She was perfect. Just what Sam and I had been hoping for in a woman. She wanted both of us equally. Saw us both as two individuals, but jointly as the men who could give her the focus she needed and the sweet orgasms she deserved.
It wasn’t until we were all cleaned up and sprawled across the couch that the topic of her staying came up again. Katie’s head rested against Sam’s chest, her legs in my lap, looking content and happy, and just a little smug with that shit-eating grin of hers and that made me feel like a cave man. Yeah, our girl had all the damn power.
I smoothed a hand over her thigh. “Do you believe us now, sweetness?”
Katie’s eyes were soft, sated—a far cry from the stressed, crazed look she’d been wearing when we first picked her up. “Do I believe what?”
“That we want you for the long haul,” I said, giving her thigh a squeeze. “That you’re ours.”
Surprise flickered across her face but she hid it with a smirk. “Was that the message I was supposed to get from what just went on here?” She waved a hand toward the kitchen table where she’d been fucked senseless over the table. “Because honestly, I don’t see how spanking me so much gets that across.”
Sam tweaked her nipple through her opened blouse, making her squeal with surprise and pleasure. “We spank you because you’re ours. Because you deserve to have two men looking out for you and making sure you’ve got your priorities straight.”
She was quiet, which was a rare event in and of itself. I took that silence to be a good sign. At least she wasn’t fighting us on the idea.
“We’ll keep showing you just how much you mean to us,” I promised. “Even if that entails a spanking, sweetness. It will be our pleasure to show you what it could be like if you stayed… but we can’t make you leave your life in New York. That’s up to you.”
She looked down at her hands, which were intertwined with Sam’s, but she still didn’t respond. Sam gave me a small, encouraging smile over her head, but tension made it strained. This was it—we were laying it all out on the line for this woman. A first for us, and definitely our last. We’d been raised to believe that when we met the right woman, we’d know.
We sure as hell knew when it came to Katie—but there was no guarantee that she would feel the same way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CATHERINE
Sally stood next to me in Charlie’s living room and we surveyed the remarkable myriad of trinkets, knickknacks, and souvenirs that covered every available surface. I was exhausted just thinking about how long it would take to clear it all out.
“That is some creepy shit,” Sally said, looking over the top edge of her glasses. She was staring at the hobo figurine collection that lined a bookcase shelf.
I nodded. It truly was.
Sally walked the length of the room, taking it all in. “So, how was your dinner at Cara’s last night?”
I didn’t even bother to ask how she knew about that. I was starting to resign myself to the fact that there was no such thing as privacy in a town the size of Bridgewater. “If you get a colonoscopy, does everyone know?”
She just eyed me like she had the figurines until I answered her question. Clearly, she knew diversion when she heard it. Fine. “It was nice.”
Nice. As if that covered it. Dinner at Cara’s had been eye-opening, but there was no way I could explain that to Sally. How could I tell someone who’d lived in Bridgewater her whole life just how incredible it was to witness such a joyful relationship. Cara and her husbands were so content. So… happy. The men doted on Cara, and she clearly reveled in it. She was the center of their world and it showed in every gesture. Just as the Kane boys were trying to tell me it would be like with them. Again and again, and it seemed when I was bending over a table or their strong thighs and getting spanked.
Is that how it would be if I married them? Not spanked, but doted on? It wasn’t even a question, really. Last night I’d gotten a taste of what it would be like to truly be with them—to be their woman. I’d experienced hot sex with Sam and Jack, but I also got a glimpse of what life would be like outside of the bedroom.
They’d been attentive and thoughtful just like Cara’s men were toward her. For the first time in my life, I’d been the most important person in the world to somebody. To two somebodies. I’d been the center of their attention, even in a roomful of people.
After dinner we’d gone back to Sam’s place and they’d made good on their promise to keep showing me how it could be. Oh fuck, it could be so good. I’d had more orgasms than I’d thought possible in one night. And when we’d fallen asleep I’d been surrounded by my men, my head resting on Sam’s chest while Jack’s arm wrapped around my waist. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I’d felt safe in a way I hadn’t since I was a little girl.
More than that, I’d felt… whole. Complete.
“Judging by that smile you’re wearing, I’m going to guess you had a very nice night.” Sally’s laughter brought me back to the present and I feigned a sudden interest in Charlie’s collection of movie ticket stubs to avoid the topic. I picked one up and examined it. “Was Charlie sentimental or just a hoarder?”
Sally eyed me and offered a soft smile. “You don’t remember much about Charlie, do you?”
I shook my head. I’d been trying to call up specific memories of my summers here with my uncle ever since I’d arrived in Bridgewater, but all I could recall when it came to Charlie was a general feeling. I remembered a large man who’d pick me up whenever I cried—a man who was comforting to be around. Comforting, but sad. Though why he was sad, I never knew and was too young to think too much of it.
“He was a good man,” Sally said.
“That’s what people keep telling me.” Something had been nagging at me since I’d arrived and when I looked around now, I realized what it was. There were no pictures. For a man who held on to sentimental knickknacks and hideous hobo figurines, it seemed odd that there were no pictures of family. He was a man who clearly loved Bridgewater and its ways, so why didn’t he have a wife and husband? Even though it felt awkward to be asking a near stranger about my family, I had to know. “Did my uncle ever have a Bridgewater relationship?”
Sally looked over in surprise, putting down a stack of National Geographic magazines she’d moved. “You don’t know?”