As if I’m outside my body and looking down at the three of us.
“Touch yourself,” Ford breathes.
I bury two fingers between my slick folds, my rhythm frantic and sloppy and as desperate as the way Ford pushes into Vance’s hungry mouth.
“You’re right. His mouth is fucking heaven. I bet he eats pussy as well as he sucks cock. I’m going to come so hard.” Ford grips me by the nape, upturning my face, and his mouth slams onto mine as he groans through his release.
It’s all too much. Too surreal. Too intimate as his tongue chases mine into submission. Shaking, unable to move or even breathe, I crash into an orgasm of my own, an extended grand finale so powerful it shoots uncontrollable spasms down my limbs.
At the peak of intensity, Sebastian’s face strobes behind my eyelids, and I hold onto the image as if my life depends on it.
Ford and I break apart, and I sob Sebastian’s name, a guttural cry of loyalty and affirmation wrenched from deep inside me.
Because it’s him. It’s always been him. Always will be him—no matter whose body forces mine into orgasmic surrender.
But he didn’t stick around to hear my vow, to witness the strength of my need for him. The collision of lust and longing boiling in my veins.
A roomful of strangers did.
They watched me drop all of my walls, laying my soul bare as Sebastian owned my heart. They watched something that should have been intimate, private, an act between two people in love.
Two people…in a tower of twelve men.
It will never be just the two of us. Not now, in the month of Scorpio. Not even after we marry. The only taste of freedom we had was in that cottage on the beach. A day I treasure, even if it went by too quickly. Even though it ended with an argument on the side of the road.
Oh, how I wish that cottage was within arm’s reach right now.
“Let me go,” I mumble, extricating myself from Ford’s arms. As I sit up, putting my dress back into place, Vance gets to his feet.
“Thank you for choosing me,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
I could cut him down with a contemptuous retort, remind him how he was the lesser of too many evils. I could say how Ford’s choice was no choice at all.
But part of me doesn’t believe it—not when the evidence of my orgasm dampens my inner thighs. As tears threaten to fall, I bolt from the makeshift stage, mortification hot on my heels.
6
The women’s powder room is the closest place in which to purge my shame in privacy, but the door barely closes behind me before it blasts open again. Lilith stands with her arms crossed, the pose putting her ample bosom on display, and though she says nothing, the fury in her jade eyes is enough to raise my hackles.
“What do you want?” I ask, adrenaline and alcohol rushing through my blood. I’m not sure if I’m about to vomit or pass out.
“You can’t have them all.”
“Excuse me?”
“Vance. Sebastian. Liam. Even Ford. Stop acting like they’re your harem. They don’t belong to you.”
Her accusatory tone flips a switch inside me—one that’s long overdue—and I advance until we’re an arm’s length apart.
“How ironic, since every man you mentioned thinks I belong to them.” I mimic the square set of her shoulders.
“You’re a toy they like to play with, is all.” She purses her burgundy-painted lips. “They’ll tire of you eventually.”
“I hope you’re right, because I’m tired of playing.” And I’m tired of this conversation already. In fact, I’m tired of this night. I move to step past her, my focus on the door, but she halts me with a harsh grip on my bicep.
“You’ve already hooked Sebastian. Leave the rest of them alone.” Gouging me with her manicured nails, she sneers at me.
I shoot her a warning glare and shrug off her grip. “Your jealousy is not my problem.”