A Wanton Woman (Mail Order Bride of Slate Springs 1)

I waited until they were down the block before I responded. “You had a naked woman on top of you and you walked away.”

Walker’s lips thinned. “I had Celia naked and on top of me.”

“What the hell’s the difference?” I tried to keep my voice tempered. “She thinks she didn’t please you.”

“Fuck,” Walker swore, scuffed his boot over the ground. He walked away, turned back, paced. His ragged breaths came out in white puffs before he came to stand before me again. It was a cold morning, especially in the building’s shadow.

He had his issues that stemmed from Ruth dying. It had been horrible and I wouldn’t wish an early, miserable death on anyone, but she wasn’t the woman for Walker. He didn’t love her, although I doubted he’d admit that. She’d… intrigued a twenty-year-old and he’d made her his. But it hadn’t been a true match. I wasn’t sure if he was riddled with guilt more for being as instantly enthralled by Celia as I was or that he hadn’t felt for his dead wife as he did for Celia. I could see his interest in our new bride and it wasn’t just his cock that wanted her. He’d assumed he could go into this unorthodox marriage and just get a woman to warm his bed and to sate his needs, but he’d been wrong. Perhaps we both had.

Celia was so much more than we ever imagined.

“She pleased me,” he said, finally.

“Too much,” I guessed. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

He nodded once, curtly.

I leaned in, put my hand on his shoulder again. “If you want to get in her ass, then you need to get your head out of yours.”

He grinned then and I knew I’d broken him from his reverie. But, I wasn’t done.

“Ruth’s gone, brother.”

He sighed at my direct words. “I know, but I won’t get trapped like that again.”

“Trapped? You can walk away from Celia right now. Just keep on going,” I advised. “The town can just find different men to inaugurate the new law. I’ll take her back to Slate Springs as just mine.”

“And let Thomkins laugh you out of office?” he asked. “He’ll call you out, saying while you’ll pass the law, you won’t subscribe to it yourself.”

Thomkins was an ass and he would do everything in his power to fuck with me. It had been that way since we were boys. Walker could shrug off his insults much easier than I ever could, it was just his way, but he wasn’t mayor.

I watched as a stage nearly missed a man pulling a wagon of coal down the street.

“This fight isn’t about me, or Thomkins, or the stupid law and you know it. I want her and I’m keeping her. If you’re not in, no one will know differently, but you have to be the one to tell her.”

While I’d rather share Celia with Walker—there was no question she was attuned and interested in both of us—I wasn’t giving her up. She was mine. My brother just had to decide if she belonged to him, too. If not, he owed her at least the truth.

Walker shrugged off my hand. “And let you have her all to yourself? She’s not Ruth. I know it. Fuck, when she got off the stage, it was like you’d punched me in the gut. She’s ours, Luke. No question.”

“I know what you mean.”

I did. The connection, the sense of knowing, had been instantaneous. As soon as I saw her walking down the train platform toward us, I knew. I wanted her with a craving I couldn’t explain, would never have imagined. I had to assume it was that potent for Walker as well. He wouldn’t have walked out on her otherwise. He cared enough to leave. But, hopefully he was going to commit on an even deeper level. We were both invested now.

“And yet you walked away from her,” I added.

“I walked away from how… intense this is.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. “It’s incredible, how perfect she is for us. But I’ll keep her all to myself,” I repeated. “No problem.”

He huffed. “No fucking way.”

I grinned then. It wasn’t about the law. It was about us. We both wanted her and we were both going to keep her.

“When you left, I had her all to myself,” I said, trying to rile him. It worked, because he narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger at me. I held my hands up in front of me. “You had her all alone when I went to The Lucky Swan.”

One thing neither of us had considered during the three days waiting for Celia to arrive was how to prepare her to take both of us at the same time. It was the ultimate connection between us and we would not be denied. But, we would not hurt Celia either. Last night, when I’d fucked her, I realized we did not have any butt plugs to prepare her. And so I’d gone at dawn to one of the brothels in town, one that I’d frequented in the past. The owner knew me and had not only given me a small set of varying sizes of plugs, but congratulated me on my new bride.

While I didn’t tell him she also belonged to Walker, the man wouldn’t have cared. In his profession, he’d seen everything. Ménage was tame for him.