Her jaw dropped open. “Are you? Is that . . . what?”
“I know Garret handled things badly. I’m not exactly a good choice to try and explain this but Joe . . . we couldn’t let Joe come.”
“Is he all right?” The words were out before she could pull them back, and she cursed herself for them. For finding herself concerned about Joe.
“He will be. With you.”
She shook her head then winced. The pain killers hadn’t settled in. “I’m not . . . you can’t just claim me. I’m a person, damn it.”
“You are.” He nodded. “I get it if you don’t want me. I’m difficult. I have darker urges than my brothers.”
Darker urges? Well that should have put her on alert as much as anything else. So why did she want to prod him about these darker urges? Did he mean the penchant he had for wanting to spank her or something more?
“Garret hides behind his smile and charm. Joe behind his OCD tendencies and his belief in what is the proper way to behave.” He smiled. “And me? I have a need to keep everyone safe. To protect. To control. My control is different than Joe’s though.” He ran a finger down her cheek. “Some bad things happened in my past. I had a best friend who died when we were taken prisoner by the enemy.”
“You were in the armed forces.”
His gaze grew distant. “A long time ago.”
Considering he looked about thirty, it couldn’t have been that long ago. “I could hear his screams, you know. As they tortured him. And there was nothing I could do to help him. I just stood there in that cell, helpless. Unable to do a damn fucking thing.”
She couldn’t even imagine. “I’m so sorry, Sawyer. Really.” The words were useless, she knew. But he turned his gaze back to her. “It’s a part of my life I try to forget. I never could get over the feelings of helplessness though.”
It explained his need for control. And the deep desire he had to protect his brothers.
“I wouldn’t be easy to live with. I’d want to control your every movement. I’d demand to know where you were at all times. I’d be a pain in the ass.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“It would take a strong woman to put up with that. Maybe learn when to push back and when to give in.”
“And you think I’m strong?”
“Oh, I think you’re very strong.”
“Then why do you keep threatening to punish me? Is it because you want to take away my strength?”
“Oh, no, baby.” He ran that finger along her lips. “I’d never want to do that. It’s your very strength that draws me to you. A weaker woman would bow under me. Wouldn’t fight back. Wouldn’t push me to be better. She’d let me run
all over her, and I don’t want that.”
“You want to fight with me?”
“I don’t call it fighting so much as foreplay.”
It was crazy. Insane. He was insane. And yet she felt like laughing.
“I really don’t understand this. How can you think the three of you will share me? That stuff only happens in books and movies.”
“Not true,” he replied. “Our fathers shared our mother.”
She gaped at him for a moment. “So, this is a family thing?”
“Sort of.” His gaze flicked away. He wasn’t as guarded in his answers as Garret. Not used to talking to other people, she guessed. Garret seemed the most socialised of the three of them.
“Something is going on here that I don’t understand. It’s not normal to want to share someone, especially someone you hardly know. Forty-eight hours ago, you were going to torture me for answers.”
He shook his head. “I would never do that. I would never torture a woman.”