CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHRISTIAN

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I can hear her quiet sobbing.

Even through the door, over the roar of rushing water, her pain radiates. It pulses like an open wound and it’s my fault. All of it. I let this happen. I let her get taken. I nearly lost her because I was stupid and sloppy.

Daniel would never have let that happen. He would never have been that careless. He would have locked the front door behind him. He would have made Mira go up to the bedrooms and lock herself in until it was safe.

So many ways he would have made sure she was protected.

Now, she’s broken because of me.

I failed her.

Still, my hand reaches for the doorknob and I let himself into the chamber of sweltering steam. The white mist is a heavy, sticky weight practically concealing everything.

“Sweetheart?”

Her soft sniffle cuts me. “Christian?”

I shut the door behind me, ignoring the immediate regret as my clothes plaster to the sweat rising off my skin.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

The shower curtain pulls back and her tiny face pokes out, red from the shower and crying, and bruised. Her blue eyes meet mine with so much heartache I can feel it in my chest.

“Will you come in?”

I’m tearing off my clothes before she has a chance to finish. It’s all chucked to one side and I’m slipping between the plastic sheets to stand under the scalding spray with her.

“Jesus!” I hiss, scrambling around her, putting myself between her and the boiling spray to turn the cold higher. “Jesus, Mira.”

I turn to face her once I’m sure she’s not going to melt her skin off and look her over.

Every inch blazes raw and red, and so tender I almost cry at the sight.

“Fuck, baby, why?” I reach for her, but stop, too scared of hurting her.

“I can smell them,” she chokes out, unfocused gaze staring at my chest. “I can smell ... it’s on my skin.” A sound like a sob, but guttural escapes her throat. “I can smell them . Their blood. The way they smelled. I can feel their hands...”

I don’t let her finish. I don’t let my brain think. I grab her and pull her into my chest. I crush her.

“I’m sorry.” I croak into her temple. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Her small nails dig into my shoulder blades as she clings to me. Her tears burn my chest.

“I keep rubbing and rinsing and I can’t...” she chokes and coughs. “I need you. Please, Christian.” Her chin tips up until all I can see is her big eyes pleading up at me. “I need to forget them.”

I don’t know what Daniel would say. I don’t know if he’d tell me to give her time to heal or whatever she needs. Maybe I’m supposed to let her process what she’s been through, but she needs me.

She needs me.

I snap off the shower and reach for a towel. I drag the fabric around her and lightly rub her dry. I run a much hastier towel over myself before I toss the damp fabric aside and scoop her up into my arms.

The bed we woke up in only that morning lies exactly as we’d left it. Like the last several horrific hours never happened. It makes me want to burn it. Burn the whole damn house. The town. Fuck all of it.

But I turn my attention to the shivering figure nestled against my chest. I lie her down.

A tear streaks down her temple to vanish into her hairline. Her chin quivers.

“I was so scared,” she squeaks.

Clenched jaw on the verge of shattering, I crawl over her. Enveloping her in my arms, crushing her so close I know I’m hurting her, but she makes no protest.

“They will never touch you again,” I vow darkly into her ear.

“Love me, Christian. I need to feel you.”

I lift my head and meet her gaze, meet the determination and desperation glistening across the pale surface of her eyes.

“I do love you, sweetheart. I fucking love you so much.”

I know it’s not what she meant, but I don’t give a shit. I almost lost her. Worrying about timing and whatever else the fuck isn’t my concern right now.

I wait to hear excuses about the curse and it being a bad idea but Mira makes a choking sound I think is laughter. “When I was hiding in that cellar, waiting for Dirk to find me, all I thought about was how I would never see you and Daniel again. I hated myself for not telling you both how much I love you. Telling you I love you. Fuck the curse. Fuck it. I almost lost you and I let some broken thing in my head keep me from telling you how much you mean to—”

I kiss her. Gently. It’s not easy. I know I have to be careful with her, but I also need to squeeze and devour her until she’s a part of me always.

“Never leaving you,” I breathe in between frustratingly slow sips of her mouth. “Mine. Forever.”

I kiss her with care, ignoring her insistence for more. Ignoring her urging little tugs on my hair.

“My way,” I tell her softly. “We’re not rushing. I’m going to take my time erasing everything but me off your skin.”

Her darkened eyes watch me hungrily as I descend down the smooth column of her throat. I kiss, lick and suck my way across every bruise, every freckle. I trace her skin with my fingers, circle her rosy nipples with my thumb. My tongue. I suck them into my mouth and nip with my teeth until my sweet brat thrashes under me. Until her fingers tighten in my hair and her breath is warm pants in my ear.

“I love you,” I tell her again, needing her to know it. Needing her to have no fucking doubt.

“I love you, too,” she rasps, hooded eyes dark with pleasure as I follow the valley of her belly to the sweet folds of her lips. “God, I love you so much, Christian.”

My grin pokes up the corner of my lips as I run my tongue over her clit. “Because I’m licking your pretty pussy?”

Mira chuckles thickly. “Yes, but because you yell at me.”

My eyebrow jerks up. “Don’t think anyone’s ever been grateful for that.”

Her nose crinkles. “Daniel is gentle. He wants to give me the world on a silver platter. He handles me so carefully like he’s afraid I’ll break. You...” she smooths her hand over my hair, eyes never wavering off mine while I eat her. “You don’t let me get away with my crap. You piss me off and still make me laugh. I feel so protected and whole.”

Gingerly, I ease a finger into her opening. I watch as her lashes flutter and her back curve. Her knees bow and bend, spreading wide around my shoulders.

“There!” she huffs, hips arching and rolling. “Don’t stop. I’m close!”

I spread her on two fingers and listen to her keen of pleasure. Her desperate pleas. She tightens around my hand with her rolling release.

“Daddy!” she whimpers.

I hadn’t heard Daniel walk into the room until she’s reaching for him and he’s bending at the waist to take her nipple between his lips.

Mira cums with a perfect moan of ecstasy that fills my mouth with her delicious release.

She’s barely come down when she’s telling me to get up. I’m directed across the bed with my knees over the edge. Mira straddles my hips backwards. She takes my cock deep into her warm channel while tearing open Daniel’s jeans.

“Fuck my mouth, Daddy,” she tells him, fishing his dick free.

Over her head, Daniel meets my gaze. The question is clear. The same concerns I had when she’d asked me to touch her.

I give my head a nod and take Mira’s hips between my hands.

But it’s not enough for him.

“You don’t need to do this, baby,” he says against her mouth.

“I want you,” she tells him with zero hesitation. “I want my boys. I want to forget everything, except how good I feel when my daddy touches me.”

A muscle tightens in his jaw and still he resists. “Promise Daddy you’re okay, Mira,”

Her answer is the slow roll and rise of her pussy up and over my dick. It’s the matching fist she runs down his as she locks eyes with him.

“I will be once you let me be your little doll, Daniel.”

That seems to be all the assurance my brother needs when fisting her damp locks in his hand and dragging her face up for a feather light kiss.

“When you have my cock out, you will call me Daddy and nothing else, understand?” Mira starts to nod, but he pulls away from her. Dislodging his dick from her hands. “Not your mouth.”

She seems to have forgotten the cut there, but even mentioned, she reaches for him.

“It’s—”

Daniel captures her chin, lightly, but firmly. “I said no, Mira. Now, lean back so Daddy can watch your pussy get fucked.”

Eager, Mira does as she’s told. She bends her body back into mine and widens her knees.

Such a good fucking girl, I think, pushing up to a sitting position to take her weight.

With her knees bent under her, I have access to everything while she takes me to the hilt.

“So wet,” I groan into her ear, my fingers drifting to her slippery clit. “Always such a whore for your uncle and daddy’s cock, aren’t you?”

Mira groans and tightens almost painfully. Her little body shudders. It only gets harder when I tease her button, flick it in time to her greedy thrusts.

I palm her tit with my free hand and squeeze the nipples.

My brat sobs a filthy, “Fuck! Yes, don’t stop.”

Daniel grabs her face and tips it back. “Eyes up, doll.”

I snicker as she gushes around my cock and all but cums in my lap. “I should tell your daddy what a sloppy, messy little cunt his baby girl has right now.”

“Open your legs, Mira. Show me.”

Like the good girl she is, Mira repositions herself to squat with her knees up and spread, showing Daniel her swollen clit and her stretched hole.

Daniel reaches down to rub between her lips. I move my soaked fingers to give him room and bring mine to my mouth to suck clean.

“Such a greedy doll,” Daniel hisses. “Spread. Wider.”

She does and Daniel crouches between those perfect thighs and latches his lips to her button.

“Daddy!” Mira whimpers, delving her fingers into his hair and holding while riding my dick. “Don’t stop, Daddy. Lick your baby’s pussy.”

I pull her down, impale her to the hilt and hold her until she’s thrashing and tightening. Crying out my name. Her pussy leaking as she’s overwhelmed by the intertwining vines of pleasure and pain.

Her head drops back against my shoulder, and I palm her tits. I roll the nipples and whisper what a good little whore she is, and my brat groans long and thick before cumming all over my dick.

The sweet sensation triggers my release, and I spill inside her. Deep inside her. I wedge myself as far as I can possibly go without crawling into her vagina.

Daniel stands and lightly smooths his thumb into the hollow of her cheek, brushes the violet blossom. His eyes are tender peering down into her upturned face.

“Such a good girl,” he tells her.

Breathing still irregular, Mira reaches for his lap. “I want—”

Daniel captures her fingers and brings each digit to his lips. “Food. Then sleep.”

I can feel her protest bubbling up in her chest, but she relents with a sad little, “Yes, Daddy.”

Daniel smiles and leans down to kiss her. “What if we bring the TV up here and eat in bed?”

Thoughts of getting his cock vanish as she beams with excitement. “Really?”

And that’s what we did.

Daniel and I haul the TV up and set it up on the dresser at the foot of the bed. The remote is pressed into Mira’s palm and she’s told to find something to watch while we bring up the food.

“How is she?” Daniel asks me in the kitchen while we’re transferring burgers and fries out of takeout containers and onto plates.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “She went through a lot. It’s going to fuck with her head for a while.”

He nods slowly. “I’ll take some time off work and stay home with her.”

The casual way he says it, like there is no other option has me pausing, squeezing a blob of Ketchup into the corner of my plate.

“I can stay with her,” I point out. “I don’t have a contract until next month.”

Daniel’s head comes up, his eyes focused. I don’t know what it is about that look, but it pisses me off.

“Am I just here to fuck her and leave the rest of her to you? I thought she was both of ours.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, lowering his voice. “We live in different cities. I just thought—”

“I would skip off back to my life and leave Mira alone,” I finish for him, temper rising.

“No!” he snaps. “We haven’t discussed anything. What did you even want to do? Did you want to come with us to Sam’s apartment? Do you want us to come to yours? I’m not cutting you from her life, damn it. I’m trying to figure this out.”

Feeling slightly bad for jumping the gun, I compromise by gathering up my and Mira’s plates and turning to my brother.

“Let’s ask her. She can decide.”

Mira has pulled on a tiny crop top t-shirt that leaves her belly and back completely bare and stops just beneath her breasts. The sheets are drawn across her lap, but I can just make out a hint of pale lace strapped over her hips.

The TV is set to some comedy I don’t recognize. It’s on mute so I don’t think she really cares what’s happening on screen.

But it’s the way she’s sitting with her knees squeezed against her chest, eyes blank staring off at nothing that cuts into my chest.

“Hey sweetheart.”

She blinks and quickly smooths out her features with a faint smile, but I’m not fooled. I know Daniel isn’t either, but I know neither of us are expecting her to simply bounce back like nothing happened. Not for a while.

She takes the plate I hand her, and I slide into the spot on her left. Daniel takes her right. We wiggle close, sandwiching her between us.

“Can we go home in the morning?” she asks once we’re all comfortable.

“Yes,” Daniel and I chime in unison.

“As soon as we wake up,” Daniel promises. “We’ll grab breakfast on the way. Just pack your bags and we’ll hit the road.”

Mira exhales deeply like that was all she needed to hear. “Can we stop at the sheriff’s office? I need to talk to Lucy,” she presses when both Daniel and I open our mouths. “It’s important.”

Daniel sighs and I know he’s already relented. “I don’t like it, but if that’s what you want to do.”

“It is.”

We nibble on our supper while watching whatever’s happening unfold across the screen. No one seems to be actually watching anything.

“Chris and I were talking, and we wanted your thoughts on our living arrangement,” Daniel brings up after several minutes of me trying to figure out how to say it.

Mira turns her head and searches my face. “Mom’s apartment is very small.”

My heart sinks as I realize what she’s telling me—it’s not going to work. I’m fine to fuck, but not to keep. Once again, I’m left behind. Chucked aside. A quick, passing amusement, but never good enough to love.

“I don’t want to sleep alone, and I don’t want one or the other. I want you both in the bed with me at night.” She nibbles contemplatively on a fry. “Is your apartment bigger?” She’s looking at me again. “I don’t mind moving if there’ll be enough space.”

It’s my turn to stare. Her words echo through my soul, a balm over all the aching pieces.

“You want to move in together?”

Her soft lips part. Her eyes widen as they dart nervously to Daniel before coming back to me.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought ... did you not want to...?”

“I do. I want you in my bed. I want your clothes in my closet and your toothbrush next to mine.”

Relief washes over her pretty features. “I like the sound of that.” She turns her head to Daniel. “Is that okay with you?”

He leans in and kisses her gently. “As long as I get to wake up with you in my bed, I don’t care where the bed is.”

“So, where are we calling home?” she asks, glancing between us.

Wherever she is.

The location is unimportant.

“Let’s figure that out once we get back,” Daniel decides, and we both agree.

Mira settles against my side. Her head finds my shoulder while she holds Daniel’s fingers threaded through hers in her lap. I brush a kiss to the top of her head, and marvel at how drastically my life has changed in a single weekend and regretting nothing.