Page 51

"Wait," I say, before anyone can sit down. "There's one more present."

They turn around.

Rhydian looks delighted. Zarek looks confused. Kaelen frowns.

"You made another one?" he asks. "When? We'd have seen."

"Not this one." I grin at them. "Wait right there. Don't move."

I disappear into the bathroom and close the door behind me.

My hands are shaking.

I take off my clothes. All of them. Then I pick up the wide red ribbon I took from the solstice trunk this morning and hid in here, and I wrap it around myself. Over my breasts. Around my waist. Across my hips. I tie it in an enormous, ridiculous bow right in the front.

Then I look at myself in the mirror.

Gods. What am I doing?

I look ridiculous. I look like a solstice ham. I've completely lost my mind.

But then I think about them. About how careful they've been with me. All those nights they put my pleasure before their own and then walked barefoot out into the snow. Never once asking for anything.

I want to show them. I want them to know I want them, too. Just as much as they want me.

More.

I lift my chin and open the door.

When I step out into the main room wearing nothing but a red ribbon and a big bow, all three of them stop talking. Stop moving. Possibly stop breathing. The silence is so complete I can hear the fire crackle.

I give them a nervous little smile. My knees are shaking, but I lift my chin anyway.

"I've decided," I tell them, "that it's about time you got a present of your own."

Rhydian’s mouth opens and closes. For once in his life, he doesn't have a single clever thing to say.

"Elara," Zarek says. His voice is very low. "Are you certain?"

Kaelen doesn't say anything. He's staring at me like he's forgotten how lungs work.

"I've never been more certain of anything," I tell them.

They come toward me slowly. So slowly. Giving me every chance to change my mind. To laugh it off. To run back to the bathroom.

I don't.

Instead, I reach for them.

Zarek reaches me first, stopping in front of me. Rhydian and Kaelen reach my sides. And I don’t think I’ve ever been this aware of how much larger these men are than me. I’ve heard it… hurts. With such huge men it has to be worse, right?

Except I don’t think for a second any of them can hurt me.

Zarek leans down and our lips find each other, the way they’ve done a hundred times before, just over the course of this short time together. The kiss starts out soft and tender, and quickly changes into something else. Something deeper.

When he breaks our kiss, Rhydian’s hands go to the bow at my chest, to the red ribbon. His hands hover over the red fabric, but don’t touch me. He seems to be deciding where to start, and not knowing quite how to begin.

Kaelen shifts closer, dropping his face to my neck and breathing deeply. When he catches my scent, his breath becomes ragged, and I can feel the shudder that moves through him.