Second Chances (16 page)

“That’s ok, sweetheart. We completely understand, believe me,” Mason said in a near whisper. “It’s still hard to talk about Sarah sometimes.”

“You loved her very much, didn’t you?” A heavy guilt pushed her fa
rther down into an emotional abyss for using that subject to divert their questioning about her brother. She simply couldn’t tell them about what had happened the night Stephan died.

“We did,” Matt said, grabbing
the shampoo and pouring a generous amount into his palm. He motioned for Claira to lean back into Mason’s arm, her head nearly lying in his lap. He began massaging the clean smelling soap into her wet hair. “She died giving birth to Con and Car. She had a heart condition that had gone undiagnosed throughout her pregnancy and she went into cardiac arrest minutes after Car was delivered.” Matt’s nostrils flared when his chest expanded on a deep, wrenching breath. “The doctors said she died instantly.”

Mason looked down into her eyes as Matt scooped up handfuls of water and
drizzled it over her scalp. “It was the best and worst day of our lives.”

Her heart seized for a beat and her chest began to ache.
The inner strength they must have possessed to still be this close and strong after living through something that emotionally devastating absolutely amazed her. Some of the families of the children she’d worked with had splintered under the stress of such trivial things like a few missed car payments or a string of late nights at the office. This family had not only made it through one of the hardest tragedies the world could have thrown at them, they were still strong and bound by a love she’d never thought existed.

“Can you tell me about her?” Claira knew it wasn’t fair to ask it of them, especially when she’d avoided their questions, but she felt a strange desire to know the woman that had held these strong, wonderful men’s hearts. When Mason nodded, but didn’t continue
, she asked what seemed like the least painful question she could think of. “How did you meet her?”

Matt chuckled as he rinsed the last of the shampoo from her hair. “
She took my bottle away and gave it to her kitten.”

“What?” Claira must have had water in her ears because the sudden picture of a fully grown, adult Matt nursing a bottle didn’t quite sit right.

“We grew up together,” Mason shrugged, smiling as he lifted her back to a sitting position against his chest, his hands cupping her breasts and lifting them until her taught nipples peaked above the bubbles. “Our mothers were best friends. It was sort of expected for us to be together. We never expected anyone else to capture our hearts.” His thumbs lightly circled her nipples as he leaned in and caught her earlobe between his lips, sucking off a drop of water. “Until now,” he whispered, his tongue flicking against the soft lobe, sending a stream of hot moisture gushing from her sex that had nothing to do with warm bathwater.

“Mason,” she purred
and arched against his chest. Matt slid over in front of her, his eyes fixed to Mason’s hands on her breasts. She leaned her head back against Mason’s shoulder as his hands left her sensitive nipples and slid over her ribs to her hips. He cupped her bare ass cheeks then continued up the back of her thighs to the bends of her knees then lifted and separated her legs, lowering her heels onto Matt’s shoulders. “Have I ever told you how gorgeous your legs are? So sleek and perfectly toned.”

“Ah, so he’s the brea
st man and you’re the leg man.” Claira laughed as Mason tickled the back of her knees, sending cold shivers over her wet skin and hot spikes of need to her core.

Matt’s hands appeared
through the puffy suds and cupped her breasts which Mason had abandoned. “Getting cold?” He asked, his heated gaze focusing on her rigid nipples.

Claira shook her head, unable to form the necessary syllables for a verbal response. Mason’s fingers
trailed over her shins, stopping to circle her kneecaps before ever so slowly tracing twin paths up her inner thighs. When his thumbs came together over her slit and spread her lower lips, Claira’s back arched on a moan. Her heels slid from Matt’s shoulders, her legs falling open and draping over the crooks of Matt’s arms.

Matt leaned forward
, spreading her legs wider for his brother as he sucked a ripe nipple between his teeth. Thick fingers traced her folds, exploring and caressing before one sunk slowly into the depths of her tight, sensitive channel.

“Still sore, sweetheart?”
Mason’s voice rumbled in her ear when she sucked in a ragged breath through her teeth and tightened around his finger.

“Ah, n…not much,” she panted as his finger slid out slowly and then back in. She was a little tender, but not enough to want them to stop. She
wanted, needed to feel them touch her.

One of Matt’s hands left her breasts and found her hand below the water. He circled her wrist and brought her hand to his groin, wrapping her fingers around his aching
, engorged cock. She flinched when she touched him but he covered her hand with his own and gently tightened his grip. “I’ll show you,” he said, dragging his lips across one nipple to the valley between her breasts.

Claira licked her lips, almost wishing she could see what they were doing, yet grateful for the cover the thick bubbles provided. She wasn’t sure
how to react, or move and the distraction Mason was causing with his hands between her legs didn’t help her already handicapped coordination. When Matt’s hand moved hers up his thick shaft to the mushroom tip, they both let out a sensual moan.

Mason thought he’d go out of his mind with need.
His dick was so hard he knew he’d die if something didn’t happen soon. He’d already tested the limits of his control when he passed up her offer earlier. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her or make anything they did unpleasant for her just to satisfy his own selfish needs, but damn he didn’t think he could take any more. One finger in her pussy, he moved his free hand between him and Claira and gripped his own dick, pumping it in time with his fingered thrusts into Claira’s scorching hot sheath and the motion of her hand on Matt. Dammit, he needed her heat around his cock and those legs around his waist!

When Claira’s passage began to tighten like a vise
around his fingers and her back arched into a tight bow, he knew she was close. He deepened his thrusts, crooking his finger to find that special spot, at the same time easing his pinky down toward her back passage. His dick pulsed in his hand when he circled the tiny, smooth pucker, expecting her to tense up against the unexpected sensation. When she let out a husky groan, he sank the tip of his pinky past her tight ring of muscles on the next inward plunge and she soared, shouting her release as she bucked against his hand.

Joining her in
his own explosive release, Mason’s head fell back, his lips stretched tight across his teeth as he cried out behind her, his fist pumping in time with her inner spasms.

Matt was close behind them, Claira’s velvet grip pumping him with an enthusiasm that had his balls tightening up
with excitement, when he saw something shift behind them. He looked past Mason and Claira to see Grey leaning against the doorframe, his right hand aggressively massaging the massive bulge behind his zipper.

Coming down from his high, Mason opened his eyes to see Matt’s telling gaze fixed to something behind him. He and Claira turned at the same time to look for themselves at what had captured Matt’s attention.

“Oh, God.” Claira’s hand drew back from Matt’s cock as she flailed against Mason, trying to sit up. When she looked down and saw that her breasts were bare and on full display for Grey to look his fill, she immediately slid back down, hoping like hell what was left of the bubbles covered her.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Mason pulled her back to his chest and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, covering her bare breasts. As if
that
was any better.

She was humiliated. She knew it was silly. T
hese three men had once shared a wife. It was as if the reality of what was happening between them had just dawned on her. Matt and Mason had snuck past her defenses and eased her fear, relaxed her inhibitions. Grey seemed to look straight through her and most of the time she didn’t think he liked what he saw.  The protective and caring way he’d held her the night before, making her feel truly safe for the first time in years, warred with the almost hostile and brooding way he was staring at her now. Somehow she knew he’d never hurt her, but she still couldn’t make herself look at him. She felt like an interloper around him, like she was treading on hallowed ground, and all for reasons she could easily understand.

Before the
embarrassment could claim her life as she’d silently prayed it would, Grey’s hands dropped to his sides, the movement catching Claira’s attention and she glanced up at him. She’d only seen him in a business suit. Now, dressed in faded, worn blue jeans, a dark, hunter-green button up that made his angry, moss green eyes look like glowing jewels, he looked almost…hard. Everything about him seemed strong and tough. His sleeves rolled up at his elbows, his muscles bunched and flexed, his stance rigid and tense.

His ex
pression as rigid as his posture, he cleared his throat with a growl and crossed his arms over his broad chest. Tearing his gaze from her nearly hidden form, he looked first at Mason, then Matt. “We have a heifer down, up at Logan Bluff. Sheriff Long called it in about ten minutes ago. Saw it when he flew over on his way back from a trip to Missoula.” He glanced back at Claira for a brief moment then kicked at the bottom of the door frame with his boot, his eyes darting away from her. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to go, but then stopped. He paused in the doorway for a moment, his back to them as he leaned a shoulder against the door frame. His slumped shoulders rose on a breath and without turning around, he dropped his head and pushed off the open frame again. “We need to ride up there now while we still have plenty of light.” Without a look back, Grey stepped away from the door and was gone.

Ten minutes later Matt met Grey at the top of the stairs and they raced down to the main floor together. When Grey pulled up short and darted into the kitchen, Matt paused in the hallway, a little confused,
and then turned to see what his big brother was up to. Thinking he had maybe gone to get a thermos of coffee for the long ride ahead of them, Matt was a little puzzled to see Grey bent over, the upper half of his body buried in the chest freezer that sat just inside the pantry.

“What the…
?” When Grey reemerged with a large, white bag and paced past him toward the front door, Matt had to ask. “What’s with the frozen peas?”

Grey paused in the hall and grabbed his Stetson from the hook near the front door. “It’s been a long time since I’ve
been in the saddle with a hard-on, but I’m sure it still hurts like a sonofabitch.”

Fuck!
Grey was right. As Grey headed out the door toward the barn, Matt turned and ran back to the pantry. He stirred the frozen contents in the overstuffed freezer until his hand landed on another bag and pulled it from the pile. “Carrots.” He slammed the freezer door and tore out to meet Grey. Who the hell cared what vegetable it was, as long as they numbed his dick enough to survive the trek to Logan Bluff and back.

They were saddled up, iced down and about an ho
ur into the two and a half hour trip before Matt finally broke the silence between them. “What’d Benton have to say this mornin’ when you went over to meet him and his dad at Claira’s?”

Grey shifted in his saddle. “Frank changed out th
e porch lamp while Benton and I cleaned up the mess in the front yard.

Matt peered at Grey and scratched at his eyebrow. “That was thoughtful, but you still didn’t answer my question.”

Grey slowed as he guided his paint over a precarious section of rock. Once they were both safely around the hazard he turned in his saddle and looked back at Matt, rage boiling in his stomach. “She’s not going back there.”

“Dammit
, Grey. Would you just spit it out!” Matt was about two seconds from pulling Grey off his damn horse and beating it out of him, again.

“Benton’s called in a favor with one of his Ranger buddies down in Fort Worth. He’s running a check on Claira with the information he already has but he’s asking this guy to dig around, see what he come up with.”

Matt froze, pulling his horse up short. “What the hell? You’re runnin’ a check on
her
? Shouldn’t we be focusin’ on whoever this bastard, fuckwad is that has her scared out of her mind?”

“Goddammit!”
Grey turned his horse around to face his brother. “You were there! She’s not talking. We start with what we know, and right now all I know is that some sick bastard is tormenting a sweet, innocent school teacher that makes my dick so hard I can’t think straight. I know we’re not letting her go back there. I know we’re not letting her go anywhere or do anything that doesn’t include one of us until we figure out what the fuck is going on. We’ll talk to Uncle Cade, too. He might still have access to some of his old Fed contacts. He can start looking at whatever this guy in Fort Worth digs up.”

Grey straightened in his saddle and spurred his horse back around toward the trail. Matt clicked his tongue and his horse trotted up beside him.
“So you were watchin’ us this mornin’? You were listenin’ and watchin’ but you didn’t have the balls to…”