An hour later, Elizabeth wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand and gazed at the two men lying quietly on the bed. The one she hadn’t been able to sleep in since Durango had left. A swell of emotions threatened to tear up her eyes, but she bit back the tears. She wouldn’t let Durango see how much his leaving had affected her. She would need to stay focused on these men’s injuries.
Landon, who she’d cared for dearly, partly due to the fact he’d tried to talk Durango out of joining the gang with him, appeared weak from loss of blood. The bullet had lodged in the fleshy part of his upper thigh, making him lose lots of blood. But the powerful way he’d carried her and tossed her onto the couch and then held her beneath his big body made her realize he was a very strong man, despite his wound. He would be fine given some rest.
Tyrell’s wound was a bit more serious. He would require bed rest for a few days due to his wound. She’d found the bullet dangerously close to his left kidney, but thankfully it hadn’t hit anything vital. He would be sore, and he’d been very lucky. Both men had been very lucky.
Stupid fools. Why couldn’t they have found a more safe way to make a living? She knew why. There were no jobs to be found. Durango had been a mechanic. Since the world was in chaos due to the Catastrophe, and any type of machinery had fried, compliments of the solar flares, his job had disappeared literally overnight.
Durango was the least hurt of the three. He’d kept his mouth shut, thankfully, while she’d tried hard to ignore the wicked beating of her heart as her gaze snapped to and fro along the wide expanse of tanned muscles lacing all the men’s chests and arms while she’d dug out the bullets.
Durango knew her fetish for muscles. How they turned her on so hard and so fast that he’d always joked about her exploding like a firecracker whenever muscles came into her view. She detected traces of pain glazing his eyes as he watched her from his perch on a wooden chair that he’d dragged close to the bed. She didn’t think it was the physical pain. Maybe emotional pain? Had he missed her as much as she’d missed him?
No, he’d made his decision about leaving, and now he would have to live with it.
Unfortunately, now with the two men snoring softly in her bed, Durango didn’t appear in the least bit sleepy as he studied her every move with his sultry light blue eyes. She could tell from the heated way he looked at her that he wanted sex. He always wanted sex, and in the past she’d loved losing herself in the pleasure he gave so easily. But she’d booted him out, and no matter how much she wanted him back in her bed, she needed to stick to her principles. Didn’t she? Yes, she did, she added firmly.
“If you want to stay warm you’ll have to crawl into bed between them,” she snapped as she got up off the bed.
She reached out to grab the tray of bloody utensils, but he stopped her by grabbing her wrist, his fingers yet again snapping around her flesh like a handcuff.
She trembled at the strength in those fingers. Fingers that used to stroke so nicely in and out of her pussy. Fingers that caressed and brushed her nipples until they were on fire. Until she was on fire for him.
She gasped as he suddenly pulled her onto his lap. His arms came around her waist, and he held her in his strong, warm embrace. For a split second she thought about struggling out of his tight grasp, but she knew if he didn’t want to let her go, he wouldn’t, and fighting him would be a waste of time. She inhaled sharply at the feel of the large knot of arousal pressed against her ass. She could feel the pounding of his heart as it beat against her left arm. She also realized how easily and instinctively she was curling against him. That pissed her off.
Stupid woman. She couldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing him how he still could so easily affect her.
He must have caught a glimpse of her mood, for he suddenly spoke softly in her ear. “I wonder what you’d do if I decided to kiss you, Doc?”
“Slap you,” she retorted, injecting as much anger into her voice as she could.
“In that case I’d have to spank you. And I know how much you enjoy getting spanked, Doc.”
“Don’t call me that,” Liz snapped.
“Does it bring back memories?”
Yes, his nickname, and his low, seductive voice and talk about spankings brought back those luscious memories. Too many memories. Of what he and his friend Landon had wanted to do with her before she’d sent them packing.
Warmth, unrestrained and wickedly delightful, whipped through her, and she could barely stop the breathless tremors as they raced through her tense body.
“It brings back nothing,” she said coolly, but to her irritation she also sounded husky.
His knowing look angered her, and she forced herself to break his gaze. Wanting to escape him, she decided it would be better to fight him. To her surprise, when she did just that, he let her get up off his lap. She grabbed the tray containing the soiled utensils and stormed toward the door.
“Walking away won’t stop what we both want, Liz.” The softness in his voice almost undid her self-control, and she swore there was a brief hesitation in her walk, but she rectified it quickly by picking up her pace.
The bastard had nerve. She hadn’t seen him in so long, and the last thing she wanted was to fall right back in love with him. She would not be shared by any man. No matter how often or how hot she got whenever she fantasized about having sex with him and other men. Sharing just wasn’t normal. She’d do well to remember that fact.
All you need to do is play it cool with her, Durango said to himself as he watched Doc walk out of the room. But looking at the sexy curve of her hips, and her perfectly shaped ass pressing intimately against her sweetly tight light green nightgown, made playing it cool damned hard.
Ethan Durango had a big problem, and her name was Dr. Elizabeth Brandywine. He’d forced himself to stay away from her after their last argument when she’d given him two ultimatums. Never speak about his sexual desires regarding sharing her again and don’t join the Durango Gang. Hell, if he’d agreed to her terms, she may as well have castrated him. The last thing he wanted was to be tied down like a caged dog and made to feel as useless as one.
Over the months he thought he’d managed to get her out of his system, but of course those lonely, cold nights on the trail with a posse breathing up their asses had made him bring out a photo that he carried on him. A picture he’d shared with the members of the gang. The guys were pretty good where Liz was concerned. They looked at her picture, commented on her pretty blue eyes and her luscious strawberry-red lips or her sexy pose for the shot.
He knew Landon and Tyrell would be the men to share her with. Not because he wasn’t threatened by them. He wasn’t, but he knew both men were trustworthy, dependable, and both had been married. Watching their wives disintegrate right before their eyes during the solar flares had hardened them to love, but he saw the caring in their eyes when they’d looked at Liz’s picture, and he just knew these were the men he wanted to stand by her with him.
With violence rampant these days, he knew it was just a matter of time before Liz was discovered living alone way out here in the middle of nowhere where she chose to practice her trade. He would have preferred her in a city, but cities were probably more dangerous without a man.
Looking out for her was why he made it a habit to send most of the injured members of the gang to her to recuperate. He’d also sent any member wanting access to a decent pleasure girl because Dr. Liz would check each man thoroughly. If he appeared to be in good health and wasn’t carrying diseases, she would give him a name of a professional girl he could spend some time with. Those were a couple of ways he’d been able to keep tabs on her.
He hadn’t planned on coming back to their century-old stone house for a little while longer, but when the gang had been in a shootout trying to rob a bank in a city on the other side of the mountains, Durango had brought them to the closest trusted doctor he knew, Doc.
Now that he was here, hopefully he could win himself back into her graces. Wishful thinking? Maybe. The moment he’d seen her again, all the self-control he’d wrapped tightly around himself had unraveled. He wanted to be back in her bed. Wanted to crack that icy exterior she valiantly tried to portray.
He’d caught glimpses of tenderness splashing across her face as she’d dug out the bullet in his arm. Felt the erotic way she’d melted against him when he’d dragged her into his lap, and yeah, he’d heard her sharp inhalation of breath as her ass came down on his thick erection.
She still loved him, and she loved the way her body reacted when she was around him. A hot love like theirs couldn’t die. He sensed it would only grow if Liz could admit her deepest sexual needs to herself. All he needed to do was hold his self-control just a little harder.
They were such an odd couple. He was a blue-collar worker earning a living as a farm machinery mechanic, living on the outskirts of Calgary, Alberta. Doc had been a respectable family doctor. They probably would have never met if he hadn’t sliced his palm open while working on a piece of equipment and she hadn’t been gassing up her SUV at the self-serve gas pumps right outside the garage. She’d said she liked the rough sound of his voice when he’d cursed and watched him wrap his hand in a dirty rag. Her doctor side had been concerned, yet she’d said it had been the sight of his muscles that lured her into the dark garage. To him.
Durango smiled. Thank God for his muscles. Of course muscles had been another reason why he’d picked Tyrell and Landon. They were loaded with them. Strong men. They would give Liz plenty of pleasure on the long, cold nights here.
Perhaps he was being naive in thinking she’d spread her thighs for them just because he’d brought home a couple of guys with big muscles. He knew she wasn’t that much of a pushover. He wanted her to embrace her desires. Not do it because it pleased him. Although, he knew she wouldn’t submit, unless it was right for her. He just wished she wasn’t taking such a long time in figuring it out. She was the strongest yet shiest woman he’d ever met. Her strength and her confidence in her work made her sexy to him. Her shyness in the bedroom made her even more sexy.
Damn him. What had he expected her to do when he’d plopped her into his lap earlier anyway? That she’d wrap her arms around his neck and welcome him back into her bed like the old days before the Catastrophe? Back then they’d been engaged. He’d suppressed his sexual urges and the urge to explore their sex life. Ignored his craving to share her with other men.
She’d called him a sexual deviant when he’d told her he fantasized about sharing her. He shouldn’t have expected any different reaction than when he’d left her. She was still the same sexually uptight doctor he’d fallen in love with. She was still in denial about her needs and her fantasies. He knew she fantasized because he’d listened to her soft, sultry moans while she’d slept. He’d heard her mutter his friends’ names. Her erotic moans always turned him on, and sometimes he fucked her while she’d slept. Yeah, sexual deviant. She’d hit the nail on the head with those two words regarding him.
“Your first fight, and you haven’t even been back a couple of hours.” Amusement laced Tyrell’s voice from where he lay on the bed. Durango turned to look down at his friend and breathed a sigh of relief. His brown eyes didn’t seem as glazed with pain, and he swore he didn’t look as pale anymore either.
“The more we fight, the better we make up.”
Tyrell chuckled, winced, held his side, and fell silent.
“So, how do you feel?” Durango asked.
“Better. Looking at your beautiful woman helped.”
Warmth shifted through him at his compliment of Liz.
Beside Tyrell, he noticed Landon was also awake. His green eyes gazed back at him, and he was smiling. Obviously the two had been playing possum so Durango could spend some alone time with Doc. Crazy guys.
“I hope so,” Landon replied. “Because I haven’t had a woman in a long time, and just looking at her has me painfully rock hard.”
Durango grinned. “And I like the way you get straight to the point, my man. Now get some sleep. You both need to get your strength back. The doc likes it rough and hard,” he teased, then laughed as both Landon and Tyrell moaned and cursed at him.
Yeah, Doc liked it rough and hard, but she also liked it tender and gentle. The three of them could do both. Being back in their home, he wasn’t going to let her deny what they both needed this time. This time around he was going to break through those walls she held up regarding her sexual fantasies and he’d have her wanting all three of them, and he would be doing it sooner rather than later.
Elizabeth knew Durango wouldn’t leave her alone for long. When he wanted something, he worked fast. He’d always been that way. If he wanted sex, he was like a dog with a bone. His persistence was what drew her to him. She was like a helpless moth drawn to the dangerous, dark flame. That was exactly how she was feeling now as she placed her disinfected doctoring tools back into her black bag and listened to the floorboards creak beneath Durango’s heavy weight as he stepped into the living room where she’d sequestered herself on the fireplace outer hearth.
She didn’t want to fall into his arms. Didn’t want him to go away again either. Truth be told, she was confused. Mystified at why she loved him so much yet hated what he wanted from her. Perhaps hated was too strong a word. Maybe a better word would be denial, just as Durango had always said.
She focused her attention to zipping up the black bag and then placing it on the coffee table before turning to stare into the flickering fire. The orange-yellow flare of flames reminded her of their relationship. Intense, right from the moment she’d laid eyes on him. It had been in that dirty, humid garage, muscles galore bunching in his grease-streaked arms and sweaty chest as he wrapped his injured hand in a filthy rag, all the while cursing at some odd-looking piece of machinery perched precariously on the cement floor, when he’d caught her full attention.
He’d been shirtless big-time that day, and she swore her muscle fetish had started right then and there. Yeah, sure she’d reacted seeing other men without shirts, but they hadn’t smelled sexy and sweaty like Durango.
“Do you still dream about us, Liz?” he asked as if knowing exactly what she was thinking. He’d moved closer now. Stood right beside her. She could feel his body heat. It was hotter than the waves of heat coming off the fire. She’d always reacted that way to him.
She’d almost literally latched herself to him that first time in the garage, too. Of course her concern for the blood-soaked dirty rag he’d wound around his hand had won out. She’d taken him to a local clinic where a doctor friend of hers worked, and he’d tended Durango’s deep gash, stitching it up perfectly. After that, Durango had invited her out for coffee. She’d accepted, and then they’d gone to his place, where she’d simply given into her sexual desire for him while they’d showered and fucked. She’d never lost her control to a stranger before. She had never done it with anyone else since.
She wanted to tell him that, yes, she dreamed about him every night. Dreamed about the sex with him and with other men. She didn’t tell him that fact. She had her pride.
“I dream about us every night,” he whispered. “I dream about how it used to be. How it will be.”
Irritation snapped through her. My, oh my, he had confidence in himself where she was concerned, didn’t he?
She would have gotten up off the hearth if he hadn’t been standing right there behind her, sandwiching her between him and the fire. Suddenly she felt hot and weak with desire, waiting for him to touch her.
“I dream about taking you right here in front of this fire.” His soft voice stroked over her nerves like melting chocolate. She creamed in her panty and tried hard to ignore the insistent throb of need burning deep inside her pussy as visions of him sliding his cock into her erupted in her mind.
She swallowed and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I don’t feel anything more for you, Durango. I still stand at what was said before you left. You made your decision.” Oh, but the sultry sound of her voice certainly was saying different. She knew he would be able to hear the lie, too.
She inhaled softly as his hand curled over her shoulder, and she swore any resolve she had toward him went right up the chimney with the smoke.
“I want you, baby. I’ve wanted you every night since I’ve been gone.” Damn him.
“Then you shouldn’t have left, should you?” she bit out. “Because now it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late between us. Unless you’ve taken on a lover or two while I’ve been gone?”
He studied her for a reaction. She tried hard not to blink. Fought for the control she knew she would need because he always knew when she was lying. She definitely did not want to give away that she’d had no other man in her bed since he’d been gone.
“That is none of your business.”
“Well, it is my business, Doc, because you see, I’ve invested a lot of time in looking for the perfect men to share you with.”
Oh God. She was really creaming now. Not good.
“I already told you-”
“Your body language says different, Liz. I can read you like a book, baby. I was watching you when you were tending Landon and Tyrell. Watching how your gaze kept snapping to their muscles. How your hands shook with the need to touch them.”
Bastard. So he was right. It didn’t mean she wanted them in her bed. Despite her denial, her vagina spasmed, her ass pulsed, and naughty images of the three men ruthlessly fucking her filled her head. She found herself inhaling deeply to steady her sudden panic.
She was totally helpless as Durango’s hand curled around her shoulder. He told her to scoot over a couple of feet until her back was now against the cool stone wall of the fireplace. Now she was facing forward toward him, her legs over the edge of the outer hearth.
Oh darn it, he hadn’t bothered to put his shirt on, and the orange firelight danced crazily over rippling muscles galore as his fingers flexed on her shoulder. The white linen she’d wrapped around his injury shone like a beacon in the gloomy early morning light, and it made his flesh look scrumptiously tanned. She’d always warned him against going shirtless due to the dangers of skin cancer, but obviously he hadn’t listened. He was so darkly tanned, and he looked so good. So healthy. Being a member of the Durango Gang obviously agreed with him.
Hot flames blasted against her right side from the fire in the fireplace, and she became mesmerized as she watched his fingers trail from her shoulder and his hands drop over her knees and slowly part her thighs.
“I haven’t been with a woman since I left you,” he whispered, his voice thick with lust.
He hadn’t slept with others? Durango was a very sensual man who enjoyed sex every night and many times during the days as well. Not having had any sex in months…he-she swallowed as a cyclone of erotic shivers raced through her-he would be a bundle of unexploded energy.
“Landon hasn’t been with a woman either. Neither has Tyrell, since I selected him for you. For them, it’s been months as well. They crave sex on a regular basis as I do. They’ve been ready to take you for too long.”
She wanted to tell Durango he was dreaming for thinking she would sleep with the men he’d brought home. Somehow, she couldn’t utter a protest. Could only fight to keep her breaths steady as his meaning hit home.
Three men with extreme pent-up sexual energy wanted her. If he hadn’t been holding her knees wide open, she would have closed them and brought herself off at the mere thought of three men touching her, all at the same time. Of their mouths kissing her in intimate places. Of them bringing her fantasies of being triple penetrated to life.
His hands tightened on her knees, and she swore her breaths halted in her lungs as he kneeled down on his haunches in front of her, between her parted thighs. He gazed up at her with those lust-laden eyes, and she became lost in his heated look. Just like that. Oh, damn him for being so bold and sexy. For forcing her to confront her desires for him and the fantasies they both shared.
“We can go slow. Just you and me to start,” he said softly. “We can get reacquainted. Right here. Right now.” It seemed as if he were giving her a way out in the manner he posed his sentences. She didn’t want a way out. She wanted him to push her past her restraints.
Oh goodness, she couldn’t believe she’d just thought that last thought.
“Lower your nightgown.” His hoarse voice had her trembling despite the heat pumping out of the hearth. The thought of what he wanted to do had her nipples hardening and peeking and pressing boldly against her nightgown.
“Durango…” She didn’t know what she wanted to say. Maybe she wanted to mount a protest? No, no, she wanted him to touch her, kiss her, and fuck her. Not necessarily in that order.
He continued to gaze at her from his perch between her spread legs. His eyes were a dusty blue, and she swore she’d never seen them that dark before. Or so filled with sensuality and arousal. That look made her yearn for him so badly it almost pushed her senses into overdrive.
“Can you imagine Landon and Tyrell thrusting inside you? I know I want to see the pleasure splash across your face when they do. I know you’ve fantasized about Landon. I heard you call his name many times in your sleep before I left.”
Damn him. He’d never told her that before. Yes, she had fantasized about Landon. Who couldn’t? The man looked so hot, and he was built just as gorgeously as Durango, and he was so sweet, too.
“Have you already fantasized about Tyrell while you were patching him up?”
She found herself shaking her head despite the fact she had been ogling his taut, tanned torso while she’d prodded past his tattered flesh looking for the bullet.
“Now why don’t you pull that nightie down so I can see more of you, Doc? I’ve wanted to touch you since the moment I left. I’ve missed you like crazy.”
She shook her head, but at the same time her heart hammered insanely against her chest as she held his intoxicating gaze, and she lifted her hands. He licked his lips in obvious anticipation as she slowly eased the straps of her nightgown down her arms and then dipped her hands beneath the lowered neckline. She drew out her breasts both at the same time, presenting herself to him.
Her breaths halted as Durango swore softly. Appreciation lit his eyes, and lust flushed his face a nice shade of pink. Hunger tensed his body.
“Yeah, just the way I remember them. Nice, very nice, baby.”
She jerked as his hands pressed against her knees and he moved himself forward between her spread legs, his upper body leaning closer to her, his lips parting. She became lost in the sexy curve of those lips as his hot breath lashed her left nipple. As he sucked her taut flesh right into his searing, moist mouth, she shuddered uncontrollably. Oh, to have him at her breast again. It felt so right.
Reaching out with both of her hands, her arms arched around his neck. Her fingers sifted through the shoulder-length strands of his dark, silky brown hair where she gently held him. She gasped as the wonderful ripples of arousal began to build deep inside her pussy. The incredible way he sucked intoxicated her. Heated her.
She twisted against him, arching her back so she could get a firmer pressure. She could hear him breathing harshly. Heard herself moaning softly, giving herself away that she was enjoying what he was doing to her.
Damn him, he was like a fever rushing through her system. A fever chasing and exposing her deepest desires, her most wanton needs. He’d always been like this.
He demanded, she submitted, because, well, quite truthfully, she enjoyed the way he made her feel. Just as he was doing now. Bastard.
He let go of her nipple with a pop and moved to her other breast, sucking her other nipple into his mouth. His teeth grazed back and forth, igniting fiery pleasure-pain. His tongue soothed as he smoothed over her tortured flesh. Her pussy creamed. Her mind shattered, and she lost all self-control. Her body tightened, the ache for penetration spreading quickly through her body. Perspiration dotted her skin. Her breasts felt swollen and the rest of her overwhelmed and needy.
“Damn you, Durango,” she whispered as she creamed and almost came. He could do that, make her come by sucking on her nipples, but the son of a bitch obviously didn’t want her to come yet. She moaned in protest as he drew his head away and glared up at her.
“Maybe I should just leave you like this, huh, Liz? Give you a little taste of what I’ve been going through all these months.”
Selfish, wasn’t he? Thinking he was the only one who’d been suffering. Well, screw him. Let him think it. She wouldn’t beg him to take her. She wouldn’t!
Despite thinking that she wouldn’t give into him, her hands curled with frustration into tight fists of restraint behind his neck. She craved to bring her hands down to press against her pussy and make herself climax. She knew she would be able to. He’d brought her that close. To her irritation, he smiled knowingly.
“No, I shouldn’t deny myself. Shouldn’t leave you like this.”
Reaching up, he grabbed her arms and slowly brought them down to her sides. “Keep them there. Don’t touch me.”
She whimpered at his sharp command and did as he told her, watching helplessly as his hands moved her nightie up and past her knees, then her hips. His breaths came faster, harsher, as cool air pushed against her nude pussy.
Yes, she was nude down there. She’d had herself permanently denuded shortly after going out with Durango. He’d wanted her that way, and she hadn’t seen any reason to deny him. Just like now. She couldn’t deny him. Couldn’t stop herself from wanting his mouth on her down there.
God, she was so weak.
Once again her helplessness and her defiance made her watch as he got into position, his head lowering to between her spread legs. She widened herself, silently begging, mutely urging him to hurry. Praying he wasn’t going to stop and just walk away.
She jerked wildly as his shoulders pushed her wider. His fingers slipped against her pussy, and he parted her outer labia. Then she cried out, dazed at the intoxicating intensity, as his tongue lashed her amazingly responsive clit like a frantic whip. Sensations zapped through her. Intense. Explosive. And when he plunged three fingers into her soaked vagina-
She came. Hard.
She whimpered, her thighs clenching against him as she tried to clamp them shut. But his broad shoulders prevented it. She cried out as his tongue kissed and licked her clit and his fingers plunged in and out of her as if they were a miniature cock. Arousal rocked her, making her hips wrench this way and that way. Making her pant furiously and clench her fists tighter as he went down on her full force. She could feel her juices seeping like a river down her channel, hot and moist. She could hear the suctioning sound of his fingers thrusting in and out and mingling with his erotic groans and her sultry moans.
He didn’t stop. He kept up the pressure with his mouth, his tongue kissing and licking her clit, and his fingers thrusting into her wet vagina. She just kept creaming for him, her back arching against him, pressing herself into his face. She loved the harsh brush of his whiskers as they erotically caressed the insides of her thighs.
God! Would this exquisite torture ever end?
The moment she found herself coming down from a climax, he would increase his thrusts as well as the pressure on her clit, until he forced her into another orgasm. By the time he was finished, perspiration drenched her nightgown and she was utterly exhausted. If he’d decided to call the other two men to join him she would have been too tired to protest. Too exhausted to do anything but lay back and let them wrench even more arousal from her parched and spent body.
“There, that’s the way I like to see you, Doc. Utterly satisfied. Your gorgeous eyes half lidded, your pussy red and swollen and eagerly awaiting more.”
He was right. Oh, the man was so right. She wanted to be taken again, despite the exhaustion clinging to her. Her pussy felt so wonderfully swollen and used. Achy and simply ready to be taken over and over again.
She thought for sure he would finish this by taking her hands and leading her to the couch where he would fuck her again and they would sleep together, like the old days.
To her disappointment, he didn’t. Instead he stood and looked down at her, his face twisted with lust and torment.
“If you want more of this, Doc, you’ll have to wear a plug so you can be stretched and then Landon and Tyrell can take you.”
Oh damn him! Damn him for doing this to her!
“Go to hell, Durango,” she spat in a fierce whisper. She would have yelled at him, had she the strength.
He shook his head, an odd smile tilting those sensuously shaped lips of his.
“Honey, without you, I’m there.”
Having said that, he walked away, his confident swagger snapping anger through her like a live wire. She swore if she’d had the energy, she would have grabbed something, anything, and thrown it at him.
It took every ounce of her being to stand. Her legs wobbled weakly from the onslaught of climaxes he’d given her, and she could barely make it to the couch where she practically fell onto the soft cushions. Tugging at the comforters, she wrapped herself in them like a cocoon and slept like she’d never slept before.