The Farmer's Daughter

“Sam,” she whispers, shivering as she turns to me, gooseflesh appearing on her arms and neck. “You walked out of the sun and I knew…you’d be important. I’ll drown in your kisses, the same way I drowned in Miles’s. I think if you left now, I’d miss you until the end of time. I’d wonder what could have been.”

“So I won’t leave,” I say thickly, my chest so full of pressure, I’m worried it’ll cave in. “I’ll stay, baby. I’ll stay.”

“You will not stay,” Miles roars, yanking Cassie up against him, her back to his front, the shotgun levered at me once more. “You heard her. She belongs to me. Now go back to where you came from or I’ll send you somewhere a lot worse.”

“If you make him leave, I’ll go with him!” Cassie says, haltingly.

Miles stiffens. “You’ll…what?”

“I’ll leave. And if you drag me back…o-or hurt him…I’ll never speak to you again. I’ll never look at you again.”

The other man tries to hide it, but Cassie’s threat puts the fear of God in him—and I fully understand. Being around this woman and not getting her eyes or words? They’d have to fit me for a straightjacket. “You don’t mean that,” Miles says, carefully.

“I need you both,” Cassie says, once again using her hand to lower the shotgun, taking me out of its sights. “I don’t know how I’m so sure, but…I am. If I don’t have you both, I won’t be complete.”

Pain lances my side, winding me. “I don’t want that.”

Miles takes longer to answer, his jaw on the verge of buckling. “Me either.”

Cassie gives a long exhale, reaches up to stroke Miles’s jaw. With her other hand, she reaches out and trails her fingers down my chest. “Miles, Sam is here to interview for the farm hand position.” She presses her backside into the older man’s lap and he bites off a groan. “You won’t do anything to stop him from getting the job, will you? Please say you won’t.”

A beat passes. “I’m not agreeing to this yet, Cassie,” Miles pushes through his teeth. “I won’t be able to stand another man’s fucking hands on you.”

You think I’ll be able to stomach it, man?

“I want you to myself, too, Cassie,” I say firmly.

But when she tucks her finger into the collar of my shirt, pulling me closer, closer, until her tits flatten against the top of my abdomen, my mind blanks of any protests. “Neither of you will know if you’ll like it until we try,” she whispers, her blue eyes blinking up at me, wide and innocent. “I want to try tonight.”

I’m so hypnotized by her, I stumble a little when she slides out from in between us, leaving me face to face with Miles.

“If you manage to work out your differences…” she says, sounding anxious. “Come and find me.”

4

Miles

I want to crush Sam’s bones in my bare hands.

When I rode up on my horse and found him seconds from putting his mouth on my Cassie, the world turned black. I didn’t sleep last night, sick over hurting her feelings and I was on my way to find her. God knows riding out into the field to be alone with her when my cock was still hard was a bad idea, but I couldn’t stop myself. She’s mine to soothe. Mine to make smile.

I never could have expected to find her in someone else’s arms—and goddammit, it terrified me. For a moment, I felt the agony of losing Cassie, and forget the world being black, it upended my whole universe.

She wants two men.

If I’d claimed her as mine last night, could this have been avoided?

Is she trying to punish me?

Part of me wishes that was true, but…I can’t deny the way she looked at Sam. It wasn’t quite the way she looks at me. It held the same level of potency, but their connection is volatile where ours is grounded. There is something there.

I lean back against the table and watch Sam sit down across from Cassie’s father, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. Where the hell did this man come from? His accent denotes Boston, but where the hell does a man get farm experience in Boston? There are tattoos on his fingers, his forearms, and I’m imagining they’re under his shirt, too. He’s the exact kind of man I’ve been warning Cassie away from for years—and yet here I am, considering…

Doing this…thing that will make her happy.

She seems to need us to take her. Together.

I’ve seldom heard her speak with so much conviction about anything. Most of the time she is sweet, happy-go-lucky, but this?

I’m not sure I can deny her something she wants so badly, even if it kills me. Especially on the heels of hurting her last night.

While Cassie’s father shuffles through a stack of paperwork, I close my eyes and try to envision Cassie being taken by us both. Me and Sam. My mind conjures an image of the girl on her knees, topless, sucking my cock eagerly with her pretty mouth while she strokes Sam’s dick in her free hand. I’m surprised as hell to feel precome beading on the tip of my shaft, even though Sam’s hand is in her hair, turning her face toward his lap, hoarsely asking for a turn.