Bound by Their Kisses(6)

“What happened?” Zander asked in a quiet voice.

Zander told him how she’d responded to him after the initial kiss, getting him so fucking turned on he thought he’d die if he didn’t get inside of her, but he’d backed away, knowing it was too soon. He told him how he’d as much as admitted that she was stealing his control.

“When she told me to leave her alone, that she’d never belong to anyone but herself, I lost it. I told her she was already ours, that we were tired of waiting for her. She said she wasn’t going to be anyone’s doormat, that she knew we were Doms. Like we would treat her like that. It went all over me.” Tag sighed and ran a hand over his face before taking another healthy swallow of the ice cold brew.

“What did you do, Tag?” Zander asked in a tired voice.

“I told her not to do something stupid. I could tell she was thinking about leaving. She said she already had when she got on the bike with me.” He drained the beer and threw the empty can at the garbage can. “Fuck!”

“Do you think she’s in the wind?” Zander asked.

“She won’t leave without telling Steve. He’ll warn us if she says anything. I don’t think she’s going to run yet, but she’s going to do her damndest to avoid us now,” Tag said.

“Maybe it’s for the best. We’ve let her get comfortable here and not really bothered her that much. It’s time we make our intentions known. You might have jumped the gun a bit, but not by much. We were going to approach her this weekend anyway, just maybe not as aggressively as you did,” Zander said.

“She said she’s not running from anyone, and I believe her on that, but she’s running from something. Something upset her enough to make her take the risk of being on her own like that. She was all but starving when she showed up here,” Tag pointed out.

“She’s awful worried about our being Doms and her getting treated poorly. I’d say someone’s done a number on her in the past, and that’s what this is all about.”

Tag nodded. “I agree. Getting her to the point that she’ll submit to us is going to take time and a whole lot of patience. I’m not sure how I’m going to stand up to that.”

“You don’t have a choice, Tag. Whatever she needs, we give her. If that means more time, then so be it. At least now we can openly approach her. The more time we spend around her, the more used to us she’ll become so that she doesn’t immediately bristle up.”

“Talk about blue balls. Just looking at her is already torture. Spending time with her without getting too physical is going to be like walking on hot coals. All the burn while we’re walking across, but no relief when we step back on cool ground.”

“Man, you come up with some of the weirdest fucking shit I’ve ever heard.” Zander finished his beer and tossed the empty into the can without the force behind it that Tag had.

“That’s because I read something other than skin and biker mags in my spare time,” Tag joked. “You should try it sometime. Keep a couple of intelligent books in your bathroom for a change.”

“Screw you, Tag. Reading Cosmopolitan didn’t do you much good with Tessa, now did it?”

“Is the house ready?” Tag asked to change the subject. They’d gone in together and started building one when they’d agreed that Tessa was the one for them.

Despite knowing they were in for a fight to convince her they loved and cared about her, they’d gone ahead and built the house that would be their home. They were confident that she would eventually give in and admit her attraction to them. It was easy to see how she felt when she first caught sight of them before she had time to mask her expressions. Even their friends commented on her obvious interest. She wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all them.

Why she was so afraid to act on those feelings, he wasn’t sure, but they would find out and figure out how to work around the problem. If there was one thing he and Zander knew how to do, it was how to solve problems others couldn’t. Now they were so close to having what they wanted, a family with Tessa. The house had been the final step in the plan once she’d started relaxing some around them.

Zander had moved into the place when it was nearly finished to do some of the detail work himself. Tag still lived in the tiny apartment above his garage. He didn’t want to move in until they had Tessa with them. A tiny part of him still didn’t believe she would go for being shared by the two of them. As much as he wanted to believe it could work, even with the other ménage families in town, Tag was still skeptical that he and Zander could manage it.