Free Fall: an MMF romance (Wilde Boys Book 2)

by Sara Cate

  Suddenly, the paddle lands hard against my backside, reverberating through my spine in a sharp crack and I let out a grunt. The pain hits me by surprise. My breathing picks up as I start to panic, clenching around the tight knot of nerves in my stomach.

  “Nash.” His voice carries loud and angry through the sound of my heart pounding in my chest.

  “One,” I groan.

  It lands again, this time on the opposite side feeling even harder. Mother fucker said he was going to start off slow. Like hell that’s starting slow. Struggling against the restraints, I clench my jaw wanting to yell at him, tell him to start easy like he said he would.

  “This is the last time I’ll remind you to count before I add another eight, and I won’t go easy after that.”

  “Two!” I shout through gritted teeth.

  The next three smacks against my ass feel like fire licking through my flesh, but I breathe through it all, counting as he told me to, but it’s not until the seventh and eighth hit I start to feel the muscles in my arms soften like butter.

  He runs his hands across my ass, and I hiss in response to his touch.

  “Oh baby, that was nothing. Don’t you want more?”

  Fuck him if he thinks he’s gotten even close to breaking me.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” I snap which earns me a harsh pinch of my sensitive flesh. I let out a muffled string of obscenities.

  “Don’t make me gag you,” he says, dragging his nails across my sore ass.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I breathe through the urge to talk back, but I know he’ll keep his word if I do, and that nasty thing crammed between my teeth is the last fucking thing I want, so I bite my tongue.

  His hands drift upward, across the tense muscles of my back, along my sides until he’s squeezing my shoulders and neck.

  “What are you holding onto?” he says, but this time he’s speaking in the familiar Ellis voice, not the low, controlling tone. Like he’s stepping out of character, and it hits me a little harder. Knowing he’s in there. Knowing he cares.

  I don’t answer him. Instead, I mumble into the velvet. “Again please.”

  He lets out a sigh and his hands leave my back. When I hear him pick something off the bed, I prepare myself for another paddling.

  “Eight again. Don’t forget to count.”

  As the thick strands of leather land hard and sharp across my back, I let out a yelp and fidget against the restraints again.

  “Fuck!” I cry out because the pain doesn’t fade away. It gets stronger, spreading across my back like he’s pouring boiling water on my flesh.

  When it lands again even harder, I lose the ability to breathe.

  “Count and start at one,” his voice booms through the panic echoing through my skull.

  What the fuck? How did Lilac put up with this? I’m not a fucking pussy, but right now, I’m realizing I had no goddamn clue what that girl was feeling.

  My mind is racing, trying to catch up with itself when he hits me again, and I scream.

  “You are still on one, and if I were you, I wouldn’t forget to count.”

  “One,” I gasp.

  He sounds so fucking angry, I cower to it. It’s like I’m a ten-year-old kid again, staring up at a man who represented everything I wanted to be. Confident, smart, rich, good looking. I wanted to be him so bad, I built my life around that desire. And now he’s angry at me, landing another soul crushing hit against my back. Something in me breaks like a tiny crack in the dam.

  “Two,” I mumble out, my mouth wet and breathless.

  He’s not taking it easy on me. Every harsh crack of that flogger against my back is like knocking another peg out, and instead of fighting the pain, I let it flow through me.

  And it’s burning down everything.

  My groans turn into shouts, but I keep up my counting. I hardly notice when we get to eight and I’m sweating all over the ramp, breathing through something even more painful than what he’s doing to my back. It’s a stabbing wound in my chest, and it’s making it hard to breathe.

  “Still holding on. Maybe we should stop. I don’t think you can handle any more.”

  “No!” I burst out. “No…I can handle it.”

  “Eight more,” he says, and I whimper, already anticipating the pain, which comes down hard, and I can’t tell if my back is sore or numb, but the sting feels more like a shallow stabbing pain.

  He doesn’t let up, and I start to realize what we started with was easy compared to this, but with each lash, I drift farther and farther from this moment, from this pain and the voice in my head. They send me deeper and deeper, flushing away the thoughts that plague my soul.

  I don’t know how I remember to count, but I do, and he keeps it up.

  I cease to exist by the fourth.

  And on the sixth, I see Preston’s face, and a dry sob escapes my lips.

  The seventh and eighth go by in a blur, my face contorted in anguish as I’m wracked with pain, shivering as it becomes a part of me, like a hot blanket soaking into my skin, easing away everything else.

  “That’s better,” he says, pulling my hair out of my face, but I can’t see him with the blindfold still on. I take in a shaky breath when Ellis touches my back. “So beautiful seeing the way you give in, let it replace every thought in your head. We’re so close, aren’t we?”

  I can’t answer him. I’m still in a fuzzy blur of pain and peace, but I know what’s coming, so I feel myself bracing again.

  “Eight more.”

  There’s a small gasp across the room, and my ears perk up. I forgot she was here, and suddenly my attention is on Hanna, knowing she’s seeing me like this, afraid for me.

  “Hanna wants to know you’re okay. Tell her. Tell her how much you need it.”

  “I’m okay,” I whisper, my voice shaky, but fuck, I wish I could touch her. Feel her skin under my fingers, crawl into a warm space where there is no more pain. “I need this.”

  Ellis slaps my ass and I wince. “You came here and asked for this. Remember that because what you felt so far is nothing compared to what you’re about to feel. We’ll let Hanna count these ones out.”

  Suddenly, it’s like a lightning strike against my back, and I open my mouth to yell but there is no sound. I know it’s the crop now, that thin piece of leather that delivers the sharpest pain against my already sore back.

  As the pain skitters across my body like fire ants, I struggle against the restraints again. Somewhere in the last thirty lashes, my cock has gotten unbelievably hard. Shoved against the ramp, I settle myself from struggling since the friction would easily have me coming all over this thing.

  “One,” Hanna says, her voice tight and low, like she’s trying to hide something. Is she crying for me? God, I want to look at her.

  He strikes again and again and again. Hanna’s voice grows tighter, a slight shake and gasp with each syllable.

  I don’t know much anymore, but I know I’m sobbing again. I know the end is near, and I know everything inside me is raw. The dam is broken, my pain and emotions spilling out through the now gaping cracks.

  What’s the strangest by the seventh crack is how I feel almost closer to him. He’s inflicting my pain, but I welcome it. I love it. And I know he’s letting up. That is until he gets to eight, and he delivers the hit against my back that makes me scream the loudest, my howling cries drawn out as I melt against the bed.

  The tension in my arms eases as I feel someone loosen the restraints and then my wrists are pulled out of the cuffs. Still, I’m shaking, crying like a child, and I don’t know if it’s because of Preston, or Zara, or Hanna, or Ellis. Or just for myself. My spent anger and years lost to regret. The pain I inflicted on others now directed back at me.

  The night I found Zara at the strip club and treated her so badly, forcing her into something she didn’t want.

  The night I forced myself on Hanna, wanting her to hate me for it.

  The night I bro
ke everything between me and Ellis like it was a person I could murder, like the monster I am.

  For all of those things, I drown in my pain and my tears.

  Suddenly, I’m being lifted, my back held against his body, warm hands on my chest and lips against my shoulders.

  Fuck me, please. My mind chants as my rock hard length rubs against the soft friction of the pillow, but mostly I want him inside me. I need him inside me. To truly own me, use me, take his pleasure from my body.

  “Fuck me.” The words slip from my mouth, and with the blindfold still around my eyes, I feel him there, his cock already slick and hard against my entrance. He enters me easily, my body pliant and open for him, but his thrust is harsh. Then he grunts low and gravelly into my ear, and I swim in the sounds of his pleasure.

  Clutching his arms, he holds me up when I notice the sudden absence of the ramp that was pressed against my legs. Then, she’s there. I feel her warm, naked body against my chest, and I don’t know whose hands I’m feeling, but I know they’re there. I’m consumed by them.

  My arms wrap tightly around Hanna, needing her close, burying myself in her until I’m bathed in her warmth.

  All I know is them, their cries of pleasure filling my ears and my mind. Pressed between the beating of their hearts, we move to the same rhythm, like waves crashing together against the shore. And when I feel them climax around me, I let the tide take me too.

  I come, and come, and come until there is nothing left of me.

  My ears begin to ring, my body buzzing like the static of a radio as I collapse.

  “You’re okay. We’ve got you.”

  Instead of wanting to escape, feeling like it’s wrong to be so vulnerable, I let them have this raw, unguarded version of me.

  “It’s okay, Nash,” she whispers, her lips pressed against my neck.

  “Let it out.” His voice comes from the opposite side.

  All of the emotion bubbling, spilling, hemorrhaging from my insides, runs like a river over everything between us. And there is no stopping it.

  “I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I’m sorry for everything I did to you. You’re the last ones I ever wanted to hurt, and I hurt you so bad.”

  They squeeze me tighter. Then the blindfold is pulled back and I squeeze my eyes closed, but the room is dim, almost pitch black. Still, I can see them. Hanna is quick to wipe my tears while Ellis brushes my hair out of my face. “There you are,” he whispers.

  “I love you,” I say before I can stop myself. Before the fear crawls back in to censor me from saying the things I should have said a long time ago, and I hope they know I mean the both of them. I love the way things are right now when we don’t need to define anything or fear anything and we are truly free.

  Free to fall.

  36

  Am I a fool to take him back? Maybe, but there is something invisible stringing us together. Something unbreakable, and I can either live in agony, knowing I’ll never be truly free of Nash Wilde, or I can spend every moment of my life reeling him back in every time a part of him retreats like he did before.

  If I have to lay him out like I did today, I will. I won’t say I didn’t love it, watching him break, lashing him with every ounce of hurt he embedded in me.

  I climb out of bed, unable to sleep and walk silently to the kitchen. Pulling a glass from the cabinet, I opt for water instead of whiskey. A clear head is probably the best way to go here.

  It’s only a few minutes until I see his silhouette walking quietly through the apartment. He stops on the opposite side of the island, watching me cautiously. Even in the dark, I can see the heavy bags under his eyes. If I had to guess when the last time Nash truly let go and cried the way he did tonight, I’d guess it was easily five or more years and definitely not so openly. I could see the adrenaline coursing through him, and I know the way he’s feeling now. Renewed, but exhausted.

  Without a word, I push the glass of water across the countertop, encouraging him to drink. I made sure he hydrated before he fell asleep and even forced him to eat something, but he sobered up with hesitation. Not ready to face reality I assume.

  He takes the glass and drinks, setting it down when it’s empty, so I refill it, taking a sip of my own. It’s silent a moment before he finally mumbles a soft, “thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you,” I reply. It’s only partly true. I did it for all of us.

  “I know.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask, leaning against the counter with my arms crossed. My body language says I’m not opening myself back up to him, and yeah, a part of me wants to see what version of Nash I’m getting today before I let him in. In my head I know it doesn’t matter. I’m helpless against him either way.

  “Good…great.”

  “That’s good.”

  Silence again. And with every passing second the tension grows. Finally unable to take another second, he steps forward, bracing his hand on the granite between us.

  “I know I’m fucked up, Ellis. I know I can be difficult and nothing I do is ever right, and there is no excuse in the world for how I treated you. Not my brother, not my dad, not Zara. And I’m not promising I won’t ever hurt you again because one night of getting my back thrashed to death won’t fix everything, but I promise I’ll try.”

  Looking at him in the dim light with the shadows over his apologetic eyes, I fight the urge to gather this broken, sad boy into my arms and kiss away every ounce of pain and fear because I want him to know this love is hard fought and hard won.

  But I can’t make him suffer for it anymore.

  “Come here.”

  He rounds the island quickly and lands hard against my chest as I wrap my arms around him, holding him close. He breathes heavily into my neck, and I feel the pounding of his heart against mine. There is nothing between us now. No regrets or secrets or lies.

  We stand there a moment, not speaking. Not moving.

  Not until we hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Hanna runs her hands softly against my back, and Nash and I both move to pull her in at the same time. Squeezed between us, we breathe the same air, sharing one space.

  “This is nice,” she whispers. And it is.

  Conventional? No.

  But we’re all broken down so far that it takes more than one person to complete us. This relationship wouldn’t stand if even one person were to leave it. But it’s what makes us stronger together.

  “Who’s hungry?” I ask as I pull away.

  “I’m starving,” Nash groans. The two of them cuddle on the couch while I make a midnight breakfast.

  As we gather around the table to eat, things are comfortable. The only sound that fills the room is our breathing, the delicate clang of our forks against the plates, and after the intense, emotionally draining day we’ve had, the quiet is welcome.

  “I heard my dad paid you a visit,” Nash says in a soft tone.

  “He did.” I watch his expression. The sudden reminder of Alistair in my office makes me nervous. If Nash is going to fight opening up to his family, then I’ll know we still have a long way to go.

  “I told him everything,” he says. “I, um, came out.”

  I have to swallow the bite of food in my mouth before I let myself smile, just a lopsided grin as my eyes travel up to his face.

  “And?”

  “And they already knew.” An easy laugh spills out of his mouth, and if his cheeks weren’t already red from the crying he did earlier, I think he’d be blushing.

  “I bet it still felt good,” I reply.

  His blue eyes shine as he focuses on me. Nodding, he says, “It did.”

  Through the entirety of our relationship, Nash held onto a sense of fear and shame, unable to accept what he is, a bisexual man. It was all just a part of his armor, and I know that now, but it feels so fucking good to see him shed that facade. To be truly free.

  Hanna clears her throat, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “I need to do a little coming out of my own,�
�� she says, looking at Nash.

  We both turn to work her with furrowed brows.

  “I have to tell Zara about us.” She looks genuinely nervous, biting the inside of her lip and letting out a heavy exhale.

  “Oh, she already knows,” Nash says with a wince.

  Hanna’s eyes widen as her gaze bounces between me and him.

  “She does?”

  “Yeah. She said something to me while we were inside today, or yesterday. I don’t even know what day it is, but she brought it up, and she’s not mad.”

  “Not mad at you,” she says with a scoff.

  “Or you.” He places his hand on hers and looks her in the eye. “Honestly, I think she would have tried to set us up if I hadn’t been such an asshole. Zara has been through hell too, Hanna. She wants for you the same thing she found.”

  “A rich man with a private island?” Hanna adds with a wide smile, leaning her head on her hand propped up on the table.

  I find myself laughing and reaching across the table to touch her. After everything, it’s so nice to be able to crack jokes and smile with them. It feels like the days on Del Rey when it all started with the three of us.

  “Speaking of my private island,” he says, touching her elbow.

  “I’m not moving there,” she replies quickly. “I still need to do things on my own for a while. I have my apartment, a new job—” She puts up her hand when she notices him about to argue. “I know I don’t need either of them if I’m going to be with you...and you.” Her gaze travels my way, but I don’t argue with her. Giving her a gentle smile, I squeeze her hand.

  “We know you do. But we can still make this work,” I say.

  Nash looks nervous, breathing heavily with his hooded eyes focused on her. There’s not a doubt in my mind he’s afraid of losing her—and me—because neither of us need him, not in that way. So, I ease his comfort.

  “Just because we’re not living on Del Rey with you, doesn’t mean we’re not with you.”

  “I’m in this one-hundred percent,” Hanna adds.

  “So am I.” My opposite hand reaches for him, and our fingers meet, latching onto each other like they were meant to.