Brooke snuggled back under the covers, breathing in the scents of both her men contentedly before falling back into a deep sleep. Her dream started sensually with both her men kissing her and touching her. She felt warm and deliriously happy in their arms. Then she became aware of a presence that frightened her. In a flash her men were gone and Chad West was standing there with a single tail whip in his hand, laughing cruelly. Brooke screamed and shot up in the bed.
Large hands held her and a firm voice was talking to her over and over. Through the sound of her own screams she could just make out the words.
“Open your eyes, Brooke. You’re safe now. Open your eyes.” The voice was commanding and authoritative; she had no choice but to obey it.
When she did, she stared straight into two large, brown eyes. Travis held her firmly by the shoulders and was talking to her constantly. That was the sound that had permeated her panicked brain. Her screams gradually stopped as she became aware of him, but the tremors were uncontrollable.
Once he was sure she had recognized him, Travis enveloped her in his strong, safe arms and murmured to her as she slowly came back to her senses.
At his command, she took deep breaths, inhaling him, allowing him to exorcise the demons that violated her thoughts. Her tears mingled with the water dripping from his body as she snuggled into his slightly hairy chest. Eventually he lifted her face up to look at him.
“It’s all right, darlin’. You’re safe now, d’ya hear?” His beautiful big eyes were as calm as his voice, and his whole face held a serenity she could cling to. She nodded. She was safe. She knew she was. Travis was here. Nothing could hurt her.
He kissed her forehead and stroked her shoulders. Brooke felt her heart slow down a beat with every touch he bestowed on her, and she reveled in his security and love.
Chapter Eighteen
The next few days passed slowly but happily for Brooke. Travis insisted she wasn’t allowed out of the house, and when he had to go out to help the hands, he would arrange for Kent to pop back to sit with her for a while, or get Hal to babysit. At first she didn’t mind as she was quite sleepy with all the drugs she was on.
After she had been home for about a week, and was able to walk without a limp, she was allowed to start doing some small jobs around the place. Travis showed her where everything was in the kitchen, and she was allowed to help him cook dinner for when Kent came home. She also spent long hours sorting through Travis’s paperwork, which really needed some serious attention. His tax returns were in a mess and he was badly behind with his correspondence. She would have to wait another few weeks before the cast would be removed from her arm, enabling her to type, so she spent a lot of time using the computer with just one hand.
She and Travis were wading through a pile of receipts one morning when Hal’s voice came over the radio. Travis quickly picked it up, always grateful for a distraction from paperwork.
“Are you OK for a few minutes while I pop out and give Hal a hand?” he asked Brooke with a frown. “Someone’s managed to leave one of the gates open and a couple of the horses have disappeared. One of them’s Mustard. He can be a bit of a handful when he’s agitated.”
“Of course,” she said without looking up from the papers she was studying.
“Are you sure? I can see if Kent’s free, though I know he said something about court this morning.”
She smiled up at him, nodding. Her blonde curls fell about her shoulders, glistening like gold in the morning sun. “I’m fine, honestly. I shan’t move from this chair if it makes you any happier.”
“It does,” he assured her as he planted a kiss on top of her head. “I won’t be long.”
Brooke resumed sorting out the papers. She guessed she had probably been part of the cause of the disarray—Travis had been too worried about her to worry about his tax returns—but she was determined to put it all straight. She was immersed in a heap of figures when she heard a noise outside the room.
“Did you manage to get him?” she called out, assuming Travis had returned.
The door opened and she looked up, smiling. Her blood ran cold and the air eluded her lungs as she stared right into a familiar face.
“Kenny? W-what are you doing here?” Her voice came out in a strangled squeal, and she stood up to face her enemy.
He sniggered derisively. “I work here, didn’t you know? One of your dear lover boys pays me to hang around the ranch watching you. I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to pop in and say hello for some time now. I thought I’d never get him to leave you alone!” He moved toward her as he spoke.
“Y-you mean you…?” she stammered.
He nodded smarmily and reached out to her. Putting her broken arm under the lip of the desk for added weight, she used the other hand to tip the large table over toward him. He leapt back and she made for the door, screaming for help. He caught her and swung her around just as she got into the hallway and dragged her toward the boys’ playroom.
“I wonder what we’ll find in here.” He gave an evil laugh as she pulled back. “I believe your other lover boy is a dab hand with a single tail, isn’t he? Well let’s just see how good I am with one, shall we?”
Brooke screamed again, doing her best to kick him while he held her firm by her good arm.
Kenny cursed as he tried the handle of the room only to find it locked. “Where’s the fucking key?” He demanded. “What have you done with it, you whore?”
Brooke stared at the closed door in astonishment. Why on earth would it be kept locked? “I don’t know, I didn’t know it was—”
He slapped her hard across her injured cheek, sending her tumbling to the floor in a heap as blood splattered up the wall.
Brooke felt stunned for a second, and then anger started to well inside her. She wasn’t about to let this creep ruin everything for her. She had been a victim for long enough.
“Get your stinking hands off me, you bastard,” she spat at him as he grabbed her good arm and hauled her to her feet.
He looked genuinely shocked for a fraction of a second, so she took the opportunity to shock him even more. “How dare you come into my home and threaten me, you scum? My men will kill you when they find you here, just like they did to Chad fucking West! Filth like you shouldn’t be allowed to walk God’s earth, and they’ll make damn sure you don’t!”
Kenny sneered angrily at her as he kicked the playroom door. “Your gay lover boys? You do realize they only let you stay here to make themselves look good, don’t you? Everyone knows they’d rather be left alone to fuck each other to death. They’ll soon get fed up with you, and once they’ve used you enough, they’ll dump you like a hot potato!”
Brooke saw red. There was a time when she would have believed every foul word that crawled out of his rancid mouth, but not now. She was loved and she knew it.
“Bullshit! Travis and Kent love me and I love them. Nothing you can do or say will ever change that! We’re for keeps. The three of us will be together forever and there’s not a damn thing you or anyone else can do about it! Don’t you dare violate our house with your filthy accusations and lies! You are the scum of the earth, do you know that? You’re not worthy to lick their boots!” She yelled at him at the top of her voice, ignoring the thumps he was giving her.
“Do you know what you cost me, whore? Have you any idea how mad Chad was with me when you didn’t sign that damn contract? Mad enough to refuse to pay me a fucking dime for my trouble! Now that your freaking nancy boys have killed him, I’ve got no way of ever making decent cash again, and it’s all ’cause of you, bitch! You’ve ruined everything for me, d’you know that? Well guess what, I’m gonna make damn sure your cozy little arrangement here is ruined too, do you get that?” He slammed her into the locked door of the playroom, and she shrieked as pain wracked her good shoulder. As her pain turned to indignant rage, she kicked out at him, aiming for his puny balls. Not a very large target unfortunately, but her aim was adequate.
“
You can’t ruin anything for me, you scumbag! We love each other and no one in this whole world can change that!” she yelled at him as she kicked hard upward, trying to send his balls back where they came from.
He howled and doubled over, releasing her as he grabbed something far more precious to him—his rapidly swelling scrotum.
She went to step over him to make her escape, but the bastard caught her ankle with one bony hand and twisted it until she screamed.
“Well said, darlin’. Now let go of her, you asshole, ’cause my finger’s getting a little itchy here.”
Brooke stared down the hallway where Travis stood pointing a rifle in their direction. Hal stood behind him with a shit-ass grin on his face and a revolver in his hand, also pointed at the bastard. Her heart, which was pumping ten to the dozen, now hammered for a totally different reason. Travis looked gorgeous! She managed to wriggle free of the fuckwad and ran over to them just as sirens wailed outside. Mason and Kent ran in, guns at the ready.
“Aw dammit. I was just getting into that!” Travis moaned as they took over the situation, cuffing the asshole and helping him as he staggered to the car. He handed his firearm over to Kent and swung a warm arm around Brooke’s shoulder. She winced.
“Looks like we better get Doc Hardy back out here,” Travis drawled with a frown as he gently cuddled their girl.
Brooke snuggled into his comfort as tears of relief began to trail down her cheeks. He held her tighter, leading her into the lounge to sit down. She was shaking uncontrollably, and her sobs became stronger as she relaxed.
Hal slipped back to work as Kent returned to the house, having secured the prisoner in the SUV. “Mason’s given me the rest of the day off,” he announced as he offered Brooke a glass of water.
Brooke was about to tell Kent he didn’t need to take any more time off on her account when she caught his expression for the first time since he’d arrived. He looked pale with shock. Travis looked tense too, and she realized how scared they had been for her.
“I should never have allowed him onto the ranch without knowing his background,” Travis moaned when they were all relaxing over lunch. “I was too set on getting the work started quickly.”
“Well, it explains why we couldn’t find anything on him.” Mason sighed.
“His name’s Kenny. He was a friend of Chad’s,” Brooke told them in a small voice.
A knock at the door made Brooke jump in Travis’s arms. He soothed her with soft kisses to her head as Kent went to answer it. Doc Hardy and the counselor, Sarah Harris, arrived at the same time.
While the doctor checked out Brooke’s injuries, Kent took Sarah into the kitchen and filled her in on the morning’s events.
“Will she be OK?” Travis asked as the elderly doctor frowned at the wound on Brooke’s face that had opened again slightly.
“Yeah. She’ll be fine.” He carefully cleaned her up and placed a fresh dressing over her cheek before examining her shoulder. “This shoulder’s going to bruise quite a bit. It’s taken quite a knock but nothing’s broken.” He seemed satisfied by the time he picked up his battered old hat and headed out the door, muttering something about rest and painkillers.
Sarah Harris spent several hours chatting with Brooke that afternoon. They talked about everything from the recent events to their shared love of horses. By the time she left, Brooke was smiling brightly and feeling much better.
Brooke made her way into the kitchen where the boys were enjoying a sweet embrace while something tasty was cooking for dinner. She watched them for a few minutes, smiling. They seemed to take it in turns to be the most dominant in their relationship, and their love for each other was palpable. Kent had changed out of his uniform and looked almost edible in his tight jeans and smart blue shirt. He had one hand inside Travis’s partially unbuttoned plaid shirt, and Brooke knew he would be stroking the soft hairs that graced Travis’s ripped chest. His other hand was on the cowboy’s muscular shoulder. Travis had one hand around Kent’s thick, taut waist, gripping his belt, while the other stroked his fair hair. They were enjoying a deep kiss, slurping and sucking at each other’s tongues, while chuckles emanated from their throats.
Brooke loved seeing them together like this, so intimate. She turned to go, afraid she was intruding on their private moment, when Kent called out to her. “Come and join us, baby.”
She gazed up at them. Their eyes were hooded, and they were obviously still in the moment as they smiled over to her. Kent held a hand out to her, which she wasted no time in taking. As she stood sandwiched between them, she could feel their warmth. She snuggled close to them both and they embraced her. They took turns to kiss her at first, and then all three were kissing each other as moans filled the air of the little kitchen.
Brooke smiled up at their handsome, shining faces when they finally loosened their grip.
“Did you have a good gossip with Sarah?” Travis teased.
“I had a very helpful counseling session, if that’s what you mean,” Brooke replied with mock indignation.
Kent chuckled. “That’s you told, bro.”
“Well, all I heard was talk about horses,” Travis said with a pretend pout.
Brooke gasped. “You were listening in to our conversation?” She and Sarah had been given the privacy of the lounge while the boys sorted out the mess in the office. Apart from talking about the incidents both from this morning and the ongoing trauma with Chad West, Brooke had confided in Sarah about her feelings for the guys. After such a shaky start, she couldn’t be happier with them both. She blushed a little, wondering just how much Travis had heard.
“Only for a second. This killjoy wouldn’t let me hang around,” Travis replied sulkily.
Kent chuckled again, stroking Travis’s hair and gazing into his big brown eyes. “I told you, bro. Some things are just too private to be shared,” he pretended to admonish him.
Brooke giggled. She could just imagine Kent having to pry Travis away from the door; he understood all about confidentiality. She snuggled into them, wishing she didn’t have that dang cast on her arm so she could cuddle them both at once.
They enjoyed a delicious dinner, which the boys had proudly prepared between them. Brooke hadn’t realized how late in the day it was. She must have been talking with Sarah for hours. Afterward, they refused to let her lift a finger while they cleared up the dishes, sending her into the lounge to watch some TV for a while. In truth, the guys probably thought it a good way to take her mind off the harrowing events of the day.
“Do you want to watch a movie tonight?” Kent suggested as they joined her on the sofa a while later.
“No, I want to talk.” She clicked off the TV as they took their usual places, one either side of her.
“OK,” Kent said quietly, “shoot.”
“Why was your playroom door locked?” she asked him warily.
Kent stared at her. He cleared his throat a little nervously. “We thought it best after what happened before when you saw me…”
“Practicing,” she finished for him.
He nodded. “I didn’t know anything about your past experience then. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he assured her.
“But don’t you still need to keep practicing? I know you haven’t been to the club since I’ve been living here, but surely…”
“We’re not into that anymore,” Travis interjected quietly.
Brooke spun around to face him her eyes wide. “You’re not into BDSM?”
“Baby, we don’t want to frighten you. We realize you’ve had some real bad experiences with BDSM, so we decided to drop the lifestyle. We want you to feel safe with us,” Kent explained.
She stared back at him. “But it’s part of you. It’s your lifestyle. It’s what you enjoy. And you’re damn good at it! I saw you at Ty’s. Kent, you were brilliant. You can’t just give it up.”
Kent smiled at her kindly. “Things have changed now. We want you to stay with us, forever. You can’t stay if you don’t
feel safe.”
“But I do feel safe with you. I know I overreacted. Stella explained to me that I’d got it all wrong. I wanted to learn about the lifestyle because there were elements of it I felt I needed—I still need. One of the things I love about you two is your natural dominance. I thought Chad was dominant, but now I realize he was just a bullying asshole. He hurt me because it made him happy to make me miserable. I know now that it shouldn’t be like that. When I saw you at the club with your sub, I realized just how wrong I’d been about it all. You weren’t hurting her; she was loving what you were doing and so were you. You can’t throw that away.” Her eyes pleaded with him as she held on to his arm.
Kent and Travis exchanged a look.
“You mean, you still want to learn about the lifestyle?” Kent asked her slowly while studying her face.
“Yes. I know you think I’m fragile, but I’m not really.” Her eyes were as big as saucers as she stared up at his gorgeous face.
“I can vouch for that, buddy. You should have seen her kicking that asshole in the balls today. There was nothing fragile about that. And the language that came out of her potty mouth was enough to make your hair curl!” Travis chuckled.
A massive grin crossed Kent’s handsome face. “You sure about this, baby? I mean, I promise neither of us will harm you in any way.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I want you two to teach me. I trust you.”
Kent took her in his massive arms and squeezed her tight. “OK. You’ve got it,” he promised with a chuckle.
Brooke sank into the warmth and safety of her hero and held him for what seemed like forever. When he finally released her, Travis spun her around and took her in his loving embrace. He kissed the top of her head, and she could almost feel him smiling as he held her.
“Can we start now?” She smiled eagerly at Travis.
“Now, hold on a minute. I think we’d better wait until you’re fully recovered first.” Kent told her.
She pouted, still looking at Travis. He grinned. “Well I suppose we could start with a few basic positions and stuff. And there’s no harm in showing her around the playroom, just to get acquainted with it,” Travis relented.
Ménage on Moone Mountain Page 18
