Raines, Elizabeth - Captivated [Wicked Missions 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

She thought it over for a long time. “Izzie.”

“Izzie? What an odd name. I like it,” Jayce blurted out before realizing he needed to be more guarded. For some reason, this temptress seemed to make all his protective walls crumble.

“Izzie,” Damian echoed. “I like it too. A nickname?”

When she didn’t reply, Jayce stared at her in the mirror again. Izzie seemed to be fighting some kind of mental battle, as if she wanted to talk to them but couldn’t bring herself to do so. He brought the hovercar to a stop and turned to look at her. “Izzie, I’m sorry we had to do this. Let’s just go to the compound for a while, figure out what we can do to…fix this, and go from there. Okay?”

The anger in her features was strong enough it glowed around her like an aura. “You mean I’m just supposed to go with you two, have a nice…
vacation
, and pretend you didn’t kidnap me?” She held up her bound wrists and shook her head.

His own anger rose in response, probably because she’d struck a guilty nerve. “You had no right to be in my private quarters!”

“I got lost! Do you treat all visitors to the palace this way?”

“You could destroy my life!”

“Destroy your life? Why in the hell would I want to do that?” She slammed her tied fists down on the back of his seat. “I don’t even know you! God, you people on this stupid planet really need to learn how to treat a woman! Fuckin’ pricks.”

“This has nothing to do with you being a woman, and you know it. You’d use what you saw between Damian and me to blackmail me, and I can’t allow it!”

Damian kept watching them, his head shifting back and forth between them enough that he had to be getting dizzy.

How dare she pretend she didn’t understand what the knowledge she possessed could do to him! Even if she was only a visitor on Bromond, she had to know the way the society functioned and how they frowned on homosexuality as if it was one of the greatest sins a man could commit. “If you told everyone what you saw—”

“Why?” Her green eyes had darkened, reminding him of the emeralds adorning his father’s royal scepter, the one he would inherit one day. “Why would I do that? I don’t give a shit if you like to get it up the ass.”

Jayce was fast reaching his breaking point, and her crude way of describing what he and Damian shared made him want to scream at her. “Stop acting like you don’t know the power you have over me now.”

“Power? What
power?
You kidnapped me. Seems to me that
you
hold all the power.”

“If I might interrupt,” Damian said, “perhaps we should all calm down, continue on to the compound since we’ve nowhere else to go right now, and then we can all talk this out.” He looked to Izzie. “Agreed?”

“Will you untie my hands if I give in?”

“Yes, I’ll untie your hands. Do you agree?”

Her reply was a curt nod.

Damian turned to Jayce. “Agreed?”

“Fine,” Jayce snapped. “Untie her.” He threw the car back into gear and hit the accelerator hard enough that it threw Damian against the seat.

* * * *

Izzie slowly opened her eyes, blinking a few times to try to remember exactly where she was. Her neck hurt from her awkward sleeping position. She straightened up, rubbing the stiff muscles as she stared at the two men in the front seat. Everything came tumbling back, and she had to bite her lip not to start shouting all over again. Damian was right—they’d solve nothing by screaming at each other all the way to wherever it was they were taking her. Since she had two pressing needs, she decided to start with the first. “I need to pee.”

“You’re awake,” Damian said. He smiled at her from the front seat, a breathtaking smile of sparkling white teeth in a tempting mouth with full lips.

“No shit. You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Probably first in your class. I
still
need to pee. And I’m really thirsty. We
are
in a desert. Although it probably wouldn’t bother you if I died of dehydration.”

“Stop that!” Jayce clenched his fingers against the wheel hard enough they blanched. “We mean you no harm!”

Izzie snorted her derision.

“Can you hang on for five more minutes?” he asked, staring at her from the rearview mirror.

She shrugged. “Like you’d give me a choice.”

“I can pull over now and you can pee in a sand dune.” He pointed to the horizon where something approached. “Or you can wait five minutes and we’ll be there.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Did you have a nice nap?” Damian asked over his shoulder.

As if a quick nap where her neck had been at an odd angle was enough for her to get over her anger. Then again, where else did she have to go?

I.D.E.A had insisted she take a vacation after her assignment ended and the celebration ceremony was over. She’d been deep undercover for nearly three years, and the agency shrinks kept telling her supervisors she would suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder if she didn’t integrate herself back into real life soon.

Whatever the hell real life is…

God, it had been so long since she’d been simply Izabella Szabo that she wasn’t even sure who that person was anymore. She’d been in the company of black market smugglers and drug pushers, the underbelly of society here on Bromond and on Rozale, a planet teeming with lowlifes. She felt dirty, as if the stain of the people she’d surrounded herself with had rubbed off even though she had a noble purpose—bringing down one of the biggest organized crime heads in the sector and collapsing his empire. That work was done, and she realized she now had no place to go, no home, no life to return to, and no one who cared she’d been missing in action for so very long.

Izzie glanced up to see that Damian was sitting sideways in the shotgun seat, staring at her. He reached over the seat to brush away the tear sliding down cheek she hadn’t even noticed was there. His smile touched something inside her, something vulnerable that she wanted to stomp out on the ground, like a small spark that could eventually lead to a forest fire.

Focusing on the approaching settlement, she tried to ignore the way Damian’s touch had affected her—the same way Jayce’s eyes seemed to be able to see all the way inside her soul. These two men unnerved her in a way she found both frightening and arousing. Somehow she’d have to convince them to turn her loose quickly so she could get away from their knowing stares and her own desires.

“We’re here,” Jayce announced. He slowed the car, bringing it to a stop in front of a large gate. He hopped out, placed his palm against the locking mechanism, and the gate popped open, swinging in. After he got back into the car and drove it through the entrance, the gate shut and locked with a resounding thud that seemed to echo over the tall adobe walls.

Izzie stepped out of the car to stretch her legs and look around while the men stood by and watched her. The compound was an oasis in the middle of one of the worst of Bromond’s deserts. The walls surrounding the house and estate had to be at least five meters tall. A large pueblo house sat to the right with a kidney-shaped swimming pool just to its side. She wanted to toss aside her clothes, dive into the inviting water, and cool her body. Between the sun beating down on her skin and the erotic feelings these two men inspired, Izzie felt like she had a fever.

“Welcome to my vacation home,” Jayce said. The sweeping gesture of his arm pushed her past the edge of control. She’d reached her fill of being bullied and taunted, and she forgot all about having to pee.

Balling her hand into a fist, she brought it back and aimed right for Jayce’s elegant nose, hoping to wipe the smirk right off his face. His palm rose to catch her hand before she could strike. Damn, but he was fast, and his growing smile only made her angrier. Her training kicked in, and she tried again. He replied in kind, and the fight was on in earnest.

Blow after blow—his and hers—were tried and deflected. He’d obviously had martial arts training as well, and his frustration seemed to need the same outlet as hers did. Izzie felt the sweat trickling between her breasts and down her back as she tried punches, sweeps, kicks—all easily parried by Jayce just as she easily turned aside each of his attacks.

Finally landing the first good hit, she caught him in the mouth with the heel of her hand and then followed it with a solid kick to his chest. He stumbled back a few steps and wiped his hand across his abused mouth. She was actually grateful she hadn’t drawn blood, but then he grinned and crooked his finger at her.

Izzie growled and attacked again, forgetting how easily anger could make her lose control. Jayce took advantage, finally knocking her on her ass with a brilliantly timed front sweep. Before she could get to her feet, he grabbed her around the waist, threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and marched to the pool. “You need to cool off, my beautiful firecracker.”

When she realized he meant to toss her into the pool, she grabbed the waistband of his pants and hung on for dear life. As he tried to throw her in the deep end, they both ended up tumbling into the water.

Izzie surfaced first, laughing in her victory of sorts. He might have won the fight, but he didn’t get the last blow. Jayce bobbed up, his smiling face breaking the surface of the water. His laughter joined hers.

Damian stood at the edge of the pool, hands on hips as he glared down at them. “You two are acting like children.”

The temptation was too much to resist. Izzie surged up, clutched the front of his shirt, and dragged him into the pool. Jayce’s laughter turned into full-blown guffaws.

When Damian surfaced, he sputtered and coughed for a moment before his gaze found Izzie. “Revenge?”

She smiled. “Best I could manage at the moment.”

Jayce set a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him. With a smile, he cupped her neck and pulled her toward him. “I like a woman with spirit.”

“You like a woman with spirit?” She thought about resisting as he dragged her closer, lowering his head until his mouth was nearly touching hers. “Then you’ll
love
me.”

“Somehow, I think I just might…”

Chapter 3

“Why were you at the palace?” Damian asked. He grabbed the jug of green cactus wine and refilled Izzie’s glass yet again. Not that he wanted her drunk—just relaxed enough to finally open up a little. For his part, the alcohol had eased the biting fear that had gripped him from the moment the redhead had popped into their lives. Now, he could unwind enough to take the time to admire her. The curve of her breasts. The full, sensuous lips. The spray of freckles across her pert nose.

After their little impromptu swim and Jayce stealing one quick kiss from her, the three of them seemed to call an easy truce as the men realized she wouldn’t betray them. Jayce showed Izzie to one of the guest bedrooms, giving her access to the spare clothes so she could change. She’d refused to wear any of the robes or
wenora
, not that either man had been surprised or even cared. Their generation didn’t always follow the old ways, often ignoring some of the more oppressive rules in private. Even Jayce’s three sisters refused to don veils and robes except when their father or strangers were around.

Besides, Damian liked looking at their beautiful captive in her gauzy shirt and khaki shorts. The woman was a vision, and not simply because he didn’t get the opportunity to see many women who weren’t bundled up like they lived on some snow-covered planet. No, he was admiring Izzie. Having been in love with Jayce for most of his life, he found it a bit strange that Izzie had captured his interest so completely. Yet she had, and for the first time in his life, he harbored fantasies of making love to two people at the same time. Sure, women had drawn his sexual interest before, but with Izzie, there was a different kind of attraction. One to get to know her, to please her in all ways, not just to fuck her—although every time he looked at her beautiful face, his cock got hard.

Refilling his own glass, he flopped down on one of the comfortable chaises that sat in the canopied garden. The place was beautiful, mostly because Jayce had spent hours and hours tending the plants. Because of his hard work, it was a spray of color in a barren desert—a true oasis. The canopy offered cool shade, and the breeze sent pleasant wafts of floral smells drifting through the air. He and Damian spent a lot of time out here, loving the total privacy the haven offered and sometimes making love on the cool moss or in the sheltering gazebo. Here, they could simply be two men in love and stay away from prying eyes.

“I was there for the medal ceremony,” she finally replied, eyeing him over the rim of her glass.