Instead of Jake answering her, Jackson ran his hand down her back. “Tinker Bell, if you want to say your peace to the congressman, he’s in that interview room right there. His lawyer is with him, of course. We’ll be with you, too, because there is no way on God’s green earth that we’ll let you be anywhere near him without us. You don’t have to face him if you don’t want to. It’s up to you.”
“He’s in there? Right now?” Ari pointed toward the same small room that was part of the DA’s suite, the same room she’d been in earlier. Small, and furnished with a table and chairs, it had no windows, just two doors. One door led into this office, and the other, she’d been told, to a corridor that led to the courthouse jail cells.
“While you were giving your statement, earlier, I sent officers to the Congressman’s home. He’s been arrested and charged. His lawyer is probably going to arrange bail, but that will not change the outcome of what’s going to happen.” Mr. Reynolds sat forward. “He will go to trial, and I can tell you, that with the evidence we’ve amassed, he will be convicted. I doubt very much that the judge will be lenient with him, either. Thaddeus Bishop is going to be a guest of the state for a very long time.”
Ari looked over at Jeremy. “What about you?”
“I’m too angry to face him. I might lose my temper in a way that would serve me no good.”
Though the District Attorney didn’t say anything, Ari thought that his facial expression was sympathetic to her stepbrother’s position.
“Sweetheart? You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. But we’re here. Tell us what you want.” Cord picked her hand up and brought it to his lips.
The unconditional support of these two men had to fall under the heading of “greatest fringe benefit in the entire world”.
She turned her gaze toward the door. Hadn’t she cried herself to sleep at nights, cold, alone, and filled with rage? All sorts of imagined scenarios of getting even had played across the movie screen of her mind until sleep had claimed her. Some nights, those images were her only comfort, and, she was pretty sure, the only thing that kept her going—at least in the beginning.
She would never get another chance.
“Yes. Yes, I want to face him.”
In the moment before he turned toward her, Ari saw the edge of fear on his face. She hadn’t spent a lot of time, once she decided to take control of her life when she was seventeen, thinking about revenge. But once in a while, and especially after the man was elected to the congress, she’d catch sight of a newspaper article, or a flash of his face on the evening news, and a venomous hate would shoot through her, a lightning bolt of raw, negative emotion.
Jackson and Cord both had hold of her hands. They each squeezed gently. This reminder of their presence quelled the negative energy she felt building within her.
The man who had accompanied Bishop got to his feet. But, of course, the congressman didn’t. He stared at her in a way very similar to the looks he’d sent her after the first time he’d assaulted her.
Why, the douche bag thinks he can intimidate me with a look, like he could when I was just a kid.
“Constance. I expect you to speak to the District Attorney and get this mess straightened out, immediately.”
“I’ve just done that very thing.”
“Good girl.” Satisfaction showed on his face, and she realized, in that moment, something very important.
This man had been her bogey man, the monster under the bed, and the one hiding in the closet, all rolled into one. She had spent the better part of the last ten years filled with anger, hate, and cynicism. She had, in fact, been on her way to becoming a hard, perpetually unhappy woman.
The love of the two men holding her hands had set her free.
“I’ve just finished signing a ten-count affidavit against you, for rape and sodomy and battery.”
Bishop’s demeanor devolved from superior to sinister in less than a heartbeat. “Why you little whore…” Bishop would have surged to his feet except his lawyer placed a hand on his shoulder and kept him anchored to the chair.
Cord and Jackson both stiffened beside her. She gently squeezed their hands. They relaxed only slightly, but both men edged just a tiny bit closer to her. “I didn’t know what I would say to you, when I stepped through that door and saw you for the first time in over ten years.” Ari met his gaze and felt no fear. Even the loathing that she would have sworn would bubble to the surface failed to materialize. What she did feel was the warmth of her men close to her and a longing to go home.
She continued to meet Bishop’s gaze for a long moment until finally, he lowered his eyes.
“I was your stepdaughter! You were supposed to take care of me and protect me. But instead, you raped me, you tormented me, and you drove me from the only home I’d ever known.”
Ari took a moment to look at Cord and then Jackson. In their eyes she saw unconditional love. They were her future and this…this creature, was most definitely her past.
She turned back to Bishop and leaned in just a little bit. “If not for the love of these two good men, I would still be a broken woman, a woman without joy, without purpose, without a real life.”
Better, now. She felt the raging in her soul quiet. This monster would pay for what he’d done to her. There was only one more thing left to say.
“I suppose there are some who would urge me to forgive you, and others who would say I should condemn you to hell. I’m going to do neither. I’m just going to dismiss you.”
Chapter 23
Ari had called Chloe from the Lear jet and asked her to go over to Cord and Jackson’s house and set the DVR.
She’d argued with her men that she wanted to watch it, at least one time, because she hadn’t really focused as it was happening. Though they hadn’t been happy about her request—and she really couldn’t blame them for that—they’d acquiesced.
As soon as they’d arrived back at the house, they’d turned the television on for her, and held her while she watched.
The eleven o’clock news captured the confrontation perfectly. Ari tried to view the coverage objectively. The camera panned on her as she had emerged, with her four-man entourage, from the district attorney’s office. Congressman Bishop had already been taken from the small room toward one of the courthouse cells, and rumors of her arrival and interview had circulated. She hadn’t known that last at the time.
The middle-aged woman who charged toward her, spewing invectives, had come out of nowhere. Funny, but the moment she’d heard that screech, she’d known who the woman was.
Ari studied her now, this woman who had carried her in uteri, given birth to her, and raised her for fourteen years. Frances Bishop looked…hard. The news coverage had beeped most of what her mother had said, but she doubted she would ever forget that diatribe.
“You whore! I knew you only wanted to destroy my happiness! How dare you spread your filthy lies about my husband! I’ll sue you. You don’t know who you’re fucking with! I should have fucking aborted you when I had the chance!”
Jake had stepped in front of her at the same time police officers restrained the congressman’s wife.
Jake had spoken to her, his voice pitched too low for the news people to record. But his response, as far as Ari was concerned, had been perfect. “Madam, you don’t know who you’re fucking with. Back off.”
Jake had stayed in Frances Bishop’s face while her men and her stepbrother had escorted her out of the building.
They’d driven to the airport where the private Lear jet, owned by the Lusty Town Trust, had been waiting to bring them home.
“That’s enough, now.” Cord turned off the television.
“Yes, it’s enough.” She inhaled deeply. “You know, all these years, there was a small part of me that thought, if I ever saw her again…” She shook her head, swallowed around the lump in her throat, and continued. “If I ever saw her again, that she’d throw her arms around me, and hold me and tell me she was
sorry, that she’d been wrong.”
Odd, but she had no tears for this moment, or that woman. Maybe because she had really known all along this was how a final meeting between them would play out? She met Cord’s gaze, and then Jackson’s. “I’m going to be a very good mother to our children.”
“We have no doubt of that.” Jackson cupped her face in his hands. “We love you, and we are so very proud of you.”
“I think Jake was right. I think the bastard will likely plead no contest to keep the media coverage to a minimum. But if he doesn’t, I will testify against him, and I don’t care if that woman comes at me again, or not.”
“Oh, darling, don’t even think about it. Jake has already taken steps to get a protective order filed against her.”
“Good.” Ari took one last look at the darkened television. She nodded her head, once. She would do what she had to, but until that time, she was through thinking about the past, or letting the past dictate her present or her future.
“Do you know what I want right now?”
“Ice cream?”
“Bubble gum?”
Ari burst out laughing. Only her men would come up with such silly suggestions, just to make her laugh. “No.” She stepped in to them, and loved it when they each touched her. She stretched up on her tiptoes and gave each of them a very sweet kiss. “I want us to go upstairs and get naked. First, I want that spanking you’ve been promising me because I was careless enough to try to take on Frank Mills all by myself. And then I want us to become one. I want you both inside me at the same time.”
Jackson caressed her cheek. “We love you, baby. The spanking is no problem, but the other? We want that like you wouldn’t believe but that’s a lot for us to ask of you. Are you sure?”
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Cord said. “You’re too precious.”
“I’m sure. I need you now. I need to feel more of the excitement you gave me when you smacked my ass. I need to know that you will watch over me and let me know when I do something foolish, putting myself and others in danger. And I need to hold you both inside me and know that from now on, I’m never going to feel alone or deserted—not ever again.”
Her two men shared a look, and when they turned their eyes on her once more, she could see the love, and the longing.
“All right, sweetheart,” Jackson said. He bent down and kissed her. “But we’ll do this our way.”
Their way involved starting off with major pampering. They’d stripped her, and then themselves, but instead of carrying her to the bed, they carried her into the master bath. They’d filled the large claw-foot tub with scented beads, and then lifted her and set her in it. It wasn’t the first time they’d bathed her. They’d done it the first time they were together as lovers. But it was the first time they set candles around the bathroom and bedroom. The subtle fragrance of jasmine filled the air, and the sound of music, sultry, smoky jazz, took up the empty spaces. They lulled her with their tender care of her. These men knew her better than she’d known herself, for as the heat and the scented steam and the soft touches worked on her, she felt herself begin to relax.
She’d been strung tight with tension and hadn’t even realized it.
“You’re so beautiful,” Jackson said. “Not just physically, although you are that. But inside, your heart and your spirit—everything about you is so bright and shining.”
“You’re our miracle,” Cord said. “We dreamed of finding a woman we could both love, who would love us back. But it was only a dream, until we met you.”
Ari understood their need to try to put emotions into words. They brought that same need out in her. “When I first came to this town and discovered so many ménage families, all I could think was that two husbands equaled two times the asshole, because I’d seen enough already to believe that most people were selfish. I don’t mind eating those words, because you’ve both shown me that two men really equals twice the love, twice the caring, and twice the devotion. You each, in your way, complete me.” Without warning, desperation and desire rose up, entwined, and filled her soul. “Please don’t make me wait any longer. Love me.”
“We will—we do—and, woman, we will never stop.” Jackson reached for her, lifting her out of the bath and setting her on her feet. Cord handed him a towel and together, they dried her, their touch reverent.
Cord cupped her face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs across her cheeks. “In our hearts, you’re already our wife.” Then he kissed her. The slide and glide and heat fed her arousal, just as his flavor fed her soul. She returned his kiss, drinking him in and giving him all she was, all she ever would be.
Jackson moved in and pressed himself against her back. He laid a string of kisses on her neck and shoulders. The heat of him enveloped her, and the scent of them both stirred her more than the most expensive fragrance ever could.
Cord broke their kiss, and turned her, so that she faced Jackson. Rising up on her toes, she didn’t wait. She wrapped her arms around him, pressed herself close and kissed him. Ari immersed herself in him, taking his flavor into her body and his heat into her soul. Opening her mouth, she offered the one special thing she had no problem whatsoever handing over to him—her surrender.
Jackson tapered their kiss, then lifted her. “Wrap yourself around me, Tinker Bell. We have one more thing we want to do with you, first.”
She did and he carried her into the bedroom, straight to the bed—their bed.
He sat down with her on his lap. Then, as if he’d just read that thought, he said, “I think it’s time we moved you in here with us full time.”
“Yes, I think it is, too.” She couldn’t get her mind to think of anything smart-ass, or clever, as she sometimes did. She needed too desperately, and right at the moment, the sensation of his hot body pressed to hers felt so wonderful she just wanted to wallow in him.
Cord came to them and knelt down in front of her. “You said you wanted a spanking. We know that you mentioned that hellish moment when you deliberately drew that bastard Mills to you. And we also know that you get really turned-on by having your ass smacked. Baby, do you also want us to paddle you because you feel the need to cry?”
Ari needed to touch him. She stroked the side of his face. “You’re thinking of that news clip, and that—” She wanted to say “that woman who gave birth to me.” Ari found it hard to call Frances Bishop her mother, because the woman truly made a mockery of the title. But in truth, she didn’t want to put that much thought or emotion into her reference to her. She met Cord’s gaze. “You’re thinking of my watching what Frances said to me. I didn’t cry then, when she spit those things in my face, or downstairs, when we watched that clip. I thought I would, but I’m glad I didn’t. Tonight, I just want to explore that different kind of arousal I felt when Jackson gave me those pops. It was not like anything I’d ever imagined. Hot, enveloping. I need more of that.”
“All right.” Cord’s eyes had filled with mischief. “We’re all for letting your explore your sexuality—and your sensuality. Sweetheart, I finally got me a paddle. I wonder if you’ll let me use it?”
“Oh, God, yes. Why does the thought of that make me tingle inside?”
“I’ve heard that some women really like a good paddling now and again,” Jackson said. “And it’s something that we enjoy doing. But if it doesn’t work for you, we don’t have to do it. I know those pops excited you, but they were just one, here and there. So we’ll do this one time. If it doesn’t work for you, we can give it up.”
Ari turned so that she was able to cup each of their faces. “I’m not fragile. Maybe in time you’ll come to understand and accept that just as you need to do whatever you can to please me, I feel the same way. So don’t think I’m going to let you give up something you enjoy just like that.” Then she grinned. “Because if you do, I may become such a brat that you won’t be able to resist turning me over your knee.” She kissed Jackson, and then Cord. “I want you to paddle me, Cord.”
&nb
sp; “We’ll make it sexy,” Cord said. He got up and went over to the bedside table and opened the drawer. He pulled out an article that reminded her of a ping pong paddle. He brought it over for her to look at. It was smooth, leather over wood and red in color, with a well-gripped handle. Just looking at it made her pussy leak.
“How are you going to make it sexy?” Ari already knew she was going to love this. And she was honest enough with herself to admit that if a good spanking made her cry, that would be all the better.
She did have a habit of holding things in too tightly.
“You can ride me,” Jackson said. “Ride my cock while Cord paddles you. That way we can both enjoy it as your cunt spasms around my cock with each whack.” He moved them so they were in the center of the bed. Then he stretched out, put his arms around her, and pulled her on top of him.
Oh, yes, she would straddle him and revel in that and her paddling, but first she wanted to do something else. Her movements quick, her objective clear, she crawled down his body, fisted his cock, and then sucked that luscious part of him into her mouth.
“Damn, Tink, you have a wonderful mouth.”
She loved the way he groaned, the way he fisted her hair. She loved that the bed dipped and she felt Cord there, close enough that he could watch her.
Feeling daring and naughty, she reached out her left hand to him, and fisted his cock, too.
“Ah, a two-handed eater,” Cord said. “Let’s hear it for a woman who can multitask.”
She grinned and lifted her mouth from Jackson, shifted her position, and sucked Cord’s cock into her mouth.
Their cocks and their pre-cum tasted subtly different. She bet in time she would be able to tell them apart. For now, she was only interested in giving to both of these men she loved.
For a few minutes she focused on sucking each of them in turn, arousing them both. Their sounds and sighs stirred her, and the way they each palmed her head thrilled her down deep in a place she never knew she had.
“Enough!” Jackson lifted her and brought her down so that she straddled him. He didn’t bother with a condom, and she shivered in anticipation. They’d all been tested and cleared. They were, none of them, ever going to take another lover.
Love Under Two Quarterbacks [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 25