Sexual Healing for Three (21 page)

Something told him the danger to Donna was real and not just a dream. Something told him he needed to get to her because she wasn’t out of danger—not yet.

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* * * *

Surprisingly, the police had come and taken down her statement long before the glass repair people had arrived to start doing their thing. Not that she had much to say to the police. She didn’t get a license plate of the truck, the only and best description she could give them a general dark color and a late model.

Good luck with that.

The large rock that had been thrown through her window was another story and had been confiscated in an evidence bag by CSI.

Hopefully it would yield more than just the open threat that had been scrawled across its surface in Day-Glo green block letters.

Mind your business, and let the men handle their women the way
God intended…or else.

What a meticulous, holier-than-thou bastard to search for and find a smooth and large enough rock on which he could write out his complete-sentence threat. Why was it violent nutjobs always quoted the big man to give credence to their wacked-out beliefs and causes?

At least his English teacher must be proud of his clarity, coherence, and concision. It certainly was a step up from the usual harassment and names that men flung her way—“interfering bitch” and “nosey slut” chief among them.

At least the authorities were taking the threat seriously. She suppose they had to after the incident at the courthouse earlier and considering her high profile in the community and standing on the hit list of numerous bitter boyfriends and husbands citywide.

She’d even been assured by one of the original officers on the scene that he would have someone pay Luther a visit in his cell for a little confab to see if Luther had reached out to any of his friends on the outside who might have done the deed.

Alcohol buzz long forgotten as she sat in a corner of her sofa watching the glass repairmen do their work and the police clear out of 162

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her apartment, Donna took a deep breath for the first time in the last few hours.

The phone rang, and Donna didn’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who it was before she picked up. “Hey, Angela.”

“How’re things going?”

“Okay.”

“Are the police still there?”

“They’re clearing out now. The glass repairmen will be done soon, hopefully, and then I can be alone.”

“Is that what you really want?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Donna arched a brow as if her sister could see her, wondering what Angela was up to now. But before she could even open her mouth to ask, she saw the most delicious vision crossing her threshold that she could have ever hoped to see—and dreaded.

“Angie, what have you done?” she asked stupidly when it was so plainly obvious what her meddling sister had gone and done, unless she was hallucinating.

“Is Russ there?”

“I’m hanging up.” Donna took the receiver from her ear to press the off button to the decidedly tickled-pink giggling of her sister.

She stood on suddenly unsteady legs to cross the room and met Russ halfway in the middle of her living room.

He paused in front of her, all broad-shouldered, six feet three inches

of him, scanning the terrain around himself as the last of the police and CSI unit left her apartment. “Angela called me.”

“Don’t you live nearby her in Wantagh?”

“I do, but I was on a job in Manhattan when she reached me on my cell. And I’m glad I was close by.” He searched her face, frowning. “Did you speak to your sister?”

“I just got off the phone with her.”

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Russ chuckled and shook his head. “Must have been fun growing up with someone who always knew what was good for you.”

“Well, counting my parents, I had three of those.”

“Lucky you weren’t any lower on the totem pole of siblings or you would have had even more.” Russ reached out to rub her arm, obviously restraining himself since the glass repairmen were still there. She could feel the tension in his body, feel the coiled energy beneath his fingertips, and she knew he wanted to do more than rub her arm, just as she wanted him to do more than rub her arm—much more.

She looked up into his gray eyes, her nipples tightening, responding to the heated expression in his look. She wanted him to rake her with more than just his gaze.

“I was low enough. But then you wouldn’t understand, being the big, bossy older brother and all.”

He just grinned, neither denying nor admitting. He didn’t have to because Donna knew the deal. She knew he was just as arrogant and pushy as Bo had been, with the potential to be just as violent as the men she shielded her women from every day.

So what made him different? Why did her body trust him?

Because your body doesn’t know any better and is running on
pure hunger and lust.

But there was something behind that smile, a regret and sadness that made her remember the glimpse she had gotten of a young Russ comforting his mother on the sofa, a young Russ who had been angry at his stepfather and felt helpless because he could not stop the man from hurting his mother.

How many kids like that had Donna comforted in her time as a social worker? How many women like Russ’s mother had she sheltered and steered from the clutches of their abusive spouses toward freedom?

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How many abusive men like Bo and Luther had an abusive
childhood like Russ’s? How many had witnessed violence in the
household to make it to adulthood unscarred?

Donna swallowed at the thought. She knew the statistics were not in her or Russ’s favor since a good amount of children who were abused or witnessed their mother being abused became abusers themselves.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Donna shook her head as if to shake off the bad memories and focused on Russ’s face. “Looking at you like what?”

“Like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She had seen a ghost, a ghost from her past.

She kept trying to tell herself that Russ was not like Bo, but she hadn’t known how Bo was until it was almost too late and she was well into a several-month-long relationship with him—a relationship she kept secret from her family, especially once the violence started.

Maybe deep down she had known what a bad seed Bo was, but drunk on her first taste of independence away from her family, she had been willing to do anything and everything to keep it and prove that she could handle things on her own, that she was in charge of her own life.

Coming from her large family, especially with her bossy, controlling older sister and two overprotective younger brothers who thought it was their God-given right to tell the females in their family what to do and how to live, being in control of her own life had been important to Donna. She recognized, too late, that this craving had led to the bad decisions she had made with Bo, had led to her staying in a bad relationship much too long.

Decades later, with a seemingly unassuming Peter, she hadn’t been given a chance to rectify her bad decisions, as Peter took the reins and did it for her when he asked for a divorce after just nine months of marriage.

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Looking back now to the way she had been and the choices she had made in a mate, she wondered how intact her bullshit radar was, if she was even capable of making a good decision where men were concerned.

She looked up at Russ, thinking how her decision had been taken out of her hand in choosing him when Angela proclaimed he was her soul mate. Since Angela obviously had much better decision-making processes than Donna where relationships and romance were concerned, Donna thought she should feel completely safe around Russ.

But she didn’t—not completely. Even without the little connection she had made with him at the hospital, she felt the rough-edge darkness inside him. It was a darkness she recognized and understood so well because it was inside her.

She didn’t know if these similarities were a healthy thing or not, or if this was why Angela thought they made such a good match. If this was the case, what did this say about Chance? She didn’t feel the same darkness in him. What made him her soul mate?

“Ms. Vega?”

Donna turned to see one of the repairmen standing at the door with his tools packed and at his feet and the other at her side with the bill for her to sign.

Her heart stuttered in her chest at the idea that she would soon be left alone with Russ, but she reached out to take the clipboard and affix her John Hancock to the bottom of the page. She thanked the repairman on automatic pilot then watched him follow his partner out the door as if everything were normal and hunky-dory in her life when it was far from it.

Russ squeezed her arm and headed past her toward the kitchen.

“How about I make you some tea to help you relax,” he threw over his shoulder in a tone that didn’t allow room for argument despite him wording it as a request, a tone that plainly said she shouldn’t get any ideas about teasing him for his willingness to act the domestic diva.

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Nothing about Russ’s body language or pitch indicated request or appeal. He had taken charge of the situation, and he had only just arrived, what, a couple of minutes ago?

Donna didn’t have a chance to think about how she had gone through so many changes in the last twenty-four hours—from miserable, to paranoid, to orgasmic, to frightened, to tumultuous, to damsel in distress, and back—before matters went to surprising when Chance stepped through the open door, out of breath and fixing her with a stare that could melt steel.

“Are you okay?”

Wordlessly, she nodded, too dazed to form a coherent sentence and wondering when Angela had had an opportunity to call Chance too.

Damn, the woman was in rare form with her meddling this evening!

Chance took several steps into her apartment, stopping just in front of her with his hands jammed in his jeans pockets as if he was afraid to touch her.

Her skin tingled in anticipation of his touch that didn’t come. She closed her eyes, concentrating and reaching out to him with her mind to see if she could persuade him as he had done with her, just a little shocked when she made contact and visualized his blue thread of energy pulsing with life.

Was this what it was like for Angela when she saw people’s auras, when she read their future, or had premonitions? Did she see things so clearly, so solidly?

“I’m okay,” she whispered, trying to reassure him. She sensed he needed it more than her. She sensed the nightmare he’d had earlier and wanted to ease his fear and tension. She didn’t know how often he used his gift, but wondered how he kept his sanity with the ability to get into another’s mind. Her own mind was a veritable minefield of unpredictability. She didn’t think she could handle the constant doubt and anxiety of another’s thoughts and feelings, much less her own.

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“It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t just a dream. You’re in danger.”

“From who?”

Donna turned at Russ’s deep baritone as he came into the room from the kitchen, balancing a cup and saucer in his hands when he made his way over to the sofa, the ceramic gear looking like a child’s tea set in his big hands.

She smiled at the thought, the scent of honey and cinnamon wafting across the room to her, and Donna wondered how Russ knew it was her favorite flavor among the several different ones in her cupboards.

“I’m not sure yet. But I saw her, beaten and bloody.”

“Hello!” Donna held up her hands and made a time-out sign. “I’m right here, guys. No need to talk about me in third person.”

“Sorry,” they chorused.

If she thought Russ had taken charge, Chance wasn’t too far behind him, going back across the room to close and lock the door in a definitive manner that plainly said he didn’t plan on going anywhere until he was satisfied she was okay.

How he planned to get that satisfaction was beyond her.

Shakily, she went to the sofa and reached for the teacup. She inhaled the aroma as she lifted it to her mouth and took a sip. The touch of cinnamon exploded on her tongue, infusing her senses with a taste of spice as the honey cut a smooth, sweetened path across her tongue.

Sugar and spice, like the two men in my life.

Giggling, Donna sat back on her sofa, sure Russ and Chance thought she was mad, but not caring. She took another sip of tea before replacing her cup on its saucer and gazing up at the two men towering over her, the force of their excitement a palpable thing, making her damp.

She closed her eyes again, imagined being engulfed by these two men, even more than she was now. She wanted to experience them 168

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fully, experience their power and masculinity unleashed as they invaded her, rocked inside of her, and made her scream.

Her eyes flew open to stare at each of them in turn. She’d already decided what she was going to do, the only thing holding her back the same thing that had been holding her back from most romantic relationships all her life, the one thing that lurked just beneath her duty.

Donna opened her mouth, knowing there would be no turning back once she admitted this one thing to them that she had never admitted to another soul in her life. “I’m afraid.”

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Russ and Chance took a seat on either side of her, both silent—

watching and waiting, giving her room to breathe and decide what her next move should be.

She silently thanked them for giving her space, each of them keeping their distance without leaving her alone.

Alone was bad, especially after what had happened to her, and the very last thing she wanted right then, though, like her fear, she would never have owned up to it before a minute ago, at least not out loud.