by Gigi Moore
Of course it all depended on how she performed tonight and what sort of energy he was able to obtain from her.
Amy slid off her coat and, following his lead, she neatly folded it and placed it on the back of the chair beside the bed. She hopped up onto the foot of the bed and sat waiting for him.
“I didn’t tell you to relax yet, Amy.” Not that she was relaxed. He felt her tension all the way across the room, fed off of it.
“I just thought—”
“Don’t.” He moved across the room, recognizing the rebellious but wary light in her blue eyes as she watched him. Prentice stopped before her and bent at the waist to kiss her forehead. He reached out to caress her face, sliding his hand from her cheek to her nape, and drew her closer. He kissed his way down her face until he reached her lips and seized her mouth with his.
She gasped when he thrust in his tongue and explored just at the opening before invading further, deeper, subjugating.
Prentice pushed her back against the mattress, using his knee to spread her thighs wide.
He put his hand between her legs, stroking the heated slit behind the crotch of her pants until she groaned into his mouth and squirmed beneath him. He pulled away enough to let her get some air, willing her to open her eyes and look at him. “It will be everything you dreamed it would be, Amy. I promise you.”
“I…I know.”
The uncertainty in her voice was music to his ears.
He wasn’t gentle when he pulled her slacks and blouse off, leaving her quaking and panting beneath him on the bed like a strung out junkie in just her panties and bra.
He slammed into her mind then, hard and forceful so that she could not deny his presence even if she wanted to, even if she chose to disbelieve.
Amy glanced up at him, eyes widening with realization as he skimmed the surface of her mind before twining his thoughts around hers. He eased in now, letting her know that he had total access, had had it all along.
He held her in abeyance while he slowly stripped down beneath her rapt gaze.
When he returned to her, she was ready for him, hot and wet, so slippery when he eased his finger beneath the edge of her panties and drove it inside her. “What naughty thoughts are you thinking, sweet Amy?” As if he didn’t already know.
Her fear was palpable now, warring with her desire and curiosity to see how far he would go with her, still afraid of what he would do to her.
Prentice ripped her panties and bra from her before lowering his face to her cunt and taking a healthy whiff. The salty-sweet tang of her arousal mixed with the heady scent of her vulnerability and invigorated him.
“Please…” She reached for him.
Oh, little Amy was stronger than he thought.
“Not yet.” He buried his face between her legs to take his first real taste of her. He felt her knees trembling around him as she bent her legs and tried to bury her hands in his hair.
“No.” He stopped her with his thoughts and her hands hovered above him, desperate for something to do but caught between the commands of her own body and his will.
Prentice buried his tongue inside her as deep as it would go, swirling it around before plunging it in and pulling it out until he reached a frantic rhythm that was totally overwhelming to dear Amy.
She bucked and gasped beneath his manipulations so wildly Prentice thought she might be having a seizure.
He slowed his ministrations so that Amy could catch her breath. He didn’t want the poor child to die after all.
“Oh God, oh God! Please…”
He watched as her breathing slowed and she finally lay still on the bed. Perspiration shone on her smooth, pale skin, making it glow beneath the light of the room, giving her an ethereal appearance, as if she had already died and gone to the great beyond.
Not yet, Amy. Not yet. I have plans for you.
Prentice crawled up the bed until he straddled her hips. His cock was hard as cast iron while pre-cum leaked from the slit in its head. He teased her wet folds with it, mingling their juices as he planted his palms on either side of her head and stared down at her. “Say it again, Amy.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“God.”
“That’s it.”
Chapter 14
Maia had been having a bad feeling ever since they’d touched down at the airport in Oklahoma City. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew that Thayne and Cade’s Aunt Aura had not died from a massive stroke. Knowing this, she was gladder than ever that she had decided to accompany them to Oklahoma to attend their aunt’s funeral. She needed to be near them, with them. They needed her protection. From what she wasn’t sure. She only knew that she should be with them now.
According to the lawyer who’d called Thayne, a neighbor had found Aura dead on the floor in her kitchen. The coroner’s initial findings bore out the manner of death, ruling out any kind of foul play.
Maia remained doubtful but had not expressed any of her concerns to the brothers. They had enough to worry about mourning the only mother figure they had ever known since their own mother’s death.
She did not look forward to the upcoming service but knew attending it could not be avoided. She had committed to being there for Thayne and Cade if they needed her.
After Aura’s lawyer, Mr. Chandler, met them at the airport, he soon escorted them back to her home on the ranch where Thayne and Cade spent the better part of the day giving Maia a tour of their childhood home and giving her a bird’s-eye view into the type of upbringing the pair of them had received and the type of people that their aunt and uncle had been.
Maia sensed such pure and sweet vibes from Aura’s house and the people who visited that she soon began to relax beneath the outpouring of well-wishes and love.
Aura seemed like the type of person that Maia would have liked to have known, and she was sorry that she did not have a chance to meet the woman who had loved Thayne and Cade enough to give each of them a chance at a good life.
She felt like she owed the woman so much for taking care of Thayne and Cade until they were able to take care of themselves, until they could meet her.
“How are you holding up?”
Maia glanced up from her cup of herbal tea as Cade sat down on the sofa beside her.
It had been a long day of travel and meeting Aura’s friends and neighbors, and they had finally begun to unwind from the day only an hour ago. Tomorrow would be an even longer day when they attended last rites for Aura and then listened to the reading of her last will and testament.
“I’m fine, but I should be asking you how you’re holding up.”
Cade shrugged as if to communicate his usual nonchalance, but Maia knew that he had been deeply affected by the last couple of days’ events. She knew how devastated she had been at the death of her father so could imagine how Cade felt despite his silence.
Maia didn’t even want to touch on the situation that existed between her, him, and his brother or what they had been discussing right before Thayne received the fateful call. She knew, however, that they would not be able to put off the inevitable forever. After the funeral and reading of the will, there would be nothing stopping them from hashing out the issues standing between them all.
She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
“You about ready for bed?”
“Where’s Thayne?”
Cade chuckled at her obvious evasive tactic. “He’s riding at the indoor arena. It’s one of his ways of dealing with stress.”
“And how do you deal with stress?”
“I think you already know the answer to that.” He moved closer to her, and Maia hated that she flinched when he reached to touch her. She hated the hurt look that sprang in his sapphire-blue eyes, too, but she couldn’t help her anxiety. She worried not only about what he would see when he touched her now but what that vision would do to him.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, knowing it in no way conveyed all she felt
, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“It’s okay.”
“No it’s not.”
“You can’t help how you feel.”
“I still want you,” she blurted.
He grinned, but the sad look remained in his eyes. “But you’re afraid of me.”
She couldn’t answer him.
“The bitch of it is, I know how you feel, and I don’t blame you.”
That he accepted her rejection so easily sent a sharp pang of remorse shooting to her chest. She remembered how much of a freak and pariah she had felt in junior high and high school when news of her visions got out. She particularly remembered how the kids both feared and were sickly curious about her and what she could do.
“I think I will head up to bed now.” Maia put her empty cup down on the coaster atop the end table.
“You know where your room is?”
Maia nodded as she stood. She glanced down at Cade for a long moment then bent at the waist to kiss his cheek.
He turned his face just enough so that her lips met his.
Maia sucked in her breath at the contact and closed her eyes at the shock of electricity that infused her body from head to toe.
If he could set her on fire like this with just a kiss, when they were both fully clothed, what would it be like when they had sex?
She’d probably explode.
Maia smiled at the direction of her reflections, how she’d thought when they had sex and not if they had sex, as if the act was a foregone conclusion, at least in her mind.
“Want us to come up and tuck you in later when Thayne gets back?”
Maia burst out laughing and put a hand on Cade’s cheek, loving the way the stubble felt against her palm, such a contrast from Thayne’s relatively smooth, close-shaved jaw.
She loved his sense of humor. She loved so many things about Cade and his brother.
Maia knew it was just too soon to feel so close to these men, as if she knew their hearts and souls. She felt like she had known them all her life, as if they belonged to her.
It didn’t matter how much she argued with herself, however. She couldn’t deny all the confusing, tender, and wonderful sensations flowing through and suffusing her heart.
“I think I can manage.”
“We’re here if you need us.”
“I know.” She would be there when they needed her, too.
* * * *
Thayne returned a couple of hours later, thoroughly exhausted and ready for a shower before he crashed.
Cade sat on the sofa in the living room, still dressed and staring at the TV. Maia was nowhere in sight, and Thayne didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing.
He took a seat next to Cade, who sat in front of the set like a statue and didn’t react to Thayne’s presence, not even when he picked up the remote and lowered the volume on some mindless reality show that his brother obviously wasn’t watching. “Where’s Maia?”
“She went up to bed a couple of hours ago.”
“You’ve been down here all that time?”
Cade turned to Thayne. “You thought I’d try to move in on her while you were out?”
“No, that’s not what I thought,” Thayne lied. “But since you brought it up, maybe we need to talk about what happened back in McCoy right before we came out here.”
“What’s there to talk about? I told you what Mom and Dad said.”
“There’s that.”
“You think I made it up, like some convenient celestial lie to get laid with you and your girlfriend?”
“You’re purposely being snide, Cade, and I don’t like it.”
Cade sighed and threw his head back against the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. “I never wanted this. This isn’t what I came here for, Thayne.”
“Oklahoma?”
“No, here as in home to live with you in McCoy. I would never have dreamed to move in on your territory, to cock block you.”
“I know.”
Cade lifted his head from the sofa to stare at Thayne. “I mean, I can get my own woman, but that’s not what this is about. It’s just not as simple as me getting a woman of my own or you having a woman of your own.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Where it always has. Where Mom and Dad told us it does. We need to work together, to protect each other, to keep Maia safe.”
“Yes, about that. What exactly are we keeping her safe from?”
“Evil that will be knocking at our door.”
“That’s so nice and ambiguously not helpful.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Thayne chuckled, glad he had something to chuckle about though it wasn’t much. Anything was better than nothing, though, especially now.
“Why don’t we hold off on making moves until this is over and we’re all back home?”
“Agreed,” Cade said. “I won’t touch her and you won’t, except cursorily, until we all get back to McCoy.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Thayne nodded but knew it wouldn’t be that easy. When there had been no restraint on acting on his desires except his own willpower, it had been hard enough staying away from Maia physically. He’d managed it, though. Now, however, with the stipulated bargain struck between him and his brother, the pressure would really be on, the dog-in-the-manger syndrome in full effect.
He left his brother on the sofa and headed up the stairs, the quote to the victor belong the spoils unaccountably playing in his mind over and over. It was something his competitive brother would probably think more than him, but since Maia had entered his life, Thayne had not been himself in a while. He didn’t know if he would ever go back to that detached, impervious, staid workaholic Thayne ever again.
* * * *
Maia’s spirits should have been buoyed by the start of the day, a morning that dawned so bright and warm, with birds chirping and singing outside, she shouldn’t have been able to help but wake with a song in her heart.
Only dread filled Maia’s.
Her feelings didn’t lighten at breakfast either when the brothers did everything but don hazmat suits to avoid coming directly in contact with her.
Their efforts were so coordinated and concerted as they went about making, serving, and eating breakfast, Maia wondered if they had had a little talk about her last night after she had gone to bed.
The situation would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic, but could she really blame them if they had talked? They were brothers, and she couldn’t fault them for closing ranks against her. Blood was thicker than water, and what brothers worth their salt would let a woman come between them?
Except that Maia clung to Cade’s words back in McCoy about her completing a circle. The vision brought about hope for her future with Thayne and Cade, hope she continued to hold onto by the thinnest of a thread, she realized.
Aura’s last-rites ceremony was a short and simple Wiccan affair, one that Maia found strangely comforting, as if Aura took care to ensure that her loved ones didn’t mourn her unnecessarily. Every word the High Priestess spoke, every act she performed, was one that put Aura’s gathered friends and family at ease and assured them that Aura was happy on her latest journey.
After Aura’s cremated remains were buried beneath a tree in the woods behind her house, Mr. Chandler had a car collect Thayne, Cade, and Maia and brought them all back to his law offices in town.
The reading of the will proved just a formality as Aura had expectedly left her house and The Lively Horse Ranch to Thayne and Cade. There were no other relatives to contest.
Mr. Chandler informed the two brothers that they could take some time to decide what to do with everything, whether or not they chose to stay and run the ranch or inevitably sell it. He said that he could help them with either undertaking once they made their decision.
After thanking Mr. Chandler for all that he had done for their aunt, Thayne and Cade left his offices and escorted Maia back to the ranch.
<
br /> The feeling of unfinished business hovered over Maia the entire day, a feeling of impending danger that she just couldn’t shake as much as she tried, especially at the last rites.
Once back at the ranch they all changed out of their formal attire into simple jeans and shirts, ready to wind down and prepare for their return to McCoy tomorrow.
Thayne put something special on for dinner, leaving the covered pan on a low fire in the oven to slow cook before he headed for the basement with instructions to Cade and Maia to take the pan out of the oven in a couple of hours.
The delicious aromas that wafted through the house had Maia’s mouth watering and her regretting that she had missed Thayne’s famous whole-wheat vegetarian lasagna in McCoy. She was glad that he gave her and Cade a second chance now to sample it. She was starving since none of them had partaken in lunch at Mr. Chandler’s office or even wanted to.
Curious as they sat on the sofa in front of some inane TV show neither of them really watched, Maia asked Cade what Thayne was up to in the basement.
Cade shrugged. “He’s probably satisfying a bout of nostalgia, going through some of our old belongings, probably some pictures of Aunt Aura and Uncle Jeff.”
Maia nodded in understanding. She’d seen some of those belongings the previous day when Thayne and Cade had taken her on a tour of the house.
“He was really close to them, you know,” Cade added.
His aunt and uncle had been his only living relatives next to Cade. Maia imagined Thayne would be close to them. “What about you?”
“I loved them and all, but I was close to Thayne. After Mom and Dad died, he kind of became the center of my universe back then. I tagged along with him wherever he went whenever I got the chance. Probably put a real crimp in his romantic life.” Cade grinned. “Until I got one of my own, that is.”
Maia smiled but didn’t have a chance to say anything before they heard a door in the kitchen open and close.
Thinking Thayne had come out of the basement, she didn’t move, and neither did Cade. Thus she was surprised to see the man appear on the threshold between the living room and the kitchen.
