Fevered Hearts (3 page)

Liam didn’t say a word, though, just continued to cut up the vegetables using precise movements. She watched him for a moment, trying to keep herself from taking over for him to ensure he didn’t cut himself. His fingers weren’t always so nimble. Still, she’d love to have them running all over her body.

Ward went on as if Liam had given encouragement. “Out west, there were a few times he pushed past me with saw in hand, determined to cut a tricky tree. He taught me a lot.”

Liam shot him a look that Ivy felt to the tips of her toes. But she had no idea what it was she felt between them. What did that look mean? She’d never seen such an expression on her husband’s face.

She carried the pot to the stove and knew Ward tracked her with his gaze. Between his big male presence and Liam’s scorching look, she was slippery as hell. Her inner thighs were moist and her panties soaked.

“These are ready for the grill,” Liam said.

Ivy came forward to take the cutting board filled with vegetables and the knife from him. But just as she lifted it, the knife slipped. Automatically she grabbed for it, and Liam knocked her hand away.

The heavy wooden board clattered to the tile along with all the vegetables. But the knife was wrapped in Liam’s fist, and blood was running from between his fingers.

“No!” Ivy hit her knees beside Liam.

“Hell.” Ward rushed forward with a dishtowel.

Liam let the knife slip out of his grasp. At the rush of iron-scented blood over his palm, Ivy swayed on her knees.

Her husband’s uninjured free hand clamped on her shoulder to steady her. “Ward, get her out of here before she passes out.”

“But you probably need stitches,” she cried.

Ward grabbed Liam’s hand and plastered the towel to it. Immediately, the fibers grew soaked with blood.

“He’s bleeding like a stuck pig, but then again, he always did,” Ward said. Something passed between their gazes, hot and undeniably primal.

She stared from handsome face to handsome face. What was going on? Was that a challenge she saw? She didn’t understand it.

“Why did you grab that knife, Liam?” She gained her feet and pulled another towel from a nearby drawer.

He didn’t answer until she returned to his side. While Ward held his hand out, she removed the soaked towel and replaced it with the dry one. She squeezed her husband’s hand tightly, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

She studied Liam’s face. His downcast eyes with the spikey lashes made her heart trip. Each golden hair on his jaw was defined by the early evening sunlight slanting through the space.

When he raised his gaze to hers, a knot formed in her throat. “I grabbed it to keep you from grabbing it, Ivy.”

Warmth and love blossomed in her soul. She made a sound dangerously close to a sob but busied herself with making sure the blood had stopped. Liam wouldn’t want her fawning all over him, with or without Ward present.

“Where do I find a first aid kit, sweetheart?” Ward asked.

His drawled endearment set her spinning in the opposite direction. Head whirling like a bottle at a teen party, she tried to concentrate on his question.

“First door on the left. Under the bathroom cabinet,” Liam said. He pressed his thick fingertip into the soft hollow around Ivy’s collarbone. A sluice of need trickled from the spot he caressed straight to her pussy.

She clamped her lips shut on a moan.

A minute later Ward returned with a first aid kit. When Liam had been working in the field, he’d come home almost nightly with busted knuckles, cuts and scrapes.

“Here, let me.” Ward placed a hand on her back and pressed her aside. Another trill of sensation coursed downward. Her pussy squeezed hard and released a fresh flood of cream.

Ward hooked a kitchen chair with his boot and slid it under him so he could be on Liam’s level. “Mind getting me another towel, Ivy?”

“Sure.”

Ward dug out some antiseptic wash and used the soiled towel to catch the drops flowing off Liam’s hand when he washed it. Now that the blood was just seeping, Ivy was able to see a large, deep slice on his palm.

“Good. I don’t have to drag your sorry ass to the ER for stitches,” Ward said.

Liam’s mouth twitched. Ivy zoomed in on those hard lips. Was he about to smile?

Oh, my God.

“That’s good, because we’re still even,” Liam said.

Ward’s gaze ticked upward to fix on Liam’s face. “That’s right. You drove me to the hospital twice, and I drove you twice.”

A heartbeat of silence passed, and then Ward asked, “Ivy, would you mind getting out the gauze?”

She felt helpless and in the way as Ward bandaged Liam’s palm with quick, economical movements. He knotted the gauze on the back of his hand.

The hiss of water boiling over from the potato pot onto the burner drew Ivy’s attention from the men. In less than ten minutes, they’d yanked her heartstrings, confounded her and made her burn with desire.

She’d run a gamut of emotions. As she and Ward worked to finish making dinner, she couldn’t stop the leap of excitement deep down inside.

This was the most alive she’d felt since Liam’s accident.

Liam lay as still as the day he’d been stricken down by the branch. Shock tore through him at the realization that his wife was curled on her side of the bed, fingering her pussy.

A buzz began in his ears. Rage that she wouldn’t turn to him and ask him to do it for her warred with self-loathing that he never offered. Sure, his attempts might be clumsy, but any touching would relieve her.

Why now, after so much time had passed, had she chosen to touch herself while he lay next to her?

Maybe she did and I was asleep.

Or maybe it had to do with Ward Bose calling her “sweetheart”. Or staring at her round little thighs until his jeans bulged.

That foreign pang of lust sprang up low in Liam’s gut. So low that he might construe the sensation as a twinge in his cock.

Ivy’s breathing changed—quickened.

What was she thinking about as she slid her fingers over her wet folds? Liam had seen her flush when she looked at Ward, and he’d been out of his head with jealousy. Then again, the guy was walking sex. Liam should know. Hell, if he could get a boner, he’d be sporting one now at the mere thought of the hard planes of Ward’s back and his chiseled jaw.

Damn him.

And damn Liam’s circumstances. If he could make his cock work, his wife wouldn’t be fingering her pussy to release.

Just flip her over and kiss the hell out of her.

But he hesitated. What if she wasn’t open to his advances? For a maddening moment this evening, he’d longed to show Ward just who Ivy belonged to. To throw her up against the nearest wall, hitch up her tight miniskirt and pound the hell out of her for Ward to see.

The bed vibrated slightly, as if she did too. Were her muscles tense? Was she on the verge?

God, when had she stopped making noise during sexual pleasure?

Maybe when she had to start hiding it from me.

Again, a dark heat crept through him. If he stripped her down in front of Ward and took her the way she deserved to be taken, would she scream Liam’s name?

A thrill ripped through his core.

He stopped breathing and concentrated on the sensation. Was it too much to hope for that he might overcome his erectile dysfunction after all this time?

Ivy’s breathing hitched. The sheets rustled.

He focused on her solely, imagining her come flooding over her fingers, of the soaking heat that he yearned to sink into.

On the heels of this image was one of Ward, of the blazing look cut across the man’s features right before he threw Liam down and drove into him. Liam’s fingers twitched to feel the curve of Ivy’s hip, the sinew of Ward’s.

Shit, what was he going to do? He’d never expected to see his friend again, and Ivy knew nothing of those days they’d shared.

Ivy shifted, parting her thighs a little. To plunge a finger deep in her channel?

Liam drowned in a sea of want. Wanting to reach out to her, to tuck her against his body and fill her with his fingers. To have her sit on his face. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

Maybe she didn’t want him now. One dinner shared with Ward might have been the weight that tipped the scale of their marriage. He couldn’t blame her—he’d been absent for so long.

She hummed, low in her throat. The knot in Liam’s stomach tightened. His cock still lay against his body, a useless thing, but hope rose that he could regain his former virility.

Ivy stiffened.

And he knew she was coming.

Without him.

Possibly to thoughts of his best friend and former lover.

But she’d responded to Liam too. When he’d traced her collarbone, her skin had pebbled, and he knew that glazed look of desire on her face.

As the strange, possibly imagined pressure built inside him, Ivy’s body began to relax once more. For long moments, he remained utterly still, waiting for her to drift off to sleep as he knew she would.

She deserved so much better. Someone to show her how much she was worth, both through physical touches and acts of love. Liam had done neither for her this past year.

Now that Ward was back, he didn’t know if he could keep his secret from Ivy. The threat of her reaction scared the hell out of him. With one conversation, his marriage might end. But he couldn’t continue to live around Ward and pretend they hadn’t once been each other’s worlds.

Any animosity over their falling out was long gone. Liam had buried his anger over Ward publicly kissing him that day. In fact, he planned to apologize as soon as he got up enough nerve.

Ivy rolled over. The moonlight fell over her beautiful face, and the shadows cast by her long lashes webbed across her cheeks. Liam swallowed hard against the ball of tears in his throat.

She had no idea what she meant to him. She’d stuck by him, had put up with his depression and mood swings. Today when he’d grabbed the knife before she could injure herself, he’d finally given something back to her.

As he began to drift off, his mind played out scene after scene of Ivy blossoming under Ward’s lustful gaze. Of the way they’d reluctantly withdrawn their hands after shaking. And a made-up scene of his best friend wrapping her in his arms, pulling her into his big chest and crushing his lips atop hers.

Liam started, on the verge of falling asleep.

What the hell…?

That deep tingle was within him again, and this time, he swore his cock twitched.

He nudged it, but it lay dormant once more. A trick of the mind or did such a thought really turn him on?

The clock on the nightstand read 2:00 a.m. He had to get up in a few hours so he’d be ready when his dad picked him up for work. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he hadn’t told Ivy about going to work today. When she and Ward had locked gazes, all thought had been sucked out in the vacuum they created.

Ward surely wouldn’t lay a hand on her. Then again, he’d called her sweetheart. Liam had never heard him use an endearment.

Ivy was faithful to the end. But she needed more, deserved it all.

Deserved someone like Ward—an amazing lover who could quench her every need.

As the moon made its descent and appeared in the window on the opposite side of the bedroom, Liam lay pondering the insane idea that had begun to weave through his brain. An idea that would surely end badly. But what choice did he have?

Chapter Three

Jeff, the manager for the past six months at Bose Timber Company, stalked the perimeter of the office like a caged animal. Ward watched him circle once, twice. No matter how many revolutions he made, Ward’s decision would remain the same.

“Fired?” Jeff bellowed, a vein pulsing in his temple.

Ward set down his pen with a sigh. “Listen, man, I’m sorry. But you’ve caused a lot of trouble for the company. Our reputation is compromised because of your inability—”

Jeff slammed a fist down on the desk blotter in front of Ward’s face.

Instant fury pounded through Ward’s system. He launched to his feet and came around the desk so fast, Jeff stumbled back a step.

“You can take yourself out of here before I take back my generous offer to provide you with two months’ severance pay.” Ward glared at the man.

“Fine!” Jeff shoved past Ward. The outer office door slammed so hard, the pictures on the wall trembled. A second later, the violent spray of gravel under tires sounded.

Ward walked around his desk and dropped back into his chair, leaning all the way back to stare at the cracked ceiling. “That went well,” he said under his breath.

Piles of paperwork filled every corner of his desk—neglected bills, bids they’d lost because they were never entered in time. Hell, Ward had even found a check for ten thousand dollars that hadn’t been cashed. Money the company needed, if the status of the latest bank statement was any indication.

Trouble was he hated paperwork. He needed to be in the field, cutting, bucking logs into shorter lengths to fit onto the log trucks. Hell, running heavy equipment. Anything but sitting behind this desk, drowning in six months’ worth of his father’s work.

Speaking of his father…Ward freed his cell from his jeans pocket and texted Juls. Today she’d taken the day off work to transport their father to his latest consultation with a specialist two hours away.

She replied immediately.
Better news than last visit.

Ward released the air he’d been holding and collapsed against the chair back again. Relief sank into his fingertips. Better news meant Ward still had time to make it up to his dad for staying away so long.

Maybe the old man would be as magnanimous as Liam had. When Ward showed up at Liam’s ranch house, he’d had no idea what to expect. But his old lover had taken his hand and invited him in as if they’d never tried to punch each other’s teeth down their throats.

And fuck, to see him again…to study the new creases around his eyes and the brackets around his lips. To boldly run his fingertip over the fine blond hair on Liam’s knuckle when they’d shaken hands…Ward’s cock leaped.

Not to mention Ivy. Listening to her throaty voice as she discussed her day’s work at the courthouse had nearly made him come in his jeans.

The phone blared, and Ward snagged it off the receiver before it could ring again. First thing he was going to do as manager of Bose Timber Company was replace the phones.

“Bose.”

He listened for a minute to one of his crew leaders relating a problem about a piece of machinery.

“Yeah, I know what to do,” Ward said. “I’ve gotta run into town and grab a part, and then I’ll be up to install it. Just keep cutting and we’ll worry about hauling later.”

He hung up and scanned the mountain of paperwork. After depositing the check he’d discovered, fixing the broken equipment and getting new phones, Ward planned to find a competent person to sort through this mess.

Too bad he couldn’t find someone like Ivy to take over the office work. Walking in to see her pretty face every day would make any man jump out of bed. He had no idea how Liam wasn’t banging her morning, noon and night. If she were Ward’s wife, he’d never let her out of the house.

But Ward had sensed the strain between them. Liam had only touched her a couple times that Ward noticed. How could he keep his hands to himself? The woman was a curvaceous sex kitten.

Ivy and Liam shared a hollow-eyed look—a look Ward longed to vanquish from both of their gazes.

As he climbed into his truck to head to town, he mulled over his life. Everything was in a state of upheaval. He had no idea where he stood with the company, with his men, with his former lover, or if he’d ever find a special person like Ivy to spend his life with.

Being in limbo sucked, but he had to concentrate on the things he could control, such as getting the company back on track. Now that he’d fired Jeff, he had to find a team to replant that hillside the Bose men had been ordered to obliterate.

With this thought fresh in his mind, he turned the truck around and headed toward the Mattson Hardwoods office. Yesterday, Liam had told him that he’d started work again on contracts and such. He’d surely know of a good team to replant. A simple phone call to Liam would answer Ward’s questions, but he wanted an excuse to see him again.

The tires of Ward’s truck ate up the distance between him and Liam. With each passing mile, Ward’s stomach knotted more. Visiting Liam on his turf at home, seeing pictures of him and Ivy throughout the house, had reminded Ward to keep his distance. But out in the field, at work—hell, that was where he and Liam had come together at the start.

By the time he reached the Mattson office, Ward’s heart was drumming a wicked heavy metal beat. As he pulled into the parking area, he noticed a bunch of yellow papers flapping under the windshield wipers of each truck and even stapled to some poles.

“What the…?” He climbed out and snagged a paper from the closest vehicle.
Trees are living things. Sign the petition to put Mattson Hardwoods out of business!

“Fuck.” Ward crumpled the paper in a fist. Fury rose inside him. If these tree-huggers were on Mattson for the bad press due to their failure to replant, what would they do to Bose Timber Company?

They’ll skin us alive.

It was a damn wonder that the activist group hadn’t seen the top of that bald hill yet. Then again, it was out in the middle of nowhere, and the only way to reach it was by a twisted, rutted logging road.

Ward pushed his way into the office, the flier still wadded in his fist.

From his spot behind the big oak desk, Liam looked up at his entrance.

Their gazes locked and a frisson of excitement speared Ward. That all-too-familiar tumble of his heart reminded him of their fallout.

The silence between them was loaded with past hurts and joys. Right now the joys tipped the scales in Ward’s mind.

He came forward, boots scuffing the hardwood floor. “You see these?” He spread the crumpled paper out in front of Liam.

His friend’s eyes bugged out of his head and his face mottled red. “Fuckers!” With a swipe of a hand, he shoved the paper off his desk. It floated to the floor amidst the dust and mud of many loggers’ boots.

“Where did you get them?” Liam asked.

“Every car in the lot is plastered.”

Liam braced his arms on the wheels of his chair, pushing up as if to stand. Then something dark crossed his face, and he fell back into the seat.

“I’ll get them off,” Ward said, turning for the door.

Liam followed him out of the building. A short, low ramp had been installed, and he rolled easily into the lot. By unspoken agreement, Ward pulled the fliers off the high trucks that Liam couldn’t reach.

“Sons of bitches won’t leave us alone,” Liam ranted. “They keep leaving messages on the answering machine, calling us environmental murderers.”

“Who do you suppose is doing it? In this area, there aren’t many who aren’t involved with the logging business in some way. They either work in the woods or have family who does.”

From the corner of his eye, Ward studied the man who had once stood up to him, eye to eye, chest to chest. Cock to cock. Ward hated seeing Liam reduced to sitting in that chair the rest of his life. But hadn’t Juls mentioned that the doctors thought he might recover?

“I think we got them all,” Ward said.

Liam jerked at the harsh sound of his voice. The papers in his lap were caught by the wind. Ward pivoted and plastered a hand to Liam’s thighs, holding the papers in place.

Scorching sensation rocketed up his hand into his shoulder. His cock twitched violently in his jeans, ready to play with the only man Ward had ever been with—and ever would be. Liam was it. No other man had ever held a moment’s interest for him.

The hard swell of muscle beneath Ward’s hand seemed to roll, rise up to meet his touch.

Liam stared at Ward’s hand for several seconds. Then he slowly raised his head and met Ward’s gaze. When Liam wrapped his fingers around his wrist, Ward stopped breathing altogether. Hell, it felt as if his heart stopped too. Apparently the throb moved to his cock instead.

“Liam—”

“Don’t say it. I know.” Liam’s hard lips were set. Too well Ward remembered hours of kissing that mouth, of those full lips wrapped around his shaft.

“What do you know?” Ward straightened, taking the yellow papers with him. The wind tore at his hat, and he nudged the bill down to keep it from blowing away.

“I know you’re thinking about the past. I can see it in your eyes.”

Ward studied Liam’s forest green eyes and recognized the same heated spark Ward probably owned himself. They continued to stare at each other while the force of the breeze tried to rip them apart.

But if Ward had another chance with Liam, nothing or no one could ever separate them again.

Whoa. There’s Ivy to consider now.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Liam said roughly. “I can’t live that way anymore.”

Anger spouted in Ward’s core, a firehose opened full force. “Can’t live with Ivy knowing? Is it because you’re different from the Liam I had out west? Or can’t live with loving a man?”

“Fuck you.” With a quick movement, Liam shoved past him. The wheels of his chair ground on the gravel.

Ward shook his head then followed. “We’re going to have this out. Right here, right now. We can’t work in the same county and not run into each other. At every turn, we can’t be faced with this…tension.”

At the door of the office, Liam spun his chair in a tight circle to face Ward. “You think that’s what this is about? Me having trouble with you working nearby because of what happened between us before?”

“Maybe.” He actually thought it was a hell of a lot more. He thought Liam wanted him still and could admit it no more now than he had years ago, although now he had the added barrier of Ivy.

Liam’s throat worked. “That’s not it.”

“Then what?”

“It’s…”

“Ivy?”

Liam’s gaze shot to his. A dark stain climbed his throat and face. “No.”

Ward waited, afraid to say or do anything. If Liam so much as gave him another smoldering look, he would grab him around the neck and kiss the hell out of him just to know his flavor and feel again.

And if he shuts me down?

As if his chair were equipped with four-wheel steering, Liam whirled around and headed back into the office. Ward stalked behind. Inside, he located a garbage can and tossed the entire stack of yellow fliers into it. They scattered in the bottom amidst several wads of tobacco and some foam coffee cups.

Liam rolled behind the desk once more. Did he think that big slab of oak could stop Ward if he wanted to get to Liam?

“Talk, man.” It thrilled Ward to give the orders. In the bedroom, Liam had taken charge. But now…

Liam’s eyes fluttered shut. He issued a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if I can talk about—”

“Bullshit.”

Scraping his fingers through his hair gingerly because of his bandage, Liam stared at Ward hard. “You think you can come here, into
my
life, into my office, and fucking tell me what to do?”

Heat clawed Ward’s insides. The head of his cock felt so engorged, he thought it might burst. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than for Liam to take over, to wrap Ward close to his body and rub his rough jaw against Ward’s as they kissed and kissed.

Taking a risk, Ward pushed him. “Someone’s gotta. I saw the way you treated your wife.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam roared.

“I mean,” Ward said, placing his palms on the desk and stretching across it to look right into his friend’s eyes, “that you hardly glanced at her. A fine woman like Ivy deserves to have your hands all over her all the time. But hell, I didn’t see you giving her what she needs.”

“You don’t know anything.” The vein in Liam’s throat pulsed.

Ward longed to put his mouth over that spot and just feel the flicker on his tongue. “You think I don’t know that you always held yourself apart from me? I felt it even when we were alone. If you do that to Ivy, it won’t be long before—”

“Shut the fuck up, Bose.”

Ward hovered closer, until he felt Liam’s hot breath wash over his face. “Is that what you do to your poor wife? Hold her at arm’s length?”

“You don’t understand, goddammit!”

“Don’t I? I lived it, remember? You couldn’t give yourself wholeheartedly—”

“I can’t be a real husband to her! I can’t even make…love…to her!” He slammed a fist into the desk drawer with each word, punctuating it.

Shock tore through Ward. The bald pain on Liam’s face spoke volumes. “Jesus.” Ward plopped heavily into the chair across the desk from his friend.

Liam dropped his face into his hands and breathed heavily.

The clock on the wall ticked too loudly. The coffeemaker hissed.

“Liam…”

He lifted his face, his features ravaged by pain. “You want to hear about how fucking much I want to make love to my wife? How I lay there night after night, wanting to put my hands all over her, like you said? How fucking horrible it is to not be able to sink into her and hear her scream from the pleasure I give her?”

A small thrill went through Ward at his words, but his stomach bottomed out. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”

“How could you? No one knows. Everyone believes it’s just my legs that were affected by the accident.”

“But you can move them. I felt your muscle twitch when I put my hand on you.” Ward leveled his gaze at Liam.

“Yeah, but it’s my brain that’s fucked up.” He pointed to his skull with an index finger, his thumb cocked upward as if it were a pistol.