Obsession (Endurance) (14 page)

“I
made them scream until their voices broke, Ellie.  Tortured them and bled
them slowly.”  He was practically growling and I wished I could have been
there.  “When I was done and covered in their blood, Jordan put a bullet
in their groins then one between their eyes.  They died hard for what they
did to you, Ellie.  It was the one time in my life that I was scared for
my sanity because I truly
enjoyed it
with all three of them.  I
wish I could have made it last longer.  I punished them for
their
part in what happened to you, Ellie…I wish you’d punish me for failing to
protect you.” 

I
fisted my fingers in his hair and made my voice hard.  “You
didn’t
fail me, Jonas.  Evil men will see evil done.  You’re a strong and
capable man but you aren’t omnipotent.  You can’t be everywhere at
once.”  Stroking from his brow to his cheek, I added, “I survived, so did
you…so did Jordan.  Ultimately, they didn’t.  We
won
,
Jonas.”  I leaned closer and pressed my lips lightly to his. 

His
arms came around me, crushing me to him, his large hand holding my head against
his shoulder.  His lips beside my ear, he told me, “No one will ever hurt
you again, Ellie.  One day you’ll have good memories to replace the bad
ones.  I want to be part of those good memories.” 

I
soaked up the feeling of his arms around me for a long time.  I struggled
to ask for what I wanted, how to find the words to tell these men what I needed
from them.

“Jonas,
I’m afraid of the dark.  I never was before but since the…I…I didn’t have
nightmares in the hospital.  There was always light there.  When I
sleep alone in the dark, my mind tortures me.  I didn’t have nightmares
last night.  I…I want you both to sleep in here.  I’m…that is…if that
isn’t something…”

“Ellie,
we’d love to help you keep the nightmares away.  We expect nothing from
you.  I’ll go change.”  He touched his lips to my temple and
stood. 

I
watched him leave the room and went to change into sleep shorts and a soft tank
top.  After I brushed my teeth and hair, I braided it and went to climb
beneath the covers of my bed. 

I
was strangely lethargic, almost asleep when the twins appeared on either side
of my bed in basketball shorts and t-shirts.  They put their weapons on
the nightstands and slipped in beside me.  I sighed deeply and rolled to
my back so I could hold their hands. 

I
was asleep before the covers fully settled over their bodies. 
   

Moonlight
shone on the vibrant landscape painting hanging in my sitting area and for a
moment I was confused about the presence of the two bodies in bed with
me.  My upper body was stretched against the chest of one Hyde brother, my
legs tangled with the other behind me. 

In
the dark, it was impossible to tell which was which. 

I
looked at my palm lying flat on a hard male stomach, skin to skin since the
t-shirt had ridden up on one side.  Taut warm skin over sculpted
muscle.  My hand was so much lighter and I wanted to move it, to explore,
but I wasn’t brave enough.  Not in this. 

In
this arena, I knew nothing. 

I
started to pull away when a large male hand covered mine.  “You can touch
us, Ellie.  We won’t touch you without your permission but you can touch
us as much as you like.”  Then he lifted my hand and kissed my palm before
replacing it on his stomach. 

I
swallowed deeply and slid side to side, marveling at how hard the muscles were
beneath the skin.  I moved my head back to his shoulder and moved further
up beneath the shirt.  I felt the puckered scars from the bullets he’d
taken for me.  Lean muscle over ribs and firm pecs. 

I
slid the flat of my hand over one nipple and heard a sharp intake of air. 
I paused then went back and did it again, this time getting a rough
exhale.  My fingers traced along the lines of his collarbone, heavier
bones than my own, until one finger outlined the hollow at the base of his
throat.  “Jordan.”  He smiled at me and I smiled back shyly, pulling
my lower lip between my teeth. 

After
a long moment, I lifted myself on my elbows and kissed him lightly.  A
small moan escaped his throat when I raked my hands through his hair and cupped
the back of his head.  I noticed he didn’t try to grab me or control the
kiss. 

I
took my time kissing him, learning masculine lips that were firm yet
sensual.  Stubble beneath my fingertips.  When I pulled back from the
kiss, his eyes met mine, and I knew that one Hyde brother or two, I would never
love another man the same way I loved them.

Going
up on my knees, disentangling my feet from Jonas, I turned to meet his
eyes.  I raked my fingers through his identically cut silky hair. 
The moonlight gilded the lighter strands shot through the slightly darker
length.  I took my time following the lines of his face, learning them
both by feel.  I gave him the same kisses, filled with affection and
trust, I’d given Jordan. 

Identical
with exception to the wounds they’d sustained, it should have been dizzying
having two men in my bed.  I knew if there had only been one Hyde, I
wouldn’t have been afraid.  I’d fallen for both of them all along, I just
hadn’t known the full scope of what that meant. 

It
seemed strange that there was no fear, no hesitation to touch both of them.

I
lay down on my back between them and they rolled to their sides facing
me.  I could feel their breath on my cheeks.  “Will you tell me about
your lives?  Who were you before the world believed you to be the same
man?”

They
crossed their arms over my stomach and I soaked up the warmth of the contact as
they began to talk.  As with many twins, they shared their story, filling
in gaps and speaking back and forth between them.  It was soothing, like a
lullaby, their identical voices flowing from one side then the other until I
was mesmerized by the inflection of every word.

“We
were born in Sydney.  Our mother was on vacation, away from her wealthy
family in England, and ended up pregnant with a rancher who knew an easy mark
when he saw one.  She hid the pregnancy from her parents, afraid they
wouldn’t allow her to keep us.”  They were stroking me with calloused
fingertips and I didn’t think I’d ever been so relaxed. 

“She
found refuge with an elderly couple.  They saw her through the pregnancy
and labor.  A tiny fragile woman, she didn’t survive our birth. 
Major Rothendam and his wife kept us and raised us after being informed by her
parents they wouldn’t abide bastards in their prestigious line.” 

I
gasped in outrage and they smiled.  “He sent us to military academy. 
He’d been a soldier himself.  When we were fifteen, he and his wife passed
away within six weeks of one another.  They left us everything because
they’d never had children of their own.” 

Jordan
lifted his hand and smoothed my hair away from my face.  “We remained at
the military academy year-round.  That was when we started trading
places.  With twins, if you don’t see both, many people forget there
is
another sibling.”  I snorted at that. 

“We
were good soldiers and once we came into our inheritance at eighteen, we moved
it into a high-growth investment company and joined the military.  It just
seemed the natural next step.”  I wondered what they’d been like at
eighteen.

“We’d
gotten accustomed to answering to Jay Hyde so we kept it up.  After five
years of serving throughout Europe, the CIA tapped us for service.  That
was when we became one person in the eyes of the world.  Over the years,
we met and assembled the team you have now.  Disillusioned after a
particularly dirty assignment, we went off-grid and formed our own
network.  The team followed.”

Jonas
kissed the tip of my ear and I shivered.  “Three years later, we
interviewed your parents at the Salt Flats and they gave us a dossier on
you.  At first, we weren’t going to tell them there were two of us. 
Your mother inspired our trust.  We explained and they agreed to keep our
secret.  They waxed poetic about you but we all expected the worst.”

One
of them tweaked my nose.  “We figured you’d be a spoiled brat or a
sniveling drama queen.  None of us were prepared for the intelligent, kind
young woman who could hold her own while sparring.  It was strange, Ellie,
how all of us forgot you were our employer.  You were just Ellie. 
Not Miss Elliana Monica Fields, heiress to the Kensington-Fields fortunes
estimated in the billions.” 

I
gave them a self-mocking smile, “I almost died the first time I met you. 
I think my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.  I doubt I could have
handled seeing you side by side from day one.” 

Both
of them laughed, their fingers stroking lightly over my hips through the thin
cotton of my shorts.  “We loved you from the first, Ellie.  You were
too young for us, still are honestly, but it didn’t matter.  We fought
constantly about telling you we were twins.  We were afraid to scare you,
to lose your trust.  Understandably, you don’t trust easily.  So we
waited…until the worst day of our life happened followed by months of guilt and
regret.  We prayed you’d come through the trauma without hating us. 
We wondered if we could start over,
honestly
this time, and where that
might lead.”

My
fingertips had been absently tracing their fingers, hands, and wrists. 
“Which of you was with me that day the original seven attacked me on campus?”

“Jonas.”

“Who
rode the rollercoaster with me at the fair?”

“Jordan.”

I
carefully cleared my throat and gathered my courage.  “I could ask a
million questions but the primary issue I’m having is separating you in my mind
and in my heart.  I’m not…sure what I’m supposed to do.  I
can’t…there’s no way for me to…to
choose
between you.  Not now
after so much has happened.  It’s why I put distance between us. 
And…and also Katie…all of that, really.”

Jonas
went up on his elbow to better see my face.  He was frowning down at me as
he asked, “Wait, what do you mean by
all of that
about Katie?”
   

“All
of
what
, Ellie?”  Jordan asked from the same position.

I
didn’t want to say it out loud.  How could I?  I’d been degraded and
used until I doubted I’d ever be truly clean again.  While I struggled
with my thoughts, both men watched me carefully. 

I
barely heard Jonas when he said, “Ellie.  Oh,
god
.  You
thought we wouldn’t want you after what you’d been through.”

The
lump in my throat threatened to choke me, “It’s one thing to
know
someone has…has gone through something like that.  It’s different to
see
it.  I think that has always been the worst part for me.  Knowing you
have those images in your mind of what happened.  I…I’m embarrassed. 
And I
had to
keep her.  I couldn’t let it all be disgusting and
painful.  I don’t
ever
want her to know.”

Jordan
stroked my cheek, “You took an unspeakable act of violence and turned it into a
precious little girl who will never know a day in her life without
unconditional love.  We
love
Katie, Ellie.”

My
hand was in Jonas’s, pressed hard to his chest and his eyes were closed. 
When he opened them, he whispered, “I’ve never felt such hatred, such rage, as
I felt for those animals.  You were barely conscious; I thought you’d
stopped breathing.  They hurt you so badly and you were throwing up,
bleeding, unable to focus or keep your eyes open.”

His
breath hitched and he rested his forehead against mine.  “They sliced open
your back trying to hold you down.  You were slick with blood, a knife
slipped.  When you’d start to come to, you’d fight.  Gouging their
eyes, ripping them open with your nails and teeth.  That’s how your arm
and leg were broken; they had to use so much force to hold your body
down.  They had no humanity but you never quit. 

“They
punished you because you wouldn’t break, Ellie.  The last thing you said
before you lost consciousness was, “
Hyde is going to gut you.  You’re
going to die screaming while your organs hit the floor and my name will be the
last thing you hear
.”  That is exactly what I did.  I broke them,
I tortured them, I gutted them, and I watched their faces.  Before the
life left them, I said,
For Ellie…may you rot in hell
.” 

He
put his huge hands on either side of my face.  “But never, not
once
since the beginning of that nightmare to this moment, have I considered you
less than perfect, Ellie.  You survived the worst that can be done to a
woman and it only made me love you more.”

I
cried hard and they held me through it.  I felt like I was lancing an
infection of shame and degradation.  Even when I fell asleep, they
continued to hold me. 

When
I woke up the next morning, they were with me, twined around me until I didn’t
know where one of them began and the other ended. 

Once
again, I’d experienced no nightmares and I knew that no matter what, I had to
keep them. 

Jordan’s
face laid warmly against my upper back, my head was tucked beneath Jonas’s
chin.  They were sealed to me, protecting me even in sleep.  They
were both hardened fighting men, fifteen years older than me, twins who
masqueraded as one man to the world at large.