In MIB Custody [The Service Club 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (4 page)

Goose pimples leapt to the surface of her flesh. She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t even really afraid. No, the chill that moved over her came from the teensiest bit of excitement and a whole lot of nerves.

“Christ, you’re sexy,” Austin drawled, skimming a hand lightly down the back of her hair as he released the ties of the blindfold now secured around her head. “I’d have fun makin’ you do a lot of things. I don’t doubt you’d enjoy it, too.” He sighed dramatically and guided her leather jacket off her shoulders and arms before he turned her around to face him, not that she could see him with the blindfold now blocking her vision. “But, then we’d go our separate ways, ’cause you’re not for me. I’ve always known that and I’m sure you do, too.” She heard a grin break through his husky tone. “’Course none of that’s ever stopped me from droolin’ over you a time or ten thousand.”

Danica’s laugh shook. “Thanks.”

“You know you’re safe, right?” another voice, one she immediately recognized as Diek Rylon’s, asked from a point in the room she couldn’t quite determine. “Nothin’ will happen here tonight you don’t want.”

Danica swallowed hard and nodded quickly. “What exactly
is
about to happen?”

“We’re gonna give ya a lesson in focusin’ on your senses.” That thick southern drawl belonged to Tyler Moses.

“It’s something we all learn, Danica.” Marissa Schultz’s soft voice stood out in a direct contrast to the deeper tones of the men’s. “All you have to do is let your mind relax and tune all your attention on the senses that haven’t been taken away.”

Danica licked her suddenly dry lips. “If I let my mind relax, I might forget what’s happening. I’m here to take notes, which is going to be difficult to do seeing as how you’ve taken away my iPad and my sight. I’ll have to store it all in my memory. Y’all know every last one of you and everything that happens here tonight is going to end up in a book at some point, right?”

A cacophony of soft laughter answered her question.

“As long as you remember our original agreement.”

She heard a trace of amusement still in Randy Pope’s voice, but she didn’t miss the warning in his tone, either. “I remember it completely. No names and no exact physical descriptions. Check.”

“Then we’re all set.”

Danica drew her brows together behind the blindfold, unable to peg that voice with a face. She stopped trying when the room fell silent. Her heart tripped, and she forced herself to take slow, even breaths as her pulse threatened to kick up a notch or twenty. It was as if everyone had left her. Oh, she knew they hadn’t. She could still hear the faint sounds of them breathing, of nearly inaudible shuffling, and of footsteps coming up behind her.

Those footsteps got louder and every morsel of her attention centered on the sound.
Cowboy boots.

Well, hell, that was no help. Damn near every man in the room had been wearing cowboy boots.

Heavy footsteps.

That wasn’t really any help either. It was obvious from the intensity of the footfalls that the man had some weight to him. So did nearly every one of the tall, muscle-bound men who made up The Service Club.

Heat.

The body stopped behind her, not close enough to touch, but enough that she felt the heat pumping off him in waves. She expected the goose pimples on her flesh to grow. Instead, his warmth soothed them. It spread over her like a comforting blanket, enveloping her in a way that calmed her nerves and nearly drew a soft moan from her throat.

Touch.

She sensed him slowly circle her, his body brushing her upper arm as he moved to stand in front of her where Austin had been. When he touched her more, the lightest graze of the back of his finger to her cheek, fiery embers of need rained through her body.

Gods, his touch felt good. How long had it been since she had been physically close to a man outside of her dreams? It had been over a year since she had bothered to go on a date. She spent her time focusing on her career instead. She buried herself in her novels, but it wasn’t herself she pictured with the heroes she created. No, they belonged to her heroine. Any fantasies she participated in happened in the middle of the night when she lay in her bed remembering, longing, and wishing for Lowell Tucker. Then Kalkin had joined them in her dream world. She might have one hell of a healthy imagination, but even she hadn’t ever been able to conjure up a tangible touch that compared to this.

Every inch of her flesh came alive as his fingers glided softly down the side of her neck to her shoulder and continued down her arm. Electric sparks sizzled beneath the surface of her skin as his hands framed her sides and eased their way to the curves of her hips. Heat, intense and intoxicating, seeped through his palms. So hot, so possessive, she wondered how it didn’t melt her leather skirt.

“Who are you?” Her voice sounded breathy and was already thickening with arousal. Juices gathered along the folds of her pussy and leaked out to wet her panties. Her mind scrambled, trying to place him, trying to make sense of the riot of sensations his tenderly simple touch was sending ricocheting through her system. Was he one of the people who had been casting those shadows in the hall?

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

That voice came from her left and was decidedly female. Georgia Cooper.

“Train your senses. Focus. You’ll figure it out,” Mustang Ducote told her without an ounce of the amusement she had heard in Georgia’s tone.

Danica took a deep breath and concentrated. The sound of his footfalls hadn’t done her any good. The brush of his shoulder as he had walked around her and the angle of his forearms now with his hands on her hips told her he was taller than she. It still didn’t do her any good.

But the breath she had taken, the scent she had inhaled, she knew that scent. If only she could place it.

“Think, Danica,” Mustang encouraged her.

Danica’s mind reeled. Hadn’t they told her not to think, to center her focus on her other senses?

Her mind latched onto something. A memory? But, just when she thought she might make sense of it, she felt more heat at her back, another presence that sent her mind scrambling again.

* * * *

Christ, she’s fabulous.

Zane hung back in the doorway of the living room and let Lowell make his move. He watched his friend circle the woman he had waited the last five long years to see again. In that moment, he witnessed more emotions in the man’s eyes than Zane had seen in him the entire time he had known Lowell.

For the first time since he had fallen for her, too, Zane considered walking away. She had belonged to Lowell first. They shared nearly a lifetime of history, even if the latter part had been wrought with hatred and sadness. Zane didn’t doubt Lowell and Danica would find their way back to one another again, and what was happening now was definitely the first step.

His heart struck up a battle with his mind and cock as he took a moment to study her. Everything about her stirred the blood in his cock until he had a hard-on so stiff it strained against the confines of his slacks. Lowell had showed him headshots of her, but he hadn’t seen a full-body view.
It was nothing short of arresting. She was unlike any woman he had ever found attractive. He usually went for blondes, petite with hourglass figures, deep bronzed skin, and not an ounce of extra weight in sight.

Danica was as far from that mold as a woman could get. She had legs, mile long and shapely ones that made his tongue pulse to lick from the toes he couldn’t yet see to the apex of her amazing thighs. Her hips were made for a man to hold on tight while she straddled his waist with those stupendous stems and rode his cock to oblivion.

His heart rate climbed with his gaze as he skimmed his attention up her back. Ebony hair fell like a curtain, tapering into a V that touched the waistband of her leather skirt. The thin purple straps of her camisole peeked between strands of her hair, lovingly hugging her delicate shoulders.

His gaze didn’t make it to the back of her head. It started to, but got caught by the expression of sheer torture on Lowell’s face and the plea in the man’s eyes.

He doesn’t want me to walk away.

It helped realizing that. Zane hadn’t wanted to, but he would have tried for his friend. Instead, he took small, soft steps toward Danica and watched as what he could only define as relief swept through Lowell’s eyes.

Zane knew when she sensed him behind her. He caught her short, startled intake of breath, and saw her turn her head slightly. The move afforded him a peek of the narrow purple streak breaking through her ebony hair that began at the roots behind her right ear and ended at the tips.

Training and instinct told him there were eleven people scattered around the room and all their gazes were on him now. He didn’t care. What he wanted was now in arm’s reach. All he had to do was touch her.

He spotted something out of the corner of his eye that sidetracked him, but not for long. The Service Club had obviously prepared the room for the meeting and whatever whim the members had tonight. A few sex toys had been laid out on an end table. He didn’t see anything really kinky, but the set of fuzz-covered handcuffs caught his eye.

Randy Pope stood closest to the table and apparently read Zane’s intentions in a glance. The man quietly snagged the cuffs off the table and brought them to Zane.

Zane nodded his thanks as he took them, then all his attention was back on Danica. He hooked the cuffs over his thumb, letting them dangle as he curled his fingers over her shoulders. He felt her shiver at his touch and smiled to himself. He enjoyed making a woman quiver and couldn’t wait to intensify the sensation for her.

He dragged his hands down her arms, letting the cuffs graze her flesh until his fingers closed around her wrists. She stiffened, not much, but enough that he knew her nerves were kicking into overtime.

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.” He grimaced. Damn it, he hadn’t meant to speak. After countless, seemingly endless nights spent talking on the phone in the last several weeks, she would surly recognize his voice.

“I don’t even know you.”

Despite her declaration, Zane felt her almost immediately start to obey. She hadn’t put two and two together yet. Maybe if he kept his words at barely above a whisper, the tone of his voice wouldn’t click before he wanted it to.

“Would it make it more difficult or easier if you did?” He tightened his grip on her wrists and guided them behind her back. Holding both in one of his hands, he used the other to ready the cuffs for her wrists.

“I’m not sure.” The tremble had moved to her voice now, each word spoken softly and shaking ever so slightly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take away one more sense they’ve left you.” Zane fastened the cuffs around her wrists, then danced the fingers of both hands back up her arms. “We get to touch.”

“While I just stand here?”

“And feel.” Zane glanced at Lowell again and caught a flash of approval move through the man’s eyes. He was taking a liberty with this one. This part, they hadn’t discussed. The inspiration had struck when he had spotted the cuffs on the table. If she was going to be as pissed as Lowell expected when she finally realized who they were, taking away her ability to throw a few good slaps their way until they could calm her was probably a safe idea.

“I can smell, too, you know?” Strength had returned to her voice, steadying her words.

Her trust baffled him. It was unconditional, complete. Despite the nerves she’d obviously been struggling with off and on since she had arrived, she apparently truly believed she was safe. It was exactly what he wanted. She was in a room surrounded by people she knew, people she thought of as friends. There might be two strangers in the room, but despite the sexual tension thickening the air, she obviously knew she was safe and believed they wouldn’t do anything to her she didn’t want.

“What do you smell?”

She hesitated for the span of several heartbeats, taking deep even breaths and letting them out slowly before she answered. “I smell you, your cologne. It has a musky scent and is just a little bit sweet.”

“Do you like it?” He moved closer, pressing his front to her back, and leaned over her shoulder just in time to see the small smile unfold on her luscious lips.

“I do. It’s masculine and very...sexy.”

Zane chuckled. “I’ll remember that.”

“I smell him, too. The guy in front of me. His cologne is a bit stronger with a woodsier scent. I’ve smelled it before, but I can’t put my finger on exactly where.”

Zane and Lowell exchanged a wordless glance. Apparently his friend had been wearing the same cologne for quite a few years.

“I can smell you, too.” Zane turned his face into the side of her neck and took a deep breath, reveling in her scent. “You smell like flowers, a light mix of lavender and rose. I can also smell your arousal.”

She gasped softly at that, and he smiled against the side of her neck.

“Are you aroused, Dannie? Is being bound like this, blindfolded, and held between two men you can’t see while others are watching making you wet?”

* * * *

Danica’s heart stilled. She didn’t hear everything he said. She had stopped listening after one simple word. Dannie. Okay, not so simple after all. Only one man used that name as a term of endearment when he spoke to her.