Score one for Marc.
“Coffee, sweetheart?” Jeremy’s mock innocent expression had her shaking her head. She could hardly wait until these two men tag-teamed her in earnest. They were sexy, handsome, well hung, and intellectually sharp and witty. A woman could ask for nothing more.
“Yes, please.”
Jeremy immediately made her a cup of the morning blend she loved. Instead of handing it to her, he set it and his own on the table and then eased her into his arms. “Good morning, woman.”
He covered her mouth with his own in a kiss that took her from zero to one hundred faster than Marc’s Tesla Roadster.
Every bit of her shivered and quivered as Jeremy’s tongue danced with her own. He suckled, drinking her down in a rhythm both sexy and sweet. With one hand in her hair and the other mid back, he held her close and sure.
Then Marc’s body pressed against her. His heat, his strength, and the ridge of his cock imprinted upon her. She felt branded and claimed, and they hadn’t even made love yet.
Jeremy released her head, and Marc’s fingers combed her hair, grasped tight, and, when Jeremy lifted his head, turned her for his kiss.
Kiss? No, this was more than a kiss. This was a command—a command to submit. April had a flash of intellectual protest. She was woman, strong and strong-willed, captain of her ship and mistress of her fate…and she surrendered. In this moment, to this man, that was all she craved, all she really wanted to do.
The flavors of both of them—both lovers—tantalized her tongue and slicked her sex. Marc dominated, he took, he led her on a tumbling frolic through passion and desire.
And when he changed the angle of his devotion slightly, when he slid from her mouth to Jeremy’s, April Bixby knew there would never, ever be anyone else or anyone more for her than these two men.
If they change their minds and leave me, I’ll stay shattered. I’ll function, I’ll achieve, but I’ll never love again.
The reality of that thought, that she already loved these two men, frightened and fortified her in one trembling heartbeat.
Marc ended his kiss, licked Jeremy’s lips, and then hers. “Breakfast is ready. Let’s eat and plan our day, shall we?”
“I need conversation, Marc.”
“Conversation you shall have. We’ll speak of ships and shoes and sealing wax.” His grin could only be called maniacal, but mockingly so.
April tilted her head to the side and treated him to her best analytical stare. “Are you planning to gobble me down, as the walrus and the carpenter did those poor oysters?”
“Darling, you have no idea.” He gave her a quick smacking kiss. “But I promise you’ll love it.”
She didn’t have to wonder. His use of that “L” word had been deliberate and, yes, a bit smugly said.
“Sit, sweetheart,” Jeremy said.
She took her place at the table. The men brought three platters containing eggs and meat and breakfast potatoes. Juice and toast and more coffee rounded out the feast. “I feel like this is a clue.” She watched them pile their plates high. “As in, you’re anticipating having to tap into your reserves today and so are loading up on calories.”
“We like to be prepared,” Jeremy said.
The food tasted delicious. She frowned when Marc forked another bit of meat onto her plate. Normally, she didn’t eat that much. His chuckle triggered her own.
“I was kind of hoping that we’d get to enjoy a few rounds of hot, sweaty sex.” She used her fork to point to the piece of sausage newly arrived on her plate. “I eat that, it’ll be that mouthful too much, and if the round of sex is robust enough, it might not stay down.”
Jeremy snickered. Marc was saved from saying anything because his cell phone rang.
“Jessop.” He met her gaze as he listened to whoever had called. “Oh, hey, Richardson. No, she’s here. We’re just having breakfast.”
April kept her gaze on him as he listened again. “Sure, come on over. Okay, see you in five.”
“Looks like you get to eat that sausage after all,” Jeremy said.
Marc shook his head then raised one eyebrow. April sighed and set down her fork. “I’ll just go get dressed.” She felt her face slide into a pout and couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
She was almost out of the kitchen when Marc spoke. “Don’t worry, Nancy Drew. One thing my life has taught me is that when clothes go on, they can also come back off again.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Right after our visit with Mel Richardson and Connor Talbot. And, of course, after that conversation we all need.”
April nodded. At least she had something to look forward to. On top of finding out why those two private investigators wanted to talk to her.
Chapter Six
“Did you call them and ask them to offer her a job?”
Marc took his attention off his perusal of their backyard flower gardens and put it on Jeremy. They’d come outside to give the private investigators privacy to discuss client-related information with their woman, as they pitched her coming to work with them.
“No. I wish I had thought of it,” Marc said. “We were discussing how we could keep her here in Lusty.” Then he sighed. “I had been thinking of asking Mel and Connor to look into April’s kidnapping.” He couldn’t prevent the shiver that ran through him. Just thinking about what she’d very likely gone through—whether she could remember it or not—made him feel sick. Everything within him screamed the need for him to protect his woman. It was the first time his inner caveman had emerged so insistently and clashed so badly with his intellect.
A person doesn’t suffer amnesia about an event unless that event is more traumatic than they can bear. That was something Robbie had said once, years ago, and Marc accepted his oldest brother’s words as a given.
Begs the question as to why you’ve got a few holes in your memory yourself. Marc pushed that inconvenient thought away.
“We can do that ourselves,” Jeremy said. “Between us, we can dig out the facts of that event. But before we do that little thing, I think we should find a way to meet April’s parents. They moved from Pennsylvania, where they themselves had been born and raised, to Texas, just to be closer to their daughter. That tells me they didn’t want to force her to return to where her life had become upended, just to visit them. Marc, that speaks volumes to me about what she endured—and what they likely know about it.”
He focused on that and combined his brother’s long-ago wisdom with what he’d learned in the interim as he’d worked the spy gig. “April said she didn’t remember everything that had happened. We both know shock can rewire the conscious mind—but that rewiring rarely lasts forever.”
“I know it. Sooner or later, something is bound to break free.” Jeremy’s expression was grim. “I think her parents know more about the incident than they’ve ever told her.”
“That’s what I think, too.”
There was no question but that they would dig through her background. Invasion of privacy? He supposed in a way that was exactly what they were about to do. But he wouldn’t reconsider, nor would he apologize. His first priority, his first duty, was to protect his lovers.
He couldn’t do that without knowledge. If he needed to dig a big fucking hole into April’s past to get that knowledge, then he would. Decision made, case closed.
Together they moved just slightly so that they could look into the kitchen and observe their woman with those detectives without being too obvious about it. Mel talked, Connor split his attention between his partner and April, and their woman listened in that way she had, with her head cocked to the side, her posture relaxed and her body unmoving.
“The image of her I have in my mind and likely will until I die,” Jeremy said, “was captured the day of the roadhouse take-down.”
That was a day that Marc would never forget either, and he carried the same image in his head. Despite his goal to ensure Jenny Collins’ safety when Douglas Vance burst into An
gel’s Roadhouse, his gaze had snapped to the woman who, at the time, they’d known only as Nancy Drew.
They’d both been attracted to her, both been interested and determined to examine that attraction further. They’d barely begun to speak of it when all hell had broken loose.
“I wish I had an actual photo: our woman, Glock held in a standard police double-handed grip, stepping forward and kicking Vance’s gun right out of his hand.”
Jeremy grinned. “I shouldn’t be surprised that was a moment for you, too.” Then he chuckled. “Your poor cousin Adam looked fit to be tied. He was a half a second from putting his gun against Vance’s head, but the women beat him to it—all three of those women. First Jenny threw hot coffee in his face, and then April kicked the gun and Kat pistol-whipped him with the butt of her Glock.”
“He’s your cousin, too.” Marc leveled a serious look at Jeremy and waited to see what he’d have to say to that. “Adam Kendall is your cousin, too, now.”
“He will be, when we have all our little ducks lined up and marching smartly toward that commitment ceremony, lover.”
“Well, you said ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ That’s progress.”
“Progress, yes, because I’ve come to understand that all three of us are on equal footing, at the heart of it all. We all three have monsters that need to be eradicated. And I believe we all three have to slay our own and each other’s monsters, together.”
“Yeah.” Marc got that, at least intellectually. “It’s funny you’d use that word—monster. Because in my nightmares, that’s what’s looming, just out of sight. This big two-headed blob of a monster that I can’t bring into focus. They had been getting better, those nightmares. I’d thought I was going to be free of them, but then they got worse. I don’t know if they’ll ever completely go away.”
“The thing about PTSD is that it’s different for everyone,” Jeremy said. “What triggers it, what form it takes. I’ve been reading up on it.”
“You knew, even before my confession last night, didn’t you? Even without knowing about the nightmares, you knew about the PTSD.” Marc had tried to protect Jeremy from worrying about him.
“It was the claustrophobia, love.” Jeremy’s voice took on that soft tone that stroked Marc’s heart. “You came back from that mission and couldn’t bear to be closed in.” Jeremy moved closer and slipped his arm around Marc. Neither of them had quite developed the habit of unconscious, impulsive touch. That was one of Marc’s goals—that he and Jeremy would both learn to be able to just reach out to the other whenever the mood struck, at least here in Lusty.
Here in his hometown, their unplanned PDAs would not only be accepted, they’d maybe even be smiled at.
“I guess the first step in our working to vanquish each other’s monsters starts with our staying together,” Marc said.
“Yes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that April takes those two detectives up on their offer. Once that happens, we have to get totally naked with each other and in a way that has nothing to do with clothes.”
Marc might very well be a Dominant and might even plan to exercise that personality trait in regard to his lovers. But he’d have to make himself just as vulnerable as them, if he had any hope of their having a life together outside the shadows.
* * * *
April had shaken both men’s hands and then sat back down beside Marc while Jeremy made each of them a cup of coffee.
Once Jeremy had taken his seat, Connor had sat back and nodded to Mel.
“April, the reason we wanted to see you today is we would like to offer you a position with our agency, and by position, I mean we’d like you to join us as a partner.”
“We’ve looked into your case history, and it’s impressive,” Connor said. “You’ve done well on your own, and there’s no reason for anyone to think that you wouldn’t or shouldn’t continue to do so.”
“Thank you.” It didn’t upset her in the least that these two men had investigated her professional efficacy. She’d have been leery of joining an agency that hadn’t.
“That little dust-up at the roadhouse wasn’t the first time that we’ve had the thought that we needed another partner—a female partner—so that we can handle any contingency in any investigation.” Mel took a sip of his coffee. “We came to that conclusion several months ago and offered the opportunity to Kat.”
“She’s still splitting her time between Texas and California,” April said. She’d known the other woman for quite some time without knowing anything about Lusty, Texas. They’d met when one of her cases had intersected with Kat’s. “Her husbands are successful screenwriters and have based themselves in L.A.”
“Exactly. In the interim, we put off actively looking for someone—and now here you are,” Connor said. “The truth is our need for a third is a little more pressing than it was.”
“Our wife, Emily Anne, is expecting our first child.” Mel looked happy as hell.
“That’s wonderful news!” April grinned as both Marc and Jeremy offered their congratulations. Then Marc chuckled. “Looks like my brother is going to be one very busy ob-gyn come the new year.”
“Grandma Kate told us that babies tend to come in waves, and that this one coming up was going to be even bigger than the last one.”
“Grandma would know,” Marc said. “We, and by ‘we’ I mean the entire family, we don’t know how she does it. Seriously, she has the CIA beat all to hell when it comes to intel gathering.”
“We know it,” Connor said.
“What kind of cases and clients do you generally take on?” April asked. “I’ve known about your agency for a year or more, but I don’t have much knowledge about it.”
At that moment, Marc ran a hand down her back, getting her attention. “Jeremy and I are going give you some privacy. This is a matter for the three of you to discuss and decide upon between you.” Marc got to his feet. He bent and kissed April then stepped back so Jeremy could do the same.
That Marc would offer that was a bit of a surprise. She had wondered if his dominance was only going to be a factor in the bedroom or if it would be absolute.
She watched them as they walked over to the glass patio door, as they opened it and stepped into the yard, closing the glass behind them. Marc didn’t know it, but he’d just given her the reassurance she needed. His actions just now spoke loud and clear. Anything to do with her profession going forward would be her decision to make. Her thinking was derailed by the lust inspired by the sight of their denim-covered tushes. They have got the best damn Wrangler butts I’ve ever seen.
April turned back to the detectives and felt her face color in response to their amused expressions.
“We always feel it when Emily Anne does that, so they likely felt it, too.” Connor’s words and his shrug put her at ease.
“Good. I hope they did feel it.” She grinned, more comfortable now with these two, men she’d met but didn’t really know. She’d met their wife, Emily Anne, and really liked the pretty brunette.
“Now, to answer your question, we get most but not all of our work from the Lusty Town Trust. Do you know what that entity is?” Mel asked.
“I do, yes. Marc told me that when Lusty was founded, one of his great-great grandfathers, a lawyer by the name of Warren Jessop, set up a trust in perpetuity to protect the town from encroachment by outside parties. All town land was family land, and others could lease but never own the property.”
“Exactly,” Connor said. “That entity still exists and is the basis of the structure of the community, as well as the basis for the wealth of the combined families—which is really quite extensive.”
April tilted her head slightly as she considered what Connor had just said. “This is a small town. How busy could you possibly be?”
Mel smiled. “Yeah, that was pretty much my thought, too, when Jake Kendall first suggested paying me a retainer. But as you saw with that incident at the roadhouse, it’s kind of surprising what all happens around he
re.”
April thought back to her last case. The resolution had happened in a way she never could have anticipated. “That was something. I was surprised when Kat gave me a call and asked if I knew anyone who might be looking for a Jennifer Collins. It didn’t take me long to connect all the dots. By then, I’d had my eye on Vance because he wasn’t a happy camper when he found out he wasn’t inheriting millions…anyway, I’m sure you read my report to my late client’s lawyer.”
“We did,” Mel said. “You connected those dots pretty damn quickly, and you’ve got an impressive record, as Connor said. You don’t take on just anything, either. You’re choosy about what you’ll do, but once engaged, you stick with it.”
“I don’t believe in quitting, as a rule. And no, I don’t take on some of the more common cases we investigators are offered.”
“No cheating spouses as clients, making you go skulking in the bushes for photographic proof of infidelity?” Connor asked.
“Good God, no. Not that there’s anything wrong with people who want to either have their suspicions validated or laid to rest. But still.”
“Good. Sounds like you work with a similar philosophy as we do,” Mel said.
“It’s the puzzle that intrigues me,” April said. “And just digging.”
“You’re likely aware that everyone who comes to call Lusty home is subject to a background check,” Connor said. “The town and surrounding area is still family land, and over the last decade, especially, the family has chosen to be careful.”
“I did know that, and I approve.”
“We even looked into those Benedicts, Kendalls, and Jessops who’ve made Lusty their home, recently.”
Did Mel Richardson think to shock her? She met his gaze. “I would expect that unless or until our relationship—mine and those two yummy Wrangler butts out there—changes, that their files would be files I’ll pretend don’t exist.” The expression she saw in Mel’s gaze told her she’d said the right thing. She had a question for them. “How much of an investment are you looking for, for this partnership?”
Love Under Two Bad Boys Page 6
