Theirs: Series I Read online

  Theirs

  By

  Arabella Kingsley

  Text copyright © 2015 Arabella Kingsley

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Preface............................................................................................................................

  Chapter One...................................................................................................................

  Chapter Two..................................................................................................................

  Chapter Three...............................................................................................................

  Chapter Four.................................................................................................................

  Chapter Five..................................................................................................................

  Chapter Six.....................................................................................................................

  Chapter Seven................................................................................................................

  Chapter Eight.................................................................................................................

  Preface

  I never expected to love two men. The possibility had never entered my mind. When I met Jason and Marcus I hated men. I didn’t trust any of them. One of them was way more than enough for me to handle. Being in an emotional abusive relationship with one as your husband did that to you. But they were persuasive and determined to redeem the good reputation of men in general with me. I wasn’t convinced but they were persistent, so powerful in their resolve to surround me with their love, protection and dominance until I felt safe enough to let go of my pain, fear, my past and willingly surrender to them.

  I have never regretted falling in love with two dominant men keen to rule and protect me with their strong love. I am theirs and always will be theirs to command and love, bound to both through life and perhaps death. There is no escape and I am grateful to be locked in their hearts forever more, safe and at blissful obedient peace.

  Chapter One

  I was in Rome when I first met Jason and Marcus. They came to my rescue. Yet another row was brewing between my husband and I. Married for too long to a man who cared little for what I thought or what I could do was beginning to really take its toll on me. We had rowed because I had wanted to buy something in a book shop and although it was of little monetary value he had not believed it worthy of buying because he deemed it that way. Stuart stood his tall figure leaning over me in the shop just like he always did, looking down at me, bellowing at me at the top of his voice as he usually did when I was about to do something he disagreed with.

  I valiantly put up a fight trying not to cringe at the people throwing disapproving glances our way at his booming condescending voice. Inside I was dying, feeling defeated but I still kept going, desperately trying to stand up to him. But then he swore loudly at me. A weapon he reserved from when his message wasn’t really getting through. Tears gathered when he did it again and threw his arms in to the air moving closer towards me, covering my body with his larger male frame until I cowered to intimidate me in to obeying him. He always knew I would back down then to stop the scene escalating. That was how he always won.

  I glanced to the side and saw a handsome dark haired man in a tailored designer black suit browsing through a guide book. He was breathtaking, tall with an enticing athletic figure that made him stand out against every other man in the shop. He sported light sexy facial hair around his mouth and jaw that induced me to imagine running my fingers through in a passionate encounter. I lowered my eyes when he glanced up at me as though feeling scrutinized.

  Disappointment hit me heavy when I was forced to look upon my angry husband’s twisted contorted face as he tried his hardest to control me once again with his nasty behavior. But I found myself tuning out for another second and glancing back at the man to the point it made my cheeks warm.

  Next to him was an identical man also in a similar slick designer suit who was pointing something out to him in the book. The man holding the book open lifted his head and gestured with a nod to his twin in my direction as Thomas continued to swear and berate me in front of the whole shop. The twin looked up at me and then frowned glancing at Thomas with heavy disapproval. The first held my gaze for just a second and was joined by his brother in giving me a look of sympathy.

  I turned away quickly ashamed I had attracted so much attention in causing the row by attempting to stand up to Thomas. He always won. It was a futile exercise. To save everyone else any further embarrassment at my expense and stop my heart thudding I put down the book I wanted to buy and prepared to walk away expecting the scene to end but Thomas had other ideas. He took hold of my arms and pulled my struggling body out of the shop and on to the pavement.

  I turned around and pushed at him to show my anger, pushed over the edge with my hurt and temper that he had embarrassed me so deeply. Two strong arms suddenly wound themselves around my waist and lifted me up and away from Thomas. My legs kicked at the air as I found myself being carried against the stranger’s body. I pulled at his arms but they refused to let go of me. Suddenly afraid I was about to be kidnapped and carried away I looked up to see where Thomas was. He rarely defended me and was completely unreliable in an altercation but I was desperate. Everything was moving so fast I didn’t know what was happening.

  The man who had been looking at me in the shop was standing in front of Thomas talking to him in a robust American voice, pointing his finger at him when my husband pushed at his shoulder with his hand. It was his twin brother who carried me down the pavement away from the scene and then set me down.

  I was shaking with nervous tension not just from my scene with Thomas. My head was spinning with pain and a peculiar dizziness that came upon me quickly. I raised my eyes up at the tall American who came to stand in front of me. He put his hand on my arm and viewed me with heavy concern in his twinkling dark brown eyes.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  I was convinced I could trace a small amount of a New York accent in his voice before I answered him.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” my tone was clipped haughty English when I spoke. “Why did you do that? Who are you?”

  “Marcus Wolf. You are?”

  “Elizabeth Knight,” I answered in a daze. “Please, why did you take me away?”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said with a gorgeous smile taking hold of both of my arms to steady my dizzy body. “You don’t look so good. You’re skin is very pale. I think you need to sit down,” he said ignoring my question to guide me through the throng of tourists walking up and down the street to a nearby park bench.

  Marcus ignored my protests and would not let me go. He was taking me further and further away from Thomas and the American who were still arguing and now beginning to attract more attention from onlookers. I wanted to return and diffuse the situation. It had been my job for a long time to calm any situation Thomas’s temper got us in to and I felt confused and worried I was being prevented from executing my task.

  “I need to go back,” I kept saying as the handsome man firmly made me lower in to the seat.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, honey. Stay put,” he commanded in a velvet voice.

  Although the order was spoken eloquently, there was no mistaking the note of authority in it. I was expected to obey without question and for some strange reason it made me take notice and do as I was told.

  Secretly I was grateful to the strange
r for dragging me away from Thomas. I could breathe and be at peace on the park bench. The heavy weight that was always hanging around my neck had been removed. The sensation of weightlessness always came upon me when I put some distance between Thomas and myself. This time it was being enforced and although I protested, my gratitude for the man’s action was overwhelming.

  But I could not seem to stop the pounding in my head and the way everything was spinning around me. I wondered if it was a stress reaction. I’d had them before and the row with Thomas had been draining.

  Marcus leaned over me and placed the back of his fingers gently on my forehead. It was cool on my brow.

  “You’re warm. Do you feel faint?” he asked softly, still with his hand on my brow.

  “Just a bit dizzy. It’s probably just stress. Please I need to go back.”

  I tried to sit up but he shook his head at me.

  “Shh,” he whispered moving his hand to my shoulder to keep me in the seat. “You aren’t going anywhere, little girl. There is no way I am letting you go back to face that angry husband of yours. I couldn’t believe the way he was treating you. No man should ever threaten a woman, especially his wife like that. Now stay still until Jason comes here and then I want to make sure you rest somewhere quiet.”

  His voice was so soft and lulling I found my fear relaxing and my resistance melting. As though to confirm his resolve not to let me move he stroked my cheek when I put my hand to my head in a vain attempt to stop it aching.

  “Shh, he won’t be long.”

  Marcus stood up and turned quickly hearing determined footsteps behind him. Instinctively he moved in front of me to shield me. My mouth widened and opened in shock. No man had ever done that for me before. I’d always believed I wasn’t worth that kind of protection. Jason Wolf walked towards us sorting black sunglasses over his eyes.

  “Get her up quick. He won’t be told to back off,” there was heavy annoyance in Jason’s tone. “He isn’t going to leave her alone and I don’t want her going back to him. He is loosing it big time.”

  He made a circle with his finger in the air indicating he thought Thomas unhinged. He was more than likely right along with overbearing and emotionally abusive. I couldn’t take anymore or another row on the street. Yet duty to Thomas as his pathetic beaten down wife tried to assert itself.

  “I should try and calm him down,” I said standing up. “Thank you for your help but I must go back to him.”

  I was physically shaking at the prospect.

  Jason wagged at finger at me. “No way, lady. Marcus, let’s get her out of here and safe. Her husband is in no fit state to talk to her and he is right behind me.”

  Marcus nodded and took hold of my arm in a firm grip. He began making me walk up the street at a pace and a half. I could barely keep up with him. Jason came up on my other side and took hold of my opposite arm and intensified the pace to the point my feet were barely touching the ground.

  I could hear Thomas shouting at me from behind in a vile temper. Any minute now the Cabineri were going to turn up and he would be arrested if he didn’t get a grip and calm down. Maybe it was better if he didn’t and he was put in jail for the night then I could escape, run away, just like I dreamed for so long now.

  Jason took his mobile out of his pocket and spoke in fluent Italian down the other end of the phone. I couldn’t understand what he was saying but all of a sudden he was marching me across the road with Marcus expertly dodging the busy traffic leaving Thomas struggling to cross after us. A sleek expensive black Mercedes was parked across the road. The two men led me to it with purpose. That was when I began to drag my feet.

  “What is this? Are you going to kidnap me?” I asked fearfully raising my voice enough to be heard above the din of the Roman traffic.

  Marcus opened the car door and Jason swung me around in to his arms.

  “Listen, honey, no one is going to force you to go anywhere you don’t want to but I really don’t want to leave you alone with your husband right now. He has lost it. I just want you safe. Please let us take you away from here. I promise you are safe. Trust us to look after you. You really need someone to care for you right now and we want to,” he said removing his sunglasses. “You will be in good hands.”

  I hesitated for a brief moment noticing a heavenly smell of pine and cedar wood swirl around me from Jason’s cologne that I had also smelt on his brother when he’d leaned over me on the bench. His arms were so strong, powerful and protective around me I already felt safe and in one crazy moment, I decided to take a chance and walk out on a life of pain.

  “Ok, I’ll come. Thank you.”

  The twins helped me in to the car. Jason got in beside me and Marcus moved to the front just as Thomas appeared at his side. He took hold of the lapel of Marcus’s suit jacket and pulled. With a sharp shove Marcus pushed him off swearing at him.

  “You won’t touch or hurt her again. She is with us and you won’t see her again. Back off,” he shouted at Thomas before getting in the car and stopping another tussle between the two of them.

  The Mercedes pulled away in to the traffic the moment Marcus shut the door and left Thomas staring hard and angry after me.

  I closed my eyes and slumped in the seat a wave of tears bursting a dam in my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. Jason leaned over in the seat and put his hand on my shoulder while Marcus turned around in his seat.

  “I swear she was going to pass out on the park bench. Let’s get her to a café or better still the hotel. Somewhere quiet,” Marcus said stretching out his hand to rub my arm pressing against the back of the driver’s seat in an attempt to shield them from my unexpected outburst at the same time his brother was sweeping his hand over my shoulder. I didn’t miss the warning frown Jason gave him and I got the feeling I had just got in the middle of some sort of disagreement.

  The car sped past the Coliseum and through the streets of Rome away from Thomas and a life I vowed I would not let myself to return to it whatever the consequences I would have to face. This time I would take charge, conquer my fears about being alone and looking after myself. All the things Thomas had drummed in to me day after day I was incapable of doing But it seemed the Universe had other plans for me when my head spun and I suddenly fell back against the seat unconscious, sealing my fate.

  Chapter Two

  I woke in Marcus’s arms. He was carrying me. We were inside a lift in a hotel and the doors were closing. His brother was next to him. I blinked my eyes blearily attempting to take in my surroundings to get my bearings. Marcus was holding my body with ease in.

  “Hey, she’s waking up,” Marcus said tightening his hold around my body.

  Jason quickly turned and stroked his fingers through my mid length brunette hair.

  “How are you feeling, little one?” he asked in a soft whisper as though speaking to a child.

  His brother had used the same tone and words when I was resting on the park bench. I had let it pass at the time but now when Jason said it I felt like there was more behind it.

  A part of me wanted to stiffen at its use. I wasn’t a child. Thomas had treated me like one for five years of marriage hell but somehow this was different. I softened and warmed to Jason’s caressing touch through my hair delighting in the way he called me little one. It made me feel safe, a feeling I rarely felt and craved from a man, something my husband had denied me.

  “I think I am ok,” I answered in a sleepy voice.

  “You need some rest and then we will discuss what we are going to do next,” Marcus said carrying me out of the deserted lift straight in to a large opulent room filled with whites, marble pillars and light suede upholstery.

  “I will put her in my bed,” Marcus said carrying me through in to another room in which a bed draped in sumptuous dark grey silk sheets was center stage.

  We must have been in the penthouse because the room was oval and in front of the huge bed big enough for four let alone two, there were four tall thin windows hi
tting the floor around the curved wall dressed in white curtains. They looked out over the city and I was sure I caught a glimpse of the coliseum in the distance as Marcus carried me to the bed and lay me down on top of it. Somewhere from below the elevated room I could hear the hoot of taxis and the roar of motorcycles and scooters in the mid day traffic.

  Jason swept his hand around the back of my head to lift it off the pillow so he could put them in a better position to support me. I couldn’t help but look up at his handsome face in awe as he laid me back down on them.

  Marcus was on the phone ringing for a doctor and ordering me some aspirin.

  “We are in luck. A doctor was called in for another person in the hotel and he is on his way up,” Marcus said walking over to me to stand next to his brother.

  “Won’t be long now, baby girl. We’ll get you looked at by the doctor and then in to bed for some rest.”

  They towered over me in their black business suits, their tall dominant male frames dwarfing my small curved figure lying on the bed. I felt small and vulnerable, in their power. But I didn’t feel afraid quite the contrary I felt strangely aroused by their presence. I couldn’t help but frown at my odd feelings.