Raines, Elizabeth - Wanted [Wicked Missions 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

“Like an elephant,” Callie said with a resigned sigh. “He even looks like one.”

“You know about elephants? You’re human?” Spencer asked. “So are we.”

“I’m not human,” she replied with a shake of her head. “I’m Belusian.”

Hammond’s green eyes flew wide. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was…frightened. “Belusian?” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re an empath? You know what I’m thinking?”

She sighed again as she rolled her eyes. “Why are people so fucking stupid?” A rhetorical question, but it drew frowns from the men that made her mouth twitch in amusement. She squelched the grin. “Empaths don’t read minds. All we do is sense feelings. And before you ask,
no
. I don’t know what either of you feels right now. My empathic abilities suck. I wonder sometimes if I’m really Belusian.” At least she had until her hormones kicked into overdrive.

“I should’ve known,” Spencer said, smoothing her hair over her shoulder, sending shivers of want racing over her skin. How could something as innocent as a touch make her feel such a gut-wrenching need? Every cell in her body came alive when either of the men gave her the simplest attention.

“How could you possibly know?” she asked.

“Your eyes. They’re such a beautiful shade of gray.” Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to the bruises on her bare shoulder. She hissed out a breath in response. “Does it still hurt? I can give you a hypo-spray if you’re in pain.”

How about you strip off those camo pants and give me a hot beef injection instead?
“N…no, thank you. I’m just…exhausted.” The yawn that slipped out right after the words punctuated her statement.

Hammond stood up first, but he bent down to kiss her forehead. She closed her eyes to savor the tender gesture. “Get some rest. We’ll talk later.” Then he frowned, contradicting the kind action. “And you
will
tell us everything.”

She just nodded while wondering how much of
their
lives they’d reveal to
her
. Probably not much.

Spencer brushed his lips over her cheek. “Sleep. Best thing for you, baby. We’ll come get you after Hammond fixes us something to eat.” He stood up and patted the pillow. When she laid down, he dragged the sheet over her body.

The door slid shut behind them, and Callie rolled onto her back to stare at the top of the bunk. Her heart was still racing, and both their scents clung to the pillows. Did they share this bed? The thought of them kissing, touching, loving each other sent more fluids from her pussy.

Right before she allowed sleep to take hold, she wondered how good it could be between the three of them.

Damn good
.

Chapter 3

“What are we supposed to do with her?” Spencer asked as he slid into the copilot’s seat. Their beautiful hostage was still sleeping soundly, and he was relieved her shoulder had only been slightly wounded. He’d also checked for any cracks in the bone where Hammond had slammed her weapon away. Only a small bruise was left behind, and the rifle wound had responded so well to treatment, he figured she’d be good as new in a hurry.

Hammond didn’t even glance over. “We can’t let her go back to Bromond. I don’t care how much she begs. It’s for her own good.”

Spencer nodded. “You don’t have to convince me. She blew Carlos’s fucking nose off!”

“She did, didn’t she?” Hammond’s chuckle made Spencer laugh in return.

Then the seriousness of the whole mess set in again. “He’ll have every scumbag on that pile of sand gunning for her. And if someone catches her…” Spencer shuddered in revulsion. The people he and Hammond had to deal with on a daily basis could do horrible things to a woman, especially one as pretty as Callie.

“I know,” Hammond replied. “He’ll be gunning for us, too, you know.”

That didn’t seem to matter. To either of them. They were well able to protect themselves. Only Callie mattered.
Why?
He wasn’t sure. Spencer had never felt such a need to shelter a woman in his entire life. But he did now, and he simply decided not to fight against that need. “Someone has to protect her. Carlos has arms that reach all the way to Rozale.”

“But we still have to get back to report to our superiors what happened back on that docking platform. At least we know more hiding places on Rozale.” A sigh fell from Hammond’s lips as a weighty silence filled the cabin.

They were both tiptoeing around the real problem, and it sure wasn’t Carlos Pontierri’s criminal empire or lack of a nose. Spencer and Hammond had been learning all they could about the kingpin, gleaning information from the bottom-feeders who worked for him and working their way up the food chain to eventually deal with the man himself. And they’d succeeded.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t expected their first major contact with him to end with the man getting shot and them picking up a delectable little piece of “baggage.” Carlos would never do business with them again, and all their efforts to get close to him had been wasted.

Spencer clenched his hands into fists, vowing that they’d bring that bastard down.
Someday.
But Carlos wasn’t the barrier standing between the partners at that moment.

Callie Seebré was.

One of them had to be the first to be honest—they’d always been honest with each other before. From the moment they’d become partners and started on this…
mission
of theirs, Spencer had known there was something special between him and Hammond. They depended on each other to survive and spent days alone on the
Ecstasy
. While sharing their time, they also began to share their thoughts…and eventually their feelings. Both men had always leaned toward being bisexual, but neither had ever taken the leap into having sex with another man.

Spencer had always feared his attraction to both sexes made him…
wrong
somehow—a fear his religiously zealous family had done little to relieve with their prejudice and bigotry toward homosexuals. So his whole life, he’d been forced to keep his desires a secret.

Until he’d met Hammond.

Although they’d shared a couple of heated kisses, both had been hesitant to become lovers—as if once they crossed that bridge, they’d be forever burning it behind them. Not that either was a virgin, although neither had slept with another man, only with women. In Spencer’s case,
lots
of women as a way to try to fight against what he’d been told was a sinful desire. But the desire was still there, as was a growing affection for his partner. Having his life depend on Hammond was a quick way to forge a close bond between them. Spencer had assumed it was simply a matter of time. Then Callie had slammed her way into their world and changed those dynamics considerably. Spencer felt like a man torn in two—wanting Hammond but also feeling a desire for Callie that he could barely contain.

“It’s okay, Spence. I want her too.” The lopsided smile his partner tossed his way revealed a handsome dimple on his right cheek.

“You know me too well. I was about to say the same thing.” He stared out at the stars that seemed so close and yet so very far away. “I know it seems…odd, but…I think she wants us too. Both of us.”

“Yeah,” Hammond drawled. “I got that vibe too. She is Belusian, after all.”

Spencer nodded. “High sex drive, but I think it’s more than that. It’s like she reacts to us and it scares her.”

Hammond’s grin broadened. “But I bet it won’t stop her.”

“We probably shouldn’t take advantage of that.”

“What if it’s not taking advantage?”

“What do you mean?”

Hammond finally turned to face him, swiveling his chair and leaning forward. “Look, what if there’s something…more there. What if Callie’s a chance for something good in this world, something real? What if she’s our chance to get out of this…work that we do and find something that doesn’t put a bull’s-eye in the center of our chests and make every slimeball want to blast us to pieces? What if she’s our chance to have a family? Isn’t that what we want? A
normal
life?”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Yeah, a three-way relationship is so
normal
.”

Hammond frowned. “It’s about as normal as either of us will ever know.”

He was throwing Spencer’s words back at him, bringing up all the same arguments Spencer had used when he’d first admitted to Hammond that he was falling for him, that he not only wanted him as a friend but as something…more. A little bit of jealousy flared that Hammond felt that for Callie until he realized he felt the same way about her. “You feel that much for her already?”

“Yeah, I do. Strange, I know, but…I just…do.”

“That’s interesting, because so do I.”

“So what do we do?”

Figuring someone had to say it first, Spencer voiced what he knew was spinning through Hammond’s thoughts as well. “What we do is share her.”

Shifting to face the com again, Hammond smiled. “Then it’s time to simply let nature take its course.”

* * * *

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Hammond said as Callie wandered into the galley. The smell of food had awakened her, and her stomach growled loud enough that he smiled in response. “Do you like steak?”

“Steak? You’ve got steak? What kind?” She sat down at the table when he nodded at the chair closest to her.

“Beats me,” he replied. “Whatever I dragged out of the deep freeze.” He held the casserole dish close to his nose and sniffed. “Prolobeast, maybe? Beef?” A chuckle slipped out. “Who the hell knows? It’s protein. I mixed in some vegetables and gravy, so it’s edible.”

Callie shrugged. “I’m not a picky eater.” Hell, back on Bromond, she was lucky if she got a full meal a day. She started to worry she was too thin, then wondered why she was concerned about what the men would think if they saw her naked.

Damn, but these men were too handsome for her peace of mind—two luscious distractions she didn’t need right now.

“Neither am I,” Spencer announced as he came strolling into the room. “Good thing since neither Hammond nor I cook worth a shit.” He dropped a kiss to the top of her head, making her jaw drop in surprise. Then, with a smug grin, he sat down next to her. “How you feeling, baby?”

He had to be doing it on purpose—calling her
baby
no matter how many times she corrected him. She didn’t know him well enough to figure out if he was trying to push her buttons or simply thought of her as his
baby
. And why she hoped it was the latter was beyond her. “Better.” Raising and lowering her arm, she tried to show the men she wasn’t injured and could take care of herself now.

“Good.” Hammond set the casserole on the table and handed Callie a plate. “Ladies first.”

A chuckle slipped out. “No one’s ever accused me of being a lady. Not even when I was little. I’m nothing but an overgrown tomboy.” She grabbed her fork and started scooping food onto her plate. “Smells almost good enough to eat.”

Hammond’s emerald eyes settled on her chest and stayed fixed there until she narrowed her eyes and growled. He actually blushed before serving himself some food and muttering something that sounded like a halfhearted apology.

The three ate in silence, passing furtive glances across the table, passionate and sexual enough to make the temperature in the galley rise. Her empathic skills kicked in, telling her that they were all trapped in some kind of web, feeling a draw that affected all three of them. She was almost powerless to fight it, and she knew they were having the same problem. Callie realized that she not only wanted them—
both of them
—but they wanted her, and perhaps each other, every bit as much. The wave of heat spreading through her was so overpowering, she almost looked around for something to fan herself with.

This was going to be a
long
flight.

After the three of them worked together, surprisingly easily, at cleaning up the aftermath of the meal, Spencer took her hand. “We need to talk.”

“About?”

“It’s time for bed,” Hammond replied, coming to stand next to her and taking her other hand.

“You want to talk about bed?” She sounded like an idiot. Didn’t they realize the effect they were having on her by standing so close? Didn’t they know that when their skin brushed against hers, she was able to get an empathic read on them and felt the lust flowing through both of them? Didn’t they realize that combination of her own sexual desire and theirs was impossible to resist?