Stripping Their Hearts

by Jana Leigh

  “Yep, that is about right. However, I am not sure a week will work, ‘cause, man, after looking at her ass while she was putting away the movies kinda got me going, you know what I mean. Maybe we should say like four days. I can last for four days.” Tank nodded.

  “Okay, babe, you got four days,” Sonny said and grinned at her.

  “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” she screamed and stood. “I FEEL LIKE I HAVE STEPPED INTO THE TWLIGHT ZONE. YESTERDAY AND THE DAY BEFORE YOU WERE ALL SWEET AND TALKING TO ME NORMAL, ACTING LIKE I WAS SOMEONE YOU WERE PROTECTING AND HELPING. SUDDENLY I WAS ON THE FLOOR WITH MY ASS IN THE AIR AND YOU HAVE ALL CHANGED YOUR TUNE.”

  Tank leaned back and put his arms across his chest and Sonny did the same thing. “Sweet thing, we haven’t changed, those first two days was us trying to get you used to us. We gave you the time to get to know us. Now we have moved on, now we are telling you we are claiming you. That makes this a lot different. We needed to get our feet under us, you threw us for a loop, sweet thing, one second we were thinking you were an assignment, then wham, you were well, you. No going back. You need to know what you are getting into with us. We are not hearts and flowers guys, we were never like that, and don’t see us changing in the near future. We just say it the way it is, now I know you are not always going to agree with us, so let me lay this out a little more than Sonny did. This is only going to work with trust, you trust us, and we trust you. Sonny and I are and will always be protectors; it is in our blood. Now what that means for our woman is that you will always be safe, protected, because you are going to follow the rules we give. In turn, we make you happy and content, we talk, we fight, and we work things out. Now, I can see you are getting all riled up about this, you need to sit down and tell us the problem.”

  “THE PROBLEM,” Kit screamed as she looked back and forth between the two men. “THE PROBLEM IS THAT I DON’T KNOW YOU, I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS. ALL I WANT TO DO GET THIS SITUATION OVER WITH AND GO BACK TO MY BORING LIFE. YOU DON’T JUST ANNOUNCE YOU ARE CLAMING ME LIKE I AM A PIECE OF MEAT, I AM A PERSON.”

  “Babe, we know that, you are our woman,” Sonny said calmly.

  “YOUR WOMAN?” Kit yelled and paced back and forth across the floor muttering to herself, they didn’t get it. People didn’t just meet and announce they were claiming each other. It wasn’t done; they had to go through the steps. The dating steps. First they meet, then they size each other up, like a test to see if they fit, a date maybe two, then they move on to the getting to know each other, test each other’s boundaries with like politics and shit. After that then they moved on to physical compatibility, do they kiss good, are they the kind of person who sets your heart fluttering. And on and on, it was the natural progression of dating. She didn’t know how to tell them this. It was important they got it. How was she going to tell them all this when every time they opened their mouth they were like Neanderthals.

  “Sweet thing,” Tank said with a humorous tone. “You are talking out loud again, we heard it. But one, that is not us, and two, we aren’t dating. So sit your pretty little sassy ass down here, and eat your dinner, then we can talk about how we are going to have this go together.”

  “Fine,” she said and stomped to the table and sat down. “I am going to eat, and then I am going to my bedroom, we can talk about this tomorrow after I have had time to think about this.”

  “Babe, said we needed to talk it out,” Sonny said.

  “Don’t babe, me, I don’t work like that. I have to mull it over, I need to think. That is how I work,” Kit said and shoved a fork of pasta into her mouth.

  The men laughed but allowed her silence to eat. When she was done, she pushed back from the table and stood. “I will clean up.”

  “Nope,” Tank said and stood as well. “You take your Kindle into your room and mull over what we said. But while you are there we are gonna give you something else to mull over.”

  “Oh yeah?” she said sarcastically.

  “Yeah, babe,” Sonny said and stood and pulled her to him and kissed her. Shit, kissed is not the word she would have used. Owned, conquered, branded, yes any of those would describe the kiss Sonny planted on her lips. His tongue swept through her lips and into her mouth without any resistance. He tasted her mouth until she didn’t think she could stand it anymore and then he released her.

  Then Tank grabbed her and did the same thing without giving her a chance to even think. His kiss was different, both were amazing, and she knew she was going to never be able to resist them, but it was Tank’s kiss which touched her heart. Sonny branded her, but Tank sealed it with his teasing, playful, seductive kiss. He nipped at her lips and took her mouth in slow, seductively moves, until she was once again ready to crumble.

  “Think on that, babe,” Tank said against her lips. “We will be here when you figure it out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jimmy screamed into the phone for the fifth time that morning. All of the leads they had were dead ends. No one knew where Miss Kitty had disappeared. No one knew where those men had taken her.

  “All I want is an address!” he yelled and slammed the phone down. His second in command was sitting in front of him. Not that he was a real second in command; it was just what Jimmy called him. Bruno knew Jimmy thought himself to be a mob boss, like the olden days, he let him have it. Jimmy paid good, and to be honest, Bruno thought it was a little cool.

  “Boss—” Bruno said and Jimmy cut him off.

  “I will burn this city down if I can’t find her,” he said darkly and looked at Bruno with a little crazy in his eyes. Bruno was used to it, Jimmy was a little crazy, but he had always been able to control him. For some reason though, this woman seemed to make Jimmy uncontrollable. That was not gonna work for him. He had made plans.

  All these years being in Jimmy’s shadow, it was cool. Because he had been able to control stuff. Their money was made in book making and loan sharking. It was a simple business, and lucrative, as long as Jimmy was under control. Him being out of control was not good for business.

  “Boss,” Bruno said again. “We have everyone looking, the addresses for the truck were a dead end. Now, we need to make sure we do this right, you heard them. The Briggs brothers are connected. One being a cop, the other a mercenary. We don’t do this right, we are opening ourselves up for a world of hurt.”

  “Bruno, I know. I know we have things going on, but this is driving me nuts. She needs to be here, it will make it all perfect. Two stupid ass cops are not going to take her from me,” Jimmy said calmly and Bruno relaxed.

  “We made a few calls, waiting for some lawyer the brothers had to get back into town. Supposedly, he knows the family,” Bruno said.

  “Just get me an address,” Jimmy said and Bruno nodded, he would not let his boss down.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “She is still laying in the same place without opening the box,” Sonny said from the hallway softly.

  They had been sitting in the exact same places they had the first night when she had locked herself in her room. This time, Sonny wasn’t being exactly quiet about the fact he was spying on her. In fact, if she were paying attention, Kit would have heard everything they were doing.

  Tank shook his head. Sonny had thought maybe they could get a rise out of her again, then she would talk to them, but it hadn’t worked. As far as they knew she was laying on the bed thinking without bothering to care if they were spying on her.

  Sonny walked back into the room and resumed his place, waiting for Kit to come out. They thought it wouldn’t take long for her to decide, what could be the hold up. She felt what they did, they knew it.

  Both men agreed when they were all in the same room their attraction was tangible, you could feel it. How could she even question where this was going to go? They explained it to her, she wasn’t a fuck, she wasn’t a chick they slept with and left, she was theirs. It didn’t make sense.

  “Do we really need to visit the whole dating thing, because I
can tell you I am going to suck at it? Sucked when I was a teen, will suck as an adult,” Sonny said.

  Tank nodded and looked at his brother. “Me too.”

  “Maybe we should have gotten flowers,” Sonny said.

  “Nah, that isn’t us,” Tank said. “She really didn’t seem like one of those chicks who wanted flowers and stuff. I mean she likes books and shit, thought she would like the Kindle.”

  “Call Harper again,” Sonny said frustrated. The door opened to the cabin and both of the men jumped up and grabbed for their weapons.

  “Why call when I am here? Brought the guys up with the extra SUV to get all the equipment up here. Nice place by the way, met the sheriff on the road, good guy. Raider, Smitty, Zeus, and Zip are checking over the cabins. They will come up later. I have your new employment papers right here, Sonny,” Harper announced and smiled at Tank, her eyes went wide when she saw Sonny. “Well shit, you are just as big.”

  “Uh,” Sonny said.

  Harper held up her hand and fished in her bag and held up her phone and said, “Say, ‘Yes boss, whatever you say’ but say it all sexy and shit.”

  “Huh?” Sonny said.

  “Boss, not now.” Tank laughed.

  “Damn it,” she stomped her foot. “Why are you calling me?”

  Sonny snapped out of it and smiled. “Because we pissed off Kit.”

  Harper rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I told you not to go announcing you were claiming her.”

  “Boss,” Tank growled.

  “It is just not done, I even asked the girls, they said you were going to have to ease her into it. We were extreme circumstances, you know, you can’t do what we did. You guys are dumbasses. I mean how many people meet their husbands in the emergency room after they had been poisoned by Salamander Brandy? No one, I tell you. We were literally happy to be alive,” Harper said and threw down the envelope she was carrying. “I was just going to do a quick dump and run. Shit, where is she? I will clean up your mess. Give me a sec, I will put the girly panties on.”

  Tank rolled his eyes. His boss always said shit like that, it didn’t help her much. She was a straight shooter, and all the girls who fell in love with the men from Team TEN were unique.

  “Sonny, look over the papers and sign them, Joel and Drake are expecting me back tonight, so I will have to make this quick and get out,” Harper said briskly. “Training will start this week, all of the guys know what they are supposed to train you in; since you are going to be a team leader you need to know everything. Keep your eyes and ears open, and make sure if you don’t understand something you ask, nothing I hate worse than a guy who thinks he knows everything and can fake training my men on it. Make sure you leave the ego at the door, the others are just as badass as you and I am pretty sure you all have big dicks so don’t go measuring them and wasting your time. This case has turned into our first paid case; we got the official request this morning. The FBI knows they don’t have any containment on this, and it is far bigger than they first thought. Bic and Flick will be down in a few days with all of the information they had been gathering. We have a shit ton of inconsistencies the FBI hadn’t told us about,” Harper said briskly and walked to the hallway.

  “Tank, you need to call back to the compound, our first team gets in next week. WE need them tried like ASAP, and Freddie is taking the first class,” Harper said and walked down the hallway.

  Shit, Tank thought. TRI-X was barely up and running. The guys who were working this case were the leaders of the sections they had made when Harper first decided to open the agency.

  The first thing they did was decide that because of their business, they needed to have teams. Men and women who trained together and became a working unit until they could sent out to deal with cases. The rookies were hand-picked and recruited by Raider and Smitty. They both had charisma as well as degrees in psychology.

  Once they were picked, they were placed together and given a team name. Tank was in charge of training the teams. Sonny was going to be his co-leader. They were in charge of making sure each team that came though the compound came out with three things. A leader, a second, and the knowledge to deal with any situation. It was going to be hard to do long distance, but they would handle it somehow. Tank had a good group of men who were helping him. He just liked to be hands on.

  Zeus and Zip were the planning leaders. They were the ones who assessed situations and cases for Harper to look at and make the final decision; they were also liaisons with the team and the home base.

  Bic and Flick were the wonder twins of technology; they could hack into computer or database given the time. They also were in charge of creating identities and back-stories for the guys undercover. Basically, they were nerds but you wouldn’t know it to look at them.

  Zero and Sting were their best lead undercover men. They could meld their ways into any situation, and they would eventually have one member on each team who would be the front guy. They also had connections everywhere.

  The last two guys were Boom and Tuck, they were overseas operatives that were currently out of the country making sure they had good relations with certain countries since they made need information about the shipments being made.

  “What just happened?” Sonny asked.

  “You were hired by Harper, don’t question it. Just sign the papers,” Tank said.

  “But she is going to talk to Kit,” Sonny said.

  “Yeah, can’t help that, we will probably have to sort that shit out, but she means well.” Tank sighed.

  “So not cool,” Sonny said.

  “Welcome to TRI-X,” Tank said and laughed.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The door to the small bedroom slammed open and a small woman with her hair in a ponytail stepped in. Kit jumped off her bed and looked around panicked. Then she saw the woman smiling and walking toward her with her hand out and she relaxed. She was gorgeous, short, petite, and completely cute. Kit couldn’t help but smile at the little woman, until she saw the guns strapped to her waist, and the knife strapped to her leg. Shit, she had made a bad judgment again, this woman was scary, where were the guys, had she killed them?

  “Eeepppp,” Kit said, turned, and grabbed the rod she had taken from the window the first night as protection and swung it back around holding it up ready to hit the woman.

  “Whoa,” the woman smiled and held up her hands.

  “Where are my men you bitch? Tank…Sonny,” Kit said, not thinking about what she said, instead trying to figure out how she was going to save her guys.

  “Your men?” The woman grinned bigger. “Really, I don’t think I need to fix as much as I thought.”

  “Kit!” Tank yelled. “That is Harper, my boss.”

  Kit closed her eyes and then opened them again to see the little pixie grinning at her. She held out her hand again and Kit lowered her arms and dropped the rod on the bed.

  “Sorry,” Kit said. “I am Katherine Steppe.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Harper laughed. “Sorry about just barging in, figured you would have heard us out there.”

  “Nope, I was thinking.” Kit sighed.

  “Uh oh, what did they do? I am pretty sure I know, because let’s be honest, they are stupid men who speak before they think.” Harper laughed. “Wait let’s back up. How are you feeling about everything that is going on with the case? I mean I know you have been thrown into it, and I am really sorry we couldn’t figure out another way to get you home, but seriously, you are the first real break we have had, and we need you to be safe. Also sorry I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about all this but everything kinda came to a head real quick and we have been backpedaling trying to get things into place. You know how hard it is to get men who have to plan everything down to their last meal to get a move on. I mean damn, they are like a bunch of old women.”

  Kit looked at Harper and smiled. She was cute and completely adorable when she talked. “Oh I get it, not happy about it, but I get it. And it’s okay, I
figured we would meet eventually, you know, when I had to identify people.

  “Good, now about the guys,” Harper said and leaned back. “How bad was it?”

  “Pretty bad, they seemed to think if they announce they are claiming me, that means I am going along with everything. I mean who does that, I didn’t even get they were interested in me until a few hours ago. I mean I was attracted to them but I am running for my life, why would I start something like this now. It doesn’t make sense. We have known each other for a total of four days. They gave me four days to get used to all this.” Kit sighed.

  “Yeah, okay, let’s talk for a about how these type of men work,” Harper said.

  “I need wine for this, don’t I?” Kit said.

  “Yep, you are going to fit in just fine. How do you feel about Wyoming, I mean on a basic level,” Harper said and laughed when she saw Kit’s shocked expression.

  “What?” Harper said. “Hey, we got to stick together, me and the girls would welcome a little more estrogen in our lives. It is us against them sometimes. When you have two, it makes it real difficult to win a fight.”

  “But,” Kit said and Harper shook her head.

  “Honey, I hate to tell you, but when I came in here and you called them your men, they had to hear you so that boat has sailed. Now, let’s talk about how you are going to handle this,” Harper said.

  “Damn it, I need wine,” Kit grumbled.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So four days to get to know each other and see if we fit?” Kit said to Tank and Sonny that night with Harper standing alongside her filling her glass of wine like she had the whole night while they talked. It had helped.