Newmar, Lola - Leo's Crown [Scarlett Rose and the Seven Longhorns 2] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever)

by Lola Newmar

  “It heats up.”

  That definitely caught Scarlett’s attention. “And this is something men like?”

  The blonde let out a soft laugh. “Oh, honey, men love it. They go nuts with the waves of heat it sends through their bodies.”

  Scarlett bit her lower lip as she tried to decide what to do. It sure sounded like a lot of fun, and she was willing bet the men would think it was a great surprise, especially considering the fact it would just make it that much more possible to have them all at once.

  Or at least as many as I could fit, she silently laughed to herself.

  “How about you just try a taste to see if you like it?” The lovely stranger held the bottle out through the cracked door with a reassuring smile.

  “Thank you! That’s a good idea. No harm in trying, right?”

  “No harm at all,” she remarked as Scarlett reached through the door opening to grab the bottle.

  Scarlett dribbled a small amount on the back of her hand. She then licked a small drop of the red, warm lubricant. “Mmm.” It didn’t taste much like apples, but it was very sweet.

  But just as the liquid settled on her tongue, she felt as if her throat was closing in, and she quickly grabbed it in a panic. The room began to spin, and almost immediately, bile and foam began to leak from her mouth, muffling her screams when she tried to call for Byron. She fell to the ground, and as if her body were being controlled by someone else, she felt it convulse violently in reaction to the substance making its way through her bloodstream.

  * * * *

  Byron felt like a semitruck struck him in the chest. With a loud, struggling gasp, he abruptly sat up from his bed.

  Scarlett!

  They’d all known about the inexplicable, instant torture a shifter would go through when his mate was in danger. What he didn’t expect was for it to feel like Satan himself ripped his soul and frantically beating heart from his chest, but that’s the only way he could describe it.

  He immediately flew from the bed and ran down the hallway toward his mate. He wasn’t used to feeling such terror. This horror he was feeling, this unspeakable pain he was feeling, this wasn’t the man he knew.

  “Scarlett! Scarlett! Please! Answer me! Where are you?”

  He could hear the fear in his rough voice. Byron never panicked, never lost his cool, but he felt as if a sumo wrestler were sitting on his chest from the pressure of the incredible panic. There was no answer, and his stomach churned sourly.

  When he reached the end of the hallway that led into the living room, he froze with terror. There lay his sweet mate, unconscious with a small, red glass vial of liquid gel resting in the palm of her right hand.

  Byron ran and knelt by her side, grabbing her face much more roughly than he’d meant to. “Scarlett! It’s me. It’s Byron, baby. Please wake up!” He gave her face firm taps with the tip of his fingers, but there was nothing.

  He felt the deep pain begin in his chest from being around his harmed mate. Fisting the edges of her borrowed Western shirt, he jerked her tiny, lithe body toward his and grabbed her fiercely as he wrapped his arms around her.

  “Please, baby, wake up. Please.”

  He’d already begun to plan his destruction should she never wake. If she wasn’t in his life, he would have none. He’d been waiting forty years for his earth angel. It was much too unfair to consider she’d be taken already.

  When he squeezed her roughly to his chest, he heard the most beautiful, most magical sound he’d ever heard. She gasped a little for breath, but he could hear she was struggling to make a sound.

  He cradled her in his arms as he knelt there on the wooden paneled floor. “Oh, my baby, just hang on, okay? I’m just going to call Leo right quick. Hold on, darlin.’”

  Her eyes remained closed, but he could see she was slightly stirring. He carried her to the large leather couch and placed her gently down. He then rushed to his cell phone on the kitchen counter and frantically dialed Leo’s number.

  “Leo! Scarlett’s been hurt. Come quick!” The panic dripped from his usually calm voice like venom from a snake’s fangs.

  He could hear the wind noise coming through a window in the background and knew Leo was already in his truck and heading back home. “I know, brother. I felt her about five minutes ago. For a minute, I thought some asshole had sucker punched me in the back of the head, and then I realized it was Scarlett in distress. I’m already on my way.”

  “I think she took something someone must have given her. Oh, God!” He looked down and saw she was getting sick all over the floor. He knelt down and turned her to her side to keep her from choking on it. “She’s throwing up everywhere, Leo. I’m going to call an ambulance.”

  “They won’t get here in time, but I’m literally pulling the truck up right now.”

  Byron closed his flip phone and threw it across the room in anger, shattering it into a million little pieces. He felt lost, but most of all, he felt stupid. How could he have gone along with his daily sleeping routine when he knew Scarlett would be alone in the house? What the fuck did he expect to do when he was asleep? If only he hadn’t overworked himself till exhaustion.

  Suddenly, he heard a loud bang when someone tried to open the door. When Byron looked up, he saw the chain lock was still in place. He instantly realized whoever had hurt Scarlett must have somehow gained her trust, had found a way to make contact with her through the door opening.

  Byron rushed to the front door and unlocked it. Leo nearly knocked him over as he ran past him and over to Scarlett.

  “She’s been poisoned,” said Leo as he brushed her hair from her face. Byron rushed over to his side to see how she was doing. She seemed to settle the vomiting, but the pale, greenish color of her skin showed she was only going to get worse unless she got immediate medical attention. “Quick, help me get her over to the clinic so I can get her the appropriate antidote.”

  Byron quickly scooped up Scarlett and carried her out the door with Leo following. Leo jumped off the porch, immediately shifted into his longhorn form, and quickly sprinted off to the clinic on the other side of the ranch while Byron whistled Wayne over. Wayne was well trained enough to run over to his owner without hesitation.

  Byron hoisted Scarlett’s tiny body over his shoulder and used his free hand to pull them both atop the black beauty. Byron gave the horse a slight kick of his spur, and they were immediately off to the clinic.

  * * * *

  They reached the door just as Leo began to shift back to his human form. Hardly giving any thought as to how naked he was, he opened the door quickly and ran in, immediately rummaging through the supplies in the cabinets and drawers.

  “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck…,” he kept chanting aloud, feeling the flood of emotional distress washing over him like painfully hot oil.

  What the fuck was he doing? He was actually panicking, an emotion that had never once come over him as a doctor. His collected, professional side kept reminding him of the rules of his medical training. Stay calm, unattached, focused in on the task at hand, do not let emotion get in the way of a patient’s well-being.

  Byron softly placed their poor little mate onto the medical table. Twice in two days. What the fuck kind of mates are we? Leo pushed back the strain of insecurity he felt, along with the panic flooding his brain at the sight of Scarlett so sick, unable to sheath in his professional-doctor mode.

  Scarlett was his mate, and he desperately wanted to liberate his building emotions and hold her close to him. But she was also his patient. He had a job to do, and that was to save lives. And this one just happened to be the most precious life on the face of the damn Earth.

  He threw on a pair of extra scrub pants he’d left in a drawer then continued searching frantically for the general antidote.

  Chapter 6

  “Sugar? Can you hear me?”

  She had to be dreaming. Why was she hearing Rhett’s voice? He was supposed to be in Houston. She slowly opened her eyes as she felt a rough,
masculine hand caress her cheek gently. It was as if the man was afraid to break her.

  Her heart leapt as her eyes confirmed what her ears told her was true. There, leaning over her as he sat on Leo’s giant bed, was Rhett. And as much of a pompous, arrogant jerk he could be at times, at that moment, she felt as if her spirit had been resuscitated at the sight of him.

  “Rhett!” Scarlett sprung up from the bed and wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. She gave little notice to the fact she was completely naked, draped only in a bed sheet. Her tears flowed freely as she clenched his pearl-button shirt tight in her fists.

  The last thing she remembered was getting violently ill to the point she’d thought she’d die, and now she was waking up to Rhett’s angelic, pretty-boy face. Suddenly, the event that had happened mattered little when she was actually holding her mate, her soul mate, right there in her arms.

  When she pulled away, she was beyond shocked to see his chin slightly trembling with emotion, despite his not crying freely as she was. His blue eyes were misty, but he quickly gave her a broad smile as if to distract her from the tears threatening to spill.

  “Feeling better, candy pants?” he asked as he visibly tried to keep himself together.

  Scarlett rolled her eyes and playfully slapped his arm. “Same ol’ Rhett. You just had to throw in a chauvinistic remark in there to justify how extremely in love with me you are,” she teased and shook her head as she smirked.

  “You already know me too well.” He gave her a charming wink and leaned in to softly kiss her lips. He pulled away, and she watched as his friendly smile slowly faded and his darkening orange eyes darted down to her hardened nipples, clearly visible through the thin fabric she held against her. “Mmm,” he moaned as he leaned in and inhaled.

  His tongue snaked out and very, very slowly licked the skin between her breasts as if savoring her flavor. Scarlett’s pussy immediately responded by providing a dollop of cream onto the bed sheets. She giggled as she was reminded how stained Leo’s Egyptian cotton bed sheets had became after she and all her mates had made love their first night together.

  Rhett brought his mouth to hers and immediately began to dominate the kiss, and it turned into something raw and wild, just like Rhett himself. Her big, horny cowboy never kissed her slowly and teasingly the way his triplet, Sonny, always did. He didn’t sprinkle her lips with light, little pecks before gently pushing his tongue into her mouth—that was Levi’s signature. Rhett wasn’t the romantic type in the sense of spooning and kissing her sweetly. His idea of romance was all about sex, sex, and, oh yeah, sex. Giving Scarlett multiple orgasms as his six brothers watched was how he knew to show his love, and at that moment, Scarlett wasn’t about to argue.

  He fisted his hand in her hair to pull her closer, and she immediately felt the raging, rock-hard erection he’d already grown since touching her. He moaned loudly as he ground his denim-clad cock over her sheet-covered thigh.

  Scarlett moved her hand slowly down his tight white T-shirt, and as she did, she felt every hard muscle flex at her touch. She stopped when she met the button of his jeans. She sighed with passion when she heard his breath hitch just as she unfastened it.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  The dark, angry voice was the last thing Scarlett heard before her eyes flew open, and her jaw dropped as she watched Devlin grab Rhett by the back of his shirt and hurl him onto the bedroom floor.

  “She’s just done being sick, you selfish prick! Give her some goddamn space, and tame that fucking mastodon’s trunk in your pants!” Devlin’s eyes burned orange and dark with his raging bull, but Scarlett couldn’t help but giggle when they immediately turned soft as he turned toward her.

  “Hey, kitten,” he said as softly as his husky voice could go then walked over and sat next to her on the bed. He tenderly brushed the ends of her bangs out of her eyes. “We all got here as soon as we could. The moment you got ill, we all felt it. It was the most awful feeling I’d ever felt. We just grabbed the two cows we’d bought and headed out. We were supposed to meet with the horse breeder late tonight, but that can wait. You’re the most important thing to us, now and forever.”

  He then kissed her as if his life depended on it, his large hands grasping her shoulders tightly as he delved deeper into her mouth. She moaned at the pleasure-pain of his intimidating strength. She would never think pain could feel so damn good, but Devlin was her dark Master, and the intensity he radiated only had her begging for more.

  Rhett’s announcement had her breaking the kiss, and she didn’t miss the way Devlin growled in anger from the separation. “I’m not going to Houston tomorrow, so I get to be right here with you.” Rhett’s eyes roamed her body. “Or more like in you, should I say.”

  Scarlett laughed as Devlin angrily threw a pillow at his face. It made a loud sound, and it was obvious Devlin had thrown the soft thing with some major strength.

  “Ow! That kinda hurt, bro.” Rhett shot daggers at Devlin with his now green eyes.

  “That’s the fucking point, you damn pansy,” replied Devlin.

  At that moment, Levi, Sonny, and Denzel walked into her room. She felt her body heat at their simple presence, and she held out her arms as soon as she saw them. They all came rushing over to her, Levi on her right, Sonny on her left, and Denzel with his head resting on her lap as he clung to her thighs tightly.

  She immediately felt complete, whole again. All her men were in the house they shared. Except—

  “Hey there, Sleeping Beauty.” Her head snapped toward the soothing voice coming from the doorway.

  Seeing Leo was like waking up to wrapped, big bow-topped gifts under a Christmas tree as a child. She felt coziness, comfort, excitement, and pure elatedness. He gave off the ultimate paternal air, and something inside her young mind couldn’t help but be pulled toward it. Although she was still trying to remember who she was before the cliff-falling accident, she had a feeling she’d needed someone to take care of her for a long time now.

  He came over to her and pulled her head into his chest as he stood at her bedside. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his thick waist for several moments before he spoke. “Oh, baby girl, I was so scared.” She pulled away to look up into his beautiful, concerned face. “Do you remember anything? Anything that can help us figure out how this all happened?”

  “Well, I remember a woman. I was going to buy you all a gift, and then I remember getting sick.” Most of it seemed to be a blur once she’d fallen to the ground in agonizing pain after she’d tested the lube.

  Levi, Sonny, and Denzel all scooted down the bed to make room for Leo to sit. He held her hand gently in his before he looked into her eyes. Her pulse began beating frantically because she could tell from the looks on all of their faces that what he was about to say was not something she was going to want to hear.

  “Baby girl, you were poisoned.”

  Scarlett felt as though her stomach dropped to her feet as she ripped her hand from his. “I–I was what?”

  “When Byron found you, you were holding a bottle of red lube in your hand. Is that what the woman gave you?”

  Scarlett felt her breath quicken at the realization that she had once again been the target of a mysterious person. She tried her best to gather her thoughts as they all came crashing down on her. She was being chased.

  “Y–yes, she came by, and she was such a nice lady. I didn’t let her in, but she was selling sex toys and gifts, and she’d insisted on me sampling the apple-flavored lube. Suddenly, I was on the floor throwing up everywhere.”

  She shook her head in frustration. She was getting so fucking fed up of all the aftereffects of the amnesia, despite the condition seeming to get better since yesterday. “The rest is such a haze.” She began to sob, more in anger than in sadness. “Why does this keep happening to me? I don’t understand. Maybe I was a bad person before, and I just can’t remember it.”

  She grabbed Leo close again as the other
five men sat back on the bed, surrounding her as they each gently massaged various parts of her body as if trying to calm her emotions.

  Sonny grabbed her waist from behind as he scooted closer into their embrace. “Aw, sweet cakes, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I can’t stand when you’re not happy.” His words soothed her, but she still couldn’t stop the soft sobs escaping her throat. “Oh, baby, please look at me.”

  Scarlett knew her face had to have looked a hot mess with as much crying as she was doing, but she turned to face him anyway. Sonny held her face in his hands as he looked deep into her eyes, a rare serious expression on his face.

  “As long as you are with us, Scarlett, we will do everything in our power to protect you. Oh, honey,” he cooed as he stroked a falling tear away from her cheek, “you really have no idea how precious you are to us, how priceless.” He grabbed her hand and kissed her palm. “The moment you are hurt, so are we. And we can’t be having that, now can we?”

  He smiled and winked at her as she laughed. That was Sonny, though. Always the sunshine of the room. And he was right. How could she be sitting here feeling sorry for herself when she had seven—seven!—Texas cowboy longhorn-shifters who claimed to worship the ground she walked on?

  So she did what felt natural. She wiped her tears away with her hands and held her head high. “You’re right, my sweet mate.” She leaned in and gave Sonny a slow kiss, immediately pulling a moan from him. She then rested her forehead against his, her hands cradling either side of his handsome face as she looked into his aquamarine eyes. “I have the sexiest cowboys in Texas, and I’ll be damned if anyone gets in the way of that.”

  She jumped in surprise when Levi suddenly came over, grabbed her, and claimed her lips with his. He smiled at her when he moved back. “That’s my girl.” His face beamed with adoration.