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CHAPTER TWENTY

I ’m unsteady and weak as I step back out to the high, echoing hallway.

There must be something in my walk, though, or maybe it’s in the look on my face. All three men stop talking. they fall silent and look straight at me.

Quietly, the Mastermind says, “Look out.”

I reach out to him. I need something to drink. Thoughtfully, he already has a glass of water for me.

He says, “There’s alcohol. Spirits, whatever.”

I shake my head. After I drain the glass in three gulps, I put it on a side table and say, “Alright. Whatever else you want here, can you get it done quickly. I need to be out of this place.”

The Emperor stands tall and straight. He’s a big guy. Powerful, too, in every sense. “The house definitely brought something back for you. Maybe we should stay here a while.”

I turn to face him. “You heard me, right?”

Reddening, he tells the Mastermind, “Stay with her a moment. Since we’re here, I just want to check something upstairs.”

The Warrior touches my arm, then pulls me to him for a hug. He strokes my hair and looks in my face. I feel his body. Close. I want more. But not here. All I want here is to leave.

He turns to the Emperor. “I’m coming with you,” and they both bound up the wide, sweeping staircase.

With a hand on my shoulder, the Mastermind bends his head to speak softly, close by my ear.

“How are you feeling?“ he brushes my face with the backs of his fingers. “Are you okay?” I grab his hand.

“Help me get out of here. As fast as you can.”

“We could wait in the car.”

“No. As long as I can see this place and feel it, I’ll feel the same.” I look in his eyes. My boy genius. My brilliant killer. “It did shake something loose, being here. Like a kind of shock therapy. It’s a big shock, though.” I take hold of his hand. “Don’t make me be here too long.”

He pulls me to him.

I feel lust and desire, for him and from him. But also love. Tenderness and care. It brings a tear to well in the bottoms of my eyes. I can’t let him see that. My feet aren’t solid on the ground yet. All that I know now is the sense of myself. A feeling, a strength in knowing who I am. But still nothing I can form words around. No details.

Details like my name.

Or his.

Before the tears are ready to brim, I grab his hair and pull his face to mine. He’s startled but there’s fire in his eyes. His lips are hot. Thick, strong and mobile. We lock and I’m lost in the kiss, the connection. Our breath, together. Our mouths. His tongue. And a raging swell of raw lust.

We kiss like it’s the end of the world. Like this is everything. Like nothing else matters. He holds me close and I feel all of his muscles and sinews, all his strength and power. Our bodies move like we’re feeding on touch. On contact. His hips against mine, his movement against mine.

The more of him I feel, the bigger it makes me feel. And the bigger he feels. His muscles pump and swell. And a big part of him is hardening. Lengthening. Calling. Wanting and needing.

Damn I want him. I need him, almost as much I need to be gone from this place. The contradiction makes me sigh and moan, twist and twine closer and harder with him. It’s making me crazy inside.

From head to toe, I’m agitated. I want to get out of my clothes. I want to get inside his pants. I want to get out of here. I want to scream.

“Glad to see you’re making use of the amusements.”

The Emperor’s sarcasm drifts, floating down the stairwell from a balustrade several floors up.

Reluctantly, I peel my mouth off the Mastermind’s, but then I hold his eyes and take one more short, softer kiss. He leans into me. A promise. More. Later.

I call back up the spiraling steps, “Are you done up there?”

“The question is, are you done down there?” The Emperor calls back. Then the Warrior leans out over a lower banister.

A sense of deja-vu flashes through me. Half of what I feel in its wake is wonderful. And half of it is sheer horror.

As I tilt my head to look up, the high spiral space seems to turn. A giddy, nauseous feeling of vertigo threatens to make me fall.

If I say anything to hurry them, the Emperor will want to drag his feet, so with all the assurance and confidence that I don’t feel, I just look back up into his face. Long enough that he can’t pretend not to know. I’m waiting.

“Well,” he sighs, “I suppose we’ll have to see about getting baby what she needs.”

I offer, “Would it help if I stuck a broomstick up your ass?”

“Watch out, Bro,” it seems the Warrior can do droll and dry with just a tone of voice. I’m loving him more with every moment. “La Donna is in the house. She really is back.”

As the Emperor glowers back, I can feel the heat of his power all the way from his smoldering eyes, through the frosty air and right down to my pants. He is the main course I have to have and to savor.

I turn back to the Mastermind and hold up my cable-tied wrists. “Cut these off for me.” His lips are so near. Before he moves, I stretch up and take a swift kiss, rolling my his against his.

I rock back on my heels and say, “Please.” Then, “I can’t grab your ass with my wrists bound.”

“I can see other advantages, though,” the Mastermind fishes in his pockets for a knife. I look back up to the Warrior, but his face has gone from the balcony.

We’ll talk. Later.

As he comes down the stairs, I try to catch his eye, but he’s talking with the Emperor, and the Mastermind is cutting my wrists free.

As the three men come closer, it’s like three tornados of emotion all whip through me, ripping everything up and flinging it in the air.

The Emperor struts down the steps. His potent swagger makes me buzz. Then I see the front of his beautifully draped suit pants.

“Oh-my!” I tell him, “You ARE pleased to see me.”

“Honestly,” he drawls, “I have kind of mixed feelings.”

“Get over yourself.” The Warrior chuckles. I feel like I haven’t heard that in way too long a time. “He thought while you were out for the count, it was his chance to be in charge.”

In charge? I look in the Emperor’s face. Whatever this thing is, he was in charge, while I was out? Meaning that I was in charge up to then? I’m trying to take it in, but I can see how it makes sense. These three hot, troublingly powerful men all have their own strengths and talents, but they need leadership.

“So,” I ask him, “how would you say that’s been going?”

He makes an attempt at a modest smile. He starts, “There’s scope for improvement in some areas, definitely.”

“Crap.” The Warrior’s eyes burn.

“You don’t think so?” The Emperor’s eyebrows rise.

“No,” the Warrior says, “I mean how it’s gone. You taking charge. It’s been crap.”

“Look,” his chest is out, he’s standing erect. He’s getting ready to make a speech. I put a finger up, onto his lips. They do feel nice. I flash a glance to the Warrior.

I wish I could read the expression in his eyes. It’s definitely hot, but there’s more to it. It’s more complicated.

He reaches out and grabs me. Pulls me to him. My chest slams into his and the breath goes out of me. His lips flex and his eyes are on my mouth as he says, “It’s so fucking good to see you back, Principessa .”

He squeezes my ass and I yelp. Half from excitement, and half from stunned surprise.

I turn to look at the other two, but my Warrior takes my chin in his hand and pulls me back to him. He pulls my face to his as he leans in.

I want this so much. And I need to get out of here.

But what the fuck is going on?

His kiss is deep. Long. Wet and hard. And filthy.

My head is in such turmoil and confusion, I’m glad of the escape and I plunge into it.

Since I came to, I have constantly been trying to remember, searching inside, looking to find myself, trying to peer through all the curtains and veils. So far, its all been for nothing. I’ve just been knocking myself out, struggling to break through solid walls

Now, here, I’m wrapped and carried away, transported in waves of thrilling sensation. Fuck the world. Forget it all. Just feel the muscles and passion in this spectacular man. Feel him holding me, Kissing me. Adoring me.

He presses every part of his body into mine and I respond. I lose myself at last.

My hands grab onto his ass. The way he grips and fondles mine, I lift a leg to crook it around his thigh and scrape my pussy on the ridge of his cock.

I pull his ass hard and feel it flex and roll, as I drive us closer, tighter. Our tongues dance, shameless and wild. Feeding. Taking. My body melts in the crush of his.

Behind me, Mastermind coughs. “Don’t take all the candy. Leave some for the rest of us, you brute.”

Looking sideways and smiling through the kiss, the Warrior moves his mouth enough to say, “Fuck off.”

He strokes my face as I run my fingers through his hair. He pulls away, takes both of my hands and dances backward. “Come this way.”

“NO!” I hold back, resisting. “I have to get out of here.”

“Of course. But first…”

I lean backward, shaking my head. “First, I need to be gone.” But he’s far too strong for me.

Still dancing backward with a fiery look in his eyes, he tugs me into the conservatory. A glass temple to hothouse plants, strewn with soft couches, all under dust sheets.

He says, “We can be comfortable.”

“I can’t.” I tell him, “Not in this house.”

“Don’t break the spell,” he grabs a sheet and whisks it away, then he’s pulling me down into a sumptuous pile of throws and pillows. The other two are following eagerly.

Three of them? This can’t be happening, surely. Can this be real?

My darkest, deepest desire is crowding around me. Closing in.

Something tells me that it can be real. But is it something I can trust?