Page 68 of Vengeful Melodies

All three of them look up.

And stay looking.

Kai’s mouth parts like he forgot how to breathe. Bash’s drink stills halfway to his lips. Alix? He’s sitting forward like gravity just gave up on him.

I lean on the doorframe, pretending not to notice the way their eyes drag over every inch of me. “Did I miss another round?”

Bash finds his voice first. It’s raw. Rough. “That’s not playing fair, Dreya.”

“Good,” I purr, stepping forward slowly. “Because I’m not here to play fair anymore.”

I glide past Kai, brushing my fingers across his shoulder, hearing the breath he lets out like a curse. Bash tracks my every step with the hunger of someone circling a flame he knows will burn him. And Alix—he’s standing now, slow and cautious, like one wrong move might send the whole world crashing down.

“I thought maybe,” I murmur, eyes darting between them, “you were done teasing. Thought you might be done waiting.”

Alix’s voice is a low throb. “What are you saying, Darlin?”

I walk right up to him, toe-to-toe, chin tilted up. “I’m saying the air in this room is heavy, and you’ve all been breathing it in like it’s not poisoning us. Like we haven’t been—” I pause, exhaling, “—starving.”

Kai moves first. His hand finds the curve of my waist, thumb grazing skin just beneath the hem of my shirt. “And if we say we don’t want to wait anymore?” he says quietly.

Bash steps closer too, brushing a knuckle along my bare shoulder. “If we said we want more… that it wouldn’t ruin a damn thing?”

Alix cups the side of my neck gently, voice barely a whisper. “That it’d fix something we didn’t even realize was broken?” My pulse stutters.

The room hums with tension so thick it feels like smoke, pressing against my skin, seeping into my lungs.

Then the door clicks. And everything in me goes still.

Takoa stands there—shoulders tense, jaw sharp, eyes dark and unreadable as they roam over me. He’s quiet. Always is. The kind of quiet that you feel before you hear. The kind of quiet that promises storms.

Takoa doesn’t speak. Just closes the balcony door behind him like the noise outside doesn't matter anymore.

Like I’m the only thing in the world he sees.

Takoa walks toward me, slow, measured, his usual calm curled tight like a wire ready to snap. “Didn’t realize we were starting without me,” he murmurs, voice rougher than I’ve ever heard it.

“You were brooding,” Bash tosses out, half teasing, but Takoa doesn’t even blink. His eyes stay on me. Burning. Dismantling. “I’m not good at this,” Takoa says lowly, stepping closer. “I’m not the one who flirts first. I don’t chase. I watch. I wait.” He stops right in front of me. His fingers trail just barely along the inside of my arm. “But with you?” Takoa’s breath hits my cheek. “I’m losing my goddamn mind trying not to touch you.”

My breath hitches, heat flooding between my thighs.

“I’ve written songs about demons that bled less into me than you have in three weeks.” Takoa tilts my chin up, eyes flickering over my lips. “So if we’re doing this… if we’re breaking it wide open—”

“We are,” I whisper, aching.

Something in him unhinges. And then his mouth crashes against mine. It’s rough. Desperate. All the tension he held back, poured into teeth and tongue and breath. My hands tangle in hisshirt. Kai presses against my back, his hands finding the edge of my shorts, tugging just enough to make me gasp. Alix’s mouth is at my neck again, whispering filth that turns my knees to jelly.

Bash groans somewhere behind me. “Fuck, look at her. Look what we’re doing to her.”

“Look what she’s doing to us,” Alix growls.

Clothes peel away like second skins. Warm fingers graze over heated flesh. Lips trail over every exposed inch like I’m a prayer they’re desperate to speak.

Takoa lifts me by the thighs and lays me back across the velvet chaise, his body settling between mine like he belongs there. His voice is thick, wrecked. “We’ll worship you, Dreya.”

Kai kisses down my outer thigh as Bash’s mouth slides along my stomach, teasing, tasting. Alix watches me like he’s memorizing the way I break apart beneath them, the way I welcome it. Takoa shifts letting Kaiser take his space between my thighs.

Kai’s fingers brush against my hips, curling under the waistband of my shorts. His touch warm, teasing, reverent—and it sent a shiver straight down my spine. When I look at him, he was already watching me, his dark blue eyes searching mine like he needs my answer before he dares take the next breath.