by Marla Monroe
Quinn laughed. “Not much bothers me when I’m writing. Sometimes I wear my headphones and listen to my music that way instead of playing it out loud. I can adjust, honey.”
Diana sighed. They had an answer to all her points. Slowly they were tearing down all her reasons that it couldn’t work.
“Ready to head out?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Both men stood and pulled her to her feet. She let them steer her to the door where they helped her into her coat, scarf, and gloves before she stepped into her boots. Quinn carried her shoes as Kyle led the way out to the truck. She kept one hand on his belt as she picked her way over to the truck.
The ride home was made in silence punctuated by the tension in the air between the three of them. She felt it tingle down her spine to settle in her toes. They said no pressure, but she could pressure herself without their help.
Hours later, Diana put down her e-reader and scrubbed her hands over her face. She couldn’t concentrate on her book. She knew better than to try and write when she was this preoccupied with something. All she had to think about was how much she cared about the two men and what being with them meant.
I need to face it. I love them. I fell for them the first time they took me out. They treat me like a queen and understand my writing. What’s not to love about them?
And that was the problem. She loved them and wanted to see where it could go, but she was scared that it wouldn’t work out and then she would be in love with two men who no longer wanted her. Could she live with that?
* * * *
Quinn sat back with an exasperated feeling settling in his stomach. It felt like little fists squeezing his insides. All he could think about was Diana and what she was thinking about. What if she decided she couldn’t do it? Couldn’t give their relationship a chance. The thought had his mind on overdrive as he tried to write. Realizing that nothing was going to get done that morning, Quinn decided to cook lunch and put a roast on for dinner.
He was surprised to find Kyle lounging in the kitchen with a beer in his hand.
“Kind of early for that,” Quinn quipped as he dug out another beer and popped the top.
“Can’t concentrate. Can’t afford to screw something up,” he said.
“I’m in the same boat. I’ve deleted more of my book than I’ve written so far this morning,” Quinn admitted.
“Have you called her?” Kyle asked.
“Nope. Giving her a little time.”
“Maybe we should call.”
“You think?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said.
Quinn didn’t waste time but pulled out his phone after setting his beer on the counter. He punched in her number and put it on speakerphone.
“Hello.”
“Hey, babe. How are you doing?” Kyle asked.
“Hey, Kyle. I’m okay. What are you guys doing?” she asked.
“Missing you,” Quinn said before Kyle could take over the conversation.
“I miss you guys, too.”
“Can’t write for thinking about you,” Quinn told her.
“Yeah. A lot of that going around I guess,” Diana told them.
“I’m afraid to try and work on my projects in case I mess them up. I can’t concentrate for thinking about you and how you’re feeling about us,” Kyle said.
“We’re not going to get anything accomplished until we settle this, honey,” Quinn said.
He hated putting pressure on her, but they were all suffering. They needed to be able to function, and with the way things had been left, they couldn’t do that. Besides, he missed her. Missed her sweet smile and the scent of her when he was close to her.
Quinn realized in that instant that he loved Diana. She was it for him. He was pretty sure it was the same for Kyle, but the other man hadn’t confided in him. He smiled, feeling good about the realization that he loved their woman.
“We’d like to see you again,” Kyle said what he was thinking.
“I miss you guys, too. It hasn’t been over a day yet,” she said.
“Can you wait another two or three days?” Quinn asked.
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Quinn worried that she’d hung up.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Let us come get you tonight. You can spend the night and go home again in the morning. Then maybe we can all get some work done,” Quinn suggested.
“It’s just stretching this thing between us out,” she said.
“It’s letting us spend more time together to see if we’re really good with things. I know I want you as part of the family,” Quinn said.
“I know, as well,” Kyle said. “It’s just you who has to make a decision.”
“How does spending more time with you help me with that?”
“It lets you know if we’re compatible. If you can handle our weird ways or not.” Kyle said.
“What weird ways?” she asked with what sounded like a smile in her voice.
“You know. I like spending time in my shop till all hours of the night,” Kyle said.
“I tend to listen to my music really loud, but I have headphones if that bothers you,” Quinn said.
“Those aren’t weird things. I tend to write until the early hours of the morning myself,” she said.
“Then there’s that cat of yours,” Kyle said. “I think we have more to think about than you do. We already know what we want.”
Quinn waited, holding his breath to hear her words. He prayed she’d come over and spend more time at their place. He needed to see her again.
I’m gone over her. I want to see her so badly I’m not above begging her to let us come get her or, at the very least, go see her for a few hours.
“I want to see you guys, too. Give me an hour and I’ll drive up there,” she said.
“No way. We’ll come get you. We don’t want you driving on these slippery roads,” Kyle said.
“Most of the snow had melted on the roads, guys. I can drive.”
“Not happening. We’ll be there in an hour, babe.”
Quinn smiled. She was probably a little put out at that, but she’d learn that they would never take a chance with something happening to her.
“Okay. I’ll see you in a little while,” she said.
“Bye, honey,” Quinn said.
“Bye, guys.”
Quinn high-fived Kyle. He quickly got to work on fixing the food. He could leave the soup simmering on the stove while they were gone. The bread was buttered and in the oven, waiting on him to turn it on. He prepared a roast for the crockpot then added baby carrots and cut potatoes to the mix. It would be ready by dinner time.
“Ready?” Kyle asked an hour later.
“I was ready an hour ago,” he said.
“Me, too.”
Chapter Ten
Diana hit End and started second-guessing herself. She should have waited a few days before she’d agreed to see them again. She looked desperate with how fast she’d given in to them. They probably thought she was just a tease. She wasn’t though. She really, honestly liked them. Loved them. She wasn’t sure how they felt though. Was it something they really thought would last forever or just for a while? Men changed their minds about relationships all the time.
Yeah, women did, too, but not as often as men did. She’d be devastated if they did that to her. If she cut it off now, she thought she could survive not having them in her life, but after a few years or even months it would kill her to lose them.
She’d just finished packing a duffle bag with what she’d need to stay overnight when there was a knock on her door. She shook her head. They couldn’t even give her an hour before they were on her doorstep. She pasted her best annoyed expression on her face and wrenched open the door without bothering to look to see who it was.
“Hello, Sophia. I’ve missed you.”
The man of her nightmares shoved her back as he walked into the house. She screamed and ran
toward the bedroom as he closed the door. She slammed the door with the sight of him walking slowly and deliberately toward her. She tried to shove her dresser in front of the door but couldn’t move it, so she started pushing her chest of drawers in that direction.
Thunk, thunk.
He was trying to break in the door. She drew on all her strength and managed to scoot the big piece of furniture in front of the door just as it splintered open. She added her weight to the chest as he shoved against the piece of furniture.
“You’re not getting away from me again,” he said in a rough voice.
Her stomach twisted like a slithering snake as the voice from her nightmares spoke through the cracked door.
“Leave me alone. Why are you doing this?” she cried out in a voice made hoarse from screaming.
“You belong to me, Sophia. Your books spoke to me and assured me that you’re mine. You need to be punished for writing such smut. No woman of mine will think like that. It’s shameful.”
“Then why do you want to have anything to do with me? Find someone who isn’t shameful. I don’t want you,” she cried out.
He hit the door again, and this time it knocked her away from the chest so that he was able to move the piece of furniture so that he was able to start squeezing into the room. Diana screamed again and ran to the bathroom where she locked herself in once more. She threw open the cabinet doors beneath the sink and dug through the contents until she found a squirt bottle of hair-sculpting spray she’d used at one time. Why couldn’t she have hairspray like other women?
The door to the bathroom vibrated when her attacker hit it again. She stepped into the tub and held the bottle down next to her thigh in hopes he wouldn’t notice it until the last minute and she could spray it in his eyes.
It took two more tries before he was able to pound his way through the bathroom door. He grinned manically as he walked into the bathroom toward the shower.
“You can’t escape me this time. No one will come to your rescue this time. Your neighbors left several minutes ago. We have all the time in the world together now,” he said.
As he strode closer to the bathtub, Diana screamed as loud as she could and lifted her arm, aiming for the man’s eyes, and squirted as fast as she could.
He cried out and instantly covered his eyes with his hands. Diana took advantage of his momentary disorientation and bolted out of the tub and out of the bathroom. She squeezed through the splintered bedroom door and raced for the front door just as it crashed open against the wall and Kyle and Quinn barreled into the room.
She nearly fell into Quinn’s arms, sobbing with relief at seeing them.
“What’s wrong? We heard you screaming,” Kyle asked.
“There’s a man in my bathroom. He tried to hurt me,” she said.
Even as she spoke, her attacker stumbled into the hall leading from her bedroom and cursed as he rubbed at his eyes.
“I’ll kill you for this. I was going to teach you a lesson and make you mine, but you’re beyond redemption. You’re so foul you deserve to die,” he said.
It was obvious that he didn’t register that there were two other people in the room. He walked closer then stopped as Kyle stepped between them.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m the man who’s going to beat your ass for scaring our woman,” Kyle said as he lifted one fist and hit the man square in the nose.
The stranger stepped back several steps but didn’t go down. Instead he yelled and barreled full force into Kyle who ended up backed into the door still against the wall. Though the man outweighed Kyle by fifteen or twenty pounds, Kyle had years of working with his hands and a steely determination evident in the set of his mouth.
Diana didn’t want him to get hurt but didn’t know what she could do about it. Evidently Quinn was in better control of his faculties because while he held her close to him, he also called the police. She listened as he rattled off her address and told them what was going on.
Her focus returned to Kyle who was fighting her would-be attacker. He tackled him, crashing into the coffee table then they were on their feet once more. It looked like he was getting the upper hand, and just as the sirens screamed closer, he managed to knock the man out so that he hit the floor with a resounding thump. Kyle gasped for breath then grabbed one of her kitchen chairs and set it over the man’s torso and sat on it while they waited for the police to walk in.
* * * *
“I’ve never been so afraid in my life. Maybe even more so than when he attacked me the first time. I thought he’d never find me when I moved,” Diana confessed to the guys later that evening.
It had taken the police several hours of questioning and gathering evidence before they let them go, and Quinn drove them up the mountain to their place complete with Felicity and her paraphernalia. Her house was a mess. Three doors needed to be repaired as well as the coffee table they’d smashed when they’d fallen into it.
“You need to eat, babe. I know you don’t feel like you have an appetite, but you need to try,” Kyle said.
She made an effort to eat the soup. It really was good, but her stomach was still quivering with what felt like jumping grasshoppers. What would she have done if the guys hadn’t shown up? Would she have made it out of the house, or would he have caught her? She hadn’t had to car keys, so she couldn’t have gotten in her car and driven away.
“Stop thinking about it, honey. It’s all over. He’s going away to prison. We’ll protect you always. Just give us the chance to always be there for you,” Kyle said.
“I can’t help but think about it. It’s stuck in my brain right now.” Diana worried that it would never fade this time. “He had such a plain name. Joe Smith. It should have been something weird like Samuel Gumby or something.”
“Nutjobs are always the least crazy-looking. They blend in so that you’d never suspect them,” Kyle said.
“I can’t believe he blamed me for his wife leaving him. Just because she read my books. Why would reading my books have made her leave him?” she asked.
“He thought she wanted a man like the ones you wrote about and blamed you for giving her ideas,” Kyle said. “Now stop worrying over it. He’s going to prison for a long time.”
“I think I know what will take your mind off all of it,” Quinn said.
“What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Letting us make love to you. Let us make you feel good so you can relax and rest,” he said.
Diana couldn’t help herself. She smiled. “I have a feeling that’s your answer to everything.”
“Hey, it works,” Kyle said.
“You haven’t finished eating,” she pointed out.
“There’s roast in the crockpot for later,” Quinn said.
“What about the soup?”
“It will be fine until later. No more excuses, babe,” Kyle said.
Kyle pulled her to her feet with one hand as Quinn led the way toward the stairs and the bedroom. She couldn’t help but shiver at the possibilities that room held. They were so freaking sexy, and she was helpless to resist them. The adrenaline from earlier was beginning to wane, but instead of feeling exhausted from it, she was beginning to feel excited.
Quinn stopped just inside the bedroom and turned to pull her into his arms. He took her mouth in a desperate kiss. She could feel the desperation in it as he crushed her mouth with his. She opened to him and wasn’t disappointed when he swept in and tangled their tongues together.
As he kissed her, Kyle pressed against her back so that she felt his cock, long and hard pressed against her lower back. He moved her hair away from the side of her neck and began nibbling along it until she was shivering with need.
Both men pulled back and began undressing her. Kyle took off her shoes while Quinn pulled her shirt over her head then unfastened her bra. He groaned before lowering his head to suck in one taut nipple then the other one. The tingles from his mouth traveled all the way to her p
ussy so that it grew wet and needy.
“Can’t wait to sink my cock in that hot, wet pussy,” Kyle said from behind her.
“I’m going to bury my dick in your sweet ass. You okay with that, honey?” Quinn asked.
Diana wasn’t sure she could answer. She was more than okay with that. She wanted both men. She needed them like she needed her next drink of water.
“Please,” she finally managed to get out.
“Please what?” Quinn asked against the corner of her mouth.
“Please take me. Make me yours. I want to belong to both of you. I don’t think I can bear it if you leave me.”
“Is this all because of what’s happened, or do you mean it?” Kyle asked.
“I was missing you both so much when you called. I was afraid you’d change your mind later and tell me you weren’t attracted to me anymore. I didn’t think I could stand that,” she admitted.
“You’ve got us forever, babe. All you have to do is tell us that you want us,” Kyle said.
“I want you. Both of you. Forever,” she breathed out.
“That’s all we need to hear, darling,” Quinn said.
“We love you, Diana. More than anything, you’re the best thing in our lives. We’ll do everything we can to make you happy,” Kyle said.
She couldn’t say anything as Quinn began pulling her sweatpants down her legs. She stepped out of them along with her panties. She was a little self-conscious now that she was completely naked and the two of them were still wearing all their clothes.
“I think you guys are wearing too much. It’s not fair,” she said.
“Let’s get you comfortable on the bed, then we’ll get undressed,” Quinn said.
Kyle picked her up, causing her to squeal with surprise. He gently set her down on the bed and kissed her fast and hard. “Scoot up, babe.”
Diana pushed up the bed until she was sitting in the middle of the bed as the two men who’d come to mean everything to her did a striptease for her. She couldn’t concentrate on just one of them. They were both so yummy to look at. Finally, they were undressed and standing nude in front of her. She feasted her eyes on every inch of their bodies. They were amazing. She could see that Kyle had several small scars on his chest and abdomen. She didn’t see any on Quinn though.