by Marla Monroe
She watched as they took it all in then moved to check out her two guest bedrooms then her master bedroom. She had a king-sized bed with a full dresser. She’d moved all her clothes into the closet and still had room to spare. The other closet was empty with the door closed.
They checked out the ginormous bathroom with a shake of their heads.
“This has to be the most elaborate room in the house next to the kitchen,” Jethro said with a huge smile. “Loved building it. We’ve already decided that when we get ready to build a house we’re going to put one of these in it.”
Rissa laughed. She was sure they would, too. Deacon had been especially fond of it. But then the reason behind that surfaced, and everything he’d said to her the other day rushed back to her, causing heat to burn through her blood and center in her cheeks.
“So, anyway. It’s perfect like I knew it would be. How is everything coming with the store?” she asked, changing the subject as she led the way back to the living room.
“No problems at all. We’re on schedule and should be finished within three weeks if not before. So far, all the supplies are arriving on schedule,” Jethro told her.
“I’ve ordered some of my merchandise to arrive next Thursday. It will give me something to do sorting and putting it away until I can work in the shop. I’m getting so excited that I’m having trouble sleeping at night,” she said, lying through her teeth.
She’d had no trouble sleeping, only of getting any rest while she was asleep. Deacon and Jethro starred in all her dreams each night. They gave her quite the workout, too.
“You’ll be down there rearranging things in no time,” Jethro assured her.
“You started interviewing for help yet?” Deacon asked.
“Not yet. I’m going to call in the three people who’ve answered my ad the first part of next week,” she said.
“You’ll need someone to help with all the supplies before you open. Don’t try and do it all yourself or you’ll be too tired to work once you open the doors,” he said.
The fact that he was worried about her made her smile. “I won’t. I plan on having someone start the week you finish up. I got the application from your friend’s daughter. So far she’s my top pick.”
“Good. She’ll be a good employee if it works out. She takes after her dad. She gets her looks from her mom though. Good thing ’cause Claud’s pretty hard to look at,” Jethro joked.
“We’d better get back to work. Just wanted to see if everything was okay up here,” Deacon said, jabbing his friend in the ribs.
“I’m glad you came up. Everything is perfect. I guess I should let my family know I’ve moved and see if they want to come by for dinner one night.” She sighed.
“Doesn’t sound like you want to,” Jethro said, his brows bunching into a straight line.
“I want them to be happy for me, but they’ll complain about where it is, and that it isn’t safe to live here. I really don’t want all that negativity, but they’re my family, you know?” she asked.
“Yeah. So, have them over once and don’t worry about it if they never show up again. You can always go see them.” Jethro squeezed her hand.
“Fuck them if they aren’t happy for you. All that matters is that you are,” Deacon said.
“You’re right. Thanks, guys.”
Rissa walked them to the door and waved them off before setting the locks once more. Then she walked over to the couch and sank down into the comfortable cushioning and called her father first.
* * * *
“Oh, my, God! It’s perfect. You even made the display shelves look awesome. I can’t believe it. I thought I’d be buying all sorts of shelves and stands and you’ve added it all. I love the pull-out drawers so that I can keep extra merchandise down here for quick refills if I have a run on something. This is perfect. I’m going to be able to open before Christmas.” Rissa gushed and all but drooled over the elaborate store they’d created for her.
“You like it then. We were worried that the plans you’d had drawn up were just for show to mark out the room’s structure, but we took a chance and created it the best we could from the drawings,” Jethro told her.
“You did great. I can’t believe how soon I’ll get to open now that I don’t have to buy shelves and such. I need to order more product now, so it will be here in time for the grand opening. I’m going to be able to move it up to include Black Friday. I’m so stoked, guys!”
“We can tell,” Deacon said in a slow drawl.
Without thinking, Rissa grabbed the big man and hugged him then turned and pulled Jethro into one as well. She was so happy she felt like she could explode.
“Walk around and make sure there isn’t anything we need to fix before we put the men to work on another project,” Jethro told her.
Rissa mentally calmed down and forced herself to concentrate on the store. She needed to be sure everything really was perfect. She had no doubts it would be, but just in case, she needed to think clearly.
Having the two men so close made it all that much harder though. She’d found that the more she’d been around them, the harder it was to separate herself from them. She thought about them all the time, and her dreams had only grown naughtier and more frequent. Sometimes she found herself daydreaming about them when she’d sat down to read or to look at new products online.
Now that they were no longer going to be working for her, Rissa had to make a decision on what she wanted to do about being with them. That had her pussy growing damp all over again. She swore she’d be one of the main customers of her own underwear if she kept thinking about the guys that way. She’d had to change them at least twice every day since she’d been living there. Just thinking about them working below her made her damp.
Nothing seemed wrong. Everything was simply amazing and so much more than she’d expected. She raced back into the main part of the store where the two men stood waiting on her.
“Well?” Jethro asked.
“I can’t find a single thing out of place. It’s perfect. Let’s settle up. Do you have the final bill drawn up?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s a little more than what we’d first estimated, but that’s because of the additional materials for the shelving and display boxes. It’s all listed there for you.” Jethro handed her the paper.
She read over it and was surprised at how much less it was than she’d expected. She looked up and frowned. “This can’t be right.”
“We were careful to only order what we thought we’d use,” Jethro began, but Rissa interrupted him.
“No. I mean that it’s not enough. You originally quoted the final installment to be only five thousand less than this. I can’t imagine that you did all of this for less than ten thousand dollars. You must have made a mistake calculating it,” she said, furrowing her brows.
“No, that’s what it cost,” Deacon said.
“I don’t care. If you won’t charge me what you should have, I’ll give you a bonus for finishing so quickly. You can give it to your crew if you don’t want to accept it.” Rissa wrote out the check out of the business book she’d brought down with her. She signed it and handed it over to Jethro. “I can afford much more than what you quoted. There’s no need to try and trim it down for me, guys. Give someone who’s really scraping by a break.”
Jethro looked at the check and frowned. “This is too much even for a bonus, Rissa.”
“She’s paying us off to leave, Jethro. I think she’s made her decision on us already.” Deacon crossed his arms. “Haven’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” But Rissa knew exactly what he was referring to.
Them.
“Rissa? Are you trying to get rid of us?” Jethro asked in a soft, chilly voice.
“No. I’m trying to pay you for the work you’ve done so that you’re not working for me anymore.” She glared at Deacon. “Are you accusing me of something, Deacon?”
Deacon took a step toward her, but Jethro
stopped him. “No, he’s just anxious to talk with you without the store being in the way. Right, Deacon?”
“Yeah. Anxious is one way to put it,” Deacon said.
“Fine. Accept the check and I’ll sign off on the paperwork. That should settle things between us.” Rissa couldn’t help but feel a bit pissed that they would think something like that about her, but then maybe if she’d been in their position, it would have felt like that to her as well.
While she hadn’t exactly been trying to get rid of them, she had wanted to get the store out from between them so they could talk logically about whatever it was they wanted from her. Well, she knew what they wanted from her, but she wasn’t sure it would work or that she could handle it. They needed to be open and honest with each other, and she wasn’t sure Deacon would be able to do that.
“Fine. We accept the payment. Here’s the final paperwork. Just sign here”—he indicated a line—“that the work is acceptable to you and that you didn’t find any problems with it.”
Rissa read the statement then signed the form, handing it back to Jethro.
“If you have any trouble from anything though, you can always call us to check it out,” he said once he’d secured the form inside the metal clipboard holder.
“Thanks. I’m sure it will all be fine.” Rissa sighed. “Let’s go upstairs where we can sit down. I have a feeling we could all use a drink.”
She led the way to the elevator, the men piling in behind her. She punched in the code for her floor which no one else had. They could climb the stairs but couldn’t enter her floor without her letting them in.
Once inside her apartment, she led the way to the kitchen. “I have whiskey, vodka, several kinds of beer, and an assortment of wine. What would you like?” she asked.
They both chose a domestic beer. She poured a glass of wine. They sat in the living room with her taking one of the chairs across from the sofa they chose. They looked much more at home there than her father and brother had when they’d come over to see her new home. Instead of being impressed by the spacious apartment, they’d complained about the parking and that they were sure someone would steal their car before they got ready to leave.
“Have you thought about what we talked about?” Jethro asked.
She took a sip of her wine. “I’ve thought about little else other than the store. I like both of you a lot, Jethro, Deacon. I want to see what a relationship like you’re talking about could lead us, but I’m also a little worried that it won’t work and the three of us will all end up hurt. I couldn’t stand that to happen.”
“What do you mean?” Deacon asked.
“What if somewhere down the road one of you decides you don’t want to share any longer? It would cause a rift between the two of you and I’d end up just as hurt as you guys. Do you know anyone who lives like this?” she asked.
Deacon narrowed his eyes. “Not here. There are others who live in a ménage just not around here.”
“But do you know them?” she asked.
“No,” Jethro said, looking over at the other man.
“Neither do I. I had a friend that lives with another woman and her husband, but they’ve lived that way for years. They live in Austin now, so I don’t know if they’re still all three living together or not. I’m worried that we’ll try this and down the road somewhere one of us decides it’s not for us.”
“Isn’t that how marriage works nowadays anyway? People don’t get into it for the long haul. They say, ‘Hey, if it doesn’t work out we’ll just get a divorce,’” Deacon snapped. “Why should this be any different? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“No.” She couldn’t believe the amount of anger that flowed through Deacon’s voice.
“What Deacon is trying to say is that being in a threesome isn’t going to be any different than taking a chance with marriage is anyway. What if you’d married that Brad guy and decided down the road he was a jerk? You’d have divorced him. One or both of you would be hurt. Same thing with the three of us making a go of it. You won’t know if it will work until you try to make it work,” Jethro said.
“How do you know that you won’t get jealous of each other?” she asked.
“We’ve shared in the past and it wasn’t an issue. We both want what is best for you. Fighting over you wouldn’t be. There’s no competition between us to spend more time with you than the other one. It will all work out in the end. All that matters is that you’re happy, healthy, and safe.” Jethro leaned forward. “Just give us a chance to show you. Go out with us for a while first.”
Rissa sighed. She was going to try dating them. She’d already made up her mind, but had wanted to know what they were thinking first. She nodded.
“I’d like that. I want to get to know you outside of work. Who knows, we might not be compatible without all of this.” She waved her hand.
“I believe we will. You’re exactly who we’ve been looking for. You’re smart, interesting, pretty, and have a great sense of humor,” Jethro said.
“You’re not pretentious or snooty, either,” Deacon added. “Can’t stand snooty-assed women.”
She couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling over. “No. I’m not snooty. I think that’s one of the things that bothered Brad so much. I would talk to anyone including the waitstaff at parties. He detested that about me.”
“Asshole,” Deacon said. “You’re a hell of a lot better off without him even if you weren’t with us.
“You are with us, right, Rissa?” Jethro asked.
“Yeah. I’m with you. At least until we know for certain if we can make anything more work or not.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Jethro asked.
“Yes. I said I was. Why do you keep asking?” Rissa sat between the two men in the work truck as they headed to eat.
She was wearing jeans—yes, they were designer jeans, but still—and she had on a frilly blouse she thought went well with the outfit which included cowboy boots. Real cowboy boots.
“Am I dressed okay for this?” she asked.
“Yeah. You look fucking hot,” Deacon told her.
“Thanks.” She smiled over at the man.
“I guess I’m just nervous to take you somewhere you’re not used to,” Jethro admitted.
“I can’t believe you’re more nervous about this than I am,” she teased.
Deacon pulled the big truck into the parking lot of a country western steakhouse. Jethro helped her down from the truck, swinging her down as if she didn’t weigh a thing. She’d have expected that of Deacon, the man was huge, but it felt good that Jethro could do it as well. She’d never felt so small before.
I’ve never been around such large, masculine men before. Brad was a wuss who only worked out at the gym to look nice. He wouldn’t have been able to pick me up if my life depended on it. Maybe not even if his life depended on it.
Rissa shut thoughts of the pretentious bastard out of her head. She had two very virile men with her right now. She didn’t need to think of anything else but them and having fun tonight.
They kept her between them as they walked into the restaurant. The hostess seated them at a table near the back. She left them with menus and promised that their waitress would be with them shortly.
“What’s good here?” she asked, looking over all the choices.
“Actually,” Deacon said with a smile, “everything. Pick out what you want, and I’ll tell you if I think you’ll like it.”
They gave the waitress their drink orders then Rissa decided on hamburger steak with onions. Deacon pronounced it as something he thought she’d like.
“Have you ever had that before?” Jethro asked, eyeing his friend across the table.
“Yes. I’ve actually cooked it before, but haven’t had any in a long time. I get steaks and seafood all the time. This sounds good to me for a change.”
“Hey, guys. Haven’t seen you in a week of Sundays.” A heavyse
t man in his mid-forties walked over with his arm around a pretty woman with long blonde hair. “How you been doing?”
“Hey, Gary, Jill. Doing good,” Jethro said. “This is Rissa. Rissa, Gary and Jill Martin. Gary runs a crew we sometimes team up with on big projects. This is his wife, Jill.”
“Hi. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she told them.
“Which one of you lucky guys snagged her?” Gary asked.
When neither of them said anything, Rissa decided to take the bull by the horns and answer for them.
“Oh, I’m with both of them. How can you choose with two handsome men like them?” she asked with a shrug.
“You’re a better woman than I am,” Jill said. “I can barely keep up with this one.”
Rissa wasn’t sure Gary believed her when she said she was with both of them, but Jill acted as if she did. She glanced at Jethro and Deacon and realized they were gaping at her. She frowned. Didn’t they want their friends to know about them?
“Got wind of a project down near the Renaissance District that might need more than one crew. Want me to steer them your way as well?” Gary asked.
“Yeah, that would be good. We just finished a building down there,” Jethro said, recovering before Deacon.
“Good, good. Talk to you guys later.” Gary took his wife’s arm and walked toward the door.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
“No, not at all, but we didn’t expect you to admit you were with both of us like that. We figured we’d start slow,” Jethro said.
“I’m not going to lie to people if they ask me who I’m with. I’m with both of you. If I told them I was with Deacon, wouldn’t it bother you to be left out?” she asked Jethro.
“I’d understand,” he began.
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d have felt cheated. Admit it,” she said.
“Maybe you’re right. I hadn’t thought about someone asking outright who you were with.” Jethro scowled.
“See, I told you that this wasn’t going to be as easy as you thought it would be. Screwing around with three people is a hell of a lot different than dating three people is,” she told them.