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“Who cares?” His other arm came around her hips, pulling her close as he suddenly buried his head against her breasts.
Surprised, Keiley gripped his shoulders, staring down at the coarse black hair that fell down the back of his neck.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his voice muffled by the cloth of her dress.
“About what?”
“About this. ” He pulled her forward, dragging her leg over his thighs and forcing her to straddle him as he lifted his head.
“This” was the straining erection beneath his jeans and the hunger in his gaze.
“You can’t love me,” she whispered. “You and Mac, you were too good as friends, as agents working together. That’s all it is. ”
“I saw you first, Kei. Remember? The parties you were invited to the week you met Mac. I made sure you were there. I knew you. I wanted you. ”
Keiley shook her head. She did remember those parties, and she remembered seeing him. Remembered those blue eyes following her, the feeling of feminine awareness, the knowledge that he was more than she could ever handle.
She had no idea how right she had been.
“I knew Mac would love you, too. ” His hands gripped her hips, jerking her closer, pressing his cock deeper into the cradle of her thighs. “I knew he would make you love him. I knew he would love you. I thought. ” He paused, staring back at her as he grimaced tightly. “I thought, a month or two, and he would invite me in. When the invitation didn’t come, I went on. Because I couldn’t risk hurting you. Or Mac. ”
“Why would you do that, Jethro? Why would you give him what you wanted?”
These two men confused her. There wasn’t even a hint of sexual frustration toward each other. All their sexual heat was centered on her alone. There was no feeling that bisexual urges tormented them, no feeling that they wanted or loved anything but her. Yet they knew each other so well.
“One of these days, I’ll tell you a story. ” He laid his forehead against hers, his gaze darkening painfully. “A story about a boy without a home, without a family. About a kid tossed out like so much garbage and then shuffled through a system as cold and unfeeling as the streets. Then I’ll tell you about how a man, one with his own shadows, befriended that boy when he became a man. They had a lot of adventures together. But then man saw the woman he was going to love and he knew he could never love that woman without scaring the hell out of her. Without sharing her. Without pushing her too soon, too fast, because of his hungers.
“I know you love Mac heart and soul. But I know you care about me. In time, I think, you could love me, Kei. And I would die for that love. ”
“Love is possessive, Jethro,” she said desperately. “If I let this continue, I couldn’t share you. The day would come when you found someone you could really love. What happens to me then? If I love you just as deeply, just as possessively, as I love Mac?”
His hands tightened on her hips as his expression turned feral with hunger. “You could love me like that, Kei?” He asked, his voice guttural. “Could you love me like that?”
“What do you two think you are doing to me?” she cried, struggling from his lap. “One of you should be jealous. ”
“Why? Mac wouldn’t have invited me here if there were a chance that he would regret your loving me. Both of us, Kei, we grew up alone, shadowed by the actions of others. We found a connection as friends, a bonding as we shared our lovers. I know the man he is, and he knows the man I am. It has nothing to do with sexual feelings for each other and everything to do with needing something more out of a relationship than other people do. Of knowing each other so well that there was never a chance that we would love separate women. ”
And strangely, that made sense.
“Mac’s controlled. He thinks before he acts. He never makes a move without knowing the consequences,” he continued. “He knew what he was doing. ”
She closed her eyes and let her head rest on his shoulder, hiding the tear that fell from her eyes as her arms tightened around his neck.
If one of them, just one of them, had acted jealous of her, if one of them had seemed hesitant about this relationship, she could have denied both of them.
But they were two parts of a whole. Separate, yet complete when they were together. When they were with her. And she felt complete. That edge of darker eroticism that she had known rode inside her was sated with it.
“I could love you, so easily, just as intensely as I love Mac. ”
She felt him tighten to the breaking point, his arms contracting around her back.
“But be certain of this, Jethro. ” Her eyes opened, snared instantly by Mac’s gaze as he stood in the doorway. “Be very certain this is what the two of you want. Because heartbreak isn’t something I deal with well. ”
Mac’s lips tilted, his head inclining in acceptance as Jethro buried his head against her neck, a shudder racing through him.
“Copter’s coming in,” Mac said then. “The director was in Raleigh and he came in with the two agents we requested. ”
“Hell,” Jethro breathed against her neck, bestowing a kiss so gentle there that it brought tears to her eyes. “Come on, sweetness. It looks like I’m not going to get what I need right now. ”
