Chapter 34
34
LYSSA
“I can handle Mitch,” I told Emma. “You go into my bedroom. No sense in him knowing there are two of us if we can help it.”
She didn’t seem too thrilled about us separating, especially knowing what Mitch was capable of. The creep.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes–go,” I gave her a shove in the direction of my quarters and sashayed to the front door to greet my employer.
We’d met at an art opening in Santa Fe–I was screwing the artist–a sexy sculptor I’d met in Aspen. Mitch had flirted. I flirted back because, duh. Billionaire .
He’d asked me what I did for a living. I’d told him I’d done a bit of everything, from modeling to event planning. I’d said basically I looked for jobs that kept me in the lifestyle and crowd I liked to mingle with, and did he have one in mind?
He’d loved my answer and offered me this position on the spot.
Now, in retrospect, I saw that it all happened far too easily. The six-figure salary for doing nothing. The overly generous offer to allow me to stay at his beautiful yet remote ranch.
I’d thought he probably wanted sex. For some reason, I hadn’t been interested, but felt confident I could have warded him off when he made his move.
But now to find out the guy was a sex trafficker!
And I might be his next victim. With clarity, I’d been dumb. Reckless. Why couldn’t I have had some of Emma’s wariness about life? Maybe we wouldn’t both be in a sex trafficker’s house.
He’d literally lured me here with a well paying, fake job.
I’d been in dangerous spots before and always managed to get myself out of them. This time would be no different. Except I had to keep Emma safe, too.
I threw open the front door. “Mitch! You didn’t tell me you were coming.” I smiled broadly .
He scowled at me and stomped past me into his house.
Gone was the charming man who hired me.
Really, should I have taken a live-in job with a man I’d only met once. I felt ashamed of myself.
“I shouldn’t have to give notice,” he snapped. “You should always be ready for me.”
“Oh, I am.” I was nothing if not very good at remaining poised.
“Good. Get my bags.”
Get… his bags ? What was I, his doorman? Yes, perhaps I was.
Okay, fine. No need to set a boundary for a job I was quitting today. I had a line, and it was having an employer who trafficked women.
I clomped outside and opened the trunk of the Jag, then dragged a giant suitcase out, bumping my legs with it when it tumbled free. I dragged the second bag out and set it beside the first to close the hatch. Pulling out the telescoping handles, I dragged the two bags into the house. It seemed like he was staying for a while based on the size and weight of his luggage.
Mitch was in the huge great room. He’d already kicked off his shoes and was unbuttoning his shirt right there in the open. “I’m cranky, and I’ve had a long trip,” he said. “Take off your clothes, so I can let off some steam. ”
Whoa. Anger made me flush hot around the hairline, but I didn’t show it. I’d had sex. Lots of it, and with men I barely knew. I was still discriminate. It was my choice. Always.
This? Yeah, gross.
I tossed my hair. “It sounds like you think my job as a caretaker includes me having sex with you. Is that right?”
He snorted as he unbuckled his belt. “Obviously.”
Fucking snake.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s not happening.”
Emma said this guy was a wolf–I wasn’t sure I even believed what she was telling me because that was crazy as hell–but I noticed a weird glint in his eyes as he stalked toward me.
I shifted away without making it look like I was running, gliding toward the kitchen. “Let me pour you a drink, so you can unwind.”
In a flash, he was behind me, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other around my throat. “It is happening, and it’s happening now,” he growled.
I used my best self-defense moves, jabbing him in the belly with my elbow and stopping on his foot, hard, but it did nothing at all.
“Let go of me!” I struggled against his hold, starting to panic. I’d dealt with handsy guys before. Drunk ones who didn’t understand no. But this was different. He was cutting off my air. Fuck, I was going to pass out.
As lights danced before my eyes and blackness crept in from the corners, I heard glass smashing from two separate directions.
Mitch released me, and I fell to the kitchen floor, rubbing my throat. Two giant tan wolves stood inside the mansion. Holy shit. One had leapt through the sliding glass door and one through the glass panel beside the front door. Both of them had their hackles raised and their teeth bared. An eerie growl filled the room.
Emma had been right about shifters, but seeing it? I blinked and blinked again. Maybe I’d lost some brain cells from being choked.
Mitch snarled, his remaining clothes ripping as he shifted into a grey wolf. He charged one of the other wolves, but they both were upon him in a moment. The fight was a mess of snarling, flying fur and bodies tumbling. They knocked over furniture and lamps with heavy bangs and harsh crashes.
And then, it was over.
The grey wolf lay still. Bloody. Lifeless.
I swallowed hard, scrambled farther away from it all. “Fuck. You killed him.”
The two wolves changed. Before my eyes, they… they shifted. Now, two very naked, very gorgeous men stood over the dead wolf .
“I couldn’t help it.” One looked over at me.
The other wiped blood from around his mouth. Gross. So fucking gross. But also… wow. These two killed the bad guy. They’d saved me.
“Are you Lyssa?”
They both stalked over to me. Again, they were naked. Really, amazingly naked.
“Yes.” I resisted the urge to fan myself. It was definitely the wrong moment to suggest a wild threesome, but that was all I could think about. Especially with, ah, how well-endowed these guys were.
I’d never had a threesome before. Never imagined it beyond a romance book I picked up at an airport for a flight. Now, I craved this duo.
Each of them reached a hand down for me. Rather than choose, I gave them both a hand, and they lifted me to my feet.
Neither of them let go. They stared, moved closer. Breathed me in.
“Lyssa!” Another guy–this one clothed–shot through the hole in the glass at the front door, his eyes wild.
“Yes?”
He took in the dead wolf on the floor and the two men still holding my hands and rushed over. “Thank fate you’re okay.” To the other men, he said, “You were supposed to wait until I arrived.”
“He was choking your mate,” one of my naked rescuers said, but his brows went down on the word mate , like he found it distasteful.
“Your what? Mate?” I asked as the new guy rushed over.
Oh. This must be Johnny. Of course, he thought I was Emma. She had given him my name.
“Hold up, Cowboy,” I said, when he tried to get close. I put my hand on his chest to keep him from scooping me up. “Wrong twin. You’re looking for Emma.”
He drew back, nostrils flaring. His gaze went to my neck and brows dipped even lower. “Twin?”
“Ah. That explains things,” one of the naked gods beside me said. His hand began to stroke my bare arm. Gently, but it sent shivers up my spine.
“What does that explain?” Johnny demanded, looking between them. He still didn’t understand that I wasn’t the woman he was obviously in love with. That I wasn’t Emma. I might look like her, but that was it.
“It explains why this one smells like our mate,” one of the two men/wolves said.
The other one growled.
Oh my.