A Second Chance Love (4 page)

The asshole made a grab for me. I froze in surprise.
Fuck!
He seized my hair and pulled hard. As I cried out in pain, I tried to ram my knee up into his balls, but I slipped on some spilled dishwater. I cursed my clumsiness as I stumbled, trying to angle sideways, but he was just too close and I fell into him. Highly amused, he caught me and the asshole used the opportunity to grab one of my breasts and squeezed cruelly. Pain flared so quickly and intensely, my eyes welled with tears.

He slammed his mouth down on mine and I wanted to gag as he tried to wedge his tongue in. I clamped my lips and jaw closed. I tried to pull my face away, but the pain from his grip on my hair was too much. When I still refused to open my mouth, he smashed my lips with his, hard, and they stung with pain.
That is it!
I reached behind me for something to brain him with, no longer caring what. Suddenly I realized that what I had thought was the thundering of my heart was actually furious footsteps racing across the kitchen.

Earl yelled as he was yanked off me and hurled into the wall. Kyle pinned him in a corner and started throwing furious punches into his torso. Earl tried to protect his face while he yelled for help. He was several inches taller than Kyle and outweighed him by about forty pounds, but Kyle was still kicking his ass.

“Kyle, stop! Just get him out. Don’t kill him!”

“What the hell? Kyle?” Jacob’s shocked voice was barely heard over Earl’s pained grunts.

Jacob was here now.
Crap.
Earl was a dead man if Jacob found out what he had done.

He pulled Kyle off as I was yelling. “Just get Earl out of here and tell him not to come back.” I wrapped myself around Kyle. “Please, baby, let it go. I am okay, you stopped him.” I was whispering in his ear, hoping that Jacob wouldn’t hear. I wanted Earl out of our house not bleeding on the floor… Well, at least not any more than he already was.

Earl, idiot that he was, didn’t run for his life. “That slut is screwing your man, Jacob. I saw them fucking in the barn, so do you really want to be her knight in shining armor now?”

Jacob rocked back on his heels and paled a little bit, a shadow of something I couldn’t grasp passing over his face so quickly I almost didn’t think I had seen anything at all.

Kyle’s eyes widened. “So what did you do, Earl? Come in expecting her to buy your silence since she wouldn’t give you the time of day any other way?” He snarled at Earl, his voice turning dark with rage. “And when she told you to take a hike you decided to take what you wanted anyway!”

At those words, Jacob’s eyes snapped to look at me. Whatever he had been feeling before was gone as he took in my bruised and bloodied lips and my disheveled clothes. With a roar of rage, he grabbed Earl and slammed him back into the wall hard enough to crack it in several places.

“Jacob,
stop
!” I reached out and put one hand on each of my guys. Was it sick that a part of me was thrilled with their violent protectiveness? “Just get him out of our house. Please. I just want him gone for good.”

Then I glared at Earl. “I don’t have to justify myself to you, but since I know you will spread whatever bullshit you can come up with, here is the truth. I am fucking both of them. I belong to them and, by God, they both belong to me. So get the fuck out of
our house
!”

I finished up with my voice dripping with scorn. “Go ahead and tell whoever you want. I am not ashamed of loving them. Just remember, I will be more than willing to tell everyone, including the cops, just why I told you. I will tell them about every crude, laughable come-on you have ever given me and how you reacted when I told you I wanted them and not
you.
”

Earl’s eyes were wide. Whatever the hell he had been going for, I had no idea, but I’d bet he had been hoping to take their attention off him. He took in Jacob and Kyle as they clenched their fists and looked at him with murder in their eyes. Both of them standing guard before me. Jacob was on the balls of his feet, his shoulders tense and his arms raised as he glared at Earl. His blue eyes blazed with rage. And Kyle, who I had always thought of as the sweet one, was sneering, bouncing from foot to foot with bloodied knuckles. His hands were twitching, giving the impression that he wanted nothing more than to start whaling away again. I watched as Earl tried to get out of the room, keeping his back to the wall the entire way. I smiled as he slunk out.

When he turned into the hallway I heard him pick up speed as he lit out. As soon as the front door closed, I was sat in a kitchen chair while every last inch of me was examined for injuries.

“I am okay, guys. I swear. Nothing really happened.” I looked over at Kyle. “You stopped it before it got bad, Kyle.”

He caressed my cheek with a hand that trembled slightly. “Well, I did owe you for the octopus incident in college.”

I smiled at him and laughed, grateful for the subject change. “God, I haven’t thought about that in years.”

“What are you two talking about?” Jacob’s gaze darted back and forth between us and he tilted his head quizzically.

Kyle looked at him. “Do you remember that gay bar that we all hung out at while we were in college?”

At Jacob’s nod, Kyle continued, “Well, one time when you stayed home to study and the three of us went out, this drunk came onto me pretty strongly.”

I snorted in disbelief. “That is a mild way of putting it. That creep grabbed you and pulled you into a dark corner as you were walking to the bathroom.”

“He sure wasn’t expecting me to have my own shorter version of Xena Warrior Princess as my body guard. I still don’t know how you knew what was going on.” Kyle looked at me with an eyebrow lifted.

“Caleb had gone off with his friend from one of his classes for a minute. I saw the creep get up and follow when you left for the bathroom. I was a little suspicious since he had been hitting on you all night and hadn’t been happy hearing no every time.” I shrugged. “So I followed you.”

Jacob looked at us both in horror. “Oh, Jesus. What the hell happened?”

“I saw him pull Kyle into that dark corner and push him to his knees. When I reached them, he was trying to shove his cock into Kyle’s mouth. Kyle was saying no, but he was too drunk to get away.”

“She reached out and grabbed his hand and used her other one to pull his middle finger backward. He was twice her size and she had him on his knees in tears.”

“And Kyle learned that my rule of ‘never go anywhere without your sober bar buddy’ isn’t just for girls.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when you came home that night, Kyle?” Jacob asked in quiet voice as he pulled back from us.

It wasn’t by much, but something about the way he did it, the way he braced himself, sent a cold shiver up my spine.

“If I had said anything, then you would have hunted him down, Jacob.” Kyle’s green eyes were soft with emotion as he continued, “You were on a scholarship and I didn’t want to chance you getting in trouble.”

At those words, I could see Jacob shake off whatever he had been feeling as he cupped Kyle’s cheek in one hand. “You need to tell me these things so I can do what’s right by you, Kyle. It’s kind of my job.”

Kyle nuzzled Jacob’s hand and gave it a gentle kiss then grinned. “And I was embarrassed about the whole thing.” Kyle blushed a bit. “I got saved by a girl, for crying out loud.”

I hit his shoulder in mock anger. Then I sighed. “I don’t know about you guys, but I just want to go relax. Please?”

Kyle stroked my cheek gently. “Sure, baby.”

I reached up to pull Jacob in so I could hold on to him tightly, sighing in relief when he wrapped me up in his arms.

As we started to make our way to the living room Kyle took off, shouting, “First one there gets to choose!”

Jacob smirked at me. “You know he is just doing that so he picks something so horrible we bribe him out of it by offering him blow jobs, right?”

I grinned back. “Why don’t we try threatening to withhold the blow jobs instead? We could warn him if it is too horrible, we will just sixty-nine in front of him to preserve our sanity.”

We started laughing hysterically when Kyle quickly changed movies when informed of our idea.

But unfortunately my relief was short lived. We were curled up together on the sofa while we watched a movie—that is until Jacob got up to get a drink. After waiting a while, I turned to Kyle. “Where do you think he went for that beer? Texas?”

“No, but I bet he went out to the barn with it. He probably went to check on the horses. He should be back in a few minutes. He’d call my cell if there is a problem, unless he went there to think because that is his spot you know, like the kitchen is yours. And the…” Kyle’s voice trailed off and he leaned his head back with guilt darkening his eyes. “Oh hell, I think I know what it is. The barn and the horses are his, Kerri. He probably went out there to check on them and I think it hit him.”

Realization dawned and I wanted to kick my own ass hard. “Shit. No, sweetie, we both made the same mistake. So are we going to the barn or do we let him have some time?”

Kyle’s green eyes sharpened with determination. “The barn, most definitely the barn.” He started muttering under his breath. “Stubborn ass bastard can’t just tell us he’s upset… No, he has to make us go hunt him down out there with all the blood-sucking mosquitoes. Dammit!”

I almost rolled my eyes at Kyle as he grabbed a bug repellant candle on our way out. But I knew what he was doing. He was just bitchin’ like he always did when he was stressed. The thought of us causing Jacob any pain would be horrible to him. I knew it was to me. When we walked into the barn, Jacob was facing away from us, draining a beer bottle. I winced when I saw the two empty beer bottles on one the plastic bins that were in the corner. He must’ve gotten them from the small fridge we kept out here for the long nights with an ill horse.

“You know, I tried to let it go. I really did because I’ve been so happy to have the both of you.” Jacob’s voice was tight with emotion and he still wouldn’t turn around.

I wished he would. I couldn’t tell whether his voice was hurt, angry or jealous. If I was betting, I would put my money on all three.

“We didn’t discuss anything before, so I would’ve let it slide. But the two of you didn’t tell me and I found out about it.” Jacob whirled around and it was hurt that was in his bright blue eyes. “I got fucking blindsided by that piece of shit Earl. Why didn’t the two of you tell me? Was it more than once?”

I felt like I had been struck in the stomach. The punch of regret was so strong, and from the sound of Kyle’s sharply indrawn breath from beside me, I didn’t think I was the only one.
And for our next trick, why don’t we just shoot him. It would probably hurt less.

I took an unsteady step forward. “It was just the once, and we should’ve told you immediately. We just got carried away and realized afterward that we all needed to talk about laying down some ground rules.” I put all the apology I could into my voice. “I am so sorry we didn’t tell you that night, baby, but it happened on Wednesday and we were going to talk to you this weekend, I swear it.”

Kyle took my hand to pull me along and we both walked over to Jacob.

“Then you were up all night with that colicky horse and you were so tired. I talked Kerri into waiting until today and then Earl happened.” Kyle’s voice cracked as he tried to explain why we had kept fucking it all up.

Jacob closed his eyes wearily for a minute before opening them back up. They were glassy with pain. “I didn’t say anything at first because I wanted to give Kerri time to calm down like she asked, but it hurt that neither one of you would say anything. Like it wasn’t important enough… Like I wasn’t important enough to deserve an explanation.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Tears spilled out of my eyes as I shook my head furiously “Oh, Jacob, you have it backward. It was because you are so important that we didn’t know where to start.”

“I felt so damn guilty, Jacob.” Kyle’s voice was rough with suppressed tears.

“Why? It’s not like you were cheating, Ky. We should’ve discussed this as soon as we got together, so we all are to blame.” The hurt started to fade from Jacob’s face as he watched Kyle become more and more distressed.

I had been a little apprehensive in the beginning but not extremely. It had been Kyle’s concern that had made me become more uneasy over it. But this? Watching Kyle wrap his arms around his stomach as if he was comforting himself, I was growing more troubled. As I shared a quick glance with Jacob, I could see he was too. We teased Kyle about being the emotional one but this seemed to be growing to be out of proportion with everything.

“Because the day after it happened, you came up to me in the barn and gave me that mind blowing kiss, remember?” Kyle whispered. “Then you pulled back and said we better not get carried away because it would be wrong without Kerri around and we should sit down and talk about rules so nobody got hurt. How the hell could I tell you that I had already done something to screw that up? I mean come on, Jacob. You always take care of me. You put me first.” Kyle rubbed his face tiredly. “Hell, you were eighteen when you told your family you were in love with me and you knew they would toss you out for it. But you still chose me.”

Now I understood. I remembered several times Kyle that had confided in me over the years. His regret that Jacob had been forced to choose between the family he’d loved and the man that adored him. Especially when Kyle couldn’t even offer him a relationship that was recognized in any traditional way. Not without leaving their home, anyway.

Jacob’s head tilted as he searched Kyle’s gaze. “It was an easy decision, Ky. You love me. They didn’t. Not really, anyway.” Confusion mingled with the pain in Jacob’s eyes. After all this time, it was clear he still missed them.

“Yeah, I know why you chose me. But it hurt you to choose and the thought that I might have done something that could cause you pain because I didn’t stop and think.” Kyle shrugged his shoulders. “Then to have you be in same situation and to stop and consider everyone made me feel even worse. Made it like I really screwed up.”