Theirs to Pleasure: a Reverse Harem Romance

by Stasia Black

  He did this for me. He made a deal with the devil and I’m the one who’s going to have to live with the things I saw today.

  But then I concentrate on the weight and warmth of Enzo’s hand in mine. I close my eyes. Because God, if I’d had the opportunity and resources, would I have done any differently to save my Enzo?

  I would do anything—absolutely anything, no matter how it marked my soul—to save my brother.

  So I finally lift my eyes and meet Kennedy’s gaze.

  Chapter 25

  KENNEDY

  She’s looking at me again. Those eyes. Those big blue fucking eyes. Bright.

  Alive. Thank Christ. She’s alive.

  My chest is still knotted up so tight I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take a full breath ever again. But I think it might be real. I think I might have really gotten her out in time. That she might really be here.

  Right after I read her note this morning, I called a PI I have on retainer to track her. Some guys have lawyers on retainer, and yeah, I’ve got one of those, too. But after all the shit I’ve been knee deep in over the years, I’ve turned to Juarez more than once when someone or something felt off and I wanted to dig deeper. And I happen to know he can hack into city cameras. So I called him right away.

  He wasn’t happy when I woke him up at six-thirty in the morning. He perked up when I mentioned the obscene amount of money I was willing to pay for a rush job. An hour later he’d retraced Scarlet’s steps all over the city throughout the night.

  Looking for her brother. Of course she’d want to follow him right away. It was so fucking stupid to think she’d actually sleep on it. Christ, look at the lengths she’d already gone to for that boy. And then what she told me about what happened on the streets when they got so desperate… I was an idiot for thinking she’d let it lie.

  That’s when Juarez gave me the news that hit me like a goddamn battering ram to the chest. About ten minutes before he called, he’d clocked her heading straight into the Tenderloin District.

  I knew what that meant. And fuck, I’ve never felt so terrified in my life. Not those nights I was starving and Mom was crying in the other room. Not even the day I got the call about her suicide.

  The boy hadn’t wanted to come with us in the first place. He hadn’t heard the deal she’d made on his behalf or the way that fucker Francisco had sold him back to his sister. Not to mention how insulting Francisco had been. And Scarlet was heading straight back into that scorpion pit?

  And I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it, not if the 12th Streeters had her.

  I was just one man.

  I hung up on Juarez and wanted to punch another hole through the wall.

  I didn’t even have that much money left in my accounts. About two million in liquid assets. It was chump change compared to what Francisco had already gotten out of me. I could still go and try to buy their freedom, but I couldn’t be sure that Francisco wouldn’t just shoot me for the fuck of it.

  And who knew what he was doing to Scarlet right at that moment.

  That decided it. I headed toward the door, ready to do anything to try to get her back. I’d do whatever it took to get rid of those 12th Street fuckers.

  Which was when Yang popped in my head.

  It was how I’d gotten rid of my 12th Street problem the first time.

  I brought in a bigger fish and let them destroy the smaller gang for me…

  Could I do it again?

  It would cost me, and not the measly two million I had left in the bank. But I did have something Yang wanted.

  It wasn’t even a decision.

  I just picked up my phone and dialed.

  It took hours and fucking hours for Yang to pull everything together.

  And then the shooting was done and I finally had Scarlet in my arms. I haven’t looked away from her since. I feel like if I let her out of my sight, she’ll disappear.

  I don’t care how awkward it might be for Enzo who’s sitting between us. I feel like I could drown in those gorgeous eyes for the rest of my life and be the happiest man on Earth. I don’t even care how goddamn sappy that sounds.

  After having to sit in a car outside the restaurant while Yang’s goons ran inside and started shooting up the whole place—which was not part of the plan Yang and I’d discussed—fuck, I’ll be happy to spout fucking sappy love poems for the rest of my life. As long as Scarlet’s alive and healthy and breathing and did I mention fucking alive?

  The SUV pulls to a sudden stop. I glance up in surprise. Oh. Wow. We’re here already.

  I open my car door.

  “Come on,” I say to Enzo and Scarlet. I step out and look around. Yang’s driver stopped in an underground garage about half an hour from my house. One without cameras. Juarez let me know about it. It’s handy knowing all the people I do, especially on a day like today. I don’t want anything tying Scarlet or her brother to that fucking bloodbath back at the restaurant.

  Barely after Scarlet’s closed the door, the SUV takes off. She jumps away with a yelp and immediately I pull her into my arms. For just a moment, she curls into me and presses her face against my chest.

  But then she pulls back. I’m left reaching for her as she steps all the way out of my grasp. She looks between Enzo and me.

  That’s when Enzo seems to come to life again. The whole SUV ride, he was kind of blank, like he was in shock. But he blinks likes he’s taking in his sister for the first time.

  “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry.” He reaches out to touch her cheek where several bruises are forming, and her split lip, but then pulls back. I haven’t let myself focus on her injuries. I couldn’t. I needed to keep my self-control. Plus, the guy who called Yang when he found Scarlet said they were all dead. Every single last one of them. So whatever fucker did that to her got what was coming to him.

  But Enzo’s losing it, I can see it coming.

  “Come on, let’s get in the car.” I urge them toward a car at the end of the row. It’s not mine—it’s one I’m borrowing. Again, Juarez came through for me.

  Enzo stumbles in the direction I’m ushering them toward, but he can’t tear his eyes off his sister. “I swear, Scar. If I knew—” Tears pour down his cheeks. “I thought— You went off with him after all he—” His eyes flick to me. “And when I was with them they made me feel like I was one of them. They were fucking liars and I don’t deserve you. You’re the only one who’s ever—” He breaks off and crumples to the concrete, hands covering his head while his whole body shakes.

  “No, no,” Scarlet bends over and wraps her arms around him. “Shh, Enzo, stop saying all that. It’s you and me against the world. Just like always.” But right after she says it, her eyes flick up to me. “Come on, help me get him up.” Her eyes plead with me.

  I nod and grab one of Enzo’s arms as she grabs the other. I’m about to say she shouldn’t, that she’s too battered and bruised to lift anything, but then I realize how light Enzo is.

  Christ, he’s just a fucking kid. He looks really young right now. How old did Scarlet say he was? Fourteen? Fifteen?

  I help Scarlet get him over to the car. She looks over at me above his head, and those blue eyes are full of gratitude. I don’t know how she can even have the capacity for such a feeling after everything today. I blink but then she’s back to focusing on her brother.

  We help him into the back of the nondescript silver Honda. It blends in with all the other cars filling up the commuter parking lot.

  After Enzo’s in and buckled, Scarlet reaches out for my hand and squeezes it. Again those eyes, and I feel like she’s stabbing me right through the chest when the next words come out of her mouth:

  “Let’s go home.”

  Home.

  Chapter 26

  KENNEDY

  Hours later, I’m watching the news when Scarlet knocks on my bedroom door and then slips inside.

  I mute the news report with various commentators debating the reason for renewed gang violenc
e that’s erupted on the streets of inner-city San Francisco.

  “Hey.” I sit up straighter on the bed as she enters the room and closes the door quietly behind her.

  “Hi,” she says, looking at the floor almost shyly. Which is ridiculous after all we’ve been through.

  “How’s Enzo?”

  She glances up, just a quick flash of blue eyes before she lowers them again. “He’s okay. I mean,” she walks over to the window and looks out over the darkening city. “I don’t think today is something you just get over in an afternoon. But I must have told him a hundred times I don’t blame him. And I explained about you, how you never meant for what happened to Dad.” She looks over her shoulder at me. But only for a second before her gaze goes back to the sunset.

  “It’s beautiful,” she murmurs, looking out at the view. The sky is a mix of pinks and oranges cast over the water with the Golden Gate Bridge as a focal point.

  “I agree.” I’m staring only at her, though.

  She looks back again and realizes what I meant by my words. Her cheeks pinken slightly and this time she doesn’t look away. Then she turns her whole body toward me, her eyebrows drawn together.

  “How could you do that? Give up everything for us?” She shakes her head. “But to go into business with Yang? He’s a monster.” She shudders, but then her eyebrows draw together in confusion again. “And how do you even have the money for the hotel deal anymore? I thought it was all gone.”

  I smile easily and walk toward the window. I don’t approach too close to where she’s standing. Fuck, I’m afraid to spook her. “That’s a few questions there. I’ll try to answer them all.” I look to the ceiling, thinking through everything she asked.

  Then I drop my gaze back to her. “The first question is stupid.” My voice softens. “I’d give up anything for you, Scarlet. Don’t you know that by now?”

  She swallows and I hurry on, not really wanting to hear her response. Especially if she’s going to say how sweet that is but that she really doesn’t feel the same.

  I shrug. “Getting into business with Yang was a necessary evil. When I say I would have done anything,” I level my gaze with hers and my voice drops, “I mean anything.” I relax with one shoulder against the glass wall of the balcony. “As for The Sutler deal, I can’t pull out of the deal now. I have to be a major buy-in partner. It was the only way I could get Yang to risk so much. So…I’m selling the original Benson’s location.”

  I watch her, waiting for some reaction to this news. It’s the building that started it all—what used to be her father’s family restaurant. I hurry on to tell her the rest of my plan, “The money that the investment in the hotel makes will eventually go to you and your brother, free and clear.”

  “What?” She startles so much her entire body jerks with it. “You can’t—”

  “I can and I will,” I cut her off. “No matter what you told your brother, it is my fault what happened to your family. If I had never gone to the 12th Streeters in the first place looking for so-called investors,” my voice breaks off in disgust at myself, “then they never would have come after your family.”

  Scarlet’s shaking her head but I take two steps forward, covering the last bit of distance between us. I grab her hands. Christ, her skin is so soft. “Let me do this. Please.” I’m not above begging. I search her face. Her beautiful face, bruised and battered. But not broken. Never broken. Not my Scarlet.

  Still, almost everything she’s gone through can be traced back to me. To my stupid fucking decision when I was a stupid little fucker with blind ambition: I saw a struggling restaurant in a great location when I was scouting and said, that one, and then decided to try to take what wasn’t mine.

  She shakes her head but finally says, “Only for Enzo.” Then she looks down. “I won’t take anything from you. Not for myself.”

  I nod, but Christ. Those words hurt. She’s kind of killing me here. I can call her my Scarlet for the rest of eternity but that’s never going to make it true, is it?

  And I know better than to get my hopes up. Hasn’t life taught me well enough by now? I was born wrong. She doesn’t want anything from me. You can’t love poison. She’s smart. She should take her brother and get away from me now before it’s too late. I take a short step back.

  “Kennedy,” Scarlet starts. “That’s not what I—”

  “I’ll have to talk to Vale, though,” I cut her off. “I need to explain the new situation so he can pull out of the deal if he wants. We can find investors to take over his portion if we have to.”

  Scarlet’s eyes soften as she looks at me. “You’re a good man.”

  “Don’t.” I grimace and shake my head.

  “You are.” This time it’s her taking the step toward me.

  “Scarlet,” I warn, and I don’t know if I’m saying it because I don’t want any fake bullshit or because if she takes one step closer, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stop myself from grabbing her and never letting her go.

  “Kennedy,” she mocks, a wicked light entering her eyes.

  Then she launches herself at me.

  She jumps up in my arms and I can’t help but to grab her to me.

  And Christ. It’s Scarlet. Everywhere Scarlet.

  She wraps her arms and legs around me and her hair swirls from behind her back over my shoulder. I bury my face in it. Vanilla and coconut and just Scarlet. Scarlet. My fucking Scarlet. Finally where she belongs.

  I put one hand under her ass to hold her to me and wrap the other around her back. I carry her to the wall and start kissing her, but she shakes her head.

  “What—?”

  “The bed,” she whispers, blue eyes full as she looks down at me, running one of her thumbs along my cheek.

  Fuck. Does she know what she does to me? To have her here? Finally here, with no secrets between us? I press my head to her chest.

  She leans down to whisper in my ear. “Let’s make love in our bed. Our new life starts now.”

  For a second I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t believe any of this is real.

  And then I tell myself to get fucking going.

  Because I’ve got the most beautiful woman in the world in my arms and it’s time to satisfy her. Multiple times over.

  I give her a quick slap on the ass, grin when she yelps, and carry my woman over to our bed.

  Chapter 27

  KENNEDY

  “So let me get this straight,” Vale puts down his scotch and looks me straight in the eye. “This crime boss, Yang, will likely try to use the hotel as a money laundering front now that he’s an investing partner? And you can’t do anything about it because he got you out of a jam regarding the lovely Scarlet’s safety?”

  He gestures to where Scarlet’s sitting with his wife Callie, the two of them with their heads together, all quiet gossip and smiles. They’ve quickly become close friends in our brief association with the Vales.

  I lift my glass and then down the rest of the contents. “That’s pretty much it. Yang’s got me by the short-and-hairies.” I look at Vale levelly. “But there’s no reason for you to get dragged into this. I wanted to let you know so you can pull out. I know some investors who won’t mind Yang’s involvement.” I look to the ceiling with a quick shake of my head. “Fuck, it’ll probably make it more attractive to them.”

  I look at my empty glass, then set it down. Not the best idea to get piss drunk even though Vale’s a friend. This is business. It was probably never a good idea to mix up friendship in this shit from the beginning. Especially now that the deal’s gotten fucked sideways.

  I dare to take a glance at Vale and find him staring over the top of his glass at the wall. He seems to be pondering something. Maybe whether or not to tell me to go take a flying leap. I just hope he doesn’t influence his wife against Scarlet. She had nothing to do with any of this and she seems to really like Callie—

  “Did I ever tell you,” Vale suddenly says, taking another sip of his scotch
and skewering me with his gaze, “how much I fucking hate bullies?”

  I feel my eyebrows lift in surprise. All right. Not where I expected the conversation to go. “I’m listening.”

  “What if there were another option?”

  I lean forward, elbows on my knees.

  Vale smiles and it’s a calculated, devious smile. “I like the metaphor you used earlier. But what if I told you I know a bigger shark after all?”

  “Who?” I ask in bewilderment. But also with keen fucking interest.

  Vale grins and holds out his hands. “I just happen to be on very good terms with the DA and the San Francisco Police Department.”

  Epilogue

  SCARLET

  “Hurry, quiet,” I whisper with a giggle as I shove Kennedy into one of the cells in C block.

  “Now, we’ll continue down Broadway to Times Square,” drones the Alcatraz guide in a somewhat monotone voice. The shuffling feet of the tour group we just slipped away from echoes all around the otherwise empty prison.

  I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle my giggles and Kennedy only shakes his head at me with a dark look and an arched eyebrow.

  I take one second to look around the tiny five-by-nine mint-green cell we’re in and then hurry over to the corner. I put my legs shoulder width apart, flip up my flowing skirt, and grab the end of the cot.

  If I thought Kennedy’s eyes were dark before? Yeah. Nothing to the way his pupils blow and his nostrils flare at the sight of my bare ass. I wiggle it at him just for good measure.

  He glances toward the open cell door and then he’s on me, unzipping his pants as he goes. He moves me so that we’re boxed in the tiny corner and my ass is facing the wall. He reaches down and grabs my ass cheeks hard, then slides his hand underneath and slips a finger inside me. I know he’s checking if I’m ready.

  Sweet of him, but completely unnecessary. I’ve been wet since we landed on the island, waiting for a moment like this when I could get him alone on one of San Francisco’s most famous landmarks. He’s playing innocent, but he must have been expecting it, too. After all, we’ve fucked at popular spots all around town. In a cab while we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. At a beach underneath the bridge. On another beach in the Presidio. On Fisherman’s Wharf. In the—