Finding Lily has been like a master class in tracking over the past few days. For a woman as striking and easily noticeable as she is, she’s damn good at making herself scarce when she wants to.

It’s incredibly annoying.

The last time I spent any time with her was at the beach two days ago and since then, I only managed to corner her at a brunch yesterday. We were at a table with six other people, most of whom were extended family members or business associates of my father, so telling Lily about all the deliciously disgusting things I wanted to do to her didn’t really seem… appropriate.

Something I’m generally very happy to not give a shit about, but will for now if it means keeping her as less of a flight risk,

I’m stalking through the large Oriental-style gardens that have been set up behind the main resort complex, knowing that Troy’s moving towards me in a wider arc from the opposite direction. My guess is that she’s here somewhere.

We’ve become increasingly more adept at guessing where she might be going, which has been born out of necessity. After finding out about the stunt Austin pulled with her in her bungalow, we agreed that no one would be spending time with her there alone, nor that we could go to find her there. It would set Austin at an unfair advantage because his bungalow is close to hers and ours is across the resort at the opposite end.

I’m mulling through the possible options of where she could be going for dinner tonight when I hear a familiar laugh that makes me move twice as fast.

Lily.

I round a corner in the carefully manicured garden and find Lily sitting on a wide stone bench with her legs in Troy’s lap while she leans back. She’s smiling and laughing and she looks like she’s having fun.

Good.

“Aw, you two couldn’t have waited for me?” I protest loudly as I close in on them, sitting down next to Lily as I reach them.

The smile falters for a moment on her features but is back in full force then. It makes my heart leap. I don’t know what she’s done to me but I can safely say that I was smitten before and now I’m completely taken with her. That time we spent with her in the water… it’s been playing on a loop in my brain.

I have to fucking have her.

“I told her about our deal,” Troy says, rubbing her knee gently.

“Which deal?” I ask.

We’ve made more than I’d care to admit over the last few days, both between myself and Troy, as well as with Austin. Now that we’re older and wiser, apparently it’s important that there are rules governing what should be just a pure contest of the better man, or men, winning.

“The one about you not abducting me and… um, you know. Unless I ask you to.”

She’s burning bright red as she says it and it’s adorable. I grin at the sight of it.

“Oh, that one,” I say casually, leaving her wondering about what else we might have agreed on.

I prefer to keep her on her toes because she’s certainly keeping me running around like I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s not a very natural fit for me.

“I also told her that maybe if she spent more time with us, she’d see that we’re just normal guys,” Troy continues, giving Lily a look. “You know, no one to be… wary of.”

She laughs outright at that.

“I don’t think ‘wary’ quite covers the spectrum.”

“Why not?” I ask, throwing an arm over the back of the seat, my fingers inches from draping on her arm and pulling her into me.

It takes a lot of self-control to keep from doing that, I won’t lie. All I want is to have her next to me, to kiss her, to have her, to be in her… Just sitting next to her and inhaling her scent is making my cock rock hard and I’m going to do nothing to hide it.

I want her to know how she makes me feel, which is pretty much the same as what she’s doing to Troy, I think. We rarely talk about these things, mostly because we don’t need to. As different as we are, with Troy always having been the more serious, pessimistic one, while I’ve been the leading force in getting shit done, then I can be sure that we’re on the same page about things that matter.

And Lily matters. Lily matters a lot.

“Well, because I’ve had about three interactions with you, none of which I could describe as ‘normal’,” she starts, smiling. “As much as I enjoyed the… whatever happened on the beach,” Lily says, her voice breaking a little, “then I don’t think it can happen again.”

With that, my good mood’s virtually wiped out.

“Why not?” I ask, before Troy can do the same.

“Because…”

She presses her lips together and moves to pull her legs away from Troy’s lap, but he keeps his palm over her knees, not letting her run that easy.

“No, Lily,” he says tensely. “Don’t run. Talk to us. Whatever you think is wrong here or whatever makes you worry, maybe we can solve it.”

There’s a kind of sadness about her that I think I noticed the first time we met. Something about her makes me want to protect her from the world and whatever could possibly bring her harm. I want her hidden away from everything, kept for myself and Troy.

I’m stubborn enough to think that it would be a good idea, too.

“I know about you guys,” she says finally, focusing her eyes on her fingers in her lap, idly twisting her wrists. “I know that this is what you do.”

“What exactly?” I ask, urging her on as we share a quick look with Troy.

I think I know where this is going. And I wish I’d have something to tell her that could set her mind at ease immediately, but it isn’t that easy.

“You two are playboys, for lack of a better word,” she says, looking to me first and then to Troy. “You’re all over the tabloids all the time. Always with a new woman, always together. I don’t want to be that for someone, just someone to be used and then tossed away.”

Her voice breaks as she says that and a massive jolt of protectiveness runs through me. I can’t put my finger on it but I’m immediately certain that someone’s hurt her somehow. I pull her into me and Troy shifts closer, enclosing her in a shielding cocoon even though there’s no one but us in the garden.

“Lily, listen,” I say, putting a finger under her chin and making her look at me. “I wish I could say that the things you’ve read or seen are a lie, but they’re not. That’s what we’ve been, me and Troy. But that’s not what we want from you, why we’re so interested in you.”

As I speak the words, I know I’m telling her the truth. I think it surprises me as much as it does her.

Troy picks up where I left off.

“Yes, we’ve slept around. Yes, we’re notorious for it. But it’s not like that with you. I don’t know what it is about you, but you make us crazy. All of us. Not just me and Callum, but Austin as well. You’re smart, sophisticated, so pure and good… and yet I can tell that you’re dirty inside, the best kind of dirty.

“I’ve never felt so compelled to know more about a woman than I am with you and it’s far from being just physical.”

I nod as Lily looks at me, confirming Troy’s words. When did he get so damn eloquent? Apparently the right woman really can make a man do anything, including… grow as a human being. Imagine that.

“We don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do, Lily. That’s what we’ve talked about with Austin as well. We want to give you time to get to know us, to see if you’re as interested in us as we are in you… and I think you are. We can move at your pace, whatever that might be,” I tell her, squeezing her shoulder gently.

A little frown crosses over her brow as she processes that information. I want to reach out so bad and smooth the worry from her features, but I don’t want to drive her away again. Both Troy and I are hanging off our seats, waiting for her answer, even though we’re trying to pretend like we’re totally calm and collected.

“Whatever you want, you can have. If it’s nothing, well… we won’t be happy about it, but we’ll respect your decision. You’re safe with us, Lily,” Troy says softly.

That seems to strike a chord with her. She looks up sharply and now I have no doubt that someone’s done something to her before. Rage fills me out of nowhere and I have to bottle it down. I have to restrain myself from asking what happened to her, and who do I have to fucking kill to make her feel better.

“How about a kiss?” she asks, and all my anger disappears as quickly as it appeared.