Chapter 7: Dukes of Peril: Chapter 7

When I first enrolled at Forsyth, it became clear that one of the guys would always be close, if not doggedly on my heels. Waiting outside class. Following me to the library. Even with the tracker, they didn’t trust me. I had no autonomy, which was fair. I planned to run at the first opportunity.

Back then I’d been forced to comply and pretend we were one happy Royal family. But I’d watch the other frats around campus, putting on a display with their house girls, and think about how controlled they are, how pathetic. Story’s Lords follow her everywhere, their bodies inextricably linked. The black cuff wrapped tight around her wrist looked more like a manacle than a fashion accessory. Then there’s the Princess, with her shiny hair and perfect features, doted on by three rich boy clones, keeping tabs on their potential heir. Regina, the Baroness, who I only ever catch rare glimpses of, walks around campus with three sentient shadows, her head always cast just slightly in their direction. And I could never forget Sutton, the Countess, wasting away from viper scratch, her shoulders knobby and eyes glazed over and vacant.

All I ever saw were women and their leashes.

I see things a little differently now. These Royal men are given a woman to protect and keep. To produce a legacy. To possibly love. We’re the most valuable thing they own, and as much as it rankles my nerves to accept that I’m a possession, after everything we’ve been through, I’m no longer hostile about their hovering.

There’s a target on all of us, all the time, especially if your last name is the same as a King.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there’s a certain prestige that comes with being Royal, something I never experienced as the less-worthy daughter of Lionel Lucia. It’s also not a hindrance that my Dukes are ridiculously hot, and one in particular has very recently become my personal orgasm-giving machine.

These things bounce around my mind when we’re all finally back on campus. We present a united front, and we are more cohesive than ever, albeit at various levels of functioning.

A bit of the tension eased with Sy after our date, and Remy seems… better. I guess. He stopped puking and has started eating again. His complexion is better, although half of his face is hidden behind a thick layer of blond scruff that he scratches incessantly. His one arm is held back in a sling. The guy they met at the gym didn’t push it, but Nick and Sy have. From my reading, it makes the most sense for him to keep it stabilized as much as possible.

But the biggest indicator of how he’s feeling is the persistent bounce of his knee and the rapid fire tapping of his marker against the table.

“That’s it,” Nick snaps, reaching across the distance and snatching the marker out of his ink-stained fingers.

“Hey!” Remy cries.

“Nick!” Sy growls, but it doesn’t stop his brother from flicking his wrist, sending the marker sailing across the student center, into a group of students, beaning one right in the forehead.

He snickers, pleased with the accidental bullseye. “Fuck, did you see that?”

“Go get it,” Sy says. “

.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “No. He’ll just start tapping it again, and I just can’t fucking take it anymore.” He turns a pleading look my way. “Little Bird, I know things have been tense between you two, but maybe if you just gave him a BJ—”

Sy slams his notebook shut. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Remy is pointedly quiet, eyes cast down at his blank drawing pad.

“Jesus,” I mutter, scooting my chair back. “I’ll get it.”

Nick bolts up, realizing he’s pushed it a step too far. “Christ, just–I’ll go.”

“No.” I press my hand into this chest. “Let me. Sit and think about not being a dick for a minute.”

He frowns and pushes my hair off my forehead, planting a kiss. “Fine.”

These guys will be the end of me.

I stride over to the group in question. They see me coming. They know who I belong to, and even though they should be pissed, they won’t be. Perk of being a Royal.

“Hey,” I say to the kid who got hit by the marker. There’s a red welt on his forehead. “Sorry about that.”

He’s younger—probably a freshman—wearing a Forsyth sweatshirt. His eyes are glued to the tattoo on my chest. Well, I’m going to be charitable and assume it’s the tattoo, although the shirt Nick picked out for me today does make my tits look huge.

“Uh,” he says. “Sure. No problem.”

“I’m going to need that marker back.”

The kid hands me the marker but I hear a snort of laughter. “Why do you need it so bad? So they can mark you even more?”

I spin, eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

That’s when I see the tattoo on his wrist. A coiled snake. He smirks. “I just figure it’s about time they wrote ‘

’ on your forehead and got it over with.”

My eyes flick over to the table where each of my Dukes is watching, although we’re too far for them to hear the exchange. Lucky for him. Nick is poised, not unlike that tattooed snake, ready to strike at the first sign. But this kid is nothing. He’s a fucking freshman pledge. Dirt under what used to be Perez’s boot.

“Warren, shut the fuck up,” says the kid with the red welt on his forehead. A worry line slashes his forehead. “He’s a dumbass, Duchess. He didn’t mean it.”

“Listen to your friend, asshole.” I look up and see Story’s approach—a cup of tea in her hand. She’s dressed in a short navy skirt and a prim, pale pink sweater set. “This is not the chick you want to fuck with.” She smirks. “Not unless you want to end up in an electrified dog crate for three days.”

Warren swallows and ducks his head. For now, at least.

She links her arm with mine and steers me away.

“Everything okay?”

I grip the marker. “Sure. I mean, other than the usual.”

I have no idea how much Story and the Lords know about everything that went down with the Barons and the hit, but even if they are our allies, we’ve sworn to keep our mouths shut.

She stops in the middle of the student union. I feel my Dukes’ eyes on me like a tangible weight, and across the room, Dimitri Rathbone leans against the wall, his gaze glued to his Lady. “Got a minute?” she asks. “I needed to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but every year there’s this big charity fundraiser. A fall festival? All the frats cooperate.”

“I’ve heard it,” I say, thinking back to the chatter in North Side whenever fall rolled around. “But I’ve had my doubts about the cooperation aspect.”

“Believe it or not, they actually do put the weapons down for the weekend and play nice.” She smiles in a way that makes me doubt it’s that easy. “That means we have to do the same thing—because we’re in charge.”

“We?”

“The house girls. We get the glory of organizing set up, games, activities, rides, amusements, food…”

I pull a face. “So, basically the whole thing.”

“Pretty much.”

“Typical.”

“Right?”

Crossing my arms, I can’t help but acknowledge this is the absolute fucking worst time for inter-house mingling. “I’m assuming there’s no way out of this?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry, it’s just something we have to do.” Her eyes flick over my shoulder and she laughs. “Wow, he’s not liking the two of us talking too much.”

I glance over and see Nick staring our way. His jaw is set, eyes narrowed. He’s suspicious, which makes sense. The last time me and Story teamed up, things didn’t go so well for Nick Bruin.

I turn back to her, eyes rolling. “He’ll survive.”

Her face turns pensive. “How’s that going for you?”

“Me and Nick?” I don’t have to look again to feel his eyes boring into me. I used to resent it. Now it just makes me hot between my legs. He’s not the only one watching, but Sy has out a notebook, at least pretending not to stalk me, and Remy’s focus is completely on not falling apart at the moment. “We’re actually…” My shoulders pull up high, arms crossing. “Uh, together?” I brace myself for the disbelief. The disapproval.

Her eyebrow arches. “So he just needed a little tough love, huh?”

“Something like that.” There’s no judgment in her tone, though. Story is probably the only other person in the world that can understand me falling for a guy like Nick. I’m not exactly sure how far things went for her and her Lords, but I see the cuff on her wrist and the puckered scar lines peeking out of the top of her shirt. “Just tell me what you need me to do for the festival. I’m in.”

“I’ll text you,” she says, drinking the last of her tea and tossing the cup in the nearby trash can. “And seriously, I’m glad you’re helping this year. The other house girls…” She scrunches her nose.

I fill in the blank. “Suck?”

She grins. “Pretty much.”

Back at the table, I hand Remy his marker. “Thanks, Vinny,” he says, tucking it behind his ear.

Nick says nothing about my talk with the Lady, but Sy isn’t quite as good at playing it cool.

“What was that about?” he asks.

“The fall festival thing,” I say, grabbing my coat. I’ve got Chem in ten minutes. “Apparently it’s part of my job as Duchess to help plan it.”

“Bad idea,” Nick says. “We don’t fraternize with the enemy.”

“Yeah, actually we do.” Sy stands, picking up my backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. “A few times a year. It’s in the charter and part of the deal when you join one of the frats.” He gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry I forgot to tell you. Things have been…” He scratches his neck. “Well, you know how things have been.”

“It’s fine,” I assure, even though it isn’t. Five Royal women planning one festival? That’s a recipe for homicide, the likes of which even the Dukes have never seen. Still, I try to stay positive. “It’ll be nice to spend some time with Story, though. You know we’re… friendly. Ish.”

Sy looks uncomfortable about that statement, but Nick?

He steps next to me, arm sliding around my waist. His head drops, mouth warm against my ear. “Promise me the two of you aren’t going to team up against me again.”

I hum, leading him away. “We’ll see how you behave.”

Even having to spring up the narrow staircase to reach it, the inert quiet of the room that houses the clock tower’s inner workings is a welcome reprieve.

It’s a mess when I enter for the first time in a week, parts and tools strewn everywhere, and I spend a long moment looking at it all. What was I thinking, taking this all apart? As if I could fix something this big–this important.

The plan had been to just start over. To take apart the strike train, and put it back together according to the ancient diagram spread out beneath the bare bulb in the corner. But I only got halfway through it last time I was up here.

Steeling myself, I gather my hair up into a ponytail and get to work, welcoming the distraction. Up here, I don’t have to pretend I can’t see the bulge in Sy’s pants when he watches me reach for a glass. I don’t have to wonder what crazy thing Nick is going to do next. I don’t have to avoid looking at Remy and seeing that flash of memory of Haley on her knees before him. I don’t have to think about my father and wonder how he’ll strike back at us.

The clock is a mess, but it can be put back together.

Will it work, after?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

It’s a long, tedious process, some of the parts looking so similar that it takes me a while to match it up to the diagram on the page. The problem is that I’ve read the materials, memorized the components, and know how it fits together, but I don’t understand it in any organic sense. I know what goes where, but not why, or how it synergizes with the other parts.

I’m almost done–placing the last awkward auxiliary arm–when I hear the door open. I don’t turn around, my arm wound so far into the clock’s guts that it’d be a chore to start over.

“What?” I ask, straining with my other arm to secure the auxiliary arm with the nut.

“That looks like a good way to lose a limb.” The sound of Remy’s rough, quiet voice makes my stomach swoop in a complicated way.

“That’d only happen if the clock actually turned.” I grunt, reaching around a gear to tighten the threads.

I feel him behind me just as much as I hear him. He has all the presence of a throbbing wound. “These the diagrams?” At my answering hum, I hear papers shifting. “Jesus, these must be a hundred years old.” There’s a long stretch of silence where I begin feeling the prickling of annoyance. The problem with Remy is that he’s so unavoidable.

His energy.

His eyes.

His face.

Satisfied with the tension of the spring, I slowly extricate myself from the mechanics, fingers greasy and smudged, and finally turn to him.

His .

He’s shirtless, pants slung low on his waist, and I freeze as I watch him scan the paper. A hand moves to rake his damp hair back, away from his eyes. It’s an idle gesture that makes the corded muscles beneath his inked skin shift and flex.

And then he looks up, meeting my gaze. “Do you know what’s wrong with it?”

I turn off the attraction like a switch. “Yeah.” I drop the wrench into the toolbox. “It’s broken.”

He blinks. “Oh.”

I gesture to the large crank at my hip. “It won’t wind. It’s like it’s stuck or something.” I stop short of giving him a demonstration; my small figure struggling comically to push at whatever twisted metal is preventing it from working.

Reaching up to scratch absently at his scruff, he offers, “Obviously I’m useless, but you should ask Sy to try. He’s the strongest one here.” After a beat, he adds, “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“It won’t matter,” I reply, tossing a spanner with the rest of the tools.

His eyes follow the metallic crash. “I’ve been taking my meds,” he says. His brow instantly puckers, like maybe he wasn’t intending to.

I wipe my hands with the dirty towel slung over the toolbox. “I know.” I’ve seen the bottles all lined up in the bathroom, sometimes open, sometimes not.

His eyes flash in surprise, the line of his mouth softening. “They’re still orange, but I do it.” After a beat, he stresses, “I’ll keep doing it.”

Nodding, I say nothing. It’s a constant misery inside my chest to be met with warring absolutes. Part of me still buzzes to life at his attention, while the other half wilts beneath the weight of it. My heart wants so badly to see him like this–alert, clear, rebounding–and it also withers at the knowledge I wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t enough for him.

Just looking at him makes my throat go tight. “Did you want something?”

It’s been an unspoken agreement that we were giving each other space. Sometimes, that night on the cliffs doesn’t even feel real, and I find myself relating to all of Remy’s doubts about the first time he did it. Other times, I’ll look at the scabbing cuts on my legs and remember the words he whispered before we jumped, and it’ll be so real that I need to get away, take a breath.

Like now.

He ducks his head, grabbing something from the table beside him. “Give me a hand with this?” It takes me a long moment to realize he’s holding the sling and a shirt. “Sy’s busy with some lab report and Nick’s on the phone with his Pops.” His mouth turns down unhappily. “My shoulder’s still a little fucked up.”

“Of course.” I drop the towel and bring up the armor, marching forward to take the shirt from him. It’s nothing. This bare expanse of chest? It’s just skin. Flesh and bone, nothing more. “You going somewhere?” I ask, keeping my words light and direct.

“Yeah, this meeting thing.” He reaches to run his hand through his hair, but then winces at the pain and drops his arm. “Over at the student center.”

“Meeting?” I ask, gesturing to his bad arm. He extends it slowly, wincing, and I thread it through the sleeve without even having to touch him. It’s a buttondown, so I move behind him, easing the shirt up his shoulder, and then around his back for his good arm.

“Sy found it for me,” he explains, words quiet but oddly tense. “It’s like… a support group. You know, for… addicts and stuff.”

I only pause for a second. “Oh, right.” His scent surrounds me like a blanket, muted from what I’m used to. There’s no edge of paint or solvent about him, just the masculine spice of his body wash–maybe deodorant. It still makes my belly flip, even though I’m careful not to show it on my face. “That sounds… good.”

I don’t want to push too hard here, or say the wrong thing. He’s like when Archie first came here, skittish and easily startled. I’m glad he’s getting help, but with Remy? It’s hard to trust anything. To trust him.

I feel his eyes tracking me tenaciously, and every move he makes seems intentionally measured to take as long as possible. He threads his second arm through carefully, even though it’s not even injured. I hold my frame, patient and just as deliberate with my movements, mechanically pulling the sides of the shirt to his front.

I’m his Duchess.

This is a duty.

I begin with the lower buttons, pretending I don’t hear the slow, growing heaviness of his breath. One after the other, I ascend, hooking button into buttonhole, until my knuckles accidentally graze the hard ladder of his abdomen. Remy sucks in a soft breath, abs flexing.

“Almost there,” I say, as if his reaction could be owed to impatience and nothing more.

He responds by bending his head, the tip of his nose grazing along the hair at my temple. “Your color’s fading,” he whispers, voice like tattered silk. “In your hair. The blue’s so pale now. I could re-do it sometime.” My jaw clenches, fingers hastening as he inhales. It could just be that he’s tired and slumping. He’s not even really touching me. Just his breath.

And it’s agony.

“There,” I say, finishing the third button from the top, just how I know he likes it.

I’m stiffly straightening the collar when his nose trails lower, nudging against my temple, and at that same moment, his hand–the one attached to the shoulder–reaches up to catch my jaw, lips dragging damply across my cheek.

I jolt back, tearing myself from his grip. All the heat in my blood turns to chill. “Don’t.” My voice is sharp enough that he flinches, hand still suspended in the air. “Do fucking manipulate me the way you accused me of doing to you.” I throw him the sling, watching as he fumbles, the color bleeding from his face.

“I wasn’t–” The defense is weak even before it clips off. From the slack set of his jaw, he knows he’d be lying. Remy looks down at the sling, fingers twisting in the material. “So this is how it’s gonna be? I can’t even kiss you anymore?”

It takes me a long moment to regain that robotic sense of impassivity. When I do, I ask, “Can you do that yourself?”

There’s a long pause where we just stare at one another, an understanding slotting into place.

No, he can’t kiss me anymore.

Not like that.

Mouth pressed into a grim line, he puts his arm through the sling, fingers tugging it snugly around his elbow. He replies without looking at me, eyes fixed to the clock mechanics looming in the background. “Can you fasten it? Please.”

The request is quiet and uncomfortably hollow, and when I step forward to grant it, he doesn’t even tip his head in my direction, standing stiffly as I loop the strap over his neck, pressing the velcro down.

“Thanks,” he says, turning to leave.

I listen to his retreat, feet trodding away, before I call out, “Remy.” Turning, I catch his frozen form, his sharp features cutting a dramatic silhouette in the doorway. “I’m glad you’re taking your meds. Just because we’re…” I stumble over a word I can’t find, because I’m not sure one exists. When have I ever been able to label what Remy and I are to each other, and how would I even begin to find its opposite? I don’t try. I glance at the clock mechanics, staring sightlessly at this engine with no spark. “Whatever’s happening between us, that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be okay. I’ll always want you to be okay.” I meet his gaze. “Don’t ever use that against me.”

He steps forward half a step. “I just wanted…” But then he stops, sagging, and turns back to the door. “I just . Sorry, Vinny.”

I think about it long after he’s gone, sweaty and sore, leaning into the crank with all the force in my body as I strain to budge it. My feet slip against the floor, but I plant them harder, shoving, willing the universe to give me this–just this. Even when I know it won’t work, I still wrestle with it, throwing everything I have into turning it.

When I leave an hour later, the room is just as silent and still as when I entered.

It doesn’t actually hit me until I’m stepping out of the shower, eyes falling on the various items surrounding the sink. There’s hair gel, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, aftershave–all a manner of male grooming products.

And Remy’s pills.

The first thing I do after dressing for bed is go up to my loft, fishing out Sy’s journal from beneath the mattress. Whether an intentional gesture or a lapse of memory, he hasn’t asked for it back. It’s been days since I flipped it open to see the apology he left me in the back, and I don’t bother now.

He’s hunched over the laptop when I knock on his door frame, buds firmly planted in both ears. Archie is sprawled out in front of Sy’s pillow, twisted inexplicably and fast asleep, his little paws twitching intermittently. He sleeps here most nights now, usually coming up to the loft to lay with me in the smaller hours of morning.

When Sy doesn’t react, I realize he can’t hear me, so I invite myself in.

His head shoots up when I wave my hand in front of him, fingers plucking out both ear buds. “Hey.

.” He rubs his eyes, leaning back in his seat. There’s a sandwich on the desk beside his computer with only two bites taken from it. I know for a fact he made it five hours ago. “I’m so close to being done with this paper,” he says, voice rusty.

I grimace. “Sorry to interrupt.” All the drama with the Barons, plus the ensuing fallout, not to even mention the fact he was away for a week before that…

I know he’s fallen behind.

“No, no.” He instantly grabs my wrist, steering me closer. “Trust me, I needed it. What’s up?”

I perch on the edge of his desk, ignoring that his blue eyes dip down to my thighs, right below my shorts, and open up the journal. “This.”

He blinks at the notebook like he’s seeing it for the first time. “Oh.”

I have the page open to Remy’s color chart. It’s not actually in color, which isn’t a surprise. Sy isn’t exactly the craft project type. But the colors–the words–still correspond to emotions. I hand it to Sy. “You should have this back.”

He frowns, glancing into my eyes as he hesitantly takes it. “Alright?”

“No, I mean…” There’s a thread of confused hurt in his eyes, and I struggle to explain. “I’ve already read all of it anyway. You should use it. You should change his pill bottles.”

He stares back, confusion capturing his features. “His pill bottles?”

“They’re orange, Sy.”

He looks down at the chart, comprehension dawning. “You think that makes him, like… reluctant?”

Shrugging awkwardly, I wager, “It’s Remy. Lesser things have made him reluctant.”

After a pause, eyes scanning the page, he says, “Huh,” and then, “Blue bottles, you think? A pill organizer?”

I shift uncomfortably under the weight of his eyes, as if my opinion is important here. “White? Clear? I don’t know, just… not orange.”

“Or yellow,” he muses, reading. It’s a while before his eyes wander back up to me, arm reaching out to set the journal on his desk. “You’re still mad at him.”

I grimace, watching as Archie shifts on the bed. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Any idea how long that’s going to last?”

Ducking my head, I answer, “I don’t think there’s a shelf life on this, Sy.” It’s hard enough to even put a name to it. Betrayal? Grief? Heartbreak? All of them fit, but none of them tell me what I need from Remy. Something tangible and real. Not skies, or stars, or colors. I can’t be Remy’s anchor if there’s nothing to hold on to.

Sy slips his palm onto my leg, just above my knee. The warmth is light and testing, blue eyes holding mine. “I’m not going to tell you to forgive him, because that’s not my place. But I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I didn’t say this.” My stomach sinks, because the last thing I want to hear right now is how it wasn’t Remy’s fault. “That night I came to save you–when I stole you back from your father–I didn’t do that for you.”

“You did it because you knew I helped Remy.” Maybe the thought should sting, but it doesn’t.

“A little,” he admits, thumb caressing a soothing circuit into my inner thigh. “But mostly, I did it because I knew if I didn’t, he would have gotten himself killed doing it on his own. Because there was no other option for him.” Sy nods at the journal. “I’ve gotten to know you a little bit now, and I’m guessing… maybe after what he did with Haley, you don’t feel… special anymore. To him.” He ducks into my line of vision, catching my eye. “But Lavinia, that was the real lie–not everything else he showed you. If you can’t forgive him for it, then that’s your choice to make.” Shaking his head, he pulls away, palm dragging over my knee. “Just make sure you’re not forgiving the right thing. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

He looks frayed around the edges. I’m not sure how much of that is school, or DKS business, or family stuff, or Remy and his problems. He pointedly drags the journal into his lap, covering the growing hardness I catch a glimpse of, and know that some of it is me.

Clearing my throat, I push off the desk, promising, “I’ll think about it.”

But before I can leave, he swivels in his chair, asking, “Are you going to your loft? To sleep?”

I pause, fingers twisting in the hem of my oversized shirt. It’s his. Sy’s. A screen print of a longhorn skull is flaked and faded across the front, and as Sy tilts back in his chair, his eyes fall to it. “Yes.”

His mouth purses wryly. “Meaning Nick will find his way up there.”

My face heats at the acknowledgement. It’s been like this all week, Nick coming up to my loft after they’ve gone to bed, taking off my clothes and fucking me on the mattress. Sometimes slow and gentle, drawing it out. Sometimes fast and loud, like he’s been waiting all day, even though I know for a fact he hasn’t.

“Probably,” I concede, beginning to feel that way myself. Impatient. Anticipating. Excited.

Nick Bruin is a lot of things, and plenty of them aren’t good. But this? The way he makes love to me is so damn easy to get addicted to.

I can already feel myself getting wet.

Sy leans forward, elbows propped on his knees, and trains his eyes on his knuckles. “Can I…” His jaw works awkwardly. “…watch?”

My eyebrows lurch upward. “You want to watch Nick fuck me?”

“Just watch,” he insists. His eyes are edged with the same mania I see in Remy’s sometimes, hands discreetly adjusting the notebook.

I flounder around a response, knowing, of course, that he watched us that day at the river house, when Nick was fucking me out of that… episode. But that was different. We were all sleeping in the same bed and there wasn’t exactly anywhere else to go. It wasn’t planned that way. If it could have been, it never would have happened.

But I think of it now. Sy tracking us with his hot, blue eyes as Nick peels his brother’s t-shirt off me. I think of watching that flush come over his earlobes, the way his eyes get heavy when he’s horny–not just physically, but mentally. I think of him seeing Nick push into me, maybe even touching himself to the sight of it, and suddenly, I’ve gone from wet to .

Taking a breath, I square my shoulders. “On one condition.” Sy perks and I jerk my chin toward the sandwich. “Eat something, and promise you’ll get some sleep tonight.”

His confused eyes whirl to the sandwich, and for a second I think he might just cram the whole thing in his mouth in one go. Instead, he nudges it aside, saying, “I’ll… make something new. And get plenty of sleep.” The bewilderment is still in his eyes when he says, “Promise,” but I know he’ll keep it.

Over the last few days something is becoming clear; my men need me to take care of them, the same way I need them to care for me. It’s not typical or traditional, sometimes it’s outright depraved. But it’s on our terms, and that means more than anything.

I’m engrossed in a novel when Sy wanders up the staircase an hour later, laptop tucked beneath his arm. Most of the lights are off, but the glow of the city through the clockface and the small lamp that illuminates my little mattress nest are enough. Sy pauses at the top step, staring at me, perhaps waiting for me to call it all off.

I spare him only a glance before returning to my book.

Wordlessly, he settles against the rail that overlooks the living area, opening his laptop. He’s changed out of his clothes into nothing but a loose pair of sweats, the screen casting a blue glow over his bare chest. He’s close enough–barely five feet from the mattress–that I can see him become immediately engrossed in his work again, fingers tapping away at the keyboard.

It’s not long before Nick comes, though.

Unlike his brother, he stalks right up here with the same wildness in his eyes I’ve come to expect. He’s in nothing but a pair of boxers, all of his ink on full display. I know he doesn’t spot Sy at first just by the way Nick holds himself, loose and lazy in a way that tells me tonight is going to be of the slow and quiet variety.

When he notices a third presence, he freezes, some of the tension returning to his spine. “Hey,” he says to his brother.

Sy closes the laptop. “Hey.”

The two of them watch each other for a long moment. Nick’s eyes snap to me, then back to Sy, the gesture perfectly clear.

Sy sets the laptop aside and extends a leg, saying nothing.

Nick reaches up to ruffle the back of his hair, which might be the closest to awkward I’ve ever seen him. “You’re staying,” he guesses.

Sy’s face hardens. “Is that a problem?”

“Depends.” Nick looks between us, eyes narrowing questioningly. “Am I still getting some pussy?”

“Jesus.” I roll my eyes, closing the book. “Yes, Nick.”

He exhales, the tension dropping out of his shoulders. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

I’m only half inclined on the mattress, my back propped against the stone wall in the corner, so when Nick bends down to grab my ankles, I know what’s coming. I still let out a squeak when he wrenches me down the bed toward him, kneeling between my legs.

He bends over me and I spread my thighs for him, eyes fluttering at the feel of his palm on my temple, smoothing back the hair. “Where were you earlier?”

I skate my fingers along his ribs, resisting the urge to arch up into his body. “Clock.”

He makes a dismissive sound, nudging his nose against mine. “When are you going to learn that thing is a piece of junk?”

I chase the promise of his mouth, breathing, “It gives me something to do.”

He gives me a slow, wicked smirk. “Baby, I’m right here.”

When he finally kisses me, it’s downright filthy. His tongue coaxes mine to him, tangling wetly together as he rocks his hardness into my center. He doesn’t let his hand slipping up my shirt interrupt it. He pulls and tugs until he can slide the shirt over my breast, exposing me for his greedy palm.

It’s only then that he licks a hot path across my cheek to my ear. Gruffly, he whispers, “You really want him up here?”

My fingernails dig into his back at the sensation of his teeth beneath my ear, his thumb caressing my peaked nipple. “I don’t mind.”

“No?” he asks, abandoning my nipple to tuck his hand between us, dipping into my shorts. “Let’s see about that.” I welcome the invasion, already knowing what he’s going to find. My heart still ratchets up a notch when his fingers meet my slickness. He goes momentarily still, face turning to mine, eyes wide and blown. “God, your pussy’s fucking .”

The truth is, I was already primed for this hours ago. Helping Remy into his shirt, feeling his breath on my face, knowing he wanted me badly enough to leverage his own weakness to get it. Sy’s request just multiplied it, and then there was Nick and all his silent intensity, looking ready to eat me alive.

If every day is like this, these men might fucking kill me.

Knowing Sy heard him, I just buck my hips into his hand, unconcerned about giving away my eagerness. It’s always dangerous with Nick, predicting how he’ll react to something like this. Sometimes he’s frighteningly, lethally possessive. And other times…

He pushes two fingers inside of me, the smirk returning. “That get you hot, little bird? My big brother over there wishing he was me?”

“Don’t tease, Nick.” I grab his face, willing him to understand what this is. Not a competition, or a fight, or some stupid pissing match between brothers. “Not tonight?”

His thumb finds my clit, and he must see the seriousness on my face, because he just plucks a slow, lingering kiss from my lips. “Anything you want.”