by Madison Faye
“Julia.”
I stopped her worries with a grin.
“Yes, you can tell us what you think after the club.”
She let out her breath, her shoulders relaxing as she smiled at me and then my friends.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. Her eyes sparked as she grinned wickedly.
“So…when does this club meet next?”
This time, it was our turn to grin.
“Tonight,” Luke purred. “I hear you’re good with masks.”
She blushed, biting her lip again, and I felt every muscle in my body coil with anticipation.
Tonight, she was going to peek behind the curtain. Tonight, she was going to really see what being shared by three of us would entail.
Tonight, we’d show her what she’d be missing if she denied us, and something told me, she’d be begging for more before the night was up.
11
Julia
“You’ve been acting strange.”
I glanced up into the mirror after my shower to see Emma lingering in the doorway to the bathroom
“Have I?”
She arched a brow at me, but I just shrugged.
“You know, just new work stuff. Jumping in and all that.”
“New work stuff responsible for that bruise in the shape of a thumb on your thigh and what is clearly a hickey on your neck?”
I blushed. “No, of course not.”
She smirked at me. “C’mon, you’ve got some hot office romance going on and you can’t tell me, your oldest dearest friend?”
“It’s—” I shook my head. “I can’t really talk about it.”
Because I’m screwing the Crown Prince of North Revania.
She grinned wickedly. “Ooo, a supervisor or something?”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, we’re going to ignore those bruises, and the fact that you’ve been walking around here like you’re glowing, which makes me think you’re having some amazing sex. Plus, you're getting all dolled up to go out.”
“It’s just a work—”
“A work thing, yeah,” she said sarcastically, eyeing the outfit I had hanging up on the hook across the room. “A work thing where you wear a super hot little black dress that I’ve never seen before but looks insanely expensive?”
It was. Luke, Micah, and Victor had had it delivered before Emma got home that day. That along with the box of insanely sexy black lace and gold lingerie. I was buzzing with excitement, though also with a nervous energy. To be honest, I was a little scared of what I’d see and what I’d learn going to the club that night, but also so excited in this forbidden way.
I mean, I was going to a secret, exclusive sex club with three gorgeous, dominant, amazing men — all of whom wanted me, all of whom I wanted, and all of whom were actual honest-to-goodness royalty.
Not exactly a normal Thursday night for me, and Emma could tell something was up.
“You’re just…” she bit her lip, shaking her head. “You’re just full of surprises these days aren’t you?”
I swallowed. “It’s really just a work thing,” I said quickly.
I mean, it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Very mysterious.”
“Emma,” I laughed, trying to deflect her. “Look, it’s just a thing, okay? Some people from work invited me out, and it’s kind of a fancy place.”
Lying to Emma wasn’t something I’d ever done. In fact, most of the time, I think we told each other entirely too much about our lives. But this felt different. This felt…secretive. Not to mention, as much as she was my best friend, Emma was a reporter. And if this whole thing with Luke, Victor, and Micah was going to be this big secret, seeing as who they were and what this was, then telling her didn’t really feel like the best move.
Nothing on her, it just felt weird to tell a secret that big to a person whose career was all about writing the truth and publishing it to millions of people.
“Fine,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Fine, I yield. I’ll stop. I have to go out anyways.”
“Oh?”
She shrugged, wagging her brows. “You’re not the only one with a hot date tonight, you know.”
“Well, well!” I beamed at her. “And do I get to pester you for details now?”
“Nope! I’m giving you a taste of your own medicine.”
We laughed, and she gave me a quick hug.
“Have fun tonight, girl.” She arched a brow. “And you’d better eventually tell me about what you’re up to.”
“I know, and I will.”
“Good.”
She turned, and I was just turning back to start my makeup when she poked her head back in.
“Hey, you ever find out if your boss is sporting one of those sex club tattoos?”
She squealed out a laugh and I chucked a washcloth at her as she skipped out of the room.
Emma had already taken off for her own mysterious date by the time I finished getting ready. I sat in our living room, nervously waiting for the town car the guys had told me would be picking me up. A limo with the three most recognizable and important men in the three kingdoms showing up at our apartment building wasn’t exactly subtle, so the car would take me to Luke’s palace, and from there, we’d go to the club.
The Triple Crown Club.
The dark, twisted, forbidden place of fantasy, and I was about to dive right in.
The knock on the door brought a gasp to my lips.
Must be the driver.
It was time. I smoothed my dress as I stood, taking a deep breath before I strode for the door.
“Hi, thanks for—”
I gasped loudly as I jumped back a step.
It wasn’t the driver.
It was Dan, the ex I’d left right before Emma and I moved in together. Dan who I’d caught cheating for the tenth time and finally left. Dan who’d treated me like shit for two years before I’d finally found a spine.
He’d barely even tried to contact me after I’d left, which suited me just fine. Life was just better without him. And God, now, with Luke, Victor, and Micah, life was amazingly better. And the last thing I needed on the night I was going to figure out what the four of us were and where I stood with that was Dan showing up at my front door.
“What do you want?” I hissed, keeping my hands firmly on the door and the door frame, ready to slam it in his face.
Dan grinned at me, his brows arching as his eyes took me in.
“Fuck, Jules, you got hot.”
I got hot. Dan was such a clueless asshole it was almost a joke.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I spat. “What do you want, and what are you doing here?”
His eyes — a little more haggard looking than I remembered — pulled up to mine.
“Heard you got a pretty swank new job.”
“And?”
“Guess it pays having family in high places.”
He was talking about Anya and her connections in Lorne that had gotten me this job, though how he even knew that was beyond me.
“I’m closing this door now.”
“Hold on.”
His booted foot jammed into the doorway, stopping me from shutting it.
“You going out tonight?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
He sneered at me. “You look like a whore in that dress, so I’m just curious who’s paying.”
“Fuck you, Dan,” I hissed, my teeth grinding.
“Only if you ask nicely, bitch,” he spat back.
This was ridiculous. I didn’t have time for this, and I certainly didn’t have the space in my head to deal with Dan’s crap. Not now, and honestly, not ever.
“Goodbye, Dan. I’d move your foot unless you’d like me to amputate it with the door.”
He grinned. “This isn’t over.”
“Trust me that it is,” I said cooly.
Dan just smiled this evil, horrible smile. “Be seeing you, Jules.”
His foot slipped from the door, and I slammed it shut, locking the deadbolt and the chain lock before backing away from it.
The town car driver called me five minutes later, but I gave it another ten before I finally left my apartment. And it wasn’t until the car pulled away that I finally let my breath out. I took another cleansing breath, clearing my head.
Tonight wasn’t about the past. Tonight was about the future.
The scary, exciting, wildly enticing and forbidden future.
Tonight was about me, and the three captivating, incredible, all-consuming men who’d come into my life and held on tight.
Tonight was about letting go, diving in, and seeing where I came up for air.
I shivered as the car drove into the night.
12
Julia
The manor house was way out in the country, out past the farmlands west of the main capital and through the forest beyond that. We’d driven in silence — calm silent from them, nervously excited silent from me — but when we pulled through the wrought-iron gates and up the curved, landscaped drive to the old stone mansion covered in ivy, I turned excitedly to them.
“This is it?”
“This is it,” Luke said with a glimmer in his eye, his hand dropping to my knee. “At least for tonight. Like I said, the location changes every time.”
The car came to a stop, and I shivered.
“Here, gorgeous,” Victor murmured, handing me a lush, black velvet mask. It was totally different from the cheap plastic ones we’d worn at the Masquerade night before — this one was rich, opulent, and somehow sexier as I ran my hands over it.
Or maybe it was just what I knew wearing it would bring tonight.
We put our masks on as we stepped from the limo and walked up the large stone steps up to the huge wooden front door. Two huge men in black suits blocked our path, but Micah stepped forward.
“Crown, castle, throne of old. Three kings seek to enter this house of gold.”
The men nodded as they stepped to the side.
Whoa.
Victor and Luke, on either side of me, found my hands, taking them in theirs as we stepped through the entryway and into the darkness beyond.
I gasped as we entered the manor. The place was all low light, dark wood, and red velvet — the very walls oozing raw sexuality and the floor practically pulsing with sexual energy.
I shivered.
Other men — all wearing tuxedos and masks like my three princes — moved past us. Some turned, their eyes behind their masks lingering on me in ways that had me blushing and biting my lip.
“Ours,” Micah growled, stepping towards a group of three men who’d lingered a little longer, their eyes sweeping over me.
“She’s spoken for,” he said menacingly, his hands tightening to fists at his sides.
The men nodded wordlessly and moved on.
We moved deeper into the house, and I felt my pulse roaring louder and louder with each step. There were other groups there — foursomes of three gorgeous men in tuxedos with stunningly beautiful women in elegant gowns and cocktail dresses. The masks made the whole thing somehow even sexier, and the fact that I knew the men were all royalty made it even more scandalously hot.
It was like a dirty little secret that burned deep inside, sending tendrils of fire through my body.
Luke passed me a flute of champagne as we stepped into another sumptuously elegant room. A woman with chestnut brown hair sat on a couch, moaning softly as a man in a tux sitting next to her kissed her deeply. On her other side, a second man nuzzled her neck, his hands skimming up her sides before he pulled her from the first man and twisted her head. He kissed her next, harder than the first man, his hands wandering boldly over her breast. Behind the couch, a third man leaned down, pulling her hair back and bringing his lips to her bare shoulder.
Raw heat pulsed through me, and I squeezed my legs together as the tingling feeling teased through my pussy.
The scene in the next room made me gasp. In there, a woman in a black cocktail dress similar to mine sat astride a man’s lap in a big chair. Her dress was pulled up around her waist, the man’s hands wandering her ass and teasing over her black thong. Her hands were between them, and my eyes went wide as I saw the way her arms were pumping.
Behind me, I felt one of my guys move in close. He growled, both he and Victor, teasing kisses up my neck as I watched the couple in the chair. A second man moved next to them, and wordless, she turned and started to pull at his zipper.
My jaw dropped.
Victor, Micah, and Luke had told me exactly what this place was, but watching it here in the flesh was another thing altogether. I gasped as she reached inside and pulled out his thick, rock-hard cock. My eyes wide, my breath hovering on my lips and Victor’s hands sliding up my sides, I watched as she leaned forward and wrapped her pouty lips around his cock.
It was the third man, moving to her other side and pulling his own cock out that sent a tremor through me. She turned, a hungry moan dripping from her lips as she opened her mouth and slurped him inside. Beneath her, the man whose lap she was straddling pushed her up a little. I watched, almost gasping out loud as he stroked his huge cock. He slipped her panties to the side and eased his head against her glistening pussy. She sat down on him, taking every inch of him and crying out as she sucked at the other man’s cock.
I was soaked.
I was buzzing with energy, and as I felt Micah and Luke move in around me, lips and fingers stroking my skin, I knew why I was here.
…I wanted this.
I wanted to experience this, and jump into the deep end.
I wanted them, and I wanted it all with them.
I turned my head, and before they could say anything, I grabbed Micah by the collar and yanked his mouth to mine. He growled into the kiss, his tongue seeking entrance as he pulled me against him. I turned, falling into Victor and doing the same to him. His hands grabbed my ass, grinding his thick erection into my belly as he tugged at the hem of my dress.
Luke was next, cupping my jaw and kissing me hungrily.
“Tonight is whatever you want it to be, beautiful,” he murmured.
“I want it all,” I gasped quietly.
“Soon,” Micah purred into my ear. “There’s more first.”
They started to pull me into another room, when suddenly, something flashed at me from my peripheral vision.
I yanked my head around, my pulse skipping a beat as I watch the brunette disappear around a corner.
No. Freaking. Way.
I wanted to say I was of course mistaken, and that there was no damn way I’d just seen who I thought I’d seen. But there are some people you know so well that even a mask won’t hide who they are when you see them in a place like that.
And I was ninety-nine percent sure I’d just seen my cousin Anya disappear around the corner of the Triple Crown Club.
“I’ll be right back,” I said absently, pulling away from my men.
“Wait,” Luke pulled me back by the wrist.
“I just need to—”
His smile stopped me. “I don’t mean wait like you’re not allowed to go anywhere, Julia.” He shook his head. “I’d like to say you’re mine — that you’re ours — but you’re not our property. You can go where you please here, but before you do…”
He reached into his pocket and drew out a small box. He opened it, and my eyes went wide at the little gold chain inside. It was a bracelet - delicate and elegant and covered in diamonds. And there, set in the middle of it, were three elegantly curved, diamond studded crowns.
He held my wrist out and put it on me, kissing the inside of my wrist as he clasped the bracelet on me.
“This just says you’re spoken for. If anyone approaches you, you just show them this, and the matter will be dropped.”
“It’s an understood rule here,” Micah added.
I swallowed, tracing a finger over it.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Fits you well then,” Victor murmured.
I looked up at them. “I’ll be right back, there’s just something I have to look into.”
“We’ll be right in here,” Luke nodded through an open doorway to a darker, sultry looking room.
I nodded, kissing each of them quickly before turning and heading off to find out if I was seeing things.
I caught a glimpse of her unmistakably gorgeous and enviable chestnut hair again as I watched her quickly step up a curved staircase through a crowd. I moved past the other groups, only once having to hold my wrist up and nod at the bracelet when a gorgeous man with a thick beard put a hand on my hip.
I followed the mystery girl up the staircase, stepping quickly after her as I watched her disappear around a corner.
I wanted to say there was no way it was Anya, but I’d known my cousin my whole life. If this wasn’t her, then she had a twin no one knew about.
I rounded the corner and frowned, my shoulders slumping as I looked down a long, totally empty hallway.
Damn.
I’d lost her.
I was turning to leave, when I noticed the women’s restroom sign on the door next to me and decided to duck in to take a breath before I rejoined my three men. And I was just pushing the door open, when it yanked open by itself, and I tumbled right into her.
This time, there wasn’t a shred doubt who it was.
Our eyes locked, and both of us gasped in shock at the same time.
“Anya?!”
“Jules?!”
We gaped at each other, jaws on the floor and eyes wide behind our masks.
“What— I mean, why. How?!” She balked at me, her face turning a shade of crimson that I’m sure matched mine.
…It’s not everyday you run into your cousin at an elicit, exclusive sex club.
She grabbed my hand and yanked me into the bathroom, poking her head out into the hallway and looking around before stepping inside and locking the door.
She yanked her mask off, and I did the same.
“What the hell are you doing here?” She hissed, her eyes wide.
