Contractual Obligation

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ten days after Harper’s surgery, on her first day back at work, her father walked into her office without knocking first. He closed and locked the door behind him, meaning he wanted a long, private chat with her. She was on the phone with one of their attorneys. Her dad sat in front of her desk expectantly, without saying a word.

She tried not to feel his gaze on her as she talked. Finally she was able to end the call, and she looked at him. “Yes?”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

In the pit of her stomach, she knew what this was about. She didn’t seriously worry about him pulling rank on her and firing Doug and Tate, but this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have.

“What?” she finally asked.

“You know what, little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and waited her out. A reminder from childhood, when he knew she’d done something, she knew he knew exactly what, and he waited her out to admit it so they could continue with the discussion of whatever happened.

“What do you want me to say, Daddy?” she finally asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“I want you to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing.”

“I’m trying to live my life. You’re the one, if you’ll remember, who threatened to push me out of the company if I didn’t get a boyfriend.”

“No, I said if you didn’t learn to balance your personal life. I never said go out and get involved in a threesome!”

“Do you have a problem with my personal life?”

“I—” His mouth snapped shut. Finally, he said, “What do you want me to say? That I’m happy for you having two boyfriends?”

“No, I want you to say you’re happy for me falling in love with two wonderful men who love me and each other and who want to be a family. Two men who are as dedicated to this company as I am, for that matter. Hey, you always said when I was growing up that you pitied the man I ended up with because he’d have a hard time handling me. Now I have two who can share the job.”

He stared at her, stunned, before he finally burst out laughing. She smiled but didn’t join him, still unsure the direction the conversation would take.

“You’ve got a valid point there, sweetheart,” he eventually said when he composed himself. “No one man would ever be able to handle you.” He sighed. “What the hell am I going to do with you, kiddo?”

“Let me run this company, and my life, the way I need to. It’s that simple. I trust both of them to be as dedicated to the success of this company as I am. You either have faith in me and my abilities, or you don’t. And if you don’t, say so now so we can decide how to transition the company over to another CEO.” She wanted to hold her breath while waiting for his answer. It was a bluff, because the last thing she wanted was to walk away from something she’d worked so damned hard for.

After a silence that felt like forever, he nodded. “You’re right. You’re an adult, and I do have faith in you.” He shook a finger at her. “If they hurt you, I’ll kill them.”

When he stood, she did, too. She rounded the desk and hugged him. “Daddy, they love me. I love them. I know it’s crazy, but it’s what happened, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“If you’re happy, that’s all that matters, I suppose.” He released her and headed for her office door. “Are there any other surprises I need to be made aware of?”

“No, Daddy.”

He turned before he exited. “Don’t be surprised if someone, at some time, tries to use this against you. We’re in a business where people can be pretty cutthroat when going after contracts. I don’t have to tell you that. But if you want to walk this path, you’re going to need skin as tough as a shark’s. And you’re going to have to fight the urge to lose your temper if someone tries bullshit like that.”

She nodded. “I know, Daddy. It’s okay. I’m not worried about it.”

When he left, she plopped back down in her office chair. She knew he was right, but it wouldn’t change her mind about Doug and Tate. She loved them. She was done sacrificing her personal life. She could have them and her business, and god help anyone who stood in her way and tried to take either from her.

When she arrived home that night, Tate had gotten there first. They agreed they didn’t all have to go into the office together, or even at the same time. Sometimes Harper would go work out in the morning if she didn’t have meetings, and she treasured that alone time so she could clear her thoughts. She loved that the men wanted to give her space and not smother her twenty-four-seven.

“Hey, babe,” he said as she walked in and found him in the kitchen. He’d already started dinner. “What’s wrong?”

She set her briefcase on the table. “What do you mean?”

“The frowny thing. What happened?”

She slumped into a chair. “Daddy decided he wanted to talk with me today about our situation.”

“Oh.” Did he look a few shades paler? “And?”

“I told him it’s my life and that I’m an adult, and if he trusts me to run his company, he should trust me to run my personal life.”

His relief was obviously visible in how his whole posture relaxed. “Does he hate me and Doug?”

“No.” She grinned. “Not yet, anyways.”

He pulled her to him. “You get a kick out of yanking our chains sometimes, don’t you?” He held her tightly and nibbled on the side of her neck.

“Duh.” She moaned. Whenever either man did this to her it totally unhinged all her joints, started her clit throbbing, and usually ended up with them in bed in a very short amount of time.

Probably why they loved to do it to her so much.

Just as she was about to suggest they do just that, move upstairs into bed, Doug walked in. “Oooh, what am I missing?”

“Nothing…yet,” Tate teased as he released her with a final kiss on her neck.

“Not for lack of trying on my part,” she snarked.

Doug engulfed her in a hug. “Aww, is mean ole Tate teasing my poor girl?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I promise we’ll take care of that after dinner. Won’t we, Tate?”

He’d already turned back to the stove, where something delicious was simmering. “Yep. Without a doubt.”

After dinner they made her wait until they’d cleaned everything up and the dishes were done and put away. Then Doug reached over and gave her a gentle slap on the ass. “Upstairs, young lady,” he teased. “March.”

She wondered for all of a second if scrambling full speed for the stairs counted as marching. Harper was already naked in the middle of the bed by the time the men made it upstairs and to the bedroom doorway.

“Hmm, she sure seems eager, doesn’t she?” Tate asked.

“Yep. She sure does,” Doug replied with a grin.

They advanced on her as they stripped, naked by the time they joined her in bed. She was ready for more than a show from them tonight. She wanted to go to sleep well fucked, and the doctor had cleared her to do it as long as nothing hurt.

Tate lay on his back, rolling her over on top of him. He kissed her, a firm fist in her hair holding her in place as she squirmed against him and tried to play Pin the Pussy with his cock. She was vaguely aware of Doug reaching for something before he returned to kneel behind them.

Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a condom pouch being ripped open. Doug delivered another playful slap to her backside. “Stop squirming. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

She reluctantly fell still as Tate distracted her with his tongue in her mouth. She felt Doug reach between her legs and realized he was rolling a condom onto Tate’s cock.

“Okay, now you can ride the pony, baby,” Doug joked. She felt him position the head of Tate’s cock at the entrance to her pussy. She slid him deep inside her with a happy moan. When she tried to ride him, Doug pressed one hand on the flat of her back. “Hold on, not yet. Just sit there and look pretty.”

Beneath her, Tate chuckled even as they still kissed. She finally lifted her head enough to talk without his tongue in the way. “Hurry up,” she whined.

“I’m hurrying.” She heard another condom pouch open before feeling cool lube drizzling down the seam of her ass.

She relaxed, her head on Tate’s chest, his heartbeat thrumming under her ear. It was finally going to happen. He slowly loosened her with two fingers. Both of them had done a lot of playing with her ass over the past few days. Her body had already learned to respond, her clit throbbing and cunt growing wet any time they played with her there, knowing it would feel good and soon end with an orgasm one way or another.

Doug withdrew his fingers and grabbed her hips. “Hold on, baby. Tell me to stop if it hurts.” She felt the head of his cock press for entrance and relaxed, enjoying the suddenly full sensation of both their sweet cocks stretching her at the same time. It was a sweet, delicious, momentary burn that soon turned into waves of pleasure as the men slowly began to move inside her.

She rose up a little on her arms, the sudden change in angle allowing both cocks to hit all her sweet spots at the same time.

“Oooh, yeesss!” she hissed.

Tate reached up and gently rolled her nipples between his fingers, adding to the pleasure. “You think you can come like this for us, baby?”

Before the sound of the question even died in the air, she felt the first orgasm swamp her from the way his cock stroked against her clit. She cried out, trying to thrust harder, deeper, but Doug wouldn’t let her.

“I think that’s a yes,” Doug said.

“I’d say so,” Tate agreed.

She came three more times, between Tate’s cock against her clit and hitting her G-spot deep inside, before Doug turned her hips loose. He grabbed her shoulders as he grunted. “Okay, baby. Time for us to let loose.”

She let them take total control, giving up trying to maintain any kind of rhythm as Tate and Doug fucked her. It wasn’t more than a few seconds before she felt both of their cocks grow harder and thicker inside her, then the men came nearly simultaneously.

As they lay there in a sweaty, sated pile, Harper smiled. “I love both of you,” she whispered.

Doug kissed the back of her neck. “We love you, too, baby. Don’t worry, you’re stuck with us no matter what.”

She looked down into Tate’s smiling blue gaze. He nodded. “No matter what. We love you and you’ll never get rid of us. So put that into your contract.”

Harper laughed. “I might write a clause in there that I have the right to hunt either of you down if you try to leave.”

Doug nipped the back of her neck. “Maybe we’ll write a clause in there that you have to get our names tattooed on your ass.” He sat up and marked out two spaces on her ass cheeks. “There, and there. ‘Property of Doug and Tate.’”

She wiggled her butt at him. “Maybe I need to get you two tattooed.”

Doug carefully withdrew, but rolled her off Tate and onto her back. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head. He liked to do that a lot, she’d noticed.

She loved it.

“Maybe,” he growled, “I’ll make you get a clit hood piercing so when you’re sitting in a meeting you’ll feel it and think of how well fucked we’re going to keep you for the rest of your life.”

Her breath caught. She knew he was teasing, but the fantasy of it was enough to send another gush of juices into her already swollen pussy.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, baby?” He nipped her below her ear. She was vaguely aware of Tate getting up and doing something, but Doug had her full attention. “We’d take you to the piercing parlor,” he rumbled in her ear, “and put you up on the table. Tell the guy you’re our girl. Tate would hold one of your hands over your head, and I’d hold the other.” He reached down and pinched one of her nipples. “Maybe get these done, too. Have a chain connecting all three to lead you around by at home.”

She whimpered and squirmed, trying to get traction against his thigh to rub her clit, but he wouldn’t let her move.

“Would you like that, baby? To know under your clothes you were wearing our piercings?”

Harper couldn’t respond, her brain totally disengaged by all her available blood flow pooling between her legs and not her ears.

He chuckled as Tate came back. He kept her arms and shoulders pinned to the bed, but shifted his lower body enough Tate could get between her legs.

Then she heard the unmistakable sound of the Hitachi being switched on.

She nearly came off the bed when Tate pressed it against her clit. She cried out as the orgasm went on and on. Relentlessly, Tate refused to back off, forcing her to keep coming as she sobbed and cried through the never-ending pleasure.

Finally, she took a gasping breath. “Red,” she managed.

Both Doug and Tate immediately released her. Doug gathered her into his arms as she sobbed against him.

“Good tears?” they asked in unison.

She laughed and nodded even as she still cried.

Tate flanked her, adding his sweet, warm embrace and completing their trio. When she finally could put coherent thoughts and syllables together again, she kissed Doug and then Tate. “Wow,” she whispered.

Doug grinned. “Good?”

“Damn good.”

Tate brushed the hair away from her forehead. “Oh, I can see when you’re back to one hundred percent and ready for more exhausting fun that we’re going to have a blast filling your sweet head with all sorts of dirty fantasies.”

“As many as you want,” she said.

But for now, all she wanted to do was curl up with them and enjoy falling asleep between them while they watched the late news and softly chatted.

No, she didn’t give a shit what her dad said. She’d live in a hovel with these two men and work any two-bit job she could get before she gave them up.

Harper didn’t waste making up for lost time with her men. She found the men holding her back in bed over the next several days, still concerned about getting too strenuous with their activities out of fear of injuring her.

“Hey, the doctor said I could do whatever I felt like doing.” She felt like pouting.

Doug stroked her chin. “You pull those internal sutures, you’ll end up back in the hospital and be out of commission longer. Is that what you want?”

She stuck out her bottom lip. “No.” She tried to get help from Tate but found herself stymied there, too. “Don’t turn the puppy eyes on me, sweetie,” he said. “I’m with Doug on this one. I was already nervous enough the other night that we’d hurt you. A few more weeks, then you can swing from the chandelier if you want.”

Actually, on the agenda that evening before they could go home and fuck like bunnies was another business card exchange. Tate said he’d go home, but Harper insisted on both men coming with her.

As being with her, not just as “associates.”

Doug and Tate both tried to reason with her, but she’d have none of that. She put her hands on her hips and stared them both down. “Why are you arguing with me on this?”

The men exchanged a glance. “Well,” Doug said, “do you really want to out us all like this now? In front of Tampa’s movers and shakers?”

She shrugged. “Why not now? You two have plans to go somewhere I don’t know about in a few months?”

Both men shook their heads.

She smiled. “Good. Then it’s settled. You two are both going with me.”

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, Harper knew this particular soiree would be packed. It always was. Meaning more-aggressive-than-normal approaches from people looking for charitable donations. She’d simply refuse to go if she knew her father wouldn’t give her holy hell about it. Considering the thin ice she and her men were already treading with her father’s good graces, ditching the business card exchange wasn’t an option this month. Her father knew she despised going to these things to start with. The fact that she’d attended this one in particular, with no grousing to him about it beforehand, wouldn’t go unnoticed by Harrison Wells.

She explained that to Tate and Doug as they left the office and drove west down Kennedy to the Westshore insurance company’s office building where this month’s exchange would be held. Doug drove, while Tate rode shotgun and Harper sat in back. Unless she was driving, this was their normal seating arrangement.

Something Harper didn’t argue with. Remembering that little exchange with her men still made her panties damp. They’d quickly learned that at home or in private, she was more than happy to cede control to them. They never did anything unprofessional at work.

At least, not unless they locked her office door first.

They pulled up to the building. “You two go on in,” Doug said, “while I find a place to park.”

Tate jumped out and helped Harper from the backseat. In that way, they were always gentlemen. She held on to Tate’s arm as they made their way inside and grabbed nametags. For a brief moment, she playfully considered writing “Harper Wells-Gillis-Holt” on her nametag and waiting for the questions, but she opted simply for her name.

Tate winked at her and leaned in as he filled out his. “I saw that naughty thought flit through your mind,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t rub their faces in it. You already look like the happiest woman here.”

She giggled. Giggling? That was something she never did before Doug and Tate came into her life, yet she found herself doing an inordinate amount of it lately. Giggling, laughing, and full-out deep-belly guffaws.

They stepped away from the check-in tables and to one side of the large foyer. “Oh, shit.” Her good mood evaporated as she spotted Julia Carson hovering three gaggles over.

“What?” Tate followed her gaze. “Is that who Doug told me about?”

“Yes—aw, crap.” Too late for Harper and Tate to look away, Julia realized their eyes were on her. She pasted on a great-white-shark-worthy smile, disengaged herself from her victims, who made a rapid escape, and cruised on over.

“Well, Harper. Hello. Such a…whatever.” One hand already held a half-empty cocktail glass. She held her free hand out to Tate, doing her best to wedge her body between Harper and Tate. “And who might you be?”

Harper grabbed his arm. Tate just looked at Julia’s hand without bothering to take it. Instead, he slipped his arm around Harper’s waist. “I’m Harper’s boyfriend.”

Julia arched a well-plucked eyebrow. “Interesting. I thought you were dating that…him.”

Harper looked behind them to see Doug, who looked pissed upon spotting Julia, stalking across the lobby toward them. He took up a defensive position on Harper’s other side and slipped his arm around her, too.

And for tonight’s main event, we have the Dynamic Duo versus the Bacardi Barracuda…

“Hello, Julia,” Doug said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Now at an uncharacteristic loss for words, Julia took a step back. Harper could see her trying to digest the situation in her brain. She pointed at Tate. “You are…” She looked at Doug and frowned. “And you…”

Harper heard phantom warning claxons and a ghostly chorus of “We told you so’s” echoing through her brain.

Julia grinned as the dots finally connected. “Oh, isn’t this rich. Daddy’s little girl is a slut. Or is whore the proper—”

Doug and Tate both stepped forward, driving Julia a step back. Harper grabbed their belts and tried to keep them from advancing, but one more step and Julia was trapped in a corner, backed up against the ugliest planter full of fake palms that Harper had ever seen in her life.

“Now you listen to me,” Doug growled. “Just because Harrison had the smarts to dump your skanky ass doesn’t give you any reason to give Harper grief.”

Tate seemed to want his chance. His voice sounded equally low and dangerous. “You’ll stay out of our faces if you know what’s good for you. It’d be a shame if people started hearing about some of your bad real estate deals. Like, oh, say, the three condo buildings in Miami that were foreclosed on because you couldn’t pay the tab to the contractors.”

“What?” Harper exclaimed. Harper looked at him, stunned. This was something even she hadn’t heard. She’d never investigated Julia’s past, but as far as she knew, her history in Hillsborough County was spotless. Julia dealt in real estate, commercial and residential.

Doug nodded. “Or,” he picked up the thread, “that the state board revoked your contractor’s license ten years ago after you defaulted on payments to five other subcontractors because the projects kept failing inspections due to contaminated site issues that you helped cover up in the permitting process in the first place.”

Ah, the barracuda gets de-toothed.

Julia’s mouth flapped open and closed a few times as her face turned a delightful shade of puce. “That was all my ex-husband’s fault!” she hoarsely whispered. “He used my name on stuff. I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

Tate chuckled. “Funny, the records list you.” He tipped his head toward the crowded room, which had yet to notice the confab going on between them. “Maybe we should go ask some of those people in there if they’ve heard about it, see what their opinion is—”

“No!” Julia pushed her way past Tate and looked at them. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I’ll ruin you!”

Harper laughed. “Funny thing is, Julia, I don’t have anything to hide.” She let go of her men’s belts and held out her hands. “Nothing at all.”

Julia nearly tripped into one of the waiters carrying a huge tray of canapés. She turned and scurried for the front doors.

Harper took a deep breath and grinned. “Now that was well worth coming here tonight. How did you guys find out all that stuff?”

Doug smiled down at her. “Gorden is a damn good teacher.”

“You can say that again,” Tate agreed. The two men fist-bumped.

“Now let’s go get some food into you,” Doug said in a semiscolding tone. “You’re due to eat.”

She hooked arms with both men as they headed from the foyer into the main lobby where the snack tables were set up. “Wouldn’t want me passing out.”

“Again,” Tate said, barely concealing his amusement.

“What?” Doug asked.

“Tell you later,” Harper and Tate said in unison then laughed.