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She heaves a defeated sigh I definitely don’t like. “That you’re right. I have to let you go.” No. Definitely don’t like the sound of that, but she’s still talking. “I have to.” She rubs the heel of her hand between her eyes hard enough to make me wince. “It’s going to hurt so much, but I have to protect you.”

“Hey,” I reach over and lightly capture her chin. I force her to look at me. “What are you talking about?”

Rather than answer, she licks her lips and captures my hand. She holds it to her chest while staring straight into my soul.

“Will you take me to bed? Just for tonight?” She tilts her face to meet Lachlan’s gaze. “If it’s all I can have of you...? Just one night?”

Still perched in Lachlan’s lap, she releases my fingers. Hers lift to the back of my head and I’m pulled to her. To her lips. To the kisses she presses into my cheeks. My nose. My mouth.

“I’ll do whatever you say,” she promises, lips ghosting across my cheek. My chin. Hovering over my mouth. “Please.”

My throat works around something jagged, a sound or a sob or a fucking growl I don’t even know. She smells like want and war, and I’m losing every ounce of reason I ever had.

Over her head, Lachlan hasn’t moved. He’s studying her in that quiet way of his before glancing at me. Our eyes meetagain through the darkness and I know he’s as lost as I am in this quicksand.

I groan, low and tortured. “You have no idea what you’re asking.”

Her teeth sink into my bottom lip in a gentle nip that crashes all the way down to my cock. Her grin is mischievous when she tips her face back to peer up at me.

“I want to be your toy.”

Her voice is a whisper, but it detonates in my chest like a bomb. My grip tightens in her hair, and I press my forehead to hers, panting, barely holding it together.

She has no fucking clue what she’s offering.

“How do you even know what that is?” I bite out, tasting blood in my mouth and realizing I’d torn a chunk out of my cheek.

Her smile is so fucking cute. So damningly seductive. “I read really, really dirty books that Jefferson would not approve of.”

“Van...” Lachlan warns. “We ... we need to fucking...”

He doesn’t even bother finishing so I’m trapped in limbo with no idea what to do. I blame him when my mouth opens, and my brain destroys what’s left of my control.

“Just my toy, Evie?”

“Van...” Lachlan’s hiss is a warning and a plea but fuck him. He was no help. He’s not even trying.

Everly gives a slight shake of her head before turning her lips to the other man’s chin. To his lips.

“Both. I can take it. I know I can.”

Lachlan was right. I should have stopped while I was ahead. I should have kept my mouth shut because what the hell am I supposed to do now?

A ragged curse tears from my throat as the madness consumes me. As it pulls me into the void that has me fisting all that beautiful hair and claiming her.

I take her mouth in a clash of lips and twisting tongues. Everly whimpers against me and I swear to God it sounds like freedom. Like surrender as she melts in my arms.

My hand slides to her throat to feel her. To feel her pulse stutter for me. To anchor her here with me. My heart pounds so loud it drowns everything else out.

When she takes the hand at her throat and drags it down to the wide parting of her thighs, I jerk back. I look down at her, wrecked and willing and perfect, and stuffing my hand where it belongs.

“Please make me cum again, Mr. Weaver.”

I look past her to Lachlan who is staring at her smooth, exposed lips lit by the lights of the dashboard. I want nothing more than to oblige but ... I’m not going to hell alone.

“It’s Van, and I think it’s Lachlan’s turn to feel how wet and soft your little cunt is.”

I expect annoyance, outrage, but the hard flare of my friend’s nostrils are needy and ravenous. It’s the face of a man barely containing himself.