“Are you okay, Tempe?” Jay asked.
“Am I okay? Tell me, Jay, what do I have to be okay about?” She turned toward her best friend. “I heard you negotiated your terms of fucking use of me. How do you think I’m feeling? I’ll give you a clue. It’s far from okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Jay said.
“You’re feisty today,” Richard said.
“Don’t even start. I don’t want to talk to you.”
She never should have fucked her boss. That was the problem.
“You know most women are really happy to have two men chasing after them?”
Temperance laughed. “You’re not chasing after me though. You’re organizing when I’m allowed to spend time with you. You’re talking about sharing me, and even sharing me with both of you in the room. Do you know how absurd it sounds?”
“It doesn’t sound it to me, to be honest,” Richard said. “It’s quite common for two men to share a woman.”
“Maybe in porn—”
Richard shook his head. “It’s not just in porn. Jay wants you. I want you, and we both came up with an agreement to suit us.”
“So romantic. Get the girl by pushing her into a tight little schedule.” She was going to fall apart if she wasn’t careful.
“It’s not like that.”
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t see the romance of two guys setting out their week to have a woman in their life.”
“In our bed. We’re going to want alone time as much as time with you.”
Richard was like a completely different being from what she was used to. He never shared, and he never did anything like this as far as she knew.
“Have you shared many women?”
“I’ve shared some, never on a permanent basis. You’re also going to meet Anna. She told me you both spoke on the phone before.”
“Yes, we have.” She liked Anna. They had only ever spoken, but she seemed nice.
“You’ll like Anna. She’s a strong woman, and she’s pregnant right now. There’s a few complications, so don’t try to upset her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of trying to upset her.”
Temperance let out a breath, and she folded her arms, trying to rub the wet patch on her shirt. The last thing she wanted to do was enter a clubhouse with a clear nipple sucking mark.
You almost caved.
You wanted it.
She looked in the mirror and saw Jay staring at her. He gave her a reassuring smile, and she returned it with one of her own.
Letting out a breath, she ran fingers through her hair, which she’d left down. That morning, she’d woken up, gotten dressed, and gone straight to work without even trying to take care of her appearance. She figured Jay had left so they didn’t have that awkward after morning crap from the revelation of the night before.
He loved her, and Richard wanted her.
She had gone from no men wanting her to suddenly two wanting her.
It seemed almost too surreal to her to even think about it.
Staring out of the window, she watched the people they were driving by, wondering if they ever suffered, or were confused by what was going on.
“Tempe,” Jay said.
She looked at him, waiting. “Do you have any feelings for me?”
“You know I do, Jay.”
Richard cupped her knee, rubbing her flesh.
She found comfort in that touch, and she also found it in the way Jay squeezed her shoulder. Maybe they were right, and she needed to give them both a chance. This a chance.
Richard turned off on a busy road and went down a large parking lot. She was surprised by the security, but when she saw the other expensive cars, she knew they had come to what the rich considered a clubhouse.
Her boss certainly lived a strange life.
“This is not what I imagined at all,” Jay said.
They all got out of the car.
Jay whistled at the cars. “Damn, are these all classics?”
“Yep,” Richard said. “This is what we love to spend our money on. That and other things of course.”
They made their way to the elevator, and he typed in a code.
“This is much better than the movies or television.”
“You can’t compare the two,” she said. “Richard is a billionaire, so everything has to be luxury, while the ones on television break the law. It’s small time stuff, or whatever.”
“I tell you, we can compete against some of the MCs out there. We just do everything a bit differently.”
“Do you break the law?” Jay asked.
“No.”
“Can I join?”
“Do you have a billion dollar company I don’t know about?” Richard asked.
“Nope.”
“Then no.”
“Wait, that you know about?” Jay asked.
“You ran a check on him, didn’t you?” she asked.
“I run checks on everyone. You know that.”
Richard stepped off the elevator first, and he held her hand.
They made their way into the main clubhouse, and came to a stop at the screaming they were greeted with.
Temperance paused, recognizing the fear and panic attack. She used to get them growing up, and her brother talking to her used to pull her out of them.
Taking in the room, she saw several large men were surrounding a woman who was gripping her head, screaming as she stared at them. Another man was kneeling beside her, trying to soothe her.
It was chaos everywhere.
Without even thinking, she grabbed the men and started tugging them away. “Leave her alone, move out of the way.”
“Temperance?” Richard said, trying to stop her.
“No, Richard, let her do this. She knows what she is doing.”
Grabbing the arm of the man who was kneeling, she forced him to move, and then, rushed to grab something to use as a marker, finding some lipstick.
The woman had started to go quiet.
“What is her name?” she asked.
“Mandy.”
Making sure there was enough space, Temperance marked the space in a semi-circle for the woman.
The woman was still whimpering, and she had now covered her face.
“It’s okay, Mandy. You’re in your safe place right now. Look, no one will cross this line right here.” She pointed at the dark red line that separated Mandy from them. “This is your space. No one will come near you. Mandy, it’s okay. Mandy, you’re safe now.” She kept repeating those words, keeping her voice steady. When someone behind her went to talk, she held her hand up, keeping up her calmness, not showing any sign of faltering.
Time passed, Temperance didn’t know how much, but Mandy stopped whimpering and her hands fell to her side.
The woman looked so pale, and so thin, so frail.
“Hello, Mandy, you’re safe here.”
“I’m safe here?”
“Yes, you’re safe here.”
“I don’t like being scared.”
“Me neither.”
“I don’t know you.”
Temperance nodded. “We don’t know each other. I’m Temperance.” She held her hand out but also made sure that she didn’t cross that line.
Mandy looked at her hand, and then at the carpet. “You made a mess of the carpet.”
“You needed your own space, and ta-da, I did it.” She did her best to comfort her. “When you’re ready to come out, you can.”
Temperance crawled away, keeping on level with the other woman.
Mandy looked past Temperance’s shoulder. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay.” A man who looked like he’d seen hell knelt back down again. “You have nothing to be afraid of, Mandy. The guys here, they all protect you.”
“I know. You helped get me out.”
Mandy got to her feet, and taking her time, Temperance stood.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Temperance.” Mandy stepped over the line and held her hand out. “I’m not usually so crazy.”
“No worries. I’m not usually so efficient with my ideas.”
The young woman was clearly fragile, and Temperance’s heart went out to her.
Chapter Six
Once Mandy had settled down, and Lewis had taken her to go see her therapist once again, Richard sat with Jay by his side, and Temperance sat opposite the two. The club brothers were leaving them alone, but Richard saw that Tina didn’t look happy.
“Will Mandy be okay?” Temperance asked.
“She will be.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Jay asked.
“I can’t say. It’s for security reasons, and Mandy needs to be protected now more than ever.”
“She looks like she’s seen death.”
He looked at Temperance. She did always seem to have a knack for reading people. “She hasn’t had it easy.”
“No shit,” Temperance said.
“How did you know to do that circle?”
She finished taking a sip of her water, and he saw her look over at the lipstick mark she’d made on the carpet.
Russ wasn’t even pissed. In fact all of the men, all of his brothers, were happy that she had done what needed to be done.
None of them had been able to deal with Mandy’s meltdown.
“When I was younger, I used to suffer with severe panic attacks. I was bullied throughout school, and my parents didn’t know how to stop it. Nothing helped, facing the bullies, or even having my brother or Jay fight people at school. So Bryan, my brother, he created the ring of protection. I don’t know if it’s a medical thing or not. I just know it always worked. Every time I was in that ring, nothing could harm me. Once I got older, the ring was imaginary, and I’ve not had many panic attacks since.”