The Substantial Gift [The Sunset Palomino Ranch 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  “You’re right about Violet,” Harper heard himself saying. Dear Lord! What was he thinking? Harper Davies actually admitting to something? But maybe it was all a part of his seduction of the other man. Men became like putty if you just agreed with them. “You’re right. I think she’s smoking hot. But I don’t swing that way, so you have no competition.” Placing his palm flat against Sinclair’s chest, he shoved him. The jetsetter staggered back until he came up against a wooden free-standing saddle rack—exactly Harper’s intention. The rack held no saddle, and Harper was easily able to twine the strap through a couple of the slats as he pressed Sinclair to sit.

  Sinclair went willingly, looking confused. “But if you think she’s smoking hot, why aren’t you punching me for kissing her? If it’s any consolation, I think she’s hot for you, too. Oh, jeez. Are you going to prevent me from going back to her, is that it?” Sinclair looked down to where Harper was binding his wrist to the saddle rack. He made no motion of protest when Harper reached around him and grabbed the other hand. To bind that one, Harper had to mash his packed, full crotch against Sinclair’s buff chest, and he couldn’t resist gyrating his erection into the meaty pectoral. Sinclair still didn’t even squirm in protest.

  Harper chuckled. “Yeah. That’s why I’m strapping your wrists to this rack, Nieman. To stop you from kissing Violet again. I’ll just leave you here for the next decade.”

  Sinclair tried to chuckle too, but once Harper strapped the buckle and held his empty hands up for him to see, a shadow crossed the playboy’s face. Sinclair jerked on his arms, as though Harper would not make a tight cinch. “Hey! What’s the fucking idea?”

  Harper straddled a powerful thigh, humping it with his bulging erection like a dog. He slapped his palm to cover Sinclair’s obvious erection and squeezed, smiling lasciviously at the other man. “I think you get the fucking idea, Nieman, or you wouldn’t have come in here in the first place.” Slowly, seductively, Harper closed his thighs around the muscular limb, massaging his own dick against it. Lord. Slow down. You’re going to pull a Sinclair Nieman if you keep dry humping him. “I think you liked being jacked by me in that club. Admit it. It turned you on, exhibiting your hard-on for everyone to admire like that. You like being admired.”

  Having conceded defeat on the bondage side of things, Sinclair stopped struggling. He couldn’t look Harper in the face, though. He set his jaw and stared fixedly at the buttons of Harper’s cowboy shirt. “I admit no such fucking thing, you twisted cowboy. Any guy would’ve had a hard-on under the same circumstances.”

  Harper put lust and desire into his mauling of Sinclair’s prick now. He squeezed the testicles until the outline appeared under the jean material. Sinclair wore extremely tight boxer briefs to be displaying his cockhead in such sharp relief like that. Harper thumbed that as well, pleased when Sinclair hissed in air. “Oh yeah? I’ve had guys whale on me for less than that. And your nice fat dick tells a different story.”

  Sinclair now thrashed his hips, with the result that he speared his prick more firmly into Harper’s grasp. Harper was so aroused by this fake sort of “rebel play” that without forethought his free hand grabbed the neckline of the infernal Lacoste shirt, and ripped. The ensuing tearing sound would have been satisfying in itself, but Sinclair’s meaty, tanned pec was laid open to view. Just as Harper had predicted, there was just the right amount of chest hair scattered over the juicy expanse, and the nipple stood out like a pebble. Harper had no self-control, and he pet the exposed flesh before rolling the nipple lewdly between forefinger and thumb.

  “Take your fucking hands off me,” growled Sinclair, but there was no conviction in it.

  “You have no control over how your body responds,” Harper said pleasantly. He released the erection, but only to unbuckle the belt with one hand. Cowboys could do that singlehandedly. “It’s not your fault you get hard when I stroke you. It doesn’t mean you’re gay in the slightest.”

  “Right,” grunted Sinclair, his gaze fixed on Harper’s nimble hand.

  A rush of lust surged through Harper’s pelvis when he fingered the crotch buttons apart and slid his palm down over the steamy pubic bone. The root of the cock was firm like a tree limb, the throbbing duct on the underside already ripe with semen.

  Harper continued in a soothing tone. “Who doesn’t like a nice cocksucking now and then?” He was gratified when Sinclair’s prick twitched at the mention of cocksucking. Sinclair was a high roller, all right—a horse that leaped high in the air while bucking.

  “Right,” gasped Sinclair weakly. “Who doesn’t?”

  Harper gave a great lunge of his hips and almost gasped himself when a couple drops of pre-ejaculate lubricated the slit of his own penis. His balls were so swollen as he rubbed against his play partner he felt like a potent bull, jacked on testosterone. To take the focus off himself, he brought the heavy phallus out into the air, stroking it lovingly so it rolled against Sinclair’s pubic bone. His thumb adeptly swept over the glans, using the drops of semen to slick up his tickling of the shaft.

  When Harper swooped his whole palm over the cock, he bent low to suck the nipple between his teeth. Sinclair cried out and jumped, jerking his hips in the air.

  “God!” Sinclair gritted out between clenched teeth. “Who fucking gave you the right to—”

  In an instant Harper had detached his mouth from the luscious nipple and was speaking against Sinclair’s mouth. He grasped the dimpled chin in his palm, but he never let up on his stroking of the dick. “Exactly,” he whispered against Sinclair’s lips. “God.” And he opened his mouth over the other man’s to kiss him fully.

  Oh, delicious. After initially resisting the kiss, Sinclair didn’t take long to relax into it. Harper groaned and licked the shapely lips, and soon had plunged his tongue into the sweet mouth to lick and tangle with Sinclair’s.

  Harper was so over the top with lust, he had to stop dry humping the muscular thigh or he definitely would’ve shamed himself the way Sinclair did in the club. He put more oomph into jacking the cock, using the droplets of jism at the slit as lubricant for his fist. Biting and licking Sinclair’s mouth, he pulled back to snarl dirty words at him.

  “You love this, don’t you?” he asked suggestively as he ran his entire palm down the length of the throbbing prick. Sinclair moaned for more, rotating his hips eagerly, asking to be allowed to spend. “Another man stroking your dick is much more erotic, stronger, more full of life. More brutal and nasty. Who needs a woman’s tiny little hand when you can have this.”

  And he jacked Sinclair fully, holding his lips just inches from the other man’s so he could observe the reactions in his face.

  Sinclair threw his head back. A low gurgling moan like the death rattle of a wild animal was caught in his throat. Harper wondered how long the handsome stud could hold his breath, but he couldn’t wait to find out. Suddenly, without warning, Harper fell to his knees between the playboy’s outspread thighs and sank the big penis down his hot throat.

  Heavenly. The fat cock was like another limb that even Harper had to struggle to suck. Since turning his attention to men years ago, he had discovered he liked being filled like this. He was always clearly the dominant party in every encounter, and he satisfied his need to be saturated by binding the other man and engaging in a power struggle. Harper loved it when his partner struggled. He had never—to his knowledge—bound anyone against their express wishes. But the rebel play incited Harper to greater heights, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to flip his partner over and have his fulfillment in that way.

  Today it was enough of a triumph that he had the long, fat cock in his mouth. Harper was gratified even more when the cock instantly spilled, as it had in the club. He snorted and lapped at the throbbing underside, urging the salty semen up through the channel. He knew by now that if he hummed and groaned around the cock, the vibrations would resonate deliciously up through his partner’s balls and anus, adding to the thrill of the contractions.

&nb
sp; When his orgasm started to ebb, Sinclair finally breathed, a hearty wail. Harper knew, as he withdrew to lightly lick the penis, that he wouldn’t be getting away so easily with this one. He already felt more enmeshed with him than any of the prior men of the past three years. Some control felt as though it was helplessly slipping away from him. He even admired the pulsating phallus as it lay against Sinclair’s hip, the virility of his Adam’s apple as he gulped air, the erotic heaving of his chest.

  Stop admiring him. Stop caring if he kisses Violet. Stop admiring Violet. Harper forced himself to his knees, turning his back on Sinclair so he could modestly rearrange his own hard-on in his jeans.

  Sinclair panted, “Are you just using me to make Violet jealous? Is that your end game?”

  Harper twisted his torso around to glare at the other man. “Why would I do that when I don’t give a flying fuck about her, or women in general! You need to watch your manners.”

  His outburst didn’t seem to affect Sinclair. If anything, Sinclair tilted his head seductively and was even more at ease, though his wrists were still cuffed to the saddle rack. It didn’t seem to bother him. “I think you do. Violet just told me she ran into you by some river and you reacted like she’d shot your pet canary. Why would you do that, unless her opinions mattered to you.”

  Harper paced. How dare this vanilla submissive just stalk in here and make accusations? He barely knew Harper. How did he know what Harper liked or disliked? “It’s you I want, you numbnuts. Don’t be such an epic fuckwad and just take the flattery, why not? You need to agree to one thing, though, if we’re going to keep seeing each other.”

  Sinclair nodded behind himself at the cuffs. “Ah, a little help? What do you want?”

  Harper made sure the latigo wasn’t unbuckled before he told Sinclair, “I need you to promise to stop seeing Violet.”

  As expected, Sinclair frowned fiercely at him. “Why the fuck would that matter to you? You see what I mean? You’re completely confusing—totally contradictory. You say Violet means nothing to you, but you won’t let me see her.”

  Sinclair didn’t seem like he would become violent, so Harper continued unthreading the latigo. He couldn’t look Sinclair in the face because he wasn’t used to addressing anyone boldly, directly. “I want you to myself,” he lied. He was fully aware he would be eaten up by jealousy if the other two continued to mess around. He was already developing dangerous, possessive feelings for Sinclair, and Violet seemed to represent some image of womanly perfection, something unattainable for him. “I don’t want her, but I don’t want you having her either.”

  Sinclair freed his arms, massaging them. He scoffed at Harper. “Why? Would Morgan be jealous?”

  Harper’s body reacted without forethought. It was instinctual, as a cowboy constantly on the lookout against sudden pain, for him to lash out and wallop Sinclair’s perfect jaw with his fist. Sinclair’s head whipped back, and he fell back upon the saddle rack. Harper stood with balled fists, ready to continue the fight if Sinclair chose. Sinclair didn’t seem to be inclined to respond with violence—he just looked at Harper while feeling his jaw, astonished. So Harper shouted, “Morgan is never jealous ’cause she’s dead and there isn’t any fucking heaven!”

  He couldn’t believe he just said that. Apparently Sinclair couldn’t, either. He didn’t even stuff his flagging cock back into his jeans, just stared openmouthed at Harper.

  Jesus! Now I’ve got to cover that up. All of this inner confession bullshit was taking a toll on Harper. He just wanted to go back to his ranch house and drink whiskey. But first, he wanted to make sure no one ever mentioned Morgan, ever again. He stepped up to Sinclair with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you ever…ever try to goad me like that again, you fucking bling-bling moron, you fucking mail order cowboy.”

  Sinclair frowned. “I don’t pretend to be a fucking cowboy, you fucking—fucking—cowboy!”

  Exhaling heavily, Harper turned toward a wall of bridle racks. Someone was rattling the only door’s latch, and silhouettes of men shading their eyes were peering inside the only window. “Just a second, you fucking mutton punchers!” Quieter, he said to the wall, “You’re right. That woman scares me half to death, she’s that fucking hot.”

  Behind him, he could hear Sinclair rise and fiddle with his belt buckle. “She’s a world-class biologist, from what I gather. She never went to college because she married that nitwit young, but she’s spent a good part of the past twenty years actually in the field getting hands-on experience. I respect that. She never frittered her life away like so many did, Drake and her husband. Yes, and me. I’m not as bad as Drake or Bryan, but I could’ve done better. Maybe my attraction to her is my way of paying penance.” Cornily, he put a hand on Harper’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry about Morgan. It’s too bad you don’t believe in heaven, because that’s some consolation, at least.”

  Harper shrugged off the hand. “There’s no fucking heaven,” he repeated gruffly. That was enough confession for one day, and idiots were banging on the tack room door. He shoved Sinclair toward it. “Just agree not to date that woman.”

  Sinclair dug his heels in like a dog, refusing to be pushed. “I can’t agree to that,” he said firmly, levelly.

  Harper shoved him harder. “Well, you’d better.”

  He knew his words were useless. He could only control other men so far. He knew hetero horndogs. He vaguely recalled himself being that way. Harper knew that nothing, no amount of kicking Sinclair’s ass, would stop him from pursuing that scientific, cinnamon-scented woman.

  Chapter Seven

  “So your husband—do you mind me asking about your husband?”

  “Not at all. Only don’t call him my ‘husband.’ I feel better if you call him my ‘ex-husband.’ We’ve been estranged for many years.”

  Violet felt the need to point this out to Sinclair now that they were obviously, officially dating. He was her date for the bowling alley benefit next week, and now he’d agreed to accompany her out to the Fringe-Toed Lizard Preserve, thirty acres of riparian desert scrub her brother Drake had donated. She hadn’t seen any lizards so far, but there were plenty of ocotillo and the deadly spines of the “jumping” cholla cactus that looked cuddly and furry from afar. She was surprised and pleased Drake had donated the land, but maybe this was part of how Rose and Jesse were transforming him.

  “All right.” Sinclair nodded. He had no sketch pad and nothing to do as they sat on the flat sandy rocks, so he had uncorked a bottle of California cabernet he’d brought along. “Ex-husband sounds better. So he’s giving you a difficult time about divorcing?”

  “Yes. He never lifted a single finger to deserve his fortune. It came from his father who started a seat belt company. But Bryan feels strongly that the woman who raised his two children should not receive a single penny of it. He thought I would go lightly into the sunset, but he was severely mistaken. California is a no-fault state, so I can only file for irreconcilable differences, but the court may consider the many times he was violent when they decide on an award for me. So far he’s been dodging my process server, who has chased him all over Switzerland. Now we think he’s in St. Moritz. Drake’s so angry he hired a private—” She stopped, holding her pencil in midair. She looked sideways at Sinclair. Could he be trusted?

  He innocently sipped his wine. “Is it all right to be seen with me? I wouldn’t want to give ol’ Bryan more ammo for his arsenal.”

  Violet stared at a distant sand dune. “Well, logically, what with his three thousand, two hundred and sixty-eight bimbos over the decades, I wouldn’t imagine that one of mine would tip the scales.” She looked warmly at Sinclair. “And yes, I asked my lawyer. He basically said what I just said. Hell, for all I know, you are the spy. That’s what I thought at first.”

  Sinclair had a fucking cover model smile. The way he dangled the wine glass between his fingertips with his arm draped over his knee—he could be nothing but a blue-blooded urban cowboy. Yet a serious, thoughtful one,
not a player like Bryan. She wasn’t going to detest him because he’d partied with Bryan a few times.

  “Then I must tell you, Violet.”

  Uh-oh. Here it comes. The lies, the deceit—

  “Drake approached me to be the go-between for yourself and Bryan. Not like you think, not a spy. He wants me to attempt to smooth things over with Bryan, does that make sense?”

  Violet was affronted. “How dare my brother butt in like that! He can’t even keep his own affairs straight and now he’s butting into mine?”

  Sinclair held out a calming hand. “He meant well. And it actually makes sense from one point of view. I can be very persuasive. Bryan thinks I’m one of ‘them’—at least he respects my family money—so he might be open to listening to me. I could put little bugs in his ears. Tell the truth, basically. He might be more open to hearing it from me.”

  “Bugs such as?”

  “Oh, like mention all of your charities. What if you were to continue to donate under the name of Violet Hunt to give his family the credit? He’s big on his family name, that whole seat belt business. He might be more amenable to giving you a better settlement.”

  Violet thought. She always had donated using her married name, naturally. But she’d been so pissed off the past year she’d made sure every check she wrote was in Violet Stinson’s name. “That’s a thought. You could ask him if that’d make him happier. But wouldn’t it make you look like you’re just waiting for me to divorce so you can swoop in and take all my money?”

  “Don’t I have enough money of my own? And I need to protect you, too. I agree with Drake on that. Speaking of predators, all sorts will come out of the woodwork when your divorce is final. Who was that weird guy you were talking to at the rodeo?”

  Violet was genuinely perplexed. Weird guy? “Oh! That was Don Wexler. He’s some Palm Springs citizen or other. He’s going to be at the Kupka House benefit too. We sort of bonded over that vintage, kitschy menu Willow had displayed in the Searchlight’s lobby, until it turned up missing.”