“I’m interested,” Lev put in.
Fuck. Danya shook his head, then spoke to Vashi. “You’re saying you love her.” The butthead didn’t deny it, which was a freaking miracle of nature. “And you’re saying you wouldn’t mind sharing her. You wouldn’t mind two other men fucking your woman. Vashi, that’s so not you.”
“Not two other men. My brothers.”
Danya shook his head, but the man had a point. The three of them were close, even for brothers. Unusually so. They shared their home and their business and their love of flying. And they had the bond formed over their atypical family situation. He didn’t know a set of siblings who’d built a house for themselves, who lived together so easily. “Don’t you think it’s crazy to expect her to go for it?”
“I don’t know. She’s in love with you—I know she is. But she spent a night and a day in bed with me, like it was normal.”
Danya sat down and hung his head. “She has feelings for you, too.”
There was silence for a bit. Then Lev, the manager, started laying it out. “It won’t matter to us. A different lifestyle is pretty much normal in our family, and we’ve never had a concern for what others think about how we live our lives. Dad won’t care. Mom will probably care, but I think she already gets what’s happening. She’ll worry, but she won’t object.”
He was close enough to nudge Danya with his foot. “What does Haidee have for family?”
Danya sighed. “Her father’s dead.”
“That’s probably good,” Vashi said, and Danya rolled his eyes at him.
“Her mother and step-dad are in Arizona. She’s got a sister, married and with a family, somewhere. Reno, I think.”
“Well, Haidee can manage them however she wants. She can choose one of us to present as a…husband, if that works best for her. She wouldn’t have to give full disclosure.”
They digested that before Lev went on. “We have room to build out behind the garage. We can give Haidee her own space if she wants it and have room for kids.”
Suddenly Danny could see it. A house full of him and Haidee, his brothers, and a handful of tow-headed boys and little curly-headed girls. The image seemed to be there for all of them. A quiet moment passed as they looked at each other. He sighed, and Vashi seemed to read his consent into it.
“We can take it a day at a time. We don’t have to have it all figured out right now. Maybe it won’t work. Maybe we will tire of her, one or two or all of us. Maybe she won’t get her head around it.” Danya knew he wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe a word of it, except for that last one. Vashi stood. “I’m going to bed. Lev, one more day and I should be able to fly.”
Lev didn’t commit. “We’ll wait for medical clearance. You follow up with your doctor day after tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Okay, but I’ll be ready then. Good night. Good night, Danny.”
Lev and Danya both said good night, and Danya sighed out the breath he’d been holding when Vashi went downstairs instead of up. Lev and he got up to do dishes and clean the kitchen. They talked about their schedule the next day and flying weather, like normal. When Lev left him alone, Danya wondered what the new normal was.
Chapter Eight
Haidee dressed that morning in a light sweater and a pair of shorts that wouldn’t irritate her burns. Danny had gone by her place on his way home the evening before and brought some things for her. She hadn’t minded wearing his T-shirts, but she figured she’d face this day better in her own clothes.
He’d come upstairs last night after the big Vanchenko boys’ meeting. He’d come out to the deck to retrieve her tray and then disappeared with it for a while. When he came back, he took her to bed.
She’d been dying to know the outcome of their discussion, but Danny had been quiet about it, and she’d been reluctant to ask. There didn’t seem to be a reasonable way to inquire about how many brothers were going to be her lovers. He’d taken her to his bed, undressed her and then himself, and, before he tucked them in together, he’d given her one more dose of her pain pills.
Under their influence, she should have slept there in Danny’s arms. But she’d dozed away most of the day, and, well, it felt like something momentous was happening in her life, and so sleep escaped her. Danny seemed aware and waiting for her to sleep. After a while, he turned her face to his and kissed her. “Trouble?” he asked.
She could just make out his eyes in the dark. She nodded.
“I can help,” he said. He told her he wouldn’t make love to her—he was too worried about hurting her. But he lifted up over her and kissed her again, sweetly, and for a long time. One hand drifted to her breast, and then to her clit. In that way he—and his brothers—had, he touched her perfectly. Gently, quietly, he took her over. Moments later, as he held her, she slept.
He was gone when she woke, and she remembered being vaguely aware when he’d gotten out of bed and used the shower. He’d told her he had an early flight to Cheyenne.
After she dressed, she followed the scent of coffee to the kitchen. He was there, his head in a cupboard, reaching for—something. She took a moment appreciating his fine ass in his jeans then came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.
And then squealed when he turned and she learned it was Lev, not Danya, whose butt she’d been admiring. Startled, she leapt away, but he went with her, backing her against the island counter. He was close, crowding her, pressing against her from the waist down and containing her with his hands grasping the counter on either side.
“Hey, Haidee,” he said. “I like the way you say good morning.”
Just catching her breath, she stuttered. “I thought—I thought—”
Before she could complete a sentence, Danya came in from the garage. His gaze took in the two of them, but he went to the coffee pot and filled his travel cup. Then he came to Haidee, even as Lev still held her. “Good morning, sweetheart. You look good.”
“I thought it was you. His head was in the cupboard and he had on your T-shirt…”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile, like it was normal. “There are a lot of those around.” Of course. In this house, she would be surrounded by Van’s Flying Service tees. And pilots.
He budged in a little and kissed her. “Mmm. You taste good, too.” His shoulder just in front of Lev’s, he went on. “I’ll be back by two and take you to your appointment.” She was to see her doctor that afternoon, for follow up of her burns. “That good?”
Haidee nodded.
He backed up and turned toward the door. “I’m ready to roll, if you’re riding with me, Lev.”
“Yeah,” Lev said. “Be right there.”
Then Lev’s attention was all on Haidee. “You know,” he said, “I haven’t forgotten kissing you, that night we were together.” He lowered his mouth, like it was a thing he meant to experience again.
Haidee shook her head and stopped him with a hand pressed against his mouth, just short of too late. “I can’t do this,” she said. It seemed clear now, what the three men had decided the night before.
“I think you can,” he said. “You being with all three of us seems way better than the option.”
That seemed hard to imagine, so she kept shaking her head. “Which is what?”
“Us shedding blood over who gets you.”
“That’s crazy, Lev.” In so many ways.
He had her hand in his now and nibbled at her fingertips. “Well, the Vanchenkos are known for a little bit of crazy.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You can’t do it because you’re panicking now, looking at the big picture. My advice is, don’t do that yet. I think it’s okay for a while to just do what seems right in the moment. Like this,” he said. He moved her hand out of the way now, and he took hold of her other one, too. So the way was clear as he leaned in to kiss her.
With a little moan, she let it happen.
He was so damned attractive—sweet and manly and a bit more civilized than his b
rothers. His lips were soft but very, very enticing. She felt helpless and groaned in vexation—or something.
Lev lifted his head, looking at her in obvious satisfaction. “You like us all. That’s okay, Haidee.” She was sure she got his drift. Why wouldn’t she? “We all like you.”
He went for her lips again, but she had the wherewithal to pull away. “This isn’t right.”
“It’s what is.”
She looked at him and shook her head.
Lev gave a little frustrated sigh. “Danny met you in Denver. He liked you, you liked him, and the two of you made a date.”
“We didn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, you didn’t keep it because he had to fly. The intent was there. I met you when we went up the Beartooths, and I liked the hell out of you then. I looked for you the next two nights and finally texted Landry for your phone number.” He tapped his back pocket, indicating he could show her if she wanted.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Sure. But tell me you didn’t like me, too, hmm? What would have happened if I’d reached you before you went out with Danny, and before Vash brought you home?”
Haidee shook her head. She wasn’t sure of the answer herself, and she didn’t want to give it to him.
He ducked in and kissed her again. His lips still touching hers, he teased at her. “Tell me. You liked me at least a little bit, didn’t you?”
She turned her head away, but he ran his lips along her neck until she cracked. “Okay. I liked you a little.”
“Like.”
“Like.”
“And we know you like Vashi okay.”
Flinching, Haidee bent back, away from him. “That was—”
“I know. I heard. Extenuating circumstances. But what happened that night, Haidee—don’t say it wasn’t you, because it was.”
He hadn’t really let her escape and, when he pressed into her now, she could feel the stirring of his cock. “That was in you. It is in you.”
Outside, Danya had pulled his Wrangler into the drive. He honked, waiting for Lev. In response, Lev lifted his middle finger to the kitchen window.
“Look, Haidee. Tell me this. When you were at that wreck, Vashi told you to stay out of it, to keep yourself safe. Right?”
She nodded.
“And, what did you do?”
She hesitated, sure there was a trick to the question. “My job.”
“Then, later, here, he said you were going to have to make some changes in your work, so you wouldn’t be putting yourself at risk. What did you say to that?”
Haidee took a breath. “That it wasn’t his business.”
He nodded. “Last night, Vashi listed all the qualities about you that we all like. He made the point that we’re all looking for the same things in a woman, and we’ve none of us found the whole package until we met you. One thing that he failed to mention is that you stand up to him. Now, some days, he’s going to consider that a pain in his ass. But, honestly, I think it’s critical to his future happiness. And for me and Danny, it’s a big, fat bonus.”
“Don’t you think that means I’d stand up to you and Danny, too?”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah,” he agreed cheerfully. “And we’ll consider it a pain in the ass, too, on occasion.” He shrugged. “Again, that’s gonna be good for us. It’s just that Vashi thinks he’s all badass—it’s a point of pride for him. He’s gonna take offense that a girl doesn’t back down when he raises his nasty brow.”
Nasty brow—he said it as though it was one word, and it formed an image in her head, one she was sure of. Danya and Lev teasing, “Look out, there goes his nasty brow.” She couldn’t suppress a smile.
Danny honked again, more seriously now.
Lev nodded. “Gotta go.” He leaned in and kissed her again, a quick one, like a husband might give his wife on the way out the door. “Don’t stress about it. It’ll be new territory for all of us. We’ll make some of it up as we go along. Just do what you want. What feels okay to you. Okay? Will you try that?”
She couldn’t commit. “I’ll think about it.”
He frowned, not quite satisfied. “Stay here, anyway. I’ll see you tonight.”
With that, he was gone.
* * * *
Vashi felt something like a caged tiger. A randy, sexually frustrated tiger who had a wildly hot and yet extremely skittish tigress in the cage with him, whom he didn’t get to touch. He didn’t think anyone ought to be surprised if he got a little cranky.
He was off all narcotics after the first twenty-four hours, but his doctor grounded him for five days.
Haidee was on the DL for even longer—her doctor wanted to see her back in ten days before giving her the okay to return to work. Which, he could see, probably sucked for her.
But for him, it meant that the two of them were in his home alone for a handful of days, and that really sucked.
If what counted was all about him.
He handled the first day after they got out of Danya’s bed okay, he thought. He was happy enough with the progress he’d made at the family meeting. He hadn’t quite gotten Danya’s agreement, but the kid hadn’t resisted so strongly that it was a refusal, either. And he considered Lev on board with it.
The jury was out for Haidee. Lev had updated him by phone about the encounter he’d had with Haidee in the kitchen. He’d put the proposal, so to speak, out there, and also didn’t get a precise no.
Lev said she’d think about it. So, when Vashi ventured upstairs that day—drugged, he’d slept like a rock, then gotten up and soaked his aching body in his big hot tub before he did a gentle workout in their exercise room—he kind of tiptoed around her. Off the living room, there was a nice deck that looked out over Billings and the distant Beartooths. He found her out there, reading some medical journal. She looked sweet in a little sweater and a pair of shorts, except for the patches of burns on her legs that still made him want to slug somebody.
It was nearly noon, so he slid the door open, stepped outside, and offered to make her lunch.
She didn’t exactly jump when he made himself known, but, well, skittish definitely applied. She said yes to lunch. That might have pleased him, but he figured it was her simplest way to avoid him. She didn’t offer a hand, and if she’d declined, she’d have had to get up and get her own lunch eventually and run the risk of coming face-to-face with him.
He wasn’t stupid, though, so he brought both their lunches out to the table at the deck, leaving her no reasonable option to decline joining him there. What passed between them there was what one might call polite conversation, and he decided he hated polite conversation.
He thought she might not have seen all of the house and offered a tour which she turned down. Unreasonably frustrated, he told her about the workout room and his hot tub and welcomed her to make use of them. She gave him a noncommittal thanks.
It was a pins and needle sensation, living in his own home, and he felt like he might blow his top at any moment. So he left the house frequently, starting with walks and then working up to gentle runs, grocery-shopping, which generally was a task he ducked, and running errands. Toward the end of the week, he started spending a couple hours in the office at the airport.
Still, she was in his home—she hadn’t taken off yet. There were a couple meals, one that he prepped and one she did, that she shared with him and Dan or Lev, whichever of those two made it home in time. She seemed to be getting better—she moved more easily now, she worked out a little, and the burns looked like they were healing okay. All in all, he was happy enough with the situation.
Except for that caged-tiger feeling, which had sent him to his limit by the last day he was home. He’d been up early enough to see Danya and Lev before they left for the airport. They’d all had breakfast together, and Vashi had mostly contained his annoyance that Danny took a tray up to Haidee. The runt had a look about him this morning that made Vashi think he’d gotten lucky last night, and the length of time he was gone
on the breakfast tray errand seemed to confirm it. If a man were the suspicious sort—and, apparently, Vashi was—he’d think there might have been a quickie going on.
But Danya and Lev left before he punched anybody, though perhaps it had been close when Danny shot him a grin on his way past. If his shoulder had brushed a millimeter closer, there’d have been a dust-up.
So he was maybe already a little moody, standing at the kitchen window with his hands in dishwater as his brothers drove off.
Then she walked in with her tray. He got a look at her and threw the thing that was in his hand into the sink. Lucky thing it was his Van’s Flying Service, Chief Pilot travel mug, made of good, sturdy steel. “Goddammit!”
Haidee stopped. “What?”
He gestured toward her. “You should stop prancing around here in clothes that say you want to get fucked, unless you really do want to get fucked!”
She didn’t exactly throw her tray, but she kind of shoved it, so it spent some time in the air before it landed on the counter next to him, with the dishes all rattling around. He admired it as a good move before his gaze went back to her lips and he tended the words coming out of them.
“I wasn’t prancing. And I’m wearing a pair of Danny’s old sweats.”
“Hah!” he said, eloquently. “Danny’s sweats, hell! He’s twice the size of you!”
“He is not! And, I…” She faltered a little here. “I have hips!”
“So you do!” Which was exactly his point. And, more so—“You cut the legs off!”
“You know why I did!”
“I know you have burns, goddammit!” Like he’d ever forget that. “That doesn’t explain why you had to cut them so short they barely cover your…”
He bit his tongue before he said that last, three-letter word, but she knew what he’d meant to say. He took the towel from his shoulder, threw it to the floor, and just barely kept himself from stomping on it. Facing her, hands on his hips, he tried to get a grip. “You walk around dressed like that, I’m either gonna look at your burns and just feel pissed all over again, or I’m gonna look at your legs and this”—he gestured at his cock, which was trying to poke its way out of his khaki shorts—“is going to happen.”
Three Men and a Woman: Haidee (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 13