Opulent Match [Ménage.com 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (2 page)

Cooper was the taller of the two, with his black hair trimmed short, just like he wore it in the military. He was lean, but all muscle. She’d caught a glimpse of the black tattoo that seemed to peek out of his T-shirt, near his neck. He must have gotten it when they were in the service, because his body hadn’t had one blemish on it when they had been together. It made her wonder how much of that tattoo covered his body. She let her eyes drift lower, loving the way his jeans hugged his ass. Cyn looked over at Brody’s ass, knowing his was a bit broader and meatier. The denim hugged him in all the right places. Dragging her eyes up, she couldn’t help her sigh of disappointment when she realized his black jacket covered the upper half of his body. Brody was just under six feet, with a massive chest that seemed to be sculpted out of marble. Her fingertips tingled, remembering how she used to trace the contours of his muscles, making circles until she got to his nipples. She loved the moans she could get him to elicit.

“Earth to Cyn,” Elise said, waving her hand in front of Cyn’s face. “For someone who says she doesn’t want them, you certainly can’t take your eyes off of their bodies.”

“That’s just me thinking of various evil ways to make them leave Triple and go back to Indiana where they belong,” Cyn replied, lying through her teeth while trying to pull her eyes away from the duo. “You never responded, by the way.”

“Fine,” Elise stated, finally taking Cyn’s bait and changing the subject. “You refuse to talk about them, and we are running out of time. We both need to finish up those scenes we’ve been working on. Shea’s already turned in her manuscript. Ever since she moved to Chicago to be with Ian and Gray, she’s can’t seem to write fast enough.”

“Look who’s talking, Ms. Sinclair.”

“Oh, stop it,” Elise chided, struggling to put her jacket on in the booth. “I’m keeping my name for publishing purposes only. I am changing my last name to Collins for everything else. Triple is just old-fashioned, and just so you know, it’s not Dakota and Chad who have an issue with it.”

“Who does?” Cyn asked, willing to take on anyone who gave her friends grief.

“No one, really,” Elise commented, shrugging her shoulders and giving a radiant smile. “The old biddies just like to have something to talk about. I’m sure they are about to move on to something better, though.”

“Why do you say that?”

Elise tilted her head toward the door behind her, which jingled at that precise time to indicate someone had walked through the entrance. Elise certainly had her timing down. Cyn closed her eyes against seeing the humor in her friend’s face, knowing it wasn’t just one person to walk through the door, but two. Elise’s next words confirmed her guess.

“Good morning, Cooper and Brody,” Elise sang out in her high voice. “You can have my seat, as I was just leaving. By the way, are you two coming to Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday?”

Cyn sloshed what was left of her coffee onto the table, quickly reaching for some napkins to wipe up the dark brew before it spilled into her lap. Damn it, why hadn’t Elise mentioned that she had invited them? Ever since Elise had found two men to love who loved her back, Cyn swore it was Elise’s mission to make everyone as happy as she was. Well, if Cyn had known what Elise was going to do, she would have driven to Chicago and spent the holiday with Shea. Unfortunately, Cyn couldn’t visit her aunt, because she had decided to take a cruise titled “Sexy Single Sixties.” Cyn threw the saturated napkins on the table in frustration. Elise was supposed to be her friend, not theirs.

“We wouldn’t miss it, Elise. Thanks again for inviting us,” Cooper replied, his voice sending tiny vibrations through Cyn’s body. She gritted her teeth when her nipples responded, but was grateful for the black cashmere turtleneck sweater she was wearing. It had cost a fortune, not that money was really an object for her, but it accentuated her figure to perfection.

Elise worked her way out of the booth to make room for the two men that Cyn would have given her eyeteeth to have move back to Indiana and let her live her life in peace. Why were they making things so difficult when all three knew that was where they would go in the end? Cyn gave Elise her evil eye, the one where she raised her right eyebrow into a point. Her friend didn’t seem the slightest bit affected by it as she said good-bye, causing Cyn to sit back in her seat with a huff. The table suddenly felt rather tiny when Cooper and Brody took the bench seat across from her. Damn, they were so handsome they took her breath away.

“Cyn, we can pick you up on our way out to their house,” Cooper said, holding up his hand and indicating to Willow that they wanted two cups of coffee. “Does one o’clock sound good to you?”

“Cooper, when are you going to stop this?” Cyn figured now was as good a time as any to talk about what their future held—which was leading their separate lives. “You two have been busy setting up your gun store and range, acting like this is where you are going to spend the rest of your lives, when we all know that your family is in Indiana. You followed me here, knowing full well I am only visiting for a little while longer. And I’m not even sure why you did that, considering you know we don’t belong together.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Silk,” Cooper said, using that old nickname he had given her upon feeling her hair for the first time. He leaned back, allowing Willow to place two more coffee mugs on the table. After asking if they wanted breakfast, to which Cooper and Brody shook their heads in response, she left them to their conversation. “We do belong together, but you just refuse to let that happen right now. So, in the meantime, we will be patient and give you all the time you need to come to your senses. As for why we are staying here in Triple, it’s because no one understands us better than the people here. They understand why we need to share our woman and why we want to live this life. In a way, we should thank you for being the one to show us that Triple existed.”

Cyn just stared at Cooper, his dark-green eyes like a forest that she could get lost in. A part of her wanted to let herself get lost in them, but knew what happened firsthand when she opened her heart to these men. Why wouldn’t they just do as she asked, and leave her alone?

“I get why you’re staying in Triple. I really do,” Cyn said. “But I’m not going to be staying here. You know me well enough to know that small towns don’t suit me. I need my specialty shops and my designer stores. A Hightower needs to be in a place where money can be spent on nice things.”

“Don’t give us that bullshit, Cyn,” Brody said, finally speaking up. Resting his elbows on the table, he continued, “You might be the heiress of the Sherwood-Hightower trust, but we know damn well that money doesn’t mean a thing to you. Do you remember our first summer together? The one where we shared our dreams for the future?”

Cyn brought her hand up to her hair, making sure there were no strands loose in the updo she had fashioned this morning. It was one of her many talents, to hide behind a façade where people couldn’t get too close. Cooper and Brody thought they knew her, but being a teenage girl with fantasies was a hell of a lot different than the woman who knew what reality brought to the table. She remembered their summers well.

Cyn had been in boarding school most of her childhood, as per her parents’ will, but had been able to spend her breaks with her aunt in Indiana. She’d been allowed to be a kid, with no responsibility or sense of obligation to be the perfect child. She had been the only daughter to Scott Sherwood and Kate Hightower. The Sherwoods were known for their land development in the Midwest, while the Hightowers had their hand in the construction business. When the two met, their families urged the coupling, knowing such an arrangement would only benefit their pocketbook. The media had pounced on the merger, saying it was the union of the century. Aunt Claire, Scott’s sister, was the only one who never let money change the person she was. Cyn had distanced herself from the rest of the family, knowing she’d just get sucked into their way of life. Instead, she focused on her aunt and spent as much time as she could on Aunt Claire’s Indiana farm.

Cyn had met Cooper and Brody during those visits and had fallen madly in love, as only a teenage girl could. Unfortunately, she had also had her heart broken by them the summer before she entered college. The only good thing that had come out of the will her parents had written up was that she had been able to choose the college she wanted to, leading her to develop her friendship with Shea and Elise.

“I’m sorry, are we talking about the summer when you said you loved me? Or are we talking about the summer afterward? You know, the one where you said your career came first and that I wasn’t going to fit into your plans?”

“You know damn well that wasn’t how we meant it,” Brody snapped. His green eyes were lighter than his brother’s, and they were now shooting sparks at her. He was easily riled compared to Cooper, which was why he was the perfect target for her to set her sights on. If she made him angry enough, he might just walk away.

“Stop it, you two,” Cooper ordered, holding up his hands. “Silk, we did what we thought was right at the time. We were entering the Marines and there are certain expectations that must be upheld. It wouldn’t have been right for us to ask you to wait. Now that we are out, we are free to create the life we want.”

“And you think that life is with me?” Cyn slowly picked up her Italian designer black gloves that matched her sweater. Slipping her fingers inside one by one, she tried to make a statement that would resonate with them. “You have one thing right, and that is that I didn’t wait for you. In case you haven’t been reading my books, you should know that I don’t base my stories on inexperience. It takes real-life familiarity to put those words on paper in order to draw other people in. I’m not the woman you want. Feel free to try our dating website, though. You might have better luck.”

Forcing herself to get those final words out almost had her crying, but she bit her lip hard enough to ward off the tears. She had needed to say them, knowing Cooper and Brody wouldn’t leave her alone any other way. The words were baseless, and they were as false as her saying her bank account had a zero balance. The day they had told her that they couldn’t see her anymore ranked right up there with the day she had gotten the news that her parents had died in a boating accident. The only difference had been that she hadn’t been able to control the events leading up to her parents’ death. But she’d willingly given her heart to Cooper and Brody, loving them with every fiber of her being, only to have it handed back to her in shreds. What they didn’t understand was that this wasn’t about holding a grudge or trying to get even. It was the simple truth of her soul not being able to handle them walking away again if something were to dictate them to do so.

“I suggest the omelet, if you decide to actually have breakfast,” Cyn said, standing up with her Louis Vuitton purse. She didn’t want to give them the chance to comment on her lies. “Enjoy your day.”

“I’m getting real tired of her attitude,” Brody said gruffly, pushing Cooper out of the booth so that he’d have more room. Once Cooper was situated on the other side of the table, Brody shrugged out of the stifling jacket he was wearing. It was in the high fifties, but the chill in the air warranted another layer of clothing. The nice thing about Arizona was that it wouldn’t be cold for long. He ran his palm over his shorn hair, liking that he didn’t have to mess with it in the morning. “She acts like she’s some high-class society girl and that we mean nothing to her. If she keeps this up, she’ll find herself over my knee with her designer panties around her ankles.”

“Stop with the visual, would you?” Cooper grumbled, shifting in his seat. “You know that she’s just using that as a defense against us. Shea told us at Elise’s wedding that Cyn had never truly gotten over us. We just need to be patient and prove that we aren’t going to walk away this time.”

Brody would have laughed at the pained expression on Cooper’s face if he weren’t feeling the same thing. Every time he saw Cyn, his dick grew hard. Hell, whom was he kidding? Every time he pictured Cyn, he had a hard-on that could beat nails into a cinder block.

“Are you sure you two don’t want breakfast?” Willow said, interrupting his thoughts. Brody was grateful he was sitting down, knowing the outline of his cock would be showing otherwise. “Sam’s going to feel slighted if you don’t eat something.”

“We’ll each take the ham-and-cheese omelet with sliced fried potatoes,” Brody answered, sharing a knowing look with his brother. If Cyn suggested the omelet, then they’d have an omelet. Once Willow had left them to their refreshed coffee, Brody returned to the previous conversation. “I understand why Cyn would be wary of us promising we’d never leave her again, but she’s got to cut us some slack. Our only choice at that time was to enter the military. Let’s face it, our grades weren’t going to get us into a community college, let alone an Ivy League school.”

“I think she understands that, Brody,” Cooper said, placing his elbows on the table and leaning forward. “When I spoke with her aunt a few months back, Claire said that she felt Cyn still loved us. Apparently, she kept close tabs on us while we were deployed, just as we did with her. Cyn can deny it all she wants, but she’ll eventually be worn down fighting the inevitable. Life gets in the way sometimes, and as we grow older, we understand things a little clearer. She just doesn’t want to lose anyone else in her life. We can’t give up.”

“I hear you.” Brody knew his brother was right, but that didn’t make the waiting any better. Their new life had begun here in Triple and he wanted their beginning to include Cyn. What if she decided her time here in Triple was over and it was time to head back to Illinois? He knew she still had her apartment there, although she had sold her interests in the family corporation years ago. Where would they be then? Would they follow her or continue on with their life here in Triple, knowing the one woman they loved was five states away?