Her expression soured, her lips pursing. He knew that look. It was always on her face when she struck out at someone. Usually Mari.
“I’d like to see him.”
“I think you’ve done enough damage for the day.”
“Let her in.” This came from his stupid-ass brother.
She pushed her way in. “Oh, my poor baby.” She rushed to his brother with all the sympathy of a reality star losing on a show. He knew better. Denise wasn’t any better than his brother.
She cooed and kissed him, and Damon tried his best not to vomit. The woman was disgusting, always had been. Come to think it, the things he hated about the plastic Barbie were the same things he could never accept about his brother. They were both calculating, mean-spirited, nasty, and plain evil.
“Poor baby? You mean you think Mari did something wrong? Hell, he’s lucky all she did was whack him in the gonads. It could have been worse.”
“Worse? How could it be worse?”
“Well, I would be careful of Mr. Sawyer. He hunts. And from the expression on his face, you are his next quarry.”
What little color there had been in his brother’s face faded. “Shit.”
“Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s just jealous because he’s had a crush on Mari his entire life.”
He tried to hide it, had done a damned good job with everyone, except Denise. The bitch had picked up on his feelings for Mari when they were teenagers.
“Don’t be an idiot. Damon’s gay.”
Another idiotic statement from an idiotic brother. Just because he and his roommate, Alex, shared women, his brother thought they were both gay.
Denise opened her mouth to correct him, but Damon didn’t need another argument, another target for his brother’s anger.
“You’re screwed, big brother. And I, for one, wash my hands of you.”
He turned to leave.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You had a good woman, one who wanted you, would have loved you until the end of your days. But you weren’t happy with that.”
“What I said out there was right. She was damned frigid.”
Anger swelled, along with a healthy dose of jealousy. He didn’t even want to think about his brother and his best friend having sex. Not when he had wanted her for too long.
“It’s your fault, as the man, if she’s not enjoying herself.”
“Yeah, well fucking her was like fucking a cold fish.”
Denise snickered, and before Damon could stop himself, he took two steps in Aaron’s direction, grabbed the jackass by the front of his shirt, yanked him up, and punched him in the nose. Bone cracked, and blood spurted all over the front of his shirt. Damon threw him back into the chair as a squealing Denise rushed toward Aaron.
It took him several minutes to calm himself after leaving the room. He was prepared to tear the bastard limb from limb. He noticed Alex Santiago, his roommate, and headed toward him.
“Hey, how’s your brother?” his best friend asked.
“His balls are fine. Now he has to worry about the broken nose I just gave him.”
Alex’s brows shot up. “Really? You lost your temper? What the hell did he do?
“He didn’t do anything. He said horrible things about Mari.”
“What kind of things?”
He could see the anger lighting in his best friend’s eyes and started to worry. Damon had a temper he usually kept under control. But Alex’s Hispanic temper sometimes got the better of him. They’d both had a crush on Mari for a long time. Since he’d been in the third grade, Damon had been halfway in love with her. From the moment Damon had introduced Alex to Mari, he’d been infatuated. Knowing she would never go for their need to share a woman, they had both opted to be friends.
“It was something about sex, wasn’t it?”
Damon nodded once.
Alex growled, but Damon’s cell phone ringing stopped him. It was Mari.
“Hey, sweetie, how you doing?”
“Fine, baby,” Eddie said, amusement threading her voice.
“Where’s Mari?”
There was a beat of silence as he realized how territorial he sounded.
“She’s fine. We have her. I wanted to let you know because I knew you would worry. We convinced her to come back to Hawaii with us.”
“She doesn’t need to go there. Tell me where you are. I’ll come.”
Another beat of silence sounded over the phone as Alex frowned at him.
“No. We’re taking her. You know how crazy it will be here. She’ll be on every news program, they’ll tear her apart.”
The pain he heard in Eddie’s voice calmed him somewhat. Eddie and Sophia truly loved her, and now he knew they were only trying to protect their friend.
He sighed. “Okay. Tell her to call me. Anytime.”
“Sure. Could you talk to her father? She called him, but he talked of shooting off appendages she had damaged.”
He chuckled. “Nothing less than my brother deserves. We’ll calm him down.”
“We?”
“Alex and me.”
“Hmm. Okay.” She said nothing for a moment. “You know, if I didn’t think the media would be all over this, I would leave her in your care, yours and Alex’s. I know you both would take excellent care of her.”
Before he could respond, she clicked off the phone and left Aaron staring at his.
“What?”
He looked at Alex. “Eddie. She said they’re going to Hawaii.”
Alex frowned. “I don’t like that. But I can understand. There’s press, but it is easier to disappear in Hawaii than here in DC.”
His mind barely registered his friend’s comments. He kept going over the tone of Eddie’s voice when she had said they would take care of Mari. Both her friends had shown up with their new loves, two men for each woman. Was Eddie saying what he thought she was saying?
“Damon.”
“We were going to go on vacation, right?”
Alex nodded. They had been thinking of trying to run away after the wedding, trying their best to ignore the fact that the woman they both loved had married someone else.
“Well, if Mari isn’t back in a few days, get ready because we’re going to Hawaii to get her.”
Chapter Two
Maribelle leaned back on her beach chair and lifted her face to the sun. God, this felt good. She had been in Hawaii for three days, and she couldn’t get over the wonderful feeling. Leaving DC had been one of the best decisions she’d made. It had been sleeting the day they left, the cold gray sky mirroring her feelings.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
She smiled at Mal, one of Sophia’s lovers. Sophia had met Jack and Mal when she came over for business during Christmas and fell in love with the cousins. Both of them were pretty, but Mal, he was different. He was gorgeous in a way that kept taking her breath away. Still, he never made her feel out of sorts. She never felt self-conscious around him.
“I am. I love seasons, but summer was always my favorite. I loved going to the beach with the family. And here, the water is so much prettier.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, the Atlantic isn’t very blue compared to our waters.”
She closed her eyes again. “I could happily sit on this beach for the rest of my life. I could become the crazy Italian chick who hangs out on the beach in Waikiki.”
“Don’t tell Sophia. She would do anything to get you to move here.”
“Huh. I think my folks would freak out. All my brothers and sisters moved on. If I did, they would have to spend more time together. That could be a problem.”
Mal laughed. “Might be what they need.”
Before she could answer him, she felt shadows move over her. She smiled, thinking it was her two friends, and found herself looking up at Damon and Alex. She blinked, thinking she imagined them.
“Alex? Damon?”
“What the
hell do you two want?” This came from Mal, who’d been pretty protective of her since she arrived three days earlier. In fact, he’d offered to beat Aaron up.
“We came to make sure Mari was okay.”
Mal rose swiftly to his feet as the other two men crossed their arms over their chests. The situation was escalating for no real reason. She stood and wiggled her way between Mal and her friends. She faced Sophia’s lover. “Mal, they’re friends.”
He looked down at her, then back up at the guys. “One of them is related to that asshole.”
“Don’t remind me. He has been the bane of my existence my entire life.” Every word seemed to be pulled from somewhere deep, dark, and very dangerous. She looked back over her shoulder at her oldest friend in the world. The mask of anger and barely leashed violence made her swallow.
Before she could talk to Damon about why he was there, she had to get Mal under control.
“Mal. He and Aaron were never really close. He was about the only person who told me not to date Aaron. Well, and Eddie. She’s hated him from the moment she met him.”
Mal hesitated then nodded. “I’ll let it go for now.”
“Oh, good lord, what are they going to do? Plead Aaron’s case? And what would happen. He had no way to get to Hawaii. I took his ticket.”
Mal chuckled. “Yeah, okay, but I’ll keep my eye on them.”
She rolled her eyes and faced the guys. God, what the hell were they doing there? And why did they have to show up on the beach? She hated the way she looked in any swimsuit. Next to many of the small Asian women in the island, she felt like a whale.
She pushed those worries to the back of her head. It wasn’t as if either Damon or Alex had those kinds of feelings for her. Granted, she had many wild fantasies, especially after she heard the rumor that they shared women. With both her friends hooking up with two men, it had gotten pretty bad of late. In fact, she’d found herself fantasizing about the two men more than once.
It wasn’t that hard to understand why. Damon was an EMT and had the build of one. Unlike his older brother who was tall and lean, Damon was strong, his muscles sculpted. His dark-blond hair was ruthlessly short. Not because he liked it that way, but because it worked better for him on the job. His nose was broken, more than once, but it kept him from looking too pretty. Blue-green eyes were hidden behind dark lenses. She knew without a doubt they took everything in around them.
Alex was dark to Damon’s light. There was a bit of Italian blood in the firefighter, which gave him a wealth of thick, dark hair. His dark-brown eyes rimmed in gold had always fascinated her.
“What are you all doing here in Hawaii?”
Damon took her hand and ignored Mal’s grunt of disapproval. “Why don’t we take a walk and talk about it?”
* * * *
Damon could not believe how good Mari looked. He knew from Alex’s frank appraisal of Mari he was barely holding onto his control. From the moment they had spotted her on the beach next to one of Sophia’s lovers, they both had been geared up to strip her naked. He didn’t have to ask Alex, he knew. As they walked along the sand, he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.
She had no idea how good she looked. Damn, she made a tempting morsel, especially because she was completely oblivious of how sexy she really was. Mari was a big woman. Not fat, just overly curvy, one who reminded him of bombshells like Marilyn Monroe. The bathing suit she was wearing made it worse. It was like one he’d seen in older movies, cut over her thighs, halter top, and in fire-engine red. It was her best color.
“What are you doing here?”
“I said we wanted to be sure if you were okay.”
“A phone call would have accomplished that.”
“We did call. No answer,” Alex said. Damon didn’t miss the thread of arousal in his friend’s voice. Just being there, touching her, seeing her, well it was enough to make both of them lose all control.
She frowned and looked ahead. “I have been avoiding it a bit. There were a few calls from gossip rags.”
“I understand that. But you know our phone numbers.”
Damon couldn’t keep the admonition out of his voice. Both of them had been worried about her, and with no contact, there had been no question about it. They’d had to fly to Hawaii.
She shrugged dismissively. “Eddie took the phone over a few days ago.”
He shared a look over her head with Alex. He would bet a million bucks that Eddie had done it on purpose to get the two of them there. He’d be mad, but since he took that as approval of Alex and his plan, he’d let it go.
“So what are you planning to do?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Right now, I’m trying to just live in the moment.”
Which wasn’t at all like her. Maribelle was a planner. In fact, he had often joked that she planned too much.
“How about we get together tonight?” Alex asked.
She stopped walking. She glanced between the two of them. “Please don’t tell me you two came here to rescue me.”
“No,” he said as Alex shook his head. “Why would you need rescuing?”
She shrugged and started walking. “It seems that everyone thinks I’m a mess.”
“Who the hell said that?” Alex asked.
“Everyone is always saying it.”
Damon snorted. “Yeah, right. Let me guess, your mother called?”
She nodded. “The first day. Then Eddie refused to let me talk to her.”
He knew what was going through that beautiful head of hers. Her mother was well-meaning, but she had never understood Mari. The youngest of six, Mari had always been left on her own, forgotten in a lot of ways. Not ever in a mean way, but Mari had always been accommodating, allowing one of her other siblings to take the limelight. Her mother, a former Georgia beauty queen, had never understood her need to be the person in the background. Or her love of cooking.
She just didn’t understand her. Period.
“Well, it has nothing to do with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“We didn’t come here to save you. We were already going on a trip after your wedding.”
She sent him a narrowed look. “You never told me.”
She sounded so irritated he wanted to laugh. They had shared just about every confidence growing up, and up until her relationship with his brother. They’d told each other about their first crushes, their first kisses, and their first times. Of course, the day she told him about her first time with Dustin Abbot, Damon had gone out and gotten rip-roaring drunk for the first time.
“Tell you what, why don’t we do dinner.”
She nodded. “That sounds good. It was really sweet that Sophia and Eddie wanted me here, but sometimes I feel like the odd girl out with all those men around.”
“We can pick you up,” Alex offered.
“Naw. I’ll come into Waikiki. Where are you staying?” They gave her the hotel and their suite number. Her eyebrows rose at that.
“Must have been a pretty penny to get that room at late notice.”
Alex’s father was in the travel business and had contracts, so it hadn’t really been that bad, but there was no need to go into that right now. Seriously, he was just happy they had her agreement to meet them. Their friendship had been strained since she’d gotten involved with Aaron. He had worried they would never be able to repair it, but now he had hope.
They walked her back to Mal, and it took every bit of control to leave here there with the moody Hawaiian.
As they walked away, Alex said, “I think we should have been up front with her.”
“No. Mari has no idea how either of us feel.”
“She knows about our sharing.”
“But you can tell she has no idea about how we feel about her.”
Alex said nothing more as they took the elevator up to the Presidential Suite of the hotel. “I think we might lose her forever if she isn’t into it.”
It was something that worried
Damon, but he knew they couldn’t keep going on the way they were. “Do you want to wait until she finds someone else? I have the distinct feeling that if Eddie and Sophie could, they would convince her to move here. If that happens, what would we do?”
Alex frowned. “I thought her parents would throw a fit if she did that.”
Damon shrugged as the door opened to their suite. “I am not sure if that matters now. Before the wedding, yes. But doing what she did, not being the good little girl, that was a big change for her.”
“Do you really think her mother wanted her to go through with the marriage?”
He thought of Millicent Sawyer. She was gorgeous. Even now she turned heads. But she had been raised by strict parents who told her to never make waves. She had instilled that in Mari, but she wouldn’t have wanted her daughter to be in pain.
“No. But she would have rather a small annulment or divorce after the wedding. You know how she dislikes scenes.”
“And now what? We wait for Mari and ask her to sleep with us?”
He knew Alex was worried. Hell, he was worried. Still, there was no way he would—could—go back to the way things were. He wanted her, needed to know if she wanted them the way they needed her. He would die if they didn’t take this one last step.
“No. But we will ask her tonight.”
And with that, he headed to the bathroom to take a cold shower.
* * * *
Mari smiled at Jack, who was frowning for once.
“Where are they taking you?”
She wanted to giggle at his fatherly tone. Of all the things she had expected, this was not one of them. Jack was laid-back. But each of the guys had taken to treating her like she was their little sister. And while she was the youngest in her family, she’d never had so much attention from her brothers.
“Not sure.”
“I don’t like it,” Mal said.
Sophia chuckled. “I don’t believe Maribelle asked.”
“Well, look at the way she’s dressed.” This came from Drew, one of Eddie’s men.
Maribelle glanced at him. “What’s wrong with my dress?”
In fact, for the first time in forever, she felt...sexy. It was a dress that Eddie had convinced her to buy a few days prior. It reminded her of 1950s actresses, with its halter top and full skirt. It was cut low in the front, showing enough of her cleavage to entice but not embarrass. And it was stop-light red. “Stop it. Y’all are making her nervous, and she looks gorgeous, if you ask me,” Eddie said.
Schroeder, Melissa - Getting Lei'd [Hawaiian Holidays 3] (Siren Publishing PolyAmour) Page 2
