by Becca Van
“Shit,” Quin growled. “We pushed you too hard today, didn’t we?”
“No!” Eva pressed against his chest and sat up straight. “It has nothing to do with what I did today. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to what brings the cramps on.”
“Are you sure, darlin’?” Pierson asked, still uncertain he and his brothers hadn’t contributed to her pain.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Let’s get you out of the tub, baby,” Quin said and offered her a hand after he stood. “You must be feeling hungry after such a long day.”
Eva took his hand and let him help her from the bath. The three of them dried her off and dressed her. After Pierson pulled his clothes back on, he grasped her hand and led Eva toward the kitchen.
“What can I do to help?” Eva asked when he checked and stirred their dinner.
“Just sit down and relax, darlin’.”
Quin and Gray entered the kitchen and began to get out bowls, silverware, and a wineglass. Then they grabbed three beers and opened a bottle of wine.
“Drink,” Quin commanded, handing her the full glass. “The alcohol will help you to relax even more.”
“I don’t usually…”
“Do as you’re told, baby. I want you nice and calm.”
Eva gave him an irritated look but sipped her wine.
Pierson brought the pot of stew to the table and placed it on a pot holder. After taking his seat opposite her he took her bowl from Gray’s hand and filled it with food. He watched her intently as they all began to eat, and with each mouthful she took, she seemed to become even more tense.
What the hell is going on with you, darlin’? Are you embarrassed about this afternoon? Are you having second thoughts about being with all of us? Are you still in pain? God, I just want to hold you and love you for the rest of our lives. He watched as she began to push her food around her bowl instead of eat it. She’d hardly made a dent in her meal, and Pierson was beginning to get really worried.
“That’s it!” Quin exploded. “We have had enough of you shutting us out, Eva. You’d better start talking and tell us what is going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
Dammit, Quin. Pierson wanted to help her, too, but his brother’s temper might do more harm than good.
Before Pierson could put his foot in it, Gray said calmly, “Quin, just calm down. We’ve all had a long day and I’m sure Eva’s tired.”
“Eva isn’t tired,” Eva said tightly. She continued to watch Quin intently from across the table. “You want to talk, Quin? Fine. We’ll talk. But we are going to wait until everyone is done eating.”
Despite the thick tension at the table, Pierson felt himself smile. That’s our girl.
Quin had better be careful, Pierson thought. He was about to see the other side of Eva.
* * * *
The rest of dinner passed in silence. Eva didn’t mind. She ate her food, knowing Quin would insist even if she said she wasn’t hungry. When the table had been cleared, they paraded into the living room.
“Sit,” Quin barked, pointing to the sofa.
He still seemed angry, but that was fine. So was Eva.
Once she was settled, Pierson sat next to her and handed her the wine. Gray sat on her other side while Quin pulled the sturdy timber coffee table closer to the sofa and sat on it in front of her.
“Talk to us, Eva,” Quin demanded.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” She looked from Quin to Pierson. “I’ve told you all about Tim.” Her gaze moved from Pierson to Gray. “I’ve told you about my first boyfriend.”
Finally she looked to Quin. “Now it’s your turn.”
“What?”
“You promised me that you wouldn’t fly off the handle when you lost your temper. But every time you think I’m hiding something from you, you snap at me until you get what you want. So I think it’s your turn, Quin. Why are you so overprotective? Why don’t I know the first thing about your pasts, any of you?”
“That’s not true, sugar.” Grayson spoke softly, but Eva heard the thread of steel in his tone.
“I told you we were in the marines,” Quin added.
“For ten years. What did you do in those ten years?”
Quin answered with a silent, stony look.
Pierson’s fingers on her arm prompted her to look toward him. His usual smile was gone. He gave Quin a worried look before saying, “You’re right that Quin shouldn’t get so short with you, darlin’. But I don’t think this is the time to go into it.”
It was news to Eva that there was anything to go into. She’d just been following her instincts in confronting the Badons like this. It made her even more pissed off that she’d been right.
“I see,” she snapped. Standing up, she glared at them. “So after I let you into my life—no, make you part of my life—you still don’t trust me.”
Both Pierson and Gray began to protest almost at the same moment, but it was Quin’s voice that cut through and silenced them. “Sit down, Eva.”
She looked at him for a long moment. His tone of voice brooked no argument.
Slowly, she sat.
Quin was silent for almost a minute, and then he said, “All three of us ended up overseas at one time or another, but we were in different units. They don’t keep brothers together. We all worried about each other, but I’m the eldest. Pierson and Gray are my responsibility.”
“We felt the same way,” Pierson said. Eva became aware that he was still touching her arm. She grabbed his hand and held it. She reached out to Gray on her other side and took his hand as well.
“All of us lost friends,” Quin said. “I thank God we didn’t lose each other.” He fixed her with a stare. “If I’m hard on you, Eva, it’s not because I don’t care about you. It’s because I do. That’s what family means to me.
“There was a man in my unit that I was often partnered with. Over time he became more and more introverted and I kept asking him if something was wrong. He denied it and I left it at that. He wasn’t all right, but I didn’t push him. I believed that if whatever was bothering him got too bad he would eventually open up and talk to me. He didn’t. I should have pushed him more to talk. He committed suicide, and I will have to live with that fact for the rest of my life.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Eva placed her hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault, Quin. You tried to help your friend.”
“I didn’t do enough, Eva. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t force the issue. Maybe if I had, he would still be alive.”
“You tried to help him, Quin. You can’t let the guilt eat you up inside. It could destroy you. You don’t know what was going through his mind. You may have prevented him from killing himself then, but who’s to say he wouldn’t have just waited until you were home again?”
“I should have gotten him some help, baby.”
“You can’t help anyone unless they want to be helped, Quin. He would have reached out to you if he had wanted to.”
“Thank you.” Quin looked into her eyes, and she could see that she had indeed helped him deal with his guilt.
She could see his mind working and the tension in his body slowly eased. Maybe he was finally accepting that his friend’s death wasn’t his fault. She hoped so. Perhaps now Quin would let go of some of that control. He always kept himself on such a tight rein. Eva slipped her hands from Pierson’s and Gray’s. She edged forward until she slipped off the couch and knelt at Quin’s feet. She put her hands on his knees and gazed up at him.
“I didn’t ever tell you how I lost my father,” she said.
He shook his head.
“He died serving his country. I was very young, but my mother taught me to always honor his memory.” She interlaced her fingers with Quin’s, relieved that he let her. “I understand why you would fight for the people you love, and I understand why you want to keep me safe.”
Quin’s face relaxed slightly. “Thank you, baby.”
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She sighed and stood up to scoot back onto the couch. Instead, Quin caught her hands and pulled her into his lap. “Much better,” he said.
Eva loved the feeling of being held by him, but as she looked into his face, she felt all her doubts return. She’d had her moment of courage, and because of it she felt closer to her three men than she had before. But even that worried her.
She looked down at her hands. “Of course, this is what I’m scared of.”
“Scared?” Gray repeated. “Of what?”
“This.” Eva gestured to him and his brothers with a slight sweep of her hand. “Of caring too much and then having it all fall apart.”
“It doesn’t have to fall apart,” Pierson said. “Do you think we don’t have feelings for you? Do you think we’re only in this for sexual gratification?”
“It’s time you realized that we aren’t just in this for sex.” Quin’s voice had gone back to being a dangerous growl. “Why can’t you get around the fact that we are attracted to you?”
“It’s like I’ve explained. Besides my first boyfriend and Tim’s obsession, no one else has ever given me the time of day.”
“So you still think we pity you,” Gray said, “even after the picnic today.”
Eva hesitated and then nodded.
Quin stood, taking Eva with him. She squeaked in alarm and grabbed his huge shoulders then looked up at his face. His mouth was tense, but his eyes burned as they met hers.
“That changes now.”
Chapter Eleven
What changes now? Before Eva could process Quin’s words, he shifted her effortlessly in his arms. Her world turned upside down. She let out a shriek and clung to the shirt which covered Quin’s broad, muscular back.
“What are you doing? Put me down.”
A slap landed on her ass, heating her denim-covered skin and flaming the embers of her arousal. Her pussy clenched, and a gush of cream leaked out to dampen her panties.
“Stop wriggling,” Pierson growled and smacked her butt again as he hurried down the hall. A door banged against the wall as he shoved it open and then her world twirled once more.
Eva landed on the mattress with a bounce, releasing a soft “oomph” as her back connected with the quilt. She looked up to see three pairs of male eyes gazing at her hungrily. She pushed up to her elbows and, using her feet, scrambled back up the bed until her shoulders connected with the headboard.
Quin pulled his T-shirt over his head and threw it aside, and then he moved toward her in a way that she could only describe as a predator stalking its prey. A frisson of nervous excitement skated up her spine, leaving goose bumps covering her skin in its wake. He grasped her ankles and pulled her bent legs down straight. Then he pushed a leg between hers and nudged her thighs open as he caged her in with his body. Quin bracketed her by leaning on his hands and staring down into her eyes.
“We are all going to make love to you, Eva. If you don’t want that, then you had better fess up now.”
Eva wanted to demand their touch, but she didn’t think her voice would work any more than a squeak. She was so turned on by their acts of aggression that she wanted them to dominate her even more than she wanted their touch.
She shook her head, trying to let Quin know she wasn’t going to back out, but he must have taken it as a reply to his statement. He slowly pushed up from his arms and knelt over her. His look of regret and utter rejection caused pain to shoot through her chest. Just as he was about to move away from her, Eva grabbed his belt and the waistband of his jeans.
“Wait.” She finally managed to find her voice, although it came out breathless. “I wasn’t saying I didn’t want you. I was trying to tell you I don’t want you to stop.”
“Be very sure this is what you want, baby, because after we all make love with you, that’s it for us. Do you understand?”
Eva thought she knew what he was trying to tell her, but she wanted to be very sure before she answered. She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”
“What Quin is trying to say, sugar,” Gray started to explain, “is that you will belong to us. Not just for a little while but permanently.”
Her heart fluttered. “I understand,” she managed to say.
Gray got onto the bed beside her and Pierson drew her gaze as he, too, climbed up on her other side. Both men were in their boxers, and she wondered when they had had time to remove their clothes without her noticing.
Pierson caressed her cheek with a finger. “What we expect from you, Eva, is for you to be open and honest with us.”
“That means”—Quin tapped her thigh to get her attention once more—“if you have any worries, no matter how big or small, you come to one of us with them. No more keeping things bottled up inside and making yourself sick with worry. I don’t care if you think you’re imagining things or if you have proof about something, you come to us regardless. Understand?”
Eva nodded. Her heart was so full she didn’t think she would be able to find her voice again. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and even though she tried to blink them away she couldn’t. It felt like her heart was brimming over with love and joy, and since she couldn’t seem to talk and let these three men know how she felt, her emotions decided to find another way out. Moisture spilled over her lower eyelids and down her cheeks. Her vision blurred and she couldn’t see their faces. Quin framed her face with his hands and wiped the moisture from her cheeks. Once done, he edged back off the bed and stood at the end. Pinning her with his gaze, he reached for the waistband of his jeans and pulled the fastening open then unzipped the fly. Not once did he remove his eyes from hers until he was standing before her gloriously naked.
Her breath hitched and stilled as Quin crawled up onto the bed again. He didn’t stop until he was almost blanketing her with his body, but without touching her.
Pierson palmed her cheek and turned her head toward his. Before she could focus on his face, his mouth covered hers. He wasn’t gentle with her this time. Pierson used his lips to separate hers and thrust his tongue inside. His flavor exploded on her taste buds, making her crave more of his masculine essence. Two mouths sucked on her nipples, causing her to moan into Pierson’s mouth and writhe beneath the sensual onslaught. The hands skimming over her skin caused her to shiver and made goose bumps pucker all over her flesh.
When warm palms caressed her inner thighs, Eva couldn’t help but give those hands and fingers easier access. She spread her legs wide as her pussy continuously leaked out copious amounts of cream. Sobbing with desire and frustration when Pierson withdrew his mouth from hers, she reached out desperately, needing to touch and anchor herself to someone as her arousal notched up another level.
One mouth released her nipple with a pop, and then the other did the same. She opened her eyes just in time to watch the three men trade places on the bed. Gray was now between her splayed legs, Pierson was still on one side of her, and Quin was on the other. Quin pinched her nipple between thumb and finger, sending zings of pleasure shooting down to her pussy. Her vagina clenched, and another gush of cream leaked out. And then Gray lowered his head.
The first swipe of his tongue over her soaked folds was heavenly, but he avoided making contact with her clit. She thrust her hips up, hoping he would take the hint and lick her where she ached the most. Quin began to whisper in her ear.
“I’ll bet now that Gray has tasted your cream, he craves more. Your pussy tastes so sweet, baby. One taste will never be enough. Do you like what Gray’s tongue is doing to you?”
“Yes,” Eva sobbed.
“Just wait until he sucks your little clit into his mouth. You are going to come hard and fast and Gray will want to drink down all your cum.”
Eva whimpered as the tip of Gray’s tongue flicked lightly over her clit. She wanted to beg him to make her come but couldn’t find her voice. A velvety-soft touch to her cheek made her look in that direction. Pierson was up on his knees, his cock fisted in one hand as he
stroked the tip over her skin.
“Open up, darlin’. I need to feel your mouth on my cock.”
Eva pulled back slightly and studied the large organ, which had clear fluid glinting on the tip. Unable to stop herself, she flicked her tongue out and tasted his pre-cum. The sweet, salty taste just made her crave more. Inhaling deeply, she groaned as his musky scent assailed her nostrils, and she salivated for another taste. Relaxing her jaw, she opened her mouth and sucked the crown of his dick into it. Using the flat of her tongue, she licked the sensitive underside of his cock and hummed with pleasure when it jerked in her mouth and he groaned.
She wanted to be able to give Pierson pleasure, too, and began to bob her head up and down over his cock. On each backward stroke she hollowed her cheeks and lightly scraped her teeth over his hard shaft, suckling firmly on the tip. With every pass of her mouth over Pierson’s cock she increased the speed of her bobbing and sucking. He grabbed a handful of her hair, and she gasped. She didn’t know if he was using her as an anchor or just needed to touch her in some way, but he didn’t force her to take more of his cock into her mouth than she could manage.
Eva squealed with pleasure when Gray began to attend to her clit with the tip of his tongue. While she had been getting into the rhythm of pleasing Pierson, he had held back and continued to tease her with only occasional touches to her sensitive nub. Now he centered all his attention on her aching pearl, and she was having trouble getting enough air into her lungs. Her chest heaved as she gasped, releasing a mewl of delight when Gray sucked her clit into his mouth. A sob escaped through her lips as he slipped a finger into her pussy.
He released her clit before speaking in a deep, gravelly voice. “You taste so sweet, Eva. You are so fucking wet and tight. I can’t wait to feel you wrapped around my cock.”
Gray added another finger to the one already inside her and began to pump them in and out of her cunt. Her cry was muffled by Pierson’s cock when he thrust into her mouth again, and she squirmed as Quin’s teeth grazed her nipple and he squeezed the other one. Eva was on sensation overload and could do nothing but give herself over to the three men pleasuring her.
