Page 55 of Crushing Clover

“You think you’re so funny,” Saint said once the door was safely secured behind us.

“No. I think you’re funny.”

“I saw you step between me and that woman’s gun. Never put yourself in danger like that again. You’re not my bodyguard.”

Were those…feelings? For me?

“I was pretty sure she wouldn’t shoot me.”

“Still.”

“Don’t think I was being altruistic. If you got shot, it would be my job to take care of you. No offense, but you’d be a terrible patient.”

He grunted. “Office or bar?” he asked the birthday boy.

“Bar,” Rush said without hesitation, before heading deeper into the building.

Saint twisted my arm behind my back and marched me to the bar as though I might try to escape again with the three of them already on high alert.

“Let me go! I wasn’t really trying to get away.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t take that statement at face value.”

Rush returned with a handful of diaphanous fabric, and I quailed.

He stripped me and the other two watched in appreciation as he dressed me up in a pair of satin panties and a negligee that reminded me of a wedding veil.

It didn’t cover anything and exposed me suggestively, tenting over the tips of my breasts which were pink and stiff behind the translucent fabric. I felt more naked than naked.

I struggled as they lifted me to sit on the bar. The burnished wood was cold where the tiny panties didn’t shield me.

“What are you doing?”

“Gagging you, if you don’t shut the fuck up.”

I grumbled for a second, then shut the fuck up, as Saint had recommended, when I saw his expression.

“We’ve fucked her so many times. Why does she still make me so hard?” Rush asked.

“Because she’s fucking perfect for us?” Lucky suggested.

If they kept talking like that, I wouldn’t only put up with knives—I’d let them shave my head and tattoo my face, if they wanted to.

Saint twirled one of my curls around his finger. “Knowing we can do whatever we want to her has nothing to do with it, I’m sure.”

Three sets of eyes watched me as I watched them, not sure what I was supposed to do.

“Lie down,” Rush said, his tone changing enough to let me know it wasn’t a request. Using the lock of my hair he was holding, Saint tugged, urging me down. I did as I was bidden, ignoring the urge to run away again.

I lay back, grimacing at how hard the wood was. Lucky rooted beneath the bar and came back with a bar towel he folded over and tucked under my head.

They surrounded me, their breath hot and laced with the beer they’d consumed, and I did my best not to shudder under their hungry gazes.

Above my head on the bar, Rush unrolled his bundle of knives.

It wasn’t the set he used at Cygnet, and I got the feeling these were reserved for more nefarious activities.

“You’re not planning to make me into a human sacrifice, are you?”

“Did you think we’d let you get away from us that easily?” Rush chuckled.

I moved to get up, but Lucky pushed me back down. “Let the man work.”

Rush was in my periphery, deliberating on what knife to use. “Have you ever fantasized about this, beautiful?”

“About what?” I asked, my voice a breathless quaver.

“Have you had fantasies about having your clothes cut off? About a blade caressing your skin?” His voice was lulling, making me feel like I was being charmed by a snake that was about to devour me.

“About being cut a little? About having a knife to your throat as you cried and begged a man to stop fucking you?”

My chest shook with the frenetic beating of my heart as he planted thoughts in my head. Before them, my kinkiest fantasies had always involved being held down and used, and the three of them gave me that regularly without even realizing it.

I shook my head, feeling extremely pedestrian compared to these men.

“That’s okay,” he assured me with a slow smile. “Just because it never occurred to you before doesn’t mean you won’t like it, right?”

I bit my lip but nodded in agreement, making him groan.

“Good girl. You’re being so brave for me. Is there anything about this that’s a hard limit for you?”

“You can cut me a little, but I don’t want you to stab me, or do permanent damage,” I said, casting around for any and every possibility and loophole his twisted brain might come up with.

“Good girl. You should never give anyone carte blanche. Even if you change your mind, you can always safeword, okay?”

I nodded at him, and he ignored Saint’s impatient grumble.

“Anything else?”

“Nothing I can think of right now.”

Rush pressed a kiss to my forehead, making my stomach flipflop.

There was something hot about a man wanting permission to do fucked-up things to me.

Rush selected a knife from his terrifying array.

I was glad I couldn’t see the blades from where I was positioned, but I had watched him work often enough to remember the gleaming stainless steel sharpened for lethal accuracy.

He’d always been too good with them, as though it was both a skill and a passion.

Now I knew it was more than that—it was a kink.

The heat in his eyes reflected the steel of his knife. How far did this kink go?

He skimmed his blade down my body, starting at my chin and dragging all the way down to my toes. For a moment, I wondered if I would curl like the ribbon on a birthday gift, but although my body trembled, I didn’t allow myself to so much as breathe.

When he lifted away the knife, I drew a deep breath, dizzy with relief I knew would be temporary.

“Hold her down,” he commanded. Firm hands circled my wrists and ankles, pulling me taut against the wood, arms extended so far over my head I felt like I was being stretched on a rack.

“She’s so fucking edible,” Lucky murmured.

My breaths heaved, but I only realized it was making my breasts jiggle when their gazes all slid down to watch.

Rush skimmed his knife over the tip of one of my breasts then the other, with slow, aching precision. His gaze filled with hot menace, anticipating what he would do to me.

He plucked my nipples through the veil of the negligee, pinching and twisting them with his free hand, until they were hard little peaks. I gasped and arched my back against the wood, my breath coming in short, panting bursts.

“I’m going to make a little cut here,” he said, tweaking my nipple harder.

“No,” I whined, aware I sounded pathetic but unable to fix it.

“A little cut of the fabric. Not you—not yet.”

I gave a pathetic moan of assent, and felt the blade effortlessly split the fabric.

Somehow, he’d sliced the fabric and not the skin beneath—a man with far too intimate a knowledge of his tools.

The fabric fell aside, gossamer soft, leaving the naked bud of my nipple poking rudely through the gap he’d made.

“Look at how flushed her neck is,” Saint murmured. “She’s enjoying this.”

“I am not!” I objected.

When I glanced up at him, his gaze was fastened to my mouth—maybe at the trembling of my lips.

“No, of course not. You’re taking this for Rush’s sake,” he teased. “You couldn’t possibly like it.”

I intended to reply, but I was still struggling to organize my thoughts when he lowered his mouth to my still-covered breast. He sucked at it, dampening its covering of fabric, making me squirm.

It was almost as good as having a mouth directly on me, but more frustrating because of the flimsy barrier between us.

When he pulled away, I arched my back to follow his mouth, and his chuckle of amusement exhaled cold air over the spot he’d made so warm moments before.

“Please!” I whispered, sounding embarrassingly desperate.

“I told you she was already turned on,” he said smugly.

“I wasn’t!” But maybe he’d been right all along. I frowned, annoyed he might know me better than I knew myself.

“Let me help you out.” Rush’s voice was a warm rumble. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he sliced the fabric over the nipple closest to Saint with a speed that made me inhale in alarm.

“Be careful!” I meant to say more, but my words became a gasp as Saint’s tongue infiltrated the slit in the fabric, and he explored what he could reach.

Lucky pushed my legs apart.

“What are you doing?”

Without warning, Saint and Lucky wrapped leather cuffs around my wrists and ankles, using the attached leather thongs to tie me down to the bar.

“How?” I demanded. Lucky must have planned this ahead of time.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve defiled this bar,” Rush admitted. “Every worker who’s polished it has asked about the rings screwed under the edge, but no one has ever gotten a straight answer.”

“It’s nice not to be the monkey in the middle once in a while.” Lucky’s lips curled at one side, with a hint of the evil that lurked underneath his playful exterior.

I didn’t need the bindings to remind me not to move, but it was hot knowing I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

“Let me go!” I complained breathily. I sounded like a whiny, horny mess, instead of like someone who wanted to be taken seriously. The safeword I wasn’t using probably would have helped, but I wasn’t ready to end this yet.

“You’re not convincing anyone here that you really want us to let you go,” Rush mocked.

“Acting isn’t a viable career choice for you,” Saint agreed.

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I didn’t bother to argue. I was more concerned with their plans. It had been easier when two of them had been preoccupied with holding me down.

Lucky moved something between my thighs that didn’t feel like his hand. I tried to see what he was doing but couldn’t lift my head high enough to figure that out.

“Can someone please check on Mr. All-Gas-No-Brakes? I don’t know what he’s doing down there.”

“He knows what he’s doing,” Rush assured me.

“I really don’t,” Lucky confessed.

I got distracted by the knife again, then moments later I felt liquid seeping through the satin panties they’d dressed me in.

Was that lube? It sure smelled like lube.

“Lucky, why?”