* * *
“She wouldn’t make a date with both of us if she were going to dump us. Right?” Liam murmured, tucking his hands in his coat pockets as we stood beside each other on the sidewalk.
It was cold as fuck, but I was hoping before the night was out, we’d be staying warm with Jill between us. Naked. My dick was getting hard just thinking about it. Hell, it had been hard for her for months, ever since we started dating. Dating. Shit, that term was a social media status, not reality. Not at my age. Did a thirty-four-year-old date?
Reality was Liam and I biding our time until our girl got over the issues she had with being with both of us. Yeah, it was a big deal and not ‘normal.’ But what the hell was normal when it came to relationships? Hopefully, we were done waiting and we could make it official.
“Hell, no. She’s too sweet for that.”
I heard Liam offer a grunt in response. “There’s more to her than sweet, and I’m ready to bring that out.”
“Fuck, yes,” I murmured, more to myself than Liam.
Jill Murphy was everything I ever wanted in a woman. Smart, caring, thoughtful, full of integrity and perseverance. She’d worked her way through college to be a nurse, took care of her mother while she’d been sick and had been her brother’s guardian after the woman passed away. She deserved to have someone take care of her for a change. Lucky for her, she had two men who wanted to do that.
I’d been friends with Liam for years, but had never considered claiming a woman together until recently. Until we saw Jill here at Cassidy’s one night. Then, it was all over. One look at her and I’d been sucker punched right in the gut. No, right in the heart. TKO—total knock out—for me. It had been years since I’d been in a serious relationship and that had been a total clusterfuck. Sierra had not only stomped on my heart, but she’d destroyed my career. I hadn’t turned into a monk, but I hadn’t expected to be serious about a woman ever again. Until Jill.
Same went for Liam. He saw her and he was done searching. We weren’t going to fight over her. Hell no. Why should we? It wasn’t like I was the first Duke who shared a woman.
Parker Drew, Liam’s predecessor as sheriff, had taken up with my cousin, Gus, and two other men. Sure, the fucker Beirstad had stirred some shit up, but Parker herself had shut that down. So had Auntie Duke.
No one else in town cared, and I didn’t give a fuck if they did. No one was going to mess with my career because of a ménage relationship. No, a threesome was no big deal. A woman using me for my position as the DA so her case could be tossed because of conflict of interest—fucking the defendant was definitely that—was a bigger problem. That might have been Sierra, but that wasn’t Jill. She was too sweet for that, even if she had an inner vixen who craved two dicks.
Nothing stood in the way of making Jill ours. Except Jill herself. She’d been clear from the beginning that she wanted to date both of us. We knew it, were—grudgingly—fine with it since we hoped it would eventually get her between us. But two months? My hand wasn’t enough to satisfy my dick, to empty my balls of all
the cum I made just thinking about her.
She refused to do anything more than kiss. Hell, that’s all we’d done in the time we’d been dating. And that was on the lips. I envisioned getting my mouth on more of her than that. Her dainty collarbone, the full undercurve of her breast, the jut of her hipbone, the inside of her thigh. Her pussy.
I licked my lips, ready to discover how sweet she was all over.
The time with her had been more chaste than being in high school; there hadn’t even been making out in a car. No hot and heavy petting. No second base.
I ran my hand over the back of my neck. What we’d been doing was courting. Two months of getting to truly know Jill Murphy. Her likes, dislikes. Quirks. The fact she was allergic to grapes, that she worked too fucking hard. The time had been worth it. For me, and Liam had agreed, for him as well. It had only solidified that we wanted her, and not just for a quick fuck. That she was ours, that we loved her. We just had to get that smart brain of hers to finally admit it as well.
We’d continue to take things slow and easy with her until she was ready. But I was a red-blooded male and she was hot as hell. I’d dreamed of all kinds of dark and dirty things to do with her. Rubbed one out in the shower often enough—daily—thinking of her. On my bed, naked, thighs spread nice and wide. Bent over the back of my couch. Sprawled out on my kitchen table.
Fuck, I was getting hard just thinking about it.
She wasn’t a quick lay. No easy romp with her. Not that I wanted one. No, I wanted forever with Jill. Liam, too. When we took her for the first time—and we would—it wouldn’t be chaste. It wouldn’t be sweet. It would be wild, but it would be the last first time for all of us. She had to know that once we claimed her, she was ours. Permanently. Perhaps that was why she’d been taking her time. That she knew there would be no going back.
“Who the hell is she talking to?” Liam asked, his breath puffing out in a white cloud.
I didn’t respond because how the hell should I know? She didn’t look too happy though and that, I knew, was what Liam was talking about. Whoever it was had a frown marring her pretty face.
“Bringing our girl down is so fucking wrong,” he added.
“Probably her dumbass—and deadbeat—brother,” I grumbled.
Liam gave another grunt of agreement. He was more familiar with Tommy Murphy than I was since he’d been picked up a number of times, but had yet to need someone from the District Attorney’s office. I knew that was only a matter of time though. He was twenty, no longer a kid and those apron strings connecting him to Jill needed to be cut. With their family history and Jill’s kind heart, that was going to be a hard task.
Jill ended her call and we watched as she tossed the cell into her purse and climbed from the car. When she rounded the hood, she smiled at us.
I’d come from work, parked down the block to meet Jill for dinner. Liam had texted me saying he’d gotten the same invite, which gave us both hope. He’d walked from the sheriff’s office the next block down.
“That just made my day,” I said as she stepped up onto the sidewalk. I held out my hand to help her over a small patch of snow. While she had on mittens, I could feel the heat of her hand through the wool.
She looked up at me with her dark eyes that twinkled in the street lights. Being a foot shorter, she had to tip her head back to look at me. It only reminded me of how fragile she was, although I didn’t dare say that to her. She could take care of herself, sure enough. She’d proven that over the years, but why should she have to?