Page 37 of Tempted to Rebel

Empty.

The brothers are nowhere to be seen.

Walking into the room without one of them watching feels strange. Stranger still is walking past the cage without being thrown inside. I hover at its gleaming golden door, wondering if I’m expected to crawl back inside. Would that make Rage happy?

The bench he fucked me on waits inside, its dark leather smeared with streaks of white. Stains across the surface—likely sweat or oils from our skin—makes the top hazy rather than shiny smooth. The blankets and pillows lining the bottom of the cage are in a disarray, tumbled into a messy heap. Rage’s clothes are gone, as are the sweatpants and t-shirt Rebel loaned me.

I lock the cage from the outside, feeling satisfied once it clicks into place.

Then, I move on.

Rebel’s bedroom door is nonexistent, so breaking into his room is easy. Dirty t-shirts and skinny jeans litter the floor around his bed, like he couldn’t care less to clean up after himself, with the only tidy space in the room being a simple metal desk with playing cards stacked neatly to the side. A poker chip stand sits in the corner, with a deep red velvet overlay taking up most of the desk top.

Does Rebel play cards?

I think back to all of our conversations in thebefore, when I was a regular working woman coming home to dinner and a kiss every evening. Rebel never mentioned that he gambled. In fact, any conversation surrounding his work gently slipped away without any real focus on an alternative topic.

The man is a master of redirection… with his favorite tactic being backing me up against a wall and expertly kissing away any thought that didn’t involve his mouth on mine.

I bite my bottom lip and brush my fingertips over the playing mat. I really don’t know much about him at all—or about any of them.

It’s about time I learn more.

But first, a shower.

Rebel’s bathroom mirrors Rage’s, the exception being how many hair and tattoo creams Rebel owns. Spare piercings lying on the counter catch my eye, and I look at the handful of silver rings and balls with interest. Which ones are for his lip and which ones are for his… dick?

My cheeks flush and I quickly move on, grabbing what looks like the cleanest towel in the room and turning on the shower. I jump in before the water has had a chance to warm, moaning as I scrub the cum, sweat, and blood from my body. I stand in the spray for as long as humanly possible, scrubbing my body from head to toe multiple times, combing my fingers through the knots in my hair, rubbing the kinks in my shoulders and back. When I finally step out of the steam and wrap the towel around my body, I expect to find one of them standing there. Rage, leaning against the counter, a gleam in his eye as he eye-fucks me from across the room. Or Rebel, sitting on the counter with his lip pinched between his teeth as he rubs his dick through his jeans. And finally, I picture Ruin standing there, a quiet enigma with more trauma than I know how to unpack.

While I dig through the bathroom drawers for a hairbrush, I think about Ruin the most.

He fucked me with a knife handle.

A shiver runs down my spine. While he was enraptured with the hilt sliding in and out of my pussy, I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes. Glittering onyx, focused and intent on their target.

Is that what I am to him? A target? A plaything to use when the mood strikes?

At least with Rebel and Rage, I have an idea of where I stand. For better or worse, Rebel’s my boyfriend in the loosest sense of the word, and Rage is…

Let me fuck a baby inside you.

I press my palm to my lower abdomen as a familiar thread of hope curls around my heart.

Rage is the father of my child.

Emotions tumble like gemstones inside my chest, each one rough and chaotic as they clash. I have mixed feelings about Rage more than the other two, but he’s the one trying the hardest to give me what I want.

I’m sure he thinks I should be grateful, and on some level, I am. He clearly cares about my happiness as long as it aligns with what he thinks is in his best interest… but therein lies the problem. His best interests and mine don’t always coincide.

It’s this thought that keeps me moving. If I’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that the only person I can rely on is myself. Husbands don’t always keep their promises, and I doubt that Rage, Rebel, and Ruin will be an exception to that, no matter how our relationship unfolds and no matter how much Rage may claim otherwise.

I throw on clothes from Rebel’s dresser, pass through his bedroom doorframe, find my discarded boots near the entrance to their apartment, and quickly open the door to reenter the real world. If I can swing by the boutique before anyone catches me, I can check on Saraandour inventory, grab a handful of invoices and color swatches from my desk, finally place uninterrupted calls to my clients?—

The door clicks shut behind me and a low, throatygrowlfills the air.

Thanatos looks up from his cell phone, clutching the device so tightly that I swear, I hear the screen crack. He doesn’t push off from the wall he’s leaning on, choosing instead to glare at meas I hover in the hallway. If he weren’t already imposing with the armor plating strapped to his chest and the Glock hanging from his belt, his bulging biceps and triceps would do the trick. Pair the muscles with the salt and pepper stubble coloring his high cheekbones and streaking through his hair, he quickly becomes any good girl’s wet dream.

Mine included.

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