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  The other two sighed. They had talked about this before. They had never given much thought to what those in town gossiped about. They were careful of their wives’ reputations, and were feared enough that nothing was said or done to hurt the women. But they knew how cruel and thoughtless other children could be. It wasn’t something they wanted Drace to suffer for.

  “Might be a good idea,” Sam said slowly. “Thanksgiving is coming around. We could have a big dinner. Maybe let the girls invite some of the friends they’ve made. The best way to ensure Drace’s future is to make certain he has the loyalty needed to overcome anything that gets thrown at him.”

  Everyone had hated old Joe so badly that torturing his boys had been a favorite game. Cade would be damned if he would see his son tortured that way.

  “Okay.” Cade breathed in slowly. “I’ll call Marie and see if she can find us someone.”

  Marie had been their housekeeper while they were growing up. She was retired now, living comfortably on the fund Cade had set up for her years before. She would be more than willing to help. They were still her favorite boys, she claimed each time they drove over to make certain she had groceries, medicine, whatever she needed.

  “Good plan. But that’s not going to fix Christmas for us,” Sam warned him. “A housekeeper is not a good enough present.”

  Cade shook his head. “Damned if I know yet. I’ll see if Marly is any more forthcoming tonight than she has been in the past weeks. We might get lucky.”

  Chapter Two

  She wasn’t. Cade stared at Marly in the privacy of their bedroom after putting Drace to bed, a frown on his face.

  “You don’t want a housekeeper?” he asked her, confused as frustration flashed in her expression after he made the offer.

  “A housekeeper is fine, Cade.” Oh, he hated that tone of voice. Where the hell had his sweet, passionate little wife gone?

  “Then what was with the look?” He faced her, hands on hips, his eyes going over her overly dressed body. “And what’s with the clothes? What happened to your dresses, anyway?”

  She frowned darkly. “It’s getting cold, Cade. I like my jeans.”

  “Not that damned cold, it’s not.” He felt like a sulky child and he was certain he looked like one. “Dammit, Marly, you look good in the dresses.”

  But she looked damned fine in the jeans, too. They molded her body like a second skin, smoothing over her slender legs, emphasizing her small waist and flat stomach.

  “I like the jeans for now.” She shrugged. “We’ll discuss dresses when it gets warmer. Unless you want me to freeze to death, that is.” She arched a brow in question.

  Cade’s eyes narrowed.

  “Fine. This room is plenty warm anyway. Wear the jeans outside it, but at least take them off while you’re in here.”

  Her eyes rounded as though she were scandalized. “What if Drace cries? I’m not trotting into my son’s room naked.”

  Cade wanted to roll his eyes. “He’s a baby, Marly. You breastfed him, for God’s sake.”

  “That doesn’t mean I intend to run around naked in front of him.” She crossed her arms under her breasts.

  Cade’s mouth watered at the sight of those soft mounds beneath her light sweater. His cock throbbed. He was walking around in a nearly constant state of arousal.

  “Then put a robe on.” He forced the words past his gritted teeth. “Marly, baby, you’re pushing a desperate man here.”

  What was that glimmer that flashed in her gaze? As though she were stilling a flare of anticipation. How long had it been since he had paddled her ass for playing games with him? He hid his smile. Let her keep playing. He couldn’t wait to watch those tender curves redden; hear her screaming for release.

  The baby’s nursery was on the other side of the bathroom. Pretty much protected from the sounds of her arousal and completion. He checked the monitor at the side of the bed. It was on. No danger. His hands itched to touch her. Hell, it had been before the baby was born since he had sunk his cock up her tight ass. He could take her, show her the dangers of pushing him so far. Hell, that was most likely why she was pushing him. She loved it as much, if not more, than he did.

  “A desperate man,” she snorted softly, her eyes filled with warmth and amusement. “Really, Cade. You act like you haven’t been touched in months.”

  His eyes narrowed at the deliberately provocative sound of her voice. Her nipples were hard. He could see them beneath her sweater.

  “Days,” he growled.

  She gave him a moue of false pity. “Poor baby. But I’m sure things will settle down soon.”

  Cade knew she was more than aware that he wasn’t about to go to Sarah or Heather, so he wasn’t exactly certain what the hell she was up to. And from his conversation with his brothers earlier, the other two women were no more forthcoming than his own wife was.

  “Is this about Christmas?” he finally asked her point blank, wondering what the hell was up with the subtle little game he sensed was being played. “Am I supposed to be catching hints that I’m missing about presents?”

  He saw it then. A flash of fire in her eyes. Almost a sense of frustration or anger. Okay. So this was about hints.

  “Marly, tell me what you want,” he chided her gently. “I’m not good at the hint, baby. You know that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She shrugged, but he could feel a sense of hurt involved.

  She knew damned good and well what he was talking about and she had no intention of enlightening him. Something tightened in Cade. A sense of fear. Could he be wrong? Maybe this wasn’t about Christmas after all. Was he losing her? He had heard horror stories of the changes in women after the birth of a child. Marly was young. Had she really been too young to know what she wanted? To understand the commitment it had taken to love him? Had he destroyed it all?

  He tried to still the rush of agony that resonated through him at the thought. The need to take her, hard and deep, to make certain he still held at least that part of her. He tightened his body instead. Steeled himself against the nightmares that rose inside his soul.

  She had lost everything he had tried to give her from the moment she had been brought to him. Her innocence. Her fairy tale dreams of love and marriage. Her fantasy of her mother and a mother’s love. It would be enough to destroy anyone. Especially someone as gentle, as filled with love, as his Marly.

  “Look at you,” she sighed. “You’re closing up on me. Freezing me out, just like you always do. I hate it when you do that, Cade.”

  He watched her quietly. He saw love in her eyes. They were soft, shimmering. But there was something more, and that unknown quality had the potential to be his worst nightmare.

  “What do you want, Marly?” He kept his voice cool, kept a tight rein on the emotions clashing inside him.

  Her gaze flashed with anger. “I want you to stop expecting the worst,” she snapped. “Any time you don’t understand something going on inside me you lock up. Like you expect me to start spouting hatred and judgmental accusations. It’s like, even now, you can’t accept just how much I do love you.”

  The pain in her voice robbed him of breath.

  “Marly, no.” He strode to her instantly, his heart breaking at the tears suddenly shimmering in her eyes. “Baby, you can’t cry,” he whispered desperately. “Whatever you want, I swear, you can have it. But you have to tell me.”

  She surprised him by shaking her head, moving away from him.

  “Not this time.” She breathed in roughly. “This time, Cade, you have to figure it out.”

  He blinked in surprise. “Figure what out, Marly? Dammit, I’m not a mind reader.”

  “Too bad.” She shrugged.

  “Too bad?” he asked her softly, his lust rising sharply at the deliberate challenge he could feel pulsing in the air now.

  “Figure it out, Cade.” She wasn’t angry, but she wasn’t far from it.

  He watched as she paced over to the wi
ndow, staring out at the wintry night, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans, refusing to say anything more. Refusing to acknowledge him.

  Cade realized then that she had been doing this a lot lately. All three of the women had been. Distancing themselves in very subtle ways, making him, Brock and Sam crazy as they fought to figure out the problem. He’d had enough. Since Drace’s birth he had tried to be gentle, tried to be the lover a young, innocent woman should have. Tried to make up for the way he had taken her, pushed her, in the beginning of their relationship. She might not tell him what the hell she wanted, but he was damned sick and tired of trying to guess, trying to make up for something he wasn’t totally certain anymore that she regretted.

  “The hell I will,” he muttered, jerking his shirt off, determined that if he wasn’t going to get answers, he was at least going to get that tight little ass she was driving him crazy with. First she would submit, then he would get answers.

  She turned back, her eyes wide as he stripped. Shirt, boots, pants. His cock was like a length of hot steel, driving him mad with the lust sweeping through his body. And there she stood, her gaze surprised. As though she didn’t know what he was pushing her toward.

  “Cade.” Her voice was hesitant. “The baby…”

  “Is asleep,” he growled, the fingers of one hand going to his cock as he watched her. Damn, he was going to explode just watching her. “Strip.”

  “Excuse me?” He would have laughed at the offended shock in her tone if he didn’t know damned well that was lust glittering in her eyes rather than fear.

  “Now!” He kept his voice hard, visions of her naked, on her knees, his cock tunneling between her lips suddenly driving him insane.

  “I don’t have time for this, Cade. I’m tired.”

  “Damned good thing I’m not.” He walked to her, grabbing her close, his lips grinding down on hers as he ripped the sweater in half.

  She groaned beneath the kiss, but her lips opened, her tongue tangling immediately with his as the pent up violence of his need swept through them both. God, how long had it been since he had taken her like this? Since he had driven them both crazy with the hunger building inside him?

  He divested her of her jeans just as quickly, certain the zipper had been stripped with the heavy hand he used to part the material. Fuck it, he thought, one less pair of the bastards for her to tempt him with.

  “Cade.” Her voice was sharp with the denial that her body contradicted.

  His hand caught in her hair, dragging her head back as he stared into her eyes.

  “Take the panties off.” He bared his teeth, fighting the need to throw her to the bed and pound inside her with a force that would send them both screaming into release.

  “No.” Her eyes narrowed, her breasts heaving, the hard points of her nipples raking his chest with lashes of fire.

  “No?” He released her hair, hooked his fingers in the elastic band of the scraps of lace she called panties and jerked them down her legs as he pushed her back on the bed.

  In less than a second he had her gloriously naked, her legs spread. His body tightened at the sight of glistening female cream on the bare mound between her thighs. The small lips pouted, parted, revealing her swollen clit, the tiny entrance to her tight pussy. His cock jerked as she tried to close her legs.

  He let her fight. He remembered clearly the excitement that whipped through her when he pretended to let her struggle. She kicked free, turned and attempted to jump across the bed.

  Cade pushed her flat to her stomach, moving between her thighs, spreading them, one hand holding her back to the bed, the other moving between her thighs.

  Their groans shattered the room as his fingers raked along the little slit of her cunt, circled her clit and moved down, parting the silken folds until they could delve into the hot recess of her body.

  Silken muscles tightened on two plunging fingers as her vagina convulsed. Cade was mad with lust now. There was no time for foreplay, no time to prolong the exquisite agony. His fingers gathered the satiny juices lying thick and wet on her pussy and spread them back, opening the little bud of her anus, preparing it for the invasion of his finger.

  He positioned his cock at the entrance of her vagina. Teased the opening to her hot ass. In the next second he invaded both with a forceful thrust that had her screaming out beneath him.

  God. It was so good. Hot. The muscles of her cunt clenched with biting force around the thick shaft of his erection. Her anus convulsed around his finger. Both channels milked at his flesh as his scrotum drew tight and hard against the base of his cock. He was only seconds from release. Thankfully, so was Marly.

  With one hand he held onto her slender hips, watching the penetration of his finger into the ultra snug anal opening and began to fuck her with hard, deliberately powerful strokes.

  Perspiration poured from his tense body as he fought the need to come fast and hard. He wanted to pour himself into her. Mark her forever. Make her scream her satisfaction. Just as she was screaming his name, begging him for more.

  Her vagina rippled around his cock. It convulsed as he thrust into her hard and heavy, relishing the tight grip, the building heat. She tightened on him like a fist, her grip desperate, causing each entrance to forcibly part the spasming muscles, making her scream from the biting pleasure/pain as he groaned from the building pressure in his cock.

  “Take me. All of it.” He clenched his teeth against the pressure tightening in his scrotum, the exquisite agony of holding back, feeling her tighten around him, plunging inside her until her cries rose, whipping around him, filling his soul until she exploded beneath him.

  “God! Marly!” He buried his finger deep inside her ass as he plunged every inch of his tormented cock inside the erupting volcano of her pussy and released his control.

  His back bowed as heat arced from between his thighs, up his spine, burying in his mind and exploding with lightning-fast sensation through his body.

  He could feel his semen rushing from the tip of his cock, vibrating inside her spasming pussy, and couldn’t hold back his own cry. It poured from his soul. Desperate. Filled with his dreams, his needs, his fears.

  Spurt after spurt tore though him until he collapsed against her weakly. She was trembling, as was he. Fighting for breath as the storm slowly passed.

  “Now, tell me what the fuck is going on,” he growled at her ear. “Any more games, Marly, and I swear, I’ll tie you up and torture the truth out of you.”

  Actually, he thought that might not be a bad idea. As soon as he managed to catch his breath, that is.

  Chapter Three

  November

  “This isn’t going to work like this,” Sarah muttered as she, Marly and Heather sat in the hot tub in an enclosed grotto and relaxed after a night of exhausting sex.

  The house had echoed with all their screams the night before and they hadn’t even been in the same room. It seemed the men were growing tired of trying to guess. And the women were growing tired of their thick heads refusing to take a hint.

  “God, I’m so tired.” Sarah had her head thrown back on the padded edge of the tub, eyes closed. “Brock is going to kill me at this rate.”

  Strangely enough, they had yet to attempt to gang up on them. If they did, Sarah had a bad feeling this little plan of Marly’s was going to go from sugar to shit real fast.

  “Have faith,” Marly murmured as she sipped at the cool wine she had poured for them all earlier. “Enjoy the moment’s respite. You have no idea in hell how hard it was to steal it.”

  For two weeks Cade, Brock and Sam had waged a steady, ever growing sexual war against their wives. The wives gave the clues; the knotheads ignored them and demanded answers. Sarah sighed. Brock was going to keep ignoring the clues long enough to piss her off and she would end up giving the game over to the men. She wasn’t much for games anyway. It was her idea to just lay the law down to them and have it over with. Marly and Heather were certain that wouldn’t work.
Sarah needed some sleep. The idea was looking better to her every day.

  “How bad do we want this?” Marly asked them.

  Sarah lifted her head and sighed heavily. “Pretty damned bad,” she muttered.

  “The idea’s a great one,” Heather answered wearily. “The execution of it is just getting tiring as hell, though.”

  “Then we finish it.” Marly’s will was a hell of a lot stronger than Heather had given her credit for.

  When she first met Marly McCall, she had never suspected that beneath that sweet smile, the wicked glint in her eyes and gentle demeanor, existed a backbone of steel. She was proving differently, though. She had outlined the plan while still in the hospital after giving birth to Drace. Her voice had echoed with determination then. It was steel-hard with it now.

  “How do we finish it?” Heather asked curiously. “They aren’t taking the hints, Marly. As you can see.”

  “They will.” Marly seemed to have more confidence in the men than Heather did.

  “At least you have a baby as an excuse to rest,” Sarah grumbled as she sipped from her wine. “Brock is killing me, Marly.”

  Marly snorted. “Oh, is that pain I keep hearing in your screams then?”

  Heather laughed. Sarah wasn’t above begging loud and hard once Brock got started. She always did say Brock was the most patient of the three men. And it wasn’t that it wasn’t enjoyable, Sarah thought wearily. It was just getting harder and harder not to give him what he wanted.

  “Bite me,” Sarah said tiredly as she leaned her head back again.

  “Uh oh. Brock,” Sarah heard Marly mutter as the sliding door whispered open and a step sounded behind them.

  Sarah’s head raised in alarm as she turned around slowly. And there was Brock. Gloriously naked, his erection straining, throbbing heavily, as he caught her gaze and moved slowly toward her. Oh hell. She licked her lips in anticipation, feeling the moisture flooding from between her thighs.

  “Brock, you were supposed to help Cade.” Marly sounded more than nervous now.

  “Drace is sleeping fine, Little Bit.” There was no smile. He didn’t break his gaze from Sarah’s. “You can go check for yourself or stay and wait until Sarah takes care of this little matter she caused earlier.”