him. “What the fuck, Beast?”
Beast doesn’t look away from me. It feels like the intensity of his gaze is a weight across my shoulders and chest, driving me slowly, inexorably, to my knees. “You heard me. How bad do you want us back?”
“You don’t speak for me,” Gaeton rumbles.
I already left my pride at the door. I can’t afford the luxury of it when I’m bargaining for the lives of so many. In the end, it’s far simpler than I could have dreamed to give in to Beast’s gravity and sink to my knees. The carpet is surprisingly soft against my bare skin and I shiver. “Are you happy now? Please come back.”
Beast rises and moves slowly around me. It’s a struggle not to twist to keep him in sight. Instead, I focus on Gaeton, on the way he watches us so closely, his gaze jumping from me to Beast. “What are you up to, you bastard?”
Beast digs his hand into my hair and tugs sharply, bowing my back and drawing a gasp from my lips. In all our time together, he was always devastatingly gentle, until I thought I’d go out of my mind and scream in his face to touch me. Pain flickers to pleasure and back again, and I have to bite back a moan. I stare up into his beautiful face, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Gaeton. “I propose a bargain.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Gaeton.” Beast says it almost gently. “Look at her.” He gives my hair another sharp tug. This time, I can’t stop the moan. My body doesn’t feel like my own. My skin is too tight, my nipples pebbling and my pussy clenching with an ache only one thing can assuage. What is he doing to me?
“Get your fucking hand off her.” Gaeton’s voice is low and strangled. “Now.”
Beast releases me in an instant and I slump forward, barely catching myself before I crumple into a ball on the floor. Dazed, I touch the smarting spot on my scalp. I should be furious he dared handle me like that, but all I can focus on is how much I need. I straighten back to kneel with some effort. “What are your terms?”
“No.”
Beast ignores Gaeton and resumes his position leaning on the desk. “The three of us for a limited duration. At the end, you make a choice once and for all. Him or me. Regardless of your decision, we will both stay in the territory and resume our roles.”
“You want me to pick?” My inability to choose is what caused this catastrophe to begin with. I strive for calm, to stop myself from shoving to my feet and demanding answers. “And then what? We date? You get your bragging rights and dump me? What?”
“Worry about that when we get there.” There it is again, his cruel little smile. “For the duration of this little bargain, you will pay penance, little Isabelle.”
I shiver. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you played us to your heart’s content for years on end. Now it’s our turn.” He turns to Gaeton. “You’re furious about how things fell out.”
“Yeah.” The word seems almost forced out of him.
Even as I remind myself I don’t have any power here, I can’t stay silent. “That’s not fair. You two are the ones who proposed the idea to date me at the same time.” And I was fool enough to agree to it, thinking it a wonderful way to have my cake and eat it, too. I should have known that if I couldn’t pick one of them before we dated, I certainly wouldn’t be able to once we were in the throes of a relationship.
“We played by her rules and cut off pieces of ourselves to be worthy of her.” Beast turns those eerie blue eyes back to me. “Now we drag her down into the dirt with us.”
Gaeton folds his hands together and seems to be actually considering it. “Explain what the fuck you mean when you say ‘us.’”
“We top her together.”
My gaze jumps back and forth between them. Surely they’re not saying … “Together.”
Gaeton doesn’t look at me. “Careful there, Beast. Might start to think you’re sweet on me.”
Beast doesn’t blink. “It’s an efficient use of time and effort.” He’s on the move again, but this time he circles Gaeton, coming to a stop behind the big man’s chair. He leans down, not touching Gaeton, but near enough that I catch my breath at