Part 29 (2/2)

She wondered if the powder keg that represented her feelings about Gideon would eventually explode her brain, so she wouldn't have to face the aching truth. Needing him wasn't a choice. She didn't know how or why he'd become so vital, but she wasn't sure if she would survive without the balance of his presence beside her. On those days, she knew if she could go back in time, she would have kept him on whatever terms or lies were necessary. They would have ended up hating each other.

That said, she wasn't sure if what she felt was joy or murderous fury when she woke early one evening, emerging from her daytime slumber, and sensed Gideon sitting in their living room, waiting for them both to wake.

She didn't raise that curtain between their minds. It had been down long enough that it was weighted with her emotions, rusty and inflexible. She wasn't ready to talk to him yet. In the late-afternoon hours, she'd risen from Daegan's bed, come back to her own as she often did, to lay and stare at her ceiling in a lethargic drift of thoughts, needing that time to collect herself for the day ahead. It took so much energy to handle those voices. Sometimes she wanted Daegan to cut off her head so she wouldn't have to listen to their d.a.m.n noise anymore.

Now they were quiet. Waiting, like Gideon was. As she always did, she went to her shower, let the water wake her up fully. Brushed her teeth and hair. Slid a silken wrap over her shoulders and then turned her feet toward her doorway. She stood there for several moments, wondering what she would have done if he'd left while she was pulling herself together to face him. Probably run him down like a one-woman pack of wolves, even naked and dripping wet.

He was quiet out there, too. All through her shower, his mind touched her, a caressing knock she refused to answer. It was as if he were leaning against the door, stroking the wood, flattening his palm against it. Waiting her out. She didn't give herself to fear, but he was the match to that powder keg, perilously close. She trembled in the grip of it when she put her hand on the door, forced herself to stop and take a breath.

Willing submission. That means willing dominance as well. If he's offering himself, I take him back because I want him, desire him, not because I think I have no other choice. I refuse to be that weak, that person who needs another so desperately I would beg to keep him.

He rose from the couch when she opened the door. Daegan was already there, though from his damp hair and his open s.h.i.+rt, he had only recently emerged as well. She hadn't heard voices, and she understood, just from looking at them, that nothing had been resolved between them. Daegan had a particular code on this matter. Gideon was her servant. It was her right to confront him first. She suspected the men had done little more than exchange nods. Now Daegan gave her a searching, rea.s.suring glance, and took a seat in her desk chair. Stretching out his long legs, he watched them both.

”Mistress.” Gideon cleared his throat.

He looked tired, was her first thought. He'd often looked tired when she'd seen him, never an easy sleeper with the many internal struggles he couldn't seem to resolve, but there was a difference. The struggle going on with him right now was somehow very much in the present, as if his worries and apprehensions centered right here, not on the past. It gave her a cautious hope, but she held her tongue and her expression. She'd basically told him to get the h.e.l.l out of her club until he could get his s.h.i.+t together and accept what he was being offered. It wouldn't do for him to see that she doubted she'd have the strength to let him leave her side again, even if she had to employ chains to keep him there.

Daegan's brow quirked, his lips twitching at the provocative mental image. She was too involved in the moment to send him the searing glance he deserved.

Gideon s.h.i.+fted. ”Guess it would be cowardly to ask you to read my mind to know what's there, rather than me saying it aloud.”

”Yes,” she said coolly. ”It would.”

He nodded, his jaw tightening. He almost slid his thumbs into his pockets. She'd missed that defensive, s.e.xy hip-c.o.c.ked stance that said he wasn't to be f.u.c.ked with, but it was also an emotional defense. One he recognized because he caught himself, leaving his hands at his sides, staying open to her. She imagined her feet glued to the ground, a steel bar up her spine, to make herself hold position, unbending.

”Being near you two . . . it's like being near magnets. We feel right, drawn together, and when we're apart, there's a pull to bring us back together. The three of us.”

That was the rehea.r.s.ed part. She could tell preparing to say that much had been difficult for him. Still, she raised a brow, not giving an inch. But she sent out some tendrils of her own, enough to find he was agonizing over her frosty exterior, knowing everything he wanted was beneath it, hoping she would willingly give all of that to him if he did the right things, offered all of himself to her. She knew it was the hardest thing anyone could ask of him. But that was why he was here. He was resolved to do it, just . . .

”f.u.c.k, I don't know how to ask,” he burst out, his fists clenching. ”All the way here, I thought of how to say it . . . I know what I want, what I want to give you. But I don't know how to do it, Mistress. I don't know the right f.u.c.king combination of words to tell you that I feel like a f.u.c.king empty husk away from both of you, and I'm so completely f.u.c.ked-up about that. I know I want to be with you, whatever the h.e.l.l that takes or means. I know I want to be your servant. The idea of not being around when you need me, when I can help take care of you, love you, wors.h.i.+p at your f.u.c.king feet if that's what you need, it's torment.

”I thought about ending it, you know.” He gave a bitter half chuckle, missing the slip in her mask, the fear and anguish when she read it true in his mind, but Daegan saw it, coming to his feet to catch her gaze in rea.s.surance.

I would never have let him do it, cher cher.

”But you know what happened?” As if the two men she loved were synchronized, Gideon glanced toward Daegan. ”He came and said I couldn't go after anyone, because he knew that was what I was thinking about. h.e.l.l, any other time, I would have done it as a big f.u.c.k-you to him, just to be contrary. But . . .”

Gideon gave that strangled laugh again. Anwyn knew it was a near sob, and it pulled her a step closer to him. He seemed oblivious to them both now, though, his fists still clenched, fighting himself and his words so hard.

”All I could think was you hadn't given me permission to kill myself. That you'd be really p.i.s.sed. And he probably would be, too. I started thinking about why that was, and all of a sudden I was more scared than I'd ever been in my whole life.”

He was now staring at the floor, but everything in him was focused on her, on Daegan, longing for them both. She could feel it like a dense energy field between their three bodies.

”You remember how Daegan said he didn't make you his servant because he figured out asking you to be what you couldn't be would destroy what he loved most about you?”

She nodded, surprised he knew that. It made her realize anew how much he'd understood from her mind that she hadn't revealed directly. ”Well, when I left, I was p.i.s.sed, and thought you were asking me to be what I wasn't. But eventually I figured out that you never would have asked . . . demanded it”-he swallowed-”if you hadn't known that's actually what I am. What I wanted to be.”

She wondered if her heart could swell to the point it could hurt her rib cage, because her chest was aching at the look on his face, his eyes trained on the ground between her feet. ”When it came down to it, I don't think I let you send me away because I didn't want to be your servant. It was because if I finally had a real reason to live, I'd have to deal with all this other s.h.i.+t, the stuff that's been rolling around in my gut like a cancer for so long it feels like that acid is part of me. I don't know how to fix it, what to do. And that scares the s.h.i.+t out of me, because I might never be enough for you.”

He lifted his baffled gaze back to her. Anwyn was frozen, seeing something she'd never thought she'd see in Gideon's face. Long ago, tight, stingy tears had squeezed out when he'd spoken of Laura, the love he'd lost. But now his eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g full. As she watched, the tears broke free like a dam held back too long, tightening his face in anguish. It was the boy of long ago, who'd lost so much, surging forward.

”I'm so f.u.c.king scared of loving someone again with every part of myself, and yet it's too late. I've already done it. I know it sounds stupid, but I really thought I'd never have to risk that again. That I was done with it. Jacob, what he became. Laura. All of it hurt worse than anything to have that taken away from me, and now I can't . . . I need your help. I need you to love me.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath, bowed his head, and whispered it, staring at the floor. ”Both of you. But I don't know how to ask or give, or do anything but stand here and f.u.c.king beg for something I don't even understand, that I may not even know how to do anymore. I want to belong to you. Both of you.”

A hard shudder went through his body. In a moment that seemed to move in slow motion, he sank to one knee, then the other. Anwyn couldn't bear it. In the next blink, she had her arms around his great shoulders, head bent over his. The second she touched him, his arms flew around her, almost as fast as a vampire would have done. He banded them so tightly around her he might have hurt her if she had human bones. As he buried his face into her midriff, that dam completely shattered. Hiding his shame in her soft, womanly flesh, he couldn't hold back too many years of loss and blood. They crashed over him, wracking him so violently even her strength couldn't hold him steady.

But Daegan's could. He was here, crossing the room toward them swiftly. Anwyn was glad, because she was pretty sure she was about to shatter as well. She couldn't bear the thought of this moment being lost to a seizure.

We are both here, cher. He put his hand on her face, against her neck, steadying her, as he brought the warmth of his presence behind Gideon's kneeling form. cher. He put his hand on her face, against her neck, steadying her, as he brought the warmth of his presence behind Gideon's kneeling form. Those devils in your mind have no power over this moment. Those devils in your mind have no power over this moment.

We'll kick their a.s.s if they even try. I've been playing a lot of arcade games.

She choked on a sob, realizing she'd dropped her defenses without even thinking about it. Her subconscious knew it was okay, that she didn't have to shut Gideon out anymore. Oh, how she'd missed having him in her mind, and she wondered that anyone could ever find it invasive and unwelcome, to have that intertwined mind-to-mind connection. The pleasure of it seared through her, a sacred experience.

Daegan put his hands on Gideon's shoulders, knelt behind him, laying his jaw on Anwyn's hands and against Gideon's skull, holding him steady between them. Which was why she got to see the brief shock cross Daegan's face when Gideon at last drew breath to say more.

”I want your permission . . . I want Daegan to third-mark me, too. I want to close the circle. The way it should be.”

Daegan curled his hand in Gideon's hair, tightened so he had to drop his head back to look at the other male. Gideon resisted, still embarra.s.sed, but Anwyn took the silken corner of her robe, pressed away his tears. Then she leaned down, kissing the rest away before brus.h.i.+ng his mouth, just a taste of what she wanted to devour. Gideon felt the same way, but antic.i.p.ating it, Daegan's grip tightened so his Mistress could sample and tease.

She felt it descend, that delicious emotional power joining forces with the overwhelming physical needs of three people. Needs that hadn't been fully met for nearly two months. She and Daegan had never been more in sync, in their absolute ravenous hunger for the man who'd just given himself to them. Whether he knew it or not, he was making it worse, because their usually laconic hunter was still talking.

”I want things I never thought about wanting. I don't really care . . . that you're male.” He dared a glance over his shoulder this time, before staring back at Anwyn's midriff. ”That's not what it's about. But it's as if something happened deeper than the bodies, and now-h.e.l.l, I don't look at any other guy and want his d.i.c.k, but I want everything about you, including that. It's d.a.m.n confusing to me. I want to give you something of myself, the way I give to Anwyn. I want to feel you . . . s.h.i.+t, d.a.m.n, f.u.c.k, I sound like an idiot. Let me up.”

Gideon tried to pull away from them both, but he'd given away his choices. His Mistress and Master, eager to seize them, were now determined to teach him what he claimed not to know. Daegan took advantage of his surprise to kiss his mouth, fisting his hand in his s.h.i.+rt. Gideon's pa.s.sion-starved body responded instantly, his strong hand curling around Daegan's wrist, as if to throw him off, but he didn't. Instead, he held on, a growl in his throat as Daegan flicked his tongue back out over his lips, slid his hand down to cup him with blatant demand.

”You want to feel me inside you, the way she is inside you,” the vampire finished for him. ”That intimate connection that says I have had your body as thoroughly as she has.”

Tell him, Gideon. Anwyn met his midnight blue eyes, knowing her look could strip him even more bare, though she'd never seen him so emotionally naked. Anwyn met his midnight blue eyes, knowing her look could strip him even more bare, though she'd never seen him so emotionally naked.

Gideon wouldn't loosen his grip on her waist, but he did s.h.i.+ft and let go of Daegan's wrist so he could look at the male vampire more directly, summoning a warrior's courage. ”You remember the night we went to the tasting and you told me about Laura?”

The vampire nodded. ”I shouldn't have told you then.”

”No.” Gideon shook his head. ”In the beginning, it p.i.s.sed me off, something else you'd handled far better than I could have.”

”But now you saved my life, and you're feeling a bit more smug about yourself.”

”No. I guess now . . . I just feel like . . .” Gideon shrugged, uncomfortably, and would have risen, but Daegan put a hand on his shoulder, fingers near his throat, caressing him there.

”You can tell me anything, Gideon. In a matter of moments, I'll be in your mind, your soul. It would mean a great deal to me if you gave me the gift of your trust now.” He gave him an implacable look. ”Tell me.”

”You know, it still freaks me out, the way I feel when either one of you does that.” Gideon didn't say what ”that” was, but it was there in his mind, and on his face. The way it felt when they commanded him.

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