Authors: Angel Payne
“What? Because
you think Stock will stick around for the money?” When Kell’s silence confirmed
that, Tait emitted a scoffing snort. “Sticking around for it and staying
exposed because of it are two different things. The guy knows how to sever
himself from that poison tree faster than you can say ‘Johnny Appleseed.’ Then he’ll
hide himself in all the other ugly fruit on the ground. Our window on finding
him narrows another inch for every minute we wait. When this shit goes down,
the only one taking the bullet will be Benson.”
“And Tan.”
“Yeah. Tan. Who’s
really the big fish here, right? Which is the real reason we’re waiting on the
fucking fifth. It’s not for Stock, who’s going to waltz free again. Who, less
than twelve hours from now, will be sipping something with an umbrella in it
while Luna’s ashes still feed the fish in Puget Sound.” Another freezing fist
ground into his gut. “It’s not fair. It’s
not
fucking fair!”
Kellan blew out
a heavy breath. “T, don’t do this. You’ve finally started to fly on the right
side on the envelope again. Now grab the goddamn stick and correct your angle.”
He wheeled
around. While his gut was ice cold, his face burned with fury. “Correct my angle?”
He slammed it into hard air quotes. “Seriously? When that filth who calls
himself a human wouldn’t recognize ‘correct’ if it chomped off his cock?”
His friend
nodded slowly. “I know how you—”
“Don’t.” He
surged and grabbed Kellan by the neck of his T-shirt. “Don’t you
dare
tell
me that you know how I feel!”
Kellan’s mien
barely changed. His serenity was infuriating. “All right, then let me tell how
you how
I
feel. There’s a lot at stake here. People who are still alive,
who need us, people you’re willing to neglect for the sake of chasing an empty
revenge.”
His arm shook
with rage. He twisted his grip tighter. “Not empty.” The words shook. “
Not
empty!”
Kell clamped a
hand around his forearm. “She told you to move on. Lani’s voice but Luna’s
words. She told you to—”
“She died in my
arms!” It ripped out of him, a bellow of wrath and grief and frustration. “She
used her last fucking breath to kiss me!”
“I know,” Kellan
countered. “I know, man.”
“No,” he
snarled, “you don’t. You have no goddamn idea what I’m talking about.” He
looked down between their bodies to the sand. Why the hell was he clinging on
this guy, even in anger? Kellan called him a brother but he wondered if the guy
knew what that meant. The very nature of Kell’s job required an emotional
detachment that lots of guys struggled with—but never Kell. Made sense now,
didn’t it? With a disgusted snort, he shoved away. “Feelings are convenient
accessories for you, Kellan, and nothing more. I’d pay for a full fireworks
show if you ever let someone in to the point that they terrify you.”
Kellan’s eyes,
already dark in the night, descended to the shade of pure pitch. “Fetch your
checkbook, dickwad—if you can pull your head out of your self-centered ass long
enough to notice.”
Tait snickered.
Then sobered. “Lani? Are you kidding me?”
Kellan stood his
ground and spread his arms. “Do I look like I’m kidding? Or feeling anything
except fear about how those assholes plan to use her?”
Tait studied him.
Everything about the guy screamed sincerity, but acknowledging that meant
looking in the mirror at how thoroughly the woman had come to fill
his
heart,
too. He fought back by snarling, “I don’t believe you. This is a half-assed
ploy to get me to back off going for Stock. You should be ashamed of yourself,
Slash-a-drama.”
He’d stomped
only a couple of steps back toward the cottage before Kell stopped him
short—with a fist to his stomach. “Nah,” the guy growled, “let me show you
something I’d really be ashamed of.”
Before Tait
could consider a retaliation, Kell slammed a foot against his backside,
treating him to a “Kauaˋi kiss,” Barking Sands style. Tait spat dirt and
rolled over, tangling his calves around Kell’s ankles, bringing him down, too.
The guy grunted while landing flat on his back, a position worth taking
immediate advantage of. With fury tearing up his throat, he dug a knee between
Kell’s lungs and swung his fist up. “Shiner blue always
was
your color,
asshole.”
Kellan’s hand
seemed to come out of nowhere, latching on Tait’s face like a crazed spider. He
landed one finger in an eye and another two in Tait’s nostrils. The impromptu
sinus cleanse distracted him for the second Kell needed to unseat him, though
he wasn’t going tits-up without a fight. Letting his frustration feed the sound,
he threw his buddy over with a vicious roar. Kellan echoed the bellow, turning
his action into a full barrel roll. They wrestled through three revolutions one
way then two the next, before Kellan tried the spider face attack again.
“Honestly?” Tait
spat as they both gained their feet again. “You fight like a fucking girl,
Slash-arina.”
“No more than
you, Beach Fun Gidget.”
“
Stop
.”
The plea was
desperate and sweet but came from so far away, Tait shoved it from his mind. He
drove his head into Kell’s chest before grabbing the guy’s thigh. Time to make
this takedown stick. “How ‘bout some dirt with your poi for dinner, honey?”
“How ‘bout my
fist up your ass, dollface?”
“
Stop
!”
There was no mistaking the scream this time. And its beseeching need. And its
underline of tears. “Stop it, both of you!”
Tait stumbled
backward, thrown off-balance as he and Kell released each other. Kellan’s
stability wasn’t much better. He gave a victorious grunt. The guy was definitely
breathing harder than him. They were only eight months apart in age, but he
never let that stop him from writing Kell off as the old man.
The “old man” Lani
chose to run for first.
Another knot of
lead twisted in his stomach—until she rammed a punch into Kell’s shoulder. Tait
only got halfway into a laugh before she whirled and repeated the treatment on
him.
“
He aha no la
kou ano
? What the
hell
is wrong with you?” She hit Kell again. “
Both
of you!”
“He started it.”
The protest spilled from them in tandem murmurs.
“I don’t care if
Saint Peter himself floated down from Heaven and started it!” She pushed at
them with another chuffed word in her language. He got the upshot of it and was
certain Kell did, too. “Three hours ago, I was thinking about the future, trying
to talk Leo into going to the University of Hawaii. Believe it or not, the kid
wanted to talk to the guys at the West Point table. I actually let him! Now,
I’ve found out that ‘the future’ may consist of my home, complete with its
custom weapons smuggling cave, being sold out from under me to the damn North
Koreans. And oh yeah, there’s that part about
me
being their signing
bonus on the package. So where are the two ‘elite soldiers’ who are supposedly helping
to prevent this disaster? Here they are, fancying themselves as the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Hupos
!”
She threw up
both arms before whirling to stomp away. Her huffs didn’t stop the wind from
carrying her wrenching sobs back to them.
Tait backhanded
some sand off his face. “You know that book we keep thinking of writing?” he
muttered.
“Yeah?” Kell
grumbled.
“I think I have
our title.”
“
The Idiot’s
Guide to Being an Idiot?
”
“I was thinking
more
Fifty Shades of Idiocy
, but yours works, too.”
Thankfully, Kell
didn’t milk it any further. He did what Tait hoped he would. Went after her.
With willing steps but a gut dipped in remorse, he followed.
She tromped back
toward the cottage with furious footsteps. He and Kellan maintained a
respectful—and careful—distance. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was
going to bruise where she’d landed that punch. He greatly preferred dealing the
marks, not getting them. With more pleasurable results for all.
Not the time for
thoughts like that, Bommer.
No matter how luscious her ass looked in that frothy
floral skirt or how delicious and demure the pink sweater set that topped it.
She stomped into
the cottage without altering her pace. He and Kellan followed but stopped in
the living room as Lani proceeded through to the cottage’s second bedroom. All
the complex’s three-bedroom cottages were snapped up for the summer, but that
had been all right by Kell and him. They’d resolved themselves to swapping nap
sprints on the couch tonight, if either of them was even in the mood for
sleeping. The probability of that had dropped into the realm of “highly
unlikely,” especially now.
When Lani stood
in the open doorway to the bedroom, eyeing them both with her iridescent stare,
it was clear she shared that mindset. A firm fling of her head, all but
decreeing them into the room with her, had Tait gaping in slack-jawed shock—and
open-season lust. A glance at Kellan showed the same reactions on his face.
“Can she—errr—do
that?” his buddy stammered. “There’s a term for that, isn’t there? ‘Topping
from the bottom?’””
Tait eyed him.
“You really want to go there right now?”
“Excellent
point.” He didn’t say anything else as he let Tait lead the way down the hall.
Her bedroom was
the larger of the two in the cottage, decorated in comfortable but functional
furniture covered in subdued tropical shades. In short, the Army’s version of resort
accommodations. Though Tait glanced hopefully at the bed, he ordered all
follow-up thoughts into retreat. A bed in the room didn’t always trump a
woman’s wrath. Even
this
woman.
She shut the
door by backing up against it. After the thing clicked shut, she stayed there,
hands behind her back, throwing her brilliant glare between the two of them. Tears
still threatened to manifest in her eyes, frying his gut in remorse again.
He guessed a
little levity couldn’t hurt. “Well, you can’t order us to go to our room.”
“Shut up.”
Or maybe it
could.
Kellan tried his
own approach, gentle but firm. “Okay, we’re a couple of jerks. You know it’s just
because we both care about—”
Her sharp laugh
sliced him short. “You care about me? Really? And this is how you show it?” She
shoved off the door, pushed between them and turned with her fists slammed on
her hips. “I was tired of breaking you two up after the first two times I did
it.” She nodded hard at Tait. “Though it helps that you can walk a straight
line on your own this time.”
It wasn’t a real
joke. Wisely, Tait knew it. “Truce declared, okay? We’ll keep our hands off
each other.”
She dropped her
hands but sustained her suspicious glower. “Prove it.”
He swung back an
awkward glance. “Okay, I’ll take first watch outside. Kell, why don’t you grab
some dinner, and—”
“No,” she cut in
again. “Not good enough.”
He traded a
glimpse with Kellan.
Let’s make her happy and shake on it.
With a
resigned breath, he reached out a hand. But Kell never got close with his
return extension. Lani grabbed both their wrists and slammed their hands
against her body, forcing them into a sudden, joint breast grope. Before either
of them could process their shock enough to act, she pushed their grips harder
against her beautiful mounds. Tait joined his buddy in a hiss when her nipples instantly
beaded and pushed against her sweater.
“Keep your hands
off each other by putting them on me.” Her whisper was as urgent as her gaze,
jumping between them with the intensity of lightning. “Please, just help me to
forget about all of it for a little while. I need the strength of you both…the
care of you both…the passion of you both. I just…need you both. Please?”
It was a night
for crazy circumstances. And even crazier actions.
Lani was still
spitting pissed at both of them, despite how deeply she understood their
shoreline antics. Their emotions had been ripped out of the typical sockets
today as harshly as hers. Taking out their follow-up rage on the safe targets
of each other was a logical progression on the psychological ladder. In the
end, it would be a skirmish that meant nothing.
In the end
.
An end that was
approaching with the subtlety of a freight train. A conclusion to this horrible
episode with Benson that would go one of two ways. Tait, Kell, and the guys
from the Fifth would either be in time to surprise the Benstock boys and the
Koreans, or they wouldn’t. Neither scenario was a promise she’d ever see her
ranch—or both her men—again.
This was all the
time they had left. Their only remaining moments to stamp the magic of their
triad on the ribbon of time and memory.
She let out a
tight cry, trying to beat the thought down as melodrama, but one look up at the
guys, and the deep purpose in their rugged faces, confirmed it as the bitter
truth.
No
. She wouldn’t
concentrate on bitterness right now. Or good-byes. She’d only soak up their
heat, their passion, and their adoration. Make them fill her one more time. One
last time.
She swallowed
hard and meshed her fingers tighter with theirs. Before she could take another
breath, Kellan twisted his free hand in her hair, yanking her head back for
Tait’s crushing kiss. Both the guys groaned as Tait sank his tongue deep. She
joined her needy groan to the mix when they both pinched her breasts through
her clothes.
“Yin needs a
turn, too.” Kellan growled it as he drew her from Tait’s mouth then replaced it
with his own. He tasted like the wind and sea, musky and salty, a heady
combination with Tait’s woodsy scent, hitting her from behind as he pressed
against her there.
“Is Leo still
tuning out with his music?” came Tait’s query at her ear. She nodded, not an
easy feat considering the man already lifted her skirt, glided both hands
beneath her panties, and palmed her ass with his bare palms. “Hmm,” he replied
in a sensual snarl. “That’s good to know.”
Kellan’s gaze
was a breathtaking gray storm as he pulled away from her mouth. “But not
entirely helpful,” he added. “We both know how our girl loves to scream.”
“Won’t that make
it fun for her to try whispers and silence, then?” He gave her the challenge
just as he trailed a finger at the rim of her anus, causing her to gasp and
writhe. “Bite it back, babe,” he directed. “Whispers,” —he worked in another
finger— “and silence.”
“Damn.” Kellan
met her stare directly, brushing the hair off her face. “Look at what that did
to these eyes.” He leaned in and kissed her nose. “You like this, starshine?
Does it make you hot to know we control every sound off your lips now, every
breath you take in and release?”
Gods. She was
going to be a puddle of nothing in just a few minutes. Already feeling like her
mind detached from her body, she gave Kellan an eager nod. “Yes. Ohhhh yes,
Sir.”
Tait stepped
around and stood next to his friend again. After giving her a soft kiss on the
forehead, he murmured, “You said that so beautifully, dreamgirl.” A smile
curled his lips. “Now we’re going to give you a few minutes to reflect on it,
too.”
Kellan beat her
to the punch in an open display of confusion. “What?”
Tait arched his brows
at his friend. “Don’t you think it’s time to go get the boy scout ready pack
from the car?”
Kellan chuckled.
“I officially hand over the dominant honor badge to you now.”
Tait turned and
took both of her hands in his. “And this is Lani’s chance to earn the matching
submissive one.”
She let her
smile grow. “I’d like that.”
“And we’re both
pleased.” Tait lifted a long-fingered hand to one side of her face. “While
we’re gone, we want you to prepare yourself for our pleasure. Make your body ready
by stripping naked then washing your pussy and ass for us. After that, center
your mind by kneeling in the middle of the bed, legs spread, posture straight,
and hands still. This tells us, both your Sirs, that you entrust us with your
power tonight. That you know we’ll use it to push you a little…fuck you a
lot…and gratify you even more.”
Had he asked for
half the pineapples on the island along with that, she would’ve found a way to
comply. Luckily, her breathy “Yes, Sirs” seemed to suffice. He and Kellan took
turns kissing her before quietly leaving the room, which spurred her into
instant motion. She had a minute, maybe two at most, to ready herself as Tait
had instructed.
Sure enough,
she’d just gotten onto the bed and was crawling toward its center when the guys
came back in. She froze in place, feeling fifteen again, caught by Mom as she
snuck back into the house after making out on the beach with Troy Keweha. Only
she hadn’t been totally nude then. Or feeling every nerve ending in her body
ignite from just the sound of the opening door.
“Hmmm.” She
didn’t have to look up to know the dark panther purr was Kellan’s. A new
instinct even picked up the tiny bite of sadistic pleasure in it, curling an
answering desire deep in her pussy. “What do we have here?” he added to that
while walking to the foot of the bed. She watched from the fringe of her lashes
as Tait joined him, turning them into a pair of muscled sentinels who drenched
her body with their hot gazes.
“Looks like
someone who didn’t get into position fast enough.”
Every note of
Tait’s tone, so full of predatory serenity, brought out baby bumps of awareness
along her skin. Nevertheless, she flashed him a dirty look. She’d
be
in
position, if they hadn’t given her all of sixty seconds to do their bidding.
“But I’m enjoying
this
position, buddy.”
“Must agree. It’s
nice.”
“Look at that
perfect curve of her ass…and the silhouette of her nipples…all that hair cascading
to the mattress like a waterfall…”
“Roger on
everything, man. It doesn’t suck one bit.”
“Maybe that can
be fixed.”
Their commentary
made her feel beautiful and special, like a precious piece of art—until
Kellan’s remark turned her to hot goo. She craved the praise of their flesh,
not just their eyes. She whimpered and licked her lips, hoping he was serious
about the intent of the words. The man’s harsh grunt indicated that he was.
Thank the gods.
Tait chuckled. “Looks
like she wouldn’t mind that ‘fix’ at all, brother.”
“You don’t
mind?”
Tait tapped
something with his hand. It sounded like the leather of Kellan’s well-stocked
supply pouch. “I’ve got some prep work to keep me busy but don’t think I won’t
enjoy things as I do. Watching this girl’s lips go to work on a cock, even if
it isn’t mine, is up there on my ‘Wonders of the World’ list.”
She couldn’t
help a giggle. And an eye roll. “Sir, with all due respect, you are full of
crap.”
Tait, now
standing next to the bed behind her, snorted. “Thanks for the deference,
dreamgirl, but you’ll still accept a small punishment for that, as
you
are full of shit.”
She tossed a coy
pout. “Oh, dear. Guess you forgot about the whole thing about Leo being in the
next room? Silence and whispers tonight,
not
smacks and screams, remember?
I suppose that makes punishments a little—umm—impossible?”
Tait looked at
her, incredulity stamped on his lips—before he traded a confident laugh with
Kellan. Lani felt the certainty fade from her face. If she’d just given the
punch line, she wondered what the hell the joke was. She was tempted to fire
that exact line at the two of them, but the bed trembled as Kellan climbed up
beside her, kneeling so his crotch was directly in front of her face.
“Silence is
golden in many different forms, sweetheart.” He ran his knuckles along her
cheeks, bringing blissful trails of heat, before shifting his hands to his fly.
“Your little lip workout gave me a great idea for one.”
She answered
with an adoring sigh as he revealed the bulge of his briefs then tugged them
down. His swelling flesh burst free, veins standing out along the length of his
crimson stalk.
“Kiss it,” he
ordered quietly. The moment she did, his dark purple head erupted with a shimmering
white drop. “Now suck that off.”
She moaned, all
too eager to obey. Kellan hissed and bucked his hips. “Good, Sir?” she
whispered.
“It’s a damn
good start, starshine.”
His growl turned
her senses into a thousand forms of lust. Since the beginning, Kellan had been
a lover beyond compare, forceful and passionate, who enjoyed being on top in so
many senses of the word. But Tait’s guidance had drawn out the stricter, sexier
side of him, a dominant in desire who curled her toes, spun her senses, and
drenched her sex in need. Tonight, she needed that leader more than anything,
and he was
not
letting her down.
Kellan raked a
hand through her hair, gathering most of it around his fist. He pulled her
forward, guiding her lips back to the broad crown now dotted with more drops of
pre-cum. “Open your throat, sweet girl. I want to fuck it good before I bury it
in your pussy.”
He fed her his
cock with one hot surge, consuming every corner of her mouth with his hot girth.
Lani felt him shake and swallow, holding down his groan. She forced back her
answering cry with a long breath.
Within seconds,
she learned that the sound containment ricocheted all the arousal back down
through her body, five times more potent than before. Her whole sex quaked. She
inhaled again, reveling in a repeat of the sweet tremors in her deepest folds,
assuaging the lust by sucking harder on Kell’s cock. A hot breath left him. He
threw back his head. They taunted each other in that silent, sexy game for many
hot minutes. Who would be the first to snap their silence, even with a whimper?
Lani dared an
exultant stare up Kellan’s torso, into his eyes. She was, after all, the one
who had the most sensitive part of his body at the back of her throat. Piece of
cake.
She’d
underestimated how well these two men knew their cake.
In the second
before she was certain Kellan would crack, there was a shocking pain near
her
crack. Were those Tait’s
teeth
? Was the man biting her on the ass?
No. Not “biting.”
Biting
. The digs weren’t a few love nips. He dove in at both her cheeks
like they’d turned into chocolate frosted donuts
with
sprinkles. With
every sink of his teeth and lips, she twisted the bedspread harder from the
exquisite pain.
After five
bites, she surrendered the silence contest to Kellan, mewling around his cock. He
countered with a gentle shush, though his thrusts in her mouth became more deep
and demanding. At the same time, Tait grabbed her back cheeks and pulled them
wide, using that new valley as a gateway to seek her sex with his mouth.
In the room, it
was so quiet that the ticks of the gaudy red eighties alarm clock could be
heard. Inside, Lani was panting, gasping, and shouting for mercy from her
two-sided assault of pulsing male desire. In her mouth, Kellan’s cock burned
and throbbed. Between her thighs, Tait’s mouth pulled and licked.
Aue
.
They were relentless. Tireless. And perfect. She curled her fists tighter into
the bedding, struggling not to scream from their hungry torment. It was so
good. So slick and sizzling and hot. She swallowed hard. Again. It didn’t help.
A cry bubbled in her throat…
“Don’t.”
Kellan’s murmur, sounding strained itself, wove through all her senses. “Don’t
do it, sweetheart. Your voice still belongs to us, and we haven’t untied it
yet.” When she gave an incensed growl, he released her hair in order to caress
her jaw. “Focus it all here. Take what Tait’s giving you then funnel it back to
me. Suck me harder, Lani. Deeper. Holy fuck, yes. Yessss!”
Hearing what she
did for him, feeling it in every throbbing vein of his cock, unfurled a deep
fulfillment in her heart. She loved serving him like this, knowing she affected
him like this. Every grunt from his lips and tremble of his body brought a
surge of power and a wash of gratitude. This bond was like nothing she’d ever
had with another person before—and doubted she would again.
As Tait rode her
clit more intensely with his tongue, she knew those cords of connection wound
to him, too. After her confession in the garden yesterday, it felt damn near
decreed by the angels themselves, if not one in particular. Just as Kellan had
entwined himself in her heart, Tait had sewn himself into her soul.
How the
hell
was she going to let them go?
She wasn’t
allowed to consider an answer for that. Tait, taking his turn at the mind
reading thing, assured that by taunting her with only the tip of his tongue
now. She gasped as he flicked it back and forth, teasing her clit like a bee
after nectar. Her sex responded with plenty of thick, warm honey. Her muscles
clenched. Her thighs ached. She couldn’t stop the wave of heat, rushing at her
faster.
Faster
…