Her eyes narrowed. “I am not spoiled.”
“Of course you are, sugar.” He grinned, causing Mac to stifle his laughter. “He has you spoiled worse than a Christmas puppy, and that’s how he loves you best. But not me.” He leaned back in his chair lazily. “I’m a hardass. I can take the heat. Fight with me all you want, I know how to spank you and make you like it.”
Mac tensed, but not in anger as he should have. The thought of watching Jethro deliver one of his erotic spankings to Keiley’s rounded little rear was enough to arouse him despite the threat they had just avoided.
“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” she asked Mac incredulously, turning to stare back at him with narrowed eyes.
Mac couldn’t help but grin. “He can make you come when he spanks you. What do you think?”
“I think you’re both perverts,” she snapped back.
Mac arched his brow in surprise as he pulled a chair from the table and took his own seat. “Are you just figuring that out, sweetheart?”
She stared back at him intently before her gaze shifted to Jethro. Mac saw the thoughtful look in her eyes, the way she focused, as though she were seeing deeper than any of them knew.
“No,” she finally answered, turning back to meet his gaze with a mysterious little smile. “I already knew.”
And that was a scary thought.
Hours later, Mac sat in the recliner across from the queen-size bed where Jethro held Keiley. There was something oddly intimate about the way his friend had wrapped his body around Keiley after Mac left the bed. Something Mac hadn’t noticed before with the other women they had spent the night with.
Jethro held her much as Mac did himself. He surrounded her. She was tucked into the curve of his body, the loose t-shirt and cotton pants she wore doing nothing to dispel the sensual, erotic sight of Jethro wrapped so snugly around her.
They were all dressed in comfortable clothing. Jethro was in sweats and a gray t-shirt. Mac himself still wore his jeans, a shirt, and sneakers.
They were prepared, though the odds were that they were prepared for nothing. But Keiley had refused to undress. The stark fear that had filled her eyes when he suggested it had prompted him to let the subject go.
He watched curiously as Jethro shifted, drawing Keiley closer, her head tucked beneath his chin, his hand pressing against her stomach, drawing her tighter into his thighs.
He should be jealous, Mac thought. No one had ever held Keiley like that with the exception of himself. And he was observant enough to note the fact that Jethro was holding her as he had never held another woman in Mac’s presence.
He rubbed his finger thoughtfully over his cheek, wondering at the lack of jealousy, the lack of possessiveness. He was like a dog over a bone when it came to other men being around Keiley. He knew the strength of his possessiveness where she was concerned and he knew he should be worried that it was absent now.
What the hell was up with that? he wondered. He was sitting here, watching another man hold her, and he was as aroused as he had been watching Jethro go down on her earlier that night.
He breathed out heavily and stared toward the heavily curtained window reflectively. For the past ten years, Jethro had almost exclusively been the third he brought to the bed with his lovers. For some reason he seemed to provide the perfect counterpoint that Mac had been looking for to bring to his women. Mac cared for them; Jethro lusted. Gentle dominance and dark power, that was what they provided as a team for the lovers they had shared.
They were partners at the Bureau, the perfect team for the investigations they worked. They were also the perfect team for the women they shared.
And now, the woman they loved.
The insight came to him slowly as he turned his gaze back to the bed. Jethro was beginning to care for Keiley, and Mac hadn’t expected that. But neither was he regretting it, nor was he worried about it.
Especially now. She was protected in ways he couldn’t protect her on his own, and in the past years he had worried about that. Providing the protection she would need if one of his past investigations ever managed to come back and haunt him as it was now.
The Playboy was good. Damned good. And he had so far eluded every law enforcement officer who had investigated the individual cases. And with each successive strike, he was growing more violent.
“We’ll protect her, Mac.” Jethro’s voice was a quiet whisper, pitched just low enough to keep from disturbing Keiley. “He won’t get away this time.”
Mac stared back at his partner, seeing much more than he bet Jethro thought he could see. Mac could sense the emotion in the other man, the same fiery response to Keiley that Mac had known since the first day he met her. There was no turning away from her. There was no chance to avoid the effect she had on a man once he touched her. There was only the sure and certain knowledge that life would never be the same without her.
“Yes, we’ll protect her,” Mac agreed, feeling the burning rage building inside him once again.
Tonight had been too damned close.
“You need to train her to work with us,” Jethro said then. “Teach her how to protect herself and how to back us up.”
“Teach her how to stay put,” Mac muttered.