“Righto, mate.” Marc hurried from the room, but not before Harper saw his erection straining against the fly of his jeans.
“Are you sure, darl’?”
She turned to Keith, her heart filling with warmth at his murmured question. “I am. There’s nothing I’ve ever been more sure of.”
He closed his eyes at her confession, his face etched with an emotion she couldn’t fathom. Not grief, but something…
“Fuck, Harper,” he groaned. “How are we ever going to let you go back to the States?”
“You don’t.”
His eyes opened, raw emotion shining in their blue depths. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it, darl’.”
She smiled. Just as Marc entered the room.
Harper burst out laughing.
Marc held out his arms. “What? I’m ready. What have you two been doing?”
He stood in the doorway, naked except for his hat, his boots and an unwrapped condom balancing on the bulbous crown of his erection.
Keith snorted, turning back to Harper. “Are you really sure, darl’?”
“Sure about what?” Marc crossed to the bed, a swagger in his step.
Harper grinned. “Tell you later.”
“Alrighty then.” Marc frowned at Keith. “Why the fuck are you still dressed?”
Keith scowled. “Shut the fuck up, Thomo.”
Harper had never been so happy, so…so…free. She felt free, as if finally throwing off a weight that had kept her imprisoned.
Repositioning herself on the bed, she tugged her dress over her head and tossed it aside.
“Struth, I’ll never get sick of looking at you, love.” Marc’s groaned proclamation made her happy. So goddamn happy.
It wasn’t until Keith joined her on the bed that she realized he’d removed his clothes. She touched the spider tattoo over his heart with the tips of her fingers. “One day you’re both going to tell me about these tattoos,” she said, studying the black spider with the bright-red mark on its ass. “But not now.” She returned her gaze to Keith’s face. “Now I just want you both inside me.”
He kissed her, pressing her to her back with gentle force. His hard, warm body covered hers and she scraped her nails up his back, over his shoulders. And then let out a squeal of delight as he flipped over, taking her with him.
“Fuck, that’s a gorgeous arse.”
Harper wriggled onto her elbows and knees above Keith, smiling at Marc over her shoulder. She should be nervous. What she was about to do…holy crap, she should be nervous. But she wasn’t. She was alive.
“It is,” Keith agreed. “And these are gorgeous tits.”
To prove his point, he captured her breasts with his hands as they brushed his face, closed his lips around one tight nipple and sucked. Hard.
She gasped. And then moaned as Marc’s warm lips found her slit. He licked her sex, slow, sensuous laps that left her panting.
For long moments both men worshipped her body. Keith’s mouth moved from one nipple to the other, his wicked suction sending searing fingers of pleasure to her core, while Marc’s tongue slipped in and out of her pussy, his thumbs parting her folds to grant him deeper access.
Harper moaned, the building heat within her tingling the base of her spine.
The orgasm claimed her before she could cry out, fast and powerful. She balled her fists in the duvet beside Keith’s head, biting her lip.
“Don’t hold back, darl’,” he ordered around her nipple. “Make all the noise you want. No one’s going to hear you.”
She threw back her head and cried out, her hips bucking, her belly clenching, her pussy contracting.
“That’s it,” Marc murmured. “That’s what we want to hear.”
“Oh God,” she panted, her head hanging, hair tumbling about her face. “I didn’t expect that.”
Keith grinned at her. “We Aussie cowboys can be pretty bloody amazing when we want to be.”
A deep, blissful contentment stole through her. “You can say that a—”
Marc’s mouth on the puckered opening of her anus stole her voice.
She gasped, her eyes flinging wide, her stare locking on Keith’s face.
“Are you sure, Harper?” he asked again.
Harper’s heart squeezed at the concern swimming in his eyes.
“Fuck me,” she murmured.
He studied her, motionless for an agonizing second, and then twisted a little beneath her and said, “Give me a condom, Thomo.”
The mouth on her ass disappeared. She didn’t bother to stop her moan of disappointment. Movement from the corner of her eye told her Marc had handed something to Keith.
She arched her back, allowing Keith’s hands to slip below his waist. Dropping her head, she watched him sheathe his erection in the condom. When his entire length was covered, his hands lifted to her face, his fingers brushing her hair behind her ears. “Are you ready?”
She nodded, suddenly lost for words.
He parted his lips, to say what, she didn’t know. Before he could, she took his engorged cock in her hand and, without hesitation, lowered herself onto it.
Keith hissed and ground out a hoarse “Fuck that feels so good” as she slowly took his entire erection inside her.
She held his stare for a heartbeat, letting him see her pleasure, her trust. “So good,” she agreed. “And it’s only the beginning.”
He let out a ragged breath. “It is.”
With a groan, possibly because Harper chose that moment to squeeze his embedded cock with her inner walls, he turned his gaze to Marc. “Your turn, mate.”
“This is gonna be cold, love,” Marc murmured as he swiped his finger over her anus.
Cold was right. Harper sucked in a sharp breath, the lube on his fingers like ice on her flushed skin.
Then Marc’s finger was pressing at her opening, painting the thick gel over—into—her anus.
Pleasure unlike any other radiated through her. Her groan left her on a shaky breath. Her pussy squeezed tight.
“Jesus, darl’.” Keith’s jaw tensed, his hands on her breasts kneading with firmer urgency. “If you keep doing that I don’t think I’ll sur— Fuck, that’s so good!”
“Breathe for me, love,” Marc’s voice was gentle, calm.
She did as commanded, taking a long, slow breath. As she exhaled, he slipped another lube-slicked finger inside her ass.
And again exquisite pleasure rolled through her.
She couldn’t stop her hitching cry. “Oh God, that’s so…”
Marc bent over her body, his lips grazing the flesh between her shoulder blades. His cock nudged the inside of her thigh, hard and undeniable. “Fucking amazing.”
Her heart slammed hard and fast. Casting him a look over her shoulder, she nodded. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Hungry need burned in his eyes and, with his own nod, he took his cock in his hand and pressed the head to her anus.
“Breathe, darl’,” Keith murmured. “Breathe.”
She drew in a breath, let it out and threw back her head as Marc penetrated her virgin ass.
There was a burning sting as his girth pushed her opening wide, a pain so hot she wanted to scream. She froze and then moaned as Marc slowly buried his cock in her passage.
Unfathomable pleasure took her. She cried out again, and again when Keith began to move inside her as well.
She balanced on the precipice, their moans echoing around her, their bodies possessing her, filling her. They moved together, and she moved with them, taking them both as deep as she could, rolling her hips, squeezing their pumping lengths with her most intimate muscles.
They made love to her and when she came, her screams loud and unrestrained, they came too. Her name raw groans on their lips, their rhythm lost as they both told her they loved her, they loved her, oh fuck, how they loved her.
And when it was all done, when their release was spent and their cocks withdrawn from
her body, they took her in their arms, held her close between them and told her they loved her again.
Chapter Nine
If Keith had his way, the weekend never would have ended. It was the best of his life. He and Marc had given Harper horse-riding lessons on Saturday, a hilarious endeavor they all agreed was a failure. There wasn’t an ounce of skill in Harper’s body. No matter what horse they put her on, Harper froze and then panicked and then froze again. After two hours, they all gave up, happy to admit defeat.
“Can you ride a motorbike?” Keith had asked, returning his hat to his head after she’d knock it off tumbling from Whippet’s saddle into his arms.
“You mean a motorcycle?” She’d tentatively patted his horse’s rump as she leaned into the protection of his embrace. “Like a Yamaha?”
Marc had retrieved one of the dirt bikes from the equipment shed and, in five minutes, Harper was proving what she couldn’t do on a horse, she could do on a motorbike.
“Well,” Marc watched her race around the paddock traditionally used to teach new jackaroos how to ride a horse, “guess she can always round up cattle on a bike.”
They’d spent the night making love by the billabong, taking turns icing her saddle-sore butt before kissing every inch of her body. They’d swum naked under the stars, fucked in the water, dozed on blankets laid out on the grass, tried to get her to eat Vegemite, gave up after everyone got the hiccups laughing too much and went back to making love again.
Sunday was just as wonderful. They’d taken her into Cobar for lunch at the pub, making the most of the long trip in and back by stopping often, pointing out various things along the way, filling her in on the history of the land, telling her some of the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, making love to her over and over.
By the time Sunday night came, Keith knew there was no coming back from this.
There was no denying how they all felt about each other. Nor could they deny the reality of geography. Harper was an American teacher, and he and Marc were two Australian stockmen. Hell, neither of them even owned a home.
Come next Sunday, when Harper flew back to Chicago, he and Marc would return to the only life they’d ever known—working on Farpoint Creek Cattle Station.
For the first time ever, Keith felt empty about that.
And for the first time ever, he considered the unthinkable. Life off Farpoint.
“Oi, Blue.”
He jerked his head up from the open paper spread out before him.
Marc tossed a thermos at him, a glower on his face. “You left this out on the Blue Gulley Ridge tract.”
Snatching his thermos from the air, Keith scowled. They’d spent the afternoon moving a herd of new Angus heifers from the sorting pens to a holding paddock, a relatively easy job made hard because Keith’s heart hadn’t been in it. At all. Which had become fairly evident when more than one of the frisky young animals managed to slip past him during the muster. If it wasn’t for Legs and Jett, it was likely Keith would still be hunting for one in Blue Gulley.
Crossing to the table under a grove of gum trees the hands used when taking a break at the main homestead, Marc dropped onto the seat opposite Keith. “Care to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”
Keith returned his attention to the paper.
“That good, ’eh? Y’know, if you’re going to carry on like a tool, sulking about Harper going home, the next six days are going to be shit.”
Keith lifted his head and glared. “I’m not sulking.”
Marc’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? ’Cause it fucking looks like it.”
Biting back a growl, Keith spun the paper around to face Marc.
Puzzled confusion flittered across Marc’s face. He frowned at the paper, scanning the print on the two pages open to him.
And then snapped his stare back to Keith’s face. “Are you kidding?”
Keith scowled again. “Tell me what other option there is?”
Marc gaped at him, dropped his stare to the paper and then returned it to Keith. “Position Vacant ads? In the fucking city?”
A tight sigh scraped past Keith’s lips. “Sydney, Newcastle. Hell, I’ll even settle on Tamworth. I checked on the Department of Education’s website this morning. Harper’s American teaching qualifications mean she can teach in New South Wales after completing one year of a bachelor of arts in education. I figure I’ll earn a living while she studies.”
“And me?” Marc’s expression was unreadable. “Where do I fit into this grand plan of yours?”
Keith snorted. “You’re the house husband, dickhead. You know I can’t cook to save myself.”
Marc didn’t rise to the jest. He narrowed his eyes. “You talk to Harper about this? And when did you go to the bloody Department of Education’s website? You were still asleep when I got up this morning. Both you and Harper.”
“I was up at four. And no, I haven’t. I’m just…” Keith’s voice faded away. He was what? He didn’t know. All he knew was he didn’t want to lose what he and Marc and Harper had. He didn’t know if a happy ever after was possible with the three of them, but he wanted to give it a try. And the only way to do that was to leave Farpoint.
Which he didn’t want to do at all.
On the other side of the table, Marc sighed. Reaching up, he removed his hat, threw it on the table and raked his fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell, Blue. This is…”
It was Marc’s turn to fade off.
Keith chuckled, a dry, hollow laugh. “Insane? Insane is not seeing if what we have with Harper can work.”
Marc let out another sigh. “True. So, when are you going to tell her what you’re thinking? And what are you going to do if she doesn’t agree to it?”
Keith was saved from thinking about the answer by the arrival of Legs. The young jackaroo ran up to the table, his hat flopping about his head, his face bright red from his first real day on the job. “Thomo, Blue, the boss wants you both up at the main house.”
“Which boss?” Marc asked.
“Mr. Sullivan.”
Keith frowned. “Did he say why?”
The teenager shook his head.
Keith’s gut clenched. He returned his attention to Marc, picking up his friend’s hat and passing it to him. “C’mon, mate. Let’s go.”
The walk there was silent. Keith knew Marc was digesting the situation with Harper. Hell, he was digesting it. He knew moving to the big smoke wasn’t a perfect solution, but there wasn’t one, save staying here on Farpoint. And as soon as Amy returned next week, Harper’s teaching position was gone.
Which brought him back to moving away from Farpoint.
Which bloody well tore his heart out.
“Whose stupid idea was it to fall in love with a bloody American?” he muttered.
“What?” Marc frowned at him.
“Heads-up, Blue,” a man shouted.
Keith turned toward Hunter, watching their boss stride toward them from the homestead. “What’s up, boss?”
Hunter pointed over Keith’s shoulder. “We’ve got a visitor.”
Keith twisted about, watching the Farpoint communal ute slow to a halt a few meters behind him. “Who’s—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. The passenger door flung open and out stepped Amy.
“Holy shit,” Marc whispered.
There was a loud yap and Jett shot past them, bounding toward Amy, who was bounding toward them, her smile so wide, for a second Keith didn’t know what to do.
His friend was home.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Holy shit,” Marc said. “It’s Wesson.”
The sound of Amy’s name kicked him into gear. He met her halfway, scooping her up in a hug. “What the hell are you doing home already?”
“Spill.” Marc nudged her with his shoulder. “We thought you’d need to be kicked out of Chicago, not home early.”
Amy grinned at them. A typical Amy smile, cheeky and naughty. Except
it didn’t reach her eyes. Keith frowned.
Then he heard Harper call Amy’s name behind them.
Amy turned, her stare locking on her best friend. And suddenly she was stumbling forward, collapsing into Harper’s arms, crying.
No, not crying, sobbing. Heart-wrenching sobs that stunned everyone.
“What the hell?” Marc stared at the two women.
Keith shook his head. “No bloody idea, mate.”
They crossed to where Harper was holding Amy, the American murmuring something to the Farpoint teacher Keith couldn’t hear.
Amy laughed, her tears glistening on her cheeks. “He didn’t do anything.”
Confusion pulled at Harper’s eyebrows. “Then why are you crying?”
“Because I fell in love with the stupid man,” Amy burst out, fresh tears spilling down her face again. “And now he’s back at work and I’m here and…God, I’m such an idiot.”
Keith’s gut knotted. He shot Marc a sideways glance. Amy had fallen in love with an American? Christ, what was it with Aussies falling for Yanks?
“You fell in love? With my brother?” Harper’s stunned question yanked Keith’s attention back to the two women.
Harper’s shoulders drooped, her forehead brushing Amy’s. She closed her eyes, her lips moving with words Keith couldn’t hear.
Whatever she said, Amy disagreed. She shook her head, straightening in Harper’s arms, uttering words as quiet as Harper’s.
“What the hell is going on?” Marc muttered. “I don’t know who to hug.”
“Amy! You’re home!”
Annie’s arrival prevented Keith from thumping his fist into Marc’s shoulder.
“We weren’t expecting you until next weekend.” Annie beamed at her.
Amy shrugged, smiling back. Keith wasn’t convinced, and by the slight frown creasing Annie’s forehead, neither was she. “I got a little homesick.”
“Hazel will be thrilled to see you,” Annie said, glancing at Harper, Keith and then Marc. “She’s mentioned several times how much she’s missed your spirit around this place.”
“Andrew is in love with you?” Harper burst out, her stare locked on Amy.
Amy’s cheeks, still wet with tears, turned a faint pink. “I don’t know that for sure. He never said he did. I just—”
Misplaced Hands: 4 (Foreign Affairs) Page 13
