by Eva Ashwood
When Barrett leaned forward to press a kiss to my lips, I jerked in surprise, yanking my head back and to the side so that his lips brushed the shell of my ear. Even that slight touch was enough to make nausea roil my stomach and my skin prickle unpleasantly. Not just because of the touch itself, but because of what it meant—what it stood for.
No. This is all wrong.
I stepped back clumsily before he could try to kiss me again, and my mother’s hand tightened on my upper arm, her nails digging into my skin.
Warning me.
Barrett’s eyebrows furrowed for a second, and he shot me a look that was much less pleased than the first one he’d given me. There was an assessing quality to it, as if he were sizing me up. As if he’d realized for the first time that I was a human being with agency, not just some prize to be bartered for and won.
And he didn’t appear to like that realization one bit.
He gave me one last hard look, then slipped his own mask back on, turning to greet several prominent Baltimore businessmen who’d no doubt been invited by my father.
We barely spoke for the rest of the party, and after one more rebuffed attempt to kiss me, Barrett kept his distance entirely.
But that wouldn’t be the end of it. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because I had shown I had no interest in him, that would mean this thing was over. His father had a deal with my father, and that meant even if Barrett decided he had no interest in marrying someone who didn’t even like him, it would make no difference.
Both of our fates were sealed.
Dad barely looked my way for the entire party, spending all of his time and energy schmoozing with people who had once been his equals. I heard him talking loudly at one point to a group of them about Barrett and me, and when he attributed our upcoming marriage to “young love,” my stomach clenched uncomfortably.
By the time the party ended in the late evening, the sedative my parents had forced on me was beginning to wear off, and I could think a bit more clearly, although I felt strangely exhausted—as if I’d been in a half-sleep for the past several hours and my body desperately craved real sleep.
My mother only stopped hovering at my shoulder when the last guest stepped out the door, and the smile melted from her face as she turned away from me. The scratch mark on her cheek had faded already, but I had a feeling her anger about it would last much, much longer.
“I’m going upstairs,” she said shortly, turning toward the curved staircase, her heels clicking over the floor. “The staff will clean up.”
“I’ll be up shortly, darling,” Dad said, his tone almost warm. He was a better actor than Mom was, and I was only now beginning to realize what a dangerous thing that was.
Mom disappeared up the steps, and Dad turned to me, his expression serious and sincere.
“I watched you tonight, Cordelia.” He sighed. “I know you don’t like this arrangement, and you probably don’t see the point in it. But believe me, there is one. The connections our entire family will gain from this marriage will be enough to put us back in good standing among our peers.” He stepped forward, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be grateful for this one day, sweetheart. I’m sure of it.”
With a soft smile, he turned and headed up the stairs after Mom.
I stood in the large, empty ballroom for several long moments, gazing at my lavish surroundings as if I’d never seen them before. My fingers plucked idly at the delicate, expensive fabric of my dress, and I dragged in a deep breath through my nose. Then I took a few steps toward the stairs before hesitating.
I had no desire to go back to my room right now. It felt too prison-like, too confining. The truth of the matter was, I was trapped by far more than just a set of walls, but I couldn’t stand the thought of locking myself up in my room again.
Several servants were making their way around the ballroom, cleaning and clearing away empty glasses, but they moved about like ghosts, never looking directly at me and skirting out of my way like fish as I turned and strode across the large room.
It only made me feel more like a ghost myself, like someone who wasn’t quite real. As if I could rail and scream and protest all I liked, but no one would hear me. No one would listen.
I needed to feel alive. I needed to feel my own skin again.
So I made my way through the massive house toward the pool house at the back, walking down the glass enclosed corridor that connected it to the rest of the house. The lights were on when I walked into the space with beautifully tiled floors, large windows lining one wall, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. They were set on a timer, going on and off every day despite the fact that the only people who usually came in here were maintenance staff.
My parents never used the pool. They’d only gotten it built because several of their friends had installed pools, and they couldn’t bear to be left behind in anything. But as soon as it’d been added to the house, they had both promptly forgotten about it.
Because they’d never really wanted it in the first place. They just hadn’t wanted to lose.
I didn’t use it often either, but it had become a place I knew I could go when I wanted guaranteed privacy and solitude. And that was exactly what I craved right now. Time alone to think. To try to get my mind to function again, to get rid of the last vestiges of numbness in my body and soul.
None of the house staff would come in here either—they were all busy with cleanup from the party—so I didn’t even hesitate before reaching back to feel for the zipper of my dress and tugging it down. I let the soft material drop to the tiled floor, not even bothering to pick it up and drape it over a lounge chair before walking toward the water in my strapless bra and panties. The lawn outside the windows was mostly dark, with just a few perfectly placed lights illuminating the sculptures my mother had commissioned.
I stepped off the edge into the deep end of the pool and let myself sink toward the bottom for a moment, little bubbles escaping my nose as the silky water surrounded me. Then I flutter-kicked toward the surface, brushing my wet hair out of my eyes as my head popped out of the water.
The pool water was cool, and the feel of it against my skin was exactly what I needed. My head felt massively clearer already as I began to swim the length of the pool, my strokes easy and practiced from the many private lessons I’d had.
I was on my third lap when an awareness prickled across my skin, making goose bumps rise all over my body. My heart thudded unevenly in my chest as I stopped swimming, my feet touching down in the shallow end as my gaze swept around the room.
I was being watched. I was sure of it.
It was late in the evening, and the lights in the pool house were dim, casting shifting blue reflections over the walls. There was no one in the large space with me, but when my gaze shifted to the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran along one wall, my breath caught in my throat.
Three figures appeared like ghosts out of the darkness. One with brown hair and intense features, one broad-shouldered and bulky, with short blond hair, and one with dark hair and eyes and caramel skin.
The Lost Boys.
Three
I stared at them in shock, breath suspended in my lungs.
All three boys gazed back at me with unblinking eyes as they came to a stop outside one window, and for a moment, I was sure I was imagining things. Hallucinating. Dreaming them up because I had missed them so fucking much.
Before I could rouse myself from my stupor and climb out of the water, they moved toward the door at one end of the pool house that led to the backyard. I saw Misael pull something from his jacket pocket, and a second later I lost sight of them as they gathered around the door.
Then a soft click echoed around the silent space, and the door swung open.
A gust of cold winter air swept into the pool house, chilling my wet hair and skin, and then all three boys stepped inside, closing the door softly behind them. They moved as a single unit like they so often did, striding toward
the edge of the pool as their gazes found me again.
My heart couldn’t decide whether it wanted to gallop or stop beating entirely, so it thudded unevenly in my chest, an erratic rhythm that made me feel like I was dying.
They know.
I wasn’t sure how they’d found out or who had told them—hell, maybe they’d picked up the gossip from Muse, the man who kept his finger on the pulse of both Baltimore’s underworld and its elite.
But they knew.
They knew I was engaged to Barrett King.
My stomach tried to turn itself inside out at the realization, and fear warred with self-disgust in my soul. I knew how much they all hated my father, Bishop especially. When I first met them, they had despised and distrusted my entire family, including me.
That had changed. So much had changed between us in the months that I’d known them. I had distrusted and disliked them at first too, but slowly, all of that had faded into a barely remembered past. They had become my saviors, my lovers, the three people I cared about and trusted more than anyone else in the world.
And what must they think of me now?
I wished desperately that I’d had the courage to tell them what my father had done, that they at least could’ve heard the words from my mouth instead of a someone else’s.
Would they think I had done this on purpose? That I had chosen Barrett over them? That I was no better than my mother, using people when I needed them and discarding them when I no longer needed them? Throwing them away for something better.
Seconds ticked by, each painfully full, but none of the Lost Boys spoke. They just looked at me, their bodies tense and their faces unreadable.
And I couldn’t fucking bear it.
“I didn’t know!” I blurted out, my voice too loud for the quiet pool house. My skin was cold now that I wasn’t moving, but I could hardly register the sensation as every fiber of my being focused on the three boys in front of me. “I didn’t know. I don’t want this. Please, you have to believe me. I don’t want Barrett. I will never want him. I’m yours. I’m yours. You said I’m yours, and I always will be.”
My words were coming out almost faster than my tongue could speak them, tripping and falling over each other in their rush to escape my mouth. I had to make them understand.
I shook my head adamantly, wrapping my arms around myself under the water, heedless of the fact that I was nearly naked. “I belong to you. No one else. Ever. I won’t let this happen—I’ll stop it somehow, I promise I will. I’ll kill myself before I marry Barrett King.”
The last words bounced off the tiled walls around us, and they seemed to shock the Lost Boys into motion. In an instant, all three of them had shucked their jackets and shoes and jumped into the pool with me, still fully dressed. They converged on me, surrounding me on all sides, their bodies pressed so close I was suspended between them.
“Don’t say that, Coralee,” Bishop growled, grabbing my chin with one calloused hand. His touch was rough, his voice rougher, and he tilted my head up to meet my gaze. “Never fucking say that. We’ll figure everything else out, but your life—you—come first. Always. Never say that shit again.”
“You think we’d want that?” Misael murmured, sounding tortured. “That we’d rather you die than be with us? That’s some fucked up kinda shit, Cora. What kind of people would we be if that’s what we wanted?”
The pain in his voice cracked my heart open, and I swore I could feel the poison that’d been welling inside it start to spill out. I dragged in a breath, their unique scents mixing with the smell of chlorine in my nostrils, and for the first time in days, I felt… whole.
A tear slipped down my check, and unlike the other two boys, Kace didn’t even say anything. He just wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me against his body, pressing his lips to mine in a kiss that nearly eviscerated me. Every nerve ending in my body lit up as the wet fabric of his clothes scratched against my bare skin. They hadn’t even bothered to strip before they’d jumped in with me, in too much of a hurry to reach me to worry about something like that.
The thought made something warm bloom in my belly, and I clutched at Kace’s shoulders, giving back as good as I was getting as I kissed him with a ferocity that matched his own.
When he finally tore his lips from mine, he crushed me to him, wrapping his arms around me in a bear hug so tight I could hardly breathe. Not that I minded. I wished he could hold me tighter than this even, that he could somehow fuse our bodies together the same way our souls were. That all three of the boys could keep me so close that no one would be able to rip me away from them.
“We fuckin’ missed you, Cora,” he murmured roughly. “We knew somethin’ was wrong when you went quiet, but we didn’t find out till today that—”
He didn’t say the words, and I didn’t want him to. I’d already said Barrett’s name twice tonight, and that was two times too many, as far as I was concerned. For just this moment, this blissful, wild moment, I was with my boys again and everything was alright.
It wasn’t. Not in the big picture.
Them being here didn’t negate or undo the arranged marriage my father had set up.
But it gave me peace, and it gave me hope. My boys were here. They still trusted me. They still wanted me.
And for now, that was enough.
Bishop and Misael had stepped closer when Kace pulled me into the hug, and I could feel all three of them touching me, hands roaming my body, breath warming my chilled skin.
A fire flared inside me. The same one that always burned for these boys, flickering like a pilot light in my lower belly, just waiting for the spark to reignite the flame. My hands clawed at Kace’s back as I moved against him, struggling against his hold on me so I could rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him. And as soon as he released me, I did just that, pressing my wet chest against his and devouring his mouth with greedy, hungry kisses.
He responded instantly, and I could feel him getting hard against me, his cock pressing into my stomach as his tongue slid against mine.
“Switch.”
The word was barely more than a low growl from beside me, and the next thing I knew, I was being spun in Kace’s arms. Before I could orient myself, Bishop’s lips crashed into mine, and a whole new sensation tore through my body.
Fuck, I’d missed kissing him. I’d missed kissing all of them. I’d missed everything about them.
It hadn’t even been a full week since I’d seen them last, when we’d spent the night at the warehouse, but it felt like it’d been eons. So much had happened since then that I felt desperate to reconnect with them, to reassure both myself and them that no matter what else happened, no matter what my father or Sebastian King said, one truth remained unalterable.
I. Was. Theirs.
Misael made a noise behind me, his hands tracing my body under the water, his touch demanding and possessive. Bishop deepened our kiss, scraping our teeth together as his tongue delved into my mouth again, then he pulled away. His lips were swollen, just like I was sure mine were, and his eyes had a predatory, wild look to them.
There was no one else in the world he would relinquish me to right now other than Misael or Kace. But as a testament to the strength of the bond the three boys shared, Bish was the one who turned me in the water, presenting me to his friend.
Misael cupped my face in his hands, and for a moment, he didn’t kiss me at all. He just stared at me, his gaze so full of emotion it made my chest ache sweetly. Then he pressed his lips against mine and drank me in.
The rest of the world faded away as Misael kissed my lips and Bishop and Kace explored my body. The sounds of our heavy breaths and low moans mingled with the gentle rhythm of pool water slapping against the edges of the pool, and I vaguely realized that I was no longer cold at all. The bodies pressing against me were warm and solid, and my own blood was rushing so fast that all my limbs tingled with energy.
This was what I wanted.
It was all I wanted.
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Forever.
“I’m yours,” I whispered, the sound swallowed up by Misael’s hot kisses. “I’m yours. I’m yours.”
I repeated it over and over like a promise. Like a prayer. And every time I said it, I could physically feel the reaction from my three boys.
Their touch grew rougher, more demanding, their hands sliding beneath the fabric of my bra and panties before Bishop unsnapped my bra and hurled the wet garment out of the pool with a growl.
My nipples hardened instantly in the water, and Kace’s hands were on them a second later, sending little shocks of pleasure through me as he squeezed and massaged the aching flesh. Bishop’s fingers delved beneath the waistband of my panties, and when his fingertips brushed my clit, I cried out into Misael’s mouth.
None of them took my sound as a signal to stop what they were doing. In fact, their movements became more urgent, more frantic as their breathing picked up. I could feel Bish’s cock against my ass, and I ground against it, making a groan rumble in his chest.
“I…” My mouth wasn’t working. My brain wasn’t working. My lips were swollen and tingly, and I could barely stop kissing Misael long enough to speak. “I… need you.”
For a moment, everything stopped. The boys gathered around me seemed to press even closer, encapsulating me between them until I could feel all three of their cocks pressing against me, separated from me only by their soaked clothes.
I could feel the tension in their bodies as they all seemed to privately war with themselves. And I knew why.
What we were doing was risky.
It was risky for them to even be here, for them to have stolen onto my family’s property and broken into the pool house.
But giving in to the raw need coursing between us right now was even more dangerous.
I knew if I were being rational, I would be fighting against this, not begging for it. But rationality flew out the window around the same time Bishop had pulled my bra off. I needed to feel my skin against theirs.