Their Virgin Secretary

Chapter Sixteen

Kellan frowned as he looked down at the massive stack of information Tate had compiled in a short period of time. “I don’t see how this changes anything.”

Afternoon light filtered through the stained glass, making the floors Belle had splurged on to have sanded and stained again absolutely gleam. Another knock sounded at the door, and he heard Eric begrudgingly welcome back the electrician inside the house again.

“Where’s Belle?” Mike asked with a grin.

Kell wanted to punch him until he lay flat on the floor. “Busy.”

Mike shrugged. “Tell her I said hi.”

“Maybe we should try someone new,” Tate muttered as Mike made his way toward the stairs. “I don’t care how old and complex the wiring is in this house, he should have fixed it by now. And you should really read all of that info before you start telling me I’m wrong.”

Between the endless contractors and Tate’s newfound belief in the paranormal, Kellan’s day was rapidly going to hell. “I don’t see how a bunch of rumors help us figure out what’s going on in this house. I don’t need to know the history. I need to know who’s trying to scare Belle out of it right now.”

Eric shouldered his way back into the kitchen. “That’s an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, and some woman with a god-awful amount of something she calls swatches. Belle’s trying to pick between five colors that all look the exact same to me, but apparently they have different names so the decision is massive. Who are our most likely suspects here?”

So many people walking in and out of the house. Every single one of them was a suspect in his mind. “Don’t forget the landscaper she brought in. And someone’s coming in today to look at all the old photos. Belle wants to restore some she found in the attic. I put them over by the copy machine.”

The photos didn’t matter now. “Process of elimination. Who was here that first day? Mike, Gates, Captain Ron—”

“Who?” Tate looked confused.

“Mullet guy,” Kell supplied. “Big belly, lots of crack.”

“Oh, the plumber.” Tate sighed. “Who else was here that first day? The interns.”

“They haven’t been back,” Eric pointed out.

“And nothing else has happened.” Kell crossed his arms over his chest. “Any one of them could have done it and none of them appear to have a motive. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Wow,” Tate exclaimed, looking at a framed photo in his hands before he passed it over.

Kell took the big black-and-white picture of Belle’s grandmother and a bunch of women. They were all standing in front of the house, smiling and looking like they were ready for an evening at the disco. It had been taken in the seventies from all appearances. Wow was right. Belle’s grandma had clearly had some gorgeous girlfriends. Every single woman in the photo was stunning.

“See? Maybe we can’t find a motive because none of those people left Belle the warning on the wall.” Tate looked more animated than he had in days, surprising Kell.

“You’re back to the ghost theory?”

“Hear me out. So a few owners before Marie Wright bought this place, a man named Fredrick Peterman lived here with his two daughters. Peterman was rich, and the rumor around town was he was involved in the local voodoo scene.”

Kellan shook his head. When was he going to wake up? Obviously, he was having a really weird dream. Logical, rational Tate believing in ghosts and now this? “Voodoo? Seriously?”

Eric shrugged. “Hey, it’s not a game down here. These are hard-core believers.”

And his friends weren’t going to shut up until he heard them out. “All right so Peterman was into voodoo before he died?”

Tate shook his head, an amused light in his eyes. “At one point, yes. The word is, he ran afoul of the local voodoo priestess. According to local legends, the Peterman family had been in New Orleans for years and made their money in shipping, but the times changed and so did their fortunes. One Madame Charitte went to the local police and claimed that Peterman had come to her and asked her to summon the devil to make a deal with him to restore their fortunes. She refused to be involved in dark magic. The cops claimed she was a kook and ignored her. Of course, Peterman was a long-standing donor to their charities, if you know what I mean.”

Kellan didn’t like where this was heading. “So Peterman had the police in his back pocket. Got it. But do you really think the man would try to call the devil? That sounds insane.”

“According to Madame Charitte, Peterman had brought her a detailed spell to work that involved a very nasty sacrifice,” Tate explained.

“He had daughters, two of them,” Eric reminded. “Both supposedly hung themselves.”

Kell gaped. “Like the girls in Belle’s nightmares.” She’d finally confessed this morning that she’d been having terrible dreams since she’d first moved in about two girls being hanged to death. But… “You can’t think for a minute that the man sacrificed his own daughters to the dark side and got away with calling it suicide.”

“This was back in the fifties. Peterman was considered an upstanding citizen. In the wealthy community, there was an outpouring of sympathy when both of his daughters committed suicide.” Tate pointed to the headlines. “So tragic, right? All evidence of ritual sacrifice was covered up. Although, if he managed to make a deal with the devil, ol’ Lucifer didn’t keep up his end of the bargain. The business went belly-up within a year, and Peterman shot himself in the library. Police reports suggest his body was discovered roughly where Belle said she saw the shadow person.”

“Come on, Tate. Don’t get distracted by this. It’s a great campfire story, but totally illogical. There’s something else going on here.” He turned to his other friend. “Give me something real, Eric. Has Sequoia run all the searches we asked for?”

Eric chuckled. “Yes, but he says it’s bad karma to invade someone’s privacy. So here’s the rundown. The plumber is clean. Captain Ron had a couple of parking tickets and was cited for public intoxication years ago, but that’s all. The landscaper got sued for stepping on someone’s prized hydrangea. But Mike, our friendly neighborhood asswipe, has a little more on his record.”

Something akin to joy lit Kellan up inside. He really hated that asshole. “Please tell me he killed someone or something juicy we can use against him to keep him far from Belle.”

“Sorry. He was convicted of bribing a city official to turn the other way on code violations for a wealthy client. He did six months, but it looks like he had a lot of trouble in jail. While there, he had multiple trips to the infirmary because the dude got his ass handed to him. Other than that he’s sadly clean. No violent offenses. I don’t think we can bury him or that Belle will kick his ass out. He’s doing all the follow-up work under the original contract so it’s not costing any extra money.”

Tate glanced through the folder. “It looks like Grandma’s lawyer has some unsavory connections.”

Kellan snorted. He didn’t know a lawyer who didn’t. “Well, we can ban him from the house. I think he’s got a meeting with Belle this afternoon, but it’s just to pick up the final inventory list since we all pitched in to finish that. I found the insurance paperwork so he should be satisfied. He won’t need to come here again. From now on, we’ll take meetings at his office.”

And that was about all he could do. Frustration welled. Who the hell had left the note on her wall that day? True, the warnings seemed to have stopped, but Kellan didn’t like unanswered questions. They tended to come back to bite him in the ass.

He didn’t care how quiet this person had gotten. The situation could be dangerous and whoever the hell masterminded it was human, not some shadow person or ghost.

“So have we looked into Helena?” Eric asked.

“Who is that?” Kell snapped.

“The psychic.” Tate acted as if he should know. “Mike, the perverted electrician, recommended her to Belle. I’d call another psychic if I knew one, but I don’t. This one seemed all right.”

Oh, fuck. Could his day get more surreal? “We have a psychic now?”

Tate waved them both off. “Yeah, she’s a psychic medium, dude. She does house cleansings. I talked to her this morning and, lucky for us, she’s free this evening.”

“Yeah, lucky, man. I’m shocked she doesn’t have a full schedule of house cleansings. Uhm, you do know that grifters tend to make room on their schedule for naïve idiots, right? It’s kind of how they make their living.”

Tate rolled his eyes. “I don’t know if any of this is real or not. I only know what my instincts tell me and I’ve decided to start listening to them. This will very likely make Belle feel better about living here. Helena asked us to clear the house of as many people as possible or it interferes with her reading.”

“Whatever. So you’re really not even going to try to get Belle back to Chicago?” Kellan asked with dread in his gut.

“Nah, I like it here. I’ve gotten used to beignets,” Tate explained, reaching across the desk for a file. “I know I said I wanted to go home, but home is where Belle is.”

He knew it made him a sick bastard, but he went a little nauseous at how settled Tate seemed. He was a fucker because he should be happy for his friends, but all he could think about was his own despair. If Tate and Eric really settled down with Belle, where would that leave him? Would he ever be truly content to be their “roommate”? Would he be the creepy dude who lived in their house and showed up for sex, only to slink off to a lonely bed afterward? No, she’d shut him out quickly. At the end of the day, Belle was a woman who had sex because she felt something for her partners. Getting off wouldn’t be good enough for her for long.

He forced himself to smile. He was not going to ruin their happiness. “That’s great. Have you thought about the firm? You can’t run it from here forever.”

The lamp on the desk tilted as Tate knocked it over. It began a long fall to the floor before Eric threw himself across the room and managed to catch it. There was a collective sigh of relief. Belle took those damn antiques seriously.

“That was close.” Eric managed to sit up and glared at Tate. “Dude. Bull. China shop. Watch what you’re doing.”

Tate flushed sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s crowded in here. We need to find office space.”

Eric set the lamp on the floor and got to his feet. “Yeah, we do. As to your question, Kellan, we have a proposition for you.”

His stomach took another nose dive. He’d been afraid they would do this. “You want me to buy you out?”

Eric reached down and brought the lamp back up to its original position. “Yeah, but not all at once. Obviously we’re not going to pressure you for capital. I’m going to make a list of lawyers I think you would work well with. You’ll still need partners. Unless you change your mind and decide to stay here with us. Come on, man. Southern gentlemen lawyers? We can get our mint juleps on.”

He ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t do this now. He thought he would have so much more time.

“Hey, what the hell is that?” Eric stared down at the lamp.

“Uh, it’s a lamp. You turn it on and it provides the room with illumination and aides the human eye in seeing things,” Tate said with a big “duh” in his voice.

Eric threw him his happy middle finger. “Fucker. I’m talking about this thing inside the shade.”

He walked across the room, leaping at the chance to do anything but answer the question Eric had posed. “There’s something in the lamp?”

Eric pointed to the inside of the shade. He unscrewed it, lifted it off the lamp, and handed it to Kellan.

Peering inside the lampshade, he saw a small round device. Holy shit. He knew what that was. A bug. He’d seen his father’s private investigators use them many times before when attempting to get dirt on rival politicians. He put a hand to his lips and bade Tate to look inside, too.

Tate stared for a moment, then stood. He pointed toward the back of the house. Kellan followed him, making his way to the kitchen and out to the back porch. After the door was closed, Tate and Eric both turned to him.

“That’s a fucking bug, isn’t it?” Eric asked.

“I think so. It looks like the type my father used to listen in on his adversaries. Or his mistresses. He didn’t mind cheating on my mother, but he demanded he was the only customer when he was paying.” Someone was listening to them.

Tate held a hand up. “I think Kellan’s right. That technology has got to be ten or fifteen years old, and it looked like it had been there for a while. I would bet it’s been there at least a couple of years.”

“Who would be listening in on Belle’s grandmother?” Kellan asked. A couple of ideas hit him at once. “We need to learn more about her life. Who did she associate with? What business did she sell off? Did she have any enemies? She couldn’t have been just a psychic. Haunted house or not, there’s no way a street psychic could afford this place. She had something else going on. Whatever it was, someone was interested enough to bug her place. Check with your fed contacts. I want to know if there was any reason for the feds to be investigating her.”

Tate huffed a little. “That would explain the crappy technology. I’ll sweep the house and find out if there are any other bugs. I suspect so. What do we tell Belle?”

She was worried enough as it was. He didn’t want to put more stress on her shoulders. “How do we tell her we think her grandma might have been involved in something criminal?”

“Maybe it wasn’t criminal,” Eric said.

Eric was being naïve. “Something went on in this house, and you know damn well it’s not about ghosts. Spirits from the beyond didn’t plant that device. A person did, obviously a while back. But someone wanted to keep tabs on Marie Wright. If that bug belongs to the feds, then she was involved in something nasty. If it doesn’t, then it’s very likely she was still involved in something nasty. Completely innocent people don’t normally have bugs in their houses. I don’t want to tell Belle anything until we at least know what Grandma was involved in.”

“Belle doesn’t have much family.” Tate looked back toward the door. “She’s been reading her grandmother’s journal. I think she’s really starting to admire the woman. I would hate to crush that. Kellan’s right. I’ll see what I can find out before we say anything.”

“What are you going to tell her when you walk through the house looking for bugs?” Eric asked.

“That I bought a ghost hunting kit and I’m looking for evidence,” Tate shot back. “Which is kind of true. I’m looking for spooks.”

The door creaked as it opened. They turned to see Sir running by as Belle let him out of the house. She smiled a little. “If you need fresh air, you could always open a window.”

That restless feeling was back. The minute she walked into a room, he felt antsy, anxious. There was so much he wanted from her and so much he didn’t deserve. “It got crowded in there.”

She joined them. “Well, the good news is, the whole house is empty now. Mike got an emergency call. The draper left. Everyone else went to lunch. We should be quiet for a few hours.”

Eric sighed with obvious relief. “Thank god. I have a conference call in five minutes. I thought I would have to yell over the sound of that saw whining.” He strode back into the house.

Tate leaned over and gave Belle a kiss. “I have errands to run, baby. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’ll be here in time for the cleansing.”

She nodded. “Okay, but she said I needed to clear out the house. The fewer people here, the better.”

Tate left, and he was alone with Belle. How could it be more awkward to talk to a woman than to make love to her? He hated the fact that he felt anything but comfortable with her. She was one of the few people in the world he could really relax around, and now all he could think about was the fact that he was going to be the outsider, the interloper. Tate and Eric would be here with Belle—live with her, love her. They would be her family, her men. He would be back in Chicago with new partners. He’d be alone again without friends. Without a woman. He’d have nothing.

“Hey.” Belle approached him, putting her hands on his waist and tilting her face to his. The sun hit the glowing brown hue of her skin, making it come alive. So fucking gorgeous. “We have the whole house to ourselves. What should we do? Have any ideas?”

He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to lay her out and take her over and over again, as many times as he could until she shut him out in favor of the men who gave her love and forever. His cock twitched, but his heart took a nosedive. “Belle, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

He’d never made love to her without Eric and Tate around. He wasn’t sure he should. They knew what they wanted. They wouldn’t hesitate to tell her they loved her, worshipped her, and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with her. He was a sad sack who could never give her what she deserved.

Belle went up on her tiptoes, brushing her lips against his. A light touch, almost a whisper, but it made his cock go instantly hard as a rock. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. It’s the best I’ve had all day. Tate and Eric won’t mind. They’ve got things to do.”

He wanted nothing more than to toss her against the wall and force his way deep inside her body. When he was inside her, everything made sense.

She took his hand, and before he had time to protest, she was pulling him into the house. They walked through the kitchen, toward the hall.

“Eric!”

What the hell was she doing? She pushed through the kitchen door and led him out into the main hallway.

Eric stepped out of the living room, his cell phone in hand. “Yeah, baby?”

She wasn’t going to ask him, was she? “Do you have a problem with me taking Kellan upstairs and blowing his mind for an hour or so? It’s been a stressful morning. I could use a little relief.”

What the hell was wrong with her? He shook his head. “Man, I…”

Eric grinned and winked at Belle. “Go for it, baby. If I can knock this call out in less than an hour, I’ll join you.” He nodded Kellan’s way. “Take care of our girl, man.”

Belle blew him a kiss as she started up the stairs. Kellan found himself following, dumbfounded. Were they all out of their minds?

She was making their problems sound easier than they really were. She was taking something complex and making it so simple, as though all they had to do was love each other to make this work. As if the other guys wouldn’t mind because she was their girl and all that mattered was working together to make her happy.

The trouble was, she wasn’t his girl. He hadn’t earned her. She belonged to Eric and Tate.

Belle grabbed the bottom of her shirt as she entered the room and pulled it up and over her head, tossing it to the side. Every inch of skin she revealed made his cock jerk.

His mouth started to water as she unhooked her bra and her breasts bounced free. She gracefully stepped out of her pants. What the hell was he supposed to do? Turn her down? Maybe she wasn’t his, didn’t belong to him, but she wanted to be with him. He hadn’t lied to her, hadn’t told her one untrue thing. Why shouldn’t he take her?

He came up with a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t leave the bedroom now, but only one of them really counted. He had so little time left. He couldn’t waste a minute. He wanted her more than he wanted just about anything.

“Undress me.” He didn’t know how long he would last. They didn’t have the time to do all the things he really wanted, like tie her up and spend hours torturing her with pleasure. Clamping those magnificent breasts would be the first on his list. He would use diamond clamps because they would set off the deep, rich color of her skin. A platinum chain would run between her breasts and down to the clamp he would affix on the jewel of her clit. It would bite into her, a pleasurable pain that would lead to the sort of orgasm that made her cry out and twist and plead for mercy. When it came to her, he didn’t have any. He’d love to keep her on the edge all afternoon. She would scream his name out over and over again.

But the freaking contractors would eventually show up after their lunch break, and Belle would be angry if she got caught naked and tied up and bejeweled like the BDSM princess she was. He had an hour with her—max. Greedily he wanted to spend every second of it inside her.

Belle sauntered to him, lifting her shaking hands to the buttons of his shirt. Every second she worked to bare him, she blinked up at him, her unwavering stare allowing him to see the honest desire in her eyes. Gone was the shy girl who hid her emotions. He could see them playing out, could feel the caress of her hands over every inch of skin she uncovered. This wasn’t a selfish girl trying to take her pleasure, but a woman offering all of herself to him. Kellan was suddenly humbled by her.

He caught her hand, some unnamable emotion welling inside him. “What are you doing, Annabelle?”

A glance around confirmed that this wasn’t a mere haphazard encounter. She’d already turned the bed down. He could see a box of condoms lying on the nightstand. She’d planned this.

Her rich chocolate gaze never faltered. He’d taught her well—and she’d learned quickly. “I’m seducing you.”

“You don’t have to. You know I want you.”

A little grin curved her lips up. “It’s harder than you think. You’re still fighting me.”

“Did you send everyone away?” How far did her plotting go?

“Yes.”

He sighed but let her hand go. She immediately went back to working to free him of his shirt. She pushed it off his shoulders, then dropped to her knees, touching the button of his slacks. It was the first time she’d broken eye contact, and he found himself breathing again. When she watched him with her big dark eyes, he got lost in her.

“Why the big production number, love? I admit, it worries me that Eric and Tate might think I’m being presumptuous, but other than that, I’ll take a nooner.”

He purposefully used casual words. Nooner. Quickie. Roll in the hay. Hookup. He could toss those words out all day long, but deep inside he knew where this was heading. He was making love to the only woman he would ever care about. Might as well admit it… She was the only woman he’d ever love.

Belle lowered his zipper. It hissed in the silence, broken only by their ragged breaths. He sighed as she pulled his boxers past his hips and toward the floor. She knew exactly how to make a man feel good. He would give her that. Over the course of a week, she’d tossed aside her inhibitions and become the lover of his dreams. Giving. Open. Honest. Passionate.

How was he going to leave her and not fucking fall apart?

“Eric gave you permission.”

He felt his jaw clench as his cock sprang free. “I’m sure Tate would like to have a say. He’s a possessive bastard.”

She tilted her head up, giving him a brilliant smile. “He is, but he’s okay with this. Who do you think plugged me earlier today? He took me into the bathroom and spent a lot of time working this plug inside my ass. He talked about you and Eric the whole time, about how he hoped we’d eventually all be together. But he also knew what I wanted today. He thought you would find it hot.”

Hot? He found it scorching. His cock strained up, twitching as though trying to get to her on its own. “You’re wearing an anal plug?”

She licked his cock like a treat she wanted to savor—slowly, lovingly, making him bite back a moan. “Tate thought it might spice up the encounter for you. It’s the large plug. I’ve run through the whole training set. Tate says this is the last one before we get to the real stuff. According to him, it will make my pussy very tight. Interested?”

Fuck, yes. Well before she’d said any of that. All Annabelle Wright ever had to do was look at him and he burned.

She took the head of his cock into her mouth, and he closed his eyes. He had the terrible suspicion that she meant to seduce him into some sort of forever. It wouldn’t work, but he couldn’t say no to her. His dick was already threatening to burst. His heart…not far behind.

“Come up here.” If he let her, she would suck him until he came deep in her mouth, and he really wanted to fuck her with that plug. They’d been progressing her through the training set, each plug a little larger to ready her for the anal sex he ached to give her. He wished he’d been there when she’d taken the large plug. He would have deeply enjoyed the way her eyes had to have widened and her breath must have caught as Tate had slid that plug home.

She rose to her feet, and he kicked away his shoes, slacks, and boxers. Normally he would have folded them, but he didn’t give a shit today. They weren’t playing. They were stealing time. He had an hour or so to have her all to himself. Eric would try to rush through his call. Tate could come home at any time. The minute they could be up here, they would. It made him a selfish bastard but he wanted all the time alone with her he could grab.

He kissed her, letting himself really revel in her for the first time. He’d been viewing the encounters with the four of them as very pleasurable teaching sessions. He’d distanced himself by playing the second-fiddle Dom, letting Eric take the lead, but here and now he was just Kellan and she was just Belle. Just a man and a woman with only these moments together.

The minute the others showed up, he would have to take on his hands-off role because they deserved her and he didn’t. He would have to honor their claim on her.

His tongue delved deep, rubbing and playing against hers. He felt the nubs of her nipples against his skin. He reached down, cupping her breasts. They were soft, but firm. They nestled so perfectly in his hands as though she’d been made just for him. He kissed his way from her mouth to her neck, burying his face in her shoulder, inhaling the sweetness of her scent.

He’d never wanted any woman as much as he wanted Belle. What if he’d met her before Lila? He could rewrite his history. Why couldn’t he have found her before he’d attached himself to that ball and chain, then jumped into the drowning pool? Before he’d been ruined. Before he’d been utterly broken.

How different would his life be now?

“I need you,” she whispered. “Please, Kellan. Please take me.”

He watched as she moved away from him, settling herself on the bed with a siren’s smile. She held a hand out to him.

She could ruin him in ways he’d never even imagined. If Lila had taken his family and his pride, Belle could kill his soul. If she chose to, she could rip him apart, and he would never be able to put himself back together. He would lay down and die if Belle betrayed him.

That summed up why he had to leave.

But not yet. Not fucking yet. He wasn’t walking out until he absolutely had to. He could have one more taste of heaven before he resigned himself to a lifetime of hell.

He cursed, hating that he was even thinking about anything except the ecstasy she offered him here and now. Only that mattered. Right now, he had no past and no future. Just the beautiful present.

Kell pulled a condom off the strip, opened it and worked it over his straining cock. Desire pounded through his system, and he wondered what it would be like to take off the fucking piece of latex and take his chances. How good would it feel to come deep inside her knowing there was nothing in between them. If he got her pregnant, there wouldn’t be any question of him leaving. He would have to stay. He would be obligated to remain in her life. They would be connected by a child who would need them both.

But he couldn’t do that to her. She deserved to know that any man in her life was there because he couldn’t live without her, not because he’d knocked her up.

“Please, Kellan. Give us just a few minutes. We don’t have to think about anything but right now. Just…be with me.”

She offered him everything he wanted. He couldn’t stay away. He fell on her without an ounce of his usual finesse. It was raw and real, and he couldn’t seem to make himself stop. When he took a lover, he thought about technique and forced himself to be patient, but he couldn’t with Belle. He kissed her again, needing to be as close to her as possible.

He covered her body with his, holding none of his own weight. God, she was small against him. Small and beautiful and so welcoming, but she could handle him. She wasn’t fragile or delicate. Everything about Belle was strong. She didn’t hold back. Instead, she opened her arms and her body, allowing him inside. Not just for pleasure. He’d had that so many times before. Women asked him to please them. They wanted to be taken care of sexually. But Belle offered to take care of him. She offered to join with him, to merge with him for no other reason than she cared.

He touched her womanly folds, wondering if she was really ready. He was moving so fast. The last thing he wanted to do was harm her in any way. His fingers found the petals of her flesh. They moved easily inside, sliding all around. Her pussy was soft and wet. Ready for his cock.

He spread her wide, unable to wait. He usually had such patience, but now it was blown. He needed her.

She reached around him until her hands found his ass. Her nails sank in, giving him a little jolt of pain that quickly flared into pleasure. She wanted him, too. Belle was with him completely, touch for touch. That made him even more crazy.

He aligned his cock with her sweet opening and started to sink in.

So tight. As he pushed in, Kell closed his eyes in bliss. The plug dragged against his cock, adding another layer of sensation. It would feel the same way when they shared her, when his best friends were right here with him, pleasuring their woman.

Belle pushed up, forcing him in further. He knew he should take more control, but this was different. This was wild and candid, and he didn’t want to change it. He wanted Belle fighting for her pleasure, for the sharp satisfaction they could find in one another’s arms.

He loved the fact that every time seemed different with her. They didn’t have to play the same way. They could explore, give in to their instincts and let their emotions guide them. There was no book he had to follow on the proper way to make love to Belle. They wrote it themselves with every joining, each time a new expression of his feelings for her.

“You feel so good.” Belle looked up at him, desire softening her face.

He thrust deep, his heart thudding in his chest. Even as he penetrated her with slow, hard thrusts—one after the other—she looked up at him with such innocence and trust that she took his breath away. For the first time, he realized that he could take her every day of her life and she would still be innocent and beautiful to him. Belle’s purity was soul deep. She loved with her whole heart, offering every bit of her gorgeous self, inside and out, to him.

“Stay with me.” Belle held him tighter.

Though she asked him to be in the moment with her, the underlying question ripped through him. Stay with her—beyond now, beyond next week or month. Stay with her forever. He wanted to. Fuck, he wanted to be worthy of her, to be the man she needed him to be.

Kellan held her stare as he dove deep and watched as her eyes flared. She tightened around him, whispering his name like a plea.

Between the tight clench of her cunt and the drag of the plug, he couldn’t last long. It was too good. Too right. The only things missing were his partners. He’d thought having her all to himself would be perfect, but he missed his brothers, his best friends. He and Belle were only a part of the puzzle. They weren’t complete without Eric and Tate.

And then it didn’t matter. Nothing did except for her as his balls drew up and his spine tingled. He thrust deep one last time, emptying himself with a shout. She followed him over with a whimper. Then he let himself sink against her, vowing to hold her as long as he could.

* * * *

Belle sighed and sank her fingers into Kellan’s hair, reveling in the softness. It felt like dark silk. She breathed him in, his clean masculine scent mingling with the musk of their sex.

Her heartbeat pounded in her chest, the remnants of pleasure still running through her veins. She loved this time. She loved the sex, but she also craved the soft time afterward, when she was surrounded by her men.

Of course she only had one of her men this time, and if he had his way, she would only have him for a brief time.

Belle had decided that Kellan’s way sucked.

Between reading the last entry in her grandmother’s journal and looking back at her parents’ miserable choices, she’d realized that nothing was certain—except that not fighting for love would lead to heartache. She’d been looking for proof that these three men would always want to be with her, that they would never leave. She’d demanded that the universe guarantee her happiness before she was willing to try grabbing it herself.

It was an arrogant thing to ask. No one got guarantees.

When she’d taken Tate’s hand the night before, she’d finally realized something. Life was an adventure. It was mysterious and could be dangerous. And it was utterly meaningless without them by her side.

All of them.

Her grandmother had left her with far more than a haunted house. Instead, she’d left a legacy of words and pictures and the poignant sadness of her regret. Marie Wright had wanted to reach out to her son, but she’d been afraid for years. Then it had been far too late. Clearly, she’d thought she had more time, but the universe had other plans.

Life didn’t care that she was afraid. Life moved on and it would leave her behind if she didn’t make the choice to fight for her happiness.

Kellan didn’t know it yet, but she wasn’t letting him go without one hell of a fight.

With a long sigh, he rolled off her, taking his warmth with him. He sat up and dealt with the condom, tying it off and wrapping it in a tissue before throwing it into the small trash can by the nightstand. There was something wary about the way his back curved, as though he was trying to protect himself from something. From her.

“Are you going to walk away again?” Belle murmured. She could ask more delicately, she supposed. But he’d asked for her honesty. It was time he repaid the favor.

He turned back, his eyes hooded. “Why did you do this, Belle? Why send everyone away to be with just me?”

“I wanted to. I want to spend time alone with each of you. It doesn’t have to be a crazy orgy every time we make love. Sometimes it can just be the two of us. Tate and Eric both get that. You’re the only one who doesn’t.”

He sighed, but he lay back on the bed, working them both under the covers. “It’s a bad idea. Eric might be fine for now, but Tate won’t like it over time. It’ll make him crazy. Unless you’re planning on keeping this thing casual.”

Kellan would probably love that, but she’d finally figured out that there was nothing casual about any of this. There was nothing casual about love, especially not the depth that she felt. They wanted her to treat sex with reverence. Well, for her, sex came with love, and her men were going to learn that.

“Tate is going to be fine once he realizes he’s going to get what he wants. Mostly, I think he’ll come to love New Orleans. We all have our flaws. One of his is a fear of changing his habits. He’s a moody, broody man-child half the time, but I love him anyway. Eric can play the martyr to perfection. He won’t tell anyone what he needs. I love him anyway, too. And you…”

“Don’t say it.”

She turned on her side, staring down at him. This was exactly the way to have this conversation, naked and with nothing between them. She needed to touch him, hold him. “Why not? You taught me to be honest. You taught me to take this seriously. I’m serious about this, Kellan. About us.”

“I thought you were just playing around. I was under the assumption that you didn’t believe a relationship with the three of us could work long term. I rather thought we were on the same page here.”

“I’m still not sure it will, but how can I know if I don’t try?”

Looking back, she saw that life hadn’t taught her to try. She’d spent her childhood attempting to please a mother who had shut her out. She’d done everything she could to try to get Mom’s attention after her father had died—for a while. Then she’d quit, resigning herself to loneliness and hurt. Was she willing to spend the rest of her life shutting out anyone who might want her because deep inside she was still that kid whose mother couldn’t love her? She had to leave her childhood behind. Comfort the girl by embracing the woman she’d become.

And not everyone had abandoned her. Kinley had still stood by her. Her grandmother had remembered her. Her father had left her a life lesson, if she chose to see it. Would he be proud of the woman she’d become or would he be disappointed that she’d closed herself off?

If she never opened up, maybe she wouldn’t feel pain, but she also wouldn’t feel joy. Belle was rapidly realizing that joy was worth the risk.

So was love. Kellan had to see that.

“There are a lot of reasons I believed it couldn’t work, but I was wrong. I thought I wasn’t the woman who could heal you.” She willed him to understand.

Kellan turned to her with a frown. “Love, it’s not that.”

“No, it’s not. I realize that now, too. It’s not that I can’t heal the pain from your divorce. It’s that you don’t want to heal. You think you’re safer in your nice little cocoon.”

He frowned and sat up suddenly. “Cocoon? You make it sound like something pleasant, Annabelle. I assure you, it’s not.”

A hard edge sharpened his tone, letting her know that she was pushing his boundaries. He’d pushed all of hers, but she’d known he would probably react poorly. Still, she pressed on because this was too important to let go. “I don’t think it’s pleasant at all. I think it’s lonely, but you’ve gotten to a comfortable place. I know because I did the same thing.”

He huffed, sounding deeply frustrated. “Annabelle, you weren’t wrong to think it couldn’t work. You were just being realistic. Most marriages fail, and they only have two people involved. Putting four people in a relationship, much less any sort of marriage, makes it exponentially more complex.”

She understood that he was attempting to protect himself, but she had to make Kell see that wouldn’t lead to happiness. “So that means we shouldn’t try? It’s gotten easy for you to not try. I know that’s the way it was for me. After my father died and my mother got lost in her own grief, I decided that I couldn’t win, so I withdrew. That way I couldn’t get hurt anymore. I thought it was better to be numb. It’s not, Kellan.”

He stood up and grabbed his boxers, shoving his legs into them. “I’ve never been anything but honest with you, Belle. I told you where this is going. I explained what I could give you.”

The old Belle would have covered up and hidden, accepting that the fight was done. The new Belle could definitely kick the old Belle’s ass.

She rose on her knees, giving him what she hoped was a spectacular view of her body. She was satisfied when he lost a bit of his normal grace and stumbled while reaching for his slacks. “You never lied to me, Kellan. But I think you’re lying to yourself. I am the woman for you and you know it deep down. If you walk away from me, from this family we could have, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. Do you want to know where this is going for me? What I intend to do?”

He jerked on his slacks, his face flushed, his every movement a testament to his anger. “Please, tell me, Belle. You seem to know absolutely everything. Enlighten me.”

She ignored the sarcasm. He wasn’t going to go down easy. She’d always known that, but she also didn’t miss the way his stare found her breasts. And she definitely couldn’t ignore the fact that he was already getting hard again. He had to carefully tuck his cock away.

“Here’s how it will go, Kellan. I’m going to marry Eric and Tate, and we’re going to live right here. You’ll be more than welcome in my bed for as long as my husbands allow it. They’ll never bar you for the same reason I won’t.”

A bitter laugh choked from his throat as he picked up his shirt. “And what reason is that? Because you like the D/s play, and I’m the only one whose been fully trained? You think they’ll need me to train them for any length of time? Eric’s already a good Dom. Tate can learn from him.”

He didn’t understand a thing and that made her soften utterly toward him. “No, they’ll never bar you from our bed because they love you, too.”

That made him stop. He stared at her, obviously at a loss for words.

Good thing she had plenty for them both. “I love you, Kellan Kent. I want to marry you and your best friends. But if you choose to hold on to what that terrible woman did to you, if you choose her over us, then I think you’ll come and see us for a while. I think you’ll go back to Chicago, but you’ll visit. We’ll come see you, too, and it could work the way you want it to…until we have babies. And we’re going to have them, Kell. I want kids. I want to raise a crazy family, but I know that the minute I have that first child, you’ll be gone. So I’ll have to choose between you and having babies with the men I love.”

“I’m not asking you to choose.” The words rasped from his throat.

“Good, because you would lose, my love. I’m going to choose the future, even if it means putting you in the past. It will hurt like hell and I will love you until the day I die. I will always miss you and I will always wish that you wanted our family as much as we want you to be a part of it.”

There was a suspicious sheen to his eyes as he stared at her. “That’s not fair, Belle.”

“Life’s not fair, Kellan. And I’m not going to play fair with you. I’m going to fight dirty because this is the fight of my life. I love you. I’m going to tell you every day, all day long. I’m never going to let you forget it. And if you let that bitch win, if you walk away because you can’t get over what she did to you…well, you should know that I’ll still be here loving you. No woman in the world will ever love you the way I do. And you won’t love anyone else the way you love me.”

His head shook, seemingly interested in the floor suddenly. “I never said I was in love with you, Belle.”

“Not aloud. But like I said, I think you’re good at lying to yourself. Come back to bed.”

Those words seem to jolt him, and he practically ran to the door. “I have to think, Belle. I didn’t want to make this decision yet, but you pushed me. I just… I don’t…” He plowed a hand through his hair. “I’m going out. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Kellan,” she started, lunging closer. She wasn’t sure she could stand to watch him walk away. She needed more time with him.

“No. You’ve said what you needed to say. Now I need time to figure out what the hell I’m going to do because you’ve put me in a goddamn corner. I don’t need to hear another word right now.” He walked out.

And Belle was alone. She stared at the door. Logically, she’d known he might get angry and leave, but somehow she hadn’t really expected it to happen. Maybe she’d watched too many romantic movies or believed in too many fairy tales.

The reality was, she may have just driven him away for good.

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she climbed from bed. She hadn’t meant to corner him, just let him know that her plans had changed and that she hoped he could be a part of them. Somehow she’d been unable go to Eric and Tate until she talked to Kellan. Her decisions affected him, too. And now, she’d probably ruined everything.

She forced herself to plod across the floor, dread and anxiety lashing her. She was weary, but resolute. She was going to move toward the future and make the best of it she could.

She opened the closet door to grab her robe—and she stopped short at the sight inside.

A small doll swayed from a tiny noose attached to the rod. The doll had pitch black hair and dark buttons for eyes. Someone had sewn it a little outfit that looked suspiciously like something she’d worn a few days ago.

A chill swept through her as she realized she was looking at a voodoo doll of herself hanging, just like the Peterman girls had.

Her trouble wasn’t over yet.