His honesty was overwhelming, but Jessie had to know more. “Why, Austin? Your brothers have always loved you.”
“True, but for a very long time I believed that sharing a woman would require an act of trust I just didn’t have in me.” He closed his eyes as he continued telling her his deepest secrets. “I vowed that first night at the tree that I would go my own way someday and leave Wilde and my brothers behind forever. They hadn’t changed. I had.”
“You were only a boy.” Jessie’s heart flattened out, thinking about the pain Austin had carried for so many years.
Austin opened his eyes. “I closed off everyone and everything. No one was ever able to break down my walls. I built them too high. Sometimes I think I loved being safe more than I loved anything. I can see that those walls were my own safe word.” He paused and then smiled. “But then this firebrand from DC rolls into town and changes everything. I thought I could back off and let you and my brothers have a life. I was wrong. When you came to my house, you devastated me. I knew I had to have you.”
She shook her head. “Now, you’re willing to let me go? Give me up? Let your brothers have me? Not happening, cowboy.”
He laughed. “You’re too much. Be quiet and let me finish.”
Jessie had a hundred arguments ready to fly. As Austin began stroking her hair, she snapped her jaw shut.
“Where was I? I remember. I was talking about the firebrand from DC.” Austin’s fingers grazed her cheek. “Pet, you’ve seen that when I’m pushed I can be very hardheaded. You’ve helped me see things differently about everything.”
“I did?” she asked meekly.
“Yes. Sure, I enjoy BDSM. It’s become a huge part of my life. In some ways, it saved me. It allowed me to be intimate in a way I could handle. I can’t leave it behind. But now that I know you like the soft side of sex, I’m more than willing to give tenderness a try, too. Not all the time, you understand, but sometimes. I love you, Jessie Greene. You’re mine. I won’t let you go.”
“I love you, too.” She squeezed her eyes shut, hating the choice he was pushing her to. “And your brothers? What about them?”
“How could I even consider keeping a vow that I made as a boy? I knew it the instant we pulled you out of the mine. They’re my brothers. They’d do anything for me. I love and respect them. I won’t leave them.” Austin ran his fingers down her neck and to her shoulder. Then he laughed. “Besides, I saw how you responded to them and they to you during that hot sex show you all put on for me in my office. I’ve gotta see that again.”
Her heart clenched. It felt like it might stop. “You mean you’re staying, and I don’t have to choose?”
“That’s exactly what I mean, pet.”
Relief and rapture shot through her like hot geysers. The world had stopped when he’d made his demand for her to choose the impossible, and now, it opened up again. Her world. Her men. Oh God, yes!
Austin kissed her again, and this time her entire body softened. His tongue shot into her mouth, and she became warm and dizzy.
“What was that for?” She already knew the answer. He was in charge.
Austin pinched her nipples through her shirt, delivering two sharp stings. She could feel the dreamy space approaching.
“It’s time to take you to my brothers. They’re outside waiting for us.”
“They know you’re staying?” Jessie gazed into the cowboy’s dark fiery eyes, and she knew he was telling the truth. “I get my dream?”
“Our dream, Jessie. Yes, they know.” He pulled on her hair, urging her closer to him. “Time to tie you up—shibari-style.”
She remembered how amazing the Japanese bondage play had been.
She was ready to go there again and trust her five cowboys. “Yes, please. Yes, Master.”
As he stripped her of the robe, Jessie felt completely giddy, knowing what he had in store for her. Where she’d been cold and numb before, heat lit her. She felt the coolness of the night air on her skin, and her nipples jutted out even more.
“Follow me, pet.” He didn’t wait for her but marched towards t
he dungeon—she knew very well—in his home.
He slipped the blindfold over her eyes, the light fleeing in an instant. She couldn’t see, but she could feel. The silky ropes caressed her skin, the vines of his love encompassing her body. This was how he told her he loved her. It was his language, and she’d learned to translate it. He wrapped her in the thin bonds with expert precision. Every tie was a connection between the two of them.
In no time, she was completely tied up and blindfolded—helpless. Every nerve popped to life, and shivers shot over her skin. When he placed the headphones in her ears, she could only hear the pounding of a drum solo from his iPod, deafening out all other sounds in the room.
She felt Austin lift her onto the table with wheels. Jessie settled back in the confining darkness as Austin rolled the table with her on top of it out the backdoor.
He’s taking me to his tree and my four other cowboys. A hunger like she’d never felt before welled up inside her. Finally, I get to be with all my men.