Her agreement to let Dane stay made Jared feel like swinging from a vine.
Because Jared knew, with Dane’s help, he could make Belle burn hotter than she ever had. He could take her to a whole new level of pleasure.
“I thought I was about to be shown the door.” Dane’s voice drew his attention and Jared turned to see his friend watching him closely. “You sure this is what she wants?”
“Believe me, Annabelle will let you know exactly what she’s thinking. If she doesn’t want you in her bed, she’ll tell you to get the hell out.”
Dane paused, as if thinking that one over. “You want to tell me why I’m here now? I mean, besides the sex? I know you, Jed. There’s something else going on.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
Dane took a sip of coffee as they sat at a table at the diner down the road, their booth far enough removed from anyone who might overhear them. “You really think she could be O’Malley’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
Jared watched Dane think about that for a few seconds.
“Based on the fact that she has two O’Malleys in her collection?”
“Three. I told you about the portrait I saw in her hall. No way that wasn’t an O’Malley. And I noticed tonight she’s moved it. No idea where. Like she hid it.”
Dane paused again. “So what if she is? Are you planning to expose her?”
Jared grimaced. “Hell, no. Christ, the tabloids and the national media brutalized this story when it happened. The girl was fourteen and pictures of her parents’ dead bodies were everywhere. I hope whoever leaked those photos goes to hell and fast. No, I just…I need to know.”
“Then why not ask her?”
Because if she lied…
He shook his head. “Just do it, okay? And make sure no one else finds out what you’re up to.”
Dane rolled his eyes. “You know, if this doesn’t turn out to be a wild goose chase, and she really is who you think, she’s going to be pissed as hell that you pried into her background.”
“I know that. Which is why I never want her to know. I don’t want her to be hurt by this.”
“Then what difference will it make?”
“It won’t make any difference. Just do it, Dane. Get me the information. Now, about those property taxes…”
Jared set up at one of the tables in the farthest corner from the door of the shop. He’d opened an area real estate site with the intention of browsing available properties but found himself watching Annabelle instead.
Since he’d returned after meeting with Dane, who’d gone upstairs to start digging into Annabelle’s background, a steady stream of customers flowed through the shop.
Annabelle spoke to each one, even if only to say hello and let them know to ask if they needed any help. Most were browsers with no intention to buy. They strolled through the aisles, stopped to run their hands over a chest or pick up a plate but moved on to the next shop empty-handed.
A few were seriously looking for specific pieces. Annabelle helped them take measurements, wrote the figures on the back of one of her business cards, and spent as much time with the customers as they needed. She didn’t push but she asked questions about where they were going to use the piece and how, what the rest of the décor looked like. She took a genuine interest in what they were looking for and those customers, even if they didn’t buy anything, ended their visits by promising to return and to bring friends, all of whom would “love this place.”
The two customers who did buy something left with huge grins on their faces, completely satisfied.
The first sale had been to a previous customer who’d returned to buy the sideboard he’d been looking at for at least two months.
Annabelle remembered the man by name, asked about his family, then got down to business. They bargained for five minutes, and when they agreed on a price that even Jared might not have paid for the piece, they smiled, shook hands, and made arrangements for it to be delivered to his home next week.
The second sale…Well, that one boggled his mind.
The couple was well dressed but not ostentatious. They’d walked around the store not stopping at anything until the woman spied the painting.
Hell, even Jared could see it was love at first sight.
She stopped and stared, went to move on but stopped again. She checked the price, her mouth pursing and eyes narrowing before she’d moved on. But not far before she returned to stand in front of it again. Her husband returned in a few minutes.
They’d held a short, hushed conversation, which consisted mainly of the woman speaking and the man shaking his head.
Annabelle had said hello when they’d first walked in but she’d been answering questions from another couple. Now, Annabelle made her move.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”
The woman turned to her with an almost apologetic smile. “Yes, it is. It reminds me of my granddaughter.”
Jared took another look at the portrait and hoped like hell the woman’s granddaughter was cuter than the artwork.
Then again, there was no accounting for taste. He didn’t think much of the painting but he wasn’t into primitive Americana, which was definitely what that painting looked like.
He turned out to be right as Belle told the woman its pedigree—the artist, when it was painted, where it came from.
“I’m not much of a collector,” the woman said with a small laugh. “I just think it’s such a beautiful piece.”
“That’s what you said about the last three you bought,” her husband teased. “Got to admit, that one does look like Christie, though.”
For the next five minutes, Belle talked to the couple about their grandchildren, all five of them. She found out they were both retired schoolteachers who enjoyed antiquing.
Belle never turned on the hard sell. She didn’t have to. She knew the woman wanted the piece but she also knew she couldn’t justify paying the price.
If the woman was working Belle, Jared caught no whiff of it. She seemed apologetic for taking up Belle’s time when she knew she wouldn’t be buying anything.
But Belle knew how much the woman wanted the painting.
“I know what the sticker says, but let’s forget that for a moment,” Belle said. “Tell me how much you’d be willing to pay for the piece.”
The woman’s eyes widened in surprise and she quickly looked at her husband, who put up his hands in surrender. “Sweetheart, I’m not the one who watches Antiques Roadshow religiously.”
“How’s this,” Belle said. “Let me tell you what I paid for it and we’ll see if we can come to an agreement.”
Jared had absolutely no doubt that the number Belle quoted the woman was exactly what she’d paid for it. The markup was high but, as Belle explained, she’d done some restoration work to the piece. Then she told the woman exactly how much that had cost.
Shaking his head ten minutes later, he watched as the woman and her husband walked off with the painting, thanking Belle profusely for allowing them to give her their money.
Hell, she’d made a small profit. Not much, but probably more than if the painting had sat for another couple of weeks. Or months.
He was still shaking his head when she finally locked the front door at eight, a few minutes after the couple left.
She didn’t join him. Instead, she went to the cash register, removed the cash and checks and stashed them in the safe built into the floor beneath the front desk.
Only after she’d set the alarms and made one last trip through the store, straightening things and making sure the windows and doors were locked, did she finally approach him. She looked nervous.
And then he remembered Dane upstairs.
His cock throbbed and his muscles tightened with anticipation.
Images from New Year’s Eve ran through his head: the way she’d responded, how she’d let herself embrace the pleasure. He’d been waiting to see that woman again.
&
nbsp; Not that the sex hadn’t been great with just the two of them. It had. But she’d enjoyed that touch of the forbidden, the thrill of the exotic.
He could give her that with Dane’s help. He wanted to give her that.
Wanted to give her whatever she wanted.
“Jared…” she said, seeming to think twice about what she wanted to say next.
He stood, closing his laptop and hopefully covering the lust building every second. “I thought we could send out for food, have dinner in. Any place you would recommend?”
She opened her mouth then closed it. He saw uncertainty in her eyes, confusion, anxiety. But beyond that, he saw desire in the flush of her cheeks and the faster pace of her breathing.
If she told him to send Dane home, he’d do it in a heartbeat. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.
But, damn it, he wanted her to say yes. Without worry, without fear. He wanted her to want the pleasure as much as he did. And she’d been so damn hot that night at the Salon when Dane had touched her while he fucked her.
Maybe he was asking too much.
She took a deep breath and he could practically see her back straighten. “You have three choices: Chinese, pizza, or sandwiches,” she said. “Take your pick.”
It looked like she’d made hers.
He tried to contain the satisfied grin, tried not to let her see how hot her unstated acquiescence made him.
“Sandwiches sound great.”
She nodded toward the stairs. “I have the menu upstairs. We should order soon. They get busy on a Saturday night.” A slight pause. “I’ll ask Dane what he wants before I order.”
The heat in her gaze practically melted his bones. His balls tightened and his cock throbbed. Yes.
“Sounds good.”
It took her a second but she finally nodded and turned to head upstairs.
Jared couldn’t believe the amount of control it took him not to throw her over his shoulder and race for the bedroom.
Annabelle tried very hard to keep her mind from wandering further than what to have for dinner as she made her way up the stairs.
Because if she let herself get beyond dinner to dessert…Hell, she couldn’t even think about dessert because she certainly wasn’t thinking about chocolate.
Unless it was smeared all over two male bodies.
Oh, God, was she really going to do this?
New Year’s Eve had been a step out of time.
Did she really mean to go through with…this?
She took the last step and immediately sensed Dane in the room. She sucked in a sharp breath when she found him seated at her dining table, typing on his laptop. He hadn’t turned on any lights other than the one in the kitchen over the sink. Come to think of it, maybe she’d left that on this morning.
He seemed engrossed in what he was doing, his expression intense as he studied something on the screen.
She felt like a rabbit who realized the hawk hadn’t seen her yet.
Then Jared came up beside her and her entire body went weak with lust. She tingled from her scalp to her toes and everywhere in between, a tingle that soon turned into an achy burn.
God, she really was crazy to even be considering a repeat of New Year’s Eve.
But you have to admit you want it.
She did want it. More than she ever thought she would.
For months after her parents’ murders, the debate about what constituted a family had raged. Her granddad had tried to shield her from most of the American news machine and its hideously invasive, and mostly exaggerated, coverage of her parents’ lives.
But even the move to Europe hadn’t shielded her from everything.
And when the discussion had turned from the horror of what had happened to the more controversial aspect of the ménage and the fact that the three of them had raised a child in that atmosphere of sexual freedom, her parents had been called perverts.
And worse.
Hell, there’d even been a documentary on CNN about the mental health of children raised in alternative households that focused mainly on Annabelle. Not that they’d bothered to talk to her, to find out how very well-adjusted she’d been until a crazy woman had blown apart her life.
No, they just assumed she’d grow up completely screwed in the head.
Wouldn’t all those talking heads be shocked to hear she was questioning whether she should indulge in a ménage herself?
Or was she merely letting the past interfere with what she did want here and now?
Damn it, she was young, unmarried, and healthy. And the man she was sleeping with was all for it.
So are you just doing this to please him?
Jared moved by her, heading for the drawer where she kept the take-out menus, as if he lived there.
His movement caught Dane’s attention and his gaze went to Jared first and then to Annabelle. She expected to see cocky self-assurance there or at least a leering desire.
Instead, he gave her a breathtaking smile.
“We’re going to order sandwiches,” she said. “What would you like?”
God, the man was almost as beautiful as Jared, maybe a little broader and a few inches shorter but gorgeous just the same. He had pale skin that made his green eyes that much more striking, especially set against his dark hair.
“Anything dripping with fat and grease. And fries. I’m dying for decent fries.”
He could certainly afford the calories. Neither guy had an ounce of fat on him.
And you get to see that firsthand.
Her mouth started to water and not for food.
“Hey, Belle. What do you want, hon?”
She wanted Jared to strip her naked and lay her on the dining table so he and Dane could make her come. So they could put their hands and their mouths all over her body until she couldn’t take the pleasure any more. She wanted them to fuck her until she couldn’t see straight.
Biting her tongue so she didn’t accidently blurt that out, she took another deep breath, trying to hide her quickening pulse and the fact that she wanted to squeeze her thighs together to ease some of the burning ache.
“Just put me in for a grilled chicken salad.”
“Two burgers and fries for me.” Dane handed the menu back to Jared then looked at her. “Menu says they make the best chocolate cake around. That true?”
Jared snorted in amusement. “Dane’s got a hell of a sweet tooth, Belle. You’re gonna be old and fat one day, buddy. Just remember that.”
“Then I better enjoy life while I can, right? Don’t bust my ass just because you never touch the stuff.”
“Oh, I have a sweet tooth,” Jared said, his gaze transferring to her. “Just not for chocolate.”
If there was such a thing as spontaneous combustion, she’d be igniting right now.
“The cake lives up to the hype, Dane,” she forced herself to answer, tearing her attention away from Jared before she told him to forget dinner and move onto activities that would surely burn a few calories. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
Dane’s smile seemed to burn a little hotter as well. “I’m sure I will.”
He wasn’t talking about the cake. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.
She needed to cool down, collect herself. “I’m going to go take a shower. I’m sure you two can entertain yourselves until I get back.”
She saw Jared nod as she turned toward her bedroom, and she swore she felt two hot male gazes follow her all the way.
Without looking back, she closed the door behind her, shutting her in her room, where she collapsed back against the door and took a deep breath that she released with a sigh.
Are you really going to do this? And are you only doing this because Jared wants it?
She pondered that question as she stripped off her jeans and sweater and turned on the water for the shower. Her stomach had tightened into a knot and her hands shook as she washed her hair and body. As she drew her washcloth across her breasts, she bi
t her lip at the sharp pleasure that zinged through her.
Oh, God, yes, I want this. I want it for me.
And that was the bottom line.
She wanted them. Jared because her heart demanded him.
And she wanted Dane because…Well, the man was gorgeous. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t want him?
The fact that Jared wanted him in bed with them only made her that much hotter.
Okay, maybe you are a pervert.
No, enjoying sex did not make her a pervert. Not even when there’d be two men in bed with her instead of one.
After drying off, she walked into her bedroom and pulled open her underwear drawer, staring down at the colorful jumble, most of it courtesy of Kate. She hadn’t been exaggerating her friend’s abilities. Kate truly had a gift for creating breathtaking lingerie.
What would Jared and Dane do if she walked out there dressed only in a pink satin-and-lace thong and a pink satin demi bra? Part her of her wanted to do it, just to prove she could. And to see the looks on their faces when she did.
Another part knew that wouldn’t happen.
Still, she’d get to see their faces when they took off her clothes later.
And they would take off her clothes. She had no doubt about that.
Anticipation made her dress quickly. Over the lingerie she pulled on a clean pair of form-fitting jeans and a tight, long-sleeved black T-shirt with a rounded neckline. The shirt showed off a good amount of cleavage, the mounds of her breasts pushed up and out. She thought about pulling out her red-heeled stilettos but that might be pushing it so she went instead for bare feet.
Makeup?
No. It’d just get smudged…later.
Now, she just had to leave the bedroom.
Come on, Annabelle. You want this.
Yeah, she really did. After a deep breath, she opened the door and walked out.
Dinner was surprisingly laid back. Not nearly as awkward as Annabelle had thought it’d be.
The sexual tension…Now that was off the chart. She swore she felt it rubbing against her skin, keeping her in a constant state of arousal.
Yet, as the night went on, the more relaxed she was. The more confident she became.
She felt feminine and sexy. Desired by two of the most handsome men she’d ever known.
By Private Invitation Page 19