by Abby Blake
Tracey waggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Mikayla laughed again. “Ah, no. If it’s potent enough to have raiders rubbing against trees, I don’t even want to think about what eight husbands would be up for.”
They giggled again at Mikayla’s double entendre. A moment later, Rick came through the front door. He was dressed in his police uniform and smiling widely. “That,” he said as he stepped toward Tracey, “is a very lovely sound to come home to.” Rick kissed his wife tenderly and then turned to Mikayla with a broad smile. “So did you get out without your husbands, or are they lurking on the other side of the door?”
“Other side of the door,” Mikayla said, feeling happier than she had in months. Things weren’t perfect, and she still had a lot of emotions to work through, but at least she had a clearer outlook. How could she have forgotten how much her husbands loved her?
Chapter Four
“Shit, get Mikayla out of here.” John’s whispered order had Brock going immediately to red alert. They were in the middle of New York standing out the front of their lawyer’s offices. What the hell could be so dangerous? “That’s Peter’s ex,” John growled as he moved to intercept the woman. She’d spotted Mikayla and was marching in her direction.
Brock grabbed Mikayla, turned her around, and headed into the nearest dress shop. Hopefully, she hadn’t seen Jessie Evans. The woman was toxic. Even after she’d had a breakdown in open court, she’d continued to harass Peter via intergalactic messages. Her last had almost been comical. She was sorry—yeah, right. She still loved him—still? She would do anything to win him back—never going to happen.
Without the threat of further legal action, Peter, Mikayla, and all the brothers had simply ignored Jessie’s ever increasing messages. They would probably need to file for a restraining order before long, but with the distance between Earth and the jungle planet, they’d felt safe. Too bad they hadn’t considered having the worst luck in history by running into the woman in a crowded city on a planet that few knew they were visiting.
“What’s going on?” Mikayla asked, sounding a little alarmed. He considered lying, but she hadn’t been happy about them keeping her in the dark over Peter’s legal battle, so he caved and told the truth.
“Jessie Evans is just outside. John is making sure that she knows to send any further communications via our lawyers.” Mikayla nodded, but he could see her curiosity and concern. “Please just let John handle it this time.” Mikayla hadn’t been herself lately. The last thing she needed was to be called all sorts of nasty names by a woman with no class and zero sympathy for others.
“Okay,” Mikayla said, moving to look at some of the clothes. Stunned to near speechlessness, Brock opened and closed his mouth several times. He’d at least expected to have to argue a little.
Mikayla tried on three dresses before John joined them in the clothing store. He looked pale, so it was a pretty good guess that whatever Jessie had said wasn’t good. He wanted to ask for a word by word accounting but didn’t want to upset Mikayla, so he stayed quiet. Mikayla saw John and stepped into his embrace for a moment.
“Thanks,” she said and then pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. “I just don’t have the energy to deal with that woman right now.” He nodded, looking surprised by her attitude, and then quickly changed the subject.
“So how many dresses should we buy for our lovely wife?” he asked Brock.
“I’m thinking at least a dozen.” She smiled but shook her head.
“Ten?” John asked hopefully.
“Two,” she said with a big grin. It was so wonderful to see her smile that Brock didn’t even care that she refused to let them spoil her. “And maybe another bra,” she said, digging her fingers into her ribs and adjusting the support garment yet again. At home, the only time she wore one was when the female scientists came to visit, and thankfully that was a very rare occurrence.
All of his brothers preferred her breasts unbound, but as she led them into the undergarments section, wicked ideas swirled through Brock’s head. There were so many sexy things to choose from. She saw the look on his face and laughed happily.
“And how long do you think they’d stay on?” she teased.
“Not the point, baby girl,” he said as he pushed several different styles into her hands. “I think you need to try these on.” She glanced at the tags, blanched at the price, and went to put them back. “That wasn’t a request, baby girl.”
She smiled, rolled her eyes like a very naughty sub, and moved toward the fitting room. As soon as she was out of earshot, Brock turned to John. The man didn’t need any prompting.
“She wants a meeting with Mikayla. Says she wants to apologize.”
“You told her to go to hell, right?”
“Damn straight,” John said. “Apart from the fact I don’t believe a word of what she says, she was just a little too excited to see Mikayla. We should get out of New York as quickly as possible.”
“Agreed.” Brock checked the time. “Your appointment is in fifteen minutes. Mikayla and I will wait in the reception area. I was going to take her shopping, but with that bitch hanging around, I don’t want to chance it.”
“Maybe we should bring her into the meeting,” John said casually, maybe a little too casually. When he saw Brock’s expression, he started to explain. “She’s got a quick intellect and a good mind for business. I think it would help her to be more involved.” Brock just stared at his brother for a few moments. There was no doubt Mikayla was intelligent, and she’d proved she could cope with pressure when she’d been thrust into the middle of Peter’s court case, but did she really need the stress of the family business when she’d had so much to cope with lately?
John must’ve interpreted his hesitation correctly because he added, “I think she needs to feel part of the business as well as part of the family.”
Brock nodded slowly. He didn’t want Mikayla stressing over the family business as well as her family, but he could see John’s wisdom. It wouldn’t really hurt for her to feel more involved in the business side. They’d both heard her whispered confession to Tracey, and it had taken every ounce of strength not to burst through the door and yell at her for her foolish assumptions. Only Tracey’s fierce rebuttal had calmed his shrieking nerves. He couldn’t lose Mikayla. He wouldn’t allow it.
* * * *
John looked at his brother and wished he could read minds. Brock was always so controlled that even when he was on the verge of losing it, he still seemed calm. Ever since overhearing the conversation they should not have been listening to, John had wondered how to give Mikayla another reason for staying with them. Giving her a more personal stake in the family business was probably a little selfish in some ways—it was one more reason for her to hesitate if she chose to leave them—but John felt the good outweighed the bad in this case.
Before they could go into more detail, Mikayla stepped out of the fitting room and headed back to them. She went to put several of the outfits back on the rack, but Brock stopped her.
“They’re uncomfortable,” she said as she tried again to hang them back where they belonged.
“Uncomfortable how?” Brock asked with a broad smile.
“Uncomfortable as in I would rather wear a suit of armor.”
“Perfect.” Brock grinned as he snatched the outfits away from her. “John and I want a fashion show tonight. You can point out the places these outfits are making uncomfortable, and we’ll kiss them all better.”
She smiled and threw her hands in the air, but John didn’t miss the way her eyes darkened with arousal or the way she moved her legs as if to quell the tingling between them. It was almost like the real Mikayla was emerging once more. It was only now when she was starting to be herself again that he realized just how much she’d withdrawn in the last six months. Taking a year off even thinking about baby making, per Tracey’s suggestion, was a great idea. But how could they convince Mikayla without letting on that they’d heard the conversation?
The meeting with their lawyer went better than expected. Mikayla bought up a few points that John hadn’t even considered, and their lawyer had seemed fairly confident he could convince the mining company that the contract was void due to the current working conditions. Their lawyer also made a few discreet enquiries about the medical consortium and discovered that they had indeed been relying on Lachlan’s war hero status to keep their staff safe instead of hiring security of their own. Their lawyer had every intention of playing the two companies against each other and winning a favorable outcome for the Davidson family.
“We’ll be in California for another week,” Brock said to their lawyer as they left the office. “Then we’re planning to head home, hopefully with a new security team on board.”
“Just make sure they’re all female,” the lawyer said with a grim smile. “I don’t even want to think about the legal ramifications of employees getting injured humping trees.” The man shuddered, not the slightest trace of humor in his voice. John wanted to laugh at the image the lawyer conjured but managed to keep the urge under control and nodded instead.
Brock was already whispering in Mikayla’s ear by the time they reached the elevator. Her legs wobbled as they stepped into the empty compartment, and Brock wasted no time pressing her between her two husbands.
“Baby girl,” he whispered quietly. “John and I are going to remind you of all the reasons you married us.”
She nodded and looked over her shoulder to give John a soft smile. Every instinct he owned screamed at him to urge her to her knees and ram his cock deep into her heavenly mouth. She pressed back against him as his dick grew against her ass cheeks. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said in a voice full of promise. “You, too,” she said to Brock.
The walk back to their hotel seemed to take forever. Desperate to make love to his wife, John lifted her in his arms and carried her the last few hundred feet. By the time they made it to their room, his cock was nearly hard enough to tear through the material of his jeans.
“Hands and knees,” Brock said as soon as the door closed.
Mikayla dropped to all fours immediately, a soft smile gracing her beautiful lips—lips John planned to have wrapped around his cock any moment.
Brock nodded as John stripped off his clothes and knelt in front of Mikayla. She licked his cock as soon as he was close enough, and the unexpected caress sent his blood pressure soaring. It had been so long since they’d been together intimately that he wasn’t sure he would last through the first hard suck on his aching flesh.
Naked, Brock knelt behind Mikayla, lifted her dress over her hips and pulled her panties halfway down her thighs. The first slap took John by surprise. Again and again Brock’s large hand landed on Mikayla’s ass. “Why are you being punished, baby girl?”
She shook her head, her uncertain gaze meeting John’s own confused expression. Punished?
“This is for not talking to us.” Brock slapped her again, even harder. “This is for not trusting us enough to tell us how you felt.” The slaps didn’t abate, and for a moment John wondered whether he should intervene. Brock seemed angrier than John had ever seen him. “And this is for doubting that we love you.”
Tears flowed freely from Mikayla’s eyes, but she didn’t protest. Brock rubbed his hand soothingly over her reddened flesh. “Don’t leave me, baby girl,” he said, sounding on the verge of tears himself.
Mikayla’s expression showed her own concern, but then Brock did something else, and she closed her eyes for a moment and moaned loudly. As the heat from Brock’s spanking finally morphed into desire, Mikayla’s eyes darkened with arousal and a sensual smile graced her face. John couldn’t resist rubbing his cock gently against her lips. Without warning, she greedily sucked him into her mouth.
She worked his cock frantically, sucking harder as she shook with her own orgasm and Brock thrust into her from behind. The hard, urgent pace meant John’s cock slid deeper down her throat every time Brock thrust into her pussy. She practically screamed around his erection as her whole body shook with release. John couldn’t hold back his own orgasm any longer. Heat boiled in his groin, and then cum burst from his cock, filling her mouth, splashing her throat with his seed.
She swallowed convulsively, refusing to let him pull away. He caressed her hair and face as Brock finally stopped thrusting into her and held still. Brock leaned over, still lodged in her pussy, and kissed the back of her neck. “I love you, Mikayla,” he said very seriously. “Please don’t ever forget that.”
Mikayla finally released the suction she had on John’s cock and looked over her shoulder to Brock. John couldn’t quite believe the hurt he read on Brock’s face and again wondered if he should intervene. But Mikayla knew exactly what to say.
“I’m sorry, Master.”
With a stifled groan, Brock wrapped his arms around her and rolled them both onto their sides on the floor. Still intimately joined, he closed his eyes and held his wife like she was the only anchor in his suddenly rocky world. John felt a touch of embarrassment for having witnessed something so intensely private. Brock had never shown any weakness in front of his younger brothers, and to witness it firsthand was somewhat humbling.
Both Lachlan and Brock always seemed like the responsible older brothers. Always in control, always doing the right thing, making the hard decisions, and it was easy to forget that they were human with the same frail emotions as the rest of them.
John moved away, quietly hoping Mikayla could reassure his brother that she had no intention of leaving.
Chapter Five
Emotion sat like a heavy ball in her stomach. She’d been so caught up in her own misery she hadn’t even noticed how difficult it had been for Brock to deal with everything that had been happening.
Caught in the vise-like grip of his arms, she lay quietly and accepted his intense embrace. She’d seen the concern on John’s face as he’d left the room, and she’d felt even more wretched knowing that she’d let her husbands down.
“I’m sorry, Brock,” she managed to whisper. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please forgive me.”
“I forgive you, baby girl, but you need to promise to be honest with me, with all of us, from now on. If you have a problem, you need to discuss it with your husbands, not bottle it inside.”
She nodded again, struggling to keep the tears at bay.
“Good girl,” he said, his hand stroking up and down her arm, over her hip, and to the edges of her sore bottom. “Let’s get cleaned up. I need to take care of your ass or you won’t sit comfortably for a week.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” she said, still feeling remorse for what she’d put him through. “It might remind me not to keep secrets.”
He laughed quietly. “That it might,” then added thoughtfully, “but it will also stop me from spanking you again this week, and I suspect that you have quite a few spankings coming your way, baby girl. It’s been a long time since I got to play with my sub properly.”
Brock carefully rolled away from her, got to his feet, and lifted her into his arms. “Tomorrow,” he said conversationally, “we’ll go to California and visit Tracey and her husbands for a while. Then John and I are going to lock you in our hotel room and keep you naked for five days straight.”
* * * *
Lachlan cursed at the latest proximity alarm. Now the bastards were landing in the dark as well. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t asleep or that they had night-vision equipment. It still pissed him off that they’d even think of trespassing in the middle of the fucking night.
He was halfway to the communications room when Ryan, Ty, and Bryce met him in the hallway. “We’ve got this one,” Ty said with his usual trademark smile. “You can answer the subspace communicator.”
Now that he was close enough, Lachlan could hear the insistent buzzing noise. He glanced back at his brothers, but they were almost at the end of the hall before it occurred to Lachlan that if it had been Mikayla, they wo
uldn’t have been so keen to hand over the task.
When he saw the ID code, he wanted to run in the opposite direction, too. As much as he loved his mother, she could be a royal pain in the ass when something was on her mind.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, trying not to sound anything but neutral. The woman’s talent for reading body language was as freaky as his own, and he knew any sign of weakness would lead to a lecture on whatever subject took her fancy.
“Lachlan, you look tired,” she began without preamble. He tried not to roll his eyes in irritation. Their parents were all well aware of the situation they were dealing with, so his mom should know exactly why he seemed tired.
“What’s up, Mom?” he asked, trying not to sound exasperated. If she’d just get to the point, he’d be able to deal with whatever disaster she wanted him to handle and then he could go back to bed.
“I met a lovely young lady today,” she said casually. She’d started many a conversation with the exact same opening line when she’d been trying to set him up on a date. Had she forgotten he was married now? He raised an eyebrow, letting his irritation leak into his body language. She noticed.
“Well anyway, she said she was Peter’s fiancée and—”
Lachlan cut off her words. “Is she still there?”
His mother looked a little alarmed at his vehemence but shook her head. “We just wondered what was going on. Your fathers reckon Peter would never marry anyone besides Mikayla, but Sandra and I were wondering if maybe you’d finally reconsidered. I mean, with Mikayla’s miscarriage, it makes sense that you would take on a few extra wives to complete your family.”
She took a deep breath but started talking again before Lachlan could get his temper under control enough to set his mother straight. “You know, none of you are getting any younger, and Sandra and I didn’t birth eight sons between us just to end up with no grandchildren.” She folded her arms, and he sensed her deliberate attempt to intimidate him into silence. It may have worked when he was seven, but she seemed to have forgotten he was a grown man.
