Morning came slowly.
Pale light pushed through the half-closed blinds and laid thin stripes across the ruined sheets. Zoe woke first, body heavy and deeply sore. The places they had used ached in a low, constant pulse—wrists faintly marked from the cuffs, ankles tender from the rope, the deeper throb between her legs and in her ass that made even shifting against the mattress feel significant. The flogger marks on her inner thighs had settled into a warm, dull heat.
Lucas’s arm was still draped over her waist. Ryan’s hand rested open on her hip. Both men were still asleep, breathing deep and even. The room smelled like s*x and sweat and the faint leather scent of the flogger that still lay on the floor beside the bed.
Zoe didn’t move for a long time. She simply lay there between them an
