Shannon's Fairy-Tale Foursome (24 page)

I can fight my own battles, thank you very much.

She glared at Randy, singeing him with her eyes. Immediately, he released her and helped her to her feet. Maneuvering himself so he could stand behind her, Randy hovered over her, ready to defend or deflect. Crap, she did
not
need this right now.

These three had some twisted knights-in-shining-armor obsession. She could totally relate to the wanting to protect. Hell, she’d guarded them for years, but she couldn’t get why they felt compelled to shield her from each other.

“Damn it, Randy. You are breaking one of our rules.” She elbowed him brutally and covered the small distance to Jared and Drew, breaking between two of the testosterone triplets.

“No, you are the one who needs to back off, Jared. This is between me and him,” she griped at Jared without wasting a precious second on a backward glance.

Instead, she stared down the adversary in front of her with her hands on her hips. “You amaze me, Andrew Joseph Dalton. If you don’t want a fuck buddy, then what was this all about?” She gestured to her almost entirely nude body, Jared and Randy’s completely naked bodies, and the carpeted floor they had been trysting on. “You could have stopped when I didn’t say what you wanted to hear.”

Drew shrugged indifferently, but the bleakness in his eyes and the tightness around his mouth was at odds with his apathetic actions. “You’re a woman. I’m a man. You worked me up, and I retaliated.”

Randy swore from behind her, but he followed her wishes and didn’t intercede.

Jared, however, did not. He jumped in, “Son of a bitch, Drew. She’s not some cheap piece of ass.”

“Thank you for the compliment,
Prince Charming
,” she thanked Jared sarcastically through teeth clenched so tightly that her jaw hurt. “But I don’t need you to fight my battles with your idiotic brother.”

She reserved the majority of her venom for Drew, poking him defiantly in the chest. “If this is you retaliating, remind me to piss you off tomorrow and the next day and, oh, the one after that. I got off. You didn’t, dumbass.”

Drew glowered at her and turned his back on her, hitting the button on the elevator to resume its upward climb. He muttered, “It won’t happen again.”

Shannon reached around Drew and punched the stop switch with enough muscle to bend her finger backward. She cursed the pain as the elevator immediately shut off. Sidling up next to him, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him and spoke loftily. “So you keep saying. I think you’re addicted to my brand of potato chips. You can’t seem to help yourself, and it just pisses you off. You want to put me back in the cupboard, but you can’t do it. You expect your brothers to share when you need a snack. What are you going to do for dinner when your brothers are eating me?”

She knew what she said could be construed in several ways, but she didn’t care. It was the point she was making. Fuck what they thought—dirty or not.

Drew twisted, towering over her with his steely body. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

“You bastard,” she spat, blinking back the tears she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of shedding. Her hand came up, preparing to slap his face.

Drew caught her by the arm, stopping her forward momentum and keeping her from striking him. “Don’t you dare. I will not tolerate being slapped, not even from you.”

She blushed, looking down in embarrassment. Violence didn’t solve anything, but sometimes, in certain situations and with certain people, it was nearly impossible to control her temper. Not meeting his eyes, she mumbled, “Sorry.”

A battle cry sounded as Randy jumped for Drew. “Shannon might not kick your ass, but I will,” Randy informed Drew a split second before his fist slammed into his brother’s unsuspecting face. The power he used caused her to gasp. Drew’s head snapped back, but that didn’t impede him from launching a counter-attack on his brother.

The two Neanderthals pounded on each other like a couple of school boys fighting over a girl. She panicked, screaming at the top of her lungs, “Jared! Do something! Stop them!”

Jared pulled her to the side and shook his head negatively. “No. They need to work this out between themselves.” With one eye on them, he cocked his head to the side and added, “They’re almost done.”

She gawked at Jared, partially astonished and partially offended, but most of all outraged. “Excuse me? You won’t allow little ole me to defend myself, but those two can.” She jabbed a finger in Drew and Randy’s general direction. “That is total bullshit.”

Drew and Randy continued to hash out their differences with their fists while she and Jared bickered.

“No, it isn’t,” Jared disagreed, frowning his disapproval. “You’re our woman, and it’s our job to protect you.”

He had her there. Really, he did, but she refused to back down. They could protect her from everyone, excluding each other. She needed to feel like their partner, their equal. She refused to be some stupid doll on a shelf they could take down when they wanted to play.

“No. Your job is to love me.”

Jared growled, stepping toward her with an implied, sexual threat to her, his body hot enough for her to hear it sizzle. “Same damn thing.”

She took two steps forward, hoping to appear menacing but in reality only managing obstinate. “No. You can’t protect me from your brothers if you love me. They love me, too. I’m theirs, too.” Frustrated, she threw her hands up in the air. “For goodness’ sake, you three are supposed to be sharing me.”

“We are sharing you,” Randy told her, his gruff, out-of-breath voice coming from behind her.

“Yeah,” she yelled, jumping in surprise. She hadn’t even noticed Drew and Randy calling a fist cease-fire. Backing up against the elevator wall paneling so she could keep an eye on all three brothers, she watched in awe as Randy offered Drew his hand, and he took it.

Men!
One minute they’re ready to chop each other’s heads off and mount it in their living room as a trophy, the next they’re helping each other. She would never understand them.

At some point the elevator had restarted without her knowledge because she heard a ding as the metallic doors slid open on one of the floors. “Speak for yourself, Randy. I won’t share a woman who only gives me her body, and I certainly won’t share one I can’t trust.” Drew stalked from the elevator and vanished before she took a breath.

Befuddled, her jaw dropped and she asked, “Huh?”

Randy pressed and held the close door button. “He knows you’re hiding something.” He let go of the button when the doors closed and grabbed his clothes to the floor. “Shit, baby doll, we all do.” Redressing, he carried on his explanation for Drew’s unexpected statement, “Only he doesn’t know what it is you’re hiding.”

Bloody fucking hell
. They knew.

Breaking out in a cold sweat, she tried her damnedest to readjust her clothing with her uncontrollable, barely-functioning hands. If they weren’t going to be undressed, then by God, neither would she. That vulnerability would be too much right now. She already felt emotionally stripped bare and did not need to add yet another layer to the intense situation.

Jared threw on his clothes and stated the obvious, “But we do.”

The elevators whooshed open, and all three of its passengers filed out with Jared leading the way. Heading for his, Drew, and Randy’s room, Jared attempted to reign in the hedonistic beast clawing at his insides, but even the emotional turmoil barely kept the creature at bay.

“You don’t think he will come back here, do you? I could go to my, um, room if you want. Well, at least until he cools off a bit.”

Shannon sounded so small behind him, making him want to throw something. Between her hesitant, nearly inaudible voice and her half-hopeful, half-dejected words, Jared felt compelled to hunt down Drew and tear off several strips of his hide. Two things stopped him from doing just that—Shannon and Drew.

Shannon needed him with her more than he needed to work out his frustration and aggression on the root of everyone’s problem. She came first, even before the blood thirst driving him to the edge of madness.

Drew also saved himself, because Jared understood his brother. He could feel what he was going through. His brother fought a losing battle. They all knew it, but he refused to give those last few inches. Years of abuse made him different than Jared and Randy.

Drew and Shannon were far more alike than either would admit. They were proud, passionate, and loyal to a fault. But they were also stubborn, temperamental, and vengeful. No wonder they had turned so volatile lately. Their emotions ran all over the place, which made each of them prime targets for the other. Jared believed it was a bloody miracle these two hadn’t pushed each other further before now.

Using the key, Jared unlocked the door. “No. He won’t be back for a while.” His unspoken words, “if at all,” hung in the air between them. He twisted the knob and pushed open the door for her. Standing to the side, he allowed her to go in first.

She brushed past him, the clean smell of her favorite perfume trailing behind her and permeating the air. “Why didn’t you tell Drew?” She finally addressed the elephant hanging out with them since he made his bold declaration.

Jared had been waiting for it, giving her the time to gather her thoughts. She deserved a chance to get her legs back underneath her after they had blindsided her.

Randy quietly closed the door. “We don’t hide things from our brother, but this is something
we
couldn’t tell him because he won’t want to hear it from
us
. He’ll want to hear it from
you
.”

“Oh.” Shannon adorably flopped face first onto the king-size bed. It wasn’t smooth or graceful, elegant or refined, but it was the real, honest-to-goodness Shannon.

He would have never believed that even the smallest detail made such a difference to him. His heart skipped a beat, and his lips twitched. The fact she was lying on a bed only magnified his body’s response, making his already famished cock hunger for more.

Jared joined her on the bed and stretched out next to her. “Princess, he feels like you don’t trust him. He believes this is temporary for you and that you don’t really love him. Until he feels differently, you won’t have all of him.” He felt he had to tack on, “You will barely have half of him, and he will begrudge you even that.”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, awestruck. “That’s his problem?”

Randy made his way to the chair situated next to the bed and fell into it. “Yeah, that’s his problem, baby doll.”

Blowing out a huge gust of air, she rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “But, I
do
love him. I
do
trust him.”

Jared genuinely didn’t want to play the devil’s advocate, but someone had to. He laid his hand on her sweetly curved stomach. “We know you love him, but do you trust him? Really?”

Shannon gasped, her gaze flying to his, and moisture swam in her brownish-gold eyes.

Jared expected her to struggle with her emotions and attempt to keep the tears from falling, but he was wrong. A single tear fell from the corner of her eye and slid down the side of her face, landing on the lavish and more than likely overpriced bedspread. A second tear followed the first and more followed, not far behind that one. In just a few seconds, tears stained her beautiful face.

Jared used his fingertips as tissues, wiping away each and every tear she spilled. He whispered loving words to her but did nothing to stop her from crying. As much as it hurt him to see her pain, she needed to open herself to what she was feeling. If crying was a part of that, then she had to cry, and he had to let her.

Randy realized it, too, and climbed onto the humongous bed with them. He subtly curled himself around her without drawing attention to himself and laid his muscular arm across the midsection Jared had been massaging moments before.

Randy didn’t speak, but Jared wasn’t surprised. Randy tended to shy away from emotions, relying more on the physical than verbal. It wouldn’t matter to Shannon anyway. She needed the man, not the words.

Shannon sniffled inelegantly, drawing attention to her red button nose. “I’m sorry. I
want
to trust him.” More tears fell, clogging her voice. “I really do, but I’m so damn scared. He is hiding something from me, too. I can feel it, and my stupid fears won’t let me take that last step.” She paused, taking in a deep, shuddering breath before exhaling vigorously. “God, I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what,” Randy prompted her to proceed.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, hiding herself from them. “Any of this.”

Randy sat half up, propping his chin on his hand, and asked the question burning in Jared’s mind, “Any of what?”

“This, damn it.” She shot up, shaking off both of them, and pulled her knees to her chest. Wrapping her arms around her shins, she stared off into space. “I am so not that girl. You know? I’m not the one who believes in happily ever after.”

Laying her forehead on her knees, she rambled, “No, that isn’t true. I believe in happily ever after for everyone else, just not for me. I don’t deserve it, and I sure as hell don’t deserve the three of you.”