by Katee Robert
“Won’t be needing it where we’re going.” I nudge her across the back seat and follow her in, leaving Gaeton to walk around to the driver’s door.
Isabelle slaps my hands away when I reach to fasten her seatbelt. “You can’t be suggesting I’m not wearing clothes for the next two weeks. Don’t be absurd.”
Gaeton backs out of the parking spot and heads for the exit. “Depends on how many pieces of clothing you want ruined, Isabelle. Your choice.” The easy charm is gone again, leaving a simmering anger I recognize down to my very soul. Another similarity I don’t want to share with this man.
I lean back against the seat and look at her. Even out of her depth and looking like she’s just been fucked within an inch of her life, Isabelle is a study in perfection. She’s always been beautiful, but it’s the intelligence in those brown eyes that draws me in again and again despite myself. My position in Carver City would have been a lot more secure if I’d been able to resist that spark. Her father, Orsino, didn’t exactly disapprove of our dating her, but that man would have taken the moon right out of the sky for his youngest daughter, though, so he never said a word edgewise. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with it, though.
Fuck, but I miss him.
Angry at the loss of another person I cared about, angry at myself, I rake my gaze over her. “What the big man isn’t saying is that your pussy is ours for the next two weeks and we won’t tolerate anything limiting access.”
She jerks back, staring at me as if she’s never seen me before. “Have you always talked like this?”
Not to her. Never to her. I bound myself up in love until I couldn’t breathe, just so I could be worthy of this woman. All for nothing. All of it was for no goddamn reason. I lean forward and give her a cold look. “Only to the people I fuck.”
An important distinction, and one she picks up immediately. “I see.” She narrows her eyes. “So you’re going to fuck me, Beast? Take all that aggression and anger out on me?” She lifts her chin, a clear sign that she’s stepping to the line drawn in the sand between us. “Bring it on.”
“Isabelle,” Gaeton rumbles. “Playing the brat isn’t going to make him stick his cock into you out of spite. He’s got better control than that.”
I’m glad one of us is sure of it. Right now, it’s everything I can do not to fall on her and fuck her until she begs for mercy. Until I can get rid of the tight feeling of my skin being too small. No matter what I did for this woman, it wasn’t good enough, and when Gaeton finally called it quits and she should have been mine by right, she left me in the dust. And I still don’t know why.
I turn away from her and stare out the window. We are only a block from Gaeton’s, which feels like a block too far at this point. The icy calm I had in the Underworld is unraveling too fast to stop. I don’t know what will happen when it’s completely gone.
We arrive before I find an answer.
Gaeton’s place is like most of the other buildings in the neutral territory ruled by Hades. It’s a mishmash of businesses on the lower floors and apartments on the upper two-thirds. We are all silent as we take the elevator up to the twentieth. Not the top, but damn near it.
I raise my eyebrows at Gaeton. He smirks. “Don’t tell me—you got some cheap-ass apartment the size of a matchbox.”
He’s not wrong. We made good money under Orsino Belmonte, known as the Man in Black to everyone else, but with the future so uncertain, I chose not to blow more of it than necessary on rent. Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that nothing is for certain and having a financial nest egg can make the difference between surviving and ending up six feet under. If I wasn’t so paranoid, I wouldn’t have made it out of Sabine Valley alive.
I wish I could have ensured the same survival for Cohen.
I push the thought away. I don’t want to think about the past right now. I don’t want to think about anything but extracting every bit of pleasure from Isabelle’s tight little body in retribution. It’s enough. It has to be enough.
Gaeton opens his door—one of only four on the floor—and steps aside to let us precede him. There’s no way the apartment was furnished when he moved in. Current trends lean towards the modern look and fragile-as-fuck furniture. The massive couch and chairs dominating the living room look like they could hold three men of Gaeton’s size without a problem. He’s put down a thick gray rug that softens the marble floors. His dining table isn’t particularly huge, but the style wouldn’t be out of place in some ancient king’s banquet room. A pair of doors leads into what must be a bathroom and a bedroom. The kitchen is small and seems barren as hell, but the appliances are all top of the line. The real perk is the view. The massive windows look out over Carver City painting the night with an array of lights.
Gaeton closes the door and locks it. “Shall we?”
I don’t know if he means it’s time to talk or time to fuck, but I’m only in the mood for one of those things. I turn to Isabelle, who’s looking around with wide eyes, and inject a little snap into my tone. “Lose the jacket. Now.”
She hesitates but finally unzips the jacket and shrugs out of it. Good. “Now bend over the arm of that couch and brace yourself on the cushion.”
Isabelle flashes me a look. “No.”
A dark thrill soars through me. It likely says something unflattering about me that I want her to fight, I want to force her, knowing she’s getting off on it as much as I am. “You won’t like it if I have to repeat myself.”
“Safe word,” Gaeton rumbles.
“Candlestick,” she shoots back. Isabelle glares at me. “Repeat yourself all you want. I’m not bending over the arm of the couch like some kind of sacrificial lamb.”
Interesting that she sees it that way. The dark thrill surges higher. “Now, princess.”
She lifts her chin and says the two words destined to toss a lighted match into the gasoline-soaked room that is our current situation. “Make me.”
Chapter 6
Isabelle
For the first time in my life, I am acting on pure instinct. No thoughtful consideration of consequences. No playing out scenarios to reach the best solution. I am all animal as I back away from Beast, from the way his expression goes predatory. I brace for him to move, to chase me, to … I’m not sure what comes next. I’m afraid to even guess.
All I know is that I want it more than I want my next breath.
I’m so busy watching Beast, I don’t realize Gaeton has moved until he’s almost on me. I scramble back, but he eats up the distance in a single stride and grabs my upper arm. I expect him to pull me toward him and immediately dig in my heels, but he keeps moving, knocking me off balance and half dragging me to the pair of doors and into his room. I get a glimpse of his massive bed before he lifts me and tosses me onto it.
I don’t have a chance to find my bearings before he snags my ankle and flips me onto my back. Something soft and strong replaces his hand and then he’s moved to my free leg and repeated the process. I scramble to sit up and find that he’s cuffed my ankles to straps that seem hooked at the bottom corners of his bed. They’re long enough that they aren’t hurting me, but not long enough for me to be able to close my thighs. I jerk my legs up, but they’re too strong. “What the hell, Gaeton?”
He ignores me. “Beast, get in here.” He barely waits for the shorter man to walk through the door. “Hold her. I need to loosen the straps.”
I tense. “No!”
Beast climbs onto the bed. It’s a sturdy four-poster with a square frame connecting the posts that look strong enough to suspend people on. I can’t think about that too hard because he’s advancing on me. I expect him try to get behind me, but he settles right into the cradle of my thighs, his jeans creating an obscene friction. He props himself over me and studies my face. “Disappointed you didn’t get more of a chase?”
“Fuck off.”
The strap on my left ankle loosens and Beast uses his thigh to hitch my leg up, keeping me splayed. His grip gr
inds against my wrists and the ache makes my veins feel like there’s pure heat flowing through them. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. I’m so busy staring up at him in confusion that I barely notice Gaeton loosening my right ankle and Beast shifting me up the bed until the tension is tight again. “What are you doing to me?”
“What we should have done in the first place.” Beast looks up and releases one of my wrists. Gaeton clasps another cuff around it, then moves around the bed to repeat the process with my left wrist. I pull on the new bindings, but I am spread out and utterly helpless.
Beast sits back on his heels between my thighs and surveys me. “Nice setup.”
“Saves me from having to improvise.”
I twist to examine the cuffs on my wrists. They’re wide and padded on the inside. Tight enough that I can’t slip my hand out, but nowhere near tight enough to cause any kind of damage. It strikes me that he must have used them on others before. He brought others here and tied them up and—
Jealousy spikes, hot and toxic and something I have absolutely no right to.
Beast grips my chin lightly and turns my face back to him. His brows pull together the smallest amount as he considers me. “Is it being tied down that makes you unhappy or something else?”
Safer to say I hate the bondage. Safer to keep the selfish part of me hidden deep, because they will use any and all revealed vulnerabilities against me. I close my eyes. I promised honesty. I can do this. I don’t have another choice. “I like the bondage.”
“That’s a very careful nonanswer, princess.”
I swallow past my suddenly dry throat. “I was thinking about Gaeton having other people here. About what happens when he does.”
“How very hypocritical of you.” Beast looks over, guiding my face to do the same, to find Gaeton leaning against the wall, watching us with shuttered dark eyes. Beast sounds almost amused when he says, “Well, Gaeton? How many people have you fucked on this bed?”
“Answering that question serves no purpose.”
Relief twines with something less pleasant. He’s definitely had people in this bed. He doesn’t want to admit it. Gods, this hurts. It’s nothing more than I deserve, but it hurts all the same.
“Tell me something, Isabelle.” Beast drags his thumb over my bottom lip.
I’m not going to like what comes next. I already know it. “What?”
His voice is soft in my ear, but designed to carry to Gaeton as well. “How many cocks did you ride in the year since you rode ours?”
The smart choice is to keep my mouth shut, but I’m still dealing with the sting of Gaeton’s nonanswer. Beast moves back enough to look me in the eyes, and I have to fight the urge to snarl at him. “Answering that question serves no purpose.” I don’t know if I thought it would feel good to throw Gaeton’s words back in their faces, but all I’m left with is a hollow sense of sorrow. None of those people matter. None of them made up for what I lost.
I expect anger. I expect a mirror of the jealousy sticking its barbs deep into my heart. I don’t expect him to laugh in my face. “Sounds like you missed us.”
I blink. “How the hell do you make that jump in logic?”
“How many times did you fuck me and go straight to Gaeton because once wasn’t enough? Or the other way around?”
My face flames. More times than I care to admit. Because I couldn’t get enough, yes, but because they both offered me different things, even while they held back so much. “I’m sure you have a point you’re trying to make right now.”
“My point is I’m surprised as hell you didn’t fuck your way through the entire territory.”
“You are such an asshole. Who’s to say I didn’t fuck my way through the entire territory?” I want to spit poison, if only to expel it from my veins. This hurts. It hurts so much and even if I deserve it, I am incapable of taking the pain without lashing out. “Maybe the reason I fucked you both on the same day so often is because neither of you could get the job done.”
Gaeton finally moves, drawing our attention back to him. “Seems like Isabelle doesn’t need our cocks, Beast.”
Beast palms himself through his jeans, expression contemplative. He’s so close, I can feel the air displacement from his hand against my pussy. “Seems so,” he says slowly. Another stroke. His blue eyes narrow. “I don’t know about you, Gaeton, but I’m not inclined to stick my cock where it’s not welcome.”
“Yeah.” Gaeton’s voice has gone low. “I’m right there with you.”
Beast’s blue gaze goes wicked. “There is another option, if you’re up for it.”
The barest of hesitations. “You’re saying the best way to punish Isabelle is to show her exactly what she’s missing out on.”
I feel like they’re reading off a screenplay and I’m left to flounder in the dark. “Wait—”
“What do you say, Gaeton? Just this once.”
What? I feel like my eyes are going to pop out of my head. “No way. You aren’t saying what I think you’re saying. You hate each other. You’ll seriously have sex just to spite me?”
Gaeton is watching my face. He finally nods. “Just this once.”
Beast finally looks at him. “Be sure it’s what you want.”
“I don’t have to like you to want this. I’ve seen you fuck.” Gaeton gives a lopsided grin. “I’m sure.”
“Then strip.”
Gaeton is still grinning when he pulls his shirt over his head. My breath stalls in my lungs. Gods, I missed him. His body is carved in huge slabs of muscle. Not defined, exactly, but he looks like the men who compete in those Strongman competitions. His pants follow his shirt to the ground and then he’s standing there naked before us, his cock hard and ready. He palms it with a big hand and gives himself a rough stroke.
Is he …
Is Beast …
I look up, but Beast is watching Gaeton like he’s seeing him for the first time. It’s still not a friendly look, not really, but there’s clear lust in his blue eyes. Whatever his feelings about Gaeton, he’s just as affected by this show as I am.
Beast absently runs his hands over my hips. “He looks good, doesn’t he, princess?”
No lies. I’m not capable of them in this moment. “Yes.” It hurts to look at Gaeton. It hurts so much more than I expected. I loved them both, but Gaeton is the one who left me, the one I harmed with my inability to choose. My voice is hoarse as if I’ve been screaming for hours. “He looks good.”
Gaeton doesn’t spare me a glance. “You top.”
“I was planning on it.” Beast stops touching me and moves off the bed. The men walk together to a large cabinet in the corner and open it. I get a glimpse of a wide array of toys, everything from floggers to things I have no name for, but my gaze snags on Gaeton’s round ass and I stop worrying about what they’re quietly negotiating over there.
I didn’t envision ending up in this position when I went to the Underworld earlier tonight. I’m still reeling from how much these men kept from me in their individual ways. This is the kind of sex they got off on all along? The kind of sex I also get off on? Why couldn’t we figure that out together? Why did it have to be so …polite?
I’m partly to blame for that. I let my carefully couched questions fade to silence when I found them resistant. I never pushed for the things I truly fantasized about. I let them put me on a pedestal and I told myself I was lucky to have the two men I wanted most in my life.
The whole situation seems like a clusterfuck in hindsight. With each passing minute, it becomes clear just how effectively we lied to ourselves and to each other.
Gaeton and Beast finish their conversation and walk back to the bed. Beast has a thick flogger dangling from one hand and Gaeton’s lost his grin. They stare down at me, spread and vulnerable. Beast finally says, “You don’t get any cock tonight, princess. But be very good and we’ll allow you to earn both of ours.”
Humiliation burns me even as it stokes something inside m
e hotter. I am Isabelle Belmonte. I’ve never begged for anything in my life before tonight, and I’m not about to get in the habit of it. I have to fight to meet his gaze, to not look away. “I make no promises.”
“We know.” He motions to Gaeton without looking at him. “End of the bed. Hands on the frame over your head.”
The big man moves to obey. I have to keep my head lifted to see everything, and my neck already hurts. With his arms overhead, he looks even bigger, and he watches me with those dark eyes that contain too many emotions to name. Anger is there in spades. Desire, too. But that’s not all.
Beast moves to the side of the bed and carefully wedges a pillow under my head. I almost thank him, almost forget that they’re doing this to punish me. He’s gone before I make that slip.
He moves slowly toward the big man, his gaze intense. “How many strikes, Gaeton?”
Gaeton smirks. “How good is your stamina?”
“Good enough.” Beast moves out of sight. “Your safe word.”
Now Gaeton’s gaze drops to me for the briefest of moments. “Rose.”
Shock drowns out the sound of the first strike. I barely register the way Gaeton flinches, too busy repeating that word silently to myself. Rose, Rose, Rose. A nickname he’d jokingly called me because I love them so much. Roses of every color are my favorite thing. Beautiful and deceptively painful. My father went so far as to create a greenhouse just for roses as a gift for my eighteenth birthday.
I push the memory away. It hurts too much to think about now.
But all I’m left with is the sight of Gaeton stretched at my feet, the sound of the flogger making contact with his back. His eyes have gone a little hazy, and his flushed skin almost hides his freckles. It doesn’t take long before even his flinches have disappeared, leaving his body loose and relaxed. This is what pain can do to a person?
Beast appears again, holding the flogger with a contemplative look on his face. He transfers his attention to me, and I feel like I have nowhere to hide. This man sees everything. He raises his brows. “The princess wants to try out the flogger.”
