His Golden Touch [Gold Rush 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (7 page)

“Darlin’ I could keep this up forever, but you’ll be missed at home and we have to talk.”

Hannah flew to the girl’s washroom, her face burning with shame at what she had allowed to happen. She used a hankie and the dregs left in the well bucket to clean her legs of Rocco’s semen. In a moment’s panic, she feared some might have gotten inside her. Nothing for it now. She’d never be able to face him, to face Wade and Brady after this. She couldn’t pretend it to be a one-time mistake because she wanted more of Rocco and his cock. He seemed to know a lot more about pleasing a woman then her husbands did.

The door opened, and Rocco pulled her into his arms. “I know this is all very new to you. And I know you sleep with both Wade and Brady.”

“Sex seems to have taken over my life. It’s all I think about.”

“It’s all most men think about, so why should it be different for a woman who enjoys it? Don’t make a big thing out of what just happened. If what you want is to forget it ever happened, we can do that.”

“But I don’t want to forget. I want to be with you like that again.”

“Okay, darlin’, then we have to lay it out in the open. We have to talk to your husband and Brady and let them know.”

“Oh, dear. What if they get angry? What if they hate me? What if—”

“Sh, sh, sh. I bet they love you so much, they’ll agree to whatever makes you happy. Did I make you happy, just now?”

“Oh, my, yes.”

“Then, let’s get home and talk to the others.”

Rocco rode his horse alongside her buggy, but when they reached the ranch, Hannah asked him to retreat. “I want to do this alone.”

Rocco tipped his hat and went to the bunkhouse.

Hannah unhitched Addy from the buggy and led her to the back pasture. As she rounded the barn to go to the house, Wade and Brady were washing up at the well. Vern rang the triangle hanging on his front porch to announce dinner was ready.

Wade rushed to Hannah once he realized she was watching them. “You’re a bit later than usual. Everything all right?”

“Perfect.” She let him hug and fondle her until Brady joined them.

“Hungry as a lonesome hog. Goin’ in to dinner with us, Hannah?” Brady moved in close but didn’t touch her. Too many eyes could be on them out here. He whispered, “Wade and me had to leave fast this morning ’cause we hadn’t discussed the ways of doin’ what uh, you wanted. You know with both of us at the same time? Now, we talked about it and we think we got it all figured out.”

“Good. I have another matter to talk about with you later.”

They gave her quizzical glances. “Sure, darlin’, but did you hear what Brady said? We can do what you want tonight. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

“I haven’t changed my mind about that, but I may make an amendment to our agreement.” She walked toward her own house. “I don’t believe I’ll be eating at Vern’s. I’m going to fix something simple, and, since you’ll be going back out in the fields after dinner, I’ll take a nap. Wake me if I’m asleep when you come in.”

In her imagination, her back caught darts from the stares her husbands gave her as she left them standing there. She smiled. They’d agree to whatever she wanted. Rocco was right. Now, all she wanted to do was snuggle into her bed and replay everything her new lover had done to her on that schoolroom desk.

She boiled an egg and slathered some home-churned butter on a chunk of bread for her meal. Undressed to her slip for her nap, Hannah contemplated sleeping naked. It appealed to her, but felt too decadent this early in the day. The crude cotton of her slip bunched under her when she tossed, and wishes of silk undergarments flitted into her dreams.

“I’d like to give you silks and satins and furs.”

Hannah was immediately awake. The voice was neither Brady’s nor Wade’s. She looked up into the face of Rocco Ponti. “How did you know what I’d been dreaming? And what are you doing up here?”

“Your husbands have gone back out to the fields, so no one saw me. Did you talk to them about us?”

“No, I haven’t figured out what to say,” Hannah mumbled as she scooted to a sitting position up against the headboard. “What do you expect will happen when I tell them I lay with you and intend to do it again?”

“Maybe they’ll ask me to be a third husband.”

“Unlikely,” a voice from the doorway shouted. Wade bounded into the room. “What in Sam Hill are you doing in my bedroom, Rocco?”

“I’m talking to Hannah.”

“You don’t talk to a man’s wife when she’s in bed in her underwear without expecting to get beaten to a bloody pulp.”

Despite the warmth of the evening, Hannah pulled the bedclothes up to her neck. “Please stop, Wade. I’ve invited Rocco to join us.”

Wade came to the side of the bed opposite Rocco and glared at her. “What in hell do you mean, join us?”

“I want him to join us in our marriage.”

“Hannah!” Brady came rushing in. “What’s going on here?” He shot a menacing glance Rocco’s way.

“Hannah wants him.” Wade gestured toward Rocco with his thumb. “She wants him to be a third husband.”

Brady held onto the footboard and leaned over Hannah. “Does he know—uh—everything?”

“He figured it out and visited me at school today with a proposition, and I accepted. I think I’m in love with him, too. We think alike and talk about things important to me. I need that in my life.”

Brady, hands on hips, stepped so close to Rocco that he had to lean back out of Brady’s way. “You, downstairs. Hannah, get dressed and come into the parlor. We will talk like civilized people in a civilized location.”

Rocco nodded to the room and went into the hall. Wade and Brady followed.

Hannah released the breath she’d been holding and slid her feet to the floor. She quickly threw a nightgown over her head, not trusting the men alone for long. Without her calming influence, they might kill each other. She crept down the stairs carrying her shoes, hoping to hear their conversation, but the house was quiet. At the bottom of the staircase, she put on her shoes and walked as sedately as she could manage into the parlor. Wade and Brady sat stiffly on the sofa, scowls on both their faces. Rocco casually leaned on the fireplace, one elbow braced on the mantel. Hannah chose a ladder-backed chair so as to sit tall and perhaps look more commanding. If her husbands didn’t agree, she might become a deceitful sneak finding ways to meet Rocco alone or else try to avoid him completely. Neither course appealed to her.

Wade spoke first. “Okay, Hannah, explain exactly what you’ve confided to Rocco and what kind of arrangement you’ve made to keep him quiet.”

“Hey, it wasn’t anything like that. I’m no blackmailer.” Rocco stood at attention.

“Quiet. Hannah can tell us what it is like.” Brady shot Rocco a menacing glare.

Hannah swallowed convulsively a few times before finding her voice. “Rocco and I talked the morning away, and I suppose I flirted a bit and most likely led him on. This afternoon, when the children had all gone home, he stopped at the schoolhouse and, uh, and we sort of…Oh, hell, he fucked me on the desktop, and I liked it a lot.”

Wade paled. “So, where does that leave me and Brady? What happens to the ranch and the marriage?”

With a shrug and a slight grin, Hannah said, “The same as it is now, except we have four people involved instead of three.”

“What do you want, Rocco, the ranch?” Brady rose and stepped to the fireplace.

“I only want Hannah. The ranch is of absolutely no interest to me, you must know that. You’ll never see me sweating my balls off with a hoe in my hand.”

Hannah huffed. “What do
you
want, Brady? Is it mainly the ranch? Am I crazy to think you love me?”

“I do love you. How can you doubt it?” He knelt at her feet. “Please believe your happiness means the world to me, but I don’t trust this creep.”

“Sit back down, Brady,” Wade called, his voice weary and weak. “If this is what Hannah wants, then let’s talk and decide how this is to work. We always said Hannah makes the decisions in the bedroom, and this is her call.”

Brady stomped back to the sofa. “I don’t trust him.”

Rocco took over the center of the room. “To prove to you that I want no part of the ranch, let me set a proposal before you.”

“Another proposal?” Wade scoffed.

“Yes, yet another one. I propose we ditch the ranch and set our sights on more lucrative rewards only twenty-five miles away.”

“You talk like a dang salesman,” Brady muttered.

Hannah gasped audibly. “I hope you don’t mean the gold mines. My father always warned of gold fever and the damage it could to a man. We’ve seen them come back here, broke and broken with nothing to show for months of hard work.”

“I do mean the gold fields. You’re not the only one with a college degree. You don’t know this, darlin,’ but I studied geology and mining back east. I’m not some fool who takes a shovel or pan and expects gold to jump in it.”

“Then what are you doing here? Why aren’t you out in San Fran making a fortune?” Wade elbowed Brady in the ribs and they both chuckled.

“For the simple reason, I have no backing. My father didn’t mind sending me money for school, but no way would he subsidize my gold ambition.”

Hannah shook her head. “I have no money, Rocco. Did you make love to me, pretend to love me to get money?”

“Certainly not. Anything I said or did with you came from my heart. I knew you didn’t have money, but what you do have is more valuable in the gold fields right now. This ranch can give us the stake we need without taking any money out of it.”

Her hand at her throat, Hannah asked, “What is it I have that you want, Rocco?”

“You are what I want and need. What the ranch has to offer is its fruit and vegetables.”

“Are you crazy? Why would people there want my produce when they can just as well grow their own?”

“No, you don’t understand. Folks in what they call San Francisco are starving for fresh produce. Up there, vegetables fetch more money than gold. Apples are selling for one to five dollars each and eggs anywhere from ten to fifty dollars a dozen.”

“That is preposterous. I wouldn’t ask gauging prices of starving people.”

“You don’t understand. These are not people without means. These are people with gold in their pockets too greedy to travel away from their digs to purchase proper food. The prices are ridiculous, and we don’t have to charge the going rates if you don’t want to. We can be reasonable and still make a killing with what we can truck in and use it to finance our search for the mother lode.”

“What happens to the ranch while we’re away?” Hannah received astonished looks from Wade and Brady.

Wade blurted out, “You mean yer thinkin’ on this—this nonsense?”

“I don’t know, maybe. My parents never wanted the ranch to take over my life as it did theirs. I defied them by coming back to Plantsville. They wanted me to marry some eastern, rich guy. I have no obligation or emotional attachment to ranching.”

“Excuse me, love, but we do. Wade and I have grown up on ranches and hoped to take over this one when your pa retired.”

“Look,” Rocco broke in, “my folks can run it while we’re gone or one of you can stay behind.”

“No,” Wade shouted.

“Not a chance,” Brady snorted. “Where Hannah goes, we go.”

Hannah put a hand to her head. “It’s getting late.” She turned to Rocco. “You’ve given us something to think about for the future. We don’t need to decide this gold field matter tonight.”

“The crops will be ready to harvest in a few weeks, so we can’t think too long.” Rocco smiled. “However, we have something more immediate to decide tonight.” He looked each man in the face. “Sleeping arrangements. And even more important, fucking arrangements.” He turned back to Hanna. “What’s your pleasure, darlin’?”

Hannah’s body heated at the smile Rocco sent her way. The three men stared at her, waiting for answers. She had to come up with something, although she hadn’t yet thought things out completely. She took in a huge gulp of air and started in. “I want to be made love to in every way possible. If we can all join in at once, I’d really like to try that. Is it possible?”

Rocco came to her side and nibbled her earlobe. “It is very possible, darlin’.” He nodded to the other men. “Shall we go upstairs and try to satisfy our, uh, wife?”

Wade glanced at Hannah and hesitated.

Brady pleaded with his eyes. “Are you sure, love?”

“I am very certain and, oh, so ready.” She stood. “Please follow me upstairs, husbands.”

In the bedroom, Hannah put a hand to her cheek. She’d had no idea this sensual side of her existed, but now that it had emerged she wasn’t going to let the long faces of Wade and Brady drag her down out of the clouds. She’d never used the words “fuck” and “pussy” and “cock” before. She embraced them now and hugged them to her bosom.

In the center of the room, she let her nightgown slip off one shoulder. “I need some help getting out of this. Would you do the honors, Wade?”

The request brought on a smile, and he slowly drew the gown up and off. She was completely naked. She grinned like a fox inside the hen house, turned, and sat. Wade bent to remove her shoes. He took the brush from the bureau next to the chair and drew it through her tousled hair. Sparks flew like quickly extinguished fireflies.

Rocco knelt to massage her feet. “At your service, ma’am.”

Wade pushed him aside.

Not seeming to be in the least annoyed, Rocco stood and kneaded her shoulders instead.

Brady, who had silently watched the maneuverings of the two men, snorted, scooped Hannah out of their clutches, and sat her on the bed. Before the other two reacted, he had one breast in his hand and the nipple between his lips.

Hannah raised her arms to the other two. “Come join us.” She pulled away from Brady and bounced her bare bottom on the bed to scoot to the headboard. With arms folded across her chest, she grinned her fox-like grin again. “My turn to be the voyeur. Gentlemen, get out of your britches.”

The three men complied quickly. When they were completely naked, Hannah stood to inspect them. “Hmm, now if I were evaluating horseflesh, I would examine your flanks.” She smacked each man’s rear as she circled the trio. “Then, I would check the sturdiness of the limbs.” She ran her hands from ankle to thigh of each man. “I might also check teeth, but here I’m more interested in these.” She fondled Brady’s balls and already stiffened cock until he swore.