“What’s going on back in town?” Adam asked after several long moments of silence.
“Nothing much yet. The whole gang is in wait mode. The sheriff and Dillinger are holing up at the jail house. Lara’s pa offered to put up any of the gang that wants to stay in town.”
“The sheriff is going to let the gang assist him, then?” Adam would never let his brother know the relief that washed through him at that news. He liked to think he had faith in the town sheriff, but the truth didn’t land too far from what he’d told his brother earlier. Sheriff Baird couldn’t defend his way out of a rucksack.
“He isn’t too happy about it, I’ll tell you that.” Luke shot Adam a smirk that spoke volumes about how he felt toward the sheriff’s happiness. “It isn’t set in stone either.”
“He hasn’t ordered you or the rest of the gang out of town,” Adam pointed out. “That’s got to count for something.”
“No, he hasn’t done that. Yet.”
“You’ll be staying, then?”
Luke fell quiet for so long Adam didn’t think he would answer. His gaze locked on Lara, now treading water, keeping only her head and the top of her shoulders above the surface. At last he nodded slowly. “Looks like.”
Adam released a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding even as he felt his world settle to rights. He tipped his chin at Lara though Luke didn’t see because he still looked at her. “She’s worried.”
“I figured she would be.”
“I don’t think it’s all to do with the Desert Riders. She seems bothered, confused. If you ask me, I think it has to do with us.”
“She heard us in the hall outside her room, heard you talking of how it’s supposed to be between us.”
“And?” Adam prompted when Luke let the silence drag on too long. He never found the words to explain everything to her himself. He never figured out how or where to start after Luke left. He held out hope that his brother would come back, and they would explain together, claim her together.
“And I didn’t tell her anything.” Luke looked at Adam, his eyes full of an uncertainty Adam rarely saw in his brother. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“What about now?”
Luke chuckled, but the sound held more frustration than humor. “Hell, Adam, you’re the one who has always been good with words.”
Adam nodded. “And you’re the one who has always been good with his hands.”
Luke’s lips twitched in a genuine smile. “So, what, you tell and I show?”
“We could go about it that way.” Adam paused, his gaze on his brother not wavering. “We do this, and there’s no going back, Luke.”
Luke looked back at Lara. When he spoke, his words fell on the air like a blanket of certainty and acceptance of fate. “I lost any chance of that the minute I rode back into town. I just didn’t know it until I stepped foot in that damned saloon.”
* * * *
Lara felt Adam enter the pond. Awareness tingled in her belly, quickening her pulse and heating her channel. He’d watched her for a long time from the trees. She sensed his presence first when she waded to the edge of the pond to fetch the bar of soap. Adam rarely managed to sneak up on her, for the connection they shared affected her in a visceral way only his brother could match.
She waited until he started closing the distance between them, until she heard the soft slapping of the water against his flesh, before she turned. Trepidation tightened her throat even as love wound around her heart.
And why on God’s green earth would you even think of giving up Adam?
Grace Stonewell’s question reverberated through Lara’s thoughts. She wouldn’t give him up, couldn’t. Even if forced to choose between the brothers she loved, no way could she let go of this gentle, poetic man who held her heart.
“Mind if I join you?” Adam’s voice sounded odd, gruff with arousal and something more she couldn’t quite define.
Lara pushed the cacophony of confusion in her mind aside and lifted a brow. “It’s a bit late if I do, seeing as you’re already in the pond.” Gloriously naked and almost within reach, she silently added . Her gaze fell from his face to his broad shoulders, the wiry dark hair that speckled his chest, and the dark beads of his nipples. Her own nipples hardened almost to the point of pain at the sight. She took one step toward him, then another. When he pulled her into his arms, all her uncertainties drowned in the sanctuary of his embrace.
“Adam.” She didn’t mean to speak his name aloud. She didn’t realize she had until he lowered his face to hers. He stopped so close she felt his breath fan her lips.
“Yes, Miss Franklin?” His gaze danced over her face. The tips of their noses brushed, and the corner of his lips tilted in a hint of a smile.
Lara didn’t answer. She stood there with her arms encircled around his neck, her body pressed firmly against his, and drank in his warmth and solidity. She felt safe in his arms, as if nothing or anyone could harm her. Likely because she knew he would never allow any injury to befall her. He would protect her with his life, the same as she knew Luke would.
It’s going to take both of you to keep Luke here. It’s how it’s meant to be.
Lara stared into Adam’s eyes and wondered, wished, and hoped. She forced herself to stop. She spent too much time these last two years doing exactly that. She couldn’t do it anymore. She would demand an explanation. She needed to know. He owed her that much.
“Why have you never asked for my hand in marriage?”
Adam blinked at her. Several heartbeats passed before he slowly lifted his head, but his gaze never left hers. “Is that what has your pretty little head troubled today?”
“Who says I’m troubled?” Lara lifted her chin, meeting his concern with a spark of challenge. It galled her how he seemed to easily see right through her even when she did her best to hide her emotions. She didn’t want him to know the turmoil twisting in her gut over him and Luke, over what would be, over how it was supposed to be. “I simply want to know why you never asked me to marry you.”
“Why now?”
His question threw her. Lara wrinkled her forehead. “Why now, what?”
“Why are you wondering this now? You never said anything about it before. It’s not like you to hold back, Lara. You come closer to speaking your mind than you do to keeping quiet more often than not.”
He spoke the truth, of course. She didn’t keep quiet even when staying silent proved to be in her best interest. “Maybe I feared what you would say.” The admission left a bitter taste in her mouth. Still, his honesty deserved the same in return.
Adam barked a laugh. “You? Afraid?” He kissed her.
Blast the man for knowing exactly how to shut her up. She might have let him get away with it if he stopped laughing. He didn’t. She felt his continued amusement in the way his lips quivered as his tongue snaked into her mouth. He actually tasted of laughter, and it sparked her temper enough to make her push him away.
“I’m glad you find me so funny, Mr. Stonewell.” She swatted at him, narrowly missing his shoulder when he dodged left. “You could’ve told me a long time ago. You might have saved me all the trouble of worrying that I’m not what you want in a lady, that I don’t satisfy you enough to be your wife.”
Adam’s laugher died. He gaped at her. “Lara, how could you think you don’t satisfy me? Christ in heaven, woman, how could you think I don’t want you?”
“I don’t know.” Seething, Lara brushed a stray hair out of her face and then brought her hand down in frustration. Her palm smacked the water between them, splashing them both. “Oh, it doesn’t matter how I could think it. What matters is that I did. You could’ve prevented that, Adam Stonewell. You needed only to tell me about yours and Luke’s plans, and I would’ve understood. I would’ve felt…” She trailed off as she realized she didn’t know quite how to finish her sentence. She would’ve felt wanted, loved, confused? Yes, all of that, just as she did now.
“You know then.”
Adam’s soft tone sounded strange in the aftermath of her louder outburst.
“Your ma told me.”
And shocked me to my bloomers, or would have if I’d been wearing them.
Lara didn’t say that much aloud. Still, she couldn’t believe what Grace Stonewell had revealed about her sons. They meant to marry Lara, to share her. They expected her to marry them, to satisfy them both forever. “What would you have done, Adam, if Luke never came back? Did you think to wait forever?”
Adam shook his head. “We both held out for him, Lara. You know that as well as I. You didn’t put him out of your mind or your heart any more than I put him out of mine.”
She didn’t see him reach for her under the water, but she felt his arm around her waist a second before he pulled her into a tight embrace.
“That’s why you never pushed the subject of marriage before today. You didn’t want to give up on him any more than I, did you?”
“No, of course I didn’t. I love him.” The weight of Adam’s tenderness and the truth between them lessened Lara's need to fight. “I just wanted to hear it from you. I wanted to know—”
She broke off abruptly when another set of hands framed her hips beneath the water. Luke’s hands. She didn’t hear him enter the pond behind her, didn’t sensed him there. Still, she knew that touch, recognized the heat that seeped through her flesh. Even after only one night with him, she couldn’t mistake his presence for another anymore than she could Adam’s.
He nuzzled his face in the bend of her neck, the sensation of his breath causing goose pimples to rise on her skin. “It doesn’t matter what Adam would’ve done because I came back.”
Lara laced her fingers at Adam’s nape even as she let her head fall limply back on Luke’s shoulder. She closed her eyes, consumed by the erotic sensations radiating from the bodies in front and behind her. Her mind struggled to grasp sanity when the solid walls of muscle holding her fast threatened to drive her mad.
Luke’s hands kneaded her hips. His teeth scraped her neck, her jaw, and then nipped her earlobe. “We can turn it right, here, now. Adam and I can make it as it should have been all along.”
Lara’s heart skipped. Her pulse raced. Arousal tangled with a foreboding she couldn’t quite explain into a heady mix that turned her breath ragged. “You’re planning to stay then?”
“I’m not seeing as I have much choice.” Luke’s tongue delved into her ear and then retreated to trace her lobe with the very tip in a pass so light it made her knees weak.
He intended to stay. Elation made her light-headed.
“I’ve been with you now.” A hand cruised from her hip to her thigh and paused.
Even in the cold water, her labia flamed in anticipation of his touch. She teetered on the verge of begging for it when he finally pushed his hand between her legs.
“I’ve been inside your sweet pussy.” One finger eased between her fiery folds, the callused pad grazing over her swollen clit.
The rapture that sparked didn’t stop there for he reached farther to plunge his finger into her sodden opening. Adam’s arms tightened around her waist when her legs started to shake.
“I’ve felt your tight pussy milking my cock until I thought I would lose my mind. I must’ve lost my mind, Lara. That’s what you do to me. There’s no way I can leave you again.”
His naughty words and erotic touches made her feel as though she lost her mind, too. Lara fought against the urge to surrender to his every wish without thought or question. She battled to hang on to even an ounce of her scruples. She needed them for she couldn’t sort the fear from the promising pleasure without deliberation or answer. “You plan to share me.” She opened her eyes, needing to see him, to see Adam. “That’s what your ma said. You both plan to marry me.”
Adam, always attuned to her emotions, asked, “Do you love me, Lara?” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear with a dripping hand. She leaned into the familiar touch. As always, it brought her a desperately needed comfort.
“Of course I love you, Adam.”
“Do you still love me?”
Fear tangled with hope in Luke’s voice. Lara thought at first she imagined it. Then she saw an echoing surprise swirling in the green depths of Adam’s eyes. She reached back over her shoulder for Luke, snaking her fingers along the flesh of his neck to cup his nape. “I never stopped loving you for a second.” She couldn’t mistake the relief that washed over his hardened features, softening his expression.
“Then you will marry us both.” He said it as if it were already settled. To him, to them, she supposed it was.
She couldn’t fathom it. Marry them. Both of them! It simply didn’t seem possible that a lady could claim two loves of her life forever. “And you will share me?” She cast a glance at Adam and then back at Luke.
Adam’s fingers skimmed the side of her neck, over her collarbone and down her arm, leaving a path of sizzling heat in their wake. He shifted, and her attention dropped to his cock stretching long and hard against her belly. Her pussy convulsed at the memory of having that cock spreading her channel. Her inner muscles squeezed on Luke’s finger, which still probed her opening.
Her concentration jumped to Luke, to his cock resting equally hard against her lower spine. His finger did delicious things inside her throbbing pussy. He stroked and wiggled in a way that put her on the brink of the madness. His other hand held her hip in a firm grip, trapping her between his body and Adam’s.
“We’ll share you,” the brothers said in unison.
Because their words made little sense no matter how many times they professed their intentions, Lara focused her concentration inwardly. She knew her heart, knew her mind, and knew both belonged to these men. If anything proved constant in her life, that did. Her mind might feel like a mud hole right about now as mixed as her thoughts had become, but her heart felt clear. She loved them. She needed them. Adam with his tenderness and poetic passion offered her a serenity she found nowhere else. Luke with his steadfast beliefs and domineering hands offered her an adventure she’d never before experienced.
What do I offer them?
The thought stuck in the forefront of her mind. Sex, yes. She knew she could give them that. A man deserved more from his lady. Darn him, them. She wanted to slap them for doing this to her, for confusing her so. Her temper sparked even as tears burned her eyes. She started to yell at them, but what came out instead voiced every ounce of doubt she felt festering in her gut.
“What if I can’t make you happy? What if I can’t keep both of you,” Lara dropped her gaze, closing her eyes as she forced the last word from her trembling lips, “satisfied?”
* * * *
Did the woman ever run out of surprises?
Luke shot Adam a glance over Lara’s head, stupidly relieved to find his brother looking as dumbfounded as he felt. Lara truly worried she wouldn’t be able to make them happy, that she wouldn’t be able to keep them satisfied. Christ almighty, had the woman gone crazy?
He knew of only one way to answer her questions and set her mind at ease. Seeing agreement in Adam’s eyes, Luke pulled his finger free of the heavenly warmth of Lara’s pussy. She made a whimpered sound of protest, and he nearly drove his finger right back in her again. Instead, he hooked an arm around her waist and lifted her.
She yelped, kicking her feet but not connecting with anything solid for he held her a good five inches off the pond bottom. The water became shallower as he carried her to the bank. He got distracted by all her creamy flesh slowly coming into view.
“You think with this body, with that spirit, you will ever run into trouble satisfying me?” He didn’t try to hide the wonder or amusement in his tone, knowing it would only bring out more of the wickedness he loved in her.
“Maybe I’m wrong. When you manhandle me that way, why would I worry about making you happy?” She slapped at his forearm, the blows stinging slightly but not rendering him any true pain.
“Well, there you are.�
� He grinned as he sat her on her feet on the soft grass at the edge of the pond.
“Huh?” She whirled on him, her brows knitted in confusion. “What kind of game are you playing, Luke Stonewell?”
“No game at all, sweetheart. I just don’t know what to do with you when you get all mushy and afraid to speak your mind like you did back in that pond.” He caught her wrists, cuffed her hands behind her back with one hand, and yanked her close. “When you get like this, all sassy and letting that temper of yours fly, I know exactly what to do with you then.”
Her chin jerked into the air. “Oh, you do, do you?”
Luke chuckled. He couldn’t help it. God, he loved her defiance, her gumption, her spark. “How did I ever think I could live without you?” He didn’t mean to say it aloud. He knew he did though when he noticed the shock gallop through her expression. Damn it, what made him think he could ever live with her knowing what he did to her, what he took from her?
She lifted a brow. “Well, you never were much for thinking.”
“I did quite a bit of thinking these last two years, and it’s all been about you.” He trailed the fingers of his free hand down her spine, delighting in the way her body shivered against his all the way down.
“Now who’s getting mushy?” Challenge sparked in her eyes despite the breathiness of her voice.
Luke splayed his hand on her ass, pulling her closer still, and ground his stiff cock into her belly. “Trust me, Miss Franklin. There is nothing mushy about me.”
Her eyes turned glassy even as her lips tilted in the grin of a vixen. “Then I suggest, Mr. Stonewell, you leave the poetic words to your brother and get back to the matters at hand.”
Luke cocked his head. “Oh, and what matters would those be?”
“I believe you were about to show me that you know what to do with me. Frankly, I can’t imagine how you came to possess such knowledge.”
A bark of laughter at her back drew Luke’s gaze up. Adam stood behind her, sheer amusement painted on his face. “Neither can I, but I’d be obliged if you saw your way to sharing that bit of wisdom.”
Her Vigilante Passion Page 7
