I picked up the one next to mine and tossed it over to him, feeling incredibly terrible about it the whole time.
He crooked his brow. “Blanket?”
I looked around my bed and then yanked the comforter up from right under me. “You can take this. I don’t need it,” I saidand then shoved the bunched-up fabric to the corner of the bed. I still had my regular sheet and with how hot my skin was feeling, I probably wouldn’t need that one either.
He bent forward and adjusted the comforter and pillow into a makeshift bed before straightening out to peer down at his work. I crawled to the edge of the bed and looked over to see what he’d done.
“Not bad,” I mused, feeling a little less guilty. “Looks comfier than the chair.”
At that, he flashed a dimpled smile at Dominic before meeting my eyes again. Reaching back, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off his body. Thick, rippling muscles stared back at me like a fucking offering from the Gods of Fertility.
“Want to join me?” he asked huskily.
Fuck did I ever.
Dominic scoffed under his breath, knocking me out of my stupor.
“I…uh. I think I should probably stay where I am,” I said, barely able to hide the disappointment from my voice.
He licked his lips and then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
As we each settled into our separate sleeping quarters, so did the darkness, pressing in over the room as thickly as the silence had. A light rapping sound trickled against the windows, lulling me into a peaceful calm. As strange as it was to be lying there in my bed with both Trace and Dominic in my room, I couldn’t deny that there was also something oddly comforting about it.
“This is…nice,” I said, though I think I’d meant to say weird.
“It’d be nicer if I was in bed with you,” grumbled Trace from somewhere on his floor-bed.
“Indeed,” agreed Dominic as he repositioned himself inhis armchair and clicked his tongue. “So much wasted space.”
I couldn’t help the yearning that fluttered through my belly at the idea of them both lying in bed with me, but I staunchly shoved it back down and buried it. One of us needed to stay rooted in reality here.
“Oh yeah, I’m sure you’d both lovethat. Being in bed with me while watching the other one cuddle me—touchme,” I said with a snort, envisioning how well that would go over.
When neither one answered, I saw it as an opening to keep going. To try to knock some sense into their head. “Is that what you’ve been imagining, or would it be more like borrowing a library book? You sign some card and check me out for the night while the other one sleeps alone… listening from the other room?”
More silence.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I said smugly. The idea alone was horrifying. They’d kill each other before the night was over. “I’m guessing neither one of you bothered to think your little offer through all the way to the end, huh?”
Dominic shifted again, the leather protesting beneath his movement in the dark as he said, “I assure you, angel, we most certainly did.”
“Doesn’t sound like it from where I’m sitting. It sounds like a desperate attempt to keep something going that clearly isn’t meant to keep going.”
“And what would you have us do instead? Let you go? Walk away from you after everything we did to be with you?” asked Dominic, his tone apoplectic.
“Yes,” I answered simply as Dominic laughed like I was being absurd.
“I didn’t come back from the dead—twice—just to fucking lose you, Jemma,” informed Trace, his own tone irritated that I’d even suggest it.
“So you came back from the dead to share me with Dominic then, did you?”
“Fuck no.”
“Yet that’s what you’re trying to convince me you want,” I pointed out.
“That’s not what—” He blew out a sharp breath. “Look, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you for myself. That the thought of you loving him, fucking him, wanting him, doesn’t still make my blood boil with jealousy. That I’d much rather take you out of this place and never have to see him again. No offense,” he called out.
“None taken,” answered Dominic.