Chapter Twelve
Maxwell sat down on the seat next to where Trinity now crouched, the barrel of her rifle on the edge of the boat, staring out at the hotel renovations. Instead of looking at the hotel, he was content to look over at the other man who had captured his woman’s interest.
He saw the fire burning in the lieutenant’s eyes as he stroked a lazy hand over her ponytail. Yes, Jackson was still interested, but he had fucked up and left an open path for Maxwell to step in. That was something he wholeheartedly appreciated, even if it hadn’t been intentional.
Still, he had no intention of stepping back.
Holding her through the night had been an experience for him. He rarely spent the entire night with a woman, and when he did, he never slept peacefully. But with her, he had. After they had finished making love, they’d had another round of sex in the shower before they drifted off to sleep wrapped around one another.
When he’d woken hours later, he was surprised by how well he had rested. He’d been thrilled to find her cuddled up against him and had woken her with soft kisses. He’d made love to her slowly in the early morning light. Being with her had just felt right. And it wasn’t something he would give up without a fight.
The walk through the construction site earlier had gotten the reaction they had thought it would. No one could say no to the big boss coming in to ask questions when they would have given her the boot if she’d showed up alone.
Or, at least, they would have tried.
A lot of the crew was local. It had been one of the stipulations he had put in place when he’d taken bids on the project. However, he had gone with a construction company based out of Miami to head up the development and most of the management was from the mainland. It had taken a great deal of time and money to ship over the necessary equipment and materials for the build, not that any of it had been worth it now that he saw with his own eyes what was going on at the site.
He had immediately put a halt on construction and sent everyone home until further notice until he could speak to the construction company’s owner. Not only were they way behind schedule, the material they were using wasn’t what he was supposedly paying for. Someone was skimming off his project, and they were willing to kill or kidnap to protect their secret.
He needed to find out who was behind it and end them…permanently.
Maxwell had no doubt that Trinity would find out who was behind all of it, but he’d made a few calls of his own to see what he could discover. And he had special plans in the works for anyone within the company that was part of the scheme. Depending on how far up the chain it went, he was prepared to take the construction company apart, piece by fucking piece until nothing was left but a useless pile of rubble.
Just like his new resort.
They would learn the hard way just why no one cheated a King.
Maxwell leaned back casually, eyeing Jackson with an air of superiority that he knew would piss the other man off. “It seems to me that a man who gives up a treasure like Trinity doesn’t deserve to have her in the first place.”
“I didn’t give her up.”
Maxwell raised an eyebrow at that in a mocking gesture.
Jackson had been waiting for Trinity to finish what she was doing to have this out, but he had seen the hurt in her eyes that she had tried to hide when she had told him off earlier. She was right. He should have called her. He could see how she had taken his silence as a rejection, and he was sorry for that. But he wasn’t willing to walk away from her now, even if she had found someone new.
He sighed. “I’ve been working since we were together that night, Katrina.”
She made a humming sound in her throat that didn’t bode well for him, so he decided to be as honest as he could. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees as he stared at the back of her head, ignoring Maxwell.
“A kid died the other night. I—it was rough. I know her parents.”
Trinity turned her head and stared back at him. “I’m sorry.”
He could see that she was and took that as a good sign. “Here’s the truth. You fucking confused me the other night, Katrina. One second, we were sighting down each other with our weapons, then we were on a date. And then…yeah, I freaked a little. I wasn’t prepared for someone to walk out and see us. Not that I was ashamed to be with you, but it was the chief’s niece for Christ’s sake. He’s my boss!”
“Do you really think your friend was going to run and tell your boss she saw you having sex in an alley?”
“No, probably not,” he admitted. “But I just don’t do stuff like that. Ever.”
“Noted.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “Once I got my head out of my ass, I was going to contact you, but I got called into a shit storm. They were just stupid kids having a party on the beach while one of the kid’s parents were out of town for the night. But someone had distributed this new drug called Euphoria to the partygoers. It’s a little blue pill with a fancy “4” marked on it. We ended up with sick kids all over the place. One of them was gone by the time the EMTs arrived.”
Trinity had turned around during the telling, and it irked Jackson that she was leaning against Maxwell’s leg as she sat on the floor of the boat, her rifle across her lap. They looked like a unit and he felt apart from them…like he didn’t belong. The familiar feeling had never really bothered him so much before.
He had always felt like an outsider in his family while he was growing up. In the army, he had deliberately separated himself from his men when he had become a lieutenant, just like he was on the police force. They needed that distance to learn how to depend on him while respecting the chain of command.
But with Trinity, he had felt like she had been there with him.
And with her, he hadn’t felt so alone.
Trinity couldn’t bear the sadness in Jackson’s eyes. She wanted to go to him, but she was in a difficult position in between two of the most possessive men she’d ever met. She looked up at Maxwell as he squeezed her shoulder and saw his understanding smile. Relief flooded her that he understood. They were going to have to talk about this, but for now, the need to give comfort overwhelmed everything else.
She placed her rifle safely to the side and got up, moving the short distance to Jackson. He’d been lost in thought and looked up at her, surprised to see her standing there before him. She reached down, moved his arms out of the way, and sat down on his lap, putting her arms around him. She felt his shuddering breath as his arms wrapped around her, holding her in a tight grip as he buried his face in her neck.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”
His voice was muffled, but she still heard him. She stroked his head with her hand, enjoying the fuzzy feeling of his almost bare skull.
“You should be, but I understand that you were dealing with a whole shitload of crap. I could have helped if you told me, though.”
He raised his head to stare at her with stark eyes. “Am I too late? Did I lose you?”
She sighed. “That is a complicated question with an even more complicated answer. Max and I have something just as special as you and I do. I don’t know what that means for us.”
“Actually, I think it means that we should remember where we are and embrace it,” Maxwell said casually.
Jackson’s entire body went rigid beneath her. Curious now, she asked, “What do you mean?”
Maxwell smiled at her. “It means I have no intention of stepping back to let Jackson have you just because you met him first. As you said, we have just as strong of a connection as you do with him. This island caters to couples in ménage and poly relationships. Perhaps we should see if that would work for us. All three of us.”
Trinity was speechless for a moment. Sure, she had fantasized about the idea, but actually having a relationship with two men at once was, well, complicated. She moved to sit next to Jackson on the bench, pulling away when he tried to hold her in place on his lap. She needed space to think it over and didn’t want to get distracted by him.
“I don’t want to share her with you,” Jackson said to Max with a scowl. “And I don’t do guys.”
“I’m not hitting on you, you bloody git! I don’t like men that way. And you don’t have much choice about sharing. I’m not going to let Trinity go. Unless you’d like to give up now.”
“I’m not giving up shit. And I wouldn’t have to worry about sharing if I tossed your ass overboard right now!” Jackson stood up, and Maxwell did the same.
“Try it!”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
The men faced off, both of them furiously. They stumbled as the boat roared to life and Trinity sped off, heading north, taking them away from the hotel. Feeling the sea breeze on her face with the wind whipping her hair around her was better than pushing both of her men overboard.
Or shooting them.
She already thought of both of them as hers, but she was damn tired of them talking about her like she wasn’t there. As she sped across the turquoise water, she made a note to go back to the Blue Horizon Marina to rent a jet ski at some point during her trip.
She stopped the boat when she’d reached a quiet part of the bay just past the cliffs, somewhere in between where the resort was located and where the private villas started. She didn’t want to chance getting closer to the beach and stayed just under a half mile out when she turned the boat off.
The afternoon had heated up enough that she wished she had thought ahead to wear her bathing suit. It didn’t matter, though. She still wanted to take a dip in the cool, clear water of the bay.
She’d just have to do it naked.
She turned around to find both Jackson and Maxwell watching her from where they were seated. Moving past them, she quickly began disassembling her sniper rifle.
“Three things,” she said briskly. “First, all but two people cleared out of the construction site after our little visit today. The foreman, Alan Browning, and one of the security guys. Not the one I met the other day—it was the older guy, Javier Vega.”
Maxwell nodded. “I remember seeing both of them earlier.”
He watched her quick, economical movements as she broke down the parts of her gun, cleaned them, then packed them back into the specialized case. He remembered Browning specifically since it had taken all his willpower not to punch the man in the face when he handed over copies of the paperwork and material receipts that Maxwell had demanded.
“Okay, then. Secondly, if we try to do this ménage thing, we all have to agree. I’m the one who is benefiting from this the most, but I have a feeling dealing with the two of you is going to be a big pain in the ass, and I’m not just talking anal sex. Dealing with one man is hard enough, but two…well, that’s something I’m going to have to think about. Even so, I don’t think I can choose between you two. So, you both have to be sure that you want to try this out before anything else happens. And all of us need to think.”
Jackson’s hands were going numb from clenching them so hard. He was pissed on so many levels now. He had never wanted a ménage relationship, yet here he was. When Maxwell suggested it, Jackson had wanted to kill the man, then toss his body overboard. The truth was he already thought of Katrina Cross as his, and it infuriated him that another man was trying to claim her.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, then gaped when he saw she had moved to the far side of the boat and had started stripping.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She turned to glance at him over her shoulder. “I’m going for a swim. I need to think.”
Lust nearly burned Jackson alive as she finished stripping and he finally saw her nude body. His eyes narrowed as he took in the various scars marring her otherwise perfect form. Christ, she had more than he did, but somehow seeing them on her made them so much worse. He noted the artistry of the cross on her back and the tribal tattoo that covered her right hip and thigh. Jesus, it made him hard and pissed him off that some tattoo artist had been working on her so intimately.
She turned once more to scowl at both men. “Oh, yeah. The last thing I wanted to tell you guys. Talk about me again like I’m not right fucking in front of you and I might shoot you both.”
With that, she stepped up onto the bench seat and made a clean dive into the crystal-clear water.