She had a feeling she wouldn’t have to worry about sex because they would be too sore to move.
They had been at this off and on for two days now. Pushing each other, daring, challenging, taking out their aggressions in what they called “preparation” until they could take them out on the stalker who had decided to begin e-mailing with fanatic intensity.
The smug dares he had issued to Mac and Jethro were insane. Declaring both men incompetent, unable to protect her. That she needed a man better able to secure her welfare because obviously Mac couldn’t. Making his knowledge of the building relationship between her and the two men clearly apparent.
In the past two days, there had been over six e-mails, and even now Jethro’s tracking program was working its way through the bouncing Internet signal the stalker was using to send them.
The e-mail account was from an anonymous mailbox, and the origin of it was ghosting through Internet hosts all over the globe. And while Jethro attempted to track him, his e-mails were escalating in anger to the point that he was now berating Mac and Jethro about their sexual relationship with her.
At that thought she sobered, trying to push back the niggling discomfort moving inside her. Not that ha**ng s*x with the two men together was bothering her; that part she thought she was handling reasonably well. What had begun rippling through her with nervous intent was the awareness that something more than sex was growing between her and Jethro, though.
In the past days she grown aware of a thread of feeling, an emotion that had first begun between her and Mac during those first weeks of courtship. It was growing between her and Jethro now, though it didn’t seem to be detracting from the bond she had with Mac.
She was certain Mac couldn’t want this to happen. Could he? He had always seemed so possessive of her, so determined to keep other men from encroaching on her attention, that he was suddenly confusing her.
He was throwing her and Jethro together, giving the other man every chance to touch her however he liked, even to the point that often Mac found his release with his hand or buried in her mouth rather than within her body.
Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to the final adjustments she was making to the program Mac was using to scan the Internet, forums, and chat boards for the stalker. Key words were tweaked with regularity, and the processing ability of the program was now working with one hundred and ten percent efficiency and speed.
It wasn’t going to make its round of scans overnight, but it would do it much faster now than it had before.
As she set the program to run in the background of the laptop she looked up as Mac and Jethro collapsed, panting, onto the mat, obviously calling a draw once again.
“You two are going to kill each other,” she told them as she set the computer aside and rose to her feet. “You’re exhausting me just watching you.”
They turned their heads to stare at her for a long moment before groaning and turning away once again.
Keiley leaned back on the sofa and watched them with a smile. “How much longer are you two going to go on like this before you realize you’re equally matched?”
“Not true,” Jethro muttered. “I’m faster than he is.”
“Bullshit,” Mac groaned. “I’m stronger.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, and you’re both mean as a junkyard dog and twice as cunning. Now get your butts to the shower so I can fix lunch. I’m hungry and I’m tired of watching the two of you beat each other up.”
She absently ruffled the fur of the rather large Pappy as he laid his head on her lap now that the laptop was moved to the side. “You’re even making Pappy tired.”
Mac turned his head again to stare at the dog with narrowed eyes. “Damned mutt. He’s never going to go back outside, is he?”
“Probably not.” She smiled back at him consolingly. He preferred having pets outside rather than in the house. “Content yourself with the fact that he seems housebroken.”
Mac grunted at that before levering himself upright and watching as Jethro did the same.
“You should have never let that damned dog in the house,” he growled.
Jethro just shook his head. He hadn’t said much in the past few days, brooding over his computer instead and conducting several net meetings with agents in the Bureau’s D.C. office.
Keiley stood on her feet. Pappy rose as well, trotting behind her as she headed for the door. “Go shower,” she told the men.
The dog pushed in front of her, moving through the short hallway ahead of her as she entered the house, his ears cocked as though listening for anything unusual.
Keiley was aware of the small pistol resting in the pocket of the dress she was wearing today and the knowledge that she couldn’t be too careful now, even in her own home.
“Hold up there.” Mac caught her arm as she neared the entrance to the living room and moved ahead of her.
His weapon was in his hand, and as she glanced behind her at Jethro, she saw that he carried one as well.
“This house is rigged with so many damned alarms and booby traps now that I’m afraid of being caught in one myself,” she snorted. “I doubt anyone is going to slip in.”