by Holley Trent
Fiona’s thin body shook in Tess’s grasp, and her face contorted with her soundless cry before she started sobbing.
Tess rocked her. Shushed her. “You’re forgivable, Fiona. You were a little girl and you didn’t know any better. It’s okay to go home to your mom. I’ll make everything okay for you.”
Of course she would, because that was Tess. It didn’t matter that she was in such heartbreaking turmoil herself, because there was someone who needed fixing. Tess had always been the kind of person who’d put her own grief aside and take care of the person who could be helped. That was one reason she got in so much trouble as a kid.
“Where are the kids, hon?” Nadia asked.
Fiona dragged her dirty sleeve across her running nose and sniffled. “I parked in the McDonald’s lot and told them if I didn’t come back to call my social worker and say to come get them.”
Nadia murmured something into her phone, and then inclined her head toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go get them. We’ll put you up in one of our rooms tonight, and you can fly back to Norseton with us in the morning.”
“Will you let my mom know I’m coming?”
Nadia nodded. “Yeah, if she were my mom, she’d want to know. Come on.” She grabbed Fiona’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
Ollie got out of the way of the door, and the two women walked through it. He closed the door behind them, and Harvey hurried around the table and dropped to his knees at Tess’s side.
“Come here.” He pulled her in close and held her the same way she’d held Fiona, but he brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her temples, whispering against them, “I’m so proud of you.”
“It’s not her fault,” she said. “She was just a little kid who talked too much, and some asshole took advantage of that to hurt us. Why?”
Ollie knelt down next to her and wrapped his hand around one of her shaking ones.
Harvey could have pulled her away so he could prove once and for all that he was perfectly capable of being her sole provider of comfort, but she’d just had her world rocked in a way he couldn’t even begin to understand. She was queen, so she knew so much that was off-limits to him and she felt things so keenly. Maybe she felt everyone’s pain from back then—when each of those children was taken, one by one.
Her grandmother had heard the distress in the web when it’d happened, but Tess was processing the archives and putting a why to the who and when.
“People are afraid of what they don’t understand,” Ollie said. “That’s why Ótama and all the people on that boat left Iceland, and why our ancestors kept heading west. Fear is an irrational thing, baby.” He stroked the side of her face, barely skimming Harvey’s fingertips in the process.
Harvey closed his eyes and tried to keep his thoughts pure and calm.
She needed comfort and strength, not jealousy.
If she could give her all to someone else even when she was in so much pain, he would do the same.
He loved her so much that he at least had to try.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Although Tess had planned on broaching the ménage topic with the men, she’d wanted it to be on her own time…and certainly, not yet. Unfortunately, circumstances had corralled the three of them into a single hotel room.
They’d booked three rooms for the trip. Tess and Nadia were meant to share one, and each of the men would share with the security team members who’d traveled with them. With Fiona and her kids in one of the rooms, that left two rooms to divide between six people—four of whom were male.
Nadia had thrown up her hands, and said, “Look, you supervise your guys. I’ll bunk in Fiona’s room on the pullout sofa. Security can keep the room they were assigned.”
That had been all well and good until they actually entered the room and found there was only one bed. It was all the hotel had left, and it wouldn’t have been such a big deal for Tess and Nadia. Nadia slept in Tess’s bed on occasion because Nadia, like most Afótama, was a toucher. Touching made her calmer, which everyone in her company appreciated greatly, so Tess obliged her.
But, never in her life had Tess had to share a single bed with two men whose feet would likely dangle off the end.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ollie said as they crossed the threshold. “That’s a full.”
Tess laughed and rubbed her tired eyes. “No, I think it’s a queen, which is still way too small if either of you plan on sleeping on it.”
Harvey sighed. “Should we flip a coin? Loser gets the floor.”
She stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “Maybe both of you should take the floor. That would be the fair thing.”
Ollie grunted and pulled open the closet door. He plucked the two spare pillows off the shelf along with the blankets, and tossed one of each to Harvey. “I’ve slept on worse. At least the floor is carpeted. Compared to the cot assigned to me at basic training, it’ll be downright plush.”
She hadn’t really planned on making them sleep on the floor, but if them doing so cut down on the discord, she’d go along with it. She was tired, and after having Fiona’s kids paw her for the better part of an hour during dinner, she needed a bit of space to decompress. She was getting used to being touched and wanting to touch, but on some days, the nonstop interaction was draining for a loner former foster kid like her.
After a quick shower, she pulled on her nightshirt and dove under the covers. Shirtless Harvey leaned against the right nightstand as he toyed with his phone. How he found time to work out, she didn’t know, but he had to be getting some exercise in. His chest was all hard planes and delightful angles. His shoulders were broad, and waist tapered to form perfect little dips for her to clamp her thighs against…or for her to control his thrusts in and out of her mouth.
Her gaze lingered on the downy, dark blond trail between his navel and waistband.
“You look like you want dessert,” he said.
More like the whole buffet, but a sandwich would do. She could be the middle.
He put down his phone and chuckled as he reached for the lamp switch. That was one of her men in an improved mood. Mission half accomplished. She rolled to the left edge of the bed and looked down at the other man.
Ollie reclined with two pillows beneath his head, one of which he must have nabbed from the bed, and chuckled at the television he’d turned down low.
She reached down and swatted his ear. “I think that’s my pillow.”
“Three isn’t enough for you?”
“If we’re going to be fair, the equitable thing would be everyone having two,” Harvey said from his little enclave.
Tess clucked her tongue. “You’re preaching communism to a pseudo-monarch? How dare you? If I were any less benevolent, I’d have six pillows, and you two would be shit out of luck.”
“My apologies for offending you, oh queenly one.”
“That’s more like it, peon.”
“Happy to be your peon, but really, about that second pillow…”
She groaned and tossed it down at him, being fairly sure it hit him square in the face when it landed given his oomph! of displeasure.
“All better?”
“Cold down here. I’m right under the vent. Got an extra blanket?”
“Sorry. Maybe you can go across the hall and ask Rambo and G.I. Joe if they’ve got any.”
“So they can call me a punk to my face? No, thanks.”
“Why would they do that?” Tess asked. “I have it on good authority that the queen can hire her own staff. They should all be minding their P’s and Q’s if they want to keep their jobs.”
“Until you pick a consort, most unattached Afótama men will probably be more concerned with getting into your pants than with their job security.”
Tess pushed herself upright and slapped the lamp switch. Harvey pulled one of the pillows over his face and groaned.
“No one’s trying to get into my pants,” she said.
“Sure they are,”
Ollie mumbled.
“You know something I don’t know? If so, please spill the deets. I’ve been pretty sheltered the past few weeks, and the only men I’ve had regular interaction with have been my brother, my uncle, Chef, and those two security bozos.”
“The security bozos are problem enough,” Ollie said. “They may seem to be on high alert when you’re around, but I’ve gotten close enough to them today that I know without an iota of doubt that if either of them had two minutes alone with you, they’d turn on the charm.”
“I’ve never been left alone with anyone outside the family, except for you two.”
“Exactly,” Harvey said.
“You’re responsible for that?” She reached down and grabbed the corner of the pillow covering his face.
He sighed when she yanked.
“Yes.”
“Are you trying to put a leash on me?”
“No, I’m protecting my interests.”
Ollie whistled low. “Bad choice of words, bro.”
Tess settled onto her forearms and glared down at Harvey.
He didn’t look away. In fact, he raised one eyebrow and turned his hands over in a So? gesture.
“Seriously?”
“I’m not going to apologize, if that’s what you’re waiting for. We’ve been half-bound since we were kids. Obviously, I’m motivated to win the rest of you. Not like I can move on.”
“What?” That was news to Tess.
“It’s the same with the folks in our group,” Ollie said. “Just with the men, though. I don’t know why that is. It used to be everyone.”
Tess rolled to the other side of the bed yet again. “You mean, once you attach yourself to someone, you can’t…break up?”
“You can’t entirely, no. You can try to hook up, but that new person will just be a warm body. You won’t want anyone else. It’s not a temporary thing.”
“So, you can’t get turned on by another woman if you’re fully bound?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not the woman you’re with is the one you were supposed to have been with in the first place. Sometimes we settle for good enough, and then we can’t extricate ourselves when the perfect one comes along. Your body is always going to respond to perfect, whether you’ve already got a mate or not.”
Tess flopped back onto her pillows. “This is some seriously hardcore shit. You guys make having a perfect mate sound like commitment on steroids. I never even thought I’d get married.”
“And yet here you are,” Harvey said, voice sharp. “Hot commodity. They all think you’re picky and that the right one just hasn’t crossed your path yet. They’re going to get more aggressive. They’re going to spring forth from the woodwork making grand gestures, claiming themselves to be your ordained match, Tess. Those are the magic words, right?”
“Are you throwing shade at me, motherfucker? Really?” Ollie asked.
“If the shoe fits…”
She settled farther beneath the blankets and pulled a pillow over her face. “For fuck’s sake.” She needed to get her head out of the real world. They weren’t going resolve their dilemma like reasonable people, because they were Vikings. Being passive wasn’t in their constitutions, so they were going to butt heads. If they didn’t, then neither was aggressive enough to be her consort.
She’d let them have their pissing contest, but the two men still needed to find common ground. They didn’t need to like each other, but they needed to tolerate each other at the very least or there’d be bloodshed every time Tess wanted to make love with them.
With Ollie on the floor, Tess was on her own to silence the voices in her head.
There was buzz on the web because Fiona was going home. People were concerned about the queen, wondering how she really felt about the discovery. Tess had tried keeping her thoughts neutral on the subject, but was finding it difficult because there was so much emotion involved—and not just hers, but everyone affected by the abductions. Her grandmother had done the psychic equivalent of hanging a curtain between Tess and the rest of the Afótama. Basically, she was using her superior psychic control as a shield to protect Tess for the time being. It was a temporary thing and would fall off as soon as Nan went to bed. The clock said that would be any minute.
If Tess wanted rest, she’d have to entreat her potential consort for help.
Damn it.
She groaned.
She nudged her pillow away and rolled onto her belly. The room was dark, but her fingers found what her eyes couldn’t. She traced along Ollie’s chiseled jaw, and let her anxiety escape on an exhalation as the voices quieted.
Ollie grasped her hand and laced his fingers through hers.
“You’re going to get numb sleeping in that position,” he projected.
“Halfway there already. I can’t feel my breast.”
“I could remedy that.”
“Kind of you. Do you always go around fixing things, or am I a special case?”
“I repair motorcycles for a living, so yes, I do go around fixing things all the time.” He chuckled. “Jeff has this piece of shit motorcycle he should have sold for scrap twenty years ago.”
“Maybe he’s attached to it.”
“Baby, he treats that bike almost as good as I treat my kids.”
Tess dropped his hand and turned on the lamp. “What did you say?”
“Who are you talking to?” Harvey asked.
Ollie sighed and propped himself up on his elbows. “I said—”
“No, I heard you,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure I heard you.”
Did he say kids?
“I said kids, baby.”
“Kids?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What did I just miss?” Harvey asked.
“You have kids?” Tess wanted to make sure she was really, truly understanding him. She thought maybe he meant kids as in baby goats. He didn’t seem like the farming type, but she’d certainly misjudged people before.
“Two sons. Matt’s nearly eighteen. Lyman is twelve.”
Harvey scoffed. “Unbelievable.”
“How so?” Ollie’s tone was even, and Tess didn’t feel any shame or anxiousness from him. Apparently, he didn’t feel the circumstance was an automatic deal-breaker.
But do I?
“Think about it,” Harvey said. “How do you think Tess is going to feel about having a stepson who’s only ten years younger than her?”
“Why don’t you ask Tess? If she’s bothered about it, I think I would feel it. I’m not feeling that from her.”
Harvey sat up and leaned his forearms against the bed’s edge. “I can’t do the feelings thing, sweetheart, so fill me in, please.”
“I…”
Harvey’s narrowed green gaze dared her to lie to him.
Her impulse was to touch him—to press her hands to his cheeks and her forehead to his. To kiss away his doubts. That was the Afótama part of her wanting to use touch to soothe, but she sat on her hands.
She had to find a balance between the two men so she didn’t bruise one while placating the other. “I’m…not angry,” she said. “I guess…I’m more surprised than anything else. I hadn’t pictured Ollie as a dad, but I guess…it fits.”
Harvey drummed his fingers on the bed’s edge, saying nothing.
He was an arguer by nature, and their childhood exploits had taught her that when he was quiet, he was plotting. She didn’t want Ollie on the receiving end of one of Harvey’s plots. The last time he’d gone quiet like this was two years ago. They’d drifted apart because of a disagreement over Tess’s stalking, MMA-fighting ex. She’d said she was fine, and that she could take care of herself. Harvey hadn’t agreed.
Tess didn’t know what he’d done, but she’d received a five-page apology letter from her ex in the mail along with some of her important documents he’d been holding hostage. She never heard from him again. She’d confronted Harvey about it. They’d
argued. She’d told him to mind his business, and that she never wanted to see him again.
Until he’d found her in New Orleans, she’d thought he’d believed her.
He couldn’t help doing what he had—she understood that because of what she was. She also understood that she’d always been his.
Touch him, stupid. She reached over and stroked his cheek.
The tension in his shoulders fell away and the tight set of his jaw relaxed. He sighed, then kissed the back of her hand. “I’m guessing their mother is out of the picture.”
“Their mother is dead. My aunt is keeping an eye on them. She’s been a big help to me.”
Tess eased down and pulled the covers up to her chin. “Two nearly-grown kids and a dead wife. I guess I don’t hold the monopoly on emotional baggage.”
“We all have some, baby.”
The kids—them, she could digest. He was nearly forty. Of course a catch like him would have had a mate and a couple of kids.
But, damn, lady.
She’d be competition against a dead woman for his love for the rest of his life.
“You’re sad all of a sudden. Why?” Ollie asked. “Tell me and I’ll fix it.”
“I don’t know if you can.”
“I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t willing to put in the work.”
“Goddamn it,” Harvey muttered.
Tess scooted to the other edge. “What?”
“This contest becomes increasingly more imbalanced when he can both hear and feel you, and I only catch bits and pieces of your thoughts.”
“I suspect that if I told you how I was feeling all the time, you’d get bored with it pretty fucking quickly. Besides, you’ve never had any problems discerning how I feel. You always seem to know.”
“That’s only because I’ve known you for so long that I’ve got you pegged. I make educated guesses based on past behaviors. It’s hardly the same thing.”
“Maybe it’s better,” Ollie said.
“How so?”
“I feel like the playing field has been leveled for me. I get to step a few feet closer to the pitcher’s mound or a dozen yards closer to the hole on the golf course. Yeah, feeling her as I do gets me up to speed quickly, but you’ve had the incredible luxury of knowing her longer. You go way back to before either of you knew what you were. That’s a very intimate thing.”
