Night Is Darkest by Jayne Rylon (books recommended by bts .TXT) 📕

“How would you know?” He tried to play it off.

“Because I love you, Mason. I love you both and I can see the same emotion reflected between the two of you no matter how hard you try to hide it.” His insides turned to molten lava—gooey, churning and red hot—as her statement firebombed the last shreds of his control. She pressed a tender kiss to his parted lips to soothe the sting of her next words. “Plus, Mama Rose pretty much said so.”

“What?” He flinched. “Ty told her about us?”

Too late, he realized he’d confirmed her suspicions. Shit, like that crazed kiss hadn’t already tipped her off. What had gotten into him? He knew better than to slip up and let his emotions run free. That went double when both Tyler and Lacey were near.

Lacey shook her head. “He didn’t have to, Mason. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. You two had me so twisted in knots, I doubted my instincts about how you felt toward me. I was too caught up in my own drama to pick up the friction between you.”

He scrubbed his hand across his face then swallowed hard. “Look, Lacey, I swear I won’t touch him again. I didn’t mean to kiss him now. It’s just that…”

“Mason Gregory Clark! Stop jumping to conclusions and listen to what I’m saying.” She gnashed her teeth when she shook his shoulders.

Stunned by her outburst, he only stared.

“Am I a casual fuck for you?”

“What the hell?” Caught off guard, he backpedalled. How could she even imagine that? God, he needed a minute to think when she wasn’t scrambling his logic into a mess. “No, of course not. Don’t you know I’ve wanted you forever? Still do.”

“I hoped.” She rested her forehead against his. “But I’m greedy. I want Ty, too.”

“Yeah. Shit, Lacey, I thought you realized that’s what we intended yesterday. This isn’t some kind of game.” No, he just needed to figure out how to give his lovers what they needed without putting them in danger.

“Perfect. Then let’s get back in there so I can watch you seduce Tyler.”

His cheeks flamed and his hands fisted in his hair. He tugged until the pain broke through his confusion. “Quit talking in circles! I didn’t say anything about being gay. Not that I have a problem with what other people do…it’s just not me. I’ve never wanted another guy in my life.”

He saw the mischief in her eyes a moment before she sprang her trap. That minx had him right where she wanted him! “If you don’t acknowledge your feelings for him, we’re both going to lose Ty. Would you take him from me because you’re too closed-minded to admit the truth? Straight with one exception, bi, gay… I don’t care how you think of yourself. The end result is the same. Somehow, we were lucky enough to have met not one, but two soulmates. How can I love a man who’s destroying the other man I love?”

“You don’t understand, Lacey.” Terror flavored the cocktail of emotions brewing inside him.

“Then explain it to me.” Her open-eyed gaze stole his breath. Somehow he’d make her understand.

“There are a lot of people in this world who aren’t as indulgent as you and Tyler.” He winced as he thought back, remembering the agony licking along his ribs at the edges of the fractured bones.

“What happened to you, Mason? Why are you so afraid?”

She traced the crinkled edges of his mouth as he winced. Only she would see the fear he kept shrouded. Tyler might have too if he hadn’t been so caught up in his misplaced self-doubts. That thought hurt far worse than the memory of forcing his broken body to crawl away, tumbling down the cement stairs in his father’s sidewalk with jarring crunches only to drag himself across the gravel driveway, never to return again.

“Tell me.”

The urgent whisper shattered his resistance. She wouldn’t back down until he forced her to understand the consequences. He’d never spoken of that night to anyone but it seemed like the only way now. But how should he start?

“Tyler and I have wanted you forever. When we were seventeen Tyler came to me, nervous. He told me that he knew I was in love with you. Of course, I’d seen the way he looked at you. I knew he felt the same. We made a pact that it would never come between us. When you were old enough to decide which one of us you wanted, the other would concede.”

He ignored her hiss and a whisper that sounded suspiciously like, “Morons.”

She cleared her throat and arched an eyebrow. “What if I didn’t want either of you?”

“I…uh…” He must have looked horrified because she let him off the hook with a reassuring smile. The unbridled lust in her eyes made it clear that wasn’t the issue here.

“So, why can’t we all get what we want, Mason?” This time her tone held curiosity. “You guys enjoy threesomes and we all love each other. What’s the problem?”

“We only started having threesomes because of you.” He latched onto the easiest subject for discussion.

“What?” She snorted. “I wasn’t born yesterday!”

“It’s true. After our agreement, we decided we should learn everything we could about sex before you came to one of us. We wanted to make all our mistakes on women who didn’t matter.”

“That’s a lot of practicing, Mason.”

The resentment she couldn’t quite conceal ate at his conscience. “I know, doll. Things got out of control. No matter how many women we took, or the things we tried with them, it was never enough. They could never be you. Then you came home from school that summer. I could tell you were scared. Rob came to us and told us you were off limits. That we were too rough