“Doesn’t hurt to have someone who has her back when we’re not around. And from the way she’s ignoring us, it might be a while before we can get her out to the plantation.”
“Like hell,” Luc snarled, turning his attention f
rom Caitlin to Jon. “I may not have been ready to find her yet, but ready or not, she’s ours and her safety is our responsibility.” His frown turned quickly to a sly grin. “The attraction’s a given. All we have to do is turn on the charm and she’ll come along.”
“Sex might be the easy part. Getting her to move in with us, especially after she finds out what we are, might prove a lot harder.”
Luc shrugged, unperturbed. “She’ll come around.”
Two hours later, Luc was eating those words. The damn woman had successfully avoided them all night. When she stayed at the opposite end of the bar, making no move to approach them, they switched seats. When she started to move away, Luc snagged her wrist, running his thumb over her erratic pulse, giving her his best come hither look.
“Why are you rushing off, Caitlin? Aren’t you happy to see us again?” Luc let his eyes travel from her face slowly down to her chest where the prominent display of her pointed nipples could be seen through the green tee shirt she wore with the bar logo. “You look pleased.”
Caitlin cursed her body as well as them as she jerked her wrist out of his light hold. As if her response to their nearness wasn’t enough, the feel of his calloused palm on her flesh felt like a burning vice, the heat of his touch spiraling down to her pussy so fast her knees threatened to buckle on her. She was determined to get control of herself before she decided if she was going to relieve this itch with these two, wanting to make sure she made a level headed decision rather than making a lust induced, spur of the moment mistake.
“There’re a lot of men in here. I could be pleased about any one of them,” she shot back, wanting to put a dent in his ego since denying what her body was so blatantly advertising would be futile.
Luc scowled, but Jon chuckled as he reached across the bar top and pinched her chin. “Not hardly, sugar, but we’ll let you have that one. What time do you get off?”
The double connotation wasn’t lost on any of them and for the first time since she had lost her virginity at the age of eighteen, Caitlin felt a warm blush spread up her neck and over her face. “None of your business,” she snapped, hating and loving the way her pussy gushed as she pictured these two working together to ‘get her off’. Apparently, the hour she had spent with her vibrator last night hadn’t done the trick. Turning away from their smirks, she left the bar to mingle with her customers, something she tried to do at least once a night. It was just good business, she defended herself as she put some space between her and the brothers, she wasn’t running away from them or the threat they posed to her sanity.
“Damn, leggy redheads with attitude really turn me on,” Luc sighed as he watched her twitch her round ass showcased in tight jeans, his cock jerking in pleasure as he imagined sinking between those two enticing globes.
“Short, meek blondes turn you on also,” Jon pointed out as he also appreciated the sight of Caitlin stomping off in a huff.
“What’s your point?”
They both laughed as they sat back and kept an eye on their reluctant mate, content for now to let her keep her distance, both determined it wouldn’t last.
Caitlin swore for the third time when she found herself looking over at the twins. She was an independent, self-sufficient almost thirty year old who had never had a problem remaining detached from anyone except Dan, and it had taken him years to break through the protective wall she kept around herself. Her earliest childhood memories were of her parents either fighting or fucking regardless of whether she was in the room or not. She had been in grade school when she discovered what the white powder was they constantly snuffed or injected as well as sold to all kinds of creepy people who came to their rundown trailer in the bayou. She had taken to hiding out in the swamplands whenever she saw someone approach she didn’t know, waiting until dark, or later before sneaking back in and going directly to her small room and hiding out again until morning.
By the time she was ten, she was spending more time at her best friend’s house than hers, Liddy’s parents welcoming her with open arms and concerned faces. Most weekends she went home with Liddy and didn’t return to her home until late Sunday, her parents never questioning where she’d been. Life had been bearable, even pleasant through grade school because of Liddy and her family, but when they moved away the summer Caitlin turned thirteen, she suddenly found herself with nowhere to go but home.
That lasted all of two weeks, until her parents were arrested for drug dealing and she was put into foster care. She liked to think she gave the home they put her in a chance, but the truth was, it was nothing like Liddy’s home and her foster parents weren’t even close to being the concerned, caring substitutes that Liddy’s were. So, instead of starting the eighth grade that fall, she got an education in learning how to survive on the streets of New Orleans, an education that had come in handy in running a bar on Bourbon Street. Six months later, she had picked Dan’s pocket and her life once again changed course, this time for the better.
She was honest enough to admit she wouldn’t have lasted long without his interference, without him literally plucking her up and depositing her in the upstairs apartment where he said her rent would be in the form of her going to school every day, staying off the streets and spending her spare time sweeping up in the bar and cleaning the toilets. He had been hard as nails when she screwed up and loving and supportive when she did well. He gave her independence and freedom with restrictions and she in turn gave him her obedience, loyalty and, eventually, her love.
She liked her life, the bar and her friends as well as her independence. She wasn’t going to give up any of them for any man, which was her biggest holdout in giving in and inviting Jon and Luc upstairs for a night. She had always had a sixth sense about things, intuitions when something, or someone was more than they seemed, and her sixth sense had been kicking in strongly since their appearance last night, hadn’t even abated when they were nowhere around all day. But her body could care less about her misgivings. In fact, her arousal just kept escalating no matter how much distance she put between them, no matter how hard she tried to think of something or someone else.
Why don’t you come back here, darlin’?
Caitlin jumped at the sound of that deep, sensual voice in her head, looking around as if she could spot someone grinning at the joke. The place wasn’t busy, only half full, and no one seemed to be paying particular attention to her as she walked from table to table, saying hello to those she knew, inquiring as to the needs of others.
That was Jon, Luc told her, grinning at the way her eyes flew across the room to where they were still seated at the bar. Get your hand off that man’s shoulder and come talk to us, he growled when he saw her lightly touch a seated man, her grip tightening when she heard his voice in her head. This possessive compulsion was new and not altogether welcome.
You’re playing with fire, Caitlin, Jon warned her, his good humor taking a dive at the sudden possessiveness filling him also. He, however, didn’t mind the unfamiliar emotional thing he was developing for her as much as Luc did, or thought he did. His brother always was one slow to accept change.
Caitlin’s body shook with the force of her desire, their voices in her head the most erotic thing she had ever heard. She wanted to scream at them to shut up while holding her breath in anticipation of hearing them again. Usually when she spoke with them, she wanted to smack them.
“I’m sorry, what did you say, Bill?” she managed to ask as she pulled her shocked gaze away from the brothers and back to one of the bar’s long time patrons.
“It’s about time some guy had your head in the clouds,” Bill chuckled. “You’re too young to spend every night with a bunch of old geezers like myself.”
“You’re not old,” she told him fondly, her body still shuddering from her reaction to hearing those voices, her mind still struggling with the incongruity of it. “Besides, no one younger could hold a candle to you.” Two other older men were sitting with Bill, all three longtime friends of Da
n’s who gave her their unfailing loyalty and support. All three laughed then shooed her away and Caitlin had no choice but to head back to the bar, especially since Bobby was giving her the evil eye.
“How did you do that?” she demanded when she stopped in front of Jon and Luc, ignoring their smirks and the hum of arousal that wouldn’t leave her alone.