I crave the press of his hard chest against my body. A part of me wants to surrender completely, to breach this barrier of enforced celibacy and give my body what it's been screaming for these past long months.
“I want to bend you over the sofa right now and fuck the shit out of you,” Dayne hisses in my ear. “You little cock tease.”
Dayne is the last one I expected it to be. He's been perhaps the kindest of the three—the most reserved up until tonight. But what happened in the alley earlier has caused a shift in him. The amount of testosterone coming off him right now is intoxicating.
I mean to try to buck him off me, but it ends up being more me grinding my ass against his crotch. I feel his thick hard length straining behind his pants. It's been so long since I've been fucked—since I've had any real passion—since I've been wanted like this. A part of me wants to say screw my whole plan and just do it. Let them all fuck me tonight and who cares what happens tomorrow?
I can take a break from men, eat some ice cream, heal, start again. It's not the end of the world. But isn't it?
“Did you really think you could run this kind of game on us? Who in the fuck did you think you were playing with little girl?” Dayne hisses in my ear.
I'm again shocked by his words. I've always thought of Dayne as the nicest, the least scary and intimidating. But in this moment he is all primal animal and I am reminded in the most stark terms possible that I'm alone in a penthouse with three large men who have been denied entrance into my body for months—three men who've decided they're all taking me for no other reason than they all want me.
And yet I can't even be scared about this. I can't force that feeling into my mind or body. I know I should be, but I'm so aroused right now that no common sense thoughts are able to make the long trip up to my brain. Every cell that comes together to form me is consumed with preparing to be taken, and there's simply no room for anything but that searing need.
He backs off me for a second, and I turn around, jerking my dress back down to find all three of them staring at me, jackets off, ties loosened, pupils dilated. There's nowhere for me to run, assuming I could convince my mind and body to do that right now, which I'm pretty sure I can't.
“Why?” Dayne growls.
“Why what?” I ask. Did I just black out and miss a whole conversation?
“Why don't you want this? All of us together?” He says it as though my refusal to be their shared meaty bone is beyond his ability to comprehend. Of course they all think I'm a gold digger. So of course the idea of having all three of them fawning over me, buying me things, providing shit for me... that must be worth being their whore. I'm not even sure I could eye roll hard enough if I tried.
It's only now, finally, more than an hour after the suggestion first came out of Griffin's mouth that I realize... they're serious. They aren't playing with me. They've decided instead of dumping me or fighting over me, that they want to share me.
How would it even work? Would they keep discreet mistresses? Because it's definitely not fair for me to get three men and them to only get me.
I don't want that. I want one man who can love me and be faithful to me who will provide and care for me, not three men toying with me while keeping other women on the side. I swipe at the tears which have begun sliding down my cheeks.
Soren speaks. It's the first time he's spoken to me tonight. “I have a very good private investigator, and through some unexpected side trails I happened to find out something very interesting about your past.”
I feel the blood drain out of my face. No one knows about this. No one. It can't be what I think. There's no way anyone could know. I was careful. There's no way anyone could know. I repeat this thought in my head like a mantra over and over as if just the power of my positive thinking can stop the words from coming out of his mouth.
“Oh, yes. Livia Fairchild killed a man. On spring break. Nine years ago.”
My gaze shifts to Griffin and Dayne but neither of them look surprised, which means Soren already told them. They knew about this ambush.
“I don't know what you're talking about.” Deny. Deny. Deny. There's no evidence. There can't be any evidence. There's just no possible way he could know... and yet he does.
Soren just laughs. “You and your friend weren't as careful as you thought. So, you see, you will get married, Livia. It's one cage or the other. Prison, or us. Our cage is nicer. Think about it. And it wouldn't just destroy you. Your friend Macy is an accessory. She helped you cover it up.”
“I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't kill anyone,” I say. Even though I know he can see the truth in my eyes.
“Don't call my bluff, Livia. You won't win.”
“It was self defense,” I say. “Please you have to believe me. It was self defense.” I look again to Dayne and Griffin. Griffin looks pretty tense, but Dayne is calm, leaning against the door frame now, his arms crossed over his chest, just observing me.
“Self defense doesn't require ocean disposal,” Soren says.
“It was self defense. I was afraid no one would believe me!”
“I can't imagine chopping up a body with a friend is going to make you seem more credible now. So... like I said... you're ours.”
I never should have let Macy help me get rid of the evidence. If it was just me to think about maybe it would be different, maybe I'd have a choice, but I can't let my best friend suffer for this.
More tears come, but he isn't moved. “Griffin... Dayne... please... you can't let him do this.” But no one is moved by my tears. I wonder how long they've known this, how long Soren has held this card and waited to play it to get what he wants.
I look at the ground unable to meet their eyes anymore. I could continue this melodrama. I could say I don't believe Soren would carry out his threat, but I do. I got just a little too greedy. Not for money—not really—but for men far outside the reach of the rules. Men with too much power. And it was sexy until it was turned on me.
I could have played this game competently with the first three men I'd started dating when the idea of the roster was new and shiny. But every time I dumped one or one fell back, I gained confidence and replaced him with a better guy. Not just better than losers, better than what I was used to dating—men more attractive than I was used to, more moneyed than I was used to. Because I had begun to believe I was worth more than the scraps I'd been accepting from the table of life.
I'd begun to think I didn't want to live like a peasant anymore and that I had every fucking right to go after someone much much higher. After all, I'd worked on myself. I was in a state of constant transformation and self-improvement while most of the men I'd been dating just... weren't. If I'd settled for a man like that, he'd be the crab pulling me back down into the bucket forever.
I needed someone who was more. And somehow, that turned into Griffin, Dayne, and Soren. Practically all women are attracted to wealth and power. And not just... we like it... we are sexually attracted to it. It turns us on in the way D cups and slutty lingerie turn men on.
But there's a double standard. Nobody says a single word about any man getting any pretty young thing he wants and can manage to acquire, but women... no we should sit pretty and smile and be good little girls gratefully accepting the first nice man who comes along. Anybody who isn't a serial rapist should “get a chance” because “he's a nice guy.”