It was so much sensation everywhere, all at once. Every part of her was rocked by violent need. The need raced through her veins and mixed with her blood until she could no more do without the three brothers than she could do without air to breathe.
Declan’s tongue punished her mouth as he devoured her, sucking the very breath of her life into his lungs, leaving her gasping and panting and wanting more. Sean drove his fingers inside her, first one, then two, then stretching her with three as his thumb began to press and stroke against her nub. Between Sean’s thumb and Robert’s mouth and hand, Ava felt like she was going to climax in every part of her body.
Robert teethed her nipples, biting them then licking them in a painful, sweet torture that made her buck her hips against Sean’s hand to seek relief from the growing need for release. Declan’s kisses kept her drowning in senselessness, and he wrapped his fingers around her throat, not squeezing but holding her firmly in place, making her feel frighteningly fragile and incredibly, erotically vulnerable.
Ava thought she would pass out from too much pleasure building without release. She needed to come, and the wordless silence that enveloped them made the experience all the more intense. Declan bit her lip at the same moment as Robert bit one nipple and pinched the other, and as Sean pinched her clit. She shattered, crying out into Declan’s mouth, bucking and shuddering as they kept touching, biting and stroking her, stretching the waves of pleasure to an almost painful extreme.
Gasping, she floated back from the mindless high into Declan’s arms and Sean’s kisses and Robert’s caresses. Her clothes were rearranged as she sleepily leaned in comfortably against Declan’s chest. She felt herself lifted and carried then set down on what she thought was the sofa. She could hear the crackle of crumpling paper and the snap of kindling as fire caught on the paper and wood in the hearth.
She drifted blissfully, even though some part of her was aware she needed to get up and do things. Blankets covered her, and pillows were slipped under her head. Three kisses touched her cheek, and she sensed the loss of Robert, Declan, and Sean’s presence as they slipped away.
“Don’t go into the woods, Ava,” Robert said, his soft growl the last thing she heard before she slipped away into warmth and darkness.
Chapter 7
“What was up with you in there?” Sean snapped, smacking Robert on the arm as they got in the SUV in front of the cottage. Declan had already stripped down and shifted, and he was busy sniffing out the perimeter of the cottage. Sean knew he’d stay there until tonight, when Robert would take over.
His insides warmed at the thought that it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since Ava had walked into his life, but now, he couldn’t imagine life without her. It wasn’t just the sex. She was smart, damn smart, and that was so damn sexy. None of the other girls he’d ever been with had been as smart as Ava. Or as beautiful. Or as desirable. Or had such a hold over his heart as she did. She had to be the one.
None of it was going to work, though, if Robert kept behaving like an asshole. Robert didn’t answer him, and Sean threw him a grin.
“Come on, bro,” he said.
“I can’t help it,” Robert said between clenched teeth. “Just the thought of her in danger makes me see red. Literally. Red.”
“I gotcha,” Sean replied, the engine roaring to life as he backed down the dirt path and onto the gritty road. “But, you gotta rein it in. You’re going to scare her off.”
“She won’t listen to us. She’s going to put herself in danger, and I won’t let her.”
“None of us are going to let her,” Sean said patiently. “Dude, you also have to stop growling around her. You’re going to give us away before we have a chance to explain us to her.”
Robert ran his hand through his hair and sighed, then laughed ruefully.
“Okay, little brother.” He chuckled. “I will be on my best behavior until we can explain everything to Ava.” He sobered. “What if she’s not the one?”
“She has to be,” Sean said firmly. “Grace will know. We’ll ask her.”
“You really believe, don’t you?”
“I always have.”
Robert smiled, and Sean grinned as he turned onto Long Road.
* * * *
At first, Ava woke up, feeling amazing. Every muscle in her body was relaxed. She was warm and content, blissful, in fact. Pink fuzziness filled her brain, and she stretched luxuriously until she hit the end of the couch. Then, it all came back, along with her own personal black cloud of anger and humiliation…and the ache in her heart that was almost physically palpable.
What had she done? Not even twelve hours after having sex with three men, she had done it again? Let three men touch her and explore her body to bring her to, well, an amazing climax. Still. This was not her. She couldn’t believe it.
Sloughing off the blanket that covered her—they must have put it on her—she got to her feet and went to the bathroom. Looking in the small mirror over the sink, she studied her face. No, she was the same Ava Bell, Harvard PhD candidate in American History. The same dark-brown eyes. The same brown hair with the slate gray cast to it. The same quirk of the eyebrows and skeptical twist of her lips, or maybe her mouth always looked skeptical because she only saw it when she looked in the mirror and never liked what she saw. Too pale, too pinched, not pretty. Not ugly, but not pretty.
Memories of what Robert, Declan, and Sean had told her of the ghost story of White Farm bubbled to the surface, and for a moment, she was distracted. She couldn’t help but be interested in that story, and she decided that it would be a good little side project while she was here.
While she was here…
She was due back on December 20 to turn in her final draft of her dissertation. Her advisor had promised to read it over the holidays, his “Christmas present” from her, he had called it. It was November 18, and she had made good progress in editing so far, but she had a ways to go before she packed up on December 18 and drove back down. Just one month away, and half the manuscript to edit. Well, she could do this. She would do it, and she wouldn’t let herself be distracted by men.
And yet…she missed them. She missed them? What the hell? She barely knew them. Looking herself straight in the eye in the mirror, she admitted that she viscerally missed their presence. The thought of their kisses, their touches, their cocks made her body burn and throb in all its most sensitive places.
“Okay, Ava,” she said to her reflection. “You haven’t had sex in years. You’re probably just feeling the need for physical contact, and you’re getting it in spades. Yes, it’s good, but no, you are not going to let yourself get into any kind of mess up here.”
She set her jaw and nodded at herself. Suddenly, she shivered, goose bumps springing up on her arms as the temperature suddenly dropped. She took in a deep breath to calm herself, but gasped when she exhaled and could actually see her breath in a frosty cloud. What the hell was that? The cottage was nice and toasty because of the big fire the guys had made before they left. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the sensation of being cold.
“Old, drafty place,” she muttered to her reflection. “The wind.”
She took another breath and exhaled it slowly, feeling the temperature rise again around her. See? Just a gust of cold wind coming through the cracked old caulking of the bathroom window.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow flit across the doorway to the bathroom, dark and quick. Heart pounding, she spun around, leaning back against the sink for support.
“Who’s there?” she called out. Then, she realized what she was doing and shook her head. It had just been a bird or something flying across the window that made the shadow.
“Stupid power of suggestion,” she said out loud, forcing a smile. “No more ghost stories on an empty stomach.”
The sound of her voice reassured her, and she stepped into the main room of the cabin. Everything was fine, perfectly normal. She just wasn’t used to country
living. She thought about getting out her laptop and files and working through a few pages before lunch, but the rumbling in her stomach told her that lunch was going to take precedence over editing. Maybe going out for lunch would help her. A breath of cold, fresh ocean air and some other people would help her regain her equilibrium, no doubt.
Grabbing her keys, cell phone, and wallet, she shrugged on her parka and went out to her beat-up silver hatchback parked alongside the house. It wasn’t raining outside, but it was misting, and she could taste the salt in the air. She’d have lunch then settle in for a long afternoon of editing by the fire with a bottle of wine. That sounded like a plan.
She drove down Long Road, carefully navigating its twists and turns. She had seen local pickup trucks tearing down this road, taking the curves at crazy speeds, but she didn’t know the road well enough to do that. Yet. Being a Boston driver, there was little she was afraid of…except trees, deer, and moose.
At the corner of County Road 73 and Long Road was the edge of Blue Moon. There was the red general store, called the General Store, the Blue Moon Library, the town hall, a white clapboard church—Episcopal, she noticed—and the Double Rainbow Café. Around the corner from Long Road and 73 was the heart of Blue Moon. She had only been into town once, but what she had seen of it was charming, with shops, restaurants, and a beautiful harbor with fishing boats bobbing in the sheltered waters. She hadn’t met anyone, as she had only come in to get a few groceries at the time.
Well, no time like the present to get to know the locals. Maybe they could tell her more about Goody Barrows. A fleeting idea occurred to her to write a romance novel about puritan times in Blue Moon with Goody Barrows as the misunderstood heroine, but she shook off that fantasy, smiling to herself as she parked in front of the Double Rainbow Café. She was an academic, not a novelist.
The Double Rainbow Café was an old, wooden, one-story building with a soft-serve ice cream window for tourists in the summer and a single room dining room for the rest of the year. Ava peeked inside hesitantly. It was a quaint place, which she instantly liked. The walls were painted soft blue, and antique photos of the town’s history were everywhere. The tables were simple, square and wood. There was a counter at the back that blocked off the entrance to the kitchen, and tall windows let in lots of light.
There were a few diners in there, mostly men in heavy flannel jackets and jeans, sipping coffee and finishing off hamburgers. The men looked tall and strong, no doubt from years of hauling lobster pots.
“Hello!” a deep, masculine voice boomed across the room.
Ava looked up to see an incredibly tall, handsome man with blonde hair and hazel eyes striding toward her. Jesus, were all men in this town gorgeous?
“Welcome,” the man said, holding out his hand to shake hers. “I’m Steven, co-owner of the Double Rainbow. You must be Ava.”
“Wh–What?” she stammered, distractedly shaking hands with him.
“Small town,” said another man, coming to stand by Steven, a beautiful African-American with the smoothest skin she had ever seen and glittering black eyes. “News travels fast.”
“Oh, um, yes. Of course. Yes, I’m Ava.”
“I’m Julius,” said the other man. “My partner Steven and I have heard so much about you!”
Partner? Ohhh, “partner.” A gay couple owning a café in a coastal fishing village was the last thing she expected, but then…ohhh…the Double Rainbow made total sense now. She smiled at them. This was normal. This was cool. She could work with this.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “So, can a girl get some lunch here?”
“Can she get lunch, Julius?” Steven asked, winking at his partner.
“Only if it’s on the house and she sits with us,” Julius replied with a straight face.
“Oh, wow, guys, you don’t have to do that.”
“Ava Bell,” Steven said, “you need taking care of.”
“Why is that?” she asked with a laugh.
There was a fraction of a second of hesitation before he answered her.
“Because, you’re a graduate student,” he replied.
Somehow, deep in her bones, Ava felt he had been going to say something else. For the life of her, though, she couldn’t imagine what.
Five minutes later, Ava found herself draining a Diet Coke and waiting for the Double Rainbow’s Demon Burger, the house special, while sitting with Steven and Julius.
“So, how did you guys find yourselves up here?” she asked.
“Born here,” Julius replied, and Steven nodded.
“And you stayed?”
“Blue Moon is a special place,” Steven said, a strange, almost cynical smile tweaking at his lips. “It’s hard to leave.”
“I see,” she said, but she didn’t really see at all. She nodded at the photos on the wall. “You guys are local history buffs?”
“History is a living thing here,” Julius replied. “Many of the houses date back to the seventeenth century. Most of the families here have been here just as long.”
“But, that’s incredible!” What she didn’t say was the inappropriate question that popped into her head of inbreeding and the problems of a teeny-weeny genetic pool like that.
“Some families come and go,” Steven added, laughing and looking into her eyes as if he could guess her thoughts. “Keeps us fresh. But, for the most part, we’ve all got Blue Moon in our blood.”
“How about you?” Julius asked, leaning in slightly. “What’s your story?”
“Me?” Ava said. “I’m actually from Maine, too, but down south. Portland. Grew up there, got out of there, went to Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts, then on to grad school.” She didn’t mention Harvard because most people either made fun of it or found it intimidating.
“Your family’s still in Portland?” Julius asked.
“No,” Ava replied. “Mom died when I was in high school, and I’m not close to my step-dad. I’m an only child, so there’s nothing to bring me back there ever.”
“What about your father?” Julius probed, but somehow, she couldn’t feel resentful of his questions. She couldn’t help but like him and Steven.
“Never knew him,” she said. “Mom never talked about him. I figured I was the product of a one-night stand. She married my step-dad when I was a baby.”
Steven and Julius exchanged a glance, and she felt a little confused.
“So, I heard an interesting story about the place I’m staying,” she said to change the subject. “About a woman named Goody Barrows?”
A fork dropped, clattering against a plate, and the room fell silent. Ava could feel every pair of eyes in the room turning to her.
“You’re staying at White Farm?” Steven asked quietly.
Ava nodded, too creeped out suddenly to say anything.
Somewhere from across the room, she heard someone whisper, “She has to be the one!”
“You guys take your legends pretty seriously around here,” she joked feebly, trying to lift the oppressive sense of fear that was crowding in on her.
“I told you,” Julius said, dead serious. “History is a living thing here in Blue Moon.”
Another whisper from a different part of the room reached her.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Chapter 8
It was only Declan’s calm, easy entrance to the Double Rainbow that relaxed the tension in the air after Ava had mentioned Goody Barrows. The subject had been dropped, dropped like a lead weight tied to lead weights buried in concrete.
The Demon Burger had arrived, and she had nearly choked to death on the hot sauce. Julius had offered to make her a regular burger, and Steven had laughed, but she had insisted on finishing every last bit of it, even if it made her ears ring and eyes water. Julius and Steven made her eyes water, too, but from laughing too hard. It was difficult not to snort her food at their banter, and somehow, she felt like she was back at home in Harvard Square, verbally jousting with her friend
s at Bartley’s Burgers.
Declan hadn’t joined them. He had simply nodded to Ava, sending her a smile that melted her down to her toes and made her want to run over to him and throw herself into his arms. He had sat down at a table with a couple of men who talked about the forecast for the next few days and the impact it would have on dragging for scallops. A storm was coming, which meant they’d all be land-bound and lose a few precious days of dragging.
Declan’s presence had relaxed Ava, reassuring her in some wordless way that she was absolutely safe. She resented feeling safe because of someone else, though, and tried very hard to ignore him. Julius and Steven had sent her home with half a pan of homemade lasagna, declaring that grad students’ cooking skills were on par with their social skills, and if they didn’t feed her, she’d probably live on scrambled eggs and microwave pizza.
The sky was noticeably darker when she finally left the Double Rainbow, the gray clouds now sporting black bellies and hanging low above the dark pine trees. Rain was coming, and that meant no walk down to the water’s edge. As soon as she got home and shoved the lasagna in the fridge, she ran to the woodpile by the edge of the woods and carried several large, heavy loads back to the cottage. She had discovered that nothing was worse than not having dry wood for her fire. There was an electric heater for backup, but she much preferred the dry heat and warm light of the fire in her fireplace. Now, at least, she had enough wood to last her about two days through the storm. She had even moved a few armfuls into the barn to keep them dry for the day after the storm while the rest of the pile dried off.
Dumping her last load, she finally kicked off her boots and brushed the moss and bark off her parka, noticing that it was dirty now. Well, she’d wash it in a day or two, after the storm abated and she could go back and forth to the barn where the washer and dryer were without soaking her clean, dry laundry.
Blackthorne, Fiona - Moonstruck [Blue Moon 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 5
