Loving Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Julie Shelton

  And dribbled over all of it was a thick, red, viscous fluid. A fluid that could only be one thing, because Sarah’s once-elegant bedroom smelled like a charnel house, reeking of death and decay.

  Blood.

  It was everywhere, foul and obscene, covering every surface. It dripped down the walls, puddled on the bed, stuck feathers together in sticky, matted clumps. It had been put to repellent use as paint to write in big block letters an obscene message on the wall behind her bed. Excess blood dribbled down from each stroke.

  I’M COMING FOR YOU, BITCH. AND YOU’RE GOING TO PAY.

  Shit! And she had seen this! All because she had disobeyed his direct order.

  Fingers tightening around the nape of her neck, he yanked her head back far enough to look in her eyes. “When I give you an order, I expect you to follow it,” he said, his voice hard and angry from the terror that still consumed him. “How can I protect you if you don’t do what I tell you? Christ, Sarah, what were you thinkin’? I told you to wait for me downstairs. What if the perp had still been up here, lyin’ in wait for you?” He swallowed hard, slamming a lid on the sudden vision of her lying dead in the middle of her ruined bedroom. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. “You will have to be punished for this,” he promised darkly, “but not right now. I’m way too angry and I don’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.” Before she could say a word, his phone beeped and he fumbled it out of his pocket. “ETA?” he barked.

  “I’m here.”

  “Upstairs. Bring your bag.” Seconds later, running footsteps pounded along the downstairs hallway and up the steps.

  The minute Adam reached the upper landing, he dropped a black duffle bag on the floor and went down on one knee, gently easing Sarah from Jesse’s arms and turning her toward him.

  Damn! He’d rescued soldiers wounded in battle, as well as hostages who’d been raped, drugged, beaten, and tortured. They’d all had one thing in common—the haunted, almost vacant look in their eyes. The same look he was now seeing in Sarah’s eyes.

  Her features were pinched, tight with distress, her skin gray and bruised-looking. Pain and confusion darkened her turquoise eyes. Without a word, he scooped her up in his arms and looked at Jesse, who handed him his bag. “I’m taking her into the parlor. Go look for some blankets.”

  Adam carried Sarah downstairs and laid her gently on one of the parlor’s overstuffed brocade sofas. He turned on a lamp. Jesus, she is so white! Fucking rice isn’t this white! Swiftly he opened his bag and withdrew a stethoscope and an automatic blood pressure cuff, slipping the latter around her arm. Her eyelids fluttered. “No, no, don’t go to sleep, sweetheart. Stay with me, okay? Sarah? Sarah!” Shit. She’d fainted. Shit. No wonder. Her pulse was thready and her BP was only fifty-five over forty.

  He thumbed one of her eyes open, then the other, noting the sluggish response of her pupils to the penlight he strobed across them.

  “How is she?” Jesse ran into the room, carrying two blankets. Thrusting one of them at Adam, he stared down at Sarah’s inert body. “Jesus, Adam, what happened?”

  “Nothing, she just fainted. She’ll come around in a few minutes.”

  Jesse took a deep, shaky breath, watching Adam shake out the blanket and wrap it around her. It was a wonder he hadn’t fainted. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer. Fuck, his hands were shaking. He could barely control his anxiety. He was a soldier, a commando, a SEAL for fuck’s sake. Trained and retrained never to lose his cool, even under the most adverse conditions. Because losing your cool meant losing your life. And yet, here he was, barely able to hold himself together.

  “Jess, if you don’t get a grip, I’m going to have two patients. What in God’s name happened here?”

  Jesse told him as he swaddled her in the second blanket, tossing cushions from the sofa onto the floor so he could lay her out with her head flat at one end and her feet elevated in Adam’s lap at the other end. Her eyes blinked open and Adam nearly fainted himself with relief. “Hey, sweet pea, welcome back. Hold still for me, okay?” This time her pupils were more responsive to the light. “How do you feel?”

  Adam’s voice came swimming toward her through the fog that wrapped around her as firmly as the blankets. “How do I feel?” She cocked her head in mock consideration. “Well, gee, let me see. My house has been vandalized, my bedroom destroyed, and somebody wants me dead,” she said testily. “How do you think I feel?”

  She was shivering so hard her teeth were chattering. “Why am I lying here trussed up like a mummy?” she demanded, struggling to sit up and free her arms. “I don’t have time for this. I need to find some clothes! I have to be in court first thing in the morning!”

  “Lie still,” Adam commanded and she quieted instantly. He looked at her, concealing his pleasure at her instinctively submissive response to his command. She was way too pale for his liking, and, in spite of the cool interior of the house, sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip. She was breathing in short, shallow pants.

  She craned her neck to look up at Jesse, who was watching their byplay with interest. “Jesse, I don’t have any clothes to wear to court tomorrow. I don’t have any clothes to wear anywhere tomorrow!”

  “I know, baby, I know. We’ll just have to go shoppin’.”

  She gave him a blank stare. “Shopping?” she repeated stupidly. God, what was wrong with her brain? Why couldn’t she focus? Why did she feel like she was walking through porridge? “But—it’s Sunday night. Aren’t all the stores closed?”

  Jesse and Adam exchanged glances. “Don’t worry, Sarah,” Adam said soothingly. “We’ll think of something.”

  Her stare returned to him. “Why am I lying here trussed up like a mummy?” she asked again.

  “You’re suffering a severe case of shock, sweet pea.”

  “And you know this because—oh, right, I forgot. You were a Cub Scout.”

  His lips quirked. “I was also a SEAL. All SEALs receive intensive emergency battlefield medical training.”

  Oh.

  “And I am currently an EMT/Paramedic, licensed in both Virginia and California.”

  Oh.

  “But if it makes you feel any better, my very first Cub Scout badge was in first aid.”

  “You’re right,” she said dryly. “That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

  “It should. I had a critically injured teddy bear who, I’m proud to say, made a complete recovery.” He grinned as he once again turned on the BP monitor. “Don’t worry, sweet pea. We’ll take care of you. We’ll take care of everything.”

  We? she thought dazedly. As in…we? Already with the we? Boy, that was fast.

  Her life was officially out of control.

  “Dirty clothes!” She shot upright only to be immediately pushed back down by two strong hands, each belonging to a different man, both of whom were eyeing her as if she’d suddenly lost her mind. “In the laundry room. Dirty clothes. Oh.” Her face fell. “It’s just jeans and tops and some underwear. Certainly nothing suitable for court. Especially not Judge Walters’ court.”

  “I’m afraid Judge Walters is just going to have to understand,” Adam said mildly.

  “He’s not exactly the understanding sort.”

  All three heads turned at a sudden commotion out in the foyer.

  “CSU,” Jesse said.

  “Go.” Adam waved him away, pressing the button to inflate the BP cuff again. As it deflated, hissing like a flattening tire, he gave her a satisfied smile. “One hundred twelve over sixty-four. We’re getting there.” He glanced at her. She was staring at him, worrying her lower lip between her sharp little incisors. “What?”

  “He wants to share me with you,” she said baldly, shocked at her unabashed lack of tact. Oh my God! Had she actually said that out loud? Holy Moley, what on earth had gotten into her? Had she lost all sense of propriety? She lay there in her blanket cocoon too mortified to meet his eyes, feeling her body grow cold, then hot, then cold again.

  Jesus Ch
rist on a cracker! For a long time Adam simply sat in stunned silence, while his brain quietly exploded. Finally he said, as noncommittally as possible, “And how do you feel about that?”

  “I asked you first.” Her belligerent tone was back, but it sounded just a little shaky.

  His reply was immediate. “I would consider it an honor, Sarah. I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to help Jess pleasure you.” He and Jess had shared many women during the last eight years, but never one they had any feelings for. Certainly not one they both loved, for Chrissakes!

  It had been one thing talking about the three of them in a ménage when they’d been pinned down in that cave in the Tora Bora mountains. Jess had been half out of his mind with pain and blood loss while they’d waited for their team to eradicate the Taliban snipers who’d attacked them. Talking about Sarah had seemed to help him focus on something beyond the critical condition and unrelenting pain he was in. Talking about Sarah had literally kept him alive.

  But over the course of those three days and the years of teamwork and close friendship that followed, Adam had fallen in love with her, too, although he’d tried his damnedest not to. No woman could possibly be that perfect, he’d kept telling himself. These feelings couldn’t possibly be real. After all, he’d never even laid eyes on her. Once he met her, he’d assured himself over and over, he would realize that his feelings were merely wishful thinking and he and she would wind up just being friends.

  Hah! What a load of crap that was! He loved this woman to the bottom of his soul. How in God’s name was he going to be able to keep his secret now? The minute he interacted with Sarah in a power exchange, Jess would know instantly how he felt about her. He wouldn’t be able to hide it. Christ, what a mess!

  Sarah knew Adam was looking at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look back. She couldn’t believe she was lying here with her feet in his lap, talking so casually about having sex with him, for God’s sake. High flags of color flew in her cheeks and she was suddenly sweating with the next wave of heat that swept through her. Tears stung her eyes and she pressed her lips together hard. “I’m sorry, Adam. I don’t know what made me say such a thing. It was completely inappropriate.”

  “It isn’t inappropriate, Sarah,” he said, his hard finger beneath her chin lifting her gaze inexorably to his. “Obviously, you’re thinking about it. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head. “No! Oh, God, no. I just want the earth to open up and swallow me into a black hole.” Her feeble attempt at a smile failed miserably.

  “Does it frighten you, Sarah?” he asked gently. “The thought of being taken by two men at the same time? Two men who are both Doms? Who both lo—care for you? Whose sole focus would be to give you the most exquisite pleasure you’ve ever known?”

  “No.” She shook her head again, her whisper barely audible. “It doesn’t frighten me at all. Okay, that’s a lie, it terrifies me. But more than that, it excites me. It’s something I’ve fantasized about for years, but had no hope of ever experiencing.” She paused for a moment, then swallowed hard. “What really frightens me,” she continued softly, “is how badly I want it.” The welling tears finally spilled over and began trickling down the sides of her face. “I’m terrified that once I experience it, I”—she drew in a shuddering breath—“I’ll never want to live without it. So, what does that make me, Adam? I want to have sex with two men! What kind of sleazy whore does that make me?”

  The stricken look on her face ripped at his heart. “God, Sarah, you’re not a whore! How could you even think that?”

  “But I must be,” she insisted. “Otherwise, how could I want two men? How could I betray Jesse like that?”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Swiftly tossing the cushion on the floor, Adam reached for her and pulled her onto his lap, still cocooned in her blankets. “Don’t cry, sweet pea,” he said gently. “There’s nothing to cry about, I promise you.” He knew she could feel the enormous ridge of his cock, hard as a baseball bat—and nearly as big—against her hip, throbbing like an open wound. Jesus! Why is there never a black hole around when you needed it?

  “It’s not betrayal, Sarah. Many Doms share their subs with other Doms. They’re usually close friends who love and trust each other implicitly. It’s a sign of a Dom’s trust and pride in his sub, knowing that she will submit her mind and body to his wishes, no matter what those wishes may be. And it’s a sign of trust in the friend, that he will respect and honor the gift of a willing, dutiful sub. In truly special cases, they live together in a full-time ménage relationship.”

  “Is that what Jesse wants?” she demanded. “Is that what you want?” Because, God help me, it’s definitely what I want.

  He paused, kissed the top of her head. “Jess and I want only what makes you happy.”

  “And if that includes a ménage, then we’ll make it good for you, love, I promise. I will honor and treasure you as if you were my own.” And I’ll do my damnedest not to destroy us all.

  She was silent for a long time as she absorbed what Adam was telling her. Finally she tilted her head back so she could look at him. “Why do I like all this so much?” she asked curiously.

  “Because you are a natural submissive, Sarah. You need what Jess can give you on a level most people simply don’t understand.”

  “That figures. Lord knows I sure don’t understand it.”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry. You will. As time goes on.”

  “And Jesse?”

  “He’s a Dom. He needs to give it to you.”

  “And what about you?” she asked solemnly. “You’re a Dom, too. What do you need?”

  You. Beneath me, crying out my name as you climax. Bound by my ropes, screaming with pleasure as Jess and I bring you to orgasm after orgasm. Unable to answer, he just swallowed hard and shut his eyes.

  She stared at him for a long time before lifting her hand to his cheek. “I—I have feelings for you, Adam,” she confessed softly. “Feelings I don’t understand and don’t know what to do with. What does that make me?”

  With a groan, he turned his face into her palm to place a gentle kiss against her flesh. It makes you the woman I love more than life itself. His face was tight, strained, his jaw muscles working as he struggled to maintain control. Christ, how could I have let this happen? Falling in love with her had seemed so harmless when I’d been on the other side of the world fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban. When I’d lain on barren hilltops, covered in grime and sweat inside my gillie suit, picking off targets so far away they seemed even less real that she did. “It makes you someone so special I can’t even begin to describe it,” was all he could trust himself to say.

  He inflated the BP cuff once again, studying her face carefully. Her color was back, perhaps even a bit high. She was no longer sweating and her eyes were focused. “Okay,” he said. “One hundred seventeen over seventy-eight. Back to normal.”

  Sarah gave him a wry smile. “Considering what we’ve just been talking about, I’m afraid the ship has sailed on ‘normal.’”

  Their laughter was interrupted by the arrival of Jesse, accompanied by a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man. “Sarah, you know Dan Akers. Dan, this is Adam Sinclair, a friend and a fellow SEAL. Adam, Dan Akers, former NYPD. Dan’s gonna be workin’ the case.” Adam pushed her off his lap and stood to shake the detective’s hand, while Sarah merely nodded and said, “Hi, Dan.”

  Dan Akers had testified in several cases Sarah had prosecuted and she’d been impressed with his organizational skills, his strict adherence to proper police procedure, and his ability to articulate the facts quickly and succinctly on the witness stand.

  Probably in his mid-to-late fifties, everything about him, from his rumpled clothes to his receding hairline to his heavily jowled face, was hangdog and world-weary. In over twenty years as a cop, he had witnessed the very worst atrocities human beings could inflict on one another. And yet, here he was, still doing his small part to help put away the bad
guys.

  Jesse bent to give her a brief kiss. “While you’re talkin’ with Dan, I’m just gonna show Adam the crime scene.”

  The crime scene! Holy Moley! Her home was a crime scene, for God’s sake! She felt like her brain was going to explode.

  The gangly detective came all the way into the room, notebook and pen in hand and perched gingerly on a Louis XVI gilt chair, looking decidedly out of place in the very Victorian room. “I’m sorry about your loss, Sarah. I just have a few questions, then I’ll get out of your hair. Have you received any threatening emails or phone calls or messages recently?”

  “You mean other than the one dripping blood down the wall in my bedroom?” she asked sarcastically before shaking her head. “No, nothing. Sorry.”

  “Nothing from former boyfriends or defendants you’ve sent to prison?”

  “No.”

  “What about your current case load?”

  “We only have three criminal cases pending at the moment. Billy Jenkins and his pals for stealing Digger Newton’s pick-up and smashing it into a tree. Ed Reese for training and fighting pit bulls. Harold Sutton for beating up his wife—”

  He looked up from jotting down notes on his pad, genuine surprise etched in the careworn lines of his face. “Whoa. You mean Nora’s actually pressing charges this time?”

  “She didn’t have a choice, really. This time he nearly killed her. You don’t think—could he be the one who—”

  The detective shrugged. “At this point, everyone’s a suspect, including Harold Sutton. Although, this seems a bit out of his league. Ed Reese, now”—he tilted his head, considering—“that’s a real possibility. Dog fighting involves more than just animal cruelty, it’s a magnet for drug traffickers, gambling, the mob—all sorts of scumbags. It’s a big business and growing fast. I’ll look into it. Meantime, after Jesse told me about those two attacks on you years ago, my money’s on Ryder Malone. This attack was extremely personal, Sarah, designed to terrify you. Just the sort of sick shi—er, stuff Malone would pull. After all, he’s had eight years of hard time with nothing better to do than plan ways to get back at you.”