Page 11 of Room One Hundred and Fourteen: Masked Love

“For a night or a weekend or fun at the club. You want to ask our housekeeper for that? You’re asking for a fucking?—"

“Say something else than a sexual harassment suit, come on, I dare you,” Jett muttered, rolling his eyes. I scowled at him.

“You want to play with the help.” The word sounded dirty on my tongue.

“Don’t call her that.” Jett sat up defensively. “Call her that again, and I swear to fucking god?—"

“Breathe, both of you.” Casey stepped in like the peacemaker he was.

I exhaled roughly.

Jett was right.

I had gone too far.

Rosa wasn’t just another employee or just the help or just anything. Not to me, not to us. To us, she had become so much more. But how could we do what they were suggesting?

She was too good for our dark games.

“There is no way we could ask for one night,” I muttered. I knew one night wouldn’t be enough.

“No one said one night,” Casey chimed in, and my eyes connected with his light blue ones.

“What?” I swallowed hard. More than a night?

“Obviously, you weren’t listening and just jumped to your own conclusions,” Jett chimed in, but I didn’t look away from Casey.

“What do you mean, you don’t want one night? What? A weekend? A month?” Fuck me, that wouldn’t be enough. I knew in my balls it wouldn’t be.

No. The idea, as tempting as it was, couldn’t work.

It would mess everything up.

We would have the time of our lives, but she would end up leaving. It was better to keep her in our lives like we did now. At least that way, we would guarantee her being under our roof and within reach for a minimum of five days a week. Until she meets someone. Until she starts a family of her own and leaves us.

“We’re suggesting a forever, Mal.”

“Forever?” I scoffed, afraid of how much I liked that idea.

“Forever,” he repeated. "We all have a certain thing in common.”

“We’re daddies,” I cut him off and glared. “We’re daddies. We like to be in charge and make sure a woman is satisfied. It’s not as ominous as you make it sound."

“Fine,” he sighed. “We’re all daddies. But we all know that when it comes to Rosie, we want more than to make her see stars and have her toes curl.” His arms crossed in front of him. Casey was losing his patience with me. “We want to take care of her. Protect her. Love her.”

“Jesus." I wiped my face. Everything inside of me was yelling yes! Yes! That was exactly what we wanted when it came to my raven-haired flower. “Love her,” I rasped. But no matter what my heart wanted, my brain, my stupid too rational brain, stayed in control. “Do you know what you’re saying? Love!”

The idea felt too big.

Too risky.

“You’re losing him,” Jett observed, and I growled.

‘You two don’t get it!” Didn’t they know how much it would fucking hurt if this didn’t work? If we put everything on the line, for her to tell us we weren’t enough? Or what if we were too much? What if she only wanted one of us? Or two of us? My eyes moved from Casey to Jett.

She would pick them if that was the case.

I’d been terrible to Rosa. My mouth always got me in trouble around her. No matter how hard I tried, I always found my fucking foot shoved in my mouth with her big brown eyes looking at me like I was some kind of monster.

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