Page 56 of Inked Daddies

“That’s your pen name, right?” he says as he turns to face me, his eyes locked on mine.

I feel like the floor is falling out from under me. I can’t take this. Not any of it. If he outs me…no, he’d never do that. But my brain staggers on the feeling of being outed. The worry of it. “How did you?—”

“Your books,” Trick interrupts, grinning. “You’ve got good taste in smut, Marie.”

I stare at them, my face heating as the pieces click into place.

“You read a lot of your own books, don’t you?” Hugo says, his smirk widening. “And you write what you want. Three men. All of them forbidden for one reason or another. All of them obsessed with your heroine.”

Sam steps closer, his voice softer now. “Trick noticed what you’ve been reading. I looked up Cat Blackstone. No pictures of the author anywhere on her website, except for a new one. The picture of the tattoo I gave you. A black cat for Cat Blackstone.”

I feel exposed. Stripped bare. My throat knots.

“Relax,” Hugo murmurs. “We’re not judging you, love. In fact…” He pauses, his green gaze darkening. “We’d like to help you make those fantasies of yours come true.”

My breath catches, my pulse quickening as I look between them, each stepping toward me. My body responds instantly. I’m aching to be held, to be close to them. A dull throb starts between my legs.

I’ll tell them about the pregnancy later. For now, I just want to lose myself in them.

“Make me forget.”

“With pleasure,” Hugo says as he closes the distance between us, the other two flanking him.

I don’t know what’s in store, but I don’t care. Whatever they want.

23

SAM

Marie iseverywhere.

She’s in my head, in my chest, in the air I breathe.

I’ve spent weeks trying to push her out, trying to tell myself that staying away is the right thing to do. That she deserves better than us. That what we did was reckless, impulsive—something we could walk away from before it got too deep.

But it’s already too deep. It has been from the moment she walked back into my life.

I look at her now, standing in the middle of our house, her hair tousled from the wind outside, her lips parted in surprise, her cheeks still flushed from whatever happened before she came here. She’s breathless, defiant, stubborn as hell, and so damn beautiful it makes me ache.

I’m done pretending. I’m done holding back. I’m done worrying about what Preacher will do, what the town will say, what this means for the rest of my life.

I am all in.

I step closer, watching her carefully, waiting for any sign that she’s second-guessing this. It’s not there. All I see in her eyes is heat. Longing. She wants this just as much as I do. And I can’t hold back anymore.

I cut the line and nudge Hugo out of the way with my shoulder before hooking my hand around the back of her head and dragging her to me for a brutal kiss. I don’t have it in me to make this sweet or gentle. I need her now.

She must need it too. She kisses me back hard, need and desperation coating her tongue. She paws at me, and every touch wedges her deeper into my soul.

I hold her like she’s mine. Like shebelongsto me. Tous.

And she does. She has since she came back as a woman. Those books she wrote, they’re me, Trick, and Hugo on every page. I skimmed through a couple just to see, and fuck if they didn’t get me hard.

Our girl is as dirty as we are, and now I want her to show us.

I pull back a fraction of an inch, panting as I press my forehead to hers. “Don’t move.”

“What?”

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