The Billionaire Bad Boys Club (26 page)

“You do that as neatly as my head chef,” she praised.

“Practice.” He poured for the others and settled back in his chair. “Somewhat to my surprise, Zane is a champagne hound.”

Zane grinned unabashedly, likely a little buzzed. “I’m about more than beer and burgers.” He stretched his bare legs until his feet bumped hers. “You’re wearing my robe.”

This appeared to please him.

“It smelled good,” she said.

“It smells like bad boy,” Trey clarified and laughed.

“Is that an inside joke?”

“We’re testing a new men’s fragrance,” Zane said. “Called ‘Bad Boy,’ of course. We’ve both been wearing it. We’re hoping to launch it next Christmas.”

“It’s nice on both of you,” she observed.

Smiling, Trey slouched deeper in his chair, arms flung out in relaxation, feet nudging hers like Zane’s were. He seemed not only amused but happy, drunk perhaps but not impaired.

This is what he wants
, she realized. Trey had no hesitation where he loved. His heart’s desire was to draw both of them close to him. Zane’s body still held a hint of tension, not much but it was there. Like her, he didn’t let down his guard easily. Also like her, he found a lot to admire in Trey.

“How did you two meet?” she asked, sensing the champagne would oil their answer.

Trey turned his head to Zane, silently offering him the option of answering. She realized something else then. Trey was more careful of Zane’s boundaries than Zane was of his.

Zane seemed willing to tell the story—if warily. “We were neighbors,” he said, fingers tapping his chair’s arms. “And we went to the same high school.”

“I was a nerd. He was a jock.”

“You weren’t a nerd,” she said, not believing it. Trey was quirky, but too beautiful for that.

“An outsider then. Zane took me under his wing in our senior year.”

Zane leaned forward over his knees. His sandy brows drew together, creating a furrow above his nose. Rebecca leaned forward too, not close enough to tell him with her touch that his private stories were safe with her.

“Did he know what your father did?” she asked gently.

Zane wet his lips. “Trey’s father hit him too. For different reasons, but we found out we had that in common.”

“And also liking men and women.”

“And also that,” Zane concurred. “One night, my dad and I had a last-straw blowout. I was convinced I was going to kill him and spend the rest of my life in jail. Trey watched the fight from his bedroom window. When I ran from the house, he followed me. I’m not sure what he thought I was going to do. Throw myself off a bridge maybe. We talked for the first time at the high school track. You could say he initiated the other half of what I wanted sexually. We got each other through our last year of school.”

“And then you came here to Harvard.”

“And then we came here.” His lips curved as he looked at her. The smile was wry. She couldn’t read the emotion behind it.

“My father never hit me,” she said.

“That’s not a requirement for us liking you,” Zane teased.

“I didn’t mean— Shit.” When he chuckled, she threw a napkin at him.

Still smiling slightly, he went on. “Everything we have here reminds me my old life is behind me. Every bite of caviar is a bite of freedom.”

Rebecca’s breastbone pressed in against her heart. “That’s a nice way to put it.”

Trey reached out to take Zane’s hand. Zane returned his hold with a squeeze. Zane had told his story lightly, but she guessed sharing it wasn’t that easy.

“I read your brothers’ interview,” Trey said.

He startled her. “Oh,” she said, her hand coming to her chest. Zane was looking at him as if this surprised him as well.

“What you did for your brothers, when you were so young, it can’t help but mean something to people who grew up like us.”

“I just . . . I didn’t want to lose them.”

“You protected them.” Trey’s tone was soft but firm.

“I protected me too. And they helped, even though they were little.”

He leaned back and smiled. “I admire you anyway.”

He turned his statement into a tease, the same as Zane’s crack about not needing to be hit for them to like her. She felt ridiculously flattered but also uncomfortable. She was no hero.

“Well,” she said. She stood and tightened the tie on Zane’s robe. The table between them was scattered with plates and crumbs. “Maybe I should clean up.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Zane assured her. “Why don’t you warm the bed for when we get back?”

“You’re spoiling me,” she said, trying to sound as light as them. “Aren’t you worried I won’t want to go to work tomorrow?”

Trey drew breath as if he meant to speak. Zane stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Just be a guest,” he said. “We’re happy you’re here tonight.”

~

“You need to ease up on her,” Zane cautioned.

They’d brought the food to the suite on a rolling cart. Because Mrs. Penworth was asleep in her quarters, they were trundling it back with the remains. Just in case they ran into staff, they’d pulled on what Trey teased were their Hugh Hefner robes.

“I need to ease up,” he repeated as Zane opened the old elevator’s metal gate. “That’s not what a woman groaning in ecstasy signifies. Anyway, she went at you hard for the finish. I couldn’t have gotten her too sore.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Zane pulled his end of the cart into the car. Closing the gate, Trey got the mechanism going. “She’s a total workaholic, way worse than me. She had the wardrobe she did because she doesn’t like wearing clothes she can’t cook in. I’m not sure she has a shut-off button. She won’t welcome being told she can stay home from the restaurant.”

“But she can. We’re not opening the Lounge to the general public for a week. Unless you have business you can’t put off, now is the ideal time for a sex vacation.”

The elevator creaked to a stop in the basement. Neither man shifted to get out. “You realize she probably hasn’t taken a vacation since her dad walked out,” Zane said.

Trey opened his mouth to argue and then shut it. “Really?”

“That’s my best guess. Plus, saying the
V
word sets off warning bells for some chicks. You
date
a guy you’re getting to know. You
vacation
when it’s serious.”

A warning bell rang belatedly in his head. Shit. Had Missy assumed he was serious when he’d agreed to join her for the weekend?

Unaware of his mental side trip, Trey frowned stubbornly. “This
is
serious. And we could do it now. We could spend a whole week playing and seeing if this arrangement can work out. You said yourself you wanted to give it a try.”

He had said that. As usual, Trey was a couple steps ahead of him in commitment. Zane couldn’t deny the appeal of what his friend seemed to be aiming for—at least he didn’t think he could. He rubbed the groove between his lower lip and chin. “You’re talking long-term here? You want to make Rebecca a regular part of our lives?”

“I do.” Although Trey’s answer was firm, his hands gripped his end of the cart as if they might break it. Beneath his neck tattoo, a nervous pulse was beating. The enclosed space they stood in made the conversation feel even more intense. “I think you want it too, Zane, even if you’re not ready to admit it. You told her things you never tell anyone. You’ve thought about her as a person and not a bimbette. You’re trying to figure her out. Hell, you might have done a better job of it than me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t lay odds on that.” Zane looked into Trey’s face as he weighed the situation, aware Trey was watching every expression that flitted through his eyes. “You wouldn’t expect me to get over all my hang-ups at once?”

“Cross my heart,” Trey promised.

“She does seem to be into both of us.”

“She does,” Trey agreed.

“And into both of us taking her at once.”

“Which we’re also into,” Trey pointed out with his lips curving. “I honestly believe we’d have a better chance of victory as a team.”

Zane smiled at his coaxing tone. Trey was cute when he thought he’d won an argument. “All right,” he said. “You and I are now partners in seduction.”

That settled, Trey heaved the elevator gate open. After Trey lifted the cart’s wheels over the gap, Zane pushed it into the dark corridor. A few lights burned in the kitchen, guiding their progress there.

“If we’re partners,” Trey said, continuing their joint train of thought, “we need a strategy. I think you’re right about Rebecca being likely to resist.”

Zane’s groin took on weight at his words. A memory rolled across his mind: Trey humping her atop the red Bugatti, his hands on her outstretched wrists, her breasts bouncing merrily. She’d writhed at him cuffing her, just as she’d writhed for Zane when he restrained her with his belt.

“We have to show her the playroom,” he blurted.

Trey halted so suddenly Zane almost bumped his legs with the cart. He turned to stare back at him. “Not right away surely?”

“Yes, right away. We knows she’s afraid of relaxing, afraid of—”

“—liking things too much?” Trey suggested.

“Yes. She doesn’t know how to let go and enjoy. We need to . . . provide the illusion of taking that decision out of her hands.”

Trey considered this, but Zane was almost certain he’d agree. A tent was forming behind his dark blue robe, large enough that Zane perceived the thin silk shifting. His own robe had been rising already. Seeing Trey throw a boner finished the job swiftly.

“We’d start tomorrow?” his lover asked.

“Early,” Zane confirmed huskily.

Trey spotted the developments at Zane’s crotch. One of his eyebrows rose, but he wasn’t surprised. Neither of their appetites was modest. “Should we, maybe . . .”

“No.” The roughness in Zane’s voice increased. “At least for a while, I don’t think we should get off without her.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Bound

A MOTHERLY
woman the men referred to as Mrs. P served a hot breakfast in their suite. Quiet and efficient, she also seemed good-natured.

“Let me know if you need anything you’d rather not ask these two for,” she said to Rebecca. “Whatever it is, the staff or I can get it.”

The scope of the offer impressed. If Rebecca asked for a spaceship, would one appear on the lawn?

For the moment, breakfast was sufficient. Zane and Trey dug in without conversation, so she guessed they weren’t morning folk. That was all right with her. The food was good enough to take up her attention.

“Don’t get dressed while we’re gone,” Trey said sternly when he and Zane excused themselves to shower. “We have business we want to discuss with you.”

She’d planned to pull on her clothes and go. It was after ten by then. She wanted to stop at her house, maybe check the Internet for early reports on last night’s event at the Lounge. She knew Trey’s people were on top of PR, but it couldn’t hurt to touch base with her contacts in the media. Though these were reasonable intentions, she didn’t pursue them. The way Trey said
business
made it impossible.

Her curiosity as to whether he and Zane were sharing more than a shower also might have kept her there.

Maybe it would be okay to poke her head in, but they hadn’t invited her. So what if she wanted to soap their lovely backs—or watch them soap each other’s? Being inordinately intrigued by what they were getting up to was no excuse for invading their privacy.

She’d gotten the robe she’d borrowed a little sweaty by the time they emerged from the walk-in closet that connected to the bathroom. Somewhat to her frustration, she couldn’t tell if they’d had sex. Though the color on their cheeks was high, they didn’t wear the languor that went with orgasms.

They also weren’t wearing the playboy robes they’d left in.

“You dressed,” she complained. They wore white T-shirts with no sleeves and sweat shorts—Zane’s in gray and Trey’s black. They were so fit the simple workout clothes looked ridiculously hot. Either could have graced a spread in their magazine.
The Bad Boys get casual!
the caption might have said.

Unmoved by her objection, Zane handed her a folded pile of clothes. “These are for you, sweetheart.”

Him calling her
sweetheart
almost caused her to blush. She focused on what he’d given her instead. The small bundle included yoga pants, cotton bikini panties, and a soft strappy shirt with a built-in bra—an outfit any woman could have worn for lazing around on her day off. Rebecca peered at them suspiciously.

“These are new,” she said. “And my size.”

“The clothes you wore last night are wrinkled,” Zane not-quite-explained with a smile.

If they’d pressed her to accept a designer dress dipped in diamonds, she’d have had no problem refusing. Suspecting she’d been managed, she retreated huffily to the bathroom to put them on. When she returned, both men gave her onceovers. Their unmistakable approval heated her in places she wished she could control better.

“Nice,” Trey praised.

“Very,” Zane seconded.

Rebecca put her hands on her hips. “Fine. You’ve dressed me in formfitting sportswear. Now tell me what your business is.”