Safe Harbor (21 page)

* * * *

Sully thought back to Jason’s call. He didn’t have any proof. He instinctively knew Clarisse wouldn’t have had anything to do with her parents’ deaths, and she probably didn’t suspect Bryan Jackson did either. When they were seated at a table in the restaurant, he decided to test the waters. After chatting with her for a few minutes, he sprang the question.

“So how did your parents feel about Bryan Jackson?”

“They hated him. I actually broke up with him twice before we got back together for good.” She looked sad. “I should have listened to them.”

“Why did you get back together with him?”

Clarisse’s gaze fell to the table. He didn’t miss the tears that filled her eyes. “He personally came to break the news to me about their accident. He was at the station when it happened.” She sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her napkin as her voice dropped. “He insisted on being the one to tell me. I…I fell apart. He picked me up and kept me together, helped me plan the funeral and the arrangements.”

She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “It was like I saw a different side of him, right? That’s before he hit me the first time, obviously. He acted so sweet. He didn’t try to be romantic with me or anything, just…he was there.”

She met Sully’s gaze. “He would stop by to check on me, make sure I was okay. Then after a few weeks, I invited him over for dinner and we got back together. I thought I’d seen a changed man. I thought maybe he’d gotten a handle on his anger. He said he’d been working really hard to change. He acted different for a while. After six months

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or so, the old Bryan reappeared. Slowly, little things here and there.

By the time I realized he hadn’t really changed, I wasn’t strong enough to make him leave again. I put up with it.”

Sully nodded and traced his fingers through the condensation on his glass. “That’s understandable.” It also confirmed his suspicions that she had no involvement in her parents’ deaths.

“No, it’s not,” she angrily shot back. She glanced around and lowered her voice. “I acted fucking
stupid
. I let him take me for everything, and by the time I felt ready to go back to school and finish my degree, I couldn’t because I’d let him control me and take control of everything. He wouldn’t give me the money to go to school. Then when I told him I’d kick him out, that’s when he hit me and threatened me the first time.”

“You’re
not
stupid, Clarisse.”

“Stop it. I am stupid. I’m stupid and I was scared I couldn’t make it on my own, and then I was scared he’d fucking kill me. Who else would have wanted me anyway? Fucking fat chick, all I can attract is a psycho cop for a boyfriend—”

Sully reached across the table and grabbed her chin. “Stop,” he whispered. “Don’t you
dare
let me hear you talk about yourself like that ever again. So help me, girl, I will spank that attitude out of your gorgeous hide.” He placed one finger over her lips. “I don’t give a shit what that asshole told you. Who are you going to believe? A lying psychopath or someone who’s willing to put a gun in your hand?” A playful smile teased his lips.

She finally smiled. When she did, he touched the end of her nose before settling in his chair again. His gaze bored into her. “Baby, I will tolerate a lot, believe me. But I mean it, if I hear you talk like that again, I
will
haul you over my lap.”

She looked shocked for a moment, then smiled. “Promise?”

He laughed and took a sip of water. “You’d better believe it.”

After their food arrived, she nervously studied him. “Mac told me about how you guys got together.”

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”I told him it was okay. I want you to understand there’s a lot more to what we’ve got than it appears. I love him, he loves me.”

“I read
Chances Taken
.”

He smirked. “What did you think?”

“What came first? Your relationship with Mac or the writing?”

He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been writing since high school.”

“The erotica?”

“That came after I got together with Mac.”

“It’s good. Very emotional.”

“I’m glad you liked it.”

“Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.”

“How did you end up with a guy if you’re not gay?”

He shrugged. “Just happened. I can’t explain it. Sometimes you have to admit it when you love someone and not worry what the hell anyone else thinks.” He turned his pointed gaze on her. “It is what it is.”

* * * *

When they returned from their afternoon together, Sully went upstairs to clean the guns and sent Clarisse to find Mac. She found him in the backyard doing yard work.

“Hey. Did you guys have fun?”

She watched his eyes. “Sully took me shooting.”

She didn’t miss the cloud that passed through his expression. “I figured, when I saw the gun case.”

“He suggested you and I go catch a movie or something tonight.

Together.”

The cloud lifted, his eyes shone. “He did, did he?”

“Yeah.”

“How about you help me cook dinner and we stay home and

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watch a movie? We can shout lines at the TV without pissing everyone off.”

Clarisse giggled. She’d discovered she had that in common with Mac one evening when they both started doing it, their snarky commentary cracking Sully up in the process. “Okay. That sounds good.”

She returned to the house and changed clothes to work out. The elliptical was both her favorite and her most hated machine. After twenty minutes, Sully appeared, also dressed in workout clothes.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Of course not.”

He set up the weight bench and started working on his legs. He didn’t wear a shirt, which allowed her to stare at the scar on his abdomen. She hadn’t noticed it during the party, her attention more on Mac than on Sully that night.

“Why do you want to work out?” he asked her.

She blushed, paused the timer on the elliptical, and used the break to get a drink of water. “Please don’t start. Mac already gave me the

‘don’t kill yourself to get thin’ lecture.”

Sully glanced over at her. “He’s right. You’re beautiful the way you are.”

Her face felt even hotter. “I’d be prettier if I was thinner.”

The weights clanked as he stopped and sat up. “Why do you say that?”

Clarisse shrugged and climbed back onto the elliptical. “Because it’s the truth.”

“Is that more of Bryan Jackson’s bullshit talking?”

“No,” she shot back. “It’s me knowing the truth. I’m fucking fat.”

She got off the machine and angrily stalked toward the door.

Sully intercepted her, caught her arm, and spun her around.

“Listen to me, what did I tell you about you talking like that?”

Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

He swatted her ass, not hard enough to sting, but the shock of his

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action stunned her. His voice dropped to a low growl. “I never lie about what I’m going to do, honey. That was a warning shot.” He pulled her closer. “You
are
beautiful, and Bryan Jackson is a fucking moron. End of subject, got it?”

She still couldn’t believe that he’d swatted her on the ass. She nodded.

He smiled and enveloped her in a hug. “We think you’re beautiful, sweetie,” he murmured in her hair. “As Mac told you, we do appreciate a beautiful woman when we see one.” He kissed the top of her head before releasing her and returning to the weight bench. “You going to finish your work out?”

She took a moment to catch her breath before she returned to the elliptical machine, her mind whirling.

After dinner, Sully disappeared to his office to work. Mac left the choice of movie to Clarisse. She picked a thriller she hadn’t seen yet from their considerable DVD library.

An hour later, she cuddled on the couch next to Mac—who’d donned shorts—jumping at the scary parts and adding their own snarky comments to the dialogue.

As the credits rolled, Mac hugged her. “We should do this more often.”

“Maybe this could be our date-night thing?”

He smiled and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Sounds good to me.”

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Over a month after her arrival, Clarisse seemed to have settled in.

Sully knew she still had reservations about him, but she’d quit flinching around him and had even started spontaneously hugging him.

It gave him hope.

He didn’t look up when Mac quietly walked into their bedroom one evening and knelt beside his recliner by the window, where he’d been reading. He reached out and stroked Mac’s hair. “What’s up?”

“May I talk with you, Master?”

Sully sat back and studied Mac. Formal kneel, hands on knees, head lowered. “Go ahead,” Sully told him. His gut clenched as he expected the worst.
I want out,
or
I’m moving out with Clarisse.
The first would break his heart.

The latter would crush his soul.

He knew Mac had a much closer relationship with Clarisse than he did, but he’d hoped that after their afternoon together, maybe she would eventually come to trust him the way she trusted Mac.

Maybe time had run out for that to happen.

“I love you, Master.”

Sully closed his eyes, dreading it.
Here it comes.

“I want to spend my life with you,” Mac continued. “So I hope this doesn’t make you mad, but you told me to be honest.”

Get it over with, Brant,
Sully thought.
Please, don’t drag it out.

“I’m in love with Clarisse.”

There it was.
Mac wasn’t finished, however.

“I wanted to know if you would consider letting me tell her.”

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Huh?
“What?” Had he heard him right?

Mac cringed. “Please don’t be upset! I still love you, and if you say no, I understand—”

“Wait. Whoa. Back up. She doesn’t know how you feel?”

Mac shook his head. “I knew I had to talk to you first.”

Sully studied him for several long minutes. “What if I say no?”

Mac’s shoulders dropped a little. “Then that would be your will.”

“And if I say yes?”

He heard Mac’s breath catch. “That is also your will.”

Sully stood. “Take your collar off and come here.” He sat on the end of their bed while Mac scrambled to comply. When Mac was seated next to him, Sully looked at him. “What do you want, Brant?”

“Honestly? I’d love for the three of us to be together. If she’ll have us like that. Both of us.”

“
Both
of us?”

Mac nodded.

Sully took a moment to compose his thoughts. “You wouldn’t be jealous?”

Mac shook his head, a sly smile crossing his face. “I know you love her, too. I can see it in your eyes.”

“You’re not ready to get rid of me yet?”

“Fuck no!” Mac looked horrified at the very thought. His reaction lifted Sully’s soul. “I love you! I can’t lose you.”

Sully studied him. “She’d have to agree to our way of life. I can’t stop being who I am for her. Neither can you. And I won’t give you up.”

“I want you to marry her,” Mac said.

Well, that was a surprise.
“Really?”

“Yes.” Mac reached out and touched his lover’s knee. “You own me. You’d own her, too. That’s the way it should be. It’s the way I want it.” From the way Mac’s cock started to inflate, Sully knew he told the truth.

“You’ve thought this through.”

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“It’s all I can think about.” He met Sully’s gaze again. “Sul, when we agreed to do this, I meant it for life.” He laced his fingers through Sully’s. “I belong to you. When I gave myself to you, it was for as long as you’ll have me. She won’t change that.”

Sully considered it. “Here at home, it would be me over you both.

Boat rules still apply.”

Mac threw his arms around him. “Thank you!”

“Don’t thank me yet. You don’t know she’ll say yes.”

“I feel it, Sul. She wants to be with us as much as we want her here.”

“I’ll take the lead.”

“Okay!”

“Put some shorts on. Leave your collar off.”

Mac’s eyes widened. “Now?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I mean…right now?”

“Now.”

“Are you sure we won’t scare her off?”

“Scare her now or scare her later. I would rather get it out of the way. I don’t want to spend the next few months loving her from a distance to lose her because she leaves and doesn’t know how we feel.” He sighed. “That would hurt too much.”

Mac broadly grinned. “You
do
love her! I knew it!”

Sully stroked the other man’s face, left his fingers resting on his chin. “I loved you
first
. I don’t ever want to lose you.”

Mac caught his hand, kissed Sully’s fingers, and nuzzled his hand against his cheek. “I can’t lose you. You’re the first one, the only one who’s ever understood me. The only one I’ve ever trusted.”

There weren’t many truly warm and fuzzy moments in their relationship, but this was one of them. Sully leaned in and kissed him, then hugged him. “We’re in agreement that we have to come first, right? I don’t want to jeopardize what we’ve got over her, no matter how we feel about her.”

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Mac hugged him harder. “Absolutely.”

Sully touched his forehead to Mac’s and closed his eyes. “I was afraid you were going to tell me you were leaving.”

Mac harshly laughed. “No fucking way, dude. You’re stuck with me for life. You don’t get rid of me that easily.”

Clarisse had been curled on the sofa, watching TV when the men walked out to the living room. She nervously eyed them as she sat up.

“What’s going on?”

“We need to talk,” Sully said, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch. Mac sat on the coffee table.

“Talk?” Clarisse felt fear settle inside her heart. Here it was. They were going to ask her to leave, or tell her it wasn’t working out, just as she’d started to relax and feel like maybe she could be a part of their lives in some small way. She swallowed back the nasty cold, metallic taste in her throat. A taste she knew well and hadn’t experienced since leaving Bryan.

Fear.

Mac and Sully exchanged a glance. Sully leveled his grey gaze at her. “Do you like living here? Honestly?”

Unable to speak through her fear, she nodded.

“Do you have any intentions to leave?”

She shook her head.

His lips curled into the sexy smile that melted her every time.

“Good, because we don’t want you to leave. In fact, we want you to stay. Permanently.”

She couldn’t have heard him right. “Permanently?” Mac looked desperately hopeful. He nodded. She returned her attention to Sully.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re not in love with me. I understand that. I’m not asking for your love, only for your trust. What Mac and I have is different even by unconventional standards. We want to offer you the chance to stay with us permanently.”

She tried to digest that. “Permanently?”

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“Yes. Mac has something he needs to tell you.”

Mac looked shocked, like he hadn’t expected Sully to pass the ball to him. He took a deep breath. In a soft voice that didn’t sound like him, he said, “I love you, Clarisse.”

She smiled. “I love you too, Mac.”

“No, I mean I’m
in
love with you.”

She was sure she didn’t hear him right. “What?”

“He just told me.” Sully waited for her response. She studied his face, then Mac’s, then back to Sully. He didn’t look mad. In fact, truth be told, he looked…

Happy?

He finally spoke again. “We’re a package deal, sweetheart. You get one, you get the other. I’ll never try to force you to love me, no matter how much I love you. I only ask for your trust. In return, I swear to you that we will never let you down.”

Still stunned, Clarisse tried to process Mac’s confession. “You’re in love with me?”

“Yes,” he softly said.

She stared at Sully, unsure what to say.

He spoke. “There’s no reason to give us an answer tonight. We will never force you to do what we do. However, Mac will always be my slave. Nothing changes that unless he decides he doesn’t want it anymore. We love each other, and while we want you to be a part of our lives, we won’t give each other up. If you feel you can accept that, and want to be a part of us, we would welcome you with open arms.”

“I need some time with this.” In reality, she wanted to jump into Mac’s arms and say yes.

“Of course.”

She stared at Sully, then at Mac. “If I said yes, what would that mean?” Her heart thumped in her chest as she met Mac’s hopeful brown gaze. She did love him, and she’d be lying to deny it.

“That’s something we’d have to discuss. Mac will always be mine, for as long as he chooses to be. Whether you can handle being

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second in his life to me—that’s something only you can decide.”

One of her dreams about the men taking her together came back to her with crystal clarity. She forced herself to speak loudly enough they could hear her. “What if I wanted to be involved with both of you? Or if both of you wanted to be involved with me?”

The men exchanged a glance she couldn’t interpret. “You have to be able to trust me before that can happen,” Sully said. “You and I both know I don’t have that from you yet.”

“I trust you.”

He arched an eyebrow at her.

“I know you won’t hurt me.”

He didn’t speak.

When she finally dropped her gaze, she twisted her hands together in her lap. “I
do
trust you.”

“Not in the way you’d have to trust me to have a relationship with me like Mac does.”

“What if that’s something I want?”

“Do you think it is?”

She shrugged.

Mac quietly spoke. “There’s the play party this weekend. We could take her. I haven’t cancelled our RSVP yet.”

Sully studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Then I propose this. You come with us to the play party this weekend. Take a chance in our world. See if you really think you can fit in with us before you commit to anything. I promise I won’t injure you, just give you a taste of what it could be like.”

He sat back. “Something else you need to understand, I will not take our relationship to the next level until you can fully trust me and commit to me.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

He leaned forward again, his grey gaze intense. “Mac doesn’t get to fuck you unless I get to first. I won’t fuck you unless or until you’re married to me. I marry for love. And I won’t marry you unless

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I know you truly love me in return first. Do I make myself clear?”

She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Honestly, I can’t tell you how this will work between you and Mac. I’m still trying to sort logistics out myself. Let’s table the topic until after the play party this weekend. If it’s still an issue, we can talk more. I will promise you this—you
always
have a home with us.

Forever. Even if nothing changes in our relationship from the way it is right this minute. The only thing that would make me ask you to leave is if you lied to us or if you got involved with another man. You can stay as long as you are ours and ours alone, even if only in our hearts and not our bed. No strings attached. Understood?”

“Okay.”

Sully stood and left them alone. Mac’s eyes searched her face. “I love you, sweetie. But he’s my life and I can’t lose him. I’m sorry. If you can put up with us, I promise we’ll make you happier than any woman alive.”

“I would be sharing you with him.”

He smiled. “Not really. It’ll be him sharing you with me.”

She shivered, but recognized the feeling as desire, not fear.

He reached out and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I know it’s strange, but think about it. Please? Ask questions. Talk to us.” He leaned in and kissed her, sweetly, lovingly. When he leaned back he wore a smile. “Worth every stroke,” he whispered before standing and following Sully to their bedroom.