Page 17 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

Tate’s storm-grey eyes hold heaps of love and rapture and unwavering desire as we tremble together, and I feel as much as I see the maniacal obsession worked into each one of those feelings. Then I hear it in his darkened words: “Keep me inside of you.” His hips roll against me, his cock twitching and swelling back to life, though he does not regain a rhythm. “Need my cum to stay inside you, Havoc. Let me stay.”

Struggling to gain control over my breathing again, I tell him, “I would not deliberately remove you. Not anymore.”

His already-blown-out pupils swallow the surrounding irises whole. “Yeah?”

Momentarily flicking my gaze to the side when a buttery-soft texture rubs over my skin in a way that threatens to make me shiver, I note Tiger nuzzling his head into my arm like he is attempting to soak me up again after our short yet wildly too-long time apart. It provokes an odd humming in my chest that is not at all unpleasant before I return my focus to the huge man on top of me. “Yes, my beast.”

Teeth sinking into his lower lip, his pelvis gives an involuntarily forward thrust. “Fuck yeah, I’m your beast, Havoc.”

He groans, and I can feel him gearing up to go all over again as my walls tighten around him in response. But as much as I would love to continue this . . . “I must go soon.” The atmosphere changes in an instant, all the passionate heat overtaken by an uncomfortable chill, but I continue without inflection, “It is essential I tell you all exactly what happened that morning.”

I attempt to get up, but Tate’s growl has me pausing for a beat. “No. You’re not leaving. I’ll fucking chain you to me, Havoc. You’re not going anywhere.” Keeping his hips flush against mine, he captures my arms, trapping them to the sides of the body he holds completely captive, as though he believes I am about to spring up and leave right away, never to return.

“Let her up, Tate. I get how you’re feeling, but Ezla’s right: we need to talk.”

A deep and dangerous sound works through him while I shift my attention to my sensible one.

Except he is not being so sensible recently.

Scotty looks like shit, and my hold tightens painfully on Tiger and Alby as I take in his marred features.

I am quite pissed with Tate for that, though I cannot truly fault him when it made the display for my father a few days ago so much more believable. It would be too suspicious for them all to fall for Father’s lies so easily, so dissent among my men worked well to sell what we were trying to. As a bonus, he would simply love to see the disaster, the mess made of my Bonded group, which will do well to satisfy his sadistic tendencies. Because if my men are already destroying each other, why would he have to?

Scotty, on the other hand, has well and truly angered me.

He is not taking care of himself.

For someone who loves to give all of himself to others, he certainly does not apply the same treatment to himself. Worse, he is now actively choosing not to. Usually, he seems to forget that he is also a human being, that he needs rest and to be cared for just the same as the others. But since that morning, he is refusing to cater to his basic needs.

I am not oblivious to the fact that he made no move to join us—unlike Cooper, who seemed to decide he would keep Scotty company during the just-passed intimacy. I can feel he wanted to, still wants to right now, and yet he will not allow himself.

But what has made me most furious of all is that he tried to block me out.

He failed, of course—none of my men quite know how the bond works, even now—but how dare he? I am not someone to be denied access to what I desire. And I . . . I desire every part of the men who bonded me. Even if it does not feel good, not at all, to keep experiencing Scotty’s anguish through the bond. He is overflowing with guilt.

He is punishing himself.

Scotty believes this is all on him. He believes he failed our entire Bonded group, but most of all, he believes he failed me.

It is not unfamiliar, these feelings; I felt them in smaller bursts after that time I was sick in our private training room before my men knew about my father’s connection to my scar. He blames himself for what happened that day, too. For not figuring things out sooner.

But it has never been this bad before.

He will not even let himself touch me, because he now believes he needs to earn the privilege. He thinks he has to prove to me, himself, and the rest of my Bonds that he can look after me well enough, that he can keep me perfectly safe at all times.

In other words, Scotty is being an idiot.

It is already on my agenda to punish him and my grumpy one for their treatment of me, even if it was necessary, but that may have to wait a bit. Still, I will show him what it means to be mine. It is no matter that I am only learning what it means for them at the same time they are.

9

COOPER

The erection I chose to ignore in order to attempt to force Scotty to get over whatever shit’s going on in his head has been absolutely killing me with how badly it’s been aching. I thought it would make him feel guilty enough that we’d both walk over to Ezla together and be able to finally fucking touch her again, but the asshole—yes, I’m mad at him even if this was a choice I made myself without anyone forcing me to—didn’t move one bit after he’d encouraged me to go to her and I told him I’d only do that if he did too.

But now that ache is crushed by an entirely new one, my hard-on long fucking gone as I absorb all that Ezla’s just told us:

The searing pain in the middle of the night that she kept from us.