Marly's Choice (9 page)

“I have work to do.” He turned to his heel heading for the door. “Change your clothes dammit. You’re making my cowboys crazy. I’ll end up having to kill one of them.”

Lora Leigh

Marly’s Choice

46

CHAPTER EIGHT

It must be the night for nightmares. Cade heard Brock’s strangled scream. Seconds later the other man’s bedroom door slammed and he stalked down the hall. Dressed, heading for the night. They all headed for the night after the nightmares. The darkness, the shadows, hiding from the demons that stalked them continually. He breathed deeply, tired. He stared at the ceiling, feeling the familiar weight of grief and guilt that tore through his belly every time the twins suffered from the dreams. He didn’t know how to ease the pain. Didn’t know how to ease the grief. He carried his own, and only found oblivion in sex. In the hard driving edge of lust, sweat and ragged cries. There was no solace to be found in the night. The wide-open spaces did nothing to ease the confinement of a locked cage, the helplessness of being totally at another person’s mercy.

He rose from the bed and dressed, knowing he would never sleep until he made certain Brock still held to his sanity. It was a fine line, holding onto something they had lost for precious months, long ago.

The night was dark, moonless. Cade stepped onto the porch, smelling the acrid bite of tobacco from the shadows to his right. The demon glow of a lit cigarette flared in the darkness, a sharp exhale, a strangled gasp as a man fought for control.

“You okay?” Cade leaned against the porch post, still several feet from the shadowdarkened form.

“Fine.” Brock’s voice was hard, tight.

“It’s over Brock.” Cade didn’t know how to reassure him. How to make it better.

“We have to get past it.”

There was a broken growl of cynical laughter. Like an animal, a dying creature fighting to accept. Cade clenched his teeth against the fury that sound brought.

“Get past it huh?” The cigarette tip flared again. “So tell me brother, are you past it yet?”

Cade tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The sky was as black as he sometimes thought his soul was, but he still looked for the light. The tiny pinpricks of brilliance that proved there was at least the hope that life existed.

“We have to keep trying.” It was all he had to hold onto. That someday, the bloody memories would ease, and give him peace.

“He knew, Cade.” Brock’s voice was hoarse with his knowledge, with unshed tears.

“He knew what that bastard was going to do to us. I don’t care what he said. He knew.”

Their father. Joe August. Yeah, Cade always suspected the same thing, despite Joe’s pleading vows that he hadn’t known. Despite the lengths he had gone to cover the blood Cade had shed, he knew. There was no way either Joe, or their mother, couldn’t have known what was happening to them.

“I know, Brock.” Cade hunched his shoulders, frowning into the night. Lora Leigh

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“I wanted to kill him.” Brock’s voice shook. There were no tears. There hadn’t been since those weeks after the nightmare had first begun. Brock hadn’t cried since.

“I couldn’t have hid it.” If he could have, Cade knew he would have killed Joe as well if it had been possible. That need had lived in him for years, like a monster, fanged and enraged, ready to escape.

“I need her Cade.” The loneliness in Brock’s voice was searing. “God. Damn it to hell and back, Cade. I need her.”

Cade flinched.

“We can’t do it to her, Brock. Not to either of them. Not to Marly or Sarah. You know that.”

“Then someone else,” Brock growled, furious. “I hate this Cade. I hate this fucking feeling more than anything in the world. Goddammit, it’s killing us all.”

“Would anyone else ease it, Brock?” Cade heard the mockery in his tone, but did nothing to filter it. “We tried that, more than once. It didn’t help.”

This was their life. Fury ate at Cade, just as he knew it ate at Brock. They were alone. So isolated within themselves and the black secret they carried, that there was no ease, no comfort, with the exception of one thing. Marly. Marly, or the woman whose name Brock refused to mention. One denied him, and therefore better left forgotten. Cade lowered his head, hearing a lighter strike, smelling a new cigarette filtering through the air. Brock rarely smoked, but when he did, it would take him hours to stop lighting.

“Have you fucked her yet?” Cade heard the longing in Brock’s voice. Cade closed his eyes, fighting it. Fighting it but needing it just as much as his damned brothers did. They were monsters, all of them, though Cade never accused them so harshly. It was his fault. His guilt that he had been able to find no other outlet for them.

“No.”

“You have to, Cade. Soon.”

“She’ll leave us, Brock. Is that what we really want?”

“She’ll leave you anyway,” Brock predicted. “She’s a woman, I told you that. She wants you, and whether you accept it or not, she’ll accept me and Sam. I’ve seen it. I know she will. Especially if you explain.”

“No,” Cade denied the idea outright. He wouldn’t tell her, and he would kill whoever did. He couldn’t bear the guilt, but even more the shame. He couldn’t bear to see the knowledge in Marly’s eyes that he was less than invincible. Screams echoed through the night, but they weren’t the screams of reality. They were the distant thunder of the past, washing over him. The helplessness, the agonizing pain, both physical and mental. The unwashed smell of sweat, blood, fear and semen drifted on the air.

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“Was it our faults?” Brock and Sam had both asked that question. The same tone of voice, the same remembered rage.

“You know it wasn’t, Brock,” Cade reminded him. “We did nothing to cause it. You know that.”

A sigh, softer, no longer strangled as smoke drifted through the night.

“You won’t be able to stop this,” Brock told him as he took a deep breath. “Just like Sam and I can’t stop wanting her. It’s going to happen.”

If he took Marly. If he fucked her, and made her his woman in any way, then Cade knew it would as well. For the first time since he had found a way to save them from the brutality of the past, he hated it. Not because it meant sharing the woman he loved with the brothers he no longer knew how to love, but because he wanted it so fucking bad. Wanted it, even though he was terrified it would destroy Marly. Destroy her, and any love she would still hold in her heart for him.

“If I lose her, it will kill me,” Cade told him, shaking his head. “Do you know that Brock? It will be the one thing I won’t be able to survive.”

“Then we’re all doomed, Cade,” Brock told him, his voice bitter, lost. “Just as we were from the beginning. Fucking doomed.”

Lora Leigh

Marly’s Choice

49

CHAPTER NINE

Marly watched from the corral the next morning as Greg and Sam worked inside with one of the horses. Greg’s smile was so big it nearly covered his face as Sam taught him how to ride Beanie, their gentlest mare. For the city boy with no riding experience, she knew this was a dream come true for Greg. And though she could tell he was excited, he was strangely serious about it as well.

“You wanna ride out with us, little sister?” Sam neared her on the large buckskin he rode. “You could saddle one of the horses up right fast.”

“Not today. You and Greg go on.” She waved him away, smiling as Greg shifted in the saddle, frowning down at the horse with a look of concentration. “I’ll go next time maybe.”

“Okay.” Sam nodded, glancing behind her. “We’ll be back in a bit then.”

He turned his horse, cantering back to Greg as Marly felt Cade move up behind her. She stiffened, feeling the heat of his body as he braced his arms on each side of her.

“Those skimpy dresses are going to drive my cowboys over the edge, Marly.” His breath feathered the loose hairs along the side of her braid.

“The cowboys are gone for the day. Remember?” She said huskily, remembering his same charge the day before.

“That dress shows more of your ass than the one you wore yesterday.” He leaned close, his breath warm at her neck.

Marly took a deep, harsh breath. Then it stalled in her chest as one hand dropped to her waist. She closed her eyes, feeling the tension in his body, a strange intent emanating from him.

“Still haven’t got off yet, Cade?” Her voice was strained. “Man, must be tough finding an available woman at your age. All of them married now or what?”

His hand clenched at her waist, then his teeth scraped her neck. Marly whimpered as her knees nearly buckled. A breathy sound between a moan and a cry was torn from her as his teeth clenched about her skin, his tongue stroking over the flesh he held captive.

“Cade?” One strong arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him as she cried out. Another pushed passed the hem of her dress, zeroing on the smooth bare cheeks of her bottom.

“Damn thongs. They need to be outlawed.” His fingers pushed past the fragile elastic, until two were pushing into the tight, soaking depths of her vagina. Marly came. She couldn’t believe it. Right there, no sooner than she felt the pinch of his entrance, those two large fingers pushing into her, she climaxed with a sharp cry. She felt the slick release of moisture that she knew must be coating his fingers, dampening the bare flesh of her quivering cunt.

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The arm wrapped around her waist moved, his hand cupping her breast, pinching the nipple of one between his thumb and finger. His fingers moved inside her again, slow and easy, pulling back, then thrusting into the hot depths until they met the barrier of her virginity. Over and over again. Long, smooth sliding motions that had her trembling, gasping for breath.

“I want you on your knees, with my cock in your mouth,” he whispered seductively at her ear, his teeth nibbling the skin there. “I’m hard Marly, and hurting, and you know it. Stop pushing me or you’ll get something you’re sure as hell not prepared for.”

His fingers moved from the soaked depths of her pussy, back to the tight little bud of her rear and back again. Marly trembled. Shaking. Weak and on fire. She knew what was coming, and she craved it. Each time his fingers passed the little bud, pushing her moisture into it, deeper with each pass, she pushed against it, needing it inside her, needing to give him anything, everything he wanted from her.

“I could tear that piece of cloth from your body now, and fuck you until you’re screaming,” he panted, pressing his erection into the smooth, bared crevice of her rear, the jeans material scraping her soft skin.

His fingers dipped into her wet channel, then moved back again. And again, until the tight little entrance was giving easily to the fingertip pressing smoothly against it. Marly cried out, fighting to stand upright as his finger tormented then retreated, then two fingers pressing inside her vagina again, only to repeat the maneuver over and over again.

“I could push you to your knees, and fuck your hot little mouth, or bend you over and take you from behind. I can do it, girl. Stop flashing your ass at me. Stop showing me those pretty hard nipples, or I’ll do just that.” His finger sank into her nether hole deeply, eliciting a sharp, shattered cry from her as her muscles clenched around him. Marly was dazed. Shocked by his actions. He bent her over his arm, thrusting his finger into her again, and again, ignoring the arching of her back, the tight grip of her body as he taunted her. Then he was turning her in his arms, his arm curved around her, his finger refusing to release her from the shocking impalement. He lifted her against him as he leaned against the barn, holding her steady as he lifted her nearly off her feet, his thick finger sinking deeper, making her gasp as her damp need began to soak the jean-covered thigh he pushed between hers. One hand tore at the bodice of her dress, jerking aside the fragile cups until her breasts were bare. Marly screamed out as his head lowered, his teeth nipping at her nipple, then his mouth covering it, sucking it, laving it with his tongue. His finger pulled back, then thrust inside her again. Marly arched, pushing her breast deeper into his mouth as the little pain the thrust caused made her ride his thigh harder.

“You want it bad, don’t you baby?” He growled against her breast, holding her steady as he moved into the barn.

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The finger he had shoved up her ass pulled free as he entered the dark confines of the nearest free stall. Then he was fighting with the buttons of his jeans, freeing them with quick, jerky motions.

“Cade?” Her voice trembled as his cock sprang free. It was long and thick, and angry looking as her eyes widened at the sight.

“No.” He closed his eyes, tormented. “Don’t Marly. Don’t get scared on me. I just want you to suck it baby. Please…I just want to feel your hot little mouth around it.”

He pushed her gently to her knees, leaning weakly against the wall of the stall as he watched her with a savage, hard expression.

“I swear to God I won’t hurt you, but I can’t take anymore, Marly. Suck it now, baby. Suck me until I come in your mouth.”

Fear, excitement, hot pulsing lust mixed and merged inside Marly as the thick erection was pushed against her lips. Cade was moaning, his gray eyes nearly black now as he watched her mouth open for him.

“Yes. Yes,” he hissed. “Open your mouth, Marly.”

The head of his cock slid slowly in. One large hand wrapped around the base of it, and the other half sank deep into her mouth, nearly touching her tonsils as she fought to take him.

“Suck it,” he ordered her harshly, pulling back, only to slide past her lips once again. “Now Marly.”

Her lips tightened on him, one hand moving to cover the base of his cock with her own hands, gripping him tightly as her mouth covered the remaining flesh begging for attention. It stretched her lips, made them feel bruised as he thrust against her, but the feel of him in her mouth, his deep groans echoing in the barn spurred her on. Hollowing her cheeks, slurping on his flesh, her lips caressing, her tongue stroking him, she began a rapid bob of her head. His free hand clenched in her hair, making her move her head faster as his hips fucked his flesh in and out of her mouth, over and over again.