Page 57 of The Burnt Heart

“Or dead,” Jesse added with a wink. I stared at him in confusion, and he hastened to add. “There isn’t a girl dead who could take your place either.”

Briar groaned, and I took another fortifying gulp of wine. I stood up, walking to the middle of the room, my fingers strangling the glass stem.

“I want to get back together,” I whispered.

It was the last thing they expected me to say because they froze like statues, eyes widening like saucers. Logan dragged a hand down his face, making a muffled noise. Before I clarified, they were on me, glass falling to the ground as they wrapped me in their arms. Surrounded and supported, something I had always adored. Briar cupped my face and kissed me, sweet, his lips tasting like mint. My head spun as he sipped on me, feeling fingers on my hips, my ass, my hair. Logan pushed him to the side with a growl, his lips sliding to take Briar’s place. He wasn’t gentle, but ravenous. Like he’d been saving all his affection, and it slammed into me like a dam had burst. Jesse sucked on my neck, his teeth scraping the length of it, his chest plastered to my back.

I shuddered in their careful hold. Their touch was tentative yet starved. Clutching and soothing, soft and hungry. I couldn’t say no. My body heated as they coaxed it alive with something other than fear. The questing strokes rerouted the anxious buzzing to roaring need. Jesse pushed Logan aside, nipping at my bottom lip before his tongue swept into my mouth. Dizzying.

Nicole’s admissions had wormed their way under my skin. Rendering me small, fallible, and foolish. She’d called me a pawn and after what she’d admitted. I could see it, feel it rotting inside of me. Putrid failure, blackening my confidence. I let myself sag in their hold, needing a second to be weak. Everything I’d trapped deep inside me simmered to the surface, choking me with the enormity of the repercussions. Their touch was a shield from whatever lurked outside. Their lips on mine wiped it all away. My skin was on fire, and I was out of control. We were live wires, electrocuting each other with touch. They cycled through, trading turns plundering my mouth.

“We’ve missed you,” Briar muttered into my neck as Jesse hiked my dress up over my hips. I didn’t reply, Logan’s lipsstealing any words I might have made. I moaned as he palmed my breast. Fingers teased the line of my panties. A silent question. I widened my legs, knowing it was a mistake, but too desperate to care. They were offering me a bridge away from my worries. I took it.

“Fuck, so wet for us,” Jesse’s voice was guttural as his fingers teased. He glided around my clit, groaning into my back. His hardness pressed against my ass cheeks. I wriggled once, intent on ending this before it crossed a line I couldn’t come back from. But Briar unbuttoned my dress, pulling my bra down with a growl. His lips closed over my nipple, tongue bringing it to a hard peak. Logan kissed down my neck. His breaths were hot and ragged in my ear.

“Need you. My siren. Drowning without you,” he whispered, fingers tattooing the compliments onto my skin. Before he took my mouth again. “Let me please you?”

All the while Jesse was stoking the heat between my legs, my arousal letting his fingers own me easily. I looked into Logan’s clear blue eyes. He saw the indecision there, the wobble of my swollen lip that I tried to hide.

“It means nothing. Just pleasure,” he lied to me. I could see how the admission pained him, but I let him do it. I was selfishly taking now, needing something I couldn’t return. My heart skipped in my chest, a shield of bones. This wasn’t love. I would repeat it to myself until I believed it. I could stop at any moment. Logan exhaled sharply at my infinitesimal nod. He dropped to the floor so hard his knees crunched. But he didn’t notice, shimmying down my drenched panties. His hot breath puffed for a moment before he parted my lips for his questing tongue. Jesse chuckled in my ear as I let out a breathy curse.

“That’s right, princess. We’ll fuck you.” He turned my head, groaning into my mouth. Briar pinched and rolled my nipple between his fingers. I trembled on the fine line between pain andpleasure, letting both the sensations have me. Pinned between three hard bodies. I let the restraint drop. Let myself be free.

“I have dreams about fucking your tits,” Briar admitted, trailing open-mouthed kisses over my sensitive skin. The visage of Briar thrusting his gigantic cock between my breasts made me shiver.

“I want to choke this pretty throat on my cock.” He muttered, his hand circling my throat and squeezing. My knees wobbled at the suggestion; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it. I might have Logan on his knees for me, but Briar was the dominant one. My throat ached as he squeezed a little tighter, muttering obscene promises against my skin. I gasped as Logan lifted one of my legs over his shoulder and suckled my clit. It pulsed in his warm mouth. My lungs emptied on a moan, one that Jesse tried to swallow. I took his bottom lip between my teeth, appetite turning desperate. His eyes flew open, darkening with lust.

“Break the skin, princess. It’s yours to do what you want,” he offered. Logan’s moans vibrated against my pussy, his fingers digging into my thick thighs. They were shuddering around his ears now. Briar turned my head, clamping it between his hands. Our kiss hurt. Like we were trying to press our bodies together into one. I sobbed, my tongue fighting with his. Months hadn’t lessened what was in my heart. But the depth of feeling was threaded with betrayal. Each roll of lust and love came with a slice of pain. Their kisses smeared the hurt and promised to wipe it away. I clutched at whoever I could reach, digging my nails into their skin. I wanted to rage like I had never allowed myself. To mark them as deep as the invisible marks they’d left on my soul.

“It means everything. I’m sorry, Adelaide. But this could never be nothing,” Jesse muttered apologies as he lavished attention on my breasts. I wasn’t listening. My war of tongues with Briar was stuttering as I tripped over the pleasure Logan built. Ireached down and palmed at the straining lump in Briar’s jeans. I stared unseeing at the ceiling, lungs aching from gasping sobs. Logan pushed me over the edge, and I stiffened, sobbing again. I tingled, my sensitive nub pulsing under Logan’s flat, soft tongue.

“So beautiful.” He looked up at me, beard soaked with my arousal. Jesse pressed in close, hips jerking his hardness against me. I’d damn well crossed the line. I’d obliterated it. My stomach clenched. Sick, sick, sick. I spiraled.

“Wait,” I rasped, trying to push free from their hungry embrace. I stumbled out, my panties locked around one ankle, body thrumming. I yanked my bra up, cheeks flaming. “It’s not what you think.”

I rounded the couch, putting some distance in between us. My body tingled with the echo of their hands. They circled like starving predators, and my chest banged at how I’d used them.

“Siren let’s forget words for the evening,” Logan promised, and my thighs clenched together at his voice, thick with desire. I smoothed my dress over my ass with shaking fingers. I gripped the back of the couch to stop the room spinning.

“Just let me—” I gasped, wincing at the tightness in my chest. I waved a hand at their concerned steps forward.

“I spoke to Nicole,” I blurted out. The confusion was back, the wariness. I shook my head, not wanting to continue but knowing I needed to.

“She tried to lie about you, Briar.” I stumbled over to sit on the couch again, waving them away when they tried to sit near me. “She came to rub that blouse in my face. But she messed up. She admitted something to me that made my neck tingle. She’s been working with someone. There was a reason she came back and reconnected with you.”

It hurt to breathe. My lungs protested the air in them. Every inch of me ached for more of their touch. I wondered if I looked as disheveled as they did. Cheeks stamped red and hair askew.Briar shrank down, sinking into the couch. The confident man who had whispered filthy things in my ear disappearing.

“What?” he whispered.

“She was getting paid. Someone hired her, Briar. They wanted her to get in between us. To break us up. Her employer had been planning this for a long time. When they couldn’t get you to cheat on me, they offered you all the money instead. We broke up because of a situation they manufactured. Everything with Crimson Claw. It was all to make sure we weren’t together. They even supplied Nicole with the Cupid, hoping she could convince you to cheat. They wanted me unattached. So, they could step in and–” I shook my head, my throat constricting.

“What are you saying?” Jesse asked, slowly dropping next to Briar.

“Who are you talking about?” Logan whispered, his face turning a deathly shade of pale under his beard. My lip quivered. I hesitated too long, and Jesse leapt in.

“Ray Donato. I knew he was an slimy motherfucker, but even this is unbelievable.” The name made me flinch. I still couldn’t believe it myself.

“I don’t know if it was Ray or his father. But someone from high in the Donato family hired Nicole and put her up to this. They knew about her history with you. But whoever it was, they want me with Ray.”

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