But today? This specific prank? I didn’t care that we’d failed. Hell, no. What guy would want to miss being stopped by a gorgeous, gun-toting female in her underwear? Not any who had a pulse.
I’d been hard since the first moment I laid eyes on her, and I hadn’t been the one to be straddled. Fuck, her legs had been spread wide around Finch’s broad back, her hot pussy pressing against him. It had been ball aching just to witness, and I was jealous of him—even if he’d been handcuffed.
“I hope you like getting your throat punched if you keep talking like that,” Eve countered before taking a sip of the hot rum punch. She wore jeans and heavy winter boots and a thick down jacket. A yellow hat covered her head. She looked… soft, but her words were all sharp wit.
“Ouch,” Finch commented, running a hand over his beard and grinning.
Eve had made herself scarce after the… incident. Until now. She shouldn’t feel embarrassed about what had happened. I’d been impressed by her skill. Her levelheadedness. We wanted to put her at ease, but it seemed she used sarcasm as a defense mechanism, and that made her… prickly.
I understood that well enough, employing any means of self-preservation growing up. Poppy and I hated our dad the same amount, although I held an extra bit of rage and hatred for him for how he’d hurt her. I’d tried to protect her as much as I could, but we’d been kids and Eddie Nickel… well, he’d been an asshole cloaked beneath America’s hottest Hollywood star. I’d even stayed in town instead of going away to college, letting Poppy live with me while she finished high school. No fucking way could I have left her alone in that house.
I refused to use a dime of his wealth. To spite him, I avoided the limelight, going so far as to work for the forest service where I spent most of my time alone in the woods. I owned a house in town—a small one completely unlike the Nickel ranch—but I lived most of the year in a small cabin on national forest land. I liked the quiet. The solitude. The lack of hype, paparazzi.
Poppy did the opposite. She spited our old man by using his cash he’d put in trust funds for us when we were born. She’d earned it, she said. Since he’d beaten and verbally abused us until I was big enough to defend us both, I couldn’t agree more. She wasn’t shallow, though, wasting her life on frivolous shit. She’d gone to college and was a social worker at the local middle school, helping to ensure kids had access to help we’d never had.
Poppy’d bought a big spread with the money and used it to throw big parties like this one. The barn doors were open wide, the tables of food just inside. A raised dance floor had been placed beneath rows of strung lights. A band was off to the side. The pond was frozen solid, cleared of snow, and people were skating. Benches had been placed along the edge for people to sit and switch out of their shoes.
I guessed at least seventy-five people were here, and I knew almost all of them. But there was only one I was interested in. The very sexy Eve Miranski. And we finally had her in front of us.
“I’ve made it years without meeting either of you,” she snapped. “Now I can’t make it two hours.”
I grinned, lifted a hand to brush her long hair off her shoulder. The tresses were silky and soft to the touch, and I wondered if the rest of her felt the same way. We’d seen practically every inch of her, knew she was tall and lean, muscular and fit. She didn’t have tons of curves, but what she did have was taut, toned and perfect. Sadly all of that was covered against the cold with a heavy coat and hat. If I could have superpowers, it would be X-ray vision.
Her eyes were dark and fringed with the longest lashes. She wore only a hint of makeup, and her lips were shiny and glossy. Her mouth was fucking kissable, although I had to wonder if I’d have my knee kicked out and shoved face-first into the snow if I tried.
It would be well worth it.
“We’re that likable,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes.
“Are you two always together? Like Laurel and Hardy?” she wondered.
“More like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble,” Finch countered. I would have thought Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I didn’t mind being Fred Flintstone. We had looked like bumbling fools earlier. If the Stone Age shoes fit…
“As for always together?” I asked. “With you we are.”
She glanced between us as if she were watching a tennis match. “Together? Are… um… you serious?”
I glanced at Finch, then nodded. “Fuck yeah, we’re serious.”
We wanted Eve, not only because she looked pretty damned incredible in her underwear, but she was feisty, didn’t hold back on anything and was prepared to throat punch both of us. She was intriguing. Sexy. Smart. A little wild. Definitely dangerous. Prickly as fuck.
I wanted to get her between us, loosen her up with a few orgasms. Make her forget everything but our names. Like her fellow detective, Nix, we wanted to share a woman, and we were making that very clear.
“You don’t even know me.”
“That’s different than us wanting you,” I said. “What we’re saying is we both want to get to know you.”
Finch set his hand on her shoulder, very slowly, very gently. We didn’t hurt women. Ever. That was why we hadn’t resisted at all earlier. Besides her pointing a gun at us. With his size, Finch could have easily overpowered her, gun or not.
She wasn’t like any other woman we’d ever met. It didn’t matter that she knew how to incapacitate a guy or get him in handcuffs. We treated women with care. And this one? Eve Miranski? We would handle her gently, not like a delicate flower but like we would a bomb.
“It would be easier to get to know you if you didn’t try to hide from us,
sugar,” Finch said, his hand still on her shoulder.
Her eyes flared with anger. I wasn’t sure if it was from the endearment or the statement. “I haven’t been hiding from you.”