“Wait.”
Before I can slip out of the room, Lucas strides over to me and grasps my arm, tugging me back toward him. With a gentle smirk playin
g at his lips, he pulls me deeper into the kitchen, pressing me flush up against his body in the process. My skin burns with the fleeting contact, heat settling deep in my body somewhere I pretend to ignore.
“Not tonight, Grace,” he says in a low voice. “Don’t run, okay? Stay with me.”
Zaid enters the kitchen through the side entrance before I can answer, freshly showered and in more casual clothes than I usually see them in. When I meet his gaze, something instantly sparks to life in them. He glances between his brother and me, and something tells me there’s not a hint of jealousy there.
Zaid and Lucas have always been close, the type of close that’s almost eerie sometimes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they shared thoughts without realizing it, felt pain when the other one felt pain, so something tells me he’s thinking the same thing that’s filtering through my thoughts now. The same thing that I’m sure is on Lucas’s mind…
That night.
The night Brian attacked me, after I showered and rinsed away the blood and grime from my ordeal. I couldn’t sleep, so I went downstairs and found them in the kitchen. Alone.
Something sparked between us, something that’d been building for days. It almost felt inevitable when I found myself sandwiched between them, Lucas’s lips blazing a hot path down my neck while Zaid gripped my hips, kissing me hungrily.
And what would’ve happened if we hadn’t stopped?
If I hadn’t been distracted by suddenly remembering the name Brian had mentioned on the phone—damn Brian, even dead he still fucks things up—what would have happened between the three of us?
I swallow as my imagination explodes with answers to that question. Lucas is still holding me close to his large, broad-shouldered frame, and I can feel his thumb tracing idly over the bare skin of my arm.
Squeezing my legs together, I clear my throat, trying to banish the thick tension that’s flooded the kitchen. I can’t pull myself out of it like I usually can. My pulse thunders in my ears, blood rushing to my head… and to my clit.
But before I can do something monumentally stupid, like try to pick up exactly where we left off that night, Lucas releases his hold on me, stepping back. Heat still lingers in his eyes, but he doesn’t make a move to touch me again. Almost like he knows how much it destroys my resolve when he does, and he wants to make sure I’m clearheaded when I respond.
“Stay with us,” he says again, and I can hear the gentle plea in his voice. “Help us make dinner.”
“You really don’t want me to help you,” I say, trying to come up with an excuse. “I’m terrible at cooking. Never learned how to.”
“Then at least just watch.” He grins. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”
Jesus. I get the feeling he’s deliberately trying to tone down the sexual tension that bubbles between the three of us—as if he wants to prove that what exists between us is more than that, deeper than that. But if he’s trying to get my mind out of the gutter, uttering the phrase “at least just watch” is the wrong way to go about it.
His words immediately conjure images of Ciro watching from across the room while Hale fucked me on the bed. Of Zaid fisting his cock desperately, cum spilling over his hand as Hale made me climax with his fingers.
The words “just watch” are fraught with meaning, full of memories that make my body ache so intensely it almost scares me.
I swallow and let out a breath, trying to cool my heated blood.
Lucas’s eyes darken a little, almost like he’s seen inside my head and knows just how dirty my thoughts have gotten. Still, he seems determined to prove the point he set out to make. He doesn’t reach for me again. Instead, he takes a small step backward, leaving me with a free exit.
But I don’t take it.
I stand frozen for a long moment, glancing from him to his brother, trying to understand what this means.
It’s an undeniable fact that I’m drawn to all four of the men who kidnapped me. But what if there could truly be more for us than that? More than just fierce attraction and a desperate craving?
What if there could be… this?
The three of us making dinner together. Just being together. Easy and peaceful. Comfortable.
As soon as I have the thought, my heart skips a beat. I didn’t realize until this exact moment how much I’ve wanted this. How badly I’ve been aching to just feel normal for a little while.
“Yeah.” I nod, biting my lip. “Okay, I’ll stay. I’m not gonna just watch though. I want to help.”
Lucas’s smile is so wide it looks like it might split his face in half. Zaid grins too, and the entire atmosphere of the kitchen lightens. Maybe they needed this just as much as I did.