* * * *
Jack flung the sheet away from his naked body, letting the cool breeze from the open window drift over his heated flesh. He remembered the feel of Marie under his body, her tiny frame passionately giving him back as good as he gave. He knew this tryst could be nothing more than a temporary arrangement and he would get his heart broken. It happened once before, years ago, and he vowed it would never happen twice. But once again, he found himself in an impossible situation, and despite what his head told him, his heart followed its own path. He knew there would be no hope for a long-term commitment. Not in their line of work. Commitment created its own dangerous vulnerability. Something neither he nor Marie could afford in their high-risk careers.
Jack closed himself down, stopping the pain before it started, shutting off his feelings like he had learned to do when he was a kid. He remembered the hell his life had been before Walter Eagleman stopped beside the road that day and put him in his battered old Ford truck, eventually taking him home to Sallie.
It had been a cold February day. A thick snow lay on the ground and Jack’s mother put him outside because she was turning tricks to get enough money for groceries and drugs.
Pregnant at sixteen, kicked out of the house and with nowhere to go, she picked up work in a local strip club. The owner kept her hidden from the law until the baby came, but as soon as she could service the customers, he pimped her out for a neat little profit, letting her keep Jack upstairs in a crib so she’d remain pliable to his demands. When she asked to become a dancer instead of a whore, he got her hooked on the pills. It went downhill from that point on.
Outside, seven-year-old Jack tried to peek through the windows of his mother’s bedroom to see what she and the stranger were doing. He held on to the edge of the windowsill, hopping up and down as he tried to catch glimpses without getting caught.
He heard a lot of noise and his mother’s screams a couple of times. She warned him that while she entertained, he couldn’t come back inside for anything, but Jack had a feeling something was wrong. He’d never heard his mother scream before. He looked around the house until he finally found an old water pail that might serve as a footstool. Carefully placing it under the window, he stepped up with one foot, balancing himself by holding onto a long forgotten rose trellis that was now rotted and hanging only by the few rusted nails that survived.
Squinting to peek through the battered mini-blinds, Jack saw a naked man leaning over his mother, beating her with the buckle from his belt. Her face looked like a battered mess. She held her hands up, trying to protect her eyes, but obviously she was too weak to defend herself. Without care about the noise he made, Jack dropped off the bucket and went tearing into the front door of the house, stopping only long enough to get the gun his mother had hidden under the edge of the sofa. He wasn’t supposed to know it was there, but he’d found it one day by accident when a ball he’d been playing with rolled under the couch.
With trembling hands, Jack held the heavy gun out in front of him, running into the bedroom to scare the guy. He didn’t know how to shoot the gun, but he knew people were afraid to have a gun pointed at them. They always stopped what they were doing and held up their hands. That’s all he wanted, to make the guy quit beating hitting on his mother.
“Stop hurting my mom,” he screamed. The man turned to him in a cocaine fueled rage. His eyes were so glazed over, they looked like varnished black pits of anger. Even at his age, Jack knew something wasn’t right. He’d been exposed to his mother’s drug addiction all of his life, and while he didn’t know exactly what drugs the man took, he did understand he was high. His mom acted funny sometimes when she used drugs. She would change from a sweet mother to an impatient and sometimes cruel disciplinarian. Jack didn’t know any other way of living, drugs were just a part of life.
“Put the fucking gun down, you brat.” The man turned to him, lurching off the bed. Something about the look in the man’s eyes scared Jack so badly that he pulled the trigger when the man lunged toward him. Instinctively, he knew if that man got hold of him, he would die. All these years later, Jack still remembered his confusion and fear as the man kept coming while blood spurted from the small hole in his chest. The bullet should have stopped him, but as a child he didn’t know what the kick of a cocaine high could do.
Jack pulled the trigger again, his arms swinging wildly as the recoil from the pistol painfully jolted his wrists. He missed, steadied his aim, and pulled again, just like he’d seen on the cop shows. This time, the man went down and didn’t move.
Dropping the gun, Jack ran to his mother, but she was out cold, blood streaming from the cuts on her face. He turned back outside then, waving down the first vehicle that passed, which happened to be Walter Eagleman in his battered old Ford truck. Thank the fates for stone-faced Walter with his soft heart.
Walter calmed Jack down, then checked on his mom, called emergency services and dialed the sheriff’s office. And all the while, Walter made him feel he hadn’t done anything wrong in killing a man. When Jack asked him if the man inside his mother’s bedroom had died, Walter soberly told him the truth. When Jack asked if it was his fault that he’d killed the man, Walter put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, looked straight into his eyes, and said, “Son, it’s a plain fact of life that some men deserve to die. You saved your mother’s life and yours, too. You’re a hero.”
Jack never saw his mother again after that day. Walter and Sallie told him she went to a hospital to get better and when she healed, she’d come back for him. Years later, he found the adoption papers she signed over to the Eagleman’s less than a month after Walter had taken him home.
Suddenly, the cool breeze felt colder than Jack’s memories and he shivered, tossing the sheet over himself again. He hadn’t thought about his mother in a very long time. He wondered if Reno ever thought about his parents, or if he’d outgrown the memories of a four-year-old child.
Chapter Seven
Bright sunlight spotlighting her face through the sheer bedroom curtains woke Marie from a restless, dream-filled sleep. She was dreaming of Jack and Reno, unable to make a choice between them. In her dream, they had agreed to share both her love and her bed. Keep on dreaming, Alice. Wonderland is right around the corner. She grinned, stretching languorously like a cat. Blinking a couple of times in the bright sun, she thought of her Parisian friend, Giselle Reynaurd.
Both beautiful and cosmopolitan, Giselle was excessively French, down to her penthouse with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and her ménage a trios lifestyle. She had often told Marie she needed to take two men into her bed. “It ees the spice of life, darling,” Giselle often said when Marie protested she could never consider a ménage. And here she was in mainstream USA thinking about just that, two lovers. If Giselle could see her now, she would laugh delightedly at Marie’s predicament.
Unable to stay in bed with her wayward thoughts, Marie got dressed and wandered downstairs to find Reno at the stove frying eggs and bacon, while Jack sat at the table drinking coffee. He had his feet propped up on a chair watching a news program.
“Nothing on the DC incident,” he commented. “It was contained before the reporters could get a story. Now it’s only a rumor that no one dares substantiate.”
“Do you think Yuri will know what happened?”
Jack nodded his head, taking another sip of black coffee. “The shooter was probably ex-KGB. He’ll report back to Yuri that the mission failed. Not to mention, someone inside GSA is working with Yuri. There has to be a traitor. He couldn’t have broken into the data base without inside help.”
“We have to presume he has someone influential on his payroll,” Reno agreed. “By now, he’ll know you’re on the run and he probably knows you’re under government protection. The biggest problem facing Yuri at the moment is how to locate you.”
“That won’t take him long.” Jack took his feet off the chair. “We think he’s going to try to make a hit on you here. That’s a little tougher. He’
s not familiar with this terrain and he’s got the added burden of trying to keep out of sight. A foreigner in this neck of the woods still stands out. People talk.”
Marie grinned, knowing what he meant, but she had to ask, “By foreigner you mean…?”
“Anyone that’s not local.”
“So, I’m …”
“A foreigner,” both Reno and Jack said in unison.
“And that’s why you flew us to the ranch? You didn’t want the locals to know I’m staying out here?”
Reno shoveled what looked like half a dozen scrambled eggs on a plate, handing it to Marie. “Partially, but it also beat the long drive.”
Marie raked half the eggs off, splitting them between his plate and Jack’s. She sat down at the table, scooting her chair over so Reno could join them. “Do we just wait for him then? That seems anticlimactic.”
“It won’t when he gets here,” Reno answered. “We figure it’s easier to take him on our turf, away from civilians.”
“Yuri won’t show, he’ll send an errand boy,” Marie said. She couldn’t imagine Yuri leaving his deal with the Iranians unfinished while he hunted her down. He’d send another one of his specialized killers, maybe a whole team, if necessary.
Reno glanced at Jack. “We think he’ll show.”
Marie put her fork down, staring at the two of them intently. “What aren’t you telling me? Why do you think Yuri will leave Europe and his arms deal to come after me when he can send a skilled assassin?”
“Because we baited him.” Jack pushed back from his plate to return her stare. “We let him think you want to talk to him, that you have intelligence he needs to know before he finalizes the deal.”
“Then why didn’t you just give him a map and tell him how to find me? That would have made it so much simpler for all of us.” Marie felt her cheeks flush.
Jack hit the remote on the television, sending the room into instant silence. “He has to think you’re doing this on your own, without our knowledge. If he has to search for you, he’ll think you’re going behind our backs.”
Marie lost her appetite in a hurry. The food she ate turned into a hard lump and now lay like a stone in her belly. Yuri was not a man to bait for any reason. She didn’t doubt Jack and Reno’s abilities, but they were limited by working within the law. Yuri would have no such limitations placed on him.
Both men watched her expectantly while she wrestled with her anger. Finally, she controlled herself enough to speak in a low measured tone that belied her inner turmoil.
“I’m going to need a tour of the property.” Marie looked from one to the other of the men. “I’ll need to know how to get into town if things go down wrong. And I want someone to take me to the arrowhead ridge that Walter told me about, so I know where the supplies are without wasting time looking for them.”
“You don’t think we can protect you?” Reno asked. His dark eyes narrowed with what might be considered disappointment.
Marie sighed. “I think you declared war with one of the most dangerous men in the world. It’s best we be prepared for anything, and I do mean anything, because he’s got it all at his fingertips and he’ll use it.”
Jack’s easy confidence said he didn’t think Yuri Yanukovich would be a match for them on home territory. He pulled his plate close again and began eating. “We may have a few tricks of our own,” he said between bites of scrambled eggs and bacon.
“I hope you do, Jack. I really hope you do.” She got up from the table.
* * * *
Reno took a sip of coffee, watching Marie’s angry stride as she left the house to stand on the front porch. “That didn’t go so well.”
“What did you expect? She’s out of her element here. She’s never seen us in action, but she’s seen Yuri, and knows what he’s capable of. I’d be pissed, too, in her situation. If someone were using me for bait, I’d want a fighting chance.”
“So what do we do to distract her? It’s going to be pure hell if she’s pissed off until Yuri gets here. That could take a while.”
“You’re right,” Jack agreed, shooting Reno an uncharacteristic brotherly grin. “Got any ideas?”
Reno thought his brother should get laid more often. He was positively mellow this morning. “Yeah, I got an idea, but if I tell you, you’ll be more pissed off than she is.”
Jack looked from his brother to the woman standing on the porch, letting the cool morning breeze blow her hair around her small shoulders. He snorted with amusement. “Yeah, I bet I know what your idea is, Reno, and it won’t fly.”
“Listen to me, Jack,” Reno said. “Remember when we liked Anna Thompson in school? She liked both of us, and you said we outta give her what she wanted. I asked what you meant and you told me in great detail what you were talking about.”
“Fuck, Reno. We were kids. I was showing off. I’d seen a book that had a ménage scene and it was weighing pretty heavy on my mind.” Jack chuckled. “I can’t believe you still remember that.”
“Hell, Jack, I stayed awake at night for weeks just thinking about the mechanics of that,” Reno admitted, causing them both to laugh. “When you got hold of a copy of that magazine and brought it home, I thought it was the most seductively forbidden act I’d ever seen in my life. I never dated a woman after that without thinking about a threesome.” He gave a slight grimace. “Thanks, bro.”
“What are big brothers for?” Jack pointedly looked out the screen door at Marie. “And now we have our own sophisticated Parisian, straight from ménage a trois territory, standing on the porch, pissed as hell at both of us, and you want us to go out there and tell her we both want to fuck her?”
“Well,” Reno hesitated, “yeah. Basically. We might work on the wording a little, and polish the delivery.”
“She’d take our heads off.”
“Maybe not,” Reno insisted. “Come on, Jack. You got to admit she would be a sweet little morsel between us. Ummmm.”
“And when this is over?”
Reno sighed, giving an impatient shrug. “She’ll go home. Wherever home is. You know she’s not going to stick around, Jack. She’s been on the move since she was born.”
To Reno’s surprise, his brother seemed to be giving it some thought. It was a piece of brilliance on his part bringing up the memory of Anna Thompson. He and Jack had spent a teenage summer talking about what it would be like to get in her pants in every conceivable way possible. The two of them had finally digressed to lurid fantasies involving Anna pleasuring them simultaneously, because in those younger days, it had been all about what they wanted. The pair naively assumed if it pleasured them, the woman was bound to enjoy it.
Reno’s way of thinking had changed since then. He knew without a doubt he and Jack could satisfy Marie Maxwell. She was a woman who needed physical comfort and attention. Hadn’t she shown that by reaching out to both of them already? The woman needed loving like a flower needed sun.
* * * *
Marie was lost in thought when Jack and Reno came out to stand on either side of her. They hemmed her tightly between them, standing close enough she could feel their hard bodies down the length of her own. She became immediately aware of the subtle difference in their attitude toward her. It seemed almost as if a new layer of awareness had settled around them, something territorial, male, and vaguely aggressive.
Reno put his hand on her back, slightly above her hips, his hand massaging her with a lover’s familiarity. Jack put his hand at the back of her neck, gently wrapping his fingers around her throat, kneading the tense muscles with firm strokes of his powerful thumbs.
Marie jerked back from the two of them so quickly that she stumbled and would have fallen if the rail hadn’t been there to support her. “Okay, stop now.” She put her hands out to ward them off. “I’m still upset with both of you and you’re not going to distract me. What’s going on?”
“A ménage. Up for it?” Reno arched one eyebrow in challenge. “One time offer only, two for the
price of one. Take it, or leave it.”
Surprised, Marie looked up at Jack and he lowered his face to kiss her, holding her trapped within his grip. Reno’s hand slid over the curve of her butt again, taking intimate license to explore her ass as his brother’s kiss deepened. Reno’s teasing fingers made Marie eagerly open her mouth to Jack. She trembled excitedly with the forbidden thrill of both men touching her. Oh, my God, am I really going to do this?
Unconsciously, Marie widened her legs to give Reno access to the throbbing core of her femininity. She wished he would breach the barrier of her clothing and put his fingers deep inside her pussy. Instead, he stroked her clit through the layers, putting just enough pressure to make her weak kneed and trembling.
Jack’s hand left her neck and his fingers found her breasts. Now, she had two pair of hands touching her, playing with her nipples, stroking her clit, and leading her to a dark fantasy filled with pleasure she’d never experienced. Yes, I am so going to do this.
“Guys,” she whispered breathlessly.
Jack drew back to look at her face. “Yes or no. That’s all you have to say, Marie. Yes or no.”
“Yes, oh God, yes.” She breathed. She slumped against Reno’s body as he ran his hands up her sides and slightly under his brother’s hands giving her the feel of two men supporting her, touching her, paying attention to her needs.
One of Jack’s hands swept her hair away from her neck, allowing Reno to lower his face to her skin, breathing hot kisses on her neck and shoulder while their hands roamed her body, touching everywhere, teasing, pulling, stroking, and eliciting such a need in Marie, she thought she would faint from the sensation.
“Let’s go inside,” she pleaded. She reached out to touch both of them with her hands, gripping their shirts in her fists.
A Pair of Jacks (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 6
