Theirs to Pleasure: a Reverse Harem Romance

by Stasia Black

  He just stroked her hair gently.

  Like he treasured her as she gave him this gift.

  Which just made all her feelings about ten thousand times more complex. She’d brought him out here because she thought he was working for Jason.

  So how had she ended up with his cock in her mouth?

  And if he was working for Jason, why was he touching her so tenderly?

  Gabriel’s hips twitched restlessly and Shay realized she hadn’t moved in who knew how many seconds. She smiled around his cock. He wasn’t demanding about it—he might not even realize he was impatiently shifting for friction. Still, it was nice to know he was as much a man as any other.

  She increased her suction even as she dropped a hand down to her own sex. There was something about blow jobs that had always turned her on.

  And Gabriel finally giving into her like this? It was hot as hell.

  She was on the edge in moments, groaning her pleasure around Gabriel’s cock, knowing the vibration would drive him even crazier.

  Her orgasm was quick and sharp. They came so fast these days, it was insane. She didn’t know if she was entering her sexual peak or if it was just being surrounded by these five, powerful, sexual men who were never stingy in the bedroom.

  Gabriel swore in a mixture of English and Spanish and when she looked up through her lashes, mouth full of his cock, she found his feverish eyes still locked on her.

  She didn’t stop circling her clitoris. She was greedy. She wanted another one. He must have seen it too, because he finally slumped back against the recliner, chest pumping with each heaving breath, cock straining fuller than ever in her mouth.

  The sight of him so close to losing it had her on the edge within seconds. She cried out her second orgasm. It was longer, and harder, and so fucking good.

  His hips started pumping then. He was on the verge.

  But no.

  She’d started this with a plan.

  Well, sort of.

  Driving him crazy had been the general intent.

  But she’d also done it to see if he was Jason’s man.

  If he was and he was smart, he’d never fuck her.

  So she climbed up his body, her mouth letting go of his cock with a loud pop. Right before she could position her pussy over his straining cock, though, he crawled backwards, half falling off the damn lawn recliner in his determination to get away from her.

  Shay sat back on her heels at the foot of the recliner.

  Oh God.

  He was running. He was literally about to run away from her.

  She wrapped her arms around herself but then he stopped and bowed his head.

  He came back and bent down on the ground in front of her. He grasped her face in his hands and in the moonlight, she could see the mix of struggle and devastation and lust on his face.

  “Mi cielito.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “You have to know I want to make love to you more than anything in this world.”

  “Then why don’t you?” Shay hated the way her voice cracked as she asked the question.

  He shook his head, forehead still to hers. “Please understand. I made a promise.” Then he let out a sad laugh. “I don’t know anymore. I’m asking you to understand when maybe I don’t understand myself.”

  He pulled his forehead back from hers, looking her in the eyes and still cupping her face. “All I know is that you are the greatest gift that’s ever been given. To my boys and to me. What if I break my promise to God and he takes you away?”

  Shay’s heart felt squeezed by a vice.

  Oh God.

  If he wasn’t working for Jason? If this man before her was genuine? If all the emotion in his eyes was true, was for her?

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him close.

  And felt his erection poking her in the stomach. She laughed and pulled back. Gabriel was covering his face with his hands but she pulled them down.

  “Stop,” she said, still laughing, but then she grew serious. “Okay, so if I respect your decision not to sleep together. Can I still do something about…” She gestured downwards.

  When he didn’t say anything one way or another, seeming stuck in indecision, Shay dropped her hand between them and grasped his shaft.

  “Come here,” she said, gesturing for him to sit on the lounger beside her.

  He did and they both turned sideways. He held her to his chest, one hand toying with her breast and plucking her nipple as she stroked him to release.

  He held her to him for long moments afterwards, whispering, “Mi cielito, Mi cielito,” and then finally, so softly she barely heard it, “Mi vida.”

  Chapter 24

  SHAY

  One more week of watching the guys and trying out all sorts of small little tests, and she still had no clue if any of them were a mole or not.

  Maybe none of them were and she was just being paranoid for nothing.

  After all, if Jason sent her in as a spy, it had to mean he was a little desperate, right? Why put her in if he already had an inside man?

  So she was Plan A and that was it. No Plan B. Or Plan B was someone completely unrelated to her clan. That was reasonable, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

  God, it was enough to drive her crazy.

  And every day—and night—she spent with her husbands, not telling them what was going on felt more and more like betrayal.

  And today the whole clan was leaving as part of the big delegation to the capitol in Fort Worth.

  She’d finished her sculpture just yesterday. It was a large five-foot-tall portrait of President Goddard created out of tons of old computer processors, reflective metals, and mirrors. She’d built it about ten inches deep. The perfect width to hide the black device Jason had given her to mount at the heart of the sculpture. Everything that went in or out of the Palace was x-rayed, but since basically her whole sculpture was metal, it wouldn’t much matter. The box was perfectly hidden.

  And hid it she had, exactly as Jason had instructed.

  But—and this was a big but—she’d only installed part of it.

  Shay had spent days staring at the device trying to determine what to do with it. It wasn’t just a small bug like he’d given her for the other houses. Which she supposed she could understand. The president’s apartments would be far more extensive. It had to be a parabolic microphone of some kind. Maybe a thermal imaging camera? Or even a device that could be used to attack their wireless network from within? From everything Henry had said of the capitol, they had the most advanced computers that had survived the EMPs.

  Or hell, maybe it was all of those things and then some—it was sure big enough to be. The main part of the device was five inches long by about two deep.

  The second piece? Well, that was where things got interesting. It was slim, maybe only a quarter of an inch thick and as long as her thumb. When she held it near the first piece, it synced along the bottom of it like a magnet. For just a second when they first locked together, it made a sort of low-pitched humming noise.

  Shay had immediately detached them again and looked around the bathroom like someone might have heard—which was ridiculous because it had been no louder than a whisper. She’d locked the door and no one was home except for Gabriel. But he was with the boys downstairs.

  Carefully, she clicked them together again and the humming noise came back. Shay froze, staring down at the device in her hands…

  But nothing else happened. The hum died off and she was left with the heavy black box in her hand.

  Whatever it was, she was almost sure the secondary attachment was a battery of some kind.

  Which was why she ran downstairs and got her miniature screwdriver kit that Audrey’s husband, Mateo, had let her borrow for working on her sculptures.

  She’d created the shadows on the President’s face out of tons of little fiberoptic photonic chips from old phones and laptop boards and she’d needed the miniature screwdrivers to open the cases without damag
ing the chips.

  When she came back upstairs, she’d locked the door again, thrown open the curtains, and gotten to work on the battery. It had come apart without much effort and the insides looked like... she hadn’t known exactly what she was looking at—well, besides a thin black rectangle glued to a silicon motherboard along with a couple of wires.

  She frowned. Why hadn’t she ever taken at least one computer engineering course somewhere along the way? All she knew how to do was rip things apart and pull out the pretty, shiny bits.

  But really, she just needed it not to work, so how hard could that be?

  She cut the wires and then used a normal sized screwdriver to pry off what she thought was the battery itself.

  After jamming her thumb with the screwdriver a couple times when the battery case slipped, she finally got the damn thing to pop off.

  “Shit,” she swore, sucking on the thumb she’d sliced with the front of the screwdriver as she fit the outer case of the battery back together, minus its innards.

  She winced when she saw a long scratch along the underside from one of her mishaps with the screwdriver. But fuck it. It was going to have to be good enough. She’d use some sharpie to try to color the scratch back in.

  When she held the casing back to the first piece, it no longer clicked in place on its own. Not surprising. But that was fine. She’d just superglue the damn thing on.

  All she needed was for it to look right in case any of Jason’s other agents checked to see if she’d done what he’d asked.

  But obviously, eventually he’d figure out it wasn’t doing whatever he was putting it in place to do.

  Which meant Shay was out of time.

  And that scared the shit out of her.

  She forced her eyes shut as she finished folding a shirt and adding it to the overnight bag she’d be taking with her.

  No more stalling. She had to decide who to trust and tell someone everything.

  Now. Today or tomorrow.

  On the trip.

  Shay looked at herself in the mirror and tucked a long strand of blond hair behind her ear. As she did, she thought about Vanessa.

  Poor girl. To have been alone out in the wilderness for so long…

  Oh God—she watched her own eyes widen in the mirror as the realization struck—oh God, she was such an idiot.

  Vanessa.

  Of course!

  Shay stumbled, she backed up from the mirror so fast.

  But God, it was so obvious. Vanessa had come to town, what, only a couple weeks after Shay herself? Where exactly had Audrey said she’d been picked up? Shay squeezed the bridge of her nose and paced as she tried to remember. Wasn’t it something about a Scrapper team finding her in the neutral zone between Central Texas South and Travisville?

  Shay remembered thinking how lucky the girl had been that it was Central South men that had found her instead of Travisville thugs.

  And then there was that confusion with the lottery box… It could have been a way to arrange for all her husbands to be Travis’s spies, too. Or at least some of them.

  Shay stopped pacing.

  If that bitch was working for Travis, Shay would get to the bottom of it.

  Right now.

  She was supposed to be packing for their trip to the capitol—they were leaving today, in fifteen minutes, in fact—but she had to know.

  Shay hurried out of the master bedroom and then down the stairs. She heard one of her clansmen call her name as she rushed through the living room toward the front door, Henry, she thought, but she just called over her shoulder, “Be right back!” before slamming the door behind her.

  Then, before any of them could come after her, she sprinted down the road toward Vanessa’s house. Almost all the clans lived in the same little historic neighborhood close to town, so Shay only had to go down the block and around the corner before she came to the pretty little ranch style house where Vanessa and her clan lived.

  “Bitch better be home,” Shay whispered under her breath. She forgot what Vanessa did as a day job. Without Audrey here, she hadn’t hung out with her much. Audrey had gotten home a few days ago but Shay had gotten wrapped up in her own shit and just hadn’t made an effort to—

  But, no, screw feeling guilty! Vanessa was most likely the one working for Jason!

  Shay pounded on the front door with her fist.

  No answer.

  Shay huffed out a furious breath through her nose and pounded again.

  Still nothing.

  She was just raising her fist again when the door opened.

  To a red-faced Vanessa swiping repeatedly at her eyes with her forearm like she was angry at herself for being caught crying.

  “Oh. Hi,” Vanessa mumbled. “Sorry.” Her lip quivered as she turned her face away and took another swipe at her eyes. “Allergies.”

  The fiery interrogation that had been on the tip of Shay’s tongue only moments earlier suddenly sputtered out. What could make badass Vanessa cry?

  “What’s wrong?” Shay stepped into the house without being invited and went to Vanessa, wrapping an arm around her. For a second Vanessa went stiff as a board, but then she softened and turned into Shay’s chest.

  She was so tiny and birdlike that Shay could feel her bones as she held her. Damn, were they not feeding this woman? It had been a couple months and still she could hardly weigh more than ninety-five pounds.

  “It’s nothing,” Vanessa said, waving a hand as she pulled away from Shay.

  “Bullshit,” Shay said, tugging Vanessa into the living room and sitting down on the couch beside her. Was it Jason? Did he have Vanessa in a similar bind as he had Shay?

  “Fine, you’re right.” Vanessa pretended to glare at her, then gave a wan smile before dropping her head into her hands and running them through her inch and a half long hair.

  “It’s just…” She lifted her head and looked out the window. “I really wanted this to work.” She laughed humorlessly and swallowed. “The guys, the marriage, the whole thing.” She shook her head. “I never had anything like this in my whole life, but it’s all I ever wanted.”

  Shay felt her eyebrows rise. “A bunch of husbands?”

  Vanessa rolled her eyes and swatted Shay on the shoulder. “No, dumbass.” She looked away again like she was embarrassed to admit it out loud: “Family.”

  “My folks…” Vanessa waved a hand, “Anyway, I’ve been on my own for a long time. I thought it would finally be different. But it turns out that after the apocalypse when guys outnumber women twelve to one, no matter how hard I work, how much I try,” she shrugged helplessly, “it still isn’t enough.”

  Shay scooted closer to Vanessa, hating the hopelessness she heard in her voice. “Enough for what, honey?”

  Vanessa’s voice was toneless as she replied, “Enough to make them love me.”

  All right, where the fuck were Vanessa’s husbands? Because Shay was about to introduce them to her fist. How dare they make Vanessa feel like this? What the hell was wrong with them?

  But just as Shay was about to tell Vanessa what a load of crap it was that they were making her feel this way, the little alarm on the watch Henry had given her went off.

  “Shit,” Shay swore, looking down at it.

  Vanessa stood up, putting on a fake smile. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” She waved a hand. “I’m just being hormonal. You know.” She did a fake little laugh. “That time of the month.”

  Shay’s heart hurt for her friend. Yes, her friend.

  God, was she really this desperate? Looking for conspiracy theories everywhere because she couldn’t stand the thought of one of her husband’s being the mole?

  Vanessa was just a girl trying to make her way in life after being dealt a shit hand, and here Shay had been about to accuse her of betraying them all.

  Look in a mirror much?

  Shay winced even as she said, “I’m so sorry, honey,” and leaned in to give Vanessa a quick hug. Then she pulled back, holding V
anessa’s hands. “But I promise, we’ll figure this out. Audrey and I’ll be back from Fort Worth in a few days. We’ll figure it out.”

  Vanessa gave what was obviously a pacifying smile.

  Shay wished she could stay and convince her of it, but her watch beeped again. Dammit. The caravan was leaving for Fort Worth in five minutes and she still hadn’t finished packing her bag.

  “See you soon, hon.”

  She gave Vanessa a quick kiss on the cheek and then she was sprinting back to her own house.

  Where she was back at square one.

  Back to her own husbands as the best suspects.

  But this trip had to be her last test. She’d watch each of her husbands every move while they were at the President’s Palace. And if she still didn’t see anything suspicious, well… it was time.

  Time to tell them.

  Everything.

  Chapter 25

  HENRY

  Henry was glad he wasn’t driving the large van as their entourage drove into Fort Worth. Because watching Shay’s face as they entered the city was priceless.

  Her mouth dropped open and stayed open, from the time they first came in sight of the city lights to the time they were driving through the downtown streets.

  He understood. It was a lot to take in at first. But watching her excitement made something break loose and then expand in his chest like a balloon being filled with helium.

  So this was what pride felt like.

  He’d arranged this trip. He was giving this to her. And if he had his way, he’d give her so, so much more. He’d give her everything she deserved.

  “I don’t understand,” she finally whispered, eyes widening even further as they slowed to a stop and pulled into the underground parking lot for the towering Omni Hotel.

  Lights lit up the hundred or more floors of the structure. Not candles either.

  Henry grinned at Shay. “Oh, did I forget to mention that the President has restored power to the Fort Worth grid?”

  She all but choked. “No. No, you did not happen to mention that.” She smacked him on the shoulder, all her attention on him now. “How?”