by Lora Leigh
“Fuck!” he snapped out, shaking his head to clear it of the dreamlike memories. “Just tell me what the fuck happened. Tell me, Cade, so I can remember.”
“I killed him. And I’ll do it again if I have to, Sam. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect us this time. This time, I won’t fail any of you.” Cade’s voice was a broken, ragged sound of pain as he turned and stalked from the barn.
“God damn.” Sam turned, his fist plowing into the bale of hay behind him, the force so extreme that the bales trembled, shuddered as his hand bounced back.
His chest heaved with his breaths as he fought for control, fought to make sense of the foggy memories that assaulted him at will.
“The bastard will destroy us again,” he whispered to himself, hearing his hoarse whisper as it settled in the air around him. “And once again, it’s my fault. All my fault.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Feigning sleep had never been one of Heather’s strong suits. But she had done just that as she lay and listened to Cade and Sam’s argument. After the older brother left, Sam’s torn, ragged cry had her heart clenching in pain. The shadows in his eyes, the dark nightmares, it all made sense now. And as she lay there, drifting in exhaustion and worry, a horrifying suspicion began to bloom within her mind. She could feel the seeds of knowledge ripening, and she hated it. Hated the truth she knew was being hidden from the man she loved. A truth she didn’t want to face herself.
Finally, after long moments, she heard him sigh and move. She almost jerked in surprise as he wrapped the robe around her then turned her over and picked her up in his arms. Strength and heat surrounded her. Safety. She was safe. She had never quite known this feeling in anyone’s arms before, especially a man’s. Men were generally intent on release from what she had seen from other relationships. Tenderness was merely a bribe to get them there, quickly forgotten when the end had been achieved.
But he was tender. Careful to hide her nakedness, to hold her in arms that lacked the rough dominance of his sexual embrace. Not that she would dare protest that embrace. Despite the exhaustion and the lingering aches in her body, the pleasure had been more than worth it. He had taken her higher than she had ever dreamed she could go. Pushed her to limits she would have sworn she didn’t possess. And now, he was tender.
If she had the strength she would have blushed when she felt Sam step up to the porch and heard Rick’s muttered curse as the front door opened. Sam ignored him and strode quickly through the house and up the stairs. Within seconds he was opening a door and closing it quietly behind him.
Surprise rushed through her as she opened her eyes lazily and recognized her own room. She stared up at Sam as he tucked the blankets over her and stood looking down at her. His eyes were still shadowed, his face drawn into lines of somber regret.
“Sam?” She whispered his name, confused now.
“I’m sorry.” He sat beside her slowly, a sigh shuddering from his body as he stared down at the floor.
“For what?” She kept her voice quiet, fought to keep him with her.
He raised his head and breathed in deeply, though he still didn’t look at her. He stared at the wall, seeing the past, or his own fears, she wondered. His profile was shadowed, his broad shoulders straight and tense, though she suspected the weight that dragged at them.
“For hurting you. For restraining you.” He wiped his hands over his face and shook his head as his jaw clenched violently. “I’m as bad as the fucking monster that destroyed us, Heather.”
She could feel the violence vibrating in the air around them. The restrained hunger, like a dark, powerful beat in her blood, still throbbed in his voice. She knew what the nightmares of the past did to these strong men. Had watched it for over a year. Sam would fight within himself until he restrained it as tightly as possible. He would put up the barriers at all costs, and he would try to smooth the worry or the fear that he felt he was causing.
“Sam.” She sat up, desperate to touch him, to take away the bleak pain that resonated from him. To help him face the demons that were rising from within the lost memories.
“Don’t touch me, Heather.” He caught her hand, staring at her then, and the hard, slate gray gaze had her gasping in concern. She had never seen Sam’s eyes so dark, so ridden with shadows.
He released her wrist carefully as he laid her hand on her thigh. Each move was carefully coordinated, the muscles in his hand and arm tense from the hold he had on whatever urges were driving him.
“Sam, tell me what to do,” she said softly, fighting her tears, her need to comfort where she knew there was no hope of it.
He watched her silently, almost calculatingly. It was as though he were gauging her sincerity, her needs.
“Why did you stay here?” he finally asked, his voice rough. Angry. “Your life is in danger and you live with the knowledge that in accepting a relationship with me could mean accepting one with my brothers as well. Is that what you want, Heather?”
Fury pulsed in the air around him, a carefully contrived insult, Heather thought, delivered to her heart. She nearly flinched in response.
“Why are you hiding again?” she asked him instead, fighting to keep the hurt from her tone. “Every time I get close to you, Sam, you throw up the same barriers. You know, this was my first time with a man, rather than a vibrator. The least you could do is lay down beside me, maybe hold me for a while. Or have I just been relegated to a line in a little black book? Maybe under the header: August Plaything Wannabe?”
His eyes narrowed in surprise before he shook his head, a sarcastic snort of laughter coming from his throat.
“You want to be in there?” he bit out. “I could put you in there, baby, if that’s the position you’re looking for. But you have a hell of a lot to learn before you’re up to taking on all of us.”
“Learn?” The inelegant snort was deliberately pulsing with sarcasm. “Really, Sam. What’s there to learn? Say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ and ‘up the ass please, sir?’”
His eyes narrowed further, his body shuddering once, hard as she watched him fight for control.
“You’re dangerous to yourself,” he bit out. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll sit here and listen to you bait me.”
“Then leave.” She lifted her hand, waving her fingers to the connecting door. “Marly and Sarah brought me some new toys today, so I don’t even need you. That bunny promises to make men obsolete anyway.”
His face flushed with sexual promise, though his eyes flared with anger.
“A Rabbit,” he growled. “It’s a fucking Rabbit.”
“Bunny, rabbit, whatever.” She shrugged. “I’m certain it will do everything but give me someone to cuddle up with, and I know where the electric blankets are kept if I get cold enough. So just run along to bed, hon. I’m sure me and Bugs will get along fine.”
“Bugs?” His voice sounded strangled as she pushed her tangled hair back from her shoulders then leaned on her elbows as she watched him. She was aware that his eyes latched instantly on her up thrust breasts and hardened nipples. Arguing with him made her tingle. Her cunt, her nipples…hell, her toes. Every cell in her body seemed primed and ready and more than willing to take the rough, dominant touch he could give her.
“Oh really, Sam, who cares what I call it?” She shifted her legs beneath the corner of the blanket, causing it to fall away until it covered only her lower hips and mound.
She felt more than a little naughty as his jaw tensed, his body became tenser, harder, as his sweat pants tented with the heated length of his erection.
“Stop pushing me, Heather,” he growled.
She allowed her fingers to play lightly over her abdomen.
“Pushing you?” His eyes followed her fingers as his fist clenched by her hip. “I told you to go ahead and run away, Sam. I have Bugs and something called a Snake. Plenty of company. Why would I need you?”
“You know, Heather, if I weren’t very well aware of the fact that your ass
couldn’t take another pounding, I’d show you exactly what you’re pushing me into,” he growled as he came over her, dark, hungry, his eyes no longer bleak and barren, but filled with a sexual intensity that had her body heating in instant response.
“Excuses, excu…” The sound broke off as his lips covered hers.
Hard, greedy, his tongue pushed between them as he forced her back on the bed, his body coming over her, holding her still beneath him as his hand clasped her head.
Heather moaned in surprise, in pleasure, shocked at the hoarse, desperate quality of the sound. Her arms went around his shoulders, her fingers gripping the hard muscles as his tongue plunged into her mouth, his lips moving over hers with a lustful intensity that sent her blood pounding through her body.
No sooner than she was beginning to luxuriate in the feel of his muscles rippling over his broad back, his lips moving on hers with such naked need it tore through her soul, then he jerked her arms down, holding them flat to the bed as he tore his lips from hers.
His hips were between her thighs, his own spreading her wide as he stared down at her with dark, hungry eyes.
“Keep your smart mouth shut,” he bit out as she started to speak. “No toys. No Rabbit, no Snake, no fucking Pocket Rocket, no sex. Go to fucking sleep so I can.”
He rolled off her, then in a smooth, powerful display of rippling muscle, pushed his sweat pants from his hips and threw them onto the floor. He jerked the blankets over her, pulled her roughly in his arms then leaned over and shut the light out.
Heather lay silently for long moments, listening to his heart thunder, feeling his muscles bunch, tense as he fought to keep from taking her. She gave him just enough time to almost, almost reach that comfort level where it would take another confrontation to fire his blood. Just enough time to think she would really sleep.
“Sam,” she whispered. “What are the nightmares about?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sometimes, some nights, a man’s only friend was his whisky bottle. Unfortunately, night had long passed. The morning was edging bright and hot as Sam sat in the shade of the vine-covered lattice patio as he stared at the still pool. He was dressed in sweats and sneakers, his chest still bare, his fingers rubbing at a particular rough section of scars on his abdomen as he took another healthy drink of the liquor.
Sam, what are the nightmares about?
His eyes narrowed as he stared into the crystalline blue of the water. What were the nightmares about? He remembered the screams, the horror and the blood, but like his memories, the details seemed to be lost in a mist that his brain couldn’t penetrate.
“Well, I can see you’re back to your old habits.” He turned quickly as Marly stepped onto the patio and took the chair in front of him.
He pushed his fingers roughly through his hair and sighed wearily. “Don’t start, Munchkin. It’s been a hell of a night.”
“For all of us,” she bit out. “Cade had nightmares all night, Sam. What the hell happened in that barn?”
“He didn’t fuck her.” Pain resonated through his body. God, how much more could they hurt the women they loved before it all came apart around them.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You think I’m upset because I think he fucked her?” She rolled her eyes then, shaking her head. “Hell, I would have gotten some sleep, Sam, if that had been the case. Instead I sat up and cried the better part of the night while the man I love tossed and turned in the grip of the horrible dreams the three of you share. What the hell is going on?”
He shook his head. “You don’t want him to fuck her, Marly. You let him fuck Sarah, and I know it has to kill you.”
“It does?” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs casually as she watched him. “Sarah isn’t a threat to me, Sam. And neither is Heather. Do you think I don’t know what happened in the kitchen? That Cade didn’t tell me what happened after the fact?”
Sam shook his head. No, he knew she would have known.
“How do you share him?” he whispered. “You love him, Marly.”
“And you love Heather, Sam, but you would fuck me in a New York minute if Cade were here right now.”
He sighed. “I would fuck you without Cade, Marly, and you know it.”
“And when Cade saw me later, he would know.” She smiled with an edge of excitement. “He would know, and he would touch me, and he would love me, and he would show me all the ways that it brings him pleasure to know that I love you enough to give myself to you, Sam.”
It made no sense to him. None of it did. And now the stakes were so much higher. He loved Heather, loved her like nothing he had ever loved in his life, and he wanted to share her. He wanted to see her screaming in pleasure as his brothers took her. See the arousal, the joy, and know she had everything he had to give. His love, his brothers’ love, their protection and their caring. To know that no matter where he was, or what happened, Heather would be safe and loved.
But there was more to it, and he was only now realizing it. The bond that had started by that damned pond so long ago, was something too deep to deny, and yet too ethereal to explain.
He hunched forward, lowering his head as he stared at the whisky bottle between his feet.
“I love you all, Marly,” he whispered. “Heather holds my soul, but I love you and Sarah, too.” He frowned, fighting to understand, to make sense of it himself. “You weren’t raised like we were.” He raised his eyes slowly to meet her dark gaze. “And then the abuse… It makes us so different, Marly, and I’m terrified that one of you will be hurt, that we’re scarring your souls as much as ours were.”
Silence fell between them as he dropped his gaze before bringing the whisky to his mouth once again.
“Sam.” She stopped him, her small hand on his wrist as the other lifted the bottle from his grip. “I look at you, and I see parts of Cade and of Brock. And it’s the same for Sarah. But we see you as well. We see a man we’ve grown to love and to respect, one who places our safety and our pleasure above his own. There’s no jealousy and no anger, Sam. We’re family. A different kind of family, but a family.”
“So the family that fucks together, stays together?” he bit out, jerking to his feet as he paced to the arched opening that led out to the pool area. “God dammit, Marly…”
“No, Sam, a family that loves stays together. However they love, whether it’s a love acceptable to the world or not, it’s love that holds a family together. Love and respect and the commitment to it, Sam. You know that even better than I do. If you didn’t love and respect your brothers, then the three of you would have drifted apart years ago. You wouldn’t still be fighting to survive, nor would you be trying to make sense of whatever demons haunt you all. Love, Sam.”
She came up behind him, her arms going around his waist as she leaned against his back. Sam turned to her, enfolding her in his arms as he rested his cheek against the black silk of her hair.
“He saved us all,” Sam whispered. “Cade, Marly. He saved us, even though he doesn’t believe he did.”
“You saved each other, Sam,” she said gently, and he wondered how much of her statement was true.
“Sam?” Heather’s soft voice had him pulling back from Marly, looking over his shoulder as Heather watched them from the sliding glass door that led into the family room.
She didn’t look angry or jealous, she looked frightened. Terribly frightened.
“Heather.” He turned to her, knowing he had hurt her, knowing this day would come…
“Sam, the sheriff is here. We have trouble.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“You like fucking your brothers, August?” Mark Tate’s voice echoed through the room, courtesy of the small recorder Sheriff Martinez held in his hand. He sounded breathless, frightened. In the background you could vaguely hear another voice directing him. “You have two hours to show up at my place, or I send these pictures I have to every newspaper and law enforcement office in the country. Interesting p
ictures of a dead man.”
“You’re a dead man.” Sam heard his own voice, cold, hard, a promise of violence that he only vaguely remembered.
The sound of the phone disconnecting was loud in the room; those who stood listening were silent, held in shock.
“Oh God.” Marly’s whispered cry was echoed by Sarah’s as they stood in his brothers’ arms.
Heather stood beside him, but he couldn’t reach out to her, couldn’t look at her. He stared down at his hands and saw the blood. Rick and Tara stood somewhere behind the sheriff, witnesses to their shame.
He raised his head slowly, his body tensing in rage as he stared into the cold, hard gaze of a sheriff he had once counted as a friend.
“You should have kept the family out of it, Josh.” His voice resonated with a fury he couldn’t contain. “They didn’t have to hear that.”
“Goddammit, Sam.” Cade’s voice sounded shattered, echoing eerily within his head. I did it, Sam! He wanted to shake his head, to rip the shattered words from his head, along with the memories so shadowy and twisted that he couldn’t make sense of them. “Why the hell did you leave the fucking house? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was me he called.” He kept his voice low as he continued to watch Martinez. “I would have taken care of it.”
“We’re a family, Sam,” Brock reminded him, his voice tortured.
Sam glanced at him, seeing how Sarah hid her face against his chest. In shame? Did she regret now, allowing him to touch her, to dirty her? Hatred blazed through his mind as he leveled his stare back at the sheriff.
“The only thing that saved your ass from an arrest warrant was the fact that forensics proved Tate was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. So hard, in fact, that wood splinters were found in the remains of the body. The coroners had also found traces of a strong narcotic in the battered internal organs.” His eyes narrowed then. “If that wasn’t bad enough, someone tried to mess with the results at the coroner’s office. Luckily, it was discovered. Computer records can be a chancy thing, and old Doc Harper doesn’t like them much. His notes were handwritten rather than recorded and transcribed. It appears to me that this is a family problem, Sam. You’re being framed, and it looks like there’s more than one murder here to solve.”
