She glanced at him long enough to see one dark brow raised, a half smile on his face. “Sweetheart, I’ve been inside you. I think it’s okay to do away with the mister.”
Her face burned, and she was sure it would never retain its natural color if she kept on with the violent blushing. “I can drive myself home.”
But his eyes were stern, his face determined. “No. I will see you safely home. And while I’m driving, I want to know who the fuck has you so scared that a touch will send you cowering to the floor.”
There was a look in his eyes that she’d never before seen, not even with Robert. It was so alien she had no idea what it meant—only that it was dark as death.
She glanced behind her at the sudden flash of lights. A red truck sat idling, and she knew it was the cook, Michael, waiting patiently to follow her home. “I have no home.”
He started the car and let it idle, his hands on the steering wheel. His frown was deep. “What?”
“I have no home.” She kept her eyes averted, her voice neutral, and dared him silently to pity her. “I’ll find something with my first paycheck.”
It sounded like he ground his teeth. “Where have you been living?”
“I had a room but … my money ran out. I slept in my car.”
He was silent for so long she finally turned to look at him. His strange, light eyes glittered in the dark. “Did you let Greta know you needed an advance?”
She shrugged but didn’t answer. It wasn’t Mrs. G’s fault that she’d fallen upon hard times.
“I see,” he said, and she knew he did.
“Please don’t say anything to her. I feel badly enough as it is.”
He pulled out of the parking lot, his movements so obviously careful that she knew he was seething. “You’ll stay with us tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get you into a house.” Then he muttered something that sounded like, “If you still want one.”
Her heart fluttered to the bottom of her belly. Us. Then he was married, or living with someone. There was no logic in the overwhelming disappointment she felt. It just was. “Why do you care?” She was suddenly, unreasonably angry.
He squeezed her fingers briefly before putting his hand back on the steering wheel. “I just do. Accept it for what it is, Selene.”
“What,” she said, knowing her tone was snide and petulant, but unable to stop it. “Do you and your wife run a home for troubled women?”
He only smiled.
In the dark closeness of the car, his scent teased her nostrils with temptation. He smelled so clean and masculine and sexy. It was difficult not to reach across and touch him. He was right there, so very beautiful and strong, irresistible.
She pressed her lips into a thin line and battled her desire. He was a taken man, and though she’d had him once, she wouldn’t do so again. He might as well know it right now. “I regret … what we did. It won’t happen again. You should know that.”
Again he smiled. “Oh, sweetheart. It will happen again. It will happen many, many times. You can take the rest of the drive to wrap your mind around that.”
She smiled all the way to his house.
“Who are you running from?” He’d pulled into his driveway, and when she started to open her door he put his hand on her leg to stop her. “Tell me, Selene.”
“It’s not your business, Mr. … Trey. Just leave it alone.” Let me have my secrets.
He was silent for a long moment, caressing her legs with slow, absentminded fingers. Finally he nodded. “For now. But I want you to relax. I will take care of you.”
She pursed her lips but said nothing. She was about to walk into a weird situation, she just knew it. Maybe he had an open relationship with his wife, but as much as she wanted him, Selene was not that kinky. At least, she didn’t think she was.
Michael pulled her door open and motioned her out. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you inside.”
They were treating her like a delicate princess, like someone who mattered. It was heady and strange and wonderful, and she didn’t try to resist. How safe she felt with these two on either side of her as they walked up the porch steps to Trey’s house.
It wasn’t exactly a private place—there were houses on both sides of the street—but it was quiet and calm. She stood on the wide front porch with the two men flanking her, watching Trey fit his key into the lock.
He pushed the heavy door open, but before they went inside he pointed her toward the little house on the left, right beside his. “Tomorrow you can look at that house and see if it suits you. There are a couple others empty but this is closest to us.” His light eyes glittered in the glow from the porch light.
“Or,” Michael said, “you can simply stay with us.”
She looked from one to the other, confused. “Us?”
“Michael and I live together.”
She swallowed hard, still uncertain. “You mean, you’re not married?”
He hesitated, looking at Michael. “No.”
Relief sang though her veins. He wasn’t married. He and Michael were roommates, and the us he’d referred to. She smiled. “I’m glad.” But shyly, she couldn’t meet his eyes. Everything was happening at warp speed, and she understood little of it.
Trey led her into the house. As though Michael had said something, he glanced at him and muttered, “Not now.”
His home was light, airy, and clean, but homey at the same time. It was a comfortable nest, and she told herself that when she had her own place, it was going to mimic this one. It just felt good.
“You’re hungry,” Michael said. He was more relaxed now than she’d seen him, his eyes happier, his smile easy.
She clutched her stomach, smiling guiltily. “How did you know?”
“Sweetheart,” Trey said, casually putting an arm around her shoulders, “you smell hungry.”
She wrinkled her nose, wondering how on earth one could smell hunger. Then she shrugged. What was one more weird thing in a whole string of them? “I could eat.” And if one of them said she needed fattening up, she was going to kick him.
“I’ll show you to your room while Michael is making you a tray.” Trey led her up a small flight of stairs to a large room on the left of the hall. “There are only two bedrooms, but they are both very large. Your bathroom is right here, and my room is just across the hall.”
She frowned. “Oh no. I’m taking Michael’s room? I can’t do that. I’ll sleep on the couch downstairs.”
His face was careful, closed. “You’re not taking his room.”
“But … he does live here, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head, smiling. “Then do you make him sleep in the bathtub, or what?”
He sighed. “Freshen up, Selene. I’ll bring up your bags.”
Fine. “Okay. Thank you.” He’d almost left the room when she called him back. “What am I doing here, Trey? Really?”
His smile was slow, wide, and delighted. “You’re where you’re supposed to be, darling. With us.”
Yeah, well that really cleared things up. “I … I should be afraid of you. Of Michael.”
For one second a spark of rage lit his eyes, but it was gone so fast she thought she’d imagined it. “But you’re not, are you?”
She shook her head slowly. “I’m not.” She was confused, but she was not afraid. Her eyes widened as she let the feeling sink in. “I’m not afraid,” she murmured, amazed. For the first time in … in forever, she was not afraid.
She looked at him, her eyes brimming. She wanted to thank him but was not sure why. Overwhelmed by the newness of realizing she lacked fear, she turned away.
She heard him moving down the stairs and only then did she release a sound that was half laughter, half tears. It was amazing, that feeling.
Freeing.
She was free.
She made use of the restroom and when she came out, her bags were piled neatly on her bed. He hadn’t needed to bring the entire trunk full of them, but then, he wouldn’t have known. She couldn’t imagine how he could have gotten every single one of them up to the bedroom by himself in such a short time.
He was strong, so very strong.
“Will you come down or would you like a tray, Selene?”
She started at Michael’s voice drifting up the stairway and hurried from the room. “I’m coming, Michael.”
He waited for her at the bottom, his face slightly flushed, his eyes taking her captive for a moment. They were nearly as beautiful as Trey’s, only Michael’s were a vivid green, as clear as glass. They were so bright she almost needed to shield her own eyes.
Maybe she hadn’t noticed because Michael didn’t seem to look at anyone directly very often. “Your eyes are dazzling,” she told him. “So beautiful.”
He averted them at once, and she understood. It was difficult for her to accept compliments too. “Thank you,” was all he said before he led her into the kitchen.
It was a huge eat-in kitchen, so cozy and inviting she could have slept on the heavy wood table or curled up in a corner on the floor.
Trey already sat at the table, his gaze distant as though part of him were somewhere else. But his expression cleared when she came in, and he stood like a gentleman as she sat.
Michael brought them food, and from the amount it looked as though he’d cleared out the entire fridge. They’d never eat it all.
But the two men shocked her with the food they put away. She stared in awe and nibbled from her plate, wanting to laugh. She did love to see a man eat. Really eat.
Then she frowned and put down her fork as memories of Robert interrupted the perfection of the house and the company. It was only after Michael reached across the table to take her hand that she realized she’d been lost in her own thoughts.
She blushed and looked down at her plate, snatching her hand away, as though he could read her mind through the touch of her hand. Immediately she looked back up at him. She didn’t want to offend him.
“I’m sorry.”
A look of understanding flitted across Michael’s face. “No need, baby.”
And as she looked into his eyes she finally understood. Michael knew abuse. He’d lived through it too. They stared at each other until Trey arose. His voice was harsh. “Leave the mess, for now. Let’s go upstairs.”
She couldn’t mistake his silent message any more than she could mistake that his anger was not directed at her or Michael. No, he was full of rage at those who’d hurt them, and she wanted to fling her arms around his neck in gratitude. He would take care of her.
Just as he took care of Michael.
She thought of him thrusting inside her in the woods, the first time she’d really allowed herself to remember, to think it over. The thoughts had seemed too forbidden for her to take out and play with, so she’d shoved them back in the toy chest of her mind. But now it was going to happen again, and she let the sensations of that encounter flood her.
She began to pant with desire before they were halfway up the stairs, and her legs, suddenly weak, began to tremble. At last Trey scooped her into his arms and carried her up to his bedroom, no question in his eyes.
Once Trey had placed her in the huge bed, Michael crawled in beside her and put his head on her chest. “Are you okay?”
Tremors still shook her body and her teeth wanted to clench with reaction, but she hugged him to her and stared up at Trey. “Yes.” Her voice was only a whisper but she knew they heard her.
She was better than okay. She was terrified, but in a good way. A great way. She was eager, excited, happy. She’d never been better in her life.
“We’ll get the taste of him out of your head,” Michael whispered. “It won’t go away entirely, not ever. But you can live now as the person you always were meant to be.”
She pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. “How did I get so lucky?”
Trey began to undress as she watched him, unveiling the hard, sexy body she’d seen in the woods. That made her remember what she’d wanted to ask him. “Why were you in the woods with no clothes on?”
He smiled and unbuttoned his shirt before shrugging it off and placing it neatly in a chair. His pants followed. “I am naked in the woods a lot, sweetheart. Someday I’ll take you with me.”
So he hadn’t answered her question, not really, but she suddenly didn’t care. Couldn’t even remember what she’d asked him. He stood at the side of the bed nude and glorious, and she almost swallowed her tongue when his cock began to harden beneath her stare.
Her heartbeat picked up and began to beat so fast she got dizzy, and when Trey climbed onto the bed and began to pull Michael’s shoes off, it helped calm her not at all.
Michael moved his head off her and lay back on his pillow, his dark hair spreading out around his head, contrasting brilliantly with his green eyes. His full lips held a slight smile, and she could see the promise in his face. “You understand you belong with us?”
She didn’t know what to say. She did feel like she belonged, but why? She didn’t answer him, just turned to watch Trey finish undressing him. Michael was whipcord lean and thinner than Trey, but just as good to look at. Two sexy men in her bed … no, these two sexy men in her bed. It was … perfect.
Trey pulled Michael’s jeans over his hips, releasing an erection so hard and huge she gasped. “Oh wow!”
Michael laughed, pleased. He took her hand and wrapped her fingers around it. “Shake hands, you two. Get acquainted.”
Trey snorted and pulled Michael’s shirt over his head. Then his face turned serious even as Selene tentatively squeezed Michael’s cock. “You like her, Michael. You recognize her, too?”
She remained silent, waiting for Michael’s answer.
He met her eyes and gave her such a sweet, real smile she choked up. “Yes,” he said, simply. “Yes.”
Trey’s sigh was just as heartfelt as Michael’s guileless affirmation. “Then let’s show our lady what it’s like to make love to those you’re meant for.”
They both looked at her with such passion, such intensity that she thought seriously about running, but it was only a moment’s thought pushed quickly away by the gentle squeeze of Michael’s hand.
Then Trey began to undress her much the way he had Michael, only with her he had Michael’s help. “Lie back, baby, and let us take care of you.” Trey’s voice was as tender and sweet as Michael’s eyes, and she was not afraid.