Page 16 of The Reluctant Siren (Texas Sirens: Legacy #2)

Harlow felt the moment Jensen decided to take this to the next level. One minute his hand was around her neck in a way that made her heart race, and the next he was picking her up and moving toward the back of the house. Such an odd house. Parts of it were updated with furniture and décor from this century. Parts were like a museum. There was still high school stuff in his old bedroom. A math book on the shelf along with some notes he’d written in a strangely neat hand. She’d been standing there looking at evidence that once this man had been a vulnerable boy, and she hadn’t been able to handle it.

The fucker was right. She’d come looking to start a fight she kind of hoped would end like this.

Of course she had to wonder if this wasn’t where they’d been heading since the second she walked into his office.

“If you’re coming, Niall, do it now. Once I close this door, it’s her and me,”

Jensen announced.

“Yeah, stay out if you’re too fucking afraid, Niall. Or maybe if you would rather spend the night reading or massaging your own feet.”

She couldn’t help it. She was filled with bile, and it just came out.

The whole night, her whole life the last few years… It was too much. Far too much.

They lied to her. Niall had pretended to be this good guy who could heal her flipping heart or something, and he’d turned out to be one more asshole.

Her business was likely in ruins, and she was proving to the whole damn world—including her best friend and partner—that she was nothing but one more trust fund baby who couldn’t do anything without parental supervision.

Check that. She could fuck things up. She was good at that.

“Set her on her feet.”

She was surprised that deep, dark command hadn’t come from Jensen. Niall shut the door to the big bedroom. It was illuminated by a single lamp on the side table. The whole room was dominated by a king-sized bed that took up most of the space. Jensen had changed the sheets and put a clean comforter on. It was obvious he’d cleaned up in here. The rest of the house had a coating of dust on it, but the primary bedroom had someone who cared about it.

Or his military training kicked in. Either way, she wasn’t going to complain. Not about that. She had so many other things to criticize as her feet found the floor. She wished they were at the club. She would run from them and force them to chase her down and they could do this whole thing with her kicking and scratching and getting all the poison out of her system. In a club she wouldn’t worry about Niall being upset. He would know it was play in a club. Jensen was an asshole who would take whatever she gave him.

She turned and stared at the man she thought might be her first real Dom.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go back to your room and play with yourself. It’s what you seem to do around me.”

Jensen whistled.

“I told you she wants it. If we were in a club, or honestly in any place where she felt safe, she would already be running. She would make me chase her down and tie her up and drag her to bed.”

“I want to say that I find that thought distasteful and barbaric,”

Niall said slowly.

“But right now, I might drag her back by her hair.”

Oh, he wanted to play? The other thing that would feel good right now was a fight. A nasty, no holds barred fight, but again she wasn’t at the club where they had a sparring ring for just such an occasion.

“I’d love to see you try.”

“Jensen, do you have a kit?”

Niall enunciated every word.

“Back in my truck, which should be parked in Taggart’s garage by now,”

Jensen pointed out and then sighed.

“I’ll grab yours. I’m afraid I didn’t keep a bunch of rope and sex toys hanging around when I lived here. Not that my momma didn’t, but I got rid of those real fast. And then I needed therapy.”

He needed therapy for so many things, but she wasn’t going to point that out right now. She was facing off with Niall, and they were at a very important part of this fight they were in.

“You don’t have to stay. You’re free to go.”

“Why would I go when there’s a gorgeous woman begging me to fuck her?”

Niall replied.

“Oh, is that what you need? My enthusiastic compliance wasn’t good enough for you. You need it to be nasty?”

If any of her friends heard her, she would get pulled into one of the board sessions where they talked about kink shaming, but she didn’t care if she wasn’t being fair in this moment. He hadn’t been fair to her. He’d spent months pretending he cared about her, days pretending he wanted her.

She needed him to show it. In the worst, nastiest way.

And then she could reject him and walk away with no regrets. Walk away from both of them.

“What I needed was a clean conscience, but I’m not going to get that.”

The words rumbled out of Niall’s throat, a deep, husky sound.

“I’m starting to believe that Jensen was right and all you’ve shown me so far is what you want me to see. You’ve been polite around me, princess.”

He understood nothing.

“I’ve been nice to the man I thought was going to be my boyfriend. I treated you the way I would treat a Dom who took care of me, but you aren’t that man.”

Niall didn’t back down.

“Oh, I’m that man and I’ll prove it to you, but first I’m going to have to clear up some misconceptions. Take off your clothes or I’ll rip them off you and I won’t care that you don’t have more. I’ll arrange for someone to shop for you and until they can safely bring them here, you’ll be naked or you can wear something of mine. I keep a bag in the Jeep.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

He was supposed to be the reasonable one.

He reached out and took her shirt in both hands and sure enough, it ripped in two.

“Do you want to save your jeans? I’ve got a knife in the kit.”

Anger bubbled up.

“You asshole.”

“No. If I’m your Dom, then I’m going to be in charge,”

Niall insisted.

“You are not now and you won’t ever be my Dom. You might top me because I need it and you’re the only one around, but that’s all this will ever be. The minute we leave this place, I won’t see you again.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,”

he admitted.

“Are you willing to risk your jeans? It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“I thought you said you didn’t fuck her.”

Jensen’s voice sounded deadly from the door. He stood there, Niall’s kit in his hand and his eyes on her chest. She still wore her bra, but he was definitely looking at her breasts.

Maybe she could get them to fight. Maybe she could watch them try to kill each other and that would make her briefly feel better knowing they were as miserable as she was.

But a freaking orgasm would be better. The universe was giving her a whacked-out gift and that was time to fuck these two men out of her system so when she got back to the real world she wouldn’t have to think about either of them again.

She could move on. Whatever that looked like.

“I didn’t, but I did get her naked.”

Niall frowned his friend’s way.

“Have you ever been in a real club? One that isn’t run by asshole criminals?”

“He has not,”

she replied and because she believed Niall, her hands went to the waist of her jeans and she shoved them off her hips and tossed them to the side.

“He wouldn’t know a real club if it bit him in the ass.”

She wanted his attention on her and not his jealousy. He had no right to be jealous.

“Baby, you are pushing me so hard.”

Jensen tossed the kit on the bed and moved in behind her. His hand twisted the back clasp of her bra, and she felt cool air hit her breasts. He pulled off her undies, too, before speaking again.

“If this is going to work, we need ground rules.”

“We don’t need shit,”

she shot back.

“I’m not following rules.”

“He wasn’t talking to you,”

Niall replied.

“He was talking to me, and he’s right. I have more experience as a Dom, but you’re probably more dominant in nature than I am. I prefer to indulge her.”

“We can’t indulge her tonight,”

Jensen argued.

“She won’t take it from either of us. You teach me the finer points of this whole thing and I’ll share her with you. For now.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Asshole. She would have a lot to say if they were actually trying to make this work. Which she was not. She meant what she said. The minute it was safe she was out of here.

She might be out of Dallas altogether because while she loved her dad it was getting hard to live close to him.

She had this time and then she would be gone. So it didn’t matter what he meant.

“What she needs now is a spanking. I’m going to assume you’ve disciplined her before,”

Niall said, his voice tight.

“I think she needs to be over your lap and then she needs a hard fucking and some sleep. Harlow, if you do this with us, you sleep with us. That’s my only rule.”

“I don’t want to sleep with you,”

Jensen protested.

Niall sent his friend a dark look.

“Then you can sleep alone, but if I’m fucking her and taking care of her needs, she’s sleeping with me. If not, I’ll walk and we can spend the next couple of weeks sniping at each other with no real prospect for relief.”

He was forgetting something.

“I think Jensen will fuck me and he won’t give a damn that I’m not his cuddle bug.”

Jensen moved to stand beside him, arms crossing over his chest.

“We’ll sleep in here. The bed’s big enough. It’s for security, too.”

“Hey, I didn’t agree to this.”

But she was the one who was naked, and was she walking out on them when her skin suddenly felt electric?

“Then go to your room,”

Jensen replied.

“Or you can pull some nasty shit that forces me to take you to that chair, slap your ass silly, and then we’ll tie you up and take turns because I’m going to assume in all the no sex in the last two years, you haven’t been playing around with your own asshole.”

She snorted. When had he gotten all forthright about sex? “No, I have not been plugging my own asshole in the hopes that someday I would get two guys. I was kind of trying to avoid it.”

“Sure you were,”

Niall countered.

She didn’t like them working together. They were fucking calm when she was a storm of anxiety and rage and fear. And they were standing there like this was some kind of date.

“Fuck you both,”

she said and started for the door, knowing exactly what Jensen would do.

A big arm went around her waist and she found herself dragged to the small chair in the corner of the room. There was a bookshelf beside it, but she didn’t get a chance to look at it before Jensen had her over his lap and the first crack of his hand hit her naked flesh.

Pain flared through her. It hit like a runaway locomotive stopping and focusing her.

She needed this. She could fucking breathe now. “Again.”

His hand came down without hesitation.

“You know it kind of feels like I’m not the one in charge.”

Niall chuckled lightly.

“Welcome to D/s, man. The sub is always in control. It’s the only reason I was okay with it eventually. When you asked me to go in, I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I had a skewed view. Now I know how much I need it. She taught me that.”

“I taught you nothing,”

she shot back.

And got her ass peppered with smacks. At least ten. All in a row, and it took her breath away. The pain flared through her system, sending much-needed heat. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d felt before. How still. Like she was stuck, but now the world seemed to move again.

“You have good technique for someone who hasn’t taken a formal class.”

Niall utterly ignored her.

She glanced up and realized he was only ignoring her words. His eyes were on her body, and she couldn’t miss the way his pants had tented. Well, she’d felt that big cock against her before but he’d never used it on her.

He might use it tonight. She might get to feel that hard cock thrust inside.

“I was motivated,”

Jensen replied.

“She needed it. I read some books and talked to some people, but mostly she taught me. We practiced a lot. She needs this to relieve stress. She doesn’t drink much so it’s this or she starts a fight, and I needed her to look fairly normal.”

“You asshole.”

But he wasn’t exactly wrong, and it was refreshing to not be treated like she was fragile and would faint at the sight of blood.

He slapped her ass again, this time his hand staying there, holding the heat to her. Connecting them.

“She likes a big bite of pain when we’re playing and during sex. She likes to have her nipples twisted and the bite of clamps. I’ve always thought she likes to be watched.”

“Oh, I can verify that. She might not have had sex at The Hideout since I’ve been there, but she likes to be naked in the club,”

Niall explained.

“She’ll walk around in nothing but a pair of fuck-me heels and ask if anyone needs help. It makes me crazy because she’s not wearing a collar.”

She couldn’t help it. It felt nice to be naked. She liked it. Sue her. She only did it at the club or the nudist place in Colorado. Actually, now that she thought about it, Mountain and Valley was secure, and her fathers wouldn’t come in if they knew she was there. Of course they might send in other people.

“It makes you crazy because she’s not wearing your collar,”

Jensen countered.

Niall’s collar. She didn’t want to think about the fact that it felt like something they were working toward earlier tonight. Nope. She wasn’t letting that in. She hadn’t talked to Ruby and Gigi about what kind of collar she would want—because it wasn’t like Niall would pick one out without her input. That sounded more like Jensen.

“Probably,”

Niall agreed.

“I’m insanely jealous when it comes to her. Current company not included, of course.”

She huffed. “Sure.”

That brought another round of smacks that took her breath away. Jensen wasn’t holding back.

“Hush. We are working things out, and honestly, what do you care what we say since you’re going to leave the minute you can?”

That was true.

“Maybe I don’t like listening to whiny men talking about their feelings.”

“Don’t,”

Niall said, his tone darker than she ever remembered him using.

“You can handle her bratty parts, and I’ll deal with shit like this when she crosses a real line.”

What the fuck line had she crossed? She was the one laying over Jensen’s lap.

And then she wasn’t. Niall hauled her up, and she felt herself flush at the hard look in his eyes.

“I understand that you are frustrated with the events of the day, but you have no idea what you just did to him. You sit around and moan about the patriarchy, and then times get tough and you reenforce it for the one person in this room who is utterly yoked by it.”

A pit opened in her stomach and she looked at Jensen, who frowned Niall’s way.

“She doesn’t want to listen to feelings? I get it. I wasn’t talking about feelings. I was talking about sex. No feelings involved,”

Jensen said with that smirk he got when he needed a mask.

Except he did have feelings. A lot of them, and he didn’t know how to handle them because he’d been told his whole damn life that he wasn’t supposed to feel anything but anger and maybe lust. Niall had found his way out of the mindset, but Jensen hadn’t.

“You could cut him a thousand other ways and I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but that was too far. That isn’t who you are. I understand you’re angry. Are you so angry that you would say something that will send him back into that shell of his? He lost a lot tonight, too.”

This was why trios sucked. There was always the reasonable one who made the two dumbasses look at everything in a different light.

“Are we playing or is this revenge? I kind of thought the revenge would be leaving at the end, but you could hollow him out,”

Niall said in that all too reasonable tone.

“You can take every bit of progress he’s made, and at the end he won’t open himself up to anyone again. Ever.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Jensen asked.

But she knew. Jensen had been “the man”

for so long he sometimes forgot he could be human, too. She didn’t want to think about this, but Niall made it impossible. Jensen worked hard for his revenge. He’d given her up, and then in the course of one night he lost it all and she shamed him for talking about his feelings. Not that she wanted to be his freaking sounding board, but she didn’t want to be yet another person telling him he was nothing but abs and a good time in bed.

Sometimes it sucked to have to be the bigger person and live the actual lifestyle which required her to be open and tolerant and accepting. She could walk away. She didn’t have to be kind if she was locked in her room. In the room where Jensen grew up and she was surrounded with evidence that he’d been a kid with dreams of getting out of this place, who loved his brother and wished his mom could be different.

Stupid fucking empathy.

She walked up to Jensen and put her hands on his cheeks.

“Sir, I am emotional tonight and angry, and I still should never have said that to you. I am sorry. Please forgive me.”

He stood there, a muscle in his jaw ticcing like a pulse.

“I can handle some words, Harlow.”

But it was so plain he couldn’t. Or rather he would pretend like they didn’t mean anything but they did, and they would send him into his shell. She’d gotten him to open up the first time around. Their relationship had been marked with incendiary passion and some spectacular fights, but there had been moments when he talked about his brother and his family and how much it hurt when his mom would bring home some guy and forget he and Tommy existed. How many times had she told him to suck it up and be a man?

She went on her toes and kissed him lightly.

“I am still sorry. You should talk. You should get it out and I should put my clothes back on and be an adult about this.”

Niall moved in behind her, whispering in her ear.

“That’s the woman I know. Good girl. And there’s no way I’m letting you put your clothes back on. You know your safe word. Use it if you need to.”

She gasped as Niall lifted her up and tossed her onto the bed. She barely had time to breathe before he had her ankles in his hands and he spread her legs wide after dragging her down the bed so her ass was almost hanging off.

“Good girls get treats.”

Niall hauled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

“You going to safe word on me?”

She was caught between stubbornness and horniness. Not even horniness. Curiosity. Curious horniness. Did she want to go to the grave not knowing how it felt to be with Niall? Jensen damn near killed her and here she was spreading her legs for another asshole who lied to her.

She felt her fists clench around the comforter.

“No. I’m not going to use my safe word, but this changes nothing.”

“I know,”

he said, a gravity to his tone.

“We have to work for that, and we will.”

She shook her head.

“It won’t happen. I won’t forgive you.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

He lowered his head down and put his nose right in her pussy.

She fought for breath. He rubbed himself against her like he was reveling in her.

“You smell so fucking perfect,”

Niall muttered against her most intimate skin.

“That is way hotter than I thought it would be.”

Jensen stood by the bed, his eyes on the place where Niall’s head bent over, his tongue coming out for a long, luxurious lick.

“She tastes like honey and sex. I can still taste her on my tongue and it’s been two fucking years, man. You should be careful. She’s addictive.”

“I’ll risk it. I don’t mind being addicted to her.”

Niall didn’t move his head. He kept up the slow exploration of her pussy as he talked, and every single word rumbled over her sensitive flesh.

It was hard to think while he was doing that. He was being extremely thorough, and she realized she’d never once had a guy spend that much time down there. Sex with Jensen was quick and rough and exciting. It wasn’t like there was never tenderness between them, but it wasn’t like this. This was a man who was taking his time, who wanted to spend hours learning her body. He already knew way too much about her soul.

Pleasure coursed through her as he sucked part of her labia between his lips, and she felt the press of his thumb against her clit. She could barely see. Barely breathe. It had been so long. So damn long, and this was way beyond the little pleasures he’d given her up to this point. Those had been delivered with his fingers. This felt like so much more. It was more, and the fact that Jensen was watching heightened the whole experience for her.

She opened her eyes and took him in. Jensen stood there, his dark eyes down. His hair had grown and was slightly shaggy. It looked good on him. His jaw was tight, and there was that impressive cock, tenting his jeans.

Were they really going to do this? Was she going to have them both?

She could steal a couple of nights from them and still get out with her whole heart. She could do it.

“She’s so beautiful when she comes,”

Jensen said.

“Make her come, brother. Make her come hard.”

The words seemed to work some magic on Niall. His tongue speared her, going deep while his thumb rotated on her clit, pressing down and sending her over the edge.

It felt so good, so fucking perfect. She let go, not holding back. She writhed and twisted on the bed as Niall and Jensen held her down, forcing her to take every lash of his tongue.

Heat bloomed, and she shouted out as she came.

Her whole body felt languid and perfect.

Niall stood, his hands on the fly of his jeans.

“Tell me I can have you.”

Asshole understood way too much. He was going to force her to say yes, to consent when it was so much easier to fall on top of her and take her. She wouldn’t have to admit she truly wanted him, wanted both of them. Would watching her fuck Niall send Jensen away?

Yes, that’s why she would do it. To show Jensen she wasn’t going to be his perfect sub and come back to him after what he’d done to her.

She nodded Niall’s way.

Jensen took his shirt off, tossing it aside.

“I’ll hold her for you. She likes to squirm.”

Harlow felt the bed tilt under her as Jensen climbed in behind her, gripping her wrists and dragging her up the bed with him.

He was right. She was definitely going to squirm.