Letting her know it was him at her ass, Duke said, “We’re going to get you good and ready, Em. It may be uncomfortable at first but we’ll take it slow. Gage is going to help too.”
Emma moaned when she felt a hot mouth on her cunt. “Oh, Gage!” She parted her thighs a bit more for him, and a shudder rippled through her as Gage nibbled, teased, and licked until she was on the verge of begging for penetration. Gage stroked her drenched pussy with his fingertips as Duke lubricated her rear opening, getting her good and slippery for his cock.
He slowly penetrated with one fingertip, easing it in as her body resisted the burning, naughty intrusion. Just as the sensation began to grow into arousal he withdrew and replaced his finger with two and continued working them in and out with gentle strokes until she felt sure she could handle him. He worked her ass so thoroughly, while Gage played with her cunt, that she felt the flickers of an orgasm bloom deep within.
“Doing okay, Em?” Duke asked, and she heard the sound of a foil wrapper opening. This was it. She laid her head on the towel and nodded.
Gage sat on the bench beside her and stroked her back. His hand was warm and helped her feel grounded.
Emma smiled at him and said, “This is nothing like when you were laid out on a picnic table at the Campbell Lake campground, is it? What I’m getting in my ass, I want there.” Gage rolled his eyes wordlessly and shook his head.
“Oh, the irony,” Duke said with a soft chuckle. His thumb pressed against her pliant and ready asshole. “Ready, Em?”
Emma looked back at him and was entranced by the heat in his gray eyes. She returned his smile and nodded. She rested her cheek on the towels and groaned softly when she felt Duke’s blunt head at her anus. He felt enormous, but she was sure she could handle this. She breathed deep and willed her body to give in to him.
“Good, Em. You’re doing great.”
Duke pressed on her asshole and began to rock against her. The lubricant he’d worked into her did its job, and she could feel him gaining ground with each shallow thrust. Her heart was pounding out a rapid rhythm as his breath grew deep and raspy. “Oh, fuck, yes, Emma.”
His impassioned words made her want to give everything to him, to them both. She clasped Gage’s hand and made eye contact with him as she arched slightly and carefully pushed back on Duke’s next thrust. His cockhead slid through her resistant opening, and she gulped in a breath of air and moaned.
“Fuck! Yes,” Duke crooned as he stopped thrusting for a moment. “Don’t move, Emma. Give me a few seconds. You feel…amazing.”
Emma focused on breathing as she grew accustomed to the feeling of him in her ass. She became antsy for him to move and experimented with grinding back on him gently, working him in and out with tiny undulating movements.
Duke moaned softly. “The way you move, Em. Damn. I’m addicted to you.”
She knew exactly what he meant. “Can I have more?”
Duke laid his hot hands on her hips and caressed her. “Yes.”
He must have bent over her, because she suddenly felt his lips pressed against her shoulder, and then his chest made reassuring, warm contact with her back. He thrust in gentle, smooth strokes, and her breath rasped in and out in a staccato rhythm as she took more and more of him.
“Oh, yes, yes, yes, Duke.” She arched, wanting him all, feeling stretched nearly to the point of pain. Finally, his balls rubbed against her pussy and she thought she had just about all of him.
He drew back and thrust one last time and groaned. She reached back and caressed his cheek as he pressed a kiss against her shoulder then stood once more.
“Fuck me, Duke.”
He pulled back and thrust to the root again and growled deep in his chest. “You’re killing me, Em. You feel so good.”
She moaned as he thrust again and allowed it when he drew her back slightly on the table. She understood why a moment later when she felt Gage stroking her sopping-wet cunt from underneath while Duke stroked into her ass.
In a husky voice, Gage said, “What a hot little pussy you have, angel. Are you looking forward to us fucking you together?”
His words brought to mind what she imagined the three of them would look like together, and her pussy swelled and throbbed almost unbearably. Duke’s long, slick strokes over the sensitive nerve endings in her ass were creating a tidal wave of tension inside her.
“Yes, Gage. I want to feel you both inside me.” His gentle fingers stroked and teased at her cunt until she was sure she was about to come.
“Soon, angel.”
Duke ground out, “I’m about to come, Em. You ready?”
She hovered on the brink of orgasm and whispered, “Yes, Duke. I’m—I’m, oh, Duke…”
He gripped her hips and began thrusting harder. It was just the push she needed when she heard the tiny whir of the little vibrator being switched on. Her pussy clenched before it even touched her, and when it did, she went off like a rocket, screaming against her fist as Duke growled, thrust deep twice more, and cried out in ecstasy. He wrapped his arms beneath her torso and squeezed her to him as he ground against her ass. His passionate groan filled her ears, and she smiled as he pressed his parted lips to her shoulder blade.
Stars swam in her vision, and they both shuddered in pleasure together. Finally, he released her and braced his hands on either side of her and heaved shaky breaths. “Thank you, sweetheart.” His voice was low and filled with love.
* * * *
Nobody ever showed up at their campground that evening. They had the whole quiet place to themselves. As Gage lay with Emma cuddled between him and his cousin, he listened to the soothing sounds of the river flowing past them just a few yards away. They’d grilled burgers for supper then sat around the fire telling stories until Emma yawned. She hadn’t protested when they put her to bed and expected her to do nothing more than go to sleep.
Gage loved that she was so willing with them, seizing every opportunity she was presented to be with them, but he didn’t want her to feel like they were using her. Her animated face during the sky dive came to mind, and Gage smiled in the dark. No wonder she was so tired that evening.
“Gage?”
He’d thought she was already drifting toward sleep. “Hmm?” he murmured, placing a kiss on the top of her head.
“Can I ask you about what happened? With your mom and dad, I mean?”
Gage looked over Emma’s head and caught Duke’s gaze in the dim moonlight. Duke lay there awake as well and nodded at him, encouraging him to tell her. Duke had always been there when Gage was growing up and had seen how he’d struggled with being bullied by other larger kids in school. Duke had also encouraged him when he’d asked if he could talk to a counselor when he got older. Duke wanted him to trust Emma, and that was the least he could do.
“What would you like to know, angel? Ask me.”
“Tell me about your biological parents.”
Gage released a soft, deep breath. “I barely recall my father. His name was Roger. I was almost three when Duke’s family took me in. I’ve been told he was sadistic, and as you can imagine, I believe it. He’s dead now. He died in a prison fight.”
“What about your mom?”
“My Aunt Mary’s sister, Regina. Aunt Mary always smiles when she talks about her younger sister. I miss her, even though I hardly remember her. I do recall her hugging me a lot. She met Roger and his friends and made a mistake getting tangled up with him. He got her pregnant with me. She never even finished high school. He moved her away from San Angelo for a year or so to find a job. When that didn’t work out we came back. My aunt told me that it was obvious he’d gotten Regina hooked on heroin, which he was dealing by that point.” He was ashamed that he was related to anyone who’d resorted to dealing drugs to make ends meet, but it was part of his history, so he told her.
“Did Regina try to get help once she came home?”
“Yeah. My aunt and uncle would give her money for food and clothes for me.
Regina was pretty closemouthed by that time, but when Aunt Mary offered to take her to a doctor and a counselor, she accepted.”
The grief he felt for his mom that never quite went away surfaced, creating a lump in his throat. Aunt Mary had assured him as he grew up that Regina had loved him and had taken as good a care of him as she’d been able. Regina Randall had been every bit as powerless as her toddler son, and addicted to heroin besides that. Even though it meant wishing he’d never been born, Gage wished that she’d never met his father because then she might still be alive and happy.
“Was your dad in prison for dealing drugs?”
“No. He’d been in jail on drug charges before but that’s not what landed him in prison. Aunt Mary had taken Regina to see a doctor and a drug counselor one day. I was left in my father’s care, because nobody knew just how brutal he was. Uncle Joe told me once just a couple of years ago that they felt guilty for years. They were so happy to have Regina and me back that they somehow overlooked signs that Roger was abusive.”
“They didn’t want to rock the boat for fear he’d take off with the two of you again?”
“I suppose. Roger was sneaky and they wouldn’t have known I was being abused unless they stripped me naked, which they didn’t do. They both wish they had now. Anyway, I don’t remember very much of what happened that finally got him arrested. I was too little, or my mind shut off the memories…I don’t know.”
Emma stroked his shoulder and murmured, “It happens. So they left you with Roger to take Regina to an appointment and something happened?”
“Yeah. Aunt Mary walked in the house with Regina and they found Roger passed out on the couch with his belt in his hand. They found me in a closet.”
He told the tale with a mixture of emotions. It had been so long ago that he normally looked at it very clinically, but this time he imagined being his aunt or uncle searching for the little baby whom Roger was supposed to be watching over and finding him terrified and injured, hiding in a closet.
“He had harmed you?”
Gage nodded. “Aunt Mary said I was covered in welts and I had cigarette burns all over. I was still in diapers at that age but they said I was naked when they found me. They looked me over and discovered healed burns as well as the fresh ones and a laceration from his belt buckle on one side of my buttocks. When pressed, Regina finally told them that Roger had been abusing both of us and my uncle called the police. I went to the hospital and Aunt Mary and Duke never left my side. She tells me that Duke insisted on sleeping in my hospital bed with me. I don’t remember.”
Gage wiped the tear that strayed down his cheek. The thought that Duke had felt so protective of him even though they were both little more than babies had always touched his heart in an unspeakable way. He supposed that was why he’d always felt closer than a brother to Duke. Emma stroked his chest and let him be for a moment.
“Regina went to rehab and Roger went to jail and later prison, where he died. I joined Duke’s family and was never returned to Regina’s care. She never kicked her addiction and died of a heroin overdose. She’s buried in San Angelo.”
“I noticed that you refer to them all by their proper names.”
“I do that to make it easier to explain. I refer to Aunt Mary as Mom and Uncle Joe as Dad, the same as Duke. They insisted on it when we were little and we reaffirmed it when I got to be in middle school. I asked to go to a counselor and they took me and we hashed out issues I was having with being bullied at school. I was small for my age and an easy target. I told them then that I would always consider them my mother and father.”
Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe were his saving grace, taking a scared little kid and helping him to grow into a man. When he’d had struggles as a geeky teen, they’d gotten him the help he’d needed, and he knew deep down he owed them his life.
“What did you do about the bullying?”
“The counselor noticed how close Duke and I were, and she suggested that we take martial arts training or self-defense classes together. We learned how to defend ourselves and each other. It also helped me to build up some muscle mass. When bullies find out you’ll stand up to them they back off.”
“So you and Duke have been close since you were little bitty. Is that why you went into business together?”
Gage saw Duke smile at her question and grinned himself. “Actually, we kind of…backed into that. Ace and Kemp knew Mom and Dad. They were the ones who taught us how to defend ourselves. I think they got more than they bargained for with us. We hung around them as much as we could and learned from them and got interested in the field. Of course our specialty is really the technological end of special investigation but we’ve gotten in our fair share of interesting places, too.”
“I’ll bet you have. So you help Ace and Kemp?”
“As much as we can. Besides subcontracting for them we also have our own IT consulting business.”
“Which explains why you stay so busy. Which part of your job do you like best?”
Gage didn’t even have to think about the answer to that question. “Helping people who can’t defend themselves or don’t know how. Helping good people out of tough situations.”
The case Gage and Duke had been working on the week before came to mind. They were helping Ace and Kemp in a situation involving the father of a toddler who had just discovered that the little boy he’d always thought was his son actually had been fathered by another man. The biological father was currently in jail along with the boy’s mother for a vast array of charges.
Ace and Kemp’s future bride, Summer Heston, was indirectly involved with the case, which had placed her in a lot of danger at one point. The mother and biological father of the boy had been behind numerous attacks on her and her business. Duke and Gage were working with Ace and Kemp on the case and were hopeful that it might possibly never reach the court system. That all hinged on them discovering enough information to dissuade the extended family from choosing to pursue custody of the boy, who was better off with the man he knew as father.
Emma yawned sleepily and said, “We need heroes in this world.” A few seconds later she said, “Gage, if you ever need to talk to someone in the future about what happened to you, I have a friend, a counselor who is very good at listening. Just remember that, okay?”
“Sure, angel.”
Being bullied as a teen had dredged up all kinds of hurt and anger from his early trauma, and he’d benefited from counseling then. He didn’t discount the possibility that it might help in the future, too. Some wounds went deeper than humanly imaginable.
Emma wiggled around between them, finally got comfortable, and drifted off to sleep a few minutes later.
“She’s something, huh?” Duke whispered in the dark.
“Yeah.”
Chapter Nine
A couple of weeks later, in mid-September…
Emma shifted her yellow-and-black Aztek into park in front of Grace Warner’s house. She pulled up her planner on her smartphone and checked her to-do list. Duke and Gage had asked her in advance to make preparations for a night out on the town.
At first, she’d been filled with trepidation because that meant dressing up. Dressing up meant makeup. Dressing up and makeup generally involved high heels of some kind. The thought of having to put all that together made her cringe, but at least she had someone to go to. Several “someones,” in fact, but Grace was her go-to gal of choice for today. Plus, she had a baby gift to deliver and a little one to coo at.
Besides the night out, Duke and Gage had also asked if she was taking a vacation in the fall, because they wanted to knock a couple more items off the bucket list. So she’d actually taken the red pen and marked a whole week off in October for their next adventure. They didn’t hint at what they’d planned, but she had big hopes.
She grabbed the handles on the big pink gift bag and climbed from her vehicle. Jack answered the door when she rang the bell, and she smiled when the first thing she heard was the soun
d of Rose Marie squalling.
“Hi, Emma! Come on in. Grace is expecting you. Pardon the noise.”
“Don’t apologize, Jack. That’s the sound of a healthy, hungry baby. I love it.”
Jack directed her into the living room, where Grace was seated in an upholstered chair, arranging Rose Marie so she could nurse. Emma giggled when the caterwauling ceased in midwail as Rose Marie’s meal began. Grace smiled in relief and beckoned Emma to come sit down.
Emma patted Rose Marie’s head gently before placing the gift within Grace’s reach and then sat nearby. Grace draped a receiving blanket over three-week-old Rose Marie and her shoulder and peeked inside the gift bag. She gasped and pulled the baby quilt from the bag and said, “Did you make this?”
Emma snickered and said, “Grace, I couldn’t quilt to save my life. I found it at that new baby and children’s store in Divine.”
Grace laughed. “Aren’t you worried Jane is going to be pissed off if she finds out you bought a blanket instead of making one? Or you could have had ‘the quilters guild’ make you one.”
The last time she’d encountered one of the members of that group in the grocery store, Tabitha had asked Emma if she’d decided against hiring that “bigamist Warner woman” as an RN at her clinic. Emma had bitten her tongue and politely told her that Maya Warner had graciously agreed to join her staff even though she no longer needed to.
Emma snickered. “I think Jane’s just about given up on me joining her little group. I can sew on a button. That doesn’t mean I want to quilt. Bunch of frumpy gossips.”
Grace burst into giggles, and Emma joined her. Her friendship with Jane had been strained lately. Because she was spending her weekends and even some of her weekday evenings in Duke and Gage’s company, she didn’t get to see as much of Jane as she used to.
Emma had finally nixed joining the quilters group altogether. That was time on her evenings off she couldn’t get back, and spending it with gossips wasn’t her cup of tea. Besides that, she loved Maya and wasn’t about to support an organization that was so unfriendly to other people in the community. She could only imagine how Jane would react when she got word that Emma was dating two men.
Rainier, Heather - Their Divine Doctor, A Holiday Ménage [Divine Creek Ranch 9] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 9