Page 46 of Caretaker

I glared. “Don’t do that. Just tell me the truth.”

“If you fail, he will believe he was wrong to choose you,” Rhys said. “That you’re not the right person after all.”

“And he will kill me.”

Rhys shrugged, uncomfortable. “We don’t know, but there can be only one caretaker. If you fail your task, he may need to give the ground your blood to show it your figurative death, and he will wait for someone else.”

“This is crazy.” I tried to take a deep breath but my chest was too tight. “Is this a dream?”

“A nightmare, maybe.” Rhys stared at me, grim and dark.

“You’ll do it.” Clayton took a step toward me, then flinched and came no closer. “He is not wrong. You felt the affinity for this house. You heard his voice.”

I wasn’t convinced. The man with no name wanted me to mind the house, but he also wanted me to prove myself. “He said I could scent Madalyn. That all I had to do was go to her. But I can’t scenther to find her.” I bit my lip when it trembled.

Clayton stared over my head, his eyes as blank as I’d ever seen them. “I wish I could touch you.”

I shuddered. “I wish the same.”

Rhys drew me into his arms. “Come here.” Then he held out a hand to Clayton. “Clay.”

“No,” I said. “Miriam doesn’t allow him to be touched by anyone.”

“Miriam doesn’t scare me.” Rhys motioned to Clayton. “Come on.”

Clayton believed Rhys—or maybe he knew something I didn’t. His body subtly relaxed its straight, rigid lines, and he relented.

I wound my arms around Rhys’s waist, then glanced at Clayton, waiting to see if it were possible. Touching through Rhys might be as close as we could get for a while.

Clayton, unaccustomed to being touched gently by anyone, stepped to Rhys’s side. Rhys put his arm around the other man’s shoulders and the three of us stood in a little circle of silent camaraderie.

And nothing happened. Clayton didn’t stiffen with pain. Blood didn’t begin to pour from his eyes.

I wanted so badly to fix the brokenness in him. I wanted to steal him from Miriam and never worry that touching him would make him bleed. Never wonder if a quick kiss would be discovered, that he would be punished for it.

We’d had that, for one brief, glorious minute. I wanted it again, and I wanted it forever. Most of all, I wanted him to have it.

Rhys’s full lips curved in a smile, so close to my face, so tempting, that I couldn’t resist slanting my mouth against his and pulling his bottom lip into my mouth. I ran my tongue over it before pulling away, and when I did, both men looked at me with identical expressions of desire. Their stares were so full of heat I thought I smelled a hint of smoke when I sucked in a sharp breath.

“Trinity,” Rhys said.

“Yes?” My voice trembled. Understandable, surely.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to do you.” I turned my eyes toward Clayton. “And I want to do him.”

Clayton closed his eyes. “Trinity,” he whispered. “Stop.”

“It hurts him,” Rhys said. “You aren’t to touch him. He isn’t to touch himself. I’m not sure you can understand what countless days of unrelenting, unrelieved desire can do to a man.”

“It would be excruciating,” I murmured.

“I’ll be your hands,” Rhys said, quietly.

I frowned. “No one can touch him. Miriam has forbidden it.”

“Miriam’s magic has nothing to do with me.” Rhys looked from me to Clayton. “Her mad reach cannot extend to me.” And before either Clayton or I understood what he was about to do, Rhys took his arm from me and turned toward Clayton. Without any discernable hesitation, he gripped Clayton’s erection. He squeezed and Clayton bowed his spine, crying out, recoiling in shock or bliss or both.