Dangerous Boys and Their Toy

by Shayla Black

  “Oh God. No! I’ll give you money…”

  “No more warnings. Shut up, bitch, and get in the car,” growled the voice from the auto’s interior.

  No one was taking Brenna anywhere.

  Usually one to keep the peace, Cam welcomed the sudden feeling of wanting to cram their balls down their throats as he read them their rights.

  The car door opened, and a figure emerged, his gun still trained on her. He was a short man, bald and unfamiliar. But with the look of leather and the 70s porn-star moustache, he had to be one of Julio Marco’s lackeys.

  Brenna backed away with her hands up, and the goon with the dirty wife-beater shirt grabbed her shoulders roughly. Beside Cam, Thorn tensed.

  “Don’t fire,” he hissed at the bounty hunter.

  “Bullshit! I won’t let them take—”

  “I’ll do it. Sneak around to the side yard and back me up.”

  After hesitating, Thorn took off to get in place. Within moments, the bounty hunter crouched behind a huge bird of paradise plant some ten yards away and nodded.

  Taking a deep breath, Cam focused on the criminals, and did his best to block Brenna’s terrified cries of “no, please” out of his head as she dug in her heels while they dragged her closer to the open car door. If he squeezed this shot off right, he’d have time to comfort her later.

  Briefly, he thought of having Thorn call for backup. No time, first of all. Second, admitting that he’d spent the night with someone who was potentially aiding and abetting an alleged felon wasn’t exactly high on the ethical charts. Besides, they had surprise on their side.

  “Freeze. Police!” he shouted.

  As he hoped, the two criminals jolted, momentarily taking their eyes off Brenna as they scanned the area, searching for the source of the warning. Brenna took advantage of their distraction and jabbed her elbow into the concave abdomen of the meth head, who grunted and clutched his belly, and released her.

  She darted back toward the house.

  Not about to let her go, Baldy raised his gun and pointed it at her back.

  Cam fired off a warning shot, barely missing the guy with the gun—on purpose. The bullet pinged off his souped-up red pimpmobile. He would have simply shot the asshole, but he wasn’t worth the paperwork—at least so far. If he threatened Brenna again, Cam vowed he’d use the greasy bastard’s forehead for target practice.

  Out of nowhere, Thorn appeared and snagged Brenna around the waist, soothing her with a whisper as he dragged her safely into hiding.

  Breathing easier now, Cameron met the threat of the two thugs head on.

  “Backup is on the way. Stay where you are,” he reached for his cuffs and lied through his teeth, knowing there was no way in hell they’d comply.

  Julio Marco was aggressive and liked to win. But if getting caught was likely, that was to be avoided at all costs. And if his hired guns were taken into police custody, Marco would deny all knowledge of them. Their lives would be worth next to nothing after that.

  Judging by the way they hauled ass into the car, slammed doors and squealed tires away from Curtis’ cottage, they knew it too.

  But he didn’t have time for sighs of relief.

  Jogging across the cactus and gravel yard, he pushed past the metal gate and found Thorn and Brenna safe and in one piece—almost literally.

  With his back to the concrete fence that separated the cottage’s pool area from scrub and desert, Thorn had wrapped muscled arms around Brenna’s huddled form. She burrowed into the safety of his bare chest. With one hand on his gun and the other in her hair, he whispered and soothed her, pressing hot, hard kisses to her lips.

  If the situation hadn’t been so damn dire, he would have smiled.

  As soon as Thorn saw Cam, he tensed. “They gone?”

  “Yes.”

  Thorn tucked his gun into the waistband at the small of his back then tightened his arms around Brenna, who was stiff and trembling against him. “It’s okay, baby. You’re safe.”

  “For how long?”

  Good question. The fact that Julio Marco’s goons were here and threatening Brenna with violence told him two things—one, Marco didn’t have the faintest clue where Curtis had slipped away to, and two, the human smuggler knew that Brenna was important enough to Curtis to want to abduct her and use her as leverage.

  The time for Mr. Nice Guy had come to an end.

  “Pack a bag,” Cameron barked. “Quick. We need to be out of here in five minutes.”

  “What… Why?”

  “They’ll be back with reinforcements and enough fire power to blow up the side of this mountain.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip. “Can’t we call the police?”

  “Sure, but they’ll take you in to question you about Curtis’ disappearance. And you’re insane if you think Julio Marco can’t get to you there. We’d be barred from protecting you. I’m not comfortable with that.”

  “I like my odds better with you. Where are we going?”

  Cameron paused. “My place. You’re going to tell us about your relationship with Curtis and what you know of his whereabouts.”

  He turned and made his way to the back door, jimmying the lock with a credit card and a few seconds’ patience.

  “How did you do that?” Thorn demanded.

  “I wasn’t always a cop,” he said over his shoulder with a smile.

  * * * * *

  In a handful of minutes, Brenna had dressed and tossed her belongings back into her suitcase. That wasn’t hard, considering the fact she’d barely unpacked when she arrived in Arizona. She heard clattering in the kitchen and assumed Cameron was doing his best to clean up after breakfast. Thorn was watching her with an unblinking stare, his laser gaze following her around the room as she grabbed the last of her belongings.

  The intensity of that gaze dredged up memories that weren’t conducive to efficient packing. She was basically fleeing for her life. Why was her gaze clinging to Thorn? Why the hell was she wet?

  “Stop staring,” she snapped. “You’re making me nervous.”

  He rolled his bare shoulders then bent to pick up the vest he’d discarded last night, followed by his boots. “It’s either stare at you or fuck you. We don’t have time for the latter.”

  True. And she should be relieved. He and Cam had been overwhelming last night, and she was still shocked by what she’d done, and the fact that, for them, she had had an almighty orgasm so powerful, it had nearly blown her head off. But she wasn’t relieved that the situation now demanded prudence. She was annoyed. And scared.

  Exiting the bathroom with the last of her toiletries, she stuffed them into a bag. As soon as she emerged, Thorn propelled her back, holding out a wide palm to slam the door behind her before he shoved her against it. Brenna dropped her bag with a gasp as he fitted his body against hers, his mouth hovering right over her own. She couldn’t mistake the erection digging into the apex of her thighs.

  “But we’re going to make time later. A whole lot of time.”

  His voice was a rumble that vibrated through her, exciting every nerve ending inside her that had lain dormant for…well, her whole life.

  She’d always felt the sting of abandonment just beneath her skin. Like people could see her version of the scarlet letter, a big, black A on her forehead that shouted the fact she’d never been wanted, that everyone would always leave her. And should, as if she somehow deserved it.

  It didn’t feel like Thorn was going anywhere anytime soon.

  “We should go,” she whispered breathlessly.

  “That’s the only thing keeping clothing on your body now, baby.”

  Aggressive. But she’d known Thorn was from the moment he’d awakened her after tying her to Curtis’ bed. She shivered.

  “Now,” said Cam from the doorway of the bedroom, where he took in the scene with watchful eyes, “We need to get you in the truck. And you need to tell us everything you know about Curtis.”

  It was time.

/>   And then…then she’d see how long they stayed.

  * * * * *

  Three minutes later, they were piled into the bench seat of Cam’s pick up, Brenna in the middle. Thorn’s cycle lay in the truck’s bed. Normally, he’d never surrender his bike for a ride with a cop in sleek black truck.

  When the hell had staying beside Brenna and hearing her story become more important?

  If he wanted his fifty thousand, he needed to hear whatever she knew about Curtis and his whereabouts, but Thorn feared his refusal to unglue himself from her side was more than that. And although he was hard as concrete for her, it wasn’t just sex. But defining it… Nope, he wasn’t going there.

  “How do you know Curtis?” Cameron laid a gentle hand on her knee and squeezed as they drove away from Lawton’s cottage. “We need to know what we’re up against.”

  She hesitated, pausing to glance at him then Cam. She swallowed. “He’s my father.”

  Thorn’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d said she was a three-breasted alien from Jupiter.

  Her gaze met his again then skittered away. She focused on her wringing hands in her lap. “I see you’re shocked.”

  “I shouldn’t be, I suppose,” Cam said. “I knew you weren’t his mistress.”

  “I never believed he’d let you stay at his place if you were just a friend of a friend,” Thorn added.

  But daughter? Man…

  “We aren’t close.” Brenna licked her lips. “In fact, I hadn’t seen him since my high-school graduation. Before that…he left me with my aunt when I was a baby.”

  What the fuck? For all that his old man had been a lousy parent, he’d never dumped him on someone else’s doorstep. Nope, good old Ronald had kept him around for every lousy, squalor- and hunger-filled day, cementing in his head the fact that drugs were thicker than blood.

  “He gave me away shortly after my mother died. He let my aunt and her husband adopt me, signed away all parental rights.” Her face flushed, and she frowned, fighting tears. “As an adult, I knew his abandonment had affected my ability to have a relationship. Until January, I was engaged. Great guy. But my…coldness made him feel like a failure, and he couldn’t accept that the failing was mine. So…”

  “So you parted ways,” Cam finished.

  She nodded.

  “You couldn’t come because piece-of-shit Curtis ditched his responsibility.” Thorn told it like it was, and the anger over that fact made him want to pound the dirtbag’s face.

  “Pretty much, yes.”

  “And then your fiancé couldn’t hack it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Asshole,” Thorn muttered.

  Cameron squeezed her knee again, then glided his hand up her thigh, up, up… Thorn thought of all the things that hand might do to Brenna and started to sweat.

  “Something about being with us changed that.” Cam didn’t ask, just stated.

  “With both of you near me, surrounding me, inside me…” She flushed. “I felt protected. The way you enveloped me, it was like I would never be alone again. You two filled me so full, it felt right.” She shrugged. “It was somehow easy to believe that I was worthy of your desire and that you’d just…I don’t know. Like you’d always be there for me. But I don’t expect anything,” she was quick to assure. “I know it was just the one night.”

  For some reason, her words pissed Thorn off. Despite what he’d told Cam, he’d say when they were done, damn it.

  Which made no sense. He hadn’t planned to stick around, and was still torn between keeping his distance and indulging the hunger for her sizzling in his veins and licking at his balls. Now… Thorn would walk away when the time came, he always did. But knowing he’d been instrumental in helping her accomplish something that had always eluded her, that he’d helped her to feel something she’d needed so badly… Well, it was heady. And he wasn’t sure how could just turn his back.

  Why the fuck did she matter?

  And why the hell did seeing Cam’s hand absently caressing her make him hard?

  Thorn tore his gaze away from the two of them and glanced out the windshield, glancing at the side mirrors. The morning rush hour was beginning to pick up, so it was impossible to determine if they were being trailed by Marco’s heavies.

  “How far away?” he asked. “We have to get out of sight quickly.”

  Cam sent him a sharp nod, checking the side mirrors himself. “I don’t see that we’re being followed but it’s hard to tell. Too many cars… My place is close, the address secret, but if you have a better idea…”

  “No. Fuck… Every criminal in creation knows how to find me. Your place works. We just need to get into hiding. Being out in the open is making me itchy.”

  Brenna placed a calming touch on his arm. “Thank you.”

  For what? He hadn’t done nearly enough to keep her safe, or she wouldn’t have been in any danger this morning. That little furrow between her brows said that she was…concerned about him. Worried, even. Amazing. She’d nearly been abducted this morning and she was calming him?

  Sweet southern sugar with a hint of sass, that was Brenna. She melted like fine chocolate between him and Cam. She soothed like silk when she thought they were worried. This was a new female for him. She wasn’t here for the party or for the sex, the ride with a bad boy or a good time. Why was she here, beyond wanting to feel like a whole woman? Why trust them?

  “You look so damn calm, baby,” he commented.

  She sent him a soft smile. “You two are with me.”

  As if that said it all. Already, after just a few hours, she trusted them. Wow. He’d never been anyone’s savior and would have bristled at the suggestion in the past. He had his own shit to deal with. But Brenna… She needed him for more than his dick or his ability to fuck her multiple times a night.

  Did he have more to give? And what about Cam?

  Thorn leaned around Brenna to find the detective calmly driving. A right turn off the main drag, a left turn onto a residential street. A direct glance from those all-seeing dark eyes right into his.

  Cam was going to fight—not him for the right to be with Brenna, but to keep the three of them together. What the hell? A ménage was fun every so often but for more than a night? No, he had to be reading Cam’s expression wrong. Right?

  With a glance out the mirrors and the back window as they wound through Cam’s neighborhood completely alone, it was clear that they’d shaken Marco’s thugs—for now.

  Though Thorn knew better than to imagine that would last, that did leave them plenty of time to explore exactly what would happen next between him and Cam and Brenna.

  * * * * *

  Tread carefully. Cam repeated the words to himself more than once.

  After pulling into his garage, he helped Brenna from his SUV and into the deserted confines of his house. She was skittish. Thorn followed them, downright jumpy.

  The unexpected visit from Marco’s goons had shaken the big bounty hunter up way more than expected, and that gave Cam hope. If Thorn didn’t give a rat’s ass about Brenna, he would have celebrated the fact he’d had a fight on his hands. The fact his instinct had been to shield Brenna, then get out of the action and soothe her? Very interesting…

  Cam himself wasn’t sure exactly why he was pursuing this…thing with Thorn and Brenna so hard. The sex had been off-the-charts amazing. He’d been elated to help Brenna with her orgasm problem. Everything about her turned him on, and he even liked her on the inside. The fact she was Curtis Lawton’s daughter threw a kink in the mess, but the issue wasn’t insurmountable.

  The addition of Thorn was an interesting dynamic. They weren’t good friends. What shocked Cam over and over was how natural the three of them had felt together. How aroused he’d been just by