Their Brazen Bride (Bridgewater Ménage 8)

“Yes. For a long time now.” Tucker stepped back and put his hand over the front of his pants. I couldn’t miss the thick outline of what he had beneath. “I can tell you, but I’d rather show you.” A wicked grin spread across his face. “All you have to do is say the word.”

“Oh,” I gasped. The duo had told me some decidedly less than gentlemanly things after the wedding the other day, but they hadn’t been blatant.

This was blatant.

“We want you, Abigail.” Gabe touched me then, his hands replacing Tucker’s, but his were a little more aggressive. They curled around my waist, his thumbs stroking over the underside of my breasts. “We want you for our wife.”

Hope flared in my chest at Gabe’s words. Wife?

I shook my head, though, confused, putting my fingers over the puckered skin on my cheek. His touch said one thing, but my mind— “How can you? I’m… I’ve got a—”

Gabe’s hands stilled. “If you finish that sentence about your scar, you will go back over my knees, and I won’t hold back.”

He’d held back before? I squeezed the muscles of my sore bottom at the thought.

“But—”

I tried again, but Gabe would have none of it.

“Is that why you invented a beau?”

I hadn’t considered the possibility, but it was plausible. It would make sense since I was so nervous about how they felt about my scar. I did feel uncomfortable with it, having people see it. I had been teased and taunted about it, the latest bully being Mr. Grimsby. It would make a perfect excuse and I wouldn’t have to tell Gabe or Tucker about Tennessee.

So I nodded. And lied to them. Again.

“Do you trust us, Abigail?” Gabe crossed his arms over his chest. I felt cold and lonely without his touch. Without both of their hands on me.

“You just spanked me and threatened to do so again,” I countered, feeling the throbbing heat of my bottom.

Gabe stepped close so I backed up, right into the door. Placing his forearm beside my head, he leaned in so that his mouth brushed over my ear. His warm breath made me shiver. “And you needed it,” he murmured. “You needed to let go of your problems, to give them to your men.”

My men?

“Yes, I needed to tell you I’d made up the beau,” I readily agreed. I had. It had been tormenting me. “But I didn’t need to be spanked to do so.”

“Yes, you did,” Gabe countered. “We gave you plenty of opportunity to share your secret. You all but pushed us into it.”

Had I? I hadn’t asked for it, but I hadn’t given them much choice with keeping them away and continuing the charade. I’d needed them to make me tell, but unfortunately I still hadn’t lanced everything which continued to fester

“You told us the truth and you feel better for it, don’t you?” Gabe asked.

I breathed in his virile scent and couldn’t do anything except tilt my head and as he nuzzled down the line of my neck.

Did I? Did I feel better telling them the truth, that they’d given me a way to let it out? No, I didn’t feel completely better because they’d only gotten part of the truth. If I told them everything, if I gave them all my troubles, would I truly feel better?

Perhaps, but then I’d worry about their safety. I’d only just discovered they wanted me. I couldn’t ruin that. Not for anything. There was no good answer. Until I was free of Mr. Grimsby’s hold, I would feel guilty and nervous.

Gabe had been so insistent with the spanking, and it hadn’t been from anger. He hadn’t been punishing me. Well, perhaps a little bit. But it was something else entirely, something I didn’t wholly understand.

With every breath, the tips of my breasts touched his chest, and I could feel my nipples turning into hard points. I nodded before I thought more of it. I did feel better.

“Trust us when we say we want you. You saw how hard Tucker is.” Gabe tilted his hips into me, pressing his own hard length into my belly. “How hard I am.”

“It’s been hard ever since I saw you at the picnic,” Tucker admitted from across the room.

“As for me, if you don’t believe our words, then how about this?”

Gabe took hold of my chin and, before I could even wonder what he was going to do, his mouth was on mine. He was kissing me! His lips were soft, yet insistent. When I gasped at the feel of it, his tongue slid over my bottom lip and then into my mouth. His beard was soft, yet a little ticklish. Prickly.