“You and Tris go get my truck before dinner, please. Before it gets dark.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be okay. It won’t take you long.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and stared down into his blue eyes. The storm clouds were gone, leaving sexy grey-blue depths. “Please don’t break my heart.”
He reached up, fingers sliding around the back of her neck to pull her in for a kiss. “If I had my way, I’d collar you right this second.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Ahem.”
They both looked over at where Tris stood, naked and smiling. “You mean it, dude?”
“Yeah.”
They both looked at her.
“What?”
“You want to be ours?” Tris asked.
It wasn’t a wedding. But…when did she learn to stop giving control of her life to her fear, to the past?
When did she start living for her instead of for what had already happened to her?
“Yes.”
Tris walked over to his dresser and got something out. He returned to the bed and then draped a necklace around her neck, fastening it for her.
“It’s not expensive, because I wanted something you wouldn’t worry about wearing to work. We’ll buy you something nice as a day collar, but I saw that and knew I had to get it.
She sat up and looked at the tag. A purple enameled heart on one side, and the men’s initials engraved on the back.
Her vision blurred as she blinked back tears. The men each took a hand and Tris asked it. “Be ours, please? Be our submissive, our girlfriend, our partner. Be ours. No one else but you, we swear.”
“Not your slave?”
Kyle gently squeezed her hand. “We fucked up and scared you. When you’re ready to be our slave, if that’s what you want, you ask us. For now, we’re happy to have you as ours. We’ll change all our profile stuff online, too, to show it.”
She nodded. “Okay. Yeah.” She sniffled and managed a smile. “Yes, Sir.”
Kyle groaned and pulled her hand to his lips, kissing it. “Go with the turkey, there, and get my truck. I might not have any energy or be in too much pain later to play again, but I want to watch him fuck your brains out a second time.”
She kissed him, then Tristan. First she made Kyle an ice pack out of a zipper-top bag and a dish towel, then she got dressed. He lay there, naked and the TV on, and watched them dress.
“I’m a lucky bastard,” he said. “Got a fucking handsome man and a gorgeous lady who love me.”
“Yeah, you are,” Tris teased. “Damned lucky we haven’t tied you up and left you in a closet.”
The tension had popped. She’d missed this, too, the playful banter between them.
The necklace had already warmed to her flesh and she realized a little peace had returned to her soul.
* * * *
They took Tristan’s SUV. He was tempted to knock on Marilyn’s door and give her a fucking piece of his mind, except Dillon would be there.
Shit.
If it wasn’t for Dillon, he would have given Kyle an ultimatum to go no contact immediately with Marilyn, no matter what it took to get his shit out of the garage building at the back of the property.
Except he loved the kid, too, if forced to admit it.
All the way to Marilyn’s, Tris held Jess’ hand and gave thanks she was back in their lives. At least the rain apparently had stopped for the evening, the skies already clearing.
“I don’t want her in the house at all,” Jess quietly said. “I mean it.”
“I told him that, too.”
“If it wasn’t for Dillon…” She didn’t finish.
He gently squeezed her hand. “You’re spooky. That’s just what I was thinking.”
“Not his fault she’s fucked up. He’s a good kid and I really like him. I can see how much he loves Kyle.”
“I know. But Marilyn isn’t our problem. She’ll have to deal on her own.”
She took a deep breath. “He can’t move the coupe now. He needs to heal up. I trust him.”
“That’s not the point. He wants there to be no reason to give you any doubt.”
She shook her head. “I don’t. I knew I was going to have to call you guys and…talk.”
“By talk, you mean break up?”
“Maybe. I don’t know anymore. Michelle told me I should talk to you about it. I kept thinking about what Brad did to me. The logic in my brain was at war with my pain.” She looked over at him. “When are you guys getting married?”
“What?”
“Married.” She finally smiled. “I thought you two were getting married. Or is that not still on?”
“We hadn’t discussed it in a while.” Now that she’d mentioned it…yeah. He still wanted to marry Kyle. “Will that bother you?”
“You guys have known each other for years, and you love each other. Why would it bother me?”
“I don’t want you to think we don’t want you.”
She held up the tag. “I won’t think that. Unless they change the laws we can’t marry all three of us.”
“Cali, Max, and Sean aren’t married.”
“Essie and Mark are.”
He tried to dredge up another example, but she beat him to it. “Tilly and Landry and crew. Niall and Etsu. Brandon and Jeff. We know more poly packs where two of them are married and the others aren’t. That doesn’t scare me.” She squeezed his hand. “Besides, I want you two to get married.”
He didn’t want to give voice to his fear, that if she didn’t marry one of them, they might lose her again. It wasn’t rational and he owned that, but it was how he felt.
“We don’t need to do it right now.”
“I’m not going to marry one of you,” she gently said, as if reading his mind. “That has nothing to do with either of you or how I feel about you. It’s me, and I’m willing to admit I have a lot of work to do on myself. That is baggage I brought with me to this, and I don’t want it weighing you two down.”
Except…it did, whether she wanted it to or not.
“We love you.”
“And you love each other. So you should get married.”
It was what she wasn’t saying that scared him.
The gaps she wasn’t filling in between the words.
Except tonight…tonight wasn’t the night to tilt at that windmill. “Okay, baby. We’ll table that discussion for now. But I want it out there that whenever you feel ready to move in with us permanently, we want you there.”
“Let me work up to that, too, okay?”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t okay, but he’d have to settle for that for now. They could spend their time winning her over all over again.
Showing her they meant every word they said.
Until she could see and feel that, nothing they said would matter. She’d been hurt too many times, by too many people.
Including her parents, and that was damn sure something he could relate to.
They arrived at Marilyn’s. The garage door still stood open, so he got out to go close and lock it, silently cursing Marilyn for not doing that and hoping nothing had been stolen.
When he walked up to the large bay door, he pulled up short at the sight of the large puddle of Kyle’s blood dried on the concrete floor.
Jess had followed him and gasped. He glanced and she stood there, eyes wide and mouth covered.
Tristan hooked an arm around her and pulled her close. “Not going to worry about it today. Scalp lacs bleed like a motherfucker. Had one or two myself in my day.”
He shut off the lights and compressor and closed the big door, locking it from the inside and then the smaller door. Back to the vehicles, he waited while Jess got Kyle’s truck started and turned around and backed out to follow her.
Marilyn and Dillon didn’t emerge from the house and it took Tris everything he had not to go lambast the woman.
Yeah, I love him. And he did still want to marry Kyle.
But I want us to marry her, too.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Two weeks post-reunion with her men, and Jess still couldn’t convince herself to move in with the guys despite their open-ended offer. Every time she thought about giving up her independence, old, familiar fear trickled through her.
Sure, the men were living up to their word, and she had zero doubts about them or their actions…but the security blanket of having the apartment kept her from freaking out.
If there was ever a problem, she knew she could go back there.
Work was her happy hiding place, where she could focus on people who had things far worse than she did. At least she wasn’t literally up to her eyeballs in garbage or junk.
Her garbage pile was the emotional kind.
It was a Tuesday, and she had today and tomorrow off. Since the men were at work, she’d stayed home at the apartment. She would head over to their place later to cook dinner for them and spend the night. Today, Jess had distracted herself by going over her master project file for Thursday’s upcoming job when her personal cell phone rang.
She almost didn’t answer it when she realized it was her mother calling.
Shit.
Knowing putting this off wasn’t going to help any, she answered. “Hey, Mom.”
“I don’t know, am I still your mother?”
Jess closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose and let the snark sail past, unchallenged. “What’s going on?” A familiar wave of nausea swept through her and she rode it out, recognizing it all too well from years past.
As if her body was allergic to her mother’s bullshit.
“You tell me,” her mom said. “I find out you moved back to Florida, and you didn’t even bother to tell me, much less come visit.”
Aaaannnd here we go. She knew this confrontation was inevitable, because she hadn’t hidden it on Facebook. Either her mother would eventually log in and get snoopy, or another relative would let it slip to her. She’d decided to let it happen whenever her mother initiated it, because it’d be a shit-fest regardless.
“I’m sorry. I kind of went through a literal disaster. The move back to Florida happened suddenly, and I started my new job immediately. That’s kept me busy.”
“Too busy to come by on a weekend?”
“I usually work weekends.”
“What are you doing? Still waiting tables, I guess?”
Jess thought maybe this was her penance for not biting the bullet sooner and contacting her to get it over with. “I’m working for a local cleaning company, but they also do disaster recovery and hoarding clean-outs. I’m in training.”
“You have to be trained how to clean things? What’s wrong with you?”
Ooooh, this conversation would result in her consuming copious amounts of alcohol, she could sense it already. “I’m in training to become their lead project manager. Running a job site and crew. It gets extremely complicated, especially if permits are needed, or there are biohazards, or code enforcement issues, and other contractors brought in. Managing logistics. Sometimes we run crews of thirty or more people, and there are a lot of legal issues that have to be dealt with. And the hoarding clean-outs are frequently filmed for a TV show, so it requires coordinating with the film crew and making sure we arrange those logistics, as well. I’m also handling their social media postings.”
“Oh. I thought you meant you needed training pushing a vacuum cleaner around, or dusting stuff. It’s about time you finally started doing something other than wasting your time taking pictures. I know you weren’t a good student, but you should be able to do something besides waiting tables at your age.”
Yes, lots of alcohol. “Gee, yes, Jess. That sounds very interesting. Congratulations on your new job. How exciting that you get to be on TV.”
“Don’t smart off to me, young lady.” That was her mom’s nasty tone. “You didn’t bother to tell me you’d moved or started a new job, so you don’t get to act like that to me.”
“Considering you didn’t bother to check on me after the hurricane hit Houston, you don’t hold the moral high ground, Mom.”
“Phone works both ways. If you hadn’t run off out there with that worthless shit, you wouldn’t have been stuck out there.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have run out there with that worthless shit if I’d had better role models for parents.”
Jess winced. She really hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Usually, she kept those comments to herself, tolerated and suffered through the emotional maimings, and then retreated to lick her wounds with something very high-proof.
“Oh.” Ice dripped from her mom’s tone, and Jess immediately recognized this game. Her mother would freeze her out until Jess felt so guilty she apologized for speaking her mind. “Is that how you feel about me, hmm?”
Wait…why am I feeling guilty? “You stood there how many times and let Dad tell me how fat I was? How could you let him do that?”
“Well, you weren’t thin.”
“I’ve never been more than a size sixteen, which I am right now, and that’s damn sure not morbidly obese by any stretch of the imagination. I was fucking twelve years old when that shit started. How do you think that made me feel, huh?”
“He was only trying to help you lose weight. Motivate you. That’s what parents do, you know.”
“Great. Guess he would’ve helped me learn how to swim by holding me under the water, huh?”
“Stop being so dramatic. You were always too sensitive.”
“Fuck that. You still make excuses for the sonofabitch, even after the way he left you?”
She tried remembering the mantra she’d learned once when she’d read a couple of books about adult children of alcoholics in an attempt to better understand her mother. Hurt people hurt people.
Nope. Wasn’t helping.
“Maybe if you’d been easier to deal with as a child, he—”
“Stop right there. You want to know why I didn’t bother telling you I’d moved back? Because I pretty much knew this would be your reaction. Nothing I’ve ever done in my life has been good enough for you. You managed to turn everything around to be my fault, somehow. I’m not at fault for Dad cheating and leaving. You can quit blaming me for that. I’m not at fault for your parents being shitty parents when you were growing up, and I’m damn sure not responsible for Dad leaving you.”
“Well, if I hadn’t gotten pregnant with you, or if I’d had an abortion, I could have at least finished college. Then I wouldn’t have had to marry the sonofabitch. So you should thank me for that, that you’re even alive. You’re welcome.”
Ice filled her. “What?” she whispered.
This was a new low, even for her.
“That’s right. Because of you, I had to drop out of college. My parents gave me the choice to marry your father or get rid of you. So you should get down on your damn knees and thank me for not going to a clinic. Of course, you never even tried to go to college. Always wasting time on taking stupid pictures instead of studying. What a waste. Maybe I should have gone to a clinic. At least I wouldn’t have had to marry that bastard.” She hung up on Jess.
Stanley had sat up on his end of the couch and was staring at her. Then he walked over and nudged her with his nose.
Over the years, her mother had said some pretty nasty and cruel things to her, whether intentionally or just because it was behavior ingrained in her through her own shitty upbringing.
But never anything like that.
It made every previous wound she’d ever inflicted on Jess look like a paper cut compared to the chainsaw she’d just hacked away at her with.
She bolted for the bathroom, crying, barely making it in time to empty her stomach as she sat there on the floor, sobbing.
Ooooh, yeah. How could she forget this?
Stanley followed, nosing her arm, softly whining until she finally reached over and petted his head.
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It was shocking she hadn’t lost a ton of weight as a teenager, for all the times she’d sat puking her guts up after surviving another bout with one or both of her parents.
It took her nearly twenty minutes to find the strength to stand and rinse out her mouth, wash her face, stare at herself in the mirror.
As a kid, she’d stared at her reflection and wondered what was wrong with her.
As an adult, she knew it wasn’t her, it was them—but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.
In fact…
She really didn’t feel like going over to the men’s house now. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball with Stanley and ignore the world. And she wouldn’t be good company tonight, anyway.
Dreading this, she opted to be a chicken and texted Kyle.
I need to cancel tonight. I’m sorry.
Unfortunately, she’d barely set her phone down when it rang.
Kyle.
Knowing neither man would let her cancel without knowing the reason—and realizing she did owe them a reason—she answered.
“Hey.”
“What’s going on? Are you all right?” In the background, she could hear what sounded like air tools being run, the rumble of trucks, and realized he was at work.
She started to tell him she was fine and devolved into more tears as she sobbed her way through the story. Not all the horrific details, just the basics.
“Shh, honey, it’s okay. We’ll be there by five. And we’ll take care of dinner.”
“No, it’s—”
“Please, baby.” It was more a command than a request, Dom in the house, and it shocked Jess how much she realized she needed that right now.
How his tone quieted her soul.
It also terrified her to realize how much power that meant they had over her once again.
How vulnerable it made her feel.
“What about your leg?” He was still using the crutches even though the swelling had gone down and he could hobble around the house without them. But with the stairs at the apartment, she’d gone to them, not asked them to come to her.