Alea dragged in a long breath as Cooper strode toward her private apartments. “I changed my mind. You can let me down now. I need to talk to those investigators and look at that report.”
She enjoyed being in his arms far too much. He made her feel delicate and feminine, loved and almost innocent. And it was all a lie.
“Not until I’ve examined you, Princess. You passed out.”
“I got woozy. I never lost consciousness.”
No, but that would have been nice. She’d been brutally aware of all of tonight’s events. Her cousins, whom she trusted more than anyone in the world, had hired investigators and not bothered to mention it to her. Coop and Dane had gone along with the plan to keep her in the dark. When had they planned to tell her that someone was out there waiting for another chance to send her back to hell?
Cooper used his foot to kick the door open. “You were about to hit the floor.”
Alea frowned. “Well, the dress is tight.”
She could barely breathe. Her evening gown hadn’t been designed for comfort. And now she was a little worried that if she tried to take a deep breath, her breasts might peek or plop out.
“Then maybe you should get out of it, but I’m not leaving here until I know you’re all right.” His dark eyes were full of glittering determination.
He swept her through the living area and back toward her bedroom. He didn’t need to be pointed in the right direction. He, Dane, and Lan knew every square inch of this place because they were always watching over her. They did a sweep of her room every single night before she went to bed. One of them was always somewhere in the shadows, waiting to defend her.
And now it looked like she needed them more than she’d imagined. Some psycho had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to make her life hell and was probably waiting to do it again. God, that someone must truly hate her. The fact that it could be someone she knew boggled her mind. She tried to think of any obvious enemies she might have, but came up terribly blank.
“Alea? You went pale again.” He carried her to her bed and settled her on top of the silky, pale-gray comforter. His hand went straight to her forehead. “You’re hot.”
She wished he’d said that in a way that meant he found her attractive—and that she could believe. Unfortunately, Cooper Evans was an outrageous flirt. She couldn’t take anything he said seriously. And he’d only meant the words medically.
“It was stuffy in the ballroom.”
Cooper looked behind him. “Where the hell are they? I need my kit.”
“I’m not sick,” Alea insisted. “You don’t need to examine me.”
She struggled to sit up. She really did need to talk to those investigators since she’d only gotten a brief glimpse at the reports, and so much of what they’d said had been strained through the filter of her incredulity. Just thinking about what had happened in the past—what might happen again—her heart ratcheted up to a jackhammer’s pace.
Oh, god no.
For the last two years, she’d been plagued by panic attacks, though they’d begun to slow down. She’d thought she was getting better, but now she couldn’t breathe. Damn it, she needed to breathe.
Alea pushed off the bed and started charging across the room, her blood racing through her veins, her heart roaring in her ears. Blackness swam at the edge of her vision.
“Lea? Baby?”
The “baby” nearly did her in. She needed his arms around her, and it wasn’t going to happen. Coop probably called every female under the age of eighty “baby.” Even if his voice had been so tender that she wanted to cry, she couldn’t take his endearment personally.
Suddenly, Coop raced around her, gripping her shoulders, holding her secure. He towered over her, his golden brown hair shining under the soft recessed lights. His broad shoulders seemed to go on for days. He looked so masculine, so fiercely capable of protecting the woman he loved. Yet Coop regarded her with such soft concern.
She wanted to melt against him—and if she did, she’d make a fool of herself. Time to put space between them. “I’m going to the bathroom. Just go away, Cooper. I’m fine.”
Alea charged toward her luxurious bathroom, slamming the door behind her. He would leave now. And damn it, no, that wouldn’t disappoint her. Cooper had a job to do, so of course he would retreat outside her bedroom doors, leaving her utterly alone.
Even knowing that’s what he should do, she leaned against the back of the door, trying to get a lungful of air, and fought tears. Why cry for what she couldn’t change? Angrily, she swiped at the wet paths on her cheeks, then wound her hands to the back of her bodice, pulling at the cinches. In a moment, her breasts broke free and she dragged blessed oxygen into her lungs.
She pushed the whole gown off and got out of the god-awful spandex undies she’d forced her body into because she didn’t want anyone to know that she wasn’t perfect. God, if they only knew.
Tears streaked down her face as she turned and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She wasn’t beautiful. She was supposed to be a princess, but somehow she’d ended up with small breasts and an ass that was a bit too wide. Her stomach wasn’t flat.
They had beaten her for that in the brothel. She could still feel the switch they had used on her, still see the faint scars on her belly. She wasn’t pretty enough to sell. She wasn’t sexy enough to fuck. No one would want her.
But someone hated her enough to have her kidnapped and tortured.
Alea crossed to the sink and turned on the cold water. She had to get control of herself quickly because the coronation ball was still in progress. Piper would expect her there. She needed to get dressed again. And she needed to confront her cousins who had involved everyone in the investigation about her abduction except her.
She’d been so sure when Khalil had died that her ordeal was all over. She’d cried and tried to come to terms with everything. But she’d been safe—or so she had believed. Now she knew it had all been a falsehood.
And her cousins had perpetrated it.
She couldn’t face the investigators again wearing that dumbass gown. She’d picked it out for stupid reasons. Piper had told her it was gorgeous, and she’d thought that maybe Dane, Landon, and Cooper would think she was pretty for an evening.
So stupid. She should have just picked a black dress that covered everything and wouldn’t potentially embarrass the hell out of her.
“Oh god, you’re gorgeous.”
Alea started, her heart nearly stopping at Cooper’s masculine groan. He was standing in the doorway, staring at her intently, his mouth set in a slightly salacious expression. Slightly? A second glance suggested that maybe she was underestimating him.
Her first instinct was to leap for a robe, a towel—anything that would cover her—but she just stood there, utterly frozen. He was staring at her naked body, and he wasn’t running away. In fact, he was moving toward her. She retreated a quick step, but her back met the marbled wall, and there was nowhere else to go.
Alea could hardly catch her breath to speak. “You should go.”
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful.” He sounded like he meant it. He edged closer, towering over her.
“You can’t be in here,” she protested, but it wasn’t the sound of a woman who strongly meant what she was saying. Instead, it sounded breathy, almost like a seduction. What was wrong with her?
“Why not, Lea? Give me one good reason.” He braced himself against the wall behind her, his body pressing close.
She could think of about fifty reasons, but only one came out of her mouth. “I’m naked.”
“Yes, and that’s the best reason I can think of to stay.”
He leaned toward her, touching their foreheads together. If he’d been the least bit domineering, she could have pushed him away, but this was a sweet intimacy. How long had it been since she’d touched someone? Felt the heat of another body close to her own quite like this? Never.
“Baby, do you know how many nights I’ve sat up imagining how beautiful you are? Do you know how off I was? You’re a hundred times more gorgeous than I ever dreamed. Tell me you don’t want me, too. Tell me, and I’ll walk out of this room. I won’t try to touch you again, but you should know that I’ll never stop wanting you. You’re the only woman I’ve been able to think of since I met you.”
He brought one hand to her shoulder, his fingers just barely touching her, making her shiver in the most delicious way possible.
She shook her head, trying to come out from under the spell. “You’ve dated since you’ve been here. Don’t try to fool me.”
His head snapped up, and she found herself staring into the warmest chocolate brown eyes she’d ever seen. His handsome face settled into a frown that did nothing to detract from his male-model gorgeousness. “Not once.”
She bit her bottom lip. She wanted to believe him. God, she was standing here naked with him and she couldn’t seem to make herself move. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s the truth.” His fingers made their way down her arm. “I’m worried about touching you. I don’t want to scare you, baby. You have to know I would never, ever want to hurt you.”
He sounded so different from the laughing, sarcastic man she’d come to know. This was the Cooper she’d always suspected hid under his playful exterior. He was so sweet, but it was hard to believe he wasn’t sexually active. He was the only one of the three of Tal’s guards who regularly took weeks off and left the country. “I thought you had a girl back home. I thought that was why you left every six weeks.”
He was staring into her eyes, holding her hostage. “I go to a little hospital in Pakistan. I have an old buddy who runs a clinic there. Baby, I’m not seeing someone. I’m vaccinating babies and running the clinic so he has a little time off. I told you. I haven’t wanted anyone since the minute I laid eyes on you.” He swallowed hard. “Are you ever going to look at me the way I look at you?”
Alea wanted to. She studied him all the time when she was sure he wasn’t looking. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know that I can do any of this, Cooper. I…I don’t think I function the way other women do. I don’t respond to sex.”
Except she was kind of responding now. Her breathing was ragged. She wasn’t panicked the way she’d been after her rescue. When she’d first come back, she’d pulled away from anyone who tried to touch her. Lately, she’d been wondering if she was missing out. Piper was a hugger. At first it had seemed rude to shove her cousins’ wife away, so she’d endured it, but more and more she found herself initiating the hugs. And she definitely thought about being able to touch her men. In her dreams, she opened to them fully, and they took her in every way. She felt such pleasure, such love… What a far-fetched fantasy.
And just the fact that she thought of them as her men was proof enough that she’d gone half mad. She should shove Cooper away right this second before he found out how cold she was.
“Baby, your nipples are hard.”
He backed up just enough to brush his knuckles over them. Rough, work-callused skin touched her own, lighting a fire deep in her belly. She shivered and gasped, then tried to shrink away. He wrapped an arm loosely around her waist and kept her close.
“You respond just fine.” His voice sounded rough. “Let me kiss you.”
Alea shook her head. “I-I can’t stand too much touch. I can’t close my eyes without…”
“Shh, baby. You can’t stand being tied down or having someone on top of you. We can work on that. It’ll take time and patience, but I’ve got both.”
“It’s more than that.” But he wouldn’t understand, and frustration welled. She needed to grab her robe and run away. She looked around for an escape, but the only way out was through Coop. “I don’t know how I would handle hands really…touching me.”
“Let me do all the worrying. We’ll work it out.”
That sounded nice. No, it sounded like a huge relief, letting someone else bear the strain and horror of all she’d endured. God, she was so deeply lonely, but she feared the risk. What if Coop touched her and she panicked? How could she ever look at him or the other two again if she freaked out and made an idiot of herself? They’d know she was frigid. Hell, she’d confessed it. But they didn’t know she woke up screaming and fighting some invisible attacker far too often.
Slowly, Cooper slid to his knees, somehow making the move deeply graceful. “I won’t touch you with my hands, baby, but I want to show you that there’s not a damn thing wrong with you. You can respond. I can prove it. Let me kiss you.”
He wasn’t talking about her mouth.
Cooper was right there, staring at her. She should be horrified. No one had seen her naked since she’d come home from South America. But there was something heady about the intimacy of being bare and alone with Cooper that she couldn’t deny. She felt frozen, hopeful.
And then she felt desperate because Cooper didn’t wait for an answer. He leaned in, and she felt the heat of his breath right on her pussy.
Alea braced for the panic to set in. She parted her lips to warn him that, any second, she would kick out and try to fight him. She lifted her hands, ready to push him away.
But everything stopped—time, her heart, her breath—as he kissed her with such aching tenderness, placing little butterfly kisses across the mound of her pussy. Women in her culture waxed their bodies, and now Alea was glad she’d kept up the practice because she could feel every press of his lips against her sensitive skin. Heat flared, but she found herself trembling as she looked down, watching his golden brown hair move as he tilted his head, seemingly determined not to miss tasting an inch of her.
“You see, you could handle a little kiss,” he whispered against her thigh, and his words tingled along her flesh. “The key is to go slow so you know you’re safe. But we can push the boundaries just a little. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to taste you, baby?”
She’d been kissed before on the mouth, short, groping attempts at affection when she was younger. Her childhood had been deeply protected. Growing up behind palace walls with three male cousins had ensured she’d gone to college with very little experience, but she’d been kissed a few times. She’d even been touched by two male suitors.
But nothing had ever been like this, a heady, trembling rush of amazing pleasure. Oh god... And no one had ever gently drawn his tongue across her swelling folds.
She couldn’t stop the cry that fell from her mouth. Suddenly she was glad she was leaning against the wall because she was pretty sure her legs nearly dissolved underneath her. She couldn’t quite catch a full breath. His mouth felt so good.
“You taste so sweet, Lea. So fucking sweet.” He drew his tongue right up the center of her pussy, stopping at her clitoris to press little circles there.
Alea could feel herself getting soft and wet, her pussy nearly pulsing with desire. Pleasure drummed behind her clit. And she ached everywhere.
He sucked half of her labia into his mouth, pulling gently, tonguing her with wicked purpose before returning to her clitoris. She’d read about this feeling, but she’d never thought her parts actually worked. Apparently, she’d been wrong because every nerve in her body now stood at attention, expectant as he laved affection all over her pussy. He licked her clit with the tip of his tongue, and she moaned, melted, dying for more.
But he seemed intent on making her wait for it, making her crazy. He tapped her clit, then drew it between his teeth, suckling in gentle passes that had her panting for more. A plea sat on the tip of her tongue. Her head fell back against the wall, and her eyes slid shut. Her fingers filtered into his hair.
“Yes…” she moaned.
Oh, god, she was soaking wet. He was eating her up, sucking down everything she gave him. And still, he seemed hungry for more. These foreign sensations he gave her made her feel powerful and sexy and right. She started rolling her hips with every brush of his tongue, pushing toward him, forcing him to tongue her harder as she silently begged for more. He could make her come. He could give her everything she’d secretly craved. And she would thank him because she’d never felt more free.
So close. As he rubbed her clit with his tongue, worrying the perfect spot over and over, she fisted as much of his hair in her hands as she could. Her eyes were going to cross. She held her breath. Soon—in seconds—she was going to scream his name. She was going to find that bliss everyone talked about and shout her pleasure from the heavens.
Suddenly, he gripped her hips, caging her against the wall and stilling her movements. Her brain blanked and readjusted. Memories catapulted her to a different place. Pleasure vanished.
No love. No affection. Just chains and pain and heartache.
Fat bitch. Stay where you are. They were always telling her how ugly she was. How she wasn’t worth the food they gave her. How some day they would just slit her throat and leave her to the dogs.
She could hear the sound of that hand coming for her. They slapped at her stomach because the skin was thin there. They caned her feet so she couldn’t walk, much less run, for days.
“Lea! Lea, baby, stop!”
She couldn’t. They would kill her, rape her. They told her she was nothing. A piece of trash. Worthless. And they would annihilate everything inside they hadn’t yet destroyed.
A stupid princess without her own family. She was cursed and useless, and it would be better if she’d died.
The worst part was, those words were her own. It was her own voice in her head, in her sleep…when she considered how much easier it would have been if she’d rotted in that jungle.
“Lea!”
Strong arms caged her, and Alea fought harder. She kicked out, determined to get away. They wouldn’t take her this time. She refused to let that happen. No way was she going back to hell. She would rather die. She heard a long, tortured scream, then realized it was her own. She refused to go quietly. Never. She would make them kill her before she’d go back into a cage.
“Please, baby. I won’t touch you again. Please come back to me. Please.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” A deep voice cut through everything.
Authority dripped from that voice. Authority decided how she was punished, how and where she would hurt that particular day. Authority meted out “justice” swiftly.
“Fuck you!” Alea shouted. She was done. They could kill her, but she wouldn’t go meekly. They wouldn’t shove that needle in her arm and make her compliant again. They wouldn’t make her crave the drug that made her kidnappers’ job easy.
Not again. Not again. Please not again.
“Alea!” That voice was insistent, pulling at her. “Alea, you’re in Bezakistan. You’re safe. You’re here. No one is going to hurt you.”
Strong arms shook her, forcing her to open her eyes.
Dane? When had Dane come to South America? Had he come for her? He couldn’t see her this weak and pathetic. She tried to push at him, but he was a massive brick wall. “Go away.”
He refused to budge.
Tears ran down her face as she thrashed violently for freedom.
A sharp shock hit her skin, and the fleshy part of her ass flared with a stinging heat, forcing her into the present.
Then reality hit her harder than any smack to her ass.
She was in the palace, and she wasn’t alone. She was surrounded by all three of them. Cooper was on his butt on the floor, staring up at her, guilt carved into his face. Lan had a hand on Coop’s shirt as though he’d pulled his friend back. And Dane stood in front of her, his gorgeous face stern and tormented as he stared down at her. His blue eyes were steady as he braced his big hands on her shoulders, seemingly ready to shake her back into reality. He was the one who had slapped at her ass, jarring her long enough to return to the present.
And suddenly, Alea realized that she was naked in every sense of the word. “Get out of here!”
None of them moved.
What had she been thinking? What the hell had she been doing? A sob formed in the back of her throat. She couldn’t handle this. Panic was still there, rolling in the pit of her stomach. Those memories were so close to the surface, she could smell the dank sheets and hear the cries of the women around her. She shoved out at Dane, but he was a tower of pure muscle.
He didn’t even register her pitiful attempts at freedom. “Calm down, Princess. Do you know where you are?”
Alea hated his perfectly sensible tone. She was past sanity, and he sounded so completely cool. She tried to calm down, but they were all so close. “I need you to back off. Back off!”
It wasn’t fair to lash out at them, but she needed to be alone so she could regroup. She had to get them out of here before she lost it again. She’d humiliated herself enough. And more panic hovered at the edge of her consciousness, stuck in her throat, threatening to escape in a long scream.
They had all conspired against her, even Landon. He’d known about the investigation. It was the only explanation for how he’d known where and when that meeting about her life had been taking place. All three of them had been complicit.
Broken and ugly. That was all she was.
“Alea, I’m just about ready to put you over my knee and smack that ass until you’re in your right head again.”
“Nice. Well, go ahead. It’s nothing I haven’t been through before. You think you’re so big and bad? Go ahead, abuse the stupid, weak princess. Maybe that will make you feel like a man.” She spewed bile his way because she wasn’t about to let him know that she needed them to hold her, to surround her until she was sure no harm could reach her. Eventually, they’d find out she was broken. Then they would leave. She had to erect some really high walls that would protect them all, so their rejection wouldn’t hurt so much. “Men only see women as punching bags anyway, right?”
Dane’s face went a bright red, his jaw tightening to the point she was sure it would break. He was so righteously pissed that she thought surely he would beat her and prove who was stronger.
Instead, he jerked away from her, then pivoted, giving her his back. He didn’t look at her again, merely reached out and grabbed Cooper’s shirt, where Lan’s hand had been previously. He twisted his fist in the garment and started dragging his friend out behind him.
“Goddamn it, Dane.” Cooper struggled, but nothing seemed to faze Dane. “Let me go. We can’t leave her like this.”
Dane merely stalked out of the room, hauling his partner along.
Alea’s hands shook as she felt warm, soft fabric cover her shoulders suddenly. She looked up. Landon. He was settling her robe around her body, covering her nakedness. His face was a careful blank.
“I’ll admit that I knew you were all kinds of fucked up, Princess,” Lan began in that down-home Texas drawl of his.
She laughed, but there was no humor to the sound. She pulled the robe around her like a coat of armor. “Good for you, Lan. You just proved you have eyes and a brain that halfway works.”
He flinched, and his face closed up. Alea fought tears. What was wrong with her? Why did she keep saying such horrible things? Why was she hurting them?
Because they terrified her. Because if she hurt them first, they might not be able to hurt her back.
“Wow. That’s a good one, Princess. You know how to go for the throat. You definitely kicked Dane where it hurts the most. Did you know his ex-wife thought that BDSM was abuse? Did you know that even though he never touched her like that, when he asked her to experiment she called him a wife beater?”
She gasped. How horrible. And how terrible she felt now. Dane would never hurt a woman.
Alea closed her eyes for a moment. Sometimes, she didn’t recognize herself anymore. When she lashed out like she just had, the fear and hurt talked, not her. “No. Oh, Lan, I didn’t know. He wouldn’t have abused her.”
“Well, you have great instincts, Princess. Dane feels like he failed everyone, his whole family, definitely his ex-wife. I’m pretty sure I’m the dumbest idiot ever born, so reinforcing that is a surefire way to hurt me. Let me give you some advice on how to hurt Coop because I’m not sure you figured him out yet. He hides his insecurities really well.”
“Don’t.” Alea felt hot tears scalding her face.
Lan thumbed away the tears, but his voice didn’t change. It remained a deep, polite monotone. “Coop came from a big ranching family. When he was a little kid, the ranch hit real hard times. His family almost lost everything. Every dime they made went back into the land or to pay the mortgage, so he grew up poor. He was the youngest of seven boys so by the time the hand-me-downs got to him, they were patched up and worn and he was so skinny that the kids in his school called him Scarecrow. Call him that a couple of times and it’ll cut him to the quick. Since you’re not only fucked up but cruel, that should give you some ammunition. Enjoy it.” He shook his head. “The way I see it, either you were always mean or you let them make you mean. Either way, it’s a goddamn shame.”
Lan brushed away another tear and turned, following after Dane and Coop. They were all leaving, and she’d been the one to shove them away, hurting them and lashing out because she wasn’t brave enough to be kind, welcoming. That required a strong heart, and hers was shattered.
More tears fell, but the scream that was always in her throat stuck. “Landon.”
He stopped but didn’t turn. “What do you need, Your Highness?”
So many things. Nothing she could ask for. “Tell Dane I’m sorry. And Cooper and… I’m very sorry that I hurt you too.”
He nodded and left, and she was alone again.
Alea crumbled to the floor. The gorgeous gown she’d picked out in hopes that they would notice her was lying on the tile, trampled by boot prints, ruined. What had she been thinking? She could dress up all she liked, but she was still that girl chained to a bed, waiting to die.
The only trouble now was she seemed determined to take everyone to hell with her.
* * * *
Dane let Cooper drop as soon as he’d hauled him out of the princess’s quarters. He didn’t trust Coop not to run back in and try to get on top of her again.
And he didn’t trust himself not to walk back and have a throw down with her that would very likely end with him getting his ass arrested for laying hands on Her Royal Highness.
“You asshole.” Coop was on his feet in a heartbeat. “What the fuck was that about?”
The hallway around them was quiet. He’d been afraid Tal would follow them, but it appeared he had gone back to the ball. He was fine with that because he was just about ready to start throwing punches. Caving in Coop’s face might take the edge off the nasty anger building inside him.
Alea had scored a direct hit. He could still hear Kelly screaming at him that he was a pervert, a freak for what he needed. He could still remember the day his father had told him what an embarrassment he was to the family and that he was no longer welcome in the house he’d grown up in.
He hadn’t been invited to his brother’s wedding. Of course, that wasn’t such a huge surprise since his very vanilla brother had been marrying his ex-wife.
He felt Coop shove at his arm, goading him. “What? Now you can’t talk?”
Dane narrowed his eyes, flexed his hands. He’d thought he was going to beat the shit out of Lan for bringing Alea to the meeting, but Cooper had done something much worse. “I can talk, man. I just don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say.”
Cooper pulled back slightly, frowning. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Oh, it was an accident then? You tripped and fell on top of her pussy? Did your tongue fall out and land on her clit?”
“She was responding, damn it.”
Dane had seen just how she’d responded. “Yeah, you must have done a hell of a job with her, buddy. She was screaming and kicking and fighting you as if she was struggling for her very survival.
He’d heard her from down the hall. He’d been lighting into Lan when they both heard Alea’s shout. They’d run, terrified that someone was trying to kill her. Lan had his gun out and he’d just about taken off Coop’s head when Dane realized who it was.
Coop’s whole body sagged. “It didn’t start out like that. I was trying to check up on her. I wanted to make sure her BP was okay. She nearly fainted. When she took a while in the bathroom, I went in to make sure she hadn’t fallen or stumbled and hit her head. And I saw her. She was…”
“Beautiful.” Yeah, he’d gotten that, too. He’d seen every inch of her golden body, every curve and valley. Even though she’d been screaming, he was just enough of a bastard to get a hard-on because she was so fucking sexy. Shame filled him. She didn’t want him and she was probably right. No man with real morals would have gotten an erection when the woman he adored was terrified.
And they damn straight wouldn’t have threatened to spank her. The trouble was, she responded to dominance. It was only when he’d used his Dom voice that she’d calmed and come out of her episode. She needed someone to take control when she couldn’t, to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. To stand by her and give her the safe boundaries and structure she needed.
“Yes, she was so beautiful, and we had this connection, Dane,” Coop continued. “She thinks she’s frigid, but she’s not. She was pressing her pussy against my mouth and wriggling around. That’s why I tried to hold her down, so I could finish her off. Damn, I don’t think that girl’s ever had an orgasm. If I hadn’t wrapped my arms around her, we would be in a totally different place.”
“Yeah, you would be fucking her, and Dane would be rearranging my face,” a laconic voice said from the doorway. Landon stared at Cooper.
Coop rolled his eyes. “God, don’t give me that. I wasn’t trying to steal her. I was trying to show her how good it can be. And you’re a fine one to talk. What the fuck was that move you pulled? Did you sell her on how awful Dane and I are to cut her out of that meeting?”
“Fuck you, Coop.” Lan squared off, facing the other man down. They started to circle each other like two pit bulls waiting to take a chunk out. “She deserved to be in that meeting. It was about her. She’s not a child.”
“She sure knows how to throw a temper tantrum,” Dane said, frowning. “That shit she just pulled is exactly why I left her out. Alea isn’t ready for that much reality. We all agreed on this plan, and you took it into your own hands to reverse our decision.”
He’d been trying so hard to get them all on the same page. Alea needed all three of them. She’d grown up in a country where she was practically expected to marry two or three men, maybe more. Being kidnapped had torn her world apart, but eventually she would find comfort in her custom of plural marriage. But in order to offer her what she needed, they had to stick together, and his asshole, idiot partners were being selfish pricks.
Lan’s face flushed an angry red. “Look, I talked to Cole. He’s been in this place before.”
“Oh, Cole Lennox is now your best friend?” Coop shot at Lan, rounding on him. “Or is he the guy giving you advice on how to get her all to yourself?”
“What are you talking about? He shares his wife with his brother.” Lan growled a little, a sure sign that this situation was about to get ugly. “And you’re a fine fucking one to talk, Coop. I made a decision to bring her into something that involved us all. I thought we’d sit down and hash this out with her. I thought that maybe if she understood the situation, she would be a little easier on us. Let us closer. What’s your excuse? Are you going to try to convince me that you were just warming her up so Dane and I could come in behind you and show her a good time? I didn’t see you leaving a whole lot of room in her pussy for us.”
Coop’s right fist flew out, catching Lan’s jaw. There was a thud, and a nasty, happy little smile crept across Lan’s face because he was a man who appreciated violence, and Coop had just made the enormous mistake of giving it to him.
Lan’s fist popped up almost faster than Dane could see it, and a nice splash of blood came from Coop’s face. His lip, it looked like. He’d shifted just enough that Lan hadn’t broken his nose.
They started to wail on each other, but Dane had lost the desire to fight.
Because he was pretty sure they had just lost Alea. Or maybe she’d already been lost, and tonight had simply forced him to face facts. The woman spitting the cruel barbs just wasn’t his princess.
He heaved a long sigh. She needed him, but she would never acknowledge it, never give him the chance to prove it to her. And, hell, maybe he was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe he should just join a fucking club and spend his time with the subs there who came out for a good time. He’d wrecked his marriage. He’d fucked up his career.
“I should have expected this.” Tal stood beside him, watching the fight and shaking his head.
Dane turned, and it looked like Tal had brought out the whole fucking gang. Rafe and Kade were with him, along with the three James brothers—Gavin, Slade, and Dex—as well as the Lennox twins, Cole and Burke.
“Brothers shouldn’t fight like that, man,” Dex said, shaking his head.
Gavin James sent his youngest brother a scorching look. “Really? My nose is crooked because of you two fuckers.”
Slade shook his head. “That was all on you, brother. Ouch, that’s going to hurt. They’re not big believers in rules, are they?”
Dane winced because Coop had just landed a kidney shot. “He was my team’s medic. I don’t think he takes the Hippocratic Oath very seriously. And we’re not really brothers.”
“That’s where you’re making your mistake,” Rafe said. “If you want Alea, you better behave like brothers. Blood or no, be a cohesive unit. You have to take care of each other and work together.”
“Yeah, you’ve got to do that if you’re going to survive your wife. Trust me, Cole’s the dumbass. He’s always hiding behind me when he says something stupid.” The Lennox twin on the right pointed to his other half.
Yeah, Dane would like a word with Cole. “He might want to hide behind you now.”
A single eyebrow arched on Cole’s face. “You’re pissed that I talked to Landon? Well, someone had to. You guys are fucking this up and hard.”
The urge to kill flared up again. “Is that right?”
Tal held up a hand. “Before you kill Mr. Lennox, perhaps you should understand a few things.”
“Like he could kill me.” Cole rolled his eyes.
Burke shrugged. “Dude, we’ve spent the last year hauling our son around, not training for battle. He would probably take you down.”
“Please. I could take him down with Caleb strapped into his baby Snugli across my chest.”
“The fact that you just used the word Snugli proves how out of the game we are.”
The Lennox brothers continued to argue, but Dane looked to Tal. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what you’ve tried hasn’t worked. You’ve all come at her in different ways, and she is going to require a coordinated assault where you leave her absolutely no way out. It’s imperative the three of you work together. And be smart for a fucking change. I believe she’ll respond to how gentle Landon can be, to Cooper’s playfulness, and I absolutely believe she needs you most of all.” Tal looked pointedly at Dane. “But you’re the one who’s holding back the most.”
Tal could accuse him of a lot of things, but not that he’d been holding back. Something crashed in the background, and Dane looked over his shoulder. Landon had Cooper pinned to the ground, getting ready to bash his head in with what was probably a priceless vase. Idiots.
Cooper kicked up and Lan groaned as his balls met with a steel-toed boot. Every man in the hallway moaned, and Lan started a long fall to the floor.
Yeah, this was fucking helping.
Dane moved in to avoid utter catastrophe. The last thing he needed was to get billed for damaging historical art or some shit. He caught the vase just before Lan hit the floor.
Cooper and Landon were both on the carpet, chests heaving and blood dripping. They had done numbers on one another.
“You two, stay the fuck down or I will get involved in this,” Dane promised. Maybe Rafe was right and they should start considering themselves brothers. If they did that, Coop and Lan better understand that Dane was the big brother, and they were going to have to fall in line.
For now, they seemed content to lie there and focus on breathing.
“Sorry.” He handed the vase back to Tal. “I’ll talk to them.”
Tal nodded. “That was a start.”
“How the hell can you say I haven’t been trying with her? I’ve been on walks with her almost every day. I try talking to her, coaxing her out of her shell. I’ve brought her treats, complimented her… Everything I should.”
“Everything a vanilla man should. Alea requires more, and you know it.”
Fuck. “She’s fragile.”
“She’s also submissive without a firm Dominant. She’s in free fall without a safety net. Rafe, Kade, and I have stood back, hoping you three would get your act together, but…” Tal shook his head.
Damn and hell. Tal wasn’t telling him anything about Alea he hadn’t already known. Every instinct in his body told him to top her, but she just kept shoving back. He didn’t want to push her too hard. He’d been down that road with Kelly, and it had only ended in divorce.
“I can’t force her to see what she needs,” Dane argued.
“I’ve watched you with Alea,” Kade said, stepping up. “You’re at your best when you tell it like it is. But you’ve been very careful with her. Hell, we all have. My brothers and I have resolved to stop now. You have to do the same. I’m not telling you to force her to your will, but you should be open and honest about everything you can do for her. What the three of you give her.”
“We’ve tried so many things,” Rafe added. “We’ve brought in therapists, given her charity work to take her mind off things, surrounded her with family and friends from her past who can help her remember happier times. None of it has worked. She pretends to be content, but she doesn’t connect with people anymore.”
Coop pushed himself off the floor. “She’s got a terrible self-image. She thinks she’s ugly and frigid. We can’t work on that from a distance.”
Lan got to his feet as well, wiping blood from his mouth. “I hate to admit it, but I agree with Cooper. What we’ve been doing so far hasn’t worked. We’ve been treating her like she’s too fragile. We’ve almost convinced her that she is, too. But she won’t break. She just needs to know that we’re strong enough to handle her.”
Dane looked at his two best friends. They had beaten each other stupid, but now they were standing together. Maybe that’s what real brothers were like. And maybe it was time to start following his instincts. Alea was floundering. Her world had been broken in a way that she couldn’t put back together all alone. She didn’t know how to ask for help and was afraid to need it. She was damn straight terrified to open her heart.
He’d worked plenty of operations where he couldn’t just walk through the door, guns blazing. The key was strategy. Find a sneaky way in. He could manage that. A two-pronged approach would work. He could start doing exactly what Tal had suggested, tell Alea everything she was missing, everything they could give her in the filthiest language possible. He wouldn’t hold back. He wouldn’t be polite. And he wouldn’t let her get away with anything.
And then, when she couldn’t stand another second, they would deliver on their promises. They would show her just how beautiful they thought she was, how hot they could make her, how high they could send her soaring. Once her body belonged to him and his brothers, her heart wouldn’t be far behind.
“Go get cleaned up,” Dane said to Landon and Cooper. “We have a lot to talk about. Tal, please have the investigators send me the report. We’ll will regroup in the morning and figure out exactly where to go from here. In the meantime, were going to figure out new protocols for the princess.”
Tal held out his hand, shaking Dane’s firmly. “The backup security team can handle the rest of the evening. It’s winding down anyway. Consider your team reassigned. You’re completely in charge of Alea’s security from now on. Good luck.”
Tal and his brothers, along with their friends, filed down the stairs, heading back to the ballroom, leaving Dane alone with the two men who had watched his back for the last two years. There wasn’t anyone else he would rather go into battle with.
This was the mission of a lifetime, and Dane didn’t intend to fail.