Page 20 of Room Six

I clear my throat softly. “Talk to me, lover.”

“Do you fear us? Is that why you haven’t answered us? Have we ever given you a reason to think we mean you harm?”

I turn to Danika and then Rune who are watching me with their best friend.

And then I confess another truth while surrounded by their intense heat. “I see the blood on your shirts when you return at night when you think I am asleep. The new wounds and bloodied bandages in the trash. It’s not my place to say anything, but I have eyes and I see the lives you live. When you return to your home, I’m there, but I am always on the outside looking in.” I’m careful when using that word. The penthouse they’ve shared with me is not my home, it’s theirs. And I am nothing more than a guest.

All three consider me for a moment and like a stone statue their expressions remain unreadable.

Oliver’s brows climb in understanding from the way he slowly nods his head. And then those dark brown eyes morph from patient to determined in a single blink. “That is not an answer,amore mio. Do you fear us?”

I watch intently as Oliver’s lips move with each word. I feel the other two waiting for my answer. That first night together I fell in love with the way his lips moved over the foreign words.

In all the moving around and getting passed from one lap to another, my dress has ridden up my legs to nearly indecent exposure. Danika strokes lazy circles over the top of my thighs silently watching us.

“That’s the crazy part, Oliver. And I don’t understand how or why, but no. I don’t fear you.” I look between all three of them. “Any of you. But I fear what comes next. I’ve never been in any kind of relationship.”

I physically see their shoulders ease.

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 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 Club Sin. “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 thigh.

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 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.”

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?”

---