by Krista Wolf
My heart swelled, my whole body filled with emotion. One by one I stared at them; their eyes all locked on me. I marveled at the looks of contentment on their handsome faces. The genuine sincerity of their warm, happy smiles.
This is where you belong.
For once the voice inside me wasn’t sarcastic, or negative, or even the slightest bit skeptical. It was encouraging. Affirmative.
They’ve been looking for you. And somehow, you… them.
I’d never felt safer and more secure. More needed and desired and protected, than with these three gorgeous, perfect men.
“I love you.”
I said it calmly and firmly, to all three of them at once. Their already excited faces lit up even more.
“We love you too, Brooke,” said Adam. “All of us.”
A lump formed in my throat. The others were staring back at me, eyes glimmering from the little candle in the center of our table.
“I’ve loved you since you first stepped into our elevator,” said Dante. “And didn’t run screaming when we closed the gate.”
I laughed, and my face split with the biggest smile. Then I felt a soft touch, and Trey took my hand.
“I loved you the moment you finished that half-sui all by yourself,” he smiled. “From that moment on, I knew you were my girl.”
I practically flung myself across the table, straight into their arms. Hugging and kissing each and every one of them, far past caring if anyone saw.
By the time we were finished, the four of us were staring at an empty restaurant. The tables were stripped, with fresh linens being set out for tomorrow. Someone was starting a vacuum up, back in the far corner.
“We should celebrate,” said Adam. His mouth curled into an almost demonic smirk.
“We definitely should…” I said, letting my voice go sultry. “But not tonight. It’s late, and we all have an early day tommorow.” I rubbed at my belly. “Plus, we’re stuffed so full of Chinese food right now, it might not be our greatest performance.”
Adam laughed, and the others laughed with him. They surrounded me in a little circle, as we rose from our table and traded hugs.
“And it needs to be a great performance…” I added with a wink.
Forty-Two
BROOKE
His kisses were tantalizingly slow, his tongue swirling along mine as I fell even deeper into oblivion. It was exactly what he wanted. To fill me with such excitement and longing that I couldn’t possibly resist. To make me so totally, ridiculously wet, his offer would be one I couldn’t refuse.
And goddammit, it was working.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?”
We were still in my car. Illegally parked against the curb of the faculty housing lot, where we’d spent the last fifteen minutes steaming up all six of my windows. I was laying across Trey’s body, my shirt already half-off. Still kissing him slowly, while dragging my nipples over his beautifully muscled chest.
“We can’t…” I protested weakly. “It’s really late, Trey. Besides, we promised the others we’d wait for—”
“The others aren’t nearly as worked up as I am,” he said. He rolled his hips, grinding his hard-on between my legs. “And hey, it’s not my fault you needed to give me a ride home.”
Well, it’s kind of mine, my mind registered, but didn’t say. I thought about his poor slashed tires. The guilt came creeping back.
“And it’s not my fault you drive sexy,” he said, reaching down to squeeze my ass. “Or that I couldn’t keep my hands off you the entire way.”
“That part actually is your fault,” I admonished him.
“Really?” Trey said playfully. He kissed my ear, and I shivered violently. “Because I really didn’t notice you complaining…”
Complaining was the last thing on my mind during the ride over. Trey had spent half the ride kissing my neck, his hard body molded against mine. The other half…
The other half he’d spent with his hands doing other things.
It was an interesting trip, to say the least. Trey unbuttoning and unzipping me, then sinking his palm slowly downward along my quivering stomach. I gasped as he pierced the waistband of my panties. Nearly swatted him away, as he began rubbing my soaked, naked mound.
But when he slid a finger inside me… well, that’s when the drive took a turn for the seriously distracted. I slowed my speed by twenty miles per hour and still found it hard to stay within the lines. Over and over he penetrated me with that one thick digit, piercing me, teasing me until I was groaning and squirming in my seat.
I couldn’t help but focus on the smell of him… the feel of him. The slow, wet tracings of his ever-talented tongue, dragging itself slowly all along my bare neck and shoulder.
“Maybe just a few minutes?” he breathed into my ear. His hands squeezed hard, cupping both my cheeks. The tips of his fingers were even closer now, brushing the very edges of my pussy.
Ohhh…
“We could do it quick,” he said suggestively. “Fast and hard. Right in the kitchen, if you want to. We don’t even have to make it to the bed, I could just bend you over the table and…”
Trey went on hotly, detailing all the filthy things he planned to do while I gripped the faux wood edge of his kitchen table. I was breathing so fast I couldn’t hide it anymore. Squirming. Churning…
“O—Okay,” I gasped, almost bolting upright. “Okay. Just… we have to be—”
“I promise to make it worth your while,” Trey winked and smiled. Then he was up and opening the door. Stepping out toward the little walkway that wound along the side of the building.
I pulled my shirt down, took his hand, and followed.
“You’re not going to regret this,” he smiled. He was walking backwards now. Holding me by both my hands. “In fact—”
He stopped talking so abruptly I immediately knew something was wrong.
Trey winced hard and his jaw clenched shut, like someone who’d just bitten their tongue and couldn’t talk right away. When his eyes opened again, they seemed focused on something very distant and far away. His face was contorted into a mixture of confusion and pain.
“Trey…?”
He turned. Halfway at first, then all the way around. His feet dragged on the little sidewalk, then his knees buckled. I reached for him, but it was utterly hopeless.
“TREY!”
My lover was just too tall, too big. Even with me clutching him, he went down like a sack of bricks. It wasn’t until after he slammed to the ground that I saw the figure standing behind him. His assailant had been eclipsed entirely by my lover’s broad body…
When I saw who it was, I nearly threw up.
Forty-Three
BROOKE
“Hi Brooke. Are you okay?"
My ex-boyfriend stood menacingly on the sidewalk, a police-issue nightstick in his hand. I knew this because he collected them. His stepfather had been on the force, and at one point in his life Chris had been obsessed with becoming a cop.
“Are you alright?” he asked again quickly. He reached for me and grabbed my wrist. “I saw you struggling with that guy, pulling you along and—”
“CHRIS WHAT THE FUCK!?”
I yanked my wrist away violently and knelt down. Trey had fallen, but he was still moving. I was screaming at him to get up.
“It looked like he might be yanking you into a building,” Chris continued. He was speaking very fast, something he always did when he was nervous. “I—I mean… he had you by both hands. He was practically dragging you across the sidewalk, and—”
Trey rose. His body slowly uncoiled to its full height, his chest heaving, his big arms hanging by his sides. I saw his jaw tighten. His hands flex a few times, before curling into fists.
Chris saw it too.
“Trey…” I said, putting a hand on his chest.
In the cold shadows on the side of the building, I saw all the blood rush to my lover’s face. He looked huge and red and very, very a
ngry.
“Trey, please, listen…”
Chris ran. Trey bolted after him. I was powerless to stop any of it. It all happened so goddamn fast.
“WAIT!”
Chris was running along the sidewalk, toward the front of the building. He’d just turned the corner when Trey caught up to him. He grabbed his assailant by the hood. Yanked him back with such strength and ferocity, I thought for sure he’d snap his neck.
Oh my God…
I heard a strangled gurgling, as Chris continued trying to run and breathe at the same time. But it was no use. Trey already had him.
I winced as Trey picked Chris up, and his feet left the ground. He flipped him over his broad back, Chris’s arms and legs floating limply through the air like a rag doll’s. There was a bone-jarring crack as Trey slammed him hard to the pavement… right in front of the double-doors to the faculty dorm complex.
“TREY!” I screamed.
He finally heard me and looked up. His face was bright red, like an angry bull. His expression was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
Two people rushed up the walkway from the other direction — a man and a woman. They both stopped over Chris’s limp body.
“Call 911!”
I stood there a moment, dumbfounded. Trey’s chest was heaving mightily, up and down, as he stared down at Chris’s crumpled, motionless form.
“Didn’t you HEAR ME?” the woman screamed at me. “Call 911! NOW!”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed the number mechanically. I don’t even remember what I said. Somehow I got through the questions, gave them the info they needed. They kept me on the line until I heard the sirens. Until the flash of red and blue lights was bouncing crazily against the building, the crowd that had started to form, and even Chris.
“Is he breathing?” Trey asked at last. “Is he—”
“Yes. But he’s out.”
I stumbled over to Trey. He was still staring down, looking at what he’d done. I could tell from the look in his eyes, there was remorse there.
“Trey…”
He didn’t answer. The first police were sprinting their way over. They were almost here.
“I need to tell you something.”
Slowly he turned to look at me. I could see the misery in his eyes. The regret.
“I know this guy,” I said, pointing downward.
Trey blinked in astonishment. “You do?”
“Yes. He’s… he’s been following me. Harassing me. Not leaving me alone.”
“Wait, what?”
“Listen to me,” I said. “It’s complicated, but I work with him too. Well, not with him, but in the same building, the same company. He’s… He’s… Chloe’s brother.”
Trey shook his head as if to clear it. Hair flopped over his eyes, hiding them momentarily. It was just as well, because I could barely even look at him now.
“He’s also… my ex-boyfriend.”
If Trey was stunned or surprised, it didn’t even register. Either he’d reached his emotional limits, or he was still processing everything I’d just told him.
Either way I had no chance to find out. The man and woman tending to Chris were pointing at us now. The police separated us, and the next thing I knew Trey was being tucked in the back of a squad car.
Forty-Four
ADAM
I woke sometime around one in the morning, with Dante shaking me roughly. He was saying something I couldn’t hear. Or rather, something I couldn’t understand until I’d rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
“Get dressed. It’s Trey.”
I bolted upright, instantly awake. My roommate was pulling on his boots. I noticed he’d already thrown on the rest of his clothes.
“What is it? Is he alrigh—”
“Trey’s been arrested. Assault.”
“Trey?” I almost wanted to laugh.
“Yeah, just outside his building. Something to do with Brooke. She was the one who called us.”
I glanced at my phone, and its dead black screen. I’d forgotten to plug it in.
“What’d she say?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
It was a short ride to the police station, as we lived in that part of town. Everything was cold, icy. Covered in glimmering, shimmering frost.
Dante talked, telling me what little he knew. Trey had knocked someone unconscious in front of his building. And not just anyone…
“If this asshole assaulted him,” I asked when he was finished, “How the fuck does Trey get arrested?”
“Dunno.”
“Are they letting him out?”
“Dunno.”
We reached the station, and waited a good fifteen minutes before being brought into one of the back rooms. Brooke rushed to us tearfully, flinging herself into our arms.
“It’s okay…” I said. “It’s alright.”
“It’s not alright,” she sniffed. “They’re booking him. They’re charging him right now. And he didn’t even do anything! Chris just… just blindsided him with a baton, and—”
“Chris?”
She lowered her chin to her chest. A cascade of tangled blonde hair fell into her face.
“Chris is my ex-boyfriend,” she said miserably. “He works for the magazine too, in the same building. He… he’s possessive of me. He still thinks we’re kinda together.”
“And why does he think that?” asked Dante.
“Because he’s a fucking psycho,” Brooke cried. “We broke up over a year ago. This whole time, he’s been chasing me. Courting me. Trying to get me back, and—”
“And you never told us any of this?” I asked, somewhat annoyed.
“No,” she sniffed again. “I— I was worried it might scare you away.”
“Scare us away?” Dante asked incredulously. “Why in the world would it—”
“Because things were already so complicated,” she said. “At first I was ‘Hannah’, and then I came clean, and then there were still problems with the article, the names…” Our girlfriend dropped her face into her hands and shook her head. “I just didn’t want to add anything else,” she said. “There were just so many things aligned against us, and Chris means absolutely nothing.”
I sat down and slid one hand past her shoulder. Gently, I pulled her into the crook of my arm.
“Nothing is aligned against us,” I said encouragingly. “Not anymore.”
“Adam’s right,” Dante said. “You can tell us anything, Brooke. Just… level with us.”
She swallowed and pinned her hair back over one ear. But I saw a change. A slump of relief in the tension of her shoulders. The faintest traces of a weak smile.
“You guys are the best,” she cried miserably. “You really are…”
“We know,” Dante grinned. “Things might look bleak, but Trey’s alright and that’s all that matters. So try to relax. No matter what happened, this is all going to work itself out.”
She nodded again and sat up a little straighter. I held her tight, while Dante made a quick trip to a nearby vending machine. He returned, and handed her a cold bottle of water.
“Now take it one step at a time,” I said. “Tell us everything, and leave nothing out.”
She told us the whole story, from the two of them making out in the car, to the admission they were headed into Trey’s place for a quickie. I should’ve guessed that part. If I’d been the one who needed a ride home, I would’ve done the same exact thing.
“So he knocked Trey out from behind,” said Dante. “One shot.”
“Not out. Down.”
“With a police baton,” I added.
“Yes.”
“And then Trey got up and chased him down, and flipped him onto the pavement.”
“Yes, and that’s all the other people happened to see. To them it looked like Trey attacked Chris from behind! And that’s what they told the police. That’s why they arrested him, and—”
“So where’s the nightstick?”
“W—What?”
“The police baton,” Dante said. “The cops said this guy Chris was unarmed when they found him. They searched him before taking him to the hospital.”
Brooke’s eyes lit up with hope. “Then he must’ve dropped it! Probably on the side of the building!”
I looked at Dante. He nodded quickly. “I’ll take care of it.”
I watched my friend walk off to find the nearest officer. Whatever happened, we needed to get back to the scene. The baton could exonerate Trey entirely, or at least corroborate Brooke’s story.
“So are you alright?”
Brooke nodded, nuzzling against my chest. “I am now. But Adam, it was terrible. From the front of the building, it looked… it looked like…”
“I know what it looked like,” I said. “I’ve read the witnesses’ statements.”
A friend of ours happened to work in the station and he’d given us a glimpse. So far, it was the best he could do.
Brooke’s beautiful blue eyes were glassy again. I pulled out one of the tissues I’d grabbed from the front desk and dabbed at them.
“Listen,” I said. “This is all going to be okay. It’s not the end of the world.”
“I—I know.”
“But right now, before we do anything else…” I placed two fingers under her chin and tilted her gaze up toward me. “I want you to tell me everything about this guy Chris.”
Forty-Five
BROOKE
It took literally forever to bail Trey out. Even after he’d seen the judge and our bondsman worked his magic, it seemed everyone took their sweet time putting him through the release process.
I was still in yesterday’s clothes. Still in the same outfit we’d all had dinner in. My makeup was smudged, my hair a total disaster. None of that mattered.
Finally we had him, and I rushed into his arms. I would’ve held him forever, wrapped tightly against his chest. Trey however, had other ideas.
