Page 38 of The World Undone

“Ignore it,” Declan mumbled, her eyelids closing as she nuzzled into the pillow, her arm clinging around mine.

For a moment, I considered it.

But the knock came again, harder this time.

I took a deep breath before hauling myself up. “Hang on.”

A gray towel hung on the back of the door, so I grabbed it and wiped myself off before handing it to her to do the same.

I pulled a shirt over my head and started fishing for my pants.

With the battle lost, Declan groaned and followed suit, heading to a pile of clean clothes for a pair of dry underwear—her soaked thong a lost cause she clearly had no intention of reviving.

I waited for a moment, my hand on the doorknob, making sure she was dressed and decent before I swung it open. “Wha?—”

I swallowed my question at the dazed look on Eli’s face.

His arms were spread on either side of the door frame, like he was physically restraining himself from barging in.

Declan shifted behind me, gasping as her eyes locked onto him.

I followed her stare to Eli’s dick.

There was a stark, very obvious wet spot on his light gray sweatpants.

Eli made no move to cover it up, and if he was at all embarrassed, there was no trace of the emotion etched into his face. His eyes were all heat as he watched my realization unfold.

“Fanghole took the shower before I could,” he shook his head, then turned to Dec briefly with a bemused, teasing glance before he looked down at his crotch. “First orgasm took me by surprise, clearly. But yeah, I take it back. Our immediate priority should be us getting a better grasp on this whole connection thing. ASAP.”

Oh.

Apparently mine and Dec’s connection wasn’t the only one that had been blown wide open.

He took a step towards me, eyes tracing me from head to toe and back again—a scan that I could feel like a caress. I tried to ignore the flutter low in my belly as I clenched my thighs together. Sandwiched between them both, a flare of desire started to reignite.

I wasn’t sure if it was the succubus, the bonds, or some combination of both—but my libido was fucking insatiable tonight.

“That,” he said, his eyes darkening as he took another step closer, hovering over me until my chest brushed against his, “or the rest of us need to clear the cabin when you get laid from now on.” His focus held on my lips that I’d unconsciously just licked. He shook his head with a grunt before biting his own. “Unless we’re all cool with dissolving into a group-wide fuckfest each time.”

The sight of him there, that look in his eyes nearly had me undone all over again.

“Because fucking hell, it took every last inch of self-control I had not to come in here and join in.” He nodded towards the other room without taking his eyes away from mine. “If you’d have been in anyone’s room but Dec’s, I would have. The guys seem okay with simultaneously sharing sexy fun time with you, but I know Dec maintains a strict no-dick policy in the vicinity of her sexcapades.”

“Sexcapades? Sexy fun time?” she snorted, face contorted in mock-disgust, “you sound like an adult film star from the eighties.” She tilted her head, lips twisting in surprise as she studied Eli, while I did everything I could to swallow my laughter, “and a slimy one, who isn’t exactly inspiring at his craft.” She sniffed, “But other than forever lodging that undesirable series of images in my head, thank you for respecting a very specific boundary of mine, I guess.”

“Wade nearly ripped the front door off the hinges in his haste to create some distance. I think his powers are even more sensitive to this particular element of the—connection.” He shrugged, focus still centered on me, his arms straining like he still wasn’t in complete control. “And I heard a loud crack from Atlas’s room. Pretty sure he punched a hole in his wall trying to keep himself from coming in here. So, not that we paid a deposit on this cabin in the first place, as far as I’m aware, but—” that playful smirk of his made an appearance and I clenched my fingers into a fist at my side to keep from tracing it with my thumb, “if we did, something tells me that by the end of our stay, we won’t be getting it back.”

8

ATLAS

She was on the floor, dried blood flaking away in chips between her breasts, the dark gash in her neck nearly black with the depth of the gouge. Wade, next to her—a far less gory sight, but no less dead.

“It’s not her,” I whispered, “It’s not him. This isn’t real.”

I blinked back the image, opening my eyes, trying like hell to fill my vision with any other scene, anything but the horror that filtered like a film, non-stop.

Night after night, never ending. I hadn’t slept for intervals greater than twenty minutes in weeks.

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