by Jenny Penn
“Been cooking dinner,” Molly shot back instantly with cheeriness that had Logan snorting and muttering beside Bruce.
“Yep, she’s gone crazy.”
Bruce shoved his elbow into Logan’s sore ribs just for that but ignored his cousin in every other way as he finally dropped his bag by the edge of kitchen counter and ambled farther into the kitchen. It was just as packed as the living room. What little counter space they had was cluttered with piles of plates, along with pots and now a new toaster oven and a second microwave.
It was clear. Molly had moved in. What wasn’t clear was why.
“It smells delicious,” Bruce assured her as he moved in close to drop a quick kiss on Molly’s lips.
Her mouth was soft and tempting, but he held back on the urge to push for more, wanting to give Molly the space and time she needed to ask for more. Bruce could sense that he’d made the right choice by the way she glanced up at him. Her eyes shined with a mixture of want and fear as she stared up at him through the thick forest of her lashes.
He couldn’t help but grin as he reached out to run a finger down the soft curve of her cheek. Molly turned into the touch slightly before pulling back a second later to quickly shuffle toward the oven.
“So what you making?” Logan asked as he settled back against the counter to watch her work.
“Pot roast with caramelized onions and glazed carrots.” Molly paused to offer him a small smile. “I hope you like it.”
Bruce was going to love it and all because she cooked it for him. He knew that would sound like a line to her, though. So, instead, he responded with a good deal less enthusiasm than he felt.
“I’m sure it will be good.”
Logan smirked and laughed at that. “Hell, anything would be good right now. I’m starving.”
The rich aroma thickening in the air as she lifted the lid on the Dutch oven made him all the hungrier. The sight of Molly wasn’t helping either. Dressed in her khakis and her tucked-in polo shirt, she looked so prim and proper, but Bruce knew the truth. Beneath the layers of cotton lay a heart and spirit as wild as any. If only Molly would learn to let it free.
“Long day?” Molly glanced over at him, drawing Bruce attention back from his thoughts before they could wander any further.
“Aren’t they all?” Bruce sighed and stretched, trying to work out the tension gripping his muscles. “And the day isn’t over. We’re working through tonight again.”
“Tonight?” That caught Molly’s attention. “And just what are you working on?”
There was a slight sharpness that left Bruce feeling almost accused, but he brushed aside the sensation and the resulting irritation. Molly had her reasons for being skeptical. He couldn’t deny that. Not that he needed to bother to explain things. Bruce had Logan for that.
“We’re searching for a real bad guy, and trust me, you don’t want the details.”
* * * *
No, she probably didn’t. Molly couldn’t explain it, but the idea of them in danger was more than just a little unsettling. So instead of confronting them, she focused on finishing dinner, ever conscious of Logan’s gaze tracking her every move. She could all but feel the heat licking over her as the memories of that morning heated her blood, leaving her aching as she worked to plate the roast that was all but falling apart in its pot.
It didn’t help that her hands were trembling. Nor could she control the small quivers. She was nervous. Nervous but determined. She was going to present her proposal to them and hopefully figure out what to do with all the clutter she’d moved in. Molly wasn’t exactly sure why they hadn’t asked her about that yet. That only added to her unease.
“You need help?” Bruce offered, but there really was no room for two people to cook in the kitchen.
Nor was there room to eat. Molly paused to survey the mess and then decided to make it Bruce’s problem. She turned with a smile, half curious to see what he did as she offered him the most insane request.
“Why don’t you set the table?”
“What–oh.”
Bruce’s question cut itself short as he glanced out over the piles of stuff littering the main room to take note that Molly had shoved Logan and his couch out of the way to make room for the table she’d brought over and then piled with more stuff.
“Okay.” Bruce nodded slowly. “Logan, I think I’m going to need help.”
That got laugh from Logan. “Yeah? You want me to go get a shovel?”
“It might come to that.” Bruce sighed as she shuffled past Molly, and she couldn’t help but smile at the frown marring his brow.
He was so cute, adorable really, and not above doing what had to be done. Nor was Logan, who pitched in. Together they managed to clear off the table. Mostly they moved everything to the couch, making already tall piles dangerously higher. Molly didn’t say a word, though.
Nobody did.
They all worked in silence as both men set the table and carried over the platters of food Molly fixed in the kitchen. Then they sat down and ate, not speaking a word. Molly blamed it on the weird tension that had slowly started to thicken in the air. It wasn’t an anxious sensation but strangely one that bordered on the absurd, making her almost want to laugh out loud.
She didn’t think she was alone. They might all be pretending that this was a normal dinner, but underneath that rode a challenge to be the one to dispel that myth. Nobody was stepping up to the plate, which had Molly’s mind spinning with the most dangerous of temptations.
She felt a strange and sudden need to simply tell them what she planned just to see how they’d respond to that bomb. That urge grew with every clink of a fork against a plate and the tinkle of ice cubes melting in the glasses. Until finally Molly cracked, her formidable and legendary self-control long shattered by the insanity of the past two days.
Everybody else got to do whatever the hell they wanted. So why couldn’t she say whatever the hell she wanted? Possibly because it took guts. Molly finally lifted her head to glance down the table at the two cousins devouring their food with a ravenous and seemingly unstoppable hunger.
“I want to have an affair.”
Molly had expected it to be harder to say that, but strangely, it popped out quite easily. While she probably should have been anxious over Logan’s and Bruce’s response, she found herself laughing instead as Logan choked on his food and Bruce stilled with a fork halfway in the air to turn and stare at her with a look of almost horrified shock.
He just sat there with his mouth hanging open as Logan forcibly swallowed his food and nodded.
“Okay.”
“No!” Bruce recovered his voice in an instant and shot that denial right at Molly before turning to glare at his cousin. “No, it’s not okay.”
“It’s not?” Logan looked surprised. Molly sure as hell was.
“Why not?” she demanded to know, going straight from mirth to outrage.
“Because I want more than an affair,” Bruce shot back, along with a heated look that warned Molly he was feeling a little outraged himself. “Don’t think that I don’t know what that means? And you’re not going to use me for sex. I want a relationship!”
“You’re nuts!” Logan blurted out, joining in with his own sense of indignation.
“Maybe,” Bruce allowed. “But I’m also right.”
“No, you’re not.” Logan leaned in and waved a hand at his cousin, punctuating each word with a sharp gesture. “You never turn down sex.”
“You never turn it down, that’s for sure.”
Logan snapped back in his seat as if Bruce had slapped him. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Gentlemen,” Molly cut in before this argument could get completely out of hand. “I think you’re straying from the point.”
“He’s calling me a whore,” Logan complained, as if Molly’s suggestion was an insult itself. Bruce didn’t help the matter any as he muttered loud enough for everybody to hear.
“I
f the shoe fits…”
“Hey! I’ve turned down a woman before.” Logan paused for way too long, and that had Bruce snorting up a laugh.
“You can’t think of one, can you?”
Before Logan could respond to that taunt, a knock pounded on the front door. It was thrown open a second later, making it crash into the bed and bounce back to hit the man walking through it right in the face just as he was calling out a greeting.
“Hey, guys—”
“What the…” That surprised explanation faded off into silence as the short man pressing in behind the taller one stilled to take in the chaos greeting them.
“Hey, Craig, Josh,” Logan hollered out, waving them toward the table. “We got food.”
Just like that, Bruce and Logan gave up bickering and seemed to completely forget about her as their cousins joined them. Helping themselves to some of her plates piled up on the kitchen counter, Craig and Josh settled down at the table to start devouring everything in sight. In between bites, they quizzed Logan and Bruce about the case they were working on.
Sure enough within minutes the conversation had grown too gruesome for Molly’s taste. She picked up her plate and headed for the kitchen, not that she could escape there. Really there was no place to go but to the bathroom and maybe take a shower. That was just where Molly turned to head when a sharp series of taps rattled the front door. It opened a second after Logan called for the newcomers to come in.
Molly paused long enough to see the Montez twins, Carmen and Tony, enter. Unlike Craig and Josh, they showed no obvious surprise at barely being able to fit through the door. Instead they surveyed their surrounding with cold calculation that unnerved Molly when Carmen turned and caught her gaze.
A chill raced down Molly spine at the very instant their eyes connected, and she quickly turned away, retreating to the bathroom.
Chapter Nine
Bruce got that tickle that he always got whenever something wasn’t right. Something definitely wasn’t right. He knew that the second he eased the door open into the darkened apartment to discover that Molly wasn’t sleeping on the couch. Then again, how could she?
The couch was shoved all the way up against the wall and covered in junk. The whole place was covered in junk, but he and Logan had a solution for that. What they didn’t agree on was Molly’s offer of an affair. That issue had them bickering all night, but Bruce knew he was right.
Molly was trying to reduce what was between them down to sex, but Bruce knew this was different. He’d been with enough women to recognize something special when he found it. So had Logan, who agreed with Bruce on that much. What they didn’t agree on was what it meant to Molly.
Logan saw sex as the ropes used to bind a woman to him. He assumed from Molly’s offer that those ties had already started to form, but Bruce wasn’t so easily convinced. If fact he was just the opposite. Bruce figured the only way to get Molly to confront her true feelings was to deny the lust and prove that what they had was more than that.
So the argument had gone around and around until they’d searched their entire list of properties and convened the search for the night, or what was left of it. There wasn’t much, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still full of surprises…like whose bed had Molly gone to sleep in.
Bruce shared a look with Logan as both of them eased farther into the living room. In silence, filled with a building tension, they wound their way around the boxes and furniture turning the straight path to the hall into an obstacle course. Neither said a word as Logan reached the closed door to his bedroom.
Bruce’s was closed, too. Logan waited for him to reach his door before starting to turn the knob to his. Matching Logan’s movements, Bruce eased open his door and breathed out a sigh of relief when he found that Molly had chosen his bed. In the next second, he sprung into motion, hopping into the bedroom and turning to slam the door on Logan as he rushed forward. Bruce managed to throw the latch on the doorknob just as it started to rattle, and he stepped back, waiting to see if Logan dared to bang on it and wake Molly up.
It said something about how much his cousin actually cared about the woman in his bed that Logan didn’t whip up a ruckus but turned and stormed back off down the hallway. Bruce smirked and relaxed, even though it dawned on him that he’d won only one battle. There was another sleeping in his bed to defeat. Molly had brought the big guns, Bruce realized as he turned to gaze at her in the dim glow of the moonlight streaming through the window.
He could tell from how tightly the sheets were wrapped around her that Molly wasn’t wearing any clothes. She was naked. Naked and in his bed. That was a dream he’d been having for years. A dream that normally led to a fantasy that had him waking up in more than just sweat-soaked sheets. He blamed that squarely on Molly, who was already moaning and shifting in the throes of a suggestive rapture, making Bruce hard in an instant.
He wasn’t going to win this battle, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going down without a fight…or without taking a little bit of revenge. That thought spread a smile across Bruce’s face as he reached out to snag the corner of the bed sheet. He pulled it back slowly, savoring every inch of newly revealed skin until Molly lay there spread out like a feast for his eyes.
Her creamy skin glowed in the moonlight, smooth and soft looking, inviting his touch, but Bruce didn’t dare give in to that urge. He had other plans. Dragging his gaze down from the full mounds of her flushed breasts to the curls covering her pussy, Bruce smiled.
He wanted that cunt bare.
* * * *
Molly yawned and stretched, feeling oddly rested and satisfied. In that moment the worries that she’d carried with her to bed felt far away, only distant concerns that weren’t to be bothered with. All that mattered right then was how good she felt. Hell, she couldn’t stop smiling.
Why should she?
Her dreams had been explicitly sweet last night…and quite possibly real. Molly’s eyes blinked open as she shifted among the sheets, feeling the cotton slide against her naked skin. That wasn’t all she felt. With every move she made, Molly could feel her pussy tingle with a sensitivity that had her mind blooming with the dreams that filled her night.
Dreams of Bruce with his mouth clamped down on her cunt.
Only Molly didn’t think they’d been dreams. It had all been too real, and so was the wetness she could feel between her legs, but she wasn’t sore. Nor did Molly have any memory of fucking Bruce last night. That had been the plan.
She’d chosen his bed to crawl into naked as a blatant attempt to get him to start the affair that he had objected to. It had seemed like a wicked sort of punishment for him trying to defy her, but she wasn’t sure she’d won. After all, where was Bruce?
Intent on finding out that answer, Molly rolled to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over the edge, almost stepping on the man himself. It took her a moment to respond to the shock of seeing him there, lying prone on the floor with his erection clutched in his fist. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d jacked himself off, but the size and angry flush of his cock assured Molly that he had more to give, even if he’d already given himself some.
Molly licked her lips, thinking she’d like to get some. She’d like to get herself a whole lot. That thought had her stretching out across the bed as her head dipped down to the blind eye weeping back up at her, but when she eased its tears with a lap of her tongue, Bruce jerked away, proving that he was not asleep as she’d expected.
In fact the man was wide awake and looking wild eyed as he scrambled to his feet and backed quickly away from the bed. Molly glanced up in surprise, their eyes connecting for a long second. The moment she bolted from the bed, Bruce took off, flying out the door and banging into stuff as he fled down the hallway. He disappeared into the bathroom with a slam of the door but not a click of its lock.
Molly smiled and slid out of bed.
She needed a shower, too, but with her first step, Molly knew something wasn’t right. Glancing
down, she lifted a brow as she discovered the mound of her pussy shaved smoothed. So that part hadn’t been a dream either. The very first thought was that it would itch when the hair grew back in.
Strangely enough, that made Molly laugh and consider she probably should punish Bruce for taking advantage of her while she slept. She had a very good idea of how. With every intention of proving who was really in charge of this affair, Molly strutted down the hall butt-naked, only to discover that Bruce had turned the latch.
That brought a frown to Molly’s face.
“I could pick that for you if you want,” Logan offered, drawing Molly’s attention to where he stood in the kitchen chomping on an apple and eyeing her as if she was prime piece of bacon. “But it’s going to cost you.”
Molly smiled at that suggestive warning, not the least bit intimidated by the husky danger in Logan’s drawl. Emboldened by the heated hunger darkening his gaze and determined to indulge her own passions for once, Molly cocked a hip and lifted a brow, daring to challenge him with a smug certainty coming out the winner.
“Name your price.”
Logan chuckled at that and tossed his half-eaten apple into the garbage can as he stalked slowly forward until he had her pinned against the bathroom door. Molly didn’t flinch back, but stood tall and firm as he ground the hard heat of his body into her. Logan’s head dipped, his lips coming to brush against hers in a soft caress as his words whispered out against her mouth.
“How about I just take it?”
Molly let her smile be her answer, holding still as Logan pulled back slightly. Their gazes met and locked, a silent challenge passing between them that sent a thrill of anticipation sizzling through Molly’s veins. Her breath caught as Logan began to slide down to his knees, his eyes never leaving hers as his hands came to grip her hips.
For a moment, he hesitated, allowing the tension to build in the air. It thickened along with the heat pumping through Molly’s veins until her cunt wept and clenched with a need that could no longer be denied. Driven by the lust pumping through her with every beat of her heart, Molly reached out and buried her fingers in the soft, silken tresses of Logan’s hair, gripping them tight and shoving his head down until the hot wash of his breath fanned out over her newly bared skin.