Lassoed

by Vanessa Vale

  The women sighed and Cord slapped Sam on the back, grinning.

  I flushed hotly remembering just how they’d done that. And more than once.

  Sarah put her hand on my arm. “We’ll still think they’re jerks if you want. But they’re Barlow men. They know what they want and go after it. Ask my guys. Once we figured stuff out, I was married to them two days later.”

  I flicked my gaze to hers and she held up her left hand, showed me the rings Wilder and King had given her.

  “I got pregnant my first time,” Penny said.

  “The coffee table in the other room,” Cricket added. “Let’s just say Lee, Sutton, Archer and I defiled that thing. And sanitized it after.”

  “Come on, sweetness,” Cord said gently to Kady. “I think Ashe and Sam can take it from here. Besides, Cecily’s going to wake up hungry any minute.”

  “But—”

  “Let them get to the good part,” he replied.

  I kept my eyes on Ashe and Sam.

  “The good part?” she asked, taking his hand and following him into the great room.

  “Make up sex.”

  7

  SAM

  * * *

  “I need to get in you, get you to come all over my dick, then we’ll talk.”

  We’d driven to my house back in town and I’d held her hand as we went inside, but that’s as far as we made it. I had her up against the door, unzipping the coat that kept me from all her soft curves.

  “Sam, I—”

  I stopped her words with a kiss. The first kiss since Boston, since that night. I’d been pissed and cranky ever since knowing we’d fucked up. While I’d tried to tell her the truth and she’d shut me down before we even got our clothes off that night, I was smart enough to know never to tell a woman it had been her fault because, well…I liked being alive. And it wasn’t all her fault. It wasn’t as if she’d expected us to tell her we were investigators, that we had been stalking her in the restaurant.

  She probably thought we were car parts salesmen from Tulsa or even cattle ranchers from Montana. Whatever. Just not the truth. I should have insisted, held my dick off until we’d told her everything. But she’d been just too perfect. We’d wanted her too much. Like now. Now, I had her in my sights, had my hands on her, could breathe in her citrus scent, hear her ragged breathing. Even tasted her in the kiss. She was right there with me, right there with Ashe by our side.

  “Sam, no.”

  I stopped, pulled back immediately at that one word, but not too far. Her dark eyes slayed me. Heat and interest were there, but so was doubt.

  “I want this,” she said. “Both of you, but we need to talk. This was our problem last time. I should have given you the chance to tell me everything that night. Or the next morning. I should have stayed. Listened, instead of running away.”

  “And we shouldn’t have let you do the walk of shame,” Ashe added. “We’re sorry, sweetheart.”

  “You want to talk?” I asked, pushing her coat off her shoulders. Ashe took it and hung it on the coat rack beside the door.

  “I think it would be best,” she admitted, placing her palms flat against the door at her sides. “I mean, we’ve slept together and I don’t even know your last names. Where you went to college. Whose house this is.”

  Glancing down her body, I could see she was eager. Not just for information, but for us. She looked so good in that simple shirt and jeans, completely different than the dress from the other night. I had to wonder—so did my dick—what lacy confection she wore beneath.

  She was more than her lingerie, more than the soft feel of her skin, the heat of her pussy. One of the things that was so attractive about her was that she was smart. Brilliant, even, but we’d barely talked with her. While it made me proud of myself to have reduced her to saying single syllables like ‘yes’ and ‘harder’ and ‘more,’ I wanted words. Lots of them. I wanted to know about her, too. Her likes and dislikes. I wanted to hear her opinions on things, to debate and possibly even argue—although not about how Ashe and I had fucked up.

  “All right,” I agreed, then grinned. “You ask a question and we’ll answer. In trade, we get a piece of clothing.”

  She arched a dark brow. “Strip twenty questions?”

  I grinned. “Sure.”

  “I have more questions than clothes,” she countered.

  “We’ll do our clothes, too, right, Ashe?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “I still have more questions than all our clothes.”

  “Sweetheart, haven’t you figured it out by now?”

  Natalie’s frown got even deeper. “What?”

  I couldn’t resist, I reached back and tucked her hair behind her ear, felt the silky softness between my fingers. “We’ve got forever to learn it all.”

  She cleared her throat. “Forever?”

  Ashe came to stand right beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “This isn’t a one-night-stand. We want it all with you.”

  “All?” she squeaked.

  “Sweetheart, we must have really messed up if you don’t know how we feel,” I added. “We want you. Only you. We knew the first time we saw you. That’s why we fucked up. We were too damned eager for you.”

  “We have control now,” Ashe added confidently. “Maybe just a little. So ask your questions.”

  “And you get the clothes?”

  I shook my head. “The clothes go on the floor. We all get answers and we all get naked.”

  I saw the curiosity and the heat in her dark eyes, but we waited. She’d said no and we wouldn’t touch her unless she wanted it. This. Us.

  She toed off her shoe as she asked, “Do you guys have family? Parents, brothers and sisters?”

  “My parents live about a mile from here,” I offered. Only a shoe came off, but it was a start. “My dad owns the mechanic shop on Main Street and my mom’s a radiologist at the hospital. One brother. He lives in Denver.”

  “My parents live in Portland. No siblings.”

  His parents were retired and liked to travel. It was hard to keep up with their adventures; they were either in Machu Picchu or the Galapagos this month.

  “My turn.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you a sports fan?” he asked.

  Her mouth fell open and she glanced between the two of us before she spoke. “You aren’t those crazy sports fanatics who break up with a woman because she likes the wrong team, are you?”

  Ashe shrugged as he began to undo the buttons on his shirt. I reached behind my neck, tugged my Henley up and over my head.

  Her eyes went to our chests as she responded. “My stepdad is a big fan of hockey. When I was little, I watched it with him. It’s probably the only real thing we share, and a dislike for the Red Wings. Penguins fan, here.”

  That was hot. A woman who liked hockey. Worked, since Montana was frozen more than half the year. Lots of hockey to watch, at least on a club team or juniors level.

  “How did you get fixed up with Riley?” She toed off her other shoe.

  “We actually run our own IT company. Security.” I angled my head into the house, but the basement was the business’s office space. “Ashe and I met in college and we sold our first company a few years later. I wanted to come back here, to Barlow, and Ashe followed. Started another company, one to keep us from getting bored. We don’t actually work for Riley, but occasionally for Cord. We do some investigating, online searches, stuff like that for him. But you—or at least the last Steele daughter—were hard to track down, so he asked for our help.”

  “Then we saw your picture and knew we had to be the ones to tell you about your inheritance,” Ashe added.

  I ran my hand over the back of my neck. “We blew that, didn’t we? But shit, sweetheart, you’re too hard to resist.”

  “We wouldn’t let anyone else have you,” Ashe finished, toeing off his shoes.

  “I didn’t ask a question,” Natalie said, pointing to the way Ashe kicked his shoes out
of the way.

  He shrugged. “I’m not shy, sweetheart. I’ll answer naked.”

  “My question, sweetheart,” I said. Her gaze was level, her demeanor calm. Good. “Why do you work for that asshole?”

  She pursed her lips, as if she were eating a lemon, or thinking about how much a dick her boss is. “I like the industry.”

  “You mean you like lingerie,” Ashe countered.

  “I do. I like to wear it because it makes me feel pretty…feminine. It’s not for a guy, but for me.”

  “You took the job because you like lingerie. That’s good. Being in a field you like is good. But why stay? You can just go to the mall and get sexy little scraps of lace…” I ran my hand over my face thinking about what was beneath her white shirt. Pink? Lavender, maybe? Satin? “Why stick around when you’re sexually harassed? There are all kinds of jobs with your skill and background.”

  She gave a slight shrug. “It hadn’t been too bad, until recently. That night at the restaurant, that was the worst. I’d been thinking about switching jobs, but now…well, now I have a lot to decide.”

  Being an heiress certainly helped with options. She could continue to work for the asshole—although we’d certainly try to talk her out of it—or another company or not work at all. Hell, she could become a llama farmer if she wanted. She could do anything she wished with that sharp brain of hers.

  But not today. Not now. We’d be there for her no matter what she decided, but now I couldn’t help dropping my gaze to her chest. “You’re wearing something skimpy and sexy now?”

  She nodded. “I wasn’t expecting a guy…or guys to see it. Like I said, I wear it for me.”

  “You wear it for us now, too,” I said. “Show us.”

  “Yeah, sweetheart, put us out of our misery.”

  She gave us a sly glance, then put a hand on the wall for balance as she removed one sock, then the other.

  “Cruel, woman. Very cruel,” Ashe said, slowly shaking his head. He palmed his dick through his jeans.

  “My turn,” she said. “Where’s the bedroom?”

  Fuck yes.

  I held out my hand, just like I had that night in the restaurant. She glanced at it, then me. Took it. Giving her warm palm a little squeeze, I led her through the family room and up the stairs, down the hall and to the master bedroom.

  “This is your house?” she asked as I flicked on the light just inside the door.

  “I live about a mile from here,” Ashe added. His house had acreage. As he’d grown up in Portland, one of his requirements for moving to Barlow had been a view and space. No close neighbors. It wasn’t anything like Steele Ranch with the thousands and thousands of acres, but he had room to breathe.

  While I liked my house, my home was now with Natalie, wherever the hell she was. If that meant moving to Boston, so be it. If she wanted to live in Ashe’s house here in Barlow, that was fine, too. I’d live there with them. Or, we could find something that was new to all of us. I didn’t care as long as she was in it. But that was added to the growing list of things that didn’t matter right now.

  “I think you have to take something off,” she said, eyeing us both.

  We were both shirtless at this point. Neither of us wasted time in shucking our jeans so we stood before her in our underwear. Ashe had on black boxer briefs, I had on navy boxers.

  She paused, ogled, her eyes growing wide at the way my dick tented my boxers.

  “You’re so smart, sweetheart,” Ashe said. “Do you think we’d be here with you if we didn’t want you? All of you? For the long haul?”

  “I…” She licked her lips. “I just don’t understand why you want me.”

  Ashe glanced at me and I nodded.

  “We should spank that ass.”

  “What? Why?” she asked, stepping back.

  “Because you think so little of yourself. Fuck, woman, you’re smart. You’re successful. You light up the room. Hell, you light us up. On top of all that, you’re sexy as fuck.”

  “Love at first sight, Natalie,” I said simply. “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

  “Love?” she said, staring at me as if I’d just admitted we were aliens instead of in love with her.

  “That’s a question,” I said with a wink. “Take something off.”

  She stared at me for a second, then gave me a sly look. Her fingers hooked in the hem of her shirt and she lifted it, revealing creamy skin one inch at a time. Slowly, so fucking slowly. When pale blue fabric appeared, both Ashe and I groaned. And when she lifted her arms over her head to remove the shirt entirely, I practically came in my pants. She wasn’t wearing just a bra. It was one of those…fuck, a bustier or whatever. The name was irrelevant. There was about three inches of lace beneath her breasts, then see-through mesh of the same color that cupped her small curves, the nipples plainly visible and hard.

  “Fuck,” Ashe growled.

  She grinned now, broadly, as if she felt empowered by our responses.

  “You can bring us to our knees, sweetheart,” I told her, ensuring she knew how perfect she was.

  “You like this?” she asked, sliding her palms up over her the fabric around her ribs, then higher over her breasts.

  “We like your brain, too. Not that you can tell right now,” Ashe said. “Like Cord said, we’re currently thinking with our dicks. Lingerie seems to have that effect.”

  She giggled and I loved the sound. “So what would happen if I conjugated Russian verbs as I took off my jeans?”

  My hand stilled over my dick. “You speak Russian?”

  She glanced up at me through her dark lashes as she popped the button on her jeans. “Yup. Did a college semester in Moscow.”

  “You’re going to make me come,” I told her. Brains and beauty. I was ruined.

  It was completely silent in the room as she took off her jeans and stood back up, solely in the pretty blue bra and matching thong. She didn’t have crazy curves, but she was lithe and lean, toned and everything I ever wanted.

  She took a step, then another, toward us. And to make my balls boil, she dropped to her knees before us, licked her lips. “Yes, you are.”

  8

  NATALIE

  * * *

  I believed Sam when he said he loved me, the look in Ashe’s eyes that proved he felt the same. Insane, really, since I barely knew them. But that was normal world ideas. Normal world time. It seemed Barlow time, or perhaps Steele sister time, was different. Faster.

  Meeting Kady, Penny, Cricket and Sarah, I realized how different we were. We looked nothing alike. Our personalities were so varied. Yet we were also very similar. We each fell for multiple men. I knew no one who’d done the polyamory thing. Until now, and then they were all my sisters. And me.

  As for the guys, they were all ridiculously male, very alpha and extremely focused on their woman. They had similar caveman traits as Sam and Ashe. Possessive, protective and ridiculously in love. They, no doubt, wore the pants in their little family units, but the women ran the show.

  From their stories, each of them had fallen head over heels in love with their men immediately. Love at first sight. Wham!

  That was why Sam and Ashe had been such dumbasses in Boston, because they’d seen me and fallen in love with me. I’d made them lose their minds.

  And that was very powerful.

  And even now, being on my knees before them, I was still powerful. The sight of Sam’s dick, all hard and pulsing for me, so eager pre-cum beaded at the slit…I made him this way. I’d reduced him to a Neanderthal. Must fuck and plant seed. Must get inside woman. Now. Grunt. Grunt.

  I reached for Sam’s dick and he moved his hand away, pushed his boxers down so they slipped to the floor. In my hold, he was hot and smooth, yet hard as steel beneath.

  “You can suck my dick, sweetheart, but I’m coming in that pussy.”

  Ashe didn’t delay, but dropped his boxer briefs so I had two cocks before me. I’d seen them before, felt them, but hadn’
t had a chance to look this closely. They were both big. Thick. Long. Curved so they reached toward their navel. Heavy balls hung below, large in their virility and need for me. But they were different, too. The hair at the base was different color, the flesh on Sam’s was a ruddy red, Ashe a touch pinker. Sam’s crown was flared, Ashe’s not as blunt.

  My mouth watered, ready to do a taste test.

  I licked up that pearly drop from Sam’s tip, the salty essence of it bursting on my tongue. Turning, I gripped Ashe with my other hand, tasted him, too. Muskier.

  “Fuck, sweetheart,” Sam murmured. “Look at you.”

  I swirled Ashe’s flared head like an ice cream cone, then took the tip into my mouth, sucked on it. Just that part of him made my mouth open wide, my lips stretch.

  Ashe groaned, then hissed, then he stepped back, gripping it himself. I watched as he pumped once, then came, his cum spurting out thickly, landing on my chest and belly, marking my sky blue longline bra.

  Seeing him come, to watch the pleasure on his face, the hard look of almost agony as his balls emptied, was so fucking hot.

  I shifted, my pussy aching. There was so much cum, it was obvious he’d been saving it for me.

  On a rough breath, he grinned. “Shit, sweetheart, you’ve ruined me. And your pretty bra.”

  “If it made you come like that, I’d say the bra did its job.”

  His cheeks were flushed, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of just coming or because he was embarrassed. I stood, reached up and cupped his jaw, felt his dick, still hard, pressing against my belly. “You still want me or are you done?”

  His eyes narrowed, heated at my blatant dare. “Done? Sweetheart, with that load blown, I can fuck you all night.” He stroked my hair back from my face. “Tell me, have you ever had a guy take your ass?”

  I squirmed at the thought of it. “No, but…I’d like to try.”

  Ashe’s fingers tightened in my hair at my response, then he kissed me.