by Jan Springer
“You may as well start flying solo. After you get enough hours flying solo, then go for the private pilot’s license. I don’t see you having any problems getting it and then just keep things going until you have enough hours to get your professional license and maybe fly for North Country Air.”
Panic swelled through JJ and she shook her head. No way could she get paid to fly. She just wasn’t reliable with her anxiety issues.
“I’m afraid my flying days are over for now. I have a sick cowboy to tend to and the ranch to help run. Maybe I will find more time next spring.”
“Chickening out?” Kaley asked in a firm voice that irritated JJ.
She tried to avert Kaley’s challenging gaze, but she couldn’t. The dare in her flight instructor’s eyes was a direct challenge.
“As I have said on several occasions during our training sessions, I can only show you the door, sweetie. It really is up to you if you want to walk through it,” Kaley chastised.
JJ sighed. Kaley was right. JJ was using Rafe and the ranch as an excuse to get out of achieving her goal.
“Okay, as soon as Rafe is settled back home and he can be left alone, I will call you.”
“And?” Kaley prodded.
“We will do the test.”
“Promise?” Kaley asked.
“I promise.” With the fingers of her right hand, JJ motioned a cross over her heart to signify a promise.
Kaley nodded her approval. Kelly and Blue beamed with excitement. They laughed and nudged each other, satisfied with JJ’s answer.
Gee, why was everybody so happy, except her? She was a bundle of nerves again. To tell the truth she was kind of excited to get back into the air again too. Landing that plane onto that little lake had been traumatic, but realizing she had actually done it …and survived.
Priceless.
An odd chorus of women’s giggles vibrated through Rafe’s brain. The laughs were followed by voices. Soft, happy, pleasant voices. For a few minutes he tried to slip back into the dark quiet; but laughter kept tugging him upward past the layers of sleep and into a new layer of pain.
The pain wasn’t too bad. It was a hell of a lot better than when he had been in that cabin. Much better than the violent ride when he’d been carried through the forest by Dan and Brady.
Then there had been that plane ride. It had made him sick as all get-out. Although he’d been placed on the floor near the rear of the plane, he’d still been able to hear the conversation between Rafe and Brady about JJ flying the plane.
Rafe grinned. That had been one wild hallucination. JJ didn’t know how to fly a plane.
Suddenly he realized the women’s voices were gone. Extreme quietness followed. He didn’t like the silence. It made him think he was back at the cabin.
Alone. Helpless. Dying.
His gut suddenly twisted as another thought hit him. Maybe he had dreamed his rescue? He must have because JJ. Did. Not. Know. How. To. Fly. A. Plane.
A burst of panic roared through him. His eyes flew open. Darkness greeted him.
Shit! It had been a dream. He needed to get to his ATV and get some help. He cursed beneath his breath, tried to turn onto his side, but a lightning blast of pain pierced his head and his injured leg hurt like hell. He stopped moving and cursed again.
Light flickered on overhead and Rafe stared up at a fluorescent lamp. Confusion wrapped around his brain. What the hell?
Something warm settled over his hand.
“Shh, everything is all right. You’re safe now, Rafe.” A soft, intimate voice curled around his senses like a protective blanket.
Suddenly, JJ materialized right there in front of him. He realized she lay right beside him on a bed. Her warm body heat melted into his entire left side.
“JJ?” he whispered. His voice sounded rough and raw.
“Yes, it’s me. Brady and Dan found you.”
Wow. He was safe. He hadn’t been dreaming?
He moved his head to look around. The pain shot through his brain, but he gazed around anyway. On his right side, he noticed that he was hooked up to an IV. He figured a catheter too. A bunch of fancy flowers in plastic vases along with cards and even a big balloon that said “Get Well Soon” sat on the windowsill. There were daisies. Red roses. Carnations.
Rain pelted the windows behind the bouquets. It was dark outside. The clock on a nearby wall said seven.
“Where are we?”
“Hospital in Thunder Bay. We flew straight to the city when Kaley checked you out as I was flying the plane.”
Confusion rocked him. That conversation between Dan and Brady ripped into his brain again. Not possible. He must have heard her wrong. Heard them wrong.
“She said the belt you used as a tourniquet is what saved your life. The doctor said the same thing. You knicked a main artery with the ax.”
He had saved his own ass?
Weariness tugged at him. His eyelids felt heavy. Shit. He wanted to stay awake.
“Need to get out of here. Gotta get back…ranch...work,” his words slurred. What had he been about to say?
“Sleep, Rafe. Sleep. Then we will get you out of here.”
Her sweet voice lured him back into the deep dark world of sleep.
* * * * *
“Tomorrow is the big day,” Dan said as he polished off a third helping of JJ’s scrumptious freshly made pumpkin pie. Damn, she sure did make a great pie.
JJ gazed up from where she was doing the dishes at the kitchen sink, a huge smile on her pretty pink lips.
“I still cannot believe that Rafe let us talk him into staying in the city to continue his physiotherapy,” she said.
“I think he realized he would get better faster if he followed doctor’s orders,” Brady replied. He had been reading a two week old newspaper, a luxury they rarely indulged in due to the fact there were no convenience stores out here.
“I hope he remembers to grab a newspaper for me before he gets the ride with North Country Air,” Brady complained.
“Do you see what happens when you’re exposed to the outside world? You are already back to being addicted to the news world.” Dan teased.
“And addicted to takeout coffee too, Brady. I heard you on the call last night with Rafe asking him to bring you back a coffee with that newspaper. Tossing my coffee over for a takeout. Tsk. Tsk,” JJ said with a fake scowl.
Dan laughed as JJ dug a clump of dish-soap bubbles and tossed it at Brady. The bubbles landed smack on top of his head.
“Good aim,” Brady commented dryly. He brushed the tuft of bubbles away, his gaze suddenly turning dark and husky.
Uh. Oh. Dan recognized that look. His senses went into alert mode.
Brady wanted JJ, and he wanted her now.
“Who knew tossing around bubbles would turn you on, Brady?” Dan commented.
JJ having returned to her dishes, hadn’t noticed Brady’s reaction. But she did tense at Dan’s comment.
The squeak of Brady’s chair as he stood shot awareness through Dan. He caught Brady’s intense gaze and his nod toward JJ.
An invitation to join him in having sex with JJ. Dan acknowledged it with a slight nod, his cock growing hard so quickly it hurt, but in a nice way.
“I have good aim too, JJ. Very good aim.” Brady was now standing behind JJ, gyrating his hips against her bottom. She stopped washing the dishes and Dan heard a couple of sweet, soft gasps from her.
Dan’s cock pressed hard against his pants. Man, he always reacted to her sensual sounds.
“Do you remember when I took you here up on the kitchen counter?” Brady murmured. JJ nodded.
Wow. They had done it in here? He wondered when. Anticipation roared through him.
Brady’s hands slipped beneath her armpits and around to her front. Dan knew what Brady was doing. Unbuttoning her blouse.
“Let’s let Dan have a little taste of you,” Brady said. A moment later his hands were on her shoulders. Slowly, he turned JJ around to face Dan.
Her blouse hung open, revealing her bared breasts. Since being here, and with them around, she rarely wore a bra, knowing it would only be in the way when of one of them wanted to take her.
JJ’s face was flushed with excitement as Brady’s mouth slid against her neck. Her eyes closed as he kissed her.
Dan stepped forward and positioned himself in front of JJ. Reaching out, he slid his hands inside her blouse and cupped her breasts. She shivered and moaned. Her mounds were hot and firm, fitting perfectly in his palms. His mouth watered as his gaze lowered.
Her nipples…he licked his lips. He leaned forward, bent his head and sucked one tight warm nipple into his mouth. She hissed and her hands flew to Dan’s pants zipper. Her fingers were quick, and the rasp of his zipper lowering followed.
He groaned as her hand wrapped snugly are around his rigid erection. Oh man, every time she held his shaft it was as if he had died and gone to heaven. Yeah, he could live like this, forever.
JJ struggled to keep standing as Brady pressed his thick erection against her bottom. Despite the fact that both of men wearing jeans, their body heat burned through her clothing and ignited a firestorm of need. Dan’s wicked mouth sucked on her nipple and then the other. The feel of his sharp teeth as he nipped her tender nipple and his possessive grip on her breasts warned her she was in for an intense night of lovemaking. The fierce pulsing of Dan’s penis in her hand had her moaning softly into Brady’s mouth.
Brady’s kisses along the length of her neck alternated between soft and rough as if he were trying to make up his mind about something.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Brady murmured against her flesh.
Aha. Just as she had suspected.
“What’s that?” she whispered as she held tight to Dan’s cock, while he settled at her breast.
“You need to be punished for not telling us about your wanting to learn how to fly.”
Surprise washed over her.
“Oh?” she breathed.
Dan’s mouth tensed around her nipple. Brady had captured his interest.
“You’ve been holding out on us, all summer. You shouldn’t have done that, baby,” Brady’s voice had turned hoarse.
“Gotta agree with you there, Brady. A nice punishment would make me feel a whole lot better,” Dan said. His voice had turned tight.
“What if I don’t agree to being punished?” JJ stammered. Surely the two of them were kidding?
“Something severe. Something she won’t soon forget,” Brady whispered into her ear.
Mercy, why did he make a punishment sound so sensual?
Brady taunted her, his fingers moving sensuously over her belly to her pants zipper. Dan continued to suck on her nipples. She jerked beneath the pleasure and kept stroking Dan’s hot shaft.
Heat seared through her as Brady unzipped her jeans, then slid them, along with her panties, lower over her hips and down her legs. Quickly, she kicked off her slippers, stepped out of her pants and panties and kicked them aside.
“It makes you hot, doesn’t it? Knowing two men are going to punish you. I know it really turns me on,” Brady said.
She creamed when she heard the rest of Brady’s zipper lowering. Heard the rip of plastic. Caught him reaching for the vegetable oil in the cupboard and settling it on the counter. She also noticed he had placed an unused condom there as well. She tensed as he withdrew a wooden spoon from the cup that held some utensils.
“You wouldn’t…” she gasped.
She yelped as he slapped her ass. A burst of pain blushed across her cheeks.
He did!
Her lower belly tightened as heat spun across her flesh. Brady smacked her ass again. Harder this time. She bucked and tried to get away but Dan’s hands held tight on her hips. His mouth continued to nibble on her peaks.
Damn them! How quickly this had turned from a leisurely evening to something so…erotic.
She cried out as Brady continued to slap her ass with that wooden spoon. Heat and pain mingled. Pleasure burned across her buttocks and seared her nipples and breasts.
Suddenly Dan’s face lifted. She caught his sensual gaze as he watched her yelp and buck while Brady continued to paddle her.
“You like getting spanked, I can tell,” Dan whispered as his eyes grew darker and heavy-lidded with lust.
She closed her eyes as Dan moved against her. His hands slipped into her hair, his fingers tangling with the strands until erotic pain seared through her scalp. She moaned against the pain and cried out as his hips surged and his thick, long shaft drove into her wet vagina. Her muscles clenched him tight and he growled. It was an animalist sound that made her heady.
Brady cursed softly and stopped paddling her. His breathing grew heavier and she sensed he was sheathing himself. Then she heard slurping sounds as he generously laved his shaft with the oil.
Dan withdrew and his mouth melted over hers, chasing away any thoughts. JJ slid her hands around Dan’s neck and drew herself deeper into his kiss.
Brady parted her cheeks, and she gasped as he pressed his cockhead against her tight sphincter. Brady’s hands slipped along her waist and he held her tight.
Her anticipation soared.
She pushed her tongue into Dan’s mouth. His fingers twisted tighter into her hair as he kissed her back.
She gasped as Brady’s penis stretched into her ass. His shaft was hard and hot as he lodged deeper and deeper. Brady withdrew and then Dan thrust into her.
Quickly, they picked up an intoxicating rhythm. Dan pistoned into her pussy and Brady pushed his swollen flesh deeper and deeper until the wicked pinch of pleasure and pain mingled together and threatened to make her wild.
JJ struggled to hold onto her self-control for as long as she could. Maybe it was an act of defiance against her punishment. Or maybe she was being selfish, knowing the longer she held back, the more intense her orgasm would be.
But their fierce pace pushed her closer and closer to the fragile edge of bliss. She wriggled her body between theirs and gyrated her hips and enjoyed hearing them growl and groan.
But when they both thrust into her at the same time, JJ lost her thin grip on control and shattered into a bundle of agonizing pleasure. Their moans ripped through the air as she bucked harder between them.
She flew deeper and deeper into the pleasure. She loved the fiery shudders convulsing through her flesh and muscles. The perspiration sheening her skin did nothing to cool her.
They kept pistoning. Solid. Fierce. Deep, soul-wrenching strokes.
The pleasure kept coming. She was drowned in the roaring waves that spread through her like a storm.
It was sheer ecstasy.
JJ whimpered and keened and dug her nails deep into Dan’s shoulders as another orgasm quickly rocked her. The pleasure burned her alive.
Cocks kept plunging and thrusting, making her twist like a mindless puppet.
Brady’s hands were moving up and down her sides, his caresses soft and intimate. JJ knew he meant to calm her, but it merely intoxicated her more. Everywhere they touched her, she burned. Their body heat melted her flesh and destroyed her mind. She was one with them.
One soul. One body. Blind pleasure.
She was theirs. Completely.
It felt good to be back at the ranch, Rafe thought for the thousandth time since returning here two weeks ago. Today he was fixing the tractor that was needed to bring in the hay. Brady said it had been acting up all day yesterday, stalling now and again out in Section Thirteen, one of their largest hay-producing fields.
His leg had healed pretty well, and it had already been a month since that freak accident had waylaid him. He limped, his shin throbbed with every step, but he was on the mend, eager for the cattle drive to begin in a few days.
With October finally here, the weather had turned cold and windy with plenty of cloudy days and chilly drizzle. With the weather finally clearing over the last three days, Dan and Brady were doing the last of the haying.
Guilt assailed Rafe that they had picked up his duties, but that left him with plenty of JJ time.
Every time he looked at her, there was a curious fluttering feeling in his chest. Since that desolate day and night in that lonesome cabin when he had come face to face with the reality he might never see her again, he looked at everything differently. In the daylight, he appreciated everything. The scent of pine. The cry of the loon. The gentle lapping of water against the shoreline.
He enjoyed the bad coffee Dan made. He chuckled whenever Brady got pissed off about the eggs or the price of food. Best of all, he enjoyed helping JJ out around the kitchen. Setting the table, putting away the dishes or running out to the garden to grab her a cabbage or some turnips. It was as if he were on a high since being back.
Unfortunately, the high disappeared when he fell asleep. Almost every night, he dreamed of those two gray wolves he had seen at that cabin. He should have realized those wolves had been a message of foreboding.
Rafe also dreamed of slicing his leg open with the ax, of being helpless and in pain. He always awoke in a sweat, his heart racing a mile a minute. A sense of loss, along with a weird emotion of impending doom, followed him out of those nightmares. The only nights he didn’t have bad dreams were the ones he spent with JJ. Having her lying beside him in bed seemed the healing salve he needed. He wished he could sleep with her every night. But he also knew one day he would have to face whatever fears were nibbling away at him since that accident. He sure as hell was not looking forward to it.
Chapter Six
From the kitchen JJ had a good view of the yard. Chickadees and blue jays fluttered around the bird feeders just outside the window. In the distance, she saw the giant two-story barn with knotty pine siding, the cedar-railed corrals for some of the cows, and the adjoining sawmill.
In front of the barn’s wide double doors, Rafe worked on the old blue tractor.
Bright mid-afternoon sunshine beat down on his broad bare shoulders and a sheen of sweat glistened on his back. Tanned, golden muscles flexed and rippled as he worked. His jeans hung low on his hip,s giving her a peek at the crack in his ass. He had the sexiest butt of all three guys. Plump and curvy. JJ liked running her hands over his smooth flesh. Loved the way his butt muscles flexed beneath her palms whenever she massaged him there.