by Jenny Penn
What he’d take as pleasure had sunk so low so long ago that he’d forgotten just how good this moment could be. Running for the barn and the horses, trying to keep up with Jamie as she flew out of town on Danny’s horse, the chase was back on. God, but the only thing he loved more than the chase was spoils of victory when he won.
The arousal unfurling through his balls scorched in the most delectable ways, riling him into pushing hard, moving faster, determined not to lose his prey. Teasing him at every step was the image of Jamie all grown up.
That face, every perfect inch of that body had been burned so deeply into his mind that his every wicked fantasy revolved around her. His very flesh felt scarred, hard, and brittle as it thirsted for that one touch he’d never gotten. In so many hidden seconds and secret minutes, he’d fantasized about just what life would have been like if he’d made a different decision five years ago.
She’d been nineteen back then. Even then, Jamie’s curves had a soft roundedness to them, one that spoke of youth. While in his fantasies he’d filled her out into being all woman, he’d still not come close to the luxuries Jamie’s body had bloomed into. It helped too that the dirty boy clothes she’d always favored had disappeared.
They were replaced by, of all things, a riding skirt. Not once, not even to church, had Caelen ever seen Jamie in anything but pants. That day five years ago when Jamie had shed her clothes, both Brodie and he had been stunned and appalled to realize just how much of a woman had been tucked in under their noses.
Those times had apparently passed by. The curves that Jamie had once kept a secret she shared only with them, now beckoned a welcoming call to all men. It wasn’t just the clothes, for it was the fit that drew a man’s notice.
The soft cotton of her skirt had clung from the dip of her waist to smooth like a lover’s hand over the flare of her hips. A sweet zone wrapped in soft fabric, it made a man’s hands itch to rip aside that skirt and find the glories he knew would be waiting between those soft thighs. Thighs that pressed out of the folds of her skirt as she moved, teasing a man’s dry eyes with a hint of roundness.
It didn’t take much of man’s imagination to figure out what kind of sweet curves those folds hid. Especially not with her vest improperly unbuttoned at the top. The soft leather caught on the generous globes of her breast, highlighting her full curves indecently, which was just why Caelen’s gaze had lingered there.
Hard as he tried, though, he couldn’t see right through the white cotton to the most beautiful breasts he’d ever been tempted to take a taste of. He’d just have to rip the damn thing out of his way once they got a moment alone. That’s just what he’d do, because some things about Jamie hadn’t changed at all.
She still found trouble easy enough. The sparkle of green flashing in her gaze assured him she still enjoyed it. Knowing that, even knowing that the boy she’d rode off with was nothing more than a pawn, none of it helped with the surge of aggression snaking through the hard bite of lust gnawing on his balls, Jamie’s signature imprint on his soul.
* * * *
Brodie just couldn’t keep his growl behind his clenched teeth. It rolled out with no end in sight. Not even the hard pound of Geoffrey’s hooves could hammer it out him. Back in town less than a minute, and already Jamie Traynor had him pissed enough to chew through leather.
Aroused anger, her signature brand, burned through him. A fire of which he’d thought the flames had long burned out, leaving nothing more than ashes of his soul. The last time he’d felt the scorching lick of volatile emotions Jamie inspired in him had been five years ago.
Five years ago when he’d been fool enough to strive for honor, which just meant he’d been a fool. Brodie didn’t consider himself to be a noble man or even a good one. Life on the range made a man practical, but a practical man would have taken Jamie up on her offer.
Only a blind fool would have turned down the opportunity to ravish a girl as beautiful and exciting as Jamie. Especially given how she stripped down and offered herself up willingly for a man’s touch. It hadn’t been practical, though it might have been honorable. It certainly had just been plain dumb to say no.
Worse, he’d chased her off. All the way back East where he didn’t even stand a hope of getting a second chance, and that’s just what he’d been silently wishing for…for five years. As the days had passed into weeks, and the weeks had rolled on through the months into years, hope had begun to wane.
Brodie had stopped looking toward the horizon or glancing down the trails, waiting for his pigtailed rider to return. It figured that would be when fate finally answered. Brodie would get a second chance.
This time, no amount of tender feelings was going to hold back his desires.
* * * *
Jamie smiled as Danny spurred his horse further out of the city. Few moments in life were worth savoring the way she’d on the memory of Brodie’s face when she’d accepted Danny’s arm up onto the horse. He’d blinked and let them go.
The move had surprised her about as much as it had disappointed her. Jamie always knew that Brodie had to be half full of shit with all his threats. The overgrown brute just relied on all those muscles to make sure a person wouldn’t test him…all those muscles.
God, but he still looked just as good as his brother. After four years spent running a parlor house, Jamie now had experience to make a comparison. Not like it had been five years ago when she’d left thinking that there would be a vast supply of men just like Brodie and Caelen for her to pick from in the city.
Not that there hadn’t been some men that filled out their breeches and shirts just about as nicely as Brodie and Caelen, but for the most part, the pickings had been slimmer, paler, and they rarely smelled as ruggedly good as the MacAuley brothers. Leather and musk, sometimes tinted with the rich scents of tobacco, that’s what a man smelled like.
The city gents that weighted in as big as Brodie and even managed to smell right, didn’t have that true hint of feral aggression that made a woman bristle with danger as they moved in close. Not one man back East had ever looked at her the way Brodie did. None of them ever gave her half a thrill either.
Today that spark flared higher than ever because sweet-faced Caelen’s gaze had held the same dark warning. Over five years ago, Jamie had spied the beast lurking beneath Caelen’s angel smile and knew he had the same wildness running through his blood. She’d just never figured out how to prod his lust over the edge. Even when she’d watched him with other women, he’d always been controlled.
That’s just why she’d given him her well-practiced smug smirk when she’d let Danny lift her onto the horse because she could scent the change in him. That smile had assured her that this time they would most definitely be racing after her and that pug-nose whore Rebecca would just have to find her some other man to warm her sheets.
The game had begun. A little earlier than she’d planned on. It had been her intention to get settled into her daddy’s house before she moved onto tormenting Brodie and Caelen, but she’d learned to adjust to the random events life threw at her. Adjust she had and the first round had gone to her. The second round?
Well, that would probably go to whoever could get to her daddy first. Caelen had always been really good at getting her daddy to bend his way. In fact, he’d never lost an argument with Sheridan. She could only hope things went differently this time.
Now she had money, and money bought freedom. Not to mention her daddy thought of her as a married woman…soon, sadly, to be widowed. A widow with money had the right to make her own decisions, but that didn’t change some of life’s basic tenets.
Once Jamie stepped under her daddy’s roof, she stepped under his control. No amount of money or number of husbands, dead or alive, would change that. Her only option would be to leave or stay. Leaving again wasn’t an option, so it all came down to just what the MacAuley twins would show up demanding of her daddy.
The white and brown speckled horse Danny rode cut off the r
utted path that defined the road into town and began trotting through the green lit pastures that fed off the banks of the river. It might be a new summer, but all the old landmarks remained the same.
Jamie gave over her scheming to let the warm rush of memories wash over her. It could have been ten years ago, her sitting up front with one of her brothers taking her home. The only difference was she didn’t have to listen to one of their well-rehearsed lectures about not getting into so much trouble.
Right around the curve of the old grove of trees, any one of her brothers would have been winding down. Except for Gillian. As the oldest, he tended to yawn on, taking his duties a little too seriously. Now, though, she couldn’t wait to show Gillian what kind of proper woman she’d blossomed into.
Even if it was all a lie, lies served a purpose. Her family knowing the truth wouldn’t serve any good. Actually, it would do just the opposite. Not one of the men would even be able to conceive just how great her life actually turned out to be. No. They’d focus in on all the difficulties and dangers.
Jamie couldn’t lie about that. They existed, and she confronted them, but that just made the adventure all the more fun. Once she finished, she’d be heading back there, too. All she had to do was make sure Brodie and Caelen were so focused on her, they forgot all about their plans to marry that flea-infested, light-skirt back in town.
If she couldn’t have Brodie or Caelen, then neither could Rebecca. It didn’t matter that Jamie didn’t really want to wear their ring now. Jamie didn’t want to wear any man’s ring, but she wanted to finally know what it meant to be with one. That wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, she had very high hopes given everything she knew.
Knowing and doing though…Jamie had tried a little here and there with other men, but it just didn’t feel right. Every time she knew she was supposed to be overwhelmed with lust, her mind just kept churning away, wrecking the moment. What she needed was a man, or two, to make her forget just how…icky sex actually could be.
When Bridgette had written that Caelen and Brodie had built their own little cabin on the ranch and everybody expected them to marry Rebecca, Jamie realized her time had run out. Caelen and Brodie wouldn’t stray on a wife. If she ever wanted to spend a night in their bed, she had to get home.
Now the trick would be getting what she wanted and getting the hell out of town. If Caelen or Brodie ever got a whiff that she’d never been with a man before, they might not touch her, or worse, they might force her into marriage. Neither end would be acceptable to her. She wanted to use them just as they’d used every woman before her. Then she’d walk away. Walk away no matter how much it hurt because that’s what they deserved.
Even if they married Rebecca after she left, all three of them would know the truth. Jamie would own Brodie and Caelen, heart and soul, before she left Head of Elm. Heart and soul…
The slowing of the horse’s gallop to a trot and then to a complete stop under the strangling shadows of the forest edge had Jamie’s attention perking back to the moment. Three more feet and they’d be standing on her daddy’s land. It felt somehow symbolically wrong to be so close and to come to a complete stop.
Casting a questioning look over her shoulder, Jamie still didn’t resist as Danny pulled her to the ground.
“I think Marve’s got something stuck up in his shoe.”
It sounded odd to her, not having felt any change in the horse’s grate herself. Then again, she hadn’t really been paying much attention. Backing away as he pulled out his knife, she fully expected him to kneel down around whatever hoof needed help. Instead, the grim weight that had settled itself in her gut proved to be true once again.
She’d been here before. “Oh, I see.”
Her calm, cool reply had the tips of his lips lifting slightly. “That’s not normally the response I get, but having known you these past two weeks, I’m not surprised.”
That made her sigh. She’d heard that line before and it always amazed her. If these men paid so much attention to her, then they should know what they were about to get themselves into. Not that she expected him to see reason, but as a matter of habit, Jamie offered up a little advice.
“You do know this isn’t a very wise thing to do, don’t you Danny?”
That got her a laugh, not the easy one she’d come to know, but a much colder, jaded sound. “And why’s that?”
“Because Brodie and Caelen ain’t but minutes behind us.” If she’d told him it would end with him carrying one of her bullets off into his bleak future, the boy wouldn’t have believed her.
“Now that’s a normal response,” Danny smirked. “Are you going to beg too?”
Jamie gave him one sharp, shake of her head. “Nope.”
“You gonna be a good girl and save me from having to cut you by getting undressed for me?”
Like that would happen. He about made her laugh, but she checked the impulse and went with another crisp cut of her chin. “Nope.”
Danny didn’t look disappointed, despite his sigh. It took practice, unfortunately, for her to stand her ground so well as the boy walked up on her. Settling the sharp, cold edge of the knife right against her throat, Danny’s hot breath washed over her as he leaned in to ask, “Wanna reconsider? ‘Cause you know I kind of like cutting women.”
She didn’t doubt him, but that threat didn’t dip her smile a bit as she leaned forward. Dumbass expected her to say something, and that’s where he made his first mistake. Instead of whispering lewd nothings in his ear, Jamie tucked her chin down in a quick motion and gave him a mouthful of teeth as they clamped right down on the thumb of the hand holding the knife.
Danny hollered in pain. Jerking back, his arm lifted and the knife slid right over her cheek. The slice burned, but the pain got overwhelming as Danny snarled and tackled her. Going down beneath his weight, she still tried to bite whatever she could, scratch wherever she could, reach and kick whatever got in her path.
Once she hit the ground, though, the game turned as the foul man above her began grunting out threats and obscenities while he clawed at her clothes. Jamie didn’t let up with her struggles, but they became a concerted effort to keep him distracted as she bent up her right knee and stretched her arm downward.
Danny didn’t delay like some, and she could feel the pops of the pewter buttons as the waistband around her pants began to loosen. With her left hand she dug her nails in behind the tender curve of his ear and ripped with all the strength she could. Danny howled in pain, twisting in a blind attempt to save his ear.
The slight shift of his body weight gave her the room to reach down with her other hand and grasp at the Derringer tucked into her boot. Even as the cold butt of the gun pressed into her palm, Danny snared the hand clawing his ear.
His fingers tightened down over her wrist, squeezing hard enough to make Jamie bite her lip. She wouldn’t cry out. She’d never give him that satisfaction. Even if he did break her arm.
Jamie didn’t wait for that to happen. Not bothering to aim the gun at him, she folded her fingers around the heavy chunk of metal and used it as fortification for the punch she clipped his other ear with. It jarred him hard enough to have him rolling further off her.
She took that space to jam her knee into his groin, even as she leveled another heavy-handed punch right into his gut. The two-tiered hit doubled him over and he rolled free of her completely, if only temporarily.
Jamie didn’t waste a second and scrambled toward her feet. She’d barely gotten to her knees when Danny’s hand clamped back onto her left arm with a growl. This time his jaw cracked beneath the blow of her punch. She knew it’d broken, even as his head snapped back in a spray of blood that spat from his lips.
Jerking free of the fingers that had gone slack around her arm, Jamie made it to her feet this time as Danny groaned in the dirt. No sympathy, it took all her strength to just splatter his face with dirt as she fired only a warning shot into the ground beside his head. She’d like to take the damn thing clea
n off, but killing a man always led to more trouble, and she didn’t have Robert out here to deal with the mess.
The bullet did its job and got the bastard at her feet to focus through the pain on her, or more specifically on her gun. Either way, it worked for her. Taking a deep breath, she gave him a cold smile, knowing that the game had not wholly been won yet.
“I told you this was unwise, Danny. Now I ain’t gonna tell you again. The next bullet goes to the groin. Don’t doubt I won’t leave you here to die slowly just like that.”
He didn’t. She could tell that in the way he stiffened up. Rolling to a sitting position, he crawled slowly backward.
“I can see in them squirmy little eyes you thinking dumb thoughts, Danny. You done this before, I can tell. Now you know I’ve done it too, so don’t make no mistake. I’ll shoot you, boy.”
“You better, bitch,” Danny snarled back. “’Cause one day, I’m going to pay—”
He should never have told her to do that. The first rule of running a parlor house was to never make a threat you couldn’t deliver. The rule of the west, never pull a gun unless you were willing to pull the trigger. Both had become instinct to her.
“You fucking bitch!” Danny screamed as his hands clamped down on his thigh, the blood already starting to seep through his fingers. She’d taken a chunk clean out of his tender skin not inches from where she’d threatened to do him harm.
“I didn’t have to miss.” Jamie shifted her aim ever so slightly. “And I won’t if you call me a bitch one more time, boy.”
That had Danny going real still. He believed her that time, or maybe he realized just how serious the situation was about to become. Echoing into the sudden silence between them came the rumblings of thunder pounding through the forest fast and hard.
Chapter 3
Brodie and Caelen broke over them like a tornado in the middle of a sunny day. All chaos and motion, horses stomping and snorting as frenzied shouts ripped through the air. Danny got clobbered about the same second Jamie felt her feet levitate right off the ground. Two strong hands lifted her clear off the earth and shook her like a twig in the wind.
