“I know, right?” Sam looked over Josie’s shoulder at his friend. “Just wait until you actually sink your fingers into these hips. When you actually get to trace your fingers down the insides of her thighs, you’ll be touching heaven.”
“Sweetheart, you could make a man lose his mind,” Chance whispered in her ear. She shook her head ever so slightly.
Chance splayed his hand along her jaw and turned her head so their eyes met. “But for me, I will always see the beauty of your heart.” He saw her eyes well up with tears, and he knew his own were overly bright. His hand stroked downward, to her stomach and rested there. Sam was right, her stomach felt soft and sumptuous against his hand. He felt her quiver. He delved through her curls until he found the silky folds of her sex. Her legs were shut tight, but that didn’t matter, he smiled to himself, he still had room to work.
Josie let out a little squeak of surprise as he caressed the seam of her sex with two fingers, up and down. God, he could do this for hours. For days.
He parted his legs and crooked his knees so that she was nestled against his cock. The torture felt sublime as she was spread out before him. He trailed his two wet fingers up her body to her back, so that he could work on the laces of her corset.
“You can’t take it off her right now,” Sam interrupted.
“Josie, why can’t I take it off?” Chance asked her.
“After compressing my nerve as badly as I did, I need to keep either a corset or brace on to keep my spine supported.”
There was no way he was going to ask the how’s and why’s of the injuries, not at this moment. But he was going to find out enough for tonight’s play. “Which vertebrae were injured, Zee?” he asked as he traced her breasts that spilled over the top of her corset.
“The ones in the middle of my back, T-Four and T-Five. I’ve had multiple surgeries since the accident first happened then more when the disks ruptured.”
“Fuck,” Chance said softly into her ear. “I hate the idea of you ever having been in so much pain. Not physically, or emotionally.”
“I’m fine now. I’ve learned coping skills, and I’m here with both of you, aren’t I?”
Chance heard a real question in her voice.
“What, Zee?”
He moved his hands slowly, one cupping a generous breast, the other splayed across her stomach. “What are you asking?” he coaxed.
Chance watched as she covered his hand on her belly, and then tugged at the hand that Sam had been holding all this time so that it rested beside Chance’s. “How does this work?”
Chance looked at her question from every angle, and he knew she wasn’t asking about the sex part. “You mean how are we comfortable with the both of us being with you? Sharing you?” Chance finally asked.
She didn’t look at either of them, she just jerked her chin up in a nod.
“She was worried about that this afternoon when I picked her up,” Sam said.
“Russell didn’t seem to want me, but he always accused me of smiling at other men.” Josie’s words were low and anguished.
“I love seeing Chance touching you,” Sam said as he drew his hand out from under hers. “That’s part of this dynamic.”
“But Chance, you seemed hurt when I’d been with Sam. You’re both going to end up jealous.” Her voice was picking up power. “I just know you will. It’ll be just like Russell said. I’ll have ruined things not between us. I don’t matter, but I’ll have ruined things between you.” She pushed against the mattress, trying to get away from Chance, then gasped.
“Zee, you’re hurting yourself,” Chance admonished.
“Better I get hurt, than the two of you,” she cried.
Quickly. Gently. Decisively. Chance had her on her back in one smooth motion, he hovered over her, his weight resting on his forearms. He glanced over at Sam, questioning whether this was a good position for her.
“Josie, are you comfortable?” Sam asked her.
Hell, I could have done that.
“I’m fine. You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Tears matted her eyelashes. She was killing him.
“I’m going to fucking find Russell and beat the shit out of him,” Sam snarled.
“Dial it back Booth,” Chance commanded. “The last thing Josie needs is either of us spewing anger. Look at her, she’s trembling.” Chance kissed away one tear. Two tears. Then a third. “Sweetheart, Sam might be an ass, getting all twisted up when we have you lying here damn near naked in bed with us. But this Russell bastard was a malevolent prick who played mind games on you.
Chance took a leap of faith. “What did your friends think about this guy? Your sisters? Did anyone like him? Did anyone think he was a good guy?”
“They all hated him,” Josie admitted.
“Did he have many friends?”
“None that he introduced me to, and we dated for nine months.”
“Yep.” Chance nodded. “You were his big shiny prize. He’d struck gold when he met you. You’re beautiful, nice and people are naturally drawn to you. He thought you could lift him up, but when that didn’t work he started to push you down.”
“Or he could have been one of those sick fucks who just started pulling wings off butterflies when he was four years old, and graduated to crushing beauty when he grew up,” Sam growled.
Chance waited to see what she could say. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I always wondered.”
“What did you wonder?” Chance asked.
“It almost seemed purposeful. Like he took joy in my pain. But I knew that couldn’t be right, that I must be imagining it. Who could be like that?”
Chance’s heart clenched. Who indeed? “I need to give the most beautiful woman I know, a kiss. Will you let me do that Josie?”
She smiled shyly. She gave Sam a quick glance and Chance didn’t need to look up to know that his partner had given her encouragement.
Josie’s arms twined around his neck, and Chance damn near died with delight as he felt one of her legs slide alongside his jean’s covered thigh. She drew him down toward her lips, but he still saw a look of trepidation.
“Just a kiss, Zee. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more, but I don’t intend to seduce you into anything more.”
Her eyelids quivered and then she gave him a smile of relief and he knew he’d said and done the right thing. He wanted this woman, but not until she was totally ready for what he and Sam had in mind. He never wanted to coerce her into anything more than she could handle.
But what he did want her to see was that Sam was fine with one another touching her.
“Chance?”
He teased her with a light kiss. Just a brush of lips across hers. A fleeting touch. Back and forth. Her lips were so soft and responsive. Her fingers dug into his scalp as she tried to bring him in for a deeper kiss that he was happy to oblige. Oh fuck, who was he kidding, he needed to oblige. He desperately had to kiss this woman.
Chance traced her lips with his tongue, seeking entrance, she let out a sigh and opened and he plundered. Stroke, for heady stroke, their tongues meshed. Her taste and texture was sublime. Josie was more than he could have ever hoped for or imagined in a woman, her combination of sensuality and innocence turned his heart to mush. There was a sweetness and poignancy to kissing this woman in his bed that he would have never guessed. It went so much further than need and desire.
Josie let out a whimper and he realized she had tried to undulate upwards.
“No,” he admonished softly. He pressed her back down onto the mattress. He splayed his fingers along her jaw, and strung kisses along the other side of her face as he held her down. He didn’t want her to hurt herself.
“I need more,” she entreated.
“Honey, I would love, dearly love, to give you more. But I have to respect what you said earlier today about getting emotionally hurt if you have a sexual relationship with us. I need you to be sure about how we all feel about one another.”
<
br /> He watched helplessly as tears welled up in her beautiful brown eyes.
“Hey, I didn’t say that to make you feel badly,” Chance said. “But I do want to show you something.” He slowly turned her head so that she could see Sam’s soft smile.
“Chance is right, Josie. You need to be sure of us before we do anything more than go to sleep and get up at good-god-oh-clock in the morning. That way you can start work at fucking-two-o’clock in the morning with one of us helping you.”
“Nobody needs to help me,” she protested.
Sam got up from the bed.
“That’s non-negotiable. Now what do you want to drink? Soda? Water or apple juice?”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Fine, I’ll bring all three.” Sam started out the bedroom door.
“Bring coasters,” Chance yelled after him.
Sam shot him the finger.
All was well in Chance’s world.
Chapter 12
“You’re keeping it together better than I thought you would,” Elise whispered to Josie.
Josie looked at all the flour on the floor and wanted to whimper. Seriously, how did Chance make such a mess? She’d just made him clean up twenty minutes ago, and he had. The floor had been spotless, then all she’d asked him to do was knead some bread, and now it looked like an entire bag of flour had broken open and spilled across the black and white tiles.
“I know you’re talking about me,” Chance said as he continued kneading. “Are you checking out my ass?”
Elise chuckled. “I’m checking out your ego. I’m measuring it to see if it can make it out the door tonight.”
Chance’s laughter echoed through the kitchen. He was a natural. They both were. Josie had never been able to come up with one-liners like that. She just didn’t have that funny kind of personality, maybe that was why she was attracted to people like Chance and Elise.
“So, are you going to be our new hired help? I’ve been telling Josie we need some since almost day one. The only problem is, I hear you’re not as cheap as we might need,” Elise said as she went over to supervise how he was rolling out the dough. Josie followed.
“For the right situation, I am willing to barter my services. I know I would have to be taught how to do a lot of things around the bakery, but maybe there are things I could teach in return.”
“I’m outta here, I think customers are due to arrive in thirty minutes, I should wait up front,” Elise choked on a laugh.
Josie waited for the kitchen door to shut before she slapped Chance’s arm. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Have you met her husband? Trust me, she’s used to worse.” His grin was infectious. “How’s your back? His eyes once again tracked down to look at the shoes she was wearing. They were clunky nurses’ shoes. She hated them, they were ugly, but oh-so-comfortable. He must have seen her frown, because he tipped her chin and placed a lingering kiss on her mouth.
“Your shoes are sexy.” He whispered.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Do they make you feel good? Because that is sexy.” Sparks of arousal shot through her core. Holy hell, her nipples ached. That didn’t happen. Not to her.
Chance chuckled.
“See, sexy? Your shoes turn you on, too.”
“Butter,” she gasped.
“Hmmmmm, butter. You would taste good drizzled in butter,” he agreed. “What else?”
He doesn’t know I’m talking about the cinnamon rolls. It delighted Josie to see his eyes were as dazed as she felt. She smiled.
“Don’t forget the brown sugar, and cinnamon and sugar mixture,” she said as she patted his butt, before walking toward the kitchen door.
“I’m bringing all of these ingredients home with me,” he shouted behind her.
Flirting was fun. Who knew?
“I know you’re not here for the banana bread,” Betty said as she put a slice in front of Sam. “You and Chance are indulging your sweet tooth at the town bakery these days.”
“You really don’t miss a trick, do you?” Sam muttered around the glass of milk he sipped.
“Butch and I ended up having over thirty foster kids go through our home, it would be pretty sad if I couldn’t see the graffiti on this wall,” Betty chuckled as she poured herself a glass of non-fat milk. “Are you taking care of yourself, Sam?” she asked.
Now wasn’t that a question? “These days, I’m not pissing on the doctor’s orders, so that’s good.”
“A step up, be still my heart.”
He loved the way that Betty handled all of her ‘children’ differently. She provided him just the right amount of tough love and sarcasm ninety percent of the time so that when she really laid on the ooey gooey center of pure motherly adoration, he could accept it.
“You never told me, Betty, how’d you end up moving to the ménage capital of the world?”
He gently patted his foster mother’s back as the milk went down the wrong pipe. She shook her head at him. “You are a menace, Sam Booth.”
“We’ve established that. Now answer the question.”
“It was the fishing. Butch had heard from three of his old Telco buddies about Lake Snomish and the great fishing to be had. Then he found this property. The first time we came up here for a visit, I ended up meeting Isla Johansen.”
“Leif’s mom?”
“Yep. She’s more of a sister to me than Lorraine is. I knew that after one afternoon. By the third day of the visit, after spending time with her and her two husbands, I knew that this was someplace I wanted to spend the rest of my life.”
Sam stared at a woman who he could have sworn he knew inside and out and saw a stranger instead. “Why? What made you feel so strongly?”
“It was the tolerance here. Oh, not everybody is accepting. But, Sam, the love, humanity, and compassion I’ve found here is something I just haven’t felt anyplace else. It was something that Butch and I always wanted to give to the children who passed through our doors, and here we found a whole town who lives by that motto.”
Sam thought about his friend, Leif. He knew that his parents were a triad, and that Leif was looking for that in his own life. Betty was right—Fate Harbor was the only place he could think of that would welcome a family like that.
“Why do you feel that Isla is more of a sister to you than Lorraine?”
“Lorraine never understood why I didn’t do IVF, and if not that, she thought I should adopt. When Butch and I explained we wanted to foster children, she spent a long time trying to talk us out of it. She wanted us to have children who would…”
“What?” Sam asked.
Betty gave him a bright smile and shook her head.
He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay, I’m a Marine, you can tell me.”
“Ah, Sam. Lorraine wasn’t a happy woman. I was always sorry she didn’t have a better life.” Sam watched as a tear trickled down his foster mother’s face.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he reassured her.
“Lorraine said that she wanted me to have children who mattered.” Betty gulped. “Can you imagine that?” She clasped his hand in both of hers. “I love you so much, Sam. You mean the world to me. My children matter. Isla got that right from the start. They grow big hearts here in Fate Harbor.”
As he jogged along the nature trail three days later, Sam was still thinking about what Betty had said. It roiled around in his head along with Chance’s determination to make something permanent between the three of them. That was a lot to take in.
He wasn’t too surprised to see another figure up ahead on the trail. Sam put on the juice and soon caught up to his friend. He didn’t say anything, instead just ran in companionable silence next to Leif Johansen until they stopped at the top of the trailhead.
“That wasn’t half bad…for a Marine,” Leif said as they both took long drinks from their water bottles.
“Army Rangers are nothing but bailing wire
and ego. I could have left you in the dust a quarter mile back,” Sam scoffed. He couldn’t have, but it was nice to have been able to finally keep up.
“I need to start doing yoga,” Leif smiled. “I’d probably be able to run circles around Caleb.”
They both laughed at that thought. Caleb Samuels was fast with a capital ‘F’. “Well, if I can’t learn how to beat Caleb, maybe I might find a pretty little baker to date,” Leif suggested.
Sam couldn’t believe how fast he went from friend to The Hulk.
Leif laughed.
“Down, boy. Damn, you’re easy.”
Sam wished it were that easy, but he’d been in a perpetual state of angst since Chance had driven Josie home four days ago. Talking to Betty about it helped, but talking to Chance was of no use whatsoever.
“Spill it,” Leif said as they started toward their trucks.
“My friend is an idiot.”
“No argument from me,” Leif said. “Chance has lived under a rainbow most of his life, and somehow he thinks he can turn flat water into sparkling water.”
“Most times he can,” Sam muttered. “That’s the fucking problem.”
“Does this have to do with your baker?”
“Her name is Josie.”
“I know her name. Hell, I know her. Caleb and I are fans of her cinnamon rolls.”
“That better be all that you’re fans of,” Sam damn near snarled. Then he dialed it back. “See, listen to me.”
Leif laughed again. “I am. You have it bad. Does Chance?”
“Yep. His problem is that he just thinks we’re destined to fall into a relationship like your mom and dads. I never believe in happily ever afters. I know better. Life is basically waiting to hit you upside the head.”
“So, you don’t think the woman is interested in you?” Leif asked as they got to the clearing where their trucks were parked.
“She seems to be. Hell, I understand why she would be interested in Chance. Fuck, I’d date him. But me? Leif, if anybody on this planet understands, it’s you.”
Sam looked at his friend and saw a flash of empathy. Leif might have come from the happiest home known to mankind, but he’d been overseas in the same sandbox, and it had altered him, too. They’d talked. Neither of them had come back the same.
Theirs To Treasure: Happily Ever After (Fate Harbor Book 1) Page 10
