Rocky Mountain Freedom (11 page)

When he shifted position this time, she took a deep breath to stop from humming happily.

Cassidy had a hard-on as well.

She threaded the rope through another set of eyelets, her body pinned between the two guys and the wall of canvas she was creating. Their limited banter fell to nothing, and only the sounds of the other crews carried on the air. Hammering drowned out the radio, but right next to her was where Ashley’s attention was focused. On the warmth at her back, tight indrawn breaths escaping Cassidy’s lips. The pressure as Travis leaned closer. It was like being in some glorious candy store where all her favourite treats were waiting for her to pick them and savour the sweetness.

Surrounded by two hot guys who were also hot for each other? Yes, please. Now if only she could have this positioning with their clothes off, and all parties on the go for some fun.

Slowly
was the word of the moment, she supposed. They had all summer to get there.

The next holes were about chest level but she’d hit a snag. “Damn it, they’re not lined up. Cassidy, can you pull your side down a bit?”

“I’ll try.” He adjusted position again.

“There. That’s it. Now hold it.” Ashley slipped under his arm and curled herself into place, feeding the loose end of the rope through as quickly as she could in the awkward position. He had lovely muscular arms—bulkier than Travis’s. The need to keep her balance was a great excuse to grab hold of one, her fingers wrapped around the solid mass.

Cassidy coughed softly but didn’t say anything, just waited for her to finish the next step.

By the time she’d done two more layers she was on her toes, reaching overhead. Her breasts made direct contact with Cassidy’s forearm, her right hip rubbing Travis’s groin.

There seemed to be less oxygen in the air than she’d remembered.

“You nearly done?” Travis drawled, his amusement clear.

“Nearly. I don’t want to make a mistake and have to start all over.” She twisted her head to the right and winked. “I’m sure you and Cassidy have much better things to do.”

His gaze flicked to the side—to Cassidy—before coming back to hers. Travis’s grin held a hint of something else. “Such a fucking tease.”

“Oh, honey, a tease is the
last
thing I am. You know that.” Words snuck out, lust-filled and low, though she wasn’t trying to be obvious. There was no denying the facts. She’d give a hell of a lot to enjoy being sandwiched between them.

But then, she’d enjoy watching them crawl all over each other as well.

The final eyelets were too high for her to reach. “Someone’s got to take over.”

“Here.” Cassidy put his hands over hers, slipping up to the rope end and grabbing hold. Ashley twisted, intending to get out of the way when, glory hallelujah, he leaned in to finish the task and every damn inch of him pinned her in place against the corner support post. His hard chest compressed her breasts, making her nipples tighten. His hips tight to hers, his rigid cock pushing into her softness. A rush of moisture hit between her legs. She’d been building to this moment all morning, but it was now confirmed—her panties were soaked.

The whimper of desire that escaped her could be misinterpreted as a gasp of surprise. Maybe.

Except she looked up to discover half-hooded eyes, fire in the depths as their gazes met. The green of his irises was nearly eaten up by the darkness of his pupils. Ashley wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and drag their mouths together. To strip them both and deal with the aching need.

What she got was ignored.

He couldn’t back up and set her free, not without letting the rope loose, so she got to savour another moment of being trapped. Once he’d finished feeding the rope through the hole, though, he handed it to Travis.

“Grab hold and tie it off for me, T.” Then as if he hadn’t been rubbing her with a full-sized erection, he was off the platform altogether, gathering tools with his gaze deliberately focused elsewhere. “Well, that’s done. Thanks for your help, Ashley.”

She wasn’t sure if she should laugh, or crowd in and start all over again. “You’re welcome.”

Travis stroked her arm softly before kissing her cheek. “You want to go get us a couple drinks?”

She dragged her focus off Cassidy to look up into dark grey eyes. “Sure. No problem.”

“Oh, and Ash?” Travis helped her down off the edge of the platform. “Lots of ice.”

Great idea. Maybe she’d pour some over her head until he was done for the day. “You are so getting jumped as soon as you’re free,” she whispered.

“Looking forward to it.” Travis gave her a wink then turned to help Cassidy who was all business, attaching the bottom section of canvas to the underside of the platform. Studiously ignoring the both of them.

She took one final look before heading back to the pile where her gear waited.

Cold drinks would never take the place of hot fucking, and that was the truth.

“Sorry about that,” Cassidy muttered.

Travis frowned as he grabbed a handful of screws and picked up his drill. “For what?”

“For getting too close to your girl. She surprised me there.”

It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “You’re apologizing for…? Good grief. Okay, you’re nuts. She’s not my girl.”

Cassidy paused, drill held in midair. “But you said…” Total confusion crowded his face as Cassidy tried to figure it out.

Travis leaned on the edge of the platform and waited.

“She’s sleeping with you, asshole,” Cassidy grumbled. “She spent the night in your cabin. What the hell?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes,
that
,” Cassidy snapped.

Travis knelt and put in a screw. “Number one, Ashley is all woman, so forget that
girl
shit.”

“Don’t be more of a fuck than you have to be, Travis.”

Cassidy was feeling snarly, was he? Travis had a good idea why. “Number two, I didn’t see anything to apologize for, so this tells me you’re the one with the filthy mind. What were you thinking of doing to her, you dog?”

“Shut up.”

“She wouldn’t mind getting dirty with you, you know,” Travis confessed. “She as much as said it when we got here.”

Cassidy choked, retreating from Travis, his expression gone skeptical.

Travis patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, you can breathe. She’s not cheating on me. She’s rather…intense in how she lives life. Sex is something she grabs with both hands and has fun with.”

“And you’re good with that?”

“Why the hell would I want her to change? Not my business if she wants to look at your ugly mug while she’s getting off.”

For a moment he thought Cassidy was going to fall over. The evil glare his friend finally delivered was shaky at the edges. “You really are a bastard at times, aren’t you?”

“Hell, you already knew that.” Travis lowered his voice. “Think about it. You could come and give me a hand this afternoon. I was planning on tying her to the chair in my cabin and putting a scarf over her eyes. She loves it when she has no idea where I’m going to fuck her next.”

Cassidy swallowed hard, his gaze drifting to where Ashley had entered the cookhouse, the door swinging shut and blocking her from view.

“She sucks cock like no one’s business. Get her between us, and you can—”

“Enough.” Cassidy pushed his drill into Travis’s hands. “I’m not fucking around with Ashley. I’m glad you’re so progressive and open, and you’re not upset, because that’s all I was apologizing for. We have to work together for the summer, and I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings, okay?”

“No problem.”

Cassidy abandoned his tools and fled in the opposite direction from Ashley.

Travis flipped a mental coin. Heads, he slowed this down, tails, he kept the pressure up. Cassidy was damn hot under the collar, and if he wanted Ashley that badly and Ashley was game, what right did Travis have to stop them?

The teeny trickle of something in his belly nudged him toward slowing it down. He wasn’t exactly jealous—Ashley was in charge of herself, and she’d made that clear many times in the past.

Only the idea of Ashley and Cassidy tangled together, all long legs and taut muscles and blond on blonde made his own limbs weak. If the two of them were going to be fucking around, he wanted to be in the middle, watching.

Plus, he really didn’t know who he felt more possessive of.

Ashley.

Or Cassidy.

Chapter Eight

The crew spent a couple more days at Base Camp. They were nowhere near finished getting things ready, but a good start had been made before Cassidy announced it was time to head up the hill and add to the staging area.

Ashley had switched from clicking pictures to carrying around a pad and pencil. She’d discovered by climbing from the barn hayloft onto the small roof off the stoop she had a view of the entire site—and all the comings and goings.

It was a lovely place to witness the continuing dance between Cassidy and Travis. The coals of attraction were constantly being fanned, and she could hardly wait until they burst out and burned the place down.

In the meantime, Cassidy seemed determined to pretend he wasn’t a walking hard-on. The bad part was Travis’s frustration levels peaked after every encounter when Cassidy deliberately ignored all the subtle hints Travis tried dropping. The good part was he turned that frustration into the most inventive sex she’d had in years.

One more orgasm this morning and she wasn’t going to be able to walk.

“At some point you should simply spit it out and tell him you’re interested.” She planted another kiss on Travis’s chest, their breathing still shaky from him fucking her boneless. “It’s not like you’ve ever been this subtle with me. Or I imagine any other woman you’ve been with.”

“Yeah, well, kissing him out of the blue didn’t work last time.” Travis leaned up on an elbow, their naked legs still twisted together. He trickled his hand over her torso, fingertips lightly teasing her nipples before slipping to circle her belly button. “You’re talking about Cassidy less than five minutes after I finish fucking you—I don’t know if I should be happy about that or trying harder.”

“Trying harder? Oh God, that might kill me. Trust me, I’m good for now.” She captured his hand before he could reach her sex. “Stop, I have to ride a horse in a couple hours. I’ll have trouble sitting as it is.”

He leaned over and kissed her again, nibbling along her jaw to her ear. “I like that you don’t give up, but give it time. We’ve got all summer, and while I’m interested in Cassidy, I’m crazy about you too. Don’t go thinking I’m using you as some substitute while I lust after him.”

“I know,” she answered. “I know it’s possible to care for more than one person at a time, as strange as that might seem to the world.”

Travis rolled to his back and stared into space, a serious expression floating in as she crawled over him. She straddled his hips and waited.

He was quiet for a couple of minutes before he spoke. “You ever wish you could see into the future?”

The sudden change of topic not only surprised her, it cut into her soul like a knife slash. She wrapped up the pain that had burst forward, tying it tight to focus on Travis and the current situation, not the heartache of the recent past. “You feeling philosophical this morning, Travis?”

He smiled, hands resting easily on her naked hips. “Would make life a lot easier, wouldn’t it? Knowing how people will react. What to avoid, when to move on. What will really make us happy in the end.”

Ashley wished with all her might that she had a magic mirror to loan him. “Would make things predictable, though. You’d lose the thrill of discovering new things that make your heart race.”

“Avoid the pain of getting your heart stomped on, or the frustration of hurting people you never intended to…”

Oh.

Ashley leaned over and kissed him. She put as much tenderness into her touch as possible while she played her fingers over his chest. “You got anyone in particular you’re worried about hurting?”

He sighed. “You know it. My family. I’ve seen what it’s been like lately with my younger brother Jesse. He’s got the entire Six Pack clan on edge. He’s not doing anything wrong, but he’s obviously not happy with his life, and it seems as if he blames everyone else.”

“Not your fault if he’s being an ass,” Ashley pointed out.

“Course not. But what he does affects the family. Years ago I never gave a damn about shit like that, but now it makes me wonder. Where’s the line between doing what you need and what you should?”

She rested her chin in her hands and lay folded over him. “If you’re really doing things that make you happy, and are good for you, it makes a difference. What you need and what you should do become the same thing.”

He snorted. “That would be nice.”

“It’s true. You tell me—the shit Jesse’s pulling right now. Is it moving him toward happy?”

Travis frowned. “I…I don’t know.”

“Bet it’s not.” Ashley tapped on the firm muscles under her fingers, loving that she could be buck-naked and having a deep heart-to-heart with the man. The level of trust that had grown between them made her smile. “I’ve seen your family, Travis. They want what’s the best for you. For Jesse. If he was doing things that satisfied his needs, that’s all they’d want.”