Wicked Intent

Chapter Fourteen

For the first time in more years than she cared to remember, Tally made no effort to make certain she was presentable before she slipped from her apartment. Escape was the only thing on her mind.

Dressed in one of her few pairs of jeans and a bronze silk blouse, she pushed her feet into leather sandals and practically ran out the door to her car. Lucian and Devril were still sleeping when she left them in the bed after awakening. Getting from between them wasn’t easy and had only been accomplished with a promise to return within a few minutes.

Thankfully, the spare bedroom held older clothes that she rarely wore and possessed a small bathroom. After a fast shower she had dressed, leaving her hair damp, and ran. Like the coward she was, she all but raced from the apartment.

So where the hell was she going to go now? It was barely daylight on a workday, her hair was wet, she wasn’t wearing makeup and she was trembling like a leaf as she headed the car to the outskirts of town.

This was all Terrie’s fault, she decided in panicked desperation. If she hadn’t let Jesse choose Lucian as the third in their little ménage, and if she hadn’t had it right there at the office, then Tally would have never walked in on them. She would have never seen him, or been overcome by lust. She wouldn’t have seen his cock, thick and hard, fucking someone other than her. Her possessive instincts would not have been aroused, and therefore, her control wouldn’t have been lost. Her calm wouldn’t have been shattered. She wouldn’t be driving down a nearly deserted country road with wet hair soaking one of her best silk blouses.

She felt lost. In her heart and in her mind, she had lost something that had kept her centered over the years, something that went further than control. If this was what love did to you, then she wasn’t certain it was worth it. She was drowning now in her own fears and her own demons.

“Damn you, Terrie.” She swiped at the tears that trembled on her lashes as she cursed her friend. Perverted, depraved wench that Terrie was, she had to allow Jesse to share her with one of the men Tally had staked out for herself.

It was Jesse’s fault. Every bit of it. She snarled silently at the thought. He knew she didn’t want him to invite Lucian into that little threesome. He had at least suspected it, otherwise he would have never asked her that day in the office if there was someone he shouldn’t consider. He should have chosen someone else.

Her eyes narrowed as she took the turn to the Wyman property. It was all their fault so they could share in the misery.

She pulled into the curved driveway of the Wyman home and threw the neat little Lexus into park before moving quickly from the car and heading to the front door. She pressed the doorbell hard. Once. Twice. She took her fist and pounded demandingly on the wood panel.

“Dammit, Terrie, I don’t care how good a fuck he is. Open the damned door.” The longer she thought about it, the longer she stood there, the madder she got.

“Tally?” The door flew open, but it wasn’t Terrie greeting her, it was a nearly bare-chested, obviously ill-tempered Jesse Wyman.

“You and your friends are a threat to society.” She poked him in that bare chest, between the edges of his unbuttoned shirt, hard, feeling no end to her satisfaction as his eyes widened marginally and he jumped back from the sharp nail of her finger.

“Uhh, any friends in particular?” He gave her clear berth as she stomped into the entryway.

Her eyes narrowed on him. He was staring at her a bit too amazed, a bit too smugly.

“Any friends in particular,” she mimicked him. “Try the son of a bitch who helped you screw your wife. Him and his perverted brother, you, James…the whole damned lot of you are a menace. A danger to every sane woman who ever walked this planet.

All of you should be locked away.”

She was yelling at him. She ignored the slowly dawning knowledge in his eyes, the way his gaze went over her in near shock as well as the compassion that suddenly filled his face.

“Tally, Terrie will be down in a minute.” His voice softened as she stood before him, her fists clenched, her breathing rough and heavy. “She was in the shower.”

“Don’t you dare pity me.” Her hands fisted at her sides, fury enveloping her as she faced him, knowing by his expression that she would never regain the respect he had once watched her with.

“Tally?” He was saved from answering by Terrie’s incredulous voice as she came down the stairs. “Tally, your hair is still wet and you’re wearing jeans?” Tally turned to her, seeing the concern, the worry in her friend’s face and fought back the tears that suddenly clogged her throat. She was shaking. God, she hated the feel of the nervous tremors shuddering through her body.

“Tally.” Terrie’s eyes were wide as she glanced at her husband, then back at her friend as she stepped to the landing. “Hon, what happened to you?” Tally swallowed tightly. “I really need a drink. Something strong.” She turned and moved quickly for the bar in the large living room. The forest green and cream toned room was unlit, the faint glow of the rising sun outside the only illumination she used to light her way.

“A drink?” Terrie exclaimed as she rushed in behind her. “Tally, its barely six-thirty in the morning. You never drink before evening.”

She pulled the whisky decanter from the back of the bar, grabbed a shot glass and was preparing to pour when Jesse caught her hand. She stilled, swallowing tightly, fighting the overwhelming urge to attack.

“Tally, this won’t help,” he said gently, setting the decanter back on the bar as he pried the glass from her other hand. “Whatever happened can’t be that bad.” She stilled the snarl that trembled on her lips, though her teeth snapped together in fury. Rounding on him, she clenched her fists in the edges of his shirt as she jerked at it hard, watching his eyes round in surprise as he bent to her involuntarily.

“I can still hurt you, Jesse,” she snarled into his narrow-eyed expression. “I am to be feared. In all ways. At all times. Is this understood? You are not safe from me. Never think you are.”

Jesse had suffered through tar thick coffee, stale doughnuts, mouse traps in his desk drawer, thumb tacks in his chair and any number of nasty little surprises for attempting to put her in her place in the past. His arrogance had been a complete pain in the ass.

Training him had not been easy and she would be damned if she would lose ground with him now.

“Of course, Tally.” She saw that worried little glimmer in his eyes even though his attempt at sarcasm was sufficient to fool his wife.

Nodding sharply, she released him but didn’t return to the liquor. She needed a clear head to get through this.

Breathing in deeply, she fought to still the tremors in her stomach, the nerves that caused her hands to shake and made her heart beat a frantic rhythm within her chest.

Terrorizing Jesse always seemed to help restore her balance. If she could master him, surely she could master Dev and Lucian. Couldn’t she?

“Tally, are you forgetting that’s my husband?” Terrie asked her, though laughter lurked in her voice as she watched the byplay in interest.

Tally breathed in deeply. “Yeah, well, he was my problem first,” she reminded her.

“I have years of his torture to make up for. He could have scarred me, you know, working for his depraved ass.”

“Scar you?” Jesse snarled from behind her. “My depraved ass? At least my brother has his own wife.”

“And you brought in Lucian when you knew I disapproved.” She turned to him sedately, her voice cool, sarcastic. Now here, she was on even ground. “You, my friend, deserve pain. But I’ll be nice since Terrie is a friend of mine.” Yes, that returned her sense of generosity. See? She told herself soothingly, all hope was not lost.

Jesse snarled silently, glancing at his wife as she fought her laughter. “Deal with this crazy woman,” he snapped, pointing his finger at Tally as she arched a brow imperiously. “I’m going to shower. I want her gone when I get back.” He stomped from the room and up the stairs, his muttered curses drawing a small smile to Tally’s face.

“I love it when they fear me.” Tally sighed in satisfaction. “It just seems to make my day better.”

“I take it Lucian and Dev weren’t too frightened of you?” Terrie asked as she headed for the kitchen, motioning to Tally to follow her.

Tally frowned at her friend’s back. That parting shot had to be in return for reminding her husband of his place in the scheme of Tally’s Perfect Order. There was no other explanation.

“I need coffee if I can’t have whisky,” Tally said, following her. “Then I have to leave. I just know those two think they can handle me now,” she sneered, thinking of the satisfaction that filled them as she had screamed beneath Dev’s thrusting cock the night before. “I’m certain Jesse called them as soon as he escaped. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”