“Don’t.” Alea felt hot tears scalding her face.
Lan thumbed away the tears, but his voice didn’t change. It remained a deep, polite monotone. “Coop came from a big ranching family. When he was a little kid, the ranch hit real hard times. His family almost lost everything. Every dime they made went back into the land or to pay the mortgage, so he grew up poor. He was the youngest of seven boys so by the time the hand-me-downs got to him, they were patched up and worn and he was so skinny that the kids in his school called him Scarecrow. Call him that a couple of times and it’ll cut him to the quick. Since you’re not only fucked up but cruel, that should give you some ammunition. Enjoy it.” He shook his head. “The way I see it, either you were always mean or you let them make you mean. Either way, it’s a goddamn shame.”
Lan brushed away another tear and turned, following after Dane and Coop. They were all leaving, and she’d been the one to shove them away, hurting them and lashing out because she wasn’t brave enough to be kind, welcoming. That required a strong heart, and hers was shattered.
More tears fell, but the scream that was always in her throat stuck. “Landon.”
He stopped but didn’t turn. “What do you need, Your Highness?”
So many things. Nothing she could ask for. “Tell Dane I’m sorry. And Cooper and… I’m very sorry that I hurt you too.”
He nodded and left, and she was alone again.
Alea crumbled to the floor. The gorgeous gown she’d picked out in hopes that they would notice her was lying on the tile, trampled by boot prints, ruined. What had she been thinking? She could dress up all she liked, but she was still that girl chained to a bed, waiting to die.
The only trouble now was she seemed determined to take everyone to hell with her.
* * * *
Dane let Cooper drop as soon as he’d hauled him out of the princess’s quarters. He didn’t trust Coop not to run back in and try to get on top of her again.
And he didn’t trust himself not to walk back and have a throw down with her that would very likely end with him getting his ass arrested for laying hands on Her Royal Highness.
“You asshole.” Coop was on his feet in a heartbeat. “What the fuck was that about?”
The hallway around them was quiet. He’d been afraid Tal would follow them, but it appeared he had gone back to the ball. He was fine with that because he was just about ready to start throwing punches. Caving in Coop’s face might take the edge off the nasty anger building inside him.
Alea had scored a direct hit. He could still hear Kelly screaming at him that he was a pervert, a freak for what he needed. He could still remember the day his father had told him what an embarrassment he was to the family and that he was no longer welcome in the house he’d grown up in.
He hadn’t been invited to his brother’s wedding. Of course, that wasn’t such a huge surprise since his very vanilla brother had been marrying his ex-wife.
He felt Coop shove at his arm, goading him. “What? Now you can’t talk?”
Dane narrowed his eyes, flexed his hands. He’d thought he was going to beat the shit out of Lan for bringing Alea to the meeting, but Cooper had done something much worse. “I can talk, man. I just don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say.”
Cooper pulled back slightly, frowning. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Oh, it was an accident then? You tripped and fell on top of her pussy? Did your tongue fall out and land on her clit?”
“She was responding, damn it.”
Dane had seen just how she’d responded. “Yeah, you must have done a hell of a job with her, buddy. She was screaming and kicking and fighting you as if she was struggling for her very survival.
He’d heard her from down the hall. He’d been lighting into Lan when they both heard Alea’s shout. They’d run, terrified that someone was trying to kill her. Lan had his gun out and he’d just about taken off Coop’s head when Dane realized who it was.
Coop’s whole body sagged. “It didn’t start out like that. I was trying to check up on her. I wanted to make sure her BP was okay. She nearly fainted. When she took a while in the bathroom, I went in to make sure she hadn’t fallen or stumbled and hit her head. And I saw her. She was…”
“Beautiful.” Yeah, he’d gotten that, too. He’d seen every inch of her golden body, every curve and valley. Even though she’d been screaming, he was just enough of a bastard to get a hard-on because she was so fucking sexy. Shame filled him. She didn’t want him and she was probably right. No man with real morals would have gotten an erection when the woman he adored was terrified.
And they damn straight wouldn’t have threatened to spank her. The trouble was, she responded to dominance. It was only when he’d used his Dom voice that she’d calmed and come out of her episode. She needed someone to take control when she couldn’t, to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. To stand by her and give her the safe boundaries and structure she needed.
“Yes, she was so beautiful, and we had this connection, Dane,” Coop continued. “She thinks she’s frigid, but she’s not. She was pressing her pussy against my mouth and wriggling around. That’s why I tried to hold her down, so I could finish her off. Damn, I don’t think that girl’s ever had an orgasm. If I hadn’t wrapped my arms around her, we would be in a totally different place.”
“Yeah, you would be fucking her, and Dane would be rearranging my face,” a laconic voice said from the doorway. Landon stared at Cooper.
Coop rolled his eyes. “God, don’t give me that. I wasn’t trying to steal her. I was trying to show her how good it can be. And you’re a fine one to talk. What the fuck was that move you pulled? Did you sell her on how awful Dane and I are to cut her out of that meeting?”
“Fuck you, Coop.” Lan squared off, facing the other man down. They started to circle each other like two pit bulls waiting to take a chunk out. “She deserved to be in that meeting. It was about her. She’s not a child.”
“She sure knows how to throw a temper tantrum,” Dane said, frowning. “That shit she just pulled is exactly why I left her out. Alea isn’t ready for that much reality. We all agreed on this plan, and you took it into your own hands to reverse our decision.”
He’d been trying so hard to get them all on the same page. Alea needed all three of them. She’d grown up in a country where she was practically expected to marry two or three men, maybe more. Being kidnapped had torn her world apart, but eventually she would find comfort in her custom of plural marriage. But in order to offer her what she needed, they had to stick together, and his asshole, idiot partners were being selfish pricks.
Lan’s face flushed an angry red. “Look, I talked to Cole. He’s been in this place before.”
“Oh, Cole Lennox is now your best friend?” Coop shot at Lan, rounding on him. “Or is he the guy giving you advice on how to get her all to yourself?”
“What are you talking about? He shares his wife with his brother.” Lan growled a little, a sure sign that this situation was about to get ugly. “And you’re a fine fucking one to talk, Coop. I made a decision to bring her into something that involved us all. I thought we’d sit down and hash this out with her. I thought that maybe if she understood the situation, she would be a little easier on us. Let us closer. What’s your excuse? Are you going to try to convince me that you were just warming her up so Dane and I could come in behind you and show her a good time? I didn’t see you leaving a whole lot of room in her pussy for us.”
Coop’s right fist flew out, catching Lan’s jaw. There was a thud, and a nasty, happy little smile crept across Lan’s face because he was a man who appreciated violence, and Coop had just made the enormous mistake of giving it to him.
Lan’s fist popped up almost faster than Dane could see it, and a nice splash of blood came from Coop’s face. His lip, it looked like. He’d shifted just enough that Lan hadn’t broken his nose.
They started to wail on each other, but Dane had lost the de
sire to fight.
Because he was pretty sure they had just lost Alea. Or maybe she’d already been lost, and tonight had simply forced him to face facts. The woman spitting the cruel barbs just wasn’t his princess.
He heaved a long sigh. She needed him, but she would never acknowledge it, never give him the chance to prove it to her. And, hell, maybe he was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe he should just join a fucking club and spend his time with the subs there who came out for a good time. He’d wrecked his marriage. He’d fucked up his career.
“I should have expected this.” Tal stood beside him, watching the fight and shaking his head.
Dane turned, and it looked like Tal had brought out the whole fucking gang. Rafe and Kade were with him, along with the three James brothers—Gavin, Slade, and Dex—as well as the Lennox twins, Cole and Burke.
“Brothers shouldn’t fight like that, man,” Dex said, shaking his head.
Gavin James sent his youngest brother a scorching look. “Really? My nose is crooked because of you two fuckers.”
Slade shook his head. “That was all on you, brother. Ouch, that’s going to hurt. They’re not big believers in rules, are they?”
Dane winced because Coop had just landed a kidney shot. “He was my team’s medic. I don’t think he takes the Hippocratic Oath very seriously. And we’re not really brothers.”
“That’s where you’re making your mistake,” Rafe said. “If you want Alea, you better behave like brothers. Blood or no, be a cohesive unit. You have to take care of each other and work together.”
“Yeah, you’ve got to do that if you’re going to survive your wife. Trust me, Cole’s the dumbass. He’s always hiding behind me when he says something stupid.” The Lennox twin on the right pointed to his other half.
Yeah, Dane would like a word with Cole. “He might want to hide behind you now.”
A single eyebrow arched on Cole’s face. “You’re pissed that I talked to Landon? Well, someone had to. You guys are fucking this up and hard.”
The urge to kill flared up again. “Is that right?”
Tal held up a hand. “Before you kill Mr. Lennox, perhaps you should understand a few things.”
“Like he could kill me.” Cole rolled his eyes.
Burke shrugged. “Dude, we’ve spent the last year hauling our son around, not training for battle. He would probably take you down.”
“Please. I could take him down with Caleb strapped into his baby Snugli across my chest.”
“The fact that you just used the word Snugli proves how out of the game we are.”
The Lennox brothers continued to argue, but Dane looked to Tal. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what you’ve tried hasn’t worked. You’ve all come at her in different ways, and she is going to require a coordinated assault where you leave her absolutely no way out. It’s imperative the three of you work together. And be smart for a fucking change. I believe she’ll respond to how gentle Landon can be, to Cooper’s playfulness, and I absolutely believe she needs you most of all.” Tal looked pointedly at Dane. “But you’re the one who’s holding back the most.”
Tal could accuse him of a lot of things, but not that he’d been holding back. Something crashed in the background, and Dane looked over his shoulder. Landon had Cooper pinned to the ground, getting ready to bash his head in with what was probably a priceless vase. Idiots.
Cooper kicked up and Lan groaned as his balls met with a steel-toed boot. Every man in the hallway moaned, and Lan started a long fall to the floor.
Yeah, this was fucking helping.
Dane moved in to avoid utter catastrophe. The last thing he needed was to get billed for damaging historical art or some shit. He caught the vase just before Lan hit the floor.
Cooper and Landon were both on the carpet, chests heaving and blood dripping. They had done numbers on one another.
“You two, stay the fuck down or I will get involved in this,” Dane promised. Maybe Rafe was right and they should start considering themselves brothers. If they did that, Coop and Lan better understand that Dane was the big brother, and they were going to have to fall in line.
For now, they seemed content to lie there and focus on breathing.
“Sorry.” He handed the vase back to Tal. “I’ll talk to them.”
Tal nodded. “That was a start.”
“How the hell can you say I haven’t been trying with her? I’ve been on walks with her almost every day. I try talking to her, coaxing her out of her shell. I’ve brought her treats, complimented her… Everything I should.”
“Everything a vanilla man should. Alea requires more, and you know it.”
Fuck. “She’s fragile.”
“She’s also submissive without a firm Dominant. She’s in free fall without a safety net. Rafe, Kade, and I have stood back, hoping you three would get your act together, but…” Tal shook his head.
Damn and hell. Tal wasn’t telling him anything about Alea he hadn’t already known. Every instinct in his body told him to top her, but she just kept shoving back. He didn’t want to push her too hard. He’d been down that road with Kelly, and it had only ended in divorce.
“I can’t force her to see what she needs,” Dane argued.
“I’ve watched you with Alea,” Kade said, stepping up. “You’re at your best when you tell it like it is. But you’ve been very careful with her. Hell, we all have. My brothers and I have resolved to stop now. You have to do the same. I’m not telling you to force her to your will, but you should be open and honest about everything you can do for her. What the three of you give her.”
“We’ve tried so many things,” Rafe added. “We’ve brought in therapists, given her charity work to take her mind off things, surrounded her with family and friends from her past who can help her remember happier times. None of it has worked. She pretends to be content, but she doesn’t connect with people anymore.”
Coop pushed himself off the floor. “She’s got a terrible self-image. She thinks she’s ugly and frigid. We can’t work on that from a distance.”
Lan got to his feet as well, wiping blood from his mouth. “I hate to admit it, but I agree with Cooper. What we’ve been doing so far hasn’t worked. We’ve been treating her like she’s too fragile. We’ve almost convinced her that she is, too. But she won’t break. She just needs to know that we’re strong enough to handle her.”
Dane looked at his two best friends. They had beaten each other stupid, but now they were standing together. Maybe that’s what real brothers were like. And maybe it was time to start following his instincts. Alea was floundering. Her world had been broken in a way that she couldn’t put back together all alone. She didn’t know how to ask for help and was afraid to need it. She was damn straight terrified to open her heart.
He’d worked plenty of operations where he couldn’t just walk through the door, guns blazing. The key was strategy. Find a sneaky way in. He could manage that. A two-pronged approach would work. He could start doing exactly what Tal had suggested, tell Alea everything she was missing, everything they could give her in the filthiest language possible. He wouldn’t hold back. He wouldn’t be polite. And he wouldn’t let her get away with anything.
And then, when she couldn’t stand another second, they would deliver on their promises. They would show her just how beautiful they thought she was, how hot they could make her, how high they could send her soaring. Once her body belonged to him and his brothers, her heart wouldn’t be far behind.
“Go get cleaned up,” Dane said to Landon and Cooper. “We have a lot to talk about. Tal, please have the investigators send me the report. We’ll will regroup in the morning and figure out exactly where to go from here. In the meantime, were going to figure out new protocols for the princess.”
Tal held out his hand, shaking Dane’s firmly. “The backup security team can handle the rest of the evening. It’s winding down anyway. Consider your team reassigned. You’re completely in
charge of Alea’s security from now on. Good luck.”
Tal and his brothers, along with their friends, filed down the stairs, heading back to the ballroom, leaving Dane alone with the two men who had watched his back for the last two years. There wasn’t anyone else he would rather go into battle with.
This was the mission of a lifetime, and Dane didn’t intend to fail.
Chapter Four
Alea nearly cursed when she heard the soft knock on her door. The last thing she wanted was more conflict. At least she was dressed this time, having donned silk pajamas after a punishingly hot shower. “Please, Dane, can we talk about it in the morning? I’m so tired.”
Dane would be the one they sent. He always delivered bad news or a lengthy lecture on how stupidly she was behaving. She knew putting him off wasn’t right, but she couldn’t handle another confrontation tonight.
The door opened, and a pretty brunette in a designer gown floated in. Piper al Mussad stood halfway in the room, her hands raised in a silent gesture that pleaded for peace. “It’s just me. Don’t blame me because my husbands are nitwits.”
Alea couldn’t help but smile. Despite the terror, uncertainty, and shame of the last hour, Piper was a breath of fresh air. Her cousin-in-law was one of those people who lit up the room simply by walking into it. “You really should have had their IQs checked before you decided to marry them.”
Piper shrugged. “Give a girl a break. I was blinded by their hotness.”
“Okay, as a girl who remembers them during their prepubescent years—ewww.” But Alea smiled. Piper had been so good for her cousins. She’d become the sun they all orbited around. It reminded Alea of the joy her aunt and uncles had once shared and how happy the palace had been during her youth.
Piper closed the door behind her, her radiant face suddenly serious. “Are you all right?”
Alea was so far from all right that it was ridiculous, but she didn’t need to drag Piper any farther into this mess. And she wasn’t about to cause problems in Piper’s marriage. “I’m perfectly fine. My cousins have always been protective. I’m positive they would’ve told me in the morning.”
THEIR_VIRGIN_PRINCESS Page 7
