Tangled: Steele Ranch - Book 3

by Vanessa Vale

  I shook my head, but they probably couldn’t see me. “No.”

  “Close your eyes.” I felt Archer move, heard the rustle of the bedding. The bedside lamp came on. While the light was dim, when I opened my eyes, I blinked to let them adjust. We weren’t in the master bedroom, but another one down the hall. I knew nothing about my father or who else had lived in the main house with him, but by the room’s décor, it was neutral enough to be a guest room. With a king-sized bed, it was meant for either big cowboys like Lee and Archer or a couple. Or a trio. All I cared about was that no one had been shot dead in the room.

  “There,” he said. His gaze roved over me, settled on my mouth. His whiskers were dark, full. While he’d showered before joining us, he hadn’t taken the time to shave. I slid my hand to slide over his jaw, felt the raspy stubble.

  “I’m not spending another night in bed with you with the lights out unless we’re sleeping,” he added.

  “And we’re not going to be sleeping,” Lee added, pulling me onto my back so they both loomed over me.

  With two men looking down at me, I smiled. Lee’s words held a promise I was fine with. I didn’t know what time it was, late, or perhaps very early in the morning. I was no longer tired. Not with them looking at me as if I were a treat they wanted to nibble on.

  “I’ve had you tonight, baby. So has Sutton. Think Archer should have his turn? He did go and capture the bad guys,” Lee added, as if I needed that as incentive to have sexy times with the sheriff.

  I glanced at Archer, who had moved his hand to my breast, his finger swirling around my nipple but not touching it. It pebbled for him instantly.

  “What did you do with Sutton and Lee, baby?”

  Even though I was naked between two equally naked men and one of them was playing with my breast, I still flushed hotly at his question. God, what I’d done with them. “I…um, they—”

  Lee chuckled. “Not a fan of dirty talk?”

  I shook my head, bit my lip as Archer finally flicked my nipple.

  “She sucked Sutton off as I took her from behind. You missed how gorgeous she was bent over the side of the couch.”

  Archer’s finger stilled, his eyes meeting mine. “No one took your ass?”

  I flushed even hotter. “No.”

  He grinned then, his hand sliding all the way down my body to cup my bottom. “Good. You know how much I love taking you there.” When his finger slid lower and to that dark place he’d claimed last summer, he added, “You loved it, too. Didn’t you?”

  I closed my eyes, the ability for him to make me so eager for something so…intimate and intense was impressive. Need coursed through me again and I was instantly wet. I wanted Archer. I wanted Archer to take me like he had the previous summer. Out of all the submissive things I did, this was the most intense, the most trusting. “Yes.”

  The men looked to each other, had that ridiculous silent communication, then moved.

  “Lee’s going to get you all worked up and ready for my cock,” Archer said, dropping a quick kiss on my lips. “Be right back.”

  He slid from the bed and out the bedroom door and I got a fabulous view of his taut ass and muscular back on the way. He was just as impressive from this side.

  Lee turned my chin so I looked back at him. “If Archer’s going to claim that ass again, then you need to be begging for it.” He slapped my bottom, then fell onto his back. “Ride my face, baby.”

  Ride his—oh!

  He grinned, licked his lips. “Come on. Let me eat that pussy.”

  I sat up, tossed my leg over his waist and crawled up so I was straddling his head. He took over then, thankfully, and grasped my hips, brought me down so his mouth was on me.

  All I could do was gasp and grip the headboard. He licked me from my entrance to my clit and back, licking along my slit, parting me and then delving in, his tongue a stiff point as he barely fucked me with it. Then went back to my clit. I cried out at his ruthless, precise skill. It was as if he knew exactly how to touch me. How hard, how fast and in exactly the right places.

  Archer came back in the room, completely uninhibited. It was hard to pay attention to the lube and condoms he was holding when his dick stood out, thick and long, and also because Lee was incredibly talented with his tongue.

  “Fuck, now that’s a sight.” Archer grinned, tossed the condoms on the bed. He’d obviously thought about this well before he’d come over, and I had to guess he’d stopped at his home in town to shower and pick up the supplies. Opening the lid on the lube, he drizzled some on his fingers.

  “Ready?”

  I shook my head, but gasped when Lee did something magical with his tongue.

  Crawling up onto the bed beside me, Archer kissed my shoulder as his hand slid lower. “Don’t worry, you will be.”

  12

  ARCHER

  * * *

  Two days. Two days of being with Cricket and it had been fabulous. Besides taking her to the sheriff’s office in Missoula to give a statement about the assholes from the strip club and getting some clothes from her apartment, we’d had a good time. Hell, that wasn’t right. It had been great. Shit. I couldn’t think of what to call it. It wasn’t great either. It was better than great.

  Usually, my days off in the summer were filled with sleeping in, a few beers, maybe a fishing float trip, possibly even camping. I hadn’t expected Cricket to just appear as if by magic back into our lives. Hell, after a year, I hadn’t expected her to appear at all. But the time off had been incredible. Besides the sex, which was off the charts, getting to know her, awake and dressed had been really eye opening. First, because I wanted to get to know a woman while awake and dressed. Second, I wasn’t thinking about getting her undressed. That wasn’t quite right. I was always thinking about Cricket naked, but there was so much more to her than her gorgeous tits or her perfect pussy.

  She was smart. Driven. Ambitious. Fierce. Sweet. She was everything I wanted in a woman but never knew because I’d never met her. She was the one. The One. I’d come to that realization when the lights were out that first night in the Poulson hotel room. I’d known it since, wishing I’d be able to just fucking find her. Being a sheriff and not be able to track someone down was almost cruel. And now that we had her, it just felt…right.

  Except for Sutton. The fucker needed to get his head out of his ass. I knew he’d been through stuff on his deployment he never mentioned and never would. It had changed him. He’d returned from his last stint overseas different. Harder. While he was out of the service now, the light in him, that casual happiness he’d always had, was gone. In its place? Darkness. Hints of despair. Guilt. Sadness.

  The weekend he’d met Cricket, I’d been glad he’d found a woman to bed, to let loose and forget. Let his dick be in charge for once. When he’d texted the next night and wanted me and Lee to join him, to take the woman together as one of her fantasies, we’d been all for it. Hell, my dick was stirring even now at the memory. Sharing a woman with friends was a spank-bank fantasy of every guy. But within minutes of showing up at Sutton’s hotel room, we’d known it was more than that. Cricket was more. So were his reasons for us being there.

  He’d wanted her, but he’d needed us to be there, too. He’d been scared of himself. That he’d somehow hurt her. That was impossible. I’d known Sutton since we were kids. He would never hurt a woman. Ever. Besides his momma whooping his ass, he wasn’t that kind of man. While the idea was ridiculous, he believed it.

  But Cricket had left. Disappeared. Then, it hadn’t mattered. She hadn’t been around so there was no reason for him to worry. He hadn’t been interested in other women. Neither had we. He’d wanted Cricket.

  Only Cricket.

  He’d hardened further after that, been a fucking pain in the ass to be around. Sullen. Brooding. More brooding than usual, which was almost impossible. For a fucking year, he’d been depressed, wishing he’d given Cricket his number, regretting not telling her how much she’d meant to him,

to all of us.

  Then she’d shown up. She was a fucking Steele heiress. She wasn’t going anywhere. We knew how to find her. Hell, she was Sutton’s damned boss, if that wasn’t fuck all. But still, he was afraid of her—although he wouldn’t admit it. Of himself with her.

  For two days, we’d been with her. Riding horses, going for walks. Talking. Fucking. Lots of fucking. But when it was time to go to sleep, Sutton had kissed her on the forehead and walked out the front door. Since Cricket wasn’t an idiot, she knew it wasn’t normal.

  She’d been able to coax smiles out of Sutton. Make him laugh. Hell, he’d been spontaneous and upbeat. He’d been the man she wanted. In control, dominant and doting. He was sweet and gentle one minute, dark and intense the next, especially when she was on her knees submitting. She blossomed under his command and he reveled in a woman needing his power. Cricket knew Sutton was off and that it was because of her. No man who had his balls intact—or his right mind—would walk away from Cricket when he could have her in bed all night wrapped warm and naked in his arms.

  Except for Sutton. I knew his balls were intact, but I still didn’t know if he was in his right mind. But he wouldn’t talk. So my thoughts went in a fucking full circle because while we had Cricket now, Sutton was the one who’d brought us all together, and he was the one who was going to drive her away.

  When Sutton kissed her on the forehead and walked out the door tonight like he had every other night since she’d shown up, Cricket cried. I went over to her, wrapped her in my arms and looked to Lee. He looked as pissed as I felt. The fucker had made her cry.

  That was not allowed. This soft, caring, perfect woman was upset because of Sutton. I kissed the top of her head as we stood in the kitchen.

  “Do you want me to go and beat him up?” I asked, stroking my hand up and down her back.

  “I will,” Lee added, cracking his knuckles.

  She huffed out a laugh against my chest, used my shirt to wipe her cheeks. “No, I’m fine. I just don’t understand.”

  “We can’t be the ones to tell you what’s going on in that thick skull of his, baby,” Lee told her. “He has to.”

  She nodded. “You’re right, but it still hurts. It’s like he’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He’s perfect all day long and then…poof.”

  “Tell you what. Forget about Sutton for now. The version we all like will be back in the morning. In the meantime, you’ve got two big, brawny cowboys ready to make all of your dreams come true,” I told her.

  She saw the smile on my face and I backed it up with a wink.

  “All of my dreams?” she asked, her expression softening. Her hands loosened their grip on my shirt, and I could tell she was feeling better.

  “All of your sex dreams,” Lee clarified, stroking a finger over her cheek.

  She bit her lip and looked up at him through her lashes.

  “Oh, baby, I’d like to be able to read your mind right now,” he added.

  “Tell us,” I pushed.

  “Well…” she began. “I... um, I think—”

  I tipped up her chin so she met my eyes. I was hard just knowing she was thinking about her darkest fantasies. They were in there, she just had to voice them. We’d fulfill every single fucking one of them. “Tell us.”

  When she remained quiet, I took her hand and slid it down to the front of my jeans, let her feel my dick through the denim. “That’s from you breathing.”

  Lee took her other hand, did the same over his own dick. “Two cocks, baby. What do you want to do with them?”

  “Your handcuffs,” she murmured.

  My eyebrows went up. Handcuffs? Holy fuck, yes.

  “Have you been bad?” Lee asked her, shifting his hand so he gripped her wrist. I took hold of the other.

  A smile turned up the corner of her mouth. “Yes.”

  Holy fuck.

  “What do you usually do with bad girls, Sheriff?” Lee asked me.

  Our woman wanted to role play and Lee seemed to have a knack for it. Fine with me.

  “First, she needs to be frisked.”

  I let go of her hand, but not before she’d felt the way my dick had grown long and thick down my thigh.

  “My cuffs are in my truck. You frisk her and I’ll go get them,” I told Lee. “We wouldn’t want her to get away.”

  I watched as Lee turned her to face the counter, placed her hands on the granite, then gently kicked her legs apart. He moved slowly, watched her to make sure she was right there with him. When she bit her lip and gave a slight nod, his hands moved over her body, slowly and completely inappropriately. Cupping a breast and sliding a hand over her jean-clad pussy was definitely not in the sheriff’s standard operating procedure manual.

  I dashed outside—as best I could with a steel pipe in my pants—and grabbed my spare cuffs from the center console of my truck. When I returned, Cricket’s shirt and bra were on the floor and she was bare from the waist up, her jeans undone. I could see the top scrap of red lace of her thong. Her gorgeous breasts were thrust out and her nipples hard.

  “She’s been very bad,” Lee said, crouched down behind her. “Hiding these gorgeous panties all day.”

  When I’d gone with her to her apartment and she’d filled a bag with clothes, a thong was not what I’d imagined.

  He worked her jeans off her hips exposing the way the lace slid down and disappeared into the seam of her ass. When Lee’s palm came down in a light swat, her pale skin instantly turned a gorgeous shade of pink.

  Lee looked to me, grinned. “She needed a strip search.”

  I cocked a brow and she looked to me all hot and bothered. She bit her lip and cantered her hips out. Yeah, she was so with us on this.

  I lifted the cuffs so they dangled from my finger. It was going to be a long, wild night.

  And Sutton be damned.

  13

  CRICKET

  * * *

  “Hey, baby,” Sutton said. He came over to me, angled down his chin so he could meet my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  The surprise in his eyes turned to blatant happiness, at least from him, with the corner of his mouth tipping up. He wore his usual uniform of well-worn jeans and leather boots, and today he wore a gray t-shirt with a local bar’s logo on the chest.

  We were in the stable, the pungent scent of animals and leather mixed with the cool morning breeze coming through the open doors at either end of the building. Sutton and the others had probably been here for hours working through the morning chores required to keep horses alive and happy.

  We weren’t alone. Several others worked nearby, mucking stalls, hefting hay. Patrick, if I remembered his name correctly, was leading a horse outside to spend time in the back pasture. That was my guess based on the fact the animal had no saddle, just a lead.

  “Hi,” I replied.

  Archer had to work and had left before dawn to head home and get ready for his shift. Lee was leaving for a rodeo in Buffalo, Wyoming, so we’d said goodbye already. I got hot thinking about how we’d said goodbye…on the stairs. This was the first time I’d sought Sutton out while he worked, but I wanted him to know I was leaving the ranch for the day. I’d grown up in Montana; it was important to let others know where you were headed, even in the summertime when the chance of a blizzard was nil.

  Now that I was in front of him, I was unsure of myself, which I hated. I never wanted to play poker with him, his expressions were always so well guarded. That made me nervous. While he was always so honest with his actions, even though they were reserved, I felt as if I knew his heart. But when he left me each night, it made me doubt.

  And I wasn’t doing that any longer.

  “I missed you last night,” I admitted.

  He leaned his pitchfork against the side of the stall. “You had Archer and Lee to keep you warm. By the look of you, they took care of you.”

  I wasn’t sure how he knew they’d given me a whole slew of orgasms, that I had whisker burn on the insides of my thighs, a hickey on my right breast. My outfit of jeans and a sleeveless blouse didn’t show any of that. Perhaps one of the guys told him, but I didn’t think so. We were open with each other in what we did, but Sutton had missed out. If he wanted to know how they’d taken me, how many times I came, he could have stayed and given me the orgasms himself.

  “The key word of that sentence was you. I missed you last night,” I clarified.

  His small smile fell, his eyes narrowed. If he was uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. He was really good at hiding his emotions.

  I put my hand on the rail, cocked my head. I’d put my hair back in a braid and it slid along my back. “Why won’t you stay with me?”

  He took a step back. “It’s better this way.”

  “Better for whom?”

  Patrick walked past us, tipped his hat to me. I gave him a smile, then turned back to Sutton.

  “You.”

  “Why?”

  “It just is. You’ve got me all day long, Lee and Archer to be with you at night. What else could you want?”

  You to tell me your secrets.

  It wasn’t to be. This wasn’t the place. We weren’t really alone and if I wanted to have him open up, the stable wasn’t where to do it. If he wouldn’t tell me in the privacy of a bed, then a horse stall wasn’t going to work.

  “I’m going to my apartment.”

  His eyes widened.

  “I just came down to say goodbye.”

  “You’re leaving? But I thought—” He closed his eyes for a second, opened them again. Clenched his jaw.

  When I thought he’d been emotionless just seconds ago, I’d been wrong. His eyes now were blank. Completely void of the heat, the need, the longing, and perhaps even the love he’d shown me. He hadn’t said the L word, but I’d felt it. But that wasn’t enough.

  “Okay.”

  Okay?

  God, my heart ached for him. The way he shut me out, the way he was able to shutter himself off from even me.

  -->