“A quiet submissive? Do you like me because I do what I’m told?” Dex almost choked, and Slade slapped a hand over his face, howling.
“You don’t do what you’re told, Hannah. Didn’t I ask you a couple of days ago to stock my office with Cokes?” Dex asked.
Hannah winced. He had. “Yes.”
“And what did I get?”
“Green tea is very healthy.” She’d expected him to complain more, but when she’d smiled at him, he’d just said thank you.
“It’s disgusting,” Dex replied.
“And he drank every single one,” Slade countered. “How about the time you took the keys to Dex’s motorcycle and my car after we had a beer at the office happy hour?”
“Yep.” Dex nodded. “I still have that written down in a note for future punishment.” Fine. So she wasn’t always obedient. “I gave them back when I knew you’d be sober. And I only did those things because I was trying to protect you.”
The second the words were out, she wanted to take them back.
Slade sent her a sly glare. “Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the reason I took your phone, Hannah?”
“It’s not the same,” she argued.
“Why not?” he shot back. “You said that you were trying to protect us. Well, we tried to protect you.”
“I did it because I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Slade crossed his bulging arms over his big chest. “Still not seeing how it’s different.” Were they both dumb? “I wasn’t just looking out for my sex toy.”
“Baby, we’re not either. I could have one of those in the next five minutes if I just wanted to get laid. Dex, too. We’re in it for way more than sex. If you haven’t figured that out yet, tell me how we can prove it to you.”
“Once you kidnapped me, forced me to come to Alaska with you, and lied to me, you made that impossible.”
They stared at her. She could feel displeasure coming off them in waves. This was how a relationship with them would work. Everything would be a fight. They would always want to control and protect her.
Hannah could handle them. She wasn’t really afraid of being steamrolled, but of herself and how much she wanted them. How much of herself she’d be willing to surrender in order to keep them.
“I refuse to believe that,” Slade insisted. “So we screwed up. You’ve already stopped caring for us?”
No. Never.
“You have to understand that I’m not fragile.” It was a bit of a revelation. She’d always thought of herself as quiet. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t strong.
“If you think we don’t know that, you’re wrong.” Slade smiled again, as though he knew she was coming around.
“Hannah, darlin’…” He started to reach for her, then yanked his fist away. “We never meant to imply that you aren’t strong and smart.”
Dex, for all his arrogance, required a softer touch. He didn’t believe in himself yet. Didn’t think he belonged. But she could help him. After he answered a simple question.
“Why?”
His brows lifted in confusion. “Why?”
“She wants to know why we want her. I believe she’s under the mistaken impression that we selected her almost at random simply because she’s pretty and submissive.” Slade nearly read her mind.
When Dex looked at her again, his face was gentler than she’d ever seen it. “I remember the day you walked in the door. You were wearing a denim skirt to a job interview.” She flushed. She’d only been off the bus from Lubbock, which didn’t even bother to stop in Two Trees, for a handful of hours. “So I wasn’t fashion forward. And I was interviewing for a mailroom job, if you recall.”
“Oh, I recall. I watched you wait in the lobby. There was another woman interviewing for the same position. I listened to the two of you talk. Do you remember what you did?” He’d seen that? “It was nothing.”
“Bullshit. You got up and told the receptionist that you were no longer available for the job because the other applicant had three kids and a husband who’d just walked out on her.”
“She was going to get kicked out of her apartment. I couldn’t take that job away from her. I knew it was down to just the two of us. If I hadn’t been very sure she would get the job once I bowed out, I wouldn’t have left. Besides, I never made it to the door because the receptionist…” She frowned. “Wait, you called her. You told her to stop me.”
“He ran all over the building trying to find me,” Slade said. “When I came down and talked to you, I realized that I wanted you as much as Dex did. You smiled at me and started talking about your cat, and I was a goner. I scrambled to move enough people around to secure you a junior admin position. A month later, when Gavin’s admin quit, we moved you where you belonged.”