One Four All (14 page)

“Tanner,” she whispered. “I love the way he takes charge.”

Red chuckled, and Lira bounced up and down against his chest. “You like that, do you? It’s his job, sweetie. If you want, when this is over, we can have him tie you up.”

Lira looked up at the tall man. “Tie me up?”

“Yeah, tie you to a bed. Then he can really take charge. Might be kinda fun, if you know what I mean.”

“Ah.” Lira snuggled against Red’s chest. She felt the zodiac being pushed out into the water. “You mean bondage.”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“Have you tried it?” she asked.

Red coughed. “A man doesn’t discuss what he’s done with another woman with his wife, now, does he?”

“You don’t have to tell me about another woman,” Lira murmured. “I might have to find her and kill her.” She felt Red’s laughter. “I’m just wondering if you would enjoy this bondage.”

“All of us?” Red rubbed his erection against her hip. “I’m way ahead of you, woman.” He kissed her forehead. “Kepp’s right,” he commented, “you are burning up. I think you’re a bit delirious, talking about bondage at a time like this. Are you always this funny when you’re sick?”

“I don’t know,” Lira replied, rubbing her cheek against Red’s chest. “I don’t get sick very often. Right now, I’m happy to imagine such a perfect delirium. Me, tied up, the three of you, doing things? The picture makes me feel better.” She felt the small boat rock as Kepp and Wat jumped in.

“Makes me feel better, too,” Red growled in her ear, “but that’s enough of that. I need to concentrate, I’m the lookout. I can’t focus when all I can see is you tied to a bed and I’ve got a
picture
in my head, in both my heads, of the
things
the three of us might do to you.”

Wat slid next to Red. He leaned over and kissed Lira’s forehead. “Damn, girl, you are burning up. What are you two whispering about?”

“Oh, silk scarves and bedposts.” Red grinned, and Lira pinched him, but the man was unrepentant. “She’s interested, when the timing’s a bit better.”

Wat laughed. “I’m always interested. Count me in.”

“Hey, Wat,” Tanner’s quiet voice interrupted them, “we’ll need to start up the motor after all. If we don’t, I’m afraid we’ll be tossed up on those rocks over there.” He pointed to the near shore. “We can’t risk capsizing.”

“On it, boss.” Wat shot Lira a wicked grin and climbed to the rear of the zodiac.

Lira bit Red’s chest, and he smacked her bottom in return. “Bad girl,” he teased. “That’s enough out of you. Go back to sleep before I do something Kepp will regret.”

“Like what.” She yawned. She was growing very sleepy.

“Use your imagination,” the big man said. “Close your eyes and we’ll be across before you know it.”

* * * *

“I’m a little worried about her, Kepp. She was getting kind of goofy right before she drifted off.”

“Yeah, I caught some of that.” Kepp grinned despite his worry. “Her fever seems pretty high, but I don’t want to give her anything just yet. She might need the fever to fight the infection.”

“We have an injection pack in the med kit,” said Red.

“I’ll use an antibiotic if I need to. This seems to have come on awfully fast to be pneumonia, but she did almost drown. Might be as simple as her body’s reaction to the seawater in her lungs. If her fever’s still climbing by the time we reach the shore, I’ll give her something.”

“What did the commander say?”

“There’s a heli-jet on the way. I’ve given him our current coordinates and Wat’s estimate of the coordinates where we’ll land. He knows about the fishing boat, and he’s passing the information onto General Battarq.” Kepp tilted his head in the direction from which they’d just come. “There’s still a single light back there. Whenever we crest the peak of a wave, I can see it.”

“Then if we’re lucky, a Coast Guard cutter may reach us first,” said Red. “If I have my druthers, I’d prefer to avoid a patrol of Zealots.”

The men listened in silence to the low hum of the electric motor. Wat steered the little craft with expert hands. Red shifted Lira in his arms.

“You want me to take her?” asked Kepp. “Your head still hurting?”

“It’s not too bad,” replied Red, “but you might as well. You know you want to.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“To someone who’s known you for ten years, yes.”

Careful not to wake her, Kepp reached for Lira. He cradled her against his broad chest.
Damn, she’s everything I want in a woman, and in order to have her, I’ll have to share her with my two best friends for the rest of my life.

“So do you think you can really do this and not hate our guts?”

“What?” asked Kepp.

“Share,” said Red. “It’s one word, but three men. Share. That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” Kepp stared down at the woman in his arms.

Red looked out over the water. “You’re the one, you know. If she could only have one of us, she’d pick you.” When Kepp didn’t reply, Red continued. “I can accept that. Even knowing how she feels, I still want to be with her.”

Wat spoke up. “Me too. I’ve given this some thought. If I could choose one woman in the world to spend the rest of my life with, it would be Lira. No one else is half as interesting or nearly as brave. She saved Red’s life, and she came for us. I can share a woman like Lira. What I can’t live with is the idea of three other men taking her, and that’s what will happen if we walk away.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Kepp. If they left her, she’d be required by the laws of her land to choose three other consorts and what if…
by God, what if they’d managed to get her pregnant?
It was certainly possible.
What would happen to their child?

“It’s harder for you,” commented Red. “You have more to lose than Wat and I do. Your commission, for one thing, your family’s holdings for another.”

Kepp snorted. “I haven’t spent more than a couple of months on the ranch in five years. My brothers can handle just about anything that comes up, and my parents are still in good health. It’s just,” he struggled to find the right word, “it’s just that I think I’m in love with this woman. It never occurred to me that I would have to share the woman I love with two other men for any reason, let alone because it’s the law in Zhinshu.”

“Not that it ever occurred to any of us we’d be sharing a princess, the heir to the throne.” Wat laughed. “Look at it this way, Captain. You’d be with two men you can trust with your life. That has to count for something.”

“We’d have to make a pact,” interrupted Red, “that’s what we’d do. We make a pact that we never come to blows over her. I, for one, would prefer not to beat the shit out of my two best friends.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Wat grinned. “But, then, nothing gets me too riled up. The way I see it, Lira’s the whole package. I can’t do any better.”

Kepp felt Red nudge him. “What do you say, Captain? You gonna back out now?”

The captain held the woman in his arms and imagined how it would feel to let her go. He could if necessary, for his country, but the truth was, he didn’t want to leave her. He never wanted to lose Lira. Leaning down, Kepp brushed his lips over her forehead. “Hey, Wat,” he said in a quiet voice, “how much longer? She’s burning up.”

“Another twenty, thirty minutes maybe,” replied his friend. “This engine’s a piece of shit.”

“You want the med kit?” asked Red. He sounded worried.

“Yeah,” Kepp answered. “Get me a ketoprofen injection. I’ll see if that will bring her fever down.”

Red wrestled the med kit out of Wat’s bag and searched for the prefilled syringes. “Hard to tell what’s what in the dark,” he muttered. “I’m gonna have to risk a little light.”

Kepp peered in the direction of the fishing boat. They’d traveled quite a ways down the channel. “I think it’s safe,” he said. “Keep your body between the pen light and the shore at Land’s End. That should block any view from the fishing boat, too.”

The small metal cylinders containing injectable medication clacked against each other as Red thumbed through them. “Here.” At last Kepp heard his friend unscrewing the lid. There was a small hiss as the hard, plastic catheter slid into place, puncturing the vacuum seal. “Ready. You want to do this, or should I?”

“Go ahead,” Kepp instructed Red. “Stick it into the big muscle in her thigh. You can shoot it through the fatigues.”

Red pulled the blanket away from Lira’s leg.

“Right here,” said Kepp, and he pinched up a section of Lira’s quadriceps. The set was an auto-ject. All Red had to do was hit the spot.

“Got it.”

Lira gave a little jerk when Red stuck her with the catheter, but the process took less than two seconds. As Kepp watched, Red withdrew the catheter and flipped on the safety cover. He returned it to the canister and tossed it into Wat’s bag.

Lira looked up at Kepp. Despite the darkness, he could see the pale whites of her eyes. “Why did you pinch me?” she asked.

“You have a fever, love. We gave you some medicine.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounded hoarse. “I was dreaming we were in the bathtub again, like last night, and the water was hot, very hot.” She gave him a little smile. “I’d like to do that again, Tanner. Perhaps you can be the one to take me from behind the next time? I haven’t had you that way, and I was hoping...” Lira fell asleep before she could finish her sentence.

Red grinned unabashedly at her words while Wat made a valiant attempt to smother his laughter.

Kepp bit back a curse. He wondered if he looked as miserable as he felt. Damn her, he did want to fuck her from behind. He wanted her every which way. Just the smell of jasmine drifting up from her hair made him hard as a rock. He’d promised himself to her and now, like a coward, he wanted to cut and run just because the rules she lived by didn’t award him the biggest piece of pie. Shit, he didn’t want a piece of the pie, he wanted the whole thing all for himself. He wanted to eat it still steaming-warm from the oven with thick, sweet cream poured over the top.

Kepp wanted to kick his own ass. It’s what he deserved. Lira trusted him. Christ, she’d killed two men to protect Red, and she’d rushed to save him and Wat with nothing more than her bare hands.
If that wasn’t devotion, what was?

“Twenty yards to shore, captain,” whispered Wat. He cut the engines. Their own momentum carried them into the shallows.

As Kepp handed Lira over to Red, he noticed that she’d opened her eyes. He wanted to say something to her but there wasn’t time. He and Wat jumped out of the craft, and together they hauled it onto the beach.

“C’mon, Lira, let’s go,” said Kepp as Red lifted her into his arms. “We need cover. Let’s head for the trees. We should be able to turn on our signal beacon so the pilot can locate us.”

Wat slung his bag over his shoulder and, pistol in his hand, took the lead. Red followed. Kepp, carrying Lira, brought up the rear. They were just a few steps from the safety of the forest when Kepp heard the sound of a clip being shoved into an automatic weapon. He stopped in his tracks.

“Well, well, well. Welcome to the beautiful shores of Zhinshu, Khubuk scum.”

There was the sound of more weapons being drawn and then the sight of men pouring from the trees, surrounding them. Wat and Red turned to flank him.
Fuck.
If they were dead men, then Lira would die with them.

Kepp turned toward the voice. “You can’t kill us.”

“Why not?” The Zealot laughed, his soft voice tinged with menace in the dark night. “It’s what we do best.”