“The asshole’s name is Thaddeus Bishop. When I was about five, or maybe a little before, he won a seat on the town council. My mom, Lucinda, was a nurse and sometimes had to work the night shift.
“That was when he’d attack, late at night when mom wasn’t home. The first couple of times, he made it seem like a game—and it likely was, to him. My memories are all mixed up. I really don’t remember that first time, not when it was happening. Mostly I remember when it was over, being in pain and being scared. Shame became a part of the mix, too, in time. He made me believe that if I told my mother what I let him do to me, she would hate me forever and send me away and I’d never see her again.”
April’s cursing was low and vehement and gave him a new appreciation for her vocabulary skills. Then she stopped swearing and met his gaze.
“I want to kill him, Jeremy. I’ll use a knife. Probably a rusty one would be best. I’ll cut off his cock and watch him bleed out as I stuff it down his throat.”
“Thank you.” Jeremy lifted April’s chin and met her gaze. He kissed her tears, and then he kissed her lips, a small, tender caress overflowing with emotion. “I appreciate the offer. The bastard is currently in prison. He was sentenced to fifty years. I…I wasn’t the only child he abused, and that wasn’t the only crime he committed.”
He watched her and saw when she made the connection. The emotion was right there for him to see—devastation and renewed anger. “Ari.”
“My step-sister, yes. And other little girls and boys before and after her. Maybe if I’d been brave enough to visit him when Ari was little, I’d have known he’d touched her, too. But by the time my mom divorced the pedophilic piece of shit, I was sixteen. I’d kicked him in the balls the last time he tried to touch me, when I was about thirteen. And then, I guess, I got too old for him because he never tried again. But I couldn’t bring myself to visit him more than once or twice, and only with Mom there. I just couldn’t.”
“Did you ever tell your mother what he did to you?”
“Yeah. But not when she could have done something about it. When I was still a kid, he’d taken an adult mistress—Ari’s mother. My mother divorced him for infidelity, never guessing how depraved he really was. Anyway, I didn’t truly let my eyes be opened about what he’d done to Ari until she ran away from home when she was just fourteen.
“I realized immediately why she’d run, and still, I didn’t try to find her. I bumped into her once several years later, in Austin…but she saw me and ran as if I was Satan incarnate.” He inhaled deeply. “It wasn’t until a few months after I’d been recruited to work covert ops that I had my chance. After that almost encounter, I began to look for her. I kept an ear to the ground, looking for her, and I also monitored the pedophile.
“When I learned the bastard was considering a bid for the U.S. Senate, when I heard rumbles that he was looking for his ‘long lost’ step-daughter? That’s when I used my government resources to find her so I could warn her. As it turned out, he’d decided that it would be better for his future presidential aspirations if she was dead. His henchman tried and failed to kill her. And Ari and I both testified against that son of a bitch—about the attempt on her life and about what he’d done to us when we were children.
“He was facing a lot of charges because, even though we were too old for him, the ones that came after…” He left off the rest, figuring April would figure it out.
“I need you to hold me for a moment, please,” April said. “That was hard for me to hear. I need to feel you and let my heart know you’re safe.”
Yeah, April has figured everything out just fine. He wrapped his arms around her and held on. They held on to each other, and that had been exactly what he’d needed.
Then Marc pressed close, his hand on Jeremy’s neck, and for the first time ever, he felt totally accepted—and totally safe.
* * * *
April never could have guessed Jeremy’s secret. There may have been clues, but they hadn’t been meant for her to pick up on. So she held on to him, letting him feel her, letting him know that she wanted him and needed him—and yes, maybe even loved him—regardless of the trauma he’d suffered as a child.
She’d known, intellectually, that children who’d been abused had a tendency to blame themselves for what had been done to them. That was human nature and something those fucking predators seized upon and used as a weapon.
Until this moment, she hadn’t truly understood that.
The only way she could think of to show Jeremy all she couldn’t yet put into words was just to hold him.
As she held him tight, she prayed for her anger to subside. It was a righteous anger, maybe to be visited later, should the occasion arise. But in the here and now, she wanted to offer this good man only her comfort.
“Thank you, April.” Jeremy’s whisper sent a warm breath shivering across her ear. She felt his smile against her neck.
She eased her grip of him and moved just enough so she could let him see her smile. “You’re welcome.”
“So, Penny Lane, we’ve already had a clue—and very recently at that—that our being romantic or lover-like in your presence isn’t going to be a problem.” Marc rested his chin on her shoulder. “Now, this may come as a surprise to you, but I kind of like to be in control of things, especially when it comes to making love.”
April snorted. “Really? Wow, and you’re the only one in your family who’s like that, too!”
“Hmm,” Marc said. “A smartass.”
April understood herself well enough to know what turned her on and what didn’t. She thought some things she’d never tried might really get her horny because when she’d read about them and thought about them, she’d damn near creamed her jeans. So she sent up a little trial balloon, as it were. “No, I don’t consider myself a smartass. But I think I might be a brat…Sir.”
“My cock just bounced for sheer joy,” Jeremy said.
“Mine, too.” Marc placed a sweet kiss on her cheek. “But we’re not ready to take things to the next level, yet.”
“We’re not?” Jeremy looked completely disappointed with Marc’s announcement.
“No, not yet. I have to tell Amelia Earhart, here, why I’m such a freakazoid about having my back to the wall and the convertible top open.”
“You’re not a freakazoid,” April said. “But you are a bit claustrophobic. I noticed that and just took it as the way you were.”
“It’s the way I am now.”
She felt the tension in him because she was currently sitting with him snuggled up to her back. She leaned her head on his shoulder in order to see his face. Since his lips were almost on top of hers, she closed the distance between them, offering him her mouth—and, in fact, her heart and soul, too.
Marc took control of the kiss, his tongue stroking her own into wonderous submission. His flavor made the blood hum in her veins. What a miracle that I adore the taste of both of these men. April had kissed her share of frogs and was so glad to finally have latched onto a couple of real princes.
When his lips released hers, she stuck her tongue out to steal from him a tiny little extra parting taste. I can’t tell him I’m a brat without letting him see that I am.
“The same goes for you, Marc. No judgments, and no pressure.”
“I believe you, sweetheart. But it’s not easy for me to admit to this weakness.”
“But is it a weakness, though?” She didn’t really know what he wanted to tell her and was yet having so much trouble actually saying. But if she’d been close on guessing the nature of their lives before they’d come home to Lusty, then it was more than possible she had enough of a hint, now, as to what it might be.
“We’re all human, and human beings have basic characteristics and reactions in common. That’s why investigators can feel confident in extrapolating motive based on behavior. In studies of human behavior there is no such thing as behavior without reason. Consider that fact as an if/then statement.
“On a simpler level, if we have a brain in our heads, we only let our fingers get close to the red-hot burner of a stove once. Why? Because we come to associate that act with pain, and we automatically behave to avoid that outcome.”
“April? What’s your point?”
“If anyone else went through what you went through, would their emotions, reactions, whatever be drastically different than your own?”
“Probably not.”
“Then whatever it is you’re dealing with, Marc Jessop, it sure as hell isn’t a weakness. It’s a consequence of being in the situation you were in, and of being human. But guess what? That’s okay because, as coincidence would have it, Jeremy and I are human, too.” She gave him one more sweet, quick kiss then met his gaze. “So fire away, babe.”
Chapter Four
Marc kept his gaze locked on April’s for a long moment. In her eyes he read patience, interest, and something that could be the beginning of love. Fear? That emotion was not there, not at all, and he’d be willing to bet she had no idea what a gift that alone was.
He met Jeremy’s gaze and rested there for just a moment, gaining strength. It didn’t surprise him his lover would have only encouragement and love for him in his eyes. He counted on that, counted on him, just as he knew he, in turn, was counted upon. Jeremy had been his anchor from the moment they’d first met. It was a relationship that was completely reciprocal. He already knew, and he understood Jeremy knew, this woman was the heart and soul who would complete them. Just as they were all that for her.
“You get a gold star for a correct guess. Covert ops it was. Four years ago, Jeremy and I met during an assignment. We were from different agencies, but that’s not really all that unusual. We were both known as what’s called high value assets. Our specialized training—mine in chemistry and biology and Jeremy’s in computer sciences—meant we would sometimes be shared with other government covert groups.
“Our first assignment together, we parachuted into Afghanistan and were met by a team of U.S. Marines, who more or less babysat us while they got us to our target. A rather nasty but very rich man owned a compound and a number of people, and one of them, it was discovered through sources and methods, had developed a next-generation biological-slash-chemical weapon. A fucking dangerous one, as it turned out, because the inventor was killed by his own creation.”
Full disclosure now. There was something he was about to reveal that Jeremy didn’t know—or at least Marc didn’t think he knew—which was why he’d mentioned the earlier mission.
“Jeremy’s a computer god. My bailiwick, as I said, is biological and chemical compounds. I’ve degrees in both sciences and worked for a time in the lab at the CDC—which was where the CIA found me and tapped me for that first long-ago mission. By the time Jeremy and I met up, I’d been in the game for a few years.”
He paused for a moment and then girded his loins as he met Jeremy’s gaze. “That time in Afghanistan, our assignment was to download everything in the so-called entrepreneur’s closed computer network with regard to his new biological-slash-chemical weapon. Then Jeremy was to destroy the system. In that regard, at least, and at that time, we succeeded in temporarily crippling the bastard.” Jeremy was awfully good at connecting the dots. Marc didn’t have to wait long.
“Damn it all to hell, Marc! Is that who fucking grabbed you? That maniac, Assar?”
“Technically, no. Technically, it was an off-shoot terrorist group, kind of a hybrid of ISIL and Al Qaeda.” Marc exhaled. “But he was there. He thought I didn’t recognize him, I’m sure. I don’t even know if he connected me to that raid fours year ago. Him, and another man I didn’t recognize who sounded American were there. Anyway, whoever was running the interrogation had watched far too much American television. They only questioned me after beating me and while shining a bright fucking light into my eyes.”
But he’d recognized Assar—his mannerisms, his voice. Marc had studied the man prior to that first incursion into Afghanistan. Sometimes, Assar himself questioned him, and sometimes, he just watched. And then, once, Assar had brought that other man there. A man who spoke English with an American accent and seemed vaguely familiar somehow.
As usual, as soon as Marc tried to focus on the image of that other man, his head hurt.
He felt April’s grip on his hand tighten. He closed his eyes for just a moment because her touch had just pulled him back from the edge.
“You were…captured? Tortured?”
Marc opened his eyes. Her tears made silent tracks down her face. “Yes. But I was also rescued, sweetheart. I only spent about a week in the less than tender hands of that splinter group before an Air Force Pararescue team found me. They’d known, thanks again to sources and methods, where I was within hours of my capture.”
“They knew where you were within hours, and it took them nearly a week to get you out of there?”
Marc decided then and there he really liked that look of outrage on April’s face. Especially when she’s outraged on my behalf. Of course, a quick look at Jeremy told him he and their woman occupied the same mental place. Jeremy was none too pleased, either.
“Sweetheart? I need you to listen to this. I knew what I was signing up for. In this situation, I wasn’t surprised to have been left in captivity for that long.” What to say without revealing too much? “Sources and methods, April, come in all forms and from all situations.”
Since her jaw dropped, and Jeremy wrapped his arms around her from behind, he guessed he’d said just enough.
“That’s why you spent so much time in debrief,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah. They needed every bit of intelligence I’d gathered, even the intel I didn’t even realize I had.”
There’s a block, sir. I don’t know if it’s chemically induced or if it’s just part of Jessop’s natural subconscious defenses…
Marc had been only partially cognizant in that moment. He’d been given a sedative, and a few other drugs that had made him feel completely disoriented. That had been the most vulnerable moment of his entire life. If he hadn’t trusted completely in his boss, in the command structure…Marc closed that thought off. He exhaled, reminding himself in that instant he hadn’t really completely trusted, but he’d been out of options at that point.
He recalled the egghead in charge of interrogating him telling Marc’s handler that they could push, but that might result in brain damage. He also recalled that his handler’s refusal to go that far had come pretty damn fast and been pretty damn adamant.
Marc focused on the moment he was in. “When those terrorists weren’t…fucking with me physically, they kept me in a small crypt. That’s how I came to think of it. Dark, dank, just enough air for me breathe, or so it seemed. That, too, was part of their torture and, as it turned out for me, the worst part.”
“Do you have nightmares, Marc?”
She’d asked the question gently. He swallowed hard because he was not going to lie to this woman. She’d asked a question Jeremy never had.
Jeremy’s a deep sleeper and, so far, hasn’t awakened. Thinking of those nightmares brought them back. And not only them, but his time in captivity and his time in debriefing.
“Yes, sometimes. So far, they just manage to awaken me, leaving me with a sense of impending danger.” By the expression on Jeremy’s face, he figured he was going to catch hell for not having said anything about that. To stave off the lecture he was sure to get, he offered more. “It feels like they’re getting worse, and they seem centered on that other man, the American one I didn’t recognize. He seemed familiar. That’s all I have.”
April turned to meet Jeremy’s gaze. Personally, Marc was thrilled that they could communicate with each other without words. Of course, he would have been happier about it if they weren’t communicating about him.
“We’re both here for you, Marc. We’ve got your back.” Then she leaned forward and gave him a sweet, not nearly long enough kiss.
“Thank you.” He cup
ped her face. “So, two down and one to go. Care to open up your baggage for us now, Nancy Drew?”
“You mean like for a rummage sale?” Her attempt at humor was a good one and fell just short of deserving a laugh-out-loud moment.
“No, baby,” Jeremy answered. “Like a woman who chooses to share herself with her two men who believe themselves to be her mates.”
Marc grinned. That little bit of information shocked the humor right out of her. Good. They were all getting naked with each other emotionally and mentally before they got naked with each other physically.
He returned her kiss and waited for her to share.
* * * *
“It’s not a deep dark secret or anything. Nothing like what the two of you have experienced.”
Jeremy still had his arms around her from behind. Marc had her hands in his. He rubbed the backs of them. They kept silent, waiting.
April sighed. It wasn’t something that she ever really let herself think about. But when they’d settled in here a couple of hours before, as first Jeremy and then Marc faced their demons and then shared them, she’d been thrown back, emotionally, to that time in her life where everything had shattered.
“I don’t even know how much I can tell you.”
“You can tell us anything and everything,” Jeremy said.
“No judgments and no pressure. Your words, baby. You have to know nothing you say can change the way we already feel about you.” Marc’s deep tone skittered along her skin, comforting and arousing at the same time.
“No, you misunderstand. I don’t know how much I can tell you because of how little I remember.” Marc frowned and looked at Jeremy. She didn’t have to see that man’s expression to know he likely revealed the same kind of budding rage she could read on Marc’s face. Well, that didn’t go over well, did it? April inhaled deeply. “When I was in my second year of college, I was kidnapped.”
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