The Trouble with Three Husbands (Daughters of Venus 1)

“What? You’re hanging an axe over my wife’s head.”

“Our wife.”

“Our wife. You could chop off her fucking leg or something. You’re supposed to take care of our Dove, not cripple her. You chop the wood and let her be the goddess she is.”

The goddess. I had to laugh under my breath. Sometimes my life was a dream. Two model-like men arguing about me. ME. For a second I imagined Alé taking me from behind right there against the pile of wood while I took Bentley in my mouth. I would have to seriously reconsider my refusal to have two of the men at once in my bed. Most of the Doves, from what I’ve heard, do it regularly.

“Bentley, it’s fine. I wanted him to show me how,” I said.

Alé tossed the axe into the grass and pulled my face to his. He planted a kiss on my lips.

“No, he is right. You shouldn’t do these dangerous things. It’s not smart. I’m sorry. Let me clean up and we can get breakfast.”

“No babe, I have to shower and get going. We have a meeting…”

“…Yes, the two assholes we picked up the other night. I heard you will let them stay.”

Bentley had retreated to the house. Alé looked away from me and watched him leave. I reached up to turn his face back to me.

“I will let them stay?”

“You…the Seven. You will let them stay.”

“Babe, there hasn’t been a definite decision yet. They still need to pass the psych eval and all that.”

“The psych eval is a joke,” he said sharply.

“Well you passed it.”

He stared me in the eye and I sensed that he wanted to say “exactly” but he didn’t. I remembered once again his shady past and wondered how he passed the tests. But he did. And I was so glad he did.

“It’s how things have always been done,” I reminded him. “If we didn’t do this we wouldn’t have enough fellows to look after our Doves. We still have a lot of single women here and Jessica is turning eighteen and there will be others.”

“So you want them to stay.”

I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t want to lie. I did want them to stay. As long as they passed the tests and proved to be innocent and played nice with others then it made sense.

“I need to get going,” I said.

I walked back into the house to the sound of Alé picking up his next piece of wood and slamming the axe down into it. He was pissed. He’d get over it. All my husbands had been jealous or angry more than once and they always got over it. In truth, I liked getting them all worked up from time to time. The makeup sex was fucking incredible.

When I got to the medical house, Dr. Goodwin already had Harrison hooked up to the lie detector machine. The man was sweating bullets. Selena and Samantha were both sitting on a couch watching the procedure. Pike wasn’t in the room so I could only assume they had him guarded somewhere else.

“How did he do on the one-on-one with the doc?” I asked.

Selena handed me his folder.

I hated trying to read the doctor’s writing and since she’d simply handed me the folder instead of explaining, I sensed she hadn’t been able to understand much of what was in it. His writing was horrible, mostly looking like chicken scratch. I made out a few words.

Seems to suffer from some sort of deep seated depression. Probably stems from the loss of his wife and young son. Doesn’t seem to have devious intentions.

“What about the other one?” I asked.

She handed over another folder.

Pike, Darryl I read on the folder’s tab. I flipped it open to find the same messy handwriting.

Very difficult to read. Seems content in his secrets. May have a difficult time getting him to open up. Hardened exterior. Tattoos on body suggest he has been a member of several different gangs. I don’t suspect he is Venenum.