Page 21 of Auctioned to her Stepbrothers

Too many years have hardened their hearts.

Water can wear cracks in even the hardest rock, a little voice in my head reminds me. The Grand Canyon was once just a high desert plateau, and something as soft as water carved it like a hot knife through butter.

Lyle kisses down my body, lips tugging at the tips of my ravaged nipples, mouth hot and wet and open as he tongues my navel. In a moment when no one else is paying attention, I slide my fingers into his thick, dark hair, caressing the back of his neck with featherlight strokes that make him still. If one moment of tenderness from Kylian can break through something in me, maybe many stolen moments of gentleness can do the same with them.

But this is just a contract, I think. When the week is done, they'll discard me and move on to the next virgin, the next woman they can take and break.

They're not looking for love, and neither am I.

This isn't a fairytale where the broken tyrant becomes the soft-hearted hero. I'm not a princess who needs rescuing. I'mforging my own way and doing what needs to be achieved to improve my situation.

And yet the urge to do whatever it takes to help them find their own truth is overwhelming.

Lyle moves inside me, his jaw ticking with concentration, his eyes fixed on a point above my head. Nate takes my hands again, but he doesn't need to restrain me. My compliance is natural to me, and my willingness to acquiesce to their desires is an integral part of who I am with these men.

The grind of his hips is too much against my sensitized flesh, but I focus on the power coiled tightly in his body, the sheer strength, and overpowering dominance in every shift of his hips. I open like a flower in the sunshine, releasing in rippling contractions that milk him to a bitter climax. Like his brother, he seems lost when he's done, his body relaxing and his face resting against my neck. Warm breath gusts hot against my skin as he softens inside me. "Honor?" he whispers, and it sounds like a question.

"To the moon and back," I whisper, and he freezes like iced water dripped on the base of his spine.

"Are you gonna lie there all night like a beached whale?" Nate asks harshly, and when I turn to look at him, Kylian is watching us with narrowed eyes.

And so the game begins again.

It's harder to touch Nate in a way that will reach him, with Lyle holding my hands above my head and Kylian fastening ropes around my ankles to bind me to the bed again. Natespends time trailing his fingers over and staring at the place he was first to breach, the place now filled with his brothers' seed. He puts his hand over my mouth when he penetrates me, and I know he fears that I'll say something to him that will make what he's doing that much tougher. I bite at his fingers because that's what he wants me to do. I twist my face away from him, making it harder for him to restrain me. I tug at Lyle's hands, which are slippery with our combined sweat, and at the immovable binds on my ankles. I give them all a good show, and I enjoy every minute of pretending that I don't consent to my treatment, even as I fly free with the freedom of release.

But inside, a little seed of hope is unfurling its sweet first leaf. Because when Nate comes, and he lets go of all his power, remaining over me vulnerable and spent, I whisper, "I still sleep with Bunny on my pillow," and he stares with wide deep-blue eyes like I reached into his chest and pulled out his still-beating heart.

10

LYLE

UNLIKELY DEFENDERS

I still can't believe that Honor agreed to meet us for a drink before tonight's activities begin. I fully expected her to keep our contact limited to the room at Club Scarlet, but after the things she said to Nate and me, I thought I'd take a chance that she might want to talk.

Last night, I laid awake for what felt like hours, wondering what Honor was aiming to achieve by bringing up things from our childhood while we were using her body for our pleasure. I thought she was saying those things to make us feel guilty, but that motivation didn't match with her expression.

It seemed like she was trying to make a connection, but why? Is she hoping we'll remember the girl she was and let her out of our arrangement?

"To the moon and back," she'd said, instantly transporting me to a very distant past, to a time when Victoria used to read us bedtime stories. I had asked a million questions of the woman set to become my stepmom—How far is the moon? How do youtravel there? How long does the trip take?—and Honor burst into a fit of giggles, already understanding at her young age that it was an expression, not a literal description.

We started saying it to each other after that. We were being silly at first, but it turned into a shorthand for our connection with one another. We would offer it up whenever one of us needed support from the other.

Last night, she also brought up the stuffed animal, Bunny, that Nate had given her for her birthday one year. She used to carry that thing everywhere and insisted that we all give it proper respect. Nate looked like he'd seen a ghost at the mention of Bunny.

But nothing was as shocking as Kylian's actions with Honor.

Kylian is as opposite from warm and fuzzy as a person can be. The word tender is not even in his vocabulary, but that's the only way to describe the kiss he laid on Honor's back.

Seeing him do that shook my foundation like an earthquake, and no matter how much I've been thinking about it, I haven't been able to figure out what's going on in his head. He treats Honor like nothing more than a sex toy, so rough and unfeeling, and then… that kiss.

The whole situation is utterly fucked up, but I can't regret that it's brought her back into our lives, no matter how twisted it is.

Honor's already at the hotel bar when we arrive, looking ridiculously hot in a tight little red dress that inches further up her thighs every time she leans forward to reach for her drink.Her hair is up, exposing her delicate neck, and more than once, I've had to drag my eyes away from her pale exposed skin.

It's still hard to realize that the playful young girl I used to run barefoot with in the summer is the same woman sitting here now in sophisticated tan heels, with their thin straps wrapped around her shapely ankles.

"How's your mother?" Nate asks Honor, bringing me back from my distracted thoughts.

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