Am I ready for that?

I take another bite of my food, glad to see that Nellie’s back to experimenting again. Tonight is bangers and mash or some shit. Basically, sausages with watery potatoes, but at least she’s trying.

“I’ve decided that we’ll hold the wedding while the other chapters are in town,” my father continues conversationally, cleaning his plate and then holding it out to Nellie in a silent request for more. It bothers me, the way she takes it and hurriedly runs off to get his second helping, but having heard her side of the story, I try to be understanding.

Try, of course, being the key word.

That can be her life, but it will not be mine.

“Excuse me?” I repeat, glancing over at Beast. He meets my eyes with his blue ones, and the way they darken … the way he sweeps that powerful gaze over my body, leaves me with pebbled nipples and an impossible heat between my thighs that begs to be slaked; it demands satisfaction. My cunt is on her knees with wanting, and that pisses me off.

I look back at Cat, reclined like a king in the living room that used to belong to his mother. We can’t live here permanently. Too much shit goes down at this place, but I guess for now, during a war, this is where we’re staying.

“You got a problem with that?” he asks, his tone a warning. See, I told you that he suspects me. His dark eyes glint with the promise of pain.

“Do I have a problem getting married during a war? Yeah, I sort of do. Isn’t this something that can wait?” I’m thinking mostly about Reba right now. Just Reba. The idea of getting married while she’s still missing, while she’s … fuck, God only knows what they’re doing to her.

Virginal Reba. Sweet, pretty Reba. The girl who’s waiting for marriage.

My insides twist up into an impossible knot. If I mention Reba, Cat will shrug her off, and I can’t deal with that. They all assume she’s already dead. Nobody cares either way. Nobody but me and maybe, because of me, the four men I’ve chosen as my own.

“You’ll get married while the other chapters are in town, or you won’t get married at all,” Cat warns me, and Beast stiffens up beside me. He can’t handle that, the idea that Cat could actually come between us. If it came down to it, I have zero doubt that he’d quite literally kill my father and whisk me away to keep us together.

The thought, as violent as it is, is oddly comforting.

My mouth turns down in a frown.

“What day, exactly, is this supposed to happen? Shall we head down to the courthouse and get hitched tomorrow? Get it over with.” I’m getting angry, but I can’t possibly think about a wedding when my best friend is missing. I’m just not that sort of monster. Nah, that’s more Gaz’s thing.

“Courthouse?” Cat asks with a sharp laugh. Nellie reappears with his plate, and he drags her down into his lap before taking it. “You can file papers at the courthouse, but you’re not getting married there.”

“Oh, Gidget, let’s plan a wedding,” Nellie says, smiling at me from her position on my father’s lap. “We can pick out a dress and plan a party.” Her eyes sparkle, but only partially with joy. I know why. I know what she’s thinking. You’re the only daughter I have left. I was supposed to do this three times, but now … please let me do it at least once.

Fuck.

“We’ve had some hard years around here,” Cat muses, stabbing his sausage and bringing it to his mouth like a barbarian. He doesn’t bother to cut it into manageable pieces. I think about the mafia and their fine-stemmed wineglasses, their waltzes, their five course dinners. “We need something unifying.”

Unifying.

Mm.

I glance over at Beast, but he never gives anything away that he doesn’t want. Right now, it’s clear he doesn’t want to show a single emotion at all.

I’m going to be a unifying factor for the club? With my marriage to an officer that lies for me? How … ironic.

Meanwhile, golden boy Gaz who’s always been my father’s favorite, is quite literally rat-fucking the club for what, Rolexes and whores? I have no idea.

“Let’s give you girls two weeks to plan,” Cat muses, setting his plate aside and then rubbing at his beard. “We’ll have the wedding fourteen days from today.” He gives me a look. “I’ll give your mother a budget, but not a penny more. You hear me?”

And then he’s standing up with my mom in his arms, and Nellie’s letting out this girlish shriek that has me cringing. He carries her out the door while she kisses his neck, and I try my best not to gag.

“Gross,” I murmur, stabbing my own sausage and finally bringing it to my mouth. Just before I slide the tip in and subsequently bite it off, I make sure to meet Beast’s eyes. The ghost of a smile hovers on his lips. “Think you can wait two weeks to try this out?” I slide the sausage back into my mouth and Beast shakes his head at me.

“I don’t know how you got to be the way you are, suge,” he purrs, leaning forward and folding his hands together. “All I know is that I like it.”

A warm flush fills me, but I refuse to acknowledge it, focusing on my food instead.

Two weeks.

Do I have to make a choice in that time period? Between Beast, Sin, Crown, and Grainger? It’s almost as agonizing to think about that as it is to think about Reba.

“I don’t want to get married without Reba,” I whisper suddenly, the words sneaking up on me.

All at once, my throat is tight, and the hand that holds my fork is shaking. I can deal with a lot. Really, I can. But … somehow the idea of getting married without Reba makes me feel like I’m dying on the inside.

Never in my life have I ever wanted to get married. Never. Now that it’s here, and I’m faced with the idea without my sisters by my side, I feel lost.

“Darlin’,” Beast purrs at me, taking my plate away, and then putting his hands on either side of my face. “You don’t have to fight the world by yourself.” He wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Not anymore.”

My hands are still trembling when I place them over his.

“I don’t want to get married without Reba,” I repeat, but what I’m really saying is I don’t want to get married without my sisters. Only, I can’t fix that part of the equation. The only thing I can do now is save my best friend. If I can do that, if I can at least protect one person that I love, I’ll call it a win.

Beast releases me, putting my hands in my lap before dropping to his knees in front of me.

My breath hitches strangely as he slides a ring from the pocket of his vest, studying it on his calloused palm for a moment before he looks up at me.

“I will get you Reba,” he tells me, and my brow lifts up in question. “If I don’t, you can walk down that aisle with someone else.” The sheer confidence in his voice staggers me; I want to believe him, I do. My life hasn’t exactly set me up to trust people, but I’m learning. Actions speak so much louder than words, and Beast is not a man who speaks many of them. If he’s saying this to me, he intends to follow it up with real-life consequences.

This is as close to an official marriage proposal as I’m likely to get from Beast.

He takes my hand and, after meeting my eyes and waiting for my choked nod, slips a ring onto my finger.

From Grey’s fancy diamond ring to stories of Crown’s heirloom ring to Beast’s thick gold band with rubies embedded in it.

“I had this made from my UFC championship belt,” he tells me, and now I’ve got two brows up. That’s … sort of a big fucking deal. Those things are made of real gold; their value is like, three hundred K or some shit. He took an heirloom from his MMA days and turned it into a ring for me?

“Don’t you … isn’t this important?” I ask, staring down at the ring with a slight frown.

“Not as important as you, darlin’.”

He takes my right foot and carefully removes the leather boot that I’m wearing. He sets it aside, almost reverently, before reaching for the other.

“What are you doing?” I breathe, pulse thudding in my skull. I want so badly for Beast to break down, to rut me the way he did beside the pool (twice). Is that what he’s up to right now? He sits back on his heels, sliding his thumb across his lower lip and cursing under his breath.

“Taking care of my woman,” he tells me, as if that explains everything. He looks back at me before going for my socks. The way he peels them down by feet, it’s almost pornographic. His fingers tease my skin, sending thrills through me that shouldn’t be sexual, but somehow are anyway. I’m pretty sure Beast could poke me in the arm, and it would turn my clit into a rock.

“But Cat …” I start, and he gives me a look, one blond brow raised in question.

“He might be my president, but he damn sure ain’t gonna tell me what I can or cannot do with my own wife.” Beast stands up, leaving me a confused puddle on the couch as he heads over to one of the doorways, sliding the pocket door closed. He does the same on the other side, flicking off the lights and leaving us in total darkness.

I close my eyes, just so I can listen to his heavy footsteps on the carpet.

I smell him before he touches me, his scent a toxic thing that blinds me to the rest of the world. When he’s near like this, all I care about is him. All I want is him. He is goddamn everything.

His warm hands land on my knees before sliding up to my hips. I make myself relax, leaning my head back against the sofa cushions. With deft fingers, Beast undoes the button and zipper on my leather pants—the ones Cat gave a sharp look to but didn’t comment on—before peeling them down my legs.

Guilt for Reba pricks at the edges of my consciousness, but it’s quickly subsumed by the fire of Beast’s touch, his fingers trailing down my legs before discarding the pants entirely. He pushes my knees apart, and I choke, struggling to breathe past the overwhelming surge of passion, of raw, unfiltered need.

“Please tell me you’re going to fuck me,” I whisper, and he lets out a low, sultry chuckle. His resolve is ironclad—except when it comes to me. I broke him down before, got him to fuck me when he didn’t seem particularly inclined. I could do it again, couldn’t I?

He leans in close to me, taking my t-shirt by the hem and lifting it up and over my head. I raise my arms to make it easier, and he tosses it aside. When his huge, warm hands slide across my rib cage to grab the clasp of my bra, I buck my hips up against his torso, feeling the leather of his vest against my inner thighs.

“Tell me what a good wife you’ll be, Gidge, and I’ll give you something nice.” He puts his mouth near my ear as he undoes my bra and lets it fall between our bodies. His hand cups my breast, and I bite my lower lip in an attempt to keep my moans at a minimum.

“I can’t say that,” I murmur, pushing my chest into his hand and wishing he’d pinch my nipple. It aches, being so near to him. “I don’t fetch food and clean and plan parties. That isn’t me.”

Beast chuckles again, and thank the fucking gods, he actually brushes his thumb over the aching hardness of my nipple. I bite my lip even harder, making myself bleed. Doesn’t matter. It feels too good to care.

“You think I want a housewife?” he queries, like he’s actually curious as to what my answer might be. “I want a wife in leather who knows how to shoot.” He puts his mouth up against the side of my throat, running his tongue up to my ear and sending goose bumps springing across my skin. “On Monday, we’ll start those lessons I promised.”

It takes me a minute to tame my sex-addled brain and figure out what he’s talking about.

“Do you want to learn to defend yourself?”

Oh, that’s right. After Gaz beat me up, Beast offered to train me.

“I would very much like that,” I breathe as Beast kneads my breast, stroking my nipple, stroking that fire inside of me. He draws back slightly, replacing his thumb with the heat of his mouth. His tongue flicks over my pebbled nipple, and my hips buck up against him yet again. I’m so wet, I’m probably ruining his shirt.

He doesn’t seem to mind, trailing his lips across my collarbone before taking my other breast into his mouth and sucking it in just such a way that my cunt clamps down, making my lower belly muscles ache. I need to be filled. I want something inside. I don’t care if it’s his fingers or his cock, but I need it.

When I reach for his hand and put it on my pussy, he allows it, cupping me tightly and using his thumb to stroke the moist curls between my legs. Beast slides that same thumb in, and I nearly choke. It feels so good, finally getting that forbidden fruit I’ve been eying since I came back.

Having Beast when I was sixteen, then not having him for years, then tasting him briefly before I took off on Crown’s bike? Agony. It’s pure, unbridled agony. I need him so badly that I can’t even think of putting it into words. Instead, I grab him by the hair and try to drag him closer.

Instead, Beast pulls back from me, sliding his thumb out of my cunt. I can hear the sound of him sucking it clean.

“Say it.” Just two words. Not a request. Ugh.

“I’ll be a good wife,” I grind out, burning and aching and wanting so badly that it’s hard to think straight.

“Then trust me,” he says, and then I hear the creak of leather as he stands up.

“Where are you going?” I ask in a near panic, naked on the living room sofa with no idea of what this man is planning. It’s infuriating.

“Trust me, sugar,” he repeats, and then he’s walking away. I can’t see much with the drapes closed, with night lying heavy and ebon across the compound. I can hear him though, as he opens one of the pocket doors and leaves.

All I can hear for a minute there is my heart, racing so fast that I feel dizzy.

Trust me, sugar? What is this man up to?

More footsteps, the sound of the pocket door closing, a warm body kneeling in front of mine.

Only … this isn’t Beast. It’s someone else. The dizziness triples, my pulse picks up, and my skin goes flush with the promise of a stranger’s touch in the dark. I wish briefly that I hadn’t inherited Cat’s perceptiveness because, by smell alone, I know exactly who this is.

Even if they don’t speak.

Violets and suede.

Crown.

I don’t say his name. He doesn’t say mine. We don’t talk at all.

Instead, he takes over where Beast left off, his hands on my knees, moving them aside and making space for himself. His fingers trail along my thighs just before he presses his mouth to the inside of my knee. His lips are soft, but the stubble on his face is hard, a contradiction that my tender flesh very much enjoys.

Crown kisses his way up my inner thigh, his touch gentle but demanding. Spread your legs, it says. Open for me. So I do. Even though I’m not quite sure what the five of us are up to. What Crown really wants. Sin, Grainger. What Beast will allow.

Each kiss is simultaneously a blessing and a curse, like a knife in my flesh, twisting, twisting, twisting. I gather his head to me, and he makes this … this sound, like maybe he’s going through all the same thoughts that I am. His mouth finds my cunt, licking up and over my clit before continuing up toward my belly, my breasts.

He takes one of my nipples into his mouth, sucks it, and then continues upward, until our mouths are crashing together. My fingers dig into his hair as he yanks me against him. He’s fully clothed, and I’m completely naked, but I like the contrast. I like the whisper of his leather vest against my bare flesh, the rough brush of denim, the softness of his t-shirt.

Crown wraps an arm around my waist and adjusts us so that I’m lying on my back on the sofa with him on top. I can feel the leather of his riding boots with my bare toes, teasing my foot up to his denim-clad calf. He kisses me in that infuriating way of his, the one that’s both disdainful but also full of like, rainbows and shit.

It feels very important to me that we do not talk right now. That no words leave either of our lips. It’ll ruin this careful conversation of our bodies. And lips might lie, but body language does not.

My hands smooth over the back of his vest, feeling all the rockers—aka patches—there. The eclipse image. The words Death by Daybreak. The one-percenter patch.

My heart aches to take it off of him, to put it on, to let him fuck me in it.

When I go to push it off of his shoulders, he allows it, breaking away from me and waiting as I slip it on, feeling the smooth, warm leather over my breasts and back. It’s huge on me, swallowing me up in his perfect scent.

My hands find Crown’s belt in the dark. I can just barely see him with my eyes adjusted to the shadows, but he cuts an impressive figure anyway. A strong figure. A noble one. Worthy. He feels worthy to me.

But … will he let me have him if he can’t have all of me? I can’t tell. I truly don’t have an answer for that, and it scares me. Can I live this life, be a part of the club, and see Crown with another woman? The wife he’s always wanted, his person to talk to, to make babies with.

Ugh.

It would slay me. Splatter my blood over the compound. Destroy me.

I’m greedy. I want them all. Why can’t I have them all? We’re one-percenters. Outside the norm. Society’s fringe. Its shadows. Its poison.

I take his belt off, like I’ve done twice before. That I hope I can do many times over. I take him into my hands, working him up as he stays above me, staring down in the dark. My thumb glides over his tip, smearing pre-cum, slicking him up so that I can pump my fist down his shaft. His body is hot, the sounds that spill from his throat like gems I want to pluck and put in my dragon’s horde of memories. Mine.

I can feel his orgasm creeping up on both of us, threatening to spill his cum across my face and chest. He lets me get him close, so close that I wonder how he’s even holding himself together, and then he pries my hand away and brings it to my mouth, encouraging me to clean his pre-ejac from my palm with my own tongue.

I do it, too, knowing that he’s getting off on the idea. I suck Crown’s fingers into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the tips, teasing him until he murmurs a barely audible curse and takes his hand away. He lifts up my right leg, finding my heated core in the dark like he’s drawn to it.

My only regret is that I can’t see his face as he thrusts into me. I can feel him though, the way his entire body stiffens up and shudders, the feel of the cushion beside my head denting as he digs his fingers into it. He exhales sharply, like he’s fighting back the urge to come, and then he just waits there for what has to be several minutes.

His breathing, my breathing, we’re connected. My body pulses in time with his, my heartbeat in my cunt, drumming along the length of his shaft.

I sense that he wants to talk, to shatter this moment with meaningless words. I cover his mouth with my hand, and he bites me. A surprised sound of pleasure escapes me as he kisses down my palm, my wrist, nibbles at my pulse.

Then he pins me down and starts to fuck, his hips pumping hard, pushing himself deep. He isn’t satisfied with anything less than balls-deep. Our combined pants fill the silence, mixed with an occasional moan, with the slick sound of bodies coming together.

With as worked up as he is, it doesn’t take Crown long before his body is stiffening up, and he’s shoving himself all the way in, over and over again, tensing up before his release comes. Warmth fills me as I arch my back and fight his hold on my wrists, wanting all of his seed, but desperate for a release of my own.

“Think of this as a test,” he whispers finally, his voice ragged. I almost hate him for daring to talk, but I’m curious about what he means by that. “Let’s see if you can really handle this much responsibility.”

“The fuck?” I gasp out as he pulls away from me, standing up and letting me keep the vest before he walks over to the pocket door, slides it open, and slips out. Righteous fury fills me, but I tamp it down.

Beast said to trust him, so here goes nothing.

I’m still sitting there, propped on my elbows, when someone else walks in.

Even from here, even in the dark, I can tell who it is.

I’d recognize that cocky swagger in the void of space.

“Cade.” The word hisses out of me, but I’m not entirely displeased. “Is this Beast’s gift to me? For y’all to run a train?”

“You want four grown-ass men to yourself?” Grainger asks with a harsh laugh, one that consumes the entire living room in its menace. “Then yeah, I guess this is a gift. Enjoy, sweetheart.”

I grit my teeth, but if he thinks I won’t enjoy it, that I won’t revel in fucking all of these men, then he’s never met me before. It would only take one word from me—one no —and I would be Beast’s, and that would be it.

That isn’t what I want.

I knew when I was sixteen what I wanted.

It’s like, if you dose yourself with small amounts of poison, you can build up a resistance. But, if you stop taking it, then it consumes you, destroys you, eats you from the inside out. Time for another injection.

“Maybe if you shut your fucking mouth, I’ll have a good time?” I quip back, just before he descends on me, smelling all good and shit. Ugh. It’s tempting to grab his junk and twist hard, just to hear him howl. Only problem there is that I wouldn’t get to use his dick which is, arguably, the very best part of him.

Grainge takes my mouth like he owns it, plundering me with his tongue and sliding an arm around my waist. His big body settles between my thighs without a hitch, like he was meant to be there all along. I wonder if he knows that I’ve got Crown’s cum dripping down my ass cheeks?

“You fucking taste like him,” he snarls after a minute, sucking on my lower lip and then biting me. I slap him, and he snatches my wrist in a rough hand.

“I hope you like using Crown’s cum as lube, too, because that’s how it’s going to be tonight.”

Grainger laughs at me, cupping my face in his hand. I wish I could see him, the way his mouth turns into a sharp edge, the glint in his eyes that promises that all of his I hate you statements are bullshit he’ll never admit to.

“Mm. I don’t think so, princess.” I can feel him between us, undoing his pants. Whatever he has in mind, I’m sure it’s going to piss me off. My blood burns hot when he touches me, stirring up my anger the same way Crown stirs up this long-buried need in me for approval. Both things annoy me, but I allow them to take over for tonight, to rule me in the dark.

“You don’t think so?” I snap back, wishing he’d shut up so that we could go back to that perfect darkness.

“Nah,” Grainger says, leaning down and smelling my hair like a crazy person. I slap his face, and he hisses at me, but not like he didn’t enjoy it. So I slap him again, and he growls. “You little brat.” He retreats slightly, grabbing me by the hips and flipping me over. He pushes me forward, so that I’m balanced on the arm of the couch, my hands just shy of the floor.

Before I can even begin to guess what he’s up to, he’s cracking me across the ass.

“Damn, I needed that,” he breathes, and then he does it again. The sharp sting followed by the greedy caress of his fingers does all sorts of right things for me. “More importantly, you needed that. About time someone took charge of this ass.”

Cade slides two fingers into me, and I gasp, gripping the couch for support.

“Shut the hell up, ” I breathe out, but my voice isn’t quite as authoritative as I wish it were. I’m too hungry for more, in desperate need of a release. My pussy throbs and aches, clamping around his fingers and trying to milk them as he fucks me nice and slow and deep, working up wetness onto his hand.

With a satisfied grunt, he pulls his hand away.

“Crown can have that pussy; I want your ass.” He teases a fingertip over my rear opening and then presses against it, demanding entry, waiting for my body to relax beneath his touch. At first, I tense up, because I’ve never even thought about anal before.

Of course that’s what Grainger wants, to be the first man to fuck my pussy and the first man to fuck my ass.

“Don’t hurt me,” I whisper, before I can stop myself. The words are a bit too raw, a bit too vulnerable for my liking. That seems to give Grainger pause, but only for a split-second.

“Why protect you with my life then cause you pain? Don’t be stupid, Gidge.” He pushes a single finger in, and I gasp. It’s such a different feeling than I’m used to, like I’m being impossibly stretched, like I’m breaking all of nature’s rules but being rewarded for it at the same time. With a slow but exacting surety, he draws his finger out, pushes it in again, out, in.

I exhale and relax, letting my muscles turn to jelly, allowing myself to fall apart. Still, my cunt aches, and I wonder if this will satisfy her neediness.

Grainger doesn’t let me spend too long contemplating it, putting two fingers into my pussy without removing the one in my ass. He works me with his hand as I grind my pelvis against the sofa, stimulating my clit at the same time.

As if he can sense the moment of climax approaching, he purposely withdraws his hand. There’s the sound of clothing rustling, the crinkle of a condom wrapper, and then he’s pressing the tip of his cock to my ass.

“Don’t fight me on this, Gidge,” he warns me as I scratch my nails against the side of the sofa. “The more relaxed you are, the better this’ll be.” That’s the last bit of advice I get before he’s pushing inside, and I’m gasping, leaning forward instinctually until my palms hit the floor. “Oh yeah, that’s the angle right there.”

Grainger takes his time, turning this moment into sweet torture, pushing his dick in inch by inch. Each time my body gives him resistance, he stops, waits, and then dives a little deeper.

“Tell me I’m the first one to fuck this,” he commands, and even though I swear to God, I’m going to shave his eyebrows off in his sleep, I do it. I say it. Shit, I’m a sucker.

“You’re the first,” I promise him, and he groans, gripping my hips hard and keeping me in place on the couch. His movements are slow, almost languorous, this lazy, confident motion that makes me feel weak, that makes my body tremble beneath him.

But that isn’t me.

I’m not weak. I use the side of the couch to push myself up, to shove my hips back into him until he’s buried completely inside of me. There’s a little bit of pain, the agony of a first time, but mostly it’s just pleasure. Awful, awful, ugly, pretty pleasure.

“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” he says, which is as close to a compliment as we’re ever going to get. I take it. I hold myself up, giving him resistance to fuck me. It feels amazing, but there’s this emptiness inside of me, this begging need to have both holes filled at the same time.

I could take more than one devil to bed. Would they like that? Are they all too possessive to learn to share?

The orgasm is just out of my reach, and I know without a doubt that Cade isn’t going to let me get there. Instead, he uses me to please himself, stretching me and groaning, his fingers leaving bruises on my hips.

My breasts sway as he moves in and out of me, his pace increasing just before he grabs onto the back of my borrowed vest. He takes the fabric in a fist and yanks on it, giving himself better leverage as he comes hard. The sound he makes is unbridled, the cry of a wild demon, one that doesn’t submit without a leash of hellfire.

Taming Cade Grainger is going to be a big challenge.

He slides out of me, leaving me to collapse against the couch, my skin sweaty, my breathing ragged. I feel like I might go crazy from need; I have to have a release. I have to. I fucking have to.

“Sin …” I start, because he better be coming in here next. He better fucking be. Or else Grainger isn’t leaving.

“You get screwed by me and then mention another guy’s name?” he snaps, cracking his hand across my ass. “You’ve got balls, Gidge.”

“Ovaries,” I gasp out, and Grainger spanks me again.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get your pretty blue-haired boy for you,” he sneers at me. I mean, I can’t see him, but the expression is apparent in his words. His footsteps recede through the darkness as I turn over. My entire body is an inferno right now. What I need at this moment is cool water, something to douse the flame.

Not that I’m entirely sure Sin could be that for me.

He could just as easily make me explode.

For a while there, I sit alone in the dark, shaking and panting, one arm thrown across my sweaty brow. He better come, I think, mulling over his words in the basement. He never committed to anything. He still hasn’t. Of all of them, I feel like he’s the most likely to run, to pull away from me, to fight this.

“Shit.” I do my best to relax back into the cushions, sliding my hand between my thighs. I’m sore in two places now, from Crown and Grainger. Ugh. If any two people were opposites, were truly black and white, it’d be those two. Closing my eyes, I imagine what it wouldn’t feel like to take them all into me at once. One in the ass, one in the pussy, one in the mouth, one cupped in my heated palm. I groan and slip two fingers in, working my clit with the heel of my hand as I pump slowly in and out.

I must be too deep into it to recognize the sound of Sin joining me. The next thing I know, the couch cushions are denting, and I feel an extra finger slip in beside mine. Rather than open my eyes, I relax into it, enjoying the easy way he matches my rhythm. Slowly, I remove my fingers and Sin replaces them with his own.

My pelvis grinds against his knuckles as I bring my hand up to cup my own breast, squeezing and kneading and pinching my own nipple. Wishing it was Sin’s hand. Wishing he’d touch me more. Kiss me.

“I’m never going to kiss you again, Gidge. It’s too risky.”

He said that to me once. But he lied. He fucking lied, and then he kissed me in the kitchen that day with no excuse. No goddamn excuse at all.

Then he lied for me again and saved my life.

“Lie to me and say you’re okay with this,” I breathe out, and the motion of his hand slows. “Tell me you’re glad I’m here. That you’ll share me with Beast. That you always wanted me to be a part of the club.”

“Gidge,” he says, his voice a clear warning. Sin slides his thumb over my clit with a curse of his own, rubbing the swollen flesh and making my body feel like it’s coming apart. It all feels too good. I want too much. I’m shattering.

A climax tears through me in a dangerous, violent way, like I’ve consumed far too much of that poison, the one I was supposed to be building an immunity to. I’ve become toxic. Subsumed by it. Drowned. I’m shuddering and thrashing and quivering, making these horrible noises. My cunt squeezes Sin’s fingers and refuses to let them go.

He yanks away against my body’s will, leaving me empty as the orgasm stabs me straight through the heart. And then he’s there again, finding his place between my legs, and driving into me while I’m still in the throes of it. With my body’s natural urge to pulse and clamp, he has to fight his way in, past strong muscles and violent throbs.

“Fuck, Gidge.” Sin’s thrusting hard and fast now, driving into my body even as the sparkles fade, and the feel of him moving becomes almost too tender to bear. “I’m glad you’re here,” he lies, and oh, what a pretty prevarication. He’s full of shit, and I’m loving it. “I always, always, always wanted this life for you.” He slams his pelvis into me with each repeat of the world ‘always’, giving form to monstrous untruths that I’d trade damn near everything in this world to make reality. Sin puts his lips near my ear, that sharp mouth of his threatening to cut me as he lies again. “I’d love to share you with Beast. Take turns every night. Walk you down the goddamn aisle.”

Sin lifts me up by the ass and then lets his body fall back into the couch so that I’m on top of him.

“Bounce,” he says, and the word is low, dangerous. It’s fucking fire, is what it is.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I do as he asked, sliding my body up and down the length of his dick and feeling a second orgasm threaten me. It hurts so bad that my eyes prick with my tears, but I don’t stop. If I stop now, I’ll find myself stranded back in the grittiness of reality. If I stop now, this entire night of fantasy ends.

Two weeks until the wedding. Reba is missing. Gaz is a traitor.

If I fuck hard enough, fast enough, love hard enough, want enough, then I make it all go away for just a split-second.

Sin helps by cupping my waist and then sliding his fingers down to grope my ass, kneading my cheeks and spreading them so I can get deeper with each bounce. With my head thrown back, he has ample access to my throat, licking and sucking and biting me in just such a way that I know I’ll be marked tomorrow. Claimed. Just like he did in the basement.

It makes me excited thinking about it, about how the others might dislike that, how they might dislike it enough to try to put their own mark on me … And also how I might mark them in turn.

“How many groupies have you fucked recently?” I ask Sin, slowing down, letting jealousy burn through me hot and bright. I once saw him doing a girl on the hood of Gaz’s sportscar. And I hate that. I hate it. I wish they’d all come to me and only me. But then, maybe that would make it harder for them to share? “Lie to me and say none.”

Sin pauses, sliding his hand up my back, holding my nape and bringing our mouths together.

A kiss with him is like … it’s like being fifteen and standing in a graveyard while ash rains down. It’s like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then dropping it on the floor because his mouth cuts like a garrote. Just daring enough to get away with. Just poisonous enough to swear off of.

“Gidge, I haven’t been with a girl for a while,” he growls out, getting frustrated with me. “You know that. You know why kissing you was a risky thing. You have the power to make me hate everything about this life. Only you. You’re the only person who could make me consider destroying every friendship I have, ruining every alliance, risking my life.”

“Keep lying to me,” I choke out, and I start to slide up and down his shaft, creating delicious friction that’ll blur all the lines. Is he lying to me? Is he telling the truth? I have no idea. I literally have no fucking clue. Either scenario is just as likely.

Like a spark to tinder, I just go up in flames. As I expected, Sin cannot quench me. I can only burn.

So I do. I burn and writhe, grip his shoulders and push down until there’s no telling where one of us begins and the other ends. I come with him wrapped up in my silken muscles, and then I drag him over the edge with me, making his balls tighten, seed erupting in my core.

After that, still shaking, still panting, I fall to the side and curl myself up in the cushions.

Sin stays where he is, but there’s another set of footsteps that approaches.

Before I know it, I’m being lifted up and carried through the dark house, up the stairs, into the third-floor bedroom. Beast places me on the bed, covers me up, and strokes my hair back.

“Wedding night,” he says again, and I curl my lip at him just before he releases me and takes a seat in the same chair where I fucked Crown.

I fall asleep watching him, a demon bound and leashed to a devil.