Page 9 of Whips and Chains
Iwrapped my arms around Levi’s neck and pressed my face into his skin, inhaling his scent. He was warm around my achingly cold body. I was sure it wasn’t just the cool night sending goosebumps across my flesh. I’d never felt a chill like the one that had set in deep, spreading through every bone and muscle and joint until it was all I could feel, all I could think about.
Everything hurt. My head. My lungs. My stomach.
The only way the pain could escape was through my mouth in screams and wails of terror and despair.
It didn’t matter if I closed my eyes. I could still see Dickson’s body falling headless from the window. I could still hear the psychopath’s countdown. Could still smell Toby’s blood, pouring from his neck.
I sobbed in Levi’s arms, feeling rushing through me once more. I didn’t want it. Numb was so much better, but there was no stopping it. His warmth pervaded every inch of my body, and then he was walking me into the shower, holding me beneath the spray.
I blinked, catching sight of X hovering, his concern painted all over his stupidly handsome face, and that’s when I knew how rough I must look. Because X had never shown any real concern before. Whip leaned on the doorframe, an identical expression of worry drawing his brow into lines. I wanted to reach out and smooth it away, reassure him he didn’t need to worry about me because I had always been able to take care of myself.
Except I hadn’t. Because I’d always had Toby.
And now I didn’t.
I couldn’t stop the full-body shakes or the gut-wrenching pain that felt like it was going to rip me in two. Every drop of water felt like a knife spearing through my frozen skin, and yet I didn’t want it to stop.
“We should give her some privacy,” Whip murmured to X.
He nodded, and the two of them went to leave.
But I didn’t want privacy. I didn’t want to be alone. And if they left, then Levi might too.
And then I’d have no one.
I couldn’t bear the thought.
“Don’t go. Please don’t go.”
Both men froze. They exchanged looks with Levi over my head, but both of them came back into the tiny bathroom, barely big enough for all four of us.
Levi’s voice grumbled through his chest. “X, help me get her underwear off. I don’t want to put her down, but I can’t wash her like this.”
I didn’t want him to put me down either. For once, I wasn’t concerned with how heavy he must think I was. He didn’t act like my weight bothered him at all. But with my head on his chest, his heart beating steadily beneath my ear, it was as close to comfort as I’d felt.
X caught my eye. “Is that okay?”
He’d run out of this room just days before. We’d gone from making out, his fingers around my neck, his lips on my skin, cock so damn close to taking my virginity…to him gone and me left wondering what I’d done wrong.
But it almost felt trivial now, especially when every ounce of his attention was solely on me, and his expression was racked with guilt and remorse. We needed to talk, but I didn’t have it in me tonight. Tonight, all I could do was keep breathing long enough to make it through the pain threatening to drag me under.
I couldn’t give a shit who saw me naked. Two of these men already had anyway, and the one holding me had held my heart for a year.
I’d never felt safe to share my body with anyone, always covering up at the beach and pools, saying I didn’t feel like swimming because I didn’t want people staring at the fat chick. I’d heard too many beached whale comparisons throughout my younger years to ever want to swim or get changed in public ever again.
And yet with these three men, I was safe.
No matter what had happened between us, at my core, that was the one thing I now knew with complete certainty.
I gave X the tiniest of nods. “Yes.”
He pushed the shower curtain aside, water splashing out on the tiled bathroom floor and splattering on his clothes. If he noticed, he didn’t show it. He just ran his hands beneath the hot water, warming his skin up, then found the clasp on the back of my bra and undid it.
Levi leaned back against the shower wall, facing X, giving him as much room as he could. I was squished between them, a limp noodle, my body—or maybe my mind—too broken to be of any real help.
But X didn’t need it. He drew my bra straps down my arms, Levi shifting me so X could get it fully off. My underwear came next, another complicated maneuver due to the way Levi was holding me, but he refused to put me down, and X just worked with it.
I should have felt vulnerable, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when I was surrounded by the three of them, and the only thing in their expressions was a desire to help and take care of me.
