“We didn’t abuse you too much last night?” Micah asked.
“I only wish the night had lasted longer so you could have ‘abused’ me even more.” She sipped her coffee and regarded her husband through her lashes. His expression showed how pleased he was. The same satisfied gaze met her when she turned to Andrew. “I never imagined such sensations in heaven or on Earth. You two take my breath away.”
She recognized the hunger in Andrew’s eyes, and Micah reached out to take her hand. His thumb stroked lazy circles on her palm, sending skittles of need down her spine. “Must you go to work today?”
Determination filled Andrew’s eyes. “Unfortunately, we must. Your husband not only closed the deal with our new client in Sacramento, but met a new, potential client while there.”
“Micah, congratulations!”
“What about lunch?” Micah asked, not to be deterred.
“I have something to attend to.” She tapped her chin, thinking. “But I could come to the office around two o’clock. Would you be able to…talk then?”
The men studied each other. “In the office?” Andrew voiced the question with raised brows. The conspiratorial smile they shared promised her something to look forward to all morning.
Andrew and Micah rose as one. “Well, we’d better go. There are things to get out of the way so we can enjoy our afternoon.” They kissed her, each demonstrating their affection, and left.
Ching Li entered the dining room holding the crimson dress from the night before.
“Do you think it can be repaired?” she asked her maid.
“We ask Mai. Maybe.” She looked doubtful, though. Mai had proven to be the most talented seamstress Siobhan had never seen, but she would have to be to repair the damage.
Wild Orchid’s clientele expanded with every woman she met. She could barely sew a hem herself, but she did recognize talent in others. The success of her venture filled her with pride. Her men weren’t the only entrepreneurs in the family.
“Remind me to ask Mai if there is a way to make a garment that tears away easily without destroying the dress or blouse.” She blushed under Ching Li’s steady gaze. “My men are quite impulsive.”
Ching Li nodded. “Virile. Good matches for you.”
Siobhan smiled. “They are, aren’t they?”
Finishing her toilet for her morning in the shop and then luncheon with the wife of a rail executive after, the world looked rosy. Life was good, and she was more than happy. Coming to California had reaped rewards she hadn’t appreciated when Micah first broached the subject. Would they have been allowed to be together in their stuffy house in Boston? She thought not. The West offered opportunities for much more than gold discoveries and rich farmland. It offered freedom to follow one’s dreams, whatever they might be.
Later that day, a few minutes before two o’clock, Siobhan climbed the steps to the office on the Bay. All morning long, through discussions about new dress designs and lunch with Mrs. Jackson, she imagined what it would be like to make love with a factory full of people just below them. The idea of it had her panties moist for hours. In her pocket she also had a toy to share with Micah and Andrew, something she had picked up in a little shop full of erotic pieces and wonders hidden deep in Chinatown where Ching Li had taken her.
Chester, the office manager, was not in the outer office. She knocked on the inner door and breezed in holding up her surprise, a large, marble phallus.
“Hello, my angels. Look what I ha—” She stopped with the shock of seeing a third person in the office. Quickly—quickly enough, she hoped—she jammed the faux cock back into her pocket. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were in a meeting.” She began her retreat when Micah called to her.
He stood and came to take her hand and lead her into the room where the visitor stood to face her.
“You remember our brother Stephen, don’t you?”
She did, and what she remembered was that she didn’t care for him. “Of course.” She held out her hand, smiling. “How very nice to see you again.” She cast a questioning look at both Micah and Andrew. “I’m sorry, but did we know you were coming? I mean, it’s a bit far for you to be in the neighborhood.”
He looked at her as though she were a nitwit. “I came to see how the new office is progressing. Father is only a little behind me.”
“But why are you here, Stephen, and why is Father coming? We’ve sent regular reports.” That was Andrew, frowning and sounding a bit testy.
Micah pulled out a chair for her and then took his seat behind the desk. “And really, we’ve only both been here a few weeks. Are you here for support or to check up on us?”
Stephen laughed. “Both, perhaps. I merely suggested to Father that I thought things should be moving quicker out here, considering no one else has features on wagons that we have, and this is a wide-open territory, fresh for the picking.”
“Things are moving quite well,” Andrew pointed out with a touch of heat in his voice. “We don’t need you to come out and examine the books. Not when you have the new semester to start soon.”
“Oh, give no thought to that. I certainly don’t,” Stephen said airily. “And how are you finding California,” he said to Siobhan. “As I recall, you weren’t very excited at the thought of coming west.”
“Which shows just how wrong some of us can be,” she replied. “I didn’t want to come and now have found a great purpose in being here. You wanted to come when there is absolutely no purpose at all. Don’t we both feel silly.”
The look he shot her singed. “My reason for coming is to see to my future. That is”—he gave each of them a look—”to ensure that this company, including this office, survives so that I have a future.”
He walked to the door and then turned. “I presume I may have a room in your luxurious home, which I’m sure is costing Father a fortune every month?”
Andrew, who had been leaning against the wall, stepped forward. “I’ll have you know, you sneaky bastard, that Micah and I pay for our house our—”
Siobhan reached out, touching his arm. “Of course you must stay with us, Stephen. You’re family. Please let Martin know who you are and he will see to your needs.”
“Thank you, Siobhan.” He cast a glance from one twin to the other. “I shall see you this evening, then.” He spun on his heels and left. Andrew stormed across the room and slammed the door in his wake.
“Goddamn him!”
Siobhan went to him. Cupping Andrew’s cheeks, she forced him to look at her. “Don’t let him bother you.”
“She’s right, Drew. He’s an annoying prick, but of no danger. We have a large contract signed and sealed and are submitting a second bid for as many or more wagons. At this rate, in only a bit over a month, we will surpass Boston’s orders for the year.” He spun in his chair and stared out the window. Siobhan knew him well enough to realize he was not sanguine about the visit, whatever he said to calm Andrew.
She went back to the desk. “What has you disturbed, Micah?”
“He will have his nose in everything, and not only here at the office. At home, too.”
That silenced her. She had thought Stephen would look for trouble at work, but in their private lives, also?
“I’ve just invited the lion to live amongst the lambs.”
Micah turned back to her, a wry grin on his face. “So to speak. Tell me, what do you think Martin and the others will say to him about us?”
“Shit,” Andrew said. “We never had our talk with the staff.”
“I asked Ching Li to feel them out and then I spoke with Martin this morning.”
“And?” Micah asked.
“Martin tells me that one maid has left. But no mind. He says he has a niece who is looking for work and knows how to keep her counsel. Other than that, he says we pay well and are easy to get along with, and so no one is anxious to leave.”
“There will be big bonuses at the end of the year,” Micah promised. He tapped his lips w
ith the end of a fountain pen. “What could Stephen hope to discover about us? We haven’t been in town long enough to cause any trouble.”
Andrew walked the room, his hands jammed in his pockets. “Do you know what I don’t understand? Stephen comes out here because he’s always been jealous of us. But why is Father paying any attention to him? Haven’t we both given him everything he’s ever asked of us? You gave up art school in order to attend college where he wanted you to, and then cut back on your passion in order to learn the manufacturing side of the business.” He huffed out a breath. “Stupid me, I gave up having any kind of a life in order to work by his side. We jumped when he said to and now he’s coming out to check on our loyalty and skills based on the false concerns of a little shit like Stephen.”
“Andrew,” Siobhan said. “Please calm down, dearest. Everything will be all right.”
Andrew’s gaze held worry more than anger. “I hope you’re right. I fear you’re not.”
* * * *
Why had Stephen come to San Francisco? The question worried Drew. His level of anger remained high, too. He couldn’t convince Micah of the instinctual sense of danger he felt. Siobhan believed that Stephen and their father would stay for a short visit, find that the books were all in order, and then leave for home. Neither she nor Micah felt his sense of impending doom.
Siobhan left the office shortly after Stephen, believing that she should be at home to waylay any questions. He and Micah arrived at their regular time, after dispatching their bid to the new potential mining firm. They found a laughing Siobhan and thoroughly charmed Stephen, already on what must have been his second or third whiskey—their good whiskey, he noted. He could use one himself. With a few steps, he reached the decanter and poured two generous glasses of the amber liquid. Passing one glass off to Micah, he took a seat to admire the change in his younger brother. He had fallen under Siobhan’s Southern charm from the moment he held her to dance. Micah had fallen on their journey west. Why would the third Berwick sibling be any more immune to her than they?
“Stephen has been telling me all about his time at Harvard,” Siobhan said. “Of course, I never attended college.” She flashed her brilliant smile at Stephen. “I’m not sure I could stand the rigor.”
Before his eyes, Stephen’s chest puffed out. “It is quite rough. Men are far more suited to the academic life than women.”
Micah quickly took a swig of the amber liquid in his glass, choking on a laugh rather than the drink. Drew looked at Siobhan. Only someone who knew her as well as they did would have noticed the slight narrowing of her eyes. Her smile never faltered, however.
“Oh, I’m sure of that,” she said. “Women are far too flighty. Sadly, we don’t possess the same serious nature that men do.”
Stephen nodded. “Your wife is really very special,” he said to Drew. Then his brows puckered, and he switched his look to Micah. He giggled, shocking Drew. He’d hardly ever seen Stephen smile, much less laugh with abandon. “Whichever one of you is the husband. I’ve never been able to tell you apart.”
“It’s not difficult,” Siobhan said, and turned a warm smile on him and then Micah. She rose gracefully, taking Stephen’s glass in hand. “Let me refresh that for you. We have a few minutes before dinner.”
Drew finally grasped Siobhan’s reasoning. Charm the troublemaker and then ply him with drink so he sleeps the night through. The more time to play later.
If he hadn’t loved his brother’s wife before then, he would have started at that moment.
Chapter Fourteen
“You were brilliant to get Stephen drunk,” Micah told Siobhan later that night as he came into her room.
She had developed the idea on the way home when she happened to see a man staggering from drink on the street. “A drunk man sleeps deeply and remembers little. I hoped to charm him into not noticing the number of glasses put before him, and then pour him into bed.”
“I was impressed by how you held your temper.”
“It wasn’t so much.” She batted her lashes at him and slid her peignoir off her shoulders. “Charm comes easily to a Southern girl.”
His hungry gaze followed her wrap as it fell to the floor. A tap on the connecting door to Micah’s room indicated Andrew’s entrance.
“I don’t want to talk about that prick,” he started with, but then added, “but we will have to address the trouble he brings eventually.” He strode to Siobhan and took her in his arms.
She undid the tie on his robe and reached for the rod extending from his groin.
Micah watched, she saw from the corner of her eye. Giving her a wink, he stroked himself while Andrew squeezed her breast and rolled her nipples between his fingers.
“I am unused to being the voice of reason, Drew,” he said. “My artistic temperament usually has me causing the havoc. You’re normally stoic and logical. Why this outburst over Stephen’s arrival?”
Andrew took a last sip of her lips and rested his head on her forehead. “Because it shows a total lack of trust in us. It disproves the thinking we had in coming out here, that we would be allowed to prove our value away from Father’s oversight. He wants his thumb on us even out here. Even when we’re doing well.”
“Better than well,” Siobhan added. “Why, we’ve hardly been here any time at all and you’ve already made sales.”
Micah smiled. “Your support is most welcome, sweetheart, but this conflict is one that’s been ready to erupt for years. A big sale and the prospect of another will not be enough to convince our father that Drew and I are succeeding.”
Contrary to what Andrew said when he entered, he moved away from Siobhan and paced the floor. “But why send Stephen? He knows nothing. He’s hardly worked in the office for a year or two, and under my guidance. He’s certainly not ready to tell us what we’re doing right or wrong out here.”
“I wonder if Stephen didn’t come out on his own, precipitating Father’s following.” Micah went to her dressing table and picked up the phallus. “Siobhan, where did you get this?”
“From a shop in Chinatown.” She walked to him, perfectly comfortable in her natural form. “Does it interest you?” She took it from him and stroked its length while watching the gleam in his eyes.
“Anything that interests you interests me, sweetheart.” He licked his lips. “Have you used it yet?”
Her eyes widened. “On myself?” Andrew stopped pacing in order to observe them. She really looked at it, the length, the girth, and the perfect male shape. “Truth be told, I didn’t know I should.”
“Women often use such things on themselves.” Andrew came forward and fixed her with a grin. “When they don’t have two willing studs available at a moment’s notice.”
“Of course,” she said with a smile.
He took the thing from her. “Marble is cold. I bet it would feel good inside.”
“Shall we find out? That is, if you’re willing, Siobhan?” Micah backed her to the bed. She lay back, feet on the edge, exposing herself to them.
“So pretty,” Andrew murmured.
“Pink and perfect,” Micah agreed. One of them ran his finger along her furrow, and she shivered. Then one of them applied his tongue, licking the opening to her channel. The other took over, probing her passage with his finger and coaxing her clitoris from its hood. She raised her hips to meet him, letting the flood of sensation wash over her.
“God, yes,” she muttered.
One probed her back hole with a wet finger, wriggling and pushing until she relaxed her muscles and let him enter. Her juices leaked, sliding down her lips and to her back end. She writhed, wanting more.
An icy tip of hard rock touched her calf, skimmed up her leg, and poised at the entrance to her pussy.
“Do it,” she moaned. Her hips flexed up toward the phallus and a swirling tongue, down onto someone’s finger.
One twin glided the phallus into her, using her juice to ease its entry. He kissed her thigh. The other adjusted his posit
ion to continue sucking her clit and the incessant probing of her ass kept on. Breathing hard, she raised on her elbows and looked across the room. Her floor-length mirror was in the right position to reflect two identical heads pressed between her legs, the marble cock sliding in and out and a finger up her ass. That image, along with the constant stimulation, threw her over the edge of reason.
She cried out, dropped back to the bed, and gave in to the rush. Her body took over, trembling with every touch, every sliding in and out, every thrust, tug, and push.
Before she knew what was happening, the men moved her up on the bed. One pulled her to him and raised her leg over his hip. His cock slid into her without effort. The other snuggled up to her back and used the cream from her orgasm to ease his entry. They filled her in the way she’d come to expect, a way she didn’t think she could do without any longer.
She kissed the twin at her front while reaching for the back twin. They found their rhythm. Their bodies slapped as they came together, slipping and sliding on the sweat that sheened their bodies. Fireworks burst behind her eyelids, and she lost all thought and control. When the men came at the same time, she felt nothing but heat enveloping her, filling her.
Then cool air dried the sweat on her skin. The sound of three people struggling to control their breaths filled the room along with the pungent scent of sex.
She ran her fingers through the hair of the twin in front and scraped her nails along the thigh of the twin in back. He moaned and tried to move closer. Laying his head on her shoulder, he brought up goose bumps when he skimmed the skin of her thigh.
The sound of her door closing penetrated the mental haze that always struck after a bout of sex with her men. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” said the twin against her lips.
“Hmm-mmm,” the other breathed against her back.
She lifted her head and glanced over her shoulder. Her door was closed. The door into Micah’s room was closed. She must have imagined the noise.
Satisfied, she snuggled into the warmth and protection of her twins and promptly fell asleep.
Jenna Stewart Page 11