Springer, Jan - Be My Dream Tonight [The Desperadoes 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (5 page)

“What the fuck?” he found himself whispering, mesmerized by the sight of her. Was he hallucinating? Or was she really here?

As he stared at her, it suddenly seemed as if she’d never left. Her high cheekbones were red from the cold. She wore a black bandana across her forehead, and her hair flew around behind her in the wind like a tornado, just as it had done all those times they’d ridden together. She hadn’t seen Riley or himself yet, because she was staring at the fire with longing.

Despite her attire, he knew she would be cold. She would need warmth.
She needed them now
. He didn’t know how he knew that last part, but he knew she did.

Despite knowing it, he could only stare at her. She looked so pretty. Her light blue, almost gray eyes had always smiled even when she was mad at them for one thing or another. But here in the dark, cold night beneath the glowing green lights, they didn’t smile now. She had a lost, haunted look about those eyes, and suddenly the flare of hope and happiness shifting through him disappeared.

Why was she here?

“What the hell is Eve doing here?” Riley said, echoing his thoughts. Surprise etched Riley’s words just as surprise was sinking deep through his own flesh. He knew Riley and Mad were in love with her, too. Sensed she had been in love with them, but she’d never said it. Neither had any of them told her their feelings as far as he knew. Maybe if they had told her they all loved her, she would have remembered them?

He blinked that thought aside. He was thinking nonsense. He refocused his attention on Eve. Is that why she’d returned? Because she’d started remembering?

He didn’t want to get his hopes up. Didn’t want to experience any emotions. It would be too painful, so he tried like hell to keep himself detached. It didn’t work. Deep inside of him, some wild happiness was threatening to burst free. He forced it back inside.

It was as if the three of them were paralyzed. None of them moved to help her off the horse. None of them dared speak. Maybe they were all thinking the same thing. That she was a dream or something and if they moved, she’d vanish.

When she spoke, he could hear the fear and weariness in her voice.

“I know the last time we met, things didn’t go well. So I am asking you, please, don’t turn me away,” she said in a voice so soft and tortured, it just about brought him to his knees.

The sound of her voice snapped them out of their weird trance, and all three of them moved in unison, and to Kayne’s disappointment Maddox got to her first. She half fell off the saddle into his arms.

“I’ll get the water boiling for some tea to warm her,” Riley said as he hurried off.

“Put her by the fire,
Mad.
I’ll get more wood onto it,” Kayne instructed.

While he grabbed several of the pieces of wood he’d just split, he realized he was shaking. What the hell
was
she doing here? The last time they’d tried to see her, that woman friend of hers had been full of hostility and aimed a rifle at his head. She’d told them that Eve preferred if they didn’t come around again. The next time they’d gone to the place the two women were staying, they’d vanished.

He tossed the wood onto the fire and watched Maddox hold her protectively in his arms as he carried her to one of the tree stumps they used as a chair. It was right at that moment Kayne realized how primitively the Durango Gang lived. Eve hadn’t deserved this kind of life. They should have gotten her a nice house where she could sew curtains for the windows. A house that he and the guys could fix up so cold air didn’t come through any cracks. A pretty place where they could all be warm and safe, and pleasure her morning, noon, and night and most of all make her remember what they’d had together.

Kayne stiffened. Where the hell had that crazy idea come from? A house? A warm place where Eve could sew curtains? He had to be going nuts. Eve didn’t do feminine things, except cook and have sex with them when they needed her. And they’d needed her a lot.

Kayne frowned. Maybe she did do feminine things? They’d just never given her the opportunity, had they?

“W–Where…is everyone?” she asked between chattering teeth. “I heard you took in six more men after I left.”

“Gone,” Riley answered. He’d placed the tin pot onto the fire and set himself on a stump beside Eve. Mad sat down on another stump on her other side. But Kayne realized he couldn’t join them. Suddenly he was too pissed off, and he was way too happy. Both at the same time. Talk about confusing. Not only that, he simply could not believe she was here.

Man, she looked prettier than ever, except for that worried frown that marred the area between her sweetly arched eyebrows.

“The rest of the gang’s been domesticated,” Riley acknowledged.

“Domesticated?” Her frown deepened, and she ripped off her leather gloves and blew onto her fingers.

He wanted to take her hands into his, to warm those fingers. To intertwine them between his own. To hold her hands while he made love to her and showed her exactly how badly he’d missed her.

Oh shit. That wasn’t happening. She’d been gone for almost two years now. She’d escaped whomever had kidnapped her, and from the little information they’d gotten, she’d been helped by the very pregnant, beautiful, black-haired mystery woman who’d refused to tell them who she was or who had kidnapped Eve. Eve had asked them to leave her alone that one time they’d encountered her in
Hell
City
. Then she had gone off with the woman to parts unknown. Now suddenly she was back and his heart was aching like a son of a bitch once again.

“They were stupid enough to fall for women. We went our separate ways.” The cold, harsh way he blurted out those words had Mad, Riley, and Eve snapping their heads up to look at him. Surprise etched their faces.

Okay, so he was pissed off at her. No need to take it out on women in general, or on the guys who’d left. It hadn’t really bothered him that they’d found happiness. What bothered him was
he
hadn’t found the happiness he’d craved to find with Eve. Before he could profess his love for her, she’d been kidnapped, had escaped her captors, claimed memory loss, then refused to talk to them and subsequently disappeared with the mystery woman.

He forced his anger aside and urged himself to drag a log stump to the opposite side of the fire from her. He had the feeling it was going to be an awfully long night.

* * * *

Eve thought she’d been cold earlier, after her parting with C.J. and then while traveling the trails and being blasted by the icy
Rocky
Mountain
winds. She realized that she was even colder now as the three men stared at her. For almost two years they’d been strangers, except now, in the way her heart smiled as she looked at them and in the way her body burned for them, she knew they’d been much more than strangers. Her memories told her that she’d been intimate with them. Her emotions said they were important to her. But there were still missing pieces, and she just couldn’t remember all of her time with them. Did that make any sense?

She could read the questions in their eyes. Why had she refused to see them after she’d escaped her kidnappers? Why had she gone off with a strange, hostile woman? Who had kidnapped her? What had her kidnappers done to her? Why couldn’t she remember them? The list went on in her head, and suddenly she felt so overwhelmed she had to bite her bottom lip to prevent herself from breaking down into tears.

These three men were
her
men. She knew that without a doubt. Knew it in her heart that they were the three men she’d fallen in love with. She’d loved the way they looked at her. Remembered the amusement sparking their eyes when she’d teased them into having sex with her. She’d wanted them to make love to her on a daily basis, but she’d had fooled herself into thinking they’d wanted her that much. Truth was, she was addicted to the three of them.

The tallest one was Kayne
Durango
, their leader. He’d been a builder before the Catastrophe struck. He had the bulging, gorgeous muscles to prove it, and despite those muscles being hidden beneath layers of winter clothing and tight jeans, she remembered every intimate part of his body right down to the exceptionally long cock with the purplish mushroom-shaped cockhead. And she remembered how much she loved his light blue eyes when they searched the vista of the mountains for any sign of life and how they darkened when he made love to her.

And Riley Raine. Self-confessed computer geek, pre-Catastrophe days. He was the most well hung of the three, and bald. Nicely bald. His silky caffe latte skin felt so smooth not only on his head but over his entire body, feeling like luscious brown velvet beneath her fingers every time she’d stroked his flesh with her fingertips. His eyes were so dark brown they were almost black, but those eyes always smiled when he looked at her. Dark shadows still caressed his chin and cheeks. It was as if she’d never left. He still looked the same. As he watched her studying him, he flashed his white teeth at her, and her breath stilled beautifully inside her chest. He looked so sexy when he smiled at her.

Maddox Burns, with his medium brown dreamy eyes. He had the shortest, spikiest, softest sandy-brown hair that curled just beneath his ears and stuck up in places as if he’d just gotten out of bed. It had always done that, and she just loved how cute and bedroomy it made him look. He was their hunter, their scout, and their gang doctor. Pre-Catastrophe days, he’d been a paramedic who’d enjoyed hunting deer. She remembered every intimate detail on him, too, right down to the elevated veins lacing his thick, short shaft.

Over the past few weeks she’d remembered glimpses of their intense sex life and sincerely
felt
her emotions concerning them.

But she still couldn’t understand how in the world she’d fallen for three guys. It just wasn’t possible. Yet it was possible, because that’s exactly what she’d done. Or at least that’s what her heart was telling her now as she gazed upon them. Her body, however, was suddenly not reacting in such a nice way as she vibrated from the coldness of their stares. She forced herself to calm down.

C.J. had told her she may never regain her memory. Her friend wasn’t a doctor or anything like that, but she’d read stories about people getting conked on their heads and either not remembering who they were or losing memory of their loved ones. Some regained their memories. Some didn’t.

Eve had accepted that news and had tried to move on with her life. It had been relatively easy starting with a blank slate, but then the strong feelings and fragmented visions had begun to bombard her. That’s when C.J. had revealed that Eve had once been with the Durango Gang. The same men who had been so concerned for her after she’d escaped her captors. The men she hadn’t wanted to see because she didn’t remember them.

“Why are you here?” Riley asked, thrusting her from her thoughts.

“She said she needs us to help her remember our relationship,” Maddox explained, not allowing her to answer directly.

“Take a breath and just tell us what’s going on, Eve,” Kayne urged, obviously noticing her uneasiness and becoming impatient with her because of it. He’d never liked it when she wasn’t happy.

“I’m remembering things.”

They all blinked in stunned silence. Two sets of brown eyes and a pair of light blue ones. All surprised. Obviously this was the last thing they’d expected for her to say.

She began to shake. Uncontrollably. She couldn’t stand to see their stunned expressions.

“Like what?” Maddox said softly.

Eve’s heart sunk. Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure what to say or where to begin because she sure as hell didn’t know what was going on herself.

“Eve…” Riley prodded.

“Are you remembering what happened to you while you were in captivity? Do you remember who took you? Do you remember us?” Kayne asked.

She grimaced at his questions and saw the hope flashing in his eyes.

“No…well, yes. Some things I can remember. I remembered many things about Maddox when I just saw him.” And the feelings for Riley and Kayne when she’d just seen them standing there by the chopping block staring at her had just about overwhelmed her. The flashbacks she’d been experiencing were nothing compared to what she was feeling racing through her system now. She knew in her heart she cared for them and loved them.

She wanted to tell them that flashes of their scorching sex life had been burning her up and arousing her to no ends. That those sensual visions of the four of them together, sexually, were making her feel naughty and needy for them. But maybe she’d better not tell them these things. Not yet anyways.

“I think I know where he’s hidden the gold,” she blurted out. She didn’t know why she’d said that. She’d planned on waiting a few days to announce the discovery of the gold bars. She’d wanted to feel the men out. See if she could trust them, even though deep inside of her she knew she could.

Maybe because the hope about her remembering them was shining so brightly in their eyes, making her feel too intense and overwhelmed, and she needed to change the subject and take the focus off herself?

At her admission, they all fell silent and stared at her.

“Gold? Who’s hidden what gold?” Kayne asked as he cocked his head slightly to the left side in curiosity and continued to stare at her as if she might be crazy.