Cowboy Love in Peril [Love: The Cowboy Way 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Luxie Ryder

  “No, they’re fine.” Kimber took a sip from a glass of water sitting on the table, her hand still trembling. “The doc said they are developing as they should and are quite advanced for their age.”

  Wade smiled and brushed a strand of Kimber’s wheat blonde hair behind her ear. “Glad to hear it. What else did she say?”

  “That I was a credit to single mothers everywhere, and she didn’t know how I coped alone.” Fresh tears sparkled in her eyes, and Brandon felt his heart sink at the pain etched into her face. He glanced over at Wade, wondering if the big lug finally got just how much their situation was affecting Kimber. If the desolation in his eyes was anything to go by, he understood now.

  “Hey, at least that proves people aren’t gossiping about us,” Brandon said, desperate to give Kimber something to feel a little better about. “And she’s right—you are a credit to mothers everywhere, single or otherwise. You do a great job with the girls. They’ve gotta be the happiest kids in New Mexico.”

  Kimber slumped forward and buried her face in her hands, her voice barely audible under her tangle of hair. “For now, but what about when they start school? What do I say to our kids when someone at school starts to tease them about not having a daddy or asks why there are two men living in the house with their mom?”

  “We could home school them, Kimber. You’re a qualified teacher.”

  Kimber rounded on Wade. “Things aren’t that simple. What will we tell them when they get old enough to ask why they don’t have any friends? Are you prepared to try and explain that to your daughters?” She turned to Brandon. “Are you?”

  For the first time since the subject of marriage had become an issue, Brandon suffered real fear at the sudden and deeply disturbing thought that the three of them might not be able to work things out. He looked at Wade, who avoided his gaze and Brandon couldn’t be sure if it was shame or stubbornness that made him look away, but they were sure as fuck gonna talk about his attitude, next chance they got.

  When neither of the men answered her, Kimber pushed her chair away from the table and got to her feet. “Just as I thought. That’s down to me, too, right? Just like everything else. Running our home, fending off questions, raising our kids...hell, even ensuring you two are getting what you need sexually. That’s all my job, I guess.”

  She stormed from the room and out into the yard, slamming the door shut behind her. Wade moved to follow her, but Brandon reached out to grab his arm. “Give her a minute, okay?”

  “Don’t tell me how to deal with Kimber. I think I know her a little better than you.”

  Brandon snatched his hand away, stunned by what Wade had said. But then the anger that had barely subsided since Wade had pissed him off earlier roared back to life. “Yeah? And whose fault is that?”

  It was a mean thing to say, but Brandon didn’t see why he should hold his tongue while Wade rode roughshod over everyone. Wade and Brandon had grown up together, and Kimber only came into the picture when Brandon had started dating her at the age of twenty. But one night, he’d acted on his growing feelings for Wade and had been crushed when Wade’s shame and confusion at his burgeoning attraction to Brandon made him reject and shun his best friend. Guilt and pain had forced Brandon to join the army and leave town without giving Kimber an explanation. When he’d returned to bury his mother eighteen years later, he discovered that Kimber and Wade had found love with each other. He’d be grateful until his dying day that, eventually, they’d found room in their hearts for him.

  Wade surged to his feet and pushed the table to one side, taking a step forward, his fists clenched at his sides. Brandon didn’t react, save to smirk up at him—partly because he knew it drove him crazy, and partly because he wanted Wade to give him an excuse to release some of the tension that had been churning in his gut all day.

  “You think this is funny?” Wade reached down to grab Brandon’s shirt and dragged him to his feet. “I swear to God, if you laugh just one more time, I’ll—”

  “No!” Kimber shouted, rushing through the door and squeezing between them. She shoved on Brandon’s chest but didn’t manage to move him at all, although Brandon let her think she had. Wade also moved back at her insistence and the three of them stood there for a second without saying a word.

  “I don’t want this,” Kimber muttered, almost to herself, her gaze fixed to the floor. “I can’t handle this now. Not with everything else.”

  Her shoulders began to shake as silent sobs wracked her body. Brandon reached for her, but she ducked away and ran upstairs. He turned back to confront Wade, and tell him that his time was up and he’d better come up with a damned good excuse why he was hurting Kimber over this marriage thing. But Wade had gone, too.

  Chapter Three

  “Not tonight, guys. Sorry, but I’m just not in the mood.”

  Kimber closed her eyes, guilt at the looks on Brandon and Wade’s faces threatening to weaken her resolve. She’d turned them down before, of course. Raising two kids and keeping two men happy and sated was an exhausting job, and they never complained when she was too tired for sex, which wasn’t that often. Today had been hard on all of them and a little intimacy right now was just what they needed, but Kimber couldn’t handle the pressure, not tonight.

  First Wade, then Brandon kissed her on the cheek and turned over, leaving her feeling as if she were totally alone in the middle of the giant bed they shared. As she lay there in the darkness, acutely aware of the fact that neither of them were asleep, Kimber got mad.

  “Sorry,” she said, even though she wasn’t, as she scrambled over Wade on her way out of bed. Grabbing her robe from the back of the door and throwing it on, she pulled the belt tight with a savage jerk as she knotted it around her waist and flicked on the light.

  “What’s up?” Brandon said.

  She turned to find them both sitting up against the headboard, the sheet bundled around their knees where they hadn’t bothered to pull it up after she’d scooted out from the gap between them. Neither of them moved to hide their erections from her or each other. As she’d suspected, they were horny as hell and too turned on to sleep, despite the fact no one had touched anyone else for at least the last ten minutes.

  “What’s up is that I cannot be everything to everyone, all the time.” She put her hand up to silence Wade when he looked like he was about to interrupt. She looked down at his long, hard cock—a sight that would usually make her weak with longing but tonight, just made her angrier—and gestured toward it. “Look at you. Look at the pair of you. Both turned on and in love with each other, yet if I’m not in the mood to fuck, that’s it. You just roll over and go to sleep.”

  “We all agreed to doing things this way. Right, Brandon?” Wade turned to Brandon for agreement, but the other man simply stared at him. “Right?”

  “Well, I didn’t agree to it,” Kimber reminded him, crossing her arms and looking to Brandon, hoping he’d be brave enough to say what she could see written all over his face.

  Finally, Brandon spoke. “I didn’t agree to it either.”

  Wade shook his head, as if he couldn’t make sense of their words. “What’s this about?”

  “Why don’t you and Brandon ever make love without me?”

  “Because we love you and we want to be with you. Right, Brandon?”

  “Right...but I love you, too, Wade. And when you won’t have sex with me if Kimber isn’t around, it makes me feel like she’s the only thing keeping us together. Sometimes you make me feel like you only tolerate me because Kimber wants us both.”

  “That’s not true and you damn well know it.” Wade crawled over to kneel beside Brandon on the bed. “I came to your house when you were about to leave us a couple of years back and showed you how much I wanted you.”

  “I know, and it meant a lot to me. But why don’t you show me anymore? Why do you push me away if I come near you when Kimber isn’t around?” Brandon got to his knees, too, angling his body so it faced Wade’s. “And don�
�t tell me you don’t want to. At times, I can see it takes everything you’ve got to keep your hands off me.”

  “Like yesterday for example.” Kimber pulled a chair she kept in the corner of the room over to the bottom of the bed, determined to keep her distance, no matter how hot seeing them together made her. “When you walked in that door, Wade, you were so turned on, it was almost frightening.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Not at all. I love that you want me so much. But I also know that I’m not the only reason you’re so horny all the time. You want Brandon, too.”

  Wade frowned at Brandon, then at her. “Of course I do.”

  “Then why do you hold back when I’m not there?” Kimber leaned forward. “Why do you fight that part of yourself?”

  His jaw tightened and his chin lifted in defiance and, for one awful moment, Kimber thought he was gonna argue with her. But then his shoulders sagged, and he let his head tilt back as he closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d be hurt if Brandon and I were acting like we didn’t need you.”

  Kimber could tell there was much, much more he wasn’t saying. Wade had never been able to lie to her, but now wasn’t the time to push him on it. Brandon was staring at Wade, his heart in his eyes, and Kimber knew how important it was to deal with what had been said. “Of course I’d be hurt if that was the case, but it isn’t. See, here’s the thing you haven’t considered. You’ve spent so much time worrying about my feelings, you’ve forgotten that you might be hurting someone else.”

  “Have I, Brandon?” Wade reached out and grabbed his hand. “Have I hurt you? If I did, I never meant to. You must know that?”

  Brandon cast his gaze downward, and Kimber knew he was trying to hide his true feelings from Wade. “I know.”

  “Look at me.” Wade grabbed Brandon’s head, forcing him to look Wade directly in the eye. “I can’t believe you still think I don’t want you.”

  “Why don’t you show him how much you want him?” Kimber whispered, her breath catching in her throat at the thought of them making love in front of her.

  Wade shifted his hold on Brandon, tilting his face to one side as he leaned in to kiss him. Kimber saw the first, gentle touch of their lips and her pussy clenched in reaction when Wade deepened the kiss, grabbing Brandon’s hair to pull his head back as he thrust his tongue into his mouth.

  Both men surged upright onto their knees, their bodies coming together with an audible slap of muscled flesh. Pressed against each other from thigh to chest, both of them thrusting against the other, reminded Kimber of how it felt to have their hot, hard cocks rubbing over her own skin. She couldn’t stop a shuddery gasp escaping from her lips, and their attention shifted from each other to her.

  Brandon stretched a hand out to her. “You gonna get in here, Sweetheart?”

  Kimber shook her head and reached down to untie her gown. She shrugged it off, then slid down a little in the chair and lifted her feet on to the bed. Wade sucked in a ragged breath as his eyes followed the movement of her hand where it drifted down between her thighs. Kimber shuddered and let her head fall to one side as she dipped her fingers into her pussy, gathering moisture on her fingertips and spreading it over her aching clit.

  Brandon pushed against Wade’s chest, knocking him onto his back. He lunged forward, taking Wade’s cock in his mouth as he wrapped his fist around the base and bobbed his head up and down, his gaze fixed on Kimber’s pussy. Wade alternated between watching her and watching Brandon suck on his dick but seemed to be finding it harder to keep his eyes open as his body jerked and convulsed each time Brandon took him in.

  Kimber watched as Brandon’s free hand burrowed between the cheeks of Wade’s ass and her pussy clenched in anticipation of the way she knew he would react. A gush of moisture oozed out of her, and she slid further down in the chair, spreading her thighs wider.

  “Fuck!” Wade shouted, his hands tearing the sheets from the bed as he bucked so hard he almost tossed Brandon off him.

  Brandon let him go and flipped him onto his front, yanking on Wade’s hips to encourage him up on all fours. Wade scooted round so his face was inches from Kimber’s pussy, licking his lips as if he wanted to lap at her juices.

  She saw Wade bite his lip as he felt Brandon work some lube into his ass, then quickly don a condom and slot his body up against Wade’s. His eyes glazed over and his jaw went slack as Brandon began to thrust against him. She saw him reach for his cock, struggling to keep his balance on one hand as he tugged on it fast and hard with the other, his gaze still riveted on her.

  Brandon’s hips slapped against Wade’s thighs and both men groaned. Kimber knew what it felt like to be penetrated so deeply by Brandon, and what it felt like to fuck Wade, and at that moment she envied both men.

  Wade’s head fell forward for a moment, until Brandon reached down to grab a handful of his hair. When Kimber could see Wade’s face again, she saw his grimace and the way he was holding his breath and knew he was trying not to come until she did. Brandon had the same rigid control etched into his features.

  The first tremor of her orgasm had her clutching at her breast, her fingers twisting her nipple hard as the spasms inside her intensified. She managed to keep her eyes open only long enough to see that Wade and Brandon were watching her come, and the walls of her cunt convulsed harder at the knowledge.

  Through the fog of orgasm, she heard Wade grunt and then the long, low sound he always made as he climaxed. A moment later, Brandon’s raspy panting joined the other cries bouncing off the walls.

  Kimber lay in the chair, catching her breath, unsure whether she had the strength to move. She heard the springs on the bed creak, and opened her eyes just as Wade reached down to scoop her up and place her down on her regular spot on the mattress. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep as soon as the men had crawled in beside her, but she couldn’t relax.

  She’d gotten what she wanted over one thing tonight at least. Wade understood that his sudden insistence on only making love when she was around was hurting Brandon and putting pressure on her. But a niggling doubt still plagued her. Would Wade and Brandon stay together if she ever left? She wasn’t so sure any more.

  The encounter at the medical center wormed its way into her mind, mingling with the other thoughts circling in her head, and any chance of sleep in the next hour or so disappeared. Kimber slipped from the bed, doing her best to disentangle herself from the jumble of limbs she always slept in, without waking the boys.

  Moments later, she tiptoed into the girl’s room, relieved to find them sound asleep. Kimber brushed Jessica’s downy cheek and smiled as she kissed away the frown on Emily’s forehead. She shuffled over to the toy box under the window, lifting the edge of a curtain and glancing up at the velvety sky before sitting down and tucking her legs underneath her. She sighed, trying to blow away the mood she’d barely been able to shift recently, confused as to why she felt so alone when she was surrounded by so much love.

  She’d never intended to bring children into their lives, aware that it was a sacrifice she’d have to make in order to have the men she loved. But then her pill had failed, probably because of a virulent bout of sickness she’d a couple of weeks before she missed her first period. Once she’d discovered she was pregnant, there was no way she could get rid of what she thought at the time was only one child, but ultimately turned out to be twins. Kimber had kept the secret to herself for a few days then sat the guys down and told them, prepared to leave them and raise the baby alone if Wade and Brandon weren’t as thrilled about it as she was. Neither of them left her in any doubt that they wanted the child as much as she did. Wade had proposed one more time, which of course she’d refused, stating again that if she couldn’t marry them both, she wouldn’t marry either of them.

  Kimber thought back over her naively optimistic belief that loving parents and a happy home were all the kids would ever need. Once the first few months of sleepless nights, breastfeeding, constant
diaper changes and colic attacks had given way to early bedtimes and bottle feeds that the guys could help her with, she’d had time to really think about what the future might hold. If they existed in a bubble, the kids would grow up never having to know that their parents’ relationship wasn’t considered normal. But they didn’t live in isolation, even though it often felt that way, when Kimber could spend weeks at the ranch and often see and speak to nobody but her children and their fathers. That suited her just fine, but she couldn’t force her daughters to live the way she did.

  Wade’s sudden change of heart about marriage upset her far more than she’d let on in front of the guys. If she and Wade got married, then nobody could ask any more awkward questions. The three of them could carry on their relationship in private but in public, she’d be Wade’s wife. Yet he seemed desperate all of a sudden to keep things as they were.

  And the pressure from Brandon wasn’t making things easier for her. He seemed to think that marriage between Kimber and Wade was the answer to all their problems. Brandon claimed he was happy to stay on the edges of the relationship for the sake of the kids. He planned to continue to work with Wade but keep his family ranch and, as far as anyone else was concerned, that would be where he lived. Kimber felt a little ashamed that his willingness to step back in order to make things simpler for her and the girls had her wondering at the depth of his feelings for her. He had no family of his own outside of the one he shared with her, Wade, and the kids. Why was he so eager for her to be someone else’s wife? Okay, so she totally agreed with his point about how her parents would ask questions if she suddenly married someone other than Wade, but he didn’t need to seem so damn keen about the idea!

  Kimber felt a pang of yearning as she thought of her parents living with her grandmother over the border in Arizona. She hadn’t been back to see them in a while and the twins had changed so much in the months since. The fear that they might start dropping not-so-subtle hints again, about why she and Wade still hadn’t made things legal, gave her a moment’s hesitation, but she was damned if she was gonna deprive her kids of their extended family because she was scared of a difficult conversation.