Butterfly Madness [Loving in Silver 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

“Good because I don’t mind hearing it again.”

The kiss which followed these declarations was brief, but conveyed everything. Gray lifted his head, giving Roarke a smile which sent his pulse racing and his cock hardening. It always had the same effect on him.

“I think our little lady is far enough down the street we can follow without looking too suspicious.”

They walked down the street, Gray’s arm around his waist. Roarke tried to think of something to get rid of his hard cock, but even thoughts of his fifth grade teacher and the huge hairy mole on her upper lip made little difference. Damn! It usually worked in emergency situations. He shook his head and tried to think of something other than Gray tying him to their bed and fucking him senseless, or of beautiful butterflies floating across honey-gold skin. He wanted to kiss each and every one of them.

“I wonder how much she knows about Silver.”

Gray shrugged broad shoulders. “I suppose it depends on how long she’s been here or who she knows. Look, she’s going into Colt’s office. Maybe she’s looking at houses.”

“Well, that’s not good. How are we going to get her to live with us if she has her own house?”

“I still suggest we get her name first and work out everything else later. She could be married, engaged, or simply not interested. She could also be gay.” Gray looked down at him. He was six feet tall, but he enjoyed the other man’s additional five inches. “Did you just whine?”

Roarke had hoped Gray had missed that. He felt the heat along his cheekbones. “Caught that, did you? Not very manly,” he agreed. He cleared his throat, attempting a deeper, manlier tone. “Okay, let me try again. Darn that woman for spoiling all of our plans.”

Gray laughed and bent to kiss him again. “Better. You look damn sexy in that new hat. Maybe we’ll play ‘Ride the Cowboy’ tonight.” Okay, so now he was getting seriously hard again. Roarke groaned as he imagined wearing the worn, black leather chaps and the black felt hat. “Not helping here,” he grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m going to get arrested any moment.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got connections.” Gray grabbed his hand, leading him down the sidewalk as their quarry left their friend’s real estate office and continued down the street toward the residential area on the other end. “Come on. We’ll talk to Colt. He’ll tell us who she is.”

The front of the realtor’s office had four desks. They were all occupied by four people who looked like they’d never gotten the sticks out of their asses. Subdued business suits on the women and the men, neatly styled hair, and perfectly manicured hands. Colt Redford was all business and wanted those working for him to look the part.

The dragon at the door to their friend’s office jumped up to stand in front of it when she realized they were not going to bother to ask if Colt was available.

“You can’t go in there,” she stated coldly.

They loved to irritate the woman. He grinned at her. “Yes we can.” As he said this he reached around her to push the handle down on the door. He pushed the door open. “We’re here on official business.” When she started to follow him in, he stopped her with a firm voice. “You might not want to be here for this. We might have to strip-search your boss.”

She was left gasping in the doorway, her face turning an odd shade of red. Gray closed the panel as the tall, handsome man behind the desk started chuckling. “You two know how to make that woman lose it. She’ll probably threaten to quit again.”

Roarke shook his head. “She won’t quit. Right now she’s out there imagining you naked.”

“Please. She’s old enough to be my mother.”

“Maybe. But she’s not dead yet. Now, we need to know who that woman with the butterflies is.”

They watched Colt lean back in his chair. Roarke didn’t think he’d ever seen such a handsome man, besides his Grayson, of course. Colt was so handsome he was almost beautiful, but in a very masculine way. He wasn’t feminine or soft looking. He had fantastic bone structure, likely passed along to him by a Russian ancestor. He had seen a painting of the woman once, where it hung in one of the many rooms in the huge mansion Colt called home until he was in his early twenties. It was the ancestral home, but the man didn’t live there, claiming it was too big for one person. There was a staff living there, however, to see to the daily care of the place. And, as it was the house of one of the town’s founders, and a fabulous example of Queen Anne architecture, it was also considered something of a tourist attraction.

Yes, the man did have a hint of an exotic blood. Roarke blinked as he realized a name was floating around and he had missed it.

“What was that?”

“Marley,” Colt repeated. He was not always a man of patience. “Her name is Marley Jacobson. Now pay attention, or you can just wait until Gray can fill you in on anything you miss.”

“Fuck you, Colt.”

The man wasn’t offended. He just grinned. It was a dangerous kind of thing. “Don’t you just wish you could?”

“Leave my fantasies out of this.” Colt and Gray laughed. “Is she visiting here? Moving here? Passing through?”

“Moving here. Actually, she’s already here, but she’s not happy with the house she has. She’s renting from me, but finds she needs more room. Since I don’t have anything else to rent at the moment, I’m going to let her live at the house with her dogs.”

Roarke stared at Colt. He knew Gray was doing the same. “Your house? A dog at the manor? Inside the house?”

“Yes to both.” Colt laughed again at their amazed expressions. He tossed the pen he was holding down onto an open appointment book. “I find myself fascinated by the charming Miss Jacobson.”

Gray growled, actually growled, low in his throat. “Uh, I think he’s about to pee on something. Maybe you’d like to rephrase that?” Roarke suggested quickly.

“Why? It’s so much more fun to pull his chain. Now, let’s get back to the beautiful, incredibly sexy, and alluring Marley Jacobson. I want to keep her close. Keep an eye on her. She doesn’t know anyone here.”

“So why is she here?”

“She closed her eyes and threw a dart at a map of the States. It hit closest to Silver, so here she is.”

“No one does that.”

“Well, most people wouldn’t. But I’ve gathered from talking to her that she’s something of a free spirit and wanted a fresh start.” His expression closed up a little. “That’s all I can share. Anything else you want to know, you will have to ask her about yourselves.”

Knowing Colt as well as they did, they knew there was no point in questioning him further. When they were about to thank him, the door burst open and two balls of femininity came rushing into the room. The dragon came in huffing and puffing, glaring at the two newest intruders with furious eyes. They hid behind the tall, black leather executive chair he was seated in.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Redford. I told them you had someone in here with you.”

“Calm yourself, Miss Jersey. Bliss and Clarissa are more than welcome in here no matter who is in here with me. You just need to remember that.”

The woman’s chest heaved beneath her gray suit jacket and prim white blouse. Color was spreading across her face at an alarming rate. “I don’t know why you bother to pay me to keep people from bothering you, Mr. Redford. I really don’t.”

“I pay you to know
which
people to keep out, Miss Jersey. My friends, and certain others,” he said as he drew the two small women around to him, “are welcome to come in at any time they wish. I’m never too busy for them. Learn the difference. You may go.”

The woman went, the door closing with a decisive snap.

Roarke stared at the two beautiful women now vying for Colt’s attention. They were so beautiful it almost hurt to look at them. Tiny, with light-auburn hair and gray eyes, they could have been sisters. They could have been twins. But there was no blood connection between them. In fact, they had been born and raised on opposite sides of the country, though both were from very wealthy families. One other thing they had in common was their great love for Colt. They were his subs, but there was no mistaking that they felt something more than the usual temporary relationship between a Dom and his subs would offer.

He and Gray had commented on it before, wondering if Colt was aware of the feelings the women had developed toward him.

“You two are rotten,” he was telling them. Bliss was seated across his lap while Clarissa leaned into his side. He had a hand on both of them, gently stroking. Did Colt realize he was in love with the pair? Roarke didn’t think so. “What am I to do with you?”

Slender fingers stroked over the powerful body beneath the charcoal gray suit. “Do you want the short list or the long list?” Bliss asked, her small hand sliding beneath the lapel of his jacket so she could caress the hard muscle beneath the crisp white shirt.

She looked up at him with all the adoration a lover could ever show another. The man couldn’t possibly be blind to it, Roarke thought. Then, again, maybe he was. He’d never known Colt to let his emotions become deeply entangled with another’s. Now he had two women who thought he was perfect.

Colt laughed, smiling down at her. “Incorrigible. You’re both brats. I believe I have a suitable punishment for the two of you.”

“On that note,” Roarke said, grinning. He tugged on Gray’s hand. The man was as fascinated by the two beauties as he was. “We better leave.”

As they walked toward the door, Colt advised, “If you are planning to take Marley as your third, I suggest you tread lightly. Marley isn’t going to be a pushover. She’s going through a lot right now.”

They left with the cryptic advice ringing in their ears. As Gray closed the heavy office door behind them they heard giggles. What he wouldn’t give to see what was going to take place in Colt’s office. Maybe the man would take his naughty subs to the club that night to play out a scene with them. The thought had him hard again. Damn!

The dragon killed it as soon as he turned to look at her. Now that he knew how effective it was, he would use her the next time he had an inconvenient erection.

“Have a good day, Ms. Jersey,” he told her politely as he all but ran out the door after Gray. Once they were back out on the sidewalk they stood looking at one another. “So, what should we do next?” When the other man gave him a blank look, he said, “You’re the trained investigator. Problem solving is your specialty. We’ll put you in charge.”

“You only want me in charge so if I screw it up I can’t blame it on you.”

Roarke grinned and shrugged. “It works for me. So, what do we do next?”

“I say we go for a walk this evening. Take a bottle of wine and visit Colt at the mansion.”

Oh, the man was cunning. But Roarke still had to point out the very obvious flaw in his lover’s plan. “We live here. We’d know Colt doesn’t live at the mansion. You really don’t believe we’ll get away with it, do you?”

Gray grinned in return. “No, but it’ll get us in the door.”

“You’re a genius.”

“I know.”

“But not modest.”

“Nope. Come on. Let’s go get that bottle of wine.”

When Marley had gone to Colt to mildly complain that the house she had rented wasn’t suitable, she hadn’t expected to be given, rent-free, the use of the town’s largest house. Well, it was actually a mansion in every sense of the word.

Mrs. Reed, the housekeeper, had taken her on a tour which seemed to take up the better part of the afternoon as she was given a history of each room. She was very impressed that actual presidents had slept in three of the bedrooms and slept in the very beds she went over to touch. There was history in the whole house.

Overall it was a very interesting place and she would enjoy her stay there. Still, it was so very large, whereas the rental had been too small. She’d had to take all the extra furniture out of the living room so the dogs had enough room to stretch out.

Laughing, she looked over at the reason for the move. The pair of harlequin Great Danes were sprawled over an antique oriental rug. The thing was so big, covering much of the floor of a room measuring probably thirty by forty feet, that they appeared rather small in comparison.

Colt had promised to look into the availability of a couple of properties. Marley had looked at a few, but none of them had interested her. She wanted something with personality, something which would appeal to her inner spirit. And it had to be inside Silver. Though she thought the mountains, forests, and wild meadows around the town to be incredibly beautiful, she had no desire to live on her own away from other people. Those places would be good to go for a day of adventure and fun. She was an experienced hiker and skier. She also enjoyed camping and horseback riding. But those were things she only enjoyed for a day or two at a time, maybe even three. But she always wanted to come back to people. She loved them. She was a people person and depended upon the contact, the social interaction, to keep her grounded.

When Barney sighed, Marley looked down at him. “What’s wrong, big guy? You want to go for a walk?”

They rose with the speed and agility of greyhounds, bounding around and woofing. She flinched as they came perilously close to a delicate little table with an even more delicate-looking vase perched on it. Her heart stopped as panic set in.