Back to Black: A captive ménage romance

by Katerina Winters

  Tonight, they were just finishing cleaning the kitchen from dinner when Zane announced they should sit in the hot tub afterward.

  “How would we all fit?” Just thinking of them all trying to fit in the bathtub seemed painful and comical.

  Reid gave her a blank stare while Zane just frowned.

  “What do you mean `how would we fit’?” Zane questioned. “It’s huge, there is room for about six to be honest and it was a straight bitch getting it onto the island because of it.”

  Now she was highly confused.

  “My love, you do know we are talking about the Jacuzzi outside?” Reid’s teasing smile lit up his dark blue eyes and devastatingly handsome face.

  Again, and again, she went over her mental map of the island, and she could not remember ever seeing a hot tub.

  “Come on sweetheart, I’ll show you.” Zane turned her gently by the shoulders and walked her to the kitchen back door.

  “Zane, I don’t have a swimsuit,” she protested, even though she made no effort to stop walking. Everly was very curious to know where this mysterious hot tub was hiding.

  The hot tub turned out to be a large square box that sat off to the side of the back porch which she always assumed was some sort of water tank. With the press of a button, the walls around the hot tub extended upwards, turning the top, which once acted as the lid, into a roof. With four sliding doors all around, the now small building resembled a small Japanese tea house. Leaving their underwear on, each man took one of her hands and guided her up the steps and into the bubbling water.

  “Remember, not for too long,” Reid grumbled to Zane as she took a seat on the underwater bench between them.

  The bubbling hot water felt like heaven amongst the brisk wind and snow-covered island.

  “Yes, I know, dammit,” Zane snapped back at Reid. “No more than twenty minutes in the water at a time.” Turning back to her, Zane leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. “Expecting mothers shouldn’t sit in this water for too long, so after while I’m going to help you sit up on the corner ledge to cool down for a while.”

  Everly just nodded and smiled. Sometimes their intensive knowledge on all things pregnancy related could be annoying, but most of the time it was sweet.

  Reaching up behind him, Reid closed the door they used to get in, enclosing them inside the wooden house. Pressing another button on the control panel next to him Reid opened another panel on the roof, Everly gasped.

  Suddenly they had a perfect view of the stars.

  “This is beautiful,” she sighed, taking in every glittering twinkle.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Reid turned her chin until he could easily plant his lips across hers for a slow devouring kiss.

  Pulling back, Reid stroked a strand of hair behind her ear as his other hand rested on the curve of her stomach. “I’m so happy we can share this with you. If you only knew how many nights we laid under the stars as children and as men, hoping for a woman like you in our lives.”

  The moisture of tears stung in her eyes.

  “You know, I used to stare up at the sky and wish when I was younger too,” Everly began slowly, looking up through the roof opening. “I used to pray every day for a way out, I would look up and wonder what a different life could possibly be like.” Smiling she leaned back against the tub’s wall as she spoke. “I would never imagine an adventurous life either, I would pray, beg, and even try to make deals with God to just let me live a boring librarian spinster’s life—if it only meant me getting out of that place.”

  Zane’s silent kiss of support on her shoulder made her throat tighten, but she pressed on. For some reason, she really wanted to share more of herself with them.

  “My father was a cruel, abusive, domineering man. Nothing happened or changed without his say so, and disobedience was met with his belt for girls and fists for boys.”

  She could feel both men on either side of her stiffen.

  Zane spoke first. “God, I don’t want to know the answer to this, but did he…” Zane didn’t finish, the intense awaiting anger in his wild blue eyes wouldn’t let him.

  “My father took his belt to me exactly three times, and I made it my mission never to let it happen a fourth time,” the memories tried to push their way forward in her mind, but she refused to let them in.

  Both Zane and Reid let out a flurry of curses.

  “I worked hard to become invisible to my father, going with the theory of making no waves and drawing absolutely no attention to myself, least of all his.” Letting out a hollow laugh she continued. “And it worked, almost too well. I soon became lost amongst the army of my siblings. My mother was too focused on obtaining my father’s attention, and my siblings had long since grouped up and formed bonds that had no room for someone as weird as me. Not someone who constantly dreamt of the outside world and who constantly snuck off to the library.”

  “I’m so sorry Everly,” Reid whispered clutching her hand beneath the water, lacing his fingers with hers.

  “But you know,” she looked at both of them, “as cruel as my father was, he did do one nice thing for me.”

  “What?” Zane asked.

  “He let me go,” she said. “I think he knew I was taking high school courses by mail. The day he came to tell me he wanted me to marry another family’s son I risked the prospect of a beating. I told him that I graduated high school and told him I got a scholarship to college, but he didn’t so much as flinch. It was as if he was just waiting for me to tell him news like that. He told me I could leave, but I could never come back, he would tell my mother the truth, but my siblings would believe I was married off to someone from another community like ours. Two days later my father dropped me off at the bus station miles out of town and drove off without so much as a goodbye.”

  Both brothers were silent.

  Nervously Everly shifted in her seat, the last time she told anyone any of this was Peter, and he didn’t take it so well. Peter had cut her off midway shaking his head in disgust, claiming he didn’t want to hear anymore and she should “deal with this” with a professional. Looking at the two hard-faced men next to her, her heart seized with doubt. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything.

  “I’m sorry, I know it’s all so dark and…” She began.

  “No,” they both spoke at once.

  “No, don’t even go down that route,” Reid’s tone was firm.

  “No sweetheart, it’s not that, trust us,” Zane leaned in and nuzzled her neck. “We’re just processing it all. To be honest, I’m so angry I’m shaking. If I could kill your dad, I would. I’m positive it would make me feel better.”

  Letting out a huge breath of relief, Everly leaned into Reid’s hard chest, she hadn’t realized she had been so nervous waiting for their reaction.

  “Thank you for not finding it…” searching for the right word, all she could think of was Peter’s disgusted face, “repulsive.”

  Reid cradled either side of her face gently with both of his large callused hands, frowning he searched her gaze questioningly. “Why the hell would we be repulsed? We knew most of this already we just didn’t know the details.” Kissing her softly, Reid emphasized his words. “No matter how dark those details are, we still want to hear them, if you want to tell them.”

  Holding Reid’s face to her, she kissed him back gratefully. “Thank you for understanding and listening, thank you for not being too disgusted and telling me to go talk to a professional about this.”

  Zane’s hands around her waist tightened. Pulling her backward slightly he turned her from Reid so he could look at her directly.

  “Who told you that?”

  The wild gleam in Zane’s eyes gave her pause, maybe bringing up Peter wasn’t the best right now.

  Reid’s jaw tightened as he sat back giving her an analyzing stare, “Did that asshole art professor say that?”

  Bowing her head slightly, Everly stared at the churning bubbles around her and nodded.

  “I
have fantasies of choking him—slowly,” Zane murmured.

  Leaning forward, Reid grabbed her underneath her arms and hoisted her out of the water and onto the corner ledge like a child. With her knees now at Zane’s eye level, Reid stood in the water so that they were face-to-face.

  “Everything that insignificant prick ever said to you, throw it out Everly,” Reid growled, running his hands across her slick thighs. “Clear it from your mind because you won’t have room for him anymore. From now on you belong to us. No other man whether it be that prick of a sperm donor, Peter or your father matters. You, me, Zane and the baby are all that matter from here on out.”

  Nodding she wrapped her legs around his waist and held him close enjoying his pleased groan as he hugged her back. Reid was right, if she let go of her fears she would have nothing to worry about and everything to look forward to.

  ±

  Covered in a thick white alpaca blanket, Everly nestled in between Zane’s legs on the couch. Facing the large window in the living room, Everly laid comfortably reclined onto Zane’s chest as they faced the falling snow over the lake.

  With both of his arms wrapped around her Zane slowly spread his fingers over the soft curvature of her stomach. Even though his hands were covered by the blanket, he could sense every detail of her luscious body. Feathery black eyelashes rested on top of the apple of her cheeks as she slept soundly against his chest. With one cheek pressed into his chest, her face was still turned to the scene of the falling snow outside the window. The hypnotic rise and fall of her breasts from beneath the exposing dip of her dress’s neckline beckoned to him.

  Earlier that morning they spent hours working on her stretching and breathing techniques, as her unofficial Lamaze instructor Zane took the new job very seriously—by the time they were finished she could barely keep her eyes open. Zane was just happy Reid wasn’t here to see it, Reid specifically warned him to take it easy on her when he left for his overnight business trip. Naturally, they both were thinking sex, but Zane was positive the grim-faced bastard would have something to say about this too. Zane wanted her to be prepared though. Honestly, the idea of her going through labor scared the hell out of him. What if fate decided his mother wasn’t enough and he lost Everly too? No, he couldn’t let his thoughts go down that chaotic dark path.

  Burying his face into her soft black curls, he inhaled deeply, he used her fresh sent to cleanse his mind.

  It was quiet in the house, no talking, no noise just the sound of the fire crackling in the fireplace behind him and the gentle breathing from on top of him. This quiet was a good quiet though, it was nothing like the desolate quiet of an empty, lifeless house like it was before. Once she stepped foot in the house, it transformed under her tiny weight. The cabin filled with the sounds of her evolving voice. Sounds that once began as shouts of her vehement protest, the discord of her tears, the echoes of her screams as her body succumbed to pleasure, and now the whisper of her content sighs. Every sound she made, Zane internalized and remembered, carving every delicate note into his soul. Even in his sleep, Zane’s subconscious listened for her voice.

  Last night, they had only been asleep a few hours when he heard the slight whimper. Awakening immediately, Zane watched her under the aid of moonlight reflecting off the outside snow through the windows. Again, she let out a whimper this time jerking a little. The wrinkles above her brow worried him, he wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he also didn’t want to scare her anymore in this tentative sleeping state. Shifting again restlessly, her eyes suddenly popped opened. Turning to his side, Zane leaned forward slowly and stroked some hair from her face. Blinking she stared at him in silence for a moment, as if assessing if he was a dream or reality.

  “I had a dream,” she finally whispered. “I dreamt…” Her words paused as she stared at the mattress beneath them lost in the turbulence of her emotions. “I dreamt Peter took away my baby, I dreamt he said I was an unfit mother.” Tears shined in her eyes. Scooting closer in the bed, Zane cupped her cheek and let his thumb rub gently back and forth. He wanted her to know he was right here for her every need, he wanted her to feel the absolute violence that ran through him at the thought of that asshole coming anywhere near her or their baby.

  “Sweetheart, you have to believe me when I say that I will never let that happen,” brushing a fallen tear from her cheek Zane kissed the spot instead. “He will never come near you or our baby.”

  Our baby, God he liked the sound of that.

  “But what if he…”

  “Everly my love,” he leaned in, whispering against her lips as his free hand caressed her round stomach. “Reid and I already thought of that, trust us, that asshole will never set foot into your life ever again.”

  Wordlessly she stared at him, the indecision in her eyes plain to see. Staring back at her Zane resisted grinning back, oh how he loved watching her mind work. The quizzical furrow of her brows and the subconscious balling of her fist against his bare chest, God he loved it all.

  “Okay,” she tiredly relented. “But you will tell me all the details tomorrow, right?”

  Tell her how they had an ex-military grade hacker in San Diego ready to place underage pornography on Peter’s home and work computer. Tell her that they would merrily call the authorities under an anonymous tip and watch the destruction of that man’s life if he so much as googled Everly’s name…

  Leaning forward, Zane covered her lips with his as he flicked Reid’s sleeping form a cursory glance. Of course, Reid was awake. Dark blue eyes met his, as Zane delved his tongue into her moaning mouth. Reid simply shook his head to Zane’s silent request for confirmation before turning his head back to sleep.

  Of course, they would not tell her the exact gritty details. Both he and Reid decided long before, that they would introduce her slowly to the savage capabilities of their nature. They didn’t want to scare her, they just wanted her to truly understand that there was nothing they would not do to protect their family.

  Everly stirred on his lap, taking him out of his thoughts.

  “Zane?” She looked up to him sleepily.

  “Mmmm,” he answered lifting one eyebrow.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  Lifting his arm that he had rested over her stomach, they both looked at the black sports watch.

  “About an hour and ten minutes my darling.”

  “Oh wow,” shocked she began to sit up. “I’m sorry, that had to be uncomfortable.”

  Folding his arms back over her, Zane kept her locked down against him. “Don’t worry about it, though my dick may have fallen asleep.”

  Just as expected, her skin heated and her eyelashes lowered in embarrassment.

  Running the pad of his thumb against her bottom lip, he met her gaze with a heated look. “But I’m sure we can think of a few ways on how you can bring it back to life.”

  A few seconds of silence ticked by as they both stared at each other.

  Not able to hold it in any longer, her grin broke through first, followed by laughter. God, he loved seeing her smile. The first time he saw her at the bank, his heart felt like it had stopped as he watched her smile politely with her coworkers. When they first brought her here to the cabin, Zane feared he might never see her smile again, every tear, every unhappy look killed him a little. But now, here she was sitting in his lap laughing at his corny come-ons, her cheerful disposition wasn’t just back, it was flourishing like nothing he’d ever seen before. Never during those months while they watched her from afar, did she smile so much. Now, her step seemed lighter, her smile seemed brighter, and she seemed happier.

  As her laughter died down, he spoke. “Tell me you're happy here.”

  Deep brown eyes stared at him, and a pause of silence that made his heart ache. “Yes, Zane, I’m happy.”

  The words should have brought him relief, but it was the hesitation that he could not let go of.

  “What can I do to make you love it?” Love us, he silently am
ended.

  And in that moment, as they looked at each other, Zane knew she knew exactly what he meant, what he truly wanted to hear from her. The realization in her eyes clicked into place.

  Turning further into his chest until the soft roundness of her stomach pressed lightly against the hard planes of his abs she cupped his face. “Just give me time, please Zane,” she whispered, “give my doubts and pride more time to adjust to all of this.”

  Letting his head loll back against the arm of the sofa, he nodded with no real choice. She would learn to love them eventually—she had to.