She groaned, staring into his eyes, seeing the same need, the same intense desires.
“I can’t share you. I won’t,” she panted. “Give me that much.”
She saw the need in his eyes, but saw his resignation as well.
“I won’t lie to you.” He gritted his teeth harshly. “I won’t let you set boundaries on this, Sarah, when you know what it’s coming to.”
“That’s not fair.” She came off his lap, anger and lust vying for supremacy. “No other man touches me.”
“By your own choice,” he pointed out. “By your own choice, Sarah. That could be different, if you weren’t so stubborn.”
“I don’t want it any different.” She shook her head, fighting for control.
“Don’t you?” he questioned her harshly. “You knew what fucking me meant, Sarah. You knew what I wanted six years ago, even though you deny it now. You knew the other night that it wasn’t a one-night stand. You went to that doctor, you endured those tests and you took that shot with the clear intention of letting me fuck the hell out of you whenever I wanted to. You didn’t balk until I refused to let you hide from the truth.”
It wasn’t true, she assured herself desperately. She wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t hide from herself in the way he was accusing her.
“I don’t have to listen to this.” She shook her head furiously. “You ask too much, Brock.”
“I don’t ask for anything I know you can’t give me,” he told her, his lips thinning with his own anger now.
“Yes you do,” she argued painfully. “You ask me to just accept. To just give in to what you want, ignoring how I feel about it. Ignoring my fears, and everything I am. I’m not like this, Brock. I can’t be.”
“Like what, Sarah? Hot enough to singe my skin every time I touch you? I beg to differ. I know better.”
“This argument is pointless.” She threw her hands up, desperate to get away from him, desperate to escape the temptations he presented her. “I’m going back home.”
“Sarah, wait.” He caught her arm as she turned to leave, staring down at her, eating her with his eyes. “What would it take to make you understand?”
Nothing. But she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t bear the haunting shadows she could see in his eyes now, let alone what they would be if she told him the truth.
She sighed roughly instead. “I don’t know, Brock. I just don’t know.”
She pulled her arm from him, reluctant, hurting. But she turned away from him, running from him. She didn’t jog, she ran, fighting to put as much distance as she could between him and disaster.
* * * * *
Brock crossed his arms over his chest as he watched her run. His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t a fool, nor was he driven to possess someone that didn’t want him. He knew Sarah wanted him. He knew if he could get her past her fears, he could get her to understand.
He raked his fingers through his hair. How could he get her to understand though? How could he make her see that what he wanted wasn’t the torture she had built up in her mind?
He needed a woman’s opinion. Dropping his arms from his chest he started the jog back to his truck. The return drive to the ranch was a bitch. He had been hoping not to have to make it, but the situation was now growing desperate. Sarah was just stubborn enough to keep denying herself as well as him. She was scared enough to put as much distance between them as possible if he wasn’t careful.
She had done that after her marriage. Making certain she was never within miles of him. Hiding from him, suppressing her desire for him and her own needs. The time for that had come to an end. He would have her, and by God he would do it without lies and without promises he couldn’t keep. Sarah had no idea just how stubborn he could be and he was man enough to keep her in the dark about it.
CHAPTER NINE
Brock knew only one woman to go to for advice on this. He needed to figure out quickly how to get back into Sarah’s bed before he went insane with his need for her. He craved the sight of her, the taste of her. If he thought for a minute that she didn’t want him, that she didn’t ache just as hard for him as he did for her, then he could have left her alone. But he did know. He knew she needed. Saw it in her eyes, in the hard nipples beneath her clothes, the flush of arousal on her face.
She just needed to be seduced. She needed to be held and protected, cherished and loved, but first, she had to be seduced into it. Seduction had never been his forte. Cade had been the master of it. It had been he who had chosen their women before Marly chose him. But he wasn’t comfortable going to his brother for this. For this, he went to Marly. To seduce a woman, he needed a woman’s advice.
“You want to seduce her?” Marly asked him carefully from the depths of the large garden tub he found her in.
Bubbles lay around her, caressing her skin, contrasting with the heavy mass of black curls she had piled on her head. She was young and sweet, and innocence still lingered in her eyes despite the sexual excesses she was often a part of.
“Yeah. I need to seduce her.” He sat on the closed lid of the toilet and watched her, confused by the small smile playing about her lips.
“So she’s turning you away?” Brock didn’t like the thread of laughter in her voice.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re making fun of me, Munchkin. That’s dangerous right now.”
He was hard and hurting and more than willing to drag her out of that damned bathtub without Cade’s presence if she pushed him too far. He knew he had Cade’s approval to do so. There would be no hard feelings, no anger. But neither would there be the bonding he needed when it occurred.
She rolled her eyes, settling against the back of the tub as she watched him.
“You can’t seduce an unwilling woman, Brock,” she told him, finally serious. “If she doesn’t want you, then there’s nothing you can do.”
“But she does want me,” he told her carefully. “She’s just frightened, Marly. She’s heard the rumors, she knows about us. Hell, most people do, we’re just too damned rich for them to use it against us. That’s what I have to fight.”
Her face flushed. She wasn’t comfortable with that knowledge, he knew. He wasn’t comfortable with it, but he accepted it. He denied it when he needed to, admitted it when he had to, but he wasn’t ashamed of it. He was alive, and reasonably sane for it, so he had no choice but to accept it. Cade fought his shame on a daily basis, and Brock understood that. The weight of the acts the older brother had been forced into had nearly killed them all. Sam, Brock was never certain of Sam. He appeared the least scarred inside, though the most scarred bodily. He laughed, he played pranks and seemed to be little more than a boy in a grown man’s body at times.
He was hard to figure out, but Brock knew he hurt too. It was there sometimes, when Sam thought no one else could see. In the set of his shoulders, the shadows of his eyes, it was there.
“So if she wants you and you want her, and she knows the truth, then what’s the problem?” Marly asked curiously. “She’s not here and you are. Though I knew you intended to move out, so evidently she ran your ass off. Would she do that if she wanted you?”
Brock sighed. Marly was intent on being difficult today.
“She wants me. Bad.” He flashed her a confident smile. “It’s Sam and Cade she’s scared of, Munchkin. You have enough sense to know that.”
Marly lost her smile. She frowned at him, a clear reluctance to discuss this subject evident in her expression.
“Marly,” his voice was gentle, chiding. “Didn’t you think Sam or myself would ever fall in love?”
The feminine growl, low and frustrated, had his lips quirking into a smile.
“He’s still my lover, Brock,” she declared mutinously. “I don’t want to share him.”
“He shares you,” Brock pointed out. “And don’t try to say you don’t enjoy it.”
“That’s not the point, Brock.” She closed her eyes, sighing heavily. “Not one of you will explain this to me. N
ot in any way. Yet you expect me to willingly accept it. If Cade wants to continue in his stubbornness and not confide in me, then I can continue in mine.”
“Even knowing how much it hurts him?” Brock asked her, trying to keep his voice gentle.
She looked up at him, her deep blue eyes shadowed, regret and resignation swirling in her expression.
“What about my hurt, Brock?” she asked him, her voice quiet. “He beat the shit out of Rick because Tara told me as much as she did, which was damned little. He becomes furious if I question him about it. He has nightmares and begs brokenly in his sleep and he refuses to let me help him. Do you think this is just about whether or not he fucks the woman you love?”
Brock’s cock went to instant attention at those words. Damn. There were times he hated his more than willing flesh. It was causing him more problems than he needed.
“Look at you.” She nodded at the erection straining his casual pants. “Just the thought of it has you hard as a rock, just as it gets Cade. There’s more to this than the three of you finding your pleasures, or your little male bonding ritual or whatever the hell it is. Explain it to me. Make me understand it.”
He would give anything if he could. But he knew the consequences, just as well as Marly did.
“And get my ass kicked?” he asked her carefully. “Rick spent a night in the hospital if I remember correctly, Munchkin. I like my bones unbroken if it’s all the same to you.”
“Then make Sarah understand it.” Her voice hardened. “Listen to me, Brock, she wasn’t raised with Joe’s abuse. With the evil he stank of. She wasn’t raised seeing the three of you alone, lonely, searching. She doesn’t love all of you the way I did at one time or another, so she isn’t going to accept it as easily.”
Brock tilted his head, memories washing over him then. Good memories for a change. The year she had her crush on him, then on Sam. Her teenage years had been more hormones than good sense as she went around rubbing on one of them at one time or another. Innocent touches, flirtatious glances. He shook his head, feeling a warmth he hadn’t recognized where Marly was concerned.
“Wouldn’t loving me be enough?” He had once thought that was her reason for giving into Cade’s desires, and ultimately his and Sam’s.
“God, you men are so dumb.” Amazement washed over her expression.
“Would you sit quietly and let her ex-husband fuck the hell out of her while you watched? Would you join in with that?”
He frowned, jealousy filling him at the thought of Mark Tate touching her to begin with.
“See? Look how angry you are. Ready to kill him now,” she pointed out.
“She’s mine. She was mine to begin with,” he told her stubbornly.
“Yet you’ll expect her to accept you fucking me, right?” she asked him.
He narrowed his eyes, his teeth clenching.
“Right,” she answered herself. “And you will expect her to let Sam and Cade touch her, whether you’re with her or not when it happens. When you come into a room, realizing one of your brothers had just shot his cum inside her body, you’ll feel pride, not fury.”
“They’re my brothers,” he reminded her. “It’s different.”
Marly took a deep, fortifying breath.
“Love isn’t enough for a woman who wasn’t raised with you, seeing your interactions, loving you all to one extent or another.” It was obvious she was growing irritated with him. “When a woman loves, it’s possessively, Brock. She doesn’t want another woman touching him, or another man touching her. The thought of it is abhorrent.”
“It excites her. I saw it in her eyes,” he denied, remembering the flare of heat that made her golden eyes sparkle.
Marly shook her head, her eyes flashing at him in impatience.
“I know Sarah, Brock. I went to school with her. If it excites her, it’s because she sees and feels your excitement for it. That might make her fantasize. Make her wonder. Women do that. All the time. But the reality of it is a different matter entirely.”
“So what do I do?” He pushed his hands through his hair then rested his elbows on his knees as he regarded her. “Marly, I need her.”
He watched her wince. He knew she was aware of how that need would be transmitted to Cade. It was the only reason Cade would lust after another woman.
“Start by telling her the truth, Brock.” She met his gaze, determined, fierce. “Don’t lie to her. Don’t try to trick her with it. Be up front with her. Sarah is an honest person and she hates liars. That would not have changed in the years since school. If you aren’t honest with her, then no matter how she loves you, she will refuse to accept you or your family.”
“I have to get her to listen first,” he sighed. “Getting close to that woman isn’t easy any more. She’s like a damned skittish foal, all legs and big golden brown eyes, and ready to run at a moment’s notice.”
Marly was clearly fighting her need to smile.
“Only you would compare a woman to a horse, Brock.” She laughed, though the sound was tinged with sadness. “If she really wants you, then you’ll find a way. She’ll let you try because she’s praying the rumors are lies and that you need her more than you need your brothers.”
She watched him intently when she said that. Brock could see the unspoken question, the need to understand herself.
“And if she loves you,” Cade spoke from the doorway, his voice dark, pitched with sexuality, desire, and haunting pain. “She’ll know neither is possible.”
Marly’s lips pressed together, a seductive little pout that had Brock recalling the feel of those tender curves sucking his cock. She flicked a sideways look at Cade.
“You weren’t invited into this conversation,” she told him, a pout clearly rising in her voice.
“If I waited for an invitation these days, then I would be taking care of myself in more ways than one,” he reminded her, moving slowly into the bathroom.
His eyes flickered to the array of articles in the trashcan. The items used occasionally on her body to make it ready for her family’s lusts were lying there, discarded. Brock watched as satisfaction edged Cade’s mouth. His fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, his look becoming heavy lidded, filled with desire.
“I’m not in the mood. I haven’t finished my bath.” But her voice had thickened, indicating otherwise.
Cade smiled. The powerful love he felt for Marly was reflected in the curve of his lips, but his expression was tinged with sorrow.
“Sure?” he asked her softly, shrugging the shirt from his shoulders as he glanced at Brock.
Brock glanced at Marly. Her face was flushed, arousal glittering in her eyes. She knew what her lover needed, even if she didn’t understand why he needed it. She directed a sultry, inviting look to both men. Brock looked at his brother, seeing the question in his eyes, the unspoken hesitation in Cade. The dark shadows in the other man’s eyes were more noticeable than before, the brooding intensity clearer.
Cade was his brother. Like he told Sarah, it didn’t always make sense, but the bond was there. There was no way to break it. No way to break the need and the pleasure that came from it. Brock pulled his T-shirt from his body, then stood to his feet and loosened the soft, casual jeans.
“You’re making me very angry, Cade August,” Marly whispered as he helped her from the tub, tossing a towel to Brock. There was no anger in her voice though, just hot, untamed arousal.
Brock knelt at her feet, hastily wiping bubbles from Marly’s slender curves. When he reached her thighs, he parted them, his mouth going to the smooth, waxed flesh that tempted him. His tongue reached out, running down the small valley between the plump lips that shielded her secrets.
He heard her groan, tasted the sweetness of her cream. He let his tongue massage her clit gently, his hands holding her hips now as she cried out at whatever caress Cade was bestowing as well. Bending closer, he licked down to the entrance to her body, his tongue sliding in with a smooth, firm stroke. She je
rked against him, and he lapped at the soft pulse of her nectar.
Her thighs widened further as Brock moved his mouth back to her clit, his fingers sliding up her thigh, two pushing into her vagina as she bucked against his mouth. She was crying out now, suspended between the two brothers, rocked by the pleasure, just as she always was.
This was what he wanted for Sarah. To know the pleasure, the incredible sense of sharing and love that welled through the experience. Marly lifted her leg, propping her dainty foot on the tub as Cade’s fingers began to penetrate and stretch her nether hole, coating it with the lubricating gel he used excessively, thrusting in counterpoint to Brock’s fingers in her cunt, he imagined it was his Sarah. Her cries echoing around them as they drove her to her first climax.
Long minutes later, Marly lay stretched out over Cade’s body, impaled by his erection, her head tossing as Brock moved behind her, inserting the head of his cock at the entrance to her anus. She was tight. So damned tight. He slid in by slow inches; tensing, growling with the pleasure as he felt her muscles relax, accept him.
He gripped her hips, bending over her, hearing Cade’s whispered encouragements to her, the deepening lust in his voice, the need and the drive for release suddenly echoing in his voice.
“I love you, Marly,” Cade cried out to her. “God help me, I love you.”
Brock felt the hard thrust of his brother’s cock into Marly’s vagina, the retreat, then Brock thrust in to the hilt behind her, hearing her shattered cries of pleasure, feeling her tighten, merge with them, drawing them together through the acceptance, the rush of climax that began to fill them.
Brock closed his eyes, his hands gripping her hips as he found the familiar rhythm. He imagined Sarah, screaming for more, begging for release. His chest tightened with emotion, his cock swelled, pulsed. He groaned, surging inside the tight anus carefully, forcefully, sweat covering his body as he fought for control.
Then she tightened, shuddered, he heard Cade groaning, felt the hard slamming thrusts into the spasming cunt and let his body go. Two hard, quick thrusts and he was releasing the hot jets of his semen into Marly’s body. But it wasn’t her name on his lips, it wasn’t her body he felt. It was Sarah’s. Always, it was Sarah.