Intentionally slurring my words, I hoped they’d believe I was more inebriated than I actually was.
“Plus, I’m a lightweight. I was never much of a drinker in high school or college. Two of these and I’m already pretty damn loosened up.”
I gave Gideon a slow wink and he smiled. “You truly are a dangerous woman, Holly. I’ll give you that.”
Sitting back against the couch, I wiggled my legs in his lap to keep him rubbing at the sore skin. The warmth of his palms felt like heaven on my legs and I’d be a lying woman to say I didn’t enjoy the massage.
“Okay, I have another one,” I said, my voice growing serious.
Gage and Gideon both popped the tops of their beers and gave me their undivided attention.
“Never have I ever killed somebody.”
I said the words slowly, narrowing my eyes on both of them as I gauged their reactions.
A low whistle escaped Gideon’s lips, and Gage ran his hand through his hair. I was starting to pick up on the fact that he did that when he was frustrated or nervous. The twins might be the bounty hunters in the family, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t just as sharp as them when it came to reading a person’s body language.
People always had ‘tells’ when it came to what was going on in their head, patterns and behaviors that would help another person understand them if they paid attention. I was sure the twins used that knowledge in their pursuit of criminals, so I made damn sure to resist letting them into my head as easily as they were letting me into theirs.
They eyed each other, the expressions on their faces growing serious before they raised the bottles to their lips and tipped them in order to swallow down the beer.
My eyes widened in surprise. “You have to be shitting me, right? You two have killed people and I’m the one going to jail?” Pouting out my bottom lip, I took a pretend drink of my beer again and pulled the bottle from my lips. “Doesn’t seem fair.”
Gage walked over to the couch and pushed my body forward to sit down at my back. There was barely any room to move between their large bodies, but I welcomed the closeness and heat that radiated off of their skin. Leaning back against Gage’s shoulder, I stretched my legs out over Gideon so that his hands were now over my thighs.
Nodding my head in Gideon’s direction, I said, “Go ahead and spill. How is it you two are still walking around as free men when you’ve killed someone?”
With a low, steady voice, Gage answered, “It wasn’t intentional…well, it was, but it wasn’t by choice. Not our choice, at least.”
It was uncomfortable to turn and look at Gage, so I continued to eye Gideon when I said, “Tell me what happened.”
Gideon took another long swallow of his beer. He emptied the bottle and placed it down on the wood floor by the couch.
“It was during a bust,” he said. “One of our first. If we hadn’t killed the guys that were hiding in one of the rooms, they would have killed us. We were both shot before we had a chance to turn our guns on them. The police investigated it and confirmed we did the right thing, but…”
His expression dropped as his voice trailed off. He looked so sad, his normally bright eyes darkening as he remembered the lives he’d been forced to take.
Speaking with barely a whisper, I asked, “How many people did you kill?”
Gage shifted behind me, his own voice low and sad when he answered, “Two.”
I shook my head in disbelief. They obviously hated the fact that they taken a person’s life, but I couldn’t let their bad feelings affect me, not with everything I had riding on the line.
Sitting up, I escalated the situation, not caring if I was pushing it too far. I hated myself for what I was doing, hated the fact that I might hurt them when I’d just started caring about them, but my freedom was too damn important to lose my head in all of this.
Crawling over to Gideon, I placed one leg over his lap and shifted my weight so that I was straddling him. His blue eyes opened and locked with mine, his hands inching around my hips to pull me closer to his body.
From behind the curtain of my hair, I glanced at Gage and saw how intently he watched his brother and me. Alcohol had cast a glaze over his normally observant eyes.
Turning my attention back to Gideon, I reached up and ran my hands through his hair, keeping my eyes trained to his when I said, “I’m sorry I brought that up. I didn’t mean to spoil the fun we’ve been having.”
His fingers tightened over my hips, our bodies crushed together even more when he pulled me against him.
Leaning forward so close that the tips of our noses were touching, I opened my lips and said, “For now, and for the rest of tonight, let’s think of happier things, okay?”
He didn’t blink and heat rolled behind his shadowed eyes.
I was going to hell for what I was doing, my heart tightening in my chest for continuing to play this game even though I no longer wanted to.
At least that’s what I told myself, that I didn’t want it. I knew this entire thing was wrong, but at that moment, it felt so right.
I hated myself for my deception, my self denial.
But it was my life or theirs, my freedom or their paychecks. And to me, freedom was worth so much more than the couple million they would earn from turning me in.
After brushing my lips against his softly at first, I waited for him to come to me, his mouth pressed against mine and moved slowly to deepen the kiss.
Chapter Ten
I should have pushed her off me, but it was as though something else had taken over my body and I was helpless to tell her no.
It wasn’t that my little head was thinking for me, being in the spotlight meant that we had women throwing themselves at us all the time, and yet we still managed to be selective.
I could say no, if I wanted to.
But dammit, Holly was so enticing I couldn’t make my muscles obey my command and no words could pass through my dry throat.
She slid herself up my legs and straddled me, her hair falling around her face like a fragrant curtain, her smile as curved as her luscious body.
She tentatively kissed me, and I knew why she was doing it. Her plan was a plain as the nose on her face, and yet I didn’t stop her. I let her follow through.
In fact, as if possessed, my hands moved up her body, not to throw her off but to draw her closer to me. I kissed her back, losing the little voice that told me not to, ignoring the glaring fact that she was using her body to distract us and escape.
I slid my tongue over hers, grabbed her wrists and pulled her down on top of me, felt her breasts crushing against my chest and felt a throb of need roll through my body.
She moaned softly, a noise that set my nerve endings on fire. I wanted her like I’d wanted nobody else, and this confused the hell out of me.
She pulled away and twisted in my arms. She smiled at Gage and said, “What are you waiting for?”
Gage was definitely the thinker, the non impulsive of the two of us. He liked to have a clear plan and know the outcome of any possible scenario before he made a move.
He surprised me when he sprung up and moved closer to her on the couch.
She rolled off my lap and sat between us, one long leg casually thrown over my thigh, the other thrown over Gage’s. She giggled and looked from one of us to the next expectantly.
Gage reached over and pulled her towards him. He brought her face close to his, a huge hand on either side of her face. He looked her right in the eyes and said, “I know what you’re doing, Holly.”
“You do, huh?” she asked with a smirk. She wiggled against him, dropped her hands and slid them along our thighs. She grazed the noticeable bulge in my jeans with her palm and I couldn’t help my sharp intake of breath.
Gage said, “I know your plan and I don’t care. I’m going to let you think you’re getting away, but I’m also going to let you live your little fantasy threesome. Right bro?”
I laughed and pulled her back on my lap. “Right,” I said, n
ibbling on the back of her neck. “We both can see through you, Holly, but you’re stunning. How could we possibly turn you down?”
“What’s the point, if you’re not going to drop you guard then?” she pouted and struggled to get out of my arms.
“The point is that we all get a little of what we want,” Gage said and traced the tip of his finger up her arm and along her collar bone.
I felt her shiver as I nipped and kissed the back of her shoulder. Her body responded and she exhaled a little groan and arched her back against me.
“The point is that we can make you feel better than you’ve ever felt,” I whispered, my hot breath in her ear.
She closed her eyes and gasped as Gage’s finger fell to her breast and pulled the top of her bra down, exposing her perfect rose bud nipples.
“It’s wrong though,” she said in a low voice. “You’re my stepbrothers. You want to take me back to New York. We can’t do this.”
She was writhing in my arms as Gage locked his mouth on her pert breast, sucking her nipple as I rolled the other between my thumb and forefinger.
“There’s nothing wrong about this,” I said, “We’re all adults and we all know we want this.”
“This wasn’t part of the plan though,” she panted, rocking back against me, rolling her hips across my cock. It was painful, straining against the fabric of my tight jeans.
“It wasn’t part of ours either,” Gage said, drawing back and looking up at her. “Do you want us to stop?”
She paused and was silent for a heartbeat. My chest tightened, expecting her to tell us to stop.
But she didn’t. Almost reluctantly she whimpered, “No…I really don’t want you to stop.”
The surprise in her voice was evident. She had planned to use us and escape, but her own body betrayed her as much as mine had betrayed me.
The heat between the three of us was all consuming. She was everywhere at once, kissing me, kissing Gage, wrapping her almost naked body around the two of us like a snake, drawing us in and wanting us with enough desire that I felt we had dropped off the planet into another world.
This wasn’t the uptight, proper Holly I knew. This was a new woman, a sexual goddess hell bent on creating as much pleasure as she could.
And god, did it feel so fucking right.
As she leaned over Gage to reach my zipper and take my cock out, the wind rattled the windows in the ranch house.
She stopped, her eyes opened wide and she said, “That sounded bad.”
“Keep going,” I commanded, “I don’t think it was that bad.” It had been loud and had startled me, but fuck, she was inches away from pulling my cock free and letting me slide it inside of her.
That thought was all consuming, I wanted to possess her body, share her with Gage, give her what we all wanted so desperately.
“It did sound pretty bad, bro,” Gage said and stood quickly. He crossed the room to the window and a low whistle escaped his lips. “Holy fuck, come look at this.”
Holly pulled off me and slid her bra up over her breasts. We stood, I adjusted myself, and we joined him at the last remaining unbroken window in the living room.
I took a look at the sky and exclaimed, “Fuck, what are we going to do about that?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Holly said, wrapping her arms around herself and trembling in fear.
There was a massive funnel cloud just a few hundred feet from the house. It stretched almost comically from the earth to the sky. It wobbled and snaked its way across the open field, heading straight for us.
“The basement!” Holly yelled, “There’s a store room down there, it was used for canned goods, but it doubles as a storm shelter.”
“I hate basements,” I grumbled and felt self conscious when Holly shot me a look of disgust.
“It’s just a basement, dude,” Gage said, “And it’s going to save our lives.”
The wind howled like a freight train against the house. I could hear boards snapping and thought I saw part of the roof twisting and blowing through the storm.
“We don’t have time to waste! Let’s get down there!” Holly yelled over the deafening scream of the storm.
It was getting closer and seemed to be picking up speed. I didn’t know how there would be a house left after it had passed, but I supposed that’s why people put storm shelters in the basement.
Fucking basements.
We ran to the door downstairs and looked straight into the dark pit.
“Get the flashlight!” Gage yelled at me and pointed towards his backpack.
I raced back across the room and grabbed it, along with a few bottles of water. You never knew how long we’d end up down there.
We took the stairs as fast as we could without breaking our necks. Adrenaline raced through my body making my senses sharper and my heart pound harder.
The basement was more of a cellar, the walls were exposed dirt and I could sense the spiders and cobwebs that probably lurked just out of the light Gage was holding.
I hadn’t always been afraid of basements, but when I was ten Gage had locked me in an abandoned root cellar while we were on holidays in Colorado with our mother and some guy she’d been dating at the time.
He’d gone in for lunch and had completely forgotten about me. Mom and her boyfriend were in bed after a night out, and the housekeeper didn’t think to look for me when I didn’t turn up for food.
Gage had put on some cartoons and it wasn’t until mom finally dragged her ass out of bed three hours later that anybody noticed I was gone.
I’d spent three hours in the dark, down that cold, dank hole, had spiders and all manner of bugs crawling on me and in my clothes. I hadn’t been okay with being underground ever since.
But this was life or death, so I pushed past Gage to force my fears to the side and stepped into the small room Holly had pointed out.
Gage was right behind me, “Are you okay?”
His concern was touching, but it, probably revved up by the guilt he still felt to this day, was how we fell right into Holly’s trap.
“I’m sorry guys,” she said as we turned around in the small room. “If I go back to New York, Oliver is going to have me killed.”
“Holly!” Gage screamed.
“Don’t do this!” I yelled.
But it was too late. The flashlight illuminated her face as she shut the door.
Gage rushed it and slammed against it, but it was too late, she was too fast.
She had the old dead bolt slid in place before we had a chance to escape.
Through the rush of the wind above us, I heard her run up the stairs and into the house.
And into the tornado.
My stomach clenched and I realized that her escape would most likely mean her death.
And I wasn’t ready to lose her, not after just finding her.
To Be Continued...
Gideon & Gage –book 2 will release August 21, 2015.
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LONGER SERIES
Jagger, a Stepbrother Romance, book one
Jagger, a Stepbrother Romance, book two
Jagger, a Stepbrother Romance, book three
Gideon and Gage, a Twin Stepbrother Romance, book one
Gideon and Gage, a Twin Stepbrother Romance, book two (coming soon)
Gideon and Gage, a Twin Stepbrother Romance, book three (coming soon)
DEAREST STEPBROTHER SERIES
Dearest Stepbrother: Having His Baby Book 1
Dearest Stepbrother: Having His Baby Book 2
Dearest Stepbrother: Having His Baby Book 3
Dearest Stepbrother: Having His Baby Book 4
Dearest Stepbrother: The
Bachelor Book 1
Dearest Stepbrother: The Bachelor Book 2
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble Part 1
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble Part 2
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble Part 3
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble Part 4
Dearest Stepbrother: After College Part 1
Dearest Stepbrother: After College Part 2
Dearest Stepbrother: After College Part 3
Dearest Stepbrother: After College Part 4
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble, And Baby Makes Four, part 1
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble, And Baby Makes Four, part 2
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble, And Baby Makes Four, part 3
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble, And Baby Makes Four, part 4
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble, Oh Baby, part 1
Dearest Stepbrother: Double Trouble, Oh Baby, part 2
Dearest Stepbrother: The First (Kennedy and Ryan Part 1)
Dearest Stepbrother: The Second (Kennedy and Ryan Part 2)
Dearest Stepbrother: The Third (Kennedy and Ryan Part 3)
Dearest Stepbrother: The Fourth (Kennedy and Ryan Part 4)
Dearest Stepbrother: The Fifth (Jordan and Sarah Part 1)
Dearest Stepbrother: The Sixth (Jordan and Sarah Part 2)
Dearest Stepbrother: The D.U.F.F. (Part 1)
Dearest Stepbrother: The D.U.F.F. (Part 2)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Soldiers (Book 1)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Soldiers (Book 2)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Soldiers (Book 3)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Fighters (Book 1)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Fighters (Book 2)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Fighters (Book 3)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Fighters (Book 4)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Fighters (Book 5)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Cowboys (Book 1)
Dearest Stepbrother: Twin Cowboys (Book 2)
Gideon & Gage, Book One Page 9
