He reached for her, but she pulled back. “I don’t like any of this, Burke. But I don’t seem to have a choice. It’s just me and Caleb. My parents won’t lift a finger to help us. My only friend here turns out to be working for the enemy. You two are my only option. I want to talk to these friends of yours. Call them. I can’t just turn over my son to anyone.”
Cole made the call, murmuring, “Gavin James will reassure you, baby. You’ll want to talk to Hannah, his wife, too.”
Burke watched Jessa as she glared at Cole, hand outstretched for the phone. They’d brought her to this place. God, she was never going to forgive them.
He made a right turn toward the highway that would lead them back to D.C. Gavin would come. Dex and Slade, his brothers, would do anything to protect Caleb, too. Hannah would cuddle and love their boy as soon as she heard the story. And if the worst happened, and none of them made it, the James family would take care of Caleb.
Burke resisted the urge to drive his fist through the windshield. God, he wanted to know his son. He’d already missed out on months of Caleb’s life, and now he had to give the boy up? For how long—days? Weeks? He refused to think it could be longer. Or forever. And the thought of Jessa in danger made him even more insane. He began to understand Cole’s violent streak.
His mind wandered as the miles flew by, images of Jessa laughing played through his brain. Happier times.
Would she ever smile for them again?
One year earlier – New York City
Jessa hurried inside the little Mexican place, her portfolio in one hand. She was running late, but she couldn’t help the smile on her face. The last few days had been amazing. Burke and Cole had spent Christmas Day with her, taking her for breakfast and lunch, then sitting in the bar while she worked the night shift. They’d had to work the next day. According to her friends on the maid staff, they had been at the hotel for a week, coming and going at odd hours of the night. She wasn’t sure exactly what they did for a living. They had told her something about the import export business, but she just couldn’t see them behind desks. They had too much energy. They were too…dangerous.
She hadn’t figured them out yet.
And she might never. She really didn’t care why they were here. She was just damn happy they were. The restaurant was loud, vibrant, and proudly proclaimed that they sold the largest margaritas in Manhattan.
“Jessa!” Burke stood up, waving her over to the small table he and Cole had claimed.
With a smile, she made her way toward them, brimming with excitement.
Burke’s friendly smile lit up the place. Cole was darker. She saw them for what they were, halves of a whole. Just looking at them sparked her creativity. And her libido. Was she really considering doing something about that? Would she really have the courage to be honest with them?
“I ordered you a margarita. I hope you don’t mind. I remembered you said you liked mango.” Cole didn’t smile as he offered the insanely huge glass to her. He was slightly grave, almost as though he expected her to refuse him.
She slid a hand over his, delighted at the relief that crossed his face, the way he relaxed. “I love mango. Thank you. And I have something to celebrate.”
Burke sat back down. The two men surrounded her. She felt oddly safe when she was between them, which happened often. Whenever they took a cab, she found herself in the middle. Walking through Times Square the night before, she’d had a brother on either side of her, their big bodies a bulwark against the encroaching crowd. She fit between them. She wanted to see just how she fit between them in bed.
“You’re blushing,” Burke said with a grin. “Is this celebration turning naughty?”
She was sure she flushed even more. “I sold a painting.”
Cole’s eyes flared. “Jessa, that’s wonderful. To a gallery?”
She nodded. She was going to have a work in a gallery in Soho. It seemed too good to be true. “I didn’t really sell it, but the gallery owner agreed to put it up. I have a painting for sale! She wants to see more. I can’t believe it. I know it’s small, but it’s a start.”
She was practically humming with glee.
“It isn’t small,” Cole said, his voice a deep rumble. “It’s huge. That’s great.”
“It’s amazing, Jessa. I can’t wait for your first show,” Burke said with an enormous smile on his face.
God, if she wasn’t glowing, it was only because it was impossible for human skin to do it. She was pretty damn sure she now understood what it meant to beam with happiness. They were so kind to her. She had spent the last several days basking in it, desperate for this giddiness to never end. She thought about them all day…and all night. Now she knew what she wanted.
Both of them.
She’d waited. Well, not exactly waited. Sex just hadn’t come up. She’d spent so many years trying to please her parents by becoming the perfect student. She’d graduated from high school early. She’d gone to college too young to really fit in with her classmates. Since coming to New York, all she’d been able to think about was keeping a roof over her head and food in her belly.
It was time to have a relationship. This might not last more than a week, but she would know what it meant to belong to someone.
“We should celebrate,” Burke offered. “I think dancing is in order.”
Cole groaned. Though he hadn’t been much of a dancer, she’d loved being held in his strong arms when they’d danced on Christmas Eve. He’d sighed and called himself an elephant with two left feet, but being close to him made all the grousing worthwhile.
“How about a movie?” Cole practically pleaded. “Or a show. I’ll go see a show. See, I can compromise.”
She took a long sip of margarita, wishing she had a tequila shot instead. Liquid courage, she needed it. Instead, she drew in a breath and plowed ahead. “I think we should all go to bed.”
They both stopped, and in perfect synchronicity, swung their dark heads her way.
“What did you say, sweetheart?” Burke asked.
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “You heard me.”
“I heard that you want us in bed.” Cole stared at her like a lion about to pounce on something soft and furry. “All of us. Together.”
Yep. They just stared in silence, those blue eyes hot, dissecting. Embarrassment swamped her. Had she been wrong about them? Had she let the fantasies in her head color her judgment?
Burke’s eyes narrowed. “You want a ménage, sweetheart? Have you ever had one?”
She shook her head. Oh, she didn’t want to admit more than that. Surely she could fake some experience. She’d seen movies. Mostly R rated, but Jimmy from concierge services had once had a party where some of the guys had gone to the back and watched porn films. She’d sneaked a peek. A long peek.
“Do you understand what you’re asking for?” Cole asked. He’d completely closed his expression off. Burke had relaxed, his sensual expression almost decadent. But Cole sat stiffly, his whole body seeming to shut down.
Jessa fought the tears that threatened. She’d thought they both wanted her. Cole, it appeared, was just being nice. If she couldn’t have them both, she wondered if she shouldn’t just walk away. It would be like accepting half of something. Ever since that first night, she’d viewed them as a single unit. She forced a bright smile on her face, hating the sniffle that came out. She’d gotten herself in this mess. She could get herself out.
“Just kidding.” She forced a laugh. “Sorry, guys. I’ll stop telling bad jokes, I promise. Let’s just have a nice dinner, then I’ll head back to the hotel since I have to work tonight.”
“No, you don’t. Eric is working. I saw the schedule.” Burke raised a dark brow.
She was a horrible liar. She couldn’t hold the sunny pretense anymore, not with humiliation stinging every corner of her body. “Why don’t I just go?”
Grabbing her coat, she stood.
“No,” Burke barked with a ferocious frown. “Jessa, sit back in your seat. We need to talk about this.”
Slowly, she set her coat aside and eased back into her chair. “There’s nothing to say. If you don’t want—”
Cole snorted, his gaze looking as if it had heated up ten thousand degrees in the last minute, though the rest of his body remained frozen.
But Burke spoke. “Sweetheart, we’re not shocked by the idea. Trust me. We’ve done this a time or two. We prefer to share lovers, but you’re very young.”
“And very inexperienced.” A fact that obviously made Cole grit his teeth.
“How would you know that?” Jessa challenged. It was true, but his assumption annoyed her. She fought the urge to get up and walk away—end this whole embarrassing evening. “You don’t know my history. I could have had a bunch of lovers.”
Both men snorted. Somehow they made it seem elegant.
“Sweetheart, if you’ve had more than a couple, I’ll eat my socks.” Burke watched her closely, then paled. “You have had a couple, right?”
She took another long swallow, wringing her hands. They could see right through her. No sense in lying now. “Fine. All right. No.”
Cole clenched his jaw and sent Burke an accusing stare. “I told you the minute we met her that she was a virgin. Goddamn it.”
Jessa suddenly felt alone. The twins were looking at each other, their eyes speaking while their mouths stayed closed. Sometimes they retreated into a private world where she couldn’t follow.
Moments later, Cole stood, buttoning the jacket of his suit coat. “It’s time for me to leave. She’s too innocent for what I need. I can’t put that on a virgin. Besides, she’s more interested in you. I’ll go back to the hotel. We do have work to do, remember?”
Burke’s face fell. “Can’t we talk about this?”
“What the fuck is there to say?”
She sat there watching them, wishing she hadn’t ever spoken up. They could still be sitting here having a nice dinner and planning to go to a movie or a show together. But no, she’d needed to forge her own path. She always did. She could hear her mother complaining in her head about what an ungrateful daughter she was for turning aside all their plans for her and making her own. Painting, not international business. Two men, not one.
Jessa listened to them argue. She was on the outside now, but then she’d felt that way all of her life. Even at the lavish parties her parents had thrown, she’d been on the outside. When she’d tried to fit in, going to a school she didn’t want to go to, studying what she didn’t love, it had been terrible. Always on the outside.
The best thing she’d ever done had been defying her parents. She’d stood up and gotten kicked out, but it had been for the best. She would have suffocated if she’d stayed. She’d been happier since leaving all that behind and didn’t regret her choice for a minute. So why was she retreating now instead of fighting for what she wanted? Wasn’t she simply proving Cole’s point that she was too inexperienced to handle him?
She wasn’t a child. She might not have slept around, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t deal. She looked at him, really looked at him. She tried to look past her insecurity and see him as he truly was. Jessa gnawed at her lip. How would she draw Cole in this moment? His face was all broad lines and bleak angles, but under the pain she saw gentleness lurking. Yearning even. She would love to draw him, then transfer that image to canvas, the colors of her palate bringing everything to life. Time slowed for Jessa. She studied him as she would a subject she painted, looking deep. Bold colors. He required them. He wasn’t as black and white as he tried to portray. He was a million shades, just like his brother.
He turned to her, and she realized his carefully blank stare wasn’t about her. He was scared of something.
Maybe she was fooling herself or seeing what she wanted to see, but his sudden refusal didn’t make a lick of sense. For four days, Cole had been right beside her, eating her up with his stare again and again, silently seducing her with the desire in his remote eyes. Burke was more blatant, but she hadn’t imagined Cole’s attraction to her. What was he afraid of?
“Goodbye, Jessa.” His voice sounded ragged. “You have a good time with Burke. He’ll take care of you, baby.”
“No.” The word slipped out. Now that she’d truly seen him, she knew deep down that if he let his fear win, it would haunt them all.
Burke smiled, but Cole scowled, suddenly on the offense.
“No?” Cole challenged, leaning in. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Stopping him in his tracks emboldened her. Jessa stood, certainty running through her veins, settling her face inches from his. She was still nervous, but no one got what they wanted by giving up. And she just knew she was doing the right thing.