Page 17 of Solstice

Carter laughed.Fucking. Laughed.The jerk!I huffed a belligerent sigh through my nose.

I didn’t love Lex, or maybe I didn’t think I did. Maybe it was all so confusing and complicated, I didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe I’d been saying I didn’t for so long that the response came as a habit.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Lex blew out a breath, annoyed with my reluctance. “Twenty-six years together, and I have to chase her through the fucking woods to get her to pay any attention to me.”

“You poor thing.” Carter’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “You must be so neglected.”

“You know what I think, Chicago?”

“What’s that, DC?”

“I think X is so in love with me, she can’t even stand it.”

Carter chuckled again. “You might be right about that.”

“I do know this.” I heard Lex stand and walk around my legs, footsteps ending next to Carter near my head. “She’s been in love with you since the moment she met you.”

Carter hummed in agreement.

“I’d like to see how X responds to a man she loves when she’s tied down. You know, for purely educational purposes.”

“Right,” Carter said.

“So next time, I’ll see the signs for myself.”

Next time?

I shivered at the notion.

I knew how this looked. Me, a strong, powerful woman, giving in to the baser desires of two men, giving them complete control over my body, letting them treat me like an object rather than a person.

But there existed peace in submission, a certain calm in giving up control, in not having to plan or coerce or strategize for however long your playmate could keep up. Which, in Lex’s case, was as long as me. We’d been playing this game in some shape or form all our lives.

My beloved Mister Scott being here had upped the ante. The thought of both of them together sent anticipation through every nerve ending. Carter’s gentleness contrasted with Lex’s roughness, and all of that focused on me usually rocked my world. I never wanted to get up from this table.

“The thing about our Representative Washington is that”—Carter moved to stand between my bent legs, his hands landing on top of my thighs—“you gotta make her trust you first.”

I sighed at the contact, relishing the familiar palms and the ridges of his scars.His vow.

“Hmm.” Lex sounded like someone learning about calculus or astrophysics, like the thought of me trusting him was too complex or time-consuming. “How do you do that?”

Carter huffed a breath, tucking his fingers under the waistband of my thong, dragging it down over my knees so it hung around my ankles. “Patience.”

“Show me.”

Carter slid his hands over my waist, up my ribs to my breasts, cupping each one before cascading back down again and stopping at my hips. The denim of his jeans rubbed up against the insides of my thighs, the heat from his body radiating into me as he leaned over my body, connecting us skin to skin.

“Hello, Weeds,” he said, finally addressing me. He dug his teeth into my ear and pulled, sending shivers down my neck and shoulders. I trembled, and he laughed. “He’s been torturing you for a long time, huh?”

I whined and nodded, playing the poor, pathetic prisoner.

“Does it hurt?”

I nodded again.

“Want me to kiss it better?”

Good God,the hot spike that went through my lower belly should have been criminal. I nodded again.

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