by Katee Robert
A shower isn’t enough to clean off the sick sensation coating my skin. I feel like I’m in the middle of a maelstrom, currents whipping me this way and that. I want Isabelle. I never stopped wanting Isabelle, even when every moment away from her drove me out of my mind with jealousy because I knew she was with Beast and he was giving her things I never could. That jealousy might be nowhere in evidence now, but it doesn’t change the history. There’s too much pain there, too many fuck-ups.
And Beast? That shit is not as simple as I’ve let myself believe. I’ve hated him and yet trusted him at my back for years. And all the questions of what if? that I haven’t let myself contemplate? I’m no closer to finding answers now than I was before agreeing to this. Last night he fucked me. This morning I sucked his cock. It’s one hell of a problem.
Not that I regret it. I don’t. But now that I know what he’s like in bed, I’m craving more. This was supposed to be us working through our shit with Isabelle. It wasn’t supposed to be us working through our shit with each other. Another complication I don’t want or need.
I never should have agreed to this.
I press my forehead to the cool tile and exhale. The sound almost masks the door opening. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too fucking bad.”
Surprise snaps me out of it long enough to turn to face Beast. “You.”
He didn’t bother to put on pants before he came in here, and the sight of him naked throws me for another loop. We’ve participated in scenes together a few times over the last twelve months, but he always, always keeps his clothes on. Last night is the first time I’ve seen him naked.
I wish I could scrub the sight from my mind.
Scars rope his body from the neck down, as if whoever fucked him up couldn’t bear to mar the perfection of his face. Either someone tortured him at some point, or he’s been in more knife fights than I can count. Not to mention shot a few times for spice. His enemies left his penis alone, too, which might amuse me if I could dredge up anything but the sick feeling in my chest. The piercing at the head of his cock draws my attention, and it takes everything I have to drag my gaze up to his face. “This was a mistake.”
“Last night, I might have agreed with you. Now?” He shrugs. “We need this.”
“Which we, Beast? You and Isabelle? Me and you? Sure as fuck not me and Isabelle.” I’ve worked so fucking hard to keep my anger locked down. Damn near four hundred days of seeing Isabelle and keeping a polite face like I wasn’t dying inside. Of working next to Beast when half the time I want to wring his graceful neck and the other half of the time I’m forgetting myself and fantasizing about sucking his cock. “She was never going to pick me.”
There it is. The truth that’s eaten me alive since we decided to both date her. I never figured myself for a masochist, but I always am for this woman. I can’t do it anymore. I fucking won’t.
Beast gives me a long look and starts forward. I have six inches on him, but his presence dominates the space, driving me back a step before I catch myself and plant my feet. “What are you doing?”
“You missed a spot.” And then he’s in the shower with me. Too close, too fucking close. What the hell is he doing? He holds my gaze steadily. “Turn around.”
“This the part where you bash me over the head and toss me out a window?”
Beast smirks. “If you’re not brave enough to give me your back …”
“Reverse psychology doesn’t work on me.” But he keeps coming. Another step, we’re going to be chest to chest, cock to cock. I look at those sinfully curved lips and I may have wanted to kill this man more times than I can count in the past, but right now I really want to kiss him.
I turn around. It’s the lesser of two evils.
Beast’s hand comes around me to get at the soap and then he’s touching me, scrubbing my back in broad strokes. It feels good, far better than it has right to. But then, I’m still hard as a rock. Anything would feel good at this point. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I brace my hands on the tile and his touch turns leisurely.
I should recognize a trap when I see it.
“If her choice was so obvious, it wouldn’t have stretched out as long as it did. You were the one who left her.”
And then she left Beast.
No matter how torn up I feel, I’m not going to rip myself open for this man. I might trust him with my body, I might want to fuck him a truly absurd amount, I might even trust him at my back in a firefight, but Beast is not my friend. He’s not one to hold confidences without intending to use the vulnerability against me. “This pact was a mistake.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Beast’s hands move to my sides and then around to my chest. He’s not quite pressed against my back, but I can feel him a bare inch away. I go still, barely daring to breathe. His hands coast down my stomach and stop just short of my cock. He lowers his voice. “Are you furious about the past? Or are you furious because you want my cock in your ass again?”
“I don’t want you.” The lie doesn’t sound the least bit convincing.
“Don’t you?” The bastard still doesn’t move his hands, doesn’t continue the descent I desperately need him to. “You don’t want me to jack your cock right now?” I can hear the cruel smile in his voice. “You would say no if I got down on my knees and offered to suck you off?” Each word is a dark temptation brought to light. I stare unseeingly at the tile. I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking move. I can only stand here while he weaves this spell around me.
The barest brush of his cock against the bottom curve of my ass. “You don’t want to sink into Isabelle’s sweet little pussy while I pound your ass like I did last night?”
If I turn around, I’m going to kiss him. I’m going to do a whole lot more than kiss him. I try to regulate my breathing, but my body isn’t listening. I’m damn near gasping through each inhale and exhale. “What are you suggesting?”
“A pact of our own.” His fingertips graze my hipbones. “We close this triangle for the next thirteen days.”
I want that, but… “Why offer this?”
“I want to fuck you.” He says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world. He wants to fuck me, so he will. “You want to fuck me. There’s never been a better time to get it out of our system, if you want to call it that.”
It sounds reasonable and simple, which means it’s anything but. “You know better than most that sex is not that simple. Not with anyone. Especially not with us.”
“Gaeton.” His mouth brushes the spot between my shoulder blades, there and gone in an instant, and it’s everything I can do not to arch back into his touch to invite him to repeat the motion. “Stop thinking so hard about consequences and tell me what you want.”
“Fucking fine. I want you. I just don’t like it.”
“Welcome to the club.” Another slow drag of his mouth across the sensitive skin of my back and then his hand closes around the base of my cock. Not stroking. Just gripping me like he owns me. “Turn around.”
It’s a mistake. I know it’s a mistake even as I obey his command. He doesn’t release my cock as I turn, just uses his hold to urge me back until I’m pressed against the cool tile. “You didn’t get yours earlier.”
No, I didn’t, but that’s the least of my issues right now and Beast knows it. He’s offering me a gift of sorts, a distraction from the shit all tangled up in my chest. This isn’t simple, but compared to dealing with my conflicted feelings about Isabelle, it’s a walk in the park. “You offering to get me off?”
“Something like that.” His lips curve the smallest amount and that same amusement I glimpsed earlier flickers through his eyes.
Fuck, but he’s pretty. It’s easy to forget that because he’s so hard, but right now, the only hard thing about Beast is his cock. I swallow past my suddenly dry throat. “Be my guest.”
Beast doesn’t move. “Say yes.”
As if I’m in danger of saying anything else. “He
ll yes. Suck me off, you bastard. Make it good.”
He sinks to his knees as gracefully as any subbie despite the thick scar across his thigh that gives him pain when it rains. Strange that I know so much about a man I used to want dead more than anything else in the world. I didn’t realize back then that Beast wasn’t the issue with my relationship with Isabelle. He wasn’t the fatal flaw. I’m still not sure what was, even after all this time. Maybe it was her independence, her aversion to being tied down in anything resembling a life with a white picket fence or whatever the fuck normal people wanted. As if I’d know where to begin to offer her that life.
Beast taps my thigh sharply. “Eyes on me, Gaeton.”
I obey, and just like that, I’m not thinking about Isabelle. I’m held captive by Beast’s baby blues as he sucks my cock into his mouth. He has to fight a little to work himself down my length, until his lips meet my base. It feels so fucking good, my thighs quiver and I have to lean harder against the wall.
He growls low in his throat, and I feel it all the way to my balls. The back of my head hits the tile and I have to close my eyes. “Fuck.”
Beast digs his fingers into my thighs. Hard. It’s enough to get me looking down at him again, enough to know I’ll be sporting bruises from his fingertips later. That thought should bother me. This man isn’t my Dom, even if he wants to come to some sort of agreement for the next two weeks. I’m not even sure I like the asshole.
But, fuck, he can suck a dick.
He works me expertly, using teeth and tongue to bring me right to the brink. All the while, he grips my thighs, giving me that lashing of pain I crave. It’s rough and dirty and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I curse. “I’m close.”
He releases my thighs long enough to take my hands and place them on either side of his head. A single look and I know exactly what he wants. I rasp out a laugh. “Trust you to top from the bottom, you bastard.” His hands go back to my thighs and then I’m fucking his mouth in rough, ragged strokes. So close. I want to make this last and I don’t want to make this last.
It’s not forever.
It’s just an exchange of pleasure. That’s all. That’s all it can ever be with us. We have too much bullshit between us, but who knows? Maybe this will be the clean slate we could never figure out how to create.
I come with a curse and watch as he drinks me down. Beast keeps sucking me in slow pulls until I gently shove him off my cock. “Enough.”
Beast licks his lips. “One last question, and answer it honestly.”
I already know I’m not going to like this, just like I recognize that I’ve gone too far to change my mind now. He fucked my ass last night. We’ve both given each other blowjobs this morning. This roller coaster has reached its peak and we’re half a breath from free fall. “Yeah?”
“Are you furious at Isabelle for wanting to play the part of our dirty little slut? Or are you furious at yourself for wanting it, too?”
I can’t take a step back because of the wall, and he’s kneeling in my path out of the shower. I know without a shadow of a doubt that he planned things this way. “You are such a bastard.”
“Yes.” He gives my thighs one last squeeze and draws his middle finger along my cock. “Answer the question.”
“Both.” I shudder out a breath when he cups my balls. “I’m angry about both.” I simultaneously want to slap his hands away and demand that he never stop touching me. “I don’t understand why you’re not pissed about it.”
“Life is too short, too uncertain, to deny yourself what you want.” He plays his fingers up the underside of my cock and then grips me just behind the head. It’s still not enough to do more than tease, not when I just came so hard, but it feels so fucking good. Beast leans forward and bites my thigh just inside of where I can still feel his fingerprints on me, and I can’t help thrusting against his grip. His dark chuckle fills the space around us. “Sometimes those wires get crossed, but I know what I want now.”
Then he releases me and pushes to his feet.
If I wasn’t already bracing against the wall of the shower, I might have fallen. As it is, I’m left blinking and disorientated. Maybe that’s why I tell the truth. “It hurts. Even when it feels good, it hurts.”
He doesn’t ask for clarification, but then out of everyone else in the city, Beast is the one person who might actually understand what I’m saying. “If we don’t deal with it, the three of us will rip the entire territory apart.”
Leaving is no longer an option. I don’t know if it ever was. I finally nod. “Okay. I’m in.”
“Trust me to guide you today.”
I finally get my balance enough to push off the wall and look at him. He walks out of the shower and grabs two towels. It’s weird as shit, but the alternative is standing here out of spite, so I turn off the shower and accept the second towel.
What he’s offering … I shouldn’t agree to it. I understand that engaging in what is the equivalent of a prolonged scene is just kink, but I know myself and I’m not certain I can keep up the necessary barriers to walk out the other side of this unharmed when Isabelle invariably chooses Beast. And that’s without adding submitting to this man into the mix.
I still find myself nodding. “Today.”
Beast gives a little smile, like he finds my qualifying terms cute. That dual urge to punch him and kiss him rises, and I focus on drying off instead. He opens the door and glances out into the room. “Get dressed, Gaeton. Something nice like you’d wear to the old man’s house.” His brows lower for the barest moment. “I need to have some of my shit brought here.” He disappears into my bedroom and I follow more slowly, already bracing for seeing Isabelle.
She’s not there.
Guilt pricks me, and no amount of telling myself that I’m balancing the scales makes it disappear. I dress quickly, pulling on a pair of black slacks and a dark red button-down. After the slightest hesitation, I slip on socks and shoes, too. Beast is setting a specific kind of stage, so it pays to be thorough.
For his part, he makes a quick call and then frowns down at his discarded clothes. It would figure that Beast is one of those people who can’t stand wearing clothing more than once. I consider him. He’d be swimming in any of my slacks and shirts. “Hold on.” I dig through my closet to come up with a pair of lounge pants that I bought on a whim—and promptly shrank in the wash.
He raises his eyebrows when I toss them to him, but pulls them on without a word. They’re still a little big, hanging low on his hips despite him tying them tightly. Not quite the look he’s going for, but it’s a look I can appreciate. He glances at the door, but makes no move to open it. “Sit at the head of the table and wait.”
I can see where he’s going with this, but part of me still wants to dig in my heels. “You know this won’t make it right.”
“Do I know that?” Another ghost of a smile. “Go sit at the head of the table, Gaeton. Let’s restart your day.”
In the end, there’s nothing to do but obey. I agreed to this—both the original pact and the one that includes Beast’s cock at my disposal. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be in the mood to fight him, but right now, I’m so fucking tired. Letting him call the shots is exactly what I need, even if I don’t want to admit as much to him. Looking into those sharp blue eyes, I realize I don’t have to admit shit.
He understands.
Fuck, maybe he always has.
I don’t know how to grapple with that knowledge, so I put it away and follow Beast out of the room. Isabelle sits on the couch, wrapped in one of the thick blankets I had stashed in the chest coffee table, and staring out the window. She doesn’t look over as we approach, which is just as well.
I was a dick earlier. I humiliated her, and then we left her hanging. If it was part of the plan, that’d be one thing, but I can’t pretend it was. I wanted to hurt her, and so I did. An asshole move in a normal relationship. Damn near unforgivable when she’s entrusting herself to us the way sh
e is.
I make it one step toward her when Beast catches my eye and gives the slightest shake of his head.
Right. Follow his command.
I stalk past the couch and nudge out the chair with my foot. I throw myself into the chair and slouch there.
And wait.
Chapter 12
Isabelle
I hear the men come out of the bedroom, and I can’t help tensing as Gaeton walks past me. I don’t know what I expect. For him to keep cutting me down the way I probably deserve. For him to pretend like he never delivered that sting. For something else altogether.
I don’t expect him to ignore me completely and walk to the table situated just off the kitchen. It’s built just as sturdy as everything else in this apartment, a square table that looks like it can easily hold a handful of people dancing on it. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks out the window.
What’s going on?
Beast appears on my other side and crouches in front of me. He’s wearing what are obviously Gaeton’s lounge pants, and the sight of his bare chest has the past slamming into me with the force of a tidal wave. It took six months of dating before he walked around shirtless in front of me the way he’s doing now. He’d die before he admitted it aloud, but he’s self-conscious about his scars.
He reaches out and runs his hands along the edge of the blanket I found, his knuckles skating along my skin. “Do you want to use your safe word?”
I flinch back, but his hold on the blanket keeps me from going anywhere. “You can’t honestly want to continue after that.”
His smile contains the tiniest bit of warmth but it feels like standing in the hot July sun. “Communication has never been our strong suit—any of our strong suits. There are going to be hiccups.”
“There are going to be hiccups along the way to where?” Part of me wants to just let it go, but I can’t. I just can’t. “Hiccups for the next thirteen days while you punish me for how things fell apart before? Or while you do whatever this is and I have to pick one of you?” The thought of having to make that decision has an invisible strap tightening around my chest. I don’t know if I can do it, Sienna’s algorithm in play or not. If it was such an easy choice, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.
