by Lexi Blake
Henry mimed giving them a gift.
“They intend to have a whole fake ceremony for you two,” Holly explained.
Wolf laughed. “Well, hell, Henry, you couldn’t do better than a fake toaster?”
Holly and Nell both shook their heads. “Oh, no,” Holly said. “Henry is very frugal, even when it’s fake.”
Laura watched as Holly’s whole body seemed to go on full alert.
“Doc.” Wolf nodded a greeting as Caleb Burke walked up.
The town doctor was wearing his usual uniform of dark-washed jeans and a Western shirt. When he was working, he sometimes put a white coat on, but mostly it was jeans and Western shirts and worn boots, even when delivering a baby.
“Wolf, Laura, Holly.” His throat seemed to close over the last name, though he managed to get it out. Laura couldn’t help but smile as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. Caleb Burke was a glorious hunk of man, but he had issues. He also had a small bowl in his hand, and he passed it to Nell. “It’s peanut stir-fry with quinoa and tofu. Perfectly vegan.”
Nell quickly pulled the duct tape off her mouth. “That is so sweet, Caleb.”
The doctor suddenly found his feet endlessly fascinating. “Well, I figured you wouldn’t have a lot to eat here, so I made something for you.”
Nell thanked him. Henry gave the group a thumbs-up and they walked off to find some silverware.
“That was thoughtful,” Holly said.
Caleb flushed, his face redder than his gold and red hair. “Well, you can have some if you want it.”
Holly bit her lip. “Um, I’m not really into tofu, but I would love to try it.”
“Oh, I’m sure it tastes like shit,” Caleb said. “I mean, why eat that when you could try bear?”
A bright smile lit Holly’s face. “Come on, then. It’s actually really good, and the bison burgers are amazing.”
She was about to say something when she caught sight of Rafe and Cam walking onto the fairgrounds. Holly and Caleb left in search of exotic meats, but it wasn’t the smell of barbecue that had Laura’s mouth watering.
Why did those two men have to be so damn delicious? They were almost perfect opposites. Rafe was smooth where Cam was rough on the outside, but then they changed roles when they got to the bedroom. Rafe had taken her with the ruthlessness of an invader, and Cam had made her feel utterly worshipped.
“You should see the look on your face, Laura.” There was a wistful quality to Wolf’s words. “Damn, I hope a woman looks at me like that someday.”
“I don’t love them.” She forced herself to say the words. Maybe if she said it enough, she would believe it.
“Life is way too short to lie to yourself, sweetheart. And it’s too short to sit on your ass because you’re scared. Could they hurt you again? Oh, yeah. What’s going to hurt worse? Your heart breaking or waking up one day and realizing you didn’t try?”
“Were you this mouthy in the SEALs?”
He shrugged. “Can’t help it. I’m brilliant when it comes to dealing with other people’s problems. It’s my alien DNA. It helps me see to the heart of the matter and makes me very intuitive. Damn, there’s my mom. And she has beets. I fucking hate beets.” He pushed away from the picnic table and smoothed out his shirt. “I don’t think you need me to handle this one, but if you choose to go with the fake fiancé thing, know that I am going to require an enormous amount of filthy, disgusting fake sex.”
She couldn’t help but smile. He really was adorable. “Got it.”
He backed away with a wave of his hand. “And I’m the best fake sex you’ve ever had.”
“Damn straight,” Laura returned.
And then all she could see was them. They had lasered in on her and walked side by side with purpose, ignoring everything else around them.
They were the best real sex she’d ever had, and they were headed her way.
Chapter Seven
Rafe didn’t miss the way Laura’s body went still, her muscles stiffening where a moment before she’d been laughing with her friends. She changed the second she became aware of them. It wasn’t the greeting he would prefer. Back when they were friends, when she would see him coming, her whole body would go soft and a welcoming smile would transform her face from something professional to an intimate visage, one only meant for someone close to her. He’d taken great pride in the fact that he’d only ever seen that look on her face for one other person.
“Hello, bella.”
She frowned at him. Even with her lips turned down, she was stunning. She looked only slightly out of place in her yellow heels. The rest of her outfit was charmingly Western. She had on a full cotton skirt, a yellow tank top, and a light denim jacket. It wasn’t far off from what many of the other women were wearing, yet Laura made it seem elegant. Everything she did had an air of grace to it, even when she was bitching at him.
“I thought I asked you to stop calling me that.”
He wasn’t going to let her push him. He gave her what he hoped was an easy smile. “And I asked you to stop calling me asshole. I doubt you’ve done that. Dance with me.”
Her eyes widened, a look of horror crossing her face. “No.”
“Come on, baby. Don’t say no.” Cam crowded her, but she held her ground. Those heels were planted firmly in the grass beneath her. “I can’t dance with you until you dance with him. I lost the coin flip.”
“Oh, that’s romantic.” Her hands found her hips, and those gorgeously full lips pursed. “Every woman in the world wants to be won by the flip of a coin.”
“We didn’t have time to play cards,” Rafe admitted. He was well aware that people were listening in. Oh, they were pretending to be doing other things, but they leaned over and then talked behind their hands. The citizens of Bliss seemed to be enjoying the drama. Damn, he couldn’t get used to it. In DC, no one paid a bit of attention to what was going on around them. He tried to ignore it. “We weren’t sure how else to handle it, bella. You have to teach us.”
Her lips rose in a sarcastic grin. “See, that’s easy. Let me teach you how to handle a situation like this. You both turn around and walk out the way you came in. You get in your car and drive to Alamosa and get on a plane back to DC.”
Cam sighed. “That’s not going to happen.”
Cam ran a hand up her arm, and Rafe was satisfied with the way she shivered. She still responded to Cam. Would she respond to him? He reached out and took her hand, studying it. Her hand was small in his, her skin fair against his olive tone. Her nails weren’t as long as she used to keep them, but they were still manicured and painted a pretty pink. “Come on and dance with me. We came all this way. We’ve looked for so long. Can’t you spare a moment of your time? Your fiancé is otherwise occupied, and I promise to behave.”
He wouldn’t behave. He had every intention of reminding her of the chemistry they’d had, but he wasn’t going to announce it.
Her eyes strayed to where Wolf Meyer seemed to be having an argument with a small woman with steel-gray hair. She was giving the big man hell, and Rafe was glad to see it.
“Fine.” She pushed off of the picnic table she’d been leaning against. “One dance and that’s all.”
“With both of us,” Cam added quickly, pushing the advantage. “It’s only fair. Otherwise, we’ll both dance with you here and now.”
There it was. Rafe’s heart soared. Her eyes had flared momentarily, and it wasn’t with disgust. When they had checked into the odd motel at the edge of town, they had decided it would be best to come at her together. She’d been turned on by sex with both of them. They needed to remind her of what they had to offer. “I’ll spare the world that sight. One dance, with both of you, and then you’ll go?”
She was going to be difficult to the end. Rafe decided to press his second advantage. It wasn’t truly an advantage, but he knew she wouldn’t be able to say no to them. “You know we can’t do that. We need to talk. It’s important, bella. De Sade is working again.
He’s been quiet for years, but he’s back. I would do anything to spare you…”
She held up a hand, her face taking on a blank, professional stare. “How many?”
“One that we’ve found so far.” He was certain the victim they’d found wasn’t the only one. De Sade was back in DC and on the hunt.
Her expression remained blank, but he could see the way her pulse jumped in the vein in her neck. Her heart was pounding. He had to stop himself from hauling her into his arms and promising her that it would be all right.
“I didn’t see his face,” she said, her tone as bland as her expression. “I went over all of this in the hospital with Joseph. De Sade wore a mask the whole time. I would have given you a description if I’d seen his face.”
Cam’s hands fisted at his side. Rafe was pretty sure he was resisting the urge to touch her, too. “We don’t want to go over what happened to you again, baby. We want to go over your profile.”
She shivered slightly. “I don’t have it anymore. I left everything behind.”
Rafe knew that well. He’d spent days going through everything in her apartment, trying to figure out if she’d left anything behind that would point to where she’d gone. He and Cam had sifted through her belongings, and finally, after a year of making sure her rent was paid and her place kept the same, they had been the ones to box her things up. Rafe was still paying for the storage shed where he kept her belongings and her furniture. He kept her very personal items in his own house, her pictures and keepsakes. He hadn’t been able to put them in the shed.
She shook her head. “We can talk about this later. In the morning, perhaps. This party isn’t the place to discuss it.”
Cam relaxed, his face opening up a bit. He hopped onto the picnic table. “What is this party anyway? Do ya’ll do this kind of thing often?”
Laura looked over the crowded fairgrounds with a fond smile. “It’s a rite of summer around here. It’s called the Big Game Dinner. When the rangers have to put down an animal, we process it and freeze the meat. Some of the locals hunt, too. It’s considered wrong around here if you merely hunt for sport. We eat what we kill, whether it’s a bear or an elk or a deer or a squirrel. We encourage hunters to donate their kills if they were looking for a trophy. That’s why the meat processor is next to the taxidermist. Of course they’re both next to the vegan café. That was some interesting planning on their part.”
“Squirrel?” Rafe was pretty sure he didn’t want to try squirrel.
“Now, don’t you go talking bad about squirrel. My momma used to cook up some squirrel and rabbit, too.” Cam’s Southern accent was suddenly thick.
Laura slid Cam a look as a laugh escaped her lips. “I bet you paired beer with squirrel.”
Cam winked her way. “Only Milwaukee’s finest goes with squirrel, baby.”
He felt a deep gratitude to his partner. Cam had gotten her laughing. “Come on, let’s dance while Cam walks around trying strange meat.”
He took her hand and started to lead her toward the dance floor.
“It’s all right, bella,” he said in what he hoped was his most soothing voice.
She was skittish about this. She walked beside him, but he could feel her reluctance. It wasn’t surprising after everything she’d gone through. He pulled her into his arms just as someone changed the song. Before it had been a two-stepping country song, but now the music slid to something slow and sexy.
“Busybodies,” she said under her breath as she allowed him to put his arms around her. Her hands wound almost reluctantly around his neck.
He let it go. There was a lot he didn’t understand about this town and Laura’s place in it. “Cam and I have been talking. We mishandled everything on the day you turned in your profile. We’re sorry.”
Her face was stony even as she swayed to the music. “I don’t know how to take that. Should I forgive and forget when it cost me my career?”
It had cost her much more. That truth lay between them like a brick wall keeping them apart.
“No one wanted to believe that it could be one of us,” he said, wishing he had never opened the subject.
“I didn’t want to believe it, either.”
He pulled her closer, loving the feel of her body against his. “I don’t want to fight. Can we have one night where I’m simply happy to see you?”
She moved stiffly in his arms. “Tell me why you’re happy to see me and maybe we can talk.”
Rafe felt his eyebrows creep up his face. “What do you mean?”
She stared at someplace past his shoulder. “I mean I want to know why you’ve been looking for me.”
Was she high? Had the altitude affected her brain? “Because that’s what people in love do, bella. They look for their loved ones when they disappear. Cam gave up his job to look full time. We’ve done nothing but think about you and search for you.”
“You weren’t even in bed with me the morning after we had sex.”
Relief flooded his system. That he could address. “We woke up early. We weren’t exactly sure how to handle it. It’s odd waking up in bed with a naked man.”
“It didn’t seem odd to me.”
At least there was a hint of a smile on her face. “Well, the way I was raised, it is definitely odd. My culture isn’t big on sharing.”
“I don’t think any culture is.”
“This town doesn’t seem to mind. I talked to two cowboys earlier who share a wife.”
“Ah, met Max and Rye, huh?” Her movements became more graceful as the music seemed to take over.
“And the sheriff, if I’m not mistaken. Tell me something, I can almost understand the twins. I’ve heard twins have deep connections. But what about the sheriff? He seemed so normal to me.”
“That’s because you don’t know him. No one’s normal, Rafe. Haven’t you figured that out yet? Here in Bliss, we don’t even try to be. We fit together because no one tries to fit in.”
He doubted that seriously. Even in odd communities, there was a certain amount of fitting in. He couldn’t believe that Bliss was different. But discussing Bliss with her seemed like a bad idea. He concentrated on his previous line of questioning. “So the sheriff is bisexual?”
She stopped in the middle of the dance floor and laughed.
Embarrassment flashed through him. “No, then? Well, how am I supposed to know?”
She put her arms back around him. “I guess you aren’t. No, Nathan Wright isn’t bi. He’s totally hetero, just a little kinky. He and his partner, Zane, have been best friends since they were kids. When they fell in love with the same woman, they decided to share her. The sheriff says it’s the best of both worlds. He gets to hang with his closest friend all the time, and he gets his girl. It works nicely for them, and here, no one blinks an eye.”
It sounded nice, but he wasn’t sure if it would work for them.
“So that morning after we had sex…”
“Made love.” He wasn’t about to allow her to cheapen it.
Her blonde hair shook. “Whatever. That morning, the two of you couldn’t figure out how to share, so you left?”
It had been more complex than that. “We went to breakfast to talk. It seemed like something we should do.”
He and Cam had ordered breakfast, but neither had eaten it. They had stared at each other over the tabletop.
“And it never occurred to you that I should be in on that conversation?”
It hadn’t. It still didn’t. “It was between me and Cam.”
He and Cam had sat in a diner a block from her place and talked. It had been an odd and stilted conversation that ended in a fight. Neither one had been willing to give her up, and neither one had been willing to share long term. The entire idea had been foreign. It was fine for one hot night, but they both wanted a lifetime with her. They’d argued over how to proceed. Neither could stand the idea of the other winning. All of that had changed when she was taken. When she’d been taken by the Marquis de Sade, Rafe
and Cam had been inseparable. They’d practically clung to each other.
Over time, they’d begun to see less and less of each other, as though their guilt had become a wall neither wanted to climb. He wondered what would become of the sheriff and his partner if something happened to their wife. Or to the brothers. He doubted they would fall apart the way he and Cam had.
He’d missed Cam. He’d missed Cam as much as he’d missed Laura. The idea kicked him squarely in the balls. He didn’t have sexual feelings for Cam, but he did have feelings. Serious feelings. What did that make him?
“It’s only guilt, you know,” Laura said softly. “Some bad stuff happened to me, and you feel guilty about it. I’m okay now. You can stop worrying about me. I’m safe here.”
It seemed to Rafe that she was gently giving him permission to go. She had no idea what he was feeling. He pulled her into his body, thrusting his pelvis toward hers. “Does this feel like guilt, bella?”
He let his hands drift to her hips, pressing them together. His cock responded immediately. It grew long and hard. Rafe could feel it jump in his pants like it was a heat-seeking missile that had finally found a target.
Her gasp filled him with hope. It was the same breathy sound she made when he touched her clit or sucked on her nipples. His cock hardened painfully. It had been on full alert since the moment they had found her, and being close, being able to touch her and breathe in her scent, wasn’t helping.
“I still want you. I never stopped wanting you.”
“I’ve changed,” she said, but she didn’t pull away.
“You couldn’t possibly change enough for me to stop wanting you.”
She bit into her bottom lip as her eyes turned down. “I’m a different person now. And I gained twenty pounds.”
He chuckled. She was worried about that? “I can see that. It looks good on you. You’re beautiful. Every inch of you calls to me. I didn’t come here out of guilt. I came out of desperation. I’ve missed you.”
She turned her head up, and his lips were so close to hers. He could feel the breath coming from her body. Everything inside him stopped, as though frozen and waiting. He leaned over to press his mouth to hers.