RESCUING OUR BRIDE

DARCY ROSE

Copyright © 2024 by Bleeding Heart Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONTENTS

Rescuing Our Bride

1.  Anna

2.  Jax

3.  Anna

4.  Mark

5.  Anna

6.  Jax

7.  Anna

8.  Mark

9.  Anna

10.  Jax

11.  Anna

12.  Mark

13.  Anna

14.  Jax

15.  Anna

Epilogue

About the Author

RESCUING OUR BRIDE

BY DARCY ROSE

I needed a savior, and my soon-to-be husband wasn’t one.

Then they swooped in, kidnapping me on my wedding day.

They rescued me and showed me what it was like to be loved by two men.

I should have known that a simple happy ending

was too good to be true.

1

ANNA

Tears roll down my cheeks, leaving cool tracks on my heated skin. Luckily, no one can see them under my veil. Not that anyone in this room would care since none of my friends were invited. Only my dad and a handful of Patrick’s associates are inside this small chapel. As far as I know, Patrick—my soon-to-be husband—would enjoy seeing my tears. At least that would fit his reputation. Cruel, arrogant, and rich. Those are the main things I’ve learned about him since my father announced he was marrying me off to him.

I tried to reason with him, tried everything I could to get out of it, but in the end, my father won. Patrick promised to pay my mother’s medical bills, past, present, and future. I know that’s a lot of money, and of course, I want my mother to have the best care, but I don’t know if I can sacrifice my entire life for that? There are other ways to get money. I’m not stupid, I had scholarships lined up for college. I could have gotten a good job and supported my parents. But that wasn’t enough for my father.

Even my mother begged him not to go through with it. Yet, here I am, walking down the aisle to be married to a man twice my age and three times my size. At least I was able to pick my own dress. Patrick told me to buy whatever I wanted, no matter the cost. I chose the cheapest dress on purpose. It’s not ugly, but it’s far from what he wanted, and that gives me a small inkling of satisfaction.

My nails dig into my father’s arm as we inch closer to the altar. My steps become slower. I have to drag my feet forward, my whole body protesting to keep going. My father pulls me forward, tugging on my arm almost painfully.

“Don’t make a scene, Anna,” my father whispers under his breath. “You know what’s at stake.”

His warning gets me moving, but only slightly faster. Of course, I know what’s at stake. I just don’t think he realizes what’s at stake for me.

We stop in front of the priest and my father places my hand in Patrick’s sweaty palm. I try not to gag when he gives me a smug smile and squeezes my fingers. My father steps aside, and Patrick leans in to whisper in my ear. “I can’t wait to strip you bare of this monstrous dress and sink my cock deep inside you.”

Bile rises in my throat, and I have to pull away from him before the smell of his cologne puts me over the edge. I don’t think anyone would appreciate me puking on the priest. On second thought, maybe that would get me out of marrying him.

“Dearly beloved,” the priest cuts off my thought by starting his speech. “We are gathered here today—”

“NO ONE MAKES A MOVE!” Someone yells from behind me, and the whole room erupts into chaos.

Ignoring the man’s orders, I spin around to face whoever is interrupting this ceremony. My heart freezes in my chest as I take in the situation. Two masked men have entered through the side door. Both are holding guns. And one of those guns is pointed at me.

Before I can even comprehend what is happening, Patrick grabs me from behind, dragging me in front of his body as he takes a few steps back. I’m so shocked that it takes me a minute to realize what is going on.

This fucking prick is using me as a human shield!

“I said don’t move!” One of the masked men growls, but Patrick keeps pulling me backward. His meaty fingers dig into my arms painfully, making me wince.

For each small step we take back, the masked man takes a larger one toward us, and a moment later, he closes the distance between us. Now he’s right in front of me, making me notice how tall he is. I look up at his face, which is covered by a black ski mask. Only his dark blue eyes are visible to me, but it’s enough to see the storm brewing inside of him. His pupils are dilated, and the deadly glare he is giving me would make a grown man quiver.

His voice matches his death stare to a tee. “You took something from us, Patrick. Now we’re taking something from you.” He moves the gun beside my head, pointing it at Patrick.

Mystery man takes one more step toward me, eating up every inch of space until his body is pressing up against mine. Suddenly, there is nothing but him. I can’t see anything besides the black fabric covering his broad chest. I can’t feel anything besides his hand circling my wrist. And I can’t hear anything besides his gravelly voice demanding I go with him.

Patrick practically shoves me into the stranger’s arms, and before I can come to my senses, I bury my nose into his chest and take a deep breath. He smells like the forest after the rain, a smell I particularly love because it reminds me of the walks my mom used to take me on before she got sick.

I suck in a deep breath, holding on to that happy memory for as long as I can. I’m catapulted back to reality when the stranger grabs my hips, picks me up, and throws me over his shoulder. I drop the bouquet of flowers I forgot I was holding with a surprised yelp. Then my world turns upside down, literally and figuratively.

Tilting my head up, I catch sight of my father’s pale face as I’m carried out of the chapel. He doesn’t even try to stop them. He just stands there in shock, watching as two armed men kidnap me.

I have no idea what is happening, where they’re taking me, or if I’m even going to survive the day. I’m glad my mother couldn’t come today; she is the only person I would actually be worried about now.

The two men speed walk out of the building and down the side alley. With each of my kidnapper’s steps, I bounce on his shoulder. Just when I think my stomach can’t take it any longer, he slides me off and shoves me into the back of a van. My veil is a tangled mess, making it hard to see as it’s bunched up in front of my face. I push it off and try to regain my bearings.

He follows me inside, and I scoot away from him until my back is pressed against the side of the van. A moment later, the door is closed, and the second guy gets into the driver’s seat. The engine roars to life, and we start moving so suddenly that I almost fall over.

My kidnapper moves his arms as if he is going to catch me, but I only recoil at his attempt. “Don’t touch me,” I warn, though my voice is a bit too shaky to have any real threat behind it.

“I was only trying to help.”

“You kidnapped me!”

“We saved you from marrying that pig. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Well, I can’t argue with that.

“Yes, but you still kidnapped me, so if you’re expecting a thank you, there won’t be any.” I fold my arms in front of my chest. “Where are you taking me, and what are you going to do?”

“We’ll take you somewhere safe for now. Just sit back and relax.”

Relax? I just got taken. How the hell am I going to sit back and relax?

“I’d be more relaxed if you took that mask off.”

“Only if you take that dress off first.” His honey-dipped voice makes it sound like he is flirting.

“Not a chance,” I huff.

“I think I’ll be able to change your mind.” I know he is smiling under his mask, and I want nothing more than to wipe that grin off his face even before he continues taunting me. “Matter of fact, I think I’ll have you out of that dress and screaming my name before you know it.”

“Have fun trying,” I quip, unable to hold my tongue.

“Oh, don’t worry, baby, I will.”

Question is, will I?

2

JAX

What the fuck did we get ourselves into? Yes, we planned this. We went in there knowing we were going to leave with her. The part I didn’t plan for was her being so… so… everything.

Patrick has been boasting about his virgin bride around town. We figured this was the perfect time to take something from him, to finally get revenge for what he did to us. I know he doesn’t actually care for her; he only wants her for her beauty and innocence. He wants her as a prize, to show her off as his perfect little trophy wife.

We only have one problem now. The plan was to let her go. Give her money to start a new life somewhere, but one look at her pouty lips and her defiant eyes makes me question everything. Instead of letting her go, all I can think about is keeping her for myself.

Even with this ugly off-white dress straight out of the eighties, she is hands down the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

It takes us over an hour to get to the safe house. I spend every minute of it studying her, learning every facial expression, and memorizing every curve of her slender body as I fantasize about peeling that dress off her.

“We’re almost there,” Mark announces from the front seat. I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror and see the same uncertainty I’m feeling reflecting back at me.

“Where is there?” Anna asks, trying to peek between the front seats out of the windshield.

“A safe house you can stay in for a while.”

“On my own?” she questions.

“That was the plan.” I lean forward, wanting to be closer to her, hoping to get another whiff of her flowery perfume that has my mouth watering.

“Was?” Her perfectly shaped eyebrows raise.

“Maybe it’s better if we stay here with you for a bit.” I must be losing my mind because I swear I see excitement flickering in her pale blue eyes.

“Are you going to wear a mask the whole time?”

“No. I told you. I’ll lose my mask as soon as your dress is off.” I can’t help but grin when I see her cheeks turn a hue of pink. She lowers her head, letting strands of her golden blonde hair fall into her face like she is trying to hide from me.

Oh, baby, there is no hiding.

The van comes to a stop, announcing our arrival. Mark kills the engine and turns his body to look at us. “You gonna walk into the house, or do we have to carry you in?”

“I’ll walk.”

“If you’re thinking about running, don’t bother. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and you won’t get far. Besides, we won’t hurt you,” I assure her.

She still doesn’t look convinced, and when she pulls off her high heels before inching closer to the door, I’m sure she is going to try to run anyway.

Mark walks around the van and pulls the back door open, and bright sunshine filters in, making me squint my eyes as I watch Anna scoot along the side to the door until her feet hang out. Her feet touch the grass, and Mark takes a step to the side to give her some space. Just as I expected, she takes that as an invitation to dash away from us.

“Of course she isn’t listening.” Mark rolls his eyes and leans against the side of the van. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he doesn’t make a move to run after her. I guess it’s up to me.

I give her a thirty-second head start, watching her wavy blonde hair sparkling like spun gold in the sunlight. Then I jump out of the van and take off after her. She is much shorter than me, making it easy to catch up to her with my much longer strides.

As soon as I get close enough, I tackle her, turning my body in midair, so I hit the ground, and she lands on top of me. The fall knocks the wind out of me, but I manage to hold on to her body, trying to wiggle out of my arms. Her sweet floral scent hits me full force, and my cock twitches against my zipper. If it wasn’t for the few inches of fabric between us, I’m sure she’d feel me rubbing against her perk ass.

“Stop! I said we are not going to hurt you.” I tighten my arms around her a little bit further, and a few moments later, she finally relaxes in my hold.

“Fine! Let me go, and I’ll walk into the house.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she huffs.

I release her, and she scrambles off me. She heads toward the house without looking back at me, stomping away like an angry child. I get up and follow her. Mark is already at the door, unlocking it when she brushes past him, almost knocking him out of the way.

Her spirit has me grinning under my mask, and more than ever, I’m glad we took her today.

I think this is going to be more fun than I thought.

3

ANNA

Ihave to get away from them. Not because I’m still scared but because I can feel them twisting my mind. I don’t know how they are able to make me feel the things I do. I just know I can’t change it.

The way he chased after me had my heart beating so furiously that I worried I might pass out, and when he caught me, I felt like my chest was going to explode. Don’t even get me started on the heat coiling in my core when he held me tightly to his body. I’ve never been with a man, but I’m not stupid. I felt his erection through the multiple layers of thick fabric.

He is huge and hard. Hard for me. Now I wish I had my veil to hide my red face again. Can they see how embarrassed I am? How aroused?

I can’t tell because I can’t even see their faces. All I have to go by is their eyes and the tone of their voices. For some reason, that is also a turn-on. The mystery, the danger, knowing that they could overpower me and have their way. Ugh, I’m screwed.

When I brushed by the other guy on my way in, I noticed he is just as tall and built as his accomplice.

Yep, definitely screwed.

Trying to hide my thoughts, I walk further into the large farm-style house that looks like an older couple lived here. It’s an open floor plan, decorated with a woman’s touch with flowery curtains and colorful pillows. The cozy living room is attached to a good-sized kitchen with distressed white cabinets and a double oven—which would be perfect for lots of baking.

Flopping down on the soft couch, I sink into the pillows and cross my arms in front of my chest. My two kidnappers stroll into the room, closing the door behind them but not locking it.

“What now? You gonna tie me up and keep me here forever?”

“We’ll tie you up if that’s the kind of thing you’re into?” The guy who drove the van teases me, and my cheeks feel like they are on fire again.

“I’m not into anything,” I lie. I think I could get behind them tying me up.

“You can’t know that since you haven’t done anything like that before, have you? At least, that’s what Patrick told everyone. How he was going to fuck his virgin wife, teach her all the things she didn’t know.”

The mentioning of Patrick feels like a bucket of cold water to my burning skin. The desire I was feeling a moment ago evaporates faster than it was lit.

Turning my head away, I look out of the window, not wanting them to see what I’m feeling.

“You’re bleeding,” one of the guys says. I assume they are talking to each other, so I ignore them until they both move closer.

When I turn my head to look at what they are doing, they are way closer than I expected. The one who tackled me to the ground is now kneeling by my feet, lifting my dress off my legs. I’m so stunned that I don’t even pull away as his hand dips under my skirt and his fingers wrap around my ankle.

“You must have stepped on something while you were running off. Your heel is bleeding,” he points out as he cradles my bare foot, inspecting it like I’m about to bleed to death.

“Oh… I didn’t notice. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“We need to clean the wound,” the other guy says and walks into the kitchen. He rummages through one of the cabinets before returning with a first aid kit in his hand.

“We should take this dress off and get you cleaned up. How does that sound?” The man in front of me asks seductively.

“Good,” I say against my better judgment. Before I can take it back, my dress is pushed even higher up my leg. “Wait! I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Jax,” the guy at my feet says.

“I’m Mark,” the other one introduces just as he gets on the couch beside me. He reaches for the zipper on the side of my dress and, for some reason, I let him.

No, I don’t just let him. I lift my fucking arm to give him better access. What the hell am I doing?

The dress falls open, exposing my plain white underwear beneath. I didn’t wear anything sexy on purpose. I didn’t want Patrick to think I dressed up for him, but had I known I would end up here, I would have put on something nicer.

“You’re very beautiful,” Mark murmurs while he gathers my dress and pushes it up. Jax helps him wrangle the mass of fabric, and together they pull it up over my head, leaving me sitting on the couch in nothing but my underwear.

Mark pulls my legs into his lap, and I lean back into the fluffy couch pillows while they make quick work of cleaning and bandaging my foot. Though they are only touching my legs and feet, their fingers on my skin have my whole body on fire.

“You ever had a man touch you?” Mark suddenly asks, his eyes burning with desire.

“I haven’t done anything with a man, but I’ve used toys on myself,” I blurt out, because in my mind that’s better than saying I’m a virgin who has no idea about sex whatsoever.

“Is that so?” Jax smiles under his mask. “What kind?”

“Vibrators and stuff.” I bite my lip, as I continuously wonder why I’m even telling them. I’ve never told anyone before, and I wasn’t planning on sharing what I do behind closed doors.

“Just wait until you get a feel of the real thing,” Mark teases, and a warm tingle works up my spine.

Anticipation of what’s to come next has my mind whirling, and I can barely think straight, but I remember what Jax told me earlier.

“Don’t forget, it’s your turn. You said you would take the mask off after my dress is off.” I wave down at my half-naked body.

“I did, and I will stand by my word if you want me to… but I think you would rather us fuck you first.”

My mouth pops open with a gasp. Dumbfounded by how his crude words turn me on even more and the fact that he knows things about me that I barely know about myself.

“Is that what you want, Anna?” My name rolls off Mark’s tongue like he’s said it a million times before.

“I don’t know… yes, maybe, yes.” I stumble over the words, making both men chuckle. “Who says I want to fuck you at all?”

Mark slides his arms under my body and lifts me from the couch. I wrap my arms around his neck, and he silently carries me upstairs to a bedroom. Jax follows closely behind us as we make our way through the house.

“Your body does enough talking.” Mark puts me down on the mattress, and I prop myself up onto my elbows to watch them get undressed. Jax pulls off his shirt first, careful to leave the ski mask in place. His muscular upper body comes into view, and I rub my thighs together, desperate for some friction there. Mark takes his shirt off, and his body doesn’t disappoint either. They are both carved from stone, and I have the urge to run my hands over them just to see how they feel.

“I want you on all fours,” Jax orders, and my body springs into action. I roll over and push myself up on my knees.

The bed dips, and Jax sits down in front of me, his crotch only a few inches away now. The thick outline of his cock is unmistakable, and I gulp, wondering if it will fit.

“Don’t worry. We’ll make you feel really good, baby. I want your mouth on me while Mark fucks you from behind, nice and slow.”

“Okay… but I’ve never done this either.” I glance at his crotch as he unzips himself and pulls out his cock.

“It’s okay. I know you’ll do great. Just keep your mouth open and relax your throat for me.”

Behind me, Mark gets on the bed, palming my ass before sinking his fingers into my panties and pulling them down my legs slowly.

“Fuck, she is so wet already. Our dirty girl wants to be fucked badly.” Mark places his hands on each of my ass cheeks and spreads them apart. I gasp when he leans down and buries his face between my cheeks. His tongue circles my entrance before sliding up to my other hole.

I tense and try to pull away, but Mark simply holds me in place and continues to ravish my asshole until a moan slips from my lips.

“Open up, Anna,” Jax commands, guiding his cock to my face.

Eagerly, I part my lips and welcome the smooth head of his member into my mouth.

Jax cradles my face with both hands and starts thrusting in and out. Slowly at first, but after a few times, he is going deep enough to make me gag.

I should be scared. I should feel dirty and appalled by what they are doing to me. But the truth is, I love it. I want more and judging by how Jax is starting to fuck my face, I will get exactly what I hope for.

4

MARK

Out of all the ways I imagined this day unfolding, this was definitely not one of them.

I stare down at her glistening cunt and her pink asshole puckering up every time Jax shoves his cock down her throat.

Fuck. I don’t remember the last time my dick was this hard. I do know that my balls are going to explode if I don’t fuck her. I should probably make her come first, but her pussy is already swollen, and her wetness is dripping down her thighs. Her cunt is basically begging to be fucked. And who am I to deny her what she wants?

I free my aching cock from my pants and bring the tip to her soaking entrance. Her silky skin feels like heaven as I rub myself through her wetness.

Groaning, I push inside her painfully slowly. She is tight but wet enough for me to slide inside until my balls kiss her skin. She feels so good, my cock wants to live inside her. Her walls are gripping me like she wouldn’t mind me staying either.

Placing my hands on her hips, I move in and out in controlled thrusts, until the gagging sound she is making deepthroating Jax makes me thrust faster.

“I know you said nice and slow, but I don’t think I’ll be able to. Fuck, she feels like heaven.” I run one of my hands over her smooth back, reassuring her that I’ll make her feel good too. Yes, I want to take, but I also want to give.

“I think she can take it,” Jax grits through his teeth like he is about to lose control. He lowers his head to look at Anna’s face. “Since your mouth is full, you won’t be able to use a safe word. Tap my leg if it’s too much.”

Anna nods as much as she can with my friend’s dick in her mouth, and I don’t waste any time filling her cunt with mine.

We fall into a perfect rhythm. Me fucking her from behind while Jax deep throats her mouth. Sounds of her gagging mingle with the wet smacks of me fucking her.

Anna arches her back, moaning around Jax’s cock, and I can feel her pussy strangling me. “I think our dirty girl is about to come. I can feel her cunt squeezing me.”

“I really wanted to fuck her too, but her mouth feels like paradise. I think I’m going to come down her throat.”

“We can always fuck her again later.” The thought has my excitement growing. I can’t wait to fuck her every way possible. “This pussy is tight, but I bet her ass is even tighter.”

Unable to stop myself, I place my thumb on her puckered hole and start massaging it. I wasn’t going to press in, but when the little minx pushes back against my thumb, I give her what she wants. I slip my thumb inside the tight ring of muscle. Her ass closes up, trying to force me out, but I’m stronger, so I shove inside by force.

A strangled cry comes from her just as I feel her pussy contract, her thighs quiver, and her whole body stiffens. Knowing that she is coming, I thrust my cock into her cunt erratically while fucking her ass with my thumb.

Her orgasm eggs on my own. My balls tighten, my muscles spasm, and before I can pull out, I shoot a load of cum deep inside her channel. Ropes and ropes of my release spurt into her as my orgasm seems to go on forever.

Euphoria, like I’ve never experienced before, washes in waves over my spent body until I’m left with the most sated feeling of my life. I’m vaguely aware of Jax coming too. He pulls out of her and leans back against the headboard.

I’m still breathing heavily as I pull out of her and take a moment to watch my cum dripping out of her used hole. She collapses onto the mattress. Her small, sexy body looks as sated as I feel.

Fuck, I could get used to this sight.

5

ANNA

I’ve never felt so sated in my entire life. My body is deliciously spent, sore, as if I’ve just had the workout of my life. My mind feels the same, exhausted, but in the best way possible. My eyes flutter closed, and I sink deeper into the mattress.

When I woke up this morning, there was nothing but hopelessness. I was filled with dread and fear for how the day would end. My future looked bleak, and though I’m still uncertain of what’s to come, I already have more hope than before.

The mattress dips, and I pry my eyes open again. Jax is getting off the bed, stretching his lean body before reaching for his ski mask. His back is to me, but I still hold my breath as he pulls the black fabric off his head.

The first thing I see is his shaggy brown hair. He runs his fingers through the long strands, scratching his scalp along the way. Then he turns around to face me.

Our eyes meet, and I see all of him for the first time. He is even more handsome than I imagined him to be—a sharp jawline, strong cheekbones, and full lips made for kissing.

“Like what you see?”

“Maybe.” I grin.

“I’m taking a shower if you want to join me?”

“I’m not sure if my legs will work long enough,” I half-joke.

“Don’t worry. We won’t let you fall.” Mark’s sleepy voice meets my ears. He tussles beside me and sits up, taking off his mask as well.

Of course, he is just as good-looking as Jax, but in his own way. His hair is cut short, and he has some facial hair covering half of his face, but that only makes him more ruggedly handsome.

I’m guessing they are both around thirty years old, which makes them ten years older than me. I guess a ten-year age gap is the least taboo aspect of what we did today.

“Will the shower be big enough for all three of us?”

“Only one way to find out.” Jax shrugs and holds his hand out to me. I place my palm into his much larger one, and he pulls me off the bed with ease.

The bathroom is huge, bigger than my room at home, and the shower ends up being more than enough to fit the three of us.

Jax turns on the water from two separate showerheads, one on the side and a rainfall one from above.

I’m just about to step into the shower when I feel something wet sliding down the inside of my thigh. I look down and see creamy white cum smeared down my skin.

“Oh, my god. You didn’t use a condom.”

“I know. I meant to pull out, but fuck, you felt so good.”

“I’m not on any birth control.” I had begged my father to take me to get some, but Patrick was adamant about not giving me any.

“Don’t worry. It will be fine.” Mark tries to calm me, but his words only make me angry.

“Easy for you to say. You have money, a car, a fancy house. I have nothing but a pile of hospital bills to pay for my mom’s treatment. I can’t afford to bring a kid into this world. I can’t even take care of myself.”

Instead of answering my little rant, Mark and Jax exchange a strange look as if they are having a silent conversation with each other.

Jax suddenly tugs me into the shower, making me shriek at the sudden change of temperature.

“What do you think this is?” Mark asks, all serious as he comes up behind me.

“Well, let’s see. You kidnapped me—”

“Saved you from a loveless marriage,” Jax corrects while he squirts some shampoo into his hand.

“Chased me when I tried to get away—”

“Took care of you and bandaged your foot,” Mark quips, running a soapy washcloth down my back.

“Then you took my virginity—”

“You gave it willingly, and you sure as hell loved every second of it,” Jax points out, just as he starts washing my hair. His fingers massage my scalp, reminding me how right he is.

“Okay, I can’t deny that, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got my life together any more than I do. Actually, it probably means the opposite. What woman in her right mind sleeps with two guys who kidnapped her from her wedding?”

“Rescued her from her wedding, and I think you’re doing pretty good, considering all the shit your father has put you through.”

“What do you know about my father? And why did you take me in the first place? You said Patrick took something from you.”

“We know your father from the research we’ve done. When we heard about Patrick getting married, we gathered all the information we could. Since your father arranged the whole thing, we had to dig into his life. And yes, Patrick took something from us…” Mark says.

“Our mother,” Jax fills in the blank.

A gasp slips past my lips. I knew Patrick was a slimy prick. “What did he do… wait, you are brothers?”

“Not by blood. We were in foster care together. Penny was our foster mom, one of many but the only one who actually gave a shit. She was working in one of Patrick’s factories when she got sick. She worked there for twenty years and hardly missed a day of work, but he fired her when she started calling out sick to go to her chemo treatments. She lost her health insurance, and then…”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It happened a long time ago, but we never forgot. We vowed to her we would get revenge. We’ve been waiting for the right time, and then we heard about you. We planned to take you and let you go tomorrow, but…” Mark runs the washcloth over my stomach and down between my thighs.

I let my head fall back against his shoulder and close my eyes. “Mmmhhh, that feels so good.” He brushes the cloth over my sensitive clit.

“Like he said, we were going to let you go.” Jax surprises me, wrapping his lips around my nipple.

“But I don’t think that’s going to happen now,” Mark whispers against my neck. “We’re going to keep you. We’re going to worship your body every day, and maybe even send Patrick some videos of how we dirty you up.”

“Yes,” I moan. I don’t know why that sounds so sexy, but I want it all.

Jax releases my nipple with a pop. “We’ll take care of you from now on. We’ll make sure everything is taken care of. You don’t ever have to worry again.” Before I can respond, he wraps his lips around my other nipple, sucking on it so hard that I forget what I was going to say.

“Tell us that’s what you want. Tell us you want to stay with us,” Mark urges.

“Yes, yes! I want that. Please.” My voice comes out raspy, my entire body is on fire, and I know it won’t take much for me to come again.

Mark keeps rubbing the washcloth over my clit while Jax plays with my tits, sucking, kneading, and teasing. Then Mark’s free hand slides around my back and down my ass. He slips between my cheeks until he finds my back hole. His soapy finger slides into the tight ring of muscle with ease.

He shoves his finger deep inside my ass, and the foreign feeling with a twinge of pain is what pushes me over the edge. I come so hard that my vision goes black, and stars form around me. My whole body tightens, my back arches, and I get up on my tiptoes before slumping back into Mark’s hold.

“I think she wants to stay.” Jax chuckles.

“Yes, and we’ll never let her go,” Mark agrees.

I’m too spent to answer, but in my mind, I nod.

Yes, don’t ever let me go.

6

JAX

“Good morning.” Leaning back against the counter, I greet Anna, watching over the rim of my coffee mug as she pads barefoot through the living room into the kitchen.

Wrapped in nothing more than the white cotton sheet from the master bed, her golden hair tousled around her bare shoulders from two more intense rounds of sex and the exhaustion that claimed her afterward, she looks like a goddess. A vision of Aphrodite, and I would be happy to worship at the temple of her body every day for the rest of my life. Starting with her perfect breasts and hardened nipples, visible beneath the thin fabric of the sheet.

Yup, I am so fucked. Pretty sure Mark is too.

We had a plan—and the plan was simple. Crash the wedding. Steal the bride and finally, finally, get payback. For Penny. Of course, that was before I saw Anna standing at the altar in that monstrosity of a wedding dress swallowing her whole like an ivory nightmare straight out of an eighties fashion magazine. She was breathtaking.

That’s when the plan went to shit.

We kicked in the doors of that church, fully prepared to steal Patrick’s future trophy wife, saving her from the miserable existence that awaited her by setting her up with a new name and a new life. What I didn’t plan for was the overwhelming desire for her new life to start with us. I want to keep her, and I know Mark wants to keep her. We’re too like-minded for him to want anything else.

And goddamn if she doesn’t want to be kept. Or at least I thought she did.

“Is it?” Anna asks, fisting the translucent white sheet to her chest like it’s her lifeline, tugging me back from my thoughts.

“Is it what?” I take another sip of coffee, hoping the caffeine will make a direct course from my tongue to my brain because I’m too lost in the blue of her eyes, the flush in her cheeks, and the shimmer in her hair to keep track of whatever the hell we were just talking about.

“A good morning.” The sheet drags along the floor behind her, like the train of that god-awful wedding gown she wore yesterday, as she moves through the kitchen to fix herself a cup of coffee.

Was it just yesterday? How is that even possible? I barely know this woman. Mark and I researched her and her family, but there wasn’t anything in our files that could have prepared us for the real thing. Somehow, she fits like the missing piece between me and Mark. A piece neither of us knew was missing until we took her—in more ways than one.

“After last night, I was hoping you would think so.” My left eye twitches. Not quite a wince, but I find myself bracing against whatever comes out of her mouth next, because I suspect it won’t be good.

“Yeah, well, the sun has a funny way of shining a new light on things.” Anna sips her coffee, grimacing at the mug before setting it down on the counter to add more sugar and cream.

She takes it light and sweet—nothing like how she takes it in the bedroom. Still, I note the number of spoonfuls of sugar, and the length of the pour of cream so that I can replicate it and have the perfect cup of coffee ready and waiting for her tomorrow morning.

It’s a small thing. A tiny gesture. But that’s what love is, isn’t it? The little details that go unnoticed by others. Except for you. You notice how all of those things come together—how the sum of the whole isn’t just greater than the sum of its parts, it’s pieced together by them. And the parts are not interchangeable. Take away one detail, one little quirk, and Anna would be different.

Shit. Love? Where the hell did that come from? Infatuation, maybe. This is nuts. I’m fucking nuts and the edge of regret in her voice is making me even crazier.

“Hmm, I suppose it does.” I inch my shoulder up, the slightest shrug, and keep my voice soft and easy because she looks fragile, like she might break. As much as I don’t want to be the reason she falls to pieces; in the best possible way, I need to know where her head is at, and what she’s thinking. “And how are things looking to you?”

“Like I made a huge mistake.” Anna dumps her coffee down the drain and sets her mug in the sink. One hand still clutching the sheet to her chest, she grips the edge of the counter with the other and stares out into the woods behind the cabin through the window above the kitchen sink. “Yesterday I was getting married.”

She raises her hand as if to stave off the argument she must sense is coming because what was about to go down in that church yesterday was far from a marriage.

“Yes, I was being forced into it, but I resolved myself to the fact that I was marrying Patrick for my mom. To save her. I wanted to run, you know? I was going to sneak out of the house and disappear. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live with myself if she died because I didn’t have the strength to do what was necessary to save her. So I made a choice. Or, at least I told myself that’s what I did.”

Anna’s chin is up and her shoulders are pushed back, but she won’t look at me. She just keeps staring out that fucking window like the key to the universe is dangling from one of the pine trees.

“And then you and Mark stormed in, armed to the teeth. You took me from the church at gunpoint and tossed me in the back of a van. I should have been terrified. I mean, I was terrified. But I was also relieved.”

She rounds on me then, eyes wild with a fire that grew from an ember she had buried deep inside her.

“My mother is dying, and I’m the one with the power to make her life better. At least give her a chance at surviving. And I was relieved when you kidnapped me. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I slept with you. Both of you. I gave up my mother and my virginity all on the same day. What kind of person does that? What the fuck does that say about me?”

“It doesn’t say anything about you, and it doesn’t make you any kind of person except the person that you are.” I grab her free hand and tug her toward me. She resists, her bare feet skidding across the floor, but even without using all my strength, she’s no match for me physically. “Listen to me carefully, Anna. Patrick is the villain in this story. Not you.”

“I need to call my mom. I want to talk to the doctor or a nurse or something to make sure she’s okay. So she knows that I’m okay.” Some of the fight drains out of her when she rests her forehead against my chest and lets me hold her.

Anna feels amazing in my arms like her body was made to mold against mine and as much as I’m enjoying the feel of her pressed against me, this moment isn’t going to last. Not when I’m about to be the bad guy.

Fucking Mark. Why did he have to sleep in? If he was down here, he could be the one to tell her no.

“I’m sorry, Anna. I really am, but I can’t let you—”

“You’re not going to let me call my mom?” She goes rigid in my arms before pushing me away.

The sheet, all but forgotten as she struggles to free herself from my hold, droops and exposes the most perfect breasts I’ve ever seen. My hands itch to touch them. Hell, I’m practically salivating at the thought of pulling them into my mouth and rolling her taut nipples between my teeth. It takes everything I have not to grab her and fuck her right here on the kitchen floor. But I can’t. I won’t. No matter how much I want her right now.

Because I want her to want it too and now isn’t the time. Not when she’s throwing daggers at me with her eyes.

“I can’t let you call her. No one can know where you are. Not even your mom.”

“Right, because I’m just a pawn in this twisted game of revenge you’re playing with Patrick.” She adjusts the sheet, wrapping it around herself and tucking the corner in at the top to hold the layered cotton in place. “Well, you know what, screw you. Screw your plans. I’m calling my mom.”

Anna’s gaze flicks to my cell phone on the end of the counter, then back to me; a silent dare to stop her swirling in the blue depths of her eyes. She takes a step to the left. So do I. Her muscles tense, she’s coiled tighter than a viper ready to strike. She’s quick when she wants to be. Rather than let her get the jump on me today, I swing my arm out and swat the phone off the counter.

“Morning.” Mark stumbles in, stopping short as the phone skids across the hardwood floor inches from his feet.

He catches my gaze before dropping his back to the phone at his feet and then snapping it up to Anna. In a matter of seconds, he’s reading the room and diffusing the tension.

“Right.” Mark claps his hands and rubs his palms together. “How about we go for a walk? Get some fresh air.”

Fresh air? What we need is a fresh start. A do-over for a morning that went off the rails faster than a runaway freight train. But I get where Mark’s going with this. We can’t let Anna call her mom, or have any contact with the outside world. Not yet. We’re not the monsters, and she’s not our captive. Never was. The plan had always been to let her go. A little taste of freedom would go a long way to remind her that she’s not a prisoner here. Not really.

Well, at least not once we come up with a new plan. One where we get to keep Anna safe, make her hours, and have her reconnect with her mom without worrying about Patrick.

7

ANNA

Awalk? My mother is sick, and my father’s only solution to the mounting medical bills that our family is drowning in was to sell me off to one of the most powerful and ruthless men in existence. My hand in marriage, my virginity, in exchange for cold hard cash. My services rendered and payment would be made, wiping out our family’s medical debts and paying for the rest of my mother’s medical treatment and expenses.

Except that never happened. Thanks to Mark and Jax.

Not only did they crash my wedding, along with any hope of saving my mother, but they helped themselves to my virginity, which I offered up with wonton abandon. Hell, they came for seconds and thirds. I should have been terrified, furious, and felt anything other than the overwhelming desire to be consumed by them. This is crazy. Maybe I’m going crazy, but they’re crazier than I am if they think a casual stroll through the woods will fix my problems.

“The only thing I have to wear, apart from this sheet,” I glance down at the cotton fabric wrapped around me like a security blanket, “is my wedding dress. And a pair of high heels. I’m hardly equipped for a hike in the woods, and I’m not going to find inner peace and connect with nature going au natural.”

“We’ve got that covered. Mark and I picked up a few things for you before we, uh…well, before yesterday.” Jax rakes his fingers through his hair and then around the back of his neck. He looks uncomfortable, maybe even a little apologetic for refusing my phone call.

Good.

He should feel bad about not letting me talk to my mother. I sure as hell did. She was sick and now she would be worried about my disappearance. An added stress she doesn’t need given her worsening condition.

The doctors said she beat the odds and was in remission. She looked great, felt great, better than she had in years. Until one day she didn’t. Her cancer came back with a vengeance. Her oncologist is recommending an aggressive treatment plan. One we can’t afford on top of the bills my father still hasn’t paid from her first battle with cancer. She doesn’t need to be worrying about me or fighting with the bill collectors and the insurance company.

Not when I was the one who was supposed to save her.

By marrying Patrick. The thought of him, his hands on me, on what would have been my wedding night, makes my stomach churn. Maybe that’s why I had sex with random strangers. My act of rebellion. Give up the one thing Patrick wanted most—my virginity; on my terms, to someone—or two someones—of my choosing. Not my father’s. Of course, Mark and Jax weren’t really random strangers. There was nothing random about how we met. They’d planned it.

What they hadn’t planned on was their attraction to me. Or mine to them.

Man, Am I screwed up or what? The air in the old farmhouse feels thick and stuffy. I can’t breathe. My chest is tight, and the walls feel like they’re closing in. Black spots dance in the corners of my vision. Recognizing the symptoms of a panic attack, I force myself to suck in a breath of air, and then another. Too fast. I’ll hyperventilate or pass out at this rate.

Mark and Jax are watching me, worry etched on their faces, poised and ready to jump in if I black out.

I take another breath. Slower, deeper this time, through my nose, and then exhale through my mouth. Again. I repeat the process until I get my breathing and myself under control.

“Maybe some fresh air will do me some good.” I’m not in the mood for a nature hike, but I need to shake off the rush of anxiety, and getting out of the house is bound to help.

Their shared relief is a palpable thing. Slacked shoulders, easy half smiles, and an overall release of tension in their bodies and the air around us.

“Good. That’s good. We’ll go on a walk, get some air, some sun, and just relax, okay?” Jax raises his hands in a placating gesture and steps to the side to give me a little space.

“Fine. I might need to get out of the house, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed. Because I am,” I reply with a huff, refusing to give them an inch. “You said you have clothes for me?”

The question was directed at Mark. I’m not sure I want to speak to Jax right now. Neither of them would let me call my mom, but only one of them had actually told me no. So Jax’s bearing the brunt of my anger. Maybe that’s why he takes it upon himself to answer.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room. Well, the room we set up for you, anyway. We didn’t get much. Just a few things to tide you over until you found somewhere new to call home.” Jax shrugs and slips between me and the counter to lead the way upstairs. He hesitates just outside the bedroom door. “Suitcase is in the closet. Like I said, the plan was to help you start a new life somewhere else.”

There’s a heavy pause and a sigh that follows. “I really am sorry, Anna.” And with that, he disappears down the stairs to wait with Mark while I get dressed.

His apology sounded genuine. I want to believe him and it’s harder to stay mad at him when I know he’s making it clear that he feels as badly about me not talking to my mom as I do. Mark and Jax lost their foster mother to cancer and a series of events put into play by my former fiancé. Just referring to him as that makes the bile in my stomach burn the back of my throat. Still, the men who kidnapped me for revenge know something about loss and have the same appreciation for a mother’s love that I do.

I can use that to my advantage. Maybe while we’re out on our walk, I can convince them to let me call my mom just long enough to tell her I’m okay. And if not, well then, maybe I can convince myself to run away from them. Back to my mom.

And Patrick.

With a newfound determination to convince them to grant me one phone call, something even criminals are given when placed under arrest, I rummage through the suitcase and slap an outfit together. I get dressed in record time and sprint down the stairs.

“I’m ready to go. Nature walk. Let’s do this.” My voice sounds chipper, too happy even for my ears. I need to dial back the enthusiasm before the guys call bullshit, and I foil my plan to get them to cave to my one demand before I can even set it into motion.

“Yeah, Jax, let’s do this.” Mark shares a questioning glance with his brother, or maybe he’s his best friend. I’m not sure how they refer to each other. Penny was their foster mom, but they’re not related.

SOMETHING TO ADD to the growing list of things I don’t know about them. They kidnapped me. Do I even want to know them? The answer is a surprising yes. Though after the way they made me feel yesterday, maybe it shouldn’t come as such a surprise at all.

“Right.” Jax returns the look Mark gave him, slaps his palms against his knees, and pushes up off the couch. “Nature walk. Let’s go on an adventure.”

He grabs a backpack from the pew-style wooden bench in the mudroom, filled with what I can only assume are bottles of water and snacks, and leads the charge out of the house. The contents of that pack could just as easily be duct tape and rope, but if they wanted to hurt me, they’ve had plenty of opportunity before now. Besides, they seem far more interested in giving me pleasure than causing me pain.

THE WOODS around the house are lush and dense. Pine and fir trees grow tall, fighting each other to breach the canopy and reach the sun’s rays. Ferns cover the forest floor and downed limbs, trees, and large stones are covered in moss and lichens. Mushrooms sprout from the dark, damp, rich soil. It’s beautiful, like an enchanted forest straight out of a fairytale. I keep waiting for some magical creature to cross over the path in front of us. The trees and the footpath open up, revealing a blue-green lake fed by a cascading waterfall on the opposite side.

“This is beautiful. It’s like paradise.” A little gasp of excitement escapes my mouth, and I can feel my eyes widening with wonder as I take in the small patch of sand amidst the rocky beach and the spray from the water crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the falls. It’s easy to see why they like it here. A person could forget themselves and their troubles in a place like this. At least for a little while.

“The water’s surprisingly warm this time of year if you want to go for a swim.” Jax arches a brow, as if daring me to get into the water.

Not one to back down from a dare or to miss an opportunity, I strip out of my clothes down to the matching lace bra and panty set I found in the suitcase. They have great taste in ladies’ underwear. I’ll be sure to thank them later. Assuming my plan of seduction works.

Something tells me a little sexual persuasion will go a long way to getting me my phone call.

I reach behind my back and with a gentle tug I release the hooks, letting the bra straps slide down my shoulders before hooking my thumbs in the sides of my panties and making a show of inching them down my legs.

Pupils blown wide with desire, I relish in the way their bodies react to mine. Their hardened lengths are visible through their shorts. Before either of them can do anything, I make a break for the water.

Jax bends over, unlaces his boots, and then toes them off. His socks and shirt are quick to follow. I watch from the lake as his fingers curl around the hem of his shirt and he tugs it up and over his head. God, he’s magnificent. Every inch of him is defined muscle, harder than the rocks surrounding the lake. His hands glide across his chiseled abs to the defined V exposed by his low-hanging cargo shorts. With a pop of the button and zip of his fly, the shorts pool around his ankles a second before he steps free of them.

DESIRE POOLS low in my stomach, I run my tongue along my lower lip as images of that glorious body and the things he can do with it rush through my mind. I spread my arms out across the water’s surface for added buoyancy, as the ache in my core grows with anticipation. I rub my legs together, desperate for friction and a little relief from the pressure and need building within me.

Mark is already stripping out of his clothes, hot on Jax’s heels as they trudge through the shallow water to join me in the middle of the lake. I swim further out from shore, closer to the waterfall. Jax and Mark give chase, as I dive under and slip behind the falls.

I let them catch me because I want this as much as I need them to want it.

Jax wraps his arms around me, pulling me against the hard planes of his body. He slides his hands down, grabbing my ass before inching over to my thighs and hooking my legs around his waist. He lets out a groan as I grind against him. The friction against my clit heightens my arousal and pushes me closer to that sweet release.

“Is this what you want?” Mark glides up behind me, fisting his fingers in my wet hair and tugging my head back. “You want Jax to fuck that sweet, tight pussy while you suck me off?”

He claims my mouth in a passionate kiss, stealing the answer from my lips before I can give it to him, exploring with his tongue devouring me like a ravenous man given his first morsel of food.

“Bring her closer to shore.” Jax’s voice is rough, with a need that sounds exactly like the one consuming me. He untangles my legs from around his waist and helps Mark guide my floating body to shallower waters where their feet can touch the bottom.

Once they can stand, they leave me floating on my back as they take positions, with Jax at my feet and Mark beside my head.

“Fuck, Anna, you’re so fucking sexy.” Jax grabs my ankles and spreads my legs wide. “I want to be inside you so bad, baby. I want to bury my cock in your sweet pussy. You want that too, don’t you, baby? Tell me how much you want me to fuck you.”

“Yes, I want you inside me, Jax. I need you to fuck me, please.” I’m exposed, bare in front of him. I’ve never felt so alive, so desirable.

His hands glide through the water, skimming over my legs to cup my ass and tug me toward him. Mark moves closer beside my face, cradling my head in his hand to help keep me afloat and brace me as he presses the tip of his dick against my lips. I lick the glistening tip, the only invitation he needs to fuck my mouth. With one hard, perfectly timed thrust, I’m full at both ends. Jax buried deep inside me, hitting a spot I’ve never reached with any toy whenever I’ve pleasured myself, and Mark is balls deep in my mouth. They move in unison. Pumping in and out, driving themselves into me and pushing me closer to oblivion. Jax reaches over, sliding his hand over my mound, presses his fingers against my clit, and then pinches his fingers in the perfect amount of pleasure and pain.

That’s all it takes. The first orgasm rips through me, and I’m gone. Nothing more than an over-sensitized bundle of nerves. Mark and Jax are still thrusting, using my body for their pleasure, giving as much as they’re taking when the next wave hits me. I’m well and truly fucked.

And so is my plan.

8

MARK

“Hungry,” I ask as I hold the door for Anna. After our hike out to the falls, skinny dipping followed by hot sex in the lake’s cool water, I’ve worked up one hell of an appetite.

One I’m not sure food alone will satisfy.

Fuck, I can’t get enough of her. Jax is a goner too. I can tell by the way he looks at her. We were supposed to let Anna go, but that plan was shot to hell the moment we tossed her in the back of the van. I was already thinking about keeping her, but after that first taste and the sight of my cum running down her legs, I knew she was ours. There’s no way she’s leaving us. I want her. Jax wants her, and we’ll do whatever it takes to make her stay.

“Starving.” Anna’s stomach rumbles in agreement. With a sheepish grin, she dips her chin and runs her hand over her stomach.

With that one tiny movement, she draws my gaze to her midsection, where her fingers are splayed over her taut little tummy and an image flashes through my mind. One of Anna pregnant, leaning against me with her back pressed against my front, her hands roaming over her swollen belly. Blood rushes to my groin, and my cock twitches with the overwhelming need to fuck her, fill her with my cum until she is pregnant with my kid. The image of her carrying my baby is sexy as fuck, but I know it won’t hold a candle to the real thing.

I also know I won’t be able to think of anything else until I make it happen.

“I’m starving too,” Jax chimes in, pulling me back to the here and now. “We should have brought more than just trail mix and beef jerky with us on the hike.”

Food. Right. Damn, that is a necessity. Especially if I want to get Anna pregnant, and I do. Fuck me, do I want that. There’s nothing I want more than to see her happy, healthy, and carrying my child. Children, I realize. I want more than one. Lots of little Annas and Marks running around. Hell, I could even tolerate a couple mini versions of Jax underfoot too. The more the merrier and more kids means more time spent making them—more time spent buried in Anna’s sweet pussy. My dick’s getting hard just thinking about it.

But first, she needs to eat.

“How about sandwiches? If you have the fixings, I can make a mean cold-cut sub.” Anna breezes between me and Jax and makes a beeline for the fridge. She’s got both doors open and is shoulder-deep in the fridge, rummaging through the groceries we stocked before we grabbed her from the church.

I can’t stop staring at her ass. It’s perfect—especially when she’s on all fours taking it from behind.

“No provolone?” She casts a backward glance over her shoulder, catching me in the act, and smirks. She knows I’m looking and from the wicked glint in her eyes, I’d say she knows what I’m thinking about too, and she likes it.

“I was thinking something a little more substantial than sandwiches.” Jax sidles up next to her, nudging her out of the way with a playful bump of his hip.

He grabs two bundles wrapped in white butcher paper and tied with twine—the rib eye steaks we picked up at the butcher shop over in Cold Spring—and sets them on the glass cutting board beside the stove.

“Potatoes?” I ask, but the question’s almost rhetorical because nothing goes better with a quality steak than a baked potato.

“Meat and potatoes. Quintessential man food.” Anna chuckles with a little shake of her head. “You need vegetables too, guys. I’ll make a salad.”

“Salad? Did we buy stuff to make a salad? That doesn’t sound like something we’d do.” Jax pulls out the cast iron pan from where we stored it inside the oven and sets it on one of the gas burners.

“You have lettuce, tomatoes, a sweet onion, and bell peppers in the crisper drawer. Put all those veggies together and you know what you get?” Anna opens the fridge again and starts pulling vegetables from the drawer, answering her question before Jax and I have the chance. “A salad.”

“Huh, I thought those were sandwich toppings.” I scrub, salt, and wrap the potatoes in foil, then pop them in the oven to bake.

We fall into an easy rhythm, working side by side in the kitchen. Anna’s finished with the salad and is working on some sort of fancy cheese board while I slice a loaf of white bread into thick pieces for Texas toast. It’s easy with her, comfortable. Natural. Like a glimpse into our future. The only thing missing is the sound of kids running around. I can almost hear the peal of their laughter, the pounding of their little feet tearing through the house as they chase after each other.

Goddamn, I can’t wait to get her knocked up.

“We’re a little past the wining and dining stage, don’t you think?” Anna teases as Jax sets a bottle of red beside a short stack of plates on the butcher-block-topped island.

“Baby, there isn’t supposed to be a wining and dining stage. It’s always supposed to be this way,” Jax informs her. He pulls the cork and pours her a glass of wine, then pries the tops off two IPAs and sets one in front of me before returning his attention to the steaks.

“Actually,” she eyes the bottle of beer in front of me, “can I have one of those instead?”

“You’d rather have a beer?” I ask, but I’m already off the stool and grabbing another one out of the refrigerator.

“Yep.” There’s a little pop of her lips on the p sound. With a wink, she reaches across the island top and steals my beer.

“Told you; she’s a keeper.” Jax turns from the stove with a platter of steaks in his hands.

“Yep.” I make the same popping sound, mimicking Anna, and take a swig of the cold, hoppy blend. “Definitely a keeper.”

“So, I guess this is kind of like our first date, huh?” Anna sets her beer on the countertop with a thunk. “Oh, we need dressing. I almost forgot.”

“Dressing? I know you won’t find that in the fridge because that was not on the grocery list.” The timer on the stove beeps, announcing the potatoes are done. After sliding an oven mitt on my hand, I take them out of the oven and, still wrapped in their foil, set one on each plate.

“Why am I not surprised?” With a playful roll of her eyes, she hops off her stool to rummage through the cabinets, setting oil, red vinegar, and a few herbs on the counter. “Do you have a whisk?”

I didn’t miss how quickly Anna changed the subject after she mentioned this being our first date. That’s a topic I have no intention of letting her drop now that she’s brought it up. This may be our first official date, but it sure as hell won’t be our last.

“It’s not like a date, Anna. It is a date and there will be plenty more to follow.” I assure her with a confident smile and hand over the whisk I found in one of the small drawers to the left of the oven.

“Okay.” She drags out the word with a heavy emphasis on the second syllable as a blush warms her cheeks.

She looks cute with her cheeks flushed, though I’m not sure why, after everything we’ve done together—and we’ve done a lot to elicit a blush before now—the idea of a date is what brings the heat to her cheeks.

“I believe it’s customary to tell your date, or in this case, your dates,” Jax gives her a wink and a half grin, “a little something about yourself.”

“You already have a file on me. I’m not sure there’s anything I could tell you that you don’t already know.” Anna pours the dressing on the salad and tosses it all together until she seems satisfied that every vegetable in the bowl is coated with the oil and vinegar concoction she created.

“Oh, there are a lot of things about you that aren’t in your file. We’re going to have fun discovering every one of them after dinner.” I let the insinuation hang heavy in the air between us, enjoying the deepening flush of her cheeks.

There’s something intimate about sharing a meal and conversation with her that makes this thing between the three of us feel more real. Before I can stop myself, I’m asking her about the one thing I haven’t been able to get my mind off of since we got back from the lake.

“What about kids?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth Jax hits me with a “dude, what the hell” look.

It’s not that Jax doesn’t want kids. Crazy as it sounds, we’ve talked about this shit before. He wants a family as much as I do. Probably because it was the one thing neither of us had growing up. Not until Penny. No, if I know Jax, he’s more concerned with me dropping a question like that straight out of the gate. He might think it’s too much too soon, but I know what I want. Just like I know what he wants.

What matters is what Anna wants.

“What about them?” She scoops a heaped helping of salad on her plate and jabs the lettuce with her fork.

“Do you want them? Actually, this is a two-part question. Do you want kids and if the answer is yes, how many?” Say yes, say yes. A houseful. Say it. I’m willing her to give me the answers I want to hear.

“Honest answer? You’re going to be sorry you asked.” She manages around a mouthful of food, dabbing her mouth with a folded piece of paper towel in place of a real napkin. “I’m an only child. I never had an older brother to look out for me. Or a younger sister to steal my clothes. I was lonely growing up. I had friends, sure, but it’s not the same as a sibling. Someone who’s lived through the same things, you know? Someone who can just look at you, know what you’re going through because they’re going through it too and you can look back at them, and not feel so alone.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t have that. Mark and I shared that growing up. Still do. Even through the worst of it, I never felt alone.” Jax tips his head in my direction. “Wouldn’t have made it through my first foster home without him.”

The corners of Anna’s mouth curve up in a warm smile as she meets Jax’s gaze, and then she turns to me, hitting me with the full power of those beautiful blues. “Fair warning, there’s still time to throw me back.”

“Like fucking hell.” Jax and I cut in almost in unison.

Her laugh is a beautiful sound, and I’m trying to think of something funny or clever to say so that I can hear it again.

“You say that now, but you haven’t heard my answer yet.” There it is again. Her laugh. Pure joy. I’ll never get tired of hearing it. “Yes, I want kids. Lots of kids. Five, maybe six?”

Five or six? Fuck yes. I’ll make that dream come true sooner than she thinks, for both of us.

“So, umm, you’re foster brothers?” Anna glances between the two of us, then turns her focus back to her salad like it’s the most interesting thing in the room.

It’s not. Trust me.

Jax answers her question before I can, elaborating on how we became brothers.

“Yeah, I’m not too proud to admit Mark saved my ass my first day at the boys’ home. We were eight, no, nine. Anyway, Mark had been living there for a few months before I arrived. Knew the rules of the yard, you know? I didn’t have a clue, but I had one hell of a chip on my shoulder. My mom was a junkie, and I’d been through some shit before she overdosed. I thought I had it rough and hated the world and everyone in it. I learned real quick that I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was. The other kids, the ones who saw through my bullshit because they were just like me, only bigger and stronger, kicked my ass before my bag hit my bunk.”

“So Mark jumped in to protect you?” Anna is focused on Jax as he tells her about how we first met.

As much as I hate reliving our days in the boys’ home, that day is worth remembering. Jax isn’t my brother by blood, but by bond. That means more to me than any DNA.

“Hell no.” Jax laughs, picking up the story where he left off. “But he offered me a hand, helped me get up off the floor and after I cleaned the blood off my face, introduced me to his friends. He’s had my back, and I’ve had his, ever since.”

“That was before your foster mom. Her name was Penny, right?”

This conversation is like picking scabs off a wound, but I get why Anna wants to know.

“Yeah, the older you are, the harder it is to get placed. The kids in the home used to say that if you weren’t fostered or adopted out by first grade you were at the home until you aged out. But Penny had a soft spot for the troubled kids, and Mark and I sure fit the bill. So when the caseworker called, she came around to meet us. Took one look and knew we were a package deal, real brothers or not.” Jax clears his throat. He has a hard time talking about Penny too.

She asks more questions about what we were like as kids and how Penny managed to handle us as teenagers. Jax and I take turns answering them. It stings to share these memories with Anna because she should be hearing them from Penny firsthand.

But she can’t. Thanks to that son of a bitch, Patrick.

“Penny sounds like an amazing woman. You were lucky to have her.”

“She always said she was the lucky one.” Jax coughs, clears his throat, and coughs again. “I miss her every fucking day.”

“Me too. Fucking cancer.” Fucking Patrick Calhoun. I keep that to myself. No sense in reminding Anna of what almost happened to her.

I didn’t plan on sharing Penny’s entire story with her. I doubt Jax did either, but she’s a good listener. She wants to know about our lives like our history is important. Before I know it, Jax and I are spilling our guts about Penny’s last days and last wishes, all the little things we did to make her comfortable. To make her last days the best days they could be. We laid our grief bare for her.

I’m still reeling from our trip down memory lane and the emptiness of life without Penny in it, that I don’t notice the tears tracking down Anna’s cheeks.

Until a sob breaks free from her throat. Shit.

9

ANNA

“Sorry.” I scoot my stool back from the counter, knocking it over in my haste to escape Jax and Mark, and the embarrassment of breaking down in front of them, which only makes things worse. “I’m sorry.”

I’m at the peak of a complete and total ugly cry. I’m flushed and no doubt blotchy. I can almost feel the splotches spreading across my skin like a rash. Wrapping my arms around my ribcage, I try to hold back the sobs racking my body, but another manages to break free. My breathing is ragged, and my eyes burn from the tears currently in free fall over my bottom lashes. I squeeze my eyes shut in the hopes of stopping them, but the dam is broken.

Just like my heart.

Getting to know Mark and Jax, and listening to them laugh, poke, and prod each other with childhood stories was wonderful. It felt like I’d known them all my life. Like I’d been there beside them through the thick and thin of it. But when the conversation turned to Penny’s cancer, how hard it was to watch her suffer, and how they stayed by her side and took care of her until the end, all I could think about was my mom.

And how I’m failing her.

She must be worried sick. Worried sick? She is already sick. She’s dying, and I’m here doing what? Pretending to be kidnapped while I hide out from Patrick, shirking my responsibility to my family? Pretending to go on dates with two amazing, albeit misguided, men who took care of their foster mom, held her hand while she took her last breath, while I’m letting my mom die without her only child by her side? After all the sacrifices she’s made, the dreams she gave up so that I could chase after my own?

God, I fucking hate myself right now.

But I’m not the only guilty party for my mother’s emotional pain and suffering in this house tonight. I may have been a willing accomplice, but Jax and Mark are the reason I’m not holding my mother’s hand right now.

“Hey, Anna. Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.” Jax is approaching me, hands raised, palms out like I’m a wounded animal. There’s a wariness in his expression and his voice that wasn’t audible in any of the stories about Penny he shared over dinner. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Stop,” I scream at him through broken sobs when he reaches out for me. “Don’t touch me.”

More sobs and whimpering noises. I hate how pathetic and weak I sound. I wish I was stronger. I need to be stronger than this. For her.

“Take me back.”

“What? Take you back?” Jax and Mark’s questions hit me at the same time. They sound as shocked as I feel hearing the words come out of my mouth, but I mean them.

“I’m going to marry Patrick. Take me back.” My entire body is shaking, but I ball my hands into fists at my side and use the pain of my nails digging into my palms to force my eyes open and meet their shell-shocked gaze. I poured every ounce of conviction into those words, but I know if I can’t look them in the eyes when I say it, they won’t believe me. “If you don’t take me back now, I’ll just go on my own. You were going to let me go anyway, right? That was the plan? To set me up with a new life? Well, this is the life I’m choosing. I’m marrying him. I’m marrying Patrick and there isn’t anything you can do to stop it.”

“The fuck you are marrying him,” Mark shouts.

“The fuck we can’t do anything about it.” Jax’s voice ratchets up another decibel. “We already did something about it. That whole speak now, or forever hold your peace part? We spoke the fuck up, Anna, and what did your savior Patrick-fucking-Calhoun do to stop us? Nothing. Oh, wait. He did do something. Used you as a human shield. Real prince fucking charming, that fiancé of yours. You’re not going back, and you sure as fuck aren’t saying I do. Not to him. Not fucking ever, Anna.”

“I don’t need your blessing, Jax. I’m going home with or without your help. You can’t watch me twenty-four hours a day.”

“You said you wanted a family someday. Do you want Patrick to be the father of those kids? He won’t love them any more than he loves you—which is not at all. You’ll all be his property. Then he’ll mold them so they end up just like him. Cruel, ruthless, and heartless.” Mark’s words are like a sucker punch to the solar plexus.

My stomach churns, threatening to upend its contents at the mere thought of having children with Patrick. Something I know he’ll want, despite not loving me. Mark is right about that. I have no illusions about my fiancé’s feelings for me. I’m nothing more than a prize-winning broodmare in his eyes. No, when I marry Patrick, there will be no children. I’ll take precautions to make sure that never happens. When he doesn’t get what he wants from me, he’ll find someone else and, if I’m lucky, he’ll want a divorce. No bastard children for Patrick Calhoun. He’ll have to take one of his girlfriends on the side as his wife. Or he could kill me.

I can’t cause him any trouble if I’m dead, right?

That should give me pause and it would, if not for my mother. Saving her is my priority. Patrick has the ways and means to make that happen.

“Anna, please,” Jax pleads. “Even without this thing between the three of us, and don’t you dare deny we have something because I know you feel it too. There’s no way Mark and I would let you marry Patrick. He’ll hurt you, and I’m not talking about your feelings, Anna. He’ll break you. That’s what men like him do.”

“I know what kind of man I’m marrying.” Obstinance replaces heartbreak. My mind is made up, and I’m not about to change it. Not for them. No matter how much they want me to. No matter how much I want to.

“Stop saying you’re marrying him,” Mark says through clenched teeth. There’s a twitch in his jaw muscle.

“You don’t want me to marry him?” I ask. It’s a baited question and they’re about to take it hook, line, and sinker.

“No,” comes their unified response.

“Even if it means killing my mother?” I thought I hated myself before, but the next words out of my mouth bring me to a new low. “Like Penny?”

The recoil and disgust are instantaneous—not just from them, but from me. I feel sick. This isn’t who I am. I’m not a cruel or malicious person. God, what am I doing? I can’t believe I just said that, threw their foster mother up in their face like that. What’s wrong with me? My stomach revolts. I’m going to lose my dinner.

“Oh, god.” Another heave, and my hand is over my mouth. Abandoning our argument, I bolt for the bathroom and slam the door behind me.

Mark and Jax don’t follow me. They’re in the middle of a heated conversation. I can hear their raised voices, but it’s hard to make out the words over my retching as I heave the contents of my stomach into the toilet.

I’m still dry heaving when I hear footsteps in the hall, followed by a hard rap on the door. “Go away,” I grind out between stomach convulsions.

“Anna.” Mark’s voice rumbles through the solid wood. Three more raps on the door. “Anna, open up.”

“Leave me alone.” Another stomach cramp and more heaving.

“Baby, please.” Jax this time. The doorknob rattles. “Anna, please. If you won’t let us in there, at least come back out here and talk to us. Please.”

Why do they sound so sweet, so concerned? Why aren’t they mad? If someone used my mother to influence me, hurt me, and manipulate me, I would be pissed. Except someone already has. And it’s not the two men standing on the other side of the bathroom door. Patrick’s the one taking advantage of my mother’s condition, of my father’s failures. Of me.

And I’m going to marry him.

Mark and Jax have given up their attempt to get me to open the door. It’s quiet out in the hall. Silent. I can’t even hear them breathing anymore. My heart sinks. They’ve given up. They’re going to let me go. It’s what I want, so why does it make me feel worse? Why do I want them to keep arguing with me, fighting for me to stay? They won’t. I wouldn’t if I were in their shoes. It’s not like I’ve given them a reason to. After all, this was never supposed to be a permanent arrangement for them, and we hardly know each other. They don’t need the kind of trouble keeping me will bring, the trouble crossing Patrick Calhoun will bring.

Knowing I can’t stay in the bathroom forever and that I’ll have to face them eventually if I’m going to leave, I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. After blotting my face with a hand towel, I notice a soft light glowing under the bathroom door.

There’s ringing.

“Hello? Anna? Is that you, sweetheart? Are you all right? Can you hear me? Say something, Anna. If you can talk, please, say something. I need to know you’re okay. Please.” My father’s voice is faint, muffled through the door, and the cell phone pressed against it, but the concern and fear in his voice are clear. Genuine.

“Dad?” I unlock the door, yank it open, drop to my knees, and snatch the cell phone from Jax’s hand. Mark and Jax share a look, something like surprise passing between them, but I don’t waste time processing it. My dad is on the phone, a connection to my mother. A strangled, half sob escapes before I can call for my father again. “Dad, are you still there?”

“Anna.” My name comes down the line with a heavy exhale. My father’s relief to hear my voice is palpable in the sigh. “You’re alive. Thank god, you’re alive. Have they hurt you? What are their demands? What do they want to bring you home? Whatever they want, whatever the ransom is, Patrick will pay it. You know he will. You’re his fiancée. He’ll pay it.”

I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince that a man like Patrick will do the right thing, me or himself. Not that I care. The only thing I care about right now is my mom.

“How’s Mom? Are you there with her at the hospital? Can I talk to her? Please, Dad, put her on the phone. Let me talk to her.” Fresh tears are streaming down my face. My father and I weren’t on the best of terms, even before he sold me off to Patrick, but I’m happy to hear his voice, for any update on my mom that he can give me.

“Anna, oh, sweetheart. Your mother, she…” His voice breaks. He’s crying. I can hear the anguish, the pain.

Oh, god. Oh no, please. No, no, no.

Coughing. Another broken sob. My father clears his throat a couple of times and tries again. “Your mother, she…”

“No, Dad. Please, don’t say it. Don’t say it.” My voice is barely a whisper. If he doesn’t say it, it isn’t real. It isn’t happening. She isn’t dead.

Jax wraps his arms around me, and I don’t fight him when he pulls me onto his lap. Mark is stroking my hair, and I’m vaguely aware the phone is on speaker, and they’re listening.

“She’s in a coma, sweetheart. The doctors aren’t sure…” He breaks off again with another choking sob. “They aren’t sure if she’ll…she’s not…they don’t think she’s going to—”

Coma? There’s still time to save her.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The doctors are wrong. They have to be. “Tell Mom I’ll be there soon. I’m on my way. I heard somewhere that people in comas can hear you talking to them. Talk to her, Dad. Tell her I’m coming.”

He’s quiet for a moment, doesn’t ask how I plan on escaping my kidnappers, how I’ll get from wherever they’re keeping me to the hospital. He doesn’t say anything. There’s only the sound of his soft sobs coming through the phone until he manages to pull himself together enough to whisper goodbye. “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll tell her.”

The phone slips from my hand, hitting the hardwood floor with a thunk. “Take me home.”

My tone brooks no argument. There won’t be one. I’m leaving and there’s not a goddamn thing they can do to stop me.

10

JAX

“Don’t worry, Anna. You’re going to see your mom real soon,” I whisper while rubbing small soothing circles across her back. “Mark and I will drive you to the hospital.”

It’s a fucking terrible idea.

Not because I don’t want her to see her mom. No, Anna was right to call Mark and me out on that bullshit. Her mom’s sick, worsening by the day from the sounds of it. If someone tried to stand in the way of me or Mark spending time with Penny, we would have gone ballistic. Somewhere along the way of planning and implementing our revenge against Patrick, we lost sight of why we wanted to get back at him in the first place.

We did the research. We knew Barbara had cancer when we decided to kidnap her daughter. She was supposed to be in remission. At least, that’s what the medical records said when we hacked into her oncologist’s server and went through Barbara’s file. It looks like his staff was behind on updating office notes in the patient records. I wish I could blame the incompetent employees for the situation that we’re in, but I can’t. Mark and I should have kept digging.

Hell, we never should have taken Anna in the first place.

But then, she wouldn’t be ours. Maybe that’s for the best. We can still cut her loose, cut our losses, and run. It’s not too late. Who am I kidding? Of course, it is. Now that we have her, had a taste of her, there’s no way we’ll be able to let her go.

Which brings me full circle. Right back to why taking Anna to the hospital is a horrible idea. We can’t protect her. Not from that piece of shit, Patrick Calhoun, her father, or herself. Especially herself. Anna was ready to go back and marry Patrick before we called her mom. She was supposed to talk to Barbara, let her know she wasn’t hurt, and that despite being kidnapped from her wedding, she wasn’t in any danger. She is safe.

That plan went to shit too.

As it turns out, Mark and I aren’t the strategists we thought we were. We’re clueless, bumbling in the fucking dark and making a huge mess of Anna’s life. And yet, I’m having difficulty regretting anything we’ve done. Well, except for the pain and suffering we’re causing Barbara. We never would have let that happen to Penny. Anna’s mom is innocent, just like Penny. She didn’t do anything to deserve this.

We fucked up. And now we have to fix it.

“Anna.” Her face is buried in my neck, and her tears are soaking through my shirt. Her entire body is trembling. I hate seeing her like this, knowing we had a hand in it. “Hey, come on, baby. Your mom’s a fighter, right? You had to get it from somewhere. I’m guessing it wasn’t your dad.”

She laughs. It’s a soft, halfhearted chuckle and a little snotty, but it’s the most beautiful sound to my ears right now because if Anna can find even the smallest spark of humor, she’ll be okay.

It’s either laugh or cry, boys, and I’m not one to waste time on tears. That’s what Penny used to say. Her sense of humor was a little dark, a little jaded, and a hell of a lot sarcastic. I guess it had to be working in a factory and raising two boys with a knack for getting in trouble. But Penny always found a way to crack a joke no matter how hard or bad things were.

If Anna can laugh, even a little bit, she’ll be okay. She’ll get through this.

“Come on, baby. Grab your things. Mark and I will get you to the hospital.” With my hands on her hips, I ease her off my lap and steady her as she gets to her feet. Mark takes her hand, adding support from above.

“There’s nothing to grab. I don’t have anything here.”

Anna doesn’t catch my wince or the pained expression I see in Mark’s eyes at her choice of words. I’m not sure she means it the way it came out, but damn, to hear her say that cuts fucking deep. You have us. I want to tell her but now isn’t the time. We need to get her to the hospital.

“Do you want us to swing by your place on the way? Is there anything you want or need to take with you?” Mark’s voice is a little rough. It’s obvious he’s struggling with the same memories, the same guilt that I am.

“No, the only thing I need right now is my mom. Besides, everything I own is at the landfill. After Patrick surveyed my clothes and accessories, he said there wasn’t anything in my closet or dresser drawers good enough for the wife of a Calhoun. I need to look and act the part. He even took my ID and said there wasn’t any point hanging on to it when I have to get a new one anyway.”

Not good enough my ass. He wants her under his fucking thumb, dependent on him for everything. He wants to make her weak, to break her. Over my dead body. I glance at Mark, and we share a brief, knowing look. His clenched fists and jaw say it all. He feels the same way I do.

Anna is not marrying Patrick Calhoun.

We have more than enough money to cover Barbara’s medical bills and any treatments she might need in the future. Cyber security pays well, and Mark and I are good at our jobs. We would have cleared the debts already if we knew she was sick again.

“All right then, let’s get you to your mom.” Mark laces his fingers through hers. She grips his arm with her other hand, clinging to him like he’s the only thing keeping her upright.

I follow Mark and Anna out of the house to the van, open the driver’s door, and flip down the visor, catching the keys that fall free. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head as if in disbelief that her means of escape would have been that easy. Of course, it wouldn’t have been. Mark and I may have lost sight of our goals and made some pretty big mistakes with this whole revenge thing, but we’re not complete fucking idiots. I reach under the dash and pull the lever to pop the hood.

“The battery’s disconnected,” I inform her before walking around to the front of the van to reconnect the wires.

The old six-cylinder revs to life, and I put every bit of the big block’s horsepower to use, punching the gas and peeling out of the gravel driveway. The rubber hits the road with a screech of the tires, and I’m racing through the back roads to get our girl to the hospital so she can see her mom.

“Hey babe,” Mark breaks the intense silence. He shifts in his seat and turns to look at Anna, sitting in the middle of the rear passenger sixty-forty split bench. “We need to go over a few things before we get to the hospital, okay? People are going to ask questions. We need to come up with a story.”

Shit. Fuck. Shit. He’s right. The longer we let our game of revenge go on, the more complicated and out-of-control things get. We should have just taken Patrick out of the equation altogether. Killing him would have been easier. Anna’s supposed to be a captive, held for ransom. She can’t just waltz in the hospital like she was on vacation or something. People are going to want to know how she escaped.

“We kept you locked in a room in the basement. There was a small pet door we used to pass you food and water and one window. A small one in a window well? Do you know what I mean? The little details are going to be important. We want details, but nothing too elaborate. That’s what’s going to sell it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Anna replies with a nod. She’s listening, but it’s obvious her mind is on her mom. I’m not sure how much of Mark’s cover story she’s taking in.

The one thing working in our favor is that men like Patrick Calhoun don’t go to the police. They take care of business themselves. And I doubt her dad is going to care too much about how she escaped her kidnappers. Not after he sold her to a fucking kingpin to cover his ass. Okay, that was a little harsh. He wasn’t doing it for himself, not really. He was trying to save his wife, but he’s still a piece of shit for using his daughter to do it.

Mark and Anna are still running through her cover story as I pull into a public lot across the street from the hospital.

“We’ll be right here waiting for you, okay?” I turn the key, killing the engine.

Anna nods, wipes fresh tears from her cheeks, and presses her mouth to mine. Her lips are soft, sweet and so is the kiss. I can still feel the press of those full pouty lips against mine when she pulls back.

It feels an awful lot like goodbye.

With a sad smile, she turns and kisses Mark the same way, sweet and tender. From the look on his face, I know he feels the same way I do, that Anna thinks this is the last time she’ll see us.

Yeah, fuck that. Not happening.

She’ll have to come out of that hospital eventually, and we’ll be waiting for her when she does. We took her once, and we can do it again.

“She’s going to run.” Mark stares out the windshield, watching Anna disappear through the automatic glass doors. When she’s out of our line of sight, he turns to me. “She’s going to marry Patrick. Or try to anyway. We’re going to have to kidnap her again.”

He says it like it’s a given, like he doesn’t even have to ask whether or not I would be on board with stealing Anna again—because he doesn’t. She’s not marrying Patrick Calhoun. If anyone puts a ring on her finger, it’ll be me and Mark.

“I think a small part of her is counting on it, bro. It’s not like she loves Patrick. She can’t stand the bastard. The only reason she’s going through with this is because of her mom. A problem we can solve with one phone call to the billing department.” I jerk my head toward the hospital. “We don’t even need to make a phone call. We could walk in there right now and end this whole thing.”

We hash out a few plans on how we can keep Anna and take care of Patrick. The money looks like our best bet, but if it was that easy, we would have hacked his accounts and drained him dry with donations to our favorite charities like the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Alex’s Lemonade, and St. Jude’s, in the first place.

No, Patrick Calhoun’s not only washed his money, he’s stashed it too. What he has on paper is nothing compared to what we suspect he has off the books.

“That only solves part of the problem. Patrick may not love Anna, but he wants her. He wouldn’t be paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for her if he didn’t want her. Clearing the debt won’t stop him from coming after her.”

As if saying his name conjured the devil himself, Patrick Calhoun cuts into traffic, jaywalking across the street like he owns the fucking world. Horns blast. Asshole probably thinks it’s trumpets blaring to welcome the king. He gives one driver laying hard on their horn the finger and strolls into the hospital.

Fuck.

11

ANNA

“Mom. Oh, Mom.”

I rush into the room, occupying the chair at her bedside that my father just vacated with barely a pat on the shoulder for me. Not that I care. The anger and hurt over what my father did are eating me alive. I want to scream and rant, spit in his face, then cut him out of my life for good, but I can’t. This is not the time or the place. Besides, I don’t have the energy or the mental capacity to waste on him now. I’m here for my mom. That’s it. That’s all that matters.

“Mom. It’s me, Anna.” I lower the side rail on her bed, take her hand in mine, and rest my head on the mattress beside her. “I’m here, Mom. I need you to wake up, okay? I know you can hear me. It’s time to wake up now, Mom.”

I’m not even sure how much time passes while I’m sitting with my mom. I just keep talking to her, talking to her about everything and anything, and I never let go of her hand. The only subject that’s off-limits is my supposed kidnapping. I’m not sure how much she’ll understand, or how much is getting through, and I don’t want her to be upset. Difficult and painful topics are not up for discussion right now. Happy thoughts and happy memories only.

Still, it’s weird my dad hasn’t asked about it.

He can’t seem to sit still. If he’s not fidgeting in his chair, he’s pacing by the large window or coming in and out of the room. He hasn’t asked to speak to me privately or discuss my kidnapping in front of Mom, even though I know he doesn’t believe she can hear us.

Nursing assistants come to check Mom’s vitals, an orderly comes in to collect the trash, and the nurse comes in to add meds to the IV. I know the routine. It’s unwelcome but familiar. We’ve been through this with her before.

And just like last time, I’m at her side, holding her hand. I’m right where I am supposed to be.

“Anna.”

I turn to my father, expecting it to be him calling my name, but he’s standing with his back to me, staring out the window as if there’s something more important than my mom waiting out there for him. And then the lighting in the room shifts, and I see his reflection in the window.

My fiancé.

“Darling, you’re back.” Patrick’s icy tone raises goosebumps across my skin. He crosses the room, stopping when he reaches my side. When I refuse to look at him or acknowledge his presence, he grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back, forcing me to meet his steely gaze. “I’m so relieved to see you. I’ve been worried sick about you, my love.”

There’s no love for me in his voice. Or his heart.

Patrick wraps my hair around his fist tighter, threatening to pull the strands, root and all, from my scalp. He leans in and mashes his lips against mine. The kiss is rough, bruising, and demanding. His teeth clash against my lip, biting down until I gasp from the pain and offer an opportunity for him to slip his tongue into my mouth. He tastes like alcohol and stale cigarettes, with a coppery tang of blood from the bite on my lip.

“Wait until I get you home, you little bitch.” He grumbles the threat under his breath before untangling his fingers from my hair, pulling away, and straightening to his full height. The threat was for me. The cool but respectable man standing beside me now is for the public. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. I think it’s time we get you home so you can rest. You can come back and visit your mother another time, dear.”

“No.” I scoot the chair closer to my mother’s bed and further from my husband-to-be. “I want to stay with my mom. What if she wakes up and I’m not here?”

“Anna, either you leave this hospital room or your mother does. It’s entirely up to you. I don’t care either way.” Except he does. The glacial tone of his voice gives him away.

Oh, I hold no illusion that my fiancé cares about me. Or my mother. But if there’s one thing Patrick Calhoun cares about besides money and power, it’s winning. He hates to lose. When Mark and Jax stole me right out from under him, they made him look like a fool. He’s pissed and looking for someone to blame.

I should have known that person would be me.

Patrick Calhoun isn’t a man who wastes time with idle threats. If he says he’ll have my mother’s treatments stopped and her tossed out of her hospital room, he’ll do it, without a second thought. And I’ll still end up in his mansion, trapped behind the wrought-iron gate and Fort Knox-worthy security system. It will be better if I go along with him and play the agreeable fiancé.

After all, that’s what I came home to do. Isn’t it?

When Jax and Mark dropped me off, I gave each of them a kiss goodbye before I climbed out of the van and left them like curbside-to-go on the parking lot. And it was goodbye—at least for me. They had to have known and felt all the things I was too scared to say in that kiss. I meant what I said back at the farmhouse. I am marrying Patrick. I was so sure I could go through with it.

And now? Oh, I’m still going to go through with it. I’m just not sure I’ll survive it.

Part of me hopes Jax and Mark are still in the van waiting for me to come back outside, to come up with a new plan to save my mom and stay together. That same stupid, naïve part of my brain hopes they’ll save me from myself and come to my rescue a second time.

Another part of me hopes they’re long gone, that as soon as the hospital doors closed behind me, they shifted into reverse and left me in the rearview. I can’t trust them to fix this. No, that’s not quite right. I can’t risk it. I’m not willing to take the risk. Not where my mother is concerned. But that’s just semantics. Trust. Risk. If I did trust them, it wouldn’t be a risk, would it?

My heart, on the other hand, just wants to stop aching. To forget about Jax and Mark and pretend they never stormed into my life, cracked open my shell, and let all these emotions leak out. Attraction, affection. Lust, infatuation. I feel everything for them and it’s too much, too soon. I know that. I know how insane my feelings are for them, but I can’t help it. They make me feel alive, wanted, and seen.

Except, right now, I don’t want them to see me.

I don’t want them to see this walk of shame I’m taking with my head down, gaze fixed on the toes of my shoes, and Patrick’s bruising grip on my arm. I don’t want Patrick to find out who they are and try to retaliate. I don’t want them to get hurt. I can’t bear it.

It’s ironic, considering my marriage to Patrick will hurt them.

It will hurt me too. But a hell of a lot less than losing my mom, or losing them if—no, not if, when—Patrick came after them.

Patrick pulls his cell from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and calls his driver, ordering him to bring the car around. We’re out the main doors of the hospital, and I am being shoved into the back seat of a black Lincoln Towncar before I have a chance to scan the parking lot in search of Mark and Jax’s old beat-up, white and gray primer panel van.

They’re gone, I tell myself. It’s for the best. It becomes my mantra during the car ride. I silently repeat this over and over in my head until we pull through the ten-foot-high wrought iron gate and fencing that surrounds Patrick’s mansion.

“Bring her inside,” Patrick barks the order to his driver and opens his door before the car comes to a full stop. He’s out of the car, determination in his stride as he storms into the house without a backward glance.

A hulk of a man with a thick scar marring the right side of his face from his temple slides out from the driver’s seat and stalks over to the open rear passenger door. He’s a mass of bulging veins and muscles that strain beneath the fabric of his black suit. It’s expensive but not tailor-made and clings to his body like it’s two sizes too small. “You can do this the easy way or the hard way, Mrs. Calhoun.”

Something tells me this man will enjoy the hard way.

“My name is Anna Garrison,” I say, correcting him as I slide across the supple leather-wrapped bench seat.

“Not for long.” He jerks his head toward the front of the house and makes a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Mr. Calhoun doesn’t like to be kept waiting. After you.”

He escorts me across the pea gravel drive, up the stone steps, and into a large foyer. Patrick’s house is everything I expected. Tacky and over-the-top extravagance. It screams I have money but zero taste like he selected the furniture, art, and antiques for their price tag without a thought about how they would look pieced together.

The driver ushers me into the living room where my future husband waits, staring at the fireplace with his back to me. A glass filled with amber liquid—bourbon, or perhaps scotch—is in his left hand.

“Leave us.” Patrick’s voice is strained, as if he’s holding on to his control by a thread. He rounds on me and the violence in his eyes sends me back a step. “Shut the fucking door behind you.”

The soft click of the latch catching as the door closes echoes through the room. For the first time, I’m alone with my future husband and there’s not enough space between us. I take another step back, bumping a side table with my hip. I jerk to the left when Patrick’s glass sails past my head, shattering against the wall behind me.

“Not another step, Anna.” Patrick’s expression shifts, the cool, controlled mask he wears in public slips, exposing the true monster lying beneath the surface. “Did you think your little plan would work?”

“What are you talking about, Patrick? What plan?” I don’t want to challenge him, not when I can see his control slipping before my eyes, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. “I haven’t planned anything.”

How could I when Patrick and my father took all my choices away from me?

“How much did this little stunt cost you?” He crosses the room, holding my gaze as if daring me to back away from him as he closes the distance between us. “How much, Anna? How much did your little disappearing act cost?”

“You think I orchestrated all of this? That I hired two men, armed with guns, to crash the wedding ceremony and kidnap me?” My voice rises, in decibel and pitch, not from anger but fear because it’s at this moment, I realize how unhinged my fiancé is.

“You don’t have any money, so I know you didn’t pay in cash. Did you barter with them, Anna?” Patrick takes another step and another until the heat of his breath wafts against my face and spittle flies from his mouth, speckling my skin. “Barter your virginity, Anna? Offer up that pristine pussy? The pussy I bought?”

“What? No, Patrick. I had nothing to do with it.” Fear snakes its way through my chest, constricting my lungs and heart.

Patrick has never been physically violent with me before, but there’s a first time for everything.

“Don’t lie to me.” His hand is up, nails gouging my scalp as his fingers close around a fistful of hair, and he snaps my head back, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “I think they took you. In more ways than one, and I think you liked it, you filthy fucking whore.”

He jerks me back and releases his grip on my hair, putting an arm’s length between us, and for a moment, I think he’s done, that the outburst is over. The crack of his palm against my cheek slams me back into the reality of what my life with Patrick will be like. Heat flares along the left side of my face and the intensity of the sting where his hand connected with my face tells me I’ll be wearing his mark for a while.

“Take off your clothes. I need to check for damaged goods. Impress me, Anna, and I’ll keep my end of the deal and make you my wife. Disappoint me, and you’ll be working off your mother’s debt another way. It’ll still be on your back, just not in my bed.” He rocks back on his heels, spinning the gaudy garnet ring he wears around. His patience is tissue paper thin and when I fail to move, he plants his feet, hauls back, and hits me again with enough force that his ring splits my lip. “Take off your fucking clothes. Now.”

With shaky hands and tears streaming down my face, burning as they stream over the cut on my bottom lip, I grip the hem of my shirt, pull it over my head, and toss it on the floor. I fumble with the button of my jeans before pushing them down my legs and stepping out of them, taking my socks with them, all while Patrick shouts at me to hurry the fuck up.

“I didn’t say you could leave anything on.” He makes a circular motion with his hand, gesturing to my bra and panties, then points to the pile of clothes by my feet. “All of it.”

I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my skin. Naked, exposed, in every sense of the word. I stand before Patrick Calhoun, not as a person but as a possession. He owns me. And when he finds out what I’ve done, what I let Mark and Jax do to me, and how much I loved it, he’ll break me.

12

MARK

Richard Garrison. What a fucking dick. I never understood how that nickname came about, but since meeting Anna, I realize it’s because of men like her father. Who the fuck uses their daughter to pay off their debts? Dick Garrison, that’s who. He called Patrick, probably the second she hung up the phone and set her up.

I knew taking Anna to the hospital was a bad idea. Hell, so did Jax, but it’s not like we could say no. Her mother’s cancer is worse; she’s dying, and Anna is convinced the only way she can save her mom is by going through with the wedding. We should have tried harder to convince her otherwise. Shown her our fucking bank statements, if that’s what it took for her to believe Jax and I can afford her mom’s cancer treatments. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell her no.

Neither could Jax.

And now we’re tailing a cliche as fuck black Towncar. Not that we need to follow them. We not only know where Calhoun lives, we have the blueprints. We’ve been casing him for years, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. Jax and I could slip in and steal every single one of his hideous, overpriced knickknacks and clean him out while he slept if we wanted to. But we aren’t interested in a snatch and grab, in hocking his wears at some shithole pawnshop willing to deal in stolen goods. We wanted something you couldn’t put a price tag on.

Revenge.

We were well on our way to achieving that goal when we took Anna. Victory was in our grasp, brushing against our fingertips. But now, I don’t give a fuck about getting back at Patrick. The only thing I care about is getting Anna back.

The black car’s right blinker flashes in the distance, signaling the turn onto the private road leading up to Patrick’s estate. We can’t follow them through the gate and onto the property, and we sure as hell can’t ram our way through. Not with this piece of shit van.

“Take the next right.” Jax starts giving me directions like I’ve never been here before.

“Dude, I know where I’m fucking going.” I grind out through clenched teeth, barely containing my frustration. I’m not pissed at Jax, and it won’t help our situation if I misdirect it at him.

“Sorry,” Jax mutters from the passenger seat. His stiff posture says he’s as pissed off as I am. “We shouldn’t have taken her. I fucking knew this was going to happen.”

“You couldn’t have told her no any more than I could.” With two clicks on the indicator-control stalk protruding from the steering column, I kill the headlights, then shift the van into neutral and let the van coast with the street’s downgraded slop until we reach the end of the dead-end road adjacent to Patrick’s property. Two other pompous assholes occupy this street, but their cookie-cutter mansions sit far enough back from their property lines that they won’t even know we’re here. Having planned and abandoned more than one home invasion at Patrick Calhoun’s place, we know that this corner is a blind spot in both neighbors’ security camera feeds. Fucking security companies should be ashamed of themselves. Not that I’m complaining. We need every advantage we can get because Patrick Calhoun did not climb his way to the top of a criminal enterprise by being a fucking idiot.

He knows we’re coming to rescue her.

We leave the van with the doors unlocked at the end of the street, cut through the overgrowth, and disappear into the tree line. We backtrack a mile and a half through the woods until we reach the ten-foot-high brick wall that runs the full length of Patrick’s property.

“READY?” Jax asks as he whips out his cell phone and opens an app he created that allows him to temporarily disarm home security systems. He’s yet to come across one he couldn’t crack. “The landline backup is still rerouted to us, so we’re good to go on my end.”

“I’m more than ready to bring our girl home, where she fucking belongs.” I lace my fingers together and brace to give Jax a boost.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go get her.” Jax tucks his phone away, grips my shoulders, puts one booted foot into my palms, and bounces off the ground with the other.

I use that momentum to hoist him up to the top of the wall. After grabbing the ledge, he swings one leg over, then the other, and drops down out of sight. A couple of seconds later, the rope comes hurtling over to my side, and I climb up and over the brick wall to drop down beside Jax. He unravels the rope from around his waist, loops it back up, and slings it over his shoulder.

“T-minus fifteen minutes.” Jax pulls his gun free of the holster strapped to his side. “More than enough time to breach the back door and disarm the security system from inside. Once it’s down at the control panel we’re good.”

“After you.” I motion for Jax to take point, knowing that’s his preference. Me? I couldn’t care less which one of us storms in first as long as we leave here with Anna.

We stick to the shadows, using the landscaping to our advantage and taking cover behind large topiaries when Calhoun’s security detail makes their rounds. Jax drops two with nonlethal rounds. The best guess, factoring in the various body masses of the guards, is the tranquilizer darts will buy us a couple of hours.

We’ll be long gone before Patrick Calhoun and his goons know what hit them.

I REST my hand on Jax’s shoulder, signaling I’m right behind him and ready to go when we reach the back of the house and the French doors that lead into Calhoun’s living room. Anna’s in there. I can see her silhouette through the curtains and hear Patrick’s raised voice. He is shouting something at her, but I can’t understand the exact words.

What I can make out is that Anna is not wearing any fucking clothes.

“Mother fucker.” Jax is up and moving, kicking down the back door with me on his six.

Our plans for a swift and stealthy rescue mission go to shit. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know why Jax and I bother to make plans at all. They’ve yet to work out as expected—at least where Anna is concerned.

She’s our wild card.

Patrick reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun, aiming for Jax. I rush him, head and shoulder tucked down, and barrel into him like a defensive lineman stopping a rush on the ten-yard line. He pulls the trigger but misses the shot when my body connects with his, and I tackle him to the floor. We’re grappling around on the floor, and he can’t get another shot off.

Jax is with Anna. I can hear him consoling her, checking her for any more injuries than the marks Patrick left on her face. She’s crying, begging for Jax to help me. The sounds of her struggling against Jax, her need to get to me just fuels my need to keep her safe and make sure she’s free of any ties to Patrick Calhoun, who still hasn’t given up his gun.

Patrick frees his arm and rolls enough that half his body is out from under me and fires again. Jax calls for Anna, and I hear a loud thump and feel the vibrations of the impact through the hardwood floor.

“JAX, talk to me. Is Anna okay? Are you hit?” I shout as the ground fight with Patrick resumes.

“We’re good.” Jax is still soothing Anna, maybe from behind the couch, or another piece of furniture they used for cover when Patrick tried to shoot them.

Calhoun is quick for his size. As doughy as he is I wouldn’t have pegged him for being such a scrapper, but he’s giving as good as he’s getting. He’s screaming, threatening to kill Anna, but not before he has a little taste of what he paid for. He says something about letting his men have a little fun with her too and use her up good before they bury her.

After that, the world is a haze of red and a buzzing in my ears.

I grab Patrick’s wrist and slam it against the floor to break his hold on the gun with no luck. Patrick hits the trigger, firing wild each time his wrist slams against the hardwood until there’s a distinct click. He’s out of bullets. Something hard cracks against my skull, and I realize it’s the butt of Patrick’s gun.

“Son of a bitch.” I slam my fist into his ribs, tenderizing his left side like a premium cut of certified USDA Angus beef.

Jax is there, jumping in the fray no doubt because the eminent danger for Anna is over. He gets a few solid hits in for good measure and once we’re sure Patrick is beaten into submission, he helps me to my feet.

“You look like shit.” Jax grips my shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze before jerking his head in the direction of the bloody heap on the floor. “What do you want to do with him?”

“Tie him up.” I march over to a small bar lined with decanters and grab the nearest one. Knocking the cut crystal top from the bottle, I bring it to my lips and take a long pull, relishing the scotch’s burn as it makes its way down to my stomach. “I think it’s time we had a little chat with Mr. Calhoun.”

Penny used to say, “There’s a time to talk and there’s a time to listen. You can’t do both at the same time.”

If Patrick Calhoun has an ounce of self-preservation. He’ll keep his mouth shut and pay the fuck attention.

13

ANNA

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. He has blood all over him. On his face, on his hands, and his clothes.

“Anna, baby.” Mark is in front of me before I realize the words rolling through my head are tumbling out of my mouth in a mumbled mess. There’s a slight tremor in his hands as he reaches out to cup my face, only to pull back after just the tips of his fingers whisper against my skin. His gaze flicks down to his hands as if seeing what I see for the first time. Blood. “Shit.”

He moves to wipe the tacky prints he left on my face but turns his hands over and over again, then stops as if he’s afraid to make things worse. He looks as if he’s afraid to move as if one touch from him will shatter me into a million pieces. He’s not wrong.

It’s just not for the reasons he thinks it is.

He has blood on his hands. Literally. My forced fiancé’s blood. Patrick fucking Calhoun’s blood. There’s hardly a clean spot on Mark’s hands after the beating he doled out on Patrick. Why is that such a fucking turn-on?

They came for me. Mark and Jax are here fighting for me, refusing to let me go even when I told them I was going to marry Patrick instead of giving myself to them and permitting them to keep me. They aren’t going to let me chain myself to Calhoun, to allow myself to be ruined at the hands of a monster like him. No matter how righteous my reasons for doing so are.

Because they want to ruin me.

They want to ruin me in a way that is entirely different from the man I intended to marry. Mark and Jax want to own me, possess my body and soul. To ruin me for all other men, and I want to let them. God, do I want that. I don’t just want it; I fucking need it. Desire pools low, and an aching need builds between my legs. I’m desperate for their touch and to touch them, to show them how grateful I am that they saved me.

They saved me from myself and Patrick Calhoun when no one else would. Not even my father.

“You okay, baby girl?” Jax gives the rope he tied around Patrick, fastening him to an antique oak ladder-back chair, a final tug, tightening the knots and eliciting a satisfying groan from Patrick. “Anna?”

Am I okay? For the first time in my life, I am more than okay. I’m fucking perfect. I know what I want, and who I want, and I’ll do whatever they ask of me as long as they promise to keep me.

I nod, unable to force the words over the knot in my throat, and blink through the blur of tears.

“Thank fuck.” Mark exhales as he watches a smile curve the corners of my mouth and the muscles in my body relax. He rushes me, crushing my body to his, despite the pain I know he’s in from the punches Patrick landed during the fight. He winces and sucks a breath of air between his teeth when I run my fingers through his hair. “Easy, babe.”

“Would have split your skull like a fucking melon if your boyfriend wasn’t here to save your ass. Two against one? Fighting dirty. Afraid you couldn’t take me one on one? Fucking chumps.” Patrick snarls. The legs of the wooden chair thump and erratically beat as he struggles against the rope binding him.

“You’d know all about fighting dirty, wouldn’t you? You fucking bastard.” Jax’s fingers curl into a fist, his arm coiled back like a spring before he unleashes a devastating blow to Patrick’s face. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut.”

“No pussy is worth the hellfire I will rain down upon you. Do you think you can steal from me, not once but fucking twice, and get away with it?” Patrick laughs and spits a mouthful of blood at Jax’s feet. “You better fucking kill me. You better make sure I’m fucking dead because I promise you, if there’s a breath left in my body, I will fucking come for you. I’ll make that pretty little whore watch as I gut you, and then I’ll put her to work.”

“I said shut the fuck up. You want a taste, motherfucker?” Jax grabs my panties off the floor and shoves them in Patrick’s mouth. He clamps his hand over Patrick’s mouth, forcing it to shut, and leans in close. “There. Now you know what you’ll be missing. Now you’ll know what we took from you, what we made our own. Yeah, we didn’t have to take her virginity. She gave it to us, begged us. Anna’s ours now and you’re not going to do a fucking thing about it.”

This is too much. Isn’t it? It should be. I should be running. Not just from Patrick, but from Mark and Jax too. There’s an edge of darkness to them, carved out by the anger, grief, and hatred they feel for Patrick Calhoun. It’s been building up little by little over the years since Penny’s death until it consumed them and drove them to plot their revenge and steal Patrick’s bride.

To kidnap me.

So I should run because they’re broken, damaged by the pain they’ve been stewing in for all this time, but I’m not going to run. And not just because I want to save my mom. No, as much as I want to save her, that’s not why I’m staying with them. I want them. I need them. But I will do whatever Mark and Jax ask of me if they’ll help me find a way to save her.

But that has to wait because we need to go. We need to get the hell out of Patrick’s house and figure out how we’re going to not only pay for my mom’s cancer treatments but keep her safe from Calhoun’s men because, after tonight, I have no doubt he’ll use her to get to me.

AND THIS TIME it won’t be with threats to stop chemotherapy or radiation.

“We need to go,” Mark says as if he’s reading my mind. He releases me and crosses the room to stand next to his brother, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “Jax, we have to finish it. I know we said we weren’t going to do this, that this isn’t who we are, but I think we’ve kind of crossed a line and there’s no going back. Not if we want to keep her safe. We need to finish this and get the fuck out of here.”

“No.” Jax stretches his left arm, his fingers clawing at the floor until they hook my shirt. He lets go of Patrick long enough to twist the shirt and wrap it around his face, gagging him with my panties still in his mouth. “We’re not going to kill him. Maybe we did cross a line. A few lines, but not that one. And I’m not going to.”

“We should go,” I say, pulling everyone’s attention, including Patrick’s back to me. I wish Jax chose something other than my shirt for a gag. I want to get dressed. My skin itches with the need to cover myself up. Not because I’m embarrassed or insecure of my body, but because Patrick has leered at it long enough. “There’s someone else here, his driver or bodyguard or whatever the hell he is. He must have heard something. He’ll come for Patrick.”

For me.

“No one’s coming, Anna.” Mark addresses me, but he’s staring at Patrick as if the words are directed at him. “Jax and I took care of it. We’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Patrick’s screams are muffled by the gag, but I can pick up bits and pieces of the threats he’s spewing. His skin is red, veins bulging and strained in his neck and temples. I’m not one to wish ill will on a person but if Patrick had a heart attack right now, I wouldn’t waste a breath performing CPR.

“We should kill him and be done with it.” Mark is still glaring at Patrick as he talks to Jax about their next move. “I don’t want to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

Patrick makes a garbled choking sound that might be a laugh.

“We won’t,” Jax says with such finality that it draws Mark’s attention away from my former fiancé. “I have an idea.”

Mark’s lips curl in a wicked sneer that almost makes me feel bad for Patrick. Almost. “What do you have in mind?”

Jax runs through his plan. It’s deviant and beautiful and hits Patrick right where it’s sure to hurt him the most.

“You want to do what?” I should be shocked. Maybe even horrified. I should refuse, but a part of me, a dark, depraved part of me, wants to do the things he’s suggesting.

Jax wants to take me, make Patrick watch as he and Mark claim me once and for all, removing all doubt who I belong to. And it’s not Patrick.

Mark is already unbuttoning his pants. “On your knees, Anna.”

“I can’t…I’m not going to…not with him watching,” I protest but the ache between my legs intensifies, and I get down on all fours despite the words falling from my lips.

Mark kneels behind me, positioning me at an angle that provides Patrick with the best view of what he’s about to do to me. “Whose pussy is this?” He smacks my ass when I fail to answer. “Who does this pussy belong to, Anna?”

Another smack.

“You,” I cry out when his hand connects with my ass a third time, then mewl like a fucking kitten when he rubs his hand where he made contact, soothing away the sting.

“Fucking right, you do. This pussy is mine; mine, and Jax’s.” He grips my hips and, with one brutal thrust, impales me with his rock-hard cock.

Jax hovers beside us, his gaze fixed on me as I watch him unzip his pants and free his erection. He fists his hand around his shaft, moving it up and down in long slow strokes as he waits his turn with the patience of a saint.

Or maybe the devil.

Mark snakes his hand around my hip, then lower until his fingers reach my swollen, aching clit. He moves them in fast, tight circles, bringing me to the edge of an orgasm. He increases the pace, the slap of skin on skin louder as he rails me from behind. The twitch of his cock, knowing he’s so close, right there with me at my climax is all it takes. I’m still screaming his name when he explodes inside me. He leans over, pressing a kiss against my spine before easing out of me.

My body is still aching for him, but Jax is there before I have the chance to truly miss his presence.

“Roll over onto your back for me, baby.” Jax runs his hands along my legs, the callouses on his strong hands kiss my skin with each caress, as he raises them and hooks my ankles over his shoulders. He rubs the tip of his dick along my slick, oversensitive slit then slips in, forcing Mark’s cum that’s leaking out of me back inside my pussy. “Who do you belong to?”

“You.” I don’t hesitate to answer this time because I know it’s true. They own me. Every single inch of my body and soul belongs to them. “You do.”

“That’s right, Anna. You’re such a good girl, taking my cock.” Jax rolls his hips, hitting a spot so deep it almost hurts, but that twist of pain, the pressure of being so full, of having so much of him, is a new, delicious level of pleasure I’ve never experienced before. He moves faster, harder, with every gasp and moan I make. “Touch yourself. Make yourself come on my fucking cock while I ravage this beautiful fucking pussy. Let him see what I do to you.”

I love the way they talk to me, the way they tell me what to do. It’s so easy, so right to follow their commands. I do as I’m told and slide my hand over my swollen clit, bringing myself to another orgasm and screaming Jax’s name as he comes, emptying himself inside me.

Jax gets up, helps me to my feet, and makes sure my wobbly legs will support me before gathering what’s left of my clothes. He slips his shirt over my head and holds my jeans as I step into them before handing me over to Mark.

“If you so much as whisper her name in the dark, you’re finished. Raise as much as a finger in retaliation; make a move against her mother, and I will destroy you. With one keystroke,” Jax waves his hand, gesturing to the room and the whole of Patrick’s empire, “all of this disappears. Nod if you understand.”

Patrick’s expression darkens, his eyes narrowing to thin slits, but he nods.

Without a word or a parting glance, I leave my fiancé strapped to the chair, bound and gagged with my panties and the only taste of me he’ll ever have still in his mouth.

14

JAX

Ishould have killed him. I should have let Mark kill him. It’s been weeks since we left Patrick Calhoun strapped to that chair, surrounded by all the glitz and gold, all the symbols of his wealth and power that he holds dear. All but one. One priceless, precious possession.

Anna.

She’s ours now. In every way that matters. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen. I thought the threat of financial ruin would be enough to keep Patrick in line and it has. So why do I keep looking over my shoulder like that fucker is going to pop out of the shadows and make a run at Anna? I’ve woken up in a cold sweat more nights than I care to admit plagued by dreams that he’s taken her, tortured her. Made her pay for everything we did.

Just like tonight.

More nightmares. My heart races, thudding in an erratic rhythm inside my chest like it’s about to burst. The sheets cling to my sweat-coated skin. The only thing that soothes me is the sound of Anna’s slow and steady breathing, and the weight of her arm draped over my stomach. She’s nestled between me and Mark. Safe and sound.

And I’m a fucking wreck.

I slip out of bed, careful not to wake either of them, and grab my laptop off the nightstand on my way down to the kitchen. I’m up and not going back to sleep after the horror show my subconscious created for me. Might as well make some coffee and run another scan on the offshore accounts I set up for Anna’s mom.

Barbara Garrison is now Margaret Williams. When she found out what her husband did to their daughter, and how he sold her to Patrick to pay off their debts, she was more than willing to come with us. We set her up with a new name, in a new hospital with new doctors, where her husband Richard and that piece of shit Patrick Calhoun can’t find her. The only thing that isn’t new is her treatment plan. If Mark and I could have changed that we would have, but she’s out of options. Her last chance to beat the cancer back into remission is aggressive and experimental.

It’s also rare.

The one thing that could link Garrison and Calhoun back to us. Hence the nagging, unshakable feeling that something is going to go wrong, like they’re watching us, watching Anna, and waiting to strike when we least expect it.

Coffee in hand, I fire up the laptop and log onto the bank’s website. The accounts look good and the balances check out, right down to the penny. I run through the hack I created to siphon money from Patrick’s account every month. Not enough to crumble and cause the financial downfall of his criminal empire, but enough to remind him that we could if we wanted to.

To remind him of the promise I made.

We bought a house with a yard, big enough for a growing family and a guest house for Anna’s mom—which according to the contractor should be finished by the end of the week. He’s been saying that for the last two weeks. It’s a sprawling rancher on a corner lot in an older, quieter part of town. A far cry from where I imagined Mark and I living but it’s close to the hospital and college campus where Anna enrolled to obtain her teaching degree. It’s perfect for her. Which means it’s perfect for us.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Anna’s sweet voice pulls me from the worries eating away at my brain and the numbers on the screen that I hoped would soothe them.

“You’re up early,” I say as I push off the stool I’m perched on at the kitchen counter and head her off to the coffeepot to fix her a cup with the perfect amount of sugar and cream. Light and sweet. Just the way she likes it.

“First day of classes. Don’t want to be late.” She takes the steaming mug, steals half my bagel from the plate beside my laptop, and takes a large bite. Her tongue swipes across her bottom lip and the dollop of cream cheese at the corner of her mouth. “I’m going to jump in the shower.”

Anna sets the partially eaten bagel back on my plate and plants a soft kiss on my cheek, her fingers tracing the tribal tattoo on my arm. She’s halfway across the living room when she stops and casts a glance over her shoulder. Her eyes are heated with desire when she asks if I’d care to join her.

That’s the only invitation I need.

Losing myself in Anna is the perfect way to forget everything. To let my troubles wash down the drain along with the evidence of my release after I fuck my good girl into oblivion in the shower on her first day of school.

15

ANNA

“You can do this,” I mutter to myself and peel my white-knuckled fingers from around the steering wheel of my powder blue VW bug. “It’s just college. No big deal, right? Not like being forced into an engagement with a total psycho, or kidnapped.”

Rescued. I can practically hear Mark and Jax’s teasing voices in my head.

With a huffed laugh, I turn off the engine and unbuckle my seatbelt. As far as pep talks go, it’s a little lackluster, but I take a deep breath, push back the nerves and anxiety, and get out of the car.

Before Patrick, I’d given up on my dreams of becoming a teacher when my mom got sick again. We couldn’t afford the tuition. Sure there was financial aid but being at my mom’s bedside was more important. Especially when I found out we couldn’t afford her hospital bills either. And after Patrick? Well, there’s no way he would have let me earn a degree and have any chance of independence, financial or otherwise.

It wasn’t until Jax and Mark stormed into my life that my dreams started to feel like a possibility again. And now, they’re becoming a reality.

For the first time in a long time, things are looking up. Mom is responding well to the treatments. Mark and Jax are insatiable but attentive. I’ve never felt so cared for, so loved in my entire life. And there’s been no sign of Patrick. I can finally see through the clouds, beyond the silver linings. I can see the sun and bask in its warmth. This is what happiness feels like.

“Anna? Is that you?”

I slow my pace, craning my neck over my shoulder to put a face with the unfamiliar voice calling to me from behind. Mark and Jax assured me we put enough miles between us and my hometown that no one should recognize my face, never mind know my name.

A shadow creeps over my peripheral. A hand latches onto my arm with an unyielding grip. Before I can demand this person let go of me or utter a cry for help, I feel the prick of a needle in my neck and an icy burn spread out under my skin.

I shouldn’t have slowed down. I should have been paying attention to my surroundings, kept going until I could slip into the safety of the crowd of students rushing into the English building up ahead. I shouldn’t have let myself get caught off-guard.

Would have, could have, should have.

It’s too late for any of that now. I’m being stuffed in a car’s trunk and taken to who knows where. A sense of dread settles like a weight in my stomach because truth be told, I have an inkling of where my abductors are taking me.

Back to Patrick.

Another round of should haves runs through my mind. At the top of the list is that I should have known better. I should have known this happiness wouldn’t last. That this perfect life Mark and Jax created for me was too good to be true. But the most glaring and painfully obvious is that we should have killed Patrick Calhoun when we had the chance.

Because deep down, I knew he would come after us.

The drugs and the rocking motion of the car calm my fears and lull me into blissful oblivion. I don’t think about my mom. I don’t think about Mark and Jax riding to my rescue. I just slip into the nothingness and just sleep.

“Anna.” A man coos. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. Your audience awaits.”

Everything is blurry and muffled, like being underwater with your eyes open in an over-chlorinated pool. My brain is sluggish, and my memory is fuzzy, but one thing keeps running through my mind. Danger. I am in danger.

“Anna.” The man’s voice cracks like a whip in the air.

Oh, fuck. Patrick. Everything comes rushing back. The prick of the needle, being taken by two men and shoved into a moving vehicle. The irony of my former fiancé’s plan is not lost on me.

“There she is. Just in time for your performance. I wouldn’t want to start without the star of our show ready for her close-up.” Patrick’s face comes into view, hovering just above mine. His bourbon and cigar-laced breath washes over me.

The smell of alcohol and stale tobacco, combined with the nauseating side effects of whatever drug I was injected with, is enough to make me retch. I try to roll over to my side so I can throw up, but I can’t move. Oh, god, I’m tied up.

“I think I’m going to puke,” I warn him as my stomach clenches again as I take in my surroundings.

I’m tied spread eagle on a bed, with a naked Patrick kneeling between my legs. There’s a camera fastened to a tripod set up behind him. The red light blinks a signal that it’s ready and waiting to record.

“Puke all over yourself. I don’t give a shit. I’m here to fuck you. Not make love to you. Besides, do you think I want to kiss that filthy mouth of yours? I know where it’s been, whore.” Patrick leans over me and grabs a condom from the box lying on the mattress beside me. He tears the foil wrapper with his teeth, removes the condom, and barks out a bitter laugh as he sheaths himself.

“Better safe than sorry, right? Well, at least I won’t be. You, on the other hand? You’ll not only be the sorriest little whore when I’m through with you, you’ll be the sorest. And your boyfriends get to watch. This is live streaming to that flat-screen TV mounted on your living room wall. Oh, and their laptops. And cell phones. Don’t worry, slut, they won’t miss a single depraved thing I do to you. They’ll hear every scream and see every tear, in real-time.”

“You’re fucking sick.” My stomach threatens to upend itself, but I choke it back, along with the tears threatening to spill over my lashes. I won’t give this bastard the satisfaction.

“I’m sick? That’s fucking rich coming from you. You and your boy toys inspired this little show we’re about to put on, just like the one you put on for me. You remember that, don’t you, Anna? Me being tied to a chair, choking on your panties, being forced to watch while they fucked you. And you loved every minute of it because you’re a filthy, disgusting whore.”

Patrick never raises his voice. Not once. It stays even—ice cold, and that’s more terrifying than if he was screaming at the top of his lungs in a full-blown rage.

“You won’t like it this time.” Patrick’s lip curls back in a sneer as he leans over me again and pulls out a knife from the folds of the comforter.

I slam my eyes shut and try to block Patrick and whatever he’s going to do to me out of my mind. Praying for an out-of-body experience, a way to slip into the furthest corner of my mind and pretend this isn’t happening, I feel the mattress shift under his weight and the cold press of steel against my skin.

“Look at me,” Patrick commands, pressing the knife against my skin until the warm bloom of my blood welling up replaces the cool sting of the blade. “I said look at me. I want you to fucking watch me.”

He switches the direction of the blade and slices up through my bra then moves to my panties, slicing through the thin bikini straps on both hips. My gaze is fixed on Patrick like he demanded. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my cries and desperate pleas from escaping my mouth, denying him what he wants, but I can’t hide the tremors that rack my body.

“Perfect.” He knows I’m afraid, and he’s enjoying it. “You like it rough, don’t you, whore?”

A percussive boom and the sound of shattering glass stops Patrick from penetrating me.

“Oh, good. Looks like your boyfriends decided to join the party. A little sooner than I’d hoped. Unlike some people, I don’t like to share. Guess our fun will have to wait until after I kill them.” He gets off the mattress, grabs a gun off the nightstand beside the bed, and without bothering to put on any clothes, storms out of the bedroom.

Gunfire.

I unleash every scream pent up inside me since I woke up tied to Patrick’s bed with the first crack of a gun. With each bullet that’s fired, I twist, turn, and pull against my restraints. The ropes tighten.

I’m still screaming, thrashing my body against the bed when I hear heavy stomps up the stairs. “No, no, no.” I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head violently, refusing to look at my tormentor as he comes back to claim his victory.

“Anna.”

I flinch when I feel a hand wrap around my wrist. Another hand closes around my other wrist. “No,” I scream again.

“Baby.”

The endearment snaps me out of my terror-induced haze. Patrick never called me baby before, and he sure as hell wouldn’t do it now. I force myself to open my eyes and a sob breaks free at the sight of them.

Mark and Jax make short work of the knots and release me from the bonds while whispering comforting words and soothing sounds.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Jax scoops me off the bed and cradles me to his chest for a moment before setting me on my feet. “I thought we wouldn’t make it in time.”

His hands tremble as he collects my clothes scattered around the room and helps me get dressed while Mark calls the police.

“How did you know? How did you find me?” I rasp. My throat feels like I swallowed razor blades and chased them with shards of glass.

“I put a tracking device in your bag.” Jax shrugs as if that’s a normal thing to do, which in our circumstances, I guess it is.

“Told you we should have killed him,” Mark grumbles, shoving his phone into the back pocket of his jeans before enveloping me in the safety of his arms.

“Kind of a moot point now, jackass.” Jax jerks his head toward the door. “Come on, we’ll wait for the cops downstairs.”

“Why did you call the police?” The reality of our situation comes crashing down around me. How the hell are we going to explain this? “They won’t believe us. We’re going to be arrested.”

“No one is going to arrest us for killing a piece of shit like Patrick Calhoun. The cops have been after him for years. Even if we lied, which we don’t have to since he abducted you and tied you up in his bed, they wouldn’t push our story too hard. We did them a favor, trust me.”

And I do. I trust them with my life. But more importantly, my heart.

EPILOGUE

ANNA

Four months later

WINTER BREAK. Finally. I thought the semester would never end. I’m exhausted and not just because of my grueling course schedule. In hindsight, doubling down on classes wasn’t the best idea. Especially once we found out I was pregnant. Morning sickness and raging hormones zap my energy, and I’ve been struggling to stay awake through my afternoon classes. Still, as long as I do well on my final exams, my 4.0 GPA will remain intact. I promised Mark and Jax to cut back in the spring and take more courses online instead of on campus. They didn’t have to twist my arm too hard. As excited as I am to earn my degree and become a teacher, I’m more excited to become a mom. I want to enjoy my pregnancy and the baby when he or she makes their debut in the world. Juggling school and motherhood won’t be easy, but I know I can do it.

And I’ll do it on my timeline, on my terms.

Mom’s cancer is in remission again, thanks to her amazing doctors and the experimental treatments we could finally afford without insurance, courtesy of Mark and Jax. They paid for everything, including her outstanding debts to the hospital and oncologists back home. The guest house is finished, and she’s been busy putting her shine on things; her eclectic flare showing in each throw pillow she piles on the couch and print she frames and hangs on the wall. She’s not surviving. She’s thriving in the life Mark and Jax have made for her here, and I couldn’t be more grateful for them making sure their baby has a grandmother to love and cherish them as much as we will.

“Hey, babe.” Jax pads barefoot into the living room, his pajama pants slung low on his hips, a welcome distraction from the economics book I’m slogging through as I study for my next exam. “Come check this out.”

He takes my hand in his and tugs me from the nest of blankets I’ve made on the couch, and leads me up to the nursery, where he and Mark have been assembling the crib with an excessive and hilarious amount of curse words.

The room is done up in soft neutrals. It’s too early in the pregnancy to determine the sex, but we want it to be a surprise, anyway. In the center of the room is the mahogany sleigh crib I picked out with a moon and star mobile hanging above it.

“What do you think?” Mark watches me from the matching rocking chair in the corner of the room.

“I love it. It’s perfect,” I tell them, with a watery smile, my eyes brimming with tears. “Just like the two of you.”

“Perfect, huh?” Mark plants his feet and pushes himself out of the rocker. “Does that mean we get rewarded for doing such a good job?”

“A reward, hmm?” I tap my finger against my lips. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”

Jax moves up behind me, pressing his erection against my ass as he sandwiches me between him and Mark. “I’ve already come up with something.”

“I can tell.” I let out a breathy chuckle, followed by a moan as he slides his hand between us, over my breast, and pinches my hardened nipple between his fingers.

We move to our bedroom, where they take their sweet time removing my clothes, trailing kisses over every inch of skin they expose.

Jax slips his hand between my legs, delving two fingers between my slick folds. “Always so wet for us, baby.”

I’D BLAME THE HORMONES, but that would be a lie. I’ve always been wet and ready for them, since that first day when they rescued me. They claimed my virginity and claimed my heart in the process.

Jax lays back on the bed, his heated gaze locked on mine as he rubs his hand along his hardened shaft. “Straddle me, Anna. I want you to bury my dick in your sweet heat.”

I do as I’m told. I always do as I’m told, like the good girl that I am. Their good girl.

“We’re going to try something new, baby.” Mark splays his hand against my back, pressing me down onto Jax’s chest and kneels on the bed. “Don’t move.”

Mark goes to get something from the bathroom before quickly returning. I hear him opening something, then feel him pouring lube over the crack of my ass.

He nudges Jax’s legs apart and kneels between them as he grabs my hips and inches my ass back and up at a different angle, eliciting a groan from both me and Jax.

I gasp when I feel the tip of Mark’s cock press against my pleated hole.

“Just relax, baby. I promise you’ll enjoy it.” He rubs the head of his cock along my ass and presses the tip in, easing it past the twinge of pain until it’s a delicious pressure. “Oh, fuck, yes. That’s it, you’re taking my cock in your tight little ass like a good girl.”

“Fuck.” Jax hisses when my pussy clenches around his dick. He rocks his hips, plunging himself deeper inside me. His hands grip my hips, pinning me in place.

“Oh, god, yes.” I’m so full, already on the edge, ready to explode with just the sensation of both of them inside me this way.

Mark moves, slow and easy, sliding in and out in a steady rhythm that Jax matches. They converge in my body with each thrust. It’s too much and not enough. Every nerve in my body is on fire. I’m ready to explode.

“Yes. God, don’t stop. I’m so close.” I’m begging, pleading to come. They love it when I do, love to hear their names on my lips when I am desperate for release.

“You want to come with Mark’s dick in your ass, fucking that tight hole while my dick is buried in your sweet pussy?” Jax’s words are all it takes to push me over the edge and into a blissful abyss.

And they’re right behind me, ropes of their cum filling me as they follow me into euphoria.

They’re mine and I’m theirs.

Always.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darcy Rose is a USA Today Bestselling author of steam novellas with a dark edge.

If you like your books short, taboo and kinky, then you have come to the right place. Darcy writes about shy and innocent heroines, to match them up with dark and intense heroes who have only eyes for one girl.