Junior shook his head as he cupped her cheeks. “No. Absolutely fucking not. Never. We’re not men like that,” he told her.

  Stone felt such disgust and anger toward Jeb. What had the bastard done to her?

  “I should have knocked that dick out when I had the chance. What the hell did he do to you?” Stone asked.

  “It wasn’t just Jeb. I knew Jeb wasn’t right for me. I was pretending to be someone I was not and hoping that achieving great things like a professional position in a big company and landing the hottest, most sought-out bachelor of the firm would make me somebody. I was reaching for things, making accomplishments that weren’t even for me,” she told them as she leaned against the back of the couch.

  “If not for you, then who?” Louie asked her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, lowering her head and pressing her hands against her dress as if trying to press out any wrinkles that weren’t there.

  “It does matter. All of it matters, because all of it affects this relationship we’re starting. My brothers and I want you. You want us, but you have fears and reservations. We get that. Hell, Lacey, we were in love once and we lost our girlfriend in a car accident,” Louie told her, and Stone felt that instant, hard ache to his gut. If his brothers only knew.

  “I’m so sorry, Louie. I had no idea.”

  “How could you, when we haven’t shared any of it with you?” Junior said as he reached out and cupped her cheek.

  “Let’s sit down.” He slid his hand down her arm to her hand and took it, leading her around the couch to sit down. Stone and Louie followed. Junior sat beside Lacey on the couch and Louie and Stone sat across from them.

  “Eliza was our girlfriend for about a year when she drank too much one night, drove, and had a car accident that killed her.”

  “That’s so terrible. You said you loved her?” she asked, reaching out to caress Junior’s hand.

  “For the most part, Louie and I did.” Junior glanced toward Stone and Stone held his gaze. Lacey looked at Stone. “You didn’t feel the same way about her as your brothers did?”

  God, she looked so worried, like it would be the same thing with her. Like he wouldn’t trust her.

  “I had my reservations about Eliza,” Stone said as he looked at Junior.

  “You didn’t care about her the way we did,” Louie stated.

  Stone looked at him.

  “I’m not going to apologize for not pretending to feel something I didn’t. You two loved her. You mourned her death.”

  “You didn’t,” Junior snapped at Stone.

  Stone held his brother’s gaze. “You really want to do this now? In front of Lacey, when she has reservations about being with us and how faithful our commitment to her would be?” Stone asked.

  “I think now is a better time than any. She has trust issues. So do you. You never really trusted Eliza and always held back. We felt it, we knew, and so did Eliza,” Louie said to Stone.

  Stone looked at Lacey and could see her watching him. He didn’t want her to think the worst of him, but his brothers were choosing now to push for answers. He stood up. “I’m not going to get into this now.”

  Louie stood up. “Damn it, Stone, we want Lacey in our lives, in our bed, part of us. If you can’t even stand here and tell us if you’re capable of that, then what will Lacey think?”

  Stone looked at Lacey, who appeared so worried and fearful.

  “Damn it, Stone, are you really such a hard-ass that you don’t even have the ability to explain why you didn’t mourn Eliza and why you didn’t love her like we did?” Junior asked.

  “Because I knew the truth about her and you guys didn’t,” Stone stated.

  They all got quiet.

  “What truth? What the hell did you know that we didn’t?” Junior asked.

  Stone held his gaze.

  “I couldn’t bear to tell you. When she died, the two of you were heartbroken over her. You talked about the good times, the moments we all shared hanging out and being together.”

  “What couldn’t you share?” Louie asked, teeth clenched.

  Stone looked at both of them. “That she was cheating on us. That she was a drunk and a whore who I found in a bar thirty minutes outside of Wellington when I stopped in to use the restroom and grab a late lunch on my way back from a job in the city.”

  Lacey covered her mouth and stared at him, then at his brothers.

  “What?” Junior asked, sounding so hurt and emotional. Stone hadn’t wanted to ever tell them, but it seemed they all needed to get past Eliza if they wanted to move on and have any chance at a relationship with Lacey.

  “I’m sorry, Lacey, that you have to hear this. I’d hoped for them to never know.”

  “To never know? Why didn’t you tell us?” Louie asked him.

  “I didn’t want you to feel more pain. You were saddened by her death and focused on the good memories. I thought that was better to remember Eliza as the woman you two had fallen in love with instead of the two-timing drunk whore I found out she really was.”

  “When did you find out? I mean, you didn’t tell us and we still were with her?” Junior asked.

  Stone shook his head.

  “It had been the week we hadn’t spent much time with her. She hadn’t answered your calls, if you remember, Junior. It was Friday and you still hadn’t tracked her down and you were worried. I headed back from the city like I said and found her that way. I dragged her out of there, got her coffee and tried talking to her, but she cursed at me and told me she didn’t love any of us, that she was going to break things off because she didn’t want to be tied down to three men. She was drunk. She reeked of sex and alcohol. Her place was a mess. There were items there, used condoms that weren’t ours.”

  “Jesus, Stone. You should have called us and told us immediately,” Junior told him.

  “I couldn’t. I told her to sleep it off and that we would come by in the morning to talk with her. I was disgusted with her and how I found her wrapped around that other guy at a bar with no care that her breasts were hanging out and the guy would have fucked her right there. It disgusted me, but I made her drink more coffee and get ready for bed. She lay there and told me she didn’t want to see any of us again. I left and you got the call, Junior, at four o’clock in the morning about her car accident.”

  Stone ran his fingers through his hair as he sat down on the edge of the couch.

  * * * *

  Lacey couldn’t believe what was happening here. She couldn’t believe the pain these men went through, the secret Stone held onto to protect his brothers. She could relate to all of it. She understood what it was like to feel betrayed by a lover, to be treated like an object by another lover, someone that was supposed to protect her but instead took away her innocence.

  She eased off the couch and crawled toward Stone. She knelt between his legs, covered his thighs with her hands as he looked at her.

  “I’m so sorry that you had to go through all of that, that you had to hold onto such a painful secret. I know what it’s like to be tricked and fooled into believing you’re everything your lover wants but aren’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Stone asked as he caressed her hair, and brought a thick handful forward and let it slide against his palm.

  “Weeks ago, when I was with Jeb at his place, I was running late, taking a shower to get to work. He always said for me to be out of his place before he returned from the gym, and I guess I thought it was just his way. He was controlling. He demanded respect and wanted everyone to follow and take orders from him.”

  “Asshole,” Louie said as he sat on the floor beside them. Junior sat on the other side, too.

  “I know that. I knew that he wasn’t right for me.”

  “Then why did you stay with him?”

  She looked down and caressed Stone’s thighs, rubbing her palms back and forth as if trying to infuse some strength into her from his muscular thighs.

  “I had something happen in my past, years ago in college. It had taken years to get over and, well, as I graduated and got a great job I started to focus on what other people wanted for me, what my parents wanted, what they deemed fit for someone of their stature, and I focused on making up for something that I wasn’t at fault for. Anyway, it became an obsession to climb the corporate ladder quickly, to land the good-looking, rich boyfriend and to appear on top of the world when really I was hurting inside. Anyway, that morning I was running late and got out of the shower and dressed. I heard laughter, then some cries of pain.”

  She gulped as the tears hit her eyes. Could she tell them about this? Would they think less of her? They had experienced being betrayed by a lover. They would understand, wouldn’t they?

  She felt Junior’s hand on her thigh, Louie’s on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” Louie said.

  “I opened the door and saw Jeb with some other woman, a woman he had been talking to at the party we attended the night before. He used her shirt to tie her hands and cover her head as he shoved her down to the bed, the bed we’d had sex in the night before. He was so brutal and rough with her. It was all about sex, hard, violent sex as he shoved her pants down and took her from behind.

  “She was moaning and begging for him to do it harder. She wasn’t getting sexually assaulted, she was enjoying it. It was all a sexual game that turned Jeb on. God, it was so terrible. It was like, in that moment, I realized what he wanted from me. He wanted to take me like he had that woman. He wanted to share me with his friends at the office like some whore.” She hadn’t even realized she was crying until Stone caressed the tears away.

  “God, baby, we’re so sorry you had to see that. You must have felt so betrayed. He wanted to share you with his friends, too?” Stone asked.

  She nodded her head. “I realized pretty quickly that I was nothing to him. I was a body to use, and by not letting him do certain things to me and treat me like he treated that woman, that he was seeking someone else. It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, like my past and the inability to connect on a deeper level would always hold me back. Jeb was so angry and hurtful afterward. But I held my ground and didn’t allow him to control me any longer.”

  “Is that why you left your job? Because of him?” Louie asked her. She held his gaze.

  “I wasn’t happy at that job for months. Men took advantage of a lot of women. The higher-ups made sure that any sexual harassment accusations were squashed before they even reached Human Resources. I wasn’t going to stay there and be harassed by all the men. Like I said, there are some things that happened in the past that had changed my perspective on life. I realized that all these years I wasted trying to ease the pain from those deep scars, I was trying to appease my parents or make up for something I shouldn’t have to make up for because it wasn’t my fault. Most importantly, I was tired of feeling empty inside and as if I didn’t even exist, other than as a body to be used.”

  “No. No, baby, don’t think like that,” Stone said as he pulled her closer and hugged her tight.

  She pulled back and cupped his cheeks between her hands and held Stone’s green eyes. He was older, mature-looking, experienced, and she felt such a connection to him, just like she did with Louie and Junior.

  “You had to hold onto a secret to save your brothers from feeling the same deep, painful betrayal you felt. There are things that I experienced in my life that I just can’t talk about, Stone. One day, maybe I could, but remembering somehow brings that person a power and advantage over me. I know it’s probably psychological, but it’s just how I process it all. I’m glad that you shared what happened to Eliza with your brothers and with me tonight. I feel better that I shared the hurt, the betrayal Jeb caused with me, too. It makes me feel like you understand some of my fears. I want to trust the three of you. I do.”

  “You can trust us,” Louie told her.

  “We would never hurt you, Lacey,” Junior said. Both men bent over and kissed her bare shoulders. Stone cupped her cheeks and kissed her lips. That kiss grew deeper, hotter, really fast, and she found herself giving in to their control and letting these emotions, her gut instincts, guide her every step of the way.

  So when she felt her dress being lifted higher, she didn’t panic. She allowed Junior to press her back down so she practically lay over Stone as he continued to kiss her while Louie and Junior explored her body.

  The feeling of Junior’s hands on her thighs, making his way higher, had her shaking with desire. She wanted to feel his manly, thick fingers make contact with her needy cunt. An invisible fog of magic and excitement moved over her skin.

  “Your skin is so soft, so sexy,” Louie said, and she felt his lips kiss her shoulder and down her back.

  She jerked when she felt Junior’s hands kneading her thighs and her ass, lifting her dress to her waist.

  Stone kissed her deeply and it was so hard to remain focused on one sensation over the other. Her breasts felt so needy and tender pressed against Stone’s hard chest.

  “Open for me, Lacey. Let us in,” Junior said, and she relaxed her legs, giving him the ability to press them wider.

  “These are some sexy thong panties you’re wearing. You have a great ass,” Louie told her, and she felt his teeth nibble against the left cheek.

  Junior pulled her panties down and she moaned into Stone’s mouth. He released her a moment as he cupped her cheeks. “What’s my brother doing to you?” he asked, his green eyes filled with mischief and hunger.

  “He’s—Oh!” She moaned aloud as Junior pressed a digit up into her wet cunt. She felt his palm over her ass on one side as he began to slowly ease a finger in and out of her pussy with the other.

  “Lacey, you’re awfully wet. Do you like three men touching you, caring for you at the same time?” Junior asked.

  “Yes, oh God, it’s crazy, but yes,” she said, tilting her head back and keeping her eyes closed.

  She felt the zipper to her dress go down and her top lowered, revealing that she didn’t have a bra on.

  “Hot damn, woman, you’re full of surprises,” Louie said and cupped her breast. She lifted higher as Stone cupped the other breast and licked across the tip. In this position, Junior added a second digit and began to thrust harder and faster into her pussy from behind. His other hand held her hip and he licked her spine and suckled the side of her breast from behind her.

  She was overwhelmed with desire and began to move her hips in sync with his finger thrusts.

  “You look like a goddess,” Louie said after he released her breast. He cupped her cheeks and kissed the seam of her mouth before plunging his tongue deeper. He stroked the inside of her mouth as Stone pinched her nipple and Junior thrust his fingers into her pussy.

  She felt her belly tighten and suddenly she pulled from Louie’s mouth and moaned deeply as she came.

  Junior pulled his fingers from her cunt and lifted her thighs. She felt his mouth on her pussy sucking, licking, and eating away her cream. He nibbled on her clit. He pulled and brought another moan from her lips, then he suckled again. He gave her pussy and clit so much attention and exploring that she wondered if it would be swollen for days.

  “I can’t take it. Oh, please, Junior, I can’t.” She moaned.

  He slowly released her clit, licked along her pussy lips, then nibbled on her thighs, making her giggle and swat at him. But as she reached back, Junior turned her and stood her up. Her dress fell to the floor and she stood there, completely naked.

  Stone cupped her ass cheeks and kneaded her flesh. “This is a great ass. Fucking perfect.” She felt him stroke a finger between her ass cheeks and she gasped and fell backward on him. Junior pressed her thighs open and over Stone’s spread thighs as Stone wrapped one arm around her waist, kissed her neck, and cupped one of her breasts.

  “Perfect. You stay just like that. I want Louie to taste how sweet your cream is, baby.” Junior leaned up, cupped her other breast, and kissed her lips.

  Lacey shook with anticipation and a slight bit of embarrassment. The cool air collided against her oversensitive clit thanks to Junior’s ministrations. But here she was, spread out over Stone’s thick body and wide thighs, her pussy and breasts exposed to all three men, and she was shocked that she wasn’t reaching for clothing.

  Louie knelt down between her thighs, smiling.

  “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, Lacey. You’re okay? You want this? It feels right?”

  She loved him for this. Her heart soared and tears stung her eyes.

  “Thank you, Louie. Yes.”

  He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as he focused completely on her pussy. He massaged her thighs wider, then brought his fingers closer and closer to her cunt, but didn’t touch it. She wanted him to touch her. She needed to feel his fingers, his mouth or tongue against her clit.

  “So sexy and beautiful.”

  Stone pulled on her nipple. Junior ran the palm of his hand along her belly, then to her mound, but he didn’t go low enough to satisfy the need inside of her.

  “Please.” She moaned and thrust her hips forward.

  Louie locked gazes with her. That fierce, businesslike demeanor he had was replaced with hunger and arousal. She could see it in his eyes. She felt Stone’s cock, long, thick, and hard underneath her ass. She wanted them. She didn’t care about the consequences. She had never felt so compelled to have sex in her life.

  Louie grazed her pussy lips with his thumbs. She gasped and shook. “Please, Louie, touch me.”

  He smiled. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  Was he for real? Was he actually waiting for her to ask for it? He wanted to bring her pleasure and not himself? She wasn’t used to this. She was confused, and as if Junior realized what was going on in her head, he leaned forward and kissed her lips as Louie pressed a finger to her pussy.

  She pushed her breasts out only for Stone to cup one and then Junior to move his mouth from her lips and suckle her nipple. He pulled away and blew warm breath against it. “Your desires, your needs, will always come first,” he said very seriously.