What the hell was up with that? he wondered. He was sitting here, watching another man hold her, and he was as aroused as he had been watching Jethro go down on her earlier that night.
He breathed out heavily and stared toward the heavily curtained window reflectively. For the past ten years, Jethro had almost exclusively been the third he brought to the bed with his lovers. For some reason he seemed to provide the perfect counterpoint that Mac had been looking for to bring to his women. Mac cared for them; Jethro lusted. Gentle dominance and dark power, that was what they provided as a team for the lovers they had shared.
They were partners at the Bureau, the perfect team for the investigations they worked. They were also the perfect team for the women they shared.
And now, the woman they loved.
The insight came to him slowly as he turned his gaze back to the bed. Jethro was beginning to care for Keiley, and Mac hadn’t expected that. But neither was he regretting it, nor was he worried about it.
Especially now. She was protected in ways he couldn’t protect her on his own, and in the past years he had worried about that. Providing the protection she would need if one of his past investigations ever managed to come back and haunt him as it was now.
The Playboy was good. Damned good. And he had so far eluded every law enforcement officer who had investigated the individual cases. And with each successive strike, he was growing more violent.
“We’ll protect her, Mac.” Jethro’s voice was a quiet whisper, pitched just low enough to keep from disturbing Keiley. “He won’t get away this time.”
Mac stared back at his partner, seeing much more than he bet Jethro thought he could see. Mac could sense the emotion in the other man, the same fiery response to Keiley that Mac had known since the first day he met her. There was no turning away from her. There was no chance to avoid the effect she had on a man once he touched her. There was only the sure and certain knowledge that life would never be the same without her.
“Yes, we’ll protect her,” Mac agreed, feeling the burning rage building inside him once again.
Tonight had been too damned close.
“You need to train her to work with us,” Jethro said then. “Teach her how to protect herself and how to back us up.”
“Teach her how to stay put,” Mac muttered.
“She’s never going to stay put. You know better than that. You’re her husband. Her heart. She’ll no more stay put than you would. Think about that one.”
Mac grimaced tightly, knowing he was right.
“She’ll follow your lead, but she’ll never let you lock her away. She proved that tonight, and we all nearly paid for it. Teach her, Mac. Or I will.”
Mac stared back at his friend through the darkness of the bedroom, discerning the shadow of his body alongside Keiley’s and the glitter of his eyes.
There was nothing to be heard outside but the sounds of the night. Beyond the locked bedroom door, Pappy lay on guard, an early warning should anyone breach the house again. But he still wondered why the animal hadn’t sounded the alarm sooner. That question and the determination in Jethro’s voice pricked at him.
Keiley was smart enough, in control enough, to back them up if she had the proper training. But there was no time to train her properly.
“We’ll take turns covering her,” he finally said softly. “Instruct her as we can. But this isn’t going to go down easy, Jethro, I can feel it. He took a chance last night and got away with it. He’ll make a move again soon.”
“And he’s escalating,” Jethro murmured. “The next move could be completely unlike the ones he’s made before. We need to keep her in the house. Keep the windows shuttered.”
Mac let his gaze drop to Keiley. How long could he keep her out of sight and still draw the stalker in?
“He knows we’re on guard now,” Mac murmured. “If he’s smart, and we know he is, he’ll wait and watch.”
“So will we.” Jethro’s voice was pure death. “This time, we’ll get him.”
This time they would get him. Mac wiped his hands down his face before rising to his feet and shucking his jeans. The rest of the night would be quiet, he could feel it. He was exhausted and Jethro was awake now.
“Give me two hours,” he told his partner as he crawled into the bed and dragged Keiley into his arms.
She muttered sleepily but cuddled against his chest like a sleepy little kitten and drifted off once again.
“I’ll sleep in the morning,” Jethro told him quietly as he moved from the bed. “Go ahead and rest, man. You’re the one who’s been out of the game for three years. Not me.”
There was an edge of amusement to Jethro’s voice that had a grin tugging at Mac’s lips. Yes, he had been out of the game, but he wasn’t nearly as rusty as Jethro was accusing him of being.
“I can still kick your ass,” Mac assured him.
Jethro stretched lazily. “Expect to back up that claim, my friend, because this week we’ll be sparring.”
Mac grinned as he settled deeper into the pillows, his arms holding, sheltering Keiley as he drifted off to sleep. He trusted Jethro to watch his back. But even more, he was starting to realize that he trusted Jethro to watch his wife’s back, which was infinitely more important.
13
The next morning, towel wrapped around her and fresh from the shower, Keiley left Jethro’s bathroom with every intention of going to her own before dressing.
Her essentials were in her bathroom, her lotions and scents and the light makeup she wore through the day. But the minute she walked out of the bathroom, she knew she wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
She faced the two men who had broken through barriers she hadn’t known she had last night. Men who had touched her with a passion and hunger she hadn’t expected, then protected her through the night with a dedication that had left her shaken.
She stared at her husband as he slowly pulled the dark t-shirt from his body, revealing the finely sculpted muscles of his chest with the light scattering of black hair across it.
On the other side of the bed, Jethro followed suit. He wasn’t as heavily muscled as Mac, but the mat of hair was a little thicker, his hard body leanly muscled and compact.
A scar she hadn’t noticed the night before ran from his chest to his abs. The wicked mark against the darkly tanned flesh reminded her of the dangerous career he and Mac had chosen.
Flicking her gaze between them, her hands knotted on the towel covering her as she cleared her throat with a hint of hesitation.
“I’m a little sore,” she said breathlessly, her rear clenching at the slight ache that had been left from last night’s excess.
“There are other ways.” Mac’s voice was low, but nothing could disguise the hunger in it. It lent a rough edge to his tone, a dominant strength that had a tremor racing down her spine.
Her gaze moved to Jethro. He had held her as she slept, she knew. She remembered drifting awake several times to feel his arms around her, to smell his scent enveloping her.
“This sort of relationship is all about trust, Kei,” Jethro said then, moving closer, his blue eyes heavy-lidded. “There are no recriminations and there never will be. No guilt. No pressure. If you want to call a halt, then all you have to do is say the word.”
“And if I say the word?” she asked curiously.
“Then I back off.” He shrugged as he moved slowly around her, stopping as he stood at her back. “It’s that simple. And when you’re ready again, all you have to do is say so.”
She stared back at her husband. Jethro might back off, but she could see the flames burning in Mac’s eyes. She was finding that when it came to this particular hunger, he was resolute.
She could see the pleasure in his eyes as Jethro’s hands touched her shoulders. They were calloused, but not as roughly as Mac’s. Still, though, they rasped over her flesh as he smoothed them over her shoulders and down her arms to her elbows. There he pulled her arms back, forcing her to release the towel and to curl them around his neck instead.
“Damn, you’re beautiful,” Mac growled, watching. Watching as Jethro slowly pulled the towel from her body.
Keiley gasped as the cool air in the room and the heated sensation caused by Mac’s gaze on her suddenly tightened nipples sent a wave of helpless pleasure racing through her.
Mac didn’t move from where he stood, but the lithe flex and rippled of muscle as he shed his sweatpants and revealed the steel-hard erection beneath them was too arousing. His fingers curled around the base, his biceps flexing as he tightened his hand on his cock.
“I want to watch you, Keiley. You and Jethro. I want to watch the pleasure suffuse your face, your body. I want to see what I’m always too dazed by pleasure to watch when I’m taking you.”
Her eyes widened as Jethro’s hands slid to her waist before flattening on her stomach. Her arms started to fall from his neck.
“Keep them there,” Jethro growled, his honeyed voice firm and resolute. “Don’t move your arms. Stay where he can see you.”
“Mac.” His name was a whispered protest.
Mac shook his head slowly, the midnight strands of hair caressing his shoulders as he watched her with lashes half lowered over his steel-gray eyes.
“Just feel, Kei,” he said. “Just let me watch. Let me see your pleasure. Do you know the high I get watching you come undone? Watching the pleasure mount and mount until you’re helpless beneath the rush of ecstasy?”
Keiley was shaking. She could feel the tremors racing through her body, helpless beneath the astounding wash of hunger that his words evoked.
How could anyone deny the look in his eyes? Possessiveness, it was there. Keiley had a feeling that once Jethro walked out of their lives, what they had now would never happen again. Burning hunger blazed in his expression. For whatever reason, he needed this. Like other men needed a kiss, needed the words of love, Mac needed this. It was affirmation of some sort to him. And it raised questions Keiley knew she would eventually have to ask.
And there was love. She could see his love for her glittering more fiercely now than ever before. There was no way she could doubt it. He might be allowing another man to touch her body, but at that moment she could feel Mac touching her soul.
“I want to watch him take you, Kei.”
A breathless moan slipped past her lips as Jethro’s hands smoothed higher, his palms cupping the undercurves of her too-sensitive, swollen breasts. He lifted them as though in offering before his fingertips rubbed over the tips with heated precision.
Her knees weakened. Fire rocked through her veins. Then, just as quickly, she was being turned, lifted into Jethro’s arms, and laid carefully in the center of the bed.
She watched as Jethro stripped his pants from his body, his erection springing free, tipped with moisture and flushed with lust. Mac’s cock was a bit thicker, Jethro’s was a bit longer. Both men were impressively endowed with the sexual expertise to use it effectively.
Narrowing her eyes and flickering her gaze between both men, Keiley arched on the bed, her hands sliding up her stomach and down again as the heated ache between her thighs began to increase.
“You could join us,” she whispered to her husband.
She wasn’t certain how she felt about this, having him merely watch as another man touched her, kissed her, possessed her. She couldn’t control her responses, couldn’t control the eroticism that rose inside her as she glimpsed the approval in Mac’s gaze.
“I want to watch,” he murmured. “I want to see you taken away by the pleasure. How you look when you hold nothing back.”
She licked her lips nervously. “I’ve only done that with you, Mac.”
“And I’m here,” he assured her, moving closer to the bed as Jethro came down beside her.
