Love Under Two Gunslingers

by Love Under Two Gunslingers (lit)

  Here, though, everything seemed different, as if the hand of mankind, with his structures and his customs, was impossibly out of reach.

  Here lived nature, raw, untamed, and unstoppable.

  Another ache increased, one that had begun days before, an ache that continued to grow in intensity despite the heat of the day and the heavy work of riding.

  Sarah had tried to convince herself her hunger for Caleb and Joshua was wrong, improper. She’d tried to keep her thoughts only to her husband, only to the life that duty dictated she live.

  That duty had turned into a false one, for in the eyes of the very society that had ruled her all her life, the ceremony she’d undergone had been a lie.

  Her husband hadn’t wanted her, hadn’t wanted to make their marriage real. Why not? She had no way of knowing the answer to that. Perhaps he considered the matter too insignificant to merit thought or attention. Perhaps he considered her too insignificant. But then, why marry her in the first place?

  Caleb and Joshua didn’t think her insignificant at all. Vivid in her memory was the frantic way they’d called her name, the way they’d grabbed her into their arms after the attack on the stagecoach. Looking back, she understood Caleb had been shaking as much as she in the aftermath of the attack. He’d held her so tight she could still feel the imprint of his hard body against hers.

  She could still taste the one kiss Joshua had given her then. She reflected on all the time she’d spent with these two men, the looks they’d each sent her that had heated her blood and sped her heart.

  Her father had sold her to a man she had never met for money, for business prestige, for whatever purposes he deemed valid. But that marriage wasn’t real. She was on her own, her future her own, her body hers to give to whomever and for whatever reason she deemed valid.

  Was love not the most valid reason of all for bestowing such a gift? The hunger within her grew.

  “Here looks good.” Caleb said. He slowed his horse to a stop, then reached out for the reins to Sarah’s animal. “We’ll camp here tonight. I can’t order you a tub of hot water, but that stream over there just through the trees might serve for you to freshen up.”

  Sarah pulled herself out of her thoughts. “Good. I hope the water’s not icy cold.”

  Joshua had already gotten off his horse and was in the process of tying it and the pack horse to a tree limb.

  “Last time we stopped here, Caleb and I went for a swim. It wasn’t too cold.”

  He had such a twinkle in his eye she laughed. “Perhaps I’ll dip my fingers in and test that theory.”

  Before she could dismount, Caleb was there, lifting her down. He held her until she nodded. One of them had done that each time she’d gotten off the horse to rest today. The first time she’d been especially grateful for the consideration because her limbs hadn’t wanted to hold her then.

  She sensed their eyes on her as she walked around in a circle, trying to get everything to work without limping too badly. It didn’t take long. Then she went over to the pack horse to help Joshua with the supplies.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” he said, batting playfully at her hands when she tried to reach for one of the bed rolls.

  “I’ll do my share,” she said, her chin notching higher.

  “You will, over the next few days. But you’re not used to riding so long in a day.”

  “We’ll take care of camp duties tonight,” Caleb confirmed. “And don’t get your back up. We never thought we’d be able to get this far the first day. We’ve come more than twenty miles. As far as we’re concerned, you’ve done your share by riding so well without a single complaint. So tonight, you rest.”

  As much as Sarah appreciated their care and concern, she wasn’t a princess to be waited on. She nodded her acceptance of their decree, and then set about walking along the area, picking up bits of wood and brush that could be used for a fire. She found the stream, tested it with her hand. It felt cool, not cold, so she’d use it after dinner.

  The men shook their heads but smiled when she returned from her explorations with an armload of wood. They’d already laid the fire and set out the bedrolls. They dined on beans and cheese and coffee that Caleb brewed in the small pot over the fire they’d made. Sarah hadn’t slept on the ground under the stars since she’d been a child. And while normally she might not have been looking forward to the prospect, she thought she just might be exhausted enough this night to fall right into sleep. But then the heat returned, banishing her exhaustion until only one need remained, and it was not the need for sleep.

  Sarah took a clean chemise out of the saddle bag she’d packed and didn’t know what to say when Caleb handed her a bar of soap and a small towel. She hadn’t thought to ask for the luxuries. That they had thought of it for her made the decision she came to as she bathed by the stream seem the most natural decision in the world.

  The water felt cold after the setting sun, causing her to shiver, but she immersed herself, bathed, and rinsed. What would they say? Would they spurn her? Revile her?

  Many would. What she wanted, what she needed when she thought about it, seemed beyond naughty. What she wanted would earn her a label in some quarters. What she wanted was considered, by society, as very bad and shameful.

  But that’s not how the wanting felt to her.

  She could hear the low hum of their voices, just, she knew, as they could hear the sounds she made as she cupped water in her hands and poured it over her naked breasts. Her nipples tightened but not from the cold—not only from the cold.

  On the bank once more, she blotted as much water from her body as she could. As she made her way back to the camp, she thought she should be shivering. The air of the night did seem chill against her bare flesh, but it wasn’t cold that consumed her. It was blazing, belly-tingling, toe-curling heat.

  They sat with their backs to her and as one, looked over their shoulders when they felt her near. Staring when they saw her, they rose slowly to their feet and turned to face her full on.

  “Sarah?” Caleb’s voice sounded hoarse, his question tentative. There was nothing at all tentative in the way he and his brother raked her naked body with their eyes.

  “I don’t know how I can need you both when I’ve never needed before. I don’t know how I can want you both when I’ve never wanted before. And maybe it’s wrong, and maybe I’m wicked. I don’t know how I can love you both. But I do. Please…please be with me.”

  Chapter 8

  Sarah didn’t have to wait long for them to react.

  “My God, you’re beautiful,” Joshua whispered.

  They both stepped forward, taking those few steps to bring them to her. Caleb reached out and lightly stroked the back of his hand across her right breast.

  Her own hands, fully caressing that needy flesh, had been unable to elicit the burning excitement Caleb’s one small touch did.

  “Be with you? We’ve wanted nothing but to be with you since the moment you came down those stairs in Chicago,” Caleb’s voice shook with need, his eyes seemed to burn as he looked his fill of her.

  “We were trying to figure out how to talk you into taking us both, afraid it would be impossible, and here you are.” Joshua said. He stroked her other breast, and Sarah marveled that her legs could still hold her.

  “Be sure, Sarah,” Caleb said. He caressed her face and then cupped her cheek. His action lifted her face, so their gazes locked. “Be sure you want us both. Because once we touch you, once we take you, you’ll belong to us. You’ll be ours.”

  “We’ll never let you go, sweetheart. Not ever,” Joshua agreed. “So be very, very sure.”

  Sarah took Caleb’s right hand in hers, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. She reached out with her left hand for Joshua’s and repeated the gesture. Then she placed their hands on her naked breasts.

  “I’m sure. Oh, please.”

  “Our woman doesn’t have to beg,” Caleb said. He cupped her breast in his palm, his forefinger and thumb
pinching and tugging at her nipple. The sensation sent a ripple of excitement right through her belly to her feminine flesh. She couldn’t hold back her whimper. The brothers smiled.

  “Our woman has only to ask. Any time,” Joshua finished. His hand caressed her left breast.

  Then Caleb combed his fingers through her hair, brought her face to his, and kissed her.

  Hot and wet, his lips closed over hers, his mouth sucking hers in a way that stole the last bit of strength from her legs. She didn’t fall because he caught her. When Caleb thrust his tongue into her mouth she opened wide, needing to give him whatever he wanted, whatever he demanded, and taking all she could.

  Hands roamed her naked flesh, and the heat gathering in the base of her belly swirled and eddied, a stream of exhilaration that had a life of its own. It felt as if they drew her up and out of herself, and her skin gloried in their touch.

  Sarah stroked her tongue against Caleb’s, moving it as if in a dance, sliding, dipping. When he released her mouth she cried out but had no time to miss his taste, for Joshua turned her head toward him then, brought her face to his, and mated his lips to hers.

  A different flavor, yet one still rich and evocative, filled her mouth and fanned the flames of her passion. How could she have guessed such burning need existed? How could she have guessed she’d discover an insatiable hunger for the taste of these two? The sensations she’d created in her body by her own hand for the first time during that bath in St. Louis seemed tepid compared to this…this conflagration.

  She returned Joshua’s kiss as ardently, as eagerly as she had Caleb’s. Need propelled her to twist her fingers into the openings of their shirts. She clung, pulling them close, then closer still.

  Caleb gently uncurled the fingers of her right hand, lifted it to his shoulder, and then bent down and used his mouth on her breast.

  “Oh, God!” Such heat speared through her, such thrilling tingles coated her skin and sank deep into her that she cried out, thrusting her head back, letting loose of Joshua’s mouth. Her body convulsed of its own accord, thrusting her hips out in a wanton gesture she was too aroused to even notice.

  “Close, sweetheart?” Caleb asked against her now moistened nipple. Joshua chose that moment to bend down and pleasure her other breast, and Sarah’s words tangled in her throat, emerging an inarticulate sound.

  Caleb must have understood them, for he said, “Let me see just how close you are, darling.”

  He spread his hand across her abdomen and then moved it down, brushing his fingers through the hair that covered her mons. His fingers and hand caressed her intimate opening once, twice. And then he thrust a finger inside her.

  Sarah screamed as something inside her gushed. Her body filled with liquid sensation, overwhelming her thoughts, her senses, until she was nothing but flesh, aching, needy flesh. She bore down again and again against the hand and fingers pleasuring her as spasms of ecstasy swept through her.

  Small twinges of pain burst in the middle of the pleasure, but that just added to the miracle of the luscious storm that consumed her. The tiny pleasure she’d given herself had never hinted at the lush abundance awaiting her at the hands of her lovers.

  “Yeah, you were close,” Caleb said in a deep chuckle. He scooped her into his arms and brought her down to the ground.

  Vaguely, Sarah realized he’d laid her on one of the bedrolls. Her body shivered with the lessening of the pleasure, and the wool blanket scratched against her bare back and bottom. It was all she could do not to whimper when Caleb pulled away from her, when he stood. Joshua came to stand beside him, and for a moment, they simply stared down at her.

  “Close?” she repeated the word trying to understand what he’d meant, then felt everything that had been cooling within her begin to heat again as both men quickly stripped the clothing from their bodies.

  Firelight dappled their flesh, illuminating them so that they stood as she imagined the Greek gods of ancient times would have stood before a willing nymph. Fully clothed, they heated her blood and shivered her belly. Naked, they weakened her completely. She wasn’t totally ignorant. She’d once seen a drawing of a naked man in a book. That pencil sketch failed to convey the strength and the power that pulsed through Caleb and Joshua. Mesmerized, her eyes drank in the sight of them, the muscle and sinew. Her gaze was inexorably drawn to their cocks which seemed impossibly large and far more vibrant and stirring than that long ago, flaccid depiction.

  Then they were there, lying close on either side of her, their hands warm and sure, caressing her. Her bath-time daydream came to vivid, thrilling life as Caleb turned her head toward him, bent over her, and kissed her, making her heart thud and her hips lift.

  “Close to heaven,” he answered when he weaned his lips from hers. The heat of his body against her side and the press of his penis against her hip aroused her nearly beyond bearing. He fastened his mouth on her neck. As she instinctively tilted her head back and to the side, needing to give him all of her, she found Joshua’s mouth. His kiss, fast and deep, fanned the flames of her desire.

  “Close to the purest pleasure there is,” Joshua said. Then he kissed her again.

  Hands caressed her breasts and belly. Hands stroked legs and thighs, parting them so that each leg draped a masculine hip. One hand crept upward, light teasing touches brushing the curls between her thighs.

  “What are you doing to me? I feel wild and out of control. Something happened inside me when you touched me there last time and I…oh!”

  “We’re pleasuring you…and ourselves,” Caleb said as he once more inserted his fingers into her. “We’re…being with you.” He spoke the words against her flesh, and they became like a beautiful concerto playing against her damp, fevered skin.

  Sarah gasped as the delicious tendrils of excitement began to climb inside her again. Restless, her hips lifted. Rolling her head back and forth, she tried to grasp control of these sensations, but they slipped through and around her puny attempts as if mocking her.

  Joshua took a nipple into his mouth and nipped it, the tiny pain adding to the thrill coursing through her. When he closed his lips around the sensitive bud and suckled, Sarah once more became conscious of the pull in her womb. Were her breasts and the place she hoped to one day carry a babe connected?

  “You’re close again,” Joshua said. He brushed kisses against her breast and neck on one side of her as Caleb mimicked his actions on the other.

  Joshua took hold of her hair, turning her head to him. His mouth captured hers once more. He kissed her fiercely, plunging his tongue into her mouth, stroking and licking, sucking and nipping in such a rapid rhythm she couldn’t keep up. She could only open wide and surrender.

  She bowed her back off the blanket when Caleb’s lips settled on the feminine flesh between her thighs.

  Sarah tore her mouth from Joshua’s. “Oh God, oh God, what are you…” speech sputtered into a deep groan as the conflagration once more roared to life, the excitement bubbling up, higher, then higher still until she reached it, that moment of purest pleasure, gushing from deep inside her womb, shooting through every part of her, a rain of passion nearly dripping out of her.

  Caleb moved up her body, and she had one moment of awareness, of the sensation of his hot, turgid cock pressing against her folds. Then he thrust into her hard, fast, and deep.

  Sarah screamed, the unexpected pain and the pleasure entwining to become one, shooting her to that pinnacle once more.

  “Just the first time, Sarah. It only hurts the first time, I promise.”

  Sarah opened her eyes, the shivers ebbing. Her vision cleared. Caleb loomed above her, his flesh on hers, in hers. Sweat drenched his forehead, glistened on his shoulders. He held himself impossibly still, a tautness to his face that looked painful.

  He’s waiting. Sarah had no way of knowing how she knew that, but she did. Another truth penetrated, that he needed more, that he’d not reached that moment she’d enjoyed three times. But he waited because
he didn’t want to hurt her.

  How simple it was to wrap her legs around him, to curl her arms around his neck. She wanted to give him the same gift he’d given her.

  Arousal flared and she undulated her hips. Caleb hissed in a breath through his teeth.

  “The pain is already nearly gone. Everything else has felt incredibly good. I want more. Give me more, Caleb. Take everything.”

  His expression softened, and he held her gaze for one long moment. “All right, Sarah. Hang on to me sweetheart. Just…hang on.”

  From the expression on his face, Sarah thought he was still controlling himself. He’d made her lose all control, and she wanted to do that to him in return, but she didn’t know how. Letting instinct guide her, she raised herself just a little, set her mouth on his neck, and began to lick him. Joshua stroked her arm. Reaching out to him with one hand, she twined her fingers with his and lifted her hips closer to Caleb.

  And then Caleb began to move.

  * * * *

  He’d told her heaven, and maybe at the time he’d thought it a poetic exaggeration, but right at this moment, Caleb was certain he’d never felt anything as close to heaven as being inside Sarah.

  Her sheath felt so incredibly hot and tight and wet around his cock. He wanted to keep his thrusts measured, gentle. She’d been a virgin—his first. He’d known that, of course, but the sound of her scream when he’d breached her maidenhead had pierced him. He’d hurt her, and he never wanted to hurt her. At the same time, a sense of possession fell upon him. No one had ever had her before. She belongs to us.

  “Give me more,” Sarah whispered close to his ear.

  Oh God. His control snapped. Slipping one hand under her ass, he lifted her as he thrust into her. She felt so damn good he withdrew then pushed in again, and again. The slap of his balls against her soft cunt rang in his ears as the scent of their joining teased his nostrils. Her ripe, musky fragrance intoxicated him. Grabbing her hair, he tilted her face back and kissed her, plundering her mouth with his tongue as surely and forcefully as his cock plundered her pussy.