Page 46

Chapter 45

Seanna

My skin still stings. My thighs ache. My throat’s raw from growling curses and choking on cock, and there are streaks of Bodhi’s release drying on my breasts.

So, obviously, I head for the bathroom.

The hallway is too quiet as I walk, bare feet whispering against hardwood. My calves tremble slightly, and the skin of my inner thighs is tacky with sweat and dried arousal. I smell like sex and violence.

I’m still naked. And I don’t care.

Let them look.

Let them fucking watch.

I earned this walk. Every bruise on my hips, every scratch on my ribs, every ache between my thighs was paid for with sweat and the kind of surrender that always ends in teeth and claw marks. I’m covered in their come, their sweat, and I don’t cover a damn thing as I walk.

Because I’m not ashamed of what they did to me.

I’m just not sure what it means that I wanted it.

The bathroom door creaks as I push it open. It’s the one in my new bedroom—the room too perfectly tailored to not be unnerving. Steam still lingers faintly from my earlier self-scorching rinse, curling around the black marble like ghosted breath. The mirror’s fogged at the edges, distorting the woman inside it until she barely looks like me at all. A blur of skin and shadows and things I’m not ready to face.

I step up to the shower, fingers reaching for the faucet.

Then I hear it. Boots hit the floor behind me.

Then the soft sound of fabric peeling from skin.

I don’t turn around. I don’t have to.

“I said I was taking a shower,” I say over my shoulder, voice dry.

“I know,” Matteo answers simply. “I’m not letting you do it alone.”

Not a question. Not a demand.

Just Matteo being... Matteo.

I don’t argue. Not this time.

I step into the shower as the water kicks on, cranking the temperature up until it scalds. It feels good. Real. A bite I can control. It cuts through the haze still clinging to my limbs and brings me back to my body. Behind me, Matteo steps in, bare now except for the scars and ink carved into his skin.

He doesn’t reach for me right away.

He grabs a washcloth instead.

Wets it. Lathers it.

Then kneels.

He starts at my ankles working his way up, the cloth warm and sudsy against sore skin. His hands are careful. Strong. Reverent in a way that makes my skin itch—not because I want him to stop, but because I don’t know what the hell to do with this.

I’m used to violence.

I’m used to men who fuck like they’re trying to prove something and then disappear before the sheets cool.

But Matteo?

He washes me like he’s praying .

Like the act itself means something more than just soap and water and skin.

His fingers glide over the bruises on my calves, the dried streaks on my thighs. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t leer, doesn’t flinch. He just presses a kiss to a scrape on my knee like it’s instinct.

And that… that does something to me I’m not ready to unpack.

Then he washes between my thighs.

No hesitation.

He slides the cloth between my legs, parting me with firm, patient hands, cleaning me with the kind of care I’ve never been given after being fucked. No teasing. No filthy comments. No rush to shove his fingers in just because he can.

When he stands, he keeps going—arms, shoulders, collarbone. The cloth moves to my breasts, slow and methodical. He wipes away the crusted streaks of Bodhi’s release, the grit of sweat and lust from every violent second of our fight.

Like it matters.

Like I matter.

His breath is quiet. The heat of his body is steady. The cloth slips down over my sternum, across the curve of one breast, then the other. No grope. No lingering. Just intention.

He moves behind me again, hair already damp from the steam. His hand lifts. Fingers drag through my hair once, twice, then slowly start to lather shampoo into it with strong fingers, massaging my scalp gently.

“You don’t have to,” I mutter. My voice is rougher than I expected.

“I know,” he says again, quiet.

Then nothing. Just the sound of water and the motion of his hands in my hair.

I close my eyes.

Just for a second.

And that’s when it happens.

I think of Hydessa.

A sharp, uninvited image—her face scrunched in worry, her voice cracking on the other end of the line as I said the wrong words to her.

Hey sis, I said. She knew. I could hear it in her breathing. Could feel her panic the second I hung up.

God. She must be spiraling by now. Calling everyone. Searching every contact she can trust. Probably not sleeping. Probably blaming herself.

My chest tightens.

And the worst part? Matteo is right.

Not that I’ll admit it out loud.

It was stupid to let her know something was wrong. And I know I can’t even warn her now without it risking my location. All I can do is hope this ends soon.

Hope she holds on.

Hope she doesn’t come looking.

“You okay?” Matteo murmurs from behind me, voice low.

I stiffen. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t call me on it. Just rinses the shampoo from my hair, his fingers massaging the base of my skull until the tension in my shoulders starts to loosen. Until my muscles remember how to unclench.

“I could get used to this,” I mutter, the words slipping out before I can catch them.

He goes still. Then lets out a breath.

“I hope you do.”

The silence after that is thick. Not uncomfortable. Just full. Brimming with all the things we haven’t said.

He turns off the water. Reaches for a towel. Wraps it around me before I can even move.

Then he dries me. Carefully. Like I might break if he rubs too hard. Like my skin is glass and he’s learned how to handle it without cracking it.

I let him help me into a tank and a pair of my soft lounge pants—the kind I used to wear when I still had a normal life. When I still had mornings with vending machine coffee and busted surveillance gear and office banter with Matteo that wasn’t soaked in obsession.

He towels off my hair next, messy and uncoordinated. I pull a face before taking the towel and doing it myself.

“That’s not drying,” I mutter. “That’s abuse.”

He snorts. “You want a salon experience?”

“I want to not look like I got electrocuted.”

He leans in and presses a kiss to my temple. “You always look dangerous.”

I roll my eyes and shove him lightly toward the door.

When we step into the living room, Bodhi’s already there—showered, barefoot, shirtless, a smear of sauce on his chest and a wooden spoon hanging from his mouth as he adjusts a burner.

“You good?” he asks without turning.

“She’s vertical,” Matteo answers from behind me, voice dry.

“Barely,” I mutter, eyeing the tattoos on Bodhi’s back again..

Bodhi turns with a grin, waving the spoon like a weapon. “Then sit your wrecked ass down and eat.”

I narrow my eyes again but obey, flopping onto the couch. Matteo follows, his thigh pressed to mine. I don't lean into him—not yet—but I don't pull away either. He’s close but not crowding me. Just steady.

Goddamn fortress of a man.

Bodhi brings me a plate a minute later. Pasta. Creamy. Garlicky. The kind of comfort food I didn't ask for but definitely want. He hands me a mug next. Coffee.

Exactly the way I like it.

“You’re ridiculous,” I tell him as I take it.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says, dropping onto the other side of me, taking up too much space and not caring in the slightest.

He leans over to grab the remote and flicks through menus.

“Pick your poison,” he says.

I blink and glance between them.

They’re serious.

“You’re actually giving me a choice?”

Matteo smirks. “Within reason.”

“No serial killers,” Bodhi adds. “You get weirdly into those.”

I lift a brow. “You two kidnapped me and staged an obsessive infiltration that took literal years. And you think I’m the weird one?”

Bodhi raises both hands. “Hey, I didn’t say we weren’t weird. I said we have limits.”

I scroll through the options. For a second, I consider picking something soft. Something gentle. But no. That’s not where I am.

“Put on something violent,” I say. “Explosions. Gunfights. Broken noses. Catharsis.”

They don’t argue. Just queue up a gritty action thriller with a woman covered in blood on the cover. Perfect.

As it starts, I dig into the food. It’s good. Too good.

Of course it is. The pasta is perfectly cooked—rich, creamy, edged with heat and garlic and some kind of smoky spice that makes my tongue curl.

Everything they do is too good.

Too much .

I drink the coffee. I let my legs stretch out, draping over Matteo’s lap. He adjusts slightly to accommodate me, hands warm as they rest loosely on my calves. His thumbs sweep once—soft, absent-minded—over a bruise he left.

Bodhi’s arm is stretched across the couch behind me. Not quite touching, but close enough that every breath pulls me deeper into the heat of his body. I can feel the occasional twitch of his muscles as he laughs at the screen or adjusts his position, like he’s reminding me he’s there without actually crowding me.

They’re not pressing.

But they’re not backing off, either.

They’re surrounding .

And God help me, part of me likes it.

The movie pours violence across the screen, blood spatter and grit and gunmetal carnage that somehow calms the roar in my bones.

I should pull away from them.

Should draw the line back where it was—back where I thought I could keep them in their boxes. Rule. Ruin. Matteo. Bodhi. Stalker. Liar. Friend. Threat.

But right now?

Right now, I’m still aching. I’m still bleeding in ways that aren’t visible.

And there’s something about being here , between them, caught in the gravity of two men who fought to break me just to prove I belonged to them—something about it that lets me breathe.

They didn’t win me. Not yet.

But they have this .

This moment. This night.

They have the bruises on my skin, the taste of my surrender still clinging to us, the ache they left between my legs that somehow feels like more than just sex.

I settle a little deeper into the couch, my head tilting just enough to rest against Bodhi’s shoulder. Not fully. Just enough to feel the thrum of his pulse against my temple.

Bodhi shifts slightly, letting his fingers trace the barest touch down the outside of my arm. Just once.

They say nothing.

And that silence—that stillness—is louder than anything.

Because they’re letting me choose. For now.

And maybe—for one fucking night—I can sit between them and just be .

Not as the agent. Not as the target.

Just… me.

And if that version of me is twisted, bruised, and too tired to keep snarling?

Then fine, I’ll take it.

The movie plays on. The heroine screams into the void, shotgun smoking. Everything burns.

And I sit between two men who already burned everything else to the ground just to keep me here.

Just breathing.

And maybe—for now—that’s enough.