Page 21 of Gilded Lies

Oliver moves to sit beside me. He takes my chin in a gentle hold. “Look at the stage, Lia. Does she look scared with three lovers surrounding her, protecting her?”

Lia?

I smile and stroke the tips of my fingers along the fringes of Oliver’s face. “Lia, huh?”

Oliver’s nickname for me shoots Cupid’s freaking arrow into my heart. No one ever cared enough about me to give me a nickname, let alone two.

“She looks happy,” I answer honestly. I close my eyes and take a deep breath to find the courage to confess. “I want that. The love, the comfort of not being alone.” This isn’t the place for a full-hearted confession, but I can offer them one more truth without cutting a vein in the middle of the Society. “I want your baby. I have loved the three of you from the first kiss,” I offer softly into the confines of our private booth. I blush scarlet but look at each of them in turn, showing them I mean what I say. It’s funny how much weight a few words carry. Once they leave my lips, I feel a million pounds lighter.

Danika’s gaze is unwavering when he rakes those cool steel eyes over my face. “You love us? You’ve seen our savagery, and you still want to be with us?” He settles a hand over my abdomen almost reverently. “You would have our child?”

“He thought for sure the second we told you what we wanted you would turn us down, petals. Put the poor bastard out of his misery and tell him in words what we see in your eyes.”

That is Rune. He releases my hand and settles it over the one Danika rests on my abdomen.

It seems it’s a night of hard truths. I release a shaky breath before speaking. “I’ve seen the aftermath left on your body. I hope to never have a run-in with your dark side, but none of that changes the truth. The first kiss we shared played wicked games with my emotions. The first night made me a believer in fate and soulmates. Even if it took me a while to admit the truth to myself.”

“You never have to worry about the darker side of our lives ever touching you. That is a promise.”

I want to tell Danika to be careful what he promises, but I bite my tongue. Past traumas have no place in my life. I’ll make damn sure the hell I lived in before I aged out of the system never touches their lives, too.

“How do we do this? What happens now?”

I look between all of them, but it is Danika who settles his forehead against mine and answers. “Our home is your home. You come to live with us. Everything else is up to you.”

“So, does only one of you take me to bed until I’m knocked up or…?

Rune and Oliver chuckle softly on either side of me and Danika moves back with a smile on his face.

“No, beautiful. We all take you at the same time. I am positive we would break down any door put in our way if only one of us got you at a time, anyway.”

Damn. That sounds so freaking hot.

“We don’t care about the finer details. No matter who fathers the baby, they will have three fathers who love them and their mother until the end of days. Period.”

Shock has me drawing in a harsh breath.

“Love?”

There’s not a chance in hell of keeping hope from filling my insides so I don’t fight the emotion any longer.

“Love, crave, can’t live without… the whole fucking nine yards,amore mio.”

I place my hand on Oliver’s chest and feel the thud of his heart beneath my palm. I finally have a home.

Every cell in my body tingles with awareness. Any woman with half a brain would sense the darkness rolling off them. See the danger in their eyes. It only turns me on. I inhale deeply and take Rune’s mouth in a passionate kiss. I break away but stay close enough that my lips move over his when I speak. “Then what are you waiting for? Who’s going to breed me first?”

Four

Magnolia

Curiosity as to why these men have decided I am the one plagues my brain. There are only so many reasons a man wants to start a family: love, duty, and to claim a woman as theirs.

I get a sense it’s all three things with my men.

Danika rises to his full height and reaches out to close the curtain, sealing us inside our private booth. Blue light slowly brightens to give us a cozy atmosphere. The moans of ecstasy are muffled beyond the heavy material. With no outside interference, they smell like forbidden love dipped in an irresistible love potion.

Inside here, the heat is cranking up and the harsh breathing between the four of us shoots wild energy to my core. Like something primitive lives inside me and the sight of these strong forbidden men makes me want to ride them until my body is fully sated and I am carrying their baby. I have my doubts about it coming easy. I’ve been on the pill for a while now to regulatemy monthly cycle. It will take a bit for the medicine to leave my system. But there’s no harm in trying.

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