I was sweaty and tired and dirty and all I wanted to do was see my wife and sink into her. But no. No, my wife had left a note saying she was going to Butte.
Butte!
I’d left Parker in the stable with the horses as I went to Mason’s house to retrieve Mary. We stood on his front porch and I glanced to the south as if I could see her and that God-forsaken town. Once I got her back, we were never going to that town again. Shit.
Mason scratched his head, looked a mixture of furious and befuddled. “She came to breakfast, ate with us like everything was fine. She told me you’d tasked her with training her ass and needed some privacy.”
I wasn’t shocked that Mason knew about Mary’s task while we were gone. I was shocked that she’d told Mason about it. While she was completely uninhibited with Parker and me, she was very shy when it came to sharing what we did with anyone else. Just knowing that Kane had overheard her come while I fucked her the other morning had been mortifying for her.
Everyone at the ranch knew we fucked. Everyone at the ranch knew we fucked with abandon. We all did. We spanked and sucked, licked and fucked our wives. We even trained their asses because not only did we like a good ass fucking, so did our brides. We all especially liked fucking our own bride at the same time.
This was something we had yet to do with Mary, but I’d hoped to accomplish that today. Not now.
Now I had to go to Butte to get my wife.
“We took care of Benson’s men, sent one back to him alive with a message.”
The heavy gallop of a horse came toward us.
Parker jumped from his horse before it even stopped, searching the covered porch. “Mary’s in Butte?”
“Shit, yes,” I muttered. The other men who stayed behind all knew she’d gone and one of them must have told Parker.
“Fuck. Butte?” Parker shouted.
“Mason was telling us she told him she was going to go train her ass and needed privacy. Next time he checked on her, she was gone.”
Parker stilled, eyes wide. “That woman, when we find her, is going to find out all the ways we can train that ass.”
He put his hat back on his head and walked over to his horse, grabbing the reins.
“Quinn went after her. Once we knew she was gone, he followed. But it’s a big town and I can’t say if he’ll find her easily.”
“Oh, we know where to find her,” I muttered. I took the steps two at a time and practically ran to the stable.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MARY
“Are you sure you should be doing this?” Miss Rose asked.
I was once again in the kitchen of The Briar Rose sitting across from the woman who was more mother than madame. This time I wasn’t an innocent virgin, eager for some titillation. A week with Sully and Parker had stripped all innocence from me and I was glad for it. I loved everything I did with them, that they did to me, that they commanded I do to myself. I even liked the dratted ass plugs.
“It’s my fault that Sully is in danger. He doesn’t want to be another target, whether it’s gossip or rumors or bullets. He just wants… quiet.”
“It’s not your fault,” she countered as she stood to fill her mug from the coffeepot on the back of the stove. When she held the pot toward me, I shook my head. I was jittery enough as it was. Voices drifted from the floor above. It was early afternoon and while everyone was awake, no one moved too quickly. Nora had come down for a cup of coffee, said hello, then left. The butcher had delivered a box of stew meat for the evening meal, but otherwise, we had the kitchen to ourselves.
“Benson would have gone after whatever man you married.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t make it any better. Whomever I married—if it had been Parker instead—would have been Benson’s nemesis.”
“You don’t think Sully can defend himself?”
“I do.” Both my men could defend themselves, and me. “But while they went out there to protect me from those… goons Mr. Benson sent, it doesn’t solve the problem. He’ll just keep sending more until one of them gets lucky and kills Sully.”
I felt sick just saying those words.
Miss Rose reached across the table and took my hand. “You really love them, don’t you?”