The barter system, p.35
The Barter System, page 35
Reaching for Kleenex, Micah crooned, “There, love, don’t cry. We’re right here and you’re going to be okay. Ssh.” They were smoothing her hair from her face and stroking her temples.
“We should have gone with you, Riya, we’re so sorry we didn’t,” Max told her in utter sorrow. “By the time Jack got inside, you were disappearing down the hall. Some idiot kid started shrieking about him being a cop and the place went crazy. He had to fight the rush, by the time he busted in the door, you’d field-kicked the soon-to-be-dead-man and passed out.”
“Dead man?” Riya said, confused. “I…I killed him?”
“No, darling, we are going to kill him,” Micah said furiously. “You ruptured one of his balls, which had to be removed. I’m so proud of you for that, love. But he’ll die as soon as we get an opportunity. Max just bloodied his nose the one time and they put an extra cop on him until he can be taken into custody.” They looked absolutely serious and the only thing that comforted her was that she had time to talk them down.
Max picked up, “Jack called and we got here as fast as we could. We called Tawny from your phone. She…called your dad.” He leaned in close. “We’ll do whatever we have to for your happiness, Riya. Even if that means…means letting you go.” He laid his head on her shoulder and she knew he was struggling for control.
“Ssh, Max…I promise you both it won’t come to that. I’m not going anywhere.” He lifted his head and kissed her on the temple. “I feel so sleepy. Please, please don’t leave. I feel like if you leave, I won’t see you again. Promise. One of you has to stay at all times.” They nodded and soothed her as she drifted off to sleep.
The next day was more fog than clarity due to the painkillers they were pumping into her. Riya refused to discuss anything with her father when she wasn’t equipped to defend herself. This infuriated him to no end…but not as much as the presence of the two men she loved. That made him absolutely apoplectic.
She made either Max or Micah stay with her at all times, the other leaving for short periods to handle business or shower and change. They read to her and brought her something funny every day from the gift shop. They tempted her to get better so they could get the bagels from the place she fell in love with across from their building.
Every time their phone rang, they were talking about her, and she knew it was the other members of the club calling to check in. She’d known everyone for such a short time but was already attached to Blythe and Melody, as well as their wonderful husbands.
On her fourth day, Riya felt a little better and wanted to leave. When the doctor came in, she told him firmly, “I want to go home today. I can recuperate there. Make it happen and I’ll get all these alpha males out of your hospital.”
Then she smiled with a small tilt of her head and the man blushed to the roots of his hair. He told her he would do everything possible to make her happy, that if he was very sure she would be able, he’d send her home.
When he backed out of the room grinning at her, Tawny turned and stared at her incredulously. “Um, BFF, where in the hell did you learn to do that?” At Riya’s questioning look she said snarkily, “Handle a man like that…a full grown man? You were so shy before.”
Riya was very quiet for a long moment, then said, “Tawny, you’d be very surprised what I’ve learned about myself and the world around me in the past couple of months. That was me wanting something very badly and using whatever skills God gave me to get it. I want out of here. Today.”
Her father was beaming. “You don’t have to worry about a thing, Riya. You know Marta will be so happy to have you to fawn over.”
Riya was shaking her head before he finished. “Dad, if you want to see me when I leave this hospital, I suggest you book a room for yourself at the hotel on Micah and Max’s block. My stuff isn’t there yet, but that is where I live. I need to finish my dissertation and I need to rest. My ribs feel like they were taken out and put back badly.”
“Riya Charlize O’Connell.” Oh hell. Here it comes. Her father stood at the end of her bed, hands on his hips and a look of pure fury in his eyes. “Young lady, you will go home to South Florida with me where you belong. I will not have you here, thousands of miles away, living with not one, but two, men of questionable moral character like some kind of cheap...”
Cutting him off with a sharp gesture of her hand, she hissed, “Watch it, Dad. I love you very much but you say one more word and you’ll lose the one thing I value above all else. My respect.” Riya was sitting up in her hospital bed, hands across her rib cage.
Her father looked at her like she was a stranger. “What on earth has happened to you, Riya? This isn’t you. This behavior is nothing like the woman your mother and I raised.”
“I grew up. If you want to see me, you will see me in Manhattan until I can handle flying down to visit you in Florida. This isn’t open for discussion. You can’t ground me, Dad.” She leaned back on the pillows. “I knew you better than I knew myself. But I’ve learned a lot about me recently. The biggest part being I have a lot of Mom in me…and a lot of you. I won’t hurt you if I can help it, but I won’t hurt myself anymore to spare you. I’m not stupid. I’m not naïve. If you know me at all, you should know that.”
She paused, taking a deep breath. “You don’t know Max and Micah, and I can imagine, as my father, you’re probably freaking out right now. Do you remember what you used to tell Mom about me? That I was going to be so much trouble it would take two men to protect me from myself? Well, you weren’t far wrong. Max and Micah are amazing. So different and yet so similar. Came from nothing, just like you, and built it all from scratch.”
There were tears in her eyes from the pain, both physical and emotional, “They have no real family; they grew up in an orphanage together. They’ve seen hell, yet they aren’t bitter, they love life. They have busy, interesting lives and they want me to be part of that. Mom wouldn’t be able to choose between them for me, and I can’t either.” The thought of how much she wanted her mother at that instant caused her breathing to hitch, sending her careening dangerously close to tears.
“Mom would love how passionate Micah is when he dances and how he loves to play. How much Max loves to snuggle and secretly loves chick flicks. They are so, so very beautiful, inside and out…and so much more than I deserve. Mom would want me to be happy and you being judgmental makes me miss her so much more than usual.” She was crying and she was furious at herself for it. Then her crying became sobbing and she was humiliated.
Her father’s hands came around her, pulling her carefully to his chest while he smoothed her hair. “Oh, little Riya. I miss her, too. Every day. I need to tell you something, maybe it will help explain why I’m so…worried for you right now.” He went to his briefcase and pulled out a thick stack of 8x10 photos. He handed them to her and the shock slammed into her. She started paging through them.
A picture of Sean and Riya at the restaurant her first night in town, smiling at each other over candlelight. A picture of them, obviously taken with a high-powered telephoto lens, of them making love in the water the day they spent on his boat. Him kissing her on the dock in Savannah. And her crying while she watched him go.
Then pictures of Victor the day he came to pick her up. Another of them on ATV’s. Another of them naked in the spring on his property, her nudity barely concealed. Then at the bar, dancing. At the diner with Shay and Victor, and them seeing her off at the bus station, Victor crushing her to him.
Her and Joshua at the mall, him kissing her as she got in his car. Their first night at the sports bar. At another club with his team. Then the pool party where she and Jessica were all over him and each other. Her standing at the cab with him stunningly naked in his doorway. Her crying as she drove away.
Lucas…ah, Lucas. Sitting with her at the diner. Riding horses across his range, and her holding him as he sobbed, then kissing him. Their camping trip with her riding him beneath the sleeping bag under the stars, her exposed back to the camera. Dancing and looking completely in love. The airport, a clear shot of her agony as she went to her gate. Then off again in LA where she was shell-shocked and obviously hurting. She and Tawny at the pool.
Then with Ricardo, meeting at Starbucks and getting in his Jeep. Him kissing her on his motorcycle the first night at the club. Several of them dancing. Later, her going down on him in his pool. Then on his motorcycle in her skirt. The major dancing that night, a great shot of her leg being kissed while laid next to his head on the dance floor. The next day at his family barbeque, her leaving with Greg. Ricardo taking her to the airport and their final kiss in his Jeep.
Then Max and Micah. Their first night at the charity event, pictures of her kissing first one, then the other. Dancing and laughing and loving on both men. Her face when she got in the limo as Micah pulled her into his lap hungrily. The three of them running. Having dinner together. Max grabbing her ass as she held Micah’s hand and looked in shop windows on their block. Her leaving the building their first night going to the ménage club.
Going into the warehouse to speak to Bobby. Pictures of her being taken out of the warehouse, her face bruised and bloody, strapped to a gurney. Unconscious and looking very vulnerable.
She went through them several times. And the reality of the violation hit her like a train crash. “You’ve had me followed since day one. You had someone watching me, spying on me, during the most intimate moments of my entire life.” The pain, for herself and her subjects, was almost unbearable. “This was private, personal, much of it painful, Dad! Most of it wasn’t my own pain. You violated these men in a way I never would have. You had no right!
“You know what? I must look like nothing more than a whore to you. You didn’t hear the conversations I had with these men. Almost every shot is sexual and I did have sex with all of them. I won’t apologize for it and I won’t allow you to make me feel cheap because of it. But breaking it down to all sex is so narrow-minded, it is likely the reason I would have never trusted you enough to talk to you about my dissertation.
“You don’t know how it hurt to leave each one…for different reasons. With Sean, he reminded me of you. How closed off you are to reality since Mom’s death. Victor showed me kindness and gentleness I’d never known before. He made love to me for hours just for doing something nice for him, he was that unaccustomed to kindness. Joshua with his youth and vitality who just needed to find himself and know his goals weren’t ‘gay’. Lucas, well, he touched me the most, carrying so much guilt. Considering suicide, refusing even the smallest gestures of intimacy. Who told me he loved me but had to let me go…because I had more to do with my life. Ricardo, so passionately in love with his ex-wife he’d been unable to move forward. He needed her…and didn’t realize she needed him, too.
“And then Max and Micah, who’ve shared everything their entire lives, searching for a woman they could love together. They’re the strongest men I know…a strange and wonderful combination of each aspect of the other men that I loved. A lot like you, kind and giving, sexual and vital, committed men of their word, passionate about life…all the things I wanted I’ve found. Two men who want me to love them both. Who are giving me so much of their hearts, it’s soothing the pieces I left behind with the others.
“They want nothing from me. They know more about me than you do, almost as much as Tawny. And they accept me. But you know what, Dad? The one thing I will never regret was doing this project, meeting each and every one of these men, even Bobby, because I now understand aspects of men I never really knew existed.”
She held up the pictures, “Thank you for these pictures. I’ll never forget these moments. Each of them formed me into the woman I am now. I’ll never settle, devalue myself, or say no when I really mean yes…ever again. I’m going to love those two men with every single piece of myself for as long as they’ll have me. If you want to hate me for that, I’m sorry, but you’ll miss out on a lot of my life.”
Riya swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Right now, you should go back to Florida and give me some time to forgive you for trying to hurt me and scare me into doing what you wanted. I love you, Dad, unconditionally…I need the same from you.”
He turned, walking shakily to the door where Max and Micah stood on the other side listening. At the last minute, he said, “I love you, Riya…I’ll call you.”
When she lost sight of him, she lost her mind.
She was shaking and crying and trying to get all the damn wires off her body when Max lifted her into his arms and Micah held her hands, keeping her from hurting herself.
They let her cry it all out, the pain and confusion of the last several weeks, the heartaches she’d subjected herself to, the possible loss of her father in her life. They held her and kissed her and stroked her hair and back.
Then they took her home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Riya sat in the office her men had created for her just off the kitchen. They wanted her to have a beautiful room to work in with a gorgeous Manhattan view on the other side of the glass.
She’d been working day in and day out for weeks. At night, they’d carry her to bed and snuggle her as she slept. Her ribs were finally healing enough for her to get up and down the stairs without stopping for a break.
For the first two weeks, one of them had always been home with her. When she’d assured them she was fine, they started going back to work and she realized what they’d meant when they explained their schedules.
She accepted no visitors, made no calls. All day, she outlined, typed, and edited her dissertation. At night, she would cook for them and listen to the stories about their day. Most days, she didn’t have her own chair, one of them usually held her in their lap. If she was in a chair, she had to sit between them so one or both could constantly touch her.
She wouldn’t go out at all until the bruises healed. She said that was all they’d need was gossip that they were smacking her around. She wore leggings and soft sweaters that didn’t cling to her torso with thick socks and told them she couldn’t wait to wear pretty clothes again. They always quieted her with kisses when she mentioned it.
The guys in the lobby were told she’d been in a car accident. A drugged out musician wearing combat boots apparently looked exactly like a car accident. No one questioned it.
When her darlings went back to work, Carlo and Henry were on call if she had any issues in the apartment. Rodney was instructed to take her anywhere she wanted. When they realized she wasn’t leaving the house, they told Rodney to bring her anything she might need. Usually, she’d have him bring up bagels and coffee, making him sit with her so she had a friendly face to talk to.
She’d gotten so many emails from her subjects and their girlfriends wanting to know where she was and if she was alright. She didn’t tell anyone what had happened. She couldn’t deal with it. She put an out-of-office reply on her email that told everyone she was working on her dissertation and she’d get back as soon as she could.
Ricardo and Malina showed up first. When he hadn’t heard from her around Thanksgiving and couldn’t get her on the phone, he began searching police databases until he found the report on her attack. He and Malina were on a plane to New York the next day.
The doorman called ahead and she told him to send them up. Somehow, she’d known it would be Ric. Being a cop, he would have the best resources to find her. The elevator doors opened and she smiled. Ric approached her carefully. She held out her hands to him. “I’m fine now, Ricardo. Really.”
Then he and Malina gave her a crushing hug and they were all crying together. It was this sight that greeted her men when they got off the elevator. Riya introduced them as ‘her Max and Micah’ to her friends. Ricardo’s brow went up and she raised hers as well. There was a tense silence.
Malina snorted, “Chica, if there was ever a woman who could handle two men…it would be you.” And they all laughed when Ricardo agreed. The five of them made dinner together and the ‘three M’s’ gave them privacy as Riya and Ricardo spoke in her glass office.
None of the other three specifically watched the room but when they caught one another’s sly glances in that general direction, they laughed at each other.
She showed him the pictures of them from her time in LA and he whistled. “Damn, we were seriously hot.” He looked at her a long time. “You were right, you know? I settled back into my life, Riya. Malina is pregnant. She’s due next summer. Things are good. I took a job in cyber-crimes so I could be home more and its better, and hotter, than it ever was before the divorce. I want to thank you for everything you ever said to me, did for me…and to me. Because I have what I need, what I want sure, but what I need most of all. You’re still the coolest chick on the planet. Even Malina knows that. And I love her like a fat kid loves cake.”
They laughed and she hugged him before saying, “Okay, they’re trying not to be nosey, but we need to show mercy.” He wanted copies of the less risqué pics and she made them for him. With that, they went back to the main room.
