The thought of him never writing again caught in my throat, as though he was shutting the door between us forever. When I was gone from the cottage, his words on the page were all I’d have left.
“When it’s time for me to go, it’ll be nice to still feel close to you both through your work. I know I’ve been a pain in the ass and a huge distraction, but I’ve really enjoyed my time here.”
His lips grazed my forehead, and I swallowed. The feel of his arms tightening around me made me wonder if he might ask me to stay. I clung to the glimmer of hope.
Surely, after all the time we’d spent together over the past few months and everything we’d done together, he wouldn’t banish me from his life completely? Zero wasn’t ready for things to be over either, but if Vandal wasn’t in, it was never going to work.
“Vandal,” Zero said quietly, giving him a nod as though encouraging him to say something.
Vandal grumbled about how we were stressing him out and shortening his lifespan worse than the bacon Zero cooked for breakfast almost every morning.
“What?” I asked, looking from one of them to the other.
Zero was waiting, looking impatient.
There was a long silence.
“Your contract finished a week ago,” Vandal snapped, urging me off his lap with alarming brusqueness.
“I know,” I replied, standing awkwardly and feeling as small as my voice.
“So why are you still here?”
The words were a slap in the face, snarled the way they were, as though he hadn’t just been affectionate with me moments ago.
I wanted to tell him that I loved him—that I didn’t want to leave, but I could tell from his expression that he’d shut down emotionally and didn’t want to hear it. I went with the practical answer, instead.
“You haven’t paid me yet.”
“You haven’t asked me to pay you.”
“Well...no.” My heart felt like it was being ground into glass dust under his boot heel. I didn’t want this to end. I couldn’t imagine living without them. I couldn’t imagine going back to living alone and having no one care what happened to me except a now distant aunt—having no one in my life who really understood me or gave a flying fuck what I thought.
I’d been avoiding thinking about what would happen when life went back to normal. From the sound of things, there would be nothing left for me here.
“I’ll get you the money tomorrow.” Vandal stood and stretched. “I need to get back to work.”
“Van,” Zero said, sounding angry.
“Just fucking leave it. I need time to deal with my shit.”
I watched him go, not sure what had happened. The evening’s chill made me shiver.
“Come here.” Zero grabbed the hoodie he’d fetched and put it on me, then bundled me onto his lap. “He’ll be okay. He’s a little messed up.”
“Sounds familiar.”
He kissed the side of my face.
“Is it bad that I don’t want the money?”
“Why not?” Zero asked. “You met the terms of the contract. You’ve earned it—no outside contact, no internet...nothing for months. Not even any unsupervised phone calls.”
“I should have made plans. I...had been hoping.” I would have gone on, but no more words would come out.
He sighed. “We’ll see, gorgeous. Nothing is written in stone yet.”
I knew he was lying to make me feel better, but it was too late for false hope. Telling me the truth would be kinder. In the next week or so I’d be leaving this life.
I’d be alone again far too soon.
I was losing them both, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter 24
“This is excellent,” Zero said, handing the laptop back to me, careful not to unplug it just in case. The battery was getting wonky. I’d saved the story anyway, but it was nice of him not to take the risk.
He rolled to his back on my bed in the dim light of my bedside lamp. His T-shirt left his sexy muscled stomach bare when he stretched and yawned. It had to be getting late, considering how dark it was.
I put the laptop down on my nightstand and rolled on top of him, straddling his hips.
“This is even better.” His sexy grin made me melt.
“Excuse me, are you telling me that fooling around with me is better than reading my story?”
“Um...yeah?”
“How would you feel if I said the same thing about your books?”
“If you would rather read my books than fuck me, it would break my heart.”
I looked down into his eyes, feeling like he was gazing directly into my thoughts. He grabbed me by the hips and slid me down to sit on his hardening cock.
“Is sex all you think about?”
“Only when you’re around.”
“And Vandal.”
“With Vandal it’s different. It’s his dominance I crave—the way he controls me. With you it’s your soft little body and all the nasty things you let me do to it.” He pulled me down so he could kiss me. “And then there’s that twisted brain of yours.”
“You like my twisted brain?”
“Too much, I think.”
I smirked and rolled off him, sitting on the edge of the bed and doing my best to stave off my looming remorse. The few days since we’d gotten home from New York had been bittersweet—our lives back to normal, or what passed for normal around here, but all three of us very aware I’d be leaving soon.
Since the night of the book burning, I’d been making calls trying to find a decent apartment. They’d driven me to look at a few places, but none of them had met Vandal’s exacting standards or made sense with the budget I’d set. He wasn’t saying he cared, but I was starting to wonder if he might after all. Or maybe I was still clinging to my denial.
Just because I was leaving didn’t mean I’d never see them again, but I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to stay in Redwood without work. The money Vandal had paid me looked impressive in my bank account right now, while I was still living here for free, but it would only last for so long.
“You could always move into my cottage with me,” Zero reminded me.
“Both of us know that would fuck things up between you and Vandal. He’d feel like that was a declaration we were a couple, and he’d shut down.”
“I wouldn’t be enough for you?” The words had the tone of a joke, but there was a quiet bitterness to them.
“You would be, but I don’t think I’m enough for you. I think you’d miss Vandal horribly if we left him behind.” I traced his knee, making him squirm. What kind of hot dom had ticklish knees?
“It would be his choice whether to stay with us or not.”
“You’re really going to put him in the position where if he wants to be with you he has to put up with me? You two have been close for so long. You’ve only known me for a few months. I think he needs time.”
He groaned and pulled me back into his arms. “But you’re going to end up living in a shithole. I can’t deal with the idea of you being in danger.”
“After what the two of you have put me through, you’re really worried about what I can handle?”