by Lexi Blake
Two men in search of love…
Adam Miles and Jacob Dean are halves of a whole. They’ve spent their entire adult lives searching for the one woman who can handle them both. Adam is the playful, indulgent lover, while Jacob is the possessive, loving Dom. When Serena comes into their lives, Adam is certain that she’s the one. But Jacob’s past comes back to haunt them all. He is suspicious of Serena’s story, and his concerns are driving a wedge between him and Adam. But when the stalker strikes, they will have to come together or lose each other forever…
* * * *
Serena forced herself to calm down. Her heart was racing like a runaway freight train. Tears pricked her eyes. She clutched the phone. Her bedroom was down the hall from where the two men who had invaded her home sat, but it still seemed a little too close for comfort.
“I want them gone.” She peered around the corner and could see Adam sitting back, her traitor dog’s head in his lap. She’d thought he was hot before in his perfectly cut suit. Now that he’d ditched the tie and jacket, she could see hints of just how cut his body was. And she’d felt for herself just how fit Jacob Dean was.
And how hard his cock could get. There had been no way to mistake the fact that once she’d started wriggling around on him, he’d responded. And so had she once she’d realized that he wasn’t there to hurt her. She’d felt a deep pull on all of her girl parts. She needed to get laid. And not by someone like Jacob Dean.
There was a long sigh on the other end of the phone. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetie. Ian wouldn’t have assigned them if he didn’t think they were the best men for the job. I know you don’t know Ian Taggart, but he’s an honorable man. I trust him. My brother thought he could walk on water.”
Serena softened. She knew Lara’s story. She knew how much she missed her brother every day. “Why can’t this Ian person babysit me?”
“It’s a bodyguard, not a babysitter. You are in danger. Don’t you dare not take this seriously.” Lara’s sharp voice practically cut through the phone. When Lara loved someone, she could be fierce about it. It made her a hell of an agent. She viewed her clients as family.
“I am taking it seriously. I promise. I just wish they hadn’t broken into my house and caught me in my underwear.” That had been past humiliating.
Lara laughed. “Oh, no. Did they catch you doing that crazy dance thing you do when you can’t quite figure out an action scene? Or did they catch you with the ménage Barbies?”
She sometimes used Barbies in order to get down the physicality of a love scene. Luckily they were hidden in her desk drawer. “The dancing thing.”
It made her weird. She knew that, but she’d given up on finding a man who would understand her a long time back. Her friends got that she thought better while singing and dancing. They ignored it when she talked to herself because she was working on dialogue. They didn’t care that she non sequitured her way through life because she had a million ideas going at once.
They didn’t make fun of her.
“The dancing thing is cute,” Lara assured her. “And Ian is working on an international case or he would have handled it himself. He assured me that these guys know what they’re doing. Adam Miles and Jacob Dean are former Special Forces. They’ve been working in the private sector for five years. They’re the best in the business. And this is only until we figure out who this asshole is. I promise, Ian is working on that, too.”
The cops hadn’t done much. At least if they were paying these guys they might actually look into it. She didn’t have a problem hiring a security firm. But she did have a problem with Adam and Jake. “They’re already making fun of me.”
It was stupid. She was a twenty-eight-year-old woman. She shouldn’t give a crap what people thought, but it hurt. She’d gotten the crap kicked out of her about a million times since she’d started writing erotic romance. She’d thought she could be happy and proud telling everyone that she was a published writer. Her mother had asked when she was going to write a real book. Her husband had read it and promptly divorced her because he hadn’t meant to marry a woman of her obviously low character. She couldn’t even find writer friends outside of her genre. The one writer group she’d gone to had asked her to leave because they didn’t want to tarnish the chapter’s image. She was sick to death of being made fun of.
“What did they do? Look, sweetie, guys don’t understand romance. I know your covers are salacious, but they sell books. You can’t expect some straight guy to get it.”
“No, Lara. They started talking about Doms.” She could still hear her ex-husband berating her for wanting to explore BDSM. He’d called her everything from a freak to a whore. The last thing she needed was two bodyguards who thought they could look down on her.
There was a long pause. “What exactly did they say?”
She felt her whole body flush. She looked around the corner. Adam was still sitting in her desk chair, drinking her damn wine. He looked gorgeous. His dark hair fell perfectly over sculpted features. He spoke quietly to Jake, who she couldn’t see.
“Adam made a crack about Jacob spanking me if I didn’t watch my potty mouth.”
Lara’s laugh came over loud and clear. “Well, you can cuss a blue streak.”
“He said the big, bad Dom wouldn’t like it. I’m sick of this shit, Lara. I’m sick of men who make fun of me because I’m not some perfect little vanilla princess.”
Lara sighed. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll talk to Ian. I’m sorry. He’s a good friend. I thought he could help. Have you talked to Storm about this?”
Storm was the Dom Serena had been talking with for a couple of weeks. She’d only recently met him, but he was an incredibly open man. Maybe she should talk to him. He might have some connections. “I have a meeting with Master Storm tomorrow. I’ll talk to him.”
“All right.” Serena could hear Lara’s tiredness. She wished she wasn’t the cause of it. “I’m sorry. I thought it was the best I could do. Please don’t throw them out. They really will protect you until we can get someone else in place. Just go to bed and don’t talk to them.”
Tears pricked at her eyes. She could feel them pooling there. Why did the thought of not seeing them again do that to her? She really was an idiot. They were jerks who had thrown her out of their office, broken into her house, and made fun of her work. And she was hurt at the idea of them walking out of her life.
She really was a masochist.
She should probably talk to Master Storm about that.
“I promise.” She felt her whole body sag. “I’ll be a good girl. I really do appreciate it, you know. I just…I can’t deal with it. I’m so tired of getting the shit kicked out of me for being honest. But I’ll handle it while we find someone else.”
“All right, sweetie. Talk to Master Storm. I’ll talk to Ian tomorrow. I’ll find someone who works. Hey, Brian just walked in. He says hi. You know he loves you, too.”
Brian was Lara husband and her partner. He handled the more mainstream clients. “Tell him hi. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Lara.”
She hung up the phone. She felt weary, too. She pulled her robe around her and took a deep breath. It was time to set the ground rules with her new bodyguards. She steeled herself. This time when she talked to them, she wanted to at least sound like a professional.
“Who is Master Storm?” a low voice asked.
She shrieked like a five-year-old girl. Jake Dean had somehow gotten into her bedroom and behind her when she wasn’t looking. “You have to stop that! God, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“He’s good at that. It’s one of his great life skills.” Adam leaned negligently against her doorframe. Mojo sat beside him, their enormous bodies blocking her escape route. Mojo’s tail thumped and his mouth hung open, tongue panting. At least her dog found them amusing.
They were both here in her small bedroom. It was the most straight-man attention this bedroom had gotten in years.
“Don’t sn
eak up on me like that.” She forced herself to look at Jake. Between the two of them, it was obvious Adam would be easier to deal with. Jake was the hardass. She didn’t deal well with hardasses.
A single brow arched above his model-perfect face. “I didn’t sneak up. You weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You were far too busy telling your agent to fire us.”
Adam’s face fell. “What? But we just got here. Look, sweetheart, I know the whole breaking in thing was scary, but we did have a point. Your security system sucks. And, in our defense, we did call and ring the doorbell. We can’t do our job standing on your front porch waiting for you to finish with the dancing thing. That was adorable, by the way.”
She flushed. God, she hated the fact that a part of her wanted to believe he wasn’t insulting her. His teasing tone was soft and cajoling. When he smiled the most gorgeous dimples showed up on his face. Adam Miles was just about everything she could want in a boyfriend. He was charming and smart, and he came with a built-in alpha male partner.
Stop right there, Serena Brooks. Your imagination is running wild. The world doesn’t work that way.
“I don’t think this about the break-in. She said we were making fun of her.” Jake’s brows drew together in a serious expression, as though he was working through a problem. “I didn’t make fun of her. I told her to stop yelling. I have excellent hearing. I can’t stand yelling.”
And he apparently thought she was dense. “You know I wasn’t talking about you.” She turned to Adam. It had really hurt coming from him. She’d felt a connection to him from the moment they had met. She’d expected someone like Jake to think less of her for what she wrote, but Adam had seemed more tolerant.
“What? Me? Are you serious? How did I make fun of you?” He seemed to really struggle with the idea.
“You obviously read some of the titles of my books. Look, I get that you wouldn’t read a book like that, but I won’t listen to anyone denigrate the choices I’ve made in my lifestyle. You might not understand or accept it, but I will demand that you respect it.”
Jake actually laughed. “The little sub thinks we have problems with BDSM.”
Adam’s eyes rolled. “Yeah, uhm, you do have some problems, sweetheart. How long have you been in the lifestyle? Or are you a little tourist who likes to rage against the machine?”
“I had to take off my leathers to come here. I was at a club called Sanctum.” Jake’s face had softened a bit. “Adam knows my limits. I don’t like pretty subs spouting filth at me in anger. He has a smart mouth, but he would never ridicule you. Lightning would strike.”
Adam smiled at her. “And the earth would shake. Seriously, we don’t think that way. We’re far too odd on our own. And I haven’t read any of your books, but I would like to.”
Jake’s whole body went on wary alert. “We actually need to. From what I understand, this is about your books, correct?”
She was caught between relief and a dangerous joy. She believed them. They really didn’t care. In fact, Jake seemed to be involved in the lifestyle. About a million questions popped into her brain, but she forced herself to keep to the questions asked. “The man who’s doing this seems to be familiar with my books. I don’t think he likes them very much. At first I thought he was your run-of-the-mill creep, trolling the internet, but lately he’s gotten uglier. He left me a text today.”
“On your cell?” Adam asked. “Where is it?”
“My phone is on the bar in the kitchen,” she said. The minute the words were out of her mouth, Adam took off toward the kitchen.
She was alone with Jake.
“Now, who is this Master Storm?” The question came out on a low, ungodly sexy growl. “Is he your Dom? What the hell is he doing somewhere else when you’re in trouble?”
“He’s not my Dom. He’s someone I talk to. I needed to do a little research. I met him at a munch and we’ve been kind of feeling each other out to see if he wouldn’t mind training me.”
One of the reasons she liked Master Storm was her utter lack of attraction to the man. She wasn’t in danger of falling in love with the man. If she were honest with herself, Master Storm was a bit of a puffed up douchebag, but he did know D/s. She was looking for practical knowledge not a man who made her heart pound in her chest—even when he wasn’t sneaking up on her.
“I don’t know this man. Where did you meet him? On the Internet?”
“I’m not stupid. I met him at a munch. I found a flyer on a fetish lifestyle site, and it invited interested parties to come to a brunch at a local restaurant. First names only. I met Master Storm about two months ago. We’ve been talking on the phone about his philosophies.”
“Have you been talking about what you need?” He was standing way too close. She wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten so close. He was tall, at least six foot three, and he seemed to tower over her. His voice was still deep, but it had lost a bit of command.
“Uhm, we haven’t really gotten around to that. He thinks we should talk about his rules first to see if I can follow them.”
“Drop him. He’s not a Dom. He’s a man who likes control but not responsibility. He’s testing you to see if you’re right for him, but he isn’t thinking about what’s right for you. That should be his first and only qualification. A Dom should find what he needs, too, but what every good Dom needs is to do right by his submissive. If he hasn’t even asked what you need, he’s wrong for you.” His eyes became hooded, and his gaze slid to the floor as though he didn’t really want to look her in the eye. “You should talk to Ian Taggart. He owns Sanctum. He makes it his business to match well-meaning subs with good Doms.”
She shook her head. The last thing she needed was to get more into Lara’s friend’s business. She’d done all right on her own so far. “Thanks, but I can handle it.”
Now his eyes came back up, narrowing. “It’s obvious to me you can’t.”
She was a little offended. He barely knew her, but he was making judgments already? “I didn’t ask your opinion, Mr. Dean. But I’m curious. It’s obvious you can’t stand me. I get that a lot. What exactly is it you don’t like?”
He crowded her just a bit, almost daring her to back away. Serena felt small and a little helpless against him. “I never said I didn’t like you. You’re a beautiful woman.”
“But you don’t seem to like me. You seem to like scaring me.” He wasn’t scaring her now. Fear wasn’t what she felt.
“I did that for your protection. You need to know how vulnerable you really are. You aren’t taking this seriously.”
He said it quietly, as though he actually cared. It brought down her resentment level. It did nothing to bring down her frustration, but still, as she spoke she found herself doing so in a polite, respectful manner. “I don’t understand. I did everything the cops told me to do. I hired a security firm to install an alarm system.”
“It’s not very good.”
“How am I supposed to know that? I don’t know anything about this stuff. I paid for it. I know Mojo isn’t a good guard dog, but he was so sweet, I couldn’t let them put him down. And I have a friend who comes over and walks the house and makes sure there’s no one here before I lock myself up for the night.”
“It’s not enough. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Humiliation washed over her. She knew what he was saying. “If you don’t believe me, you should leave. I’ll be fine on my own. I’m obviously just an attention-seeking whore.”
He grabbed her elbow. “Don’t you call yourself that.”
“Why not? It’s what you were thinking. It’s what the cops think.”
He stared at her for the longest time. She stood there, feeling ridiculous. Tears pricked at her eyes for the four hundredth time that day. Why, oh why, couldn’t she be tough like Lara and Bridget? They would just spit in this man’s eyes and tell him to go to hell, but Serena stood there.
“You’re really scared, aren’t you? I require the t
ruth.”
“Yes, some man threatened to hurt me. It scares me. But I think you scare me, too.”
His lips curved up. He wasn’t as gorgeous as Adam. There was a starkness to his features that kept him from being beautiful, but when he smiled, his face transformed. “You’re a smart girl. You keep on being scared. And when I said you were beautiful, I meant it. You’re truly lovely, Serena. The only problem is I know not to trust a beautiful woman. Now be a good girl and get ready for bed. I’m going to sleep in the living room.”
He stepped away, leaving her a little breathless—and a whole lot frustrated. She’d finally found a man who thought she was beautiful and naturally he didn’t trust her.
Adam strode back into her bedroom like he’d done it a thousand times. He looked at Jake. “You taking first watch?”
Jake nodded and without another word, walked away.
Adam rubbed his hands together. “Well, sweetheart, it’s just you and me.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re not sleeping alone tonight.” He tossed his lean body into her comfy chair. It was an overstuffed easy chair covered in pink and green flowers. It had been her mother’s, and though it didn’t really go with Serena’s contemporary style, she hadn’t been able to get rid of it. She could still see her mom sitting in that chair, watching over her.
Now Adam Miles made himself comfortable in the chair where Serena read every night. He looked far too masculine for the flowery upholstery, like a sleek jaguar who had stretched out for the night.
“I’ll run a trace on the text tomorrow.” He toed off his loafers and settled into the chair, his longish hair falling over his eyes and making him look years younger.
He was all soft seduction where Jake was one hundred percent alpha male.