I don’t really know what I need to do. How Dean and Cayde handle my punishment tonight—just the thought is enough to make my pussy clench with need, arousal heating between my thighs despite the pain I’m in—will go a long way towards telling me what the state of things between them, and for the game in general, is.
And at the crux of all this worry is the fact that I have feelings for Jaxon. I have since nearly the beginning—I’d felt an instant attraction to him that I hadn’t for the others because he was familiar to me, someone who looked and felt and smelled like home. Those feelings should have gone away when he lied to me, when he hurt me, when he neglected to so much as check on me even once when I was recovering, but the dirty truth is that they haven’t. And I don’t think they’ve gone away for him, either.
We’re angry with one another, but we still want each other. Still care. I saw it in his face when he leaned over me.
Or was he seeing someone else? Was he worried for me or for a ghost that isn’t here anymore?
I don’t know what happened to Natalie. I’d always assumed they’d broken up, that she was a high school sweetheart who didn’t last—the usual story. How many people actually stay with the first person they fall in love with?
I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in love.
Something twitches deep inside of me at the thought, my heart reminding me that while I might not be prepared to call itlove, there’s something between me and all three of the guys at this point.
Groaning, I push myself up to my feet, looking around. Jaxon has disappeared, and I’m not about to go after him. I’ll deal with him and his brooding later—depending on whether I decide to deal with him at all, or just leave well the fuck enough alone.
As for the other two?
Time to find out what they have in store for me.
I like the thought of thatwaymore than I should.
Cayde
Athena has me so twisted that I don’t know which way is up anymore.
I used to want to torment her. Hurt her. And then someone else did, far worse than I would ever have dreamed, and now the feeling in my chest is one that I don’t recognize.
Possessiveness, yes. Obsessive lust, yes. Feelings that have been there from the start. But something else, too.
Protectiveness. Worry. And a word that I don’t dare put a name to because I never planned on feeling it.
Athena is mine. As to whether Dean and I will share her—that’s still up in the air. That all depends on him and how he behaves. But she’s mine, and the idea of anyone that I don’t allow touching her, much less hurting her, makes me murderous.
I’d never had thought I would be so concerned for her well-being, so careful of her. Still, even today, half out of my mind with lust and the desperate need to come somewhere in or on her body, I’d been worried about whether she was okay. Whether she was ready to play our games again. To take me inside of her.
And then she’d practically begged me to punish her. Looked at me in that sly way that told me she knew what she was doing when she tried to tell me no. Looked at my cock like she was fuckingstarvingfor it. And the way she sucked me, swallowed down all my cum—
I never planned to be in love, but Athena Saint is doing her damndest to change all of that, and she doesn’t even know it.
This leads me to tonight.
“Our little pet needs a punishment,” I tell Dean casually when I get home, passing him in the hall. “She was lifting too heavy at the gym. She’ll hurt herself.”
“So now we’re punishing her for not taking care of herself?” Dean raises an eyebrow, smirking at me. “That’s creative. Are you telling me you actually care, Cayde?”
“Are you telling me you don’t?” I look straight at him, challenging him to tell me otherwise. To tell me that since we found Athena naked, beaten, and raped in a ditch that he hasn’t felt as if he’d burn down the entire world to keep anyone from hurting her again. “We failed her, Dean. I know we’re sick of Jaxon’s sanctimonious attitude about the game, but he was right. We were supposed to protect her from everyone who isn’t us, and we failed.”
“And what about now?” Dean watches me. “Are we protecting her from us now too?”
“You tell me. Neither of us touched her while she was recovering. Even today—” I hesitate. “I was careful with her until I was sure she could take it.”
I see a flicker of anger in Dean’s eyes. “You fucked her?” His voice is bitter, laced with rising anger. “I see you don’t give a shit about the rules of this house anymore, then.”
“She sucked me off.” I don’t shy away from his angry gaze. “And those rules are obsolete now, Dean. You haven’t won. Athena made sure of that at the party.”
“So what now?” The anger is clearer now, his mouth set in hard lines. “Who wins the town, Cayde? Are you suggesting we share? And share what, exactly? The town? Athena?”
“Would that be so bad?” I surprised even myself when I say it out loud. “Us running things together, delegating as need be, working with our strengths? Sharing a girl we both want, both enjoy, who’s coming to want and enjoy us as well?”