When Cole cupped her jaw to guide her back to him, she shook her head in silent rejection and then finally, her voice came to her.
“Butterfly,” she croaked out.
Lucas went completely still. He pulled out of her instantly and when Cole would have taken her mouth again, Lucas bit out, “Stop! It’s her safe word.”
Cole released her immediately and backed away. She didn’t look up. Couldn’t bear to look up. Behind her Lucas fumbled with the rope around her legs.
“Get her untied,” Lucas ground out. “Quickly.”
With both men working to untie her, she was free in just a few moments. She sagged onto the ottoman, refusing to meet either of their stares.
“Ren.” Lucas’s voice came to her, low and urgent. “Ren, what’s wrong. Did I hurt you? Are you all right? Tell me what’s wrong.”
He tried to touch her. He would have picked her up, but she warded him off, slapping at his hands, pushing him away.
She pulled herself into a sitting position and dragged her knees to her chest in a protective measure. She hugged them to her body, buried her face between her knees and rocked back and forth, silent tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Please just leave me alone,” she said in a hoarse, ugly voice.
A hand dropped tentatively to her shoulder. Cole.
And then on her other side, Lucas. He threaded his fingers through her hair and pressed in close until the heat from his body bled into her.
“Ren, look at me,” Lucas pleaded in a soft voice. “I can’t leave you alone. Not until I know what’s happened. Have I hurt you?”
She raised her tear-ravaged face then and the two men swam in her vision. She could see the stark worry reflected in their eyes. They looked …tormented. Unsure.
“I just need this to be over. I can’t do this anymore. How could you do this? Either of you? Haven’t you done enough? Did you really think this would help me? Or make me feel not so abandoned?”
Lucas, who was never at loss for words, stared at her as if he had no idea what to say or that he even understood what she’d burst out with. Maybe it didn’t even make sense to her. She just knew she was bleeding to death and there wasn’t a bandage in the world that would stop the flow.
Cole looked bleak. He rubbed his hand through his hair and then over his head to clasp the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have done this.”
It made her furious and she wasn’t even sure why his statement made her snap, but she was suddenly so very angry that it was like being infused with a shot of liquid fire.
She flinched away from Lucas’s touch and he backed away as if sensing that she desperately needed space.
“No, you shouldn’t have come!” she shouted. “Why did you come, Cole? Why? Is this some sick twist? It wasn’t enough you walked away again after promising me we’d find a way. Is this some kind of final farewell where you show me how it could be but can never be because you have no intention of ever keeping your promises to me?”
Both men looked shocked by her outburst.
She dropped her face into her hands as some of the tearing sobs finally clawed their way from her chest. The sound was ugly in the silence but she could no longer control the horrible grief swelling inside her.
“Ren, oh God no, Ren,” Cole said hoarsely. “No, no darling. That isn’t it at all. Oh God, you have to listen to me.”
He tried to tug her hands away from her face but Ren resisted and turned away, hunching into a miserable ball.
She was naked and vulnerable and not in the physical sense. She had no care for her actual nudity. It was just flesh. But her soul was flayed open. Her heart lay in shreds. She’d never been so intensely vulnerable in front of someone else in her life. Not even in complete submission. The most intense scene. No matter what paces she’d been put through. No matter how wholly she gave her obedience. Never had she felt so stripped of her self before. And it wasn’t a good feeling.
She felt ugly, dirty, used …betrayed. Betrayed by the very men she trusted and loved with everything she possessed.
She turned then to Lucas because her anger was a terrible thing, wrapping her in its heartless embrace.
“How could you let this happen? How could you do it? You knew how badly he hurt me. I told you everything, Lucas. Everything. You were supposed to protect me. You asked me to marry you and then you let him come here and use me and throw back in my face everything I’m trying to forget. How will him walking away a third time make me anything but more miserable?”
Those damnable tears slid endlessly down her cheeks. She wiped furiously, wanting to remove the signs of weakness. She wanted to be strong, now of all times. She couldn’t afford to be weak when the very men who swore to always keep her strong had utterly failed her.
“I’m not leaving you, damn it!” Cole roared. “Goddamn it, Ren, I made a mistake. One I’m never going to repeat if I can goddamn well help it.”
She pulled her gaze from Lucas to see Cole towering over her, bristling with anger and frustration. But when she met his stare, all she could see was endless pain and despair, a perfect match to her own.
Lucas slid his fingers over her chin, gripped her jaw and gently turned her back to face him. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Ren. Not intentionally. I love you. You’re my fucking life. Neither of us deserves your trust right now but I’m asking you to listen to us. Listen to what we have to say. Please.”
The please threatened to shatter her control. Lucas never asked for anything. He certainly never begged but this was as close to him being down on his knees before her as it was possible for him to get without actually being there.
There was a rawness to his eyes that grabbed at her gut and twisted hard. What she saw in his gaze made her ache all the more because it wasn’t confidence, arrogance or even anger she saw. What reflected in those dark eyes was vulnerability and fear. Two things she’d never imagined seeing in this man’s face.
And then to her utter shock, both men moved in unison. Both knelt awkwardly in front of her, down on their knees so they were on eye level with her.
Lucas reached for her hand and brought her palm to his lips as he bowed his head. “We’re at your feet, Ren. Give us a chance to explain. It’s all we ask.”
Cole took her other hand, threaded his shaking fingers through hers and pulled it to lay over his heart.
“I’m not too proud to beg,” Cole said hoarsely. “For you I’ll get on my knees. I’ll do or say whatever it takes to make you give me one last chance. Just one, Ren. It’s all I’ll ever ask of you again.”
CHAPTER 39
Ren stared back at the two men on their knees before her and a fresh round of tears squeezed from her already burning eyes.
“Please don’t cry,” Lucas said in a tortured voice. “You’re killing me, Ren. I’d do anything in the world not to make you cry.”
“What is it you both want to say?” she asked in a husky, strained voice.
Relief was stark in Cole’s eyes. His grip tightened around her hand but she could still feel the tremble in his fingers. He seemed terrified. Nervous. More unsure than she’d ever imagined him looking about anything.
“There’s a decision we want you to make,” Cole began.
She sucked in her breath and jerked her gaze between the two men as panic welled in her chest. Choose? She’d never be able to choose between them. How could she?
Lucas touched her cheek and wiped away the dampness from underneath her eye. “We aren’t asking you to choose between us, love. Never that. What we’re asking is if you can submit to two very dominant men.”