by Katee Robert
“You’ve been going over all the possibilities for punishment Theo could have possibly cooked up in that big brain of his.” Galen stared her down with those dark, dark eyes, daring her to deny it.
Conversations with him were a game of chicken. Even when she knew she should back down or swerve, she couldn’t stop herself from rising to the bait. “I’m a grown ass woman. I will not be punished just because I happened to overhear part of your conversation.”
“Hmmm.” Theo contemplated his wine glass as if it held all the mysteries of the universe. “It’s a game, princess. We all know how well you like to play when you’re inspired.” There was that smile again, the one that promised to fulfill all her darkest, filthiest fantasies. And, damn it, she knew he could do it, too. Theo pushed his chair back. “But never let it be said that we coerced you.” He finished off his wine and glanced at Galen, which was all the other man needed to push to his feet and follow Theo toward the doorway.
Meg stared. “What are you doing?”
Galen disappeared through the doorway, but his shadow darkened the wall just out of sight. Theo turned to face her. “You know what lies on the other side of punishment. If that’s something you want, we’ll be in the last bedroom at the end of the hallway.” He paused, blue eyes stripping her bare, laying all her sins on the table between them. Theo shrugged. “If that’s not something you want, then this ends here.”
“Ends?” She swallowed past her suddenly dry throat. Surely, he wasn’t saying what she thought he was saying.
“We’ll keep you safe, Meg. The money stays where it’s at, no strings attached. This?” He motioned to encompass both of them and Galen. “This is a separate thing. If you want it—us—then you have to make that call. No coercion. No seducing you out of your senses. You come into this with eyes wide open.”
“Theo…” She didn’t know what to say. It had been so easy before, when she didn’t know the extent of who he and Galen were, and later when she was so furious she told herself it didn’t matter anyways. Choosing this now meant something, and she couldn’t lie to herself and say it didn’t. “What if I change my mind?”
He didn’t look away. “Then you change your mind. I’m not demanding you sign a lifetime contract, princess. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My life isn’t my own.”
It belonged to Thalania.
That right there should be enough to warn her off. She couldn’t have Theo in any permanent way, and Meg knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she couldn’t have Galen without Theo. He offered her something temporary, and if she couldn’t accept that, then she had no business going up to that room.
“Think about it. Be sure.” He turned without another word and walked away, Galen falling in half a step behind him.
Meg should clean the wine glasses and go up to the room where they’d left her bags. Not the one at the end of the hallway, though she remembered that room well enough from their quick rush to clear the house. The obvious master bedroom in a mansion full of suites, the walk-in closet bigger than her entire apartment back home, the massive jacuzzi tub and even larger tiled shower with no fewer than five shower heads.
And the bed.
That bed was large enough to fit five people, situated on a massive wrought iron frame, each corner spiraling up as if attempting to kiss the arched ceiling. That bed was made for fucking.
There is the punishment to consider…
The warning lacked any weight, though. Meg drank her wine slowly, letting the truth settle over her. There had never been any decision to be made. Her destination was decided the second she chose to come with Theo and Galen. Facing that, acknowledging that, burned. If she had nothing else, she had her pride, and her pride demanded she ignore Theo’s offer and go to bed alone. Better to lay there and imagine all the dirty things they could be doing than submit to a punishment like she was a naughty child.
But was it really better?
No.
Last spring, she’d thought she’d only have one night with Galen and Theo and so she’d soaked up every minute with them, a starving woman at a feast she’d never be able to consume in a lifetime. This truth they chased—the one both were so sure would set Theo back on the throne—might have a conclusion in a day, a week, a month. Or it might stretch out for the next nine months as the clock ticked down to Edward Fitzcharles’s coronation.
Either way, was she really prepared to deprive them all of something they wanted for the sake of her pride?
Meg finished her wine. She washed all three of their glasses and set them in the drying rack. She walked upstairs and into her room and took the quickest shower of her life, not even pausing to enjoy the mosaic art tiled into the shower walls. After the briefest of considerations, she pulled on a short silk robe hanging on the back of the door. She might be doing this, but she wasn’t willing to show up naked as an offering.
Taking a deep breath, she padded down the hallway to the door Theo had indicated. She raised her hand to knock and then reconsidered. Meg twisted the handle and walked in.
Galen sat propped against the headboard, a tablet in his hand, wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans. She spent a precious second visually tracing the scars that crisscrossed his chest. He glanced up and went still. “Theo.” Theo stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. He didn’t say anything, both of them seemed to be waiting for something.
Waiting for her.
This was her last chance to bolt.
She straightened her shoulders and met each of their gazes in turn. “I’m ready for my punishment.”
8
Meg couldn’t breathe. She was here. She was doing this. The implications stretched out before her, tangling over each other and leaving only a mess in their wake. Nothing good would come of this in the long term. But she’d been focused on the long term for so damn long. The next step, the end game, the path that would lead her out of the trap she’d been born into. That would help her realize the American Dream.
She almost laughed at the thought. If that dream existed anymore, it came attached with crippling student debt and a Xanax prescription to battle existential dread. None of that mattered, because it was hers and hers alone. It paved the way for her independence and her freedom, and for that she’d make sacrifices too innumerable to count.
None of that mattered in this moment. The future didn’t matter, either, because it didn’t exist for them. If Theo somehow reclaimed his birthright, he would be King of Thalania, and no matter what the stories said, kings didn’t marry poor girls from Michigan who wanted to be accountants.
Strangely enough, that realization freed her up to take the first step and then another, to close the door softly behind her. Both men stared at her as if weighing her declaration against the truth, so she waited. She’d made her choice. She came. She damn well wouldn’t repeat herself.
Theo moved first. He didn’t ask her if she was sure. He’d made the lines pretty damn clear before she ever walked into this room. He walked to circle her, trailing a single finger along the line of her shoulders, lifting her dark hair to sift his hands through it. “Very nice, princess.” He stopped behind her and pressed himself to her back. “Don’t you think she looks nice, Galen?”
Galen typed something on his tablet and set it aside. “She looks like trouble.”
“Because that’s exactly what she is.”
They talked about her as if she wasn’t even there. She hated it. She loved it. Meg licked her lips, unable to contain a shiver at the feeling of Theo’s breath ghosting down her neck. She heard his grin in his voice. “You know the rules, Meg.”
No point in pretending otherwise. “I say stop, it all stops.”
“Yes.” He kissed her just under her ear, a spot he seemed to gravitate toward. Theo maneuvered her until she stood at the foot of the bed, framed by those massive iron spirals. He snapped his fingers at Galen. “The ties.”
“The ties?”
Galen reached into the nights
tand and tossed two sets of cuffs to the foot of the bed. Meg stared at them, at what they represented, something hot and ugly squeezing her chest. “You have bondage gear in your nightstand.”
“Galen likes to be prepared.” Theo reached around her to pick up one, his big hands moving over it with the ease of long familiarity.
They’d done this before.
Of course they’d done this before.
She didn’t think they were coming to her virgins—she certainly was no innocent before they met—but somehow being faced with bondage gear that they must have used on some other woman, maybe in this very room. The ugly feeling inside her gained teeth and claws.
And then Galen was in front of her, clasping her chin tight enough that little sparks of pain flickered along her skin. “Where did you go?”
“I’m right here.” The words came out wrong, sharp and cutting. He looked over her shoulder and she smacked his wrist. “Stop that. I’m not some wild thing to be handled, and talking about me like I’m not there, like I’m just some toy that’s interchangeable with any other—”
“Interchangeable?” Theo murmured in her ear. “Do you really think that?”
Galen’s frown cleared, leaving something almost smug in its wake. “Your princess is jealous, Theo.” He sat back on his heels on the mattress, towering over both of them. “For all your eavesdropping, you don’t listen very well. We’ve never been in this house before today.” He watched her look at the cuffs again and gave a cutting smile. “Theo is very particular about what goes into his bedroom.”
“I—”
He grabbed the other cuff and held it in front of her face. Soft fabric lined the inside of her where it would clasp a wrist or ankle, shielding sensitive skin from the bite of leather. Galen turned it so she could see the leather itself. It was so new, it shone in the low light, not a single crease marking it as used.
Oh.
Shame withered her jealousy, and she couldn’t quite make herself hold his gaze. Theo tucked a single finger under her chin, lifting her face to Galen. He murmured against her ear. “No one has been in this house since it was renovated.” He snapped one cuff around her wrist and Galen tightened it. “No one has slept in these rooms.” They repeated the process with her other wrist. “No one has fucked on this bed, or in the shower, or in the tub.” Galen reached up and snagged a metal tether she hadn’t seen woven in with the iron bedpost. He adjusted the length and attached her left cuff to it, and then did the same with the right.
It left her spread, her arms held up and away from her body. Helpless.
Theo traced the edge of her robe, parting the fabric easily. Giving Galen a show. He nipped her neck, his voice low and almost dangerous. “We’ll fuck you here, princess. We’ll fuck you in every bedroom, and then we’ll take you downstairs and fuck across this entire goddamn house.” He cupped her breasts, rolling her nipples between his fingers until she arched back against him. “On every surface. Against every wall. Until none of us can ever walk into this place without seeing it overlaid with those memories.”
She wouldn’t be walking into this house again once this was over.
He and Galen would.
Warmth spread through her, killing the last of the ugly feeling. She gave the tethers an experimental tug. “Okay.”
The heat of Theo’s body against her back disappeared. He circled around to study the picture she made and nodded to himself. “Part the robe a bit more. I want to see her.”
Galen obeyed, untangling the tie at her waist and pushing the robe until it was only the angle of her bondage that kept it on her shoulders. He moved away without touching her further, crawling to the edge of the bed and sitting there as Theo came to stand between his big thighs. He seemed to consider something and nodded to himself. “Jeans off, Galen. Lay on the bed with your head at the foot.”
She watched helplessly as Galen obeyed, stripping with a casual grace that had heat licking at her skin. They were so fucking beautiful it took her breath away. Handsome on their own, but together they somehow become more. Theo’s refined control played off Galen’s rough and tumble meanness. Galen looked like some ancient gladiator who’d charged into their midst, big and brutal and scarred. Theo would have been at home in any aristocracy in Europe, almost pretty and playing at games she could only guess at.
And yet it worked. They worked.
Galen climbed back onto the bed and took the position Theo had indicated, his head inches from where Meg stood. The mattress was tall enough that they were even with her hips and she shivered at the sight of Galen laid out like the best kind of feast. His cock was already hard, laying thick and heavy against his stomach, and he watched her with dark eyes that promised things she could only guess at.
Theo tossed his towel to the side and joined Galen on the bed. He pushed the bigger man’s legs wide and knelt between them. Theo gripped Galen’s thighs and held perfectly still, his gaze dragging over the man before him and up to where Meg stood. He was a king surveying his kingdom of two, and she had no doubt in her mind that he’d just planned out the remainder of the night down to the finest detail.
“Are you ready for your punishment, princess?”
“Yes.” The word burst out of her as if summoned, an agreement to something she needed more than she needed air. Her very own deal with the devil, though he didn’t want her soul—he wanted her body.
He gave her a smile with a hint of cruelty. “Good. Be very quiet, and very still, and you’ll get your reward at the end.” He leaned down and took Galen’s cock into his mouth.
Holy shit.
The truth sank into her. She’d been prepared for spankings, a punishment interwoven with pain. She hadn’t been prepared for this.
Galen reached over his head to grip the edge of the mattress as Theo sucked his cock, both of them watching her. If she arched her hips, she might—might—be able to brush against his fingers, but Meg knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d remove his touch if she tried.
They wanted her strung up like some kind of decoration at the end of the bed, still and silent, while she watched them fuck.
Theo couldn’t have devised a more ingenious punishment. She was going to kill him… as soon as he uncuffed her.
Galen cursed long and hard, and half sat up. Theo met him there, claiming Galen’s mouth the same way he’d claimed his cock. Once upon a time, she’d compared them to two opposing forces of nature, and that was never more true than in that moment. They clashed, their big bodies moving together in a dance older than time. Galen gripped Theo’s hair and wrenched his head back, kissing his way down his neck. There was nothing cold and calculated in this. They’d stopped concentrating on putting on a show for her the second they kissed.
They touched each other like they’d forgotten she was there.
Meg watched, so mesmerized, she forgot this was supposed to be a punishment. Galen fisted Theo’s cock, earning a low curse as he pumped, slowing their pace. Theo nipped his bottom lip and then tongued the spot as if soothing the pain away.
God, they were beautiful and catastrophic and she would never recover.
Theo twisted Galen to face her and moved to kneel behind him, his legs on either side of Galen’s. He paused as if checking her view, and gave her that dangerous grin. “We’re forgetting about our Meg’s punishment.”’
“Can’t have that,” Galen murmured, his eyes gone so dark they were almost black.
In this current position, she realized Theo was actually taller than Galen, though Galen was wider through the shoulders and chest. Theo reached around and stroked Galen’s cock. “Look how hard he is, princess. You remember how good it feels to have his cock inside you.”
Galen leaned back against Theo and gave her a look that was pure challenge. Demanding she… What? She didn’t even know what she was supposed to do. Meg could barely breathe, let alone pull her thoughts together into some semblance of sanity. She was need, boiled down to her animal urges, her body aching u
nder their attention. Her breasts felt unnaturally heavy and her pussy was so fucking wet, it was a wonder they couldn’t see it.
Maybe they could.
Theo gave Galen’s cock another stroke. “Do you remember what we talked about when I was eating your pussy in the kitchen last week?”
She swayed forward, making her chains clink. Oh yeah, she remembered. Meg licked her lips, trying to focus. “You said you pictured Galen fucking me while you fucked him.” She shivered and pressed her thighs together. It did nothing to help the way her clit throbbed as if begging for them to touch her.
Beg.
Now the challenge in Galen’s gaze made sense. This wasn’t just about giving her a show she had no way to take part in. This was about humiliation and desire and leaving it all on the table. She’d been holding back from day one, and they knew it.
Fuck that, I’m not begging.
Theo must have seen her decision on her face. He nodded as if to himself and released Galen. “On your back, my friend.” While Galen obeyed, he grabbed lube from the nightstand and squirted some into his hand. He stroked his cock, covering himself slowly, making a show of it, and Meg couldn’t help jerking on the chains again.
This time, neither of them looked at her.
Theo covered Galen with his body and took his mouth again, but it was slower now, a searching kiss that made her whimper just from watching. He propped himself up on one elbow and reached between them. They lay perpendicular to Meg, and Galen’s leg blocked the sight of Theo’s cock sliding into him. She rattled the chains again in frustration. “Theo…” Meg hesitated too long and he started moving, fucking into Galen in slow, steady thrusts. “Theo, let me see.”
He clasped the back of Galen’s neck and reached between them to fist Galen’s cock, pumping him in time with his thrusts. Galen gripped Theo’s hips, moving in perfect rhythm even as he arched up to kiss Theo again.
She might as well have not been in the room.
And hell if that didn’t make the whole thing hotter.
She arched forward, but they’d cuffed her too far from the mattress to be able to rub herself against it. Meg writhed, a wild thing in a trap, so close to paradise and yet the gates were closed to her. She was so busy fighting the restraints, sure that if she could just reach them, it would all be okay, that she almost missed Theo’s tempo picking up. He thrust harder, drawing growling curses from Galen’s lips as he fucked him with both hand and cock, taking and giving in equal measure. Galen’s heels dug into the mattress, every muscle in his body standing out in stark relief, and then he came in great jetting ribbons across his stomach. Theo gave him one more pump and then leveraged himself back, gripping Galen’s hips as he started driving into him in earnest.
