LACHLAN

Fair dinkum, she's lovely.  I stopped short when I saw her.  I didn't realize she'd been staying in my old room this week.  She didn't tell me that.  Good job she was alone.  With the way I was feeling right now, Brother or not, I'd have had a piece of him.  Quietly, in deference to my pounding head, but I'd have done it all the same.  Every man has his limit and I'd reached mine.

Yesterday.

When I heard my mate Egan shouting her name.  I hate this feeling.  I hate being torn.  I know what it is to live at the Temple.  I know how my Brothers feel.  I know they need this time with the Sisters... but I also know exactly what's in their heads, which is precisely why I didn't want Heather to go.  They are going to drink up the Sister's affection like parched earth accepting a rush of sweet water.  Does that make me a hypocritical bastard?  You bet your sweet arse it does.  Am I even the slightest bit sorry?  Not if this lifetime, mate.

FDR

Franklin Delano Roosevelt?  Hell no.  Fucking Diary Report.  That's what we called it.  Every evening, we poor bastards at the Mother Tree held a contest (a different one each night, and no, I'm not telling you what transpired) and the loser would have to check the board and report back to the rest of us.  There was only one rule... you couldn't kill the messenger.  Sometimes we read them, more often we didn't.  It was bad enough already, seeing the crap they faxed over here, reading those damn Shag Reports, hearing Egan, that dirty bugger, shouting her fucking name, having to watch them all cavorting around like a pack of tarts on holiday... and then the indignity of spending the night in the dungeon, hungover on the cold hard ground.

It was just too bloody much.  I felt like hammered shit.  I wanted a shower.  I hadn't shaved since the little party the Brothers had arranged for me on Wednesday.  Hell, I wasn't even in the mood to even see Heather until I was feeling half way human again and I'd had a chance to get my temper under control... and then as I opened the door to my room, there she was.  For a second, I forgot all the reasons I didn't want to see her.  She looked like an angel.  Dark hair spread over my pillow, the soft curve of her shoulder visible above the white sheet, lashes fanned across her cheeks, face gently flushed with sleep.

I closed the door after myself, dropped into a chair and simply watched her.  My girl.  My God, I loved her.  She stirred and opened her eyes.  That smile of hers?  It just got right to me, mate.  I felt myself smiling back at her.   

"Lachlan!"  Her voice was low and husky.  She sat up and reached for me.  Something warmed inside me at her instinctive need to draw me close...  until the sheet slipped down, baring her breasts and I saw that ugly mark there, staring at me.  Another man had put his mouth there.  Knowing it would probably happen was one thing.  Actually seeing proof was another matter entirely.  A quick look over her body revealed more, faint bruises on her wrist and a few more on her throat.  My eyes flicked back to the bite mark on her breast.   

I felt all that anger flood back inside me and surge wildly.  "What the hell is that?!"  She saw where I was looking and pulled the sheet back up over her breasts.  Oh fuck no, she did not just hide her body from me.  I felt my anger spike higher. 

"Lach, wait-  It's not what you think."

"It's not what I think?  What the hell is it then?!"  It was exactly what I thought it was.  If it wasn't, she wouldn't be backpedaling so damned fast.  No answer to that, I see.  My blood pressure climbed at her guilty silence and I trilled in her falsetto, "Oh Lach, the trip to the Temple isn't going to be like that."  I pointed a finger at her.  "Those were your words, weren't they, love?"  I spat the endearment at her, feeling every one of those liaisons of hers I read about hit me square in the chest.  "You lying little-"  I cut myself off, struggling to control my temper.  

Her eyes shot hazel fire at me and her chin lifted, daring me to say it.  "Go on, finish it."  Big mistake.  I was not in the mood to be pushed.

"You lying little cunt."  I hissed the words at her, low and nasty.  Wanting her to hurt as I did.  

Her eyes narrowed.  "How dare you talk to me that way, you hypocritical asshole!  Stag night?  Ring any bells for you, sunshine?  I saw you!"  I winced at that and she jumped right on it.  "I saw it all... and I saw that redheaded slut leading you inside, so don't you dare give me any shit about what I've done this week."  She flung the words at me.  "At least I was with a Brother!"

I saw red.  "I fucking know you were!  You rubbed my Goddamn nose in it, in front of all the other Brothers no less, when you rode by with Dino.  How do you think that made me feel?  And then you went and wrote a second diary with him?  God!  I saw them both so don't pretend you're little miss innocent with me, girl."  I stood up so fast it knocked the chair over.  "And you want to know the truth about stag night?  The redhead?  She wanted me.  Told me she'd have given it out for free.  And you want to know what I said to that?  Christ, I'm such a dupe.  I told her I had a nice girl at home and then paid her off so she'd keep her fucking mouth shut about me turning her down!"

Her mouth hung open.  "And that's the bloody truth!"  I was so mad I was shaking.  "I wasn't a fucking angel, but I didn't break my word to you.  Not you, though.  Nash.  East.  Egan!"  I ticked them off in my fingers.  "I saw the diary.  Three fucking men-"

"Did you even bother to read the diary, you ass?"

I just kept right on going.  "Did you let them at you all at once, love?  Or did they take turns?"  I felt my hands ball into fists and for half a second, I was afraid I might hit her.  I chose to strike out with words, instead.  "I never knew you were such a whore."              

She laughed.  She fucking laughed, this high sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.  "It doesn't matter what I've done.  You've always thought that.  You've thought it since the second you walked in on me and Terry-"

"Terry, Terry, Terry!  It's always fucking Terry with you!"  I was too far gone to stop now.  Quiet words now, low and nasty.  "You think I don't know that I'm just a replacement for him?"  I hurled the words at her.  "Talk the same.  Look the same.  Hell, for all I know we even fuck the same.  You tell me, lovie.  Maybe I should just bring some pearls to bed and have done with it."  I was heaving.  It felt like my head was going to explode.

She crumpled like a broken flower.  My anger spent, I suddenly realized she was crying, big wet tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks.  All the light had gone out of her just like that.  Oh, Christ.  What had I done?

I fell to my knees by the bed and buried my face against her stomach.  She didn't put her arms around me and she didn't even push me away, which was worse.  She was just gone, hiding somewhere inside herself and crying like her heart was broken. 

I did that.  My fault.  "Blue, I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."  I didn't ask her to forgive me.  I wasn't even sure I could forgive myself.  I just climbed up on the bed and curled myself around her, stroking her and petting her arms and hair and whispering to her of my secret heart.  Things I'd never tell anyone but her.  I told her how sorry I was, how I never thought she was any of those horrible names I'd called her.  And then when there were no more words, I wiped my eyes and fell silent, willing her heart to hear mine.

When she finally spoke, it was so soft I almost missed it.  "It was always you, Lachlan."  Her tiny hand found mine and my heart leapt.  "I was meant for you."  Her eyes opened and they met mine.  "You called me here.  It didn't matter that I hadn't yet seen your film.  It was your call my heart heard."

I didn't know what to say to that.  I never do when it's something that moves me deep inside.  I just buried my face deeper into her and held her so tight.  She stroked my back and I knew she knew what I was trying to tell her.

She spoke again.  "Lach, about my last diary-"

"Shh, don't-"

She ignored my protest.  "I wrote it for you."

"You what?"  I couldn't quite keep the hurt from my voice.  Why would I ever want to read about her with three men?

"It's a confession to you.  My confession." 

"You don't owe me anything, love."  The words were hard for me but I got them out anyway.  "What you do with the other Brothers, that's just between you and them-"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, I didn't have sex with them."  My mouth hung open in shock and then I suddenly realized that made what I said to her so much worse.

"Oh, God...  I'm sorry, love-"

"Hey, hey don't."  She pressed her fingers over my lips.  "We both said hurtful things....I just..."  She sighed.  "It's not what you think at all.  I didn't even want to come here and-"

What?!  "Wait, whoa.  What?  That's not what you told me last week.  You said you wanted to go, that-"

"No, I didn't."  She said it softly.  "I said I was going.  There's a difference."

Christ.  Women.  Does any man ever understand them?  Do they even understand themselves?  "Then why..."

"I couldn't not go, Lach."  She looked at me.  "Truth?"

I nodded.

"I really do want to get to know the Brothers who live here, but I want to do it in my own time and in my own way.  But I couldn't not go... but now I'm sort of glad that I did."  I couldn't help but wince at that.  "I did have a good time with my Sisters this week and I did love meeting your Brothers... but I didn't jump into bed with them all like you probably thought I did."

I knew she saw my guilty flush.  Still, the bite mark she was wearing said she hadn't been entirely chaste this week.  I knew she wouldn't be, but I still didn't like seeing another man's mark on her body.  I touched the marks at her throat.  They were the ones that bothered me the most.  I can understand a man getting lost in the moment and leaving the kind of mark she had on her breast but someone had choked her hard enough to leave bruises and I damn well intended to find out who so I could personally rip his bollocks off and cram them down his throat, Brother or not. 

I brushed my finger over her neck again.  "Who did this?"

Her brows drew together.  "Oh, that?  That was SID, he-"  She suddenly realized what she just admitted and drew up short.  She knows I don't want her anywhere around that psycho and what's more, she doesn't want to be around him either.  She probably thought I was going to blow my stack. 

Again.

I nodded.  "We knew."  I saw the question in her eyes and went on.  "I mean, all of us at the Mother Tree.  Izzy told us straight off after that first night... probably to calm us all down since none of us are really keen on him being with you girls."  I went ahead and told her the rest of it.  "Izzy told us that SID had gotten out of control and that she'd revoked his Temple week rights.  We knew he'd roughed up one of the girls, I just didn't think it was you."  I gave the bruise a tender kiss.

She giggled.  "You should have seen it.  Teener was beating him with her shoe and Bou had him by the nuts while Dino..."  Her smile faded and so did mine. 

She met my eyes.  "I'm sorry about that, driving by like I did, I mean."  She pressed her face into my neck.  "I just couldn't stay here another minute."  She told me about it then, all of it.  Not the details of her time with Dino, but she told me why she'd left.

"You should have told Izzy you needed me."  And not just because I didn't want her with Dino.  I can get over that.  She didn't say the words, but I could tell she'd had a rough time dealing with it.  I wanted to be there for her when she needed like that.

"I didn't want to spoil your birthday," she admitted quietly.  

God, she has such a lovely heart.  That's twice this morning she'd robbed me of words.  I just held her close and rocked her gently.  Finally, I lifted my head and touched her chest just over her heart.  "Ever and always, blue."

She smiled up at me.  "Ever and always, my selkie-man."  

She touched my face so tenderly, stroking along my jaw and I suddenly realized how unkempt I was.  I wasn't completely rank but I needed a shower and a shave.  I pulled away to get to it but she stopped me.

"No."  She pulled me all the way on top of her and rubbed her leg up my calf.  "I want you like this, Lach."

HEATHER  

I didn't want him to go.  Scruffy and unkempt, he felt even more like a big male animal, my animal, and I wanted him to take me like one.  Now.  He made a low sound in his throat when I told him so.  I couldn't get enough of him.  I kept touching his face, feeling the prickle of his short beard against my palms, rubbing my cheek against it.  Everything about him was so utterly male, I couldn't help but respond to it.

And coming on the heels of our fight, I needed to connect with him this way.  To feel him over me and inside me.  Lachlan, he's such a physical creature.  When he makes love, he's truly making love, making me love him more with each touch, using his body to show me his love and accepting mine in return the same way.  We needed this and it needed to happen while our feelings were still raw and exposed, before we could push everything back into its neat little box and slam the door on it.

I felt the change in him as he gave into it.  He knelt up over me and pulled off his t-shirt, throwing it aside as his eyes feasted on my naked body.  I could smell him, stronger than usual but not unpleasant.  His scent was musky and warm, like masculinity personified.  With a growl he dropped down, braced his hands on either side of my head and kissed me hard, grinding his hips into mine as he did.  I touched him everywhere, down his neck and over his chest, into his armpits and down his long, thick arms. 

I didn't have to tell him to give me more, to go harder.  He was as wild as I was.  He licked my neck, laving at the bruises there and rubbed me all over with his beard, like a big cat, marking me with his scent.  When he pulled back his eyes were wild.  I couldn't get the buttons on his jeans open fast enough.  I felt his fingers between my legs, not to tease or to stroke, but to check my readiness.  He only does that when he's too far gone to go slow.

He didn't even prime himself.  He just pulled my legs up over his shoulders and pushed in with one deep stroke.  The feeling of being filled was overwhelming.  I cried out even as I clutched at his shoulders, wanting more still.  He gave it to me, harder and deeper than he ever had before, than anyone ever had before, like he was trying to overlay every other scent with his own, using his body to imprint himself on me forever.  His soft chuffs became groans and my voice rose with his, uncaring who heard us.   

My nails dug into his back.  He covered the mark on my breast with his mouth and sucked hard, grunting in satisfaction as I let him know with my voice and my body how much I wanted what he was doing.  He lifted his head and looked at me.  Despite all our wildness, there was so much love shining in his eyes that it brought tears to mine.  He closed his eyes and dropped his head, working hard for our pleasure.  Straining against me with each forceful thrust and growling in my ear as he felt me start to come.

"Oh, God... I feel you... I feel you!"  Panting now.  "Yes... yes!  Come on me, girl....that's it... unnnngh... fuck!"

His back arched and he poured into me with a roar, wild and primal and every bit male animal he is under all his old-fashioned gentility.  He shuddered hard and lowered himself with shaky arms to rest against my body for a long moment before he gently slipped himself from me and lowered my legs back down.  My hips ached and my body was sore, but I felt so good.  Boneless and limp and loved. 

I pushed his damp hair back from his sweaty face with a smile and he chuckled as he rolled away to pull off his boots and kick away his jeans.  He returned a second later, gathering me in his arms and holding me close as he took a deep breath and just gloried in the comfort he took from the sweet press of our bodies.  He dropped a kiss over my heart and whispered, "Ever and always, blue," as he pulled the covers up and gently rocked us to sleep. 

TERRY

Early afternoon.  I was on my way to get another beer when I found Heather in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge for sandwich makings.  I paused at the open door but didn't go in, preferring to watch her unobserved for a moment.  Falling back on the old training.  Sizing up the situation.  Seeing how she was handling the fight Tink and I had overheard.  It might have ended amorously, but sex wasn't always an indication things were better.  I have played that game one too many times to be that naïve, mate.  It wasn't just that I was trying to read her.  That's a part of it but the other part was for me, trying to decide how I needed to approach this to-

"Are you going to stand there all afternoon or actually come in and say hello?"  She spoke the words into the fridge with a quiet laugh.

"Sussed me out, did you, love?"  I came in grinning and dropped down into one of the chairs at the table.  "Grab me another tinnie while you're in there?"

She snickered and rolled her eyes at me.  "You wish is my command... that is what the Articles stated, wasn't it?"

I smirked.  "From your mouth to Tink's ear."  

"Yeah, that'll happen."  She brought it over and when she handed it to me I grabbed her wrist and pulled her down in my lap.  Her teasing smile faded into one of warm welcome.  "I missed you, Charlie.  So much."

"Me too, lassie."  We sat there a minute, eyes closed with our foreheads together.  Not kissing, just holding each other close.  She pulled away first and I let her, feeling her weight shift in my lap as she moved so she could look into my eyes.  I knew she would see my worry for her underneath my pleasure at having her in my arms again.  I can't hide my feelings from her and to be honest, I don't really want to.  Her neck and cheeks were pink, no doubt worn raw by Curry's face.  I stroked her cheek gently with one finger.

"Everything all right?"           

She searched my eyes.  "How much do you know?"  

"Pretty much everything..."  I noticed we fell back into our old patterns so easily.  I have a natural tendency to hold back information, a tendency that seems to be absent with her.  We speak plainly with each other with an ease I find almost frightening.  We have since the nearly the beginning.  "We were out on the terrace below your room..."

She winced at that and her brows drew together.  "We...?"

"I was with Tink."  I could see it in her face.  She was replaying what had been said in her mind.  The color drained from her face and I felt her tense in my arms.  I knew why.  It wasn't because she was embarrassed I'd heard her shouting.  Well, she probably was a little.  She's a very private person, as am I, but I knew the main reason was because she was feeling for Curry.  No man likes to know another man has overheard him voice his deepest fear, especially if he's at the root of it. 

There was a long moment of silence and this time it was me searching her eyes.  "As long as you're all right, lassie....The rest?  Forget it.  We all have fears inside.  He's no different from any other man... believe me."

I knew she'd get my meaning.  She understands my roundabout way of speaking about private matters in a public place.  I didn't need to tell her I was talking about myself or name my fears for her.  She'd already heard the unabridged version in Manila anyway.

She just rested her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes.  "I'm OK."  She sighed softly and smiled against my neck.  "Lach and I?  We're OK, too.  We talked after..."  I felt her cheeks heat.  She started again.  "He knows how I feel about him and he knows it is a feeling without measure."  She snuggled into me.  "He also knows what you are to me."

I nodded.  She was the same thing to me.  Safe harbor.  What we have is not a grand love affair in the traditional sense.  There is passion, but it is secondary to the knowledge that with each other, we can - and have - found a safe place to unburden ourselves.  I can go to her even when I know what I feel or what I've done is wrong or hypocritical in the extreme and know that she will understand and accept me, flaws and all.  And let me tell you, mate, it feels pretty fucking good that I can be that for her too.  Like now. 

She sat on my lap while I drank my beer.  She wasn't in a hurry to leave and I wasn't in a hurry to let her go.  We didn't talk much.  I simply held her and let her feel reassured.  I'd run up quite a tab in Manila and it felt good to be the harbor this time around. 

Neither of us brought up Dino.  Come on, now.  You lot know what we are to each other, or rather, you know some of what we are to each other.  Do you honestly think we hadn't discussed it prior to this week?  It is, however, a private matter and one I won't be discussing here.   

I finished off the last of my beer with a sigh.  She lifted her head and smiled at me, searching my eyes one last time.  "So, are we all good?"

I knew which 'we' she meant.  The four of us.  Me and Tink and her and Curry.  I nodded.  "We're apples, lassie."  I gave the pink skin on her neck a look and raised my eyebrows, smirking as she blushed.  "Besides, we've got a game on soon.  Curry's on my squad....You're just sheilas.  We're mates."  I gave her my best cheeky expression.  "Can't let sheilas come between mates, now, can we?"

She sniggered.  "I thought that's just the kind of kinky thing you went for, you big perve."  I smacked her arse and blew a big raspberry on her neck. 

We both looked up as Tink breezed through the kitchen in her usual whirlwind style.  We didn't spring apart because there was no need.  She has no hidden fears about what I have with Heather.  She's no reason to be threatened and we all know it.  That's part of what makes it so damn good. 

Uma shot us both a serious look that was ruined when she giggled.  "Oi, no sex before the game!"

I snorted and mumbled (loud enough for her to hear, of course).  "Not what you said an hour ago..."  Winding Tink up is one of my favorite pastimes, after all.   

She clucked and wagged her finger at me.  "Therapy, Terrence... that was therapy."  

I gave Heather a look and bounced my knee under her.  "That what you've been up to, love?  Therapy?"

She nodded, smirking like the very devil.  "Oh yes, of course.  I left the wing nut upstairs soaking in the tub.  Nothing better after an intense therapy session than a good long soak..."  Christ, holding in the seal joke nearly killed me. 

Uma's eyes glittered.  "For the under thirty crowd, maybe."  She jerked her head at me and rolled her eyes.  "Fag and a nap, more like for those Brothers of a slightly different vintage."  I just shook my head.  She was away.  No chance of getting so much as a word in edgewise.  God, I love her like that. 

Tink's attention shifted to Heather and she waved a handful of papers she was holding at her.  "Right, Heather....hands out of the jock's pants and get yourself off to choir practice!  I have some songs for you to master..."

God save us from Tink and her schemes.  Heather jumped off my lap and grabbed the tray of food she'd fixed.  I didn't miss the fact it was piled high.  Worked up a hunger, had they?  She grinned at Uma.  "Let me just run this up to Lach and then I'm yours.  You know you can always count me in on whatever it is you've got planned." 

Jesus.  Two of them.  And Tink looked to be recruiting more.  A turn of events that most definitely called for another beer.  And reinforcements.