“No fair,” the dark-haired man griped. “My tits aren’t as big as yours. It hurts when you do that.”
“Oh, you poor man. We should find out if there’re still doctors around who perform boob jobs. Did you know people actually used to do that? I think they were called plastic surgeons or something.”
Lennox watched the exchange with amusement. He and Jamie had known Beckett for years, long before the man had settled down in Foxworth. He’d been a nomad when they first met, fixing up old cars he found on the road, roaming the colony alone, and interspersing the months of solitude with visits to Lennox’s for some booze and female companionship.
Beck and Jamie had fooled around more times than Lennox could count, but it had never bothered him. Maybe it was because he knew she didn’t have feelings for Beck. Or any of the other men she’d been with, for that matter. They were just a lay to her, a good time.
Her infatuation with Rylan was another story. Jamie looked at him the way she’d looked at all her boyfriends growing up: as if they’d hung the goddamn moon.
Lennox didn’t like that. He knew Jamie better than she knew herself. She loved to be in love, but more than that, she wanted to be in love. She wanted the same thing her parents had—a partnership, someone to build a life with.
It was more than evident to Lennox that Rylan wasn’t interested in finding a woman to settle down with. He just wanted to fuck around, but Jamie was oblivious of that harsh truth. Sooner or later she’d try pushing Rylan into something serious, and the man would bail and leave her with a broken heart. Lennox could see that disaster coming from miles away, but he’d yet to find a way to broach the subject without pissing Jamie off.
“Come dance with me,” she urged Beckett.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Only if it’s naked dancing.”
She offered a compromise. “How about we start with the dancing and work our way up to the naked part?”
“Deal.” Beckett lifted her into his arms and carted her toward the center of the room while Jamie laughed in delight and locked her hands around his neck.
Lennox watched as the other man set Jamie on her feet and shoved one hard thigh between her legs. A second later, they were tangled up together, bodies moving seductively to the music.
He shifted his gaze in time to see Reese arrive. Sloan was at her heels, but remained standing near the door as Reese settled on an empty couch in the far corner of the room. She cocked her head at Lennox, who quickly excused himself and wandered over to join her.
The moment he was beside her, Reese curled her legs under her and rested her head on his shoulder. “So, how is it living under Connor’s thumb?” she asked dryly.
“Pretty good, actually. They have a solid setup, fully stocked for winter. It’s a good place to regroup while we decide whether we’re taking off on our own again.”
She peered up with a frown. “Don’t do that. Seriously, Len. Stay there, or come live here with us. It’s not safe anywhere else.”
“It never was.”
Her tone was grim. “It’s even worse now.”
Lennox searched her face. “Enforcers giving you trouble?”
Reese hesitated, as if she didn’t know how much to share. Then she nodded. “Yeah, a bit. Sloan nearly killed the last rep who came by.”
“Shit. That’s no good.” He knew Reese had a shit ton of alliances in place with certain higher-ranked Enforcers. Lennox was privy to way more information than he’d told Connor, but he planned on filling his new leader in eventually.
The Enforcers used Foxworth as a campsite of sorts during their colony sweeps. It wasn’t an arrangement Lennox or any of the others were comfortable with, but it was the price to pay for the Enforcers’ silence. Reese gave the assholes beds, booze, and broads, and in return, Foxworth was immune. The outlaws living there weren’t rounded up or reported to the council, and Foxworth was allowed to continue to thrive.
“What’d the bastard do to piss off Sloan?” Lennox asked curiously.
“He tried changing the terms of our deal.” Her jaw was tighter than he’d ever seen it. “The piece of shit wanted to ‘borrow’ one of my girls so they’d have a fuck toy during their colony sweep.”
Lennox frowned. “You’re kidding me.”
“No joke. I told him there was no way in hell he was taking anyone out of Foxworth. He got pissy, aggressive. Started throwing his weight around, but Sloan shut it down.”
“How?”
She snorted. “Knocked the bastard out cold. It was a total shit storm when he came to. He wanted to execute Sloan on the spot, but I threatened to go to his commander and tell Ferris all about our little deal.”
Which would be like signing his death warrant. Commander Ferris strictly forbade any contact between his soldiers and the outlaws. Lennox had never met the man, but he’d heard Ferris was ruthless as hell and known to execute his own men if they disobeyed orders.
“The asshole and his troop took off, but I didn’t like the way we left things,” Reese admitted. “Another rep came by a few weeks later, apologized for his man and said the deal stands, but there was tension there. I didn’t like that either.”
He didn’t blame her. Antagonizing the Enforcers would only lead to a war. Reese had a good thing going with them right now, so it was best if she found a way to preserve the alliance.
“Anyway, enough business,” she said flippantly. Her hand found its way into his lap at the same time she pressed her lips to the side of his throat. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh, really?”
She nibbled on his neck, and a hot shiver of anticipation raced up his spine. It’d been far too long since he slept with a woman as passionate as Reese.
“Surprise,” a throaty voice said.
Fuck. Make that two passionate women.
Lennox twisted his head as a stunning brunette with catlike eyes approached the couch. Decked out in a black corset and a teeny scrap of fabric that constituted a skirt, the woman lowered herself onto Lennox’s lap and brushed a seductive kiss on his lips.
“Tam,” he groaned into her mouth. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“Well, now you do.” Dark eyes gleamed impishly at him. “I’m heading out tomorrow morning, but you know I can’t leave the colony without seeing my favorite badass.”
He was flattered. Tamara ate men for dinner and spat them right out, so the fact that she had a soft spot for him was, frankly, a relief. The woman was a legend in the free land. A smuggler, she was an outlaw’s go-to for anything his heart desired, but the prices she charged for her services were damn steep. She also wouldn’t hesitate to shoot someone down if they betrayed her. Hell, she was capable of doing it just because they’d annoyed her or caught her on a bad day.
Luckily Lennox didn’t annoy her often. Didn’t annoy anyone, for that matter. He wasn’t being naive when he said he didn’t have any enemies among his fellow outlaws. He was well liked by everyone, and he used that to his advantage.
“Where you off to?” he asked as she ran one hand down the center of his chest.
“South Colony. I need a vacation.”
He snickered. Only Tamara could get away with saying shit like that. She had the means to do it too. With her connections, she could sunbathe nude on any beach on the globe, in full view of the Enforcers.
“I wish I could go with you,” Reese grumbled.
Tamara grinned at the other woman. “You should. Ditch this shit hole and travel the Colonies with me. Think of all the trouble we could get into.”
“Plenty of trouble to be had here.” Reese brought her hand to Lennox’s belt and slowly undid the buckle.
A second later, she had his zipper down and was holding his jeans open for Tamara, who wasted no time sliding her hand inside them.
Lennox groaned as warm fingers encircled his rapidly harde
ning cock. Tamara pumped him slowly. Reese leaned in to suck on his neck.
Every man in the room was staring enviously in their direction. Including Rylan, who caught Lennox’s eye and tipped his head in an unspoken question.
“Rylan wants in,” Lennox murmured.
Reese stiffened, lifting her head to frown at him. “No fucking way.”
He tried another angle. “I hear he’s good with his tongue . . .”
“Oh, he is,” Tamara confirmed.
“I don’t care how good he is,” was Reese’s muttered response. “This is a private party. He’s not invited.”
Lennox shot a rueful look at Rylan, giving a slight shake of his head. The blond man rolled his eyes before turning to say something to Pike.
Ah well. He’d tried. Rylan was on his own tonight. And Lennox, well, he was suddenly being tugged to his feet by the two women, Tamara’s hand still buried inside his jeans.
“We want you to ourselves tonight.” Reese brought her mouth to his ear, flicking her tongue over the lobe. “And you better not be tired from that long drive, because we expect you to last all goddamn night.”
A wicked grin lifted his lips. That sounded fucking phenomenal.
Or rather, it sounded like phenomenal fucking.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
6
When Jamie approached the huge lot behind the town square the next morning, she knew without a shred of doubt that she was going to enjoy every single second of the Foxworth combat training.
Rylan, in all his masculine glory, was stripped down to a pair of jeans and scuffed black boots, his bare chest and golden hair gleaming in the sunshine.
She suddenly wished she’d fooled around with Beckett last night instead of spending the time catching up and shooting pool with him. If she’d gone to bed well fucked, then maybe her body wouldn’t be pulsing like an electric current right now, aching for action.
Speaking of well fucked . . . Lennox looked more relaxed than ever as he strode up to her. He’d disappeared with Reese and Tamara yesterday, and Jamie didn’t need to guess what the trio had been up to all night. The answer was right there in Lennox’s heavy-lidded gray eyes.
“Had fun last night, did ya?” she teased.
“Reese and I had a lot of catching up to do,” Lennox said with a wink.
Three stone walls no more than four feet high enclosed the north side of the town square, and Lennox hopped up on the wide ledge of the back wall. His body was angled so that he was facing the parking lot rather than the bronzed statue in the square behind them. The statue was a man on a horse, but the engraved letters on the plaque at the base had been scratched off. Jamie figured the guy was probably a war hero. Maybe from one of the battles that had been fought long before the final war that had led to the formation of the Global Council.
“I’m sure.” She climbed up beside him, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. “And Tamara? Catching up with her too?”
He shrugged. “She left for South Colony this morning. Someone needed to send her off with a bang.”
Jamie snickered.
Their attention turned to the lot, which today was serving as an impromptu gun range. Rylan and Pike had already set up targets in various sections of the lot. Now the two men stood near a large wooden crate, checking the arsenal of handguns and rifles stashed there. Jamie wasn’t sure how Reese had accumulated so many weapons, but there was no point in asking the woman. Reese never divulged her secrets if she could help it.
The first group of trainees trickled in. According to Beckett, of the eighty people living in Foxworth, only about twenty of them knew how to shoot a gun. The other sixty were clueless, and Rylan and Pike were splitting them up into groups of fifteen for the training sessions.
Jamie raised an eyebrow at the amount of young faces she was seeing. Normally she only spent time with Beck, Travis, and a few other close friends, so she hadn’t realized there were so many kids in town. Half of the first group was made up of teenagers.
Two skinny boys who couldn’t have been older than fourteen were laughing to each other as they walked up. One jabbed the other in the ribs, which led to a lighthearted shoving match that had them cackling.
“Were we ever that young?” she asked Lennox.
He teasingly pinched her arm. “Yep.”
“Are you sure? Because I feel so old now. Actually, I felt ancient even when I was their age.” She nodded toward the exuberant boys.
“You’re twenty-five, love.” Lennox grinned. “Hardly what anyone would consider ancient.”
Rylan’s easygoing drawl drifted over from the target range. “Everyone grab a gun,” he was telling the new arrivals. “Hold it. Get used to the weight of it in your hands. Then we’ll show you how to load the magazines.”
Jamie chuckled as every boy eagerly reached for a handgun. The girls seemed more reluctant, except for one dark-haired teenager who snatched up a slate-gray Glock as if it were a rare piece of chocolate.
“We should have brought Piper,” Jamie mused. “She could have benefited from these lessons.”
“Rylan can teach her when we get back,” Lennox answered in a firm tone. “I don’t like her being out in the colony.”
“Uh-huh, sure. More like you don’t want her witnessing all the debauchery here in Foxworth.”
It didn’t surprise her when Lennox didn’t offer a denial. He couldn’t, because he was as protective of Piper as he was of Jamie.
“What, you think Piper’s innocent eyes can’t handle the sight of you screwing Tamara from behind while she’s going down on Reese?”
“That’s not what happened last night.”
“No?”
He broke out in a wolfish grin. “If you must know, Tamara was riding my face while Reese rode my cock.”
The crude confession sent a jolt of lust straight to her pussy. She had no doubt that Lennox had made Reese and Tamara very happy last night. She’d seen him in action before, and damn, her best friend had no problems in the sex department.
“Braggart,” Jamie accused.
“Right, like you weren’t doing the same thing with Beckett and Travis.” Lennox paused, donning a faraway look for a moment. Then he let out a rough curse.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His voice sounded pained. “I was just remembering the last time Beck and Trav were over at the old house.”
She remembered it too. Vividly. The two men had driven her wild that night. Beck pounding her pussy while Trav pounded her ass . . . A shiver ran through her as the delicious memories rose to the surface.
Beside her, Lennox shifted as if in discomfort. “How many times did you come that night?”
“God, I can’t even remember. Three? Four?”
He grunted out a noise.
Jamie turned toward him, armed with a grin, but the smile died on her lips when she saw his eyes. They were molten, gleaming with raw heat that caught her off guard. It was a look she’d seen often, and one he wore well. A look that dampened the panties of any woman lucky enough to be the focus of that deep, intense stare.
But Jamie wasn’t usually on the receiving end of it. Her nipples puckered into tight buds as the heat on Lennox’s face singed right through her shirt. Sizzled right to her core. A strange current crackled in the air between them as their eyes locked.
“Len?” she said uncertainly.
His tongue came out to brush his upper lip. Jesus. Either she was completely misreading the situation, or Lennox was actually—
“Never point your weapon at someone!” Pike’s sharp voice snapped in their direction. “Treat every gun like it’s loaded, even if you’re sure it isn’t.”
“Seriously, don’t fuck around with these things.” Rylan spoke up in agreement, but his voice was far gentler than Pike’s. “You wouldn’t
believe how many innocent suckers have had their brains blown out by ‘unloaded’ weapons.” He air-quoted that, then stepped up to one of the boys and nudged the kid’s gun barrel in a safe direction with no human targets in sight.
Jamie liked the easy way Rylan interacted with the teenagers. Pike was too harsh, but that was to be expected, seeing as the man was a coldhearted robot. Rylan was the more personable, down-to-earth of the two, and the kids in the group seemed to respond to that.
“Shouldn’t you be over there?”
Lennox’s voice had her glancing back at him. It was clear that whatever moment they’d just shared had passed—his usual lazy expression was affixed firmly on his face. No trace of heat whatsoever.
But she knew she hadn’t imagined his arousal before. It had been there, clear as the cloudless blue sky above them. Was it her, though? Had she been the one to stir his libido, or had he simply gotten off on the idea of Beck and Travis tag-teaming someone? Maybe he’d swapped her face for another woman’s as he’d pictured her sandwiched between two men.
That seemed likelier the more she thought about it. She hadn’t lied to Hudson when she confessed that Lennox had never shown even a hint of sexual interest in her. So it was hard to imagine that now, after twenty-odd years of knowing each other, he’d suddenly decided he wanted her.
It was probably better if he didn’t. She’d put her attraction to Lennox to bed a long time ago. She was focusing on other men these days.
“That’s one of the reasons you wanted to come here, right?” Lennox added, an edge in his voice. “To brush up on your own training?”
She flushed at the reminder of the lie she’d told him. It had been an excuse for her to spend time with Rylan, and they both knew it.
“I’m more interested in the hand-to-hand stuff,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe the knife training too. I already know my way around a gun.”
Lennox didn’t answer. Tension stretched between them, so thick she could slice it with the knife hooked to her belt, but she didn’t know how to make it better.