by Shayla Black
Tate would reward her all night long.
Eric nodded. “Amen, brother. Did she eat anything tonight?”
He’d cooked a very nice roast that had filled the house all day with savory smells and made Tate’s stomach growl.
“A little, but I found her asleep at her grandmother’s desk with her plate half full,” Kellan grumbled. “I’m going to move the office into another room. The four of us need to sit down together at meals. This whole grabbing-a-tray-when-we-have-a-minute bit isn’t working, guys. We need to think things through.”
Scowling, Tate almost objected. He was always thinking. “Sorry, I had a six p.m. conference call. I couldn’t get out of it.”
And he’d eaten lunch at his computer because he’d gotten an emergency e-mail begging for clarification on a contract some clients hadn’t yet signed. Eric had been forced to leave to find a new router when the one they’d been using suddenly blew out. Tate blamed the flirty electrician.
“Clear your schedules tomorrow at eight, noon, and six. We’ll force Belle to sit down with us,” Kellan counseled.
“Yeah, like civilized people in a relationship.” Eric looked like his patience was at an end.
“She won’t admit we’re in a relationship.” Tate sure didn’t feel like he was in one, either.
“I really thought she’d give in by now,” Eric admitted, frustration contorting his expression and tightening his shoulders. His brows settled into a deep V. Tate might not be able to read most people, but he knew his best friend. “I hate how hard she’s working.”
“But she likes it. She seems happy.” He’d noticed her smiling and humming while she painted. There was a peace to her he’d never seen before. “I think we have to really consider the fact that she’s not going to leave this place. We fucked up.”
Maybe he should have let Kellan go and wrapped Belle in his arms for good. He could have kissed her and told her what she meant to him and maybe they wouldn’t feel as if they’d lost their chance with her. She could respond to his flirtations all day long, but if she didn’t give in or let herself fall in love, it wouldn’t matter.
And almost as soon as he finished the thought, Tate realized that he couldn’t abandon his friend. He felt disloyal for even thinking it.
“I’m sorry, guys.” Kellan stood up. “This is my fault.”
“Stop. No more apologies,” Tate insisted. “The question now is, what do you want out of this?”
Eric nodded. “Yeah, what do you want to do here? I think you should stay. Belle can handle you, but we’ve spent days just sitting around waiting for her to change her mind. It’s not working.”
“We need a plan.” They’d thought she would come around quickly, but Tate saw now she’d been serious about her career change. Just like she was serious about the move.
“What if we can’t get her to come home with us?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know, but I know I’m not giving up.” He loved her. He’d never felt for any woman what he did for Belle. He smiled more with her. He even liked himself better when he was around her. “If I have to move, I will. I love her. We need to put her first from now on.”
Eric held a hand up. “I agree. Putting her first is the only way this works, I think. If I really thought she couldn’t handle the type of relationship we want, I would allow her to choose one of us, but she needs us all. I think her reluctance now is about her wounded pride and her inexperience, not any fear she has about having more than one man.”
“I don’t know,” Kellan hedged. “You two need to show her you can make her life better. That starts with being organized. You’re right about putting her first and giving her what she needs. Any good Dom does. That means prioritizing her above business, too. Tomorrow we help her. All three of us. I’ve looked at your schedules and almost everything can wait.”
Tate thought through his calendar tomorrow, then nodded. He’d helped with painting today, and he’d felt wonderfully close to her for those precious hours. They’d joked and bantered like old times, but a new awareness had hummed between them. While he’d worked beside her, he’d been almost perfectly content. If he could have kissed her when they’d finished and taken her to bed, he’d be the happiest bastard on the planet. Instead, when she’d tidied up for the night, Tate had sensed her pulling away. The distance between them gnawed at him.
But that wasn’t the only thing troubling him.
“I want to look into that lawyer of her grandmother’s. I heard some of their conversation today and I didn’t like it. He told her he had to have an inventory of the house before the court will sign off on the will.”
Sure, probate law differed slightly from state to state, but if Marie Wright had left everything to her granddaughter and Belle didn’t have any contentious relatives to share the estate with, Tate couldn’t think of any reason the state would need a complete inventory.
“What? That makes no sense.” Eric frowned. “I guess that explains all the five-year-olds in ties crawling inside the house today.”
“Yeah. Look into that lawyer,” Kellan said. “These interns weren’t just jotting down an inventory. They were poking and prodding and taking shit apart. And we should also look into our dear friend, Mike the electrician. He crawls up my back.”
Tate kind of hated the fucker, too. He especially didn’t like the way ol’ Mikey smiled at Belle, as if the expression was a come-on. He was one charming asshole who needed to keep his eyes off other guys’ girls. Except she wasn’t really his. Crap, did she like the electrician? He probably didn’t cite statistics or verbally offer his penis.
“I don’t think he’s very good at his job,” Tate asserted. “He got lost all over the house. I had to tell him where to go three times today.”
“I’d like to tell him where to go,” Eric growled. “I know there are a lot of rooms in this house, but he seemed more interested in what was in Belle’s personal space than any wiring behind the walls.”
“I watched him, too. I agree,” Kellan said, sitting back. “So are we all on the same page?”
Well, two of them were. Kellan just happened to write the page. He wasn’t actually on it with them. Tate just had to keep hoping that Kell’s feelings for Belle would eventually fix that. “Are you going to help us out?”
Kellan’s jaw tightened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“So you’re going to let the bitch from hell keep defeating you.” Tate was really sick of the excuses.
“You don’t understand,” Kellan shot back, obviously trying to be patient with him.
And he was sick of people’s patient attitudes as they talked down to him, too. Yes, he was socially awkward, but he wasn’t a moron. “I understand that if you let Belle go, your ex and your dad have won again.”
Kellan forced his chair back, the loud scrape filling up the quiet room. “Again, you know nothing about the situation, so it would be best if you stayed out of it. You weren’t raised the way I was. You weren’t dragged through shit by your own family.”
Tate couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling. “Yeah, man, my childhood was a blast. So was Eric’s.”
“Your father didn’t impregnate your wife,” Kellan ground out.
“And your dad didn’t lock you in a room for three days when you came home with a 92 on a test.” Everyone had their troubles. Sometimes Kellan couldn’t see past his, and Tate realized he’d been treating his pal with kid gloves. Time to take them off.
“Your dad did that?” Kellan asked, horrified.
Tate could remember how humiliating it had been. “He left me with two bottles of water and a loaf of bread and he said that was how I would have to live if I didn’t study harder. And your dad didn’t tell you that you were a worthless wimp because you pulled out of football after your second concussion led to short-term memory loss.”
Eric held up a hand. “That was my asshole dad. He was a man’s man. Men played football. Brain damage was just a minor battle scar in his bo
ok. Look, none of us had it great in the dad department. My mom has only been a good parent since she left my dad.”
“And you didn’t have to contend with two brothers who called you a moron because you snuck in a little TV time at a neighbor’s house. The brainless box rots intelligence, according to my mother. They forbid television, books that weren’t academic, and most sports. Absolutely no girls. Hell, friends were even discouraged. I didn’t really have one until I met Eric.” The awkward day in high school when he’d been assigned to force some math into the jock’s head had been the single biggest turning point in his life.
“Okay,” Kell conceded. “So we all had some form of shithead for a father.”
“But that’s the past,” Tate stressed. “I think our future is upstairs in bed by herself because we didn’t handle her right. I don’t want to be that kid stuck in a room again. I broke out of it a long time ago and I won’t go back in. Whatever cell your bitch of an ex locked you in, you need to shove the door open. Otherwise, you’re letting her trap you inside.”
Eric’s eyes went wide. “Wow, Tate. That is the most emotionally astute thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, man.”
“I can learn.” He rolled his eyes.
He’d actually worked really hard to figure out why the people he cared about did the things they did. He just wasn’t always right. In this case, though, he was dead-on.
“I think Belle needs all of us, and that means you need to stop thinking with your PTSD-damaged heart and let your dick take over, Kell. Your dick is way smarter.”
“And there it goes.” Eric shook his head. “Obviously, his emotional intelligence comes in fits and starts.”
Tate wasn’t going to apologize for being blunt. He was right. If Kell would just follow his instincts and realize how much he valued Belle, they would all be happier. “Unless you really are turned off by the virgin thing.”
Kellan growled his way. “Of course I’m not. But I don’t think I can take care of her the way she deserves. I’ve explained that. She needs a husband and a family.”
“She’ll have one. Two actually,” Eric replied.
At least one of his friends backed him up. Tate was pretty sure if Kellan managed to let go of his fear, he’d find himself in a happy place. But so far, he kept managing to overthink the situation and continually fuck it up.
“Fine. We’ll take care of Belle,” Tate offered. “You can show up just for sex.”
But it wouldn’t be just sex, he knew. Kellan would balk at the notion that making love with Belle would be therapy, though it would be. For Tate, it would be coming home. Still, Kellan needed to keep things casual because he wasn’t over the hatchet his ex and his asshole of a dad had taken to his soul. Tate would give Kell one thing: at least he’d never had to see his dad naked and doing the nasty with his girl. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure even his mom had never seen his dad naked. Tate figured he and his brothers had been conceived in some petri dish because the idea of his parents boinking didn’t compute.
His life would have been like that—sterile and void of emotion—if they’d had their way. He would have dedicated himself to solving intellectual problems without ever really understanding what life meant. It was incomplete without friendship and love. Sometimes that meant sitting around watching action movies on a Saturday night. Sometimes that meant taking stock of who and what was important to you. A million little details and moments made up a life. Eric had taught him that. In some ways, Kellan had, too. It was why he couldn’t just let the guy simply drift away. Belle came first, yes, but his friends ran a very close second.
He wanted to have it all.
“I doubt Belle is going to be interested in that kind of relationship,” Kellan hedged, though it was easy to see he was thinking about it and aching for it.
“Just come have breakfast with us.” The first step to solving any problem was developing a hypothesis, and his was that Kellan wouldn’t be able to resist if he stayed around a while longer. If he was sleeping next to Belle every night, he’d be unable to keep his distance for long.
Shit. Another problem hit him squarely between the eyes.
“Wait, guys. There are three of us. Where does number three sleep?” Tate shuddered a little. “I can’t cuddle with Eric. It’s just…no.”
He’d had a vision of sleeping next to Belle, his arms wrapped around her. He could wake up to her sweet scent and the soft feel of her skin, then roll her over and slide inside her before they were really awake. That would be damn near impossible if his best friend was in between them.
Someone needed to write a book of ménage advice.
Eric laughed out loud. “I think we’ll have to deal with that problem when we come to it, buddy.”
Eric could laugh all he wanted, but this seemed like a real conundrum.
And then a high-pitched scream cut through the house. Tate’s heart damn near stopped. He leapt to his feet. “Belle.”
Eric and Kell jumped up, too. They were running for the stairs before the sound died, and Tate prayed he could make it to her in time.
Chapter Eleven
Belle lay a trembling hand over her mouth, then reached for her nightstand to turn on the lamp and crawled from bed. When a golden glow illuminated the room, she scanned it, panting wildly. But she saw no sign of the person she’d sworn had just whispered in her ear.
After an exhausting day painting—that reminded her she’d grown unused to physical labor—the comfortable bed had lured her. The quiet had enveloped her, lulling somewhere between awareness and sleep. Just before she’d dropped into the dark chasm of slumber, she thought she’d heard the menacing hiss of a warning.
Get out before he gets you, too.
Then an ear-splitting cry had jarred her awake.
Panting, Belle let her skittish stare bounce around the room. No one visible, but the idea of a stranger in her bedroom made her nauseous. Fear shook her. Had someone been here earlier? Her door was still shut, as was her window. How would anyone have gotten in? Where? It looked somewhere between unlikely and impossible. But she would absolutely swear that someone had stood over her in the dark and whispered the warning.
Maybe it had been a dream? It was possible that between Mr. Gates’s warning that the house was haunted and total exhaustion, her imagination had kicked into overdrive.
Belle turned back to glance at the bed. Sir yawned, looking at her with a slightly enquiring gaze, mostly as if asking when she’d turn the damn light off again so they could sleep. But the dog wasn’t barking. She let out a pent-up breath. If Sir wasn’t yipping his little head off, then they were alone in the room. Heck, he sometimes barked even when no one was there. She needed to calm down and stop letting her weirdly vivid dreams get the best of her.
Belle decided to stop freaking out and let it go, but even as she began climbing back in bed, Belle found herself mentally replaying the dream. Had the scream she’d heard been a part of her nightmare…or something real? She couldn’t remember.
Then as she turned to her nightstand, telling herself to kill the light and get some sleep, an unexpected sight snagged her attention. Written on the wall above her grandmother’s antique vanity in a pigment that looked unnervingly red were the words get out while you can.
Belle opened her mouth to cry out again just as the door flew open. Tate ran in, his eyes wild. Clearly, the scream she’d heard had been real. Had it been hers?
Immediately, he strode to her, his big hands encasing her shoulders as he looked her over, worry written on his face. “What happened?”
Eric charged in right behind him, looking every bit as ready to defend her. “Is someone in the house?”
Kellan stopped in the doorway, gripping her grandmother’s cane in one hand and his cell phone in the other. “Do I need to call 911?”
Heart pounding violently, she pointed to the opposite wall. As she read the warning once more, she sidled as close to Tate as she could, taking the comfort a
nd protection his big body offered.
Kellan stormed over to the wall and studied the writing there. “What the fuck?”
“I was almost asleep. Someone whispered similar words in my ear. At least I thought I heard that. I don’t know. Maybe it was a dream, but…”
Tate wrapped his arms around her and brought her closer against him. Eric opened the doors to the adjoining closet and en suite bathroom. Both empty.
“Stay with her,” Kellan told the other two. He didn’t wait for them to answer. He immediately dialed his phone and paced to the landing. “I need the police, please. There’s been an intruder in my girlfriend’s home.”
