by Maya Banks
knocked over his chair.
“Sawyer,” Hutch said in a warning voice.
Sawyer ignored him and leaned over the table, his hands flat against the wood.
“Gang bang? You want to reduce what we had to some shoddy porn flick?”
She flinched at the fierceness in his voice. He was pissed.
“Do you honestly think that we’d ever disrespect you like that, Reggie? Because if you do, then we have bigger problems than the fact we had sex. I understand that what happened threw you for a loop. Don’t you think it did the same to us? But to relegate it to some cheap thrill with you playing the starring role as a porn bunny pisses me the fuck off, and I don’t mind telling you that.”
“Sawyer, sit down,” Cam said calmly.
“No, Cam. I won’t fucking sit down.” He stared Regina down, his eyes never moving from her face. “I don’t know what that night meant to you, Reggie. I don’t know because you won’t talk about it. But you want to know what it meant to me? To them?” he asked as he gestured at Cam and Hutch.
“What?” she whispered.
“It was the best night of my life. I waited a long damn time to make love to you. Did I plan it? No. In a perfect world we would have eased you into a situation where making love with us all wouldn’t have unsettled you so damn much. But it just happened, Reggie. We didn’t plan it. But I don’t regret it either. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you regret it? Really?”
Her mouth went dry. She felt cornered. Not by them, but by her own damning emotions. She’d never lied to them before. She’d never kept anything from them. And yet for the last year, she’d withdrawn, essentially lying by omission, by her refusal to acknowledge what had happened between them.
She got to her feet and turned away in an effort to collect herself. She didn’t want to crumble in front of them, and she felt dangerously close to doing so.
She clutched her arms and rubbed up and down, and then she turned back to them.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know. I’ve struggled so hard to forget, to put it out of my mind. I don’t want things to change between us. God, I couldn’t bear it. You’re my only friends. The only people who matter to me. How could I have let that night happen?”
Hutch started to speak, but she silenced him with a raised hand. She didn’t want to tell them what was burning a hole in her gut. Didn’t want to bare her soul so painfully. But it was clawing at her chest, straining to get out. And maybe it would be the last straw in their already struggling relationship.
“After that night . . . a few months after it happened, I went out with another guy. I was determined to put that night out of my mind. I had . . . sex with him.” She closed her eyes as tears threatened to spill over the rims. And she couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in their expressions. She heard a swift intake of breath. More than one.
When she worked up the courage to reopen her eyes, the room was blurry through a sheen of tears. She continued on, determined to rid herself of the guilt and self-condemnation. Or maybe embrace it.
“I had sex with him . . . and the next morning I just wanted to die. I felt . . . I felt like I had betrayed you. All of you. I couldn’t even look you in the eye. I couldn’t face myself in the mirror. How fucked up is that?”
Cam stood and started to make his way over to where she was, but she stepped back and held out a hand. He stopped, his expression pained, his eyes haunted. Her gaze skittered to Hutch and Sawyer’s faces and saw mirroring pain there. Her heart seized.
“I’ve had sex before. I mean, you know that. But I never felt like I was betraying you. You’ve had relationships. I’ve had men in my life. That never interfered with our friendship. But after that night, I couldn’t even think about being intimate with another man because all I could see were your reactions if you knew. And yet I couldn’t face you anyway because of what happened. So either way I lose,” she whispered. “And God, I can’t stand the thought of that.”
Hutch got up and walked toward her, ignoring her outstretched hand. He grasped her wrist, tucked his arm around her waist as he moved in quick. He slid his hand behind her head and tilted her neck to meet his kiss.
She’d hungered for this. Lain awake so many nights reliving each and every moment of the three men making love to her.
He swallowed her protest and deepened the kiss. His lips moved ravenously over hers as if he’d hungered for it every bit as much as she had.
He pulled slightly away but continued to press light kisses against her lips.
“You aren’t going to lose us, Reggie. Not unless you keep running. You keep saying you can’t stand the thought of things changing, but they didn’t change when we made love, baby. They changed when you bolted like a scared jackrabbit. This last year? We’ve only seen bits and snatches of you because every time we get close, you find an excuse to be somewhere else. You say you don’t want to hurt us, but damn it, Reggie, that hurts us.”
“He’s right,” Sawyer interjected.
Hutch moved to the side, and she stared over at Sawyer who still stood by the table, his eyes glittering with intensity.
“You’re angry with me,” she said softly. But for some reason she didn’t think he was angry because she’d admitted to sleeping with another man. Yeah, it had hurt them, but they seemed to push it aside.
“Yes. No. Yes, damn it, I am,” Sawyer said in frustration. “I’m angry at the situation. I’m angry because I don’t know what to do to fix this, to make things right between us. I don’t know how to make you not afraid.”
Cam finally rose to his feet. He took a long, measured stare first at Sawyer and then Hutch. They were doing that whole silent communication thing again, and it unnerved her. Made her feel like she didn’t stand a chance in hell against them.
Cam walked over to where she stood with Hutch, and he reached out for her hand. He didn’t take it. He just held his out and waited for her to take it.
She eyed him nervously for a minute before relenting and sliding her fingers into his. He squeezed gently and rubbed his thumb across the top of her knuckles.
“We’re going to take this slow, Reggie. There’s a lot riding on this. We don’t want to pressure you, but we aren’t going to be dishonest with you either.”
Fear tightened her chest, expanding until she could hardly breathe. “What is it you want?”
“You, Reggie. We want you.”
“I don’t understand.”
He nodded. “You understand. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so damn scared. You wouldn’t be avoiding us.”
“Do we have to spell it out, Reggie?” Hutch asked.
Sawyer closed in on her from the front.
“We want you,” he said simply. “With us. Look around, honey.” He gestured around the room. “We didn’t build this just for us. We built it for you.” He moved closer and gathered her other hand in his, raising it and placing it over his heart. “Be with me, Reggie. Be with us.”
Her brain shut down. What they proposed . . . even though she knew, knew it before, and feared it, hearing it out loud . . . it was shocking. A jolt to her system. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
She licked her lips trying to formulate words, some kind of response. What did you say to something like that? How could you possibly respond?
She closed her eyes as fatigue crept over her, clawing at her. Weariness that had little to do with her injuries and everything to do with the emotional drain sucking at her, descended over her like a dark, suffocating blanket.
She swayed, steadied herself against Sawyer and tried to step back. He wouldn’t let her go. Instead he pulled her into his arms and wrapped himself around her. His hand caressed her cheek as he pressed her against his chest, and he kissed the top of her head.
“Get her another pill,” she heard him say. She started to shake her head, but he stilled her motion.
“This was a lot to dump on you, honey,” he murmured into her hair. “We don�
�t expect you to give us an answer today or even tomorrow. All we ask is that you don’t run from us anymore. Stay and face this thing between us. Give us a chance. Whether you like it or not, things have changed between us. Where we go from here is up to us. We can let it destroy us, or we can face it head-on. You’re no coward, Reggie. It’s time to stop acting like one.”
He pulled her away and stared down at her, his blue eyes blazing with sincerity . . . and determination. She didn’t answer, but then he didn’t seem to expect her to.
Her gaze flitted over to where Cam stood solemnly watching her. She stared questioningly at him. He stared back, his dark eyes reflecting the same sincerity she’d seen in Sawyer’s. They were serious.
Hutch walked back up and thrust a mug of hot chocolate at her. Sawyer took the mug when she reached for it, and Hutch caught her hand, uncurled her fingers as he’d done before and dropped a pill into it.
“Bully,” she muttered.
“When it comes to you, baby, I don’t mind being labeled a bully. Now take the damn pill, and I want you to drink your hot chocolate so there’s something more in your stomach. You didn’t eat much of your soup.”
He held up his hand when she would have spoken.
“I’m not finished. And when you’re done with the hot chocolate, you’re going to carry your ass up the stairs, and you’re going to get into your bed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hutch’s stern expression faltered, and a half grin cracked his lips. “I’d watch that smart mouth of yours.”
They all watched as she downed the pill, and then Cam guided her over to the couch. Sawyer handed her the mug, being careful that she didn’t spill it.
Hutch went back to clear the table while Cam took a seat beside her.
“We’re going to run back to Houston tomorrow morning first thing. I’m going to call Birdie to come over and stay with you.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he said firmly. “Birdie will stay with you until we return. Hutch is going to start back as soon as he picks up his ride, while Sawyer and I pack up the office and get the things we need to bring back here.”
“You’re such a pain in the ass,” she grumbled.
He smiled and cupped her cheek. He stared at her mouth for a long moment before he finally lowered his head to hers.
She lost herself momentarily in the sensation of his touch. His kiss was warm and gentle. Undemanding. Soft and coaxing. An invitation to respond.
Her hand tangled in his hair, pulling him closer even as she fought the notion that what she was doing was wrong.
Finally she pulled away and rested her forehead against his. She closed her eyes as her breath came rapidly.
Cam’s hand came up to touch her cheek, his forehead pressed to hers.
“Don’t you dare regret it,” he said. “I don’t want to see self-condemnation in those eyes when you open them. Just let it happen, Reggie. Stop overthinking it.”
She rested her hands on his shoulders then slid her uninjured hand over to curl around his neck.
“I’m so scared, Cam,” she whispered. It nearly killed her to say it, to admit it, but there it was.
He cupped the back of her neck and dug his fingers into her hair. “You don’t have to be afraid, Reggie. Never with us. Don’t you know we’d never hurt you?”
She pressed closer to him, hugging him. She rested her cheek against his chest and held on tight. “I don’t want to lose any of you,” she choked out. “And I’m so afraid of what will happen. I just want things to go back to the way they were.”
Cam wrapped his arms around her. “We can’t go back, Reggie. Only forward. But there’s no reason why forward has to be a bad thing.”
Her eyes drooped as the drugs seeped through her system. She held on to Cam, for now not wanting to let go. It had been so long since she let them close.
“I missed you,” she said again.
Cam took a deep breath against her, and some of the tension escaped him. “I missed you too, Reggie darling. I’m not sure you realize how much. You’re important to me. More important than I think you’ll ever know.”
When he moved as though to pull away, she clung to him. “Don’t go. Not yet.”
“You need to be in bed. It’s been a hell of a day for you.”
She drew away just enough that she could see into his eyes. “Hold me for just a bit, Cam. I’m so tired of feeling lonely.”
He leaned back against the couch and took her with him, cuddling her close against his body. The painkillers were pulling her under, tugging her into sweet oblivion. But she wasn’t ready to escape yet. She wanted to live just a little longer in the moment. Feel Cam’s arms around her where she felt loved and cherished.
She struggled to stay awake, but his hand stroking over her head lulled her. As her eyes fluttered, she saw Hutch and Sawyer standing a few feet away, watching her. She wanted to say something, to make sure they didn’t feel left out. She anxiously searched their expressions for anger or resentment, but all she found was warmth.
She kept her unfocused stare on the two of them until the edges of her periphery started to fade and blacken. She blinked once more and then surrendered to the dark.
CHAPTER 9
Sawyer opened the front door and ushered Birdie inside. He hugged her and gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks for coming, Birdie. Reggie is still asleep, and we’re going to go ahead and take off so we can get back as soon as possible.”
Birdie smiled and patted his arm. He grinned at the gesture. It was so reminiscent of when he was much younger, just a boy with an attitude, confused by Birdie’s quiet acceptance.
She had befuddled him from the start. Unlike other foster parents who couldn’t wait to lay down the law and rein him in, Birdie had smiled at him. Not just any smile but one full of love and understanding. She managed to get her way by using that smile, because who could look at her and not feel guilty?
Sawyer wrapped an arm around Birdie and urged her toward the living room. She felt fragile and slight against him. A curl of panic circled his stomach. He didn’t like to think of Birdie getting older. She was too important to all of them.
“Are you getting enough rest, Birdie? Have you seen your doctor lately?”
She smiled as she sat down in the chair and actually rolled her eyes when Sawyer fussed around her, pulling the ottoman over to prop her feet up.
“I’m right as rain, Sawyer. Even Doc Stevens says so.”
Sawyer frowned. “Do you think maybe you should consider seeing a doctor in Houston? Maybe a specialist? I mean Doc Stevens is older than dirt. He was practicing medicine in the stone age. Maybe he’s not up to date on the latest medical developments.”
Her eyes twinkled with merriment. “I’m two years older than Doc Stevens, Sawyer.”
His cheeks tightened, and he ducked his head. “I guess that didn’t come out too well,” he mumbled.
She laughed and put her wrinkled hand on his wrist. “I’m fine. Really. Doc says I’ll live another thirty years.”
“Good,” he said gruffly.
Cam and Hutch walked into the living room, their eyes lighting up when they saw Birdie. Sawyer stepped back as they both enfolded Birdie in hugs. She smiled and preened under their compliments and patted each of them on the cheek as though they were ten years old again. And both of them beamed from ear to ear under her attentions.
Sawyer shook his head. They were all kids when it came to Birdie. She had a way of making them feel important. And loved. They had no defense against her, and none of them had a problem admitting that at all.
“You’ll be okay here with Reggie?” Cam asked in a serious tone.
Birdie waved her hand at him. “You boys get on out of here. Regina and I will be fine. I’ll make sure she takes her pill just like you wanted. She’ll probably sleep until you get back.”
“Okay, well you have our cell numbers. Call us if you have any problem at all.”
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She made shooing motions with her hands. They each kissed her again, and she got up to go see them out. She stood at the door waving as they drove away, and Sawyer stared at her image in the side-view mirror until they turned onto the highway.
“Maybe we should offer to move her out to the house,” Sawyer said as he leaned back in the seat.
Cam glanced sideways at him, and Hutch leaned forward from the backseat to rest his arms over the middle divider.
“Who, Birdie?” Hutch asked.