Claimed by Three (7 page)

“Kassius.” She moaned his name as she held on to him. Her hips continued to rock as if trying to draw out the pleasure. She shivered and clung to his shoulders. Her lips pressed against his neck. She slowly relaxed.

“We’re going to take you to the shower, Sephanie, and wash you. Then we’ll all go to bed and get some sleep.” Kassius stroked his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her. He ached to start again, but they needed to rest and give her space. They shouldn’t press her too far tonight. He didn’t want to have to begin gaining her trust again.

Chapter Six

Sephanie eased out of the bed and looked back at them. Kassius turned over onto his back on one side of the bed. Berenger and Teague slept on the other side of the huge bed.

Kassius had woken her, albeit unintentionally. The feel of his arm dragging across her side had drawn her out of sleep. She wasn’t used to someone wrapped around her while she slept. It felt good to fall asleep in his embrace. The moment she opened her eyes, the strange place and situation started a cascade of worry and near panic, which spurred her to action. Had she moved too fast by falling into bed with them? Would it cause problems later in their relationship?

She’d feared she would nudge someone or bump a leg. She didn’t want to wake them. Not the least because the relationship meant so much to her. She’d loved going out on a date with them.

Kassius, Berenger, and Teague were abundantly clear they intended this relationship to be long-term. She wanted that too but thought they should build to a commitment, not jump from first date to talking about marriage.

She shook her head as she slipped out of the room and into the hallway. Who was she kidding? It was fabulous. She’d dreamed of nights like that before, but nothing had lived up to those fantasies until last night and those three men. But was it all too good to last?

She wouldn’t walk away from them, but she needed to think. Her heart thudded. She couldn’t completely understand why she was panicking. Was it because last night had been so great? Did she want the connection to them too much?

They said they planned to marry her. They thought they knew her from a few instances where they’d seen her do something good or nice. Would they still feel that way after they did learn more of her? Padding down the dimly lit hall, she looked for her clothes.

Clothes, and then she’d find a holo-comm to call someone to come pick her up. They would wake up at some point and realize she’d left the bed. Space, time to think, none of that would happen if she was here when Kassius, Berenger, or Teague came looking. Not because of their presence. She wanted them too much to be close and not touch them.

She found her dress in the living room, hanging over a chair. Once she’d pulled it over her head, she searched for her panties while she looked for the holo-comm. She had a compact version in her purse, but she couldn’t find her bag so continued to search for the house holo-comm. There was usually one in the main living area of a house. She found it in a corner.

Pushing the button to activate it, she hoped she didn’t need a code to use it. Sometimes if a private holo-comm was in a public area, the owner locked it. A white field popped up over the holo-comm. The time blinked in one corner.

She groaned. It was the middle of the night. She’d hoped it was closer to dawn. Who could she call to come get her? Natalie, her sister, would be asleep. She worked the evening shift at her job at the hospital. Most of her friends also wouldn’t be awake at this time of night. Placing a call to one of her brothers, either Cooper or Brand, was not a good idea. She couldn’t answer the questions they’d have. Even if she had to stay here, she wasn’t calling Cooper. She thought and then finally came up with one person who normally did most of his work at night.

She pushed in the sequence to contact her friend and waited. He was an artist and swore his creative juices flowed during the darkest hours. As time passed, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then his image appeared in the white field. He brushed his dark hair back from his face.

“Sephanie? That isn’t your holo-comm.” Jack Dawes frowned.

“No, I’m using someone else’s comm. I need a favor, Jack,” Sephanie said. “Could you come get me?”

“Come get you? Where? Why?” Jack sat forward.

“It’s a long story. I went out on a date, and I’m at their house. Could you come get me, please?” She glanced back toward the hallway and told him where to come.

“I’ll be there. We’ll have a drive back, and you can explain what’s wrong.” Jack nodded and said, “You owe me for this.” Then he cut the connection

Sephanie went back to looking for her purse, panties, and shoes. She’d found everything except for one shoe by the time Jack arrived. After hesitating, she wrote a note for them, not wanting to disappear without some type of explanation. She slipped out of the house, certain it would lock behind her after she passed through the door. With a sigh, she hurried to the green Duce skimmer. She hopped into it and grinned at her friend.

“Thank you, Jack.” She exhaled slowly when he took the skimmer up to a higher altitude. She’d been half-afraid one or all of them would burst out the front door to stop her.

“Now spill it. How did your date end with you leaving their house in the middle of the night, lacking one shoe?” Jack guided the skimmer toward the city.

“Couldn’t find my shoe. The other, the date was great. They were everything I could hope for, but after I woke up, I wondered if I let things move too fast. I feel so much for them, and if this situation is too good to last, I realized it was going to hurt. I sort of panicked.” She grimaced.

“Can’t gain without the risk.” Jack glanced over at her.

“Yes, I know. It’s only that it happened so fast. I guess I need time to think. I knew I wouldn’t have the opportunity if I stayed there.” With a sigh, she combed her fingers through her hair. She missed them already.

“I’d be pissed if I brought someone home and they skipped out on me.” Jack shook his head.

“They probably will be, but I left them a note. I wrote I’d call them later and explain.” She shrugged. She couldn’t change her actions now even if she was beginning to regret it.

“That wouldn’t help if it was me.” He returned his full attention to driving.

“Yeah, not everyone holds a grudge like you do.” At least, she hoped they wouldn’t hold a grudge. In spite of her panic, she did want their relationship to grow.

Jack dropped her at her home. Lights flicked on as she hobbled toward her little gray house. She hurried up the walkway, noting her yard and garden were looking wild. She’d have to take time to care for that. After she trudged inside, she locked the door behind her and went to bed, but it took a long time to get to sleep.

* * * *

Sephanie stepped out of her house with her jacket over her arm. She stopped dead and stared wide-eyed at the sidewalk. Paint splattered the paved path. Across the splashes of color, words jumped off the gray wall.
BITCH
slashed across her wall in glaring orange. The letters of
WHORE
seemed to glow a luminous green. Even amid all the other pigment,
SLUT
blazed off the wall, a sparkling yellow taunt. She didn’t understand it.
Who would do this? Why? How?

She turned around to go inside to report it and again stopped when she saw the same words and more scrawled across her home’s walls. The glaring green and orange slurs jarred her. Her house had motion-activated outside lights. Whoever had done this would have been in plain sight for a long time. Someone had spent a huge amount of time doing it.

She took a deep breath and stomped inside. Confusion whirled through her mind, and she felt numb. At the moment, the feeling was a blessing. She could think clearly about what she needed to do. That wouldn’t last long. She had a few calls to make. The first went to the local office of the Planetary Police Force. She reported the vandalism and told them she’d be waiting for the officer. While she waited, she called the store and told them she’d be late. Then she called her brother.

Cooper would nag her for days if she didn’t call him about this. She was all too happy to humor him this time. To be truthful, she wanted someone here with her. The fact that someone had been outside her house long enough to create this amount of mess made her distinctly uncomfortable. She rubbed her palms on her pants as her anxiety built.

She thought for a moment about also giving Kassius, Berenger, and Teague a call. The date had been wonderful. She worried her lower lip. They would be there for her, regardless of the fact that she’d sneaked out on them. Still, it had been their first date. Should she contact them? She decided against it, even though their presence would reassure her.

She didn’t understand this. Why would anyone do this to her house? They’d destroyed the walls of her home! Had she angered someone? She couldn’t think of who or what she’d done to inspire this action.

The officer arrived first in one of the official gray Duce skimmers. It set down on the community landing lot. The logo on the side and front of the skimmer drew her gaze. She waited while he climbed out of the police vehicle. The man had glossy black hair and dark brown skin. His brown eyes swept over the walkway and the house.

The tag on his gray uniform read
Officer N. McCord
. She stopped on her steps. There wasn’t any paint there, but it covered almost everywhere else. Officer McCord walked on the grass, not on the walkway.

“Ms.…Lindsey.” He hesitated over her name as he looked at the small pad device in his right palm. “Why don’t you step over here, and we can talk?”

He held out his hand, and she took it to step onto the grass. He guided her away from the walkway. She looked back at her house and shook her head. The paint seemed glaringly bright against the gray walls. She balled her fists at her sides. Her house! The thought of the damage to her home enraged her.

The paint wasn’t wet and didn’t appear to come off when stepped on. She’d walked on some of it but hadn’t found a trace on her shoes. She concentrated on her breathing to get her emotions under control.

“You can call me Sephanie, Officer McCord.” She would probably be here all day. That only reignited her anger. Finding someone to clean the walls and then the actual removal of the paint might take a while. Fortunately she had a good manager, but still she didn’t like skipping out on a day she’d scheduled herself to work, even if she did own the business.

He nodded. “Sephanie, this is more than I expected after I was told to go take a vandalism report. I’ll get another officer and one of our investigators here to scrape samples of the paint, at least. The damage and cost to clean and repair this will probably take this crime above simple vandalism.”

She didn’t know what he thought that scene investigator was supposed to find. Her gaze followed him as he went back to his vehicle to call in for that investigator. He seemed to be doing more in the skimmer than talking. As he returned to her, her brother’s black skimmer landed in front of her house.

“Expecting someone?” Officer McCord slanted a look at her before his eyes locked on the vehicle.

His hand hovered at his waist where the disturber hung. The nonlethal weapon was used by most law enforcement, but an arc-burst gun also sat in a holster within reach. Considering the restriction on weapons on Darmain, the disturber usually worked. It caused violent stomach cramps in addition to nausea and allowed the user to get to safety or secure the person causing trouble.

“That’s my brother, Cooper. He’d give me trouble for days, if not weeks, if I didn’t contact him or his marriage partners, Paine and Lawson, about something like this,” Sephanie said and remained still. She didn’t want to distract the officer while he was tense.

“His partners?” Officer McCord seemed to relax.

“Cooper’s in the Planetary Defense.” She watched her brother and Paine get out of the vehicle and stride over to the officer.

Cooper and Paine introduced themselves to Officer McCord. All three men crossed the small distance to her. She still couldn’t think of anyone who would do this or any reason someone would be this mad.

Her brother walked over to her and hugged her. He stood beside her, and Paine stood to his left as they faced Officer McCord.

“Do you have any idea who would do this?” Officer McCord peered at the slurs written on her house.

“No, I don’t know of anyone or any reason someone would do this.” She glanced back at her house. Frustration and anger grew, tightening her muscles and making her restless to look for whoever would do this.

“Anything new in your life? Maybe you fired someone? Did you recently break up with someone?” Officer McCord’s head cocked to the side, and he watched her.

“I haven’t fired anyone. I didn’t recently break up with someone. I haven’t had serious dates in a while. The last serious relationship I had ended the other way around. They broke up with me. The only thing new in my life is that I went on a first date with someone last night.” She shrugged. In spite of the way she’d left Kassius’s house the night before, Kassius, Teague, and Berenger wouldn’t have done this in retaliation. It wasn’t their style.

“Did the date end with a kiss or an ‘I don’t want to see you again’?” Officer McCord raised a brow.

She blushed. There was so much more than a kiss. “It ended with kisses.”

“Would anyone think they had a claim on you or maybe your date?” Officer McCord keyed the information into the pad he held.

“It was actually dates, plural, but no. I haven’t dated anyone seriously in a few months. The men I’ve dated in the past month have known my interest wasn’t serious. And my dates from last night, I don’t think so. I only know they weren’t dating anyone recently. We started dating last night, and there hasn’t been a public buildup to it. I don’t know how anyone would know about it.” She bit her lip.

“You’d be surprised what some people can know about another without their knowledge.” Officer McCord gave a small smile. A big cargo skimmer pulled to a halt in front of her house. “As for the breakup, I’ll want their names. Was it a rough breakup? Do you think they’d do it?”