Page 110 of Drawn By Dragonblood
Guess a part of my brain still lingered in that floaty place he’d spirited me away to.
“Please.” Elijah pleaded, and I fucking felt his unease, his worry for us as he laid his hand on my bare chest. He touched his own with his other hand. “I can sense your desire to protect me but remain here where it’s safe. I beg of you. If anything happened to either you or our female…”
Lips pressed tight, I dipped my head once, loving how he’d claimed my wife as ours.
He turned and sprinted up the hallway.
The ache that had knifed at my chest when he’d left us to collect our things in New York didn’t radiate pain through my sternum like I’d expected. Elijah was no longer in sight, but his essence remained in my head and gut, like he’d taken up residence there.
“Who do you think it is?” Dakota asked, her voice small and shaking.
I turned to find her huddled on the bed, arms wrapped around herself and trembling.
“Dakota,” I said, striding to grab her up in a comforting hold, her feet dangling in the air. Face buried in her neck, I breathed her in as she melted against my chest. “Baby—it’s going to be all right. There’s no person on the face of the planet that mountain of a man of ours can’t handle. I can promise you that.”
“You love him, don’t you?” she whispered, and I shifted so I could meet her gaze.
Even if the truth hurt her, I had to speak it. Loving Elijah as I did my wife, couldn’t be helped or ignored even if the word might sting. “Yes.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Is it wrong of us to love two people at once? The same need and deep longing to be one with them?”
“Fuck, no.” I’d never felt so damn sure of anything in my life. “Is it wrong of me to like being chained up and beat half to death—and get off from it?”
She attempted to hold back a smile. “You’re hot as fuck when you submit like that, but next time, I’m going to be on my knees in front of you.”
The image in my head of the three of us connected in that way brought back what had landed us in Elijah’s dungeon to begin with.
“I lost my job because I refused to share you with my asshole ex-best friend.”
“What?” Dakota’s eyebrows furrowed.
“He wanted a threesome, and I said no.”
“My God, Jon—that’s why you feared giving into this pull toward Elijah?”
I nodded. “His lust for you dissolved my only friendship outside of what you and I have. My ability to provide for us was taken away because of it. I’d been manipulated and lost everything out of loyalty to you—not that I’m blaming you.” I swallowed hard. “That asshole told me to make the decision for you, that you would do whatever I asked of you.”
I hadn’t wanted a threesome with him, but those final words in his pleading had haunted me. Still fucking did.
“That’s why I pushed you to decide for yourself, baby. Couldn’t bear the thought of forcing what my body desired with Elijah and find ourselves in even deeper shit than we already were.”
“We can still leave, Jon.”
I whipped my head up to find her eyes troubled. “Is that what you want?”
She shook her head without hesitation. “But if that’s what you need?—”
“No. This thing we have going on with Elijah makes me feel…whole. Complete. Remember how you said you thought something was missing back when that blond douche drew you away from me and I got all insecure and pissed off?”
Dakota cringed. “As if I could ever forget.”
“I finally understand. It was Elijah.”
Her eyes welled with tears as she stared up at me. “We’re staying.”
“Exploring this triad and hopefully strengthening whatever this is binding us together with him,” I tacked on.
“We have to tell Elijah. Right now.”
