31. Audrey
AUDREY
I held tight to Holden’s waist as we flew over the field on the back of the ATV. Dusk settled all around us, turning the sky a dark powdery blue, and the fireflies came out for their nightly dance.
It was cool enough that I felt the chill on my bare arms and legs, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable.
I’d never been outdoorsy, but now I saw the appeal. Everything was so big it made all my problems seem small, at least for the moment.
The lights were on in the main house when Holden slowed to a stop. He parked in front and took my bag, then helped me off the ATV.
“I feel under-dressed,” I said.
His blue eyes darkened. “Not under-dressed enough for my liking.” It shouldn’t have felt as natural as it did for him to take my hand. “Come on, doc. Let’s get you fed.”
We climbed the steps to the porch and entered the house, and my stomach grumbled at the smell of cooking meat.
The table lamps in the living room cast a soft glow over the room, and the increasingly familiar sound of nighttime insects drifted in through the open windows.
Ridge was crouched in front of the fireplace, adding a log to the gentle fire that crackled in the hearth. He looked over his shoulder when we entered the room, and my skin burned along the path his eyes traveled from my face down to my tits, over my stomach and bare legs.
He looked good enough to eat in his black work pants, inked arms flexing under the sleeves of his black T-shirt as he poked at the wood in the fireplace.
“Evening,” he said.
“Hey.”
Graham was in the kitchen, tossing a salad next to a foil-tented serving platter. He looked surprisingly domestic in jeans and bare feet, a dark blue henley showing just enough of his muscular body to send a shot of heat between my thighs.
Holden set down my bag. “You should keep some things here, so you don’t have to carry stuff back and forth.”
I didn’t say anything, mostly because it was still sinking in that this was my new reality. I’d been so busy getting Ella settled and dealing with Dean that I’d been able to forget this moment was coming: the moment when I’d have to fuck the three men who’d captured me in the Hunt.
It was fine. It was just sex, and I was a grown woman. Plus, the Bulls had been decent to me, and they were more than decent to look at.
I’d consider it a job: sex work.
I was trading sex for the opportunity I’d had to eliminate Dean from our lives, from the lives of the women he was hurting.
I’d lost that opportunity, but the sex was the price of playing and losing.
Ridge stood. “Get you something? Wine? Beer? Water?”
“A beer sounds good.” I looked at Graham across the great room. “Can I help with dinner?”
“Not this time,” he said.
Ridge headed for the kitchen and I wandered over to the bookshelves, taking in the titles of the books on the shelves, the video games, the DVDs.
It was all so normal. So domestic.
“Any requests for music?” Holden asked, flipping through his phone.
I shook my head, suddenly nervous. This was starting to feel like a date. A date with three huge inked men who planned to fuck me at the same time.
I’d never even had a threesome.
“I didn’t know anyone still bought DVDs,” I said, when Ridge returned with my beer.
He grinned. “Those are Graham’s.”
“Fuck off,” Graham said from the kitchen.
“I have a few,” I admitted. “Movies I like to rewatch, a few of Ella’s favorites.”
“How’s she doing?” Holden asked as soft acoustic rock filled the room from a hidden speaker system.
“She’s good,” I said. “She wanted to see Blue last night.”
“He’s a working dog,” Graham reminded me.
“I know,” I said. “I told her that, and I made sure not to make bacon for breakfast this morning.”
“Have a seat,” Ridge said.
I sat on the sofa and he sat next to me, then flung his arm casually across my bare shoulders. “I take it she met Blue?”
“Yesterday morning,” I said. “They became fast friends.”
“Has she ever had a dog?” Ridge asked, stroking my bare shoulder.
I shook my head.
“Any pets?”
“Nope.” I was having trouble concentrating, the heat from his fingertips traveling from my shoulder to my neck, down to my tits, between my legs.
“Shame,” Holden said, plopping into one of the leather armchairs. He met my gaze, and I couldn’t help staring at his lips, wet with beer. “Kids and animals go together like birds of a feather. You’ll have to bring her up this weekend, let her play with the barn kittens. There’s a new litter.”
“Barn kittens?”
“Every good barn has a family of cats,” Ridge said. “They keep the mice away. Cleo just had a litter last month. They’re the perfect size for Ella.”
I laughed. “She’ll never want to leave.”
Ridge met my eyes, his expression serious. “Sounds good to me.”
Our gazes locked, and I suddenly felt more than nervous: I was scared.
What was happening to me?
“Let’s go,” Graham said. “Food’s on the table. Holden, put on a shirt.”
I was almost relieved for the excuse to get up, put some distance between Ridge and me, get away from the naked lust in Holden’s blue eyes.
Holden picked up a white T-shirt that was flung over the back of the sofa and put it on while Graham pulled out the same chair I’d sat in during Sunday breakfast.
“Thanks.”
I sat and he slid me in, smooth as silk, then took his place next to me while Holden and Ridge took their seats across the table.
Graham took the foil off the serving platter to reveal four glistening steaks, then took one and placed it on my plate.
“Hope you like your meat rare.”
“That’s perfect,” I said.
“We don’t stand on ceremony here,” Graham said. “Everything’s family style. Take what you want and leave the rest.”
They passed around dishes filled with garlic mashed potatoes, fresh green salad tossed with lemon, olive oil, and sea salt, toasted cheese bread, and creamed corn as they chatted about the ranch: the fence in the east field that needed fixing (Ridge’s job), the tractor that was still giving Holden trouble, and the two calves that were due to arrive any day now, along with a new foal.
The conversation was both familiar and foreign. They were the kinds of things we talked about at the hospital — sickness and birth and logistics and malfunctioning equipment — but here everything was so much closer to nature.
“You never had any siblings?” I asked Graham as I cut another bite of perfectly cooked steak. “To help with the ranch?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I inherited it from my parents who’d inherited it from theirs, and so on going back about a hundred years. Used to have a foreman, but couldn’t afford to keep him.”
“It must have been lonely before Ridge and Holden came along,” I said.
His expression seemed to shutter. “Sometimes.”
I sensed there was more to the story.
“How did you end up here?” I asked, looking from Graham to Ridge.
This was good. Talking about them, asking them questions, was easier than talking about the elephant in the room: the fact that I was here to fuck them.
“Couldn’t find work after my stint upstate,” Ridge said. “Graham gave me a job.”
My mouth dropped open. “You were in prison?”
He nodded. “In my twenties.”
I set down my fork, trying to get my head around this new piece of information. “Can I… Can I ask what for?”
“Technically? Assault with a deadly weapon.”
I blinked, trying to reconcile the gentle man who shaped wood with his bare hands with someone who would assault someone with a deadly weapon.
“What happened?” I asked.
He took another bite of mashed potatoes then washed it down with his beer. “I was working a construction job and spotted one of the crew beating on a homeless guy. Couldn’t let it stand.”
“What was the deadly weapon?” I asked.
“A hammer.”
Of course it was.
“I might have gotten away with the first hit,” he continued, clearly not shy about the whole thing. “Problem was, I didn’t stop. I just kept going until someone pulled me off the guy.”
I had an image of him punching Dean, his face a mask of cold fury.
“Anyway, hard to find work when you’re an ex-con, but I knew how to work with my hands, and Graham gave me a chance. That was ten years ago. Been here ever since.”
“Wow.” I looked at Holden. “How about you? Any criminal record you’d like to divulge?”
I had to think about Ella. About how Dean might use the Bulls against me.
Holden shook his head slowly. “I’ve never been pinched for a single fire I’ve set.”
I closed my eyes. “Great. That’s just… great.”
“Will this be a problem?” Ridge asked. “Because of Dean?”
“Everything is a problem because of Dean,” I grumbled, pushing my food around with my fork.
“We have ways of dealing with Dean,” Holden said.
Graham shot him a glare.
I shook my head. “I appreciate it, really, but it’ll be better for me — better for Ella — if you let me handle Dean from now on.”
Graham’s nod was slow. “All right, wildcat. Tonight we’ll let you handle Dean.”
Something about the way he said “tonight” made me think there was more to the concession than met the eye.
Holden grinned.
Ridge went back to eating, his expression a little too innocent.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Holden said.
“That is absolutely not a nothing face.”
But they wouldn’t say anything more, and we went back to eating, making small talk until our plates were clean.
I helped take everything to the kitchen, then did the dishes as a thank you for the nice meal.
When the last plate was loaded and the dishwasher was humming, I turned around to find all three of them staring at me like they were more than ready for dessert.
And I had to say, I was feeling ready for dessert myself.
Because each man was a masterpiece on his own, but together they were enough to set the whole house on fire.
Graham leaned against the island, his eyes like liquid mercury. “Still want to stay, wildcat?”
I considered the question.
I could leave. These three men would let me leave. I was almost sure of it.
I was complicated.
Messy.
Probably not at all what they’d bargained for when they’d decided to hunt me in the tunnels.
But something had started to shift in me over the last few days. Here, I wasn’t Dean’s ex-wife, tiptoeing on a knife’s edge, scared of every shadow.
I could breathe here, away from Dean. I felt free here.
Like I could almost see another version of myself. A version that wasn’t a prisoner to Ella’s father.
I met Graham’s gaze. “Yes.”