The Strength of Three

by Annmarie McKenna

  Well, maybe not so much. One of the visions Aislinn had seen had been of her fiancé being killed. She’d had enough time to warn Kyle though and divert at least some of the disaster, leaving Kyle very much alive.

  “It isn’t always a blessing.”

  Chris smiled. “I guess not.”

  “Spill.”

  Their meals arrived before Chris could answer. Miguel’s tortilla soup was her absolute favorite. Chris broke the fried strips of tortilla down into the bowl, letting them soak up the spicy, cheesy soup filled with bits of chicken, and lifted the spoon to her mouth. The flavors exploded on her tongue. Today was definitely going to be a two-bowl day.

  She was just about to tell the waiter she really wanted another bowl when a chill shot down her spine and a shadow fell over her.

  “We’re done. Let’s get out of here, I’m starving.” Jon stood and rotated his head on his shoulders, working out some of the tension. They’d had to fire someone for trying to sell the plans of a special security prototype they’d been developing.

  The guy hadn’t even had an excuse for them. He’d seen green and gone after it. Thank God they’d caught wind of it before he’d done any real damage.

  “Me too.” TJ stretched his arms to the ceiling.

  Kyle joined in. “Yeah. Let’s go find the girls and join them. They haven’t been gone long.”

  The three of them looked at one another and grunted, “Miguel’s.”

  “You’d think they’d get tired of that place.” TJ led them from Kyle’s office and over to the bank of elevators.

  “Aislinn says it’s something in the tortilla soup,” Kyle said, stepping onto the elevator when it opened with a ding. “All I know is that since you guys have been gone, she hasn’t gone to Miguel’s, and I don’t get the same woman back in the office after lunch that I do when Chris is here.”

  TJ slapped him on the back with a laugh. “You saying you haven’t gotten any since we left?”

  Kyle snorted. “Hell no. Not saying that at all. I’m saying I don’t get it after lunch.” He grinned.

  Jon’s cell phone rang. Still laughing at Kyle he flipped it open and answered. “Winslow.”

  “Mr. Winslow, this is Deputy Anders…with the Sheri…De…ment.”

  Jon stuck his finger in his ear as the door slid shut. Reception would suck in the elevator. “Deputy Anderson?” he repeated. A sense of foreboding shot through him.

  “Yes… …rshall disappeared… Wanted to war…to kee…Ms. Marsh…afe.”

  “What? I’m in an elevator. You’re breaking up.” He looked at the phone and cursed when it flashed no signal before slamming the lid closed.

  “What’s going on?” TJ asked, concerned.

  “I don’t know. It was Deputy Anderson, but it kept cutting out.” Jon looked at TJ, conveying the dread starting to settle in the pit of his stomach. “Marshall’s gone.” And if he was missing then no one would be remiss in thinking he might be headed here. For his daughter. Not after the things he’d spouted after being arrested.

  “He’s on his way here.” There was no doubt in Jon’s mind Robert would come after Chris, wanting revenge for having gotten him arrested.

  “Fuck.” TJ punched the wall.

  “That son of bitch wants another piece of Christina.” Jon shifted his weight, his body preparing for battle. Everything in him shouted to get to his woman. Now.

  “What if they didn’t go to Miguel’s?” TJ attacked the lobby key with his thumb as if willing the steel trap of a box holding them prisoner to move faster.

  “They go to Miguel’s every day, you think they’d choose to go somewhere else today? No way,” Kyle growled. “It’s five minutes on foot which is quicker than getting the car. Besides, if the deputy is just calling you now, chances are he hasn’t had enough time to get here yet.”

  Sure. He might not have had time but what if he did? What if he was already in town and looking for Chris? Damn it! He didn’t want to play the what-if game.

  The elevator took an eternity to get down to the lobby and an even longer time opening its doors. Jon shoved his way through when the space was barely six inches wide and barreled into the group of people waiting to go up.

  He hastily steadied the woman he ran into and mumbled his apologies without missing a beat. TJ slammed through the double plate-glass doors at the same time Jon did with Kyle right on their heels. Miguel’s was just a few blocks away. Kyle was right, it would take them longer to get the car than to walk.

  Jon forced himself to a fast walk when he wanted to sprint and see for himself Chris was all right. She had to be. He would accept no less. He needed her. They needed her in their lives, in their hearts, in their bed. Her and her damn beast of a family-jewels-siccing dog, Clodhopper.

  “She’s fine.” TJ’s tone lacked confidence. He lengthened his stride in his eagerness to get to her too.

  “Is that why you’re running?” Kyle kept pace with them. After all, as Chris’s best friend, his woman would be in Roberts’s path too, had the man actually shown his face.

  They rounded the corner just as a loud crash erupted about thirty feet ahead of them. Seven or eight people jumped back from the short black iron fence surrounding the outdoor portion of the café. Jon’s heart thudded and stopped momentarily.

  A table flew up and over, toppling dishes and throwing silverware in an arc into the air. A woman screamed, a dog barked, a baby cried.

  “Call the police,” a man shouted.

  Jon took off running, his buddies close behind. He vaulted the three foot tall fence without blinking and took in the scene. What they found surprised them. Robert hadn’t come after his daughter.

  Carter had come after his sister.

  “What are you doing, Carter?” Chris’s obscenely calm voice echoed in his head.

  “Christ. He’s got a gun, Jon. Right hip,” TJ said softly and headed to the left.

  Jon nodded. “Yep.” They kept their voices low so they didn’t alert Carter to their presence and reverted to hand signals ingrained from their years in the Special Forces. Kyle’s feet made no sound as he moved off to the right.

  “You killed her, you fucking bitch.” Carter launched himself at her, his hands raised, ready to go for her throat. Chris stood still, looking completely bored, and Jon feared she wouldn’t be able to get out of the way in time.

  She didn’t have to. Aislinn’s foot shot out, sending Carter sprawling to the concrete in a drunken mess. He spluttered and screeched, crawling to his hands and knees, stunned.

  Chris picked her way between a fallen chair and bits of glass and ceramic to stand in front of the man her brother had become, and Jon breathed a sigh of relief. Christina Marshall wasn’t a woman to be treated with kid gloves. Not that he’d ever thought she needed to be, but still.

  “I wasn’t even there,” she hissed. Jon, TJ and Kyle edged closer. She glanced up and directly into Jon’s eyes. Hers widened, and Jon gave a quick shake of his head and covered his lips with a finger to keep her from giving them away. He watched her gaze flick to Kyle and TJ. She knew she wasn’t alone. Aislinn saw them too if the look on her face was any indication.

  “That’s right, you bitch,” Carter snarled.

  Jon saw the miniscule flinch and the narrowing of Christina’s lips and eyes and could have groaned.

  “If you had been, she wouldn’t have fought with me day and night. She wouldn’t have alienated her son and I wouldn’t have had to kill her.”

  Jon was less than four feet away, separated by the overturned table, but he saw the way Chris’s face blanched and heard her sharp intake of breath. Robert Marshall hadn’t killed his wife. Her own son had. Because he’d felt ignored.

  Kyle and TJ flanked Jon but stayed back so they wouldn’t be seen. No one wanted to give Carter a reason to draw his gun and possibly get a shot off in the middle of the crowded café. A couple of men scooted closer, trying to be heroes no doubt. TJ warned them off in some silent way Jon didn’t see w
ith his focus on Carter.

  “She never fought you, you bastard. She took our father’s meaty fists against her face and body every night and forgave him every morning. She protected us both from his hands and if she had left like I did, she would still be alive. You killed her because of some deflated ego.” The crowd gasped at her revelation while sirens sounded in the distance.

  Christ, he would tan her sweet little ass later for taunting her brother like this. TJ and he would take immeasurable pleasure in doing so too. Despite the situation, Jon felt his cock harden as he envisioned her cheeks pinkened by his hand and how wet her pussy would be by the time he sank deep inside her.

  Carter gave a guttural cry and reached for the gun.

  It barely cleared the waistband of his filthy jeans before TJ, Jon and Kyle were on him. Jon didn’t even remember leaping over the table blocking his way. He saw metal and something in him snapped.

  He gripped Carter’s wrist and slammed it against the ground. An agonized cry erupted from the other man. The gun clattered across the concrete, safely away.

  The takedown was almost too easy. Perhaps because Carter was drunk and off his full faculties. A police car squealed to a halt on the street behind them and the crowd started in on what they’d seen.

  Jon kept his knee planted squarely in the small of Carter’s back.

  “Get off me,” he shrieked, tossing and turning and trying to shake Jon loose.

  “You okay, baby?” TJ wrapped Chris in a bear hug. Jon signaled one of the officers over. He needed to be in on the touching TJ was receiving, not here bent over the raving lunatic who’d threatened his woman.

  Chris nodded, a snarl curling her lip with distaste as she looked down at her brother currently being handcuffed.

  “We had a bit of a warning, so neither of us got hurt.”

  TJ, Kyle and Jon turned to Aislinn, expecting her to have had a vision. Aislinn shook her head.

  “Nope, wasn’t me.” She pointed at Chris and all eyes turned to her.

  “What?” she asked innocently.

  TJ grasped her hands. “Sweetheart. Is there something you need to tell us?”

  Her face scrunched up. “No. No! Good Lord, I got this tingly feeling on the back of my neck and then there was this shadow over us. It could have been the way he very loudly called me the trashy whore who killed her mother in front of the entire café. Caused enough of a commotion for Aislinn and me to get up, which is when he shoved the table over.”

  Aislinn snorted. “Oh and that had nothing to do with you calling him a drunken pig who needed to go wallow in his miserable life somewhere else.”

  Jon leaned in and whispered in Chris’s ear, letting his hand wander to her ass. “You will pay for antagonizing the man trying to kill you, sweetheart.”

  Carter fought the police, jerking against their hold. It took three of them to subdue him and finally drag him to the squad car, kicking and spitting his profanities and accusations all the way.

  “I wasn’t antagonizing him. He called me a killing whore. Was I not supposed to defend myself? I can’t believe it was him all along. I never thought… I… Do you think the cops will keep him or let him go?”

  TJ took her elbow and started guiding her back to the Turner Industries building. “They won’t have a choice since you’re going to press charges for assault.”

  “Will it stick? He didn’t touch me.”

  “No, but the table did.” Aislinn pointed to Chris’s hip. “Remember, he flipped it up and it bounced off you.”

  “Son of a bitch, Chris.” TJ jerked to a stop and started pulling her shirt from her pants so he could see if there were marks. Jon assisted. “Where did he get you? Are you hurt bad?”

  Chris pushed at their hands. “Um, hello, public sidewalk here. Get your hands out of my pants.”

  Jon grinned. “Then we’d better get home, because I want nothing other than to have my hands in your pants.”

  “I see Sergeant Watts over there. I’ll tell him we’ll bring her in later. I’m sure they’ve got questions.”

  “Who’s Sergeant Watts?” Chris asked as Jon tried to pull her away.

  “A friend of ours,” Jon answered and then called over his shoulder to Kyle while he propelled Chris down the street. “We’re taking the rest of the day off.”

  “Bye,” Jon heard Aislinn yell behind them, her voice amused.

  “Are we even going to make it home?” Chris grunted. “Good Lord, slow down.”

  Jon pushed the pace and somehow he and TJ made Chris keep up. No way would he slow down. Witnessing her brother trying to take her out of his life had been too much. He needed to reconnect with her. To do that he needed to get as close to her as humanly possible—inside her. Buried deep where she wouldn’t know where one of them ended and the other began. Either of them because Jon needed TJ there with them as well.

  If TJ was in the same shape as Jon, they might not make it home, but she was right, they didn’t need to get arrested for public indecency.

  “We’ll make it home.” He eyeballed the remaining distance between them and his car parked in the lot next to Turner Industries. “We have to for what I have in store for you,” Jon growled.

  Chapter Eight

  The front door closed behind them with a definitive thud, adding to the growing thump her heart was currently beating. TJ had driven this time while Jon kept her occupied in the backseat. Distracted, more like. There wasn’t any part of her body his hands and mouth hadn’t touched. He’d been especially tender at her hip where an ugly bruise had already shown itself.

  Her nipples were rock hard, her clit throbbed and she was breathless. Jon had her primed and ready with all his backseat foreplay. She rounded on him, grabbing his shirt and hauling him to her.

  “Where were we?” She ignored his look of surprise and attacked his lips.

  TJ sandwiched her between them, nestling his thick cock against her ass, promising wickedness. His hands came up, dragging her shirt with them then palming her breasts Jon had so thoughtfully freed from their confinement in the car.

  A second later, Jon flicked open the button at her waist. She heard the rasp of the zipper over her moans as TJ pinched and rolled her nipples into even harder points.

  She needed them. Needed both to fill her mind with something other than the ugliness her brother had brought.

  Her pants were pushed down gently over her sore hip. As soon as they reached her knees, all tenderness was gone. Jon’s booted foot stepped on the crotch and shoved them to the floor. TJ knelt and helped her step out all while his tongue roamed her backside. His hands kneaded her flesh, spreading her cheeks so his tongue could rim her.

  She squirmed at the strange feeling, thinking she should be disgusted but not managing to summon anything but pleasure. Oh God, they were turning her into a depraved wanton. TJ’s fingers tapped her inner thighs.

  “Spread your legs, baby.”

  She did, sucking in a breath when two lean fingers speared into her core.

  “You’re wet, Chris.”

  Well, duh. She swallowed and laid her head on Jon’s chest. He rubbed her back and held her still for the fingered assault on her pussy and the tonguing of her tiny opening farther back.

  After stripping her shirt off, Jon added his fingers between her legs, rubbing a slow circle around her exposed clit.

  “Shit.” She bit her lip and her knees sagged. After these last few days they were experts at playing her body.

  “Uh-uh, sugar. Not yet. We have a little business to attend to first.”

  “What?” She came out of her stupor to see a gleam in Jon’s eye. What the hell?

  TJ’s clothes brushed up her naked skin, chilling her. He nibbled on her ear. “What were you thinking taunting Carter like that?” His hands slid up her sides to return to her nipples, giving them a tug and nearly causing her to sink to the floor.

  She shook her head. “What did you want me to do, cower?”

  “Yes,” they both
said emphatically.

  Jon sighed. “We want you to be safe, not put yourself in the direct line of fire. Didn’t you see the gun?”

  “No, I was too busy dodging the flying iron table and chairs and dishes. And then he pissed me off by calling me a whore.”

  TJ turned her face to his with his thumb under her chin. “You are not a whore.” His mouth wandered from her lips, over to her ear, down her jaw to the crook of her shoulder and neck. Chris tilted her head to give him better access. “All the same, you need to be spanked.”

  “For what?” she breathed, not really caring when Jon’s lips surrounded one of her nipples and tugged it into his mouth.

  Somehow they managed to move across the floor, all while tangled together, kisses still being applied. When they reached the couch, Chris was turned so her belly rested along the back. TJ stalked around to the front and climbed onto the cushions on his knees, his gaze never leaving hers. His fingers went to the buttons of his fly. Chris dropped her stare to watch each button push through its hole in slow motion.

  His cock—long, thick and looking painfully hard—thrust out when he pulled it from his boxers. She licked her lips.

  “Yeah, baby, get those lips wet.” TJ fisted his erection and stroked it from base to tip.

  A hand in the middle of her back bent her over the couch so her head hung above the chaise part of the three-part monstrosity. His calloused hands smoothed over her buttocks and hips, paying special attention to the humongous bruise blooming to life.

  “Does this hurt, sugar?”

  She gulped. “No.” She had a feeling her ass was going to burn like hell in a minute and cover up any hurt she might feel anyway. So why wasn’t she protesting and running screaming from their house?

  Jon chuckled. When she felt him next, he was naked. His cock prodded her slick entrance when he parted her thighs. It felt so good. She caught herself with her hands on the couch to keep from falling headfirst. And still, TJ’s hand worked his length. He moved closer, first kneeling on the chaise, then working his legs out in front of him so he was spread eagle, one leg draped over either side of the chaise. He helped her balance herself by putting her hands next to his thighs. His penis saluted her not five inches from her face, its head shiny with pre-come.