by Reece Butler
This was not a time to talk with her, even if his brain could get past the need to strip off his clothes and jump into bed with her. He forced himself to turn around and go down the stairs. He understood why Jed had to look at her when he passed her sleeping in the tub that first night.
He found the others in the barn, tidying up things that were already neat.
“She’s awake,” he said. Jed and Riley met each other’s glances. Both glared at him.
“I thought we were going up together.”
“I just wanted to talk.” He barked a laugh. “She’d just woken and her hair draped all over her. Her petticoat was pulled up and—”
Clint cursed. It took his feet a few seconds longer than the others to get going, so he was the last one into the house. He followed a trail of mud as they didn’t take off their boots. His weren’t dirty. His foot had just touched the second step when Riley stopped so fast that Jed plowed right into him. Clint managed to stop from hitting Jed, but Riley got knocked to the floor. Clint peered over the floor toward the bed. Victoria lay still, covered by the sheet and quilt. Her eyes were wide, but not in arousal.
“Something wrong, darlin’?” Riley kept his voice low.
“I…”
Clint grabbed Jed’s belt and yanked on Riley’s pant leg. “You two trample in here like a herd of buffaloes, race up the stairs, and you wonder why Victoria’s frightened? You didn’t even stop to take your boots off. Look at the trail of mud you left!”
“Some fried chicken should make you feel better,” said Riley. “Or coffee and pie?”
Victoria shook her head, fast. She looked almost as white as the new pillowcase.
“What about bread and jelly with a cup of mint tea?” asked Clint. Veronica nodded at his suggestion. Her smile was small, but it was better than before. Jed and Riley followed him down the stairs.
“Why wouldn’t she want more than bread and jelly?” asked Riley quietly. “She’s been acting strange since the sheriff said the first wedding was no good. I don’t want to bother Doc, but do you think she’s sick?”
“I already talked to Doc about it,” said Clint. He opened the breadbox, found a knife, and began slicing. Two thin slices, not at all like he usually cut. His mother liked to eat thin bread and jam slices with lots of tea when her stomach was upset. “Beth spoke to me as well.”
“And?” Jed handed Clint the grape jelly.
“They said she’s been through a lot lately, so it’s no wonder she’s upset. We should take it easy with her, and give her whatever she wants for the next few weeks.”
“Take it easy for a few weeks?” Jed looked upstairs and dropped his voice to a deep whisper. “But it’s our honeymoon!”
“They didn’t say no sex, Jed,” replied Clint. “They said to be slow and smooth with her.”
“I don’t know if I can go slow,” grumbled Riley.
Clint smacked him in the back of the head.
“Ow! What was that for?” He slugged Clint in the chest.
“Will you listen, for once!”
“I’m listening.” Riley rubbed his head. Usually he was too fast for Clint to catch.
“We’re to give her whatever she wants.” Clint raised his eyebrows and gave them a speaking look.
“Oh,” said Jed, nodding. “So if she wants it fast and hard—”
“Right.”
Riley perked up. He and Jed took off their boots and wiped up the floor while Clint spread jelly and cut the bread into triangles. He found a flowered plate and put the bread on it, tucking the small note in his shirt pocket. In his other hand he carried a mug of mint tea with a saucer over it to keep it warm while it steeped. Riley carried the rest of the basket of chicken legs upstairs, and Jed followed with some small folded-over fruit pies. It would fill in the main part of their hungry bellies.
After they soothed their new wife, they could eat their fill in the kitchen. From the way Victoria had been lately, she’d likely fall asleep after. He hadn’t slept much the last few nights either, and wouldn’t mind at all just sleeping beside her.
She was sitting up in bed, covers up to her chin, when they returned. She accepted the plate and mug with a quiet word. They stood by the bed to eat, since she still seemed a bit skittish. She’d eaten one half of her bread and jelly in the time it took them to eat two fried chicken legs.
“You sure you don’t want any of this?” Riley held the basket up. She shook her head.
“Leave a couple for her to eat later,” said Jed. Riley ate a couple of the little pies instead.
“This is a pretty plate,” she said, once she’d finished.
“It’s a present from”—Clint reached into his pocket and pulled out the note—“Miss Lily. She says ‘I hope you feel pampered when you use this plate.’” He smiled at her. “You feeling pampered yet?”
She looked down. A faint flush covered her cheeks, which was better than the fainting white. She nodded. “I don’t know why I suddenly feel shy. I mean, we’ve done…this before.”
Clint knelt beside the bed to take her plate and cup. He was six foot four and dressed for a wedding, all in fancy black. She was eight inches shorter and lay in bed in her underthings. They were fancy, too, but thin. He could almost see through them. Yee-haw, as Riley would say.
“Any chance I could find a small corner of that bed to curl up on?” He murmured the words, adding a winsome look that Grandpa’s hound used a lot. “I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’d like to just, maybe, hold your foot or something.”
Tiny wrinkles appeared around her eyes. An equally tiny smile curved up both ends of her lips.
“You want to hold my foot?” She raised her eyebrows, wrinkling her forehead as well.
“Well, I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t mind me holding your ‘or something,’ but your foot is better than nothing. And, honey, lately we’ve had one heck of a lot of nothing.”
Her eyes widened. He watched her pink tongue poke just past her lips, flick up and down, and then pull back in. God, he wanted to suck that tongue into his mouth!
She looked past him. He checked over his shoulder. They must have had the same idea.
“You two look sorrier than Grandpa’s egg-sucking hound dog,” he said.
“Is it working?” Riley flashed white teeth in a quick smile.
Clint looked back at Victoria. “Is it?” he asked quietly. “I can get them out of here if you want. I’ll even go, too.” He waited a beat. “Unless you want us to stay.”
She blinked and worried her lip.
“We’ll behave, won’t we, boys?” He turned his head. “Nod at our lovely wife and say, ‘Yes, Victoria ma’am. We’ll be on our best behavior.’ Then smile like you mean it.”
“I’m always on my best behavior around my wife,” said Jed.
He strolled to the foot of the bed, making no sound due to his bare feet. He lifted the quilt to reveal her dainty foot. He knelt and gently kissed her ankle, then caressed it with his fingers.
“The first time we met, when Clint lifted you down from that delivery wagon, I saw this neatly trimmed ankle. I thought to myself, trim ankles might mean slender legs.” Jed lifted the quilt another few inches, revealing her calf. “And I was right. It was easy to see your womanly figure, but your cantankerous attitude had me steaming hot.”
Clint watched the pulse in her neck. It throbbed faster. She pushed the quilt off her chest. It fell to her waist, but a flap stuck up. He didn’t move though his cock sang hallelujah! The others wouldn’t see, but hard nipples erupted behind the quilt.
“And what do you think about my attitude now?”
She might have tried to be demanding, but the breathy quality of her voice suggested something else. Clint held still and let Jed, her husband by law, ease her fears.
Jed’s look was intense. “I think you’re going to be a mite cantankerous until after you’re in your grave, which I hope is at least sixty years from now. And I’m going to enjoy being just as orner
y back.”
The smile she gave him was fleeting, but had a definite flirt to it.
“Right from the start, I knew you were domineering,” she said.
“If you mean that I give the orders around here, you’re right. And that’s not going to change.”
Jed gave her the look that Clint thought of as the first level of warning from the range boss. He had a couple of them. The last, one he and Riley knew not to cross, meant things were going to hell in a handbasket and they’d better race to do whatever Jed ordered. Once that yell got them out of a deep channel just before a wall of water from a broken bank rushed through. Clint respected Jed’s sense of knowing when it came to work. But did he have the words to make Victoria want to do what was needed?
“If you recall a certain ceremony a few hours ago, we both promised to love, honor, and cherish each other,” said Victoria sweetly. “There was no ‘obey’ involved.”
Clint noticed it right off. He should have realized neither Lily nor Rosa would promise to obey anyone. There was only one set of vows for all three couples. He also noticed the sparkle in Victoria’s eye when she repeated the phrase, loudly. Jed was likely so amazed that the wedding was finally happening that he didn’t notice much other than how beautiful Victoria was. That dress had made Clint’s mouth drop, and he was only the best man.
Instead of replying, Jed pressed his tongue in the space between Victoria’s big toe and the next. He probed, watching her the whole time, as if it was her pussy. Clint bit back a curse. Her toes drove him wild. He loved it when she stretched them out, but when she curled them as she came it almost made his eyes roll back in his head. Victoria’s tiny gasp, little more than a puff of air, drew his attention to her face. It was flushed, right to her forehead. He peeked over and, oh yeah, the rosy mark led all the way down between her breasts.
She shifted, and the quilt flap dropped. Only now did he notice that the embroidery on her almost transparent camisole had flowers circling her nipples. Because her dress was cut so low, her camisole barely covered those nipples. Between her breasts he saw tiny drops of sweat. Every time she inhaled, her breasts threatened to pop out.
She might have woken unsure, but Jed’s seduction of her foot was rapidly changing her mind. Maybe Jed knew his limitations. If words wouldn’t work on a cantankerous female, he’d use touch.
“If I wanted an easy-to-please woman, I wouldn’t have married you.”
“We didn’t know each other when we married the first time.”
Clint looked back at Jed and had to hold his chuckle in. The man had snuck up the bed and now caressed her calf. He laid a line of light kisses up her leg, pulling himself along on his elbows as he did it. Sneaky, and something to remember for the future.
Riley bumped his shoulder in silent agreement. He’d moved closer to watch Jed change their woman’s mind about what was going to happen that afternoon. He had his pants buttons undone, and the single eye of his cock poked out. Clint, still in his tight, fancy clothes, quietly unbuttoned to do the same. He exhaled in relief when he had his cock aimed straight up instead of painfully cramped.
“And then I learned about your body, inside and out. You said you were mine, and then you proved it.” Jed paused, resting on his elbows to look at her. “But I didn’t know who you really are. In here.” He touched his chest over his heart. “That’s going to take a long time to figure out, Mrs. Adams.”
“When did I prove it?”
“After I brought you back from Sophie’s.”
Once more, Jed’s elbows dug in and lifted him up the bed. His head was now at her upper thigh, on the far side of her from Clint and Riley. Yes, Jed knew exactly what he was doing. He slid his hand under her petticoat. Victoria gasped and stiffened. She shifted, moving her foot closer to Clint. That meant she opened herself up to Jed’s fingers.
“Don’t you remember? I made you come so hard you screamed.”
His arm moved. She closed her eyes and writhed on the bed.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Telling you to come for me again,” he replied.
Jed’s muscles shook with tension. Clint curled his index finger forward. He held it up to Jed, silently questioning if that was what he was doing. Jed nodded.
“What’s he doing?”
Riley whispered the words so lightly in Clint’s ear that it tickled. Clint showed him the movement. “There’s a spot up inside her, under her belly. If you do this with your longest finger, you can hit a spot that drives her wild.”
Victoria suddenly gasped, jammed her head into the mattress, and arched her back. She hung there for a moment, and then collapsed. A slow smile appeared.
Jed pounced like a cat. He unbuttoned her petticoat, lifted her to pull it off, and tossed it away. He spread her legs and dropped his head between them. “What the…!” He gaped at Victoria. “What did you do?”
Clint leaned over to see. His mouth went dry. Her pussy was naked!
Victoria had trimmed her curls so close he could see her swollen pink folds glistening from the climax Jed had just given her. Clint fisted his hands, holding his body rigid.
“Damn!” moaned Riley. He leaned too close, and Clint pulled him back. This was Jed’s seduction, not theirs.
“Beth said you might like it.” She looked and sounded hesitant. “A wedding present. I couldn’t buy you anything, and—”
“Oh, baby, that’s the best present in the world,” said Jed, groaning. He knelt on either side of her legs and bent down for a closer look. “Look, boys, there’s her clit, sitting up and begging.” He swirled his tongue around it.
Since Jed had invited them, Clint knelt down beside the bed. Riley dropped beside him.
“That’s the prettiest puss I’ve ever seen,” whispered Clint, easing closer. He winked at Victoria, who smiled back. She held out her hand to him. He caught it and brought her fingers to his mouth. He sucked on one of them. She might suck on his cock the same way in the next week or two, if he was lucky.
“You’ve got your good clothes on,” she said to Clint. She rolled her shoulders, making the thin fabric pull at her buttons.
“If I take mine off,” he softly replied, “can I undo some of those buttons of yours?”
She nodded, giving him a welcoming smile that must have come out of the Garden of Eden. He threw off his coat and then slowed, noticing she watched him. Her attention wasn’t all on him, since Jed was investigating all her folds and creases. He flicked his shirt buttons open, starting at the top, letting her see his chest appear. He already had most of his pants buttons undone, so it was easy to do the rest and let his cock out. Her nostrils flared, and she reached out for him.
He swaggered forward, his cock bouncing. She grasped him, causing a shudder. Her soft hand tugged him forward. He raised his eyebrows, questioning if she meant it. She opened her mouth and curled her tongue, just like Jed had curled his finger. Oh, God, yes!
Clint let her pull him closer, until his knees were spread either side of her shoulders. He gripped the headboard, sinking down as she tugged, rising as she pushed. It left him vulnerable, his tight balls bumping against her chin. She grasped them and squeezed. They’d been hard for days without release. She was playing with fire.
“Honey,” he gasped, “I’m gonna come in your mouth if you keep doing that. If you want me to back off, I’ll—”
She inserted her finger in his ass and curled it down. He stiffened, every muscle in his body on high alert. No wonder she liked his finger in her ass. It felt so…She hit something, and his fingers curled into the headboard. She stroked it and…
“Oh, God!”
He exploded and, for a time, knew nothing except white heat. Then he realized where he was and fought not to push his cock too far. Her fist at his base helped. He groaned, sure the biggest orgasm of his life was over, but then she flicked that damn finger in his ass, and his balls shot another line of fire out his cock.
He was dying. Dying of too much
pleasure and not enough air. He collapsed, arms leaning on the headboard, gasping to breathe. He looked at Victoria. Though her face was upside down to him, he could tell she smiled like a cat who swallowed the cream.
He barked a laugh. Yeah, his cream.
Victoria nipped the end of his cock. He jumped, setting his feet on the mattress, and looked between his legs. Jed idly nosed her near-naked pussy. He still had his pants on, though ever-eager Riley was stripped. He held his cock, ready for whatever action Victoria wanted.
“If those are your presents to Jed and Clint,” said Riley eagerly, “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got for me!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Victoria couldn’t wait to tell Beth what a success the surprise had been. Clint, the easygoing one usually in control, still stared at her, stunned. Luckily for her concentration, Jed hadn’t done that finger thing with her while she worked on Clint’s cock. She licked her lips, tasting him again.
Though she was eager for them after the ceremony, her nap had left her confused. When she woke and found all three of them lined up on the stairs, her memory flashed back to her sister’s house. A couple of nights she’d had to hide in the cellar because of the men waiting in line on the stairs to use her mother and sister. They were well in their cups, and if they’d found her, they would have taken her, one after the other.
But Jed’s slow seduction eased her away from the past. Those men out East didn’t care who they put their cocks in, as long as they got pleasure. Patient Jed, steady Clint, and even overeager Riley showed how much they cared for her almost every moment.
They were patient with her silly nerves, which must be why she was feeling so strange. How could she not love them? When she said her vows, she looked at Jed, then found Clint and Riley to include them. Love, honor, and cherish.
When they shared pleasure, they honored each other’s bodies. They would cherish the memories they would collect as time went on. Their loving would, someday soon, she hoped, bring children. But whether that happened or not, their love would keep them whole.