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I start driving into her harder, faster, with a steady, relentless rhythm. The headboard knocks against the wall. The bedpost creaks against the ribbon. Her heels dig into my back.

“Tonight, you’re mine,” I whisper. “Mine alone.”

Her body starts to tremble beneath me. Her breathing goes ragged. I grind deeper and rock against her, and she lets out a high, broken sound.

This time, she doesn’t scream. She goes completely still beneath me. Then she shudders, says my name so quietly I almost miss it, and pulls so hard against the bedpost that the knot gives. Her bound hands come down over my head, her wrists locked behind my neck, pulling me close. Her jaw clenches against my mouth. Around my cock, her pussy pulses hard and fast, and it pulls me right over with her.

I come with a groan I can’t hold back, driving deep one last time and holding there while she shakes beneath me.

It lasts longer than I thought possible. We cling to each other through all of it, her arms still looped around my neck, my face buried in her hair.

For a long time afterward, we lie together, just breathing. I don’t think we could move if we tried. Slowly, the throbbing fades. Our breathing evens out. Her muscles loosen under me, and so do mine.

When I finally lift my head, her eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. Her face is flushed and damp. Her hair is a mess across my pillow. I duck out from under her arms and gently unwind the velvet from her wrists, then turn them over to check them. No marks. Good.

“Is this why you waited so long to fuck me?” she asks, once she can speak. “Because you knew how intense this would be? Did you want to make sure I could handle it?”

“No.” I shake my head and brush her hair out of her eyes. “I wanted to make sure I could handle it.”

A smile crosses her face. I can already see that she wants to do this again.

“Not just the sex,” I add. “Everything that comes tangled up with it.”

“And can you?” she asks, like she isn’t sure of the answer for herself, either.

“Yes.”

I ease out of her carefully and deal with the condom, then come back and gather her into my arms. She lays her head on my chest with a long sigh. There’s no question in my mind that she’s staying right here tonight. Nothing could pull her out of my arms now. I won’t let it.

I run my hand through her hair and feel her whole body relax against me as her eyes close. And as I drift off with her in my arms, one word echoes in my head, over and over.

Mine.

I don’t mind sharing her with Zander and Jarek. But giving her up—going back to a life without Nina in it when the new year arrives—is no longer something I can live with.

CHAPTER 28

JAREK

“What if we kept it going past the new year?”

I’d expect that question from me. Maybe even from Zander, on a good day. But Pascal? Out of all of us, he’s the one with the most pressure waiting for him the second the holidays are over.

Sure, Zander has investors, and I’ll have the studio breathing down my neck the minute I pick up my phone. But Pascal’s whole life has been about keeping his family and the Beaumont board happy.

Maybe it’s because he was the last one to sleep with Nina, and he feels like he’s making up for lost time. Honestly, I get it. And I’m definitely not opposed to scrapping the deadline.

“I wouldn’t be against it,” Zander says. “We’re all enjoying this, Nina included. It makes sense to keep it going a while longer. Casually, of course.”

Pascal’s brow creases at the word “casually.”

I’m not sure Pascal can do anything casually. But credit to Nina. He showed up to breakfast this morning with his shirt untucked, which I have literally never seen. She’s clearly loosened him up.

We spend a few minutes talking through what it would look like after the holidays. We’ll all be back in New York in January, and Nina lives in Denver. It adds some logistics, but nothing we can’t handle. What’s the point of having this much money if you can’t hop on a plane whenever you want?

“I’m not worried about the logistics,” Zander says, like he read my mind.

“As long as we’re all agreed,” Pascal says. “The only thing we’d need to know is whether⁠—”