Page 20

AURELIA

T he cabin is quiet without the crackling of wood, so I know it must be morning when I feel my blanket being pulled off me. The fires from the stoves will have gone out by now, so the morning air breezes over my skin, but the cold isn’t the reason for my goose bumps.

Futilely, I keep my eyes closed and my breathing even in the hopes that I won’t be subjected to more of their attention, but I should have known better than to think playing dead would work.

I can’t help but lock up, giving my awareness away the moment I feel the heavy weight of a feral mountain men climbing on top of me. I know who it is the moment I smell his scent—warm and spicy and wild. My eyes fly open against my will, and I can see for myself that it’s morning.

I’ve slept for hours, but it feels like minutes.

Drawing in a deep breath, I part my lips to scream—as if anyone in this house would save me—but the sound doesn’t make it past my throat. He covers my mouth with his hand, but it’s the cold blue eyes of the rejected man staring back at me that terrify me.

“Am I going to have to hold you down?”

I whimper, but Thorin doesn’t care if I’m scared.

“Am I going to have to get rough with you, Aurelia?”

I swallow down the need to ask him the same and shake my head.

He’s not like the other two.

Thorin rarely finds me amusing or cute or any of the condescending things that makes men believe women can’t be dangerous. In a weird twist of irony, I guess one could say Thorin respects me more than the others. He sees me for the threat that I am and keeps me at an arm’s distance.

When he uses his free hand to reach between us and pull on the worn sash of Khalil’s robe—Khalil, whose cum is still dried on my thighs—I keep my promise and don’t fight him.

The moment the robe is loose and the panels part, Thorin lowers his head, and his breath skates over the soft curve of my belly.

“What’s it going to take to convince you that you belong here, wolf? I can take you apart one limb at a time and keep only the parts we need. But that can get messy and won’t be nearly as much fun as option B.”

I gulp and just barely keep the tremble out of my voice when I ask, “Option B?”

Thorin nods but doesn’t elaborate as he kisses my stomach. His attention on this particular part of my body needles at my self-consciousness. It’s all I can do not to snap my robe closed and hide my body from his leering. All he says is, “I like this look on you.”

“What look?”

“Your belly swollen.”

My gaze narrows, forgetting all about the fact that he just threatened to dismember me if I tried to run again. “Are you calling me fat?”

Thorin’s gaze flicks upward, and he gives me a look full of impatience. “Out of all the things you should have taken from what I said, how is that what you heard, Aurelia?”

I shrug and look away.

It doesn’t matter anyway. The issue isn’t whether he appreciates my body. I don’t care. I love the way I look. It’s the fact that he’ll do whatever he wants to it, regardless of how I feel.

Thorin, as if to prove a point, removes Khalil’s robe and then stares at my body like it’s on the dinner menu, and he doesn’t know where to start—the appetizer, entrée, or straight to dessert.

“You didn’t strike me as the type to be insecure,” he remarks absently.

“I’m not insecure. I’m human,” I say as I stare at the vaulted ceiling, waiting for him to fuck me already so he can leave me alone. “There’s not a person alive who doesn’t feel it sometimes. There are only those who are honest about it and those who bullshit about it.”

Thorin grunts but doesn’t deny it.

Looking at him, I wonder if I’m wrong.

Thorin clearly has nothing to be insecure about. He checks every box except kindness and chivalry.

As if he can tell where my mind wanders, Thorin sits up until he’s kneeling over me. My gaze is unwillingly drawn back to him when he grips the bottom of his shirt. It’s not until the hem shows the first strip of skin that I realize I’ve never seen Thorin shirtless. Seth and Khalil, yes, but not Thorin.

I realize why when the shirt clears his belly button, and I see it.

Four deep, diagonal slashes.

It keeps going, extending from the right side of his waist across his abs and stopping above the nipple on his left pec. The scar tissue is pink, slightly raised, and fully healed, but no less horrifying to see—not because of the appearance but because of what he must have survived.

Is this what I’ll look like once I’m finally safe from them? Healed and alive but forever scarred?

“What happened?” I ask to keep from reaching out and touching Thorin’s old wounds. And, okay, I’m also curious if his abs are really as hard as they look. Paradoxically, the scars only make him seem more invincible, and I start to waver because if whatever did that couldn’t kill him, what chance did I have?

“Grizzly.” Thorin’s tone implies it happens every day. I don’t know. Does it? I sure the fuck hope not.

“You fought a grizzly bear?” I echo skeptically. I give into the impulse this time and run my fingers over his scars and through the thin scattering of hair on his lower stomach. “And you won.” He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t, but it still sounds unbelievable.

“He did his fair share of damage, as you can see, but nothing fatal.”

“That’s too bad.”

The look he gives me is only slightly amused. “You would have preferred the bear, huh?”

“I would have preferred ten bears to you.”

Thorin smiles, but it’s not a friendly one. I’ve fooled myself into thinking we were connecting on a human level until he stands from the couch and shoves down his sweats and boxers.

I look away the moment they clear his hips and close my eyes.

I’ve already seen his dick, so it feels silly, but it’s all the rebellion I have left. When he lifts me from the couch, I suck in a breath. Begging won’t help. I know that, but I still hear myself saying, “Please, Thorin. Do we have to do this now? I’m sore.”

“All the more reason to get you used to fucking.” He lays me down on the bear rug, and his gentleness confuses me. When he joins me, I burst into action and flip onto my stomach. I try to crawl away, but Thorin grabs my leg and drags me back.

“Fuck you!” I scream in his face when he succeeds in flipping me onto my back again. “I don’t want to!”

“No?” He forces a hand between my thighs and uses it to palm me. “Then what’s this, Aurelia?” Neither of us speaks as he slowly explores my pussy with the rough pads of his fingers. The friction is perfect and before long my thighs slowly fall open of their own accord. “Tell me why you’re ruining my fucking rug if you don’t want it,” he whispers.

“That’s not…it’s not…”

“Yes?”

“It’s not my fault, Thorin.”

His blue gaze softens and then I feel his thumb stroke my engorged clit like a caress. “No. It’s not, baby. It’s mine.”

“Please don’t this,” I beg with tears in my eyes that will never fall. “This can’t really be the kind of man you are.”

My statement hits its mark, and he snatches his hand away like I struck him. For the length of a single breath, he actually looks like I’d gotten through. “What the fuck do you know about me, huh? You don’t know shit.”

“I know you want to hurt me. I know I never did anything to deserve the way you treat me. I know I don’t want this.”

“Jesus, Aurelia. Why can’t you just shut the fuck up sometimes?” Thorin sits back, rubs his temples, and sighs. Despite his so-called stress, his hard-on never goes away. It stands tall and imposing like a threat. “I don’t want to hurt you. This doesn’t have to be a bad experience for either of us. Just don’t fight me, and it can be good for you too.”

“No.”

Thorin drops his hands and just stares at me.

It’s just like a man to think wanting autonomy over my body makes me unreasonable.

“Yeah, well, you know what I think?” He grabs both of my thighs and forces them apart before climbing between them. I try to buck him off, but he’s too heavy. Thorin has a hand over my mouth before I can scream again, but I do it anyway, right into his palm. “I think you do want it,” he whispers roughly. I scream again behind his palm when he lines up his cock with my pussy. “I think it turns you on telling us no. I think if I fucked this little cunt right now, you’ll scream for me and it won’t be to stop.”

I moan in horror when he presses forward and does exactly that.

Thorin forces his thick cock inside me while I shake my head and scream obscenities.

He doesn’t go slow like Khalil, letting me get used to his length. Thorin plows all the way inside until it should be impossible for him to go any further.

And then he removes his hand from my mouth pushes inside until his balls rest against my ass.

He gets so deep I yelp loud enough to wake the cabin.

Thorin leers down at me as he starts fucking me with short, brutal thrusts. “Does that feel good, wolf?” That is the third time he’s called me that. What happened to songbird? What changed? My head rolls to the side as I moan and wrap my legs around his waist. “Yeah, you want it harder, don’t you? Tell me you love it when I take what’s mine.”

“I’m not yours,” I remind him with my eyes closed. “I hate you.”

Thorin growls, and I tighten around his cock at the animalistic sound. “I hate you too,” he returns without any of the venom. “You drive me fucking insane.”

A moment later, I feel his lips on my shoulder, kissing and sucking and biting as he pounds in and out of me. My fingers slip through his blond hair and hold tight as I lift my shoulders off the rug enough to peer over his and watch the heady vision of his powerful body working and using me.

“Oh, God,” I whisper as I watch. “Oh, God .” I can’t look away from the flexing muscles in his ass. Yes. Yes. Oh, fuck, yes.

Ruining my fun because he’s a dick, Thorin flips me onto my stomach and yanks me onto my knees. He shoves back inside me hard enough to drive me forward until my chin is hovering over the bear’s head whose body we’re fucking on like some fucked up threesome.

I think about my dream and how savage the guys looked wearing those masks.

And then I imagine how much more intense this coupling would be if Thorin was wearing one right now while I’m on all fours for him, and he’s grunting and growling like my own twisted version of the Beast.

“Oh, my God,” I whine long and low when my hips finally start moving on their own. “Oh, my God, I’m going to come.”

My breasts sway when Thorin picks up the pace and rides me like he’s testing if I’m truly indestructible.

It feels like we’re mating .

The sound of our sweaty skin clapping echoes around the cabin, and I don’t even care about being overheard. Seth and Khalil will know I enjoyed what Thorin is doing to me, just as I didn’t totally hate last night with Khalil.

My fingers curl into the low pile of the rug when I start to come. I slap a hand over my mouth to muffle my scream, but it’s no use hiding it from him.

I know he feels me coming when he makes a strangled sound in his throat.

Thorin takes hold of my hair while I come and yanks my head back so that his lips are next to my ear. “How many times, Aurelia? How often did you fantasize about having your little pussy ravaged? Once? Twice?”

What is he talking…like, a day?

If so, then yes . God, yes.

After a while, it became a part of me. I stopped noticing when it happened or even being bothered by it. It was my dirty little secret.

My dark desire.

It doesn’t mean I don’t hate them all the same—even if Seth, Khalil, and Thorin are giving me what I’ve never been brave enough to speak aloud, let alone ask for. I always thought it would be my choice if I ever gave in to it.

Lowering my hand only once I’m done coming, I close my eyes when he sinks balls deep again and empties them inside me. I can still feel him coming when he reaches down and starts rubbing my stomach. That uncomfortable feeling returns as I remember our earlier discussion.

“I like this look on you.”

“What look?”

“Your belly swollen.”

My fight-or-flight response kicks in before I can fully understand why, but when I try to crawl away from him, Thorin wraps both arms around my middle and holds me still.

Oh, God, he makes me take it.

Every drop.

“Thorin…you can’t… please .”

Leaning forward, he sinks his teeth into my shoulder and continues filling me up.

When it’s finally over, he collapses on the rug, but he takes me with him, tucking me against his side while he catches his breath. I’m forced to cuddle my rapist while he enjoys his fucking afterglow.

I think I prefer Khalil’s kindness of kicking me out of his room after he’s done with me.

Ten minutes pass without either of us saying a word.

I don’t like how comfortable I’m getting wrapped in his muscles and warmth, so I break it. “How long have you?”

Thorin seems to know exactly what I’m asking. “I never had the urge until you.”

“So I’m special then,” I retort dryly and roll my eyes. “Lucky me.”

He gives me one of his exasperated sighs. “You asked, Aurelia.” When I don’t respond, he takes my chin and forces me to meet his gaze. “Come shower with me.”

I cringe away from him. What he’s asking is out of the question. It’s too intimate. I can’t risk him blurring the truth of what we are to each other. “Why?”

Thorin’s already standing and helping me up when he answers. “Because I said so, wolf.”

“That bear you killed,” I say as I grab Khalil’s robe from the couch and pull it on. “What did you do with it? Did you…eat it?”

Thorin grabs his discarded clothes and starts for his bedroom. “No. You’re standing on him.”

I’m wearing one of Thorin’s T-shirts and nothing else when I leave his room alone an hour later. I’m freshly showered and feeling like I own my body again. Thorin’s still inside his room getting dressed for another day of making sure I’m never found.

At the same time, Seth is coming up the stairs from the basement, looking worse for wear. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his black hair is sticking up at different angles as if he’s been gripping it.

Seth’s eyes widen when he sees me, and then his gaze drops to my throat, and he pales.

I know what he sees—the purple bruises left from his hands around my neck. I guess I don’t have to question if he remembers trying to kill me.

And then it dawns on me that in the last twenty-four hours, each of them have found a way to leave their mark on me—Thorin on my shoulder, Khalil on my breast, and Seth on my neck. All temporary, but unwanted, nonetheless.

“Sunshine…”

I walk past him without responding.

I don’t want to hear whatever bullshit apology he wants to give for hurting me again. If Seth’s looking for forgiveness, he’s not going to get it. I tried to kill Khalil, but you won’t catch me on my knees begging for absolution.

They all deserve to burn.

Maybe I do, too.

I can feel Seth follow me into the kitchen, but I ignore his pleas for my attention. I just open the fridge and try to figure out how the hell I’m going to make my mountain men an edible meal without a single homemaking bone in my body so that we don’t rinse and repeat the last two nights.

And when the hell did I start thinking of them as mine?

I don’t own them. Not yet. But when I get out of here…

A hard chest colliding with my back interrupts my vengeful thoughts. Two strong hands follow, grabbing my waist and sliding up to help themselves to my tits.

“Mmm,” Khalil hums against my neck before kissing it. “Good morning, Goldilocks. I missed you when I woke up.”

“Then you shouldn’t have kicked me out of your bed,” I remind him, unenthused.

Grabbing the carton of eggs from the side door, I go to step back, and Khalil lets me. As soon as the fridge door is closed though, he shoves me up against it and starts grinding his morning wood against my ass.

“Khalil, I have to—”

“Forget breakfast, Goldilocks. Fuck me instead.” Khalil groans as he shamelessly dry humps me against the fridge.

Instantly, I’m annoyed and horny again.

They punish me when I don’t cook for them and then distract me when I try.

I’m beginning to think the housework is just a ruse to keep my mind off running, and this is all they truly wanted.

“Khalil, I just washed you off me, and Thorin’s already beaten you to my pussy this morning. Twice. I’m all fucked out. Can you not?”

Khalil lifts his head to pull my ear between his teeth. “Fine, then I won’t fuck your pussy,” he whispers while taking his dick out of his sweats. “But you can still get me off.”

I only have enough time to place the eggs on top of the fridge before Khalil grabs my hips and starts mimicking fucking me hard from behind. I want to say the friction does nothing for me, but God help me, it does. Even my hard nipples poking through the shirt and rubbing against the cold, hard surface is enough to make me consider reaching between my thighs and rubbing my clit.

“Ah fuck. You’re starting to learn, aren’t you, baby? You’re…so…fucking…sexy,” he growls between hard thrusts.

I’ve always known I was beautiful, but so are a lot of women.

I never knew how powerful and potent it was to be caught in the thralls of someone irresistible, though—not until I found this cabin and they found me. I know exactly what they’re feeling because I feel it, too. In my line of work, I’m surrounded by a lot of attractive men. I’ve just never been powerless to that attraction before—not like this.

“Give me a kiss,” he demands.

I turn my head without hesitation and catch a glimpse of Seth watching us glumly from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table before my lips lock with Khalil’s. His movements grow more frantic, knocking the fridge against the wall and creating a whole scene as he gets closer to coming.

And then he does.

When he’s done, he backs off, and the moment I shift, I feel where he came.

I make an angry noise when I touch the hem of Thorin’s shirt and realize it’s wet. “Khalil!”

“My bad,” he says, not at all sounding like he means it. Shaking my head, I start to leave the kitchen, but he stops me with a hand on my wrist. “Where are you going?”

“To change. I can’t feed the three of you covered in cum, Khalil. That’s nasty.”

“Here. Just take mine.” He pulls the black tank he’s wearing over his head and hands it to me before I can argue that it will only take me a couple of minutes to find my dress.

Reluctantly, I lift Thorin’s shirt over my head, revealing my naked body just as Thorin walks into the kitchen. He’s wearing the same yellow and black snowsuit I saw Khalil in yesterday while the top half dangles around his waist. This close, I can see the black and white logo clearly.

The Cold Peaks and Jackal County Search & Rescue.

The words are printed around an illustration of three snow-covered mountain peaks.

It feels like I’m going to vomit.

The scowl on Thorin’s face makes me quickly cover the front of my body with his shirt until he turns his head and directs it at Khalil. Wrestling Thorin’s shirt from my hands, Khalil tosses it at Thorin, and a pissing match ensues while I quickly cover my body with Khalil’s tank. It’s long enough to cover my ass and pussy, but my breasts are practically spilling out of the sides since I’m busty.

It’s obvious at this point that Khalil coming on me was a calculated move to get me out of Thorin’s shirt and into his.

As if it matters.

“We don’t have time for you to get your dick wet,” Thorin says coldly. “We should already be at the camp.”

Camp? There’s a camp? A camp for me? And they’re going?

“Well, maybe there would be time if you’d stop acting like she only belongs to you,” Khalil gripes back. “Twice, Thorin? Seth hasn’t even had his turn yet.”

“Like you care about anyone’s dick but your own,” Thorin returns.

My cheeks flame as I listen to them talk about me like I’m not a real person.

“At least I didn’t have to fuck her twice because I’m such a bad lay.”

“Sure. That’s why you didn’t fuck her twice.”

Catching the shade, Khalil growls. “It will be a cold day in hell before you have more stamina than me, Thayer.”

Lifting two eggs from the carton, I rise onto my toes as high as I can since they’re both tall as hell. I then use their heads to crack both eggs open and watch them freeze mid-argument when the yolk spills into their hair and down the sides of their scowling faces.

Seth forgets his pouting and starts howling, daring me to do it again.

“Hey, boneheads,” I say scathingly. “I’m right here, and for the record, I belong to me. Now get the hell out of my kitchen before I change my mind about feeding you.”

“Aurelia…”

Thorin doesn’t get more than my name out before I fist my hands, squeeze my eyes closed, and yell as loud as I can, “ Geeeeeet ooooooout !”