Page 14 of Entangled in Them

As much as I’d have liked to see Rue in a short skirt and a pair of stilettos, we weren’t even allowed to let her out of the apartment, never mind take her to a restaurant or club. I experience a pang of pity for the girl. Had she ever done stuff like that? Regular things most women did every day? Perhaps one of her previous owners had dressed her up and taken her to someplace fancy, showing her off as a pretty young thing hanging off his arm. It was hardly the same as choosing to go somewhere for the sheer enjoyment of it, though, was it? I wondered how long she’d been a sold woman. Had she had a normal life before all of this? Did she have family out there who didn’t know what had happened to her? People who missed her? I knew what it was like not to have family, though I considered Ryan and Kodee to be my family now. My parents had been killed not long after we’d come to America from Ireland. I hadn’t had anyone back in Ireland who I could be sent back to, so I’d become a ward of the state. Nobody wanted to take in an angry, grieving, Irish immigrant, so I’d been bounced around between homes until I’d aged out at eighteen and left to get on with things myself. It was no wonder I’d gotten into so much trouble when I was younger—not that much had changed. Seven years later, and I was still getting into trouble.

My thoughts went back to my most recent bout.

Rue was the opposite of this sexy, confident, put-together woman who was helping me now, flitting her way around the store, piling her arms high with jeans of different styles, and strappy tops and t-shirts. Rue was ratty, and dirty, and looked like she wanted to hide away from the world. And yet something about me found that endearing. The big blue eyes that had peered at me mistrustfully beneath the straggles of dark hair. The scrap of a dress that had barely covered her ass. The bare feet. I normally went for strong, confident people, but her vulnerability had stirred something inside me. Something more primal. Protective.

Was it possible to want to protect someone, and still want to fuck them? I guessed so, ’cause that was exactly how I was feeling.

What about the other two, though?

It was never supposed to have been an exclusive thing, the three of us. We just kind of fell in together. Ryan met Kodee first. Ryan had been in a bad place, and Kodee had taken him under his wing. I’d been working at a printer’s, just fucking around, working to get money to enjoy my life, but I discovered I had a bit of a talent for the work. When Kodee approached me, offering me more money in a month than I’d see in my current role in a year, I hadn’t hesitated to say yes. I’d met Ryan, and the two of us hit it off, though I could always tell he was a little possessive of Kodee. I worked out why pretty quickly, when I’d walked in on them getting hot and heavy in the back office where we’d first set up. Perhaps some guys would have run a mile, but both Ryan and Kodee were hot, and sex is sex to me. When I suggested joining them, neither of them had turned me down. Kodee had stopped kissing Ryan for a moment and put out his hand to me, and that was the start of it all. When we’d lost our original building due to a change in tenancy, it had made sense for us all to find a place that would work for both our unusual relationship and living situation, and a workplace at the same time. Keep everything contained. We weren’t all touchy-feely, though, and it wasn’t as though we sat down and talked about our emotions and future. Fucking was fucking, and we were enjoying each other’s company, and that was enough for me. I knew Kodee had his own reasons for not wanting to go back into a traditional relationship, and Ryan just wanted to be taken care of, in his own way. We’d been going along nicely like this for the past six months, but deep down I had the feeling the arrival of Rue was going to blow everything else out of the water. The best thing I could do was figure out how to get her back out of the apartment as quickly as possible.

Oh, and do my best not to fuck her as well.

The shop assistant returned with a stack of clothing. “Okay, so I’ve got a skinny legged jean in dark denim, and more of a comfort fit with—”

I held up my hand, cutting her off. “I’ll take it.”

She glanced down at the pile in surprise. “All of it?”

“Whatever you’ve chosen will be grand, thanks.”

She smiled, but the expression was wary. “Okay, sure. You’re the customer.”

“And we’re always right, right?”

The woman gave a titter of a laugh and turned to lead me toward the checkout. She set about scanning each of the items, before folding and placing into a branded bag. The total came to over five hundred dollars, so I just handed my credit card over. I was supposed to have made money doing the job for the Capellos, but instead it seemed it was costing me money.

I guessed it was better that it was money and not lives it was costing.

Chapter Six

Kodee

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THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE apartment was tense while we waited for Dillon to get back with the clothes. I stood at the kitchen counter, watching the scene before me. Ryan was particularly unhappy, pacing around the place with his lips in a thin line, and shaking his head every time he caught sight of Rue, who was huddled back up on the couch, her bare legs tucked under her body, her arms wrapped across her breasts.

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