Page 72 of The Unexpected

“Mmmmph!” she screams, her face pressed into the sofa couch. “Ooooh!”

O’Toole lifts his head, lips slick. “You want more?” he asks.

She can’t even speak, just nods, face smashed into the cushion.

I fuck her again, rough and quick, and O’Toole eats her out as I do. She comes, again, her whole body shaking, and finally goes limp, breathless.

We collapse together, her body a mess of sweat and come and bite marks. There’s semen all over the furniture but that’s par for the course now. Lachlan and I have ejaculated everywhere and anywhere in this apartment, and the next occupant is going to need to do a deep clean.

But do I give a fuck? Hell no.

I run my hand up her thigh, leaving it there, as O’Toole twines his fingers with hers.

In the hush, nothing needs to be said.

Our girl is here, panting and sated, with our come leaking from her ravaged asshole and swollen cunt. She’s exhausted, used, and boneless from serving two men.

After all, we’re animals, and saints, and everything in between.

And in the low light, with her golden hair tangled in our hands and her breath still gasping, I know this is exactly where I want to be.

Tomorrow the world can burn.

But tonight, she belongs to us.

25

THE PROPOSAL

Stella

The aftermath is always the best part. That’s when time slows, the world narrows to the radius of a ruined bed, and you can almost believe nothing outside this room has the power to touch you. We’re in Hunter’s master suite, a windowless cocoon of navy silk and gunmetal glass, the blackout drapes closed tight against the predawn. The sheets are tangled under and around us, white gone gray where my mascara stains have streaked the pillowcases, and the smell in the air is a warm collision of sex, expensive cologne, and the ozone tang of recently snuffed candles. Two of them, on the nightstand, gutter in their glass caskets, wax puddling around the blackened wicks.

I lie in the hollow between my men, every nerve ending plush and ringing. My blonde hair is a fan on the pillow, my thighs slick and sticky with the mixed seed of two men. My ass is bruised, my wrists still tingling where they tied me with a necktie and a belt in sequence, and the tender spot at the crook of my jaw aches with the echo of a bite. In my mouth, I taste whiskey, brine, and the faintly salty tang of two men.

Yet this is exactly where I’m meant to be, in the weeks since we decided to move into Hunter’s place as a trio. It went smoothly, actually, without a lot of fuss, and now it seems like we’ve lived together forever. Hunter is to my left, an arm behind his head, his chest rising and falling with the unhurried patience of a man who never needs to prove anything. He’s gorgeous as he relaxes, the lines of his jaw and throat softened by the hour, a cut above beast, a shade below angel. There’s a constellation of bruises across his ribs, my fingernail signature from half an hour ago.

On my right, Lachlan props himself on one elbow, hair messy and gold, his blue eyes almost neon in the low light. There’s a scrape on his shoulder, a red half-moon where my teeth broke the skin. He watches me with the careful intensity of someone who knows he’s only ever one wrong word from losing everything.

The three of us lie like that, catching our breaths, while the room cools and the sweat on my skin dries.

Eventually, it’s Hunter who moves. He sits up, and the motion is so easy, so practiced, it could be mistaken for a stretch if you didn’t know him. He leans over me, the muscles in his forearm tense as a cable, and opens the drawer on the nightstand. He pulls out a small rectangle wrapped in blue velvet. There’s something so un-Hunter about the color—a shade too soft, too ceremonial—but it fits the gravity of the moment.

Lachlan doesn’t move, but his gaze tracks the box the way a wolf tracks a hare.

Hunter lays the object on the sheet next to me. It’s the kind of jewelry box you get when you pay someone not to embroider their logo on the inside. He flips it open with his thumb, and the velvet inside is a perfect night sky for what it holds: three rings, bright as moons. White gold, thick-banded, and each engraved with a gorgeous six-pointed star. They’re not identical, but they nest together so perfectly that it’s impossible to separate them without first removing the whole.

Hunter looks at me, then at the rings, then back again. “This isn’t a marriage proposal, Stella,” he says, voice low and unhurried. “It’s something better. It’s a promise.”

I watch his fingers—strong, a little battered, yet with the ability to be gentle. He picks up the first ring, holds it out between two fingers. The metal flashes, catching the faintest stray light.

Lachlan shifts closer, his thigh pressing against mine. He shoots a look at Hunter. “Go ahead, my man.”

Hunter clears his throat: “Stella, you’re everything to me. You have turned my life upside down a hundred and eighty degrees, but it’s what I want. It’s what I crave, and I didn’t even know it. Even more, I adore your curves, sweet girl, and I want your pussy and your ass and every other part of you available to me for the rest of my life. That’s what this is.” He slides the ring onto my left ring finger, and it’s cool at first, then a perfect fit. The inscription on the inside burns into my skin: SEMPER FIDELIS. “You belong to me, star girl. And I belong to you.”

He turns to Lachlan. “You’re next.”

Lachlan takes the second ring, his hand trembling slightly. He doesn’t say anything at first, but then takes a deep breath. “I’m in love with you, Stella,” he says. “I didn’t plan it, and I don’t regret it, because life with you completes me. I can’t imagine how I survived before meeting you, and I never want to go back to that lonely existence.” Then, he slips the second ring onto my right ring finger, across from Hunter’s. Inside the band is a string of Latin I can’t read, but I know from his sermons it means something like “All my sins for you.”