Page 22 of Taken By my Brothers' Best Friends

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. If you could get my laptop for me, I’d happily stow away and write most of the day away. Y’all could just…come to me when you’re ready. I know it’s not a normal request, but it’s not like I hired y’all to guard me. There’s no conflict of interest. Besides your friendship with my brothers, I mean.”

“That’s a pretty fucking big conflict, Vera!” Dean was officially shouting.

“Okay, but let me put this in a way that might make you think differently about your loyalties to my brothers.” I swallowed and pushed my hair behind my ears. “I’m going to do this. With y’all or with someone else. In Harmony Valley, where I go visit my other brothers, these kinds of relationships are so common. There’s a military training base there, so lots of guys I could turn to. I think, if my brothers really stopped to think about it, they’d prefer I do this with someone they trust.”

“Oh, so now they’dpreferit was us that fucked you?” Dean paced. “Go to your room, Vera.”

I laughed. “No. Not until I’m good and ready. It took a lot of guts to come out here and propose this. The least y’all could do is take me seriously.”

“I think I’m dreaming.” Lennon patted his cheeks. “This can’t be real.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you don’t all want to do it, I could use just one or two of you. I might not be your type, Dean. Or yours, Lennon. But I felt you get hard when you spanked me, Reed. I want to try more of that, too. It was hot. I’ve never added anything like that to my books but maybe it’s time.”

Reed swore loudly before he stood up and left the house. We were all quiet as he stormed out and slammed the door behind him.

I looked back at Lennon and Dean. “Well. I guess he’s out?”

Dean pointed to my room. “We’ve heard you out, Vera.”

“At least promise you’ll think about it.”

Lennon let out a strained laugh. “It’ll be the only fucking thing I think about for the rest of my life, Hellcat.”

I took my biggest risk of all as I circled the island and leaned into him. My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest as I slowly moved closer and pressed my lips to his cheek. “I may not be good at first, but I’m a determined learner.”

Without waiting for a response, I hurried back to my room with shaking hands and a stomach full of butterflies.

CHAPTER 19

Vera

Two long days passed without a word from the guys. Each hour that passed made my shame grow larger, until it felt like a physical presence in the room with me at all times. They’d become ghosts in the house. I only saw glimpses of them as they fled from rooms I entered. I could smell them, smell their unique scents lingering, but I could never catch them. Meals always appeared at the same times, left just outside my door for me, and when I opened my door towards the end of that second day, I found my laptop waiting with my food.

I squealed and knocked over the glass of water they always brought me as I grabbed my laptop and clutched it to my chest. “My baby!”

Lennon stood just a few feet away, a wary look on his face. “It wasn’t easy to get that without your brothers finding out why you need it so desperately.”

I hurried around my dinner and threw my arms around him. “Thank you! I’ve been going crazy. This is the longest amount of time I’ve gone without writing in years.”

He took a step back and nodded. “Enjoy your dinner.”

All of my elation sunk away, into the hardwood floor and into the earth below. Lennon’s personality was usually so light and easy-going that seeing him acting standoffish felt like a slap in the face. I’d put myself out there and asked them to help me and they were acting like jerks about it.

Anger and hurt mixed inside of me like baking soda and vinegar, and just like my middle school science experiment, I was unstable as hell. “You know what? I’m not going to enjoy my dinner. You guys are big babies. A woman comes to you and asks you for a favor and you act like a bunch of turds about it. This is pathetic. I want to leave. I’m not going to stay here with the threeof you avoiding me and treating me like some sort of leper. Fuck this. Fuck you. Fuck that. I’m leaving.

“I’ll walk back to the ranch. Which apparently, isn’t all that far away, you liar. I could handle you being a liarora coward, but both? That’s too far.” I stomped back to my room and kicked my tray of food. I immediately felt guilty about making a mess but even that pissed me off. “I don’t feel bad about making a mess! I don’t feel bad about anything, but I especially don’t feel bad about asking you guys to screw me. It was a perfectly fine thing to ask for. You guys making me feel bad about it is really shitty of you. This is going to stick with me and it’ll be y’all’s fault when I die a virgin at the ripe old age of however long I make it!”

I tried to slam my door closed but Reed had manifested himself out of nowhere and blocked me. I screamed, scared crapless by his sudden appearance. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood guard while Dean and Lennon followed me in.

“What’s this? Are you three here to chastise me for my bratty behavior? Gonna tell my brothers? Well, guess what? I don’t care. I’d rather go back to the ranch and have them judge me to death than spend one more day here with you three tools. So let me out of here. I’ll take my chances on the road.”

“Can I spank her?” Reed growled the words out, his mouth set in a dark scowl.

“Oh, you’re not doing that again. You think I’m going to let you get your rocks off spanking me and then just hide from me? Nope. I’m a modern woman, asshole. I’ll give but I’m taking, too.” I gripped my laptop tighter and tucked it under my arm. “Okay. Which one of you is going to reach up their butt to get the key for me to get the hell out of here?”

Dean slowly slid his gaze from me and locked gazes with Reed before nodding. When he looked back at me, his jaw was set. “You want help? Fine.”

“You want help?” I mimicked his voice and paused. “Wait. What? Really?”

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