by Vanessa Vale
Now, I had to do my part to show her how good it could be if she let us take care of her. If she chose us for her husbands, we would be in charge and she would love it. I told her that in some form or another as I brought my hand down on her ass.
“Tell me what you want, sweetness.”
She raised her head slightly, just enough so I could hear her say it. “More.”
“That’s right, sweetness, you’ll never get enough of us taking care of you.”
I brought my hand down again and then rubbed the sore flesh, soothing the sting I knew she felt, knew only made her hotter. I heard Sam mutter, “Oh holy fuck” when he entered the room. The sight of Katie sprawled across my lap with her ass in the air had us both horny as hell.
He sat beside me on the sofa, positioning himself so his cock—already hard again—was under Katie’s head. No one had to tell her what to do next—she took the length of him in her mouth and let Sam guide her head up and down in time with her spanking.
I waited until I couldn’t last any longer, the sight of Katie sucking on Sam’s cock as she got spanked was just too damn hot. In one motion, I repositioned us so she was on all fours, her head in Sam’s lap and her ass in the air.
She never stopped sucking on Sam, not even when I slid my cock inside her pussy and started fucking her. I couldn’t help the groan that tore from my throat. She was so hot, so tight. So wet. When I teased her asshole, her moans were muffled by his cock. Sam came first and I watched our girl swallow as he arched his hips up off the couch. She followed close behind, a pinch of her clit sending her over the edge and taking me with her. I couldn’t hold back, my need to come too great.
She was perfect. Just what Sam and I had been hoping for in a woman. She wanted both of us equally. Saw us both as two individuals, but jointly as the men who could give her the focus she needed and the sweet orgasms she deserved.
It wasn’t until we were all cleaned up and sprawled across the couch that the topic of her staying came up again. Katie’s head rested against Sam’s chest, her legs in my lap, looking content and happy, and just a little smug with that shit-eating grin of hers and that made me feel like a cave man. Yeah, our girl had all the damn power.
I smoothed a hand over her thigh. “Do you believe us now, sweetness?”
Katie’s eyes were soft, sated—a far cry from the stressed, crazed look she’d been wearing when we first picked her up. “Do I believe what?”
“That we want you for the long haul,” I said, giving her thigh a squeeze. “That you’re ours.”
Surprise flickered across her face but she hid it with a smirk. “Was that the message I was supposed to get from what just went on here?” She waved a hand toward the kitchen table where she’d been fucked senseless over the table. “Because honestly, I don’t see how spanking me so much gets that across.”
Sam tweaked her nipple through her opened blouse, making her squeal with surprise and pleasure. “We spank you because you’re ours. Because you deserve to have two men looking out for you and making sure you’ve got your priorities straight.”
She was quiet, which was a rare event in and of itself. I took that silence to be a good sign. At least she wasn’t fighting us on the idea.
“We’ll keep showing you just how much you mean to us,” I promised. “Even if that entails a spanking, sweetness. It will be our pleasure to show you what it could be like if you stayed… but we can’t make you leave your life in New York. That’s up to you.”
She looked down at her hands, which were intertwined with Sam’s, but she still didn’t respond. Sam gave me a small, encouraging smile over her head, but tension made it strained. This was it—we were laying it all out on the line for this woman. A first for us, and definitely our last. We’d been raised to believe that when we met the right woman, we’d know.
We sure as hell knew when it came to Katie—but there was no guarantee that she would feel the same way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CATHERINE
Sally stood next to me in Charlie’s living room and we surveyed the remarkable myriad of trinkets, knickknacks, and souvenirs that covered every available surface. I was exhausted just thinking about how long it would take to clear it all out.
“That is some creepy shit,” Sally said, looking over the top edge of her glasses. She was staring at the hobo figurine collection that lined a bookcase shelf.
I nodded. It truly was.
Sally walked the length of the room, taking it all in. “So, how was your dinner at Cara’s last night?”
I didn’t even bother to ask how she knew about that. I was starting to resign myself to the fact that there was no such thing as privacy in a town the size of Bridgewater. “If you get a colonoscopy, does everyone know?”
She just eyed me like she had the figurines until I answered her question. Clearly, she knew diversion when she heard it. Fine. “It was nice.”
Nice. As if that covered it. Dinner at Cara’s had been eye-opening, but there was no way I could explain that to Sally. How could I tell someone who’d lived in Bridgewater her whole life just how incredible it was to witness such a joyful relationship. Cara and her husbands were so content. So… happy. The men doted on Cara, and she clearly reveled in it. She was the center of their world and it showed in every gesture. Just as the Kane boys were trying to tell me it would be like with them. Again and again, and it seemed when I was bending over a table or their strong thighs and getting spanked.
Is that how it would be if I married them? Not spanked, but doted on? It wasn’t even a question, really. Last night I’d gotten a taste of what it would be like to truly be with them—to be their woman. I’d experienced hot sex with Sam and Jack, but I also got a glimpse of what life would be like outside of the bedroom.
They’d been attentive and thoughtful just like Cara’s men were toward her. For the first time in my life, I’d been the most important person in the world to somebody. To two somebodies. I’d been the center of their attention, even in a roomful of people.
After dinner we’d gone back to Sam’s place and they’d made good on their promise to keep showing me how it could be. Oh fuck, it could be so good. I’d had more orgasms than I’d thought possible in one night. And when we’d fallen asleep I’d been surrounded by my men, my head resting on Sam’s chest while Jack’s arm wrapped around my waist. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I’d felt safe in a way I hadn’t since I was a little girl.
More than that, I’d felt… whole. Complete.
“Judging by that smile you’re wearing, I’m going to guess you had a very nice night.” Sally’s laughter brought me back to the present and I feigned a sudden interest in Charlie’s collection of movie ticket stubs to avoid the topic. I picked one up and examined it. “Was Charlie sentimental or just a hoarder?”
Sally eyed me and offered a soft smile. “You don’t remember much about Charlie, do you?”
I shook my head. I’d been trying to call up specific memories of my summers here with my uncle ever since I’d arrived in Bridgewater, but all I could recall when it came to Charlie was a general feeling. I remembered a large man who’d pick me up whenever I cried—a man who was comforting to be around. Comforting, but sad. Though why he was sad, I never knew and was too young to think too much of it.
“He was a good man,” Sally said.
“That’s what people keep telling me.” Something had been nagging at me since I’d arrived and when I looked around now, I realized what it was. There were no pictures. For a man who held on to sentimental knickknacks and hideous hobo figurines, it seemed odd that there were no pictures of family. He was a man who clearly loved Bridgewater and its ways, so why didn’t he have a wife and husband? Even though it felt awkward to be asking a near stranger about my family, I had to know. “Did my uncle ever have a Bridgewater relationship?”
Sally looked over in surprise, putting down a stack of National Geographic magazines she’d moved. “You don’t know?”
Sally sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against an end table. “Charlie was married. He and his best friend met the woman of their dreams right out of high school. They were quite the threesome—always did everything together.”
I tried not to let my shock show. Maybe I should have guessed, but it was impossible to imagine someone from my uptight, straitlaced family living an unconventional lifestyle. My mother definitely didn’t.
“So, what happened? To his family, I mean.”
Sally’s face fell, her mouth tightening into a thin line. “Car accident.”
The two words made my heart ache on Charlie’s behalf.
“It happened, oh, some thirty years ago,” Sally continued. “Such a tragedy. Poor Charlie never truly recovered.”
Suddenly this odd assortment of memorabilia and little treasures wasn’t funny, it was tragic. Charlie had gone from having it all—the kind of happiness I’d witnessed between Cara and her husbands—to nothing. Not even his sister and niece. Me. I was an asshole for not knowing, for never asking. Granted, I’d been a kid when my mother said we weren’t returning to Bridgewater to visit anymore, but I’d been a grown up for quite a while now. Why hadn’t I thought to ask about him or, better yet, reach out to him myself?
“I can’t believe my mom never told me,” I said. “I can’t believe she turned her back on him after he lost everything.”
Sally shrugged matter-of-factly. “I remember your mother. She was in my sister’s class in high school. As soon as she graduated, she was out of here.” She snapped her fingers.
I nodded. That much I’d heard from my mother. On the rare occasions that she mentioned her childhood in Bridgewater, she was always quick to add that she’d escaped this Podunk town as soon as she was legally able. Knowing what I knew now, her sudden departure took on a whole new meaning. She hadn’t left because the town was small or backwards or even ridiculously conservative, which was a complete joke. She’d left because she didn’t like the way Bridgewater people fell in love.
A new thought had me staring open-mouthed at Sally. “Did my… I mean, were my… oh shit, were my grandparents polyamorous?”
Sally let out a sharp bark of laughter. “They sure were.”
They’d died when I was young and I didn’t really remember them, but with this new information, pieces of a puzzle clicked into place. “So my Great Uncle Albert—”
“Was your grandfather.”
Holy. Shit.
“They were happy, too,” Sally added. “A solid team, a role model for younger people like myself and my husbands.”
“I can’t believe my mom never told me.”
Sally gave my arm a little pat and I realized then that I was staring into space with my mouth still hanging open.
“Even though she grew up here, I don’t think your mother was ever comfortable with the Bridgewater way.”
All I could think of was duh.
Sally moved past me toward the kitchen. “If you ask me, that’s why she stopped coming here.”
I looked over at her in confusion. “Why? Why stop coming to visit entirely and all of a sudden? Charlie was a nice man, from what I remember. Everyone I’ve met this week has said so.”
“He was, honey.” Sally stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. “But your mother… While she may not have been comfortable with the Bridgewater way… I think she realized that you were.”
I held up a mug with a picture of South Dakota’s Corn Palace, frozen. “I was only a kid, what did I know?”
“Exactly,” Sally said. “You didn’t know enough to judge anyone. But you liked it here, had fun even, and were comfortable with the people who were living a lifestyle your mother ran away from. Cara’s family. Others, too.”
I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I put the mug down with a hard thunk. “So she stopped bringing me here because it made me happy?”
Sally shrugged. “I could be wrong. That was just my take. You’d have to ask your mother if you want some real answers about what happened back then.”
Sally went into the kitchen and I heard her opening cupboards and filling a kettle to make some tea. More than likely she was trying to give me some space to process what she’d just told me. It made sense—all of it. Charlie’s inherent sadness was a result of a tragic accident, and the reason my mother ran from Bridgewater was because she didn’t approve of the lifestyle.
But why would she deprive me of my friends and extended family? Then I remembered Sally’s comment. You’d have to ask your mother….
Without thinking about what I’d say, I pulled my cell out of my back pocket. Shit. No service.
Going into the kitchen, I picked up the phone from the wall, dialed. It suddenly seemed urgent that I get some answers. “Hi, Mother,” I said when she answered on the first ring.
“What’s the crisis?”
“There’s no crisis, I just—”
“Then why are you calling me in the middle of a work day? You never call during the week. Did something happen at work?”
“I’m not at work.” I had to spit it out before she started in on her line of questioning. “I’m in Bridgewater.”
The answering silence was brief but telling. It took a shock to shut my mother up for more than a heartbeat. “What are you doing in Bridgewater?”
I walked into the mud room by the back door, stretching the phone cord as far as it would go. “I have to deal with Charlie’s house, remember?”
Another pause. “I figured you would have hired someone to clear it out and put it on the market. You didn’t have to go there.”
“I wanted to.”
She sighed on the other end of the line. “You always did like that godforsaken place.”
And now we were getting somewhere.
“Yeah, I did like it here. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling, actually. I was curious about why we stopped coming.”
The silence was too long this time. She really hadn’t seen that one coming. “I take it you’ve been there long enough to see that Bridgewater is a unique place.”
Unique was one word for it, but my mother managed to make that word sound like an insult. “It’s definitely unique,” I agreed.
She sighed again. “Okay, Catherine.”
She was the first to call me Catherine in a few days. The name sounded weird now.
“What is it you really want to know? Did I grow up in an unorthodox family? Yes. Was Charlie in a polyamorous relationship? I imagine you’ve already learned the answer to that.” Her voice was filled with impatience, which is pretty much how she sounded all the time, come to think of it.
“Why did we stop coming here?” I twirled the cord around my finger. “Stop seeing Uncle Charlie?”
“That is no lifestyle to expose an impressionable young girl to. You were getting old enough that you would have started to figure out what was going on, and your father and I didn’t want that for you.”
“God, Mom, you make it sound like the people of Bridgewater were performing satanic rituals or something.”
Her tone hardened. “I know all about what goes on in that town, Catherine. I grew up there, remember? Had two fathers, even. I knew that what was going on around me, even in my own house, wasn’t normal.”
I toyed with a line of clothespins clipped to a string by the door and tried not to lose my temper. The anger welling up in my chest was tainted with sadness, regret. I’d been happy here, dammit. I’d been surrounded by people who cared about me more than they cared about their careers or their image. Yet, My mother had chosen to end that. “It may not be normal, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s wrong.”
“We didn’t want that life for you. I still don’t.” Suspicion crept into her voice. “What is this about, Catherine?”
When I didn’t answer right away, she
continued. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of staying there.”
I opened my mouth to say No, of course not. I have a job to get back to. But the words wouldn’t come.
“Catherine.” She drew the word out as a warning, but I’d had enough. She’d confirmed what I’d suspected from the moment I’d learned about Bridgewater’s unique ways. She’d kept me from this place for propriety’s sake, even though it had made me happy. She was filling my head with her negative thoughts on the place even through the phone. Being here, meeting the people, seeing it with my own eyes, painted a different picture entirely.
“I’ve got to go, Mom. Good talking with you.” It really wasn’t, but I had no idea what else to say. I wasn’t going to call her later. I wasn’t even sure I really loved her. Not in a healthy, normal way.
I hung up before she could respond. I’d heard enough and walked the phone back to the wall base. Sally turned to me holding two mugs of tea, handed me one. “What did your mother say?”
I forced a rueful smile. “Nothing I hadn’t already guessed.” That she and my father had put image and propriety above everything else, including my happiness, Charlie’s happiness, and a loving community. No wonder my mother had fled from this place—she’d always been looking for normalcy. Always cared more about fitting in than being loved. And that’s what she’d wanted for me, too. A normal life. One that fit the ideal life she’d set her sights on. That she’d attained.
The sad thing was, in my mother’s opinion, I was living the dream in New York. Sure, my marriage had been a bust, but what was one little divorce? Everybody who was anybody in the city had one of those under their belts. What mattered to her was how my life looked on paper, and on that count, I had it all. The Ivy League education, the law school diploma on the wall, an up-and-coming career at a leading firm… what did it matter that I was miserable? My day to day life was filled with work, stress, and more work, with the occasional trip to the gym to break up the monotony. Because one couldn’t forget that the perfect body was also part of the deal. Looks mattered almost as much as income and job title. I’d bought into that hook, line and sinker. Until now.
