Beauty and the Lumberjacks: A contemporary reverse harem romance (Hard 'n Dirty)

by Lee Savino

  “Yes,” I say slowly. “That was something.”

  “She was magnificent. Admit it. After that performance, you really gonna look at me and tell me to send her back?”

  Despite myself, my right hand curls. Not into a fist to beat some sense into Lincoln, but as if I’ve caught hold of a ghost, a slight, dancing angel, and I want to hang on and see if I can catch her. Keep her.

  Fuck. I want Sierra.

  “Saint?”

  “One week,” I say. “She has one week to prove herself. Then we send her back.”

  Sierra

  My clit wakes me. Swollen and angry, it pulses, reminding me that I fell asleep before rubbing one out. It wants me to finish what I started in the main room. After stroking myself for a few minutes, I sit up and head down the hall.

  The door next to mine is open and I peek in as I pass. Two red heads swivel my way. Twin blue-eyed owls.

  “Lincoln?” I ask, and Oren points down the hall.

  “Last door on the right,” Elon says. With a wink, I thank him and tiptoe to Lincoln's room. A brief knock, and I enter without permission.

  The big guy sets aside a worn paperback, frowning as I slip to his side.

  “I don't want to sleep alone,” I snuggle next to him under the blanket.

  He shifts to make room but it’s no good. I have to plaster myself against him to fit next to his large body in the narrow bed. “You need to rest.”

  I let out a huge sigh.

  “Don’t worry”—his fingers play with the lines on my forehead—“they already like you.”

  I snort. “Mason doesn't.”

  “Mason doesn't like anyone.”

  We lie side by side, edges glued together. I hinge toward him.

  “I'm horny.”

  It’s his turn to sigh. “You don't want to save it? You might get tired of entertaining us.” His fingers slide down my arm.

  “No.” I slip a leg over one of his. “I need it.”

  He rolls his heavy body over me, blocking out the light. I smile into his soft shirt, my breath stuttering as his biceps frame my head. He grabs a condom and this time I do the honors, rolling it on his throbbing length as his chest rises and falls more rapidly. A strong woodsy scent rises around us, tart pine and dry sawdust. I’m drunk on eau de lumberjack by the time I guide his dick inside. With a quiet gasp, he slides the rest of the way. His body glides over mine, muscles flexing on the edge of my vision, the granite plane of his lower abs dragging over mine, catching my clit. I hitch a calf over a jutting hip, pressing up for more friction, but other than that, I let him do the work. Tipping my head, I rub against the coarse fur of his chest, and let my fingers follow the happy trail all the way down. His movements speed and my mind turns to jelly.

  “Jagger will say you broke your own rule,” I murmur after, lazily stroking the firm contours of his back. Lincoln: strong as an oak, with thick dark hair like the pelt of an animal and a rich pine scent.

  “Jagger can deal. Now be quiet,” he says, not unkindly. “You need to rest up while you can.”

  But I want to lie here awake beside this tall tree of the man who made me safe, and drink in every second.

  My eyelids flutter and close without my permission.

  “Who are you running from?” Lincoln murmurs. But it’s too late, I’m far away, under the spell of his rumbling voice, slipping into sleep.

  3

  Sierra

  “Is it dangerous? The work?” I ask at my next meal. Lunch for the guys, breakfast for me. I slept clean through the morning and woke to Lincoln returning in a blast of outdoor air, still wearing a yellow helmet from his early shift. When he removes his headgear, his temples are silky with sweat.

  Lincoln shrugs. “Can be.”

  “Lincoln’s the safest crew chief in the territory,” Jagger tells me around a mouthful of chili. “Maybe the country.”

  I raise my brows and study the leader over the rim of my coffee mug.

  “You done?” he asks and when I nod, he rises and heads for the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are you going?” Elon twists in his chair, red brows knitting on his freckled forehead. Beside him, his brother does the same with an identical expression.

  “Doctor,” Lincoln answers for me.

  “I’m not sick,” I remind them, even as my stomach lurches with the uneven ratio of coffee to good food. I was queasy this morning but eating helped. In a few days I should be used to feeling full. “Health check-up. Don’t wait up.” I give the matching redheads a friendly wave, and nearly slam into Mason. He practically plows me over, heading toward the coffee pot with a muttered, “Watch it.”

  Still no love lost between me and him, but no need to start a real fight. I bite my tongue and scurry outside.

  “You and Mason all right?” Lincoln asks as I vault into his truck. Last time I was in here, I was exhausted and one meal away from starvation. What a difference a day makes.

  “Oh yeah. Sticks and stones.” I hang on as Lincoln maneuvers around the worst of the potholes in the road and hide my grin. Boys throw stones at girls they like. “He can’t hurt me. I’ll give him a few days to warm up. I figured I’d dance for everyone, and pick a different guy each night to entertain... privately.”

  A thick lock of his hair falls across his brows as he nods. I stroke it back. He stills under my tender touch but keeps his broad hands on the wheel. I’m feeling lots of gratitude toward my very own Paul Bunyan. Last night was the best sleep I’ve had in years.

  I wonder how he feels about sharing me with seven other guys.

  In a carefully bland voice I tell him, “I can start with Jagger, then the twins, Roy and Tommy—”

  “Roy and Tommy probably won’t want anything but watching you dance.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugs. “You can ask them, but I think they’ll just want a dance.”

  “Lap dance?”

  More shrugging.

  “Okay. I’ll ask them.” Two less guys means I can fit everyone in one week. “After the twins I can do Saint, then Mason, then you.” I watch his hands carefully, but they don’t clench on the steering wheel. He seems perfectly happy to have me pass my favors around. “What do you think?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Anything I should watch out for? Other than Mason.”

  A moment of hesitation, and he says ruefully, “Saint. He thinks you’re too small.”

  I rub my belly where a full meal is finally starting to settle. “I am small. But I’ll fit him just fine. I fit you.”

  Lincoln snorts.

  “Oh, come on. Are you saying he’s bigger than you?” I ask with a sly glance.

  “I’m not admitting that.”

  “Women have babies all the time. It can’t be bigger than a baby’s head.” He shakes his head and I laugh. “I’m serious! My body is built for it.”

  “I don’t want to think about someone as little as you having babies.”

  “That’s why we’re going to the doctor.” I settle back in my seat as he turns onto the empty two-lane road that passes for a highway. After a few miles I say, “I can handle Saint. I bet I could handle both of you.” I smile at his snort, and make note of the interested gleam in his eye.

  Mason

  “Timber!”

  A creak, and the long silent moment—the forest’s vigil for a falling giant. The trunk crashes to the ground with a spray of dirt. Elon, Roy, Tommy and I all pause, then march forward, leaves and downed branches crunching under my boots.

  Chains clink. An engine grumbles in the distance. Overhead, birds shriek and fly and settle back on the branches like dust. Sawdust pyramids in tawny piles like snow.

  “Mason,” someone calls. Jagger. He’s laughing like a chick, holding his chainsaw in front of him like a giant metal boner.

  I turn away, because the joke wasn’t funny the first time.

  “So,” the forest clown says, parking himself unwanted in the space beside me. “Y
ou gonna take your turn?”

  I grunt.

  “I’ll take your night if you want. Sucks that she looks just like Anita.”

  I wait, but there’s none of the usual burn in my chest at my ex-girlfriend’s name.

  “You were gonna marry her, right?”

  “Right.” If she had waited for me. If she hadn’t fallen into bed with the first guy who looked like me.

  It didn’t mean anything. I knew as she told me, she didn’t mean it to go so far. She only meant to make me jealous. Sometimes the things you don’t mean bear the heaviest consequences. Sometimes the things you don’t mean outweigh all the rest. Life’s funny like that.

  Come back. We can make it work.

  When we’d made plans to have kids, I didn’t think she’d get started without me.

  The next tree twists as it falls, a final, graceful ballet. Tommy and I attach chains to the shorn trunk and signal to Oren in the truck at the base of the hill. Another thing of beauty brought down, humiliated, dragged through the mud. Grown so tall only to be cut down.

  Yesterday, the ghost of Anita sat in the passenger’s seat of Lincoln’s truck. Today she’ll put down roots. Soft hands, soft body, soft voice, binding chains to bring us down.

  Or not. She’s not Anita. I should remember that.

  My saw bites into a lichened trunk with a spray of dust. A small slice can bring down a giant. I cry a warning and Tommy paces backwards as the massive deciduous floats down, knocking into a second one and sending it flying to the forest floor with a rain of leaves and broken branches.

  My heart says: Remember this. Don’t get too close. You won’t survive the fall.

  My dick says: Worth it.

  My mind says: Never again.

  In the place where the tree stood a minute ago, the sun streams in. Thick and golden for late afternoon. I pull off my helmet and swipe at sweat.

  Jagger shouts something from the bottom of the hill. Tommy turns to answer.

  Roy tromps through the brush beside me. “What’s going on?”

  Oren cups his hands around his mouth to call, “We’re ending early tonight. More time with Sierra.”

  I close my eyes and imagine her. Sierra. A pale scrap of a person, lean with survival. Fine-boned beauty, fragile as a bird. She’s done nothing to deserve the punishment I’ll wreak upon her body.

  I shouldn’t take my anger out on her. It’s not fair.

  My woman—no, my ex woman—is carrying my brother’s child. Life’s not fair.

  It should’ve been yours, Mason, she said. No regret or apology. Just accusation. It was my fault we fought all the time. My fault I announced we were on break and left. My fault I fell in love with the forest, my mistress. My fault my woman fell into another man’s bed.

  The sun’s in the forest now. A break in the canopy. I pick my way across the new clearing, shielding my eyes from the falling coins of light.

  I stand in the golden spotlight and spin in a slow circle, at the center of the ugly gashes left on the earth. The destruction satisfies the bitter part of me. Here, in a desolate place, I made my mark.

  The pines wait on the edge, ready to grow in the gaps. Stringy saplings choked from the light. Until now.

  Sometimes, good things die so the rest will thrive.

  When I clench my fist, a lightning bolt jumps in the corner of my eye. I filled my skin with tattoos, a nice complement to the scars hidden on my soul. Someday a woman might ask for the story written on my body. Someday I’ll meet someone who deserves to know.

  Until then, I have Sierra. A warm body for me to wreak my revenge. She’ll take my hate and my cum and when it’s done, she’ll be a used tissue to crumple and throw away. No feeling. No remorse.

  “Soups on.” Tommy pulls off his helmet. “Coming?”

  “In a minute.”

  I crouch and pull out the picture from my back pocket. If the guys saw this they’d think I grew a pussy. Anita’s face, just to the right of a tear. The rest of the picture bears my face. That ripped off portion is already in the trash.

  I study Anita’s golden beauty and wait for the knife in my chest. Nothing. I feel nothing. Anita’s face used to be a golden blade made to carve up my insides. But the edge is dulled, along with the pain.

  Anita’s with my brother now. He’ll make her happy. She is his.

  Sierra is mine.

  I leave the broken photo on the log. Above it, a few splinters stick up, the longest finger in the middle, the tree’s final salute.

  Sierra

  Blood. In the dark, the liquid is the color of night, spreading over the bed. The human body has so much blood. I press cold flesh as if I can put some of it back.

  My ears ring from the gun blast, my voice coming from far away. “Jack? Jack?”

  A rumble of voices, of motorcycle pipes. I run to the bathroom and dry-heave into the sink. It already smells like puke from the last time I was here. A lifetime ago. When I raise my head to the mirror, empty eyes stare back at me.

  “Jack,” I whisper. Too late. Jack is dead.

  It’s my fault.

  Boots stomp in the hall and I back away, leaving red handprints beside the sink. I shrink into the tub, press bloodstained hands to my mouth to keep from screaming. Curses echo through the house. The roar of motorcycle pipes rip the air. More men bang the door, coming inside. The house is full of men, cursing and telling each other what I already know. Jack is dead, shot in the chest, bled out on the bed.

  “Where’s his bitch? The scrawny one—” Footsteps by the bathroom door. I shrink under the faucet, tiny enough to fit behind the scrunched shower curtain. Tiny enough to hide.

  “Fucking bitch. She did this—”

  “We’ll find her. Bitch can’t run far—”

  The voices recede. I rise up, a ghost in bloody clothes. My red hands scrabble at the half-open window. I wedge my foot in the corner and find another foothold on the soap dish, just enough of a ledge to push up and wriggle through the window crack.

  I stagger as I hit the ground. The front yard is full of bikes and angry men. Hugging the wall, I inch to the backyard, where coals still glow in the fire pit. My backpack sits next to a litter of empty beer bottles where I left it an hour, a lifetime, ago. The last time I touched it, Jack was alive. Now my hands are stained with his blood.

  I grab my backpack and run into the night.

  “Sierra?”

  I jerk awake, turn wide eyes to Lincoln. He’s frowning, reaching a hand to brush my hair back from my forehead. He looks like he’s gonna ask me something but all he says is. “We’re almost to the doctor.”

  I sit up, rubbing my face to wipe away the cold sweat. If only I could swipe away my nightmares so easily.

  Tired little strip malls roll by. This town is bigger than the one Lincoln picked me up in, but not by much. A department store sign catches my eye. “Do we have time to stop?”

  “We have a few minutes.”

  He drops me off and I grab what I need quick, heading to the registers just as he walks in. Heat flares in his eyes when he sees what I’m buying. Just like our first shopping excursion, he insists on paying. The cashier coos and smiles at us like we’re newlyweds.

  “How often do you go to town?” I ask once we’re back in the car.

  “Once a week or less, to pick up supplies. Usually Saint goes. He does the orders.” His large hand strays to my knee as we idle at the light. He squeezes, gently. “If you need anything, come to me.”

  At the doctor’s, I sit in the examination room, naked under a papery cover, kicking my feet like I’m twelve. I feel invincible—or at least healthy enough to pass a physical. Amazing what a proper amount of food does to the mood.

  I sit, stand, offer my arm for a blood pressure cuff, go into the tiny bathroom to pee in a cup—everything the nurse tells me to do.

  I’m already gaining weight, mostly in my breasts. I give them a pleased pinch and wince. My nipples are tender. I must be close to my period. I haven�
��t gotten it in a while—a side effect of not eating enough.

  The doc, a kindly old sort who’s probably served this small town for a hundred years, enters and I sit up straighter. Time for the big exam. I know I’m gonna pass. I’m getting a birth control prescription and a paper saying I’m clean. I’ll ask the doctor to sign in triplicate so Mason doesn’t think it’s a forgery.

  “If you’ll just put your feet here”—the doc motions to the stirrups—“and scoot down to the edge of the table.”

  I do as he asks, flushing at the vulnerable position. There’s a stain on the ceiling tile that looks like the Hudson Bay. I keep my eyes on it as I answer questions about my sexual history. It doesn’t take long. I was a virgin before Jack, and he didn’t have many partners before me. We skipped a condom a few drunken times, but were pretty careful.

  The clock on the wall clicks closer to 4:00 pm. In a few hours, I’ll be back on my back with my legs wide, and getting paid for it. Oops, don’t think about that. Don’t want the doctor thinking he got me excited.

  “All right.” He snaps on gloves. “I’ll have a look-see here. Make sure you’re healthy and then check out the baby.” He gives me a grandfatherly smile, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Okay,” I say, and then shake my head. “Wait, what baby?”

  “The baby.” The doctor gestures to my belly. “You didn’t know you were pregnant?”

  “Everything okay?” Lincoln’s brow creases as he navigates the deep grooves in the mountain road. He took one look at my face when I left the doctor and kept quiet. I handed him the sheet of paper that said I was free and clear of all diseases. I didn’t show him the second piece of paper, the one that told me what was coming in thirty-one weeks.

  A baby. The nausea, the bone tiredness makes sense. My weird illness isn’t an illness, but morning sickness. The exhaustion, normal. There’s something growing in me. A child.

  Fuck.

  How did this happen? I mean, I know how it happened. Jack and I were young and in lust and stupid. In time, I might have loved him. Maybe. I haven’t had a chance to examine my feelings for him in the wake of the events around his death. HIs life ended a month ago and so did mine. I’m a dead woman walking.