by Mia Ashlinn
Everything froze. And the world quit spinning. Standing in the doorway, Shane felt poleaxed and pissed the fuck off. This woman was pretty goddamn brazen to darken his doorway and throw around accusations about Katie-Anne. Surely she didn’t think he would believe her.
“You know I made excuses for you,” Shane snapped. “I told everyone that you were misunderstood, and I took bullshit for dating you. But everyone is right. You are a deceitful, lying bitch.”
Leila’s face mottled, the blood-red color doing nothing for the complexion of the malicious woman. “Yeah, well. It takes one to know one,” she retorted. “And your wife is a deceitful, lying bitch. If you don’t believe me then take a look at these. That will change your fucking mind. Better yet, why don’t you swing by Lou’s for dessert. That’s where she is—with Rafe. When you get a damn clue, give me a call. I can always use a good screw and some shiny, new jewelry.”
Tossing a handful of photographs in the air, Leila whirled around and stormed away, leaving her bad attitude and expensive perfume behind her.
Not watching Leila leave, Shane bent down to pick up the pictures that had just rained down around him. Immediately, his eyes were drawn to one particular photograph, and he picked it up.
It was a picture of Katie-Anne and Rafe going into The Edge together. They’d been lovers, and Rafe had been her Dom. She’d lied to him and Landon.
Fuck. I’m going to spank her ass after I kick his.
“Landon,” he barked. “Get in here. We need to talk.”
Stomping into the foyer, Landon growled, “What?”
“You need to see these,” Shane said. Picking up every picture, he shuffled through the incriminating images of his wife in intimate clenches with Rafe. Then he silently handed them off to his highly-aroused, nude husband.
As soon as Landon saw the first picture, he groaned. “Oh God.” Flipping through the rest rapidly, he spun on his heel and marched toward the living room then barreled through the doorway and disappeared inside.
Grabbing his jacket off the hook, Shane shrugged it on. He slid his feet into his boots and snatched up his keys. A minute later Landon returned fully clothed, and he appeared ready for battle, too. “Let’s go,” Landon growled. “We have to have a little chat with our wife.”
You chat with her. I’ll chat with Rafe. My fist and foot will fucking love that.
Shane nodded. “I know just where to find her.”
* * * *
Stretching in the booth at Lou’s Café, Katie-Anne yawned. It had been a long day, and she was ready to go home to her men. It had been nearly an hour since her friends had all left, going their separate ways and leaving her alone with Rafe. The crowd around them had dwindled with time and now only a few stragglers remained.
Even Leila had slipped out. Thank God. Katie-Anne had been rather shocked that her arch nemesis had left without some sort of dramatic scene, especially considering she’d been in earshot when Katie-Anne announced her pregnancy. But she had left quietly. Other than a few snide remarks when she walked by, she’d been on good behavior. I should probably be shaking in my sneakers.
Katie-Anne yawned again, her exhaustion taking hold of her and refusing to release her. God, I want to go home. If it weren’t for the fact that she had to finish discussing her first international exhibit with Rafe, she would hightail it home. But she had to get this over with before Rafe left town. Since he rarely stayed around any area for long, she knew he would be gone like the wind in the next few days.
With her trying to break into the international market, she needed all the help she could get from Rafe. This man was the be-all and end-all when it came to the art world. And he was her staunchest supporter. She would be a fool to not work with him as much as possible. If only my mind weren’t in bed at home cuddled between two hot bodies.
“You look tired, mia tesoro,” Rafe said, his Italian accent sounding stronger than normal. Sliding from his side of the booth, he joined her on her side. “Let me—”
Before Rafe could say whatever he had planned to say, a sudden fist to his face stopped him short. His head snapped back, and he groaned.
With a gasp, Katie-Anne whipped her head to the side and found her two husbands breathing fire—one at her and one at Rafe. Next time I will keep my seat facing the fucking door.
“What the hell,” she demanded. “Have you lost your minds?”
Landon growled, “Get up,” at Katie-Anne. “We need to speak with you alone.”
“No,” she clipped out. “I’m busy, and you are embarrassing me.”
“This is not me embarrassing you,” Landon countered furiously, the scowl on his nearly purple face deepening further, “but I can if you want me to, kitten.”
“And you can get over whatever the fuck is wrong with you,” Katie-Anne snapped, “and he”—she pointed at Shane—“can stop with all this macho crap.”
Rubbing his jaw, Rafe murmured, “I’m all for that, mia tesoro.”
Both her husbands’ faces darkened dangerously. A second later, Rafe received another fist to the face. This time the hit came from Landon who growled, “You don’t call my woman that. I know what you are saying—my treasure,” he spat. “Go find another fucking treasure.”
Rafe glanced at her, an annoyed expression on his face. “Are they always like this?”
Thank God, he isn’t pissed at me or my boneheaded, Neanderthal husbands. Otherwise, we would have fight of dominance in the middle of Lou’s.
“Not usually,” she replied as she eyed her confounding husbands, “But sometime, they are. Although, right now, I think they have lost their minds.” She glanced at Rafe, frowning. “Don’t worry, I will help them find them later.”
“You do that,” Rafe muttered. Easing out of the booth, he turned to walk away. But before he actually left, he pivoted until he faced Katie-Anne again. With a mischievous grin and a salacious wink, he poked the fire. “Now I wish I would have fucked you. That way I would have earned both of those punches.”
Shane growled.
Landon grumbled barely audible threats under his breath.
Oh my fucking God. It’s time for me to run. Katie-Anne slid out of the booth. And, just like Rafe, she went to leave then thought better of it. She owed her men a little hell for this possessive scene before she went anywhere. Blowing Rafe an audacious kiss, she murmured with a purr, “I’ll call you later, Rafe. We still have things to...do.”
Then, with that final parting shot, she was gone.
* * * *
Watching his wife disappear out the door of Lou’s Cafe with Rafe not far behind, Landon cursed. “Son of a motherfucking bitch. What the fuck just happened?”
“I don’t know,” Shane replied, “but I’m going to find out.” He whirled around and stalked out the door.
Instead of immediately following behind, Landon had to pay the bill that his wife and Rafe had stuck them with. Reading over it, he discovered that she’d ordered a milkshake while Rafe had gotten a coffee. Not exactly the things I would order for a romantic, pre-sex dinner.
Shaking his head, he realized that they might have overracted. But what man wouldn’t? The pictures had been damning, and he’d lost it. His wife in various embraces with Rafe had been conspicuous enough, but those could probably be explained. However, the one of her entering a private room at The Edge with her friend was not, especially considering she claimed that she had never been with a Dom. Landon knew that man was a Dom. It was written all over him, and he didn’t like that his wife obviously had a close relationship with the Dom.
As soon as they’d entered the cafe, Landon could see the relaxed intimacy around the two people. And it was too much for his normally rational side. Now he had a pissed off wife and an irate husband to deal with. I’m fucked.
Waving to Nikki, Landon headed out. He hurried over to the already running Land Rover. Hopping in, he said, “Let’s get this over with.”
Rotating his head, Shane glowered. “You talk as thou
gh we’ve done something wrong.”
Duh. “We just walked into a restaurant and punched a guy in the face without saying a word or asking a question. I have a feeling that will not go over well with Katie-Anne.”
“You think it’s okay that she has been with that Italian Lothario?” Shane inquired as he put his SUV in gear and sped out of the parking lot with a noisy squeal of his tires. “Our wife went to The Edge with him. Not us. Doesn’t that bother the hell out of you?”
“Sure it does,” Landon replied, attempting to sound calm but failing when he couldn’t utter the words without grinding his teeth together. “I just think we should have asked questions before we attacked Rafe.”
Taking his eyes off the road, Shane frowned. “I don’t ask questions. I take action.”
“Yeah, well, you need to get over that now that you’re married.”
Shane turned back to the road. Taking one hand off the wheel, he rubbed his face. “I guess we fucked up.”
No shit.
“What are we going to do?” Shane asked. “She is going to kill us.”
“No, she won’t, but she might give us hell.”
“I can take that,” Shane muttered as he dropped his hand back to the wheel, “as long as I overreacted, and she didn’t fuck that douchebag.”
Landon shook his head. Their husband had a possessive streak and a short fuse. This might lead to a lot of trouble in their future. But Landon figured it was worth it. Besides, make-up sex was dynamite. And he was about to get it. One way or another, he was going to battle it out with his wife then get in her sexy pants and make it up to her.
* * * *
Katie-Anne marched into the apartment she shared with her husbands. Bending down, she removed her sneakers and flung them aside, not giving a fuck where they went or what they bumped into. A crash followed her careless actions. Rather than caring, she threw her purse on the table and stomped down the hallway then up the stairs.
As she walked inside into their master bedroom, she was already tearing at her clothes, removing them quickly and dropping them helter-skelter on the floor. Climbing into the bed in her birthday suit, she muttered profanity at her husbands’ stupidity.
She had no clue what the fuck was wrong with them, but she figured it had to be something stupid, something that they would get over—eventually. Since they had punched Rafe, it had to be some jealous bullshit and, for some strange reason, she had a feeling that Leila had something to do with it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left the cafe so easily and without some sort of trouble.
Unsure of what had gotten Shane and Landon up in arms, she lay back and waited for her husbands to return home, plotting their demise in her head. But she wasn’t there long before a wicked idea formed.
Jumping up, she headed for her secret stash of erotic goodies and started to sort through the stuff. When she found what she wanted, she set the stage for her little show then she ran downstairs to retrieve a few more things. Once she lugged it all to the bedroom and placed it in all the right places, she returned to bed to wait.
Propping herself up, she situated the blankets to hide her nude body. Might as well make them sweat before delivering the goods.
A full ten minutes later, she heard the door being flung open and banging into the wall then the thump of boots storming down the hallway and up the stairs. Within the blink of an eye, both of her frowning husbands stood in the doorway.
Surprisingly, Katie-Anne felt a pang of sympathy for her men. However, she quickly extinguished it. They were in the wrong, not her.
Speaking first, Landon headed for the chair in the sitting area. “I’m sorry.” Whoa baby. That was not what she’d expected. She had figured that they would come in and raise hell, ranting and raving at her. Then she would have put them in their place and fucked their stupid brains out. But, no, Landon had to take the wind out of her sails.
“You’re sorry?” she demanded. “You’re fucking sorry? You two made asses out of yourselves and a laughingstock out of me. I want an explanation. Now.”
Shane grunted. Entering the room fully, he started undressing himself quietly. When he was down to only his jeans, he folded the items he’d removed and put them in a stack on the dresser. Stupid dominant men. They just had to go and be calm, cool, and collected in the bedroom. If he thought he was going to be in control tonight, he had another thing coming. She would make him pay with her body. Her dirty plans filled with torture would make sure of it.
“What is going on?” she asked again. “Why did you guys flip a nut?”
Dropping down on the edge of the bed, Shane said, “Leila dropped by earlier. She had some pictures of you with Rafe, and I just lost my mind.”
I was right. “Oh,” she said. “You were jealous. Were you?”
“Yes. We were jealous and possessive,” Shane admitted, his face coloring slightly. “When I saw the picture of you and Rafe going into one of the private rooms in the Dungeon at The Edge, I—”
Oh shit. Everything fell into place, every piece of the puzzle fit. They thought that she’d fucked Rafe. Not only that, they believed he had been her Dom. And, even better, they thought she’d been on a date with him tonight.
I probably should have mentioned that I was going to meet Rafe for a milkshake while we chatted about my upcoming show. Hell, I probably should have come clean about our whole relationship. But I didn’t think it was all that important.
“The pictures of you two in embraces didn’t help,” Landon commented as he got to his feet and joined them on the other side of the bed. With one man on each side, Katie-Anne’s traitorous body heated up. Even in the midst of a turbulent disagreement, they could turn her body inside out with theirs. “And the kisses were icing on the cake.”
“He’s fucking Italian,” Katie-Anne retorted. “He kisses and hugs everyone—men, women, young, old. He doesn’t discriminate.”
“I saw the way he looked at you,” Shane said defensively.
“And I saw the intimacy between you,” Landon added.
Katie-Anne snorted. “I love him to death—”
Two possessive growls came from her husbands’ alluring lips, and her cunt responded enthusiastically, craving the feel of their dominant streak claiming and possessing her. I’m a sick bitch.
Reminding herself of their testosterone-fueled actions, she pulled her anger around her and pushed aside her lust. “Let me finish,” she snapped. “I love him to death, but I have never had a sexual relationship with him. And I never would—even if the three of us weren’t committed to each other.”
“Why not?” Landon asked curiously. “You two are obviously close to each other.”
Shane scowled at Landon. “I don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
“Too damn bad,” Landon shot back. “I do.”
“Don’t,” Shane snapped. “I have a paddle with your name on it, Landon Tolliver.”
“I have an ass with your name on it, Shane Jacobs,” Landon retorted, “anytime, anywhere.”
Shaking her head, Katie-Anne explained, “Rafe and I don’t want to lose our friendship. With our love ‘em and leave ‘em attitudes, we would have destroyed a professional relationship and a friendship in one sweep. A good fuck isn’t worth that. I need him to be there for me, and he needed me too. He has a past that people don’t know about, but he told me about it like I told him about mine.”
Katie-Anne saw that her men didn’t like that she’d told Rafe and not them. Yet she couldn’t feel sorry for them. Before now, the time hadn’t been right, and she wouldn’t have told them for that reason alone. Since she needed to share the story with someone, it made the most sense to do it with a person who wasn’t in the midst of the clusterfuck.
Landon nodded. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Katie-Anne retorted.
Landon chuckled. “There’s my feisty kitten.”
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, his honest apology catch
ing her off guard. “I should have trusted you. I should have talked to you. I can’t promise that it won’t happen again, but I can promise to try.”
Aww. Her stubborn husband was apologizing. She had a feeling that didn’t happen often. So, even though she wanted to continue to chew their hot asses out, she let it go. They were obviously sorry, and she didn’t want to fight them anymore. Besides, she still needed to get on her torture wagon.
“All right,” Katie-Anne conceded. “I accept your apologies. I probably should have explained all of this to you before now.”
Both her husbands nodded but didn’t say a word.
Smart men. “But now I think you owe me a little repayment for embarrassing me, and hurting my friend.”
Yet again, they nodded but remained quiet. Really smart men. I think I like them this way—at least, I do on occasion.
“Well, I have been thinking that the best way for you both to remedy your...shall we say, transgressions is by sexual payment.”
“I like the way you think,” Landon said with a salacious grin. “Makeup sex is fucking hot.”
I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion just yet. However, she didn’t say that. It wouldn’t help her to lay her cards out before she had a chance to do the things she planned.
“You bet it will,” she replied, “for me.”
Shane cursed, “Motherfucker. What are you up to?”
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”
Chapter 31
With a sly smile, Katie-Anne flipped the bulky bedspread off her body and revealed her naked self to Shane and Landon. Her already suspicious husbands became flummoxed as they caught sight of her sprawled provocatively on the luxurious sheets.