by Mia Ashlinn
“Micah,” Caedon murmured. “We have to talk to each other before we can even think about sharing Ella.”
“I know,” Micah answered, meeting him strained-gaze-for-strained-gaze.
“Then let’s talk,” Caedon suggested.
“About what?”
Well spank a monkey’s ass. Do we have to go into it already?
Give me five minutes. Or even better, give me five beers.
Caedon didn’t want to remember the prick of pain he’d felt when he’d read the letter Micah had sent him right after he’d moved out, especially not when he was sober. He didn’t want to recall the onslaught of agony that had overwhelmed him when Micah had ignored Caedon’s return letter. And the thought of reliving the phone call they’d had two months ago made his stomach churn. But as he’d decided this morning, it was now or never.
Swallowing convulsively, Caedon forced himself to face the past that had haunted him for two years. “The letter.” Averting his eyes hastily, Micah bore a hole into the wooden paneled wall. With a frown, he asked, “What about it? I wrote you a letter. You ignored it. That’s the end of that.” Caedon wasn’t sure what disturbed him more—the animosity in Micah’s voice or the sudden confusion clouding his own mind. “I didn’t ignore your letter. You ignored mine, Micah.” Micah’s eyes snapped to Caedon’s. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.”
Micah expression turned turbulent. His clear eyes darkened, his jaw ticked, and his lips thinned out. “No, Caedon,” he disagreed resolutely. “I never got a damn thing from you. Up until you called me two months ago, I hadn’t heard a word from you.” 86
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“But I...” Caedon trailed off, unsure of how to continue. Micah claimed that he hadn’t received anything. And Caedon had never known Micah to lie. So that meant Micah hadn’t gotten Caedon’s letter. He hadn’t ignored him. The tightness in Caedon’s chest loosened—not a lot but a little. “I sent you a letter and asked you to meet me, Micah. I wanted us to talk. I wanted to come home.”
“So you...”
“I don’t know what happened, but I swear that I sent you a letter after I found mine.”
“I believe you,” Micah said.
Relief raced through Caedon. Micah trusted him. Even after all of his fuck ups, Micah still had faith in him. That’s a start.
Caedon rubbed the back of his neck, paying close attention to the tense knot there. “Is that why you were”—pausing, he attempted to think of a polite word for a cold-blooded asshole but failed—“the way you were when I called?”
Micah nodded. “I didn’t understand why you were calling so suddenly after almost two years. And I was still”—he cleared his throat—“hurt. In my mind, you left me then rejected me. I didn’t want you to have a chance to do it again.” Swallowing noticeably, he shifted in his seat. “When you left Ella, you left me, Caedon. We were friends, and you just walked away without looking back.”
“But I didn’t.”
Clearing his throat a second time, Micah muttered, “But I thought you did.”
The hurt in Micah’s pale blue eyes reflected that what he said was true. He’d wholeheartedly believed that Caedon didn’t care about him or their friendship. Well, fuck.
“That might have been what you thought, but it wasn’t the case, Micah. You were my best friend.” Caedon shook his head. “You still are. It hurt me to lose Ella, but it hurt me to lose you, too.”
“I think we all got hurt.”
“Yeah, I think we did.”
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“But how does this change anything? Where do we go from here?”
Caedon knew exactly where they should go. “We share Ella.”
“Caedon—”
Throwing up a hand, Caedon cut Micah off. “Listen, it isn’t going to be easy. I know that. But you’re my best friend. She’s the woman I love. I want both of you in my life forever. And this is the best way to do it.”
Glancing away, Caedon ignored the burn in his cheeks as the blush seeped into his skin. “Tell me you don’t want the same thing, Micah. If you can, then I’ll leave you alone. I won’t bring this idea up again. I’ll go back to Brooklyn’s for the night, and we’ll figure something else out tomorrow.”
Allowing his gaze to stray back to Micah, Caedon added, “But keep in mind, I’m not going anywhere. Whether you’ll share her with me or not, I’m not leaving. If I have to spend the rest of my life alone, I’ll do it. But I won’t leave you two again. Not ever. So what do you say? Will you share Ella with me? Will you at least try?”
“Yes,” Micah agreed. “I’ll try.”
Caedon released a harsh rush of air that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Thank God.”
“Don’t thank Him just yet,” Micah said. “We have a lot of planning to do and not much time.” Peering down at his watch, he grimaced. “But I think we can still do it.” Sliding out of the booth, Micah commanded, “Come on.” In shock, Caedon shot to his feet and followed Micah, listening to him spit out orders the whole way. “You can call Brooklyn in the car and see if she’ll let us have a group of people at her and Josie’s apartment,” he said. “I’ll call some of Ella’s friends, her mom, and her brother, Tate. They can meet us there.” Caedon hurried to keep up with Micah as he tore out of Her Majesty’s Pleasure. “Okay,” Caedon said, marching purposefully 88
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across the parking lot and jumping into his friend’s car. “Let’s get going. Morning is going to come soon enough.” Three Rings and a Rose
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Chapter 9
The following morning, Ella yawned as she trudged into her sister’s bustling bakery. Like every day, the door jingled when it opened and jangled when it closed again. As always, the delicious aroma of coffee melded with the sweet scent of baked goods gently blew under her nose, and the cool air breezed around her. Yet none of those things gave her the comfort it normally did. Not even Reagan calling out, “You look like shit, sis,” lightened her dark mood.
Rather than trading barbs with her loudmouthed older sister, Ella silently steered her way through the already crowded bistro tables and over to the long line in front of the counter. She stood there impatiently while she waited for her other sister Molly-Grace to get through the five people in front of her.
Not surprisingly, Reagan didn’t leave Ella alone in her misery for long. Ella’s wild child sister snuck up behind her and grabbed her by the waist. “Gotcha!”
Ella squealed. Batting at Reagan’s hands and cursing when she smacked into the cold, hard metal of her sister’s favorite bracelet, Ella spun around. “You hoochie,” she snapped. “Can’t you find someone else to torment? I’m fucking tired.”
“Nah,” Reagan replied with a saucy smile. “It’s too damn fun to annoy my favorite sister.”
In irritation, Ella rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Go away. I don’t want to deal with your bullshit right now.” Reagan chuckled. “You really are in bitchy-assed mood, aren’t you?”
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“That’s putting it mildly,” Ella muttered under her breath without thought. “Micah didn’t come home last night.” Instantly, Ella realized her faux pas, and she regretted it. Reagan might be a pain the ass and a total hellion, but she was Ella’s older sister and one of her fiercest protector.
Oh boy. Ella was in for it now.
“Hadley,” Reagan hollered. “Need you.”
Ella shrieked, “No! Don’t you dare bring her into this. I don’t want to talk about it.” And she didn’t want to. She would rather stand in Time Square without a stitch of clothes on than discuss how much it bothered her that Micah had slept somewhere else. He didn’t do that—ever. And now that he had, she’d spent half the night torturing herself with questions about his whereabouts.
Reagan smirked. “Already did.”
Before Ella could figure out a way to keep
the sensible Dawson sister from sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, Hadley strolled up. She wasn’t smiling, and she had her all-business aura surrounding her. Not good. Not good at all.
“Yes?” Hadley asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No—”
“Yes—”
Ella and Reagan answered at the same time, causing Hadley to quirk an inquisitive eyebrow. But neither Ella nor Reagan could elaborate before Leila broke through the line with a murmured, “Ella, my dear.”
Leila sported an eerily friendly face, sending off warning bells in Ella’s mind, as she gathered Ella in her too-thin arms and embraced her.
Shocked and more than a little dismayed, Ella attempted to jerk away from Leila, but The Bitch held on tight. “Say cheese,” she whispered. And just a split second after she spoke the flash of a camera from outside the store window blinded Ella, sending her into a litany of curses.
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Pulling back, Leila tsk-tsked her. “Language, language. You wouldn’t want to be quoted saying something so crude to a friend.”
“Let me go,” Ella snarled. “I don’t want to catch whatever the fuck you have.”
Leila peeked over her shoulder then, with a satisfied smile, released Ella. “Ah good. They’re already gone.”
“You are one twisted bitch,” Reagan sneered as she stepped toward Leila aggressively. But Ella immediately stopped her sister by throwing an arm out and blocking her chest.
Staring down her nose at Reagan, Leila smirked. “You’re one ugly bitch. So what?”
The chatter in the bakery died down in a hurry. No one seemed to know what to say or do. So they merely watched with an air of expectancy and an abundance of fascination.
Disregarding the nearby busybodies, Ella asked, “What do you want, Leila?”
Leila gasped, the breathy noise sounding faker than Malibu Barbie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to visit with my friend.”
Ella scoffed. “You have a friend here?”
“I’m amazed, too,” Reagan said, elbowing Ella in the side.
“Yeah, I do,” Leila murmured as she touched the end of Ella’s nose with the pad of her index finger, reminding Ella of a condescending adult with a recalcitrant child. “It’s you, silly.”
“Like hell,” Ella snapped.
Obviously realizing that the conversation between Ella and Leila was spiraling, Hadley quickly intervened. She stepped between Leila and Ella with her hands on her curvy hips. “Get out, Leila,” she ordered in her well-known “I know all, I see all. So you better listen and do as I say” voice.
“Yeah,” Reagan snapped. “Get out and stay out. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to knock you off your high-and-mighty pedestal and onto your scrawny ass.”
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Leila didn’t seem to care in the least that Hadley had demanded she leave or that Reagan had thrown down the gauntlet. Shrugging carelessly, she spun on her Gucci high heels and stalked for the door.
“There’s no need for me to stay in this dump anyway. I already got what I came in here for. My picture will be plastered on the cover of every magazine by tomorrow morning.”
“Not if I can help it,” Reagan growled as she lunged toward Leila, obviously set to defend Ella’s honor.
But again, Ella stopped her. She clamped a hand around her sister’s elbow and snapped, “Don’t you dare go after her. That’s what she wants.”
“No, that’s not what I want,” Leila declared as she paused just inside the door. “I saw what I want last night at the bar with Micah. I saw Caedon. Once I get him, I’ll have everything I’ve ever dreamed of—money, power, and a hot man to warm my bed at night.” Shocked by The Bitch’s audacity, Ella just stood there as Leila walked out. She wasn’t particularly shocked that Leila had seen Caedon or that she wanted him. She was flabbergasted that Micah had gone out with Caedon. She’d figured the two men would have exchanged words then gone on their merry-fucking-way. Obviously not. Maybe that’s who he spent the night with.
That thought had her heart taking a dive. She wanted them to be happy. She wanted them to be together. She really did. But she couldn’t help the crack opening in her heart. Damn it.
As all eyes turned on Ella, she felt like a deer in the headlights.
Mentally running through all the ways she could publicly respond to Leila’s statement, she settled on her fallback reaction—brazening it out.
Plastering a giant grin on her face, Ella sang, “The best part of waking up is not that bitch in your cup.”
The tense stillness quickly dissipated, and several people laughed.
The hustle and bustle picked back up. But it was too late for Ella.
She’d already started her day with a bang, just not the good kind.
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* * * *
Later that evening, Ella stepped out of The G Spot and stumbled right into Serenity’s annual street party. She sighed. It had been one hell of a day, and she wasn’t particularly in the mood to celebrate Founders Day. But obviously everyone else in town was, especially the three women yelling at her and tossing napkins in her general direction that had no hope of actually reaching her.
“Ella Dawson,” Shannon hollered. Amazingly, her friend’s voice somehow managed to carry over the booming bass and deafening music that blared from the speakers on both sides of the massive stage at the northernmost point of Main Street. “Get your cute ass over here. I want to spank it.”
Ella considered pretending not to hear Shannon for a fraction of a second then decided it was better to just go along with the rambunctious redhead.
Edging her way through the crowd, Ella headed for the table where the three hellions she called friends sat eating food from red plastic plates and drinking milkshakes out of oversized clear glasses.
As she maneuvered through the maze of round tables, Ella noticed the familiar faces of her friends and family. Despite her bad mood, she felt a strong sense of “coming home,” the same sensation she always got around the people of Serenity. And by the time Ella approached Jaycee, Katie-Anne, and Shannon, she was grinning.
“Whatcha spanking my ass for, Shan?” she asked. “Did I do something good? Or did I do something very, very bad?” Shannon chuckled. The deep, rich sound reminded Ella of a sultry songbird in the late 1940s. “When aren’t you doing something bad, Ella?”
Next to Shannon, Katie-Anne paused, halting her drink in its ascent to her mouth. She snorted. “Never.” Then she immediately resumed the milkshake’s path to her mouth. Sucking her drink down 94
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with enough speed to give Ella brain freeze, she closed her eyes and moaned around the glass’s rim.
Jaycee rolled her eyes, obviously amused by Katie-Anne’s lusty response to her sweet treat, then nodded. “Ella’s the naughtiest of us all,” she declared with a chuckle. “Hell, she makes me look like a saint.”
“Not hardly,” Ella retorted as she grabbed a seat and dragged it out. She cringed when the bottom of the white plastic chair skidded across the pavement, but the noise didn’t deter her from being a smart mouth. “I am an angel compared to the likes of you three.” Cocking her head to the side, Shannon changed the subject abruptly. “So, what do you think they are talking about?” She pointed not-so-subtly over Ella’s shoulder before picking up a potato chip and popping it into her mouth.
Huh? Curious as to who and what Shannon was suddenly talking about, Ella peeked over her shoulder. Unlike her friend, she was discreet in her actions. But that didn’t last long. As soon as she spotted the group of men gathering next to the empty building where Katie-Anne’s jewelry store used to be, she cursed colorfully with enough volume to attract the eyes of several people at the table next to them. Not that she cared about drawing attention to herself at the moment. The jitters building inside her took up too much energy to think about what everyone
thought of her. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Katie-Anne murmured, dropping her drink on the tabletop. The glass shook from the shock of hitting the hard surface forcefully and nearly toppled over. Luckily, it didn’t.
“Our men in a huddle is a terrifying sight, indeed.” Ella rolled her eyes. She wasn’t concerned with their men. She was freaking out over hers. Micah and Caedon stood smack in the middle of the group, and she could tell that they weren’t playing around. There was a seriousness about their masculine faces, a tenseness in the air around them. Although, she had to admit that all the men had equally somber expressions as they turned and started Three Rings and a Rose
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walking in the opposite direction. All of the women appeared to be in major trouble with their counterparts. Thank God I don’t officially belong to Caedon or Micah. Neither of them have the right to punish me until I do.
Ella groaned as her thoughts wandered into the sensual territory that she couldn’t keep it out of when the men she loved came to mind.
Last night, every dream she’d had included being in between Caedon and Micah’s delicious bodies. Her fantasies had been fuelled by images of their hard cocks fucking her mouth, pussy, and her ass—
sometimes together, sometimes apart. She’d imagined Caedon watching Micah ravage her, and she’d visualized Micah watching intently while Caedon took her tenderly. But her personal favorite had been watching the two men fucking each other fiercely, their untamed bodies writhing and thrusting, their moans and groans echoing around her. Even now, her body hummed at the mere memory of her fantasies. Fucking A. I need to get laid.
“I’m not worried,” Jaycee announced as she scooted back in her seat. She rubbed her pregnant belly like she did all the time. “Not even a little.”
Ella, Shannon, and Katie-Anne whipped their heads toward Jaycee. Each of them made a disbelieving noise. Ella gasped, the theatrical element evident to anyone with ears. If she had swooned, she wouldn’t have been any less obvious. Shannon snorted, her harsh sounding response mockery-filled. And Katie-Anne chuckled with a distinct sarcastic ring. You’re not worried because your ass isn’t on the line, Jaycee Elizabeth Blakemore. It’s mine that is.
