STORY EXCERPT

Helena let out a cry of alarm as the door to her office swung wildly on its hinges, the door latch having given way too much greater strength. Splintered wood flew across one of London’s most luxurious private offices. The door swung a full arc and slammed against the wall, now appearing rather much the worse for wear.

Helena looked at Steven with utter shock in her eyes. An older man in an expensive suit looked at him with a curious mixture of hatred and surprise.

He isn’t used to being disturbed when he intimidates women, Steven thought. Isn’t that just too damned bad?

“What’s going on here?” Steven demanded.

Jason and Marc were directly behind him. He could almost feel the heat of their bodies. Their blood was up, just like his. Intimidating or threatening women wasn’t something they would countenance. The three of them never had, and they never would. Ever. Not under any circumstances.

A man in his early sixties scowled furiously, then asked, “Who the fuck are you? And who the fuck do you think you are?”

The man was obviously well-to-do, dressed in a Savile Row double-breasted gray pin-striped suit and wide yellow necktie. Steven knew that the attire cost more than most men could afford with three or four months’ wages. There was a fury in the man’s eyes that suggested he could kill if provoked. Steven suspected he had killed, and probably liked doing it.

The man wasn’t the first killer Steven had come face-to-face with.

“Keep talking like that and I’ll be the guy to smash those pearly white teeth down your throat.” Steven spoke the words in an even voice, coldly. He saw the murderous rage blazing in the man’s eyes, but he didn’t give a damn. He turned to Helena. “Are you all right? Has he tried to hurt you?”

“I’m okay,” Helena said softly.

Steven could see that she was emotionally shaken. He loathed men who frightened women. That crossed a line he couldn’t cross or countenance. It was something he couldn’t forgive.

“Are you sure he didn’t hurt you”?” he asked.

“Not…physically,” she replied. The words came out with visible effort.

He turned toward the man. “My name is Steven Jackson. And your name is…”

“Cleve Smythe-Morgan. Now, do yourself a favor and mind your own fucking business before I have your stinking Yankee ass kicked out of here—and not just out of London, but out of England altogether.” He never once raised his voice above a conversational level. He was sure in his authority.

Steven smiled, but there was no humor in the expression. For a moment his right hand clenched into a fist, but then he immediately splayed his fingers and smiled. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, then turned dismissively away from Cleve.

“Do you want me to throw his sorry ass out the door or through the window?” he asked Helena. “I can do either. The call is yours to make.”

Helena exhaled softly but audibly, obviously not wanting any violence to occur in her office, and just as clearly thinking that Steven might be the one to start it.

“Don’t do anything,” Helena said, her voice a whisper. She looked at Cleve and said, “You have to leave now. Whatever questions you have for me can be addressed during the next board meeting.”

“This isn’t over,” Cleve said with quiet venom. “You’re a fool if you think it is.”

* * * *

Helena felt her knees trembling, and she did all she could to keep her fear from being visible to Steven, Marc, and Jason. She liked them all—actually, her emotions toward them might be something slightly more intense than “like.” But she hadn’t so much as shared a single kiss with any of them—not even with Steven, who flirted with her more openly than the other two. It was he who most made her heart rate accelerate when he gave her that boyish smile that belied the fact that he had survived as an intelligence operative and officer throughout that nasty, savage war with the Nazis.

She sat in her chair and wheeled it up close to her desk to hide her legs. She gave the three men in her office a smile that was as professional as she could make it. She made a vague gesture toward the straight-backed chairs that faced her desk, then folded her hands in her lap. She wasn’t entirely certain, but she suspected her hands were visibly shaking. At least a little. Cleve had unnerved her more than she wanted to admit.

Karen was in the doorway, her face pale.

“Everything’s fine,” Helena said. The words sounded utterly ridiculous, even in her own ears. “Please, just close the door. I’m safe now.”

She watched as Karen tried three times to close the door, but failed to get the bolt to slide into place. Steven had thoroughly destroyed the latch, and nothing would correct the damage done except the skill of a good carpenter.

“It’s fine,” Helena said to her assistant. “Just close it as best you can and then go back to your desk.”

She could tell that Karen didn’t want to leave her alone with the men in the office, and though she appreciated her assistant’s loyalty and protectiveness, Helena was quite certain that she had nothing to fear from Steven and his men.

At least she didn’t have to be afraid of them being violent toward her. Her own emotions toward them, though she’d always kept those feelings mostly in check, varied between being faintly romantic to being wildly sexual. She’d never before had sensual thoughts of being with two men at the same time, and certainly had never let her sexual imagination wander into the territory of three men simultaneously. But those were emotions that she’d never dreamed about…until she’d met them.

ADULT EXCERPT

Do this right, Steven told himself with self-discipline borne at home and then reinforced in the military to a steely hardness. You may never have another chance to truly let her know the kind of man you really are.

“But…” Helena said, then the sentence died away like smoke in the wind.

Steven rose and made a motion with his hand. Jason moved so that he was on his knees on the plush carpeting, positioning himself directly in front of her.

“Tonight,” Steven said, bending at the waist to whisper into Helena’s ear, “we will erase the bad memories you now have of this evening, and replace them with ones you’ll never forget…and never regret.”

“Oh, God, this can’t be happening to me.” Helena sighed. “What have I gotten myself into? Things like this just don’t happen to me.”

“They do now,” Steven countered. “And they’ll happen often. As often as you want.” He chuckled softly in her ear. With the benefit of having long legs, he stepped high so that he was sitting directly behind her in the chair, with her shapely hips between his spread thighs. “And my guess is, you’ll want this to happen a lot.” His tongue traced the circumference of her ear slowly. She trembled. Her emotional confusion was reaching epic dimensions. “There’s a lot of lost time that you’ve got to make up for, and we intend to help you do precisely that.”

His words were like a narcotic to Helena’s libido. They were dangerous and intoxicating…and delicious. She felt her clitoris tighten in anticipation.

Jason reached for Helena’s breast with his right hand. She immediately reacted, but so did Steven. He caught her wrist and pulled her arm aside. A moment later, he had her left wrist similarly trapped, her hands pulled away from her body.

“What are you doing?” Helena quietly asked. “Stupid question,” she muttered to herself. This was the second time that day that she been shackled by manly hands.

Steven held her by her wrists with her arms partially outstretched. He could feel his cock swelling into an erection, growing at an astonishing pace. His clothes were a hindrance to his lusty expansion.

Steven watched, hardly breathing, as Jason eased his index finger inside the lapel of the silk robe Helena wore. Slowly, almost lazily, he eased the sheer silk around the plump, lusciously rounded mound of her breast. Her nipple was beaded, swollen with lust.

“Marc,” Steven said after a moment, “you needn’t be such a gentleman. I suspect we’ll all soon discover that Helena likes being pleasured by the two of you at the same time.”

Marc put his hand on Helena’s knee and pushed it aside, spreading her thighs lewdly wide, making room for himself on the floor beside Jason.

“Oh,” Helena said in a breathy whisper. “Oh, no…”

Steven watched as Marc exposed Helena’s breast nearest to him. Then, as if choreographed, though Steven knew that it wasn’t, both men leaned forward and took the crests of her breasts into his mouth.

Steven heard Helena make a low, throaty groan of pleasure. She shivered. Steven held her wrists tightly, keeping her voluptuous body between his thighs. Looking over her shoulder, he watched as his men sucked hungrily on the plump mounds of Helena’s breasts.

“Kiss me,” Steven said, his tone low, dictatorial.

Helena angled her face upward and to the side. A moment later, Steven was kissing her hungrily, opening his lips invitingly, supremely pleased when Helena thrust her tongue into his mouth. He moaned as fresh ecstasy surged through his veins.

They kissed for a long time. Steven couldn’t say with any certainty how long the single kiss had lasted, only that it wasn’t sufficient to satisfy his sexual hunger. Helena had a way of making him feel sexually ravenous, utterly insatiable. It seemed as though no matter how much of herself she gave, he still couldn’t get enough. He wanted more. Always more.

He straightened his spine and looked down into Helena’s eyes, then let his gaze roam slowly down her body. He discovered that Jason was no longer sucking on her breast. Instead, he was now sucking on her clitoris while Marc continued to give her nipple the kind of oral attention that a licentious princess had every right in her pampered world to insist upon.

“Oh…oh, no!” Helena whispered, her expression suddenly transforming from one of sublime pleasure to one of something akin to painful ecstasy.

And then she began thrashing about his thighs. Steven knew that she was in the throes of a powerful climax. He was pleased, though not surprised.

Patience, Steven, he thought. Willpower was often his greatest asset, and he counted on it now. You’ll have your turn with this wanton angel, but this time isn’t your time. You’ve always put the needs of your men before your own. You’ve got to do this right_—you’ve got to be a patient man_—if you’re going create a ménage a quatre that’ll last the ages.

“Stop!” Helena suddenly cried out. “Please! I can’t take any more.”

In a low, authoritative tone, Steven said slowly and distinctly, “Stop. Now.”

Jason and Marc immediately stopped what they were doing. Their alacrity pleased Steven. His men had proven that even in the throes of passion, they still followed his orders—instantly, and to the letter. Without question. Most certainly without complaint.

They’re good soldiers. Even after the war, they’re still good soldiers.

“Steven,” Helena said in a soft whisper as she breathed deeply, looking over her shoulder at him. “I thought I was going to explode. Or melt.” She closed her eyes. “Or maybe something else. I don’t know what. Nothing like this has ever happened to me.” She slumped as though all the muscles in her body had suddenly lost their strength. “I suspect I’m supposed to feel rather guilty for what just happened, but for the record, that was—and I don’t like using this particular word aloud—fucking fantastic.”

Steven looked at Jason and said, “She needs three minutes, then another orgasm should be administered.”

There was a certain delirium in Helena’s expression when she looked over her shoulder up at Steven and asked, in a voice hardly above a whisper, “There’s more?”