Heather's Gift (Men of August 3)

She leaned against one of the stalls, her arms crossing under her breasts as she watched him with that militant look in her eye.

“Keep looking at me like that, and one day I’ll take you up on the fight you seem to be wanting,” he told her softly, unable to keep from going to her again.

His hands settled on her hips, and he marveled at how small she was, how delicate her bones seemed. But she was tough as hell. He had watched her practice her martial arts moves with Tara, as well as Rick, and he knew she was a hell of a lot tougher than she looked.

“If you have the energy left, you mean?” She arched a fiery brow mockingly.

He sighed deeply. “Do you want to know, Heather, why I haven’t taken you? Why I haven’t come after you with every weapon I can think of to get you into my bed?”

“Because you know I can kick your ass?” Her hands ran up his arms until they lay against his shoulders. Soft, graceful fingers that he was dying to feel on his bare flesh.

He shook his head. She was good, damned good, but he wasn’t the least bit intimidated by her. He could take her, eventually.

“Because I know that eventually, I would need to see you beneath my brothers as well,” he told her softly, warningly. “We survived hell together, Heather. A hell unlike anything you could imagine if you hadn’t lived through it. And I don’t think you’re ready to consider the thought of being part of that.”

“And how does the sharing help you, Sam?” She tilted her head, frustration lighting her eyes. “How can sharing something that should belong solely to you heal any part of that?”

He shook his head, wondering how to explain. It was complicated, difficult. At times he couldn’t make sense of it himself, so he struggled with how to make her understand.

“We gave our souls for each other in that hell hole.” He fought the blinding pain that the thought of it, the shadowed memories of it, brought. “We were forced to betray each other, to brutalize each other, Heather. And we swore we wouldn’t let it break us. It changed us though. It forged a bond that can never be broken, but it destroyed another part of us in the process. A part that kept us together as brothers, the love that was between us as brothers, he destroyed that. Destroyed it, Heather. It’s gone. Now we fall back on the only thing we had before it happened. It’s not just a desire, or a need. It’s a bonding that reaffirms we didn’t lose everything to that bastard’s cruelty.”

“Sam, it’s unnatural.” She shook her head, and though her voice was gentle, it lacked any understanding. “You love each other more than you love those women.”

“That’s not true.” Shock filled his system, traveled through his body. “Heather, that’s not the way it is, baby. It’s not. It’s because of our love for them, don’t you see? The fear that one of us alone can’t protect them, can’t care for them. We know our limits; we know the horrors out there and the monsters who live to destroy. We know how easily one of us can be destroyed. It’s our love for those women, our need to see them always protected, always cared for, always loved, Heather. It’s to prove to each other that we trust the other to do this. And Heather, the heat…” He broke off, his cock throbbing, thinking of her sharing in that, screaming out in the pleasure. “The heat and pleasure is like nothing you’ve known. Marly connects us again, she reaffirms that we’re alive and that we can still function and love. That we’re not alone.”

She stared up at him, a frown darkening her brow. “But Sam, you aren’t alone,” she stressed. “You shouldn’t need to share your lovers to reaffirm this.”

“No, we shouldn’t.” He sighed heavily, hearing his own doubts, his own guilt in her words. “But it’s always been that way, Heather,” he whispered, knowing it was true. “Cade glories in Marly’s pleasure. You can see it in his eyes, in his love for her. Her pleasure and her happiness are everything to him. He gives her in return the only thing he knows how. More love. More pleasure. His brothers. And it will be the same for Brock and Sarah, if she agrees to come to the ranch. It’s all their love, Heather. All our love.”

He watched as she licked her lips nervously, nibbled on the lower one as she thought, then she sighed deeply, regretfully.

“And if the woman you eventually love can’t accept it?” she asked him softly. “What if she can’t bear your touching another woman, or one of your brothers touching her?”

He was quiet for long moments, sadness filling his soul, because he had a feeling he held the woman who would very well hold his heart. The woman who would refuse.

“Then she would hold only half a man,” he whispered painfully. “I worry, Heather, and I agonize that we’re hurting Marly, that we’ll hurt Sarah. The guilt eats at me in ways you could never understand. But I also know if I didn’t have it, or one day share in it, then a part of me would be lost forever. A very important, very vital part of me.”

“Or,” she whispered. “A part of you would be healed…”

* * * * *

It was a question Sam couldn’t answer. As one week turned into two, and the attraction progressed, thickened, Sam couldn’t reconcile his needs with those he felt were Heather’s. A kiss progressed to two. He tasted her breasts, brought her to climax with his mouth and felt the overwhelming pleasure of her mouth enveloping his cock.

When he learned she was a virgin, he pulled back. What he needed from her a virgin could never accept, he told himself. But the attraction wouldn’t die, the needs wouldn’t extinguish. Then she left for a brief time, returning to her home. When she came back, he went to her. Went to her because he couldn’t resist her laughter, her smart mouth or touch. And he began to hope. Began to believe that perhaps one day she would understand…

And then the stalker struck again. They found Heather bound, her slender legs spread, the soft mound of her cunt sliced by a madman’s scalpel. Sam knew that, no matter how much he loved her, and he did love her, no matter his need for her. The past was rising, swift and sure, and it could very well destroy him as it hadn’t during those bleak, dark days of captivity. So he fought…

Chapter One

Two months later

He was out there. Sam could feel it. The knowledge throbbed in the scars on his abdomen, in the dark nightmares that were suddenly surfacing even while he was awake. The bastard was watching them, waiting, perfecting his timing before he struck again.

He stared into the night through the bulletproof balcony doors of his bedroom and wondered when the stalker would strike again. Who was he, and why was he intent on revenge for the destruction of a madman? Jedediah Marcelle had been a monster. A creature of such evil, such black, all-consuming perversions, that he was every nightmare come to life.

Sometimes Sam wondered if the bastard’s ghost wasn’t stalking them, threatening to steal from them everything they held dear. And those women were held dear.

Marly, Sarah, and Heather. His jaw clenched at the thought of the pain each of them had already endured. Especially Heather. The bastard had cut her, stripped her of her clothes, spread her legs, and sliced into the soft, velvety flesh of her mound.