by Alisha Rai
She covered her mouth with her hand, watching him with blurry eyes. “Jace…”
“Save it. I don’t want to hear anything.” He nodded to her, his eyes black with anger and hurt. “See you later tonight. I assume our agreement is still in effect.”
He didn’t wait for a response, but stalked to the front door. Devi let him go with a helpless feeling. After he left, she roused herself enough to check for witnesses, but they must have conducted their conversation in such low voices, no one had noticed.
Devi speed-walked into the kitchen and grabbed her apron. She nodded to the others in the room and began scrubbing her hands. While her outer movements were unhurried and automatic, her brain clicked along at a terrifying rate.
Jace had not intended for this to be a quick fling for any of them. He had gone into this with the intention that they would continue to see each other indefinitely. Which meant he had stronger feelings for her than just lust or liking. She paused, her hands clenching on the damp towel. Could he be falling in love with her as she was with the two of them?
For a moment, she felt a terrifying guilt, that she had feelings for the two of them when Jace was focused only on her, but then she reminded herself that he clearly didn’t mind having the three of them together. In fact, he insisted on it.
She considered that as she tossed some potatoes into the oven to bake. Had the two of them ever had relationships separate from one another? If not, had they ever had a relationship, period?
It could never work. Could it?
Chapter Thirteen
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Jace barely resisted the urge to bang his head against his steering wheel.
What devil had prompted him to go to the restaurant tonight? So he’d had a bad day. Did he have to go running to a woman to kiss his owie?
He had felt so much better once he had talked it over with Devi, though. She had that ability, to make him feel like he was a greater person than he really was, even when they were just silent together. She listened when he spoke and helped him put his problems in perspective.
When they were together, he believed he could be worthy of someone decent and good like her. She nearly brought him to tears because he knew she made his brother feel the same way. God knew Marcus needed someone to give him that feeling.
So, after he had purged himself of his bad day, he’d been riding high, high enough that he finagled an invite to a family party for him and his brother. For a second there, he completely forgot that they weren’t a normal couple.
Of course Devi had been upset about any gossip that might come about. Despite Rana’s outward brashness, he had the feeling Devi and her family were fairly conservative. She’d spoken of her sheltered childhood and teenage years. Her father died when she was young, but her mother and sisters kept strict watch over her, so she’d had a delayed introduction to dating and sex.
Devi and her sisters were thoroughly American, but clearly some cultural traditions were still followed in their household. Threesomes probably weren’t what they wanted for their baby girl.
He breathed out a sigh. Why the hell hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut? His original plan had been to slowly push forward the deadline of their affair, easing their way into her life, seducing every one of her senses until she had no choice but to keep seeing them, until she couldn’t imagine a life without them.
If he’d stayed quiet, he could have enjoyed a nice dinner with Devi at the restaurant, and pretended in his own mind, at least, they were a normal couple.
Instead, he was sitting in his car four hours later, in the dark, parked outside her house like a desperate stalker.
Stupid.
He jumped a bit when the passenger door clicked open. The interior light flared on for a second, blinding him, before Devi slid inside and shut the door.
“Hey.”
He leaned his head against the headrest and stared ahead of him. “Hey.”
Silence. If she wanted him to leave, he would. Actually, if she had stalked into the house without even acknowledging him, he wouldn’t have blamed her.
“I brought dinner.”
He turned his head in surprise. Devi touched the top of the brown bag in her lap and Jace realized the scent of spice in the air wasn’t Devi’s alone. He brought himself to meet her gaze. The moon shone through the window, creating luminous shadows in her eyes. She looked back at him steadily, no tears or anger or panic, only calm searching.
It took him a while to comprehend she was waiting for a response, so he gave a jerky nod. “Okay.”
She opened the door and stepped out, and he followed suit, not quite sure if he was dreaming. Did she want to tell him to get out of her life over dinner? It seemed odd, to invite him in and then kick him out.
He walked behind her to the door in silence. She bent her head as she struggled to fit the correct key in her lock. Any other night he would have taken advantage of her position and softly kissed his way along the nape of her neck. For once, he couldn’t predict what her reaction would be.
So he trailed after her as she made her way to the kitchen and unpacked the Styrofoam containers. She put the rice and chicken curry on a large plate with fluid movements. He leaned against the doorframe and watched her for a moment, and then found his customary forthrightness. “Do you want me to leave?”
She didn’t look at him, but stuck the plate in the microwave and pressed some buttons. “Why would I have invited you in?”
He shrugged. She walked to the fridge and withdrew two bottles of his favorite brand of beer. Jace had been touched when she had noticed what he liked to drink, but now only felt miserable when he realized half a pack still sat on the top shelf. Devi didn’t normally drink beer, so she’d probably just toss it.
She twisted off both tops and handed one to him, taking a healthy gulp of the other. She finally met his eyes. “Where’s Marcus?”
“He has an HOA audit tonight. He’ll be late.”
Devi nodded. She’d already heard Marcus gripe about the annual home owner’s association audits that were required by law, and the fact that they could extend into the early hours of the morning if the boards weren’t cooperative enough.
The silence stretched until Jace couldn’t take it anymore. “Please forgive me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jace blinked. They had spoken at once. “What?”
“What do you have to be sorry about? I’m the one who acted like a bitch.”
To his horror, tears filled her eyes. Worry over his reception forgotten, he crossed the kitchen and gathered her in his arms, running a hand over the delicate length of her spine. “You’re never a bitch. I’m sorry I pushed. It’s not your fault that I had different expectations I never shared.”
She sniffed into his shirt and rubbed her face back and forth, and, at that moment, he couldn’t think of any better use for the two hundred dollar garment than as her handkerchief. “I do wish you would have said something.”
“I didn’t want to scare you. I knew I was asking a lot.”
“It was never about just sex with you, was it?”
He shook his head, and then realized she couldn’t see. “No.”
“Why me?”
He paused. She didn’t sound tortured, only confused. He chose his words with care. “Because the first time I saw you, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. Like we were the only people in the room. I’ve never even had a physical connection like that to anyone. I would watch you smile and I felt like the sun was coming out. And now that I know you… Are you crying again?”
She buried her face deeper in his shirt. “You’re so sweet. Why didn’t you just ask me out?”
With a shaky hand, he smoothed her hair down. Here it got twisted. “Because I didn’t just want you for me. It’s one thing to have sex with a woman by myself, but I can’t have an emotional connection with a woman who doesn’t feel the same way toward Marcus. I wanted you for both of us. I knew Marcus would feel the same
way I felt, though he’d be hard to convince. I figured if you were meant for us, the sex would draw you in. And in the meantime, I could buy us some time to work on the rest of it.”
She raised her head, her lashes wet with tears. “Congratulations. I have feelings for both of you. Do you have any idea how difficult such a relationship would be? Do you know how tough it would be for my family to accept this? I’m not a person who can hide things easily.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
Her tone was plaintive. “Why does it have to be both of you?”
He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “It’s a long story. And it’s not all mine to tell.”
“I think I have the right.”
If anyone did, it was her. How could he ask her for blind trust in something so unconventional and wacky without at least trying to explain their reasons? He nodded slowly and let go of her. He couldn’t touch her right now, and he turned his back so he wouldn’t have to see her. He crossed to the large picture window and looked out at the postage-stamp yard outside.
“Our parents died when we were thirteen. A freak car accident. Their tire blew, and they ran into a semi.”
“My God. You didn’t tell me how they died. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. That would have been bad enough, but unfortunately, they had also left us a pretty large estate.” He laughed mirthlessly. “They were great parents, but not very forward-thinking. They hadn’t bothered to appoint guardianship to anyone. So both sides of the family went to war.” His tone softened. “Our father’s brother, our uncle, is wonderful. He didn’t care about the money, he was just devastated about my dad dying. We still talk to him. He did his best, but when it came right down to it, he didn’t have the money our mom’s family did. Her sister and her husband took us in.” Even today, Jace couldn’t bring himself to call them his aunt and uncle. He stopped, lost in his memories, until Devi’s hand stroked along his back. He allowed it for a minute before he twisted away, unable to bear her touch while he told the rest.
“I’m smaller than Marcus.”
“Not from my point of view.”
A smile lightened his gloom a bit. “Not like that. Sometimes when a woman’s carrying multiples, there’s a dominant twin, one who’s bigger or healthier. We were born premature, but Marcus was almost a pound larger. He was in the regular nursery, I was in the NICU in an incubator.
“Even now, I’m a bit shorter and leaner than him, though I worked out like a maniac in college to fill out to the size I’m at. You wouldn’t have even realized we were identical when we were kids. I was a runt, scrawny and all legs and arms.”
“I bet you were adorable.”
“Maybe to my mother. Other kids loved to pick on me. Marcus fought more than one fight for me, and after a while, they left me alone. He was larger than most of the other kids by then.
“So when we were taken in by my mom’s sister, Marcus was already used to fighting my battles. It didn’t take us long to figure out our dear old uncle was a sadistic bastard and our aunt a cheap whore with the maternal instincts of a barracuda. They both told us we were worthless so many times I lost count. They dreamed up ways to punish us for the slightest infraction. Once I got my wrist broken because I left a wet towel on the floor. I’m pretty sure he took up smoking just so he could put the things out on our arms and legs. There was nothing he loved more than whipping the snot out of us. No, that’s not right. There were a couple of other things he loved more.” His lips tightened, and he looked in the window, at the double reflection there. “Shall I keep going, or do you want to tell the rest?”
“You have no right.”
Jace turned around and faced his brother, standing ashen-faced and trembling within the doorway. “She deserves to know.”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
Jace kept his eyes locked on Marcus’s. “When our uncle realized how protective Marcus was of me, he decided to use it against us. He told Marcus if he cooperated, he’d leave me alone until we were old enough to leave.
“We’d tried to tell people about the abuse, but the bastards were so good, everyone thought it was just grief over our parents talking. So, of course Marcus felt like he had no choice.”
“Shut up.”
“So he let the son of a bitch molest him.”
Devi’s soft cry of anguish rang out in the room, silent but for his measured words. “We never talked about it, because I couldn’t protect him, so what was the point?” Jace’s voice broke on the last word. “He did that, and I knew he did it for me, so the bastard wouldn’t touch me.
“I knew it screwed him up. He didn’t date anyone, didn’t even try for sex. Then during our senior year of college, I brought home this crazy girl who had a fantasy of doing it with twins. And for that little bit of time, it was like everything was back to normal.”
“Asshole.” The growl left Marcus’s mouth a split second before he launched himself across the room. Jace took the first punch as his due, the split lip as his penance, but ducked for the second.
The anger that rose with the uppercut to his jaw had its grounds in years of frustration, in a fate that had been needlessly cruel to two little boys. With a roar of his own, he shoved his shoulder into his brother’s chest, knocking them both toward the counter. He heard a distant crash and Devi’s distressed cry, but nothing could stop the two of them from pounding their aggression out on each other.
They were well matched, had been almost the same size for some time now, and though Marcus still had bulkier muscles, Jace’s lean frame allowed him to move faster. Jace managed to get a good shot at Marcus’s right eye, which snapped his head around and had him teetering back. At the last second, Marcus snaked a leg through his and twisted so he landed on top of him.
Jace was bracing himself for a nasty blow when he felt a sharp stream of cold water hit his face.
“What the fuck?” Marcus reared back.
With water dripping across both of their faces, they turned toward Devi, who stood holding the extendable hose from the sink. She tightened her finger on the trigger in clear warning. “The next one to raise a hand in my kitchen is getting a bath.”
~ * ~
“Moron.”
“Asswipe.”
“You’re both idiots,” Devi snapped over Jace’s and Marcus’s mutters. She slapped a steak—a prime cut, intended for a nice dinner, damn it—over Marcus’s eye and tried not to soften over his visible wince. She nurtured the irritation she felt over the two of them brawling in her kitchen as if it was a saloon in some back alley.
Because if she wasn’t mad, she’d probably just sit down and cry.
She’d known there must be some sort of dark secret in their past—neither of them were forthcoming over their younger years, even though Jace had no trouble opening up about anything else in their lives.
She didn’t pity them, since they were two strong men who wouldn’t want her pity. She did ache for the young orphans they had been, abused by the people who should have protected them. She hurt to think of Marcus, so strong and arrogant, being at anyone’s mercy, and Jace, so loving and protective, left helpless.
It explained a lot. Jace’s machinations, Marcus’s wariness and aggression. Even their sharing, which went way beyond a cheap sexual thrill into a necessity. They needed the connection the ménage brought to them. If Devi was a psychiatrist, she would probably have a field day with it.
She wasn’t a psychiatrist, though, just a woman who cared deeply for both of them, already on the road to loving them.
Devi leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, studying the two of them as they sat sullen at her little breakfast table. “Have you two ever tried counseling?”
“Hell no.”
Jace only snorted, though he was careful not to dislodge the pack of peas he held to his split lip. Another cut lay near his eye, and Devi was sure there were probably a few more bruises under his clothes. Marcus hadn’t fared much b
etter—his black eye was already swelling, and a blue shadow tinged his jaw. Devi had always thought seeing two men fight would be rather thrilling, but she could do without it when she wasn’t quite sure which one to cheer for.
“I’m still not clear on why you needed to open your fat mouth,” Marcus grumbled. “Why was today so special? We were doing okay without having a big share fest.”
“Because I needed Devi to understand that she wasn’t just some cheap ass for us, that the novelty wouldn’t wear off and we’d walk away. I told Devi I plotted to have her fall in love with both of us,” Jace admitted.
“I knew it. I knew all along you were crazy over her. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Fuck you. You could have left at any time. You wanted to be with her as much as I did, but I’m man enough to admit it.”
Marcus slapped the steak on the table and glared at his brother. “Why don’t we go outside and figure out who’s more of a man.”
“Stop it, this instant.” Devi came to stand between them. “I have a hose outside too.”
The two of them barely listened to her, their gazes locked on each other. “That’s your problem,” Jace sneered. “Always trying to settle things with your fists. It’s not that easy. I want this. I want a semi-normal life. I want a woman to come home to, someone to share my life with.”
“I never stopped you from having any of that.”
“There is no way I can have any of it, unless I know you’re getting it too. You think I haven’t tried to go out with a woman by myself, to build a life separate from you? You think I don’t know about those women you’ve taken to cheap hotel rooms somewhere so you can try to do the same thing?” Jace shook his head. “It’s not possible for us. When I saw Devi, I fell head over heels for her, and I knew you would too. I prayed she’d be able to accept both of us, and I am not going to let your self-destructive tendencies screw this up for us.”