Page 17

AURELIA

E very time I think it will be better to take my chances with the mountain, I see their faces.

Harrison’s.

Cassie’s.

Tyler’s just before he went over the cliff.

I don’t just see their faces. I remember the cold that seeped into my bones, whispering that I’d never make it. I remember the exhaustion and pain from falling out of the sky. It felt like I was running from more than just death.

It felt like I’d been running from myself.

I’m not ready.

Until I am, I have to be whatever these mountain men require. I have to play their games, warm their beds, and serve them with a smile. Khalil, Thorin, and Seth think they have me where they want me.

They don’t know I’ve been playing this game much longer than them.

“How?” I ask even though I already know.

This cabin—this false haven in the middle of nowhere—was a trap. I know that now, but I take two steps forward anyway and let myself fall into it. I don’t even flinch when the front door slams shut behind me.

The brutal frigidness of the wilds is replaced by the red-hot heat of Khalil’s stare as he keeps the hand he used to close the door where it is. He pushes the mass of my curls over my shoulder with the other so that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my neck when he speaks.

“You know how, Aurelia. You know what we’ve wanted all along.”

He’s not wrong.

They’ve made their intentions and expectations of me clear from the start—lie on my back or find another way to make myself useful.

I didn’t just survive a plane crash. I’ve somehow traveled back in time.

“All three of you? A-at the same time?”

Khalil’s mouth curves into a smile. “We can start with just one. Which of us would you like?”

Uhh…none?

Knowing it’s not an option and might erase any goodwill they have left, I keep my thoughts to myself.

My gaze bounces between the three of them. Honestly, I can’t believe they’re letting me choose.

The hard look on Thorin’s face says he wants to break me in half. I think Seth’s smile is meant to be reassuring, but it’s a little too eager, and he just looks…unhinged.

My gaze falls on Khalil last.

His expression gives nothing away as he calmly waits for my answer, and I think it’s the patience that has me saying, “You.”

Seth’s smile drops, and he whimpers like a dog that’s been kicked. Thorin just storms into his room and slams the door. I do flinch that time.

“Smart choice,” Khalil says.

It doesn’t feel that way to me, especially when he backs away and looks me over like I’m some broodmare he’s inspecting before mounting. I shiver.

“My room,” he orders. “And don’t bother wearing that bullshit in my bed.” He nods to my tattered costume dress. “You have ten minutes to get yourself ready for me. Go.”

“Can I watch?” I hear Seth ask as I slip past.

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until Khalil answers. “No.”

Seth makes another wounded sound.

My hands are shaking by the time I reach the den, but I don’t immediately go to Khalil’s room.

I make a couple of detours first.

Khalil’s bedroom is pitch-black when I step inside after a quick shower.

The lamps on the bedside table are off, and so are the tiny lights woven through the branches of the canopy. They’re usually on, even during the day, so the darkness is jarring at first.

There’s no shade over the windows, but the moonlight doesn’t touch the room as if it doesn’t want to bear witness to what’s about to happen.

I’m still mustering the courage to drop my towel when I hear the shower turn off. Khalil had been there the moment I stepped out of the bathroom, but thankfully, all he’d done was go inside and shut the door. It gave me time to find the weapon I’d carefully stashed inside my towel.

I quickly tuck the glass shard under the pillow I’ve been using, and only then can I breathe. Diving under the covers, I bring them to my chin as I peer over them with my gaze glued to the door I’ve just now realized is arched.

I’m being ridiculous.

Jumping when I think I see a shadow move in the corner by the window, I peer a little closer, but Khalil steps through the door, turning my brain into a puddle when I notice his glistening chest and the towel around his waist.

I swear his shadow grows larger the closer he gets until it seems like he’s ten feet tall. Khalil doesn’t speak as he rounds his beautiful bed. When he nears the dresser where I thought I’d seen the shadow move, he pauses and swears for some reason. I sit up a little to see what’s angered him and if it’s me, but Khalil drops his towel, and I get a brief glimpse of his muscled ass and long dick before he slides into his side of the bed.

His side.

The thought of owning a place in his bed has my heart skipping a beat.

Khalil leaves his lamp off, and I can’t decide if he does it out of kindness. I can’t see more than the outline of his body, which means I’m still thinking clearly, but I also can’t see…anything.

Without a single fucking word, Khalil wraps an arm around my waist and yanks me under him.

It’s so quiet in the room that the sheets rustling sound loud to my ears. My hands immediately find Khalil’s shoulders to hold him off so I can think. The raw power I can feel underneath his warm skin says I don’t stand a chance.

“Wait,” I plead when he nudges my legs apart. “Can we…can we slow down?”

I unintentionally moan when his lips find mine, and for a while, I forget that I don’t want to be here.

Khalil is an amazing kisser.

His full lips feel like pillows against mine as he shows me how he likes it. I’m not a novice to kissing, but right now, I feel woefully inadequate as I try to keep up. I can taste the mint on his tongue as he feeds it to me, and my lashes flutter as I try to keep my eyes open but lose the battle.

The moment I’m relaxed, I feel him undoing the knot between my breasts, and I come crashing back down. We’re still lip-locked when I make a desperate grab for the towel, but he catches my hands and pins them to the mattress. With his free hand, he yanks my towel away, and I cry out as he tosses it over the side of the bed. Turning my head away and breaking the kiss, my gaze lands on the corner by the window again, and I swear the shadows take shape, pressing in closer.

Lifting my head, I squint to see better, but Khalil sinks his teeth into my flesh without warning, and I gasp. My gaze snaps to him, but he’s already watching me with a mouth full of my breast. The possession in his eyes sends a flare of pain and heat rushing from the spot he claimed down to my toes, and I hear the silent command .

Eyes on me.

Rising onto his knees, Khalil flips me onto my stomach, and before I can regain my bearing, I feel the weight of one determined mountain man pressing into my back.

“Khalil, wait. Seriously. I-I’m not ready.”

“I am.”

Oh, fuck.

He yanks my hips up from the bed and nudges my thighs apart with his knee. Something hard and thick teases my opening, spreading my arousal around, and wonder turns to dread when I realize how fast this is moving. Khalil runs a soothing palm up my spine like he’s calming a skittish mare, and then he presses his hips forward.

My fists clench the sheets when I feel his crown breach my pussy, and I hear myself taunt in frustration, “What? No foreplay?”

He pulls out of me without a word, and I yelp a moment later when he slaps my ass in response. “You want foreplay?”

Khalil doesn’t stop at one.

Holding me down by my nape, his palm strikes me repeatedly, and he doesn’t hold back. He never seems to hit the same spot twice, and yet before long, my ass feels red hot, and I’m dripping, writhing, and sobbing all over his sheets. God, I’m already sore and delirious, and he hasn’t even begun. After what feels like an eternity, the spanking ends, and Khalil leans forward, his lips meeting my ear.

“Is that enough playtime for you, princess? Can I fuck you now?”

I’m panting like I’ve run a mile as he lines his dick up again without waiting for a response. It’s almost mean when his hips punch forward, but it doesn’t hurt when he enters me. I’m much too slick—too wanting and needy and desperate for all the wrong reasons.

Khalil groans as he sinks further into my warmth, and I grit my teeth to keep from screaming how much I hate him. My mouth falls open when he pushes forward again, but a knot forms in my throat, so I don’t make a sound.

I’m tense again, but I don’t know why.

Khalil huffs when he realizes he isn’t getting any further, not without hurting me. I’m thankful he has enough decency to stop, even if it is to bark at me. “Aurelia, enough of this shit. Just relax for me, all right?”

“I can’t,” I whine.

“Yes, you can. It’s only fucking, baby. You’ve done this before.” There’s a beat of silence that I’m too nervous to fill, so he sighs heavily and says, “I’m not going to hurt you, Aurelia.”

I want to believe him, but everything he’s done to me before this moment tells me he would hurt me if it meant getting what he wanted.

It’s not even what he’ll do to me that I’m afraid of. How can I be when just the thought lights every nerve I have with excitement? What scares me is whether Khalil—or any of them—will care enough to lick my wounds after. They can break me apart, but will they piece me back together?

“Fine,” Khalil barks with equal frustration. “Fight me all you want, but this pussy is mine .” A gasp escapes me as Khalil sinks himself so deep his hips slap against my ass. He holds on to me as he pulls out almost immediately and drives forward again.

In and out. Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

My cries mix with the guttural sounds Khalil makes, and it shakes me to my core because I know this is only the beginning.

Reaching behind me, I press a hand to his abs to slow him down, but he slaps it away, and his hold shifts to my nape as he rides me even harder.

“Do not make me tie you down,” he warns in a low voice.

I stop trying to push him away as Khalil gets lost in the rhythm he sets. Because I need his guard down, I slowly began to match it. I deepen the arch in my back and drive my hips back to meet his. I did the very last thing he expected when he took me to bed.

I fuck him back.

“Ah, shit, baby. Yeah. Fuck ,” he moans.

Taking that as my cue, I reach my arm toward my pillow. When Khalil slaps my ass in warning, I snatch it back. He does it even harder a second time and an inexplicable moan slips from me at his roughness.

Khalil’s punishing grip on my nape loosens until his hand falls away and relocates to my waist. When his rhythm changes, I peer over my shoulder and see that his eyes are closed now while his bottom lip is trapped between his pretty, white teeth.

Arching my back even more to reach the glass shard I’d hidden under my pillow, I hear Khalil say, “Yeah, I knew you fucking wanted it.”

Humiliation burns through me but not as much as when I feel my pussy gushing in response. My cheeks burn from the indignity of it, and the best-worst part is that I want more. I want him to say more mean, despicable things to me.

The words that tumble from my lips burn me from the inside out with shame. “Please, Khalil. Please stop.”

“No.” Khalil tightens his hold on me as he fucks me harder.

Blood rushes to my middle, and I abandon the shard as my throbbing clit short-circuits my brain.

“I don’t want this,” I plead as much to myself as to him. I can’t stop throwing my pussy at Khalil to take. I can’t stop feeding this new sensation rising in my gut, curling my toes, and setting my blood on fire.

“Too fucking bad.”

I never in a million years expected to come from mere words.

It feels like a betrayal to myself when I bury my face in the pillow to muffle my cries. I fist the sheets and give myself over to this thing inside me that craves the depravity he offers.

Unwilling to let me hide, Khalil fists my hair and yanks my head up while I’m mid-scream. The broken sound pierces the quiet room and probably the cabin itself as I come so hard, my vision is a flash of blinding white.

I’m boneless after that.

Once I collapse onto my stomach, I can’t move, but Khalil doesn’t seem to care as he pulls out of me and lies on his back. “Sit on it,” he orders before I can even catch my breath.

I steal a peek at his dick and shudder at the thought. The flared purple head is slick with my juices and bobbing back and forth as he breathes hard.

Khalil takes it in his hand and strokes it once before turning his head to look at me with a raised brow when I take too long.

Dragging myself upright, I straddle him with my hands on his chest. Khalil handles the next part, positioning me so that I’m hovering over his dick. The weight of his hands on my waist increases until I get the hint, and I lower on my own. As he fills me once more, I don’t fight it this time—not until the pressure gets too intense, and I stop.

Khalil isn’t having it. “All the way down, Goldilocks.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re freakishly big, Khalil.”

“Should I call my brothers in here? Seth or Thorin could help stretch your pussy for me.”

I swear I hear a cough that sounds like it came from inside the room. When I turn my head to investigate, Khalil snaps his hips, and I gasp, my nails digging into his skin when he seats himself fully inside me.

“Oh, f-fuck you. You fucking bastard.”

“Aurelia.”

Rolling my eyes, I start to move back and forth slowly. It’s awkward at first, and I feel off balance, but it doesn’t last. I focus on his face, and soon, I start to notice what it does to him when I move my hips a certain way.

Khalil bites into his bottom lip when I bounce on his dick, but when I sway back and forth, he tilts his head back and groans.

I repeat the action while watching him closely. “Like this?”

“Hell yeah, baby. Like that.”

I figured out that I don’t feel as full if I lean forward, so I do. It puts our faces close together, and for a while, we just gaze at one another while he makes me pleasure him. There’s no sound in the room other than our heavy breaths and the sound of him moving inside of me. Khalil’s hands are all over my ass, and I don’t want to like it, but the way he grips and spreads it like he owns me feels so good.

It’s nice when they touch me like they can’t get enough.

Eventually, his eyes start to close.

I mourn the loss until I realize this is my chance. I keep one hand on his chest and my gaze on his face as I quietly slip my hand under my pillow again. This time, I succeed in pulling the shard out.

No, I’m not ready to brave the icy wilderness.

But I can take this cabin.

I’ll wait until Khalil is done bleeding out and Thorin and Seth are asleep, and then I’ll do the same to them. The idea of murdering anyone—even them—makes me sick, but they’ve given me no choice.

The moonlight that had been absent before bounces off the glass, and I pause as the reality of what I’m about to do comes crashing down on me. A week ago, I never would have imagined myself preparing to sever a man’s carotid while riding his cock.

The thought of bathing in his blood makes me pick up my pace. A cold rage washes over me as I remember the night in the den and how he forced me to my knees.

He should have been the one worshipping me.

Staring down at him now and watching his face as he enjoys me, all I feel is…hmm…

It’s not hate.

Hate isn’t useful.

Hate doesn’t get shit done.

Hate won’t win me this cabin or my power back.

What I feel for Khalil, Thorin, and Seth is far more terrifying and relentless than hate .

“That’s it,” I urge when Khalil digs his heels into the bed and starts fucking me faster from below. “Come for me, baby. Keep your eyes closed and come for me .”

My name is a string of broken syllables on his lips as our middles collide over and over. The bed of twisted branches rocks and groans underneath us like it might break in half if we don’t stop, but I can’t. Khalil is close, and the unintentional friction on my sensitive clit has me racing alongside him.

“Tell me again. Tell me how I wanted this.”

My eyes drift closed as my head falls back, and I’m lost. I’m barely aware of my arms rising as I bounce on his thick cock. Khalil doesn’t notice how close he is to death as he gives it to me.

With a strangled cry from us both, we come at the same time. It feels like I’m shattering apart, so my eyes are slow to drift open. My vision is unfocused at first, but then I can see him clearly—head tilted back, veins and tendons stretching as he comes inside of me with a groan.

The asshole didn’t even wear a condom.

Holding the shard above my head with a double-fisted grip, I plunge the sharp tip downward, aiming for the center of his chest. When my wrist is seized so suddenly and harshly, I cry out in confusion and pain.

The shard is snatched out of my hand half a second later, and the sting as the jagged edge slices into my palm is nothing compared to my devastating failure.

I don’t even understand it at first because both of Khalil’s hands are still holding onto me, and his eyes are still closed. The grip on my wrist tightens cruelly, and I feel the bones twinge right before I’m violently yanked off the bed. Khalil’s eyes fly open as I fight and claw to finish what I started—to kill the first thing I can sink my teeth into.

I. Want. Blood.

Next to my ear, a deep voice rumbles in the dark like some terrifying beast awoken from a long slumber. “You are vicious , aren’t you? I think we’ll keep you, songbird.”

I’m tossed onto the floor just as light floods the room.

Thorin is standing between Khalil and me, but his back is to his best friend as he stares down at me with a mixture of amusement and warning. If I want to get to Khalil, I’ll have to go through him . Something tells me he hopes I’ll try.

And when Thorin wins, he’ll take what he’s owed.

No, fighting him while outmatched is stupid. I have to be smarter than that. My previous plan was good, but I hadn’t counted on an audience. Seth is standing near the bedroom door conveniently left wide open, but I’m not stupid enough to fall for that. Sitting up slowly, I stay silent and pretend my nakedness or the fact that I was caught isn’t an issue.

“Anyone care to explain what the fuck is going on?” Khalil demands as he yanks the sheet to cover his dick that’s still twitching and leaking cum. It figures his first instinct would be to protect that useless organ.

Lies.

It had been exceptional at turning me inside out.

For a moment, I had the insane thought that Thorin wasn’t just standing between us, for Khalil’s sake.

What if he’s protecting me too?

The moment the question is out there—at least in my warped mind—I realize how ridiculous it sounds. When Khalil finds out what I tried to do, he’ll probably want to kill me, and Thorin is the last person who will come to my rescue if he tries.

The silence stretches on for too long, Khalil’s question going unanswered, so he sucks his teeth and comes up with a conclusion on his own. “See, I knew I shouldn’t have let y’all watch,” he gripes while resting his back against the headboard, one muscled leg dangling over the side of the bed like some sort of listless sex god.

They’d been watching? The whole time?

“Yeah?” Thorin retorts. “Well, this bitch just tried to fucking kill you, so I’d say you’re lucky as hell I even bothered to save your sorry ass.”

“I knew you were upset that she chose me,” Khalil blathers like Thorin hadn’t spoken, “but cockblocking, Thorin? Really? She chose me. Get over it. What did you expect when you—wait, what?”

“She tried to gut you while you were balls deep, dumbass.”

It’s almost comical when Khalil’s jaw drops, and his eyes dart to me. Then, he goes back to Thorin and then to Seth for confirmation. Khalil’s face is the picture of shock when his gaze finally settles on me. It’s the lack of remorse he sees on my face that finally allows what Thorin told him to sink in. “Are you fucking serious? I let you come!”

Unbelievable.

Thorin tosses the glass shard on the bed next to Khalil’s leg. “Seth and I saw her hide that under her pillow before you came to bed. We waited to see if she’d make a move.”

“You saw her hide a weapon that could kill me and waited ?”

Seth pouts as if he’s disappointed that Khalil isn’t as amused as him. “I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

Thorin rolls his eyes. “We didn’t see what it was, jackass.”

“Yeah, whatever. You probably thought about letting her do it just to get back at me, you jealous asshole.”

“Can you stop thinking with your dick for one moment? She just tried to kill you. Who cares who had her first? It could have easily been me whether she wanted it or not. The fallacy is thinking that the choice was ever really hers.”

I crab walk closer to the door while they’re distracted, arguing over my pussy. Seth sees me, but all he does is smile warmly and waggle his fingers goodbye. Of the three, he scares me the most.

“That little ass piece of glass wouldn’t have done more than give me a flesh wound.”

“And if she’d hit an artery?”

“I still would have been the one she’d chosen.”

I’m nearly through the door when I hear Khalil’s petulant jibe and roll my eyes. They might be big, bad, scary mountain men on the outside, but they’re boys on the inside.

“Get your ass back here, Aurelia.”

The order comes from Thorin, who doesn’t so much as turn his head to look my way. I feel the last of my fight leave me with a sigh. Of course, Thorin, Khalil, and Seth never stopped being aware of me. I never stood a chance of getting away.

Slowly rising to my feet, my gaze bounces between the three of them to gauge which one I can turn against the others.

The three of them are careful not to give a single passing thought away, but I’ve been practicing the art a lot longer, so I know mine are well hidden when I saunter over to…Seth.

I take one step toward the grinning maniac when Thorin reaches out a long arm and yanks me to his side.

“Explain yourself,” he demands.