Seduced by Three (16 page)

“I’ve been very patient,” Luke growled into her ear. “It’s time for my reward.”

Grace felt the release and slow exit of the butt plug from her body. She let out a short cry from the loss of it. Her body’s ache to be filled consumed her.

“Get on your hands and knees, Grace.” Luke sounded like he was talking through gritted teeth.

She scooted closer to the corner of the bed where the handcuffs were secured and raised herself onto all fours. Sarge lifted her slightly as Luke slid in underneath her. They were eye to eye. Luke’s hungry stare prompted more moisture to prepare her cunt for him. She felt the tip of his shaft at her pussy. He pressed down on her hips and speared her with his long, thick cock. He completely filled her in one long push until her clit rubbed against the base where they were joined. Her interior muscles gripped him eagerly, and she released a breath of satisfaction. Luke’s arms wrapped around her tightly as she lay on top of him. The haze that surrounded her began to lift, and Grace realized where this was going. Her body tensed, and Luke’s arms clutched her harder.

“Do you surrender, sweet Gracie? Do you need to use your safe word?” Sarge taunted her. “Or do you still think you want all of us?” Sarge’s gravelly words burned in her ear.

She didn’t answer him. She was too stubborn and proud to admit she was intimidated at the thought of having two men inside her.

She felt the cool gel applied to her rear again seconds before Sarge pushed the smooth dome of his penis past the pink rosette of her ass.

“Oh shit,” Grace gasped and tried to get out of Luke’s clinch, but his arms caged her. She knew her only escape was the safe word.

Fuck that.

“He’s takin’ it slow and sweet, ladybug,” Luke drawled. “Look at you, shameless with your ass up in the air for him. It pushes me to contemplate all the sinful things I want from your body.”

“This isn’t sinful?” Grace snapped.

“I didn’t give you permission to speak, Gracie,” Sarge said as he smacked the round globe of her ass while still advancing inside of her.

“There you go. I’m all in,” he choked the words out, and she experienced a moment of satisfaction in knowing he was having a hard time staying in control.

The two men began to move in sync with one another. Grace could not contain her shouts of gratification at being filled and from the torture of being so overfilled.

“God, you’re so damn tight.” Luke’s usually casual tone was replaced by labored speech and erratic breathing.

She barely heard him. She had relinquished the last remnants of her will and retreated to the parts of herself where only rapture remained. There were no grating remarks, no judgments on how she should behave, just sheer sensation and love. She loved that these men set aside their petty pride and needs to possess her for themselves and give this to her.

Her body was one coiled mass of muscle and bone ready to let loose the massive explosion of pleasure that had been building there. Grace’s cries flowed out of her.

“I’m going to come,” she sobbed.

“Do it,” Luke shouted. “Come on my cock, baby.”

The men worked together like a precision machine, pistoning faster and harder into her.

Sarge’s grip on her hips was lethally tight as he pounded into her, and then he let loose a shout of his own.

Grace felt the wave of hot cum slicken her quivering muscles’ grip on his cock. She undulated her hips, grating her clit on Luke several more times, reaching for her climax. And then it came. Her cries joined Luke’s as Grace rode the uncontrolled shudders of her orgasm. The feeling was so overwhelming, so intense she had no sense of place or time, no inhibitions, just her drowning in a sea of physical pleasure.

As the men’s actions slowed, then stopped, Grace lay gulping in air, exhausted and overcome on Luke’s chest. He held her to him as Sarge pulled out of her. There was the click and release of the cuff on her wrist, and she opened her eyes to meet Van’s green gaze.

Luke released her to him, and Van cooed praise and reassurances into her ear while he smoothed a damp rag over her, cleaning her up. Then he rested in the bed with her in his arms, running his fingers through her hair and caressing her back.

“I love you, Grace. We all love you. We need things to be right between us again. Let’s do that. Please, baby, let’s try.”

Van, the sweet gentle lover, had returned and cradled her into a calm, comforting peace.

Grace fell asleep in his arms.

Neither the hour of rest with Van wrapped around her nor the shift in dynamics between all of them was enough to completely change her mind about her plans to leave. Yes, enough of the steam had been released from the pressure cooker to make her second-guess her decision throughout the evening. But in the end, it was not enough to change her mind. It was the perfect time, really. The men were on good terms with each other, and she wouldn’t be there to stir up trouble between them anymore.

Later that night, she lay in bed for two hours, trying to memorize the feeling of having Van’s body sleeping next to her. She closed her eyes tight and concentrated on the experience. The rise and fall of his chest underneath her hand, the firmness of his bicep underneath her ear, his warm skin on her check, the slight caress of the hairs on his legs tickling the leg she had slung over him. She concentrated so hard, for so long, that she knew she would take a part of him home with her.

She waited until she was sure that all three men were asleep. Then, she lifted herself onto an elbow and tried to get a look, one last look, at them, but it was too dark. Slowly, Grace leaned into the space where Van’s breathing originated until her lips brushed on his hot skin. She placed a tender kiss there, not really knowing where exactly she was kissing him. It didn’t matter. She inhaled the scent of his skin underneath her nose. It was even better than a last look. She committed his smell to memory then slid off the bed and crept up the stairs.

Grace didn’t stop for clothes, boots, or her weapon. Leaving them behind was part of her plan. It was a smoke screen, left on purpose to divert them from thinking she returned back to her own shelter. They would just follow her there if there was any indication at all that she left to go home, but she knew it wouldn’t cross their minds if she left her gun and shoes behind. She left the cubbyhole door open as well, for the same reason.

Tears overflowed from her eyes, forming a continuous march of liquid down her cheeks and onto her shirt. The lump in her throat was so big, she couldn’t swallow.

She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to be selfish. She wanted to be with them so badly that she paused in the darkness of the kitchen, stumbling over her decision, unsure, while the wet spots on her T-shirt bloomed.

She thought of her dad. Just a split-second flash, but it was enough. Grace squared her shoulders. She was going to do what she had to do, and she was going to do it with strength and dignity.

When Grace finally stepped out the back door of the house, a blast of cold air slammed into her. She smelled winter. The Indian summer had ended suddenly, and brisk wind and cold temperatures had taken over. She went to the makeshift outhouse in the backyard and pulled down the tarp that was hanging there for privacy. She left it on the ground in a way that made it look like there had been a struggle. Then she opened the gate as far as the heavy chain that was padlocked into place would allow and slipped through the gap. As she came to the front corner of the house, she sat motionless in the shadows and waited. It didn’t take long for her teeth to start chattering as she sat there. She curled her legs up into the big T-shirt and drew her arms in from the armholes, wrapping them around herself. She had to be patient. She wanted to be absolutely sure that it was safe to leave the yard.

After ten minutes, she was about to go. Then, for a moment, she hesitated. Now this
was
stupid. No weapon, no clothes, nothing. She knew she was making a poor judgment call as far as her safety was concerned. She watched and waited a while longer while she debated again whether she should go back down to the shelter or risk going home.

She had loved the no-holds-barred fucking she had gotten that afternoon, but she knew the positive aura of satisfaction after the fuck-a-thon would fade and the competition, animosity, and hurt feelings would begin again soon. It was good that she was leaving on a positive note. But her heart already twisted at the thought of detaching from the men she loved, and she wasn’t even out of the yard yet. And she did love them. She refused to be the thing that made them unhappy or hurt. She just couldn’t be that anymore.

Grace glanced over her shoulder toward the bushes where her bike was hidden. Without another thought, she pulled it away from the house and began pedaling toward home. The cold air assaulted her, and the wind rushed her ears. Tears streamed from her eyes and streaked back from her face into her hairline as she pedaled as fast as she could and shot through the dark, frigid night.

Van woke in the center of the twin bed, and an immediate feeling of dread settled in the pit of his stomach. His subconscious told him that Grace had been gone from the bed for too long. He slid out, turned on a flashlight, and surveyed the shelter. The little door at the top of the stairs was open. He silently climbed the stairs, walked through the house, and then out to the backyard. When he saw the ripped down privacy screen from the latrine, he knew Grace was gone.

Van’s stomach sank like a stone as he returned to the shelter to wake up Sarge and Luke.

“This isn’t another one of her field trips,” Sarge said. “Her boots are here, her gun is here, and the door wasn’t replaced. She would only leave it open if she was planning to come right back. Something is wrong.”

“Luke and I should gear up and start searching.” Van heard the urgency in his own clipped words. “We’ll start at the lake and work our way back.” He glanced at Sarge, then at Luke.

“I’d go with you, but I wouldn’t get very far,” Sarge said, pointing at his leg.

“Let’s do it,” Luke announced, standing up.

Both men readied themselves and were out on the street fifteen minutes later. Luke and Van walked side by side toward the grizzly barricade at the end of the street, guns in hand. They had never patrolled together before, but it didn’t show. Both men knew their way around a weapon, and they were acutely aware of the dangers they were facing. They covered each other wordlessly as they trolled the inner city residential area. The weather had turned cold, and the morning sky was the typical gunmetal gray of November in Ohio.

When they reached the shore of Lake Erie, it was deserted in both directions as far as the eye could see. The wind blew over the expanse of water in strong gusts, and large swells crashed against the piers. The men looked at each other.

“Suggestions?” Luke asked.

Van’s thought processes stumbled for a split second as his eyes traveled over to the clump of shrubbery and trees he’d spotted Grace in when they’d first met. He had actually expected her to be here at the lake, maybe because the alternative was more than he would be able to bear.

“Van?”

He popped back into reality at the sound of his name. “What?”

“Suggestions?”

“Well, if she was caught off guard in the backyard, it was probably by someone who was waiting for her back there. Maybe someone saw her coming or going and decided to wait it out instead of entering the house and a possible ambush. If I were going to steal a woman, that’s what I would do. I’d never go into a house blind.”

“I agree,” Luke said. “I also think that if your guess as to what happened is right, the person who took her doesn’t live that far from the house.”

“House to house starting on our street?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

* * * *

When Grace arrived at her house, she was numb. Her face, fingers, and toes were the worst, but it was nothing that an hour or two under a blanket couldn’t cure. She parked her bike at the back of the house, pulled a key from the inside of a hollowed-out brick in the foundation of the house, and entered through the back door. As soon as Grace walked into the kitchen, she froze. Somebody had been there recently. She was sure that it wasn’t her dad. He wouldn’t have left such obvious clues that someone was living there.

A wave of “oh fuck” washed over her. She knew she’d been taking a big risk when she left Sarge’s without her weapon. Now, it seemed like that decision was a potentially fatal mistake. Grace turned to leave but didn’t make it out in time. She had seen him, and he had seen her.

Grace’s blood pressure leaped, her teeth ground together, and her jaw tightened at the sight of her ex-boyfriend, Steve. He held her father’s gun in his hand.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“You’re not happy to see me?” Steve jeered. “I suggest you be nicer to me than that, or I may not let you in my shelter.”

“Who else is here?” she asked, ignoring his smart-ass comment.

“Just me, sweetheart.”

“Quit it.” Grace pushed past him to the entrance of the shelter. She wanted to tell him to pack his shit and get out, but she was smarter than that. Not while he held a pistol and she didn’t. She moved quickly to stay out of Steve’s reach and walked through the rows of shelves until she found another gun for herself. Then she pulled a pair of jeans and a heavy shirt out from where she had clothing stored. Steve stalked down the stairs and stood watching her slip her jeans on and didn’t bother to give her privacy as she pulled off the huge shirt she was wearing and pulled on the clean one.

“You got your jollies watching me change, now get out of my way.” She pushed past him again and walked farther into the shelter toward the living area. “Did you put the cubby door back when you came down?” she asked coolly.

“No.”

“Do it. We’re not safe when the shelter can be found so easily.”
Dumbass.

“Whoa, Grace, what crawled up your ass?” he asked, laughing at his comment or laughing at her, she wasn’t sure.

“I don’t fucking want you here,” she said with steely, sharp words.

Steve’s expression changed. He went from shallowly mocking to stone-cold serious. The warning signals his deep voice held when he spoke next were unmistakable. “This is my shelter now, bitch. I’m not going anywhere, so you’re going to have to deal.”

Grace narrowed her eyes at him and said nothing. He was so fucked, and he didn’t even know it. She smiled at him. “Sorry, long night.”

She didn’t have to prove anything to him. She would let him get the last word, but he was on thin ice.

A foreboding thought sailed through her head. She was going to end up having to kill this man. This man whom she had loved so much, who had hurt her so much that it forever changed the way she viewed relationships, the way she lived her life. She hoped she wouldn’t have to, but it didn’t look good.

Grace walked over to the twin bed that didn’t have any sheets on it and sat. She leaned over, putting her elbows on her thighs and her hands on her forehead. She needed to take a moment, recoup and think. Logical reasoning told her he wasn’t going to leave willingly.

“I’ve been up all night. I need to sleep,” she murmured.

“All right, we’ll talk when you get up.” His eyes flickered away from her face, down her body, and back to her face. She knew the look. He was horny and anticipating getting some, but he wasn’t such a letch that he’d try to do anything while she was sleeping. With the pistol gripped in her hand, she lay back on the mattress, closed her eyes, and slept.

When Grace’s mind snapped awake, her body was in the exact same position as when she’d lain down. Feeling like a vampire in an antiquated black-and-white movie, she just opened her eyes and stiffly sat up.

Steve stared at her from across the depressingly gray room. Daytime was so much darker in this shelter than in Sarge’s. The extra skylights made a huge difference. This place was a tomb. A shudder ran over her body.

How many hours had Steve been sitting there staring at her with that slightly demented look on his face? The solitary time he’d spent here had not treated him well. He’d lost the hot, bad boy demeanor and was definitely firmly entrenched in creepy territory. He was hungry for her. His hollow gaze moved over her body slowly. Grace forced herself to beam a carefully crafted smile in his direction when his gaze finally made it back up to her face.

“Mornin’, or should I say afternoon?” He shot her his best cheesy grin. She used to love that grin, and he knew it had been almost irresistible to her when he pasted it on his gorgeously rugged face. Operative words there were “had been.”

She was more damaged and cynical than the last time he saw her. It was only fair that he got to see the guarded, restrained woman he had helped to create. It was ironic, really, because ultimately, she knew his creation would be his demise.

“Afternoon,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.

Silence hung heavy between them as Grace got up, opened a can of peaches, and grabbed a fork.

“Grace,” he said when she sat back down on her bed. “I made a mistake with us.”

“Yep.” Disinterest was blatant in her tone no matter how carefully she tried to disguise it.

“I think we should give us another try.” The sincerity he tried to exude made her skin crawl.

This was the moment she knew was coming. It sure hadn’t taken him long to get there. She put another wedge of peach in her mouth and chewed slowly.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
…

Grace smiled at the line to the poem she loved so much. Seldom in life did a person find themselves in a situation where they knew everything in their future hinged on their next words. She focused. Her mind worked efficiently, reviewing scenarios to their end. She
was
at a fork in the road, and she needed to decide quickly which direction she was going to go with this.

“I have to let this sink in, Steve. I mean, you’ve been sitting here thinking the whole time I was asleep. I need a little time.”

“Time for what? There’s either you and me, or not. It shouldn’t have to be that hard of a decision for you. I mean we were together for a long time. You know me. You loved me once.”

Grace drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She knew from experience that subtlety was lost on Steve, and it wasn’t her style anyway. “I’ve been done with you since I found out you were sticking your dick into someone else,” she said in a subdued voice. “There is no you and me anymore, and there’s never going to be again.”

Grace could feel the hate in the glower Steve directed at her, but she’d done the right thing. She knew if she led him on, it would be less than a day before he tried to fuck her. If that happened, the gig would be up. She would have to pull her gun on him because he had way too many pounds on her for her to defend herself against him without a weapon.

She met his stare. Unfortunately, she might have to do that anyway, because she could see that his hate was rapidly transforming to rage. Steve’s face reddened, and taut muscles in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together.

He stood. “You realize that I don’t really have to give you a choice.” The tone of his voice dripped with the confidence of a man who knew he’d already won the conflict at hand. “You’re holding on to that gun like you’re going to use it, and we both know that you won’t shoot me.” He leered at her as he slowly moved toward her.

“That just goes to show that after all the time we spent together, you still don’t know shit about me.” Grace’s voice was clear and strong. She stood and squared herself toward him, gun gripped in her hand at her side.

“You don’t fucking have what it takes.”

“Try me.” Grace forced her voice to steady as her insides raged against the thought of having to shoot Steve in order to defend herself.

He hunted her with his slow approach while every fiber of her being screamed “back away.” Grace raised her gun and pointed it at him when he came within ten feet of her. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger. Her world narrowed until she had tunnel vision. Nothing else existed except for herself and the object of her attention. Time slowed, and her heightened state of concentration made her aware of the inner workings of her body. Her heart clubbed the inside of her chest while the din of rushing blood bombarded her eardrums. Her pistol was a too-heavy, steel extension of her own body.

She had all the time in the world in the moments it took for him to take his last few steps, but it didn’t help her. She couldn’t shoot the man whom she’d loved, no matter how much she despised him now.

Steve placed a heavy hand on the outstretched gun and collected it from her. She was going to lose this battle, just as she had lost every prior battle she’d ever had with this man.

“Are you sure you don’t want to rethink this?” he asked as he tucked the gun into his waistband. “You’re of no use to me right now. There’s no reason to keep you around.” He smiled at her in an overt attempt to sway her previous decision. It was amazing how that smile could look both sweet and sinister at the same time.

“I doubt that you have what it takes to shoot me either, so cut the crap,” she spat at him.

Without warning, Steve grabbed her around the waist and restrained her as best he could against his body. “Oh, I’m not going to shoot you, darling. I’m going to fuck you until you bore me, and then I’m going to kick your ass out of my shelter. You can fend for yourself out there. We’ll see how long it takes you to come crawling back, willing to give your body, your heart, your soul for just a scrap of food. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again within a week, maybe two.”

Grace quickly tried to free herself from Steve’s control without success. He had her flat on her back on the bed behind her with, what seemed to Grace, like a subtle shift of his weight. He gripped her neck with one hand, strangling her, using his weight to push her into the mattress.

“You are such a stupid bitch,” he spat as he unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans with his free hand.

Grace grabbed his forearm and dug her nails into his flesh, trying to relieve the choking pressure on her neck with no success. She struggled against him, throwing punches at his arm and flailing around until she just couldn’t anymore.

This is it.
Grace closed her eyes.
Just another thirty seconds and it will be all over.

She was barely conscious when he released her neck. He’d only released her because he needed both hands to get her jeans off. Her instincts took over, and she kicked Steve in the balls. He went down to his knees, hunching over himself on the cement floor, but he never released his grip on her pants.