“How’d they get your number?”
“Your mom,” all three men said together.
They way they’d said it made her laugh. “I guess it’d be stupid to keep fighting this, huh?”
Amy giggled. “Duh. Listen, on the off chance this blows up, you’re always welcomed back with me and Pete. I promise. But I suspect that won’t be necessary.” She hugged Essie. “So go upstairs and let them suck up to you. I’ll be back around ten tomorrow morning. I don’t have to go to work until the day after, but I have stuff I need to get done tomorrow. It’s a little after six now. I’m guessing in oh, sixteen hours or so, you four can figure stuff out, right?”
“Sure can,” Mark said.
Amy shook hands with the men. “Good luck, gents. She’s a stubborn cuss. But if anyone can persuade her, I suspect the three of you can.”
Amy gave them a wave and headed for the front door, leaving Essie standing there and surrounded.
“Your call, sweetheart,” Mark softly said.
* * * *
Not that Essie didn’t want to jump into bed with them, because she did, but she wanted to slow things down just a hair.
“Look, I just got home from work. Can I grab a shower and then you can take me out to eat and we can talk before we come back here?”
The men exchanged a glance and smiled. “I think we can manage that,” Mark joked.
Ted grabbed their overnight bags from their rental car before rejoining them in the lobby. Back upstairs, she didn’t know if it was good or bad that the bathroom didn’t have a shower big enough for all four of them to climb into. She left them sitting in her living room while she grabbed clean clothes and locked herself into the bathroom.
All three of them? Of course, at the time it had seemed like a perfectly acceptable idea. Then she’d bolted, scared she’d made a horrible mistake in judgment.
Now that all three of them were here in front of her again…
She stood under the spray and let hot water sluice over her. Opening her eyes, she spotted the ring on her finger.
It was a very nice ring.
Why couldn’t it work? The books made it work out, happily ever after, the end. And in real life she’d met people who’d made it work.
Happily ever after.
Why couldn’t she have a happy ending for a change?
She could keep making excuses all she wanted for why it couldn’t work.
Then again, she could take a chance that it might.
She had a safety net. She knew Amy had meant what she’d said. And if this was a really bad idea, Amy would have been the first to voice her concerns and put the brakes on the whole thing.
But Amy had encouraged her.
And she had been the one who looked at this whole thing as a chance to reconnect with her mom. Kind of hard to do a couple of thousand miles away in Spokane.
Ted drove while Essie sat in the back with Mark. They asked for a nice restaurant to take her to. She gave Ted directions to an upscale Italian restaurant downtown that she didn’t treat herself to enough.
Once they were seated in a corner booth, with her between Mark and Josh, she glanced at her left hand again.
Even in the dim light the ring sparkled, brilliant.
“That was Mark’s idea,” Ted said from his place on the other side of Josh. He wore a playful smile as he templed his fingers together in his best impression of an evil scientist. “To go for the jugular and be as pitiful as possible so you’d be merciful.”
She giggled. The way he’d said it came off playful, now knowing him the way she did.
“You can even rearrange the house however you want,” Josh said. “We’d like to remodel, make the master bedroom larger. Or we can move, if you want. Build a new house.”
“We’ll live in an empty cardboard box,” Mark said, “as long as you’re with us.”
“I’m sorry I bolted,” she said, now feeling ashamed of how she’d reacted. Overreacted. “I should have confronted you guys.”
“Understood and forgiven,” Ted assured her. “Hey, we’ve seen you at your worst, and we can honestly say we understand what you were going through. You were overwhelmed, still dealing with your dad’s death—”
“And we should have been honest sooner about our feelings for you,” Mark added. “We just didn’t want to scare you off by coming on too strong too soon.”
“Didn’t work so well for us, turns out,” Josh teased.
“I don’t want to just up and quit,” Essie said. “I would like to give them two week’s notice. They’ve been good to me.”
“Understood,” Mark said. “And in those two weeks, we can get you packed.”
“There’s not a lot I need to take. I’ll leave furniture and stuff for Amy and Pete. Besides, you guys have to get back to work.”
“We’re the bosses,” Mark said. “Tracy’s got everything under control. In fact, she sort of made it clear that if we came back to Florida without you, she might go all nuclear on our asses.”
Josh added, “She mentioned something about how damned pitiful we were and that we were depressing the hell out of her.”
“I’m not afraid to admit she scares me a little,” Ted said. “So if nothing else, come home with us to protect us from the big, bad administrative assistant.” He grinned. “Hey, she was your friend in high school. You’ve technically known her longer than we have.”
“You guys are too much.”
“And we’re all yours,” Mark said with a smile. “Lucky you.”
It felt good to smile again. “Lucky me, indeed.”
“And don’t worry if you can’t find a job right away,” Ted assured her. “It’s okay.”
“I want to sign a prenup,” she said.
When the men all went silent, she realized they might have misunderstood her intent. “I remember what you guys said about the Kraken,” Essie said. “I don’t want you to ever worry about me like that.”
“We won’t,” Josh said. “I promise, we don’t think that about you.”
“Never will,” Ted said. “You’re a vastly different and better woman than the Kraken ever could be.”
“I appreciate that, but I want it in writing.”
“I was thinking something different,” Josh said.
From the way his brothers looked at him, she suspected this was news to them. “What?” she asked.
“Why don’t you come work with us?” Josh said. “Purson is right. You looked great on camera. You’ve got firsthand experience both as the child of a hoarder and dealing with the aftermath. You are great with handling clients because you really do know what they’re going through.” He glanced at his brothers before returning his focus to her. “And when we have to deal with animals, your expertise will be invaluable. Please, think about it.”
She hadn’t really considered it before.
“You’ll get paid a salary just like we do,” Ted said.
“You could do a lot of good,” Josh added. “Help a lot of people.” He smiled. “Get to boss us around on camera.”
Okay, that made her laugh. “While you three boss me around in bed?”
Ted’s sexy smile made her wet, she wouldn’t deny it. “Oooh, that sounds like a winner of a plan to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Her worry about the logistics of trying to fit four of them in a two-person bed was solved when she remembered the pullout couch.
“Do you mind sleeping on the floor?” she asked.
Ted grinned. “We didn’t have sleep in mind, sweetheart.”
She laughed. “It’s a queen-size sleeper sofa, but I don’t think all of us on it is a good idea. It’s for guests. I’ll get the sheets if you guys will take the mattress out and put it on the floor.”
“Ah. Now I’m tracking.” He pointed at the coffee table. “You guys move that. I’ll get this.”
Josh and Mark sprang into action as Ted started pulling the cushions off the couch and opened it. By the time she ret
urned with the sheets for it, they had the couch closed up again and the mattress in the middle of the living room floor.
Ted took the sheets from her and gently caught her by the chin with his other hand. “I think there’s someone who needs to drop to their knees and apologize for scaring the crap out of us.”
“Apologize? I—” She swallowed hard. She had gone off half-cocked. “I’m sorry.”
His blue gaze burned through her, but he didn’t move, didn’t answer.
She remembered. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
A wide grin curled his lips. “Such a good girl.”
When he released her, she dropped to her knees, her insides already melting as Josh and Mark moved to stand next to Ted. Looking up at them, she realized this was exactly where she wanted to be.
With them.
“Rule number one,” Ted said. “If you have a problem with us, you handle it immediately, or as soon as possible if we’re around other people and we can’t discuss it. You do not run away from us. If you ever decide you want to leave, it’ll break our hearts, but you will have to face us and tell us you want to leave. We won’t force you to stay with us. We only want you to stay because you want to be with us. If you run without telling us why, we will follow you and make you talk to us. Understand?”
She nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“Rule number two,” Josh said. “If you do run, and you don’t tell us you want out of this relationship, you will get a spanking from all three of us. Including this time. You have the option to protest this one, but I’m in a mood to give you a spanking for having a year of my life scared out of me when I thought I’d lost you.”
She swallowed back tears. She’d been so caught up in her anger and outrage and fear that she hadn’t stopped to consider their feelings. She nodded. “Yes, Sir. I’ll take the spanking.”
He reached out and stroked her hair. “Such a good girl.”
She kissed his palm, nuzzling his hand.
“Rule number three,” Mark said. “When we call you, unless you’re in a situation where you cannot talk or answer, like driving or on a plane or something, you never ignore a call from us. We’ll work out a code later, maybe a D for driving or B for busy or something, that you can text us. But if we call you and you can take the call, you will take the call. You will not ignore voice mails or texts. If you do, that’s a spanking. You also will never hang up on us in a conversation. I’m not talking a dropped call, either. That’s different. Understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And yeah, I want to give you a spanking for that now.”
Fear set in. He must have sensed it, because he quickly added, “We’ll condense all the spankings into one, not separate ones. This time.” His expression hardened. “We’re not saying this is one-sided, either. We won’t ignore your calls or texts, and we will never hang up on you.”
“We won’t run away from you, either,” Josh said.
“And we promise we will always talk with you,” Ted said. “Open communication, good or bad.”
“What if you order me not to talk?”
All three of their expressions softened. Ted caught her hands and pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “We will never do that, sweetheart. I promise.” He kissed her, slowly, sweetly, taking her breath away. “You want to talk, you just say so and we sit down and talk as equals. You might belong to us, but you aren’t without a voice or a vote. Just because we make rules doesn’t mean we don’t respect your opinion or won’t listen to you. You get to make rules, too.”
She looked at Mark and Josh. “No other women. No play partners but me. I might be legally marrying him, but all three of you are my husbands.”
They nodded. “We only want you, sweetheart,” Mark said.
“I will need alone time sometimes.”
“Then you say that,” Ted assured her. “There will be times we each need alone time. Or we might want alone time with you.”
“That’s not alone time,” she teased.
“You know what I mean, sweetie.”
“Any other rules?” she asked.
The men exchanged a glance. “Come back with us to Florida,” Josh said. “We’ll go with you tomorrow to talk to your boss for you, if you want. Maybe he’ll let you get by without the two weeks. If he looks like he really wants that, then one of us will stay here with you and help you pack. But we need to get your mom’s house finished. The McAdams house has to get started. All three of us can’t be gone for a whole two weeks.”
It was tempting. Soooo tempting. Then reality hit. “You all three can’t go in as my men. You’ll scare the ’nillas.”
Ted laughed. “We’ll let Mark take point and we’ll use the excuse that the production company wants to film you. We’ll even offer to give his office free promo on the show in exchange for letting you go sooner.”
All three of them looked hopeful.
They wanted her. It’d be stupid to prolong their agony and hers. “All right.”
They surrounded her, taking turns kissing her until she felt like she was ready to crawl out of her mind with need.
After several minutes, Ted stepped back and handed the sheets to her. “Get the bed ready, sweetheart. You need your spanking before you can have your reward.”
She was still gasping for air as she clutched the sheets against her. “Spanking?”
“You agreed,” Ted told her. “Red is your safeword. If you want to stop and renegotiate, you have to speak up. Otherwise, you will get your spanking.”
This is what I wanted. And she knew what a reward entailed. Already her pussy betrayed her, growing wet, her clit throbbing.
She nodded before she realized what she was doing. “Yes, Sir,” she said.
They grinned. “Then get busy, sweetheart,” Josh told her, his tone dropping to that thick, deep honey voice he used on her in a scene.
She spun around and dropped to her knees again, hands trembling as she got the fitted sheet onto the mattress. When she finished, she sat there and looked up at them. Mark was rooting through his carry-on bag and produced the Hitachi and a bottle of lube, as well as a box of condoms.
She snickered. “What’d TSA say to you at the airport?”
“The agent said it looked like I was getting ready for a party. I told him he had no idea, that I was going to see my fiancée. He congratulated me.”
“And here I thought he’d be embarrassed when I stuck those in his bag,” Josh said. “Dammit.”
“You’re mean.” She waggled a finger at him. “No getting each other in trouble,” she warned. “With me or the TSA. Especially the TSA. If you want a free body cavity search, I’m sure we could arrange for Landry to give you one.”
At that, all three men looked queasy. “Uh, no thanks,” Josh said. “I’m not too proud to admit that I like him as a friend, but he scares me a little. I’m not sure how Tilly controls him, but that must mean she’s scarier than him. Cris is a better man than I am to take what he does in a scene.”
That clarified in her mind how she knew she could do this. The men might “punish” her, but they were sadists on the more sensual end of the scale, preferring to express it sexually, not with impact play.
They weren’t interested in giving her more than she could take. But they would drive the point home to her that they were men of their word.
“Get naked,” Ted said.
She pulled her blouse off. “Why aren’t you getting naked?”
“We will,” he assured her. “But first you get spanked.”
Dammit, that made her clit throb even more. She tossed her blouse to the floor, successfully resisting the urge to grab it, neatly fold it, and put it on the coffee table.
Her bra, jeans, and panties followed, leaving her standing, naked, in the middle of the mattress.
“Turn on the TV or music or something,” Mark said. “Background noise.”
“I didn’t pack a gag,” Josh said.
“I’ll get a towel.” Ted head
ed for the bathroom and returned with a hand towel while she put the TV on gO! Network, where an episode of Otherworlds was currently playing.
All three men arched an eyebrow at her.
“Really?” Mark asked.
She set the remote down. “Why not?” Purson was actually in the frame, doing a ghost investigation with Will Hellenboek.
“Fine,” Ted said. “Me, first.” He sat on the edge of the mattress and patted his lap. “Head to my left.”
Her stomach twisted even as her clit throbbed. Her nipples peaked in the cool air, only adding to her discomfort. She crawled into his lap, the warmth from his legs washing through the coarse denim of his jeans and into her flesh.
He handed her the towel. “Bite down on that. Don’t want to scare the neighbors.”
She did, closing her eyes when he stroked her ass with his right hand. His left settled between her shoulder blades. “Oh, you will wear a day collar, once we decide what to get you. You’ll have a play collar, too. We’ll set up specifics for that when we get home. A spanking if we catch you without one or the other on, unless it’s a predetermined circumstance or an emergency. Understand?”
She nodded and mumbled, “Yes, Sir,” around the towel.
His right hand fell still. “Good girl.” She felt the stiff outline of his cock straining against the front of his jeans. The wait was killing her.
Then he lifted his hand and she didn’t have time to tense before he began spanking her. It wasn’t just a fun spanking, either. Each stroke was hard and designed to impart a message. Tears sprang into her eyes and she started crying, biting down on the towel, when he suddenly stopped.
She gasped as he soothed her stinging flesh with his hand, gently rubbing. “Ten from me. That’s all I’m giving you. Josh’s turn.”
She’d felt the first eddies of subspace working their way into her brain when the men helped her sit up. Josh took Ted’s place and she stretched out across his lap.
He used his left hand to grab and hold her ponytail. “Need to remind our girl who owns her,” he said, his sensual tone drawing a soft moan from her. “Going to remind you that we love you and worry about you and want to protect you.” Then he started spanking her, every bit as hard as his brother had, but apparently only ten strokes.
A Clean Sweep Page 22
