Love Under Three Titans (17 page)

Maggie thought she must have dozed off for a few moments. The next thing she knew, Trevor was lifting her up out of the water. He handed her over to Kevin, who wrapped her in a large, fluffy towel.

Kevin sat on the vanity chair with her on his lap and blotted the water from her body. He crooned to her, sounds without words yet rife with meaning. Maggie sighed, the sense of being pampered and cared for sweet and wonderful.

“Are you too sore or too tired for more, baby?”

Even through the thick towel, the hard ridge of Kevin’s cock poked against her. Maggie wouldn’t have thought she’d be interested in any more sex. And yet, that ridge, Kevin’s voice rumbling so deep and soft, and the sheer pleasure of being cocooned all combined to stir the embers of her fires.

“What did you have in mind?”

Instead of answering her immediately, he lifted her chin with a single finger, tilting her face up just enough. He kissed her, his mouth opening wide over hers. Moist heat and the essence of man tantalized her taste buds. She gave him her tongue and drank him in as surely as he drank her.

“I want your ass, baby. I want to take that plug out of you and replace it with my cock.”

“Oh, God.” All her female bits came alive with that suggestion. Her breathing hitched, and the hunger so recently sated exploded within her once more.

Kevin opened the towel and looked down at her breasts. Her nipples had pebbled, and she knew if he checked, he’d find her slit already wet with arousal.

He reached down and flicked her already-hard nipples with a finger. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Yes.” She wanted every experience these men could give her. She wanted it all.

Kevin stood with her still in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. She wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled his cheek and jaw when he began to lower her feet to the floor.

She pressed herself close to the hot, hard planes of his body and rubbed her breasts back and forth against his chest. She loved the friction and the way his chest hair tickled her nipples.

Kevin’s cock flexed against her, and then he combed his fingers through the wet, wild curls of her hair, pulling her head back, making her meet his gaze.

“You get me so hot, baby. No woman has ever turned me on the way you do.” He kissed her, his lips nearly bruising in their strength, as if he could imprint himself on her.

Maggie felt herself melting inside, and the irresistible urge filled her to give this man whatever he asked, whatever he needed. So she opened to him and submitted to him, completely letting go of all control, ceding it without worry or even a second thought.

Kevin kissed her long and hard, accepting her gift, and then eased his lips from hers. “Christ, woman. Do you know what that does to me?”

“Show me.”

He stepped back and cupped her shoulders. He ran his hands down her arms to her fingers and then brought her fingers to his lips.

That he trembled, touching her, thrilled her. She’d submitted yet never felt as powerful as a woman.

“Get on the bed, baby, on your hands and knees.”

She’d momentarily lost track of her other lovers, but they’d been waiting in the bedroom, their eyes focused on her. She turned to get on the bed and saw a tube and a condom on the mattress. Her other men had placed those there, and Maggie had the sense that regardless of the fact that it was Kevin who would fuck her ass, the men would all three share in this moment.

She felt the bed dip once she got into position. Richard stretched out beside her on her right, Trevor on her left. Richard leaned in and kissed her, a carnal tasting that ended too soon. Trevor claimed his kiss next, his tongue bold and strong, a total oral mating. Maggie shivered as Kevin eased the plug out of her and then spread more gel on her anus, using his fingers to ensure the lubrication reached inside her.

Richard and Trevor began to stroke her, petting her breasts, her arms, and her back. Soothing and arousing, their touch helped her, eased her.

“Relax, love.” Richard licked the shell of her ear. “Lay your head on the pillow and just let go.”

Four hands caressed her as two hands grasped the cheeks of her ass and spread them. Kevin moved closer, and she felt the heat of his nearness. Then his latex-covered cock, hot and feeling entirely too big, pushed against her anus.

“If you want me to stop, just tell me, baby. I don’t want to hurt you.”

The burning came as she knew it would, and then the burning edged into a small pain. Maggie inhaled deeply and tried to relax, but relaxation refused to come. The small pain steadily grew, and Maggie couldn’t hold back the whimper that escaped. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but her feral woman recognized the potential, and resisted.

“Baby?”

She wanted this, and she would have this. “Please…more.”

She heard Kevin inhale through his teeth. She recognized his fierce control by the way his hands gripped her, and she understood his control cost him.

A tiny part of her wanted to shatter that control. She pushed back against him, daring herself to take even before she was given.

“Don’t, baby. I’m trying to be gentle, here.”

The pain had morphed into something unexpected, something alive and hungry, something that set fire to her nerve endings and teased her arousal into full, burning, raging need.

Maggie moaned, and said, “Please, baby,
fuck me
.” And she pressed back once more and kept pressing. Then, finally, her rosette opened and Kevin slid all the way into her. She shivered when his balls bounced against the very base of her pussy.

“So tight…oh, Maggie, so
good
.” Kevin’s words sounded tortured, and Maggie thrilled at the sound of them. She knew she was giving him a pleasure so fierce it tested his will. When he withdrew nearly all the way and then slid in again, she shivered, because her will nearly shattered, too.

“Let go, baby. Have mercy on us both and just let go.”

Maggie wanted to deny understanding, but deep inside, she knew. She thought she’d surrendered to him, to this, and yet she could feel that edge of tension along her legs and in her hips.

Unconsciously, she’d braced herself, a woman’s instinctual self-protection at this most vulnerable of moments.

Richard and Trevor cocooned her, stroking her back and her legs, their murmurs soft, low, and encouraging. Maggie mewed, she whimpered, and she reached down deep inside herself and finally,
finally
let go.

“Yes. Oh, baby, yes.” Kevin began to move in her, her muscles no longer resisting his thrusts. The friction of his cock in and out of her anus sent electric-like sizzles to her clit and her nipples. Arousal that had nearly stalled surged, and Maggie could do nothing but lie there and experience the wonder of it. Without control, without anything to hang on to, the orgasm gathered, the perfect storm, and soared up and out of her. She cried, she screamed, and she shivered as wave after wave of unparalleled bliss bathed her in rapture and ecstasy.

She felt Kevin stiffen, heard his shout, and groaned as his climax became a part of her deepest pleasure.

* * * *

Drinking wine was probably not a good idea, considering how boneless Maggie already felt. But since she’d been seated at her own table and told to relax, she guessed she could accept the glass of Chablis Trevor had just placed in front of her.

As he’d poured the glass, she’d noticed for the first time that not only had they brought white wine—the only kind she liked—they’d brought her favorite label, too.

She could never make the claim that these three men barely knew her. Maggie was coming to believe that they knew her better than she knew herself.

She took a small sip of the white, savoring the taste on her tongue, letting it slide subtly down her throat. Then she shook her head and chuckled. “I invited the three of
you
to dinner.” Maggie had fully intended to perform the hostess duties—even if it was already past ten in the evening—including all of the preparation and the cooking, too.

Tonight, however, her men wouldn’t hear of it.

She paused with her wine glass halfway to her lips.
Her men
. She couldn’t deny the reality of that thought, since they’d all just shared a hot tub and some damn fine sex.

“And we appreciated the invitation.” Trevor slid in to the chair next to her. “It gives us the opportunity to spend time with you.”

“You’ve been working all day, love. Let us take care of you, at least for the rest of the night.”

The rest of the night? Did that mean they’d stay over and there’d be more bouts of lusty sex?

Oh, goody
.

As if they’d read her mind, the brothers Benedict each gave her a cheeky grin.

Richard took the salad out of the fridge and then set the table, Trevor wrapped some potatoes in foil and took them to the grill, and Kevin supervised the outdoor cooking. In short order, dinner was served, and Maggie wasn’t ashamed to admit she was starving.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one.

The next several minutes were spent in mutual munching as they all worked to clear their plates. Maggie liked the way they fit in bed, but she liked the way they fit outside of it, too. Here they all were, having a great meal together in complete comfort.

During the few dates she’d been on in the past, she’d discovered an odd quirk about herself. She didn’t particularly like the act of eating in front of someone she didn’t know really well.

Likely goes back to Mother
. Virginia Morrison had always been so rigid in policing her daughter’s table manners. Maggie believed herself to have impeccable manners, but her mother had usually been able to find fault.

Maggie had never felt uncomfortable eating with these men.

“You cooked my steak just right.” She saluted Kevin with her wine glass and took a delicate sip. Looking around the table reminded her of what the men had been up to earlier that day while she’d been working on her library and conducting research into possible advertising mediums.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier”—and considering how they’d spent the last few hours, she knew they would never have expected her to—“how did that interview go this afternoon?”

“It didn’t.” Trevor shook his head and set his fork down. “That reminds me, I never did check to see if I got a return call from Williams or not.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on. “Not. Likely, the man won’t get back to me until tomorrow, now.” Trevor set his cell phone on the table above his plate and resumed eating.

Kevin shook his head then used his fork as a pointer aimed at Richard. “That woman sure had a hard-on for you, Rick,” he said.

“I think someone needs to explain that one to me.” Maggie gave them each a wide smile that they correctly interpreted as trouble—for them, if they didn’t give her the details, and fast.

Richard laughed, then put his hand over hers and squeezed.

“That was a poor choice of words on Kevin’s part, love. He meant that she didn’t like me
at all
—and that was even
before
I opened my mouth and turned on my irresistible charm.”

Maggie laughed. Minutes later, laughter turned to shock as Richard explained what had happened at the restaurant that afternoon.

She shook her head, nearly speechless. She could never understand so-called professionals who behaved in a completely unprofessional manner. “I agree with you,” she said after a moment. “It sounds as if she came to the interview with her mind already made up and pissed about something. You’re sure you’ve never met her before?”

Richard tilted his head, and although he tried to look wounded, the sparkle in his eyes gave him away. “You think I’m some heartless Lothario, leaving brokenhearted women scattered in my wake like so much flotsam?”

Maggie cupped his face with one hand and gave him a quick, light kiss. “No, darling, I certainly do not. Although how you’ve managed to live this long without being swarmed by dozens of women is completely beyond me.”

He took her hand from his cheek and kissed it. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. What I meant by my question was, perhaps you and this reporter crossed paths sometime in the past, in some other arena. Did she ever work for you? Or maybe someone close to her did and got fired. People don’t do things without having a reason. If this reporter was willing to risk a public scene
and
getting herself fired, she had to have had what she felt was an awfully good reason.”

“Hmm, I never thought of it like that, but you’re right.” Richard sat back, and Maggie could tell by the way his eyes sort of went unfocused that he was thinking about her question. Then he shook his head.

“We’ve actually fired very few people, considering the size of our company.” Richard shrugged. “There are even fewer terminations that we ourselves would have been involved in personally. Maybe we’ll get the uncles to look into this—provide some work for the Benedict-Murphy detective agency. It’s not a big deal, really, except that I
hate
unsolved mysteries.” He took a moment to drink from his own glass of wine. “I’m not a child. I don’t expect, or even want, everyone to like me. But I like to know why I’m
hated
.”

“Well, I can’t imagine that any of you have any enemies.” Maggie felt certain she was right on that score. “None of you strike me as being particularly ruthless.”

Instead of preening at what she’d believed was a compliment, Richard shrugged and looked just a little uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry to disillusion you, Maggie, but I
can
be ruthless if I need to be,” Richard said. “In fact, we’re all three of us quite capable of that.”

“We’re Texans.” Kevin said that as if those two words explained everything.

She instinctively turned to Trevor, knowing he’d explain. As if he’d read her mind, he nodded. “If someone we love is threatened or harmed or even treated badly, we won’t stand idly by and do nothing. We’ll strike back, quickly and without hesitation. And if the cause is just enough, without mercy.”

Something in the almost-casual tone of that sentence, which really was anything
but
casual, alerted Maggie. There was something here, and she wondered if it could be at the root of that reporter’s strange behavior.

“Okay.” She looked at each one of them. She chose her words carefully. “Is there someone with whom you needed to become ruthless lately?”

They exchanged glances, and Maggie knew they were communicating with each other, even though none of them said a single word. Finally, with both of his brothers staring at him, Richard exhaled and met Maggie’s gaze.

“We made a mistake several months ago, when we were still in New York.” He sat back slightly and reached for her hand. Without hesitation, she gave it to him.

“We acted out of the best of intentions,” Richard continued, “but that doesn’t really absolve us from blame for what happened. That mistake put a man into a position whereby he was able to hurt someone we love.” He paused and looked at each of his brothers. Then he faced Maggie again. “So of course, we had to fix it.”

Maggie couldn’t claim she understood completely what it was Richard was telling her. But she recalled a conversation she’d heard the day after her niece’s engagement party, a conversation between Ginny and Tracy about the brothers Benedict.

“Did the mistake you made have anything to do with your sister, Julia?”

All three of the Benedicts looked a little uncomfortable. But they didn’t let that stop them from answering her.

“It had everything to do with the squirt,” Richard said.

“She worked with us for a time, before she went off and got a position with the Port Authority,” Trevor said. “She enjoyed the work—she’s very much like me, a people person. Anyway, as time passed, we noticed that she rarely dated, and when she did, it was just one man at a time. We thought she wasn’t interested in ménage relationships. We also thought she was unhappy—lonely. The relationships she had with these men didn’t seem to last long, and she appeared to be…sad.”

“We thought she wanted to have a steady relationship but, for whatever reason, couldn’t find the right man,” Kevin said. “For all that she’s a people person, she’s not as outgoing as some people think she is.”

“After she’d left the company, we took on a consulting firm, based in London, to help us come up with a strategy for expanding Benedict International’s presence overseas.” Richard rubbed the back of Maggie’s hand with his thumb. An almost absentminded gesture, she noticed he seemed to do that when he was nervous or stressed.

“Anyway, long story short, the man who came over and met with us seemed like the sort of man Julia would be drawn to. Sophisticated, well educated…” Richard’s voice trailed off.

“He looked good and smelled good,” Trevor said. “We’d run some basic background checks on the company, and the family—it was a family-run business, four generations on—and we decided, in our big-brothers-know-it-all kind of way, that this guy would be perfect for her.”

“And because we know our baby sister,” Kevin said, “when we arranged for her to ‘accidentally encounter’ the man in Rick’s office, we acted reluctant to introduce him to her and then told her to forget she’d ever met him, that he wasn’t for her.”

“Oh, dear.” Maggie had a bad feeling. “I take it what happened next was more than just a romance going bad?”

“Yeah.” Richard looked thoroughly pissed, and Maggie bet it was a toss-up as to who he was most angry with—his sister’s unnamed suitor or himself. “We didn’t find out the truth of the matter until after she’d dumped the bastard. Suffice it to say he treated her like shit. And then we found out the entire time he was dating Julia he had a fiancée waiting for him over in England. He thought he could use Julia and then just toss her aside.”

Because her niece Ginny’s experience was so fresh in her memory, she squeezed Richard’s hand and asked, “That bastard didn’t hit her, did he?”

“No! No, love. Although the three of us believe things might have been heading in that direction at the time Julia finally got rid of him, she says he didn’t. We believe her.”

“Which is why the bastard is still alive and walking around on two legs,” Kevin said.

Richard shrugged and then opened his hands, palms up. “Exactly. We’re not unreasonable men. We didn’t beat the hell out of him. We simply ruined him—socially and financially.”