by Kit Rocha
He drew in a slow, controlled breath and held her gaze as he opened his pants, freeing his cock. Then he gripped her wrist hard and guided her fingers to his shaft.
Smooth. Silky. Hot. She knew all the right ways to layer sensation, to build from anticipation to need to climax. But she'd never had to focus before with Scarlet's tongue thrusting into her, with Mad's fingers rubbing slow circles around her clit—clever, wicked circles that teased without relieving.
Breathing raggedly, she tried to focus on sliding her hand up his erection. And it was impressive, long and so thick her fingers barely met when she returned to the base. She watched his face as she stroked him again, gratified to see his jaw tighten and his eyes flare with lust.
His voice was burning, too. "Mad?"
That sweet, taunting touch vanished, and Jade would have moaned in protest if Mad hadn't shifted his weight to his elbow and leaned across her body. From inches away she watched, heart pounding, as Mad parted his lips and enveloped the first few inches of Dylan's cock.
Dylan laid his hand on the back of Mad's head and rubbed his cheek with his thumb. The gesture spoke of intimate familiarity, of something precious. "Do you know what he wants?"
"No," she admitted softly. "Every time I try to guess, I'm wrong."
Dylan tugged her other hand to rest on the pulse pounding in the hollow of Mad's throat. "When I can't stand how good your sweet little fingers feel anymore, I'm going to come all over you. And he has to lick up every single drop before he can fuck you."
It was elegant vulgarity in a voice so casual her brain scrambled to process the image. Not the overprotective tenderness she'd always imagined Mad would require, but raw, lewd sensuality.
And his pulse racing under her fingertips made it true.
She was still reeling when Mad licked his way down Dylan's cock and over her fingers. He'd left enough wetness behind to let Jade slide her hand more easily, and she'd almost regained her balance when Scarlet leaned up and joined him. She flicked her tongue over the head, then lingered to slowly trace the crown.
Dylan's head fell back, his rigid control slipping, and Jade stroked her thumb along the underside, all the way to the base, before wrapping him tight in her fingers.
It was easy. Effortless. They found a rhythm as if they'd choreographed it—Jade's firm, slow caresses, Scarlet's hot, taunting mouth, Mad's demanding tongue. But it was so much simpler than coordination. It was purity of purpose, something she'd glimpsed when they had all finally gotten their hands on Scarlet.
There was freedom in not having to be everything, all by yourself. There was joy in sharing the victory of each tensing muscle, every noise they pulled from Dylan's elegant throat.
He looked down and closed his fingers around hers. Scarlet kissed the back of his hand, then slid back down Jade's body to lick her clit, jolting warmth through her that quickly turned to fire in her veins.
Then Mad touched her, too. "Show me," he rasped. "Show me what gets her off."
Scarlet kissed her way up his arm and bit his shoulder. "Start slow," she whispered. "Too many fingers, but easy. Careful."
Scarlet always started with three. So did Mad, but his were bigger, and Jade panted as they pushed against her, and then inside her. So slow, a fraction of an inch at a time, and sometimes she hated how much she loved that implacable advance. Too much, too fast, and she lost this moment in the rush of sensation.
Now she could only feel it, savor it, until she gave in to the inevitability of being utterly filled.
Dylan watched her, his hand tightening around hers, squeezing his dick, as her pleasure mounted. "Nothing hidden now, Jade. Nothing at all."
Regret cut through her, because it was a lie. She was still hidden—her name, her past, the raw, battered heart of her—but in the next moment it slipped away, buried under a jolt as Mad sank his fingers as deep as they would go. She gasped, shuddering at the fullness and the friction, and Dylan nodded and licked his lower lip.
She wasn't hiding her responses, and that was all he demanded tonight.
"Fucking hell," Mad groaned, rocking his fingers. "She's squeezing me so damn tight."
"Tight enough to hurt?" Scarlet breathed.
"Not yet." He turned his head to Scarlet's and growled his next words against her cheek. "How do I get her there?"
It didn't matter what Scarlet said. The question itself was almost enough to get the job done. The low eagerness of it, the fact that he would ask it at all. She'd thought sharing victory was heady, but it had nothing on being the focus of it.
"Harder." Scarlet's soft command was muffled against Mad's shoulder. He obeyed, and she reached out to help him by circling the pad of her thumb on Jade's clit.
The orgasm took her by surprise. She choked on a cry as her body clenched, the release of pent-up tension almost violent. Her back arched, and she dug her head into the mattress, struggling to manage the fire beneath her skin, the wildness threatening to overwhelm her.
Dylan moved their joined hands faster over his dick.
"Jade." Mad's voice held a thread of roughness. Of darkness. It dragged her gaze back to him, held her captive as he timed his thrusts to the rhythm of her release with casual, intimidating skill.
And when she thought he couldn't coax another shudder from her, he twisted his fingers. Curled them. She knew it was coming and she still let out a shocked noise and tried to twist away when he found her G-spot.
Scarlet splayed one hand over Jade's hips, holding her down. "Let it happen," she said, then sank her teeth into the tense, bulging muscles where Mad's neck sloped gracefully into his shoulder.
He hissed, but his eyes never left Jade's. "Easy, sweetheart. Just look at Dylan. You trust him, don't you?"
"Yes—" She barely had enough breath for the word. Everything was so tight, coiled to the point of agony and flaring with every expert stroke. She tried to focus on Dylan, but his fingers distracted her. It was their only point of contact—his hand over hers, his cock sliding beneath it.
She could still feel him all over.
"Look at him," Mad whispered again, and she did.
He was beautiful. Stern. His strong features were tense, pleasure so close to the surface she didn't know how he was holding back. But he was. She could see it in the stiff lines of his body, in his dark eyes. He would hold them like this forever if that was what it took to smash through her armor, and the pressure should have crippled her.
Instead, it set her free.
She stopped trying to still her struggles and trusted Scarlet to pin her in place. She stopped straining toward release and trusted Mad to take her there. She gave them the honesty of her reactions—even the graceless ones. The helpless squirming when the intensity proved too much. The broken moans.
And when Mad lifted his thumb to circle her clit in the rhythm Scarlet had taught him, Jade screamed and bucked.
And came.
The world blurred. Pleasure and relief squeezed tight enough to hurt for an endless moment before everything shattered, and time turned into an elusive, meaningless thing. She floated. She fell.
She gasped in her first deep breath in three months and wanted to sob at how light the world felt.
Dylan groaned and shuddered, his cock pulsing in her hand. Anticipation spun through her bliss-drunk mind, and for the first time in her life she wanted the proof of a man's release painting her skin.
She lifted her body languidly into the first spurt. Hot seed spilled across her breasts and stomach, and she tightened her hand and stroked him faster.
He shuddered again and gripped her wrist, pulling her hand away. He was panting for breath when he bent down, kissed her palm, and released her. "Mad. Scarlet."
She couldn't imagine Scarlet obeying the command—she could barely imagine Scarlet resisting the urge to knee Dylan in the balls for his presumption. But before she could protest Mad was on her, dragging his tongue over her too-sensitive skin, and sense slipped between her fingers. "Oh—"
/> "Greedy bastard." Scarlet traced one fingertip around Jade's nipple, then followed the same path with her tongue.
It was too much. Every touch set off a tiny cascade of shudders, and the soft throbbing between her thighs reminded her of Dylan's promise. She arched into Scarlet's touch and threaded her fingers through her hair. "Hurry."
Scarlet hissed in a breath. "Fuck what Dylan says, Adrian. Don't wait."
Mad rose on his knees, drawing his fingers up the inside of her thighs. "What do you think, Dylan?"
He touched Jade's face, the caress as gentle as the ones she remembered from the worst of her withdrawal. "Give her what she wants."
Mad hooked his hands under her knees and pushed them up. Out. His gaze swept over her body, lingering on Scarlet's tongue. "I thought what she wanted was soft and sweet, but that's not what she needs, is it?"
"No," Jade said hoarsely. His fingers bit into her skin, just rough enough to be a sort of promise, and she could get drunk all over again on that alone.
Adrian Maddox, looking at her like she wasn't broken.
He rocked his hips forward, sliding his cock over her pussy, but not into it. The shaft rubbed her heated, sensitized flesh, but this time she couldn't even try to wiggle. At her first attempt, he pushed her knees closer to her chest, his eyes blazing. "Help me, Scarlet."
She licked the corner of her mouth and smiled. "With pleasure." She wrapped her fingers around him, her knuckles grazing Jade's pussy as she twisted her wrist lightly. "Help you what, exactly?"
He growled and fucked into her hand, grinding it down against Jade. "Put my cock in your girlfriend's pussy."
"See?" She squeezed until he snarled and then guided the head of his cock down until he was almost—almost—inside Jade. "Greedy."
Jade shook as she awaited his first thrust. "Please, Scarlet. Give him to me."
Scarlet always gave her what she needed. A gentle nudge, and Mad was thrusting between her fingers, thrusting into Jade, and her moan of relief turned jagged when he kept advancing, inexorable and huge and filling her so much more perfectly than his fingers could have.
Slow, the first time. But only the first time. His hips rested against hers long enough for her to catch her breath…
And then he fucked her.
Hard.
Her nails raked down Scarlet's back before she groped for the sheets, for anything to cling to. Her overstimulated nerves veered toward overload, and she squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sight of Mad leaning over her, dark hair spilling across his forehead, muscles rippling with every thrust. But the sounds remained, the slap of their skin as he drove home, the little growls of pleasure he made every time he sank as deep as he could go.
Dylan's fingers wrapped around her wrists, and his lips brushed her forehead, her nose. Then he kissed her mouth, soft and sweet and hot and open—
Their first kiss, and she only had a heartbeat to savor the gentle warmth of it before Mad tilted her hips higher and found that spot that broke her world in half.
She didn't come fast this time. She was past the hot flashes of pleasure, too wrung out for the toe-curling bliss. The orgasm started deep inside her, shuddering up in waves that left her moaning helplessly against Dylan's lips. Her body clenched around Mad's cock, making him feel impossibly big—
—and making her pussy seem impossibly tight. His groan was loud, edged with a growl, and she savored her victory when his smooth, skillful thrusts turned short and jerky, when he thrust hard against her and froze, shuddering.
She savored the softness of Dylan's lips, too, kissing him while Mad came inside her. Warmth on her cheek had her turning her head, blindly tumbling into another kiss as Scarlet captured her mouth.
Faintly, she felt Mad lowering her legs to the bed. The burn in her muscles faded to a gentle ache as warm hands stroked her thighs, her calves.
"Come on, baby." Scarlet's words filled her ears, but Dylan's hands lifted her, and Mad's smoothed the covers over her after they'd settled her into bed.
Warmth surrounded her. Dylan on her left, hard and strong. Scarlet on her right, all sleek muscles and lush curves. Her eyelids were as heavy as they'd ever been, but she forced them open and turned her head to watch Mad lie down behind Scarlet.
"You were right," she murmured, letting her eyes drift shut as she pressed her forehead to Scarlet's. "He's good with his fingers."
She laughed softly. "Told you."
Jade laughed, too, only her laughter twisted and came out as a choked sob. She tried to swallow it back, like she had in the tent with Dylan, but all her walls had been demolished. The agony and grief of the past few days rose up from the darkest places inside her, and she struggled to sit up, to crawl from the bed, to find some safe corner to hide in.
"Shh, hey." Scarlet cupped her face. "You're okay. We've got you."
As if to prove the words, Dylan laid both hands on her back, just under her shoulders, steadying her. Mad caught her hand and wrapped his strong fingers around hers.
No escape. They surrounded her in comfort, in support, and it made things better and worse. Words tumbled from her lips, reckless and uncensored. All the guilt and pain, all the rage. "They were helpless. They didn't have a chance. All those girls—and I left them there. I left them there."
Dylan sighed heavily. "You couldn't have saved them all, Jade."
"If I'd been there, maybe I would have known—" The words broke. Tears scalded her cheeks, and they wouldn't stop. "I could have watched Cerys. I could have seen—"
"You could have died," Mad interrupted. "And all the girls you've helped since then would have been lost."
Nothing had ever felt so helpless, so hopeless, not even the day she'd walked into her last meeting with her patron, convinced that she'd soon be dead. She'd chosen death for the chance to take the bastard with her.
The girls in Sector Two had never been given a choice. About anything.
She sagged into their embrace, too wrecked to fight her tears anymore. But Mad had been right. The sobs tearing through her were catharsis. Painful and messy, shredding her heart—and leaving a blissful sort of peace in their wake.
But not emptiness. She clung to the soft touches and soothing murmurs, wrapped herself in borrowed strength, and floated toward oblivion secure in the knowledge that she wasn't alone.
Jeni
Jeni still believed in fairy tales.
Maybe it wasn't smart. It certainly wasn't careful, seeing as how she'd come really close to having her heart broken by the leaders of Sector Four—not that it was their fault. Dallas and Lex were like stars, a beautiful constellation of two. Ace had talked about how bright they burned, and he was right.
Bright enough to blind a person, especially someone as hungry as Jeni. They'd welcomed her gladly, openly, given her things she'd never dared to expect—friendship, acceptance, desire, affection. Not to mention the kind of jaw-clenching sex that only came when you had all the rest of it.
They'd even given her love, maybe, in their own ways. But no matter how close she got, how much they cared, there was always an invisible wall, with Dallas and Lex on one side and the whole fucking world on the other.
She couldn't blame them for simple reality. In truth, it was on her, too. They'd done everything right, given her as much as they could, but she never felt that spark, the undeniable need that meant she'd never be whole without them.
She sighed aloud. "What a clusterfuck."
"What's that?" Rachel stretched past her to retrieve a bottle of tequila and upended it over a line of shot glasses. The amber liquid poured out of the metal spout, splashing down into the glasses and spilling over the rims. A guy standing beside her customer leaned up and licked the liquor from the bar, and Rachel shoved him back with a hand on his forehead and a look of disgust.
Jeni stifled a laugh. "Nothing, just…thinking to myself."
She could have told Rachel the truth, and she had a feeling the woman would understand. It was at least partially due
to her that Jeni had pursued Dallas and Lex—because Rachel and Ace and Cruz had their own beautiful, epic thing.
But comparing them wasn't fair at all. It wasn't as if Ace had become part of Cruz and Rachel's relationship, or Rachel had fallen in with something Ace and Cruz already had going, or even that Cruz had stumbled into the middle of Ace and Rachel and their ongoing flirtation. None of that worked, because none of it could. The only way the three of them could be happy was to be together, as one.
Dallas and Lex would be fine without her. And Jeni would be fine without them, too. But she still believed in fairy tales. She had to, with so many of them walking around the compound in Sector Four.
Rachel turned to stuff a wad of cash into the register, and the bar licker hopped up again, his arm outstretched toward the row of bottles just out of reach. Before Jeni could get rid of him, he jerked back with a choked grunt.
Hawk stood beside him, one hand twisted in the back of the man's shirt, holding him on his toes with no apparent effort. "Was he going for a bottle?"
It was the first time he'd really spoken to her, and his voice was like a solid thing, a touch, raising goose bumps on her arms. "Yeah."
The would-be thief made another frantic noise, but Hawk had already grasped his hand. Jeni looked away, but the crack of fingers snapping followed, almost drowned out by a howl of pain.
"Get the fuck out," Hawk growled, tossing the man to the floor. "Next time it'll be your neck."
The guy scrambled to his feet, clutching his wounded hand to his body. Jeni watched his retreating form as he ran for the exit. "Ouch," she whispered.
"You okay?"
Hawk was six feet of solid muscle and seriousness. Right now, he was eyeing her with an unmistakable expression of concern. "Better than that guy." She grabbed a clean glass and held it up. "Buy you a drink?"
He smiled, just the tiniest softening of those firm lips. "Sure."
Her heart stuttered, but the rest of her body lit up like she was made of paper and he'd struck a match. She poured him a double and pushed it across the bar, her fingers lingering on the glass.