by Bianca D’Arc
“If you guys go quietly, now, we won’t pursue,” Zack put in, speaking loud enough for the guys in the other room to hear. “If you leave Becky alone, you’ll never hear from us, again, but if you come back, the gloves will be off, next time. Most of you will die, but we might leave one breathing to carry the message back to your boss. And, then, we’ll take down your boss. Nothing will stop us if you continue to harass Becky. That’s a promise.”
“Renvil stole from our boss. He won’t just let that go,” the ringleader revealed, sounding nearly defeated.
“He’ll have to find another way to get back at Renvil. Becky is out of play. Carry that message back to Salvatore with my compliments,” Jay said.
“All right.” The ringleader seemed to have reached a decision. “I’ll tell him, but I can tell you, right now, that I don’t think he’s going to let this go.”
“Then, we’ll have to arrange a little demonstration for him, to convince him. Tell him to be ready. He’s going to have some problems in the very near future,” Jay told him.
“Is that a threat?” Now, the ringleader sounded angry, again.
“You bet it is. You come after one of ours, get ready for war,” Jay said.
Zack backed him up. “We’re experts at it,” he growled low, the two men in the kitchen backing away as if in fright.
They were leaving? Holy crap. She really thought they were. The two men who’d been facing off with Zack in the kitchen left, and then, she heard the shuffling of feet in the living room. It certainly sounded like they were leaving her house.
Jay moved to stand in the archway.
“Are the boys in the yard?” Zack asked him in a low voice that carried just enough for Becky to hear. She didn’t dare move out from under the table until one of them told her it was okay. She didn’t want to mess up their hard work by being impatient.
“Front and back,” Jay confirmed. “They’re going to make sure the targets see them, then fade into the trees. It ought to scare the shit out of them.”
Jay was chuckling, and Becky just shook her head as Zack joined him. These guys thought fighting two-to-one was fun? She was going to punch them so hard when they finally called her out from under this table.
“You think we can get her out from under there, now?” Zack spoke silently to his combat partner.
“Let me just get the sitrep from the guys outside,” Jay told him, inserting the small earpiece he’d kept in his pocket. “I had the tac radio on, broadcasting from in here, so the guys outside know what to do.”
“Good thinking.”
“They’re out of the house,” Jay reported a few seconds later. “Team One put the fear of God into the two you were dealing with. Team Two is just making their presence known to the spokesman and his friends on the other side of the house. Quick peek and nod. Hope it’s enough,” Jay added.
“It’ll be enough. Those guys are amateurs compared to us, and now, they know it.” Zack almost chuckled but held back. “I’m going to get her out. She’s been down there long enough.”
Jay saw Zack reach under the table to help Becky up. She immediately went into his arms when he held them open, and clung to him. Jay tried not to be too envious. He’d try for his hug later. A chance for full-body contact with Becky—even fully clothed—was something he didn’t want to miss.
Jay looked around the living room. The place was trashed. The leader of the little group had landed hard on the coffee table, splintering it into firewood. One of the others had taken out a lamp, and the third one in the living room had made something in the sofa go crack. Jay doubted its stability, now. They’d have to fix or replace a large percentage of the room. He wondered if the kitchen was any better.
Of course, Zack had only had two of the goons in there. Maybe he’d had better luck keeping Becky’s home intact. Although…Jay knew all about close quarters combat. Chances were the kitchen might be in worse shape than the living room. A plan began to form in his mind…
Becky had taken Zack’s hand and accepted his help climbing out from under the kitchen table. She had gone straight into his arms, willing her shaking limbs to stop, but it took a while. But that was okay. Zack had her. She felt safe in his embrace, and he held her until the worst of the tremors stopped.
“Thank you,” she said, moving back from his arms. “I’d have been toast if you weren’t here. Both of you,” she said, turning to look at Jay as he entered the room. She held one hand out to him and then closed the distance to hug him.
It didn’t feel odd to go from one man’s arms to the next. They had probably just saved her life. They had proved themselves to her, over and over again, and she had deep feelings for them both. She was still confused about that, but she wasn’t going to worry about it, now. Too much had just happened, and her mind was still spinning.
Jay hugged her close, and she clung to him for a long moment. Then, she let go by slow degrees, moving back to take in her surroundings. Her kitchen was a complete disaster, but she shouldn’t have expected anything else. There had been a pitched battle in here just a few minutes ago.
“What now?” Becky asked.
The truth of what had just happened hadn’t really registered yet, but her kitchen was a mess. She walked into the living room to find it just as bad. They’d trashed the place in the fight.
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Jay said, casting his gaze around the room as both men joined her in the living room. One stood on either side of her.
Jay had said we, she noticed. All three of them? Together? Still? She’d been half afraid everything would stop the moment the threat was over, but his use of the word we sounded promising.
“We’ll just take her home,” Zack told Jay, then turned his gaze to Becky. “You’ll love our place. Jay’s loaded, so we’re living in really posh digs. There’s a private pool and everything. We can go skinny dipping anytime you want.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh, despite the intensity of the past few minutes.
“I’d like that,” she told them, her trauma fading. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to check out the pool—preferably with them in it. Naked.
Chapter Eight
While Becky packed an overnight bag, Zack and Jay got busy arranging things. They had a carpenter friend who would come down and secure the house for the night. Both the front and back doors were busted and would need to be replaced. Jay did his magic with the security system and set it to report directly to him. He even set up a few spy cameras, so they could see what was happening in the house and on the grounds from wherever they happened to be.
Some of the guys from their unit were still outside, keeping watch, but nobody expected anything else to happen right away. Jay’s intel on Salvatore was that he didn’t have the resources to move fast enough to keep up with Jay and Zack’s rapid response team. In fact, the muscle he’d just sent had been about the extent of his forces…unless he hired mercs or something. But, again, there wasn’t much chance of him having done that just yet.
Maybe he’d get the message and desist in his attempts to kidnap Becky. It was just possible the henchmen would be able to convince their boss not to mess with Becky or her highly-trained and totally unexpected friends. Zack wouldn’t bet on it, but there was still an outside chance.
Zack watched her face as they drove up the long drive to Jay’s house. Zack lived there, too, of course, but technically, Jay owned it. Zack was cool with that. Not everybody could be born into wealth. Some folks had to work for a living, as Zack often reminded his partner, just to tweak him.
Jay wasn’t like the stereotype of the boy born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father had encouraged him and his brother to work hard and earn their own money, and mostly, they had. Still, the creature comforts of a spacious home in an exclusive neighborhood weren’t easily dismissed.
Even though he’d told Becky about Jay’s wealth, he could tell, just by her expression, that she was surprised when the house came into view. It
wasn’t a mansion, but it had all the amenities and a large plot of land around it that made it much easier to secure than most of the other places Zack had ever lived. The woods around the house were laced with surveillance equipment, and there was a whole room—not a huge one, but a room nonetheless—in the house devoted to the sensors, cameras, and detectors of various shapes and sizes, and their monitoring stations.
Some of the stuff was purely experimental, and this was its testing ground. Jay still liked to tinker in his off time. He had that sprawling workshop in an industrial part of town, where he spent most of his days off, but he had made this house sort of a mini testing facility for some of the security gadgets and home automation gizmos he’d dreamed up.
Forget smart home. This place was a freaking genius.
The lights came up on the drive as their car approached. That was a feature they could turn off from the car if they wanted to make a stealth approach. It seemed to impress Becky, which was probably what Jay was going for. He liked to show off his techie home.
He showed off one feature after another as the garage door opened automatically, the lights coming on in each section as they entered. The door from the garage had opened automatically, as well, in response to the tags Jay had made for both himself and Zack. Everything was based off a radio frequency tag with super-spy encryption that could not be duplicated, making this place the Fort Knox of smart homes.
Becky asked questions, and Jay answered, clearly proud of his inventions but trying not to sound like a braggart. Zack just watched their backs, listening absently while he did the more traditional security checks. He liked Jay’s inventions, but he didn’t trust them one hundred percent—especially not with Becky’s safety. As long as she was a guest at their place, Zack would be doing checks the old-fashioned way. Between Jay’s gadgets and Zack’s vigilance, they’d protect her from anything that came their way.
Or die trying. She was that important to them both.
Becky was floored by the house. It wasn’t grand in the size sense, but it was everything the guys needed with all the luxury money could buy—or Jay could invent. His electronic improvements were years ahead of what she’d seen on television, and he’d told her a lot of the things he’d installed in the house were experimental, at best. Prototypes. One-of-a-kind inventions that might become something marketable in the future but were still in their testing phase…in this very house.
The furnishings were comfortable and masculine. Big couches—one for each of them, apparently—in the living room with a giant television and sound system. She could easily imagine them both sitting there, watching a game, eating pizza.
“This is where we hang out the most, when we’re here,” Zack told her as he put her overnight bag on the sofa that seemed to be his.
“We don’t have any real food in the house, and it’s lunch time,” Jay put in, his phone in his hands. “I’m going to order delivery. What do you guys want?”
They had a discussion of what to order, and Becky offered to pay for her share, but the guys insisted on treating. They were being so good to her. She could just barely keep up with all the changes that had happened in such a short time. Had it only been a couple of hours since they were enjoying breakfast, and then, a bunch of goons broke in and just about destroyed her house? And, now, she was sitting here, surrounded by luxury, about to eat lunch with Jay and Zack.
She’d slept in their arms last night, after they’d saved her, but she hadn’t really had enough sleep. She began yawning after they finished lunch, and Zack suggested she might want to take a nap.
“After all,” Zack reminded her, “you were up half the night with everything that happened. You probably need a bit more rest before going in to work tonight.”
They’d had a little discussion about whether or not she should go in to work at all, but she insisted, and they accepted her decision, albeit grudgingly.
“There are only two bedrooms set up. We don’t have a lot of guests, so we never got around to putting a bed in a guest room,” Zack explained as the three of them trooped down the hallway.
“You have your choice of either one of our rooms,” Jay added.
“Mine’s neater,” Zack said, as if trying to convince her to choose his bed to nap on.
Becky couldn’t help but chuckle at Jay’s grumble in response to that claim. She peeked into both rooms from the hallway and decided on Zack’s because there was a bit more room to maneuver. Jay was holding her overnight bag, so he went in and dropped it on the foot of the bed. When he would have walked back out, again, Becky stopped him by simply walking up to him and putting her arms around him.
This was it. Moment of truth time. Could her fantasies become reality? Could she have them both? She’d tried so hard to push those thoughts from her mind, but the tantalizing dream of having them both in her life—and in her bed—kept coming back.
She dreamed it at night and fantasized it during the day. She was a goner, and probably wouldn’t rest easy again until she knew whether or not they were thinking about it too. This was her chance to find out once and for all.
Jay seemed surprised for a moment, but went willingly into her embrace. Emboldened by his response, she reached up and kissed him. The whole time, she was very aware of Zack, also in the room, watching.
“Becky, I need to be clear on this. You’ve had a lot happen in the past day or two,” Jay said, breaking the kiss and gazing deep into her eyes. “Is this what you want?”
Becky nodded, feeling bolder than she ever had before. “If I didn’t want to be with you, I would have gone to a hotel,” she insisted, running her hands over Jay’s chest. She didn’t think she could make it any clearer.
“Are you sure?” Jay asked, again. She could feel the tension in his body.
In answer, she held out her hand behind her, beckoning Zack closer. This was the tricky part, but Zack didn’t disappoint her. He took her hand and then slid his arms around her waist from behind, bending his head to nuzzle her ear.
“Both of us?” Jay seemed to want to be absolutely certain. He was such a sweet guy, but if he asked, again, she was going to sock him in the mouth. How much clearer could she get? She sighed and decided to let him in on her thinking a bit.
“To be honest, I was waiting for you guys to pick because I liked you both equally. This way, I don’t have to choose, though I will admit, the idea took some getting used to, but I have to say…” She gave him what she hoped was a seductive, sidelong glance. “I like it.”
Jay was having a hard time believing that what he’d been dreaming and fantasizing about for the past weeks was about to become real. He froze, but Zack didn’t seem to be suffering from the same sense of awe. Jay watched as Zack turned Becky’s face gently toward him, one finger under her chin as he met her halfway in a smoldering kiss.
“What are you waiting for, bro? Get in there. Touch her. You know that’s what we’ve both been wanting for a mighty long time.” Zack’s words came to him silently, even as Jay’s mouth went dry watching the kiss deepen. He’d never seen anything hotter.
“I don’t know how you can even form coherent thoughts when you’re kissing her like that,” Jay mused, his partner’s words breaking him out of his stupor.
Jay moved closer, putting his hands on Becky’s hips. She was still facing him, kissing Zack from the side since he was still behind her. Grinding his dick against her ass, if Jay was any judge of their movements.
“Won’t last long.” Zack’s voice in Jay’s mind was definitely strained. “She’s amazing.”
The kiss ended, and Becky’s breathing hitched, her panting breaths leaving those luscious lips open, begging to be kissed, again. Jay stepped closer, catching her attention. Her head lifted even as Zack’s hands cupped her breasts from behind, through her shirt.
He wanted the shirt gone. He wanted all her clothing gone, but at the moment, he wanted to kiss her even more. Zack’s hands moved lower as Jay caught Becky’s lips with his.
> She was sweet. So sweet. Jay could get drunk off her kisses alone. He touched her hair, her neck, her shoulders, and then lower. The fabric of her shirt was loose, hanging off her arms, and Jay realized Zack had been undressing her while Jay was being stunned almost senseless by her kisses.
His fingers trailed down, encountering only the lacy fabric of her bra, which wasn’t much of a barrier. He could feel the heat of her skin, the softness. Needing to feel it all, he grasped the top of the cups and pulled them down under her breasts, the hard nipples springing free and into his waiting hands.
But that wasn’t enough. He had to taste her skin.
Jay tore himself away from her mouth and moved his lips over her jaw to her neck and then her collarbone. Moving lower still, he tastes the soft skin over her heart. Her pure, beautiful heart, and then traced his tongue down to the hardened tip of her breast. He opened his mouth over the peak and sucked hard, delighted when she moaned in pleasure.
“Whatever you’re doing to her tits, she likes it.” Zack’s voice sounded in the back of Jay’s mind. “A lot.”
“There are two, you know,” he reminded Jay in a moment of clarity. “I bet she’d like it if we shared.”
“Fuck.” Zack’s tone was admiring. “Have you done this before?”
“No, but I’ve been fantasizing about this for weeks. Months, even,” Jay admitted. “And I did a little research.”
“Research?” Zack’s tone was distracted, now, as Jay made room for his partner around the front of Becky’s glorious body. There was plenty of room if they each took a side.
“I checked out some books. And some videos,” Jay told his partner.
Zack chuckled aloud, but thankfully, Becky didn’t take it amiss. She cupped the back of Jay’s head as he continued to pleasure her, and himself, touching her and licking her luscious body.
