Covington, Cara - Love Under Two Lawmen [The Lost Collection] (Siren Menage Everlasting) (30 page)

“Do you know how much it arouses me when your body grips my fingers like that? You’re so responsive, so hot. Only for us.”

He rose up so that he ranged above her, the expression on his face intense as he increased the pressure, as he stroked her pussy. She felt the sopping wetness and knew some of that was from Adam, but some was her own dew, a physical manifestation of the heat both these men stirred in her in equal measure.

“Only for us,” he said again. “Say it, Amanda.”

The demand abraded even as the caress reignited her inner fires. She wanted to deny him, deny his words, his meaning. This had become a war she feared would spawn no winners, only victims.

“Say it.”

She expected this edge from Adam. He demanded, he led, with such natural authority that resistance seemed incomprehensible.

Warren’s forcefulness, so rare, compelled her beyond her ability to deny.

“Yes! Damn you, yes. Only for the two of you! Only and ever! Are you satisfied?”

Warren replaced his fingers with his cock and thrust into her again and again. Wanton, burning with need, Amanda clung to him, received him, and cried out because what she needed, what she had to have, kept leaping out of her reach.

Desperate for release, she whimpered, frustration racing passion for possession of her soul.

“Here.” Warren slid his arms around her, reversed their positions, eased her up and onto her knees.

Even as she began to ride him harder, she tilted her bottom to the air and bore down on Warren’s cock, ready for more.

Adam gained his knees and moved behind her. He grasped her hips, spread her ass cheeks, and prepared her with his tongue. Then the tip of his cock caressed the rosette of her anus. He pressed forward, his cock hot, hard, relentless.

Amanda felt her body open to him, felt him slide into her in one long, slow, and steady thrust.

“Again! Oh, God, Adam, please.
Fuck me
.”

Beyond desperate, she could only give and take, rub and move and claw. She would do anything, everything, if only…

From somewhere deep in her soul, the eruption gathered, a powerful, unstoppable force of heat and emotion and sensation. And then it came, the burning, hot flood of release overtaking her completely, spasm after spasm. She could only collapse on Warren, her body spent yet open, greedy, sucking every drop of passion her lovers gave her as the rapture possessed her completely and seemed never to end.

The pounding of her heart and the rushing of her blood blocked out every sound, every sense. Gradually, sensation returned to her fingers, her toes. Her hearing cleared, and she wondered how a woman could survive such ravishment.

Adam withdrew from her, eased her off Warren, and brought her down to the bed, on her side, so she faced him. Behind her, she felt Warren move against her back, effectively cocooning her, an embrace she knew she would miss desperately in the months and years to come.

“Goddamn it, Amanda. Don’t you get it? Can’t you see?” Adam demanded

“Adam.”

Warren’s quiet calling of his name got his attention. He looked into their lover’s eyes for a long moment, then turned his gaze back to her.

“You’re ours,” he said more calmly, and Amanda felt the tremble in his hand when he smoothed her hair from her face. “You’re ours. We’re yours.
We belong together
.”

“I love you. I love you both beyond anything…everything. There’ll never be another for me, not as long as I live. But I don’t belong
here
, Adam. There’s no place for me
here
.”

“Of course there is, sweetheart.”

Warren’s tone, gentle bordering on pity, stabbed her heart and made her want to cry.

“Of course there’s a place for you here,” Adam agreed. “You just can’t see it. Maybe you’re afraid to see it.”

She had no words to give them then, and no hope, for she felt none of that rare commodity herself.

In the deepening dark of night, she could only shiver, missing them already, as her tears silently soaked her pillow.

Chapter 26

“I can’t help feeling that you’re making a horrible mistake,” Sarah said.

Amanda looked over at her cousin and offered her what she knew must look like a very sad smile. “I know you do. But I honestly can’t see that I have any choice.”

Sarah personified contentment, her seven-week-old son Charles held firmly at her breast. Named after his paternal grandfather, Charles Benedict displayed a fine appreciation for his mother’s cuddling and his morning meal.

He had, his fathers’ claimed, almost as hearty an appetite as did his younger-by-five-minutes brother, Samuel.

Amanda bent over the younger of Sarah’s twins, asleep in her arms. She placed a gentle kiss on his brow, smiling when he wrinkled that brow as if already protesting being fussed over by a female.

In the course of these last three weeks, Amanda had come to regard Sarah as the sister she’d never had. She already loved the babies, and Caleb and Joshua Benedict had earned her respect as only two other men had ever done. Thinking of those two other men now made Amanda’s heart clench.

She loved them so much, and she wished with all her heart she could stay. She just couldn’t see how that would work for the long haul.

Adam and Warren fit in here. They had their friends, here. Warren had his law practice, and although Adam’s resignation from the Rangers was all but certain, she knew he belonged here, too, whether as a lawman or a rancher.

Amanda’s life was back in Richmond. She had her mother and her business—a business that flourished because of who she was, how she’d been born, and her place in that world.

Adam and Warren had stayed with her under her cousin’s roof until yesterday, when they’d ridden back to town. They’d been loving and tender despite their frustration with her. Maybe in time they’d come to realize that as painful as this choice was for all of them, she was doing the right thing.

“You’re the sister I never had, and to think you’re just going to leave, to leave me and Adam and Warren—”

“Sarah.”

Amanda looked up to see Caleb standing in the doorway. He went over to his wife, bent down and kissed her. One finger caressed his son’s cheek, as if measuring the strength of the baby’s pull on her breast.

“Sweetheart, Amanda’s not making this decision easily. Just look at her. Why don’t you cut her a little slack?”

“No,” Amanda got to her feet, “it’s all right.” She handed Caleb his sleeping son. She looked from him to Sarah. Her cousin’s smile wavered, became blurry, and Amanda knew she was going to cry again. Before she could embarrass herself by breaking down completely, she said, “I’ll just go finish packing so I’ll be ready to leave whenever you are.”

Caleb was going to drive her into town, using the same buckboard Warren had used to bring her to the ranch that first time. Had it only been a few months ago?

A few months. A lifetime. Amanda knew she had no choice but to return to Virginia, even if a part of her heart—the biggest part, the best part—would stay in Texas forever.

* * * *

Adam looked up from his desk, movement outside the window catching his eye. Warren Jessop took the steps down from the courthouse and set his course for the Ranger office.

Adam nodded when the man entered. “Just give me a moment to finish this,” he said, then turned his attention back to the report he was writing.

“Nothing from Austin yet?” Warren asked.

“Not yet,” Adam said. He couldn’t understand the delay. He’d felt certain he’d have had a letter from his superiors accepting his resignation and appointing another Ranger to head up the Waco office waiting for him on his return from Denison.

“The Benedicts should be bringing her into town any moment,” Warren said. “Do you think she’ll be surprised when we make her that offer?”

Adam smiled. “Probably. That’s why I’m pissed I haven’t heard back yet. We could have been ready to leave with her today if I had.”

“You know, we could always just kidnap her. Keep her until she forgets all about Richmond.”

Before Adam could respond to that outrageous suggestion, the door swung open and Wyatt Earp stepped in. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Adam.

“I wouldn’t have made this detour for anyone else. I hope you appreciate that, Kendall.”

“Hey, Wyatt. Good to see you again.” He shook the man’s hand. Wyatt’s words hadn’t made any sense. “You detoured back here for me?”

“Well, that and because Bat wanted to visit the Benedicts.”

“Masterson’s here, too?”

“Yeah, he’s getting our horses unloaded from the train. He tells me Caleb and Joshua have a spread near here. Anyway, I hope it’s a favor I’ve done you and not brought you trouble, instead. I was in Austin as you know, and in the course of my visit happened to encounter Colonel Jones. When he discovered I was on my way here, he asked me to hand deliver this, to you.”

Jones was Adam’s boss. He took the envelope, and since all gazes in the room rested on him, he opened the letter.

“What does it say?” Warren asked.

Adam heard the thread of anxiety in Warren’s voice. He finished skimming the document and looked up.

“My resignation has been refused, my promotion to Major stands, and I’m ordered to continue in charge of the Waco Division.”

A month ago this would have been welcome news. Today, especially today, not so much so. Before he could comment, the door burst open.

“Captain Kendall, come quick. There’s trouble at the train station!”

* * * *
 

“Masterson! What a surprise!” Caleb Benedict said.

“Hey, Benedict. I told you I’d be by for a visit. How are you? And how’s…”

Amanda tilted her head to the side, reading the look of chagrin on the face of the dapper gentlemen who’d just shook hands with Caleb.

“Sarah’s just great,” Caleb said. He chuckled, then set Amanda’s valise down just beside the corner of the train station building. “This is Sarah’s cousin, Amanda Dupree. Miss Dupree is just on her way back to Richmond. Amanda, this is a friend of ours, Bat Masterson.”

“You helped my cousin in Denison!” Amanda said, having recognized the name. Recalling the story Sarah had told her, she thought her description of the sometime lawman an apt one.

“Yes, ma’am. A pleasure.” Masterson doffed his hat. Then he turned back to Caleb. “Actually, I’m not the only old friend to come calling. Earp and I took the train from Austin. Got in just a few minutes ago. Figured we’d look you up before heading out to Arizona.”

“Wyatt’s here?” Caleb made a show of scanning the area.

“Headed on over to the Ranger office as he had a letter to deliver to Adam Kendall.”

“Gentlemen, please excuse me while I go inside and get my ticket.”

“Sorry, Amanda. Just let me—”

Amanda touched Caleb’s arm. “Nonsense. Visit with your friend. I can certainly get my own ticket. I’ll be right back.”

Amanda made her way through the small throng of men and women waiting on the boardwalk outside the station. The northbound train she’d be on wouldn’t arrive for another hour, but she’d heard a train pull out just as they were nearing the station.

Must have been the train Caleb’s friend came in on.

Waco certainly seemed to be a busy destination. Joshua had said at dinner the night before that the city just kept growing.

Amanda couldn’t say Richmond was growing, but it was recovering nicely after those devastating years of the War of Northern Aggression and the hard times that had followed.

She’d almost reached the door to the station when her attention was caught by a man who stood, seemingly alone, staring at her. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen him before.

She’d just turned away from him when he practically leapt forward and grabbed her arm, giving her a shake.

“By God, I have you, you interfering daughter of a whore! I swore I’d track you down to the ends of the earth. You ruined me! You ruined me and my family, and now you’re going to pay!”

Jonathan Marley
. The crooked businessman whose threats, after she’d uncovered his fraudulent scheming with his partner in crime, had sent her fleeing westward in the first place.

Everything happened so fast. One woman screamed, a couple of men yelled, and Caleb and Mr. Masterson rushed forward, murder in their eyes.

Marley yanked her backwards and drew his gun. He held that weapon very close to Amanda’s head. She noticed the weapon shaking and swallowed hard.

“Stay back! This is none of your concern. I’ve got business with this strumpet. She’s just a whore’s daughter anyway. Now, back off.”

“I may be a whore’s daughter, but you’re a thief
and
a fugitive from the law. There’s an arrest warrant issued against you in Richmond.”