“Boy, you’re grumpy,” Killian groused, completely ducking her question. Apparently, he wanted to drag this out because he actually managed to look a little injured. “Didn’t you like your party?”
Between the lack of her friends and the drama of the sheriff’s visit, her honest answer was no. Rachel kept that response to herself, recognizing she held the greater sin and shouldn’t be picking any fights. “It was lovely.”
“Don’t be falling all over yourself to thank us or anything.”
Rachel sighed, figuring she should at least attempt to play along with a little more grace. With a smile, she stepped down off the sidewalk to stretch up and give him a kiss on his cheek. “I’m sorry, Killian. It was lovely.”
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pinned her there. The possessive gesture sent a thrill through her, winding up her heartbeat as she wondered if she might have stepped into a trap. Maybe there was promise for this night after all.
“And your gift?” Killian prodded, shamelessly looking for another compliment.
“You know I love it,” Rachel assured him as she settled her cheek against his chest. He was warm and hard, his scent filling her with a strange mixture of comfort and excitement. She would miss this when he was gone, just being held and feeling like nothing could hurt her here.
Like the calm before the storm, the tenderness in his hug only made her anticipate the coming break all the more. There would be a break because she’d put up with three straight weeks of vanilla sex. For as great as it all had been, this was her birthday, and they were having a fling. A fling was almost contractually obligated to deliver something sweaty, hot, and completely incapable of being discussed in front anybody ever.
“I got a lot of great gifts this year.” It was wrong to be taunting him like that when she should be avoiding the subject of gifts all together, but Rachel couldn’t help herself. “Your mom gave me a really cool cookbook. I can’t wait to experiment on you and Adam.”
“Is that right?”
“And you should have seen the jigsaw puzzle Hailey gave me.” It was a pointed reminder of who hadn’t been at the party. She might as well get her digs in now. If worse came to worse, she’d need a little ammunition to distract them with. “It’s got over five thousand pieces.”
“As long as it doesn’t have any naked men on it, we’re good,” Killian stated as if he had any say over what kind of puzzles she put together. “Which reminds me, what did Patton give you? Something you’re going to be modeling for me, hopefully.”
Patton Jones designed lingerie, which explained Killian’s hopeful tone. It would have been the obvious choice of a gift, but instead Hailey had passed over a CD with a note that clearly said that Killian and Adam were not to know about the disc. The overly dramatic message had made Rachel snicker at the time because Patton was known for her flair.
She was also known for causing trouble, which made Rachel hesitate. She had enough of that right then. “Just a bottle of perfume.”
“You two ready to go?” Adam saved her from having to keep on with that lie. One thing Rachel knew was, Adam would never bother with lying. He didn’t even bother to hide the aggression brewing in him. From his narrowed glare to his stiff stance all the way to his barked words, Adam looked ready for battle.
Perhaps she should rethink her strategy of antagonizing them into a wild frenzy of fucking. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Rachel forced herself to smile up into Adam’s scowl as he took her hand and pulled her away from Killian and around the truck. With his tight grip assuring she couldn’t escape, he guided her around to the passenger door. The very jerk of his motions warned Rachel that he was riled up enough, perhaps a little too much.
“You know, it really was a lovely party. I don’t remember if I thanked you yet.” Rachel tried to lighten his mood with a smile and a kiss right over the muscle twitching in his cheek. It didn’t work as well on him as it had on Killian.
Past the point of playing any game, Adam answered her with a blunt honesty that told her not to waste her time on any more frivolous conversation. “You don’t really think that’s going to save you, do you?”
“It would help if you told me what has you all growly,” Rachel muttered. It would help because then she could keep her explanations to a minimum, answering only what she needed to. “Then I’d at least know what my lines were supposed to be.”
“In about fifteen minutes they’re supposed to be, ‘oh, please, oh, please, master, I can’t take anymore,’” Adam explained as he held open the door for her.
If he’d meant it as a threat, he failed to scare her. All Adam’s words did was send another delicious thrill racing through her as she tried to smother the response with a grumpy retort. “I got that part. It’s the why I’m going to be begging you that I’m missing.”
She’d hoped to get the conversation started, but apparently Adam wasn’t in the mood to discuss anything right then. “Because I like to hear you beg. Now get in the truck.”
An order given in that tone demanded compliance, and Rachel didn’t rebel. Sliding up into the seat, she felt that special kind of flush spread over her as Adam hefted himself up beside her and sandwiched her between him and Killian.
Surrounded by the warm musk of their scent, Rachel started to feel that undeniable twitch. This was what had been missing for the past three weeks. It wasn’t lost on her that the only other time they’d worked so hard to corner her and intimidate her was the last time she’d so openly defied them. Worse, the only time she felt this soul-deep awakening was when they got rough.
They needed this, all of them, but it could only end in disaster.
Just the way a fling is supposed to.
Chapter 16
Killian revved the truck’s engine as he turned it over. After a series of unnecessary mechanical growls that reminded Rachel of a battle cry, he slowly eased the big vehicle out of its slot. He made her almost laugh because symbolically, that was Killian. He had a big bark but a very sweet bite.
Adam, though, remained mostly a mystery to Rachel. He could be quiet and very tender, or he could be like he was now, a hard, dark shadow infusing the air all around him with a sense of wicked danger. While a woman could guess every move Killian would make, she couldn’t begin to anticipate what Adam planned.
Rachel wanted to have a clue before they actually reached home. That way she could know whether or not she needed to start begging now. A small, panicked voice in her head whispered, “Yes.” It was voted down by a desire to be at Adam’s mercy when he went bad and a soul-deep assurance he’d never truly hurt her.
No reason to freak out, but a definitely time to be cautious.
“We’re not heading home?” Now that was alarming.
“We have to stop by our place and pick up some stuff.” Rachel didn’t have to wonder what Killian meant by stuff, but that didn’t stop him from trying to tease her and torment her at the same time. “Don’t worry about it. We just have a little surprise for you in store.”
“A surprise?” Rachel really had to snicker at that.
Killian ignored the doubt in her tone to continue on smoothly. “Yeah, you know, something that’s supposed to catch you off guard, like the way the sheriff brought up you writing a book. That was a surprise.”
So it begins.
“Yeah, Killian mentioned something about you starting a career as an author.” Adam shifted more into the corner, slanting slightly as his thigh pressed harder into hers. “Seems like a man who has warmed your bed for the past three weeks would know a thing or two about something like that.”
Rachel slouched away from the implied threat in Adam’s dark tone only to bump into Killian’s hard shoulder. Being intimidated from both sides made it hard for her to remember her practiced answers, especially when the idea of lying weighed heavily on her conscience.
“So, why is it we haven’t heard about this book?” Adam pressed. “Are you and the sheriff working on your own
surprise?”
Gratefully, the dirty implication in his words had her bristling. She might be guilty of a lot of things, but not that. “I know what you mean by that, Adam, and you better watch yourself.”
“Is that like watching you hug the man?” Killian’s tone might have been light, but the effort strained his voice.
Rachel could see his knuckles going white and knew his words riled his own temper. Perhaps a sane woman would have tried to make a little peace right then, but not Rachel. Instead, she stiffened up and shot Killian back as an obnoxious a response as his accusation deserved.
“I hugged your mother, too, do you think something’s going on between us?”
Adam didn’t skip a beat as he cut right through her flippant attitude with his own perverse one. “You can hug all the women you want, darlin’. In fact, if that’s the way you want to play, we know some—”
“I bet you do.” Rachel didn’t want to hear the rest of that. “Which just goes to show who should be the jealous bitch in the truck. Instead, I have two dumbass bastards who want to read into something as innocent as a socially polite response to a gift.”
“About that gift, honey.” Killian eased back into the conversation with a slow drawl that about made Rachel snarl. “When were you planning on telling us about your book idea?”
“I wasn’t hiding it.” Irritation and annoyance allowed her to snap that lie at him with full-on indignation. “It’s just an idea I think about now and again. Hell, I didn’t even mean to mention it to Alex, but—”
“Oh, it’s Alex, is it?” Adam growled out from the shadows he’d buried himself in. The darkness cloaked all but the glitter in his eyes, and he looked more predatory beast than man. “That’s awfully familiar.”
Something fired in the distant part of her brain, roaring at her to escape—as in now. It didn’t penetrate the hypnotic state Rachel found herself trapped in as her gaze locked on his. Adrenaline slammed through her, making her heart race and her breath shorten. The intoxicating thrill whipped the arousal burning in her womb into a tidal wave of heat that swamped over her body.
“Which kind of makes a man wonder.” Adam’s words slid smoothly through her trance, rousing her slowly back to reality as he ended them with a sharp bite to his tone. “Just how long have you and the sheriff been sharing things you didn’t mean to?”
Like a cold blast, that accusation had Rachel’s eyes narrowing as she considered who might get hurt if he didn’t stop leveling lewd charges at her. “Don’t even start with that again. I told you once, and I shouldn’t have to tell you again. There isn’t anything going on between me and Alex.”
Adam’s teeth flashed in moonlight as he snarled, but Killian cut in before Adam could form words to go with that sound. “Nothing but a book and I’m still waiting to hear about this project.”
There was nothing more irritating than to be flanked on either side, having to conduct almost two separate arguments. It confused her on all the pat answers she’d tried to memorize. With only bits and fragments coming to mind, she had to shortcut her answers. “The book isn’t anything to know about. I just ran into Konor Dale when leaving the Bread Box. He was sitting with the sheriff, and he introduced us.”
As she started, the lines came back to her, and she even managed to put some attitude behind them as she warmed up to her planned tirade. “I just sat with them for a few minutes, and Konor brought up my recent success and started teasing me about moving off to New York, and I made some sharp comeback about maybe being the next great American author. There really wasn’t anything to it.”
“So it was just you and Konor, is that it?” Adam asked, sounding like he already knew the answer. “The sheriff wasn’t part of anything and he just decided all on his own to show up and give you a list of references to research prostitution? Because that’s either a seriously deranged gift or an awfully intimate one.”
Rachel snorted at his choice of words. “I wouldn’t say a card with some notes in it qualifies as intimate, Adam. Silk panties, see-through robes, hell, even a French maid outfit, that’s intimate.”
“That’s sex,” Adam retorted instantly as if that wasn’t what they were talking about. Apparently, he wasn’t. “Intimacy is trust, knowing things about each other and sharing dreams like becoming an author, so how is it you got so damn intimate with Alex in one accidental meeting?”
That answer threw Rachel because she really had thought he was accusing her of cheating on him. In a way, he was, but Adam didn’t think she and Alex had steamed up the sheets. He thought they’d shared something. Something she’d kept from him, and in a way, she had. Guilt flushed over her features, and she squirmed, not easily finding a response.
Killian saved her from having to look too long. Bumping over the little incline to the wide driveway, they arrived at their destination. Killian and Adam shared a rather large house with four other guys. Strangely enough, it tended to be clean but still very chaotic.
Tonight was no exception, and already three cars were packed in the double-sized drive with two more eating up the left part of the yard. Lights shined from almost every window with a mixture of noise wafting out. It looked like a party, and Rachel didn’t feel like another one. Apparently, Killian and Adam didn’t, either.
Flashing her a wolfish grin, Killian didn’t even bother to turn off the engine before he popped out, assuring he’d be back in a moment. With that, Rachel suddenly found herself alone with a very grim, brooding Adam.
“I’m still waiting on my answer.”
“What’s the question again?” Rachel asked, offering him a smile.
“You want to play?”
Yes, she really did. With a negligent shrug, she wisely moved into the space Killian had vacated. “I don’t have any choice, since you refuse to believe the answers I give you.”
“You haven’t given me any reason to.” That smartass answer made her forget all about who had muscle on his side, and she leaned in close to make sure he heard her clearly. “More importantly, I haven’t given you any reason not to.”
He could have at least appeared a little contrite, but the bastard smirked instead. “I guess we’re going to find out, aren’t we?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The pointed reminder of how precarious her situation was had Rachel shifting back toward the door and freedom. She would have gone running down the street if she had to.
“Well, you could start with giving off a lot less attitude and answering my questions.”
That sounded reasonable, even if he didn’t appear to be. “I guess we could try that.”
“So when did you first meet the sheriff?”
“I told you,” Rachel responded coolly to his interrogation-style tone. “Today.”
He shifted with obvious displeasure. The subtle movement flexed his muscles in a flaunting of how much power he could lend to his cause. “See, I’m having a difficult time with that answer, darlin’. ’Cause it doesn’t seem like you to meet a man in passing who, in the same day, shows up at your birthday party uninvited with a gift.”
“Well,” Rachel wet her lips and swallowed as she tried to keep her tone steady, “as for that, he did have an invitation.”
Still in full cop mode, Adam didn’t even take a second before he punched his hole in her answer. “So you met him and five minutes later invited him?”
“No,” Rachel dragged the word out, buying her the second to find the right way to explain what happened. “Konor brought up the party, and given the sheriff is your boss, I sort of felt obligated to issue an invitation. It’s one of those things where you don’t really expect the person to take you up on it, but…”
Rachel hesitated, hoping Adam would come up with another one of his annoying questions and fill in the void. She really couldn’t explain why the sheriff had showed. At least, not without admitting she knew about what Adam and Killian had done to her. With his current mood, there would be no way Adam wouldn’t accuse her of knowing th
at before she invited the man.
That reminded her that he had a sin or two to be confessed. Now was his opportunity to show her that this was something other than a fling. Adam could make this even, make this a chance to honestly talk some stuff through, but instead, he brooded silently in the shadows.
Sighing, Rachel wondered why she even gave him the chance. “If you don’t believe me, ask the sheriff.”
That got a strange smile from him. “And this book? How long has that silent idea been floating around in your head?”
“Only since lunch. Kitty and I were joking around, and she brought up the possibility because, you know, she works in a library. It just stuck in my head and was on my mind when I ran into Alex.” Because he annoyed her with that little smirk, Rachel irked him back with the use of the sheriff’s first name. It worked, flattening out the small, smug gesture.
“Is that right?” Finally, Adam straightened up, shifting out of the darkness to bring his heat and hardness pressing in close as he began to force her back against the door. “So, you’re thinking about taking your writing in a new direction and what pops into mind? Prostitution. You want to explain how that one works, darlin’?”
“I don’t think I have to.” Cornered but not defeated, Rachel lifted her chin and held her ground. “And I’d really like to hear what it is you think I’m guilty of.”
“That’s the problem.” This time, Adam’s smile had a certain sadness to it as his gaze softened over her features. “I really don’t know.”
He might be a little jealous and somewhat paranoid, but Adam wasn’t wrong. Silly as it might be, Rachel didn’t want him to worry over it. Things would turn out the way they were supposed to. Fighting it would only ruin the time they had.
Lifting a hand to cup the hard length of his jaw, Rachel tried to soothe him. “There really isn’t anything to worry about. Nothing is going on between me and the sheriff, and this book idea is just something I’m flirting with. You know if I ever take it seriously, you’ll be the first to know.”
That seemed to appease him slightly. The arrogant tilt came back to his grin as he reverted into his normal bossy mode. “We’ll help you with the book, but I’m not sure this prostitution idea is going to work out.”
Penn, Jenny - Rachel's Seduction [Cattleman's Club] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 18