Love Under Two Gunslingers (9 page)

The land seemed to go on forever. Sarah had never given it much thought before, but she guessed, growing up as she had in Chicago, she was used to the clutter, noise, and smells of the city. Even the lingering odor of old smoke that hot or damp weather could coax out had become familiar to her and made up a constant part of her life.

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.