Page 40 of Triple Protection

I roll my eyes in frustration and go back to reading my book.

A few gloriously peaceful moments later, I look up at Brick. He wrinkles his nose again and rolls his eyes. I chuckle.

"What?"

He looks down at me and hesitates, not wanting to complain. I raise an eyebrow at him in challenge. "She's known this guy for all of 24 hours and she's letting him finger bang her? I mean, I get it's fiction, but come on."

I chuckle to myself and make a mental note to buy him one of those alien smut books to really challenge his sensibilities of fiction.

"You saying you didn't want to finger bang me after 24 hours?"

He sets his book down and growls at me, eliciting a girly giggle from me.

"No. I didn't. After 24 hours with you, I knew I wanted to marry you. The fingerbanging is just a stepping stone to making you mine."

My breath catches in my throat and I sit up to get a better look at him. He blushes slightly, but his eyes never leave mine. The intensity of his stare, of his declaration, makes in the inside of me squirm.

I look away and mumble, "If I should be so lucky."

"Brick...I..." I start, but really have no idea how I planned on finishing that sentence. I'm overwhelmed and scared. I've only just wrapped my head around the idea that I'm sleeping with three men - that they're sharing me. I've accepted the fact that I'm falling for them, but I also think I've accepted the fact that this is temporary. I was alone only a few months ago and now we're talking about marriage? I get that it's been longer for Brick than the rest of us, but...

He pulls me to him and kisses me deeply. As has become habit with him, I clasp my hands together and squeeze them between my thighs so I don't accidentally touch him the way that I want. His lips and tongue silences my fear and I melt into him. I can taste the grapes and champagne on his tongue and it makes me dizzy with lust. I want this man. God, I want him so much right now. And I don't ever want to give him up.

Chapter twenty-nine

Alex

Alex

I'm pissed.

Mirium texted me, asking for an update on our progress in tracking down the stalker. I'm not pissed about that. I'm pissed that I don't have a better answer for her. We've made next to no progress on that front, and I hate it. The frustration rolls through me like a fever.

We've been living with Angela for months. I have to admit; I like her a lot more than I thought I would. I trust her, I admire her, and I could easily see this 'like' turning into 'love'. Which makes the fact that there's still a threat out there even more frustrating. Someone wants my woman. Mine.

We need to find this fucker now and end him.

"What have you got?" I ask Liam. Angela's in her office working and Brick, Liam and I are downstairs in the living room. We try to avoid talking about the situation around her. After her panic attack and my ill-timed confession about the VR deepfake,I'm making an effort to be more thoughtful about her emotions. It's a weird feeling.

"So, I have what I consider our top suspects." Liam offers, setting papers on the coffee table in front of us.

"We've run background checks on Marshal, Carlita and Jose and their immediate families and nothing popped, so I started looking at the accounts that DM and comment on her post most frequently and then thought about rival influencers. When I did my research on stalkers, one of the things that stood out to me is the need for control. Maybe a rival influencer hates that he can't control her." He rubs the back of his neck, unsure. "I mean, maybe. I don't know."

"No. That's a good idea. Let's cast a wide net first and then rule people out."

He gives me a tight nod in thanks.

"I called in a favor with my buddy at the NSA. They've got big data computers that searched through her comments and identified the accounts that posted lewd comments the most over the last year," he continues, separating out some of the papers into piles.

"Then these are her male competing influencers. The thing I don't like about this angle is that they'll all be at DigiCon." Shit, he's right. But Angela insists on going. It's an award ceremony she's been working towards for years.

"Even if we don't like the angle, we need to pursue it." I say.

"So how do we rule people out?" Brick asks. Fuck, that's a really good question.

"Let's run background checks on everyone. See if any of them have prior records of stalking behavior. Maybe she's not the first one. Then let's rank them as most to least likely. If, say, they're married with kids, I think they're less likely to be a stalker. Or if they're gay, etc. Or anyone who lives far enough away. I doubtsomeone would fly in from New York to break into her bedroom, only to fly home again."

Liam and Brick nod in agreement. It's not the breakthrough that we need, but at least it'll give them something to work on in the meantime.