A Harem of One [The Moreland Brothers 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (25 page)

Trios okay with you?

I said ladies’ choice. As long as you’re there with bells on, I’m good.

Jamison bit back a grin and dug around to find an outfit. She hadn’t planned on going out on a date, and her few belongings weren’t able to cut it. At five she found herself back at Nugget Mall and unearthed a sweater dress with leggings. It wasn’t haute couture, but the clothes would do. At six fifty she was at the restaurant, and Jergen was already there. He stood and assisted her to her seat in the heavy wingback chair.

“You look amazing, Jamison. You should be my woman, and I could hide you away from the world.”

“I like being out in the world, thank you very much.”

“Not naked, and that’s the way I’d keep you.” This time she did sputter, and her water with lemon slices found its way onto his arm.

“I thought we were going to have a nice evening out, Jergen.” He smiled, and she watched him dab his cloth napkin on his wet shirtsleeve patiently.

“We are, or at least I am enjoying myself. Jamison, I would hope you like my company as much as I like yours.” She offered him her napkin in lieu of the wet one he dabbed his arm with. They ordered and dined on Alaska salmon and salads. Jamison had a luxurious pasta dish in lieu of the seafood. As they finished their meals, Jamison’s heart began to pound, and she felt nervous, as if the organ were going to jump out of her chest. She had no idea why she felt the way she did, but she attempted to hide the urge to flee with a sip of her water instead.

* * * *

Marq was exhausted from his flight. In order to leave immediately, he had to jump several different planes at more than one hub. He flew from Wilmington to New York first. Then he went from there to Seattle and then to Juneau. It took him a whole day with the layovers. By the time he landed, it was six p.m. local time and he had a bad case of jet lag. But instead of taking the nap he desperately wanted, he pulled out his laptop in the airport and ran his program. He had to see where she was now. There was a nifty tracker he set up, and he used it to check Jamison’s current location based on her cell phone signal and E-911 GPS, which all new cell phones were equipped with. The program gave him an idea of where she was within an eighth of a mile. That still gave him some distance to cover, but not much. He knew she had a rental SUV, a red Durango, and the plate that it was registered under. Equipped with the basics he needed to know to get around, he rented his own car and made his way toward her.

Half an hour later he saw her rental car in a restaurant parking lot. It was called Trios and appeared to be for a slightly refined diner. Marq looked down at himself. He looked far from respectable. He wore a down vest over a gray waffle-weave henley long-sleeved shirt and boots with a pair of button-fly denims, but he would have to make do as he was. He walked into the foyer where the maître d’ stood. He knew his hair was mussed in way that bespoke hat head rather than the spiked casual he carefully gelled into place when he felt like it.

“Do you have a reservation?” The hostess was prim and proper with a little black dress and pearls. Her grayed chignon was appropriate for the garb and location.

“No, but I am meeting a lady here. She would have placed it.”

“Name please?”

He gave her Jamison’s name, hoping that she placed the reservation. Otherwise he would be left to wait outside, hat in hand, until she finished. As luck would have it, the hostess was able to find the reservation with little delay, and he refused her escort to the table. As he walked across the small dining room, he saw her, and his heart sped up. The organ in his chest beat faster when he saw her companion for dinner. If he were in a dark alley, this would be the last person he’d want in front of him. The man was tall and stout with dark hair and eyes that appeared to take in everything around him even as he smiled at Jamison. From the way she was seated she couldn’t see him, but her date could, and he noticed the unknown male watch him make a beeline for the table with a slight smirk on the unidentified man’s lips.

Once he was just behind and to the left of Jamison, he leaned over toward her ear.

“Why is it that every time I leave you alone I come back to find you somewhere dining with another man?” She jumped, and he could see that she wrung her hands together beneath the table.

You Can’t See Me

“Mm–Marq?” She looked at him as if he wasn’t real, like she made him up and lost her mind in the process of creation.

“In the flesh. Tell your dinner date that you’re leaving.” If she knew what was good for her, she wouldn’t give him any lip.

“No, I’m not going anywhere. Marq, this is Jergen, Jergen, meet Marq.” The man extended one huge hand in his direction, and only his good breeding kept him from ignoring the proffered hand. They shook their clasped palms, and Jergen’s clenched tight. What an uncouth ass, Marq thought. But he took the squeeze with alacrity and smiled even as he felt his metacarpals grind together from the pressure.

Jamison stood before she addressed them. “I’m going to ladies’ room, excuse me.” Jergen smiled and stood up.

When she walked away, the man waved to her unoccupied seat.

“So you are the man.”

“Excuse me?”

“I knew there had to be a reason for the shadows in her eyes. I guessed another man was why, and now you’re here.” The other man’s tone seemed to hold disapproval, and Marq bristled under the scrutiny. How dare he.

“Jamison left me, and I’ve come back to get her. She’s mine.” He didn’t care if he had to fight this man in the street, Jamison was his. Marq knew without a doubt he would get his ass whipped, but that was beside the point.

“I can see that. I’ve been asking her on a date for weeks now. She finally accepted my invite today. I wonder why?” Marq knew why. She’d seen his tapes and flipped, but that was none of this guy’s business. Jergen must have seen that Marq wasn’t going to budge and he would let the idle query linger without response. “The only thing I’m going to say is this, I know people, and if you do anything to hurt her, I’ll hurt you.”

Marq smiled. “I want her forever. I love her, and to hurt her is worse than any pain you can mete out.” The man must have liked what he heard and placed a hundred-dollar bill on the table before he stood up and greeted Jamison, who was headed back toward them at a quickly paced clip. Marq stood up and watched her walk back, and his heart hurt from the vision of her. Her hips swayed sharply from each curt step, and she was the most beautiful thing Marq had ever seen. She was dressed simply when compared to the flair he preferred to adorn her with. Her beauty was undeniable in any event, similar to a peacock camouflaged in a wren’s feathers.

“Jamison, thank you for dinner. I can see now why you refused my prior invitations and innuendos. But I think Marq here is looking forward to spending time with you, and this is a table for two, not three. I’m just going to head back to the furlough house so I can go on site in the morning.” He walked away without waiting for a response. Marq wasn’t going to let grass grow beneath their feet and pulled Jamison with one hand behind him as she sputtered the entire walk back to his rented car.

“Marq, we have to stop meeting like this.”

“We could if you’d stop meeting other men for dinner.” The words were enough to shut her mouth for the moment. Once he’d made his way to the car, she found her ability to speak.

“Since you tracked me down, I would assume that you know I drove myself.”

“We can get your car tomorrow.”

“Again, Marq?”

“Yep.”

He made his way to her rental without any directions from his passenger, and the look on her face was incredulous when she realized where they were. Once he helped her to the front door, he held his hand out for her key, and his thoughts flashed back to their first and last nights together. This was the last time he planned on being without her again.

“We need to talk, Marq.”

“We will, later.” He stripped his tired clothing and left the garb on the floor to pool by his feet.

“What are you doing, Marq?”
How cute.

“You can’t tell?” If she didn’t know by now, she was going to find out soon enough.

He marched through the house as Jamison followed him and wrung her hands the whole way. He found the shower and climbed in. Before they could have any type of conversation, he had to get the travel dust off of his body. When he was clean and refreshed, Marq toweled off and padded to the bedroom. Jamison was there, and an angry glint in her eye let him know that he would have to speak fast and think quick.

“Why are you here, Marq?”

“You know what I’m here for.”

“What? The single day I owed you?”

“No.”

“Then what?” She sounded exasperated, and that was okay with him. She was going to find out what he wanted soon enough.

“Did you watch the flash drives?” That would let him know what tack he needed to take with her.

“You’re an asshole, Marq, do you know that?”

“Yeah, I did know that. But I sent them to you for a reason. You need to know the truth, and I thought the easiest way was to show you, not tell you.”

“Marq, look, we both know you can have any woman you want. You didn’t have to send those to me to drive the point home.” Her hands waved in the direction of her laptop just feet in front of her.

“Is that what you think this is about? Twenty-four hours of sex? Let me show you something. Where are the drives at?” He watched her point to a nearby laptop, open and in the middle of bed. He opened the drive and slid it into the waiting USB slot. “Look at me, Jamison, and watch this.” He pointed to himself on one of the files at the end of the drive’s memory log. He double clicked it and pressed fast forward. When he reached the end, it showed him and Dakota the last time he was with her. He pressed the hash marks along the bottom of the screen to pause the file. Dakota looked pleasured and euphoric, and he on the other hand looked desolate and alone even with the beauty in bed. Then he accessed the file from the barely used drive and pulled it up. When he reached their last climax, Jamison was glorious in her satisfaction, and this time his face was one of happiness and joy.

“Can you see the difference, Jamison? All I’ve wanted for years was the right woman, a woman that could make me feel alive in a way that I never imagined. As trite as it sounds, I wanted to fall in love, but even more I wanted to see it with my own two eyes. See what it looked like to the world. It’s the only thing that I didn’t get to film, and every time I spliced together a tape I was looking for it. Until you, I doubted I would ever see that. The only reason I had the harem was to fill the need to be loved in every way possible.”

“L–love?”

“Yeah, Jamison, I love you. Why else do you think I would subject myself to a brutal climate change and a layover-ridden commercial flight? Now I want you to take those clothes off.” He didn’t wait for her response. None was necessary at the moment. All he needed was to kiss her again, remind himself that she was his. He moved the laptop to the nightstand and waited for her to undress. She had learned a few bad habits of his, and her clothes landed in the floor. He didn’t have plans to make love now, but later? He pulled the sheets back and waited for her to join him. Right now he was exhausted, and he had to make sure she didn’t go anywhere tonight.

“Come here.” He took her shaking hand and used it to draw her closer to him. She finally rested her head on his chest, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He fell asleep before he even got his kiss from her.

* * * *

Jamison didn’t sleep at all. Her mind raced with every random thought bombarding her from all angles. She had to tell Marq the truth about her past, about everything. She loved Marq. She had known that for a long time. In fact the moment she realized the depth of her emotions for him was the instant when she walked away from their relationship. But did he really love her back, or was she just the one that got away? There was no way she could determine that until they had a heart-to-heart conversation. She watched Marq for an hour, and then her bladder protested and she had to get up to address the matter at hand.

But when she moved from his arms, he became restless, as if he needed her to sleep uninterrupted. She went to the bathroom quickly, and when she returned, a halfway awake Marq awaited her in bed. He was aware enough to ask her to come and lie back down with him. She didn’t really want to, as she was nowhere near tired, but the childlike quality to his voice left her no choice. He apparently refused to sleep without her, and she could tell that he needed it. Being jet lagged reminded her of the day starting at six a.m., but instead of the time progressing throughout the morning, it stayed six a.m. for five hours. And then after the standstill of the clock, there was still a full day ahead, even though it felt much later than it actually was. Even though she was sure she didn’t need any more rest, Jamison fell asleep to the cadence of Marq’s heart and the heat of his skin.

She felt herself wake to an orgasm. Marq had planted his head between her thighs and suckled on her until the sensations assaulted her to wakefulness. Jamison needed that terribly. It had been so long since her last peak. She couldn’t even count the solo self-manipulated ones from the night before but an orgasm provided to her at the hands of another person. From Marq. In the moment that she thought of hands, she realized hers were bound, and fear crashed in on her from every direction. She looked down and saw her arms pinned in front of her. He had bound her from the forearms to wrists. The bonds felt like a half sleeve and were more comfortable than she imagined rope would be against bare skin. They had to be in order for her to sleep through the process of being tied.