Page 19 of Auctioned to her Stepbrothers

Just like I know that they can't. They never did, and much as I took the brunt of it when we were young, it's still my job to do it now. I'll always do my best to keep the worst of Dad away from them. No point in all of us suffering.

"It's fine," I lie.

Still, as we enter, I can feel my shoulders relaxing. As the elevator lurches and my stomach surges on the way up, it's like my body knows where we're heading. We're closing in on Honor, and it's making it easier to let our fucked-up family life slip from my mind.

Perhaps we should keep her around, just for that reason. We could pay her more. If there's anything we have more than enough of, it's money. Wouldn't Victoria be proud of her little daughter then? A whore for the Aston brothers.

Where is Victoria? The way she always hovered over Honor, you'd think she would still be watching over her.

I stop before room twenty-eight. If Honor has obeyed her instructions, she's inside waiting for us. Naked. Kneeling. Blindfolded. My pants tighten at the thought.

I push the door open.

The reality of her sleek form on the floor, facing the bed and with a silk tie bound around her face, is the sexiest fucking thing I've seen in my life. Lyle's sharp draw of breath says I'm not alone.

The upside-down heart shape of her ass reminds me of our first time together. Even with her arms at her side, the swell of her heavy tits is visible. I want to hold her by them as I fuck her bowlegged. I want to gnaw on them as I bury my cock in her ass. I want to feel her clench around me as she chokes on one of the other guys' cocks. So many possibilities.

And the best thing about all this is that she's agreed to let us do it all. She wants it too, maybe even more than she needs it.

I heft the smooth, red bunch of ropes I'm holding, already planning where to attach them and how to bind her. I can't get back all the years after she and Victoria left us behind to rot with our piece-of-shit father, but I can give her a sense of how dark and hopeless it felt.

"Hello, Honor. I hope you're ready for us. For your sake."

9

HONOR

CAUGHT IN THE FIRE

I never knew I could feel so disconnected from my own consciousness. As Kylian, Nate, and Lyle touch me, the word 'no' springs to my lips with ease.You can pretend we're strangers, Kylian said.You can pretend you hate what we do to you if that makes you feel better.

It doesn't make me feel better to imagine that either. We are not strangers, and no matter how hard I try, I can't hate anything about the time we're together.

I feel alive in a way I could never have predicted.

And I can't figure out what it means to want to deny or fight them when I desire the opposite.

What does it mean to feel thrilled in how they restrain me, shuddering against the binds at my wrists, begging them to stop but praying in my mind that they'll continue?

Every touch feels forbidden. Every moment we're doing this is dangerous and wrong, but also right in a way that pulsesthrough me like the rumble before a storm. It's primal and animalistic to desire to be overpowered by men. It's illicit to tell them no and imagine they are violating me and then be thrilled when they disregard my every protest.

The press of rough fingers against my flesh, or the pain of their teeth biting down, brings me closer to release. Kylian's harsh voice in my ear as his brothers possess my body is enough to tip me over the edge.

I feel like I've lost a grip on who I am and what this is supposed to be about. Enjoyment wasn't something I factored into this arrangement. Discovering the depths of my own sexual predilections wasn’t supposed to be in the cards.

Everything is tangled and twisted, my heart knotted tight by ropes from the past and present, even as my feet are bound by ties to the bed.

They look so different, but I can still see hints of the past. Kylian's eyes that were always watchful are still bottomless pools of crystalline water. Nate's hair is a little darker than the blond from childhood, but it still has the same soft wave. Lyle has the same long lashes that frame his coal-dark gaze and shadow his cheekbones. I search for the familiar, even though it hurts to find it.

"Honor," Lyle whispers as he buries his face between my legs, his tongue teasing me to the point of insanity, and as he makes me come, I remember running hand in hand down a hill with him when we were children and laughing so hard that I almost passed out.

Nate's mouth on mine is slow and sensual at first, deepening until I'm moaning and remembering how he used to leave me candy under my pillow.

They unstrap my hands so that I can touch them, and every stroke of my fingers across their skin feels stolen and fleeting.

Kylian fucks into me like he's trying to break me open with the power of his release, but as I run my fingers up the impossible ladder of his abs, I remember how he told me to hide when his dad was banging violently on his bedroom door.

I remember the boys they were, and I'm struggling to believe that the men they're showing me are who they really are. Is it possible for life experiences to twist a man's soul until he bears no resemblance to the person he started out to be? Can hardship obliterate our essence?

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