by Becca Van
“You are a caring, loving woman, and so damn sexy I get hard just looking at you. Please don’t think that all I—we want with you is sex. We want a relationship with you, darlin’. No woman has ever affected me the way you do.”
Colby wanted to say more but she was already looking at him with surprise, so he kept the rest of his words locked down tight. She wasn’t ready to hear that he was already well on the way to falling in love with her, or that he and his brothers wanted marriage and babies. He had a feeling that if he did tell her any of those things, she would end up running or locking those emotions he could see in her eyes back tight behind those walls he and his brothers were slowly chipping away.
He decided a change of subject was needed. “I have coffee on. Why don’t you go have a shower and when you come out we’ll eat breakfast.”
“Okay,” Lori said softly, and then she looked at Ward and Scott before she pushed against Ward’s chest to get him to move.
There was no way she could have missed Ward’s hard cock pushing against his knit boxers when he stood up and turned to face her, and when her cheeks tinged a pink hue, he knew she hadn’t. But she got off the bed and hurried toward the bathroom door and Colby couldn’t help but groan when he watched her naked ass flex and jiggle as she walked.
She was so damn stunningly sexy she had him on the verge of coming in his pants like an untried teenager. He sighed with resignation when the door closed behind her and he heard the shower come on.
Scott picked his jeans up off the floor and Ward headed to the other bathroom. Colby was headed toward the kitchen when a knock came at the door. He pulled his gun from his holster and, after looking into the peephole, holstered it again. As much as he wanted to shoot the asshole standing on the other side of the apartment door, he couldn’t, but that didn’t mean he had to be civil.
He yanked the door open and scowled at the fucker.
“We haven’t officially met, but I’m Detective Regent Prentiss. Darius sent me over with all the files you wanted.”
Colby snatched them from his hand when he shoved them at him and when he tried to see around him he moved to block his view of the apartment. He didn’t want him looking at Lori with supercilious disdain ever again. In fact, if he had his way he wouldn’t ever talk to his woman again.
He could tell he thought he was God’s gift to women by the way he swaggered when he walked, and he’d even caught the bastard preening as he walked past one of the windows at work. As far as Colby was concerned, there was nothing even remotely handsome about the bald fucker. It wasn’t that he was ugly, and he was built, but he felt like he could see into the depth of his soul, and nastiness just seemed to roll off of him in waves.
He’d also pulled up a photo of Lori’s ex-partner Geoff and had thought that he and Regent deserved each other. They were similar in looks, as if they could have been related, but they had different surnames and he wasn’t sure if that was the case.
Colby came back to the present when Regent shifted uncomfortably and decided he’d had enough of looking at the asshole. “Thanks,” he said without an ounce of sincerity, and slammed the door in his face. When he glanced in the peephole he saw the rage on the prick’s face and almost laughed out loud. He’d gotten to the fucker and that pleased him to no end.
He looked at the stack of files in his hand and knew he and his brothers had a lot of work to get through.
He just hoped that Lori wouldn’t try and work, too. She was supposed to be resting, but he had a feeling she wasn’t going to take that lying down—pun intended.
Chapter Eight
Lori hadn’t felt so relaxed in years, in fact, now that she thought about it she didn’t think she’d ever been this relaxed in her whole life. A smile graced her lips as she got out of the shower and dried off and she wondered if she looked as satisfied as she felt. And although she was replete after the way Ward, Colby, and Scott had loved her, just thinking about them touching her more sent her satiated libido simmering again.
The craving to have all of them sinking into her body simultaneously was a yearning so deep she could practically taste it, and boy could she imagine having them all loving on her at the same time. The image of Ward in her pussy, Colby in her ass, and Scott in her mouth slid across the edges of her mind and sent cream dripping from her flexing cunt.
She took a deep breath and tried to push the images from her head, but now that she’d had a taste of the rapture they could give her, it was a really hard thing to do. She was so damn horny, the ache deep inside was back and had intensified yet again.
Even though she wanted to go out and find them and demand they take the ache away, she wouldn’t. She was confident in her work but had had no social life other than sharing a drink with Darius and some of the more friendly male colleagues she worked with, but anything beyond that was out of her league. Lori had no idea how to go about seducing anyone and wasn’t about to make a fool of herself by trying to start now. The thought of embarrassing herself in front of such confident, sexy men cooled her libido somewhat and she was able to curb the lust which had been humming through her insides and concentrated on getting dressed.
After brushing her teeth and hair, she braided it and then headed out toward the kitchen, but Ward was waiting for her in the bedroom.
* * * *
“Come here, baby,” Ward demanded and waited for her to come over to where he was sitting on the side of the bed.
She frowned but moved until she was close enough for him to touch. “What?”
“Nothing, I just need to hold you.” Ward reached out and snagged an arm around her waist before pulling her down onto his lap. “From now on you belong to us. You need to learn to lean on us more, baby. Okay?”
“I don’t need to lean on anyone, Ward. I’ve been doing everything for and by myself for a long time now.”
“That may be so, but you have us at your sides and your back. Everyone needs someone they can rely on and I want you to rely on us. You don’t have to do everything alone anymore. We’re here for you.”
“I’m just so used to doing things by myself. I can’t stop the habits of a lifetime over night.”
Ward nuzzled her neck and then nipped her earlobe. “But you can try. Will you do that for me, for us? Will you try and loosen those tight reins, Lori? We aren’t like you asshole ex-partner. We know how to work hard. You don’t have to be the only one to right up those reports. We’ve been cops for quite a few years too. We know how the system works and what needs to be done.”
“Okay.” Lori sighed and relaxed into him.
Ward loved how she felt in his arms. So soft, warm and womanly. He loved the way she smelled so feminine, clean and fresh, but what he loved most was the underlying scent of her natural aroma mixed in with the musky perfume of her desire. She was the woman for him and his brothers and he wasn’t about to let her get away. They hadn’t known her for very long, but that didn’t matter. He knew the moment he set eyes on her in her office that she was their woman. And now that she had relented to having a relationship with them, he was going to make damn sure she knew it, too. Nothing else was acceptable to him.
He lifted to her to her feet and stood up, too, before kissing her on the forehead. “Are you ready for breakfast? It’s almost done.”
“I just need to get my shoes on.”
“Okay,” he said heading toward the door. “Don’t take too long, baby.”
* * * *
Lori watched him go. She felt closer to Ward after spending a few moments alone with him and she knew he was right about sharing the work load. She didn’t need to do everything by herself anymore but it was going to be harder to delegate more work to him and his brothers after having to do everything for so long. But Ward was very authoritative and she could see he had meant every word he’d said to her. Maybe it was time to hand over some of the work and let go of the tight control she was used to keeping herself under.
She knew it was going to be hard for
her to not just keep her mouth shut and keep plowing through the work load each and every day, but she had a feeling that Ward, Scott, and Colby would step in to make her ease back. With a sigh, she pushed her thoughts aside and after putting her shoes on, headed to the kitchen.
Ward and Colby were at the stove and were piling bacon and eggs, as well as toast, onto plates, and Scott was pouring coffee into mugs. They all looked up when she entered and smiled at her.
“Take a seat, honey,” Scott said and then followed her to the table, placing the cups down, and then he grabbed the silverware as well as sugar and milk and brought them over.
Ward and Colby held fully loaded plates in both their hands and passed them out before taking a seat. Scott sat on one side of her, Colby on the other, and Ward was right across from her.
“The surveillance crew turned up this morning,” Colby said. “They should be finished in a couple of hours.”
Lori nodded and started eating when they did. She’d never really been a breakfast person and was happy if she was able to get a cup or two of java into her before heading to work, but after what the doctor had said, she knew she needed to take better care of herself, and by the way Ward was eying her, he wasn’t going to let her leave the table until she’d eaten something. So she placed a piece of bacon and some eggs onto a piece of toast and dug in. By the time she’d finished that she was stuffed full and couldn’t eat another bite, so she pushed her half-full plate aside and picked up her coffee, taking a couple of sips and savoring the dark brew and the caffeine.
“You need to eat more than that, Lori,” Ward said in a firm voice. “I distinctly remember the doctor saying you needed to eat regular meals.”
“Since I don’t normally eat breakfast and I’m full, I’ve had more than enough.”
“How many meals have you been skipping, darlin’?” Colby asked but his eyes were full of compassion and she fought back tears and watched his long thick fingers as he finished off his breakfast and then reached over and pilfered a slice of bacon from her plate.
Lori shrugged and looked down into her mug, but Scott tugged on her braid to get her attention. “Answer the question, honey.” Scott’s voice was nearly as commanding as Ward’s and even though she didn’t want to answer that question she felt almost compelled to do so. She looked up and met his eyes before her gaze shifted to his mouth. Lori’s breath hitched in her throat and her body responded to the way the corner of his mouth tilted up slightly. That tilt was a permanent fixture not just when he smiled, and it got her motor revving every time she looked at those wonderful masculine lips. It took her a moment to remember what the question had been, but she finally managed to get her brain to override her body.
“Two.”
Ward leaned forward in his chair and placed his elbows on the table as he frowned at her. His stare was firm yet mesmerizing and she felt as if she was drowning in his gaze, but as she watched the look in his eyes seemed to ice over with anger. She held her breath, expecting his voice to come out just as cold or filled with anger, and was surprised that it came out calm and modulated when he started speaking.
“So let me get this straight. You’ve been going into work hours before anyone else, not eating breakfast or lunch, and missing out on sleep and then working till all hours of the night?”
Lori pulled her head to the side, trying to make Scott release her hair, but he just tightened his grip, and she couldn’t pull her gaze from Wards steely stare. She just glared back at him and tightened her lips into a mutinous line, but again Scott tugged on her braid.
“Answer Ward, Lori.” This time Scott’s voice was just as hard and determined as Ward’s and the authoritative power radiating from them caused her to shiver and her body to start damn humming again.
“Yes.”
Scott finally released her braid with a sigh and then it was Colby who had her attention. It was damn hard to ignore him when he had hold of her chin and was leaning forward so that their foreheads were nearly touching. Normally his expression was warm and friendly but it seemed he could be just as tenacious and dominant as his brothers. The warm gleam in his eyes was gone and in its place was one of anger and what looked like determination.
“From now on you will eat three meals a day without any argument. After lunch you will have a nap, again without an argument, and every night you are going to go to bed no later than ten thirty. And you will sleep between two of us. Is that understood?”
Lori gulped. She hadn’t seen Colby with this implacable resolve on his face before. He always seemed to be the first of his brothers to smile or joke around, but not this time. This time he looked just as resolute as Ward and Scott. She didn’t want to argue with them, not because she knew she wouldn’t win, but because she knew that she wanted to sleep between them again. And she also knew that she’d been heading toward a complete and utter breakdown. Not from nerves or mental instability, but from exhaustion. She had been burning the candle at both ends and knew it was a matter of time before the flame snuffed out and she collapsed in a heap.
But one thing she wasn’t going to allow them to do was take her off this case. She couldn’t in all consciousness let a sick psychopath continue to walk the streets of San Angelo, Texas and continue to rape and kill women. Not on her watch. Lori was going to do everything within her power to take that sick fuck down.
“Lori?” Colby called her back to the present and she found herself nodding in agreement. He leaned over and kissed her chastely on the lips, but that kiss was so full of emotion, just like the one earlier, and again she felt tears burning the back of her eyes.
She blinked a couple of times and her heart fluttered and her pussy clenched when he gave her a wide smile. That smile seemed to light him up from the inside, and she felt like she was looking at his soul. The inner glow behind his eyes had her gulping as her heart sped up in her chest, and a little more of the vault around her heart crumbled.
He finally released her, and when she saw Scott and Ward looking at her with the same expressions on their faces, she decided it was time to retreat, so she rose to her feet and started to gather the dishes.
Long, thick masculine fingers wrapped around her wrist and she stared down at them with fascination as the tanned skin contrasted with her white flesh. Scott’s fingers were so long they locked around her wrist and overlapped each other easily. In that moment she felt her femininity, and for the first time in her life, she felt almost fragile, and she liked how that made her feel. Probably way too much.
“Leave the dishes, honey. We’ll take care of them.” He glanced over at Colby. “Why don’t you get her the digital reader and show her how to use it.”
Lori smiled up at Scott but before she could tell him what she wanted, Colby started talking. “There’s no need. Lori has one of her own, don’t ya, darlin’?”
She nodded and to her surprise, Scott tugged her arm and pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. He held her for a few moments and she heard him inhale against her hair. “God, you smell good. I could just eat you all up, honey.”
Lori sighed with contentment and leaned into him, safe in the knowledge that he would keep her safe, wouldn’t let her fall, but with every touch, hug, and word these men spoke she fell for them a little more, and she wasn’t sure she liked how much they were coming to mean to her.
“What made you all get into law enforcement?”
Scott relaxed his hold on her and looked down to meet her eyes. “We thought about joining up to one of the armed forces but quickly vetoed that because we don’t like taking orders from other people.”
Ward moved in close to her back, his large warm hands landing on her shoulders and a shiver ripped up her spine at being sandwiched between the two men and hoped she had kept it from showing.
“We wanted to make a difference and help keep people safe so we all decided being cops was more our thing than the armed forces,” Ward explained.
“Did you join up after college?”
/> “We did,” Colby said as he came up to her side. Lori loved feeling the heat emanating from the warm, muscular bodies and wanted to stay right where she was, but they needed to get to work and she knew they wouldn’t work with her still in the room since she had been ordered to rest. She could tell they were used to being obeyed once they’d been given an order. If she wasn’t so damn tired she would be arguing with them, but decided not to push the issue right now.
Ward and Colby stepped away from her at the same time and went back to the kitchen. Scott kissed the top of her head and then he released her almost reluctantly as he slowly drew his arms back from around her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her in the direction of the doorway and gave her a gentle shove.
“Go and rest,” Scott ordered. He tapped her on the ass and she couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder at him, and when their gazes met, she felt the searing heat of his stare all the way to her toes. She picked up her pace and hurried toward Ward’s room and her bag, with Scott’s, Ward’s, and Colby’s chuckles following her.
Lori found her e-reader and then she walked back toward the living room and sank into the corner of the large leather sofa. Books were her only addiction besides coffee, and she spent quite a bit of money feeding that addiction every month. She would never tell anyone she worked with, but she was a closet romantic and she loved reading how a hero, or heroes, and heroines dealt with conflict to get to their happily ever after. She had often dreamed of her own knight coming in to rescue her and riding away with her on the front of his horse or motorbike, but after dealing with the shit she had from Geoff and Regent over the years and seeing how many of the men in her precinct ended up in the middle of a bitter divorce or break-up, those dreams had slowly waned. But she still loved losing herself in the fantasy world of romance, even if she never experienced anyone loving her for who she was.
