by Marie Harte
“Rory, James and I are serious. You’re gorgeous, you’re built, and you’re cautious. A real challenge. I want you. You want to fuck, I’m right here, right now.
But I won’t force you, and neither will he.”
He stood, praying she’d make a move.
She didn’t, and he sighed. “I have to shower. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just happy to see you.”
To his pleased surprise, she chuckled.
He took his clothes into the bathroom with him and took his time cleaning up and beating off. Finally finished, he dried off and dressed in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, so as not to offend her. A glance at the locket on his wrist made him feel more connected to her, and it startled him that he liked the tie to the wary woman.
Keegan returned to the room to see Rory on one of the beds, watching cable.
“You can have the bathroom if you want.”
She nodded to the table, where a few trays of food sat. “I ordered up some room service for you. Thought you might be hungry.”
“Thanks, I am.” He looked at her, unable to keep from zooming in on those lips he wanted to taste again. “That was real thoughtful of you, darlin’.”
“Don’t thank me. I used your credit card to pay for it.” He chuckled. “No worries.”
She sat up. “You know, I thought you called me darlin’ because you couldn’t remember my name. But I’m sensing it’s just a thing with you. Like the hat and those boots.” She nodded at his hat sitting on the dresser and his boots on the floor. “Yup. My momma drilled manners into me from the time I could walk. The Price boys don’t sass, and we treat a lady like a lady.” He winked at her. “I’d just love to treat you like a fine lady.”
“Shut up.” She grinned. “Keegan Price, huh? And James Foreman. So those are your real names.”
“James sure was chatty with you.”
“Another question for you. Did James know Becky before you two arrived in town?”
Thrown by the topic change, Keegan answered. “Nope. Never set foot in Jackson Heights before today. Christ, feels like we spent a month in that town, not a day.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So why did you live there? A year, you said.”
“Yeah. I used to live near Jackson Heights, growing up. I mine gems, and there are more than a few around the town. Some sapphire mines I actually own. Small, but profitable. I inherited them from my father.”
“Interesting.” He sat at the table and dug into a plate of steak, potatoes, and beans. As he did, he glanced at the clock. “Did James call, by chance?”
“No.”
As if the thought conjured him, footsteps sounded outside the door. Keegan hoped it was James, but not willing to put Rory at risk, he stepped between her and the door. “Stay back,” he warned in a low voice. At her nod, he walked to the door and peered out the peephole.
He opened the door. “’Bout time. Where the hell did you run to? Kentucky?” James glared at him and pushed into the room. “Not all of us are supermen, cowboy. I needed to burn off a little more steam.”
They both glanced at Rory.
“What?” James turned back to him. “But I’m good now. Let me shower, and I’ll join you.”
“Okay.” Keegan and Rory watched James disappear into the bathroom.
“He really is one fine-looking man.” Rory gave Keegan a curious glance. “So what’s with you two?”
Keegan hadn’t wanted to deal with this, but figured he might as well tell the truth. Kind of. “He’s my partner.”
She bit her lower lip, and he wanted to trace the tender flesh with his tongue.
Mindful of the direction of his thoughts, he threw the safety chain over the door and sat to hide his erection. He returned to his food.
“What kind of partner? Work partner or life partner?” The woman definitely wanted to know.
Keegan decided to toy with her. “Does it matter?”
“Oh. Um, I guess not. Not to me.” The blush that lit her cheeks made her that much more attractive.
“Honey, James likes both teams. Trust me when I tell you that if you gave him the go-ahead, he’d thank you to kingdom come.”
“Keegan, really.” She turned a darker red.
“Really.”
“What about you?” she asked, then looked as if she regretted the bold question.
“I’d fuck you right now if you asked.” Do it. Ask me. Please.
“But you and he… You’re not a couple, then?”
“We’re new to being more, ah, friendly. I’m not into guys. James is just…
James.”
She seemed as if she understood.
“Just so you know, the invite’s open, darlin’. Anytime, anyplace. But it’s your call. Not mine, and not James’s. You’re in charge.” At least until I get inside you.
Then all bets are off. Rory cocked her head, as if studying him like some new, interesting disease she’d just discovered. So much for turning her on to the idea.
Keegan dug back into his food and started when she sat across from him and took the lid off her plate.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a man like you before, Keegan.”
“Well, not many of us use whisper hands,” he joked.
Her serious expression unnerved him. He didn’t think anyone but James had ever looked at him as if they truly saw him. The real him. “You don’t hold back. You don’t play games. I like that. A lot,” she added softly, then dug into her meal.
They ate in silence with the muted sounds of the television and the shower between them.
Then Rory made the mistake of asking him if he liked the Dallas Cowboys. A few hateful comments about his favorite team ended in a loud argument that had James hurrying to intervene. But to Keegan’s delight, the sexy beauty knew her football, and she liked her steak rare.
He had a bad feeling he was starting to fall under her spell, the same way he’d fallen under James’s. When they turned off the lights, Keegan took one of the queen beds, Rory the other, and James grumbled on the fold-out couch. Keegan felt for him, because the fold-out looked like a futon gone wrong. The queen-size he used was lumpy and too small for his frame, the pillows flat and musty, and he rested uncomfortably on his belly, hiding the hard-on that refused to fade around James and Rory.
Still, knowing he shared the room with the pair gave him a strange sense of contentment, and he drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face.
Chapter Eight
The next few days passed like the first. Driving along the interstate had bored the three of them, so they drove along back roads and spent less time in the vehicle than they spent wandering small towns as they searched for local gyms that could give Keegan and James the outlets they needed.
To her surprise, Rory didn’t mind the travel. They’d gone maybe half of their trip but showed no sign of being in a rush. Now in Nebraska, they experienced cooler weather. A shame Keegan and James now covered up those strong thighs and tight asses while running outside. But in the gyms they continued to dominate attention wherever they went.
She couldn’t count how many women had made passes at Keegan when they didn’t think she was looking. Or how many women and men flirted with James. The man was a virtual sex magnet. Rory ignored the men who tried to get her to look their way, used to dealing with unwanted attention for most of her life. When she’d wanted someone to care for and love her, no one had been there. But after growing that hard shell around herself, making it impossible to connect, it seemed she’d somehow advertised an invisible signal that drew men like flies.
Not impressed with herself in the slightest, because her appearance had to do with genetics and not any skill she’d earned, Rory dealt with admirers the way Keegan did. She politely ignored them.
To her surprise, she had a lot in common with the tall Texan. James was a lot more amiable than she or Keegan, and they shared a lot of laughs as they watched him handle people.
They currently sat next to each other on
the weight benches in a gym in Felton, Nebraska. Their hotel was more of a bed-and-breakfast, and they had the entire top floor of the old house, which was run by two elderly sisters.
Never having taken a real vacation before, Rory marveled that she hadn’t thought to experience life outside of work and her goals. If nothing else, this time with Keegan and James showed her how to enjoy the journey. They joked and teased each other, showing a true camaraderie one couldn’t fake.
She knew what James and Keegan had told her that first night was true. They kept their word, and slowly but surely, she’d come to trust them. Not all the way, she thought as she saw her locket still gleaming on Keegan’s wrist. He should have looked effeminate wearing it, but she didn’t think anything could make him look less like a man’s man.
Which made her wonder about him and James again. As if she’d been able to think of anything else since she’d started pondering the idea of them as a couple.
Well, anything other than herself starring in a bunch of perverted threesome fantasies.
She watched one of the targets of her lust lift two hundred pounds like it was nothing.
“How do you do it?” she asked Keegan, aware of the covert stares around them.
For her part, she wore a grungy T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, with her hair up in a ponytail. She didn’t find her look attractive, because she wasn’t showcasing muscles like Keegan was. A glance over her shoulder showed James powering on a treadmill, running like he had the devil on his tail. He saw her looking and winked at her right as the woman next to him drew his attention.
“Do what?” Keegan asked around hard breaths.
“Do so much physical activity and still stay awake past eight each night.” They’d spent their mornings and early afternoons driving. The evenings took place in the gym, their nights in their hotel room playing card games or watching TV until they fell asleep. James was usually the first to go, then Rory. Keegan always remained alert, going to sleep only once the others tucked in first.
“I have a hearty metabolism,” he drawled. “Always have. But darlin’, there are easier ways to sate my, ah, needs.” He grinned at her and winked, then started up another set.
“Jerk.” She couldn’t help grinning with him, though.
Never in a million years would Rory have ever considered herself safe without her locket at hand. She still reached for it about fifty times a day. And truth be told, if she had it right now, she’d take off like a shot. But she was glad Keegan refused to return it. It gave her an excuse to spend more time with two men she wanted to get to know a lot better.
They never treated her like a third wheel, and making her feel welcome, like a part of them, was a balm to a wound she hadn’t realized she still carried. Losing her parents had ripped a hole inside her, and having to grow up without them, unwanted and unloved, had hurt her more than she wanted to admit. Yes, she’d grown stronger because of her loss, but at what price?
Old Becky was the best friend she’d had in a long time. What did that say about her? Had she ever been as close as to anyone as James and Keegan were?
And that easily, “close” took on a whole new meaning. She could too easily see Keegan covering James, their naked bodies sweaty and hard, aroused…
“Darlin’, you have the strangest look on your face. Penny for your thoughts?” Keegan asked. He sat up, facing her in the mirror.
She flushed. “Shut up. I’m going to get more water.” She heard him chuckling as she left. Rory veered toward the water fountain when a tingle lit her from the inside out. She stopped in her tracks and walked down the corridor toward a woman’s room across from a set of racquetball courts.
Unexpected in a small town this size.
Entering, she let her senses flow and followed the lure of a barely visible diamond ring way behind a toilet in the stall at the far end of the restroom.
“Holy shit.” The thing weighed a carat if not a little more. An emerald shape, signature ideal cut, internally flawless and colorless stone. It would sell for at least twenty-four or twenty-five thousand dollars. And it was stuffed underneath the baseboard of a gymnasium bathroom?
The price of the diamond would solidify her future, but the feel of the stone told her it belonged to someone. Someone special. She tucked the stone into her shorts pocket, determined to find out who the diamond belonged to. But she didn’t think asking the management would help. The young kids at the front desk would be clueless, and she had no intention of handing over an expensive ring to just anyone so they could hock it for top dollar. Her days of selectively helping herself to other people’s jewelry were over, and she’d be damned if she’d contribute to some other thief’s pockets.
Lost in her thoughts, she nearly ran over James when she exited the restroom.
“Whoa. You okay, Rory? You seem a little preoccupied.” Another odd thing about James. She wanted to trust him with all her secrets.
It had been hard to keep a good distance between them, but self-preservation wouldn’t let her get too close. This diamond, however, would be a good opportunity to gauge how he handled temptation.
She pulled him aside and, seeing no one near, showed him the ring.
He said nothing.
When she pocketed the ring and glanced up at him, she couldn’t read the look on his face.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know what to think. Where’d you find it?” “It was stuck in the back of the stall in there.” She pointed behind her. “It’s expensive and special. But I don’t want to ask anyone around here about it. I have a feeling we’ll find a lot of owners wanting it back.” James nodded slowly. “Yeah. But how did you find it?” She frowned. “I wasn’t on my hands and knees in the bathroom looking for it.
And I didn’t steal it.”
“Wasn’t going to suggest that you did.” His smooth charm didn’t fool her.
“But you were thinking it.” She tricked a surprised smile out of him. Keegan would have out-and-out asked her if she’d stolen it. James would pry the answer out of her, one charming question at a time.
“Well, maybe I was.” He grinned, taking the sting out of the accusation. “But I don’t think you’d steal it and show it to me.”
“Thanks for crediting me with some intelligence.” She wanted to find the ring’s owner, right now. As if the ring were pushing her to move. “Grab Keegan and let’s get out of here. I want to get this to its owner.”
He found Keegan, and in no time the three of them drove back to their rented rooms on the third floor of Millie and Mabel’s B and B. After a hasty shower, Rory paced in the hallway outside the guys’ rooms. They had all taken individual rooms for the first time since they’d begun the trip, and to Rory’s disgust, she missed being in the same room with them. Their presence soothed her, made her feel secure and at the same time wanted. Because they had yet to look at her in her nightshirt with anything other than lust, and the damn thing covered her from neck to knee.
When James and Keegan finally opened their doors, she grabbed James and shoved him and Keegan back into Keegan’s room.
“Finally.” Keegan wrapped her up in a hug. “I’ve been waiting for this for days.”
“Let me go, you idiot.” She laughingly pulled herself out of his arms. “I wanted to show you something.”
He eagerly sat on the bed and leaned back on his hands. “Go on, darlin’. Take it off slow.”
“Shut up, Keegan. Rory found something.”
Keegan frowned. “What?”
She held out the ring to him. “This.”
He whistled. “I don’t know much about jewelry, but I think this is what’s called a rock.”
“Yeah.” James sat next to him.
They made a handsome picture, two virile men, both dark-haired, tough, and handsome. A sandwich just for me. Rory cleared her throat and did her best to ignore her inner slut. God, she hadn’t lusted after anything or anyone like these two since…well, since never. Her
few forays into sex hadn’t satisfied her, and lately she didn’t have it in her to get messy with a man she barely knew when she could take care of her needs herself.
So why the heck did she want to strip these two naked and let them do naughty things to her?
“Rory?” James lifted a brow, but the hint of a smile on his face told her he’d read her desire.
Crap. “Right. I found it in the gym in the bathroom.”
“You still haven’t explained how,” James said, and the pair of them watched her, waiting.
The diamond sat in Keegan’s large hand, a delicate metal caging the hardest mineral on Earth. He held it out to her, and something in his eyes made her think of promises and hearts and forever.
Swallowing around an unfamiliar lump in her throat, she ignored the heat of his palm and took the diamond ring. “My psychic ability is linked to gems. I can feel them, like a hum in my blood. This ring called out to me.”
“No shit.” Keegan blinked at her in surprise. “No shit,” she agreed. “But it’s important to someone, and I need to find who it belongs to.”
James frowned. “You wouldn’t think to find something that valuable in this town. Not to say it’s not fancy or anything, but come on. This is Felton, not Lincoln.”
“Maybe our hostesses will know more,” Keegan offered.
“Good idea,” she and James said at the same time.
“No reward for thinking it?” Keegan stood quickly and had her in his arms once more. “Come on, sugar. Just a little kiss?”
“Fine.” She tried to peck him on the cheek, but he turned his face and met her mouth-to-mouth.
Between one heartbeat and the next, Keegan was kissing her like his life depended upon it. His tongue thrust between her lips, and he took, ravaging her mouth with a fiery need she couldn’t deny. He pulled her closer, shoving his hard erection against her belly and moaning when she ground against him.
“Fuck. Okay you two, don’t make me hose you down.” James sounded both frustrated and amused.
Keegan pulled away, but she sensed he did so grudgingly, as further evidenced by his comment to James.