Chapter 4: Dukes of Peril: Chapter 4

Sy gets the call at three in the morning.

The hit on Nick has been removed.

What Maddox used to convince my father is unknown, but that’s not a surprise. The Baron King is the master of secrets. The Kings go way back, decades now. The dirt and literal dead bodies they must have on one another is enough for a landfill.

The ride back to the tower is spent in a complicated silence. Sy is pushing at the edges of exhaustion. I keep darting glances to his reflection in the rearview, checking how alert his eyes are. Beside him, in the passenger seat, Nick looks relaxed, knees spread, head tipped back against the seat as his thumbs fly over his phone screen. I guess three rounds of sex–once in bed, once on the couch after we woke up, and once in the shower before our departure–plus the knowledge that he’s no longer kill-on-sight, tends to put a guy into a lax state. Nevertheless, I can tell he’s being watchful of a tail, eyes flicking to each mirror, head occasionally twisting to check the side streets.

Remy, however, is slumped in the backseat beside me. His arms are wrapped tight around his body, which radiates discomfort and tension. Every now and then he’ll turn his head, watching me, but every time I glance over to meet his gaze, he just gives me this stiff little bullshit smile.

He looks like he’s going to hurl.

I inch to the left.

“Do not,” Sy says for the third time, “puke in my car.”

Remy swallows thickly, giving a clumsy thumbs-up. “S’all good. Car rides are a fucking blast.”

“They’re all there,” Nick says, the light of his phone going dark. He lifts his hips to tuck it into his pocket, giving me a glimpse of skin above his waistband. “Hope you’re all ready to face down forty sober, half-asleep DKS.”

“I hope you are,” Sy says. There’s a push pull going on between them. I buy into the fact they want to get on the same page, but saying it and doing it are two different things. Sy throws out a dozen questions, including; What do we tell the members? How much can they know? How do we keep this from escalating? I’m not sure they’ve totally figured it out by the time Sy parks the car under the shadow of the clock tower—hands frustratingly in place.

I never thought I’d call a dark, damp, beer-soaked room ‘home’, but walking through the tower doors, that’s exactly what it feels like. Even when the entirety of DKS stands, watching the four of us filter through, I’m still filled with a strange sense of relief. It’s as if finally, for the first time in two days, I can actually relax. Let my muscles uncoil. Stop listening for sounds outside the doorway.

I’m safe here.

Sure, this is the room where Remy coaxed me into blowing him in front of the group and Sy possibly irreparably mangled my pussy, but it’s also where I got to hold the tattoo gun on a pledge, and where Nick revealed my kiss print on his neck.

It’s a room of definable moments, some good, others shitty, but I understand it for what it is now. DKS is a pack, this is their den, and my role as Duchess makes me one of them.

This home.

The energy that meets us is full of anxious agitation. Pledges bright-eyed and hard-jawed. Members who are already halfway to loading guns, dressed for a scuffle, a couple in the back even wearing brass knuckles. These are fighters who are ready to fight. They need direction and a leader willing to point the way, which is why they gravitate toward Sy the instant he crosses the threshold, peppering him with questions and demanding answers.

“Who should we hit first?” one of them asks. Another speaks over him, demanding, “We shouldn’t wait for tonight, we should strike now.” A third guy busts through to say, “We should call Mama B.”

Sy absorbs it casually, like it doesn’t even bother him, but it makes my gut clench in nervousness. It’s an intensity I don’t quite expect, along with the wary glances a lot of them are casting Remy’s way. He drags through the door, sunglasses firmly attached even though it’s a windowless room. Nick, being Nick, simply avoids the entire scene, sweeping out an arm and catching me smoothly around the waist, stride never breaking.

Wordlessly, he leads me to the back of the room, among the bar lights and sofas, and drops his duffel bag, kicking it beneath a pool table.

“I guess we might be here a while,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at the mass of bodies.

Two strong hands grip my waist, effortlessly lifting me up to perch on the edge of the pool table. Nick wedges his way between my legs, shoving my knees apart to make space for him. “Who knows with Sy, you know he likes to yammer.” He tilts his head. “Why? Thinking about how long it’ll be before I take you upstairs and get balls deep in you again?”

My cheeks burn. He’s giving me that , blue eyes caressing down my body as his palm skates up my thigh, and it’s like I’m the only person in the room. Like he wants to devour me.

And sweet Jesus, I want to let him.

Maybe it’s the craziness of the past two days. Maybe it’s that Nick’s desire for me is so easy to get lost in, just like a really good, long book. Maybe it’s that the longer I’m immersed in his rough touches and starved kisses, the longer I can avoid looking at the men closest to him and wondering where we stand. Hell, maybe it’s just because it feels so fucking good. To be wanted so intensely. To be touched so powerfully. To look at Nick’s hard, tattooed body and know that it’s mine to take pleasure from, because he’d let me.

But most of all, it’s the way he looks at me–before, during, and after. Nick might stop fucking me, but his eyes never do.

Yes, I want to have sex with Nick.

All day.

All night.

Suddenly, it’s all I want to do, as if my libido is punishing me for years spent rejecting his advances. I’m paying some serious back-taxes on my lust for Pretty Nick Bruin.

But I can’t get lost, and for once in my life, I don’t want to escape. So I say, “Nick, I’m hungry.” He leers, pressing his growing hardness into my center, and I roll my eyes. “For . We skipped breakfast.”

Remy tumbles into a leather chair nearby, groaning loudly and palming his shoulder. It’s still tender and I’m pretty sure he needs to get it looked at, but I avoid bringing it up until something can actually be done. Sy says this is the worst he’s ever been. Remy’s had ups and downs before, but the severity of this bender, plus the Scratch, kicked it up a notch. He spent most of last night and this morning caught in a cycle of puking his guts out and sleeping heavily. The combination palls him with a gaunt eeriness, but with his lanky frame and harsh, modelesque features, it doesn’t detract from his looks, it just makes him appear more dangerous.

“He shouldn’t have come,” Nick says, reaching between my legs and touching me there, firm and insistent. “He looks like shit.”

“He wanted to,” I reply, trying futilely to close my legs. “Which… is good. It means he’s still invested. Cutting him out would be the worst thing to do.” Yeah, reading those psychology books is the gift that keeps on giving.

“We need to look strong,” Nick mutters, fingers tracing down the crease of my leggings, hovering right against my hole.

I squirm just as much with discomfort as pleasure. No one except Remy is really paying attention to us at the moment, but they could. “Nick, not now.” When I go to wrest his hand away, he’s as immovable as iron, leaning in to plant a long, sucking kiss into the skin below my jaw. “

.”

He makes a low rumbling sound. “Fuck, I miss being inside you.”

Behind him, one of the DKS members is watching, eyebrow curving curiously. My stomach rolls with the memory of what it felt like to be in this same room, Sy forcing his cock into me as everyone watched. Remy pushing me to my knees so Haley could watch.

And now Nick is shoving his hands down the front of my pants.

I guess I’m about to find out if giving into my feelings for Nick was a mistake. If the heat in his eyes can warm, but will still burn. If the power in his touch is there to hold me close or just hold me down.

“Nick.” Curling my palm around his warm neck, I put my lips to his ear, whispering, “Please, stop.” He goes rigid, but just in case the nice way doesn’t work, I add, “If you humiliate me in front of this frat again, you can say goodbye to your balls.”

He pulls his hand back, the muscle in the hinge of his jaw tensed into a tight knot. “Shit.” When he finally looks at me, pupils blown into wide pools of black, it’s all I can do to not tell him to just take me upstairs and have his way. The lopsided, rueful smirk he sends me doesn’t exactly help matters. “Sorry, Little Bird. Wasn’t thinking straight.”

I glance around the room to make sure we haven’t made a scene, realizing I’m still the only girl in the room. “Hey, where are the cutsluts?”

Nick bows his head, palms braced against the table on each side of my hips, and then takes a series of long, calming breaths. “No chicks invited for frat business.”

I card my fingers through his hair, hoping I’m helping more than hindering whatever situation is happening in his pants. “What about me? Am I not a chick?”

He looks up, scoffing. “You’re the Duchess. You pull rank on the cutsluts, you know that.” He nods at the guys making their way to the folding chairs set up across the room. “These pricks know it, too. They answer to you.”

That’s not exactly how it works with the Counts, but I’ve seen the way the Lords and LDZ fuss about Story when I’ve seen her on campus. They’d probably carry her around on their backs if she told them to. I’ve sensed a little of that power with the pledges, but that’s to be expected. They’re still fighting for a spot in the frat.

Sensing my skepticism, Nick straightens. “Watch,” he says, lifting his chin. “Hey, Porterfield!”

A beefy guy I’ve seen at the gym jumps out of his chair and runs over. “Yes, sir?”

“The Duchess is hungry,” he pushes my hair off my neck, eyes going glazed at what he sees there. Probably the hickey he just left. “What do you want, babe? Tacos? Candy?”

I lock up, realizing Porterfield is standing at the ready. “Uhhh…”

“Vecino has good tacos, but they don’t open until ten,” Porterfield says, forehead etched in thought. “But if you want candy, I can hit the corner store.” His dark eyes jump between us. “Or both. I can find somewhere that’s open, maybe in Northridge.”

“That’s not necessary.” I give Porterfield an apologetic smile. “It’s fine, but thank you.”

“You just said you were hungry.” Nick looks genuinely disappointed that I won’t boss this poor kid around.

But then Porterfield levels me with a pleading look. “Duchess, if you don’t give me a job, I’m going to go out of my goddamn mind. Really, you’d be doing me a favor.” Adamantly, he insists, “It’s not a problem. Promise.”

Looking around, I still feel that energy, like the static in the air before a lightning strike. These guys are all twitchy and coiled, and Porterfield has a point. They need something to do.

Deflating, I cave. “Is anything closer than Northridge open?”

Nick pipes in, “There’s a breakfast sub place just before you hit East End. You know it?” When Porterfield nods, reaching for his wallet, I jump down, ignoring the way Nick clutches for me.

“Just a second.” I pat his chest reassuringly before approaching the front of the room, weaving around high-strung bruisers and over-excited pledges. No one really looks when I climb up on the bar, calling out a weak, “Excuse me?” At the lack of response, all of them still chattering over one another, I try waving my arm. “Hey, guys?”

I catch Sy’s gaze, his large form standing in the middle of the crowd. He looks baffled, gesturing to the frat as if to say ‘

’

So I stomp my foot, barking, “Hey! Listen the fuck up!” Instantly, the noise falls away, forty men turning obediently toward my voice. Blinking, I try not to shrink under their scrutiny. “Uh, thanks. Okay, so… by show of hands, how many of you rushed over here without eating breakfast first?” As I feared, a sea of hands goes up. “Porterfield is going to come around and take your orders. He’s going to need two volunteers to help bring back the–oh, yeah,” I say, pointing to a pair of fighters in the back who look like they might actually die if I don’t notice their hands are raised. “You two can go with him.”

Once that’s all in motion, Sy gives me a grateful look and steps forward. He extends his hand to help me down, arm wound around my waist to steady me. “Good thinking, Duchess.”

“Yeah, well…” I glance up at him, caught beneath the force of his gaze and the softness within it. I’d seen it earlier when I cleaned up his cut and it’s no less jarring six hours later. My face heats as Nick approaches us, breaking me out of it. “Forty hungry athletes, shut up in a room, already itching for a fight doesn’t sound very conducive to peace.”

Sy nods at Nick. “I guess this is as good a time as any to get this started.” Clapping his hands to get their attention, Sy climbs up on the bar. “Everyone shut the fuck up. I know you have a lot of questions, but first you need to sit down and chill out.”

This seems to have the opposite effect, which I guess isn’t a shock when you consider the temperament of the average DKS. One kid jumps up and says, “Is it true you got in a shootout with the Counts?”

From the back, “I heard Remy ODed at the Hideaway from some tainted Viper Scratch!”

Quiet, almost whispered, “Did the Duchess really hit him with a car?”

My jaw drops. “I don’t even have a car!”

“That’s enough!” Sy cuts an authoritative figure, hand whipping out to snap fingers at a group off to the side. “You bitches gossip worse than a knitting circle. We know you’ve been hearing a lot of bullshit, so we’re here to set the record straight before you start a fight we’re not equipped to win.” There’s no doubt he can get this group under control, but just as he opens his mouth to get started, something flickers across his expression. His eyes dart back to his brother. Flexing his fists, Sy says, “Uh, Nick, can you come up here?”

Nick tenses and I rest my hand on his shoulder, giving him a little nudge. Sy crouches down to meet him, beckoning him close. “You’ve got to be the one that does this. You’re the leader.”

Nick stares blankly. “Sy, I don’t do public speaking. I break faces professionally.”

“Tough shit.” Sy gestures to the ring around Nick’s finger. “I’ve got your back, we all do, but you’ve got to step up. They need to see you up here taking charge. It confuses the hierarchy if I do it.”

It’s a strange dichotomy. Sy is the older brother, but Nick is the heir. They were raised together, fought together, but Sy has done the work in the frat, while Nick was working outside–for their rivals. No matter the history, I know better than anyone that in the Royal system, legacy and blood matter—and Sy doesn’t have it.

“He’s right,” I say, nodding at Nick. “It has to be you. Plus, look at these guys. They don’t need a politician, Nick. They’ll actually listen to a professional face-breaker.”

There’s a wild glimmer in Nick’s blue eyes, like he’d rather set a bomb off and take down the whole tower before stepping up on that bar. But something transpires between the brothers, a flicker of understanding, and then Nick sighs. Cracking his neck, he grabs Sy’s hand, letting his brother haul him onto the bartop.

Nick looks even bigger from this vantage. Stronger. More intimidating. Royal.

Idly, he palms his fist–the one with the hand bearing the ring–and cracks his knuckles, staring out at the crowd.

“The rumors aren’t all untrue,” he begins, a wave of disgruntled whispers working through the room. “Some serious shit’s gone down in the last couple days, but you’ve got the details wrong. All three of your Dukes are standing here—” his eyes flick to Remy, still curled up on the couch, “or… laying here,” Without moving anything else, Remy’s fist rises, forefinger and pinky extended, “with our Duchess, and all of us are fine. That’s the only fucking thing that matters. We’re solid.” This time he looks at Sy, a grimace rising on his mouth. “

. We’re solid-ish.”

The room flutters with reluctant chuckles, and that seems to give him a boost.

“So here’s the thing. I know you probably want names–houses, Kings–and I don’t blame you. Truth is, if it were up to me, I’d be filling at least two corners of Forsyth with bodies.”

The room erupts in a sudden, booming cheer, and Sy swings furious eyes on his brother.

Nick pushes his fist into his palm, eyes narrowing. “But that’s how houses fall, boys. I’ve worked in the other Kingdoms. You all know it. It’s why you’d probably rather Sy be up here.” A tense hush falls over the crowd and Nick pauses. “Shit, I’d rather him be up here, too. But that’s not how this works, which is unfortunate, because he’d give you the kind of speech that would turn you from boys to men. I don’t know how to do that. I’m a soldier, like all of you. A fighter.”

“A kick-ass fighter!” Ballsack shouts from the middle of the room. “3-0, undefeated!” he adds, noting Nick’s score from the ring.

Nick shrugs. “So if my history in South Side bothers any of you, then no offense, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s how I learned we can’t be messy. Not anymore. Rule one.” He sweeps his gaze over the men. “No more Viper Scratch. I’ve seen that shit eat through more brains than are in this room. If we see anyone holding, doing, or selling it, you’re done as DKS, and the door fucking hit you on the way out.” The threat is delivered like a boulder, Nick’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not here to fund the Counts. Got it?”

A murmur of agreement surges throughout the room, although some of the guys glance back at Remy’s form on the couch.

Nick pretends not to notice. “We need to worry about product, our coffers, and our legacy. We’ll do that by running a tight ship. We need to be more like the Lords and less like the Counts.”

This doesn’t go over half as well.

“The Lords are trash!” a tall guy up front insists. I remember him from family dinners, always trying to get up the cutsluts’ dresses.

Nick takes a long, restraining breath. “You know what running these streets makes perfectly fucking obvious? That Forsyth isn’t a boxing ring. Out there,” he thrusts a finger to the east, “the hardest punch doesn’t win. You know who wins?” Nick moves the point of his finger toward the ceiling. “The motherfuckers in the box.”

“The Kings,” someone in the back yells.

Nick raises his chin, seeking him out. “You’re right, Hernandez. Or at least, they did. Which is why I’m going to confirm another rumor.” Nick’s eyes flick to his brother–not for reassurance, but in warning. “I helped Killer Payne take down his father.”

The room swells with shifted movement, the DKS members all turning to look at one another. Some of them look worried. Some look mad. Some look completely unsurprised, and a few even look disappointed.

“The Lords are our rivals,” Nick explains, “but they aren’t our enemy. And if working with them will help West End strengthen our territory, then you can bet your asses I’ll do it.”

“What about the Princes?” Someone shouts.

Nick scoffs. “Fuck those pussy-ass bitches. If we need a pregnancy test, we can call them.” He flicks a sharp, roguish smirk my way. “Maybe one day.”

My face explodes with heat, and I turn to shield it from the prying eyes. More from embarrassment than anything. As I want to recoil at the thought of being pregnant, it’s not as horrifying as it should be. Not if Nick’s the one putting the baby in me.

“I know the last few weeks have been hard. You were told a Bruin was coming back to the belfry, and you probably had a lot of expectations I haven’t met. So if you can’t trust me as the leader of this frat, I understand. But here’s something you can always trust, no matter what I’ve done or what I’ll end up doing.” There’s a beat of silence where Nick’s eyes turn stony. “In one way or another, everything I care about–everyone I love–is a part of this club. And I’ll defend it with my life.”

The room is so still that his words are like a physical presence, and I can’t possibly miss the eyes flicking over me.

“For now, we circle up, look out for one another, keep a brother close. Protect the cutsluts. Protect the at all costs.”

Nor can anyone miss the muttered, “… but she’s a Lucia.”

Nick’s eyes dart around the faces, shoulders tensing. “Who said that?” Everyone glances around, looking, but when no one fesses up, Nick gives a chilling grin. “Boys, I’m tired and hungry, and I’ve got the promise of a tight pussy coming to me later on, so if you’ve got something to say, grow a pair of balls, look me in the eye like a man, and say it. I’m not here to break faces this morning.”

After a moment, someone steps forward.

.

The guy who attacked me in the gym, my first real day as Duchess. The man who Sy was ready to trade me to for a wristwatch. The guy who held me down, eyes full of thrill as he tore at my clothes. He doesn’t come around often for the victory parties, but I’ve seen him at the gym, at the fights, and up until now, he’s carefully avoided paying any attention to me at all. My blood buzzes with futile, bitter anger.

When I look away, my eyes stutter over Sy and the curve of his neck. Though his head is bowed, his posture is stiff, fists flexing.

Bruce’s mouth tilts unhappily, but to his credit he does look Nick in the eye. “I get what you’re saying, Duke. You’re a Bruin. You’ve got West End running through your veins, and whatever we might think about you working with the Lords, we can put our faith in that.” I feel more than see Bruce’s eyes on me, his voice turning cold. “But if that’s true, then we have to also trust that our Duchess–a , for fuck’s sake–has North Side running through hers.” Bruce looks at the men around him. “Doesn’t anyone else think it’s weird that Viper Scratch is suddenly all over West End? Before she came, it wasn’t a problem. Are we just supposed to think that’s a coincidence?”

Nick’s face hardens. “It’s not a coincidence. Lionel Lucia has lost any hope of an heir. He’s on the ropes and spreading his product to all four corners. It’s not just West End.”

Bruce’s face twists, like he’s smelled something unpleasant. “You didn’t even fucking brand her.”

For a heartbeat the room goes still, until every eye snaps to Remy, who moves with a speed and agility I didn’t know he could access in his current state. His eyes flare with possessiveness as he grabs me by the waist, spinning me around while yanking the shoulder of my shirt down, revealing the bruin tattoo he gave me at the Hideaway. “The Duchess is marked. By my hand. Assisted by your Dukes.”

His eyes meet mine and we both know, we know, they marked me with more than ink that night.

Fuck that says I’m not branded.

Bruce holds up a hand, undeterred by proof. “Yeah, okay, but look. It was one thing when she was just a fun toy for Sy to show off in the locker room, but now you’re acting like… You’re acting like she’s one of .”

Something in Nick snaps to attention, but just as quickly settles. “When we’d show her off in the locker room?” I’d know that look in his eyes anywhere. It’s the same efficient, terrifyingly menace I’d seen in him the night he killed Felix. Nick nods, like he’s coming to a decision with himself. “You’re the one who tried to buy her with the watch.”

I’m not sure who jumps first–me or Sy–but we both dive for Nick at the same time, me clambering up onto the bar and Sy lunging for the hand Nick’s reaching for his gun with.

“Let it go,” Sy growls into his ear. A stiff, tightly contained tussle is taking place at the small of Nick’s back, where his pistol is located, but I don’t bother with that.

I grab his face, hissing, “If you kill this fucker right now, they’ll never follow you, and they’ll sure as hell never respect me.” But his murderous glare is fixed like a laser on Bruce, and I shudder at what I see in it. The soldier. The cold-blooded killer. The machine. “He doesn’t matter. He’s . Nick, look at me.” Unthinkingly, I strain up on my toes to press a kiss to his lips. “Please don’t,” I whisper, gentling him with another caress of my lips. “For me?”

Nick blinks, and when his eyelids lift, those blue eyes finally connect with mine. Sy jerks, the gun being suddenly released, and Nick grabs my neck. But instead of the hard, consuming kiss I’m expecting, he spins me around, forearm loose around my shoulders.

“This Duchess you think so little of, Bruce?” Nick’s lips brush across my temple. “She just saved your life.”

Bruce’s face is ashen but twisted in anger. Enough to know that this isn’t over.

“That wasn’t on Bruce,” Sy says, sliding the magazine from the pistol. “It was on me.” His eyes flick to mine, expression rigidly blank. To Bruce, he says, “Yeah, she was just a toy back then. Now she’s ours. If you’ve got a problem with that,” Sy jerks his chin, “there’s the door.”

Bruce holds up his hands. “Man, I’m just saying. One second, you’re offering her up on a platter, and the next you’re asking us to give our lives for her. Make it make sense.”

“It doesn’t need to make sense to you,” Sy barks. “Know that it makes sense to us.”

Nick’s arm tugs me firmly into his chest, voice full-throated against my back. “You all hate Lionel Lucia a lot. I hate him more than you ever will. But no one in this room,” he insists, voice growing louder, “no one in this whole fucking , hates Lionel Lucia as much as this woman right here.”

My heart pounds at all the eyes on me, scrutinizing, looking for a crack, a reason to rebel. I’d say something in my defense, but I can see it’d be pointless. From Nick, they need words. From me, they need to see actions. A Lucia’s word isn’t worth anything. So I respond by reaching up, fingers curling possessively around Nick’s forearm.

Nick goes on, “You’re all nervous she’s feeding intel about us back to the Counts, but you need to stop and think that maybe the Counts should be the ones worrying about the kind of intel she’s offering us.”

I can practically hear his arched eyebrow, but more than that, I hear the slight shift in the room–forty men considering my use as an asset. Little do they know, if I thought it could truly help the Dukes, I’d tell them anything and everything.

Nick is right, no one in this town hates Lionel Lucia as much as I do, and with DKS supporting me, I’m going to be the one that kills him.

Sy said seven o’clock.

This is why I’m sitting on the bottom step of the staircase leading to the loft, stuffing my feet into boots, wondering why the hell Nick is still in the shower.

“Why is Nick still in the shower?” I ask Archie, who is determined to chase the laces on my shoes. “Ow!” I snatch my hand back from his claws, glaring playfully. “You’re a menace, just like the rest of them.”

His big eyes look up at me. “Mew.”

I tighten the knot and pick Archie up, pressing my nose to his head. “I know. You’re not a menace, you’re the sweetest baby I’ve ever met.” I kind of regret having to leave him again so soon. We only just got home this morning, and most of that was spent wrangling the DKS boys, trying to feed the DKS boys, and then cleaning up after the DKS boys. Point being, much of today has been about the DKS boys, and after a lengthy late-afternoon nap, I’m ready for much needed downtime and the illusion of normalcy, however flimsy it may be.

The Archduke squirms out of my arms and darts off, disappearing into Nick’s bedroom.

“Hey,” I say, leaning into Remy’s dark, hushed room. The door is open, but he’s just lying on the bed, shirtless, exposing the dark lines of art inked across his shoulders, curled up in a ball. “Sy says we’re leaving at seven. Do you want to–” He’s asleep, I realize, a pillow clutched to his chest.

I’m prepared to wake him up, though. He finally stopped vomiting, and I’m pretty sure he needs food. From across the living room, Sy’s door opens. Still trying to decide if I should wake Remy up, I explain, “Well, Remy’s asleep, Nick’s in the shower, and I’m fucking starving, but I guess we can wait—’

I turn and the sensation in my gut is somewhere between a sucker punch and a burst of butterflies fighting to escape.

Sy is in a suit.

And not just a suit, but a suit. It’s dark blue, with a crisp white shirt that highlights his warm brown skin, and a skinny black tie. His curly hair has been wrangled into control, the top half tied at the back.

“Jesus,” I mutter, resting my hand on the doorjamb for support. Either all the sex I’ve been having with Nick is fucking with my hormones, or Simon Perilini is seriously revving my motor. I live in a house with three incredibly attractive men, and at least two of them are athletes who treat their bodies like temples. I’m accustomed to their muscles and sexy bodies, but they’re usually clad in workout clothes or, at best, ratty jeans.

This?

This is too much.

“You look…” I gape at him, trying to think of a word that doesn’t drip with subtext. “

. Really nice.” He adjusts his tie, blue eyes fixed to mine, and I struggle to find my bearings. I look down at my basic sweater and basic jeans and basic scuffed boots. “I didn’t know we were having a formal dinner. I just thought–I mean, I can change if you think…” My words cut off when I look downward.

He’s holding flowers.

The bouquet is being clutched at his side, half hidden behind him, as if he were about to tuck it away like a gun. The flowers are light blue, but in different types. Hydrangea, bluebells, periwinkle. The soft femininity of the colors contrasts with the striking masculinity of the dark blue he’s wearing, and for a moment it stuns me speechless.

“You don’t need to change,” he says, awkwardly shifting his weight. “You look fine. Good. Great.” Clearing his throat, he explains, “I guess I didn’t tell you we were going to Stock and Barrel. That’s, uh, on me.”

Stock and Barrel is an upscale place on the water. My father took me and Leticia there once, for Leticia’s sixteenth birthday. It’s not a place to go hang, it’s a place to go on a—

“This was going to be a date,” I realize, the color draining from my face.

Now, it’s Sy’s turn to be speechless. He’s frozen with his hand still halfway into his tie, blue eyes caught on mine. “Was that not obvious?”

“No,” I blurt, and then, “I mean, maybe. I just assumed when you asked, that you meant, well, all of us. As a group.”

Sy looks around the room shiftily, brows crouched low. “It doesn’t… have to be,” he mutters, moving to stiffly place the flowers on the end table.

Last night, when he’d asked me, things had just been so fuzzy. Nick’s cum was hot inside of me, and I was still in a weird fog from the whole… running for my life…

. It never would have occurred to me that Sy might want to take me on a date.

Frozen, I begin to panic, because I have no idea if that’s something I’d want to do. Being the Duchess–being their Duchess–has only meant a few things. Weird, spontaneous, and overly intense orgasms, life-threatening situations, and hurt.

A lot of hurt.

More than a little of it at the hands, and cock, of the man in front of me.

But the more I think about the hurt, the more I remember why it cut so deeply. Sy was my safe harbor for so long. Comfort when I needed to heal, instigation when I needed to fight. He rescued me once, pulled me from the darkness and into his warmth. I’ve seen the sort of man Sy can be, the good and the bad, and weighing them up against one another, I have my answer.

“Let me change into something a little less comfortable.”

He stops me before I climb the steps to the loft, heaving a big sigh. “Look, you don’t have to. I’ll cancel the reservation.”

“No.” I touch his arm, gazing up into his blue eyes. “If I’d known what you were asking, I still would have said yes.”

He searches my eyes, a crease between his brows. “Really?”

I glance over at Remy’s room. “Lucky for you, my sugar daddy bought me a bunch of outfits perfect for this type of thing.”

A small, reluctant smile breaks through his panicked expression, and I give him one in return.