The Barlow Brothers: Burning Pleasure (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
Page 1
The Barlow Brothers: Burning Pleasure
When state arson investigator Tamara Royce is summoned to Pleasure, Tennessee by one well-placed phone call from the Barlow brothers, she knows her mind, body, and heart are in trouble. She’s resisted the brothers’ advances for too long. Two things kept her from submitting to her deepest, darkest desires. She refuses to choose as adamantly as Darryl refuses to share her with Seth and Colt. She’s also afraid Seth will attempt to control her entire world. But, when she faces off with them as she works to catch an arsonist, she quickly learns there’s no amount of inner strength that will save her from their beds.
Seth, Colt, and Darryl Barlow’s dominance varies, but their desire for the super-sexy and, so far, unattainable Tamara is one in the same. They’re willing to make compromises within themselves in their quest to claim her, but will that be enough or will the burning pleasure they give her leave their heart in ashes?
Genre: BDSM, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 41,647 words
THE BARLOW BROTHERS: BURNING PLEASURE
Tonya Ramagos
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
THE BARLOW BROTHERS: BURNING PLEASURE
Copyright © 2016 by Tonya Ramagos
E-book ISBN: 978-1-68295-173-6
First E-book Publication: April 2016
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2016 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About the Author
THE BARLOW BROTHERS: BURNING PLEASURE
TONYA RAMAGOS
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
“I see Seth’s call to McGregor did the trick.”
Tamara Royce’s heart gave her ribcage a hard thump at the sound of the gravelly voice behind her. If that had been her only bodily reaction, she would’ve dismissed it as a surprised jolt, but when she added it to the way all her girly parts suddenly came online as if someone had flipped her internal switch, she reluctantly accepted it for exactly what it was…sheer, unadulterated lust to the umpteenth power.
Determined not to let that show, she squared her shoulders and turned around. Darryl Barlow stood in the open emergency exit doorway, his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his black jeans and his intense blue gaze locked on her. She met that gaze for only a moment before her attention took it upon itself to give him a slow onceover. It had been a few months since their paths had crossed. Nothing about him had changed. His blondish-brown hair was charmingly tousled as if he’d just crawled out of bed. She tried to shut off the image of that when it started to form, but it only got clearer as her gaze skimmed over broad shoulders designed for a woman to hold tight. A solid black T-shirt strained over those shoulders and delineated every hard-toned muscle and flat plane of his torso. His jeans rode low on his narrow hips, lovingly cupped a package that made the inner muscles in her pussy convulse, and hugged his long legs.
Simply looking at the man made a moan bubble in her throat, and as her attention briefly settled on his black studded cowboy boots before making the slow climb back up, she feared it might escape. She swallowed it before it could and gave herself a mental pat on the back for holding her composure.
“Did any of you doubt it would?”
The last name Barlow, whether preceded by Darryl, Colt, or Seth, wielded a lot of influence and respect in Pleasure, Tennessee, and the surrounding cities. Seth had used that last night and here she was.
The corner of Darryl’s lips twitched in the hint of a grin. “Nah, can’t say as we did.”
“It was arson.” Tamara pointedly slid a look around the charred room before meeting his gaze again. “Although any of the investigators in the State Fire Marshal’s Office would’ve determined that as quickly as I did.” Hell, she would be willing to bet Clay Whitaker, the fire chief of the Pleasure VFD, would’ve figured it out without calling in an arson investigator if he’d been given half a chance.
He hadn’t been. Seth Barlow had worked his powerful magic, utilized ties he’d carefully built in the surrounding cities of the small town he coveted, and gone over Whitaker’s head. Not only had Seth taken it upon himself to call the State Fire Marshal’s Office but he’d also specifically requested that Tamara be sent to investigate the case. Her boss, Quinn McGregor, hadn’t offered a single word in protest, nor had he given her the option to do so.
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m assuming you and your brothers insisted on me handling this case because you trust my knowledge and experience as an arson investigator.”
“That’s the biggest reason, yeah.”
; He was a good ten feet away from her, but despite that distance, she still saw the truth skate though his expression. There was at least one other reason they’d wanted her in town, one that had put Darryl at odds with his older brothers, even if they had agreed on wanting her to carry out the investigation.
“Then trust me when I tell you that, yes, I am sure this was arson.”
It had taken her less than ten minutes inside the Cowboy’s Den to determine the fire, which had reduced the popular, exclusive BDSM club and its attached posh restaurant to little more than charred walls and whole lot of ashes, had been deliberately set. She’d discovered three points of origin, two in the room they were standing in and another down a hallway, all positioned in a way to ensure the back rooms of the Cowboy’s Den went up in flames, even if the fire never reached the restaurant. It had, though it hadn’t had time to spread its devastation through that part of the structure thanks to the Pleasure VFD.
Tamara knew she didn’t have to validate a thing to him. He might have been one of the victims in this case, but the local sheriff, fire chief, and McGregor were the ones who would need to see the proof. Still, she felt the need to back up her statement with the facts she knew so far.
“This building is equipped with a sprinkler system that was purposely turned off, the fire started in three distinct places that I’ve found, and an accelerant was definitely used.”
Darryl raked a hand through his hair, which only encouraged the unruly strands to riot in an effortlessly sexy way that put her in serious danger of drooling. “So there’s no chance it was an accident? Electrical wiring, a power tool left plugged in, maybe a—”
Tamara cut off his speculations. “Come here, but watch your step.” Any movement inside the structure demanded extreme caution.
Darryl’s gaze dropped to the floor as he carefully strode toward her. “It looks like covering the marble with hardwood was a bad idea.”
“The hardwood gave the fire a considerable amount of food, so to speak, but the room wouldn’t have fared much better without it.” Even the marble beneath had cracked under the extreme temperature of the blaze.
“Colt decided the back end needed a face lift. It’s been years since we’ve renovated the place. The hardwood was my idea, but Seth made the call to put it down over the marble instead of pulling the marble up in case we ever charged our minds.”
Tamara had never been inside the Cowboy’s Den before today, but she’d been fairly certain her assumption that the place had been under renovation before the fire was a good one. Now she knew she’d been right.
“And the stage? Has it always been hardwood?”
“Ever since the place was built. It was the best construction for the props and equipment used in the shows and demonstrations that went on nightly.”
The BDSM shows and demonstrations. Tamara didn’t need him to elaborate further on that, especially not now that he was standing beside her. Not only had he come closer but he was so close he was invading her personal space. He wasn’t touching her, but he didn’t have to. Even over the scent of smoke that lingered in the air, he smelled annoyingly manly, like musk and soap and something she wanted to lean toward.
And that would be a very, very bad idea. She couldn’t afford to let even an ounce of her control slip around this man, and she knew that was exactly what he was waiting for. He wanted her control to slip, wanted to take over, wanted to dominate her into full submission. The naughty girl inside her she had to fight tooth and nail to keep buried deep wanted that, too. The trouble came in the knowledge that she didn’t just want it with him.
The metal support framing was all of the stage that remained intact. She knelt in front of it, catching the straps of the camera hanging around her neck with one hand as she pointed beneath the supports with the other. She hadn’t moved any evidence yet, wanting to get a full picture, both on camera and in her mind, of the scene before she did so.
“See that? It’s where one fire started.”
“Is that a fuckin’ trashcan?”
Tamara’s breath lodged in her throat as she turned her head to look at him. He’d knelt beside her and leaned over to see what she was pointing at. He’d leaned so close, in fact, that her nose nearly brushed his cheek. She quickly jerked her attention back to the stage.
“Wire-mesh.” It surprised her that the words came out sounding steady and calm when nothing inside her felt that way. Needing distance, even if only a few more inches of space between them, she straightened and took a careful step to one side as she turned and pointed to the far corner of the large room. “A second fire was started over there, and a third was ignited down the back hallway.”
“That’s not the kind of trashcan we use in the Den.”
“Which means it was brought in for the job.” That was good to know. She’d balanced her clipboard on a part of the support framing seconds before Darryl had arrived. She reached for it now, snagged the pen attached to it by a string, and jotted down the information. “Is there anyone you can think of who would want to torch this place? A disgruntled member, former employee, town resident that wanted you out of business?”
Darryl shook his head as he straightened and turned to face her. “All our members undergo an extensive background check before they’re allowed into the club and every last one of them enjoys what the Den has to offer too much to burn it down. We haven’t lost an employee in years, not to quitting or firing. As for the townsfolk, more than half of them are members, and those who aren’t don’t mind what goes on inside these walls.”
“Well, someone does, or at least they did. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be standing here now.”
* * * *
“I’ve got to say, if I’d known this was what it would take to get you inside here, I might’ve toyed with the idea of torching the place myself.”
Tamara frowned at him. “Really, Darryl?”
The exasperation in her tone made him grin. “I said might’ve, darlin’.” Though he didn’t see an ounce of suspicion on her angelic face, he added for good measure, “And don’t go gettin’ it in your pretty head that one of us set the fire as some kind of insurance scam or something.”
She rolled her eyes and averted her gaze long enough to balance the clipboard on the stage framing where it had been moments ago. “I think I know you and your brothers well enough to know none of you would do something like that.”
Darryl wished she knew him even better than that. He wanted her to know everything about him inside and out. The trouble was Seth and Colt wanted her to know them better, too.
Why the fuck couldn’t his damn brothers back off? They’d done it before, not that it had turned out worth a shit for him in the long run. It was rare that the three of them set their sights on the same woman. Seth and Colt did it all the time, but they were into sharing their women. Darryl wasn’t. While Seth and Colt were all for the ways of Pleasure, Tennessee, and the ménage lifestyle the vast majority of the townsfolk chose to lead, Darryl was a bit of an enigma. He fell into the minority of residents that wanted his woman all to himself. And, that included Tamara Royce.
“I like this look on you.”
She was dressed in a full set of firefighter bunker gear, from the helmet on her head to the fire-retardant boots on her feet. The whole getup swallowed her slender frame like a Nomex-Kevlar sack and made his dick the hardest it had been in months. He couldn’t have explained why with a double-barrel shotgun pointed at his chest, but there it was.
She snorted and gave him an incredulous look. “You’re kidding, right? I’m filthy, I didn’t bother to put on makeup before making the drive to town, my hair is mess, and no woman looks sexy in turnout gear.”
Darryl shook his head. “The natural look suits you.”
He’d never seen her without makeup, but he decided he liked her better without it. He couldn’t see much of her hair with the large helmet on top of her head, but a few spirals of dirty-blonde hair had escaped the binding she’d put them in a
t her nape.
“Besides, the makeup wouldn’t have done you a bit of good today.”
She was filthy. Her eyes widened and filled with a mix of anticipation and trepidation as he closed the distance she’d put between them and lifted a hand to the side of her face. She had a smudge of soot across her cheek. He wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. Another smudge marred her chin, but rather than moving his thumb straight to it to clean that one away, he let his thumb detour to the edge of her luscious mouth.
Her lips parted, and he heard her suck in a breath as he dragged the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. It wasn’t the first time he’d touched her, though it was the most intimate contact she’d ever allowed him. The touch made something react inside him, something he easily recognized and didn’t bother to ignore.
“As for the gear,” he went on and let his gaze take a leisurely stroll down her body, “it makes me wonder what you’re wearing under it.”
“I’m not about to tell you.”
He hadn’t expected her to, and he knew that was one of the things that made him want her most. Tamara Royce wasn’t a docile kitten. She was an independent, headstrong, feisty woman. He liked those traits in a woman, when sex wasn’t involved, at least. However, when it was…
Darryl let his hand fall to his side as he met her gaze. “Then show me.” He purposely put just enough firmness in his tone to back up the words as a command and watched as desire raged a war with denial in her hazel eyes. She wanted to submit, wanted him, wanted to submit to him, but damn if the woman wasn’t more stubborn than a mule.