Page 106 of Reckless Seduction
And we’ll never let her go again.
FORTY-THREE
It feelsas if I am walking through a dream. My body moves and obeys, but my mind is far away, floating somewhere beyond the walls of the bar, beyond the blood and gunfire and the screams still lodged in my ears. Kiernan hasn’t let go of me since the brothel. He hauled me into his arms the moment he could and refused to set me down.
I am scared of how safe I feel there, even after his stinging betrayal. The twins carry me upstairs to shower the moment we arrive. They whisk me away with the promise that once I have rested, we will go down and talk with my father.
My father.
That word holds a different meaning now. I don’t know if I will ever be able to call him that. Not when the word is so tainted. Not when every memory attached to that word feels rotten at the center.
“He’s not going anywhere,a stóre,” Seamus assures me as he carefully washes my sore and battered body. “Your father will be waiting when we are done.”
The water runs warm over bruised skin. Soap slides over tender flesh. His touch is gentle where the world has been cruel,and that kindness nearly undoes me more than any violence ever could.
“What does that mean?” I ask curiously. They have been calling me that just as long as they have been calling me their whore. I assumed it was something along those lines. Slut, maybe, or something equally derogatory. The only difference is that they never referred to me as their whore outside the bedroom. They use the other phrase no matter where we are.
“It means treasure.”
That is not what I expected.
Nor am I expecting the redness that creeps up both twins’ cheeks. Massive, dangerous men with blood on their hands, blushing because they have been caught being sweet.
My chest tightens painfully.
“I like it,” I whisper softly.
I kiss Seamus’s shoulder, then Kiernan’s, since that is all I can reach without stretching onto my tiptoes. Their skin is damp and warm beneath my lips. Slowly, I run my hands down their chests, over hard muscle and scarred skin, toward their obvious arousals.
“Not now, wildcat.” They both let out pained groans when I stroke their lengths. “This isn’t the time for that. You’ve been through something traumatic.”
I am mad as hell at them. Furious enough to slap them again if I let myself think too hard. But I am also cracked wide open and hanging on by a thread so thin I can feel it fraying. I need something to ground me. Something to drag me back into my body before my mind disappears into the dark corners of what happened.
Even if it is them.
Even if it is the two men who broke my heart.
They shattered it. Yet standing here between them, the broken pieces spark and tremble with delight. My traitorousbody lights up beneath their touch like nothing ugly ever happened to it.
Even after everything, it still wants them.
Needs them.
Loves them.
Even if my brain refuses to accept that.
But I do not need to love them to feel free. I need them to shut off the endless noise in my head, otherwise I will begin to spiral.
I will begin to break even further.
“No one touched me,” I assure them, my voice soft but steady. “But all I could think about, even after I thought you betrayed me, was every time we were in this shower together. The three of us. How good you made me feel. How much pleasure I got from touching you and giving you both your own pleasure.”
Kiernan chuckles, his gaze sliding to his brother as he pulls me against his chest. The sound is rough and low, but relief lives beneath it. He snakes one hand down my sternum, teasing over my nipples before settling lower, anchoring me with the heat of his palm.
“Have you been a good girl?” Kiernan whispers in my ear, his gaze still locked with Seamus’s.
Seamus looks torn between taking what he wants and trying to be a gentleman. It would be adorable if I were not unraveling in the middle of them.
