He immediately stilled at her confession. For the past seven days, he’d worked overtime and it had been pure hell. He’d worked cattle by day and stood watch at night. If he wasn’t at the main gate, he was walking the grounds in front of the cottages, the main housing for Trouble’s founding fathers and their growing families.
The McCoys hadn’t wasted any time in sending out their threats, but today they were holding the memorial for their fallen friends and family members. It was a sad day for the McCoys but it was a day of reckoning for Sable. Nicholas wanted her to enjoy it.
“What time is it?” She didn’t elaborate on what might have kept her up until the wee hours of the morning and he didn’t pry. He’d ask Mac later. Harley and Trevor had spent the last two days with Sable, so if anything had happened, Mac would be the first to know.
Harley wanted those bragging rights.
Nicholas wanted them, too, but for a different reason. From the moment Draegan had told them she was there in Trouble, Nicholas had embraced his fate.
He and Sable were destined to be together. He wasn’t sure where the others stood in all this, but he was certain of one thing—she belonged to him.
If there had been any doubt whatsoever, it went away the second he saw her in Doc’s infirmary. The bruises and swelling were his undoing. Even now, it pained him to look at her swollen cheek, the reminder of what she’d endured, the kind of monster she’d been forced to face alone.
“How are you feeling?” He sat next to her and curved his arm over her hips.
“Better,” she replied playfully, running her fingernails up and down his forearm. A heated look of lust stamped its place in her expression as she caressed his skin.
He narrowed his gaze suspiciously. “How much better?”
She rolled to her side and he admired the gentle slope of her curves, the way his limb dipped lower when he rested the underside of his arm against the small of her waist. She shot him a devilish smile and used her teeth to rip open a packet of sweetener.
His eyes hazed over as he thought of her ripping open another package, a more intimate packet. She dumped the sugar in her coffee, unrolled the spoon from the linen napkin, and stirred. “What are you thinking?”
“How much you could sweeten me up with just one kiss.”
She took a sip of her coffee and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Just one, huh?”
“One.” He held up his index finger.
“Maybe you should move the tray in case that kiss leads somewhere.”
“With that suggestion, it will,” he promised, moving her breakfast to the nightstand.
As he turned around, he caught Mac in his periphery and the stunned expression on his face was priceless. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
Sable sat up in bed and pulled her pale blue tank top over her head. Exposed to them then, she crooked her finger back and forth. “Join us, too, Mac?”
“Try and stop me,” he said, glancing at Nicholas in passing.
“Fuck,” Nicholas ground out, but he really didn’t mind sharing. The fact that she felt up to recreation and pleasure meant she was finally starting to feel better.
Or maybe she’d felt better the night before and already played around with two of them and was ready to entertain a few more. “I’m glad you’re finally feeling better.”
Mac was pumping more than his cock. He wanted information as well.
She rose to her knees and pushed his pajama pants down to his hips. “Are you asking me something here, Mac?”
Nicholas smirked. “She has brains to go with that body.”
“I can see that,” he said, staring at her tits.
“They aren’t there, sugar,” she whispered, pecking his lips.
Mac grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back. Staring into her eyes, he said, “Did you fuck them?”
“Mac.” Nicholas wanted to know the same thing, but he wasn’t about to play rough for the answers he wanted.
She moistened her lips and fluttered her eyelashes. “Pull harder.”