We trail our mouths up her shoulders, along the slope of her neck, a touch meant to comfort—and it eventually works. She stops shaking.
“That was my room. Back that way.” She tips her chin toward a dark hallway leading from the kitchen where we’re standing toward the rear of the small house. “He would…leave me a loaf of bread and some water. Lock the door and leave…sometimes for two weeks. Longer. Once I managed to pick the lock and get out. It made him furious. Furious. Because it was all about control. That’s still what it’s about for him.”
Klay’s jaw looks ready to snap. Mine is much the same. God help this man if we ever come across him. I’ll strangle him with his entrails in her honor…
The thought is halfway through my mind when I spy a duffel bag in the corner of the kitchen. It’s black, blending in, but the metallic zipper winks at me from across the room. With a final kiss to Wendy’s shoulder, I disentangle myself and cross to the bag, hunkering down in front of it, noting it’s not covered in dust like everything else in the house. “He’s been here.”
Wendy stiffens.
Klay’s gaze flies to the back hallway. “Stay here,” he instructs her, disappearing into the black before I can stop him. He should have let me do the searching. My back teeth grind together, but I relax when he emerges safely a moment later. “Empty. But no doubt he’ll come back.” He studies Wendy and moment, then moves to the kitchen sink, opening the cabinet below. He crouches down, hesitating for a beat before reaching inside and bringing a bottle through the opening. In the near darkness, I can’t read the label, but when he pops off the top, I can’t the distinct scent of lighter fluid.
Slowly, Klay moves back in front of Wendy, putting it in her hand.
Then he cups her cheek and speaks to her in that hypnotic way of his, tone low and rich. Impossible to ignore and easy to get lost in. “You can’t get rid of the memories, Wendy, but you can replace them with something else. Something you controlled.” He slides a booklet of matches out of his back pocket, tossing them onto the kitchen table. “Don’t remember this place as your prison. Remember it as a pile of ash. Burn it all down.”
Chapter 7
Wendy
Power tickles the tips of my fingers. They flex around the bottle of lighter fluid.
I’m not a destructive person, but I can’t deny the pressure that climbs my throat at Klay’s suggestion. Burn it all down. And I realize all along that’s what I’ve wanted. This place is symbolic of the pain. The past. The fact that it remains standing has been an offense to me. A needle jabbing into my throat. When I drive somewhere, I intentionally avoid this remote section of town. It has power over me.
Klay is right. I might not be able to confront my father, as I’d hoped.
But is this the next best thing? Setting fire to the pain?
Will that give me closure?
There’s only one way to find out. Pressing my lips together, I unscrew the cap and set it on the table beside the book of matches, upending the bottle as I circle the room. Liquid hits the floor, leaving patterns as I walk. I leave a trail all the way to my hated bedroom, pouring a little extra on the door itself, so it can never be locked again, and I make my way back to Klay and Ruger who appear anxious to have let me out of their sight for mere seconds.
And oddly…that is what sends power rippling through me.
Not the lighter fluid. Not entirely.
It’s these two huge, intense, adoring men.
They’re here for me. They broke out of prison to find me. Claim me.
I’ve claimed them in the process, haven’t I?
There’s no use denying it. Not when I turn achy and flushed just being in the same room with them. Knowing they want to savage my body. Knowing that, by some stroke of a miracle, I’m the person binding them together. I’m their third. I was always destined to be the completion of their circle, whether any of us knew it or not.
That’s where my power to overcome the past is going to come from.
Now I have the strength of three, instead of one.
I drop the bottle of light fluid, lust crackling up my thighs. The need to feel that power. Harness it. Right here and now. I know how to replace the bad memories with good.
With them.
Klay and Ruger.
With my breath beginning to grow short, I strip off the dress I threw on before leaving my house, my nipples puckering at their sharp hisses of breath. “Make me forget,” I whisper, dragging my panties down to my ankles slowly and stepping out of them. In my heeled sandals, I glide to the kitchen table and place my palms flat on the surface. And with their ravenous male gazes devouring me, exhilaration climbs my spine. Anticipation. I’m so primed for touch that when a pair of hands grip my hips, I sob loudly, my feminine muscles contracting between my legs. “Yes.”
“You want it from behind?” Klay growls into my neck, yanking my butt back into his lap. “From who, baby? Your choice.”
“Both of you,” I breathe.
Klay’s muscles fill with tension.
There’s a click inside of me, however.
I’m the bond. The mortar that holds the three of us fast.
But my responsibility goes further. They’ve brought me here to purge my demons…but not until they do the same. Specifically Klay. Ruger has his share of heartache, but it’s largely been cured by his best friend already. He’s one step away from being complete, while Klay is a few emotional steps behind.
I turn around in Klay’s arms and cradle his rigid jaw in my hands. “My choice is both of you.” Leaning in, I kiss his mouth until he’s straining in his jeans, hoarse sounds coming from deep in his throat. “You’ll have me. And he’ll have you.”
Klay makes a ragged sound, halfway between a laugh and a cough. “That’s not possible. I don’t…Ruger and me…we’re not like that with each other.”
“No?” I reach out for Ruger and he appears beside us, his usual eager, conflicted self. There’s no doubt he’s overheard what’s been said, because he looks Klay in the eye fleetingly, then down at the ground. My heart swims with love for both of them in that moment. For Klay and all his complications and potential. For Ruger with his big, beautiful heart. With a sense of immense purpose I’ve never experienced in my life, I take Ruger’s hand and guide it down to Klay’s erection. “Rub him while we kiss.”
Klay makes a choked noise, his chest shuddering up and down when Ruger starts to massage him slowly, up and down, through the fly of his jeans.
“Say out loud that it feels good,” I whisper against Klay’s mouth.
“I can’t,” he pants.
“Why?”
“That’s…not who I’m supposed to me. I’m already a fucking thief.” He kisses me hard, almost angrily. “This one last domino falls and I’m…there’s no part of me that he’d approve of.”
Ruger’s hand stills a moment, before it resumes stroking Klay’s distended shaft. But now his mouth is open against Klay’s shoulder, as if dying to kiss his skin, but afraid of the repercussions. For my part, I feel as though I’ve just unlocked this man. I’ve just had the curtain pulled back and I know him. Know his heart. “Your father. He’s got a hold on you, same as mine does, but for different reasons.” I trace my tongue along the seam of his mouth. “Let it all go.”