The Brothers Rule - Carolyn Faulkner Page 0,12

kind of tone, one he'd used with her before, and it was unmistakable, even though she hadn't heard it very often from him—yet.

"No, you didn't. I was embellishing from my end of things."

It surprised her, then, to hear Adam use almost the exact same tone. "Badly, I'm afraid, Laur."

And Ryan's voice was no better when he added to what his brothers had said, "We don't want to hear you talking about yourself like that."

Laurie actually gulped at that. Jeez, was she getting involved with three Doms at once, here?

Her mind jumped to the next thought very quickly.

Apparently, she was already involved with three Doms at once!

"Understand?" Jace asked her, calmly and firmly.

All three of them looked at her expectantly, wearing much the same expression, and her butt began to tingle much worse than it had before.

She adjusted herself uneasily in her chair. "Well, I-I don't know," she finished lamely in the face of all of that dominance.

They each leaned forward in their chairs, their eyes only on her.

"Do we need to help you not forget that?" Ryan asked, his tone no less dominant for the fact that he was the youngest man in the room.

She put her hands up in surrender. "Geez, no! All right. I give!"

Christ, she didn't want to think about what it would be like to have the three of them spank her—Jace was more than bad enough, in and of himself! As it was, she knew she was going to be in perpetual trouble with him because of her potty mouth, which he'd already disciplined her for.

Still, she twisted her hands in her lap nervously as she asked the question, "I wanted to know from you guys the same thing that you wanted to know about me. Are any of you seeing anyone else?"

They all grinned at her like idiots.

"Absolutely not!"

"No way!"

"Why would I, when I've found perfection?" Ryan asked, causing his brothers to give him a dirty look. "What? I can't help it if I say things in a way that women like to hear. Pull up a chair and listen. Maybe you'll learn something."

His brothers made nauseated sounds at that.

Laurie went on as if they hadn't spoken, which she was beginning to think was the right way to deal with them en masse. "Okay, well, I'm not really sure where we go from here."

Jace suggested, "Perhaps some kind of schedule? So that we all get equal time with you?"

She nodded. "That sounds good. Maybe I need to start watching Sister Wives or something like that. Why are there are a zillion TV shows about men with multiple partners but none with women who have multiple partners?"

They were all looking at her as if she had lost her mind.

"I don't think it needs to be quite that complicated," Jace soothed, "but I do think that since there's only one of you, you should be in charge of it, so that when you, inevitably, get sick of these amateurs," he grinned cheekily, "or just want some time to yourself, away from all of us, you can just block out some time and tell us that you're gonna go do… woman things."

She chuckled at that. "Woman things, huh?"

The brothers looked at each other and nodded. "Yeah. Woman things."

"Mani-Pedis, shopping, girls' nights, that kinda stuff," Adam said helpfully.

"Well, I think Jace is right. I'll, well, maybe the easiest thing to do is set up an online calendar. I use Google calendar, so maybe I'll create a new one and share it with you all."

Jace smiled. "That sounds like a plan."

Even though things were kinda, sorta settled among them, Ryan could see that Laurie was looking a bit tired, and he caught his brothers' eyes while she wasn't looking at them.

They all silently agreed—in the unspoken way that brothers do—that they should go. They didn't want to stress her any more—that evening or otherwise.

So, it was Adam who rose, saying, "Now, we don't want to occupy your entire evening. Even just the three of us can be a bit overwhelming, we know. Why don't we divvy up the leftovers and we'll get out of your hair, so you can get some rest?"

Even though it wasn't very late, Laurie was only too happy to go along with that suggestion.

Watching them do that while they were all crammed into her kitchen again—because they'd insisted that they would do it themselves and not bother her with it—was another education in how well they got along with each other. Somebody took the time