by Shayla Black
The intensity of that gaze dredged up memories that weren’t conducive to efficient packing. She was basically fleeing for her life. Why was her gaze clinging to Thorn? Why the hell was she wet?
“Stop staring,” she snapped. “You’re making me nervous.”
He rolled his bare shoulders then bent to pick up the vest he’d discarded last night, followed by his boots. “It’s either stare at you or fuck you. We don’t have time for the latter.”
True. And she should be relieved. He and Cam had been overwhelming last night, and she was still shocked by what she’d done, and the fact that, for them, she had had an almighty orgasm so powerful, it had nearly blown her head off. But she wasn’t relieved that the situation now demanded prudence. She was annoyed. And scared.
Exiting the bathroom with the last of her toiletries, she stuffed them into a bag. As soon as she emerged, Thorn propelled her back, holding out a wide palm to slam the door behind her before he shoved her against it. Brenna dropped her bag with a gasp as he fitted his body against hers, his mouth hovering right over her own. She couldn’t mistake the erection digging into the apex of her thighs.
“But we’re going to make time later. A whole lot of time.”
His voice was a rumble that vibrated through her, exciting every nerve ending inside her that had lain dormant for…well, her whole life.
She’d always felt the sting of abandonment just beneath her skin. Like people could see her version of the scarlet letter, a big black “A” on her forehead that shouted the fact she’d never been wanted, that everyone would always leave her. And should, as if she somehow deserved it.
It didn’t feel like Thorn was going anywhere anytime soon.
“We should go,” she whispered breathlessly.
“That’s the only thing keeping clothing on your body now, baby.”
Aggressive. But she’d known Thorn was from the moment he’d awakened her after tying her to Curtis’s bed. She shivered.
“Now,” said Cam from the doorway of the bedroom where he took in the scene with watchful eyes. “We need to get you in the truck. And you need to tell us everything you know about Curtis.”
It was time.
And then…then she’d see how long they stayed.
Three minutes later, they were piled into the bench seat of Cam’s pickup, Brenna in the middle. Thorn’s cycle lay in the truck’s bed. Normally, he’d never surrender his bike for a ride with a cop in a sleek black truck.
When the hell had staying beside Brenna and hearing her story become more important?
If he wanted his fifty thousand, he needed to hear whatever she knew about Curtis and his whereabouts, but Thorn feared his refusal to unglue himself from her side was more than that. And although he was hard as concrete for her, it wasn’t just sex. But defining it… Nope, he wasn’t going there.
“How do you know Curtis?” Cameron laid a gentle hand on her knee and squeezed as they drove away from Lawton’s cottage. “We need to know what we’re up against.”
She hesitated, pausing to glance at him then Cam. She swallowed. “He’s my father.”
Thorn’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d said she was a three-breasted alien from Jupiter.
Her gaze met his again then skittered away. She focused on her wringing hands in her lap. “I see you’re shocked.”
“I shouldn’t be, I suppose,” Cam said. “I knew you weren’t his mistress.”
“I never believed he’d let you stay at his place if you were just a friend of a friend,” Thorn added.
But daughter? Man…
“We aren’t close.” Brenna licked her lips. “In fact, I hadn’t seen him since my high school graduation. Before that… he left me with my aunt when I was a baby.”
What the fuck? For all that his old man had been a lousy parent, he’d never dumped him on someone else’s doorstep. Nope, good old Ronald had kept him around for every lousy, squalor- and hunger-filled day, cementing in his head the fact that drugs were thicker than blood.
“He gave me away shortly after my mother died. He let my aunt and her husband adopt me, signed away all parental rights.” Her face flushed, and she frowned, fighting tears. “As an adult, I knew his abandonment had affected my ability to have a relationship. I was engaged six months ago. Great guy. But my…coldness made him feel like a failure, and he couldn’t accept that the failing was mine. So…”
“So you parted ways,” Cam finished.
She nodded.
“You couldn’t come because piece-of-shit Curtis ditched his responsibility.” Thorn told it like it was, and the anger over that fact made him want to pound the dirtbag’s face.
“Pretty much, yes.”
“And then your fiancé couldn’t hack it?”
“Yes.”
“Asshole,” Thorn muttered.
Cameron squeezed her knee again, then glided his hand up her thigh, up, up… Thorn thought of all the things that hand might do to Brenna and started to sweat.
“Something about being with us changed that.” Cam didn’t ask, just stated.
“With both of you near me, surrounding me, inside me…” She flushed. “I felt protected. The way you enveloped me, it was like I would never be alone again. You two filled me so full, it felt right.” She shrugged. “It was somehow easy to believe that I was worthy of your desire and that you’d just…I don’t know. Like you’d always be there for me. But I don’t expect anything,” she was quick to assure. “I know it was just the one night.”
For some reason, her words pissed Thorn off. Despite what he’d told Cam, he’d say when they were done, damn it.
Which made no sense. He hadn’t planned to stick around, and was still torn between keeping his distance and indulging the hunger for her sizzling in his veins and licking at his balls. Now… Thorn would walk away when the time came, he always did. But knowing he’d been instrumental in helping her accomplish something that had always eluded her, that he’d helped her to feel something she’d needed so badly… Well, it was heady. And he wasn’t sure how he could just turn his back.
Why the fuck did she matter?
And why the hell did seeing Cam’s hand absently caressing her make him hard?
Thorn tore his gaze away from the two of them and glanced out the windshield, checking the side mirrors. The morning rush hour was beginning to pick up, so it was impossible to determine if they were being trailed by Marco’s heavies.
“We have to get out of sight quickly.”
Cam sent him a sharp nod, checking the side mirrors himself. “I don’t see that we’re being followed but it’s hard to tell. Too many cars… My place is close, the address secret, but if you have a better idea…”
“No. Fuck… Every criminal in creation knows how to find me. Your place works. We just need to get into hiding. Being out in the open is making me itchy.”
Brenna placed a calming touch on his arm. “Thank you.”
For what? He hadn’t done nearly enough to keep her safe, or she wouldn’t have been in any danger this morning. That little furrow between her brows said that she was…concerned about him. Worried, even. Amazing. She’d nearly been abducted this morning and she was calming him?
Sweet southern sugar with a hint of sass, that was Brenna. She melted like fine chocolate between he and Cam. She soothed like silk when she thought they were worried. This was a new female for him. She wasn’t here for the party or for the sex, the ride with a bad boy or a good time. Why was she here, beyond wanting to feel like a whole woman? Why trust them?
“You look so damn calm, baby,” he commented.
She sent him a soft smile. “You two are with me.”
As if that said it all. Already, after just a few hours, she trusted them. Wow. He’d never been anyone’s savior and would have bristled at the suggestion in the past. He had his own shit to deal with. But Brenna… She needed him for more than his dick or his ability to fuck her multiple times a night.
Thorn leaned around Brenna to find the detective calmly driving. A right turn off the main drag, a left turn onto a residential street. A direct glance from those all-seeing dark eyes right into his.
Cam was going to fight—not him for the right to be with Brenna, but to keep the three of them together. What the hell? A ménage was fun probably every so often but for more than a night? No, he had to be reading Cam’s expression wrong. Right?
With a glance out the mirrors and the back window as they wound through Cam’s neighborhood completely alone, it was clear that they’d shaken Marco’s thugs—for now.
Though Thorn knew better than to imagine that would last, that did leave them plenty of time to explore exactly what would happen next between him, Cam, and Brenna.
Tread carefully. Cam repeated the words to himself more than once.
After pulling into his garage, he helped Brenna from his truck and into the deserted confines of his house. She was skittish. Thorn followed them, downright jumpy.
The unexpected visit from Marco’s goons had shaken the big bounty hunter up way more than expected, and that gave Cam hope. If Thorn didn’t give a rat’s ass about Brenna, he would have celebrated the fact he’d had a fight on his hands. The fact his instinct had been to shield Brenna, then get out of the action and soothe her? Very interesting…
Cam himself wasn’t sure exactly why he was pursuing this…thing with Thorn and Brenna so hard. The sex had been off-the-charts amazing. He’d been elated to help Brenna with her orgasm problem. Everything about her turned him on, and he even liked her on the inside. The fact she was Curtis Lawton’s daughter threw a kink in the mess, but the issue wasn’t insurmountable.
The addition of Thorn was an interesting dynamic. They weren’t good friends. What shocked Cam over and over was how natural the three of them had felt together. How aroused he’d been just by watching Thorn tunnel into Brenna’s tight body.
Sometimes Cam calculated his every move, calmly considering what to do next, even taking days or weeks to decide. This wasn’t one of those times. Every instinct now screamed at him to do whatever necessary to keep the three of them together.
As Cam entered the house, he drew his weapon and looked around, throwing closets open and checking around dark corners. They were alone. Good. Now they could deal with the business at hand.
“Looks like we’re all clear,” he told them.
Thorn visibly relaxed, though his arm was still wound around Brenna’s waist. Cam’s gaze lingered on the way she clung to Thorn’s mostly bare torso. The poor woman had been through an avalanche of crap lately, and he knew better than to think it was over.
“Good. You going to call this one in to the station?” Thorn asked.
“I’ll run the plate on the car. Fifty bucks says it was reported stolen recently and that we’ll find it ditched a few miles from Curtis’s little cottage.”
Swearing under his breath, the bounty hunter nodded. “You’re right. What now?”
“Come in.” He turned and led them deeper into the house. “Anyone hungry? Thirsty?”
After both murmured “no,” he guided them into the living room. Cam purposely avoided the room’s lone oversized chair and sat at one end of the sofa. Thorn plopped down on the other end, putting Brenna between them—as it should be. He set his gun down on the table within easy reach. Thorn did the same.
“What did those two jerks want with me?” Brenna asked, looking between him and Thorn.
“Who else knows you’re Lawton’s daughter?” Thorn asked.
Brenna scoffed. “Doubtful anyone does. It’s not like we attended a lot of happy father-daughter events together. Even if this Julio Marco you’ve talked about does know who I am, he should also know that I mean nothing to Curtis. So why is Marco trying so hard?”
“I’m guessing,” Thorn started, “that he knows his partner in crime has turned on him. If Marco has no idea where Lawton is, he’ll try taking you to use as leverage so he can flush Curtis out of hiding. He probably doesn’t have anything better, so it beats sitting around with his thumb up his ass.”
“Agreed.” Cam turned to Brenna. He hated to heap more on her after she’d had a torrid ménage a trois and nearly been abducted in the last twelve hours, but her life might depend on it. “You have absolutely no idea where your father is? My…our job is to ensure he makes it to the trial whole and alive so he can testify and put this scumbag away. He’s already been offered and accepted immunity in exchange. I heard a whisper that the feds agreed to enter him into the Witness Protection Program. Marco is big-time scum, and both the state and feds want him behind bars. Your father’s testimony could lock Marco away for good and everyone knows it.”
Brenna shook her head and cuddled up against his side. “Honestly, I have a cell phone number. He hardly ever answers it. I can try. I’ll just need to unpack my purse and phone.”
Cam opened his mouth to reply but stopped short when he saw Thorn’s hand snake out to curl around Brenna’s thigh.
“In a little bit, baby. You’ve had enough shit for the moment.”
“Marco is going to come after me again, isn’t he?”
“He’ll have to find you first.” Thorn sounded like a demon with a case of bad temper. “And get through me.”
“Us,” Cam corrected.
“I can’t stay here forever. I’m invading your home…” She looked at Cam with apology.
“Hey…” He caressed her cheek. “This isn’t your fault. It’s Lawton’s and Marco’s. I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle. And it’s not forever.” At least not yet. “The trial starts Monday. If your father shows up and testifies, they might kill him for spite, but I think they’ll leave you alone.”
“So I’m imposing on you until then?”
“It’s no imposition.” He kissed her softly. “Trust me.”
“I won’t get in the way, I promise. I know you’re busy with work and…whatever. You won’t even know I’m here.”
“I have vacation time coming. I’ll call in for a few days. I plan on being by your side every day and night until that trial.”
“What the fuck?” Thorn exploded, turning to Brenna. “You think I’m going to just fucking walk off when Marco is sending his hired guns to take you?”
She shrugged as she looked between the two of them. “Considering I didn’t know either of you twenty-four hours ago, it would be wrong of me to expect you—”
“Caring isn’t always about how long you’ve known someone.” Unable to resist, Cam brushed a kiss over her lips. “I won’t leave you to be a victim, either. It’s not in me as a cop or a man.”
With a nod, Brenna accepted that. “What about you?” she said to Thorn. “I know you must have other bounties. I doubt you signed up to babysit me.”
“You didn’t sign up to handle Curtis’s shit but here you are. I’ll deal. My brother can take some of the other bounties on my list. Between the three of us, we should be able to track your dad down and keep you safe.”
Her eyes watered as she looked between the two of them. She wore her heart there, right in those pretty hazel eyes. And it was getting under Thorn’s skin, based on the way his hand tightened on her thigh and he dragged her against him and crushed her mouth under his for a long, demanding kiss.
Cameron smiled. Things were about to get mighty interesting…
Chapter Eight
Thorn was drowning. Like Pavlov’s dog, he’d already equated the flavor of Brenna’s kiss with mind-bending pleasure. So with the first caress of his tongue against hers, his cock rose stiff and tight and impatient.
But it wasn’t just Brenna.
Even with his eyes closed, Thorn could feel Cam’s dark gaze zeroed in on them. He didn’t blink when Thorn deepened the kiss, when he slid a hand up her thigh, when he tugged the tank top over her head and confirmed that underneath, she wore absolutely nothing.
As he fell into Brenna�
�s sweet taste, he couldn’t hold back his moan. It wasn’t enough, not even close. He wanted her closer, wanted more than her mouth under his. Thorn wasn’t a man used to denying what he wanted. If Cam wanted to watch—fine. His cock tightened painfully at the thought of the detective joining in again.
Thorn couldn’t comprehend his reaction. He was a selfish bastard who liked everything the way he liked it. Usually he wanted a woman all to himself because he was going to use her hard and well until neither of them could take any more. Sex wasn’t a team sport, damn it. He preferred to control the game.
But last night… Having Cam on the team added an element of arousing unpredictability.
As he nibbled at Brenna’s lips, he opened his eyes to find Cam’s gaze following every move. Thorn’s cock thickened again, pressing against the back of his zipper. The burn of desire seared deep and drove him out of his mind. He closed his eyes and sank back into the kiss.
Fuck whatever he usually liked, he was just going to flow with it. Besides, the bigger issue here was Brenna. She was shaken up. Totally understandable. As any guy who’d ever been in a fight could tell you, the best way to come off the adrenaline high was a good fuck. That’s where he came in.
Clasping his arms around her, Thorn planned to lift her onto his lap, her chest to his, her firm little thighs wrapped around his hips. Oh, yeah. But when he tried, she wouldn’t budge.
Thorn opened his eyes, not breaking the kiss, and discovered another pair of arms around her, another man holding her on his lap. Cam had clearly worked his way under Brenna, who sat on his lap, her back to his chest…And Cam’s hands all over her body.
“That kiss good?” Cam murmured, looking right at him.
Thorn almost couldn’t answer. The sight of the other man’s bronzed, veined hand between her suddenly bare legs spiked his desire. When had Cam taken off her sweat pants?
Didn’t matter. Brenna opened her thighs wider, and Thorn’s whole body tightened. Shit, this was getting hot fast. Hot became explosive when he caught the unimpeded view of Cam’s thick fingers tunneling inside Brenna’s pussy then gliding back out. He could see exactly how wet she was. The evidence made Cam’s fingers glisten—and his own need to fuck her flipped off the charts.