Damien grinned. “It’s a stupid inside joke. We called ourselves the knights of the round table when we were over there. It was the first thing we thought of when trying to come up with a company name.”
“My knights,” I said softly, kissing his cheek again. “I’m sorry for what you had to go through.”
“I’d say the payoff was worth it.”
I grinned. “Yeah I think you’ve all done pretty well for your—”
“I meant meeting you, actually.”
I blinked, my heart flip-flopping suddenly as I met his gaze.
“I mean it when I say we’ve never felt like this, Ari. I don’t know what this all is yet, but I know none of us ever want it to stop.”
He kissed me then, before I could say a word, and I let myself melt against him.
“Look, why don’t you soak a little longer, and then go change?”
“Into?”
“There’s a dress on your bed.”
“What’s the plan tonight?”
Damien stood and grinned. “Tonight, we wine, dine, and take you dancing.”
“All for me, huh?”
“Tonight, Arianna, we treat you like the queen you are.”
He winked as he started to move towards the door.
“Hey, Damien?”
He turned back.
“Thanks. For telling me, I mean.”
He held my gaze another second and smiled before ducking from the bathroom.
***
And wine and dine me they did. Dinner was fresh caught seafood overlooking the very ocean it’d been fished from, washed down with phenomenal wine, and topped off with laughter and lingering touches and kisses from all three of them. A live island band took the stage as dinner was cleared, and before I knew it, I was being brought out on the dance floor to be twirled, dipped, and swung by all three of them.
I couldn’t remember being this happy. I couldn’t remember ever feeling as close to perfect as I did surrounded by them — laughing, kissing, and just having the time of my life with the three of them.
My knights.
***
Later, we were back at the cabana, all of us lounging on the big open deck that jutted out over the water. I was laying draped across the three of them, watching the moonlight and stars flicker across the waves as we sipped cold beers and just sat there in perfect silence.
“This is pretty good,” I said finally.
Hunter, who’s lap I had my head on, grinned as he leaned down and kissed me. “Agreed.”
Damien’s strong hands rubbed my feet. “Look, Ari, this is…”
“This is uncharted ground for us. For all of us,” Sean butted in. “Nothing that came before felt like this.”
I swallowed, feeling my pulse skip. “Like this, huh?”
“You know what we mean, because you’re feeling it too,” Hunter murmured.
I nodded. “Maybe.”
Sean chuckled, leaning over me to press his lips to mine.
And then he lingered. Slowly, my lips parted for him, his tongue slipping inside as the kiss grew fiercer. That familiar fire started inside of me — the fire just being around them seemed to kindle. I moaned softly as Sean kissed me deeper and harder.
Hunter shifted, moving out from underneath me and letting me sink back into the big lounger we rested on. With feather touches and teasing kisses, the men slowly began to pull the clothes from my body. My dress slipped up, over my head and dropped away, panties sliding down my legs.
I moaned as I lay back in the lounger, watching the men strip down bare, tattooed muscles on full display. I started to sit up, but Sean stopped me with a finger to my lips.
“No. Tonight’s all about you, baby.”
“What do you—”
The words fell away, and I moaned as I felt the tongue sliding right up the center of my pussy. Sean moved away, and I gasped as I looked down to see Damien between my legs, his tongue teasing up my slit.
I eased back, panting as Hunter joined him between my legs, his lips sucking at the skin around my thighs. Strong hands spread my legs and lifted my ass off the cushions, and I cried out as I felt the second tongue slowly move towards my ass. Sean knelt beside me, his hands skimming over my skin and his lips trailing over my breasts. He took a nipple in his mouth and swirled his tongue across it, somehow completely in time with Damien’s tongue on my clit.
“Close your eyes, Arianna,” Sean whispered in my ear, his hands moving over my body. “Just close your eyes and let us do this.”
And I did. My breath stuttered as I fell back into the soft cushions and closed my eyes. The waves crashed , and my pulse beat like a drum in my ear as the three mouths moved over my most intimate places, teasing, tasting, and coaxing the pleasure from me. Damien’s tongue swirled over my clit, his fingers teasing my inner thighs, and Hunter’s insistent tongue teased slow circles around my ass. Sean’s hands massaged and teased over my torso as his mouth and lips and tongue kissed and sucked and worshiped my breasts.
I was falling. I was spinning wonderfully out of control and barely holding onto my sanity as the three men slowly, slowly pushed me higher and higher, until I was gasping and begging for release. I pleaded with them, begging them to let me come as my hips bucked off the lounge chair. But they kept it up; that same deliberate, slow, intense pace until my eyes suddenly squeezed shut.
I went off like a bomb, the orgasm exploding from my throat as my whole body shattered. It felt like I was being thrown into the stars, sent into orbit, and the world blurred at the edge as the three of them tongued and fingered and teased me right into a second climax before I finally collapsed.
I was only dimly aware of the three of them scooping me up and bringing me to the bedroom. I remember just grinning and babbling nonsense as they slipped under the covers with me and pulled me against them as I closed my eyes.
This was better than anything I’d ever felt before, and I never wanted anything to intrude on this moment.
But then, it did.
Chapter 12
It was the phone that woke us later. I stirred, frowning at the sound and raising my head from Hunter’s chest where it’d been resting.
The phone went off again as I turned in the sheets and reached for the beside table.
“What's that?” Sean mumbled.
“It’s my phone.”
“Party foul,” a very sleep-voiced Damien chuckled.
I answer without looking. “Hel—”
“Ari!”
Sasha’s voice was chilling and half screaming over the phone.
“Sasha?”
The panic in her voice and the way she sounded like she’d just been running had me awake instantly.
“Sasha, what’s going on?”
“Ari! Ari, I need help! I need help!”
She was screaming then, and I immediately sat bolt upright.
“Sasha, breathe, honey, tell me what’s going on!”
The three men in the bed with me instantly sat up as well, hard looks on their faces.
“They’ve got them!”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Who has—”
“They’ve got Luke and Jordan!”
It was as if time stopped for a second. Sasha kept going though.
“I don’t know who they are, but they want money, and... and…” she trailed off. “Hang on,” she said tightly.
“Sasha, who has them!?”
Without warning, there was suddenly a crashing sound on the other end of the line — the sound of shattering glass mixing with Sasha’s blood-chilling scream.
“Oh my God!” She screamed. “They’re here! Oh my God, they just smashed their way in the front door! Arianna!”
I screamed as I lurched from the bed, my whole world spinning.
“Sasha! Sasha, run! Sash—”
The line went dead, and the phone dropped from my hand.
I was spinning, the room tilting and my whole world crashing around me as
I lunged for something — anything to hold onto.
It was Hunter that caught me, pulling me tight against him as I shattered.
“What is it,” he said tightly. “What do you need?”
I pushed him away before I could stop myself, lurching for my clothes. “We need to get back to the city.”
My voice felt like it was outside my own head — mechanical and on autopilot.
“Ari, whats—”
I whirled, shaking Sean’s hand from my arm, knowing he was just trying to soothe me, but not knowing what else to do but lash out.
“My friend Sasha—” I swallowed the horrible lump in my throat. “I think someone just took her. Her and her boyfriends.”
Damien frowned as he stood from the bed. “Boyfriends?”
I shook my head quickly, yanking a pair of shorts up my legs and stuffing the rest of my clothes into my bag.
“Yes, boyfriends. She’s with Luke Steel and Jordan Stone at—”
“Wait, your friend Sasha is Sasha Reed of Stone and Steel Holdings?”
I pulled a t-shirt down over my head and paused. “You know them?”
Hunter shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What the hell is going on?”
“Someone’s kidnapped them,” I said, the cold feeling sinking into my chest as I said the words out loud. “Someone’s kidnapped them, for ransom or something, and they just broke into their house while I was on the fucking phone with my best friend and took her—”
And then I lost it. All three of them surrounded me then, comforting me with their warmth and their soothing touches, and propping me as I was about to fall entirely. The tears came hot as I dropped my face into one of their chests, feeling three sets of arms circle around me and hug me tightly.
I looked up into Damien’s eyes.
“She’s pregnant,” I whispered, tears falling down my face.
“Let’s go,” Hunter growled as he and Sean pulled away.
“Already on it,” Sean growled, a phone in his hand. “Yeah, it’s me. We need the plane ready,” he barked into the phone. “Fucking now.”
My eyes locked with Damien’s. “She’s preg—”
“And we’re not going to let anything happen to her,” he said fiercely. “I swear it.”
Chapter 13
I should have been there for her.
It was the only thought going through my head as the plane rumbled towards New York; a very different plane ride than the one before. The three of them were on cell phones, making calls with stony faces and terse voices, trying to assess the situation.
Finally, Hunter put his phone down, walked towards me, and wrapped his arms around me.
“We’re going to handle this, I swear.”
“I should’ve been there,” I murmured into his chest.
“What exactly would you have done? Stopped them yourself?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t doubt you would have tried,” he said tightly.
Sean’s phone rang and he snatched it up.
“Yes?”
His eyes went wide.
“Shit, hey, hang on, I’m putting you on speaker.”
He looked up. “It’s Luke and Jordan.”
I lurched to my feet. “What?!”
“Ari?” Luke’s voice came on through over speaker, his voice jagged and harsh.
“Luke! What’s—”
“They have her,” he growled. “They’ve fucking got Sasha.”
“She called me,” I sobbed. “Right as they came, she called me. She said you two—”
“They called her and told her that so she’d panic. No, no one fucking has us except we’re Goddamn grounded in London.”
“Luke? It’s Hunter Black,” Hunter said suddenly. “Whatever you need, we’re here.”
“Hey, Hunter. Hang on, I’m putting Jordan on too.”
There was a beat before another line clicked in.
“Hi, guys.”
“Tell us what you need, man,” Damien growled.
“We’re being kept right now by London police. They’re not letting us leave.”
“What?” I hissed. “Why the hell are they keeping you?”
“Liability,” Jordan said, his voice like gravel and ice over the phone. “We’re fucking suspects.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I fucking was.”
“Ari,” Luke addressed me. “We know who it is. It’s fucking Mark.”
My eyes went wide in horror. Mark, as in Sasha’s shitty ex boyfriend who’d ended up shooting his way into Steel and Stone Holdings to try and rob the place after she’d hooked up with Luke and Jordan. He’d wound up winging Jordan with a bullet before Sasha had shot him herself. Last I’d heard though, he was in jail for a very long time.”
“There was breakout — we heard about it, but until it was too late.”
The emotion was raw and bitter in Luke’s voice, the same bitter rage I could feel inside my own chest. When I looked around the plane cabin, I saw the tightness in the faces of my three guys.
“He has demands, Ari.”
I couldn’t respond. All I could think about was that asshole Mark getting his hands on my friend.
My friend and her unborn baby.
“Listen,” Jordan growled. “We’re suspects right now, and they’re fucking keeping us at the hotel right now. But if we give them what we know and tell them it’s Mark behind this, you know they’re going to fuck it up. We can’t chance this, not with Sasha and sure as shit not with our kid.”
The cabin started to spin around me, and Sean took over as Hunter helped me sit. “What the fuck do these clowns want, guys? Cash?”
“That’d be easy, man,” Luke muttered. “He wants revenge.”
I listened in stunned silence as Luke filled Hunter, Damien, and Sean in on what had happened that time back at their offices with Mark trying to rob the place.
“He fucking called, us, Arianna,” Jordan said, his voice tight. “He wants revenge, he wants to hurt us, and he’s going to do it by hurting her.”
“That not going to happen, guys,” Damien growled with steel in his voice. “It’s not.” He took a deep breath. “What do you know about me and Hunter and Sean?”
There was a moment of silence before Jordan spoke up. “We did our homework,” he said evenly. “Marines, huh?”
“Hoorah,” Hunter muttered under his breath.
“Look, we can’t ask you guys to—”
“Ask whatever you need,” Sean said fiercely, his eyes locked on me.
“Mark’s got her at our lodge, in upstate New York. He’s got a lot of guys with him.”
“We’re on our way,” Hunter said, before moving to the front of the plane to knock on the door to the pilot’s area.
“Guys, could we talk to Arianna for a minute?”
Sean nodded, took me off speaker, and handed me the phone.”
“I’m here,” I said quietly.
“Are you okay?”
My breath hitched as I shook my head, trying to blink back the tears. “Am I okay? Jesus, Luke, I feel like I should be asking you that.”
“We’re fine, just…”
“We’re scared, Ari,” Jordan said quietly. “Look, the guys you’re with.” He paused. “Do you trust them?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t even think before the word came out, but it was true — utterly and completely.
“No hesitation,” Jordan mused. “I like it.”
“Look, I know they’re your competitors, but trust me when I—”
Luke barked out a laugh. “We don’t give a fuck about them being business rivals, Ari. The point is, you trust them, and that works for us. We only did a little research, but it seems they’re good men. And if you vouch for them—”
“I do.”
“Good,” Jordan finished. “Are they keeping you safe?”
“Definitely.”
“Look,” Luke whispered. “Truth be told, we’re go
ing to break out of this fucking hotel and fly home right after we get off the phone with you. Fuck these guys. But you’re going to get there before us.”
Jordan sighed. “Put the guys on speaker again.”
I looked up at my three men, all staring at me with hurt and pain and fierceness in their faces. “They want to talk to you guys.”
I put the phone on speaker.
“Guys? We need to ask you something big—”
“We’re already on it,” Hunter said evenly. “We’ve already got parts mobilizing on the ground for when we land.
“Thank you, really,” Jordan said tensely. “Look, I don’t need to tell you—”
“You don’t need to explain a thing, we understand more than you know,” Damien growled, looking right at me.
“Do not let him hurt her,” Luke said, his voice almost breaking.
“That’s not going to happen,” Sean said, looking right at me with the same intense look on his face as his two friends. “We swear it.”
Chapter 14
It felt like I was walking in a dream by the time we landed in the private airfield outside Albany in upstate New York. The magic of what I’d just experienced down on the island, the warmth and the swirling emotions — all of it was put aside for one thought.
My best friend was in mortal danger.
She had to be okay. She had to make it out of this okay, or I didn’t know what I’d do.
Sean, Hunter, and Damien had spent most of the rest of the flight on the phone coordinating with Jordan and Luke, with at least one of them sitting by my side the whole time. And it was a comfort, but it wasn’t everything. I still felt like something horrible was going to happen - something even more horrible than what had already occurred.
A black, military grade SUV was waiting for us as we quickly left the plane. The three of them walked to the back of the SUV and popped the trunk, making my eyes go wide at what was inside.
Guns, mostly. Guns and an array of military looking tactical gear.
“Is…” I bit my lip. “Whoa.”
“Look, Arianna.” Hunter turned to me, his icy blue eyes flashing over me. “There are some things about our past you should—”
“I told her,” Damien said quietly. Hunter and Sean turned to him, but he held his stern look. “I told her about us, about before the company.”