Soon she’d be back to fighting city traffic daily when she chose between the two apartments she’d found this week. Both options would meet her needs, but she was having trouble deciding, not truly excited about either of them. Probably because each was just empty walls and empty rooms—exciting but terrifying reminders of this new path she’d chosen.
Secretly, she’d hoped that her note to Jace and Andre would open up the door with them again, at least to talk. But Grant had told her he’d given them the card three days ago and neither of them had reached out to her.
She’d been too chicken to go there in person and risk getting shut down. Over the last few months she’d worked hard on getting her shit together. Had gotten herself fully off the antidepressants. She now knew she could survive fine on her own—even if not having Jace and Andre in her life had left this yawning gap inside her like a bad toothache, a dull pain that was never far from her consciousness. But losing them hadn’t sent her into a spiral of depression.
She would never take a day in this world for granted again. The girl she used to be was buried. Reborn.
But that didn’t mean she wanted to subject herself to them sending her away face-to-face.
They’d probably moved on. Maybe it had been only a dalliance like she’d told Jace. Maybe once they’d stepped away from the intensity of it all, they’d realized a relationship with her wasn’t what they really wanted. She’d been a mess the last time they’d seen her. How could she blame them for not wanting to get involved with her? They’d known she wasn’t ready to be with them even before she did.
And really, if they’d moved on. If it had only been a tryst. Then better to know that upfront. She wouldn’t go back and change what had happened between the three of them. It had saved her.
The opening bars of one of her favorite love songs drifted from the car’s speakers, and she promptly changed the station to hard rock, kicking up the volume. The guitar-heavy track filled the crammed corners of her mind, shoving away her ruminations. The late-afternoon view along the open highway was too pretty to waste thinking about things she couldn’t change.
She tapped her steering wheel in time with the music and found her foot pressing on the accelerator a little more aggressively. Her hair whipped behind her as the wind blew through the car. Roads like this made her want a sports car. Like Jace’s Viper.
She shook the thought from her head and belted out the chorus to the song, her off-key voice thankfully drowned out by the lead singer’s. The last note left her breathless and in the snippet of silence between tracks, a high whining siren pierced her ears.
Oh, shit.
She glanced in her rearview mirror and, sure enough, a flashing red light was quickly closing in from behind. She checked her speedometer. Almost eighty. In a sixty-five.
“Dammit!” She eased off the accelerator and made her way to the soft shoulder of the highway. This was going to be an expensive ticket. Just what she needed.
She put the car in park and watched in the rearview as the cop pulled behind her in an unmarked car and turned off the siren. The setting sun reflected off the windshield of the police car, not allowing her to see inside. Damn. She hoped it was a male cop. In her experience, she had no shot of getting out of a ticket when a woman stopped her.
Evan would fight for feminism to the death, but she was not above using a smile and a nice “I’m so sorry, officer” to get out of a ticket. Though, she did draw the line at tears. Callie had used that method once and Evan had almost died from trying not to laugh. Callie had gotten a ticket anyway.
“Keep your hands where I can see them and stay in your car.”
The loudspeaker voice startled her. Hell, she’d only been speeding. Evan kept her face forward and put her hands on the steering wheel as the cop stepped up beside her car. He put his palms on top of the car and leaned down to her half-open window. “Roll down your window, ma’am.”
The silky authority in the voice had every molecule in her body freezing in suspension. She turned toward the window, coming face-to-face with a pair of aviator sunglasses, dark hair, and a smirk she’d know anywhere.
Oh my fucking God. She tried to say something but a puff of air was all she could manage.
Andre straightened, the hard body outfitted in his full uniform coming into view. “Get out of the car, ma’am. Now.”
Her limbs couldn’t process requests. Her hands stayed cemented around the steering wheel. The moment of hesitation didn’t go over well. Andre yanked her car door open, leaned over her to unhook her seatbelt, then hauled her out of the car with a firm grip on her upper arm. “I said out.”
She stumbled, but he held her upright. “I’m sorry. What’s . . . What’s going on, Andre?”
“So disrespectful.” He dragged her around the front of the car to the passenger side, blocking them a bit from the view of the road. “You call me officer or sir, you understand?”
Heat zapped through her like lightning. Oh.
He shined a small flashlight in her eyes. “Have you been drinking?”
She winced at the bright light. “No, of course not.”
“So you’re just driving like a fucking maniac because you think you’re too good to follow speed limits?”
His grip on her arm tightened, and he crowded his body against hers, trapping her between him and her car. Her body trembled. She knew what this was. But damn if he wasn’t convincing enough to have a thread of fear lacing through her. “I’m sorry, officer. I wasn’t paying attention. I—”
“Yeah, you know what I think?” he said, his voice low and threatening. “I think that’s exactly your problem. You don’t know how to pay attention. You think a nice expensive speeding ticket is going to fix that?”
She wet her lips, letting herself slide into her own role. “I can’t afford a ticket, Officer. Please, just let me go. I promise I won’t speed anymore.”
“Look at you, you can’t even look me in the eye when you promise that. You think I don’t know you’re lying?” The disgust in his voice dripped off the words. He turned his attention toward the rear of the car. “I don’t think a ticket is going to do shit in changing her attitude. What do you think, Austin?”
She sucked in a breath, but Andre clamped her chin in his hand, not allowing her to turn her head and see Jace.
“Keep your attention on me,” Andre commanded.
“As soon as we take off, she’ll be driving like an Indy racer. I think this one’s used to talking her way out of stuff with that pretty little mouth of hers,” Jace said. “Maybe we should put those lips to better use. I may be able to be convinced to forget about that ticket.”
His voice was like sunshine on chilled skin. She closed her eyes, breathed. They were here. Wanting her. Giving her the fantasy she’d only dared speak aloud once. Showing her with action instead of words how they felt. Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame.
“Hmm, I may be able to be swayed as well.” Andre’s free hand drifted down her body and then cupped the juncture between her thighs, the heat of his palm searing through the thin material of her skirt. “So, Ms . . .”
“Kennedy,” she gasped.
“Ms. Kennedy, how ’bout we work out some other form of payment?”
Under normal circumstance, she may have thought the moment comical. A silly role-play. But the intensity of his gaze, his tone, his touch had dragged her down from fantasyland and into some elemental place where lines between real and pretend blurred. He wasn’t fucking around. His dominance was as real as the car pressing into her back.
But that didn’t mean she was going to make it easy on either of them. They’d let her believe for all those days since she’d sent the note that they’d given up on her. Her heart had broken every time she’d looked down at her empty voicemail.
They wanted her submission again? Well, they’d have to earn it.
“Go to hell,” she said, trying to wriggle free. “You can’t do this. I’ll report you.”
“Oh, look how cute, Austin. She thinks she has some say on what fucking happens to her.” His laugh was dark and menacing as he shoved his hand beneath her skirt and into her panties. Without any preamble, his fingers plunged into her pussy, her already wet heat bathing his hand. She let out a whimpering cry and pushed at the solid wall of his chest. He didn’t move back an inch.
“Screw you,” she bit out, the sharp sound echoing down the empty highway.
His brown eyes turned savage as he moved his hand out from under her skirt. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her sideways, splaying her stomach down on the hood of her car. Her cheek pressed hard onto the warm metal, and he kicked her legs wide with his booted foot.
The rumble of an oncoming vehicle filled her ears and she tried to jerk upward, but Andre planted a palm between her shoulder blades and pushed her back flat. “Add resisting arrest to your charges, Ms. Kennedy.”
“But . . . a car,” she protested. She’d never forgive herself if Andre got himself in trouble over this.
He grabbed her arms, securing them behind her, and parked himself between her spread legs, his erection hard against her ass. “You think we fucking care? Or are you embarrassed that anyone who passes by will see how bad you’ve been?”
The rumble turned to a roar and an eighteen-wheeler whizzed by them, kicking up some of the dust on the side of the road in its wake. She let go of the breath she’d been holding. “I haven’t been bad.”
Jace stepped into her peripheral vision, but she was afraid to attempt lifting her head. “No fucking remorse. Forget bargaining. Just take her in. Maybe a cell block will do her some good.”
Cuffs snapped around her wrists.
“No!” She squirmed, the metal clinking from her struggle. “No, don’t arrest me.” She softened her tone, attempted to sound placating. “I’m sorry. Just tell me what I need to do.”
Jace grabbed her by the hair, lifting her head at an uncomfortable angle and forcing her to meet his eyes. He was dressed in one of Andre’s black Dallas PD shirts and dark jeans. Tattooed and badass and so fucking sexy it almost wasn’t fair to expect her to resist. No gentleness resided in his face. “You want to play nice now?”
She tried to nod. Couldn’t. “Yes, sir. I’ll do anything.”
White teeth glinted in the rays of the setting sun. “I like anything.” He leaned in closer to her, his grip tightening against her scalp. “Until the sun comes up tomorrow, we own you, Ms. Kennedy. Every inch of this sinful body of yours. You be a good girl for us and maybe we can forget any of this ever happened.”
Her body melted against the hood like car wax, his heated words and cocky smile enough to have everything going liquid inside her. Owned. By the two men she couldn’t imagine loving more. “I’m all yours, officers. For as long as you want me.”
Jace closed the distance between them and overtook her mouth in a kiss that told her he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him. His lips and tongue staking claim in a way that words couldn’t. When he pulled back, she was panting. He nipped at her lip. “You know what you can say if you need to, pet.”
She gave him a vixen smile. Nothing they could do to her would coax Texas from her lips. For the first time in her life, she needed no training wheels, no safety net, and no fucking safe word. Her trust in these two men had grown to be as natural as breathing. “You won’t hear it. There will never be any other ‘buts’ again, sir.”
The hard glint in his eyes softened for the space between seconds. “Get her in the car, Medina. Time we give that smart mouth of hers something to do.”
Andre pulled her to her feet, checked her cuffs, and then smacked her ass hard. “Move it.”