Hers to Choose (Cannon Cousins) (18 page)

Face it. She was quickly
dissolving into a basket case. She didn’t know if she dared placing herself at
the table with them for dinner. This was the exact thing she had tried to
reason through, made rules about, decided she would not do. Maybe she could kid
herself into believing if she could have Alex just one time, she could get over
this crazy desire. That if the teasing he had started could finally come to
conclusion, she would be satisfied.

And maybe that was true.
But what if it wasn’t? What if the more she got, the more she would want? What
if everything about him was as enchanting as the little bit she already knew?
What if once he held her and brought his thick cock deep inside her in a frenzy
of pleasure she could hardly let herself imagine, she would never be able to
think about anything else? What if—oh god, what if she was falling for this
guy?

She let the cornbread pan
drop to the table with a loud thump, causing her to jump. This was absurd.
First of all, she hardly knew him.
Secondly...

“Bryn...”

Alex’s voice came
directly behind her. She jumped again.

“Is everything okay?”

She shook her head.
“Yes.” Her body strained toward him. She tried to look at what she had put on
the table—she had no idea where things stood in the progress of dinner. The
situation had become ridiculous. She put her hands on her hips and kept looking
at the table, trying to think.

“I’ve been distracted.
I’m trying to hurry.”

He stepped back and she
glanced up at him. His stare questioned her, but he didn’t say more. What would
happen if she put her arms around his shoulders and put her mouth against his?
Her view settled on his mouth, provoking that familiar sensual smile.

“I’ll...it’ll be ready in
a moment,” she stammered, turning and nearly running back to the kitchen.

Her head pounded as she
tried to collect her thoughts. Her brain felt like a hard drive with some big
program running in the background—she had almost no processing power left. She
could only walk from the stove to the counter to the small table, trying to see
if there was anything left sitting out that should be on the dining table. She
had set herself a place to eat with them, and now she didn’t think she should
be trusted with a fork.

She hesitated at the
sideboard where she gulped a shot of whiskey. Maybe all this drama about Alex
really had to do with Dan and his emotional changes. Maybe hunger compromised her
thinking. Maybe if she put some food in her stomach and participated in polite
conversation, she could climb down off this cliff.

“Dinner,” she said toward
the men. She stood at the table, looking over the setting. It seemed like all
the food was there. Collapsing into a chair, Bryn held her head in her hands as
the two men arrived and seated themselves.

Somehow she managed to
eat, although she didn’t taste the food and had no idea how much or how little
she ate. It was a mechanical process, her attention fully consumed in watching
Alex and forcing herself not to watch Alex. Then her stare locked on Dan’s
hands and her body remembered them, so that her nipples hardened again and her
crotch pulsed. And when she glanced up from Dan’s hands, Alex’s gaze had
riveted onto her with a furious expression.
The image of them
both with their hands on her kept popping up in her mind.
Whatever words
were said, inane and rambling and having to do with weather and television
news, she didn’t know if she uttered any of them.

She pushed back from the
table and went into the kitchen, carrying her half empty plate. If they needed
anything, they would have to ask. She gathered cooking utensils and pans to the
sink and began washing up.

“Bryn.”
Alex came up behind her and set his
and Dan’s empty dishes on the counter. “Listen...” he hesitated.

She turned her face,
trying to think of what she would do next. She knew what she wanted, but the
situation seemed hopelessly tangled. No matter what, it would only get worse
for her.

“Dan and I....we think
we’ll go ahead and leave a couple of days early. I really don’t have the heart
to track down that old
buck,
he’s earned his kingdom
here. And it seems like you’re under a lot of pressure, I mean, I know things
must have been intense while I was gone, with what Dan tells me...and
he’s...it’s a different situation for him now, after....” He ran his hand
through his hair as he leaned his hip against the counter.

Her eyes focused for a
moment on his hip, his whole lower body where the jeans pulled across his
buttocks and strained over the outline of his erection. Oh god she could not
imagine living without that, without his smile, his curiosity and charm. What
on earth was wrong with her? Her knees buckled slightly and she gripped the
side of the sink as her look trailed back up across his chest and came to the
shocking blue of his eyes. Whatever he said, whatever he meant to say, she
simply could not think of anything but having him.

“Oh,
but what about Thanksgiving?
I had prepared...”

He frowned. “Yes, I
thought about that. We don’t want to inconvenience you in any way—have you
already made preparations?”

“A few...” She bit her
lip. She couldn’t tell him she’d imagined how it would be, not only a
Thanksgiving feast with all of them jubilant around the table, but both men
coming to her with their hard cocks and teasing tongues to drive her to the
cliff and over it.

And yes, there was more.
There was Alex alone, an entirely other bigger, more dangerous cliff, a place
she simply could not go.

“We’re flexible, if there
is something specific...”

“Yes,” she blurted out
suddenly. “I…want you…both.”

Did she really say that?
Her face burned in sudden blazing embarrassment. She couldn’t believe she’d
said it. She had hardly let herself hear the thought inside her own head, never
mind considered saying it out loud. To Alex! Afraid to know what he thought,
she had to force herself to look at him.

His eyes had taken on an
even more intense blue. A kind of smile hovered at his mouth, coming and going
in nuances she couldn’t interpret.

“You want us both...” His
voice had a raspy edge.
“Do you mean, I mean, I assume you
mean, sexually?”

What could she say now?
That she meant for Thanksgiving? Or that she meant she wanted them both with
their hands on her body, ravishing her until she cried and begged and lost
herself completely to the pleasure of it?

“Bryn,” he insisted, “is
that what you mean?
Both of us?”

She managed to nod
slightly then shook her head.

“Yes? No?” He sighed in
frustration and gripped her arms. “You have to tell me, you can’t say something
like that and then duck out.”

“Yes,
okay, I...” she licked her lips and swallowed. “
Both of you, was what I thought.
But...” she frowned, shaking her head and looking at his incredulous face. “But
then, I thought that would never work, I mean, I don’t know how it would work.
Look, I’m embarrassed to talk about something so, uh, personal. Well, that’s
crazy. I mean, I don’t even know if you want me that way, either one of you.
It’s been about discipline, the whole thing to help Dan. I don’t see how what I
want can factor into that.” She swallowed thickly, her throat dry. “I should
never have said anything...”

Her voice trailed off as
his hand came to her face and began stroking her cheek with his thumb. “So
you’ve had nearly two weeks of us working your body over and not a moment of
attention to what you might want...am I getting close?”

Tears suddenly filmed her
eyes. This was pathetic. Now he was feeling sorry for her. The last damn thing
she wanted was sympathy. If his hand hadn’t been opening her up like soft
fruit, she would have run to her bedroom and locked the door. She shook her
head.

“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” He
lifted her chin and forced her to look at him. “You have your own demands, Miss
McClure. The things that have been going on involved you as much as Dan. And at
moments, I had my own selfish part in it, too. Why didn’t you say anything
sooner?”

Her breath caught in a
half sob. “Because,” she said, a flush of anger sweeping over her, “this isn’t
supposed to be about me.” She tried to look away in an effort to gain some
self-control, but his tender stare tore her open. “This is business, it’s for
me to get enough money for the bank, it’s about what you and Dan need.”

His mouth swept down to
hers and his lips caught hers in a long kiss. His hands slid up her back,
pulled her against him. Her lips softened to his mouth, eager for the probe of
his velvet tongue. The strength of his hard body fired her core to a molten knot.
She didn’t want to need anything as much as she needed Alex in that moment.
Consumed in the powerful energy emanating between them, her body melted against
him.

He lifted his head and
stepped back. Her eyes searched for a clue to what he was thinking. His face
shifted through so many expressions. Regret, amusement, pleasure, anger—she
couldn’t be sure about any of it. Maybe she was simply projecting her own
confusion. His glance held hers for a long moment. So much passed between them
in that stare.

“I’ll talk with Dan.”

When he turned to walk
away, it was as if a sudden silence fell in the room after full strains of
orchestral music.

Night wind whipped at Alex’s hair and
ran cold fingers around his collar as he stood on the porch. He burned from
head to toe, his body still shaking from losing contact with her. The memory of
her full mouth scorched his lips. He could taste her, feel her softening under
his hands, molding against him. He exhaled, trying to scrape his thoughts
together.

She wanted them both.
What the hell did that mean? Wasn’t it enough that Dan had violated every
orifice? The idea of touching her and seeing Dan with her at the same time
fired into his brain with so much fury that he couldn’t let the thought linger.
Surely that’s not what she meant. Surely her request had to do with more
punishment, one after the other spanking her until she had her fill.

He knew that wasn’t it.
She wanted to
fuck,
he could feel it in her body when
he held her. There should be some relief in that, he thought wildly, some salve
for this need that had turned into a raw wound inside him, but instead it was a
whole new injury, cutting deeper and more viciously into his gut. She didn’t
want to fuck because of
him, that
much was clear. This
was about Dan’s domination, stirring her up and leaving her with nothing for
herself.

This thing he felt for
her, whatever the insanity that had invaded his body, had no basis. It had to
be some kind of pornographic effect. What man would remain unresponsive after
seeing a body like hers exposed, restrained, paddled? Another wave of fire
burned up from his nuts and his cock yelled at him. What the hell difference
would it make if he fucked her? She asked to be fucked.
Asked
for both of them to fuck her.

He closed his eyes. He
needed to talk with Dan, somehow figure out how to give her as much of her
request as possible, even if it might leave him utterly devastated. She
deserved whatever consideration they could provide.
And much
more.

He waited while Dan came
to the porch.

“I told her we were
leaving tomorrow.”

“What did she say?
Any problem?”
Dan inhaled and stretched his arms into the
wood-smoke scented air.

“No, no problem. She had
a request.” He cast his gaze on Dan in the faint illumination leaking through
the worn curtains. “She says she wants us both.”

Dan’s head snapped
around.
“Wants us…both?!
What the hell does that
mean?”

“I think she wants us to
fuck her. I tried to get it out of her, exactly what. It’s like, this spanking
stuff, whatever you did you her, that’s like foreplay. She’s all wound up.”

Alex didn’t like the
expression he saw on Dan’s face, a look clearly signaling desire.

“Hell, I’m up for that.
Who goes first?”

“I’m fuzzy on details. I
don’t think she really knows. Personally, I’m having a hard time getting my
head around it, but I think we owe her.”

“Damn straight. She’s
been a trooper.”

“And I want to give her
whatever she asks.”

“How did you…never mind.
Let’s get this figured out because we do need to get the hell out of here. I’ve
started thinking about all the shit that’s piled up on my desk. I’ve got to dig
in.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got
some massive digging to do. A stack of messages this thick,” he motioned with
his hands. “So, how about if you take the truck back to the cabin and I’ll see
what I can do for her tonight. Depending on how it goes, if that’s not enough,
you can have her in the morning.”

“Is that…never
mind.
It’s your show, Alex, start to finish.” Dan grinned,
examining Alex with a knowing expression. “I’ll see you later.”