Love and Punishment

by Sorcha Mowbray

  Already stretched from Liam, she took him easily until he reached the halfway point. With his girth added to Liam’s, she felt stretched beyond bearing. “Fuck! It’s too big. You two are too big.”

  “Shh, baby.” Liam stroked her cheek and pressed his fingers against her lips. “Look at me.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut in self-defense. If she looked at him she would give them anything they wanted. She’d let them rip her in two trying to take her together.

  “Bel, look at me.” The command sounded harsh and insistent. No longer able to deny the order, she looked at Liam. “You can take us both. I promise, if you just relax, that tight little ass will make room for him despite my being in your cunt.”

  His words soothed and yet excited her. Could she take them both?

  “That’s it, pet. Relax and let me in. Let us fill you up and make you feel good. Once you have us both inside you we can be complete. And, we will make you come so hard. Make you feel so damn good while we fuck you nice and slow.” Nate’s promises tipped her back in the right direction. Damn she wanted them both. Wanted to be with them, together, the way they were meant to be.

  After drawing in a deep breath, she exhaled slowly. Her body relaxed around them, and Nate slid into place. Balls against her ass, he groaned and pressed deeper. “Fuck, pet.”

  Liam took a couple of breaths. “Nice and slow, bro.” He pulled out of her core, which caused Nate to groan.

  “Dude, I can feel every goddamn inch of you.”

  “Oh yeah. Every inch,” Liam agreed, and pushed back inside her.

  Incoherent with the pleasure, all she managed was a whimper when Nate reversed direction and slid out, rubbing over Liam’s cock.

  Together they worked in and out of her body, passing each other in a slow, sensuous slide. Her body buzzed with the pleasure of it, sleep long forgotten in the mind-bending pleasure battering her awareness. Her orgasm, an elusive ray of sun, danced just out of reach. More. She needed more. Needed them to move faster. Something. Anything. “Please I need….”

  “We know what you need, baby. We’ve got you.” Liam paused with the tip of his erection lodged in her opening, and Nate withdrew to a similar point behind her.

  They waited. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Desperate to feel them fill her, she mewled and her body shook. Hips gyrated in search of the pleasure currently denied her. A pulsing, living thing, need welled up within her. And then, together, they slammed into her body. They pumped into her in unison, and she plunged over the edge, into the abyss.

  “Yes! Oh fucking yes!” Her body exploded from a low simmer to a full boil over and beyond. Her skin sizzled with the pleasure of two big cocks filling her. Stretching her. Pleasing her.

  Liam latched onto her nipple and sucked hard, spawning a second, more powerful orgasm while they continued to fuck her in tandem. There was no way to stop the waves of bliss crashing over her again and again. The boys continued moving with an urgency that swept her up again.

  “Hell, yeah, gonna go.” Nate growled from behind. “So fucking tight back here. So filled with cock.”

  Liam grunted and pumped into her pussy in a relentless tempo. “Don’t stop, Nate. So good.”

  They both shook with the force of their climaxes and shouted in utter abandon, and she followed them over one last peak.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nate slipped out of the building around midmorning the next day. Exhausted from the night’s loving, Liam and Bel were still in bed. In the dark of night, he’d lain there watching them sleep, he’d known he needed to do something to show them how he felt. Something more than words. Something more than sex. Something they could each wear, a symbol of their love. Rings were cold, hard metal, and Bel had the one required by law. This symbol needed to be soft, yet strong, like her. Durable, yet flexible with time and wear, like him and Liam. Leather cuffs for all of them. Len’s place.

  Sunshine coated the world in various shades of gold as he strolled along the familiar route to the street where The Beasts’ artisans had taken up residence. The memory of walking there with Bel and Liam a few short weeks ago bubbled to the surface. At the time, he’d had no idea how things would end up, but hope had slipped in along with lust and the doubt he often fought. Doubt about her reasons for being there. Doubt about his ability to let a third into their world. And, eventually, doubt about whether she could love him the way she did Liam. All his worrying was pointless. Together he and Liam would have survived had they never found her. With her, they would thrive. Three bodies, three souls, one heart.

  Nate rounded the corner to the artisan center and, similar to a punch in the face, he caught a whiff of smoke.

  Fire.

  Adrenalin dumped into his system. Heart racing, he launched into a run looking for the source of the destruction he knew he would find. When he hit the middle of the strip of stores, he saw the flames licking out of Rose’s Garden just past Len’s place. Artisans scampered everywhere, working to douse the fire. Buckets were passed from person to person and hoses aimed low at the flames.

  He spotted a boy trying to drag a bucket toward the line of people and snatched it from the weaker hands. “What’s your name?”

  “Mason.”

  “Mason, I need you to go for help. Do you know where The Beasts’ compound is?”

  The boy, maybe ten years old, nodded.

  “Good, go find Liam and tell him to send everyone here to help with the fire.”

  “Okay.” And the kid tore off down the street the way Nate had just come.

  Hefting the bucket, he joined the line. For two hours, they passed buckets with no sign of his fellow Beasts. Their absence struck him wrong. Worry set in, and his heart raced for an entirely different reason. Had something happened to The Beasts? No, no way. But, the boy. Perhaps something happened to Mason? Eventually, the fire petered out, leaving a charred husk where Rose’s Garden once stood, but the shops on either side had survived. At least there was that.

  Covered in soot and now worried about the kid, he decided to leave the artisans to finish smothering the fire while he went in search of his messenger. No one had come to the artisans’ aid, which could only mean something bad had happened. The question was, what?

  Turning the corner on the way home he ran into four men. Between two of them the boy, Mason, hung like a rag doll. A kicking, screaming rag doll. Shit. The whole vignette smacked of ambush. It reeked of Marcus Priestly. With a roll of his shoulders, he emphasized his height and width and loosened his joints for the assault he knew would come. The men grinned, and two of them produced weapons. The usual fare of thugs, they had a pipe, a bat, and one of them dropped Mason’s arm to pull out a knife.

  “We’d hoped for all three of you, but you’re a good start.” The first guy came at him and swung the bat, mimicking a professional ball player from before The Wave.

  He ducked and jammed his shoulder square into the guy’s midsection. After he slammed him into a wall, he saw Mason scamper away from the fourth guy. And suddenly, the odds had tipped in their favor. Four on one wasn’t ideal, but he had everything to fight for. “Or I’ll just end this here and now.”

  With the guy pinned to the wall by the arm wielding the bat, Nate’s solid gut punch had him crumpling to the ground, which freed Nate to turn and face the other three. And they came all at once. No polite and orderly fight one at a time. This was a no-kidding street brawl with a single rule: do whatever it takes to survive.

  Pipe Guy swung, and Nate managed to block the blow, but his left arm deadened temporarily. Unless, of course, it actually broke, which would put him in deep shit. Injury assessment had to be abandoned when the one with no weapon circled behind him. But, with two armed men in front he could do little. Knife Guy swept his weapon out in a wide arc and forced him back—right into the big brute he’d lost sight of. Not good. The guy wrapped a meaty forearm around his throat, which sent his hands flying to his neck to try and rip the lim
bs away from his airway. Pipe Guy took the opportunity to land two blows to his thigh. Pissed off, in pain, and not ready to die, Nate levered against the man at his back and hauled his feet up to land in the chest of Pipe Guy. With a solid push, he sent the skinny man reeling backward to the ground. Using his momentum, he reached up, grabbed Choker’s head, and ripped forward sending him sailing through the air. His unceremonious return to the ground was punctuated with a dull thud. Nate pulled up to face Knife Guy and realized his luck had run out. When he stepped forward, the guy jabbed the weapon forward and into his gut. The poor fool looked almost as surprised as Nate at the blade sinking into flesh. His.

  “Fuck.” He tried to grab the guy’s hand and keep the knife in the wound, but the asshole jerked the blade backward and shoved it forward again. And again. By the fourth blow, Nate could feel everything slipping away. All he wanted was one last glimpse of the ones he loved with all his heart. One last chance to say the words he foolishly kept close. His legs collapsed underneath him and he sank to the concrete sidewalk. When his head plunked against the hard surface, he barely felt it. Was that good or bad? Why couldn’t he remember?

  A wave of cold rushed over him, an arctic blast gone rogue and wandered too far south. The perimeter of his vision grew fuzzy and darkened like an old picture with edges worn from being handled. His heart stuttered when a vision of Bel wafted into view. Regret sank deep into his bones at the image of her long flowing hair glowing in the sunshine. So beautiful. Had he told her enough? He should have told her every day. Should have told her how much he loved her.

  Liam, too. He deserved to hear the words. They both did.

  She rushed toward him with Liam hot on her heels. “I love you both.” Had he said the words or just thought them? It doesn’t matter now, does it?

  Surely they would know. Deep in their hearts, they would know the truth. Know they were his sun and moon. Please, God, let them know. Pain seared through his body. A surge of desperation shot through him when Bel’s beautiful face filled his view. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her. He was desperate to tell her, but his mouth refused to cooperate. No! He wasn’t ready to leave them. Wasn’t ready to stop living. Not when everything had finally come around. Life couldn’t be so cruel. Could it? The vision faded and everything grew dark.

  “No!” Bel couldn’t hear anything but Liam’s roar of pain when they found Nate on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Crouched over the lifeless body of one of the loves of her life, she knew without a doubt her world would never be the same. An agonized cry rented the chaos around them. Had the horrible screech come from her? It didn’t matter. Rage seared through her on a wave of heat that scorched all other thoughts from her stuttering brain.

  She popped up, grabbed the wrist of the frozen knife wielder, and wrenched his arm until the weapon fell from nerveless fingers. The blade sliced through the air and landed in her palm. Hilt gripped tight, she spun around and slammed it into the heart of the bastard who’d killed Nate. When she snatched the blade back from his chest he sputtered, looked down where blood bloomed, a grotesque rose, before he glanced up at her in shock. Without a second thought she threw the knife, embedding it in the guy’s throat. Crumpling with a gurgled scream, he died before his body hit the pavement.

  Behind her, Liam dispatched the big brute who lumbered to his feet, bat in hand, once she’d attacked. A chain wrapped around her forearm and jerked her to the right sending pain sizzling through her nerve endings. Dead brute forgotten, she twisted and grabbed the chain on her arm with the same hand and jerked him toward her. Once he stumbled from the force of her tug she reached up, tucked him against her body, wrapped an arm around his face, and snapped his neck with a deadly twist of his head. Adrenaline pulsed through her system, had her turn to see Liam had killed the last one while she’d been busy. With the threats eliminated, she turned back to the man who lay bleeding. The man who made her smile. The man who made her laugh. The man who made her moan in pleasure.

  Loss swept in to chill the fury she channeled to exact retribution. She dropped to her knees, jeans soaked in the blood of the man she loved and had never told. The words of the wizened old man rang in her ears. Too late to save the ones you love. Forehead pressed against Nate’s, she gripped the sides of his face as though she could make him stay.

  “You cannot die. I refuse to let you go.” Moisture dripped onto his face and she realized the tears were hers.

  “Bel.” The broken voice behind her belonged to the other man she loved. The one who shared her pain, maybe even felt it deeper. Liam tugged at her until she turned and latched onto him. Face crushed into his neck, she wailed at their loss. Cried for the unrecognized love they’d lost. Railed against the injustice of fate stealing her happy ever after just when she found it. “Bel. You have to listen to me.”

  The command from her only remaining love brought her head up even as the wet tracks continued to slide down her face. Regardless, the pain of losing Nate stabbed her not unlike the Disciple’s blade had stabbed him.

  “Good, baby. He’s still breathing. We haven’t lost him yet.”

  Confusion, doubt, and hope all warred within and she twisted around to look. But Nate no longer lay where she’d left him.

  “I’m sorry to pull you away, but we have to move quickly if we want to save him. I’ve sent Harlon for the doctor. They will meet us at the compound, but I need you to stand up.” His strong arms helped her rise, but with the knowledge Nate still lived, she allowed hope to take over.

  Deep inside, she found a tiny ember of belief, dragged it out of the dark pit in her soul, and pushed it at the love glowing in her heart. With hope and love filling her heart and drying her tears, she grabbed Liam’s hand and tore off to the compound at a dead run.

  Maybe she did still believe in fairy tales.

  ***

  Liam paced the seating area of their suite while the doctor tended to Nate in the bedroom. The ache in his chest was an all too familiar reminder. He’d failed. Again.

  Why could he never protect those he loved? It seemed he always failed to see what should be more than obvious. Of course Marcus would strike out against them. They’d thwarted his attempt at revenge. Turned his weapon against him and made her their woman. Loved her. Deeply.

  But, once again, he’d shirked his responsibilities, and the ones he loved suffered. Would Nate ever forgive him? Would he be alive to do so? Bel huddled on the couch alone. She’d hung onto him for a moment there on the street, but since they’d run for the compound she hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t reached for him. Maybe she blamed him, too. She should. He blamed himself.

  The door of the bedroom swung open, and the doctor stepped out. The rumpled man focused on Bel and smiled. “I’m glad to see you are doing better.”

  She lurched up from her seat. “Thank you. How is Nate?”

  Liam waited, rooted to the floor as hope and worry churned in his gut along with the knowledge of his guilt.

  “He’s not out of the woods yet; there is still a risk of infection, but I believe he has a good chance of recovery. He suffered only one really deep puncture. The others were shallower and somehow missed any major arteries. The knife wound is the one we need to watch.”

  “How bad was it?” Liam needed to know. Needed to hear how close Nate had come to dying.

  “He has a fairly deep stab wound to the liver. I’ve drained the site of excess blood and fluid and set him up with a drain you two will need to help him maintain for a week, maybe two. I’ll be in every couple days to check on him, but with the SecondSkin bandages in place around the drain site I believe we might be able to remove the drain fairly soon. The sooner the better. I want him fully closed up, but we also need to be sure the liver can get a head start on healing without infection setting in. Once we know that, I can give you a better idea of how long his recovery will be. No visitors but you, for now. We need to minimize his risks.”

  Bel hugged the man, thanki
ng him over and over. Finally, she let go, and Liam shook his hand. “Thank you for coming so quickly. We’ll send for you if anything changes before your next visit.” He handed the man a stack of EpiChips and showed him to the door where Harlon waited. Their second-in-command escorted the doctor out. Liam turned around to catch Bel when she landed in his arms.

  “Did you hear that? He’s going to be okay!” Her laughter rang out before she kissed Liam square on the lips.

  His anguish lessened a bit while he basked in her joy, but he still needed to take action to ensure everyone’s safety. “Let’s go in and see him.”

  Together they entered the darkened room where Nate slept. His lower body hid beneath a sheet and his upper body remained exposed, but coated in SecondSkin tech where a drain mechanism poked out of his flesh. A small, inarticulate cry escaped her when she saw him, but she held back from touching Nate. A tremble slithered through her, and she tucked her face against Liam’s chest. With his arms wrapped her for comfort, he couldn’t be sure who he tried to console. Maybe both of them.

  “Pet?” Nate’s wobbly voice carried from the bed.

  She whipped back around and stared at the now-conscious man.

  “Oh, Nate.” She eased forward and reached out toward him, but still hesitated to touch him.

  Never the shy one, Nate reached up and took her hand while he locked gazes with Liam over her head. “No tears, pet. I’m alive. Nothing else matters.”

  She nodded and reached back for Liam, and he let her pull him closer. “I love you two. I was a fool to wait so long, and I almost lost the chance to say it. I love you both with my whole heart and every fiber of my being.”

  “We love you, too.” Their unison declaration warmed Liam and helped banish some of the guilt.

  Together, the three of them quietly celebrated life and a second chance for a future together.