Gemini (25 page)

Gemini couldn’t do anything about the silk dress—it was all she had to wear at the moment. But she spent a good bit of the morning after her shower washing and then blowing dry her undies. She was happy for a little quiet time to herself.

After that crazy triple ass-fuck—well, maybe it wasn’t crazy. Somehow it had been claiming, committing, taking and giving and sealing some kind of deal. Anyway, Quinn had wrapped the hotel robe around her again taken her into his arms and sat on the sofa with her cuddled in his lap. Jace and Clay had taken seats, too, and they’d just been together—happy, sated, entirely content—as they finished the wine.

They’d chatted lackadaisically until finally the conversation had come around to Capricorn. Then the guys got into it, making an effort to outdo each other in recalling tales of their days as cadets. Gemini loved it—hearing their fondness for her brother, listening to some of the stories she’d been told in the past only from her brother’s point of view.

“That’s not the way I heard it,” she finally said, when Clay talked about “standing at the door”—their reference to taking a leap out of a plane at five thousand feet with nothing but a rectangle of nylon cloth in a pack on their backs. Sweet, reckless Cap had gotten his jump wings and gone on to join Wings of Blue, the Academy’s competitive jump team.

On their first jump, Cap had been forced to give Clay a discreet shoulder nudge to get him out the door. Or the other way around, depending, apparently, on who was telling the story.

“You know your brother lied about stuff, right?”

She smiled. Yes, she knew that. She remembered Cap and their father trying to outdo each other with wild, flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants tall tales.

Perhaps their reminiscences were more entertaining to them than to her. In any case, she roused a little as Quinn carried her in to bed. She slept in the circle of his arms and woke at daylight to his gentle lovemaking. When they’d finished, she slipped out of bed into the bathroom. A long, hot shower and then the bit of laundry she did had given her some time to think.

The three men were back at the table when she came out of the bathroom, a spread of breakfast choices in front of them. They all stood and watched her when she entered the room.

They were all so gorgeous—brawny, handsome, wickedly sexy. She halted after a few steps, a little taken aback that they were all waiting for her. It was hard to imagine a time when she wouldn’t be stopped in her tracks at such a thing.

But almost as one, their gazes trailed slowly down her body before coming back to her eyes, and then they each smiled. She took a breath, returned their smiles, and walked to join them. She stopped for a kiss from each of them, then sat as Quinn held her chair.

The men ate as though they’d worked up an appetite and, in fact, she learned that Jace and Clay had hit the hotel fitness center—probably right about the time Quinn had been making love to her. It appeared they’d talked some among the three of them as well. When she’d set her fork down and took a last sip of coffee, and expectant silence fell, and Quinn took her hand.

“We want to get married,” he said.

“What?” She couldn’t help her response, not the entirely warranted confusion or the slightly embarrassing thrill that sent her heart soaring.

Clay clarified things. “The three of us. To you.”

Oh, yes
. That was what a soaring heart felt like.

“That’s…” The most amazing thought ever. The exact thing she wanted. “Not legal.” She looked around the table at three pairs of eager eyes. “Not even in Utah, right?”

Jace quirked a smile. “No. We can’t do it legally. We can work out the details of it, but that’s how it would be in our hearts.”

“Me. Married to all of you.” They all nodded, like what they were talking about was entirely reasonable. “But it…it would hardly be a normal life.”

“It would be normal to us.” Jace said it like it was simple.

But it wasn’t. “It wouldn’t be right. I’d be keeping you all from finding your own relationships. From making your own lives with a woman of your own.”

Clay waved his hand. “Yeah. I’m sitting here thinking, great idea. I wish these other two bozos would find their own women, so I can have you all to myself. What are you thinking, Jace?”

“I wish these other two bozos would find themselves another woman. I’d like you all to myself.”

Her eyes had moved from Clay to Jace. She turned to Quinn. He simply nodded.

Jace spoke again. “We’re thirty-three years old, Gem. We’ve known a lot of women. Not a one of us has ever had thoughts of making ties that last forever until we met you.”

Quinn was still holding her hand and he gave it a squeeze. “Why should it be surprising that we’d all fall for the same woman? It makes perfect sense that we’d want the same thing. That we’d all want you.”

Clay lifted her other hand and took it to his lips. “We can make it work, sweetheart. However it makes sense. But we want you in our lives every day. We want you to wake up with one of us every morning.”

“We want children.” That might have come as news to Jace and Clay, but Quinn spoke with blunt certainty.

Jace sat back and considered. “Yeah. I guess we do.”

Gemini shook her head. They were like a three-headed devil, tempting her to risk eternal damnation by offering the thing she wanted most. “That may not be possible.”

Quinn looked at her steadily. “I’m not worried.”

That brought tears to her eyes.

Jace lifted a shoulder. “We want you, Gemmy. We love you. Anything more will just be icing.”

She looked across the table at him, longing for what they offered. “I love icing.”

“We’ll do our best for you.”

Quinn said more. “We’ll spend every day of our lives trying to make you happy.”

She took a deep breath and couldn’t help that it was shaky. “I can’t say no to you. I love you all.”

Three sexy, satisfied grins greeted her words.

“How do we decide who gets to marry her first?” Jace asked.

“Wait for it…” Clay said, almost at the same time Quinn spoke.

“Arm wrestle.”

Jace and Clay both laughed. “He never loses,” Jace explained. “His father was a bricklayer, and Quinn worked summers with him. He’s strong as an ox.”

She’d noticed.

“I lose sometimes.” Quinn sounded almost wounded.

“Yeah. He’ll throw us a bone,” Jace said. “When it doesn’t matter.”

Quinn had his arms cross over his prodigious chest now, making a show of bulging his biceps out. He looked at her solemnly. “This would matter.”

Gemini couldn’t help it. She got up and went to Quinn. He opened his arms and took her into his lap. He held her, his lips pressed into her hair, and she knew, over her head, he was sharing a satisfied moment with his buddies.

“The legal shit doesn’t matter,” Clay said. “Chris’s partner is a minister,” he went on, reminding her of when he’d tried to tempt her with his gay friend. “We’ll get up a ceremony with him. For all of us. That will be what counts.”

She felt the rumble of Quinn’s agreement through his chest and saw Jace’s nod. She smiled, happy as she could be.

Jace stood up and put his hands out to her, taking her from Quinn. She went into his arms. They spent a long moment gazing into each other’s eyes and then he kissed her. It was a touching, sweet commitment.

When he was done, he cupped her cheek. “It’s Friday, baby. Would you like to spend the day here? Enjoy the city a little? Or would you rather head for home?”

“I want to go home.” She clasped Jace’s hands, then stepped back out of his arms. The guys weren’t the only ones who’d been making important decisions. She’d been doing some thinking, too. “But there’s something I have to do first.”

“I know,” Jace said. “You need some clothes. We’ll take you shopping.”

“No. Well, yes. But there’s something else. And I need to do it alone.”

“Not gonna happen.”

* * * *

Clay had stood and crossed his arms over his chest. Most perps backed off when he took that stance. Of course, Gem didn’t. She just looked up at him from where she stood, still holding Jace’s hands. Somehow, he felt the next few minutes were going to set the tone for the rest of his life, and he didn’t think he was going to be happy about the outcome.

“I won’t be in any danger. I’m not going near Bryce. But I have to do this.”

“Then you can do it with us.”

He saw her squeeze Jace’s hands and then let them go. She walked around the table to face Clay directly. It wasn’t going to work. “I’m not the only one here who doesn’t want you to walk out of this room without protection.”

“He’s right, baby,” Quinn said, and Jace murmured his agreement.

“You understand I’m done with having men control my life.”

“Yeah. And you understand that’s not what this is about. It’s offensive that you’d even suggest it.”

“That
is
what this is about.”

“No, it’s not, Gemini. You know what kind of men we are. We just claimed you. You just gave yourself to us. You can’t ask us to let you put yourself in danger. You can’t expect us to let you go out alone when Tomlinson and his goons are out there.”

“He doesn’t know where we are.”

“You don’t know that.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she turned her head. “Quinn.”

There was some history between the bricklayer and his wife, and it was physical. When Quinn was in high school, his mother decided she’d taken enough. She packed up the younger kids and went back to live with her parents. Clay knew the story, and maybe Gem did, too.

Or maybe she just figured Quinn for the softest touch.

The man put a brave face on it. He looked hard at Gemini, and held it for a good long time. But she gazed back at him like she knew what she was asking and asked it anyway. After a while he caved. He put his hands on his hips and dropped his head, staring a hole through the floor. “We have to let her go.”

“Shit.” Clay just kept from kicking the chair in front of him.

With obvious reluctance, Jace opened his wallet and emptied it of cash. He offered it to Gem, meeting her eyes and holding onto it a minute, their hands both clutching at the bills, before he let go. “Be careful.”

“Thank you. I will be.”

Quinn still wasn’t looking at her. She walked over to the entrance. She’d kicked her shoes off and dropped her pearls on the table there when they’d come in last night. Putting a hand out for balance, she wiggled her feet into the heels and then fastened the pearls around her neck.

She came back to Clay, close to his height now in those stupid-hot four-inch heels. He grimly handed her his cell phone and she accepted it. “I’m asking you not to follow me.”

“All right.”

“I know you could, without me knowing. I’m asking you not to.”

“I hear you.”

“But you still haven’t said you wouldn’t.”

Bitch
. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I won’t follow you. I’ll just stay in this fucking hotel room and worry like a pussy.”

She had the nerve to grin, but then she kissed him pretty good. “That’s my man.”

She went back to Jace next, who was probably the only reasonable male in the room at the moment. “I’ll be back by late afternoon. We can spend the night here if you all want to, or leave right away. I want to go home.”

“All right. We’ll wait for you. Then we’ll get a few hours on the road tonight.”

She kissed him, too.

Then she went to Quinn, who was obviously still suffering. She circled his neck, pressed up against him, and snuggled into his shoulder until he finally lifted his arms to hold her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I know you will.”

“Thank you.”

“You know if anything happens to you, Clay is going to kill me.”

She touched his face. “I know.”

They kissed, and then three idiots watched her walk out the door.

As soon as the door was closed, Clay held out his hand to Jace. “Phone,” he said. He watched the others as he dialed. His favorite tech guy, a kid name Shawn, picked up after several rings. Clay identified himself and then put him on speaker.

“I worked the night shift, you know.”

“Sorry, buddy. I’m off the clock.”

“What do you need?”

“I need you to track my phone.”

“You don’t know where you are?”

He chuckled and met the eyes of his buddies without guilt as they all sat at the table. “I’m in Sacramento. Someone else has my phone, and I need to know where that someone goes.”

“You’re avoiding pronouns, and this has woman written all over it. Go ahead and say it.”

“It’s a woman.”

“She’s at the…” It hardly took him a minute. “Citizen Hotel.”

“Gift shop,” Jace said. “She needs a purse.”

Shawn was quiet for a minute. “Do you want to know her calls, too?”

“Yep.”

“Nothing since yesterday. Well, a call to the station and another to Sam, but I imagine that was you.”

They sat for two hours. Gemini shopped. She spent most of her time at Arden Fair Mall. She didn’t make any calls—at least, not on Clay’s phone. Just after noon, she headed back downtown. When she stopped moving, she was at the Channel 10 television building.

“Let’s roll,” Clay said. “She’s going public.”

Quinn stood, too. “You said you wouldn’t follow her.”

“I didn’t follow her. I’m just going where she is now.”

Shawn spoke into the tense atmosphere. “They’ve got a live local talk show at one o’clock. It’s hosted by a woman named Christine Brewer.”

“Thanks, Shawn. We’re probably done. I’ll call you back if I need anything more.”

“Good luck, dude.”

Clay looked at Quinn. “Maybe she can keep it quiet until they go on air. But within a few minutes of one o’clock, Tomlinson is going to know where she is and what she’s doing. You going to stay here?”

“No.”

They all moved fast and within a few minutes, they had their belongings collected and were back in the old Lexus. It was a little after one when Clay used his badge to get them to the studio.