Torn Between Two Highlanders (Sword and Thistle 2)

Arabella shook her head, not understanding. “Are you suggesting a flip of a coin?”

“A flip of a coin, she says!” Davy cried, as if mortally offended. “You say all these flowery words of praise and flatter our honor, then accuse us of wagering you on a coin toss?”

“I—I meant no insult. I just don’t understand how…”

“We can share you,” Malcolm said, simply. “As we did before.”

Arabella’s lips parted with a surprised breath. “As we did before?”

“Aye,” Davy said. “Not for one night, but for as long as you may want it. Malcolm and I have talked it over. Well, we brawled over it first.”

“We didn’t brawl over it,” Malcolm said.

“We did.”

“Aye, right, Davy. If we brawled over it, you’d be sporting a black eye. There was a shove or two, and then we came to agreement.”

Arabella’s stomach knotted. “What agreement?”

Davy sucked in a deep breath. “Well, if you’re willing….we may solve a number of difficulties by sharing you. I can offer you marriage, but not children. Malcolm can offer you children but not marriage.”

Arabella began to understand, and the ground swayed beneath her feet. “Davy, you can’t be saying you’d accept a wife who bore Malcolm’s children.”

“We’d never know for certain if they were his or mine,” Davy said. “And even if they did look like him, well, Malcolm is as close to me as a brother. I was planning to treat his children as my own anyway, should he have them. I never thought before that I could have a wife and family, but maybe now I can. And it changes everything for me.”

Arabella turned to Malcolm, her mind still unwilling to accept what they were so earnestly offering her. “And you—you would let another man take me for his wife?”

“No,” Malcolm answered at once. “Only Davy. God forgive me, but I would cut the eyes out of any other man who ever looked at you with a notion to wed.”

Arabella began to tremble. They couldn’t mean it. They couldn’t. And tears spilled over her lashes. “Please do not tempt me with a happiness that I cannot have. If you love me, if either of you love me, you mustn’t offer me such a thing.”

“Why not?” Davy asked.

“Because it cannot work,” Arabella said. “I have never known of such an arrangement. How would people—”

“To the devil with people,” Malcolm snarled.

Davy was more diplomatic. “It’s our arrangement. No one else’s. You didn’t think two men could take your maidenhead at once either, but we did.”

Yes, they did. And though it was meant to be a profane act, the truth was, she felt as if she was already wed to both of them. That she had given herself over to them, not just in body, but in soul.

“You won’t get jealous?” Arabella asked.

Realizing that she was softening to their plan, Davy began to grin. “Arabella, you already know that it excites me to feel you trapped between our bodies. I would like to do that again. As often as we can. Whatever jealousy I feel is but a tiny speck in a sea of pleasure.”

She believed him. She did. Because Davy accepted things. He accepted them easily. But Malcolm? Arabella turned to him, and took his hand. “Do you feel the same?”

“Aye,” Malcolm said, very gravely. “I am a jealous man. But I don’t want to be alone anymore. I can bear anything—even jealousy—to avoid that. Or being without you. The one thing I did not wish to do was make a woman live in dishonor to live her life with me. But with you and Davy, I need not worry of that. I don’t want to be alone…”

Whatever mistakes he had made with Lorna, he had paid a terrible price. He had condemned himself to a life alone, and admitting that he wanted a new chance was such a vulnerable thing for him to say that he could not hold her gaze. He turned away, as if he feared Davy might make light of it. But Davy clasped his hand on Malcolm’s shoulder, saying, “You won’t ever have to be alone anymore, Mal. Will he, Arabella?”

Arabella looked up at the two men who towered over her. Two strong men, two strong hearts. Hers for the taking. And she wanted them. “No, Malcolm. You won’t ever have to be alone anymore. None us will. Because I choose you both, Davy and Malcolm of Clan Macrae. I choose you both with all my heart!”

They embraced her then, between their bodies. Kissing her mouth. Kissing her hair. Holding her even as she wept softly in joy. And she gloried in the thought that this would be the grandest adventure, yet.

Another adventure to share. Theirs, together. Forevermore.

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