“Yes. So warm, so wet.” Dakota’s voice took on a jagged edge and he gripped her head tighter, taking control as he stroked faster.
Quinn matched his rhythm with Dakota’s.
A cock thrusting in her mouth at the same time another filled her pussy. Their fingers plucking her nipples, teasing her pussy. Driving her to the brink once more.
“Come for us, darlin’.”
Quinn’s command was all it took for another spasm, the hardest she’d ever felt, to rip through her. Her moan hummed, muffled by Dakota’s cock, which spasmed and spurted into her throat.
“Fuck yes!” he growled as he held her head pressed tight to his groin.
While they both exploded, Quinn thrust hard into her, holding her tight as his body erupted inside hers.
* * * * *
Damn, what a whore!
He fisted his rod as he watched her take the two men into her body. This close, he could hear the slap of cocks against flesh and the moans of pleasure above the rushing of the river over the rocks near them.
Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to be one of them right now.
He could shoot them both and take their place, but his own cock ached to come. And besides, why risk being killed before he enjoyed their show?
His hand moved faster as he watched the trio act out their sin along the riverbank.
The Indian groaned as he came in her mouth. She swallowed it all as the other came in her cunt.
Another stroke and he closed his eyes.
His balls tightened.
Yes! His cum shot out and oozed over his hand.
A few minutes to enjoy the feeling, then he wiped his hand and cock with his kerchief. He eased himself back in his britches, then carefully moved back into the trees, careful not to make a sound.
They’d be near the valley in another two days. He’d have to make his move before then. As soon as they left her alone, she was his.
The vision of her on all fours, being taken like a bitch in heat, filled his mind. Yeah, she’d be his all right.
* * * * *
In the aftermath of their pleasure, Lacy lay sprawled half on top of Quinn, dragging air into her lungs and willing her heart to slow to its normal pace. Dakota lay curled beside them, stroking one side of her face while Quinn stroked her back.
She laid her hands on their chests, feeling their hearts pound as erratically as hers. At least she knew they’d been as affected as she by the experience.
“Darlin’, that was beautiful.”
“You were magnificent, pet.”
Cherished.
Despite how wantonly she’d responded to them both using her body, at this very moment she felt cherished. How could they make her feel like that when she knew they’d punish her for her crimes when this was all over?
A chill slithered over her body and she shuddered.
“We’d best get you dressed,” Quinn said.
He slipped out of her body then lifted her up to Dakota, who helped her off the boulder to stand on wobbly legs.
“We’ll make camp further up the trail.” Quinn slid down the boulder to stand beside her as Dakota headed for the horses.
So much for cherished. They’d used her for their pleasure and were through with her. It was just a practice session for what Quinn had planned in the valley. Keeping her gaze focused on his boots, she struggled into her camisole, managing to tie the strings with shaky fingers and fight back the tears.
He didn’t move.
She grabbed her shirt from the boulder and forced her arms into the sleeves. Damn tears. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. Two buttons were in their fasteners before her fingers quit working.
“Here. Let me.” Quinn pushed her hands aside then slid the next button through the hole, the sides of his hands brushing against her sensitive nipples.
“Are you ever going to look at me?”
“Is that a command?” Damn, she couldn’t keep the hurt and anger out of her voice.
“No. Not everything between us is a command-obey situation. But the more you react to me without thinking, the safer we’ll all be in the valley.” He buttoned the last few buttons.
“I know that. It’s just so…” She struggled for the right word.
“Intense?”
“Yes. And I’ve never reacted so strongly to any other man, let alone two. And out in the open where anyone can see.”
He slipped his hand under her chin and lifted until she looked up into his blue eyes. “Not even the coyote who stole your virginity?”
She blinked. “How did you know?”
“From the moment I touched you in your cabin back in Beaver Run, I knew two things. You were sexy as hell and you didn’t have the first clue about how to use it.” He leaned in and captured her lips with his. A slow, gentle tasting. No expectation, just comfort and caring. Then he broke the kiss, his lips lingering just a second longer near hers.
“And right now you think what the three of us just had was only an act preparing you for the valley. You’re wrong.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. While Dakota and I have shared a woman, it’s never been like this.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t help the smile that lifted the corners of her lips.
He smiled back. “Yeah. Oh.”
“You two ready to head out?” Dakota stopped the horses a few feet away. “The sooner we get to camp, the sooner we get to eat.”
Quinn helped her mount, then leaned in closer. “He’s always hungry after sex.”
Dakota grinned openly. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“So, when do I get to hear Ian’s story?” she asked as they started up the trail.
Quinn laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mirth. “The duke is apparently the world’s most inept pickpocket. Cap was over in New Orleans, taking a prisoner there for trial. He was out walking just before dark when this dirty, half-starved kid tried to pick his pocket.”
“What did he do?” She knew even before she asked. Cap sounded like the kind of man she’d always dreamed her father might’ve been. Someone strong and filled with honor. She wished she could meet him before they took her to prison and thank him for raising such good men.
“Well, Cap bought him a meal, then took him to jail for the night.” Dakota took up the tale. “Ian said it scared him, but not as much as his time on the ship he’d come from England had. So the next morning Cap offers him a deal. Tells him he can rot in a New Orleans prison or come to his ranch and learn about ranching like the rest of his boys.”
“So he chose the better deal.”
Quinn shrugged. “The duke may be a lousy thief and an arrogant prick, but he’s not stupid. Once we knocked some of the stuffiness out of him, he turned out to be okay. He even studied law with one of the local judges.”
“He’s a lawyer?”
“Nope. Says he wanted to know about the law so he can go back and reclaim his title from the uncle who had him kidnapped and imprisoned on that ship years ago.”
She smiled over at Dakota. “Three lawmen, a rancher and a lawyer. All once orphans. Your Cap was a good role model. He must be very proud of y’all.”
His smile disappeared and he shot a look over her head at Quinn.
She turned to see his face as cold and hard as the day they’d first ridden into Beaver Run.
“He was.”
“Was?” A sense of foreboding settled in her stomach.
“He died last fall.”
Lacy stopped her horse. “What was Cap’s name?”
Please, God, don’t let him say it. But she already knew his answer.
“Captain Anson McCarthy.”
“The marshal killed during the robbery,” she whispered, the safety she’d been feeling in their presence suddenly shattering around her.
Quinn stopped his horse beside hers and faced her, pain etched in the fine lines around his lips and in the depth of his ice-blue eyes. “He’d gotten a tip that the gang he’d been t
racking would hold up the bank in Cheyenne. He didn’t wait for us to return from Santa Fe. He went alone.”
“I…I didn’t…know.” Dear God, if they knew what she’d done they’d never forgive her.
“He walked into a trap. Someone set him up to die. And I mean to make everyone responsible pay.”
The anger on his face froze her on the spot while his words tore straight though her. She was numb from head to toe.
Quinn maneuvered his horse around again and rode up the trail, leaving her and Dakota staring after him.
“Crazy bastard,” Dakota muttered.
Slack-jawed, Lacy turned to stare at Dakota. “Why’d you call him that?”
Dakota watched Quinn ride ahead, his shoulders set in that angry, stubborn way he had. Then he motioned for Lacy to follow Quinn.
She shook her head. “Not until you tell me why you think he’s crazy.”
“Because he blames himself for Cap’s death, that’s why.”
“But he’s not. How can he even think that?” She finally nudged her horse forward.
“As the oldest, he’s always been the protector. He was the one who took on anyone picking a fight with us at school or in town.”
They traveled up the trail a few minutes.
“And he believes he’s supposed to protect everyone, including your father?”
“He’s faster on the draw than any of us, even Cap. And a deadlier aim. If we hadn’t been down in Santa Fe helping Nicco chase down some cattle rustlers, we might’ve been with Cap and prevented the ambush.”
“But it was an ambush. Devil wanted to kill the marshal. If you’d been there, you would’ve been killed too.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But Cap didn’t have a chance without us, and it’s eating Quinn alive.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lacy nudged her horse to move faster up the trail.
The sorrow and pain in her voice struck a nerve. Quinn was right. She took unusual responsibility and guilt for her minor role in the robbery and Cap’s murder.
Why?
What did she know that she wasn’t telling them? For that matter, why was Devil sending out men to look for her? What did she have that he wanted? Besides her luscious body?
He watched her ride ahead of him as they caught up with Quinn. A fat raindrop hit the brim of his hat then spilled down onto his gloved hand holding the leather rein, followed by another.
“Starting to rain,” he yelled ahead to Quinn. “There’s a couple of stone outcroppings further up the trail.”
Quinn nodded his understanding.
All too quickly the heavens opened up as if the weather were trying to tell them trouble lay in their future.
Chapter Twelve
“You shouldn’t blame yourself, you know,” Lacy said, coming to stand beside Quinn as he watched the rain pour outside the stone overhang they’d found the night before.
Quinn continued to stare out into the gray morning, remembering how she’d felt pressed up against him during the cold night. He’d wanted nothing more than to plant himself inside her and pump them both to climax again. But he’d resisted. Not because she wouldn’t want it. With or without him exerting his dominant side and her need to surrender, he knew she wanted him, would always accept him.
No, she was barely healed from the cougar attack. They’d nearly exhausted her by the river earlier in the day. In fact, they’d pushed her past what most people could endure.
He’d kept himself from taking her again for her health. He needed her at her best. He needed her to be sexy, alluring, a treasure irresistible to Devil. Mostly he needed her strong and able to survive.
Survive better than Cap had at Devil’s hands.
“Quinn?”
“He was my hero.”
“Because he took you in.”
He turned to look at her, then tucked a wayward curl that had escaped her braid back behind her ear. “Yes, he took me—all of us—in when the world looked bleak and there was no hope on the horizon. But Cap did more than just give us a home. He gave us family, futures, a sense of purpose. Cap could read people.”
“Read people?” she asked with her brows drawn down.
He pulled her in against his chest. “Oh, he would’ve loved meeting you. Yes, he could read people, know what kind of person they were, what their needs were. Like Dakota. He understood my brother’s need to heal people, and thereby heal himself. Cap recognized Will’s ability to bring peace among us and find acceptance in his own place. Cap knew Nicco needs his vengeance, that even while he controls his anger daily, when he finds the men who murdered his family, he’ll loose that anger on them full force. And even the duke. Cap saw past his arrogance to the frightened kid beneath and set him on the path to find his justice.”
“And you? What did he find in you?”
“I’m the oldest, the last man in my natural family. It’s my job to protect them all, even Cap. And I failed.”
“You know, he could’ve sent word for you to join him, but he didn’t.”
“We wouldn’t have been there in time to stop the robbery. He was the closest. He had to go.”
“Cap could’ve waited for you and then gone in search of them.”
He shook his head. “Better to catch them in the act than trail them. It’s one of the first things Cap taught me.”
“So you’re saying you failed even though you know your father had to go after the gang, try to stop them before they rode out of Cheyenne?”
He leaned back and studied her. “Sounds pretty stupid when you put it like that.”
With a small lift of the corners of her mouth, she arched one delicate brow at him. “I have a feeling Ian isn’t the only arrogant member of your family.”
He pulled her close again. She was right. He couldn’t have prevented Cap’s death or the bank robbery even if he’d known about it. That’s what hurt the most. All the outlaws he’d hunted down, the innocent people he’d fought to protect, and he’d been useless when Cap needed him most.
For a long while he held Lacy close. Her body pressed against his eased some of the ache in his chest. The rain continued to fall as if poured from a wide-lipped bucket.
“I’m guessing the valley is another two-day ride southwest through the mountains. Am I right?” he finally asked.
“When I left, the snow filled my tracks before I’d ridden two feet, so I headed due east in hopes of finding a town before I froze to death,” she mumbled against his side. “I don’t remember how many days it took. But this is the path we used to get back to the valley after the raid. We were riding hell bent for leather, so my best guess is another day or two should take us to the valley rim.”
“How many guards?” Dakota asked from behind them.
They turned to look at him seated, holding a bundle of leaves over the fire.
“Always two. One at the base of the valley and one on the rim to fire warning shots.”
Lacy moved back a step. Quinn released her and watched her go sit near his brother, then joined them by the fire.
“What are you doing?” she asked Dakota.
“These are herbs. My mother taught me years ago which plants to avoid because they could cause a person to sleep so deep they appeared dead, or cause stomach ague and the trots.”
“Which are these?”
“Both.” Dakota winked at her.
“So why are you drying them?” She leaned in closer.
“Not too close,” Dakota warned. “I’m drying them to make them more potent. But if you get a strong whiff of them as they’re drying, you could get to feel their effects firsthand.” He gave her a grin.
She moved back and smiled at him.
Quinn fought the urge to wipe the grin off his brother’s face—with his fist.
Damn it. If he couldn’t tolerate Lacy having an innocent conversation with the man he trusted to watch his back at all times, how was he going to watch her tease and please Devil or his men?
The idea ate at his mind, tore
at his gut.
He studied her as she talked with Dakota. He loved the angles of her face, the softness of her skin, the fullness of her very sexy mouth. Her eyes spoke volumes. When she was aroused, they darkened to the color of a piece of old jade he’d seen in a museum once, and lightened to the color of a spring meadow when something caught her curiosity.
“So you’re going to give this to the men to drink? Won’t they notice the bitterness?”
“You’ve never tasted the whiskey served in the bars out here, have you?” Quinn asked.
“Once. It tasted god-awful.” She made a face of pure disgust.
He and Dakota both laughed.
“For once that will work in our favor. The minor bitterness of the herbs will be masked by the rotgut in those bottles.” Dakota pointed his thumb in the direction of the bottles of whiskey he’d unloaded from the packhorse.
“How long will it take to work?”
“Probably an hour or two, depending on how fast they’ll drink free whiskey. Each man will be different.”
“An hour or two.”
Quinn heard the quaver in her voice. He looked at Dakota, who’d heard it too. The idea of being with Devil was already making her nervous.
Arms curled around her knees, she pulled her top lip between her teeth and stared into the fire. Even when she’d been dangling off the horse’s saddle on the side of the mountain, she hadn’t looked this fragile.
He slid his hand down her arm and took her hand, giving it a gentle tug. “Come here, darlin’.” He pulled her into his lap and cradled her head against his chest. “I’ll be with you the entire time. And once Dakota is sure the gang members are out cold, he’ll join us.”
“Will Devil get this whiskey too?”
“I’ll save one bottle just for him.”
“What if he doesn’t drink any?”
“Lacy, we’re going to bring him to justice, I promise. And I’ll try to keep you from having to really do anything with him.”
She lifted her head to stare at him, nothing but sincerity in her gaze. “But I might.”
He cupped her face between his hands. “Yes. You might, but remember this. You won’t be trying to please Devil…”
The Surrender of Lacy Morgan Page 19