“Are you thinkin’ what was done at her place has somethin’ to do with all this cattle-rustling business?”
James sighed and rocked back on his heels. “Can’t figure how it can be anything else. Somebody’s pissed off but good. I just ain’t got a notion who it might be.”
“Yeah, you do. McCoy.” Though James didn’t say it, Billy knew his brother thought it, too.
“If it is, can’t reckon what he’s got to gain by goin’ after Sarah.” Billy shrugged. “Hurtin’ us is all I can figure.”
“And by killing off our woman he thinks he’s gonna, what, drive us to grievin’
so bad we’ll hand over our land? Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.”
“Naw, me neither.”
“We’re gonna have to keep a close watch on her for a while.” Billy pursed his lips as he glanced back at the house. Sarah no longer stood where he could see her, but he still heard her whistling. The sound came the closest to content he heard from her in far too long. “She ain’t gonna like that none.”
“I’m not aiming to make her happy by it, either. I’m determined to keep that woman safe if I have to hog-tie her sexy body to the bed.” Billy swallowed the groan that bubbled in his throat. “I’m not thinkin’ that’ll keep her very safe with us around.”
James chuckled. “Yeah, guess you got a point there. I’m thinkin’ you should marry her, and right quick-like.”
“Me?” Billy shot his brother a look, unable to keep the surprise from his face or his tone.
James lifted a brow. “You got a problem with marryin’ her?”
“Hell, no. I always reckoned you’d do it.” They’d never talked about who would be the one to give Sarah the Cassidy name. “You’re the oldest. The claim belongs to you first.”
“I’ll do my fair share of the claimin’ with our woman. Seein’ as I am the oldest, though, that makes me the most likely to kick the bucket first. I want our Sarah to have a husband around as long as possible. If you die off first, I’ll step in, but I’m thinkin’ it should be you to take her before the preacher.” Billy studied his brother for a long moment before he let a grin unfold on his lips. “You just don’t want to get all doodied up and stand before the man of the cloth.”
James laughed and slapped Billy on the back. “You got that right. Let’s go eat.”
* * * *
“I want chores around the ranch.”
James lifted a brow and studied Sarah as he continued to eat. What the dickens did the woman plan to pick at now? Too afraid to ask, he sat quietly, knowing she’d get on with it sooner or later. It didn’t take her long.
“If I’m gonna be stayin’ here, makin’ this my home, I want to earn my keep.” James nodded, still weary of what she was playing at. “All right.”
“You’ll have plenty of chores to keep you busy,” Billy told her. “As woman of the house and my…”
Billy trailed off as Sarah’s gaze narrowed on him.
James lifted his cup, snickering around the rim as he sipped and watched as his brother realized the hole he’d just dug for himself. One thing for sure, Billy could be a real knucklehead sometimes.
“I will not be holed up in this house cookin’ and cleanin’ day in and day out, Billy Cassidy. I might be a woman, but I ain’t no weakling.”
“I never said…” Billy started, but Sarah talked right over him.
“I know how to work land. I know how to handle cattle. I know how to ride horses and check fences same as the men you hire to do it.” Billy shot James a pleading look. James simply grinned and settled back in his seat. It was time for his brother to handle their woman. He was getting plum tuckered out being the one to take the brunt of her temper storms.
“Fine,” Billy told her and settled back in a pose that mirrored James’s as Sarah’s jaw dropped open.
“Fine?” she repeated dumbly.
“Fine,” Billy said again. “We can always use an extra hand. You’ll be expected to take on the woman’s chores, of course. Mary-Beth already takes care of the dinner for the men, the washin’, and other stuff they need. You can help her where you’re needed and tend to James and me. You handle all that and still want to do some man’s work, we’ll figure somethin’ out.”
Sarah stared at him for a long moment before her gaze shifted to James. She obviously expected him to correct Billy. When he didn’t, she nodded, the most prim and proper move James thought he had ever seen the woman make.
“Thank you.” She stood and started gathering their dishes. “I believe that’s fair enough.”
“When you’re through tidying the kitchen, darlin’, Billy and I’ll have our dessert now.” James watched her move to set the plates by the washbasin. When she turned, confusion danced over her face.
“You just had apple pie.”
James got to his feet and walked around Sarah as Billy stood and moved to stand in front of her. He felt her tremble at the first touch of his hands to her hips as he caught her and pulled her back against him. “You’re the dessert we want now, Sweet Sarah. Billy and me, we’ve waited a long time for this night.”
* * * *
Sarah couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She almost wished she couldn’t feel. Billy skimmed the backs of his fingers down her cheek, traced the line of her jaw, and continued down her neck. She leaned into his touch, tipping her head back to expose more flesh for him to caress. Reflex and desire more than sanity took over her moves. Her lips parted on an involuntary, ragged moan as slivers of need rained through her.
James’s hands didn’t stray from her hips, but he didn’t need them to drive her wild. His solid body formed an unmovable wall at her back, his rigid erection a definite presence of pulsing promise against her spine.
They swamped her with too many sensations, overwhelming her body and sending her mind on a tornado of confusion. She wanted to touch them. She wanted to push them away. She wanted to scream. She wanted to moan.
She fisted her hands at her sides and managed to swallow. “I, umm, I thought a lot about that today, about what’ll happen tonight.” Billy’s lips curved into a pleased smile that made her heart trip and stumble.
“Did you, really? I’m glad to hear it.”
“We did a lot of thinkin’ on it today, too.” James outlined her earlobe with the tip of his nose. “A whole lot of thinkin’.”
Sarah’s eyes started to close on their own volition, and she fought to keep them open. It felt so good, what they did to her. James’s warm breath ignited a fiery chill that traveled from her ear on a direct course to her sex. The tender glide of Billy’s fingers danced over her collarbone. Even through the material of her shirt the contact made her chest tingle to feel that feathery perusal between her breasts, on her breasts, on her nipples.
Focus, she needed to focus, and not on them. It would be so easy to give in, to allow herself to experience all they offered without protest. She couldn’t let herself do that.
“You realized, then, that nothin’ can happen tonight.” She expected both men to freeze, to question, to tell her she was wrong. Instead, Billy’s hand inched lower to play on her chest just above her breasts. James licked her lobe, nearly drawing a moan from her. She caught it in the nick of time.
“Oh, how you figure that one, darlin’?” James drew her lobe between his teeth and nipped. Sparks of insanity flared through her head.
“If you t–take me without marriage, you’ll ruin me.”
“Never took you for one to care about all that.” Billy dipped his head, brushing his lips to the curve of her neck, trailing his tongue down her throat.
“Ah, God,” Sarah breathed, her head falling back to rest on James’s shoulder. Focus. She couldn’t lose focus on the conversation. “A woman has to care.
There might not be enough to go around in these parts, but men don’t want to be hitched to a tainted woman.”
“We’re the only men you
need to concern yourself with.” The authority in James’s tone made her shiver. “You don’t really reckon we’d expect you to live with us, to be our woman and not our wife.” His tongue penetrated her ear, licking inside and fizzling her brain.
“You n–never mentioned marriage.” When Billy’s tongue dipped beneath the neckline of her shirt to tickle along her flesh, she closed her eyes on a ragged sigh. It took her a heartbeat combined with a few deep breaths to regain her composure enough to go on. “I can’t marry both of you.”
“No.” James’s fingers began kneading her hips, his lower body grinding against her backside as he swayed ever so slightly in time with the motion of his fingers. “You’ll marry Billy, but you’ll belong to both of us.” Sarah lifted her head and opened her eyes. Billy straightened, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips when he no doubt caught the spark of temper in her gaze. He knew her well. Both men did. He proved it with his next comment.
“You do belong to us, Sarah. We staked our claim on you a long time ago.”
“You’ll be just as much mine as Billy’s,” James told her. “It’ll be his name on paper, but you’ll be wife to us both in every equal way.”
“I won’t live in secret.” Blazes, what they said, what they planned, couldn’t be done. It couldn’t be right!
It felt righter than anything she remembered in her life.
“Neither will we.” Billy’s other hand tugged her shirt free of her britches then slipped beneath the material to flatten on her flesh.
Sarah sucked in a quick breath of surprise at the skin-to-skin contact. His palm felt cool to her heated flesh but warmed almost instantly as her desire seemed to pool in her body just below where his hand rested.
“The town will know, Sarah, and they’ll have no choice but to accept it.” James sounded so certain she didn’t doubt for a moment he’d get his way. He didn’t give her much choice in the matter, either. “It’ll make no never mind to anyone who we share. And don’t you go worrying about your virtue, darlin’. Billy and me’ll make it right.” He nipped her lobe again, the sharp bite sending a zing of wicked arousal pinging through her system. “Now finish cleaning up so we can turn in for the night.
We’re plum tuckered out and ready to lie down a spell.” Sarah nodded, feeling the intense absence of their bodies against hers, of their hands on her as they stepped away to give her room to move. The distance also gave her room to think. She got what she wanted. They wouldn’t take her tonight. She’d have to figure out something more come morning to ward them off for another day, to postpone the trip into town to get her and Billy hitched until she could figure how to handle this new life they planned for her. For now, for tonight, she won.
The victory might’ve tasted sweeter if her body hadn’t wept so for their touch.
* * * *
James stood at the bedroom window, peering through the darkness and seeing nothing but Sarah’s angelic face. He knew what happened back in the kitchen, recognized her mention of virtue and marriage not only as truth but a way of stalling.
His cock throbbed uncomfortably in his britches. Damnit all to hell, he hated admitting she was right. He didn’t lie. He’d been thinking on the myriad of ways he planned to feast on and explore her slight, curvy body since leaving her behind at the house this morning.
“She’s right, you know.” Billy didn’t sound any more pleased by that fact than James felt.
“Yeah, I know.” Marrying her before enjoying her sweet essence wasn’t something James had thought about all day.
“She didn’t agree, either.”
“She will.” She responded to him and Billy way too much not to agree. They were all she had left. It wasn’t the way he’d intended it to happen. It simply did.
“I ain’t gonna force her, James. I, well, hell, man, I love her, but I ain’t keen on makin’ her my wife if she don’t wanna be.”
“That’s good to hear.” Sarah’s very female voice carried through the gathering testosterone in the room like a ribbon of satin.
James caught her reflection in the window, saw her standing just inside the bedroom doorway, her shoulders squared and hands fisted at her sides. Always ready to battle, he thought, and loved her all the more for it.
“All done with the kitchen?” Billy asked.
Sarah nodded. “It’s cleaner than when I found it.”
Billy chuckled. “I don’t doubt that.”
“Undress for us.” James didn’t turn. He let his level order fall in the room like a boulder. Then he watched in the window as Sarah’s head whipped toward him as if she’d been broadsided by said boulder.
“I will do no such thing.” Exasperation seethed in her tone. “You said you were tuckered out and ready to lie down. I expected you to be in bed by now. I only came in here because I thought this was my room now.”
“It is.” James turned so he could look at her fully. “It belongs to the three of us. We’ll all sleep right there.” He shot a pointed glance at the bed he and Billy had made larger by bringing Billy’s in from the other room and sliding the two together.
“Sleep right there.” She emphasized the word, narrowing her eyes as she glanced at the bed and then steadied her gaze on him. “You said you weren’t plannin’
on takin’ me until Billy and I got hitched.”
“And I meant it.” James nodded once. “We’ll be headin’ out first thing tomorrow after the mornin’ chores are seen to.”
“Then we’ll have this discussion again tomorrow night.” She dared to spin on her heel as if she intended to leave the room.
“You don’t want to do that, Sarah.” James didn’t make a move to stop her.
The warning in his voice worked well enough. She looked at him over her shoulder, her deep-blue eyes simmering with red-hot temper. “We’ll discuss this now, and you’ll undress for us now just like I told you.”
“He never said we aimed to take you tonight,” Billy told her far more softly than James spoke. He moved to her, hooking an arm around her waist and spinning her around, drawing her against him.
James saw her surrender as acutely as he’d felt it in the kitchen. She talked a good fight, but her body betrayed her right to the last.
“There are other ways to sample a woman, Sweet Sarah.” Four long strides brought James to her back. “There are other ways to please a woman without taking her virtue.” He skimmed his hands over her ass as he dipped his head to nip the exposed flesh where her neck and shoulder met.
She trembled. He smiled, loving how his touch, his mouth could do that to her. Even as he lifted his head and met Billy’s gaze, he knew his brother wasn’t yet satisfied. He closed his eyes on a sigh and nodded.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he muttered and stepped back.
Billy tipped her face up with a finger beneath her chin. “Tell us, Sarah. No lip, no lies. Tell us you don’t want us. Tell us you don’t want to be our wife.” She scoffed, though it sounded awfully forced to James. “And what, you’ll let me go?”
James felt his heart still in his chest as real fear coiled like a snake in his gut.
“If you really don’t want us, don’t want the life we’re offerin’ you, we might have to.” Billy waited a beat and added, “Say the words, Sarah.”
* * * *
Sarah tried, but the words got stuck on the tip of her tongue. Would she ever get another chance to leave? She stared up at Billy and saw herself teetering on the edge of that fathomless cliff of promise, desire, and what she swore must be love. Her mind screamed at her that if she never followed another order issued by these two men, she should follow this one. She should say the words and head back for her place before deep night. Her body and her heart, however, screamed a whole different tune.
“I–I can’t.” She barely forced even those two words past her lips.
“Why can’t you, Sweet Sarah?” James put a hand on her shoulder as he stepped into her view nex
t to Billy.
Sarah never thought to see the hope running through his meadow-green eyes that she saw in that moment. He wanted her. Billy wanted her. They would share her, pleasure her, and love her. They would give her what she craved, feed her hunger for all she asked and more. She knew that now, believed it when her gaze danced from James to Billy and back again.
“Do you want us?” James asked when she said nothing. “Can you say those words? Can you say you want to be our wife?”
Sarah closed her eyes, knowing when she answered him she’d give him everything. When she looked at him again, she felt the rightness settle over her like a blanket of comfort. “Yes, I want you. I want both of you. I’ll be your”—she choked on the next word and had to swallow before she could say it—“wife.” Twin grins of sheer male pride unfolded on the Cassidy brothers’ handsome faces. James’s hand on her shoulder squeezed once then slowly slid away. Billy’s arm at her waist tightened then his hand glided down to her ass for a squeeze there before dropping away.
“Undress for us.” James repeated his earlier order, his tone as level and authoritative as before.
“You aren’t gonna turn your backs?” She knew they wouldn’t even before they both shook their heads.
“We’re aiming to watch. It ain’t like we didn’t see you naked last night.”
“I told you then you’d learn to get used to us watchin’ you. This time tomorrow we’ll be your husbands,” James reminded her. “We’ll expect you undressed when we want you that way. Get used to being naked for us, darlin’. I reckon you’re gonna find yourself that way often.”
“You think you can take whatever you want when you want it, and I won’t have any say at all?” As annoyed by the idea as she was, the way it made her body explode in a riot of wicked sensations, Sarah gaped at them.
Her Dominant Saviors Page 6
