Accepting Eva [Slick Rock 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (12 page)

“Drink,” Quin commanded, handing her the full glass. “The alcohol will help you to relax even more.”

“I don’t usually…”

“Do as you’re told, baby. I want you nice and calm.”

Eva gave him an irritated look but sipped her wine.

Pierson brought the pot of stew to the table and placed it on a pot holder. After taking his seat opposite her he took her bowl from Gray’s hand and filled it with food. He watched her intently as they all began to eat, and with each mouthful she took, she seemed to become even more tense.

What the hell is going on with you, darlin’? Are you embarrassed about this afternoon? Are you having second thoughts about being with all of us? Are you still in pain?
God, I just want to hold you and love you for the rest of our lives.
He watched as she began to push her food around her bowl instead of eat it. She’d hardly made a dent in her meal, and Pierson was beginning to get really worried.

“That’s it!” Quin exploded. “We have had enough of you shutting us out, Eva. You’d better start talking and tell us what is going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

Dammit, Quin.
Pierson wanted to help her, too, but his brother’s temper might do more harm than good.

Before Pierson could put his foot in it, Gray said calmly, “Quin, just calm down. We’ve all had a long day and I’m sure Eva’s tired.”

“Eva isn’t tired,” Eva said tightly. She continued to watch Quin intently from across the table. “You want to talk, Quin? Fine. We’ll talk. But we are going to wait until everyone is done eating.”

Despite the thick tension at the table, Pierson felt himself smile.
That’s our girl.

Quin had better be careful, Pierson thought. He was about to see the other side of Eva.

* * * *

The rest of dinner passed in silence. Eva didn’t mind. She ate her food, knowing Quin would insist even if she said she wasn’t hungry. When the table had been cleared, they paraded into the living room.

“Sit,” Quin barked, pointing to the sofa.

He still seemed angry, but that was fine. So was Eva.

Once she was settled, Pierson sat next to her and handed her the wine. Gray sat on her other side while Quin pulled the sturdy timber coffee table closer to the sofa and sat on it in front of her.

“Talk to us, Eva,” Quin demanded.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” She looked from Quin to Pierson. “I’ve told you all about Tim.” Her gaze moved from Pierson to Gray. “I’ve told you about my first boyfriend.”

Finally she looked to Quin. “Now it’s your turn.”

“What?”

“You promised me that you wouldn’t fly off the handle when you lost your temper. But every time you think I’m hiding something from you, you snap at me until you get what you want. So I think it’s your turn, Quin. Why are you so overprotective? Why don’t I know the first thing about your pasts, any of you?”

“That’s not true, sugar.” Grayson spoke softly, but Eva heard the thread of steel in his tone.

“I told you we were in the marines,” Quin added.

“For ten years. What did you do in those ten years?”

Quin answered with a silent, stony look.

Pierson’s fingers on her arm prompted her to look toward him. His usual smile was gone. He gave Quin a worried look before saying, “You’re right that Quin shouldn’t get so short with you, darlin’. But I don’t think this is the time to go into it.”

It was news to Eva that there was anything to go into. She’d just been following her instincts in confronting the Badons like this. It made her even more pissed off that she’d been right.

“I see,” she snapped. Standing up, she glared at them. “So after I let you into my life—no,
make
you part of my life—you still don’t trust me.”

Both Pierson and Gray began to protest almost at the same moment, but it was Quin’s voice that cut through and silenced them. “Sit down, Eva.”

She looked at him for a long moment. His tone of voice brooked no argument.

Slowly, she sat.

Quin was silent for almost a minute, and then he said, “All three of us ended up overseas at one time or another, but we were in different units. They don’t keep brothers together. We all worried about each other, but I’m the eldest. Pierson and Gray are my responsibility.”

“We felt the same way,” Pierson said. Eva became aware that he was still touching her arm. She grabbed his hand and held it. She reached out to Gray on her other side and took his hand as well.

“All of us lost friends,” Quin said. “I thank God we didn’t lose each other.” He fixed her with a stare. “If I’m hard on you, Eva, it’s not because I don’t care about you. It’s because I do. That’s what family means to me.

“There was a man in my unit that I was often partnered with. Over time he became more and more introverted and I kept asking him if something was wrong. He denied it and I left it at that. He wasn’t all right, but I didn’t push him. I believed that if whatever was bothering him got too bad he would eventually open up and talk to me. He didn’t. I should have pushed him more to talk. He committed suicide, and I will have to live with that fact for the rest of my life.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Eva placed her hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault, Quin. You tried to help your friend.”

“I didn’t do enough, Eva. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t force the issue. Maybe if I had, he would still be alive.”

“You tried to help him, Quin. You can’t let the guilt eat you up inside. It could destroy you. You don’t know what was going through his mind. You may have prevented him from killing himself then, but who’s to say he wouldn’t have just waited until you were home again?”

“I should have gotten him some help, baby.”

“You can’t help anyone unless they want to be helped, Quin. He would have reached out to you if he had wanted to.”

“Thank you.” Quin looked into her eyes, and she could see that she had indeed helped him deal with his guilt.

She could see his mind working and the tension in his body slowly eased. Maybe he was finally accepting that his friend’s death wasn’t his fault. She hoped so. Perhaps now Quin would let go of some of that control. He always kept himself on such a tight rein. Eva slipped her hands from Pierson’s and Gray’s. She edged forward until she slipped off the couch and knelt at Quin’s feet. She put her hands on his knees and gazed up at him.

“I didn’t ever tell you how I lost my father,” she said.

He shook his head.

“He died serving his country. I was very young, but my mother taught me to always honor his memory.” She interlaced her fingers with Quin’s, relieved that he let her. “I understand why you would fight for the people you love, and I understand why you want to keep me safe.”

Quin’s face relaxed slightly. “Thank you, baby.”

She sighed and stood up to scoot back onto the couch. Instead, Quin caught her hands and pulled her into his lap. “Much better,” he said.

Eva loved the feeling of being held by him, but as she looked into his face, she felt all her doubts return. She’d had her moment of courage, and because of it she felt closer to her three men than she had before. But even that worried her.

She looked down at her hands. “Of course, this is what I’m scared of.”

“Scared?” Gray repeated. “Of what?”

“This.” Eva gestured to him and his brothers with a slight sweep of her hand. “Of caring too much and then having it all fall apart.”

“It doesn’t have to fall apart,” Pierson said. “Do you think we don’t have feelings for you? Do you think we’re only in this for sexual gratification?”

“It’s time you realized that we aren’t just in this for sex.” Quin’s voice had gone back to being a dangerous growl. “Why can’t you get around the fact that we are attracted to you?”

“It’s like I’ve explained. Besides my first boyfriend and Tim’s obsession, no one else has ever given me the time of day.”

“So you still think we pity you,” Gray said, “even after the picnic today.”

Eva hesitated and then nodded.

Quin stood, taking Eva with him. She squeaked in alarm and grabbed his huge shoulders then looked up at his face. His mouth was tense, but his eyes burned as they met hers.

“That changes now.”

What changes now?
Before Eva could process Quin’s words, he shifted her effortlessly in his arms. Her world turned upside down. She let out a shriek and clung to the shirt which covered Quin’s broad, muscular back.

“What are you doing? Put me down.”

A slap landed on her ass, heating her denim-covered skin and flaming the embers of her arousal. Her pussy clenched, and a gush of cream leaked out to dampen her panties.

“Stop wriggling,” Pierson growled and smacked her butt again as he hurried down the hall. A door banged against the wall as he shoved it open and then her world twirled once more.

Eva landed on the mattress with a bounce, releasing a soft “oomph” as her back connected with the quilt. She looked up to see three pairs of male eyes gazing at her hungrily. She pushed up to her elbows and, using her feet, scrambled back up the bed until her shoulders connected with the headboard.

Quin pulled his T-shirt over his head and threw it aside, and then he moved toward her in a way that she could only describe as a predator stalking its prey. A frisson of nervous excitement skated up her spine, leaving goose bumps covering her skin in its wake. He grasped her ankles and pulled her bent legs down straight. Then he pushed a leg between hers and nudged her thighs open as he caged her in with his body. Quin bracketed her by leaning on his hands and staring down into her eyes.

“We are all going to make love to you, Eva. If you don’t want that, then you had better fess up now.”

Eva wanted to demand their touch, but she didn’t think her voice would work any more than a squeak. She was so turned on by their acts of aggression that she wanted them to dominate her even more than she wanted their touch.

She shook her head, trying to let Quin know she wasn’t going to back out, but he must have taken it as a reply to his statement. He slowly pushed up from his arms and knelt over her. His look of regret and utter rejection caused pain to shoot through her chest. Just as he was about to move away from her, Eva grabbed his belt and the waistband of his jeans.

“Wait.” She finally managed to find her voice, although it came out breathless. “I wasn’t saying I didn’t want you. I was trying to tell you I don’t want you to stop.”

“Be very sure this is what you want, baby, because after we all make love with you, that’s it for us. Do you understand?”

Eva thought she knew what he was trying to tell her, but she wanted to be very sure before she answered. She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”

“What Quin is trying to say, sugar,” Gray started to explain, “is that you will belong to us. Not just for a little while but permanently.”

Her heart fluttered. “I understand,” she managed to say.

Gray got onto the bed beside her and Pierson drew her gaze as he, too, climbed up on her other side. Both men were in their boxers, and she wondered when they had had time to remove their clothes without her noticing.

Pierson caressed her cheek with a finger. “What we expect from you, Eva, is for you to be open and honest with us.”

“That means”—Quin tapped her thigh to get her attention once more—“if you have any worries, no matter how big or small, you come to one of us with them. No more keeping things bottled up inside and making yourself sick with worry. I don’t care if you think you’re imagining things or if you have proof about something, you come to us regardless. Understand?”

Eva nodded. Her heart was so full she didn’t think she would be able to find her voice again. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and even though she tried to blink them away she couldn’t. It felt like her heart was brimming over with love and joy, and since she couldn’t seem to talk and let these three men know how she felt, her emotions decided to find another way out. Moisture spilled over her lower eyelids and down her cheeks. Her vision blurred and she couldn’t see their faces. Quin framed her face with his hands and wiped the moisture from her cheeks. Once done, he edged back off the bed and stood at the end. Pinning her with his gaze, he reached for the waistband of his jeans and pulled the fastening open then unzipped the fly. Not once did he remove his eyes from hers until he was standing before her gloriously naked.

Her breath hitched and stilled as Quin crawled up onto the bed again. He didn’t stop until he was almost blanketing her with his body, but without touching her.

Pierson palmed her cheek and turned her head toward his. Before she could focus on his face, his mouth covered hers. He wasn’t gentle with her this time. Pierson used his lips to separate hers and thrust his tongue inside. His flavor exploded on her taste buds, making her crave more of his masculine essence. Two mouths sucked on her nipples, causing her to moan into Pierson’s mouth and writhe beneath the sensual onslaught. The hands skimming over her skin caused her to shiver and made goose bumps pucker all over her flesh.