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“I don’t think she needs a safeword,” he growls through gritted teeth, face tipped down to where he’s ramming into me.

He stops just long enough to pull out and let the firelight catch the thick ropes of my arousal coating every inch of him.

Van groans into the side of my face, a deep, guttural sound that crashes through me. Tightens my core when Lachlan forces his way back in.

“Safeword,” Van snarls like a warning. “You’re going to fucking need it.”

Panting, desperate for air neither of them is allowing me, I choke out the first word that pops into my head. “Plum.”

The pressure around my wrists ease the same time as the clamp around my throat does. Both hands drop to my breasts. Fingers circle my nipples.

“You have ten seconds before we come for you.” His fingers close around my jaw and twists my face to his, to his mouth cutting into mine. “Hide well, little doe.”

Lachlan pulls out with a low, satisfied curse. His hands stay on my thighs, imprinting his fingertips into my flesh. His chest rises and falls with excitement as he pushes to his full height, cock slick with my heat standing proud between us.

“Ten,” Van begins, fingers loosening around me.

“Nine,” Lachlan adds.

Instinct kicks in, a primal, desperate creature backed into a corner as I scramble out of Van’s lap. Unsteady limbs waver as I struggle to find my weight. Numb fingers drag my top down, the only covering on me before I bolt.

“Eight!”

My heart is chained to live wires, electric currents that pulse with fire and adrenaline. It sets my blood ablaze, a wildfire of excitement and fear that has me pounding in no actual direction.

“Seven!”

Their voices carry through the house. Over the storm. The crash of my heart slamming into my ribs. This is my house and I have no idea where I’m going. I probably should have put some thought into the direction of my escape, but...

“Six!”

I dart towards the kitchen and pass it through the screen doors and into the sunroom. The house is unsettling in the dark. When I’m not running for my life, I know to avoid the corner edge between the wicker seat and the low table holding a bowl of loose stones. Not stab my toe on the leg as I take the corner too closely.

“Five!”

Hissing and hobbling, I shuffle to the second set of doors looping the house together and crash into the mudroom.

My bare feet slap on the floor as I hurry out of the closed space and round the second narrow hall back towards the front of the house.

My plan, as half baked and ridiculous as it is, is to loop around while they’re following me this way. They have no idea the sunroom has a secondary door leading back into the house. Or the hall that leads back to the front and the stairs going up. In all reality, there really aren’t many places to hide and running upstairs is how every idiot dies in horror movies, but I am not hiding in the basement, which is my only other option.

“Four!”

I reach the end of the corridor and veer left at the foot of the stairs. I take them two at a time, lungs screaming, thighs weak. I can only pray the storm is muffling the creak of floorboards to them because they sound like bombs in my ears.

“Three!”

At the landing, I throw myself down the second-floor hall. My brain spins as I stare at the row of doors, calculating the risks.

They’ll check the first one. It’s the most likely place a person would go. The master suite, too.

Damn it. Should have gone in the basement.

“Two!”

Stifling my squeak, I bolt into the last door at the end. It’s pitch black. Should have been perfect. But I’m stumbling, hands extended, feeling my way forward to the bed.

“One, Everly! Ready or not. Here we come.”