Maizy the Bear Charmer [Divine Creek Ranch 16] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Heather Rainier

  “If you’re a sap then I guess that makes us all saps. I think we all had visions for this house with the sole purpose of making her happy enough to want to stay.”

  “Maybe so, but taking care of her and making her happy with us is what really matters. Making whatever happens down the road worth it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Cody drove in silence, regretting the way they’d started out. He’d been determined that they’d no longer be ruled by their dicks. When they’d sat down the year before and finally broken the ice about sharing a woman, he’d been surprised and encouraged that they’d all three shared that mindset about sex.

  Being big, muscular, and fairly attractive had made their sex lives easy from a relatively young age. The fact that they’d always stuck together meant that many times the same women were attracted to more than one of them and often all three. Sharing a woman wasn’t new to them.

  Sharing a woman they had deep feelings for was.

  They’d wanted Maizy to feel cherished yesterday. Valued and respected. None of those qualities had been dimmed by her taking the initiative, but that didn’t ease his guilt.

  Maizy yawned and let out a deep sigh as she leaned against him on the bench seat.

  He didn’t deserve her easy acceptance, or her warmth.

  She slid her hand over his thigh in a sweet, intimate gesture and he was a little surprised when his cock awakened at the contact. He’d just come harder than he had in ages, which was saying a lot, considering his practiced ability to delay orgasm.

  When he and his adopted brothers had talked those months before, they’d realized that they’d finally reached a surfeit of casual sex and one-night stands. Sex succeeded only in taking the edge off of a much deeper, growing need. It kept them mellow but didn’t satisfy.

  The last several hours had been incredibly satisfying but on the whole, he was disappointed.

  “What’s the matter?” Her tone and the way she looked up at him with big innocent eyes increased his guilt. He had a different mindset now than he had when he was younger and he knew evading her question was unacceptable. She’d asked a question and she deserved his honesty.

  “We didn’t treat you the way we’d intended, Maizy.”

  In his peripheral vision he saw her tilt her head and then turn to look out the windshield. “You didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  Cody smiled and his heart clenched. He’d acted like an oversexed fiend and she thought she’d done something wrong.

  “Maizy…you bring out the animal in us.”

  He glanced at her and saw her eyebrows shoot up.

  “We intended to take things slow. Show you how it would be with us. What we did was overwhelm you. We—I should’ve had better control.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We kept you up all night, something you’re clearly not used to. We broke our word to bring you to the house only to talk. I rationalized getting you into the shower with us and then into bed when what I should’ve done was kept my promise. I can’t say I’m a man of my word and then act differently. To top it off we let you sleep for an hour and then all three of us fucked you.”

  She frowned and then looked up at him. “I initiated that.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I was the one who should’ve stopped it.”

  “Because you’re the leader?”

  Cody let out a slow breath. “In a way, yes, I am, baby.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Heath, Spencer, and I met in foster care, in San Antonio, as teenagers. They were smaller than me and got picked on by the older kids.”

  “Picked on?”

  “Yeah, but that’s putting it lightly. They got the shit beat out of them on a regular basis. I got sick of watching it happen and started watching their backs. As they grew stronger they watched mine.”

  “You’re older?”

  Cody shrugged. “By just a year but I was bigger already than most of the older kids, which was why they left me alone. I could take on any of them.”

  Maizy rubbed her forehead and then put up a hand. “I want to talk more about that but right now can we get back to what happened this morning?”

  “Baby, I didn’t want you to feel like we used you. We know better.”

  “Pull over,” she said in that same steely, yet gentle, tone she’d used with him earlier. He did as she asked.

  She unbuckled her seat belt and turned to kneel on the bench seat next to him and palmed his cheeks. “Listen to me. You showed me last night that a man is capable of taking his time with a woman. Do you know how powerful that is, Cody?”

  “We wanted you to feel special.”

  “I did. I was with three men who denied their own gratification and didn’t whine like little babies about it. I felt guilty for falling asleep because I was determined to do something to reciprocate. When I woke up, I was…I was hungry with that need. There was no way I was getting out of the bed without giving the three of you what you needed.”

  “We were rough with you. I was rough.”

  “You were not. Each of you took your time. You didn’t force me and you didn’t ram your cocks inside me for your own pleasure. I came with every one of you. Even when I would’ve used the lube and just climbed on Heath, he wouldn’t let me. That’s not rough. That’s very…loving.”

  “Well, but…” He couldn’t believe the way he was stammering. “We wanted to take sex slow with you, introduce you to lovemaking with the three of us gradually. You said you didn’t need it, but I wanted to give you the romantic trappings.”

  Maizy’s bright smile dazzled him. “I would love all those things, Cody. But like I told you last night, I’m well-acquainted with the romantic scene-setting that isn’t backed up with any substance.”

  “Baby, I—” He didn’t want to hear again about her ex’s attempts at romance.

  “No, you listen.” Her attitude was gentle but firm and he had to smile at her tenacity. She wouldn’t be easy to bowl over or boss around. She’d call him on his shit. “I’ve been disappointed more times than I can count by a man who could set a mood and then fuck it up. I know how it feels to be gotten just aroused enough to be wet, fucked, and then left behind. I know how it feels to be told that I’m in charge of my orgasms and if I didn’t get there in two minutes flat then I needed to work on my issues. I know how it feels to be so worked up and have no choice but to sneak into the bathroom after he’s snoring so I can take care of my own needs so I can fall asleep. Before you beat yourself up too much more, I want you to think about how that compares with what the three of us had this morning, Mister Alpha Male, because you opened my eyes and rocked my world.”

  Cody swallowed the lump that had grown in his throat, watching her expressive face as he listened to what she said. “That’s how you saw it?”

  “I wanted to reciprocate and you gave me what I wanted. What part of that was you not doing right by me?”

  Cody chuckled as she plopped back in the seat and buckled her seat belt again. “I guess I didn’t see it that way.”

  She put her hand on his forearm as he put the truck in gear and in a no-nonsense tone said, “I feasted last night. The trappings you’re lamenting are nice and you can do them next time. Now that I have an idea of how things work, I’m going to become a glutton. You’ll probably have lots of trouble with me.”

  “Spoiled rotten already?”

  She nodded once and a devilish smile tilted her lips. “Damn straight.”

  He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Okay. By the way…”

  “What?”

  “I love your curly hair. It’s wild.”

  She grinned and he was pleased when she didn’t try to tame it down with her hands. He liked the way the curls spiraled everywhere.

  “It’s going to be hell to deal with today.”

  “I would say sorry but I’m not. I like it. Can we see you tonight? It’s our nig
ht off.”

  “Yes. I’ll be home by five. I’ll need time to shower though.”

  “I don’t want to waste a minute with you. We’ll be working on the house all day so we can shower together. One of us will pick you up.”

  She directed him to her house in a residential area of Divine and he was relieved there was no activity outside any of the houses in the predawn hours. He pulled up in the driveway and turned off the lights. When he cut the ignition off and reached for his door handle she put a hand out.

  “I can walk myself to my door.”

  “That may be but I’m walking you to your door anyway. We’re not the type to just drop you off and skulk away, baby.”

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  He walked her to the porch and gave her a quick, soft kiss that wasn’t long enough to satisfy, but sufficient to whet his appetite for more that evening. “I hope you get some more sleep. The guys already miss you.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked softly as he walked down the front steps.

  He turned back to her. “Because I already do, too.”

  The way her eyes glowed as she looked at him, like he was the man, while she leaned against her open doorframe made him feel like pounding his chest. It was hard to walk away but he did. He started the truck and backed out of her drive and headed back down the street. He might say he wasn’t the skulking type but as he turned on the headlights he felt like that’s exactly what he was doing.

  He wanted to drive through the center of town with her, with the windows down and her hair blowing in the breeze. He wanted everyone to see she was with him—with the three of them. Until he could do that, this driving away quietly—anonymously—was going to suck.

  * * * *

  “Earth to Maizy,” Lucy said through a giggle as they both knelt in front of one of the baby Mutabilis bushes in the Divine Memorial Rose Garden.

  “Huh?” Maizy blinked and then laughed with Lucy. With a gloved hand, she scooped the mulch away from the base of the antique rose bush and sprinkled a handful of organic rose food granules onto the soil and then pushed the mulch back into place.

  “I asked if this was one of your babies?” Lucy lifted the pitcher from her five gallon bucket and slowly poured the compost tea over the mulch to soak the granules and water the bush.

  “Oh, sorry. Yes, this rose bush is one of mine. I took cuttings from that big one that’s part of the original garden down at the creek.” She gestured at the young bushes along the old retaining wall lining the ragged path that led through the garden. “All of these came from cuttings from that bush.”

  “Did you get any sleep last night? You look done in.”

  Maizy appreciated that Lucy didn’t pry about the men. The bears. That’s how everyone referred to them. It suited them.

  “You’re smiling.”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. I did get some sleep after Cody brought me home early this morning.” She clipped away a couple of faded blooms the bush had produced recently and then moved on to the next bush to repeat the routine. “I like having your help down here. Lola doesn’t have many volunteers once it gets this hot.”

  “I like it. I’m learning, and the work is not that strenuous.” Lucy looked up at the oak and pecan trees that towered over them, providing some respite from the burning sun.

  “I know Lola appreciates your help, too. What we’re doing will bear pretty fruit in October and November when it cools off a bit.”

  “I can’t wait. I may even walk out my back door at work and take a stroll down here on my lunch breaks.”

  “You should come at night sometime. Soon all the rosebushes will be full of blooms again and the white roses seem to glow in the moonlight.”

  “Sounds very romantic,” Lucy said softly. “Speaking of romance…”

  Maizy giggled, impressed that Lucy had held off asking as long as she had. “They’re wonderful, Lucy. All three of them.” When Lucy sighed Maizy looked up at her. “What?”

  “I’m both happy and worried for you.”

  “Why?” she asked as she sprinkled the granules and patted the mulch back around the next bush.

  Lucy sat back on her heels as she poured the compost tea around the bush. “I’ve gotten to know the bears and I know how much finding you means to them. But I also know how much teaching kindergarten means to you.” She shrugged and added, “Maybe I’m not able to be impartial because of my own experiences with certain people in town.”

  Knowing where she was going, Maizy nodded. “We talked about it last night. The four of us acknowledge it’ll be complicated. Cody said they’d talk about it today and we’d discuss it more tonight and propose a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “A way to make it work.”

  “What? Like taking turns?”

  Maizy shrugged. “I think that may be part of it. It’s not ideal because I want to be with all of them.”

  Lucy sighed. “No, it’s not ideal. You need time with them alone, that much is true, but you need to be with them together, otherwise things could get more complicated.”

  “I don’t have much practical knowledge about ménage relationships but I’ve been thinking about that all day. I want what you have with Patrick and Beck but my circumstances are much more precarious.”

  “Yeah, they are. So how do you envision this playing out down the road?”

  Maizy pulled her bottle of water from their cooler and plopped down in the shade created by the retaining wall and uncapped it. “When I imagine the future, it worries me. I see one path that includes the three of them and I see another path where I continue teaching at Divine Elementary. I don’t see the two intersecting. They’re like two elements that can’t be bound together.”

  “Are you falling in love with them?”

  Maizy swiped an errant curl off of her sweaty brow with the back of her hand and looked at Lucy. How did she explain to her practical friend that she probably had been falling since the day she’d met them? There were still things she didn’t know about them but they each brought something special to the relationship. On their own they were hot and sweet and sexy but together…they were intoxicating.

  Lucy sat down next to her and her twinkling eyes told Maizy that she wanted details but Maizy couldn’t do that. What they’d had the night before and that morning was too precious, too new. She wanted to hold it close for a while.

  “Damn, girl. Without saying a word, you spoke volumes. You have it bad for them, don’t you?”

  Maizy looked down the row of rosebushes and spied Lola working closer to the creek. The coordinator for the rose garden worked just as hard as all her volunteers and Maizy liked that about her. “Do you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Lola recently told me that she was raised in a ménage family here in Divine.”

  The shock on Lucy’s face said it all. “Lola?”

  “Yeah. Her family has a ranch outside of town and she was raised by her mom and her two dads. She’s in her thirties and they never once ever revealed that to anyone. She had to guard her conversations from the time she started school and they’ve managed to keep the secret all these years.”

  “I can’t picture myself being able to keep a secret that big for that long.”

  Maizy giggle-snorted. “Neither can I.” She grinned when Lucy flicked water from her bottle at her. “Know thyself, woman. You’re a blabbermouth but I love you. Anyway, Lola told me that ménage groups like yours and all the others give her hope that someday her mother will come into town with her husband and his brother and be able to walk downtown hand in hand with both of them.”

  “I’d love to see that happen.”

  Maizy smiled, remembering how surprised she was by that admission from Lola. “She said the three of them are set in their ways and may never do it, but it gives her hope for them anyway, and maybe a little hope for herself as well. In answer to your question, yes, I do have it bad for them. I just don’t think I’m in a position to go pub
lic, as long as I hold a teaching job, especially teaching kindergarteners.”

  Lucy put a hand on her forearm. “Don’t give up, Maizy. If you want it and they make you happy, don’t give up.”

  Maizy smiled at her friend as she flipped the plump, errant curl off of her forehead once more. She sigh when it bounced against her forehead again and looked up at it with crossed eyes, making Lucy giggle.

  “Your hair is wild today. Did you try a new shampoo?” Lucy pulled her glove off and lifted one of the fat curls and stretched it out. “Dang, girl, your hair must be down to your ass when it’s wet.”

  “Briefly yes, before it pulls the corkscrew routine. Heath washed it for me last night.”

  Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “Heath? The man washed your hair for you?”

  Maizy smiled and nodded, remembering him massaging her scalp, tugging on it and sending all of her senses into overdrive. The shaky sigh she let out ended in a giggle. “Yes, he did.”

  “If you have men who’ll do that for you then you’d better hold on tight with both hands. Surely they have at least one or two negative qualities?”

  “Oh yeah, for sure,” Maizy said, and burst into giggles.

  “Tell me! Spill!”

  “They’re all Dallas Cowboys fans!” she said as she stood and offered her future sister-in-law her hand.

  “You’d better hide your Texans jersey so they don’t burn it.” Lucy accepted the help and stood, wiping the dead grass and dirt off of her butt.

  “They better not. I’ll put Bengay in their jockstraps.” Maizy moved their supplies to the next Mutabilis in the row and set to work.

  “How do you know they wear jockstraps, young lady?”

  “I don’t but…it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?” Maizy replied as she clipped more deadheads and they progressed down the row of rosebushes toward the creek, where they could hear Lola singing to herself.

  Lucy elbowed Maizy and whispered, “So if he washed your hair that means you saw at least one of them nekkid. Nice? Grade A prime?”