Her Dominant Saviors
Sarah is about to be hanged for cattle rustling, and her only hope for salvation lies with the Cassidy brothers. She'd do anything to keep from showing weakness around these domineering cowboys, but when the noose tightens, she knows she'll surely hang if she doesn't agree to their terms.
James knows Sarah will say anything to ensure her survival, even if it means agreeing to give herself to them. She'll also bolt the first chance she gets. She won't get a chance. What better way to protect his woman than having her tied beneath him and at his mercy?
Billy knows a Cassidy's word holds weight in Laramie. They use it to save Sarah even as they put a different noose around her neck. Loving her is all they want. Convincing her will take some smooth talking and firm hands even as they fight to protect her from trouble out to destroy her.
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys Length: 39,414 words
HER DOMINANT SAVIORS
Bonnie Parker
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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HER DOMINANT SAVIORS
Copyright © 2012 by Bonnie Parker
E-book ISBN: 1-61926-585-0
First E-book Publication: March 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
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Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
The noose fastened securely around Sarah McLaury’s neck and she said a silent prayer to God. She didn’t fear death, but dangling from the end of a rope never made it to her list of preferred ways to meet her end. She blinked, the sunlight beaming down on her from high in a cloudless sky. All around her, the sounds of spring made themselves heard amidst the scatter of conversations among those looking on. A pull of the lever, a snap of her neck, and it’d be all over. It didn’t seem fitting that such a heinous act should take place on a lovely day.
“Just a minute, Miss Sarah, and I’ll get the hood.”
Sarah started to reach for the sheriff deputy, forgetting her hands were bound behind her back. “No, Virgil. I don’t want it.”
“But, Miss Sarah, it’ll make it easier if your face is covered.”
“Easier for whom? Those vultures out there looking to get their jollies by watching an innocent woman hang?”
“No, ma’am, I meant for you.”
“You ever been hanged, Virgil?”
Virgil snorted a half laugh before he sobered. “’Course not.”
“Then how would you know what’s easiest?”
“Well, when you put it that way, I’m a guessin’ I wouldn’t know after all.”
“No, I’m guessing you wouldn’t.”
“I’m supposed to ask you if you have any last words.”
“No.” She said all she could say in the invitation she sent out last evening. An invitation that would apparently go ignored. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so formal in her request.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the scratchy coal pencil marks on the yellowed paper the sheriff had given her just before sundown. Dear Sirs, she had written. You are respectfully invited to attend my execution on April 12, 1884, at ten o’clock A.M.
in front of the courthouse in the Town of Laramie.
She’d signed it Yours Respectfully, Sarah McLaury and handed it to the young boy for immediate delivery to the Cassidy ranch. Then she had lain awake all night envisioning James and Billy Cassidy receiving the invitation, laughing their sexy asses off, and even toasting her good riddance over a pint of whiskey between them.
They weren’t coming. The realization of that settled in her belly like a lead weight. Her only salvation lay with the Cassidy brothers. Blazes. She hated asking for their help, hated even more knowing that without them she’d surely hang.
Heavy footfalls shook the platform as a body climbed the stairs behind her.
Sarah swallowed, feeling the coarseness of the rope rub a raw spot on her tender flesh, and closed her eyes briefly on another prayer to the good Lord. A hush fell over the onlookers on the ground around the platform. Any second now the sheriff would state the charges against her and deliver the sentence of death by hanging. Then the unsteady door beneath her feet would fall through to leave her dangling from the end of the rope above the open space of nothingness.
“You do manage to get yourself in a world of shit, don’t you, darlin’?” Sarah gasped, her eyes flying open at the husky words spoken in her ear.
“James.”
“Starting to think I wouldn’t come?” His breath fanned the tiny hairs at the base of her ear, sending a shiver of awareness down her spine.
“You certainly took your dear sweet time.”
“A man’s got work to see to. Can’t make the earth stop spinnin’ because of an invitation, no matter how politely it’s delivered.”
Sarah bit her tongue on a scathing retort and swallowed her p
ride. “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to visit me, Mr. Cassidy.” James barked a laugh and leaned over, peering at her face. “So that’s what it takes to turn you proper, huh? Put a noose around your pretty little neck and you finally start talking like a woman’s supposed to.”
Sarah balled her fingers into tight fists. If her hands weren’t bound, she’d enjoy slapping that arrogant grin off his ruggedly handsome face.
“Say what’s on your mind, Sweet Sarah. Time’s a wasting, and it seems your neck is on the line, darlin’.”
“I thought propriety was what you wanted out of a woman, what you wanted out of me. Isn’t that what you’ve been after all these years?”
“Half the town is down there waiting for you to be hanged for cattle rustling. I know you didn’t do such a thing, but the sheriff, well, he isn’t as reasonable a man as I am. I gathered you tried telling him you didn’t do it.” Sarah scoffed. “Of course I did. He claims he’s got evidence enough against me.” And she couldn’t very well dispute that evidence when the cattle she’d been accused of stealing appeared on her land.
“Do you want my help?”
Yes, please, James, help me. “Unless you can make some kind of magic that’ll dissolve this rope around my neck, I’m not seein’ as how you can help me at all.”
“Then why send the invitation to Billy and me?” He moved full in front of her, his hard gaze unwavering.
Because I was desperate and scared. Because I wanted to see you both one last time before I died. “I guess so you could see you won.” James tsked. He skimmed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. It took every ounce of her will not to lean into that touch. “Sweet Sarah, seein’ you hang was never what neither of us wanted. I can help. All I have to do is tell the sheriff you were with Billy and me when those cattle came up missin’. ’Course, then you’ll have to come home with us. The sheriff’ll be so happy you’re finally settlin’ down like a woman is meant to that he won’t think a thing of it.” Sarah knew it wasn’t that simple. She also knew the Cassidy brothers had a lot of pull with the law in this town. Respect went a long way toward believability no matter the story told, and James and Billy Cassidy demanded respect.
“I’m not settlin’ down.” She couldn’t give in so easily. She might be in a fix, and he might be her only chance at salvation, but she’d fight before she took another bite of crow right now.
“You are if you expect to get that noose off your pretty neck.” James’s slow, sexy drawl sounded almost sensible, almost.
“Why, so I can exchange it for another one?” That didn’t make a bit of sense to her. “I’d rather die than be strung up for life.” The lie left a bitter taste in her mouth. She didn’t want to die, wouldn’t mind the least being tied to one of the Cassidy brothers for life. Damn if she wanted it to happen this way, though, to be given this kind of ultimatum.
James shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s been nice knowin’ you, Miss McLaury.” He dropped his hand and turned, poised to walk right off the front of the platform.
His name rolled off Sarah’s lips in a panicked cry before she could stop it.
“James, wait!”
He turned. A small smile quirked the corner of his lips. He closed the distance between them until her breasts brushed his solid chest. Her nipples beaded at the contact, a fact he wouldn’t fail to notice when he stepped back, given how tightly her bodice hugged her bosom with her arms tied behind her back.
“We save your pretty ass and you’ll owe us, Sarah.” His meadow-green eyes swam with the promise of a variety of payments he expected to receive.
“Don’t you mean I’ll owe you? Billy isn’t doing anything.” Being indebted to one Cassidy brother would be bad enough, but both of them…
“On the contrary, he’s keepin’ the sheriff talkin’. Your execution should’ve happened about three minutes ago. You know how the sheriff is about being punctual. If not for Billy, your lithe body would be dangling over that open hole right about now.”
The mental image made Sarah shiver as if someone walked over her still-warm grave. “Fine. What do the two of you want in payment?”
“You.” He said it so simply he almost sounded like the reasonable man he professed to be. “All of you, Sweet Sarah.” His gaze felt like a physical caress as it slowly slid down her body. “Every sexy, curvy, delicious inch of you.” Sarah gulped. His answer didn’t come as a surprise. Neither did her body’s heated response. She wanted this man, wanted his brother, too, in every way a naughty, improper woman could lust for a man. If only she could have them without giving up her spirit, her independence, and the life she worked so hard to build.
“Would you really rather die than go with us?”
“So you can break me? I just might.”
“Billy and me would never break you, darlin’, only love you.” Sarah closed her eyes as emotions wound around her heart. She wished with all her might she could believe that. The hint of sweetness the words offered, the smooth glide of the deep baritone voice that delivered them, gave her hope. She had seen tenderness in James before. She had seen it more often in Billy. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage. Maybe, just maybe, she could stake her claim to a Cassidy brother and hold onto her freedom.
As she stared into James’s eyes and felt the need curl low between her legs, she figured it was worth a shot. She sure as blazes couldn’t do anything from a grave.
“Help me.” She lifted her chin high, holding onto her dignity despite the plea in her tone and the sacrifice she might very well be making. “Get me down from here and take me home. I’m all yours.”
* * * *
James didn’t believe her for a second. Sweet Sarah McLaury’s sultry lips would say whatever they deemed necessary for her survival. He couldn’t fault her for that any more than he’d feel guilty for caging her into coming with him now. He wanted her and, by golly, he aimed to make her his by nightfall.
He shot a look over his shoulder to where Billy stood with the sheriff on the ground in front of the platform. A slight nod of his head got his brother talking faster.
They’d worked up a heavy load of bullshit to tell the sheriff on their way into town.
James figured the sheriff was too smart to fall hook, line, and sinker for the story. But if Billy played it right and harped on things like mutual respect and the challenges of taming a woman, the sheriff would see fit to let them cart Sarah off.
James watched a flash of relief pass through the sheriff’s usually stony expression and knew the man hadn’t believed Sarah’s guilt any more than the Cassidy brothers. James would make it a point to find out why he followed through with the sentence to hang her as soon as he found the time.
“What’s Billy tellin’ him?” Sarah whispered.
James ignored her, waiting for his cue. It came in the form of a nod from his brother as slight and quick as the one James sent him moments before.
“Let her go.” The sheriff’s bellow got drowned out by boos and protests from the crowd of onlookers.
James paid them no never mind, his hands already working the noose free.
“Go home, people.” He raised his voice to be heard over the crowd as he yanked Sarah against him. The first feel of her agile body surrendering to his unyielding muscles nearly did him in. She had never let him get this close to her before. If she had, he never would’ve waited so long to take her. “There ain’t gonna be any hangin’
here today.”
“She’s a cattle rustler,” a female voice shouted. “She deserves to hang same as any thief.”
“Woman should’a been at home seein’ to a man and she wouldn’t’ve found herself on the end of that there rope in the first place,” another disapproving female shouted.
James gazed down at a stiffly poised Sarah in his arms. “Always popular with the ladies, aren’t you?”
Sarah met his gaze, a spark of amusement mingling with the relief and trepidation i
n her deep-blue eyes. “I’m the town favorite. You should know that by now, Mr. Cassidy.”
“They’re right, you know. If you’d quit fightin’ your woman’s place, you wouldn’t get yourself in these pickles.”
“And what fun would life be then?”
James bit back a grin. He’d never met another woman like Sarah McLaury. If he stayed lucky, he never would. The world couldn’t handle more than one of her.
“Part of what Billy told the sheriff is that you’ve got your place.”
“Cleaning and cooking for the Cassidy brothers, I presume.”
“Among other things.”
Her eyes glinted with an anger that made him bite back another grin. “That’s a doggone lie, and you know it.”
James leaned in, nuzzling his lips at the curve of her ear. Her warm flesh sent his senses reeling. “Everything Billy told the man was a lie. How else were we supposed to save your pretty neck?”
“You could’ve told him you stole the cattle.”
“And take your place at the end of that rope? Not likely, darlin’. Besides, this way, you get to live and we get what we want. Now brace yourself, woman, we’ve gotta make this look good.” He pulled back, catching the obvious question she was about to voice with his mouth as he covered hers in a kiss that left him feeling drunk.
She tasted sweet and needy, hot and ready, and no way would he ever let her know what she did to him. As soon as he showed this woman an ounce of weakness, she’d use it to wrap his balls around his neck.
“You’re a brute,” she ground through clenched teeth as he pulled back.
“Sweet Sarah, is that any way to talk to the man who just rescued your tight little ass?” He dropped his hands to said ass and gave her cheeks a pressured squeeze.
She gasped. “Must you do that in front of the whole town? And stop calling me sweet.”
“Yes, I must. Consider it another way of showin’ them who’s your man now.” He dipped his head and planted a playful kiss to the tip of her nose. “Sweet, sweet Sarah.”
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