A Very Lusty Christmas (21 page)

“We’re a family already, the three of us, and I’m in charge of things now.”

“So we are, and so you are,” Patrick said.

His tone told her that he was very much enjoying himself at the moment. He reached up, took her breasts in his hands, and squeezed.

“Baby, lay your head down on my chest, now. Let Gerald have that wonderful ass of yours.”

Kate could hold her own with them, and likely would in the future. She knew for a fact that neither man wanted an acquiescent wife.

But for the moment, what they wanted her to do was exactly what she needed to do. Patrick thrust up in her when she did as he asked, and then held himself still inside her.

She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of his sweat and the soap he’d used just a half hour before when he’d showered.

His hand stroked her upper back and shoulders even as Gerald’s fingers stroked up and down her anus, spreading more of the salve, and, she thought, spreading more of the arousal that burned over, through, and in her.

She felt him move, felt the heat from his body so close to her own, and knew he knelt there on the bed behind her.

He continued to stroke her with his fingers, and then pushed. His finger entered her without much of a burn at all.

“Look at me, baby.” Patrick’s plea drew her attention, and her gaze sought his, almost without her conscious thought.

“Yes, I can see your pleasure on your face. Squeeze me again. I liked that.”

Kate did, at the same time she acknowledged to herself that Patrick had just checked to ensure Gerald wasn’t hurting her. Deep inside her, shivers began to travel all through her, and she knew her arousal was nearing heights she’d yet to scale. Where Gerald’s finger reamed her, the nerve endings tingled. Kate needed like she’d
never
needed before.

She stretched up, kissed Patrick, and flexed those inner muscles again. Then she looked over her shoulder at Gerald once more.

“Please fuck me. I need your cock inside me. I can’t explain it, that’s just the way it is.”

“Christ, woman, you push me to my limits, don’t you?”

“No, my love. I just trust you to give me what I have to have…to give us all what we have to have. Please.”

“Hang on, sweet.” Gerald inched closer, then took his finger from her and used both hands to spread the cheeks of her ass.

Patrick eased her head back down onto his chest. His hands stroked her back again, the gesture meant to be one of comfort. Yet Kate found it highly erotic, especially considering the tremors she felt cascading through him.

Or was that just her?

Gerald pressed against her, the head of his cock hot and hard and deliciously insistent. Kate moaned. Both men reacted to the sound by holding her more securely.

“Don’t move, Kate. Let me get inside you, first.”

Oh, God, she could feel herself opening, unsurprised when the burn came, and the pain, but not caring. With that pain came a deeper kind of tingling, a more solid kind of arousal that seemed to connect her nipples to her clit to her ass.

Then Gerald slid into her and Kate whimpered, because she felt full to bursting and so very, very close to coming.

“Sweet?”

“So…oh, God, so
good
. But I need…I need…” Kate couldn’t even form the words as tiny inner shivers seemed to overtake her—heart and mind, body and soul.

“Take what you need, woman.” Gerald caressed his hands over her hips. “Fuck us, Kate. Fuck us the way you need it done.”

He wasn’t making sense—at least not to her mind. Her body, however, seemed to know exactly what to do.

She pushed down and inward, then up and back, just tiny, jerky little movements that didn’t feel graceful, or coordinated. And yet.

And yet, each time she moved they all three of them moaned, feral-like sounds that spoke of pleasure and the need for more.

With gasps and sighs and deep, heartwarming grunts, her men told her how much they enjoyed her movements. She’d never felt so full, so aroused, but it was certainly more than that. She felt
complete
. Almost as if she’d waited her entire life for just
this
. In this moment, the emotional and the spiritual nearly overshadowed the physical.

Kate Wesley was connected and complete and exactly where she needed to be.

The climax came, its own master, exploding over and around them, showering them with the deepest pleasure, the strongest spasms of delight. Kate cried out, unable to hold back the sound, her men’s shouts of completion the perfect bass notes to complement her own soprano song.

* * * *

Kate counted it a blessing that the first person she encountered upon entering the kitchen the next morning was Miranda Kendall. Apparently, Miranda had arrived bright and early, organized the breakfast, and informed all of the residents—the noun Kate had recently decided to use to refer to the men who were under her care—that Major Wesley was on leave for the day.

According to Miranda, most of the men seemed to think she’d been due a day off for some time.

Her men had slipped out her private door just after sunrise, with kisses and the promise that they’d return soon. They, too, were on leave and intended to spend the bulk of their time on this beautiful autumn Saturday with her.

“Are you all right?”

Miranda’s question had been whispered, and Kate wondered how long it would take her to lose her maidenly blush. She supposed the fact that she’d stopped in midsentence and stared off into space had prompted her friend’s inquiry.

“I’m considerably better than all right, thank you.” Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire, and Kate could only shrug.

Miranda grinned, and although her friend had been married a few months, clearly she was just as embarrassed by the nuances of the topic under discussion.

Then Miranda blushed when she said, “Perhaps, if I may suggest it, you should indulge in a nice, leisurely hot bath.”

“I had one last night, before…well, before I settled down to sleep. It
did
help.” As did the cool compress that Gerald so thoughtfully applied to her tiny rosebud after he’d gently cleaned the salve from her. However, she declined to mention those details.

Surely some information was a bit too personal to share, no matter how modern one was.

“Then come and have some breakfast. I made pancakes and sausages this morning, and I saved you some.”

Kate sat down in the kitchen and discovered her appetite was quite healthy. She ate slowly, and savored her coffee. The men would be back soon. They’d asked her if she wanted to go into Waco and shop, or just go for a ride and a picnic. When she’d mentioned that horseback riding
might
not be the best idea all things considered, but that she had no desire to go into town either, they nodded in understanding.

She had no idea what they were planning, but thought that if she could trust them with her body as she had so completely done last night, she could certainly trust them to plan her day off.

She set her cup down and looked at her friend. “Thank you for being here. Not just for pitching in so I could have some time off, but for being a friend to me, at this time and in this place.”

“You’re very welcome. Our friendship goes both ways. I’m grateful to you, too. We’re practically the same age, and that’s a blessing. Of course, I adore my mother-in-law and all the women here, especially Amanda and Sarah…”

“But it’s nice having someone your own age, too.”

“Yes! That’s it exactly. My husbands don’t have any sisters, but your men do.”

“Sarah, named for her grandmother.” Kate nodded. “I haven’t met her yet. Mattie mentioned she’s in Washington, working as an aid to Congressman Bennett.”

“I met her briefly, at our wedding,” Miranda said. “She seems very nice, smart as a whip.”

“I think her family misses her.” Kate had noted the wistfulness in Mattie’s voice when she’d spoken of her daughter.

“There are a fair number of family members overseas,” Miranda said. “Of course, some couldn’t go, as with those who are busy with the farming and ranching and various other industries that are considered vital, and needed for war effort.”

“I guess it is hard on the parents.” Kate recalled the conversation she’d had with Charles Benedict in the stables. She also thought about the way, around the dinner table, news would be shared from letters and the looks on the faces of the mothers
and
the fathers as they did so.

“It’s hard on everyone,” Miranda said. “Normal has been usurped by this horrible war. The world seems like it’s in complete and total chaos.”

Kate reached over and covered Miranda’s hand with her own. Her friend was a bride missing not one, but two husbands. Realizing that and understanding how she must be feeling was almost enough to make her feel guilty at her own good fortune. Her men were only two hours away, and not in the line of fire.

Then she thought of Captain Somerville, and how he’d come to be there. She also thought about Gerald’s close call of the day before, and shivered. She guessed the dangers of these times didn’t only exist away from America’s shores.

An hour later she’d changed into casual, civilian clothes and had to resist the urge to throw her arms around Gerald and Patrick when they arrived to pick her up.

Gerald drove, and Kate sat between her men as he took them through the center of the small town and then headed north. Before even two minutes had passed, Gerald steered the car down a dirt road on the left.

“Where are we going?”

“We have something to show you.”

Kate opened her mouth to ask more, but she turned her eyes to the front, and saw the house.

Red brick with white trim, it seemed enormous. She saw the large porch at the front, shaded by a sloped roof, and thought it was nearly as appealing as the one at the Convalescent Home.

Gerald pulled the car into the drive, and when she got out, she realized
this
was the house she could see if she stepped out the back door of the Home. They’d driven for a few minutes, but she’d bet they could walk through the field from this house to the Home in a quarter of the time.

“Whose house is this? Are we visiting, then?”

“We’re visiting, yes, but no one lives here. Yet. As to whose house it is…it belongs to all of us. Specifically, it belongs to the Town Trust.” Gerald led the way to the front door, and unlocked it.

Kate had heard about the Town Trust, and the organization given to the town of Lusty by its founders—two of whom, Sarah and Amanda, she knew quite well by now.

One of Amanda’s husbands—Warren Jessop—had been a lawyer. He’d come up with a way to keep Lusty the sanctuary they meant it to be, in perpetuity.

“This house was built in 1908, the year our parents got married. They had a few happy years here, before the first war. When it broke out, our fathers enlisted, of course, and were sent overseas,” he said.

“That would have been hard for your mother
and
your grandparents.”

“I can only imagine,” Patrick said. “Ger and I, and our brothers and sister were born here. We lived here, as a family, until after Grandpa Josh died in 1937. Then we moved back to the Big House, because we didn’t want grandmother to be alone.”

“This seems like a very happy house,” Kate said. She could feel the echoes of past joys, and maybe a hint of past heartaches, too.

“It has five bedrooms, all upstairs.” Gerald stood back, and Kate knew he wanted her to look around.

“It doesn’t seem as if it’s been vacant for years,” she said. She walked through the downstairs rooms—parlor, living room, dining room, and pantry. The kitchen was a good size, but didn’t have modern appliances.

The house, of course, was unfurnished.

She climbed the stairs, noticed they were solidly built, and that the banister didn’t have a lot of dust on it. At the top of the stairs she turned left and found herself in what undoubtedly would be the master bedroom, as it was quite large.

“No, we tend to keep the houses in good repair, whether they’re lived in, or not.” Patrick smiled. “There are a number of us who’ve come of age, some who have married, and some who are about to. There are plans to expand the town, to make this road we’re on here a cul-de-sac. There are even plans in the works for a school.”

“Miranda will like that,” Kate said.

“That’s a few years down the road, but yes, I’m sure she will.” Gerald stayed back by the door, and his voice echoed slightly in the empty room. “This house needs some updating for these more modern times. But it would be a good house to raise children in, don’t you think?”

She turned from her perusal of the room to look at the men. They stood, side by side, two such different personalities yet, at this moment, so very much alike. Hands in pockets, the light of hope in each of their eyes, she could see that they were both waiting for her to say something.

“Yes, it would be a very good house to raise children in.”

“It can be our house, Kate, if you want it to be. We likely won’t be able to move in until after this damned war is over.” Patrick shook his head. “But that would just give us time to get things renovated and fixed up the way you’d like them.”