THE LAST WORDS in the voicemail message rang in my ears long after the call had ended. In your possession. Retrieved by whatever means necessary. Like I was a fucking bauble the crew had stolen that should be returned to its rightful owners. I had the urge to claw the tattoo with their awful mark right off the back of my neck.
Then the image filled my mind of the shadowy figures from the other end of the phone call storming in on the crew and slaughtering them to get to me. For them to have run the kind of assignments they’d sent me on, the people behind the household must have enormous resources. Now that they knew where I was, how the hell could we escape them?
I wouldn’t be a prisoner again. I simply wouldn’t.
My ribs felt as if they’d closed in around my lungs. Dragging air into my chest was a struggle. I squeezed my hands into fists against the back seat of the car and willed myself to calm down, but it didn’t work. A faint wheeze crept into my breath.
I needed more oxygen. Somehow I couldn’t get enough.
“Dess?” Julius said. I couldn’t answer when it was taking all my concentration holding in the panic bubbling inside me.
He didn’t say my name again, only jerked the wheel to pull us over onto the shoulder. The car slammed to a halt. He and Talon burst out, both coming around to the door next to me.
“Come out,” Julius said firmly. “Get some air. Walk it off.”
I fumbled with the seatbelt and pushed myself into the open terrain. We’d stopped in a desolate strip of countryside, only patchy fields around us and forest up ahead, no buildings or other vehicles in sight. For some reason, that reassured me just a smidge.
I started walking, pacing away from the car into the tufts of grass and back again. Frantic thoughts kept whirling through my mind.
The crew went to great lengths to keep the location of their home base secret, but they weren’t completely infallible. And we couldn’t live shut away in there for the rest of our lives anyway.
What would I do if the client found us and managed to capture me again? There was no reason for Julius to risk his whole crew for a woman he’d just met. But I couldn’t let the people who’d run the household take me back. I’d die before I let those bastards touch me again.
I closed my eyes, retracing the steps my feet had already found without needing sight. Get a grip on yourself, Dess.
“He was bluffing,” Julius said with deadly certainty. “Empty threats. No one would risk coming at us head-on, if they even knew how to find us. And if they tried, we’d destroy them. We fulfilled our obligations. You were never part of the deal.”
“And now you’re part of our crew,” Talon said, simply but steadily.
Julius didn’t argue with him.
Was I? Was I really one of them now, just like that? It was hard to wrap my head around the idea. But they’d both spoken with so much confidence that the quivers of panic inside me started to subside. I dragged a deeper breath into my lungs.
“That’s right,” Julius said, somehow commanding and gentle at once. “Let yourself come through it. You’re still every bit as powerful as you were before. You won’t let those fuckers take you down. I know that.”
His words settled my nerves even more. He was right. I didn’t have to let anyone control me ever again. I decided how I lived now—or how I died, if it came to that.
I stopped a couple of feet away from the car and the two men, a shamed flush creeping over my cheeks as I met Talon’s and then Julius’s gaze. “Sorry. I don’t— I usually have more control over my emotions than that.”
“You’ve got a good reason to be particularly emotional on this subject,” Julius said. “But what I said stands. Anyone who thinks they’re going to come at you will have to get through us first, and they’ll find that a losing game.”
Could he really be so sure? He had no more idea exactly who we were up against than I did. My throat tightened, thinking of how much the crew had helped me—and what a horrible way of repaying them it would be if I got them slaughtered for their trouble.
“I wouldn’t expect you to stand up for me,” I said, keeping my own voice even so they’d know I meant it. “This is my battle, and you don’t owe me your support. If anything, I owe it to you to keep you out of it. You’d be risking your careers, even your lives.”
Julius stepped forward and gripped my hands, his gaze holding mine with a fiery fierceness searing through his deep blue eyes. “No one will ever get their hands on you again. You won’t be torn from us as easily as they seem to think. You’re a part of the crew now, and we protect our own. We kill for our own. And I say that without the slightest hesitation.”
Those words held more loyalty and devotion than anyone had ever offered me before. The heat in Julius’s eyes sent a different sort of flush over me. A connection hummed between us, electric enough to send a tingle over my skin. I wanted to sink right into it, to wrap myself in his strength and assurance.
If I leaned in and kissed him right now, how would he react?
He’d never given any clear sign that he was interested in me that way. I didn’t want to ruin the moment by asking for too much.
My gaze slid to the other man, the man who I knew could match my hunger even if he’d kept his own under wraps lately. Talon gazed back at me without retreating.
“How about you?” I asked. “Are you ready to put your life on the line so I can keep my freedom?”
Talon inclined his head as if he didn’t even need to think about it. Which maybe he didn’t. “You’re one of us now,” he said. “And no one threatens the crew and gets away with it.”
If there was one thing I was sure about when it came to Talon, he didn’t lie—not when he didn’t need to. He was being totally honest in his dedication to me. But in that moment, with the remnants of my fears still racing through my veins, I needed to absorb his commitment with every part of my being. Words didn’t feel like enough.
Without letting myself rethink the impulse, I moved toward him and gripped his shirt to tug him into a kiss. The moment I pressed my lips to his, his body reacted, his arms coming around me, his chest molding against mine. He loomed over me and surrounded me all at once. The confirmation in that kiss resonated through me.
It was brief, though, and then Talon shifted, starting to draw back. As he released my mouth, his gaze slid to Julius where I knew the other man was standing behind me. Talon’s hands came to rest on my waist.
I glanced over my shoulder, weighing my options. Desire wound through me, chasing away the last of my panic. Julius was watching us, his shoulders pushed back and his stance commanding in his usual way, his expression unreadable. I could only imagine the ways he could make me feel if he touched me with all his power and authority brought to bear. The way that huge, brawny build would move against me if he fucked me as hard as I’d like.
A small, wicked smile crossed my lips. “You could join in too.” I reached toward him, trailing my fingers down his chest over his shirt.
Julius caught my hand before it’d made it halfway to his groin. Heat flashed in his eyes. “No,” he said, his voice rougher than usual. “You were upset—maybe you’re not thinking straight. I’m not going to take advantage.”
The hunger in his expression told me he was holding himself back for my sake, not his. It seared through my skin and stirred a deeper longing inside me.
“I’m thinking perfectly straight,” I said. “I’ve wanted this—I’ve wanted you—since long before today.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for you right now.”
I met his gaze firmly. “I decide what’s best for me. I’m not the little girl you saved all those years ago, Julius, and I wasn’t all that innocent even then. You know how many people I’ve killed. You know how much I’ve survived. I don’t need to be coddled. When I say I want something, I expect you to believe me.”
The muscles in his arms flexed with the effort of keeping himself still. “This is a far cry from killing, Dess.”
I flicked my fingers against his chest again, as much as I could reach while he still gripped my hand. “They do call it the ‘little death’ sometimes, don’t they? Anyway, I can’t think of a better way to say ‘Screw you’ to the assholes who want to lock me away than by screwing both of you instead of freaking out.”
With those last words, I pulled away from Talon’s grasp to brush my lips against Julius’s. A groan reverberated from his chest, but his mouth crushed against mine, his resistance shattering. His hand leapt up to tease into my hair.
He was just as fantastic a kisser as I’d imagined he’d be. His lips and tongue moved together to caress my mouth, until every sensitive part of me throbbed with lust. I moaned against his lips, and he tightened his hold, one arm across the small of my back and one around the back of my neck, bringing me to him until my body was flush against his.
I heard rather than saw Talon approaching. He returned his hands to my waist and stroked them down my thighs and around to my ass. I ground back into him instinctively and then against Julius’s hips to show him just how ready I was.
This time, both men groaned. Julius nudged me against the side of the car and kissed me harder. Talon leaned in beside us to slide his hands up under my shirt. As Julius worked over my mouth, his friend yanked my bra off with the same force that’d gotten me so wet for him in the workout room before.
These weren’t tender, gentle men, but tenderness wasn’t what I was after. I wanted them to fuck the living daylights out of me.
I swiveled my head from Julius to seek out Talon’s mouth. The other man kissed me with the brutal force I craved, his hand slipping farther down to cup my pussy. As I whimpered, Julius tugged up my shirt and closed his lips over my bared breast.
The rush of sensations was nothing short of heaven. I was starting to get the impression this might not be the first time they’d shared a woman. They seemed to have the whole coordination thing down pat.
I was definitely not complaining.
The searing heat between my thighs was becoming torturous. I rocked into Talon’s hand and groped down his chest to the fly of his jeans. When my fingers closed around his bulging cock through the coarse material, his breath stuttered against my lips. I grinned.
It was such a thrill knowing that I had some kind of power over these powerful men. That I could conjure just as much desire in them as they did in me.
Talon stopped fondling me and tugged at my sweatpants so they pooled at my feet. When he teased his fingers over me with just the thin fabric of my now-soaked panties between us, a very undignified sound escaped me. I nipped his lip and hauled Julius up from my breasts for another kiss.
The two men ravished every part of my body with an unshakeable assurance that didn’t trigger any of my horrible memories. They knew what they wanted, and now they were taking it, much to my delight.
I popped the button on Julius’s jeans and delved my hand inside his boxers. He thrust his cock into my eager hand. “Fuck,” he muttered, his lips scorching against the crook of my jaw. “You’ve got me close to bursting already. But I’m not coming until I hear you scream.”
A giddy shiver passed through me. “Yes, please.”
He cut his eyes toward Talon. “The emergency blanket from the back.”
Talon didn’t need any further instructions. He flung open the trunk and grabbed the blanket. In a matter of seconds, he’d spread it out on the ground next to the car.
Julius spun me around so my back was to him, tucking his hand beneath my panties between my legs. As he plunged his thick, skillful fingers right inside me, he lowered me onto my knees on the blanket. Talon sank down in front of me, tugging up my chin to claim another kiss. His mouth was pure fire. Every part of me was awash with flames of pleasure now.
With a jerk of his hand, Julius snapped the panties right off me. There was a crinkling of foil and the hiss of his jeans dropping, and then he gripped my hips. The head of his rigid cock rubbed against my opening.
As I moaned for it, he thrust into me. He was even bigger than Talon, stretching me with a blissful burn that radiated through my whole body. Seeking out even more of that incredible sensation, I pressed into him as he eased back and plunged even deeper.
But I couldn’t leave the other man neglected. I made short work of Talon’s fly and freed his cock with one hand as my body swayed to match Julius’s rhythm. Another gasp tumbled out of me, and then I was closing my mouth around Talon’s jutting dick, taking both men at the same time.
I’d witnessed this act, the sucking of a cock, in the middle of missions before, but this was my first chance to try it out. It hadn’t always looked that enjoyable for the woman, but I found the feel of Talon’s silky, pulsing shaft against my lips and tongue was an entirely new kind of thrill. Especially when he groaned and wound his fingers into my hair with the perfect sharp tug to make me hum with pleasure around him.
My hands dug into the blanket as I swiveled my tongue around his cock and bucked into Julius’s thrusts. I had the two strongest men I’d ever met on their knees around me, and I could handle them both without missing a beat. A heady jolt of exhilaration raced through me.
As I swallowed Talon’s shaft deeper into my mouth, Julius hit the spot that could send me screaming into release, just like he’d asked for. I could only moan around the other man’s dick. He hit that spot again and again, clutching my hips tighter as he must have felt the shudders starting to race through my limbs.
Then all at once the pleasure of it completely burst inside me. I cried out, gasping against Talon’s cock before sucking it back down, my body shaking with the force of my orgasm.
Julius finished next, thrusting deeply and erratically before he bowed over me with a grunt. As he tipped back, ragged breaths spilling out of him, Talon withdrew from my lips and pumped himself twice more before spilling his seed across the blanket before me.
I flopped down on the coarse fabric between the two men and grinned dazedly up at the blue sky that now seemed to beam back at me. Julius rubbed his hand over my thigh, and Talon brushed my sweat-damp hair back from my face. Sprawled there with them poised on either side of me, a realization struck me harder than ever before.
“No one owns me,” I said with total conviction. “Nobody except myself.”
Julius’s lips curved with an approving smile. “And that’s how it’s going to stay as long as we have anything to say about it.”
