Every Night Forever (6 page)

When they were younger, Cairo, the most adventurous of the three, had taken them to a BDSM club, promising that it would be a great place to find more enthusiastic women.  What he’d found there instead – while exciting – had just been a façade.  When it came right down to it, your average woman wanted monogamy with one man.  The women they’d seen at the club in three-ways were only really with one man, and the other was a good friend or another member of the club who was given to the woman as a special treat.  They couldn’t exist like that.  Yes, they would each want their bride to themselves on occasion, but in all truth, their bride had to be able to share them, really share them equally, or it wouldn’t work.  How do you start that conversation? 
Hey baby, my brothers and I would like to fill you up times three and take you down to our den for the winter, how’s that sound?

Sounded like the very distinct sound of a woman running in the opposite direction.

Showering and dropping onto the oversized king bed in the master bedroom, he set his alarm and dozed off, Alyssa’s pretty brown eyes on his mind.

It was one in the afternoon before he got to the gym.  He walked back to the break room and then the smaller room she had slept in, but couldn’t find her or Mason. Cairo was working as a trainer, watching a young man with hardly any muscle definition lift weights, struggling to keep the boredom off his face while shouting encouragements.

“If you’re looking for Alyssa, Mason took her out already.  They’ve been back for her car, too, so she must have liked one of the places.”

Just as he turned to go to his office to call Mason and chew him out for taking her out when he had planned to, he walked into the gym.  He was dressed far better than he should have been for work, in nice jeans and a silk t-shirt.  Alyssa wasn’t with him.

“Where did you take her?” he demanded.

“Hmm?  Oh, to Pat’s, John’s and Rick’s.  She liked John’s best, so that’s where she’s unpacking her things now.  She’ll be here for her shift at three.”

“John’s?  We’re not paying her enough for any of those places, especially his.”  John’s condos were townhomes with garages, very high-end.

“I took care of it.”  Mason sniffed.

When he tried to move away, Dante grabbed him.  “What do you mean you ‘took care of it’?”

“When I saw how much she liked the place, I talked to John and he came down in price for her so that she could afford it.  I’m picking up the rest, and she won’t know, so don’t worry.”

“How much is the rest?”  His eyes narrowed.

Mason at least had the decency to look guilty.  “Seven hundred.  Plus I paid the deposit.”

“What?” he thundered.  “You’re paying seven hundred a month for her condo?  What is she paying?”

“Four hundred.”

He let out a surprised breath.  “You volunteered to pay more than half her rent for a year?  What if you guys are wrong about her?”

“Not a year.  John offered her month-to-month, said he didn’t do long leases anymore, and she said that was cool.  Plus he gave her one of the models that’s furnished really nicely.  She doesn’t have anything but the stuff in her car.”  Mason wrenched out of Dante’s grasp.  “Look, I made the choice and I stick by it.  Whatever she’s running from, she’s so surprised and happy with the little things that we’re doing for her, it’s like she’s spent her whole life being knocked down.  I don’t regret this at all, so don’t try to make me feel bad.”

“Alright, little brother, I’m sorry.  I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”

Mason’s eyes widened slightly and then he gave him a sad smile.  “If you don’t take the risk, then you don’t get the reward.”

How true.

* * * * *

With Dante’s caution ringing in his ears, Cairo greeted Alyssa when she walked into the gym a little before three with a small gym bag over her shoulder, wearing light jeans and a fitted dark-green top.  The clothes were just the right mixture of casual and sexy.

He should be on his way out.  He’d put in his eight hours, but all that waited for him at the house was a long night and an empty bed.

“Mase helped you find a place?”  He leaned over the top of the counter and was happy to see that her eyes flashed on his muscles before meeting his eyes.  He hoped to hell she liked muscular guys.

“Yeah, it’s really nice.  I was surprised I could afford it.”

He’d heard the low-down from Mason about how he’d covered the extra rent so she could swing it.  Dante wasn’t thrilled, but he knew Mason secretly hoped she wouldn’t be living there very long, even though the money wasn’t really an issue for them.

“I’m sure it will be much nicer than sleeping on that couch in the back.”

“It wasn’t so bad.”  Her perfect white teeth peeked from her lush lips as she smiled gently, and he craved a kiss so badly that his mouth ached.

After what was probably only a minute, but seemed like an eternity lost in the depths of her chocolately eyes, she said, “Are you heading out?”

“Hm?  Oh, I’m going to train.  I’ve got a match next weekend.”

She arched a delicate brow.  “Does being a hyena make you a better fighter?”

“In some ways.  Do you think you’re better than a human with your extra abilities?”

She gave him such a strange look that he couldn’t even fathom what she was thinking at that moment.  Then, just as easily as she’d smiled at him minutes earlier, she shut down completely with a curt, “I should get to work.”  Swiveling her chair to the side, she watched the computer boot up, her jaw clenched, and wouldn’t look at him.  Baffled, he walked away from the desk, wondering just what the hell he’d said that had upset her.

His workout was a total waste.  His concentration was shot, and every time he glanced over at the desk and saw her smiling or talking easily to one of the human males in the gym, his vision went red.

On his way home, far later than he’d ever stayed since he had a perfectly decent setup at home for training, he thought back over his time with Alyssa.  Even Mason was surprised that she’d shut Cairo down so easily, and Mason was also angry because once she shut Cairo down, apparently her easy-going attitude from when they went apartment hunting had evaporated as well.

Unable to sleep, he tossed and turned for hours until he heard Dante come in, after midnight.  Even Mason was still up, sitting in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal that had gone soggy from lack of attention.

Dante agreed that something was up with her, but none of them could figure out what it was exactly.  He went to bed as unsatisfied as ever, worried that he would trip over his own tongue and upset her again.

Her second day of work, he left a bamboo planter on the desk for her as a house warming gift from them.  After Mason had come home, they’d both realized that none of them had gotten her anything for her first day.  It seemed like a good thing to do, to give her flowers or something.  So since they’d fucked that up, he tried to make amends.

He had three clients that day, and although he gave them their money’s worth, he watched Alyssa like a hawk.  She smiled in soft surprise at the planter and glanced around the gym until she met his eyes and waved at him.  He waved back and felt a bit of smug satisfaction settle over him.

Later, she grabbed her keys and was heading out the door.  “Lunch?” he asked as casually as he could.

“Yeah, I didn’t have time to get any grocery shopping done yet.  Can I bring you back something?”

Sweetheart.
  “No, but thanks.  I eat differently when I’m training, and it’s not exactly the sort of stuff you can get at restaurants.”

Wrinkling her nose in the most adorable way, she said, “Raw eggs?”

Laughing, he shook his head.  “No, more like plain ground beef and pasta.  Pretty boring.”

“You eat like that all the time?”  She cocked her head to the side, real interest lighting her features.

“Just when I’m training.  Because of my hyena nature, I have to eat a lot, but I’m careful of what I eat before a match, all the same.”

 “Do you have them often?”

“I could do them once a week if I cared to, but usually I go once every two months; sometimes more frequently if there’s someone specific I want to match up with.  I try to do at least six a year, but a few years ago I used to do a few a month.  It’s hard to keep up that level of training for a long time, though.  It gets daunting.”

“And you have a match next Saturday?”

“Yeah.  Mason always comes.  You should think about coming.  You’ll get to watch grown men beat each other all to hell.”

She smiled and said, “I’ll think about it.”

He watched her walk out to her old Camaro and drive off, and he turned back to his next appointment with a happy hum.  If she was in the stands watching him, he’d totally destroy his opponent.  And maybe spending time like that with Mason would be helpful, too.  He knew that he could come off like a bull in a china shop sometimes, but Mason was the sweet one of their group.  If anyone could get through Alyssa’s defenses, it would be that lovable goofball.

* * * * *

Mason waited until just a few days before the boxing match to drop by the lunchroom and ask Alyssa to join them.  He spread out his own meal on the table with her and chatted with her for a while.  It had been an interesting two weeks.  She seemed to be slowly thawing around them.  Her smiles seemed genuine.  And she was actually spending time with Dante in his office, trying to help him get through the mess of files stacked everywhere.  Even Dante had finally admitted that she was special, but he refused to say outright that she was their mate, even though he and Cairo were more than convinced.

“I don’t know,” Alyssa said between bites of her sandwich.

“It’s pretty cool.  The crowds are always pumped up, and it’s awesome to know someone that’s fighting and really get to root for him.”  He prayed he wasn’t pushing her.  Dante had been adamant that they not try to move things fast.  The man clearly had an iron will, though.  Just being around Alyssa made everything in his body go tight, like his skin was pinched in a vise.  It wasn’t just straight sex appeal.  It was the mating pull.  He knew it.

She mused silently for a few moments and then said, “Well, I guess it would be nice to have something to do this weekend.”

Not exactly the enthusiastic answer he’d been hoping for, but it was good enough for now.  He just knew that spending a few hours away from the gym would go a long way toward helping her overcome whatever was making her want to hold back.  Once more, he felt his beast want to completely destroy the wolves that had hurt her.

“Good.  I’ll pick you up at six.”

Thrilled didn’t even begin to describe his reaction.  When she finished her lunch and went back to sit at the front desk, he couldn’t get over how happy he was feeling.  This was his in, he just knew it.  Spending time with her alone was exactly what he needed to tip the scales in their favor.

As his day wound down, he stopped at the desk to say goodbye.  She smiled sweetly, and he had such an urge to kiss her that he had to dig his fingers into his palms to keep from pulling her into his arms.  Cairo was equally thrilled with the news, also certain that the time alone would help to warm her up.  Dante wasn’t planning to go to the fight.  Sometimes he did, but he felt that being there this first time with her might make her feel like they were trying to overwhelm her.

He drove his Escalade to her apartment to pick her up on Saturday night.  She hadn’t balked at being picked up, and he was glad for that.  He didn’t want her wandering alone around the arena.  There were too many people with questionable pasts hanging around for a sweetheart like her to be unguarded.

He hadn’t been this nervous in ages.  He had dressed carefully in slacks and a black silk dress shirt.  It had taken him a while, but he’d even managed to tame his curly hair back into a sleek ponytail.

Grabbing the single white rose he had purchased for her on the way to the apartment, he walked down the sidewalk and knocked on her front door.  A vision in a short black dress greeted his eyes as she opened the door with a tentative smile.

“Wow, Lys, you look fantastic.”