by Jenny Penn
“Given the divorce rate, I doubt it.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” That was the unfortunate part. Angie marshaled her defenses against her doubts and Dean’s skeptical look. “As for the dream, it was something special. I really can’t describe it.”
“You can’t even try?” Dean pressed. “I mean, it just seems like a dream is an awfully flimsy thing to base your life on. You can’t just decide to be in love.”
“Who says?” Angie argued. “Why? Why do you care? You got something besides a hard-on for some girl?”
“No,” Dean answered honestly before busting into a grin. “I was just curious why you are so stuck on Brett and Mike, because they certainly don’t treat you right.”
“That’s what you think,” Angie shot back, not about to admit that he might have a point.
Instead, she played the moment off with a smirk as he finally pulled his truck into her drive. Sure enough, there were no other vehicles there. A fact that did not escape Dean’s notice.
“It doesn’t look like your men are home.” Casting a sly glance in her direction, the boy just couldn’t seem to help himself as he offered her a lame come-on. “Maybe I ought to stick around, make sure you don’t get lonely.”
Angie unsnapped her seat belt and shoved open her door before shooting him a tight smile. “Thanks, but I know how to entertain myself.”
That got her a chuckle from Dean, and he waited there until she’d disappeared inside, proving that he did have a few manners. Maybe he’d grow into more. Even if he didn’t, that wasn’t her problem. Her problem was setting things right with her men.
She had a plan.
It started with stripping down to nothing and leaving a trail of clothes all the way to the bunk bed her two men still shared. Those would have to go. They’d talk about that and a whole lot later. Right then, Angie wanted them to understand one thing.
She was willing to work on this relationship.
She wasn’t running.
Crawling into Mike’s perfectly made bed, she tucked the sheets in back around her and settled into the far corner, planning on surprising him when he finally made it back home. That had been the plan, but his heady scent infused the sheets and filled her with a relaxing warmth.
A sense of peace invaded her and had Angie falling asleep within minutes, despite her best intentions to stay up and be waiting for her men.
* * * *
“Did anything about that seem weird to you?” Brett asked after they’d driven the girls to the gas station and back.
The women were all now safely packed back into their car. Brett watched as they pulled onto the road in front of Mike’s truck and couldn’t deny the sick feeling building in his stomach. It was late. Really late. They’d wasted a lot of time screwing around with those ladies, too much time, but things were finally settled. Sort of. They still hadn’t heard back from Angie. That had him reaching for his phone, only to realize it was no longer clipped to his hip.
“Shit.”
“What?” Mike glanced over at him, but Brett barely paid him any attention as he turned to glance back into the bed.
“I lost my phone.”
“If it’s back there, it’s probably busted up by now,” Mike warned him.
“I’m the one that got busted up.” Brett snorted as he settled back into his seat. “Those women…I almost got molested.”
“You’re telling me,” Mike retorted with a chuckle. “You should have been up here with grabby hands, or didn’t you notice me swerving all over the road?”
“Sorry, I was a little distracted. I could have done with a stick to beat them off with.”
That, for once, wasn’t a brag. Neither was it worth gloating over. Brett hadn’t been interested in any of those ladies. His heart already belonged to one.
“Give me your phone,” he demanded, holding his hand out.
Mike shifted around in his seat, causing the truck to weave slightly, but he came up empty-handed. “I don’t know where it is.”
“Well, that’s weird.” And more than a little suspicious.
“It’s unfortunate, but a little late to worry over it.” Mike shrugged. “It’s past two in the morning. Who were you really going to call?”
“Angie,” Brett shot back. “At least now I know why we haven’t heard from her.”
“She’s probably in bed,” Mike suggested, but Brett didn’t think so.
“She’s probably at the club…and isn’t that where the girls in front of us are turning toward?” Brett scowled as the car ahead veered to the right, turning onto the highway that led straight to the Cattleman’s Club. It was in that shining moment that all the pieces snapped together.
“Oh son of a bitch,” Mike whispered, the obvious hitting him just seconds after Brett. “We were set up.”
“Angie was testing us.” Because she didn’t trust them, and that shouldn’t have bothered Brett half as much as it did. Hell, he hadn’t even been tempted. That thought actually did bother him a little.
“And if we follow far enough behind, we might just catch them reporting back to Angie.” Mike sounded as though he savored that idea. The grin he flashed at Brett certainly held a hint of anticipation. “Then we can make use of the club’s disciplinary items.”
“Can’t I just spank her with my own hand?”
“You can spank her with whatever you want,” Mike assured him as he eased back on the gas. He killed his headlights and turned slowly onto the highway lit almost perfectly by a full moon.
Nobody would see them coming, and that was just the way they’d been taught to corner their prey in the marines. There was no denying they enjoyed exercising those talents. It just didn’t get them anywhere. The ladies might have returned back to the club, but they didn’t report back to Angie.
She wasn’t there. She’d gotten a ride home with Dean Carver, or so the butler told them. Butlers didn’t lie. So Brett climbed back into Mike’s truck and headed into town. A half-hour later they were pulling into the drive and piling out to go wake up Angie and have a word with her.
The only problem was she wasn’t there…and Dean Carver was a dead man.
* * * *
Hailey giggled and squirmed in Cole’s arms, the plush, silken cheeks of her ass grinding back against him as she kept him hot and hard, tucked deep inside the tight vise of her sheath. He’d slid in there while she’d been asleep, but after he’d already spent a good half-hour getting her nice and wet. He’d known she’d been dreaming. The only question was whether or not it had been Kyle or him starring in her fantasies.
Probably both, because that was the way she really liked it.
Five days a week, that was just how they gave it to her. Fridays, though, were Kyle’s alone and Saturdays were Cole’s. As far as he was concerned, it was still Saturday, even if, technically, it had rolled around to Sunday. Besides, what was he supposed to do when he woke up to a soft, sweet, naked woman tucked along his side?
Ignore her?
Not hardly.
Only a fool ignored a woman like Hailey, and only an idiot wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. Cole had never been either of those things, which was why he dared to lay claim to her ass once again. She had such a nice ass.
He was trapped in heaven, a utopia that was made only better as he tickled her again, making Hailey squirm and pant, the laughter tingeing her sleepy voice, even as she complained.
“Cole! I’m trying to sleep.”
“It’s six,” he retorted as he buried his lips against the curve of her ear. “Time to get up.”
“Time for you to get up,” Hailey muttered and tried half-heartedly to pull free of his hold. “I’m not the idiot who bet my brothers they could beat them at some stupid obstacle course.”
Cole rolled his eyes at that. What had she expected Kyle and him to do? They couldn’t honestly fight back. Neither being a fool nor stupid meant he knew his limits. Hailey’s brothers were big, rea
lly big and just out of the Corps. They’d kill him given the chance. He didn’t doubt that.
“Aren’t you supposed to go train or something?” Hailey grumped, her words blurring into a heavy moan as Cole slid a hand down from her hips and around to cup the smooth mound of her cunt.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he murmured huskily as he found her clit and pinned the swollen little bud beneath this finger.
With slow rolls, he stole her ability to speak, but not hear. Hailey gave a jolt when the cell phone sitting on the nightstand suddenly began dancing across the hard surface as it began to buzz. Cole went still along with Hailey, knowing just what she was thinking. Something bad had happened. It was his job to shelter her from the bad things, which was just why he reached for the phone.
He snatched it up before she could, cutting her words off with a hard thrust. Whatever Hailey’s objections, and Cole had no doubt that she’d planned on issuing some, they got lost as he distracted her with a hard, fast fucking that had the sweat building up along his spine and his words coming out in breathless pants.
“What?”
“Where is my sister?” Brett shot back, his words sharp enough to cut.
“Busy.”
That was greeted with a pregnant pause that held the weight of a promise as dark as his tone. “What are you doing?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Cole chuckled, knowing he was busted and unable to help taunting the jackass on the other end.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“You can come on over and try.”
But Hailey wouldn’t let him, and they both knew it, which was why Brett should have smarted back. It was all the revenge he was actually likely to get. He didn’t, though. Instead, he fell silent for another long moment. That was fine by Cole. After all, he was busy himself.
“We can’t,” Brett finally admitted. By then, though, Cole had lost the thread of the conversation.
“Can’t? What?” He tried to fathom what the hell Brett was talking about, but the rapture pulsing out of his dick was damn distracting.
“Mike and I, we can’t come over there and give you the beating you deserve.”
“Huh.”
“We’re in jail.”
“Oh.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“No,” Cole admitted. “Hold on a second and let me finish this up here.”
He didn’t wait for a response but dropped the phone onto the bed and rolled Hailey all the way beneath him as he reared up and got down to business.
Chapter 18
Sunday, July 1st
Brett really was going to kill Cole. He didn’t care how Hailey felt about that matter. He knew what the son of a bitch had done to his sister. He’d heard them through the phone. That was when he’d had to hang up. There were just certain lines that could not be crossed, and listen to Hailey have sex was one big one.
He was scarred. For life. He was going to kill Cole. The little pussy had to know what he had coming to him, yet the dumbass showed up at the police station wearing a grin and flashing a wad of cash.
“Hey, man.” Cole nodded to Brett, where he sat brooding on the bunk built into the wall of his cell.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Mike grumbled, rising off his own bunk to eye Cole suspiciously.
Brett hadn’t informed Mike of what had interrupted his call. If he had, Mike would have gone for Cole, and Brett wanted that honor.
“I came to bail you out.” Cole appeared to be fighting the smile tugging at his lips, but he wasn’t winning. The laughter was all too clear in his tone as he tacked on an obnoxious, “Duh!”
“Fuck you, Sally,” Mike shot back, his mood sour enough to rot eggs with just a look.
Brett was right there with him. The very light of the day felt like an insult, as though the world was laughing at them because they’d actually believed Angie’s bullshit. She hadn’t been saving herself for them. She’d been saving herself to make fools out of them.
“Didn’t your brother tell you?” Cole lifted a brow, drawing Brett’s dark gaze up to his sparkling ones. “That itch has been scratched.”
“You’re a dead man walking,” Brett vowed, but that didn’t seem to impress Cole in the slightest.
“Aren’t we all?” he retorted with a snort. “Besides, it’s going to be kind of hard to kill me from jail. So, you want to tell me why you felt a need to break into Dean Carver’s house and beat the crap out of him?
“Not that I’m complaining,” Cole rushed to assure them. “It’s just that the bets are already flying down at the club. Personally, I put my money on you two being complete psychos, but others seem to think you had to have a reason.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you, Sally?” Mike stepped up to the bars and gave Cole a hard look. “But do you hear anybody laughing?”
“Yeah. Myself.”
That had the two of them going silent as Mike tried to glare down Cole. It was pointless. Cole’s smirk remained firmly in place. For the moment, he had all the power. It was time to be reasonable, something Mike seemed incapable of these days. That left it to Brett to be the grownup.
That was really why they were in jail.
Brett heaved a heavy sigh that broke up Cole and Mike’s impromptu staring contest. “Where is Hailey, jackass?”
“Where do you think?” Tearing his eyes away from Brett’s brother, Cole shot him a quick look. “Telling Angie that you two idiots got yourself arrested.”
“She already knows,” Mike muttered as he sulked away from the bars, even as his comment drew Cole’s narrowed gaze back in his direction.
“How would she know that?”
“Because she was there,” Brett snapped, borrowing a phrase from the little punk. “Duh!”
“Uh…no, she wasn’t.” Cole blinked, his grin growing out of control as he added up all the pieces. “Oh, don’t tell me, you thought Angie and Dean…”
Cole burst into a laughter so deep it had him bending over and stumbling back into the cell across from theirs. Brett, however, was not nearly as amused.
“She was there,” he insisted. “I saw her with my own eyes.”
Actually, he’d just caught a flash of a naked woman before she’d locked herself into the bathroom, but that had to have been Angie. She’d gone home with Dean.
“No.” Cole refused to back down. “She wasn’t. She was at home, waiting for you…supposedly naked in bed, and she woke this morning without you there and came to the conclusion that you’d spent the night in a more entertaining fashion.”
“She wasn’t there,” Brett repeated, having difficulty with that concept. “We checked her bed.”
“Did you check yours?” Cole shot back, bursting back into laughter as Brett blinked, dumbfounded at that brilliant suggestion and the realization of what it meant.
“Then we beat up Dean.”
“For no good reason,” Mike finished, coming to the same conclusion Brett had just reached.
“This is all your fault!”
Brett turned on Mike, the relief he felt over realizing that Angie hadn’t betrayed them morphing almost instantly into guilt over what they’d done to Dean. That burned right into anger at his brother, who’d set him up, even if he hadn’t done it intentionally.
“You said she wasn’t there, but she was!”
“I didn’t see her,” Mike defended himself, but he didn’t sound convincing.
“I am going to kick your ass,” Brett growled.
“See, psychos.” Cole snickered. “You two need to learn you can’t solve everything with your fists.”
Mike turned on him. “How the hell do you know any of this?”
“Because she called.” Cole shrugged. “She was all in tears. “She thinks you spent your night in a more entertaining fashion.”
“And you didn’t tell her the truth?” Brett roared. He’d have loved to tear into the other man and vent some of his building frustration,
but the bars got in the way.
“She was carrying on too much for Hailey to get her to listen.” Cole shrugged again as if that wasn’t anything. “Why do you think Hailey went over there?”
Whatever Hailey had to say it wouldn’t be as good as what Brett knew he’d come up with, like begging her forgiveness for ever letting Mike talk him into all of this dating insanity. That was coming to an end. They were going to put this mission back on track and stop with all these stupid games, but first, they had to get out of jail.
“Cole, go bail us out,” Brett snapped, not that the other man jumped to obey.
“Oh, it’s Cole now, is it? What happened to Sally?”
“Now!”
* * * *
Angie sat at the kitchen table, breathing deep and trying to calm herself. Everything was okay. Dean wasn’t badly hurt, but this was the second fight in as many nights. If they kept this up, somebody was going to end up dead. That thought scared the shit out of her, especially because Angie was pretty certain she was the reason they were spinning out of control.
“Why? I just don’t understand why.” Angie looked toward Hailey for help, but she didn’t have anything to offer.
“I…don’t know,” Hailey admitted with saddened frustration that they shared because they both knew the truth.
It didn’t matter why. What mattered was the fact that her dream had been wrong. She wasn’t good for Mike and Brett. She was bad for them. Heaving a heavy sigh at that thought, she couldn’t help but wonder where that left her. The answer was obvious.
Hailey finally broke the heavy silence that had thickened between them. “What are you going to do?”
She glanced up, not even a glimmer of hope shining in her eyes because Hailey already knew the answer to that question. Still, Angie didn’t have the heart to say it aloud.
“I’m going to do what I have to.” That she would.
“Angie—”
“I think that’s them,” Angie said, cutting Hailey off before she could argue.