“She thought you were me. You’re so fucking arrogant. You really thought that a strange woman saw you across the room and wanted you so badly she took you straight to your room and fucked you?”
What the hell had she gotten into? She squirmed in Chase’s arms. “You need to put me down.”
They weren’t paying a bit of attention to her. Ben got up, rolling gracefully off the bed where she’d just fucked a stranger. “It wouldn’t be the first time, brother, and you know it.”
She’d made some sort of horrible mistake. Oh, god. She’d slept with the wrong brother.
Chase snarled in his brother’s direction. “She’s not like that. She made a connection with me.”
She still didn’t know either one of these men. What the hell had she been doing? “Hey, you need to put me down. I need to go.”
She needed to get the hell out of here. Her tiny apartment was across the resort in the employees’ lodging. She could hole up and wait them out. She never had to see them again.
Ben frowned. “A connection? You made a connection with her? You don’t make connections, Chase. You fuck and then you leave them to me to take care of. I just skipped a step. Now she doesn’t have to feel like you used her.”
“I feel like everyone’s used me. Put me down.” She was starting to get pissed.
Chase’s arms actually tightened around her body. “I wasn’t using her, asshole. I was helping her. And if you’d taken two minutes to figure out who she was, you would never have touched her.”
Ben stopped. “Who is she?”
Now she started to fight. The last thing she needed was a recitation of all the reasons she wouldn’t be good for Ben. “Put me the fuck down, Dawson.”
“Why are you mad at me?” Chase stared down at her, looking genuinely confused. And a little hurt. Like a little boy whose favorite toy had turned on him.
“Put me down. I don’t like to be manhandled. And I don’t like to be tricked.” She pushed at him, her heart thudding in her chest but for a completely different reason than five minutes ago. Five minutes ago she’d been in charge and happy and…she’d thought she was sleeping with Chase. But she’d slept with Ben and now Chase was acting like a possessive caveman asshole.
“I didn’t trick you,” Chase said. “Nat, calm down. I’m not putting you down until you’re calm.”
She couldn’t breathe. He was holding her so tight. Like a cage.
“Put her down, Chase.” Ben crossed the space between them. “You’re scaring her.”
Chase went back to glowering at his brother. “Yeah, well, what did you do to her then? Do you know how long it’s been for her? Do you know what she went through? And now she’s blown that first time with a guy she just met. Except she didn’t meet him because she doesn’t even know your name.”
“She knows my name, asswipe.” Ben eyed his twin with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Which just proves you can’t know her too well since she didn’t know my name wasn’t yours.”
Chase looked down at her, his eyes accusing. “You said you didn’t want to know my name.”
She finally knew what it felt like to be that bone two dogs were fighting over. “I know your name now, Chase, and I am going to rip your balls off if you don’t put me down.”
Those lips she loved grew faintly cruel. “I would love to see you try.”
“Nice, Chase. Threaten the girl,” Ben said.
Chase stopped and set her on her feet. “I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just can’t let her go.”
What the hell did she do now? She straightened her way-too-short skirt and saw something peeking out of Chase’s pocket. “You kept my underwear?”
He shoved them down further as though trying to hide them. “They’re a memento.”
“He has a collection, sweetheart,” Ben added.
“I just bet he does.” She clenched her fists. She couldn’t really get mad at them. Well, she could, but mostly because they were gorgeous and she felt like such a mess. And speaking of messes, she needed a shower. It had seemed all hot and sexy before the Dawson brothers turned out to be doppelgangers, and pissy ones at that. Now the sweaty state of her body just seemed like one more shitty thing in a never-ending, shitty day. “I’m leaving.”
“Sit down, Natalie. We have things to talk about after I rearrange my brother’s face.” Chase took a step toward Ben.
Ben didn’t back down, but he did seem calmer than Chase. “What the fuck is up with you? It was a mistake. No. I take that back. It wasn’t a mistake. Not for me. She’s beautiful and I wanted her, and I sure as hell didn’t know you’d like hiked your leg up, peed on her, and marked her as your own. You don’t do that. And since when do you have sex when I’m not around? I don’t get this at all. I like her. Let’s share.”
Share? Chase didn’t have sex without his brother around? God, she was a freak magnet. There was no other way to explain it. Somehow she found the weirdos of the world. She tried to walk out because it didn’t seem like they really needed her at all, but she was met with a solid wall of Dawson flesh.
“Sit down, Natalie.” Chase pointed to the chair in the corner of the room.
“I want to leave now.” She carefully pronounced each and every word because he seemed slow to understand them.
Ben stopped, his face falling. “Natalie? As in Natalie Buchanan?” He turned to her, taking her in as though seeing her for the first time.
Her hackles rose, that core of pride rushing in to protect her because he’d said her name like it was a curse. Obviously, he knew who she was. “That’s me, buddy. Bet you didn’t know you were fucking a certified killer.”
He shook his head. “I never sleep with clients.”
She turned to Chase, who had damn straight always known exactly who she was.
He just gave her that nonchalant, “the world bores me” shrug of his. “I have no problem sleeping with a client.”
She closed her eyes. “This is stupid. I knew it when I started it. I knew you were the private detective who’s supposed to get me off and I still pursued you.”
“Ben was the only one who had a chance to get you off. I can get you off, too,” Chase added helpfully.
Why had she thought his awkwardness was charming? “Shut up, Dawson.” She turned to Ben. “So I understand that Julian sent you.”
Ben nodded. “Yes. We’re licensed and everything. We investigate incidents for Mr. Lodge.”
Incidents. A nice way of saying corpses and potential employees who might or might not be homicidal maniacs. They were Julian’s security team, and she’d just screwed one of them and let the other spank her ass until she couldn’t see straight. Yep. She made smart choices.
And she’d let him hold her while she cried. She’d taken comfort from both in their different ways. It was their job to discern her guilt or innocence and work with the police to mete justice or mercy accordingly.
The very man she’d taken comfort from might be the one who handed her over to the police if he wasn’t very good at his job. She really should have thought this through. She’d known all the information, yet she hadn’t laid it all out to see what a horrible mess she would make. “I need to leave.”
Ben took a long breath and nodded. “All right. I’ll walk you to your room.”
Yeah, she wanted that escort. “I know my way.”
“Come on, Nat. Please. I know this was a mistake, but you can’t be mad at me. I didn’t know. I just knew you were gorgeous, and you seemed to want me.”
“Me. She wanted me.” Chase kept singing that tune like a stubborn parrot.
Ben gave his brother the finger. “Just let me walk you back. I know this wasn’t much of a date, but I can’t just shove you out and let you walk back by yourself. My mother would turn over in her grave.”