McKenzie, Cooper - Daria's Heroes [Men Out of Uniform 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (3 page)

Standing shoulder to shoulder, they formed a wall to keep the petite woman from seeing the grisly scene about to play out behind them.

“Feel better, angel?” Gage asked as she looked at each of them.

She nodded, then shook her head and threw herself at him as tears filled her eyes. Gage caught her and lifted her easily until her head rested on the top of his shoulder. She wrapped her arms and legs around him. He gritted his teeth as his cock slammed to attention.

“Mrs. Stone is dead, Gage,” she whispered softly as she rubbed her cheek back and forth across the top of his shoulder. “And Roman kissed me. I’m sorry.”

Gage could not speak to assure her that everything would be all right. It was not his place. Master had to be the one to lay out their lifestyle and the part they wanted, needed, desired her to play in it. Hugging her close, he looked at Roman. “Let’s take our angel home.”

Roman nodded without a word.

“I’ll come by after shift,” Kelso said before he turned back to work.

Once Gage settled her in the car, she looked at him wide-eyed and panicked. “I need to get my car. I left it on the street, and the cops will impound it, and I can’t afford impound and tow fees.”

“Shhh, angel, I’ve taken care of it. We’ll get it in the morning. I did bring your computer and purse and stuff.” He pulled the bag’s strap over his head and handed it to her.

She grabbed it and clenched it tight to her chest as the men climbed in. “This is all I have left. Everything’s gone,” she said softly. She sounded as sad and alone as any one person could be.

After a look to Roman for permission, which he gave with a nod, Gage wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her so she leaned against him. “You’re not alone, Daria. You have me and Roman. Hell, all of Mrs. Stone’s kids are here for you. You’ve not been alone since Mrs. Stone brought you home to us.”

Daria nodded, but he could tell that she did not believe him. She did not know it yet, but once he and Roman got her home, they were never letting her go again. She was their woman, and they were about to stake their claim.

Chapter 3

Daria wanted to argue, but she had not yet come up with a valid one to offer. Instead, she took a deep breath and released it on a sigh as she relaxed into Gage’s side. For now, she would let Roman and Gage take her in. Once the dust settled in a couple of weeks or so, she would find a place of her own and begin the overwhelming task of rebuilding her life. In the meantime, she just had to remember that these two men were off-limits, even if Roman had kissed her as if he wanted to swallow her whole. After all, they were gay and totally committed to one another. There was no room in their life, or their bed, for her.

And the last thing she wanted was to come between them.

Closing her eyes, she forced her brain to disengage and tried not to think of anything. She drifted with the soft jazz music on the radio until a light flashed on. She stiffened but did not open her eyes, not wanting to face the hard things to come.

“Daria, are you asleep?” Gage asked as he gave her a one-armed hug.

She blinked several times as she straightened. They had arrived. The truck was now parked in the detached, oversized two-car garage at the back of their yard.

“Come here, baby girl,” Gage said once he had climbed down from the tall truck.

Daria nodded and handed him her messenger bag, which he hooked over one shoulder. She moved across the seat, and he caught her as she slid out. He hugged her tight to his chest with her feet several inches from the ground for several long seconds before lowering her. Daria thought she felt his cock stiffen and grow against her belly, then chastised herself for such wishful thinking. He belonged to Roman. There could never be anything between them no matter how much she wished differently.

Once her feet landed on the garage floor, she tried to step back, but Gage would not let her go. When she tried again and still he would not release her, she looked up and stared into his gentle sky-blue eyes that held a heat she had never before seen in them.

She thought he wanted to kiss her, but before he made a move, Roman joined them. Gage looked from her to Roman then slowly released her and stepped back.

Roman turned her to face him and settled his hard, warm hands on her shoulders. She look up into his dark chocolate brown eyes and found herself caught up in a heat that was different than Gage’s and yet at the same time so very similar.

“Consider this your home now,” he said. A thread of something in his voice melted any will to argue she might have had. One hand stroked down her back, not stopping when he reached her waist but going all the way down and over the curve of her ass. “We’re Mrs. Stone’s kids. We stick together. Understand?”

Looking deeper, she thought she saw more than just brotherly caring. Could that be male-female attraction? Could they be interested? Both of them? Would they make her choose between them, because she was not sure she could.

“Yes…no…I don’t know,” she replied honestly, not able to get her brain to focus on anything but the hunger that was growing in her heart and in her pussy. She did not even care which one wanted her; she would take either one.

“That’s okay, baby girl, you will.”

Roman hugged her for longer than normal before releasing her and stepping back. A look at Gage had the other man moving in to hug her as well. She took several deep breaths to keep from falling apart again. She needed to be strong and stand on her own two feet. She could not allow these two wonderful men to coddle her from the reality that she owned nothing and had nowhere to go.

“Come on, little one. Let’s go inside, and I’ll fix you a sandwich.” Gage stepped back then took her hand in his.

Daria shrugged and crossed the grass to the house beside him. Roman walked on her other side. For a second she felt important, like a movie star with two big, strong men guarding her from the world.

Then reality crashed down around her. They were doing this for Mrs. Stone. A lot of things would happen over the next few days, not because people cared about her specifically, but because they loved Mrs. Stone and all the good works she had done.

Once they entered the kitchen, Gage led her to the table in the corner. He pulled out a chair then waited as she stared at it. It took a moment to realize he wanted her to sit down. Once she did, she jolted when he kissed the top of her head before walking away. He had never done that before. What was going on with these two? Was it the shock of the fire? Or was something else going on?

She did not turn to watch. Instead she stared at the reflection of the room in the window across the table from where she sat. The men embraced, and then Gage laid his forehead on Roman’s shoulder. Roman lifted a hand and wrapped it around the back of Gage’s neck.

“I’ll fix Daria something to eat while you make up the beds,” Roman said in a soft tone that again carried that thread of power. It made her wonder if she should go up and make her own bed instead of putting Gage out.

Gage’s response was so soft she was not certain, but thought she heard him say, “Yes, Master.”

Master? What the fuck?

In the glass, Roman brushed his lips across Gage’s temple before the bigger man straightened and walked away. After that, Daria’s attention turned to her own reflection.

She barely recognized the woman with the lush dark brown hair that draped over her left shoulder in a ponytail that ended just below her collarbone. The woman in the window wore just enough makeup on to enhance her big amber-colored eyes and the perfectly proportioned lips. The woman in the reflection looked like a successful, young professional woman or a young mother, not someone whose life once again lay shattered at her feet.

Even after eight years away from her past, whenever Daria looked into the mirror she still expected to see the angry teenager with the super-short, spiky pink and green hair and three earrings in each ear who wore her anger and too-big clothes like a shield.

The belligerent attitude and smart-ass mouth she had developed to keep everyone at arm’s length did little other than earn her regular slap-downs by the latest of the parade of men her mother brought into their lives. Her mother did not care how the men treated them as long as they kept buying the beer.

She had been too drunk to step in when the last one decided he wanted to fuck Daria instead of her mother. Daria objected, and the man ended up in the emergency room needing stitches where she had cut his thigh with a broken beer bottle. Her mother landed in the morgue the next morning from alcohol poisoning. Daria was sent to the county group home to wait for her eighteenth birthday.

Two weeks after moving into the group home, she met Mrs. Stone. Five minutes later Daria agreed to go home with the elderly woman.

She never knew what Mrs. Stone had seen that day, but somehow the elderly woman had looked past the wild child exterior to the frightened girl cowering within. Over the next year Mrs. Stone, along with many of her other foster children, helped Daria put the bad stuff of her past to rest while helping her grow to be confident and self-reliant in almost any situation.

When Daria aged out of the foster care system, Mrs. Stone hired her as her secretary, companion, and then later, her caretaker. Only in the past year had the old woman pushed her toward choosing the next step in her career path. Like numerous others of her foster brothers and sisters, Daria decided to go into a career in public service by training to be a paramedic.

She jumped when Roman set a plate in front of her. Looking down, she swallowed hard to keep from bursting into tears again. “You remembered,” she whispered.

“Of course I did, baby girl,” he said with a wink before he retrieved two glasses of milk from the counter by the refrigerator.

Daria smiled down at her sandwich. Peanut butter and banana cut in triangular quarters. She did not need to lift the bread to know he had placed a layer of chocolate chips between the peanut butter and the slices of banana. A relatively healthy sandwich with a treat, Roman was the only one who fixed her favorite sandwich just the way she preferred.

“Thank you,” she said softly as she stared at the sandwich without making a move to eat it.

* * * *

“You’re thinking too hard,” Roman said as he sat in the chair next to hers.

She had not touched her sandwich yet, just looked down at it with an intent expression. He knew from past experience with Daria that he had better be ready to discuss something of serious importance.

“What is it that has you staring at your favorite sandwich like it’s covered with ants?”

He fought back a smile when Daria shrugged and picked up the first quarter of her sandwich. He watched as she quickly ate it in three bites, as she did the second one. When she picked up the third quarter, she finally looked at him.

“Why did you kiss me like that?”

She sounded confused and looked beyond troubled. Roman thought he felt Mrs. Stone’s hand reach into his chest and squeeze his heart at the idea that he had caused this beauty any troubling thoughts. Though it was hardly the time for this particular discussion, the reality of the situation needed to be brought into the open.

Pushing back from the table, Roman turned his chair. He twisted her chair around so they sat face to face. “I kissed you because I couldn’t hold myself back any longer.”

“But you’re gay! And if you haven’t noticed, I’m not a man. And you love Gage! You two have been together forever. Why would you want to screw that up?” Daria’s eyes got bigger with every sentence. She blinked twice before pushing back and standing. “Maybe I should leave and go stay with Mariellen or Kelso instead.”

Before she could take a step, Roman grabbed her arm and pulled into his lap. “No, baby girl, you’re staying here with us. There are some things we need to talk about. I wanted to wait until you’d gotten your feet under you, but now is as good a time as any.”

Daria wiggled in his arms, trying to get away, but Roman held tight. He shifted her to sit across his lap and held her with one arm around her back, holding her hips, and the other arm wrapped around her chest, his arm just brushing the undersides of her breasts.

“Roman, let me go! What will Gage think when he comes back?”

Roman tightened his hold as she attempted again to climb from his lap. “Gage knows how I feel. And I know how he feels. We’ve talked about this, and we’re in agreement. Now settle down and relax,” he ordered, purposely using his Dom voice to see if she would react as Gage did.

She stilled immediately, proving to him that she was as much his woman as Gage was his man.