by Tate James
He guided me carefully into the water, letting me get warm and running his hands over my skin like he was committing my curves to memory. "How could I forget?" he murmured in response. "But Zed said he's got me on the schedule at Club 22 instead."
I jerked backward, placing a hand on Lucas's chest just beside his fresh ink. "Zed said what?"
Lucas quirked a brow at me. "Uh, he said that all the 7th Circle staff were being spread out between the other Copper Wolf venues so no one loses their job. I asked if I could go to Club 22 because it's my favorite one. It's so classy with everyone dressed in theme."
I gaped at him a moment, then a simmering anger built within me. "I'm gonna have to kill him," I muttered.
"Um, can I ask why?" Lucas reached for the bodywash and squeezed a healthy handful out into his palm.
I scowled. "Because he fucking well knew he wasn't supposed to put you on the dance schedule. He's constantly pushing my fucking buttons these days."
Lucas hummed a sound, gliding soapy hands over me and making my breath catch. It was really damn hard to stay mad at Zed while Lucas was playing with my nipples like that...
"Why not?" Lucas asked, pressing me into the cool shower wall with his body, his hot, hard length teasing at my belly. "I asked him to." His hands moved from my breasts and slipped down my sides, curving around to cup my ass.
I gasped as his hips pinned me, and he caught my lips in a quick, open-mouthed kiss.
"Yeah, but you're not... I mean, you and I are..." I was having a difficult time chasing my train of thought as his hands tightened under my thighs, lifting me and coaxing my legs around his waist. His thick shaft crushed against my aching pussy, and I almost forgot everything I was trying to say.
"You mean you're still hung up on not dating employees?" he murmured against my neck before kissing my pulse point and making me sigh in ecstasy. "Don't you think it'd be kinda hot to sneak around and fuck in your office? Don't you wanna watch me dance, knowing all I can think about is what I wanna do to you?"
Oh fuck. That did sound hot. But... ugh, there was something not sitting right with me.
"Lucas," I moaned, arching my hips as he ground against me. "I just... Wouldn't it feel a whole lot like I was taking advantage? Besides, I'm never letting you pay me back for your mom's medical, so—"
"Hayden," he cut me off, his voice sharp and firm as he met my eyes. "Maybe I wasn't clear on this. I'm not dancing at Club 22 because I'm desperate for money. I'm doing it because I enjoy stripping. I enjoy dancing and showing off my athletic skill on the pole. I'll do it for free, if that makes you feel more comfortable, but it's something I want to do."
My lips rounded into a silent Oh. Because... that actually hadn't occurred to me. And now I felt like a bigger asshole for not considering the fact that it was something he liked doing.
"I get it," he said with a laugh, kissing my stunned lips. "You don't want to feel like a sleazy boss. But if it makes you feel better, Zed has that crown permanently affixed to his head. The stories the girls at 7th Circle used to tell..." He shook his head, grinning.
I winced, not wanting to think about how many of the girls, both dancers and sex workers, that Zed had made his way through. It was only going to make me more likely to dump hand sanitizer on his dick before it came anywhere near me.
"Don't worry, babe," Lucas whispered, kissing my neck as he shifted my weight, pressing me back into the tiled wall again. "I don't have eyes for anyone but you. You're my first and my last."
Oh fuck. What's a girl to say to that?
I couldn't have spoken coherently even if I had something perfect to say because his shower-slick cock pushed into my cunt, stretching my walls and making me cry out in pleasure.
My fingernails dug into the flesh of his back as I tightened my legs, pulling him deeper and groaning at the slide of our flesh. "Lucas..."
"Hayden," he replied, my name like a prayer on his husky voice. "You're exquisite." His hips rolled, pulling his length out of me partly before slamming back in. I grunted at the impact, shivering with the electric waves of arousal chasing across my skin.
Clinging to him tighter, I reclaimed his lips with a fierce, demanding kiss. Our breath became one as Lucas pounded me into the wall, his hips pistoning faster with every stroke until my entire being seemed to be filled with liquid fire.
"Oh fuck," I hissed as my pussy walls tightened around his enormous dick. That appendage really was a gift from some generous god. "Lucas, I'm going to come."
"Good," he groaned back, "'cause holding out is killing me."
I gave a short, shaking laugh, but after two more thrusts from him, I shattered. He swallowed my screams with kisses, fucking my mouth as thoroughly as he was fucking my pussy, and joined me in climax just moments later with his cock buried deep inside me.
We were both breathing heavily when he gently lowered my feet back to the floor, but I was pure jelly, incapable of anything but propping myself up on the wall. Lucas knew it, too, grinning with satisfaction as he washed me, cleaning up the slick, hot spill of his cum between my legs, then soaping me all over again.
When we were clean, he carried me out to the bedroom and laid me ever so gently down on the bed. He barely gave me a minute to rest, though, before tugging me up onto my knees and sliding back into my pussy from behind.
As my sensitive, throbbing core lit up once more, I groaned long and hard and grinned into the bedding. Lucas had—no joke—a supernatural-level refractory period. Maybe he was making up for lost time after not losing his virginity until two months ago with me.
This time, since we'd both come so recently, we took our time with long, drawn-out, lazy fucking in a handful of different positions until eventually we both gave in to soul-shaking climaxes.
Neither one of us made any move to get under the blankets or even turn off the lights, and I quietly loved being able to see all of him. So we just lay there with our limbs intertwined, staring into each other's eyes while our breathing slowed and our sweat cooled. If anyone had told me a few months ago that's what I'd be doing with my nineteen-year-old dancer, I'd have laughed in their face.
But there was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it because he was a part of me now. He owned a piece of my heart, like I owned a piece of his.
Eventually, he shivered and reached for the crumpled blankets to pull over both of us, then propped his head up on his hand to peer at me thoughtfully.
"Did you and Zed have a good day? I noticed he didn't come home with you. Are things..." He trailed off, raising his brows to imply the rest.
I rolled my eyes, shifting my position to rest my cheek on my folded arms. "It was a business day," I muttered, even though my mind automatically went to that moment in my office when Zed had come so close to kissing me... then walked away. "He stayed to oversee the DNA testing, make sure no one tampered with the samples or results."
Lucas nodded his understanding. "I see. So you didn't..."
I gave him a slow smile. "Are you asking if I fucked Zed in my office, Lucas?"
He didn't even look slightly embarrassed, just gave a one-shouldered shrug.
I rolled my eyes. "No. We're not... We didn't. I'm just not there yet. We've got shit to work through, and then there's Chase..." My excuses sounded lame even to me. Lucas just arched a brow, so I flipped the tables on him. "Why? Would you have been upset if we had screwed?" Because I could have sworn there’d been a touch of relief in his eyes when I said no.
Lucas grinned. "Upset? No. No way. Not with how I know you feel for him. But jealous? Oh my god, yes. Every time you go to Cass, it takes everything I've got not to march in there and steal you back. Drives me fucking insane."
His cheeks pinked as he admitted this, and I raised my head to peer at him in surprise. Of all of them, Lucas had taken the whole sharing idea the most comfortably, maybe because he considered himself the newcomer, despite being the first one between my thighs.
"So why don't you?" I murmured, already
feeling the warmth of arousal as my imagination wandered.
His brow raised. "Why don't I... what? Bust into your room while you're with Cass? Well shit, for one thing, that would be rude as hell and totally contradictory to everything I said I was okay with in this relationship." He swiped a hand over his face, giving me a rueful smile. "For another, I don't fancy Cass bashing my head into a wall for cockblocking him. Grumpy Cat is in a foul mood on the best of days; I badly don't want to see him if he got interrupted mid-fuck."
I couldn't help laughing at that imagery. But I knew something Lucas didn't: Cass had been perfectly content to let Zed join us that night by the fire.
"What if he didn't get angry?" I suggested in a low, seductive whisper. "What if he let you join us?"
Lucas's brows rose even higher, and his cheeks flushed with deeper color. "Like... like a threesome?" His voice was tight with surprise, his eyes locked on mine like he was trying to gauge what the "right" response to that would be. I knew full well that I was his first, but goddamn, I was curious if that would ever be a possibility.
I nodded, biting the edge of my lip.
He cleared his throat, looking to the ceiling for a moment before returning his gaze to mine. "Have you... um... have you ever had a threesome before?"
My body stiffened, my spine crackling with ice. I should have thought this through before suggesting it. Still, I owed Lucas my honesty, and he'd more than proven he could handle anything I said.
Swallowing heavily, I nodded. "Not..." My voice was rough, and I tried again. "Not willingly." Because I didn't consider that little show for Zed a three-way. Nor did I count the other day when he played with my clit while Cass fucked me. No... the real threesomes—and more—that I'd been involved in were deeply entangled in Chase's abuse.
Lucas didn't respond for a long moment, then he leaned down and kissed me softly. "I understand," he whispered, even though he really, truly didn't. No one did. Except maybe Zed... because he'd seen the tapes.
A deep shudder ran through me, the memories creeping through my mind like wet tar as I fought against curling into a fetal position and crying.
"I would give anything in this world to chase those demons out of your eyes, Hayden," Lucas told me in a soft, deeply sincere voice as he kissed my cheek. "Literally anything. A threesome would be the least of what I'd do."
I tilted my head, bringing my lips to his for a soft kiss, desperately trying to show him how much he meant to me with just my kiss alone. But it wasn't enough. It'd never be enough because being with Lucas gave me hope... that I wasn't irreparably damaged. That those horrific, nauseating memories could be erased and replaced with good ones. And he was making it his mission to help me do that.
"I love you, Lucas," I whispered, the unshed tears thick in my voice.
His lips parted mine, and he kissed me with all the intensity and passion of a storm, making my emotions build to the point of painful inside my chest. Then he soothed it all away with gentle strokes of his tongue that reminded me of his promise so fucking early in our relationship.
He was the lighthouse in the storm. He was my safe place. My saving grace.
15
I had no idea what time it was when Zed woke us up by slamming the door open and barking that he had the test results. But the second his words registered, I sat bolt upright, all residue of sleep fleeing my brain in an instant.
"What happened?" I demanded, alarmed enough that I forgot I was naked. Until Zed's eyes rounded and his gaze seemed to become laser-targeted to my nipples, that was. I drew a sharp breath, grabbing for the sheet as Zed gave a pained grimace.
"Test results?" Lucas prompted with a heavy yawn. He had barely even moved, his cheek still pressed into the pillow with his face toward me. His bare back showed a multitude of red marks from my fingernails, and I caught the way Zed's eyes narrowed as he took that all in.
Then Zed's attention jerked back to me, and his expression shuttered. "Yeah, genetic results all came back, and they found a positive familial link."
That... was not what I'd been expecting. My heart thumped hard against my chest wall, and even Lucas sat up slightly to squint at Zed.
"Who?" The one-word question left Lucas's lips with dread.
Zed held my gaze steadily, then shifted his eyes to Lucas and back to me again. Then he gave a small, apologetic shrug.
My guts twisted, and a cold sweat broke out all over my body. "No fucking way," I said in a choked whisper. "No."
Lucas, confused, frowned at me with his lips parted in question. Then my panicked expression must have clicked the thoughts together for him, and he gasped in horror and damn near leapt out of the bed.
"Zayden De Rosa," I barked, giving my best friend a hard glare. There was something off about his posture... or maybe that was just wishful thinking because I badly, desperately didn't want to find out I'd been fucking my biological brother. Oh fuck. I was going to throw up.
"What?" Zed replied, tilting his head to the side.
Lucas was already in his pants and stalking across to Zed. He snatched the paperwork out of Zed's hand—I hadn't even seen that there—and ran his eyes over the page.
His shoulders sagged as he let out a long sigh of relief, then his fist snapped out and clocked Zed in the face.
"Not fucking funny!" Lucas snarled as Zed recoiled.
I sprang out of bed, abandoning my sheet and modesty in favor of saving Lucas if Zed chose to strike back, but the shithead was just laughing as he cupped his eye.
"Oh, come on," Zed groaned, a devilish grin plastered over his lips. "That was hilarious."
Lucas wasn't laughing. He was enraged, and I was pretty sure he wanted to hit Zed again, so I got in front of him and gave him a solid push toward the door. "Take a minute, Lucas," I told him in a calm, firm voice. "I'll deal with this."
Fury held his jaw tight and his eyes narrow, but he jerked his head in understanding and left the room as instructed. Which left me alone with a grinning idiot.
"You're a bastard, Zayden De Rosa," I whispered on a long exhale. The adrenaline that had hit me so suddenly when I thought Lucas and I were truly siblings had drained away, leaving me trembling and cold.
He didn't even try and wipe the smile off his face as he stepped closer to me. "Aw, come on, you'd have done the same thing if you saw the opportunity."
My jaw dropped at the accusation. "Fuck no, I wouldn't have! Zed, you made us think we'd been..." I shook my head, a deep shudder running through me. "You're a bastard," I reiterated.
He reached out a hand, grasping my waist and pulled me a step closer to him. Fuck. I was still totally naked, and his gaze was suddenly so hot it was like looking into the sun.
"That's not exactly news, Dare." His face dipped, his nose brushing a teasing line down the side of my neck that made my nipples tighten painfully and my body sway into his.
I swallowed, fighting for some brain power. "I thought you didn't like the look in my eyes when we're together." Oh wow. If there was any question whether I was attracted to Zed, the raw sex and longing in my voice would have sealed the deal.
He straightened up enough to meet my eyes as one of his hands cupped the back of my neck and his thumb tilted my chin up. "I don’t," he agreed. "But you know what I hate more?"
I had a fair idea, yes. But for the sake of flirty banter, I played the game. "What?"
"I hate not being able to touch you." The pain in his eyes was almost enough to make me crumple. But it wasn't as simple as just my own stubborn bullheadedness holding me back. It was all my shitty, toxic baggage.
So I forced a lighter tone as I replied. "You're touching me right now, Zed."
My attempt at a joke fell flat as his gaze hardened. "Not the way I want to touch you, Dare. Not the way I've been... Fuck. Not the way I've been literally dreaming about for goddamn years."
I bit the inside of my cheek, totally at war with myself on what to do next. But even as strictly disciplined as I kept my emotions, my tongue
was one thing I couldn't seem to control around Zed. Not when he looked at me the way he was.
"So show me," I told him in a low whisper. "Show me how you really want to touch me, Zed."
He drew a shuddering breath, his eyes flashing with uncertainty like he was questioning whether he'd imagined that request.
So I said it again, despite the fear gnawing at my stomach. "Show me, Zed, or quit your fucking moping."
That snapped something in him. One second we were standing in the middle of the room, and the next I was against the wall with the light switch digging into my bare back. Zed kissed me with savage intensity, his thrusting tongue parting my lips and destroying my soul. I melted under his touch, my body curving into his like we were magnetized, and heat flushed through my lips as his hands explored my body.
He paused when his fingers brushed over my inner thigh, though, like he was second-guessing how far my challenge really extended.
In a desperate effort to run from the nightmares in my mind, I tilted my hips, encouraging him, as I bit his lower lip a fraction harder than playful.
Zed groaned, and his fingers slid inside me with startling ease. Really, though, I shouldn't have been so surprised. Zed had been getting my panties wet a long damn time before I’d even admitted I was crushing on him.
"Holy fuck," he breathed against my kisses. "Dare..." He pumped his hand, fucking me with his thick fingers as I quivered and squirmed, my arms banded around his neck.
I kept kissing him, trying with all my strength to keep myself here, in the moment. With Zed and no one else. But the sound of something breaking downstairs made me flinch a hundred times harder than I ever would have normally, and Zed froze.
Then he peeled my hands away from his neck and gripped my face between his palms, forcing me to meet his eyes.
I swallowed back the frustration and fear, knowing and hating the fact that he could see it all. He could see how not okay I was... how fucked up I still was. And how deeply intertwined he was with those awful memories and emotions.