TogetherinCyn (3 page)

“Put. Me. Down,” I bit out through gritted teeth. To my
surprise, he did. I turned and they stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at me
as if I were a tall drink of water and they were in the driest desert. My anger
was about to explode; I clenched my teeth and stayed silent.

“When I said I’ve wanted you for years, it was nothing short
of the truth. We’ve been dying to take you, to bury ourselves in your body and
taste the honey sliding along your thighs.”

Something flashed across Jared’s face as Chris spoke. Never
taking his focus from me, he slowly raised his hand to his nose and inhaled the
scent of my sex.

My body flared to life with unfulfilled lust. He licked the
proof of my desire from one of his fingers, sucking it into the hot cavern of
his mouth. I’d wanted them for so long that I almost gave in. I almost threw my
purse and diary aside, along with the last vestiges of my pride, and gave in to
them.

But they hadn’t wanted me for years, no matter what they
said. I hadn’t made it this far on my own to roll over and beg for their
attention. Not if pity fueled it. Especially if all they wanted was willing
pussy and they thought I was okay with being cast aside like the other women
they’d slept with.

“Your diary is the reason we’re both here tonight. We wanted
to talk to you together. Earning your trust is the first step…”

“Trust? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I hugged the book
close again, blinking furiously. “I’m so stupid.”

“You are not stupid.”

“Well, what do you call it, Jared? I was practically begging
you to fuck me not twenty feet from where you stand and all because you felt
sorry for me because I wasn’t getting any. Well, at least not getting anything
good,” I muttered under my breath as I swiped angrily at a lone tear.

“We saw the real Cyn when we had you caged between us.”
Chris cursed and I had to fight my automatic response to flee. I kept my gaze
on him and my feet firmly planted when all I wanted to do was disappear.

“You don’t know who we are, and after reading your journal,
we see you’re more suited to us than we could have wished for.”

“What do you mean ‘suited’ to you? You need someone
desperate to fuck you, is that it?”

“No. We want someone to submit to us.”

All the air got sucked from the bar. Submit. I’d heard the
word and read about it for years. Had experimented once a couple years before
with my then-boyfriend Matt. Remembering that final night with Matt and his
friend made me head for the door. Chris crowded into my space to stop me but
Jared held him back. I wanted something I had already failed at miserably and
wasn’t willing to try again. Not with them. They were too important.

“We want you, Cyn. I want to see where this can go. All
we’re asking for is a chance. I’m sorry I read your journal without your
permission but if I hadn’t, would you have told us you wanted us? Would you
have flat-out said you wanted me to fuck you? To fill you so completely you
can’t think about anything the next day except what it was like to come so hard
you lost consciousness?”

I stopped. Something in his voice made me turn. He was
right. I never would have said a word. Their rejection…it would have been too
much to bear so I’d remained silent. Happy to be their friend but always on the
outside peeking in.

“Would you have told Chris you wanted to fuck him? Well,
would you?” he shouted.

“No,” I yelled and stomped toward them.

“Why?” Chris asked.

Would they leave me with nothing?
“Because…I could
never choose. You’ve both been my everything since my parents bolted. If
something happened to change how you felt about me and I lost you…either of
you? It’s not something I could live with. You are my best friends and I…need
you. How could I approach one of you? By throwing the other one away? You mean
too much for that.”

“We’re not asking you to choose. I don’t want you to think
you have to.” Chris spoke the words I needed to hear but could I believe them?

I stared at them as they moved closer to me. Jared spoke. “I
think we should start over.” Chris nodded once in agreement.

“What do you suggest?” I asked as they finally stood next to
me again. “And spare me your misplaced charity. I already hate it that you stay
in the townhouse next door, knowing full well you can afford to buy your own
place.”

They glanced at each other and then over at me.

“What was that look for?” I snapped.

“We already own our own house.” Complete silence was my only
companion. Chris must have switched the music off at some point. It’s amazing
what you miss when you’re being stripped bare.

“What do you mean your own house? You can’t buy the
townhouse. I asked a year or so ago.”

“Not the townhouse. A twelve-thousand-square-foot house on
the edge of town.”

“Twelve thousand… And you still stay in the townhouse? Why?
Because I’m so pathetic you don’t think I can take care of myself? Dammit, you
two.” I tried to walk out but Chris held me in place.

“You know all the women you’ve seen leaving with us from the
bar?”

Oh yeah, sure did. The only thing that kept those women
breathing was the guys never brought them over to the townhouse. They got in
one of the guys’ vehicles with them and they left. “This truly isn’t the time
to talk about all your recent conquests, Chris. I will absolutely knee you in the—”

“We haven’t been dating them, we’ve been interviewing them.”

“For what? Don’t tell me. A topless cleaning service? Maybe
a dog walker? No, wait, you don’t have a goddamn dog.”

“An office manager.”

“What? You need somebody to help here at the bar? Super. But
what does that have to do with you guys buying a house and never telling me a
word about it? Or why you couldn’t interview those women here at the bar?
You’ve obviously kept me in the dark but I’m supposed to lay my dirty laundry
at your feet to trample over? Not bloody likely.”

They wrenched their wallets free, each pulling out a card
and handing them to me. I shoved my diary under my arm and grabbed the cards,
not understanding what I held.

“The club we run out of the house is private. No one gets access
to the property unless they’re an approved member. None of the applicants could
get through the gate without us so they had to meet us somewhere first. The bar
is the easiest place to meet since we could be going on a date.”

As I stared at the cards, Jared added, “And we don’t want
the club advertised out in the open so that means the bar is off limits for
anything other than bar business.”

“These are library cards,” I whispered as I tried to process
what I was staring at. But each card was in a rich black color on a slightly
rough paper that reminded me of leather. “The Library” and their respective
names were embossed on the front. I rubbed the raised letters but the spacing
was slightly off. There was too much space above their names. “But you guys are
forever borrowing books from me. I don’t understand why you go to the library
so often anyways. And these aren’t Arcadia library cards.”

Chris snagged his card and sandwiched it between his palms.
I flipped Jared’s card over, examining the other side, but saw nothing written
on it. “Not library cards. Membership cards.” Chris handed his card back and my
sharp intake of breath echoed in the empty space. The warmth from his hands
made other lines appear.

Master Chris Kennedy.

The word
Master
had appeared before his name, along
with another line underneath The Library.

Members Only BDSM Club.

I lifted my chin to stare at the two men I apparently didn’t
know at all. “So all these nights you leave late and tell me you’re going to
The Library, this is where you go?” They nodded. “And you aren’t going there to
visit? It’s your house? It’s what you bought with the rest of your inheritance
money?” My mouth went dry as I stared at them, desperately trying to catch up.
A tremor laced with a healthy amount of fear skated up my body as I waited for
their answer.

“Yes,” Jared confirmed as he handed me another card. This
one in decadent red with letters embossed in black.

I traced the name.

Cyn Andrews.

My heart dropped to the tops of my thighs, where it began a
steady beat of
holy shit
.

Jared tilted up my chin with his warm knuckles. “And
tomorrow night, you’re coming with us.”

After I twisted the lock and exhaled…loudly…my forehead
landed on the wood of my front door with a resounding thunk. It’s not every day
you have to admit what a complete and utter coward you are.

After the brothers dropped their bombshell, I’d frozen,
tossed their cards at them, stammered something about being tired and fled the
building as if it were on fire. My head still spun with possibilities. Plus my
body refused to believe I’d called a halt to the orgasm of the century less
than an hour ago.

My pussy was wet, swollen and the hunger threatened to
consume me. Massive doses of embarrassment weren’t enough to drown the need for
my best friends, apparently.

I knocked my head one more time before setting my things on
the entry table. My keys clattered into a shallow orange glass bowl and I set
my purse on top of my journal. Light splashed through my front windows as the
guys arrived home one right after the other. My pulse quickened when I braced
myself against the door and listened to them come closer. Blood furiously
pumped straight to my core when they strode onto their front porch. Five feet
and one flimsy door were all that separated them from me.

“At least she got home safely.”

“Should we check on her?”

There was a brief pause and I froze. I had no clue which
answer I wanted to hear but Chris finally said, “No. Let her get some sleep.
We’ll talk to her later today and set the ground rules.” I could feel him
staring through the door. Somehow he knew I stood there listening. At least
only the kitchen light was on and not the one in the living room. They couldn’t
see me and if my heart would calm down, maybe they couldn’t hear it either.

“I don’t feel right letting her leave like that. She’s
scared. Pissed.”

“We’re not asking her to water our plants or some shit, J.
She’ll be fine. She’s a hell of a lot tougher than we thought.”

After a few tense moments, the brothers went inside and I was
safe. At least for now.

Ground rules? How about number one—keep your grubby mitts
off my diary.

I yanked the journal out from under my purse and released a
frustrated breath. My stomach knotted. At least they hadn’t mentioned the
missing pages. Maybe all my luck hadn’t run out yet.

My quiet space provided welcome relief as I tried to shake
the lingering panic. There wasn’t anything expensive—simple metal tables, an
armoire to hold the TV and my DVD collection, and the most comfortable brown
leather couch. It wasn’t fancy but it was homey and all mine. I’d worked
full-time, putting myself through college along with a few scholarships. The
diploma hanging above the gas fireplace made it all worth it. I’d studied
nonstop and graduated at the top of my class so I would have a leg up. Then the
bottom dropped out of the economy. So here I stood, a part-time waitress and an
office manager of a local gym. Because I couldn’t leave.

No. Because I couldn’t leave
them
.

Chris and Jared had made a life here, apparently much more
than I knew about, and they were offering me something I ached for. And what
did I do when it was right in front of me? I ran.

All I could hope was that everything would be clearer in the
morning.
Right.

I kicked off my shoes, hoping a shower would make me feel
better. The stench of bar smoke clinging to my clothes and hair couldn’t be
helping my mood.

I trudged up to the second floor, hearing the
all-too-familiar squeak on the third step from the bottom. The guest bed and
bath sat directly at the top and my master was all the way at the end.

I stepped into my bedroom and finally relaxed. The walls
were painted a deep red that made the space feel decadent. It was my favorite
place in the house. I wanted nothing more than to collapse onto my queen-size
bed. Unfortunately, my purple boyfriend still had to be dealt with.

After switching on the chrome lamp atop my nightstand, I
opened the top drawer. My rabbit lay inside with two notes tucked underneath.
The first one read…

Cyn, I will not be responsible for my actions the next
time I hear this. Use at your own risk. J

Thankfully the bed was close or I would have hit the floor
when my legs gave out. My hands shook and my stomach flip-flopped as I sank
onto the brown, cream and red comforter. Would he actually do something if I
chose to “jill” tonight? I had no intention of finding out.

The other note tucked behind the first had creases and worn
edges from how many times I’d read it over the years.

It was a hastily scrawled note Chris had left under the windshield
wiper of my car the day he and Jared left for boot camp. They must have been
planning it for weeks and I’d been devastated when I realized they’d kept so
much from me.

He’d told me they had to leave and he was sorry. Hoped I
could forgive him someday.

Him, not them.

That had always struck me as odd and no matter how many
times I’d asked since, he’d never given me a straight answer. He normally
clammed up or stalked off. Jared was clueless about Chris’ reasons for leaving
so suddenly and said all he’d needed to hear was that there would be beer and
women.

They were there for me anytime I needed them. Solid,
trustworthy, honorable men. I loved them even then. We remained close when they
were stationed away and they crashed at the townhouse next door. They never
stayed at their parents’ house when they were on leave.

Three years ago, when the guys finished their tours and came
home, their parents unexpectedly gave them their inheritance and CJ’s Bar was
born. It was one of the only decent things I’d ever seen their parents do but
then they’d moved to New York before the guys landed on US soil.

For the longest time the three of us had been a family. Who
knew all I had to do was bare my soul and all but one of my deepest, darkest
secrets?

Embarrassment stained my cheeks when I set my diary next to
me on the bed, remembering the innermost thoughts they’d read. Scenes,
fantasies, thoughts, memories. Almost everything.

It slipped from the bed to the floor. The landing jarred the
book and my Library card fell out. The bright cream color of the high-pile rug
sharply contrasted the red of the card. As I retrieve both the card and my
journal, I couldn’t help but compare them to my current situation. My life
before this day, innocent, bright and shiny and utterly dull. Then I felt the
brothers surrounding me, the heavy thrusts of their fingers inside. Their taste
still lingered on my tongue. Instantly the world had color and purpose. They’d
always been my splash of color. I couldn’t help but think of that scene in
The
Wizard of Oz
when Dorothy sees the world in the shades of the rainbow for
the first time.

Life could never be the same again, could it?

I tossed my diary, the letters and my rabbit on the bed but
I took the card with me into the bathroom. I laid it on the counter, turned on
the water and slowly peeled my clothes off and flung them into the hamper in
the corner. My mind played the “what if” game while the shower washed away the
smell of the bar. Usually, this was the time I relaxed after a long day but lately
the coldest shower couldn’t squelch the desire pumping through my veins.

By the time I stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a
towel, all I could think about was what would happen if the guys heard me. I
closed my eyes to listen past the blood racing through me. I clutched my
Library card as I strained to hear anything from next door.

It was quiet. Utterly and absolutely quiet. Could the walls
truly be that thin? Surely I would have heard something if they were still
awake.

I flipped the light off in the bathroom and had to convince
myself not to tiptoe over to the bed. Hastily, I grabbed the journal, J’s note
and my card and placed them all on the nightstand. I made sure I was alone then
let the towel drop next to the bed. I dumped some of the pillows off, pushed
the comforter aside and crawled on.

It was me and my rabbit. My heart beat against my ribs. It
wasn’t going to take much to send me into the stratosphere. I listened one more
time, heard nothing and reminded myself for the twentieth time I didn’t owe
Chris or Jared anything. So I took a shallow breath and slowly twisted the dial
to the lowest setting.

The sound filled the space and my adrenaline spiked hard. I
thought about getting under the comforter but I’d already tucked my tail one
time tonight. Plus, it smacked of needing permission, which
I did not
have to have, I reminded my inner good girl. With a little bit of effort, I
shoved all the self-examination into a file marked “sort out tomorrow—when hell
freezes over”, and everything else fell away. Everything but what my body
needed so desperately. Release.

I brushed the vibrator across the tight peak of my sensitive
nipple and tried to concentrate on not making a sound. I kept it there, though
it was almost sensory overload, until my nipple ached and stood hard, straining
for more. I moved to the other nipple, my spine bowing off the bed. My free
hand fisted the comforter and I gritted my teeth to keep from making any more
noise.

I trailed the vibrator along my stomach and over the thin
strip of hair above my clit—which was all I had left after the spa. The ribbed
device slid over my bare mound as I spread my legs. A moan rumbled free but I
bit my bottom lip to keep any more from slipping out.

Fire licked up my torso as the rabbit came into contact with
my clit. I scooted off the pillows, brought my legs up then angled the vibrator
right at my heated entrance. I pushed it inside as I pulled one side of my
pussy open. Damn, I’d never been more turned-on. Memories flashed inside my
head of how delicious Chris had looked as he poised to take my ass. How Jared
had heated my insides when he nibbled and sucked on the flesh of my neck.

My foot pointed and flexed in time with the rabbit as I
pushed it inside and slowly drew it free. I fucked the vibrating dildo along my
wet channel, imagining my foot pushing against the shoulder of a certain
neighbor—or two—and I fucked myself quicker. My sex tightened at the thought of
being with Jared and Chris. An orgasm hovered within a few strokes and my pussy
sucked the rabbit in on every thrust. The ears on my vibrator jolted my clit as
I thrust it in harder. Air sawed in and out of my lungs. My pelvis gyrated in
time with my hand
.
I pictured two men staring
straight at me.

Knowing I wasn’t going to last, I caressed my breasts,
remembering Jared loving them earlier. My mouth opened in a soundless scream as
my body jackknifed on the bed and pure pleasure exploded through my pussy. A
wave of exquisite heat detonated in my clit and crashed along my limbs as I
came so hard I almost broke the trusty rabbit. My channel rhythmically clenched
the hard toy and I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed it wasn’t attached
to one of my sexy neighbors.

After a flash of intense pleasure, I relaxed and continued
the shallow thrusts. I licked two fingertips on my free hand, catching a hint
of myself before placing them over my nipple. Giving it a slight pinch sent a
bolt of lust straight to my sex. Maybe two would be a good number for tonight.

After the night I’d had, I deserved it. I inhaled, ready to
go again…and froze.

Two kinds of mens’ cologne registered in my post-orgasmic
bliss. A blush worked its way up to my cheeks. I opened my eyes and focused on
the ceiling.
Please don’t let them be standing there. Please let them be standing
there.

Still squeezing my nipple, my pussy still clinging greedily
to the vibrator, I focused on the end of my bed.

Jared and Chris stood in black leather pants and nothing
else. Chris crossed his thick arms and the faint outline of his erection strained
against the leather. Jared gripped the footboard of my bed and the wood creaked
as if it were about to snap. When I froze, the guys looked up sharply.

I inhaled to say…something, but before I could utter a
sound, Chris ordered, “Lick. It. Clean.”

My pussy squeezed the rabbit and I’m sure they heard the
vibration change from where they stood.

I turned off the vibration and the silence deafened me until
Chris spoke again.

“Naughty girls who don’t follow directions deal with the
consequences. Naughty girls have to clean up the mess they make.” Their gazes
returned to my pussy as I pulled the vibrator from my still-clenching channel.
My sigh said it all.

My throat was so dry when I tried to swallow that I had to
clear it twice before I could speak. “What directions didn’t I follow? You
never said I couldn’t get off, nor would I have agreed to that.”

“No, but you knew who and what you were tempting, baby.”
Jared glanced over at the side table and I followed his gaze. The piece of
paper with his note sat on top my diary.
Damn.
I couldn’t act as if I
hadn’t seen it.

When I looked back at the brothers, men who had been my best
friends for most of my life, I fully understood this was going to change
everything. Our future would be irrevocably altered starting now.

They saw clear inside to the hidden parts of me. The muscles
twitched in their jaws but neither spoke. They left the decision up to me. I
could tell them to go. I could ask them to leave and they would. That assurance
alone gave me the strength to shut the door on the past and bring the vibrator
to my lips.

My concentration remained on them as I opened my mouth and
ran my tongue up the silicone that tasted of me. The bodywash from the shower
and my musky scent mingled together as I sucked in a harsh breath. Their
nostrils flared as I licked again and the tense silence finally broke when
Chris uncrossed his powerful limbs and commanded, “Come here, Cyn.”