“He left me there to be captured!” She shouted as a plea through the door.
Why she was pleading with them, she didn’t know, but she launched herself at the door and yanked at the handle even while she heard the lock turn. “Please! He doesn’t care about me! He doesn’t care!”
There was a long silence, too long, and then the footsteps receded down the hallway and Lily leaned her head against the door, trying not to sob with fear.
Chapter Three
“Stop pacing,” Liam ordered from behind the desk. He’d removed his own mask, and brushed a hand through his hair, his nerves on edge.
“I can’t.” Cameron threw him a look and returned to his circuit of the room. “I want to go up there and…”
“Don’t think about it.”
It was good advice, but the time for it was long past. From the first moment Liam had passed the woman over, a wordless plea in her eyes, Cameron had felt desire growing, flaring out of control. She’d trembled in his arms, lips parted softly in her fear, and he could feel the curve of her spine, the delicate strength in her neck. She smelled clean, faintly like flowers. And from the look in her eyes while they held her together in the study, she didn’t have the first damned clue what they wanted of her.
It was a unique torment. They’d never gone for innocents. Innocents didn’t want to do what Cameron and Liam wanted. They might both be in their prime, either one of them a catch—just as long as the girl wasn’t too particular about what they did for a living—but taking both of them…wasn’t a thing most girls would do. They’d spent the last few years looking for come-hither glances and long red nails, a certain sway of the hips that said a woman knew just what they were looking for and was only too eager to give it to them. And they’d had fun, a good counterpoint to a job where any day might kill them.
But from the look in Liam’s eyes, having Lily in their arms had told them both the same thing: fun wasn’t enough anymore. Fun, and well-practiced moans, and women who left matter-of-factly the next day without being asked, had begun to make them both feel empty inside. The women they bedded cared nothing for them, and no matter how practiced their hands and their mouths were, it wasn’t enough.
And then…her. Trembling between them, and Cameron could almost have said she knew what they wanted, and she wanted them back. That fine, soft brown hair straggling out of its bun, the rosy lips still parted as if she didn’t know he was rock-hard while he held her in place, and slowly going mad from the way her chest rose and fell… She was so small, 5’5” at the most—and Cameron, the short one, was 6’4”. To look down and see the slope of her neck, the gentle rise as her breasts trembled with her frightened breaths…
Oh, God, he was going to lose it. He was supposed to hold her on his lap in the car, but at the first bounce, he’d had to shove her aside. That round ass bouncing on his lap would have made him come, right there. He was halfway to tearing off her shirt, pushing her skirt away, taking her in front of everyone—
But she’d been their captive, not a willing accomplice to the things he’d in mind.
He dropped into one of the chairs with a groan.
“You’re still thinking about it,” Liam said.
“Like you’re not,” Cameron challenged.
“Of course I am.” Liam looked up, and his ice-blue eyes held something dark, something dangerous. Cameron knew what that look meant. He’d heard the moans of the women Liam turned that look on, and it was making him even harder to think of Lily straddling his friend, held in place by one strong arm, that round ass exposed for Cameron’s fingers.
When his gaze cleared, Liam was looking back at the paperwork.
“So we’re just not going to talk about this?”
“What is there to talk about?” Liam demanded. “She’s our prisoner. We kidnapped her. We can’t…there’s no way even to ask. You saw her, she’s worried we’re going to kill her.”
“You could have taken the time to explain we wouldn’t,” Cameron muttered churlishly.
“I was trying to get out of there with everyone’s clothes still on, and I said no one was going to bother her.”
“But she didn’t believe us, did she? Oh come on, you couldn’t have told her so that—”
“She’s not the kind of woman you can just ask that of.” Liam’s face was strained. “She’s…she knew what we wanted. She knew. Some part of her. But she couldn’t admit it to herself. She’s too innocent for that.”
“She wanted us,” Cameron murmured. His eyes drifted closed at the thought of her spread out on the bed, legs around his waist.
“It doesn’t…” Liam made a strangled sound. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t…”
“I know.” Cameron groaned. “It’s not going to stop me from thinking about it, though.”
“Well, find something to distract yourself,” Liam advised. “Or it’s going to be a long few days.”
He paused, pen hovering over a sheet of paper. “Do you think she’s actually a virgin?”
Electricity shot through Cameron. He didn’t go after virgins, didn’t want the young women with their hair still in ponytails and their bright, innocent faces. He’d never understood the appeal, never been much of one to go for corrupting innocence.
Until now. Now, the thought was enough to make him want a cold shower. Or eight.
“You are going to drive me mad,” he said shortly. “I’m going to bed.”
“Bed?” Liam’s voice was amused. “Or a shower?”
“Shut up.” Cameron resisted the urge to slam the door behind him and climbed the stairs. He was almost shaking with desire, and he turned resolutely away from the old guest bedrooms and toward the room he’d shared with Liam for most of the past year. What he wouldn’t give for there to be a woman there tonight, any woman. It wouldn’t be the same, but it might get him through the night without losing his mind.
A sound caught his ear when he was nearly at the door and he paused outside.
“Not tonight, Devil. Liam will kill me, there’s no way I can go down that road tonight.” It killed him to turn his door handle but he managed. Going into the darkness of his room, Cameron felt like an absolute heel for leaving her there to cry, but his friendship with Liam and his job, gave him the self-control he needed. For now.
Lily heard the slide of a man’s feet outside her door and stifled her sobs with her pillow. Normally she wasn’t the crying kind of girl, she was a grown woman after all. Hidden in the darkness in unfamiliar territory with two men that confused her beyond all logic only feet away, she lost her stoic composure.
The tears had started as she crawled into the bed, removing her hose and bra before sliding between the luxurious sheets to lie beneath a handmade quilt. Listening to unfamiliar noises, the memory of James’s face just before he’d run up those stairs played over again and again in her mind.
He’d just left her there!
That’s when the sobs had started. When her fantasy world finally collapsed like a building being demolished. Unsurprisingly, she was the one abandoned in the mess left behind. With walls tumbling around, fantasies exploding, and her own naïve stupidity on display like the wires running through the foundation of a collapsed building, she began to sob.
She’d been so stupid, so incredibly stupid!
James had seen her as nothing more than a lovesick woman, a secretary that did her job well, so long as she was fed a few tokens of hope every now and then. Lily remembered the looks he used to give her and realized now they were looks of amusement, not consideration.
He’d been laughing to her face and she’d been too love-struck to see it. She’d been nurturing this dream for so long now that her shame was doubled. She’d not caught on at all. When she thought about the women at work, the way they’d whispered about her so jealously, she wondered if it had really been the case.
Perhaps, being savvier, they’d realized what had been going on and had actually been laughing at her?
Shame b
urned through Lily, leaving her hot and soaked in her own tears. She longed for a box of tissues and concrete walls to hide her sobs of shame. James had completely snowed her and she’d been far too blind to even see it!
She’d seen what she wanted to and that hurt even more. She’d been deluding herself. He’d lead her on, sure, but Lily had been the one that gave him the ammunition with her long glances, with her absolute devotion, her inability to tell the cocky bastard no when he gave her that crooked grin of his.
Pulling her legs up to her chest beneath the covers, Lily couldn’t console herself. She’d not felt this depth of shame before in her life. She’d felt pain before, the death of her parents, other moments in life, had left her in tears. When her father had died, leaving her an orphan, Lily had come to know what real loneliness was. There’d been nobody there to console her and she’d learned to console herself, to quiet herself and carry on.
She’d managed to work her way through a two-year college, set her sights on a career with a business lead by a man with ambition, and worked her way up the ladder to the man himself. She was used to making goals and working towards them. She wasn’t, however, used to humiliation and failure.
Romance had played no part in her life, though she’d dated. She’d been too focused on making sure she provided for herself. And reaching her goal of working for James, personally. She’d made that a reality.
As she’d worked towards that goal she’d started to develop a fixation on James. A very dangerous fixation, as it turned out.
Cramming her fist between her teeth, Lily bit down on her knuckles, trying to stem the flow of her sobs. Trying to focus her internal pain into an external outlet.
She’d searched the room earlier, but the window was covered with an intricate iron cover that allowed the light through, but even as slim as she was she’d never fit through. The door was locked and there was no other exit. She was truly stuck.
And what would those men do to her? A frisson of fear coursed through her, making her shiver.
She’d felt an attraction to both of them, a rather stupid attraction, but what did that mean? You can’t trust your instincts; she’d learned that the hard way. Her instincts had cried out that James needed a maternal figure in his life, a wife to care for him and love him. What he needed was a damned backbone.
If he was any kind of man she wouldn’t be here right now, kidnapped and helpless. Another situation that shook her to the core. Since her father had died she’d learned to take care of herself, to never depend on anyone. Mainly because there’d been nobody else there to rely on.
In the moment of her greatest need, the only person she’d allowed herself to thaw towards in her adult life had turned and run away. Could she trust these two men? They didn’t seem like typical kidnappers. She’d not been harmed or threatened in any way. Just kidnapped.
Pulling her fist out of her mouth, Lily snorted. How stupid was she? They had kidnapped her! She couldn’t trust either of them!
Nice or not, sweet or not, melting brown eyes or not, those men had taken her against her will. They were capable of anything. The deathly cold stare of the blue-eyed one had told her all she needed to know about her situation. He’d do whatever it took to get the job done, that one.
Liam and Cameron. She still didn’t even know what Liam looked like, only the color of his eyes, only the hue of his flesh. And that he was dangerous. Far more dangerous than Cameron or James. James had been a little boy playing games compared to the ruthlessness she’d seen in Liam’s eyes.
Bundling herself deeper into the bed, resigned to her captivity for the moment, Lily closed her eyes, hoping sleep would come. It was all too much, the entire day, it was all too much to take. With a final sniffle, she sighed and fell into the quiet solace of her dreams. At least there she wasn’t such a ninny.
Piercing sunlight, bright and warm, burned across Lily’s face the next morning and through her eyelids. Turning over, she tried to figure out what had happened to the blackout curtain on her window. Had the curtain rod pulled out of the wall? Holding a hand to her eyes, she looked in the direction of the light. That’s not right, her window was on the other side of the room.
With sudden realization Lily sat up in the bed, looking around her in horror.
It hadn’t been a nightmare then! She really had been kidnapped!
“No!” She wailed loudly, rage filling her as she threw her pillow at the door. “You bastards! Let me go!”
There was no response and Lily gritted her teeth. What now? She needed the bathroom and some food. Coffee.
Staring sullenly at the door Lily waited, knowing someone would come. Wouldn’t they?
Minutes passed and there was no click at the door, she didn’t even hear feet sliding over the carpet. Going to the door she started to bang on the white panel, her need for the bathroom becoming desperate.
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s the noise about?” Cameron!
At least it was him, and not the scarier one.
“Please, I need a bathroom! Please let me out!”
She heard words being murmured and then the snick of a lock being turned.
“Lily? Are you listening to me?” She heard his call through the door and pressed her ear to the wood.
“I am,” she called back, crossing her legs tightly. “Please let me out.”
“I’m going to, but Liam is right behind me, so don’t get any funny ideas, alright? Now is not the time to play the warrior queen.”
“What? Are you serious? I’m going to squat down and pee on your floor if you don’t let me out of here, I swear to God!” She was beyond being civil.
If she’d not been in such a rush she would have given the two men a good piece of her mind when she heard them chuckling outside the door. Instead, when the door swung open she rushed out, looking around desperately for an obvious sign of a bathroom.
“Which one? Oh my God, hurry!” She was all but dancing on her bare feet now, her hair wild around her, makeup smeared beneath her eyes.
Liam pointed at a door to the left and Lily dived for it. Closing the door and locking it, she quickly took care of business and then sat on the edge of the bathtub to look around. No window, no other doors, nothing sharp. Just a normal guest bathroom.
A new toothbrush, fresh towels, and soaps were sitting on the ornate marble and dark wood of the sink cabinet. Stretching along the length of the room was an expensive-looking cabinet, but it didn’t match the tempting beauty of the bathtub. She’d not had a bath in years! Her apartment only had a shower stall.
Looking at the tub longingly, Lily turned away from it to scrub her face, brush her hair with a brush she found in a drawer of the cabinet, and brush her teeth. Feeling as human as possible under the circumstances, Lily opened the door to find both men standing either side of the door.
“Finished already? You can take a bath if you want,” Liam began, but cut off with a hint of red in his cheeks.
Cameron smothered a laugh and Lily looked down at her feet. They weren’t her friends, she reminded herself, even if the tone they were setting now implied it. She would have to remember that.
“No. I would like some other clothes and some food, if that’s possible. Even a breakfast cereal would work. Maybe some coffee.” She quietly shuffled back to her room, head bowed, missing the pained look exchanged between the two men.
Going back to the room she settled onto the bed, not sure what she should, or could do now. The door closed quietly and Lily wasn’t even sure they’d heard her request. She checked the time on her watch and stared down at it.
A gift from her father, she’d continued to wear the outdated timepiece even though she could always find the time on her phone now. The clock-face read eleven thirty. No way!
She’d not slept past six o’clock since she’d begun working for James, even in her earliest days there. The time had become so routine she’d even got up at the same time on her days off. The watch had either become damaged during her
kidnapping or the battery was dying. She didn’t have her phone now and there weren’t any clocks in the room.
When the door opened and Liam brought in a tray of food and a change of clothes, she pounced on the chance to ask him what time it was. It wasn’t that important but it was all she could focus on.
“It’s around eleven forty-five. We let you sleep. Yesterday was rough on you. Do you need anything else? I can have a television brought in to you.” He looked at her steadily, coldly, but Lily saw the flare of his nostrils as he gazed at her.
A hint that he was aware of her, but only a hint. The same as she was aware of him. She’d recognized him by his voice; his face had been unfamiliar when she’d first seen him.
He was a handsome man, beautiful eyes to match the rest of him. He reminded her of an actor she loved to watch, a tall, blonde, Nordic actor with full lips, high cheekbones, and a face meant for a woman’s lips to kiss as her fingers traced paths of their own. Lily swallowed, unhappy with the direction her thoughts were taking.
Both men were giants, both too devilishly handsome for her good. Swallowing around the lump in her throat, Lily licked her lips and looked down at the tray. Toast, hash browns, a cinnamon roll and slices of fruit resting in a bowl. A cup and a carafe of coffee with milk, and sugar lumps in small bowls drew her attention first. She looked up at Liam as she poured the rich coffee into the cup, preparing to thank him but he spoke first.
“I brought the clothes we had. Cameron’s going out to get you more. This should do you for now.” A pair of black lounge pants, a white t-shirt, and a thin jacket that matched the pants. It would suffice.
“More? So that means…” her words trailed off as she realized exactly what they meant. She wasn’t leaving any time soon.
“Yes, you’ll be here until James meets our demands. He’s not contacted us so far.” Liam’s eyes cut away again and Lily wanted to curl up and die.
Another betrayal.
“Thank you for letting me know. And for the food and clothes as well.” Lily spoke as formally as he, trying to hide the pain tearing her up inside.
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