Chapter 5: Confessions by Firelight
The broth had steadied her, a warm anchor in the center of her chest. Tristan hadn’t let her go. He’d simply adjusted his hold, one arm supporting her back, the other resting lightly on her thigh. It wasn’t possessive. It was protective, a barrier against the chill of the room and the vast, echoing silence of the mansion. Colt had returned from the kitchen with a small bowl of buttered noodles, simple and soft. He sat on the coffee table directly in front of them, knees almost touching Tristan’s.
“Eat,” Colt said, his voice low. “Just a little.”
Her hands were still unsteady. Colt lifted a forkful, offering it. The intimacy of the gesture, after days of locked doors and silent war, was more disarming than any threat. She opened her mouth, took the bite. The pasta was comfort, bland and essential.
As she chewed, Tristan’s hand, which had been resting on the sofa behind her, moved. His fingers, calloused and warm, came to trace the delicate ridge of her collarbone, exposed by her loose t-shirt. It was an absent, exploratory touch, as if mapping territory. She shivered.
“We saw you,” he said, his voice a rough murmur near her ear. “At the Christmas party. Four years ago. You were arguing with your father by the fountain.”
Jamie swallowed, the memory rising like a ghost. She’d worn an emerald green dress her mother had forced her into. Her father had been livid she’d applied to colleges out of state. “You remember that?”
“You threw your champagne flute into the water,” Colt said, a faint smile touching his lips. He fed her another bite. “It didn’t even break. Just sank. You looked so pissed off and… regal. Like a wet, furious queen.”
She remembered now. She’d been eighteen. She’d turned and stormed off, straight past a group of young men she’d ignored. They had been part of the blur of polished suits and vague, threatening smiles. Tristan and Colt would have been there, just twenty-one, already being groomed in the shadows.
“My father backhanded me for that when we got home,” she said quietly, the old shame a dull ache.
Tristan’s tracing finger stopped. His whole body went rigid against hers. Colt’s fork hovered in the air.
“He what?” The question came from Tristan, toneless and cold.
“It was just the once.” The excuse was automatic, hollow.
“It’s once too many,” Colt said, his green eyes gone dark. He set the bowl down with a sharp click.
Tristan’s hand left her collarbone, his fingers curling into a fist on his own knee. He was staring into the cold fireplace. “The following spring. There was a deal. A shipping lane negotiation with the Orsini family.”
Jamie knew the name. A rival, though the lines were often blurred.
“Your father was there,” Tristan continued, his voice detached, recounting a ledger entry. “Mine and his were finalizing the terms. Your father mentioned, casually, that you’d been accepted to USC. That you were leaving in the fall. He called it ‘getting the nonsense out of your system.’”
Colt picked up the thread, his gaze locked on Jamie. “Tristan stood up. Told them the deal was fucking insulting and they could shove their percentages. He walked out. Nearly started a war over a three percent tariff differential.”
“I was reckless,” Tristan muttered, but there was no regret in it.
“You were pissed,” Colt corrected, a hard smile on his face. “I had to spend two weeks smoothing that over. I kept thinking, why? Why now, over this?” He looked at Jamie. “Now I know.”
The air felt charged, thick with unspoken history. Jamie’s mind reeled. A business deal, almost torched. Because she was leaving.
“You didn’t even know me,” she whispered.
“We knew what you represented,” Tristan said, finally looking down at her. His blue eyes were stark, honest. “A way out. You had a path that wasn’t this gilded cage. You were fighting for it. It was… infuriating. And captivating.”
Colt leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “There was a summer party at the Giovanni estate. You were there with your mom. You got cornered by my uncle Alberto, who was drunk and handsy.”
Jamie’s blood went cold. She remembered Alberto Giovanni’s sour breath, his meaty fingers on her waist. “I stepped on his foot. With heels.”
“You broke two of his toes,” Colt said, and this time his smile was genuine, bright with pride. “He howled. You just smiled and walked to the bar. I was behind you. You asked the bartender for a pen. He gave you a cocktail napkin.”
The memory clicked into place with perfect clarity. She’d been shaking with adrenaline. She’d scribbled something just to steady her hands.
“You doodled,” Colt said. His voice softened, lost its edge. “Little stars. A crescent moon. And in the corner, you wrote your phone number. Just… idly. Like you were thinking of giving it to someone.”
Her face flushed. “I was nervous. It was just a doodle.”
“I took it.” The confession was simple, stark. “When you walked away, I picked it up off the bar. It had a tiny strawberry stain from your drink in the corner.” He looked at Tristan, then back at her, no trace of embarrassment. “I still have it. It’s in my wallet.”
A stunned silence filled the space between them. Jamie could only stare. These weren’t just passing glances. These were artifacts, collected moments. A near-war, a stolen napkin. They had been watching, cataloguing her resistance long before she’d ever answered their ad.
“Why?” The word was a breath.
“Because you were real,” Tristan said, his arm tightening around her. “In a world of performances, you were the only thing that wasn’t a script. Your anger was real. Your escape was real. Even your fucking garden gnome is real.”
“And then,” Colt added, the humor leaving his face, “you walked into our foyer with a resume and fear in your eyes. Our fathers’ perfect, cruel joke. Delivering the one person who’d ever made us feel something right to our doorstep, as an employee. As property.”
“So the kindness…” Jamie started.
“Was selfish,” Tristan finished bluntly. “We wanted to see if the girl from the fountain was still in there. We wanted to pull her out. For us.”
The honesty was a physical blow, but a clean one. No more games. Just a brutal, shared truth. They had been as manipulated as she was, and their response had been to try and claim the one genuine thing they’d been offered.
She finished the last of the noodles. Strength, of a different kind, was seeping back into her limbs. She sat up a little, and Tristan’s arm loosened, allowing her space but not withdrawing.
“The sharing idea,” she said, looking between them. “That was always your fathers’?”
Colt nodded. “A sick fantasy. Binding the families through… shared consumption. We played along in theory because it was easier than arguing. But the moment you got here, the idea curdled. You weren’t a thing to be consumed. You were the girl who broke toes and sank champagne glasses. Sharing you like that would have been… destroying you. And we’d have been no better than them.”
Tristan’s gaze was intense. “What happens now is yours. You walk out that door tomorrow, we’ll make sure your father’s debt is a fiction. You’ll have enough to start over. No strings.”
The offer hung there, glittering and pure. Freedom. The thing she’d been clawing for.
“Or?” she asked, her heart thumping.
“Or you stay,” Colt said quietly. “And we figure out what the hell this is. With no playbook. No fathers in the background pulling strings. Just three people in a messed-up situation.”
“It’s not a fair choice,” Jamie said. “One is safety. The other is…”
“Chaos,” Tristan supplied. “Danger. Complication.”
“Us,” Colt added, with a wry twist of his mouth.
Jamie looked at the grand piano in the corner, its lid closed. She thought of her tiny, quiet apartment dreams. Then she thought of the garden, the soil under her nails, the ugly gnome smiling stupidly at the water. She thought of the fury in Tristan’s eyes when he’d spoken of her father’s hand, the reverence in Colt’s when he mentioned a stained napkin.
Staying was the worst kind of risk. It was choosing the wolf’s den even after seeing its teeth.
But for the first time, she felt like she was seeing the wolves, not just the teeth.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I need my phone.”
Tristan tensed. Colt’s expression grew cautious. “Okay,” Colt said slowly.
“It’s in my room. Can you get it?”
Colt stood without a word and left. The silence between her and Tristan was thick, waiting. He didn’t ask. He just watched her, his blue eyes tracing the lines of her face as if memorizing them.
Colt returned, handing her the device. The screen was dark. She turned it on, the light harsh in the dim room. She opened her job search apps, her finger hovering over the dozens of pending applications.
She deleted them. One by one. The little confirmations chirped softly in the quiet.
When the last one was gone, she opened her email. She typed a new message. The recipient: her father. The subject line was blank.
The message was only three words.
I’m staying. J.
She hit send. The whoosh sound was final.
She dropped the phone onto the cushion beside her and looked at them. Tristan’s face was unreadable, but a flame had ignited deep in his eyes. Colt let out a long, slow breath, as if he’d been holding it for days.
“Okay,” Jamie said, her voice firmer than it had been in weeks. “No games. No fathers. We start from right now.”
She shifted, turning more fully to face them both. “First rule. I’m not a housemaid. The job is void. You want food, you learn to cook it with me. You want a clean house, you pick up a damn vacuum.”
A ghost of a smile touched Tristan’s lips. “Noted.”
“Second rule,” she continued, her gaze landing on Colt, then Tristan. “Whatever this is between us… it goes at my speed. No more tests. No more forbidden rooms. No assumptions.”
Colt raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Your speed. Always.”
“And third,” she said, the last of her weakness burning away in a final spark of her old fire. “If any of your father’s associates, or my father, or anyone with bad breath and ugly intentions comes near me again, I’m not just breaking toes. And you will back my play.”
Tristan’s smile was real this time, a flash of white in the dimness. It transformed his face, stripping years of harshness from it. “We’ll hold your coat.”
The simplicity of the agreement settled over them. The pact was made. Not in blood, but in deleted job
The pact was made. Not in blood, but in deleted job applications and a three-word email. The tension that had held the room like a held breath finally shattered, leaving behind a raw, buzzing quiet. Jamie felt both exhausted and electrified, as if she’d jumped from a great height and was still waiting to hit the water.
“Okay,” Colt said, clapping his hands together once. The sound was startlingly normal. “Now that we’ve established the new world order, we need a distraction. Something that isn’t heavy.”
He moved to the massive television console, scrolling through streaming services. Tristan finally released her from the circle of his arm, but only to stand and stretch. The hem of his t-shirt rode up, revealing a sliver of tattooed skin above his sweatpants. Jamie looked away, her cheeks warming.
“Sit,” Tristan said, his voice a low command softened at the edges. He nudged her shoulder gently. “Just sit.”
She sank back into the deep velvet cushions. Colt selected some mindless action movie, all roaring engines and gunfire that was too loud and artificial to mean anything. He dimmed the lights with a remote, plunging the room into the cool, shifting glow of the screen.
Instead of taking his own seat, Colt came to the sofa. He slid in behind her, his long legs bracketing her hips. Then he simply pulled her back, settling her against his bare chest. He’d taken off his shirt at some point; the warmth of his skin seeped through her thin t-shirt, a shocking intimacy after days of isolation.
“Comfortable?” he murmured into her hair. His breath was warm.
She nodded, unable to speak. His arms were loose around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. Tristan settled on her other side, close enough that his thigh pressed against hers. He was a solid line of heat, his attention seemingly on the exploding cars on screen.
“We both actually know how to cook, sweetheart,” Colt said after a moment, his voice a lazy rumble against her spine. “Just so you know. The whole helpless rich boy thing is part of the facade. I make a mean carbonara.”
A small, genuine laugh escaped her. “Noted.”
He was quiet for another minute, his thumb drawing idle circles on her stomach through the fabric. The casual touch sent sparks across her nerves. “I am intrigued, though,” he said, his tone shifting to one of playful curiosity. “Why did you actually look slightly turned on when you were standing in the playroom?”
Jamie’s entire body went rigid. The memory flashed, visceral and bright: the sterile lights, the cold steel, the terrifying, thrilling sense of absolute exposure. Her face flooded with heat.
Tristan, who had been silent, turned his head slowly. He’d heard the question. In the flickering light, she saw his lips curve. He’d seen her reaction, too. They both had.
“Colt,” Tristan said, a warning and a chuckle mixed into one word.
“What?” Colt’s innocence was blatantly false. “I’m just asking. Her pulse was racing, sure. But it wasn’t all fear. Was it, Jamie?”
She was burning up, trapped between the heat of Colt at her back and the knowing, amused gaze of Tristan at her side. Her mind, traitorously, replayed the fantasy she’d tortured herself with in her room: the cool metal against her back, the loss of control, their combined focus a weight and a liberation.
“I think,” Tristan said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur as he leaned closer to her ear, “someone might like our… what did you call it?” He paused, letting the memory hang. “Our ‘weird fuckery.’”
Jamie squeezed her eyes shut, a mortified sound escaping her throat. The blush deepened, crawling down her neck. She was utterly seen, her secret curiosity laid bare between them.
Colt’s arms tightened around her, not in restraint, but in a hug. He buried his face in her hair, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “Oh, she definitely does.”
“Shut up,” she managed to whisper, but there was no force behind it, only a breathless embarrassment that felt dangerously close to confession.
Tristan’s hand found hers where it lay clenched on her own thigh. He pried her fingers open and laced his through them, his grip firm and anchoring. “It’s okay,” he said, the amusement fading into something quieter, more intense. “We like that you looked.”
The movie played on, forgotten. The gunfire and screams were just a distant soundtrack to the profound, silent understanding that now thrummed in the space between their three bodies. Jamie let her head fall back against Colt’s shoulder, her hand holding tightly to Tristan’s. The fear was still there, a sharp edge beneath the warmth. But it was now tangled with something else entirely—a thrilling, terrifying pull toward the very things that had frightened her, and the two men who were offering them without a script.
She kept her eyes closed, feeling the steady rise and fall of Colt’s chest against her back and the possessive weight of Tristan’s hand in hers. The playroom was no longer a cold test. It was a question, hanging in the dark, charged air. And for the first time, she was no longer afraid of the answer.
The silence stretched, thick with the unspoken admission hanging in the TV’s blue glow. Jamie felt the truth of it, a live wire under her skin. Colt’s thumb had stilled on her stomach. Tristan’s grip on her hand tightened almost imperceptibly.
She took a shaky breath, the words fighting their way out. “Okay, fine,” she whispered to the darkened room. “I was… intrigued. By the room.”
She felt Colt’s smile against her hair. Tristan turned his head, his piercing gaze searching her profile.
“It was just a shock to my system, okay?” The words tumbled out faster, a defensive ramble. “And what are half of those things? They looked like… I don’t know. Torture devices.”
Colt and Tristan shared a look over her head. It was a silent, charged communication she felt in the shift of their bodies. It wasn’t laughter. It was something hotter, more intense.
“I have never even kissed someone,” she blurted out, the confession scorching her throat. “Let alone had an orgasm that didn’t involve a shower head and a prayer. Seeing all that… it was a lot.”
The air left the room. The movie’s soundtrack became meaningless white noise. The look they shared this time was different, slower. It was a fusion of stunned hunger and a sudden, profound understanding. The sheer, vulnerable honesty of it slammed into them.
Jamie felt the effect in the stillness surrounding her. Colt’s breath hitched, his chest expanding against her back. Tristan’s posture shifted, a subtle rolling of his hips as he adjusted his position on the couch. The denim of his jeans pulled taut. Her own body, hypersensitive, registered the hardening press of him against her thigh and the answering tension in the man cradling her from behind. A fierce, responsive heat bloomed low in her own belly.
Colt bent his head, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. His voice was a dark, velvety whisper that vibrated through her bones. “Torture devices?” he breathed, the words a caress. “No, sweetheart. When used correctly, with trust… it’s all pleasure.”
The promise in those words, the specific emphasis on correctly and trust, unspooled something tight inside her. It wasn’t a threat. It was an invitation to a language she didn’t yet speak. Tristan watched her absorb it, his blue eyes black in the low light. He brought their joined hands to his mouth and pressed a single, searing kiss to her knuckles.
“A shower head and a prayer,” he repeated, his voice rough with a feeling she couldn’t name. It sounded like a vow. “That ends tonight.”
“That ends tonight.”
The words weren’t a suggestion. They were a declaration, solid and irrevocable as stone. Tristan said them while looking directly at Colt over her head, a silent conversation passing in the space of a heartbeat. An agreement. A plan.
Then he turned that devastating blue focus back to her. “But only if you say it.”
Her mouth was dry. The heat in the room was no longer from embarrassment, but from something deeper, a tectonic shift in the space between their bodies. “Say what?”
“That you want this,” Colt murmured into her hair, his lips brushing her ear. His hands, which had been resting loosely on her waist, spread wide, anchoring her against him. “That you want us to touch you. Not as a transaction. Not as a game.”
“We’ve had enough of games,” Tristan said, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. His other hand came up, cupping her jaw, forcing her to meet his gaze. The intensity there was a physical pressure. “This is different. You have to say it.”
The choice was real. It was terrifying. It was the first real choice she’d been given since she walked through the mansion’s doors. She could pull back. She could retreat to her room, and they would let her. The promise of safety, of a clean exit, still hung in the air.
But the memory of the sterile playroom didn’t scare her now. It intrigued her, a puzzle box she suddenly wanted to open. The shower head and its frustrating, mechanical failure felt like a childhood toy she’d outgrown. These two men, with their stolen napkins and near-wars waged in her name, were offering a different kind of lesson.
“Yes,” she breathed. The word was barely audible, but it cracked the stillness like a gunshot.
Tristan’s eyes flared. Colt’s arms tightened, a low sound vibrating in his chest.
“Yes, what, Jamie?” Tristan pressed, his voice a rough caress. He needed the words, the explicit permission. He needed her to own it.
She swallowed, finding a stronger voice. “I want you to touch me. Both of you. I want… I want to know what it’s supposed to feel like.”
The last of Tristan’s control seemed to slip. A raw, hungry sound escaped him. He closed the small distance between them, his lips meeting hers.
It wasn’t a gentle first kiss. It was a claiming, deep and searching, fueled by weeks of suppressed tension and a lifetime of wanting. The taste of him—whiskey and mint and something uniquely Tristan—flooded her senses. Her hands came up, fisting in the soft cotton of his t-shirt, holding on as the world tilted.
When he pulled back, they were both breathless. Before she could process the loss, Colt was turning her face toward him. His kiss was different. Softer, more persuasive, a slow, thorough exploration that made her toes curl. He tasted like honey and the faint, sweet trace of the broth.
Tristan’s mouth found the sensitive skin beneath her ear, then the column of her throat. “Stand up,” he growled against her pulse.
They moved as one, rising from the deep couch. Her legs felt unsteady. Colt kept an arm around her waist, supporting her, as Tristan took her hand. He didn’t lead her toward the grand staircase, or the forbidden west wing. Instead, he turned toward the hallway that led to his own private wing, to the room with the crimson sheets.
The walk was a blur of sensation. Colt’s lips on her shoulder, biting gently through the thin fabric of her shirt. Tristan’s hand, large and warm, splayed possessively on the small of her back. The mansion, once so cold and imposing, felt like a different world, charged with a new, intimate electricity.
Tristan shouldered open his bedroom door. The familiar scent of him—clean linen, cedar, and that darker undercurrent of power—enveloped her. Moonlight streamed through the parted drapes, painting the room in silver and shadow.
He stopped her just inside the threshold. His hands came up to frame her face, his touch surprisingly tender. “Last chance to run, Red,” he said, his voice thick. “Once we cross this line, there’s no going back to employer and maid. To strangers.”
Colt came up behind her, his body a solid wall of heat. He nuzzled her hair aside, placing a soft kiss on the nape of her neck. “It’s just us now,” he whispered. “No scripts. No audience.”
Jamie looked from Tristan’s stormy blue eyes to the vast, waiting bed. She thought of the gnome in the garden, a stupid symbol of defiance she’d planted in their world. This was another kind of planting. A deeper, more dangerous root.
“I’m not running,” she said.
A slow, devastating smile spread across Tristan’s face. It was the most real expression she’d ever seen from him. He leaned in and kissed her again, deep and slow, while Colt’s hands slid under the hem of her t-shirt. His fingers were cool against the skin of her stomach, making her gasp into Tristan’s mouth.
The shirt was lifted, over her head, and discarded. The cool air of the room kissed her skin, followed immediately by the heat of their hands and mouths. Colt’s lips traced the line of her spine, while Tristan’s attention dropped to the lace of her bra, his gaze worshipful and fierce.
“So beautiful,” Colt murmured, his voice husky against her back. “We’ve imagined this. So many times.”
That admission, that they had thought of her, fantasized about her, sent a fresh wave of heat through her. Tristan’s fingers found the clasp of her bra, fumbling for a second before it gave way. The fabric fell, and his breath caught.
He didn’t speak. He just looked, his eyes drinking her in as if she were the answer to a question he’d been asking his whole life. Then he lowered his head, and his mouth was on her, hot and wet and perfect. The sensation was so acute, so foreign and wonderful, that her knees buckled.
Colt was there, holding her up, turning her gently to face him. He kissed her deeply, swallowing her moan as Tristan continued his attentive, devastating work. Colt’s hands cupped her face, then slid into her hair, dislodging the band holding her braid. Her dark red hair tumbled down her shoulders.
“Look at you,” Colt breathed against her lips. “Look at what you do to him.”
She glanced down. Tristan was on his knees before her, his dirty blonde head bowed in devotion, his hands gripping her hips. The sight was profoundly powerful. This ruthless man, brought to his knees not by force, but by her. By this.
Her remaining clothes were a barrier they removed together, with a coordination that spoke of deep familiarity. Colt’s lean strength and Tristan’s muscular build moved around her, not rushing, every touch deliberate. When she was finally bare before them, standing in a pool of moonlight, she didn’t feel exposed.
She felt seen.
They led her to the bed, the crimson silk cool and whispering beneath her. They settled her in the center, a throne of velvet and shadow. For a moment, they just looked, their expressions a mix of awe and hunger that stole the air from her lungs.
Then they joined her, a wave of warm skin and intent. Tristan stretched out beside her, propped on an elbow, his free hand tracing a path from her collarbone down to her hip. Colt mirrored him on her other side, his fingers threading through hers.
“Tell us what feels good,” Tristan said, his voice a gravelly command softened by the darkness.
“Everything,” she gasped, as his mouth found her breast again and Colt’s lips traveled down her stomach.
“That’s not an answer,” Colt chided gently, his breath fanning over her hip bone. “Be specific. This?” His tongue dipped into the hollow of her navel.
She jerked. “Yes.”
“And this?” Tristan’s hand slid between her thighs, his touch feather-light, exploratory.
Her back arched off the bed. A broken sound, part sob, part plea, escaped her. “Tristan…”
“That’s it,” he murmured, his eyes locked on hers. “Tell me.”
But words were failing, scattering under the onslaught of sensation. Colt was kissing the inside of her knee, then higher, his stubble a delicious abrasion on her tender skin. Tristan’s fingers were learning her, tracing folds and finding hidden places that made her cry out. The dual attention was overwhelming, a symphony of touch where she was the only instrument.
She was floating, tethered only by their hands and mouths. The world narrowed to this bed, to the slide of silk, the sound of ragged breathing, the scent of their skin. The theoretical, clinical objects from the playroom were forgotten. This was nothing like that. This was alive, messy, and profoundly human.
Colt moved up her body, kissing a trail from her thigh to her mouth. He kissed her deeply, sharing the taste of her skin. Meanwhile, Tristan’s touch grew more insistent, his rhythm finding a pace that made her hips lift off the mattress to meet him.
“Look at me,” Tristan commanded, his voice rough.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his intense blue gaze. He was watching her face, studying every flicker of pleasure, every wince of overstimulation. His own features were strained with a fierce concentration, as if this were the most important task he’d ever undertaken.
“I’ve got you,” he promised, his fingers circling that one perfect, aching spot. “Let go.”
Colt whispered praises in her ear, his hand skimming over her breast, pinching her nipple gently. “That’s it, sweetheart. Just feel it. We’ve got you.”
The pressure built, a coil tightening deep in her belly, different from anything she’d ever managed alone. It was hotter, brighter, fed by their whispered words and worshipful touches. It was connection, not just friction. Her breaths came in short, sharp gasps. Her fingers clawed at the sheets, then at Colt’s arm, needing an anchor.
Tristan saw the moment she began to fracture. A new tension seized her body, a trembling that started in her core and radiated outward. His movements became more precise, more demanding.
“Now, Jamie,” he urged, his own breath coming fast. “Come for us.”
The coil snapped.
White-hot pleasure detonated through her, wave after wave, stealing her vision and her breath. A raw, unfamiliar sound was torn from her throat—a cry that was part shock, part triumph. She was aware of Colt holding her tightly, his mouth on her shoulder, biting down gently to ground her. She was aware of Tristan’s relentless, perfect touch guiding her through the storm until the last shuddering tremor subsided.
Silence, thick and sweet, descended. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the distant hum of the mansion at night.
Slowly, reality seeped back in. The feel of the silk beneath her damp skin. The weight of Colt’s body half-draped over her. The sight of Tristan, still kneeling between her legs, watching her with an expression of raw, undisguised triumph.
He lifted his fingers, his gaze holding hers, and slowly brought them to his mouth. He tasted her, his eyes fluttering closed for a brief second. The act was so intimate, so primal, that a fresh shiver raced through her spent body.
“Fuck,” Colt breathed into her hair, his voice full of reverent wonder. “That was…”
He had no words. Neither did she. She felt boneless, unraveled, and utterly new.
Tristan finally moved, stretching out on her other side. He pulled her against him, her back to his chest, so she was sandwiched between them. Colt shifted to face her, his kind green eyes soft in the moonlight. He brushed a strand of sweat-damp hair from her forehead.
“So,” he said, a slow, utterly smug smile spreading across his face. “The shower head.”
A weak, breathless laugh bubbled out of her. She swatted at his arm, but there was no force in it. “Shut up.”
Tristan’s arm tightened around her waist, his lips pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “Consider it rectified,” he said, his voice a satisfied rumble against her skin.
Exhaustion, deep and complete, washed over her. The emotional whiplash of the day—the confrontation, the confession, the sheer physical cataclysm—caught up all at once. Her limbs felt heavy, her mind blissfully quiet.
Colt’s fingers traced the line of her cheekbone. “Sleep, Jamie,” he whispered. “We’re not going anywhere.”
She believed him. Nestled between the dangerous, complicated reality of them, in the heart of the velvet fortress, Jamie closed her eyes. For the first time since she’d arrived, the future didn’t feel like a threat. It felt, impossibly, like a promise. And as she drifted off, she felt two sets of lips, one at her shoulder, one on her forehead, press silent vows into her skin.