Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
I was healthy.
“Your skin is like alabaster.” Ashley’s eyes fevered as he blatantly stared at my naked flesh, which hadn’t seen sunlight in two months. “You’re a raving beauty clad in any garment. But one glimpse of you without clothes is enough to send a lethal jolt along a hungry man’s cock.”
I sighed, biting back a smile.
“I love her mouth.” Priest clasped my hand and led me to the bath. “It’s not like that of a sweet girl in her first bloom. Bennett’s mouth is impish, seductive, and full of teeth, made for biting, licking, and sucking all rationale from a man’s head.” He gave my bare backside a hard slap, making me yelp. “In the bath, madam.”
I lifted my legs over the edge and into the warm water, craning my neck to look at him.
He untied the flap on his breeches and pushed the material to the marble floor, exposing his relaxed cock, the full length of his musculature, and the scars that had burned most of his left leg.
His eyes caught mine, warning me not to ask about the injury.
I shifted and met Ashley’s gaze. No surprise or horror there. He already knew about them.
“Did he tell you how he got them?” I asked Ashley.
He nodded.
“This is exactly what I was talking about.” A stab of pain hit my stomach, like a tiny knife sinking its way in. “You share things between you. Secrets, friendship, childhood, trust… Since I’m not part of that fraternity—”
“It happened in Nassau.” The water splashed beside me as Priest slid into the bath.
His arm hooked around my back, taking me with him. The steps were designed for sitting, and after a few adjustments, he had us positioned on one with me on his lap. I leaned back against his chest, letting the surface of the water rise to my nipples, lapping at the sensitive tips.
He held me close, his mouth beside my ear, and told me the story.
“You saw what I looked like when Ashley left me. But you didn’t witness my self-destruction when I realized I’d lost you, too.” He found my hand beneath the water and moved it to the bubbled flesh on his thigh. “I rowed a jolly boat out to sea and set it afire.”
“What?” My pulse exploded as I tried to push up. “While you were in it?”
He trapped me against his chest, the bar of his arm like iron across my midsection. “I wanted to die. Positively the least manly thing I’ve attempted in my life. The fire only consumed one leg before the boat overset and doused me in the sea. I was content to drown there, but a fisherman pulled me out.”
My stomach plunged with overwhelming guilt. I should have never left him. I should have been there.
“I ended up at the Garden,” he said, “with a dozen prostitutes nursing me back to health for six miserable months. And before you ask—”
“I’m not going to ask.”
“I’m saying it anyway for both of you to hear. Ashley is the last person I fucked, and that was over two years ago. Now…” He glided his hand across my abdomen and sank it between my thighs. “You’re going to promise me that you will never feel guilty when you look at my scars. My actions forced you to run, and I set that fire. I vow to you that I will never do those two things again.” He caressed his fingers along my slit, distracting me with the blissful sensation. “Promise me, Bennett. You will not blame yourself. Ever.”
“I promise.” A gasp caught in my throat, and my gaze darted to Ashley.
He sat across from me, his chest and shoulders stiff above the water, and his hands… I couldn’t see them, but I knew he was holding himself, touching and stroking that giant cock as he watched me.
His expression was serene. Gorgeously untroubled. I didn’t have a clue how this three-way intimacy would work, but he liked seeing me with Priest. Or perhaps he loved seeing Priest with a woman.
“Have you…?” I licked my lips, hesitating. “Have you ever shared a female?”
“No,” they said in unison.
Priest hardened and swelled against my backside, his breaths shortening. “Not once, in the twenty years I’ve known him, have we ever planned to fuck.”
Fuck. I loved hearing that word on Priest’s sinful, accented tongue. Chills. Every. Time.
“You’re telling me,” I said, “that you’ve never sought each other out just for pleasure?”
“Never. That part is always spontaneous between us.” Ashley held Priest’s gaze. “Usually angry. Often the result of a fight. It just happens. Then it’s over, and we don’t analyze it.”
I valued that insight. It helped me understand the physical nature of their relationship.
It also aroused me. I could imagine it vividly. Just like they’d been in the bedchamber, punching and wrestling on the floor. Then the shift in the air. The change in temper, passion heating, consuming. Had I not dropped that water bucket, would they have fucked right there on the floor?