by Gemma Snow
“Did she really?” Micah came into the doorway, the notebook she’d come to recognize as the one he used for his training program ideas in hand and a smug, knowing expression on his face. As she yanked on her other shoe, practically adhering to her body with dried mud and dirt, his grin grew wider.
“Fine…” Lily gritted her teeth and the shoe came free, sailing across the mudroom and hitting the dark wall at the far end in a cloud of dirt and dust. She sighed. “No, she didn’t invite us, she threatened me with dismemberment if I didn’t come down to dinner with them tonight then added that I could bring my cabana boys before making a terrible pun to the effect of ‘cabin-bana boys’.”
“I heard cabana boys,” Dec popped his head around the door, too, and made a face. “Did you leave any dirt in the woods? We need some for our classes, ya know.”
Lily stuck her tongue out at him. “We’re going down to the ranch for dinner,” she said. “I’m putting you on baking duty.”
Dec rolled his eyes. “I can make a brownie in the microwave,” he said. “I can’t bake.” Of course not. Because survival expert soldiers who lived in the wilderness would never bake.
“Then make a dozen brownies in the microwave,” she said with a smile. “I’m putting myself on shower duty.” She shrugged a little and the thick layer of dirt that had caked across her sweatshirt broke in puffs of dust and she grimaced. “I smell like manure.” She yanked the sweatshirt up over her head and tossed it to the mat, before pulling off each sock and her disgusting, once black and now greenish brown leggings that had pretty much stuck permanently to her skin. All the while, she felt Dec’s and Micah’s tracking gazes, hot and admiring and amused.
“I’ve led men into the forest for a week and they’ve come back with less dirt on them than you do,” Dec said, shaking his head. “Are you at least making progress?”
Lily sparked. “I am, actually. I’ve been checking toxicity levels in the soil at various depths, as well as seeking out the water sources for each of the three research locations, where growth is the thickest, and I’ve gotten some really interesting results. There’s a pretty clear discrepancy between two of the sites, and I can’t wait to get my results back to the lab.”
Which is going to happen when I get home. In one week. She had one week left here in Wolf Creek and her fantasy nature adventure would come to a screeching halt. No more dirt, no more sexy mountain men. Just other people’s wedding decorations and an empty bed.
But she still had a week here and she was going to enjoy every second of it she could, so she stood up from the mudroom floor, dusted herself off—that was a laugh—and strode for the bathroom. Dec’s bathroom, to be precise, since she’d fallen totally in love with the tub and wanted a good soak before they had to go to Maddy’s.
She paused in the doorway. “You know, you guys haven’t shown me the full survival course. I saw the main camp grounds, but not the other stuff.”
Black Reef Survival Camp was one of the hardest outdoor survival programs in the country and the founders were standing before her now, Penny wiggling around at their feet, Rosie and Axel staring up at them in full adoration, Dec complaining about not knowing how to bake.
“If we leave early, we can show you the Hut,” Micah said. “We’re actually thinking of tearing it down this year, but we might use it for one more program with snowfall.”
“I’d like that,” Lily said. “I want to know more about your program, since it’s rated the second-best one in the freaking country and you guys are all tight-lipped and shit.”
“That’s why we’re the second best in the country,” Micah replied with a grin. “But we might be convinced to show you.”
“Damn straight. Now, I’m taking a quick bath—alone. I’m filthy and sweaty. We can go once I’m out…”
Dec muttered something about microwave brownies, but Lily just pecked him on the cheek. God, even that, even the feel of his scruffy skin, somehow managed to make her blood burn.
She turned and brushed Micah’s cheek, too, then headed for the bathroom. It had been a week of this delicious, sinful game and, the more time she spent in their presence, the more she realized just how little control she had around either of the men. The sheer power and masculinity when they were standing next to each other? It was enough to knock a girl on her ass. So, Lily kept to her mission. Clean first. The rest? Well, she still had a week, didn’t she?
In the end, Dec managed to pull together a pan of M&M brownies in less time than it took her to shower and change into a fresh pair of jeans and a soft, cozy sweater. The temperatures had been wavering since the storm the week before, and according to all weather reports, that deluge had been the first of several on a cold front coming down from the north. She had taken the time to blow dry her hair, because after a day spent up to her knees in cold, very wet dirt, she wanted to indulge in a little feminine R & R, though Lily had no doubt that there was more than a little R & R available whenever she wanted.
This was…too easy. Even the air of awkwardness that she’d expected to linger whenever she touched Micah or Dec in front of the other hadn’t hit full capacity, not even once. They just dealt with it however they were dealing with it and didn’t let on to it bothering them. Hell, she wasn’t even sure it did bother them, this whole sharing a temporary lover thing, and that made it all the more complicated because it made her all the more comfortable with sticking around a little longer.
Which just wasn’t an option. Even if she had seen Joe Delany earlier that day, when she’d hiked a few miles up the hill to search for a water source and found him directing a trail maintenance team. He’d asked her about the job. Again. He’d asked the first time a few days after they had met and after one more visit to the house and two phone calls each to Dec and Micah about her, Lily had no doubt in her mind that the Environmental Education Coordinator position for the Black Reef Mountains Park Rangers was available to her.
Another complicated element to the whole matter of her needing to go home in a week. But Mia had promised that the business was doing just fine without her, and when she’d emailed over a couple of invoices for Lily to sign, Lily had noticed that Mia was doing better than she’d been able to do in the last two months. Fine, one week and no thinking of home.
“Forget brownies. I want to eat you up,” Dec said, coming from behind her as she tried to swipe a brownie from his plate on the counter. “And no testing—those are for later.” She very overtly bit into one of the brownies and gave him a no doubt chocolatey smile.
“Better to ask for forgiveness… How are you so good at this stuff, anyway? I mean, I can follow a recipe, but you’re good.”
The smile on Dec’s face was sad. “Necessity,” he said, “like most things. When Dad worked eighty hours a week to put food on the table, you put food on the table. I started because I had to and, when I could afford good food and ingredients, well, I realized I enjoyed it.”
Lily sighed and placed the brownie down before hugging him to her. It was a funny thought that she, all of a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet, might protect the big, hulking survival man with his search dogs and military training, but Dec accepted the hug and wrapped his arms around her in return before kissing her on the head.
Finally, Lily pulled back, just in time to watch Dec take a bite out of her brownie. She glared but he just laughed.
“Better to ask for forgiveness,” he said. “Come on, Micah’s got the horses saddled up. Let’s go.” He slid the brownies into a food container and they headed out to the barn, where three horses stood ready for them. Micah and Dec had their favorites, of course. In Micah’s case, that was Aranck, which translated to stars, like the thousands of white spots that decorated Aranck’s black coat. Dec had gone a little more literal with Cisco and the horse she’d been using these past few days was a chestnut mare named Cee Cee.
The routine had become quite familiar and Lily hopped into the saddle, following the two men down the mountain and toward the Hu
t. They passed two of her research sites, a ropes course and three small lakes, which shimmered in the late afternoon sun, catching the glimpses of gold and red from the trees. They took a few unfamiliar turns then they were there, standing before what could only be the Hut.
“What the ever-loving hell is that?” Lily couldn’t keep back her disbelief. Not only was it not a hut, it wasn’t much of anything. The cabin, or house, or building was caving in at the top and there was no glass in any of the windows. A porch, or rather, what had once been a porch, sagged, with three of the five steps cracked through. A whimpering sound gave her the distinct impression that some sort of animal was inside.
“That’s the Hut,” Micah said on a laugh. He dismounted and helped her down from her horse, taking the two sets of reins and Dec’s when he hit the ground. “The whole point of the thing is for it to be dangerous.”
“Why?” She took a hesitant step closer. The damn thing really looked like it was an inch away from total collapse and she didn’t have any desire to be in the area when that happened.
“Danger assessment training,” Dec explained. “If you come upon a place that you could use for shelter, the last thing you want is to put your foot through the floor and end up with a broken ankle. We send in small teams to try to make the place safe to sleep for the night, reinforce the frame, get the animals out. That sort of thing.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That seems….dangerous.”
Dec grinned. “It totally is. But that’s why people take this course—they want to know how to handle any situation, and the most important step, in survival, in first aid, in any of it, is securing your safety first. You can’t help anyone else if you’re dead kind of thing.”
It made sense, even if she had every intention of staying far the fuck away from this creepy old place.
“So, why are you going to tear it down then?” she asked.
Micah shrugged. “We’ve had some pretty rough storms this year, especially one big snowfall back in April that knocked the shit out the place. We’re worried it’ll be the kind of dangerous we can’t contain.” He took her hand and smiled down at her, that warm, rich smile that made her stomach heat and her body unconsciously lean closer to his. “But there’s something way better to show you. Come on.”
He led her and Dec followed as they skirted the edge of the—Christ on a cauliflower, she couldn’t even think of it as a house—and walked around to a small grove of pines. They pushed through the clearing and came upon…
The most beautiful vista she had ever seen. The ground leveled off into a small field and overlooked the sight of the Black Reef Mountains rising up over one of the lakes. The scene was breath taking, gorgeous, more real than a postcard, and yet she half-wanted to reach out and see if she was touching a photograph, because truly, had there ever been anything more beautiful in the world than this view?
“It’s incredible,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. She took both of their hands and squeezed them tightly before moving to sit on the patch of grass that overlooked the vista. Dirt and rocks dotted the far side of the hill, which rolled to the cliff’s edge some hundred feet away. But they were safe here and she’d never felt safer in her life than when she sat between the two of them, eyes on the far view, fingers tangled in both Micah’s and Dec’s.
Micah stroked her hand gently and Dec wrapped his arm around her waist and all of a sudden she wasn’t thinking just about the vista, but also about how close each of them were to her, how much she wanted something she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to want. She’d slept with both of them several times since the first night, but always alone, always separately, as if they were all pretending to be okay with the stirring, very temporary, madness between them. But now that she was here, in the wild open nature, in the wild open air, Lily wasn’t sure she could resist anymore. She wanted them both. Together.
“You’re thinking so hard I’m half-expecting the ground to crack,” Micah said on a laugh. “What’s going on in that pretty little head?”
Lily didn’t answer. How could she answer when it was clear that they weren’t touching the whole ‘sleeping with her together’ topic again and she wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up, no matter how much she wanted it? And given that her nipples were growing hard and her breasts swollen and her breath shallow, she couldn’t deny that she wanted it.
“Lily.” Dec brought his hand low to her back and that just made the heat in her body swirl to new heights all over again. She was like a volcano around these men, both of them so capable of making her come again and again, and when she was with them at the same time… “You’re going to have to be honest with us or this is never going to work.” When he said it like that, she could almost believe, almost pretend that he meant beyond the scope of the week before them, that he meant they needed to find some way to make this work in the long term, in the forever.
Forever. Whoa. She wasn’t here for forever, not by any stretch of the imagination. How could she do forever when she hadn’t thought past the next order of peonies or the next rent bill in so many years? And, yet, now that the idea had taken some sort of form in her head, it was a little sticky and more than a little dangerous. Because she’d thought she would have forever before and she’d only gotten six years of grief and pain and sadness and she wasn’t going to go through that, not again.
Though, of course, everything that had happened with Daniel had been a million miles away from this, well, whatever this was, and she was in no position to compare them, but the end result would be the same. She would still wake up alone and sooner than later.
But, for now, she could pretend that Dec was talking about making it work in a way that didn’t have such an encroaching deadline and so she took both of their hands and gave them long, lingering strokes.
“You’re right,” Lily began, trying to keep the nerves from showing in her voice. “Maddy said this was all about communication and I guess she knows what she’s talking about, so here goes… I know we’re trying to keep this as uncomplicated as possible, of course. But…I want you both again. Together. Like the first night.” It seemed once the words had started rolling out of her mouth they weren’t stopping and she couldn’t keep from blurting what was on her mind.
“I want to feel full and stretched and I want you guys to be rough. I know this makes things a little more complicated, but—”
“Lily, if that’s what you want. We want to make you happy,” Micah cut in. He glanced over at Dec as if looking for reassurance and Dec nodded.
“Whatever that takes, we’ll try it,” he said. “Does that make you feel a little better?”
Lily released a shaky breath, tension easing from her shoulders. “That was easier than I expected,” she admitted on a laugh. “So are we done talking now or—”
Dec’s hand was on her ass and squeezing hard before she even got the words out. He hauled her onto his lap, his already hard erection poking against her, making her desire mount and her need to be filled hard and fast and over and over again rise, especially when Micah took her face in his large, rough hands and brought her in for a bruising, blistering kiss.
They were so much, everything about their touch set her body to flame in unique and impossible ways. Micah made her burn low and white hot, while Dec seared a wild fire through her body. Together, they were a natural disaster.
It was chilly on the mountaintop, with the wind from the valley below casting gales in their direction, but Lily barely felt the bite of the air, not with the heat building between her legs, making her part her lips to Micah’s tongue, making her breasts feel heavy and swollen as Dec palmed them in his hand. Then he was pulling at the buttons on her flannel shirt to the T-shirt below, slipping one hand under the hem and running his fingers up her skin.
She bucked at the contact, jerking even harder when Micah’s mouth came down to her neck and she sucked in a breath at the zing of pleasure shooting across her body. At her motion, Dec’s cock gave a throb
and she pressed back against him, loving the way he felt, loving how she knew she could get a reaction out of both of these men, powerful, strong, losing control to her touch.
“More…” Her voice. Christ on a… Fuck, was that her voice? Lily was certain her moans could be heard a county away and she didn’t give a good goddamn, not when Dec took over kissing her neck and Micah slid her shirt up to press achingly slow, teasing kisses to her skin, to her belly, to the low mounds of her breasts. Her breathing was short and her body was slipping to a horizontal position on the ground, which neither man seemed to have a problem with.
Because Dec was kissing her now, bruising, blustering kisses, and Micah had moved down the length of her body to kiss the inside of her denim-clad thighs. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anywhere close to enough. She felt poised on the edge and ready to burst with fire and need, if they would only let her, only take her the way she so desperately wanted to be taken.
But it was clear that neither of the two men had all that much control right at the moment, because Dec’s movements were blazing and his kisses demanding and Micah was running down the length of her legs as though he couldn’t wait to bury himself inside her and, damn it, that was all Lily wanted.
“Fucking teases,” she moaned, her voice breathy and low. Dec chuckled by her ear, a potent, masculine sound, but Micah was too busy unbuttoning her jeans and yanking them down to answer. He pulled them halfway down her legs, muttering to himself about how fucking tight women’s pants were, then he was toying with her scrap of panties, the pair she hadn’t even thought she would wear while out in Montana working in the dirt. They were dark red, trimmed with gold and a little golden bow at the top and soft, smooth silk. Which, of course, meant they were perfect for getting fucked on a mountainside by two warriors.
“So fucking sexy,” Micah murmured. “I’ll never get tired of looking at you all spread out like this.” And without another word, not a promise or a warning of any kind, he buried himself between her legs. He sucked hard at the silk panties, the scrap of fabric brushing against her swollen clit in an erotic, sensual caress, one bursting in contrast to the roughness with which Micah lapped at the wet fabric covering her pussy, as if he were starved and she were a feast just waiting for him.