“He’ll ground you,” Evan reported with far too much enthusiasm.
He followed her into the house. She slammed the door.
“Don’t talk to me. I’m still not over your earlier stunt.”
“Fine.” He crossed his arms and blocked the steps. His eyes sparkled with soft seafoam blue, and finality lingered there with a twinge of misty defiance. “Don’t say a word but you might want to take a warning. Braden isn’t going to put up with your sneaking around. He wants you to finish out this school year. Then, you can go off to college, and make a good life for yourself.”
“Move,” she said, and she tried to scoot by him.
He stopped her by placing his hand on her forearm. “Peyton, before you go messing around with Kane, you need to think about the consequences. He doesn’t fall for little girls. He doesn’t play the kinds of games you like to play.”
“Move, and I’m not telling you again.”
“Go upstairs. Pout and cry, but while you’re there, ask yourself how often you’re going to enjoy Kane’s bed. How much do you think you’ll like having him season you with the sex shop’s flavor of the week, screwing you hard, and sending you right back to your own damn bed? How long will his way of life entertain you, huh?”
She stopped and turned around. “Jealous? Yeah, I think so.” She took one step and then two, before taking three more. She towered over him at a distance, two steps beyond an easy stretch, but if he wanted to grab her, he could. She watched the bubbles at his brow, those tiny little beads of sweat scattered as his breathing picked up.
“You wanted me in high school. You missed your chance because like an idiot, you refused to jump at it. Now, because your brother did, it’s killing you. It’s driving you stir crazy, and that’s why you acted like a jealous boyfriend when Jason Neely showed up here today.”
“You wish, sweetheart.”
“Wish nothing.” She popped her hip and held onto the banister. “Jason told me you’d act exactly like you did. Seems he knows a little more about you than I do, and I live under the same roof with you.” She started to turn but he pulled her back.
“What did he tell you exactly?”
She’d bet on a lump in his throat. Good, let him choke on it, she thought.
“He told me enough.” She pulled her arm free. “Enough for me to know which Cartwell to avoid in matters of the heart. For the record, it’s not Kane.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re such a smart boy, figure it out.” She trotted up the steps and left him to wonder.
He drew quick conclusions.
She’d already stripped her shirt over her head and tossed it to the bed. She was so mad she was going to take a cold shower, find a friggin cucumber in the refrigerator and fuck herself. Too naughty, she thought, but she really wanted to do something drastic. Vegetables were gross and bordered along the lines of far too desperate. Too bad she failed to plan ahead. A toy from Kane’s small stash would have come in handy about right now.
She kicked off her shoes, stepped out of her pants and started digging through her drawers when she looked up and caught him staring at her ass. She wheeled around, slapped her hand on the dresser and prepared to make demands, until she saw the bulge, and plenty of it, stretching Evan’s pants.
She stared at his cock. “Get out of my room.”
“Sorry darlin’, I can’t do it.”
His thumb hooked through one of the belt loops, and he looked like a man ready to do something more than just gape at a woman’s ass. He maintained a certain stance, one guaranteeing her that he wanted to fuck an ass, particularly hers.
His gait remained slow and steady as he approached her. His eyes on her body, heated her in the same places Kane kissed only hours before.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Won’t,” he growled as he pulled her in his arms. “It’s not even an option.”
She gasped as she fought to get away from him but he held fast and tight, determination spiraling through his grip. His cock pressed into her as a warning, her only cue before his mouth crashed against hers.
His lips and her lips melded together as perfectly as Kane’s mouth kissed her earlier.
“That’s good. Let me kiss you, sugar.” He didn’t kiss her greedily, though the hunger existed there. Instead, his tongue moved into her mouth nice and slow, with gentle attentiveness as he deliberately kept his cock out of the equation. He left space between their bodies like a skilled lover anticipating, thinking ahead, fearing she’d bolt if he made the wrong move.
Her heart raced, her pulse increased, and she felt dizzy, drunk now with possibilities as the harrowing realization hit her square in the face. Her hands flew to his chest, and before she pushed him away, he pulled her back and pinned her against him.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered as his arms wrapped around her waist.
“Why not? You don’t want me?” His eyes searched hers for answers she didn’t have. Wouldn’t have, couldn’t give if she found them.
She wanted him. Oh God, she wanted him. And what did her lust for him make her when she also desired another? Her breasts rose and fell, and her nipples ached for his touch, a tender caress or a tight suckling kiss.
“I’m only asking for whatever it is you want me to have, whatever you gave Kane, or more if you’ve got more held in reserve for me. But understand, I’m not asking you to choose. I won’t. Not today or tomorrow or the day after. He cares about you, and knowing Kane, his feelings won’t change.”
Oh now she wanted to die. Kane cared about her and the other two realized it.
He bent his knees and gripped her hips as he brought her legs around his waist and carried her over to the bed. Locking her ankles behind him then, she tore at him like a wildcat. She covered his face with kisses before she slipped her arm around his neck and drew him closer, refusing to let him leave her now.
“Kiss me, Evan. Oh God yes, please kiss me.”
Desperation filled his eyes as he gave her what she wanted. He kissed her lips until her mind blanked out the images of another. Framing her face, Evan made passionate love to her mouth and so help her, she felt his kiss in every last one of her nerve endings. Her body craved more. This was good-too good and way too hot. Slowly, in the middle of their satisfying kiss, he reached around his waist and pulled her legs away from him.
“I want you spread out on my bed, just like this, Peyton. So pretty and sexy, just like you are right here.” He nibbled her earlobe, sucked it, tapped it with his tongue and then kissed her neck. “I’m going to mark your pretty little neck, not today, but soon. I’ll put a love mark there so everyone will know. I’ll make sure you’re marked as somebody’s woman.”
Somebody’s woman? Anybody’s woman or his woman? Would they all mark her as Cartwell property, the way she’d felt since she’d moved there? Did she choose to belong to them the day she signed the paperwork at the lawyer’s office? Maybe this act took too long but even if it was long overdue, did they expect it? She couldn’t think about it. She only wanted to enjoy this. Evan was going to mark her, brand her as his, with a hickey!
She closed her eyes as his hot lips continued to drive her to the brink of craziness. Oh yeah, this kind of attention defined maddening, crazy beyond anything she’d ever understand.
“I see it in your eyes, Peyton. You like the idea.” He grabbed the headboard and looked down at her. “Then you’ll love this.” He continued to grind out his lust, pressing against her pussy. “I’m going to tell everyone. I’ll claim that little love bite as my own,” he growled as he yanked his shirt over his head and then crashed against her mouth again while pressing his cock harder against her center.
“Lose the panties and bra. Now.” A shudder of raw desire lingered in the air as he reared back on the balls of his feet.
“Do it and I’ll spank your ass from one end of this property to the next.” Kane stood in the doorway with his thick arms folded across his chest and a wide smile curving his lips. “It’s hell getting interrupted, huh, Evan?”
Oh Lord, she preferred death to this kind of embarrassment. The one person she didn’t want to walk in and catch them. The one man she didn’t want to see her in the throes of true uncontrollable lust, and he stood there looking like he wanted to join them.
Evan’s tongue curled over his upper lip, and he punched the pillow beside her head. “Damn it to hell.”
“Yeah, now you know the feeling. Braden’s behind me. You two get straight. Peyton, get in bed. Well, scratch that. You’re already there. Evan, get away from her. She has school in the morning and a volleyball game tomorrow night.” He grabbed Evan by the arm as he started through the door and swatted him on the back. “Those blue balls should pinch the hell out of you in about another hour or so.”
“Fuck you, Kane.”
“Yeah, man. I feel the pain. Believe me, I feel it.” He stared at her with those knowing dark, brooding eyes. He took his time looking her over. Her mother used to say men who looked at women a certain way enjoyed a simple man’s pleasure. Right now, she missed her mother. Her mother would know what to say, and how to advise her. She needed some advice, and she could use it from someone without the surname Cartwell.
She nervously headed for her dresser, snatched her clothing from the floor and tossed it in the nearby rocking chair. Kane picked up the items and then sat down.
“Out.”
“Nope, not until I have a few words with you.”
“You’re pissed, and I’m not going to explain myself just because the great Kane Cartwell’s ego is bruised.”
“My ego is fine. It’s yours I’m worried about.” He stared at her ass as she pulled her flannel pajamas from her top drawer. Her little round globes were just the right handful for a man who understood what to do with an ass like hers.
He tore his gaze away from her butt, and his voice changed to a soothing tone she’d never heard from him. “My mom used to rock me in this rocking chair. I don’t remember it of course, but I do remember how she rocked Evan.”
He rocked back and forth and back and forth. “Before you moved in, I used to avoid coming in here because at times, when the loneliness set in, I used to hear her…in this room.”
Her chin quivered as he talked about his mother right when she’d been thinking so much about her own. He offered her a weak smile and then continued, “Did Braden ever tell you about her? Our mother, I mean.”
She shook her head. “I’ve looked at her pictures. She was beautiful. I know you must’ve been very proud of her.”
“Yeah well she was too beautiful for her own good. Everyone always thought so.”
“How old was she when she died?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Too young to-”
“She was too young,” Braden’s voice echoed from the hallway and his gaze immediately fell to her ass. “Nice thong.”
She wanted to die right there. Now, they could plan her funeral and bury her. Braden Cartwell told her she had a nice thong. Braden. Not Evan and not Kane. Braden. Sweet fire and ice, this was a very good day, a defining moment.
“Thanks,” she said. She then studied one very amused Kane. His lips formed a tight restraining line before he finally released an outright chuckle.
“I’ll tell you about her some other time.” He started to get up from the rocking chair. Braden walked over to the bed and sat on the edge.
“Mom started having babies at sixteen. Did he tell you?”
“No.”
Kane decided to stay then and sat back down. It was as if he understood what Braden planned to tell her, as if he needed to hear his brother tell a story about their mother and maybe even those she left behind.
“She had me when she was sixteen, Kane at nineteen and at twenty-two, Evan came along. We have different fathers. All with the last name Cartwell. You can do the figuring on that one.”
“Oh,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say. What’s a person to say in times like these?
One thing she realized quickly. She felt far too comfortable in her panties and bra in front of them, which made her feel free, in a weird sense. She reached for her pajamas again and decided to dress while Braden continued. He didn’t look away from her, and his gaze heated her in a way his brothers did with their lips. It only took a simple look.
Evan walked by the bedroom door right as she stepped into her pajamas. He didn’t see Braden at first. “You’d better hurry and get dressed. He’s home.”
“Yeah, he is,” Braden snapped.
“I uh…failed to see you there.”
“Well now you have, so come on in here and pull up a chair. I have a few things to say to all of you, and it’s high time I said ‘em.”
After she dressed in a pretty pair of pajamas Braden bought for her right after she moved in, mainly because he thought she ran around in provocative nightshirts, she sat down on the floor. She leaned her head against the dresser and watched him with curious eyes. His brothers had looked into those eyes and seen their future while he tried to defy it. Hell, he still planned to fight it. This thing with Peyton, whatever they were doing, had to stop before it went too far, and spun right out of control.
“Mom loved three men, Peyton. She loved ‘em all and according to her sisters, they all loved her as much as she loved them. Trouble was, they didn’t know about the things Mom shared with anyone other than them, at least not at first. See, they were all married to other people.
“By the time they found out about one another, there was so much betrayal to overcome, feelings and emotions no one wanted to sort through and a lot of dangerous anger loomed between them. One night while Mom was in the kitchen cooking supper, something bad happened. No one knows for certain how it all started or who initiated the confrontation.
Peyton shifted on the floor and Kane, as if on a dare, glanced at Evan and then at Braden before he reached for her. At first she ignored his hand but after Evan shot her an accepting smile and Braden noticed, she let Kane pull her onto his lap where she curled up against his chest. He cradled her like a small child.
It proved a point and soon Braden felt the undoing of a grown man. Kane would never give her up. He’d already formed some sort of intimate bond with her and anyone could see it.
Braden felt his heart sink into unfamiliar territory. He didn’t like where they were all headed. History would repeat itself and the only way to change the detrimental parts was to start at the beginning and work through the pain to ensure none of them experienced the kind of heartache lingering in the past.
Unsure if she soothed his breaking heart or he helped keep hers in tact, Peyton leaned against Kane’s chest. He nuzzled her hair and kissed her head while rocking with a timed pace, a silent song.
“Anyway at some point,” Braden continued, “Momma must’ve heard a lot of gunfire, and she ran from the house to see what happened. She rushed out to the barn and found the three men she loved. All of them lay dying in a pool of blood with guns in their hands.”
Peyton’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to imagine what their mother must’ve gone through when she found the three men she loved most dying, all three calling her name, perhaps, needing her beside of them as they took their last breath. “That’s horrific.”
“It’s worse than a horror story, Peyton,” Evan said as he watched her. “It was her life. She caused it. She did it with lies and deception and then when she decided it was too much to handle, what did she do?” He looked up at the beams high above her bed, and Peyton shivered before he said anything.
Kane shook his head. “This isn’t necessary.”
“Oh yes, it is. If you’re going to tell her part of it, tell her the whole thing.” He turned back to Peyton and pointed to the rafters again. “When the guilt ate her insides out, she decided to hang right here so her sons would find her.” His words were drenched in bitterness.
Braden closed his eyes, and Kane glared at the ceiling. Now she understood why Kane didn’t come in her room before she moved in.
It was more than the lullabies he thought he still heard, and it wasn’t the song in her voice he imagined. It was the memory of a life-changing discovery, the image none of them would ever shake.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered against Kane’s chest but she looked from Braden to Evan. “I never knew or heard those stories.”
“Of course not, but now you know and since you do, you might understand why I wanted to help you but why I didn’t want whatever it is that’s going on between you and Kane and maybe even Evan and you, to happen. History often repeats itself, Peyton, and the sins of fathers can fall like a gavel upon their children.”
Kane held her closer, tighter. He needed her. She felt it in the strength he used to hold her there against him. She refused to pull away even with Braden’s warning.
“Peyton, you need to understand something. It’s not that I would fear what we would do to one another. I fear what a relationship, with more than one man, could do to a woman, what it might do to you. It’s hard to explain but I think in a lot of ways, my mother ended up very lonely even though she had three men who loved her so much they ultimately died because of her.”
“Maybe she didn’t find happiness because she refused to tell the men in her life how she really felt. It had to be hard on her if she had a relationship with three married men. Maybe all she wanted was the security found in the arms of someone she knew loved her enough to stay with her forever.”
Evan managed a grin. “You’re a romantic. Just like every other woman in the world, a hopeless romantic.”
Peyton sat up then, dabbing at her eyes. “No, I’m not a romantic, Evan. I was raised without a father. My mother refused to date. I don’t know romance from a good romp in the sack.”
Immediately all eyes fell to her breasts, lust filling each pair of eyes on her then.
“What do you know about a romp in the sack?” Braden asked.
“Well, nothing now, no thanks to you.”
He chuckled. “Somehow I expected a note of thanks.”
“You might get your ass kicked if it happens again,” Kane grunted.
Braden let it slide. “Peyton, I signed on to raise you into a woman who could take on the world. I wanted to help a woman-your mother-because she once helped me.”
“My mother helped you?”
“She pretty much saved my life when I was a wild teenager.”
“Braden ran with the wrong crowd, wanted to be a wild ass after Mom died,” Kane said.
“And every morning, I ate breakfast at the diner and every morning your mother reminded me of why life is good, why it’s a gift, one we only get to unwrap once.”
“Yeah, she always said that about life and about a woman’s virginity too, by the way.”
“Peyton…” Kane raised an eyebrow. He most likely feared she was only testing the waters before she dove into an outright seduction.
Braden cleared his throat. “Let’s make a deal, want to?”
Kane stuck his thumb in her side. She wasn’t sure if he did it to let her know he was horny or to shake her enough to tell Braden ‘no deal’ regardless of what he hoped to pitch.
“What’s on your mind?” She stood up, carefully walked over to Braden and sat down on his lap.
Kane chuckled, Evan snickered too and Braden sat there motionless for a few moments. After only a minute passed, she bent her elbow and hooked it around Braden’s neck. “I’ll make any deal you want me to make but on one condition.”
“What?”
“I can regard it like I do any other rule.”
Braden reached behind his neck and tried to loosen her hold. “Which means?”
Evan clarified. “What she means is rules are made to be broken. If it’s a deal she can’t live with, she won’t hold up her end of the bargain. Right, Peyton?”
Peyton moved her mouth to his ear. “And speaking of rules, Braden, I only break them when I’m feeling naughty.” She licked his earlobe, took his hand and added with a wink. “Wanna feel how naughty I am right this minute?”
He stood up and dropped her ass right on the floor. “Nope, I don’t. Did you not hear a word I just said?”
“Yes, I did, but-”
“Peyton, I want you to make deals, and keep them. Follow rules and respect them and until you graduate from high school, I want these two to keep their hands to themselves. Do you understand?”
She groaned. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Well?” He reached for her and pulled her up with one hand, the gesture seemingly close to a handshake. “So we have a deal?”
Pressing her breasts against his chest, she kissed the tip of his nose. “We do until we don’t.”
Braden growled. “Which means?”
“It means, ten seconds and counting, then all bets are off.” Kane clicked off the time holding up ten fingers while allowing them to fall one by one.