“No!” I sob. My hands are twisted in the blankets, tears dripping from my face and soaking in. “No, please stop!”

“Who the hell said you get to decide that?” As I continue sobbing, he shouts, “Harder! Show her what happens when she tries to call the shots.”

Nix is panting now, his body getting slick with perspiration. I feel it on my ass and the backs of my thighs every time we slam together.

“Tell him to fuck your ass,” James grunts, standing close to me. “Do it. Say please, fuck my ass.”

“Please…” Just one more night. One more night, and it’s over.

“Please, what?”

I don’t want to, but I have to. I have to do it, or else they could seriously hurt me. It’s that fear that makes me do it. “Please, fuck my ass!” I shout. I barely recognize my own voice. I sound like some broken animal howling while James laughs.

“I don’t think I heard you. Say it again. Louder this time.”

A roar bursts out of me, and all the pain, humiliation, and shame come with it. I’ll do anything, say anything to make it stop. “Please, fuck my ass! Fuck my ass! Fuck my ass!” I scream it until my throat is raw and maybe bleeding. Until I lose my breath and my voice breaks.

But that’s nothing compared to the other scream that fills the room.

The scream coming from the doorway.

I open my eyes and look up to find my mother’s horror-filled face.

CHAPTER 34

It’s like all hell has broken loose, everything happening at once. Mom is frozen in the doorway, screaming while James immediately puts himself back in his pants, babbling the entire time.

Mom is hardly listening, too busy reacting to what she walked in on. “What the fuck is this? What are you doing? Leni, what is this? James!”

“I can explain. I didn’t mean for this to happen!” James insists while the guys offer their own excuses behind him, frantically pulling their clothes on.

She knows. She’s seen it with her own eyes. She can’t tell me it didn’t happen because she’s seen it. I’ve never felt this ashamed in my life. My heart is breaking, and I haven’t stopped crying yet, but at least she knows and can’t pretend otherwise.

“She’s been doing this from the beginning!” James thrusts his arm toward me when all I’m trying to do is cover myself up with the blankets as best I can. “She’s been seducing me from the minute you brought her here! I’m so ashamed.”

My insides go cold. After all the things he’s done so far, how did I not see this coming? “That’s not true!” I scream over him. “Mom, that isn’t true at all!”