I frowned. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I just had to trust that he wasn’t screwing these hard working people over.
“What percentage of the profit would they receive?” Austin asked,
“While they are the only farm in the cooperative, they will get 100% of the profit, minus lawyer’s fees. When more businesses are added to the cooperative, profit distribution can be agreed upon as they see fit, but I would suggest by production levels and sales percentages.”
Austin nodded. “Seems fair. Let’s go inside and talk it over.”
Tolliver nodded, and we all followed Austin into the house, to the formal living room, where overstuffed lounges and threadbare rugs fought with photo frames and knick knacks.
I walked past a photo of three boys, barely out of their teens, in their uniforms, smiling widely for the camera. Such a waste.
I sat down on a large sofa between Tolliver and Sam.
“Would you like some coffee? I just made cake?” Ethal asked, her warm, smiling face making me feel instantly at ease.
I smiled politely. “No, thank you. We have a picnic in the car for the way home. Wouldn’t want to spoil my appetite for this beautiful countryside you have around here.”
Tolliver steepled his fingers. “I have one condition.”
Austin frowned. “Let’s hear it.”
“You go and see the prosthetic specialist that owes me a favor. Your parents deserve to enjoy their retirement, and this place will need proper hands-on management. You can’t do that in the poor quality prosthetics that the VA has given you. I’ll pay, and consider it an investment in the co-op.”
Austin raised an eyebrow. Tolliver's roundabout talking wasn’t fooling him. He looked set to decline.
“Take the offer. Only a fool turns down free medical care, especially when so many people are relying on him. If you won’t accept the offer for yourself, do it for your folks and this town. Your suffering doesn't make their deaths any more meaningful,” I told him.
“What would you know of it?” Austin snapped, hurt making him angry.
“I know more than you think.”
Ethel looked between Sam and Tolliver's faces, understanding lightening her expression. “Oh dear. That's… I’m so sorry dear.”
I smiled at the lovely old woman. “It is what it is. Can’t change the way things are. You just have to believe that things will get better.”
Both Ewan and his son looked confused and Ethel rolled her eyes. “Men are so dense sometimes. You would think they'd get more wise with age, but I can promise you that isn't the case. She's dying, you numpties.”
Confusion gave way to embarrassment on their faces, settling on pity, as it always did. My guys just looked sad. I squeezed their hands three times. It would all be okay.
“Actually Ethel, I think I might take that coffee after all.”
We spent the afternoon talking and laughing with the Turners. I met my one cow, the Ozinator, and the name didn’t suit her at all. She had big, dark, shiny eyes, and she chewed so slowly that I thought the hay would fall from her mouth. She wasn’t likely to stomp anyone into the ground, though I still took a photo and sent it to Oz.
By the time we finished the tour of the plant, I was dead on my feet.
Ethel hugged me tight as we left. “You stay strong, okay? God doesn’t give us more than he thinks we can handle.”
I wasn't so sure about that, so I hugged the old woman back just as tightly. She smelled like violets.
Austin smiled and shook my hand. He looked years younger, and so much more handsome when he smiled, that I was a little dumbstruck. Tolliver gave him a cool look and hustled me into the car. Apparently his ability to share only extended to his fellow Sins.
I waved out the window as we drove off in a cloud of dust.
“Do you think they realize you essentially just gave them the money? That there'll never be another member of the co-operative?” I asked Tolliver sleepily.
“Never say never, Arcadia. But yes, Austin at least knew what we were doing, but it was a solution that wouldn't prick his pride too much and kept everyone happy. I think he would do just about anything to make his family happy again.”
I knew the feeling. A deep sense of satisfaction filled my soul. Tolliver would be fine. So would Sam. I’d done enough. I wouldn't be there every step of the way, and I would never see what happens at the end, but I’d set them on the right path at least.
“Don't forget our picnic,” I told Tolliver. I'd never been on a picnic in the country before. The closest I'd come was hotdogs in Central Park.
We pulled over at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, which had a barely used pathway from the car park down into a heavily treed area. Sam grabbed the cooler filled with lunch, well afternoon tea now, and Tolliver grabbed the picnic rug from the back. Then he tucked my arm in his and we walked down the track.
It was beautiful. So quiet and peaceful. There wasn't the sound of city traffic that was a constant buzz in the back of your head. There weren't any people yelling, or construction sounds, or the smell of dumpsters and pollution. It was fresh and pure.
We walked fifty feet before we heard a stream and the track dropped steeply, so that we had to climb down an embankment to continue. Tolliver went down first, his feet nimble like a mountain goat. He reached up and wrapped his large hands around my waist, lifting me down. Sam scrambled down after us, a little less gracefully. The track turned sharply left, and there through a thick stand of trees was the stream and the world's most perfect picnic spot.
A huge tree spread out its branches over the banks of a small stream that was not even six feet across. Tolliver laid down the blanket under the canopy of the tree, out of the harsh late afternoon sun. I took off my shoes, and sat on the edge of the embankment, my toes only just touching the surface of the stream. Sam unpacked the cooler as Tolliver came to sit beside me, his pants rolled up his calves.
“It's beautiful out here,” I said inanely, but it was true. There was a peaceful calmness out here that I could never achieve in NYC, even in the luxury of our home. It was easy to lay out here and pretend that we were the only three people in the world, and that life was some idyllic painting.
“Come and eat before the ants beat you to it,” Sam called, and I walked hand in hand with Tolliver back to the rug.
If spending the day in the company of the Turners had taught me anything, it was that life was too short to stew on past mistakes and what-ifs. I'd come to terms with the guys pasts eventually, and until that point I was only going to judge them on how they were now, not how they were in another life, and in Sam’s case thousands of years ago, before being sent to hell.
“What was hell like?”
Sam groaned. “Geez Cady-Lady, you aren't holding back today, are you?”
I shrugged. “My time frame to ease the answers out of you just got reduced. I don't have time to go gently-gently anymore.”
Tolliver was tense, but he answered. “Worse than you could ever imagine. But the longer we are away, the more the particulars fade from our memories. Now you just get this crawling feeling under your skin when you think about it. Like thousands of ants are trying to burrow into your bones. Your body is instantly on high alert from muscle memory of the trauma. But I know, with utter conviction that I never, ever want to go back.” He had become more agitated as he explained.
I ran my hand over his hair, trying to sooth the ravages of memory.
“I’m sorry.” I grabbed a strawberry from the container in the center of the rug and held it to his lips. “No more hard questions today, I promise.”
Tolliver took the berry between his teeth and bit down, making strawberry juice run down my fingers. He grabbed the stem of the strawberry from my fingers and threw it over his shoulder, then he took my fingers, still dripping with strawberry juice, and sucked them into his mouth. His eyes held fiery heat, and as my fingers popped out of his mouth with a loud smack, I crawled across the rug towards hi
m and into his lap, wrapping my legs around his back. He kissed my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth before plunging his tongue between my lips. My fingers curled into his hair as he branded my mouth with his own.
A heavy sigh behind us made me look over my shoulder at Sam, who was packing the food back into the cooler.
“We’ll want this after we’re done,” he grinned, leaving the strawberries and chocolate dipping sauce out. Tolliver grabbed my jaw, turning me back towards his lips, kissing me again, his hands sliding up under my shirt to wrap around my ribs, his thumbs venturing up to rub over my nipples through my bra.
I gasped as hands grabbed the edges of my tank top and pulled it over my head, then Sam’s mouth was on my neck, trailing kisses down my spine. Tolliver dipped me backwards, so his mouth could trail kisses between my breasts before moving to one lace covered nipple and sucking it hard into his mouth, the pressure sending pain and blinding pleasure right to my core.
Sam came up behind me, turning my head to the side so he could kiss me too. He kissed differently to Tolliver, softly where Tolliver plundered. Long strokes where Tolliver nibbled. The dichotomy was mind-blowingly arousing. By some unspoken agreement they laid my on the rug between them.
“Do you feel okay?” Sam asked as his hands went to the button of my cut-off daisy dukes even as Tolliver unsnapped the front clasp of my bra.
“Amazing.”
His grin was infectious and I couldn’t help but smile back. “Good. Now lay back and let us love you.” He leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long now.” He dipped a strawberry in the chocolate sauce and ran it over my lips, tutting as my tongue darted out to taste it. Tolliver leaned forward and kissed the chocolate from my lips, pulling my lower lip into his mouth and sucking gently.
The strawberry meandered down over my collarbone, the swell of my breast, circling my nipple, leaving behind a sweet trail of sticky chocolate. Sam and Tolliver watched the strawberry with single minded focus, devouring my body with their gaze. Sam re-dipped the strawberry and moved to the other nipple, before swirling down my stomach and dipping into my navel before running into the roadblock of my shorts.
“Allow me,” Tolliver positioned himself between my feet, tugging my shorts and panties down until I was exposed to them and the world. The breeze kissed against my body, cooling where the chocolate made a path.
Sam re-dipped the strawberry and handed it to Tolliver, who ran it up the inside of my left leg, venturing off behind my knee before swirling up my inner thigh. He swept around, over my hip and meeting up with the trail of chocolate on my abdomen.
Sam took it back, dipped the strawberry one last time and then ran it down my other thigh then up, over my folds of my pussy to my clit. I moaned at the sheer eroticness of the moment, and the sound echoed around the clearing. Sam watched my eyes as he removed the strawberry, licked the remaining chocolate from it and then ate it.
I wasn’t ever going to look at strawberries the same way.
Tolliver grabbed my attention as he lifted my leg and ran his tongue over the trail of chocolate that ran up my calf muscle.
Sam did the same, the flat warmth of his tongue traveling down my collar bone to my nipple, and sucking it gently into his mouth, his tongue flicking my aching bud. I pushed against him. My breath was coming in pants now, and I needed them to hurry. I wrapped my fingers in Sam's hair and moved his head to my other breast, even as Tolliver's mouth ran up to the inside of my knee, his tongue almost rough against the sensitive skin. My leg went over his shoulder as he crawled further up my body his tongue following the intimate pattern he had traced.
Their heads met at my lower belly, and I was going to come apart right there and then, the sight of them both looking up at me, Sam with a sultry grin and Tolliver with burning intensity, light and dark, but both intent on giving me pleasure. It was heady.
Sam smiled. “After you.”
So damn polite.
Tolliver stroked his tongue between my folds in one hard, long stroke and I came undone, my moans captured by Sam's mouth. Tolliver lapped at my orgasm and kept going, his tongue flicking over my clit in the perfect rhythm, driving me higher. Sam followed his pace with his kiss, his tongue stroking mine in a sexy imitation of Tolliver’s on my other lips.
Suddenly, the warmth of Tolliver's mouth was gone, and Sam drew back.
Somehow Tolliver had gotten rid of all his clothes in seconds, and knelt between my knees, naked and so glorious he took my breath away.
“Are you ready?” Sam whispered in my ear.
“Yes,” it was more a moan than a word, but it was signal enough. Tolliver leaned forward, lining his body up with mine, and kissing me as he pushed his cock into me.
I sucked in a breath as he filled me, momentarily forgetting I needed to breathe, until Tolliver began to move. Then my breath came out on loud moans and in on sucked gasps.
Sam stripped out of his clothes, and sat back down beside us, on hand stroking his stiff cock while he watched my face.
“It’s been so long,” Tolliver whispered. “This is going to have to be hard and fast, baby, because I just won’t last.” He slipped my legs over his shoulders, hitting every happy place inside me and I let out a feral noise as he began to drive himself into my body on an increasingly discordant rhythm. He was moaning something, but I couldn't understand. Maybe it was in Brazilian or maybe it was in English, but I was beyond comprehension as my body became a mass of nerves and sensations, the pleasure swelling in my body as Sam came over me, sucking the mewling sounds from my mouth, and I anchored myself in his hair.
“Oh, oh, oh,” I said, my pleasure cresting as my orgasm swept over me and my screams were muffled against Sam’s lips. I bit hard, and he yelped even as he moaned.
Tolliver came on a grunt, his movements’ wild. Finally, he pulled out and collapsed, his head on my belly. My heart was beating sluggishly, but I was okay.
Tolliver raised his head and looked around the surrounding forest.
“What?” I asked.
“Just looking for Lux. I keep expecting him to appear out of the trees and pound me into dust as he lectures me.”
I laughed, running my hands through his hair. I lifted my other wrist. “I slipped the health monitor off when you guys started with the strawberries.”
We all laughed, and then lay on the picnic rug in silence, Sam's head on my chest listening to my heart beat out of time, and Tolliver's head on my abdomen after he’d cleaned me up with his shirt.
When my heart rate had calmed back down, Sam raised his head. “You know we aren’t done right, Cady-Lady?”
I laughed. “You guys are trying to give me a heart attack.”
All heat left his face. “Are you okay? Is this too much?” He looked at my eyes, my face, my chest, as if I had a ‘battery low’ sign somewhere.
“I was kidding. I’m fine,” I brushed his hair out of his face.
“Scary.” He kissed me in a punishingly hard kiss. He flipped me over and pulled me to my hands and knees in an effortless move that had to be the result of giant hands and years of experienced. I held in a little yelp of surprise.
He pushed the hard head of his cock along my still wet slit. He ran one hand along my back, angling me down a little, his other hand holding my hip steady. Then he slid into me in one long movement. Tolliver, who is still lying sedately on the rug beside us, ran a hand along my stomach until he reached my clit. He flicked a finger against it, and I let out a long moan as I slam back against Sam’s body.
Sam, his strong pale body moving in perfect harmony with mine, sped up until my forehead was pressed against the rug and I was holding on for dear life.
Tolliver circled my clit in time with Sam’s thrusts and an orgasm snuck up on me so fast I had no time to prepare. It blinded me as my body continued to milk Sam's.
“That's it. Come for me, Arcadia. Fuck you are so beautiful,” he moaned as he slammed into me, his fingers
digging into my hips. Another orgasm was building and I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Sam reached forward, tangling a strand of my hair in his fingers and tugged as he came. The edge of pain when my body was a mass of pleasure did something to me, pushing me over with him.
I collapsed onto my stomach and Sam lay down next to me. He ran his fingers gently up and down my back. Tolliver pressed his body along mine, his hand stroking my hair.“You are the most precious thing I have ever held in my hands, Arcadia Jones.”
“We are going to cherish you until we draw our last breaths,” Sam added, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Now how about lunch?”
I fell asleep in the car on the way home, and only woke when Sam carried me into the lift. “I’m awake. I can walk you know.”
“I like you in my arms. You weigh practically nothing. I’ll have to talk to Valery about providing higher calorie meals.”
My eyes drifted closed again of their own accord. I let my body do its thing. It would need all the rest it could get in the next couple of months.
Chapter Twenty
Fight Night. I was so excited; I was basically bouncing around Lux as he gave Oz, Tolliver, and Sam last minute instructions/threats. It was the first time I’d been out in a crowd since the incident at the nightclub.
“She doesn’t leave your sight. One of you is with her at all times. Do not let her near the cage. If she looks pale, take her home. I don’t care how often she says she feels fine.”
I grinned, jumping into Lux’s arms. “Don’t be such an old hen. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Now kiss me.”
He did, grabbing handfuls of my ass while he kissed me like it would be our last.
Unfortunately, Ri and Valery would miss the fight. They were buddying up today. Ri would catch a nap in Val’s office and Val would sit around with Ri until Dante’s closed at four. Depending on how the fight went, we'd join them at Dante’s afterwards. I was excited. I was going to enjoy my last night of freedom before my thoughts we consumed by cell counts and chemo appointments.
Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset Page 15
