Page 15 of Room One Twenty Eight
“Luna does not want this. To be controlled. To be used.”
“Oh, baby,” Mateo coos gently, coming close, cupping the back of my head. “Our sweet moonneedsto be controlled. What she doesn’t want is someone who wants to fix her mess. We don’t want to fix her mess. We want her as messy as she wants to be because her mess is fucking beautiful.”
Huddled together with the men I trust with everything, the men I love with my entire soul, I nod. That is what drew us to her that night at the wedding. Her peering up at us with those baby girl eyes, right in the middle of a mess she made. As if she was asking us to accept her with her mess. I love her mess—Mateo isright, it is fucking beautiful, and we won’t fix it.
All we want is to be part of her mess
Chapter Eight
Luna
Has anyone ever said the prideful would inherit the earth?
“No, sweet Herc, no one has ever said that. I looked it up to be sure. Being prideful will win us nothing,” I mutter as I cuddle Hercules a little closer.
Her response of a long, dramatic meow makes me bow my head in shame. I am too damn prideful. Too damn stubborn. I won’t be told what to do, where to live, or who to be. Which means I have no clue what I am doing, nowhere to live, and whoever I thought I was seems long gone.
Sitting in the sweltering air with everything I own in a single backpack at my feet, I am inches from a breakdown. Last night was my last night at the hotel and I am out of cash. Today I thought I had a job lined up to waitress at a dive bar, but I made a mess once again. Tomorrow I am afraid I might have to call my father and beg for a ticket back home to True Ridge.
“Mama messed up, sweet girl,” I mumble to her fur, as I nuzzle there, holding her close.
Hercules doesn’t seem to mind us spending the day at the park. It was the closest safe space to the hotel. We’ve sat here on this bench almost all morning. After I blew the tryout at the bar—I dropped two trays and rolled an ankle—I had to pack up my hotel room. I didn’t take everything with me. I could not bear to take the gold dress I wore to Club Sin.
Just thinking about Club Sin and what I did there makes me shudder. I close my eyes because tears sting them immediately. I stormed out of there with my pride blazing bright. Never mind my broken heart or my aching soul. I rushed from room one-twenty-eight before I could make another foolishmistake.
“Like let yourself think you could love three men at once,” I whisper to myself, rubbing at my eyes with my palms.
Love has been a foreign concept to me for a long time. It wasn’t just about what I was feeling that night with Enzo, Mateo, and Tomas. It was what I saw. How I saw them love each other. How they wore it was like a badge of honor, like it was a gift to feel how they felt for one another.
Before them, I thought romance was sweet and soft. Flowers and date nights, slow kisses and gentle touching. That night...it was raw, it was harsh and painful. Together we were greedy, wild, and depraved. It was the first time in my life I felt as if I was my true self. It scared the hell out of me.
Escaping that night meant not facing who I was inside.
“Give me those eyes, little moon. I’m going to fill this perfect little cunt up.”
Enzo’s words play in my head as I sit there trembling in the sunshine. I haven’t been able to forget his words, his touch, the feeling of him inside me. Just like I can’t forget how hot it made me watching Mateo fuck Tomas, his cock slamming deep into him over and over. I nearly drowned in depravity that night. What is scariest is I didn’t want to be saved. I didn’t want to make it out of there alive.
I wanted to drown in them, to be stuck out to sea with them.
“Had to save yourself,” I say the words aloud as if I might believe them. Of course, I don’t, and I curse myself for still trying to convince myself that I did not make a mistake that night.
Hercules purrs as she snuggles up in her favorite spot—my boobs. I want to laugh. I want to cry. I kind of want to scream at the void and curse my bad luck and my bad choices. Also, I kind of want a banana split.
“Luna,” a voice calls me from thoughts of sweet ice creamtreats. “If I had not found you today, we might have sent an actual search party out.”
Blinking up at the sun, I frown. Why is the sun talking to me? Oh hell, am I delirious from the heat and no food for two days? I am too tired and too damn hot to care if I have lost my entire mind. Past caring, I smile at the sunshine in the sky, shrugging a shoulder.
“Who would be looking for me?”
“We were looking for you for days, sugar,” Toma’s voice hits me all at once, that sweet endearment hitting me hard.
Panic crests inside of me, churning my stomach, making my heart pound. I am sweating. Shaking in the heat. Tears slip down my flushed cheeks, but I don’t bother with them. Tomas is here. Which means I don’t have to save myself anymore.
“Hercules, Tomas is here honey. We’re saved.”
“Oh, my sweet girl,” Tomas coos, bending in front of me, his hand coming to cup my face gently.
Staring down at him, it is more than my stomach that twists up. Tomas is beautiful. He might be more Mateo’s than anyone else's, but I love his mouth and how good he kisses. I am not making sense, but I don’t care. I bend down, brushing my mouth over his. He doesn’t pull back, he cups the back of my head, licking at my mouth before he pushes his tongue inside.
