Erin had asked them both to reconsider doing this before Christmas, but had supported them in the final decision.

“Dad, I need to tell you something.”

Erin got off the plane at LAX, her heart thundering in her chest. It was a week before Christmas and she’d been dreading this for the past month.

Todd was in front of her and Ben behind. Cope had gone ahead and she was torn between wanting to laugh at the whole exercise and being comforted.

Adrian took her hand as they moved toward baggage claim. “It’s gonna be fine,” he murmured.

“Either way, I’m going to do this.”

Jeremy sent two limos to take them to the hotel. They’d all leave for the prison the following morning.

“This is the life,” Ben joked and she laughed, albeit tightly.

“It’s a good perk, I admit.”

“They’ll probably take it out of my contract,” Adrian said. “Nothing’s free.”

She shrugged. He was probably right.

“You can afford it.”

He brightened and leaned forward to snatch the sunglasses from her nose. “You’re the one wearing Versace shades. Hell, I’m wearing thrift store jeans and a T-shirt I’ve had since high school.”

“That’s because you’re cooler than me. I have to pay for it.”

“There she is,” Brody said softly.

“Sometimes I lose myself,” she said back.

“But we always find you.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand.

The hotel was understatedly elegant, a quality she appreciated. Jeremy had met them for dinner, along with his parents. Stilted and awkward wasn’t an adequate way to describe it. The amount of grief at the table made her want to choke.

They trudged up to their rooms, but once the door was closed, Ben locked it, looked to Todd and nodded. Both men turned their attention to her.

“Naked and on your knees.”

They turned and went into the bedroom.

With trembling hands, she obeyed. The sex in the last several weeks had been as frequent as usual but softer, more gentle, with each man speaking sweet words. With the stress of finding out about the hearing and then of telling their families, things had been more rushed.

Seeing this side to her men once again made her heart thunder as her body readied for them.

The chain Todd had given her swayed as she got to her knees.

Some minutes later they both returned, shirtless but still wearing jeans. Her pulse jumped at the sight of them. At the gleam of the ring in Ben’s left nipple, at Todd’s very flat belly with the tattoo bearing their initials marking the hollow at his hip.

Their lips were swollen and she wanted to moan at the image of them kissing as she’d waited there, patient and on her knees.

Todd approached with a blindfold that he put over her eyes gently, tightening it against the light. And just like that, her skin came alive as she lost her sight.

She heard the steps on the lush carpet as they circled her, and the dull thud and scent of hemp. Rope. Her lips opened on a gasp.

The heat from Ben’s body buffeted her back as he helped her to her feet. “I need you a little farther in the room. Two steps forward.”

She trusted him to guide her and then felt Todd’s hand, splayed across her belly, just above her mound.

The shock of an openmouthed kiss on her collarbone.

A hand on her shoulder, urging her to kneel, this time on a pillow they’d put down for her.

The rasp of the rope as it made the first seductive contact against her upper body.

‘Round and ’round it went. Around her body. Circling her arms. Binding her wrists. Between her legs, snug against the slope where leg met body, opening her cunt. Between her br**sts and around to her back again.

She lost herself in the sensual array of the binding. The scent of rope and male arousal, the feel of fingertips contrasting with the rough hemp.

Her breathing grew deep and slow as her blood thrummed with the heady brew of hormones the rope always brought.

“So beautiful.” Ben spoke against her ear and she shivered.

And then the slither.

She heard the sound of the tails of the flogger, which Todd had grown to love. Leather on leather. She saw the move in her mind’s eye as he turned it in his hand. The low creak of the handle echoed in concert with her panting.

Her clit throbbed, extra-sensitive since the piercing. The cooler air of the room caressed her flesh as they moved, stirring the air.

She wasn’t expecting the first strike from the flogger, just barely touching her ni**les. Absently, she thought about how good Todd had gotten with it.

Again and again, until her body heated with the blood rising to the surface. She wasn’t hurting, just hypersensitive.

Ben against her back, the texture of his jeans as he put his calves just outside hers.

“Shall I make you come?” he asked, licking up the side of her neck to her ear.

She swallowed hard, trying to find words. Instead she managed to nod and he chuckled.

Arching. Her back arched as she pulled against the ropes, toward where Ben knelt behind her.

Struggling against disorientation and loss of balance, until she remembered they’d catch her and she relaxed.

Until Todd shoved her thighs apart and his mouth found her pu**y. A desperate moan surfaced as her fists opened and closed, wanting to touch the silk of his hair, to hold him to her.

Wave after glorious wave of pleasure rolled through her, sending her far away from herself even as the ropes, even as Todd’s hands on her thighs, even as Ben’s hands on her arms, kept her anchored.