“But you continued on with the date?” Ben asked, grinning.
“I thought it was my job to educate him for the next poor woman he asked out, but it was an uphill battle. He was wearing a cowboy hat, so I asked him if I should assume he was one of them there rednecks because he was wearing a cowboy hat. He asked why I would assume that.” Kara was gratified when both men laughed. “Seriously, he didn’t understand the correlation at all. The whole night, the conversation kept getting more painful. Luckily, we both liked country music, so we could talk about that, until I brought up female country artists. He didn’t like any of them.” She watched as the brothers grinned at one another.
“So he was stupid and a chauvinist,” Quinn said.
Kara nodded her head. “It was the longest date of my life. It really pissed me off that I found myself responding to his kiss. I thought my body would know better.”
Quinn smiled broadly and put his hand over hers on the small dinette table in the galley. “Now, you know what it’s like being a male from the age of twelve to twenty-five. It’s not until you are about twenty-six, that the big brain starts having any kind of say over the little brain.”
“Speak for yourself, big brother. My big brain was in charge by the time I was twenty-two.”
“Only because that’s how old you were when you met Kara.”
“You still haven’t explained what you meant about wanting to want Jim,” Ben reminded Kara.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. So, Jim wasn’t the best kisser out of all the guys I went out with, but he was the only one who made it to a second date. Mom called me a serial dater. Maybe I was, but I knew I was looking for something permanent, and I knew my criteria, so why waste my time going out on more dates with guys who weren’t meeting the criteria, ya know?” Ben and Quinn both winced when she mentioned looking for something permanent. “But Jim was different. He hit all of the points on the list. Nice was definitely number one, and he had that in spades.”
“Are you saying we weren’t nice?” Quinn asked in an offended tone.
Kara pulled her hand out from under Quinn’s. “I’m not saying that at all. You are two of the nicest men I’ve ever met. You remind me of my fathers. Jim isn’t that nice, but he was close, or I thought he was,” Kara said dejectedly.
“Kara?” Ben prompted.
“Oh, yeah.” She looked up at both of them. “There just wasn’t any chemistry, I guess. I tried. There was on his part. I don’t get that. How could he feel passionate if I didn’t? That didn’t make sense to me. So, that’s what I meant. Logically, I wanted to want him. But physically, I didn’t want him. I was hoping I would, eventually. I was planning on sleeping with him, anyway. I had to sleep with somebody,” she explained reasonably, somewhat surprised by their stunned expressions.
“What? Didn’t that make sense? I thought it all out.” She turned to Ben and handed him her empty glass. “Can I have a little more of this? I really like these. I’ve never had one of these before. What are they called, a Colorado Bulldog? I want the recipe. I’m sure that Karen will like these after she stops breastfeeding. I really like them, because they hardly have any alcohol in them.” She watched as Ben got up slowly to go over to the bar and make up another drink for her. But his big body was in the way, so she couldn’t get a good view of what all went into the drink.
“Kara, why did you have to sleep with somebody?” Ben asked softly as he put the drink in front of her.
Kara picked up the glass and took a sip. “Ben, this tastes even better than the one before, almost like a coffee and chocolate milkshake!” Ben stood beside her as she continued to sip her new treat, and he stroked the hair down the back of her head. “Sweetheart, why did you have to sleep with Jim?”
Kara looked up into Ben’s soulful brown eyes and told him the truth. “I was lonely. I wanted babies and a family. He was the best man I could find after you and Quinn sent me away, so I had to figure out a way to learn to want him, to learn to love him. I knew that if I really practiced, if I really tried, I would figure out how to do it.” She realized her voice sounded sad, but she just couldn’t help it. She was sad when she thought about sleeping with Jim, and she had been sad when Ben and Quinn had sent her away. Now she was sad having to tell them about how pathetic her life was. She figured she might as well finish it.
“You know that I broke up with Jim.” She appreciated that they didn’t say anything, they just nodded solemnly. “He didn’t approve of my parents. I deliberately talked to him at the time about it before he ever met them. He said it wasn’t a problem. He said…he said…” She looked down at the milky brown liquid in her glass.
“What, Kara, what did he say?” Quinn asked.
“He said live and let live. He said he would love them, because they were my parents. Then he couldn’t wait to get away from them. He even suggested that after we were married that we wouldn’t have to see them very often. But that wasn’t the worst.” Kara felt the tears coming and wished she could stop them, but she couldn’t. God, she hated crying. “He said it was morally wrong and icky. How could somebody I thought was so nice say that about my mom and dads? How could I have been so wrong? How come I’m always so wrong about everyone I trust?”
* * * *
Quinn couldn’t handle it a minute longer. “Ben, what did you put in that last drink?”
“Milk, coffee, cola and chocolate syrup,” Ben quickly replied.
“Sweetheart, can you look at me for a moment?” Quinn waited until she was totally focused on him, and he winced at the two tear tracks that he saw marring her beautiful skin. “You were right to trust us.” He watched as she shook her head wildly, white-gold hair flying everywhere. He lunged for her drink, quickly handing it off to Ben.
“No! No, I wasn’t.” Quinn carefully caught both of her hands, and placed them under one of his on the dinette table. Then he reached up and brushed the hair out of her face so that she could see him.
“Yes, baby, you were. It might have felt like we were giving you up, but in our hearts we never did. We always planned to come back for you, to make a life with you. So, you can trust that your instincts were spot on when you trusted us. Now, were we—” Quinn paused and grimaced. “Was I smart about how I went about this? Fuck no. I was the world’s biggest dumbass.”
“Good try, Quinn.” He watched Kara box her arms on the table and rest her head on them. She appeared to be looking at Ben and him from the side, her eyes getting droopy. “I thought that, at first. I believed you were trying to protect me. If it had just been you, that explanation would have worked. But it wasn’t just you, was it?” Her eyes cut to Ben. Quinn looked over at his brother, and he watched as Ben looked ready to throw up. “Ben went along with it, and he knew that I wasn’t like your mama, that I wanted to be with you no matter how dangerous your job was. But he agreed to send me away, too.” Her last words were said quietly, as her eyes closed.
“Kara?”
“She’s asleep, brother.” Quinn looked at her again and saw the deep even breaths, and realized Ben was right. She’d fallen asleep. Their plan had worked. They’d gotten information from her, but at what emotional cost?
“Why don’t you take her to the bedroom?” Quinn offered. He wanted to be the one to carry her, but after those last words, he knew that Ben needed to have the intimacy. Jesus, what a mess he had made of everything.
* * * *
Kara climbed up to the deck of the boat and found both Quinn and Ben unpacking new fishing gear. She was thankful that it was a normal overcast day so the sun wouldn’t hurt her eyes.
“I’m guessing those had a bit more of a kick than I thought.”
“Vodka,” Quinn said succinctly. “We were trying to get you drunk,” he said as he continued to unpack a box.
“Yeah, I figured that out when I was brushing my teeth this morning. I appreciated you having a bag of my stuff waiting for me.”
“Yeah, we’re real nice that way,” Quinn said in a disgusted voice. H
e stopped unpacking and came over to where she was standing. “How are you feeling? We really only gave you three drinks, but we knew you don’t normally drink.”
“I have a bit of headache. I raided your medicine chest and took a couple of aspirin. I hope you don’t mind.” Quinn guided her over to the padded the bench on the side of the boat and motioned with his head for Ben to join them.
“Of course we don’t mind if you took some aspirin. Whatever we have is yours. Do you know why I wanted—and by the way, it was my idea, not Ben’s,” Quinn clarified. “Why I wanted to get you drunk?”
“You wanted to find out what had happened with Jim.”
“That was definitely part of it,” Quinn agreed, “but I wanted to find out where we really stood with you. I wanted to find out just how big of a hole I had managed to dig for Ben and me.”
“It’s pretty big,” Kara said, letting her long hair slide over her face so she didn’t have to look at him. Quinn didn’t let her get away with it. He immediately reached out and pulled it back from her face, and handed the mass to Ben who was seated behind her. Ben easily tied the length into a loop so that it would remain in place out of her eyes.
“It’s pretty big, but I’m thinking it’s not insurmountable. I think we have to start all over again. We have to prove to you that we’re the kind of men who won’t leave, who you can depend on to be there, even when life throws us curveballs.” Kara still refused to look him in the eye, but she could tell by his body language that Quinn was frustrated. She stared at the point beneath his chin for a while before finally answering him.
“It’s not so much life throwing you curveballs. I know that you can handle anything. You’ve proved again and again how capable you are. Where I don’t trust you is that you won’t let me stand beside you. That you’ll put me behind you on some misguided notion that you’re protecting me, and we will end up with an unequal relationship. That would never work.” Quinn couldn’t believe the level of relief he was feeling. The fact that Kara was even explaining how she thought a relationship should work in the future meant that the possibility of a future relationship existed. She might not realize it, but he did. Thank the Creator! He peered over her shoulder and, noting the wide grin on Ben’s face, saw that he had realized the same thing. Ben contained his grin and turned her around to face him.
Quinn watched as Ben pulled Kara into his arms, and then he stood up with her and picked her up, taking her over to one of the large angler’s chairs that were used for fishermen to fish off the back of the boat. Quinn followed and sat on the chair beside them. He watched as Kara eventually began to relax into Ben’s hold and settle into his lap.
“There is a drastic difference that you haven’t realized in the dynamics of our relationship this time, Kachawli,” Ben drawled as he smoothed his hand up and down her arm. Quinn intently watched every move his brother made, reassured when Kara didn’t seem to object to his touch. She still didn’t seem to be responding the way she once did, which made him sad. So much of this whole situation made him sad, because he realized he was the one who had created the mess by not listening and understanding.
He’d called his mother last week and told her everything. Explaining how he had chosen not to burden Kara with the same kind of worries that she had gone through with Papa. His ears were still ringing from the high-decibel lecture he had received. The quote that resonated with him was that she would have “kicked Eddie’s ass into next year, if he had made that kind of decision for me.” After she calmed down, she admitted that he had looked at things from the eyes of a child, and she should have done a better job of explaining things to him.
Between Mama, Ben, and Kara, he realized that his protective streak, which he always thought was a good thing, might be something that was really a way to keep people at a distance. If he was busy protecting them, then he wasn’t really allowing them to be true partners with him, and was that what he truly wanted in a lifetime commitment? He knew Ben was always going to be his brother, but if they married Kara, they were going to be more than brothers. They were going to be in a marriage together, they were going to be in a triad, and that meant they needed to be equals. And, like his mother, Ben was going to “kick his ass into next week” if he screwed up again. Quinn grinned as he found himself really begin to relax for the first time since his dad died. Having two strong people like Kara and Ben as partners would be wonderful.
He hadn’t realized he’d been looking out over the water until he looked back at the chair and found Kara and Ben kissing.
* * * *
She felt different in his arms, and it wasn’t just the new lush curves. Ben had loved her long, lithe body before, but the bounty of warm, opulent woman who filled his lap and pressed against his burgeoning erection aroused him even more. He’d make sure she ate at least two cinnamon rolls every day for life if her ass stayed this luscious.
Her lips even felt different, or maybe it was the emotion behind the kiss. Before she had been so open and welcoming, but now she was tentative and shy. He found himself having to slowly coax her and he found it extremely moving. He undid the loose knot he had earlier tied in her hair so that he could run his fingers through the cool silk. The texture of her hair was so different from his. Every part of her was soft and feminine and he reveled in it. He let his left hand continue to weave through the strands of white-gold, and brought his right hand to her face so that he could brush caresses against her cheek. Lightly, ever so lightly, he stroked the soft flesh, tempting her jaw to relax so that her mouth would open and let him in. He felt her sigh and part her lips, and as he brushed the tip of his tongue along the inside of her lower lip, her flavor exploded across his senses, setting every nerve on fire. At last, he had his Kara back.
Ben was careful. He knew that she was still wary. He couldn’t blame her. He knew that out of the three of them, he was truly to blame, and it was up to him to rectify the situation. It was clear to him, after her admissions last night, that she was unable to sleep with anyone unless she felt a profound emotional commitment to them. She might have intended to be intimate with Jim, but Ben would have bet his last dollar that even if Jim hadn’t fucked up, it wouldn’t have happened.
With that in mind, he decided that instead of continuing the slow and painful process of trying to wheedle their way back into her good graces, he was going to start with a physical seduction to worm his way back into her heart. Kara wouldn’t share intimacy with him and Quinn unless she was partway in love with them, and once they got her in their bed, Ben was positive that they could get her to fall back in love with them, all the way.
All of these thoughts washed away as Kara hesitantly pushed her tongue into his mouth. Nirvana. Ben’s erection that had been pulsing since Kara had first settled her heart-shaped ass onto his lap was now being scraped to death by the zipper of his jeans. Kara must have felt it, because she wiggled and pressed even closer as her tongue thrust further into his mouth. He felt sweat beading on his forehead.
The chair was big. It allowed the fishermen to move around while they fought to reel in their larger catches. Ben leaned back, breaking the kiss.
“Straddle me, Kachawli,” he breathed close to her lips, unwilling to part more than an inch from the heaven of her kiss. Kara looked at him, dazed and unmoving. He easily picked her up from his lap and positioned her so that her knees were on either side of his thighs and her denim-covered pussy was now flush against his denim-covered cock. It was torture. It was sublime. Her blue eyes looked at him, really looked at him.
“You want more than sex, don’t you, Ben?” It was a trick question. He wasn’t going to fall for it.
“I want you, Kara, any way I can have you. What way can I have you? Tell me?” Long moments passed, and he heard the lap of the water against the hull of the boat. She looked away from him, over at the water, at the horizon. He didn’t know what she was staring at. Maybe she was seeing something that could only be seen by that artist’s brain of hers. She turn
ed back to him, and her eyes were so dilated they were almost black with want. Her fingers trembled as they reached out to touch his cheeks, tracing the grooves on each side of his mouth, grooves that only she and his mother had ever called dimples.
“I want you, too, Ben. But it’s like it was at the very first, when I thought nothing more was ever going to come of it. I just don’t think anything more is ever going to come of this, and I guess I do care too much about you not to be honest.”
Ben reached up to stroke her cheek. He couldn’t resist touching that soft, velvety-white skin. She smiled and leaned into his touch. “Thank you for caring enough to be honest.” Thank you for caring. Ben knew not to press for anything more. If he made her think too much she’d back off.
Ben brought one of her hands to his lips and whispered a soft kiss into the palm. “Is this just about me, or is this about both of us?” He could feel his brother’s laser focus on Kara’s answer from here. Like Ben, he wasn’t showing his need. Quinn was waiting for Kara’s tentative steps toward him.
“I’m not scared of you anymore. I believe you didn’t mean to hurt me. But I don’t feel the same way I used to, and I don’t want to lead you on.”
“You’re not. You’re being honest, it’s one of the things that I’ve always found so attractive about you.” Ben pressed another kiss into her palm, a reward for her honesty.
“To tell you the real truth, after all those dates, I’m thinking that it’s just not in the cards for me.”
“What’s not in the cards?” Ben cuddled her closer, feeling that they both needed the intimacy for this conversation.
“Having what my parents have, having a family.”
Ben hated hearing the dejection in her voice. “Any man would be lucky to have you.” He winced when she arched her eyebrow at him. “We told you, we always planned to make a life with you.”
Claiming Kara [Fate Harbor 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 20
