Divine Charity (41 page)

Charity grinned lasciviously. “I’d be sleeping nude when she came in, with my arms wrapped around my big hunk of luscious man. I think you disconcerted her with that broad chest and those big muscles.”

He lifted her in his arms and climbed on the bed, positioning her so she was lying against him. When she was comfortably arranged, he pulled the sheet and light blanket over them both. “You going to be warm enough?”

She nuzzled his chest and said, “With you to keep me warm? It’ll be the next best thing to sleeping snuggled up to you at home,” she said as she covered a yawn with one hand. “I’ll know who’s groping me, even with my eyes closed.”

“You don’t need the headache, the hassle, or the responsibility of planning a party, Grace. You’re due around that time,” Charity said as she sipped from her glass of red wine. A large group of their friends were currently congregated around several tables in the corner next to the bar at the Dancing Pony, enjoying a night out.

Several of the girls were clustered around their table trying to hear the conversation as they discussed Charity’s binding ceremony. Originally, she’d hoped to do it on the same day as hers and Justin’s wedding anniversary in July. But when they’d realized that date was within a couple of weeks of Grace’s due date, Charity had decided that a sooner date might be a wise choice. Her concerns were legitimate ones. She didn’t want the binding ceremony to take away from Grace’s growing list of things she needed to do to get ready for the baby. She also didn’t want to add to Grace’s stress level.

“The answer is simple, Charity,” Lucy Owen said as she elbowed Rachel and Lydia and gave them both obvious winks.

“Of course,” Rachel replied without hesitation. “Grace will be the planner and we will all be her hands and feet. We’ll have everything ready to set up, with plenty of volunteers to do the work.”

Lydia nodded vigorously. “I’ll handle the cooking and the cake.”

Lucy said, “I’ll handle the rental equipment setup and takedown.”

Charity gawked at Grace. “Rental equipment?”

“You hush,” Rachel said to Charity with a giggle. “I’ll handle decorations.”

Maya Warner piped up and said, “Oh, I’ll help with decorations, too. It’s the least I can do after the wonderful job Grace and Lydia did with my wedding down at the creek.”

Charity laughed and said, “Yeah, but let’s not have any wedding day repeats, Grace, okay?”

Grace chuckled and said, “I agree completely. I’ll do my best not to turn your binding day into a labor day.”

The girls all laughed and then chimed in, volunteering themselves and their men to help. The suggestions got a little over the top and before long the affair had snowballed into a redneck holy terror complete with Jell-O shots and dancing men.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Charity finally said as their suggestions started sounding more and more like the liquor was talking rather than common sense. “Don’t get me wrong girls, I love all the ideas, I really do. But we want to keep this simple, just like the wedding, twenty-three years ago.”

Grace’s eyebrows arched. “You’re sure about that, sis? It was so small. I wanted to really do this one up for you, you know? Make it memorable for you and the guys.”

Charity hugged her sister, and her pregnant belly, but shook her head. “I’m sure it will be. I didn’t say we couldn’t have a celebration. As long as my family and my friends are there, I don’t care about the rest of that stuff. We don’t need a band. We don’t need fireworks. And although I can see where it would make for a memorable occasion, Lucy, I don’t think we need the Jell-O shots and dancing men either.”

Lucy snickered and said, “Oh, all right. I guess that was a bit much, huh?”

“I just want the people I love to be there with me, to help us celebrate. I want the binding ceremony to have all the meaning without the pomp and circumstance of a traditional wedding.”

“But we still get to help you shop for your dress, right?” Grace asked.

Charity chuckled. They still hadn’t had any luck finding the right one. “Of course. Anyone who wants to come and help is welcome.”

Once again, all of her friends started talking at the same time as Charity looked on. Beyond the table they were clustered around, her three men sat with their friends, mostly the respective spouses of the girls. Justin made eye contact with her and smiled before nudging Val and Ransome, who looked up and smiled when they realized she was watching them.

Justin signed “I Love You” to her and she felt her cheeks warm and her eyes mist over with tears. None of it really mattered as long as she had the men she loved, her kids, and the friends she cared about around her. Even so, she imagined it was going to turn out to be quite a party.

A gentle nudge caught her attention and she turned to find Lucy standing beside her, gazing over at her own men.

Lucy said, “Remember last year at the ROT Rally?”

“I will never,
ever
forget.” So many memories flashed to mind, some sweet, like seeing Jayne and Lucy come out of their shells in their sexy leather outfits, some tumultuous, like Lucy’s public confrontation and lusty reconciliation with Beck and Patrick, and some memories that were fiery-hot, like Charity’s late-night public exhibition with Justin.

Lucy smiled, evidently cataloguing her own memories, and then said, “You sent Val and Ransome to check on me and Jayne at Seth’s exhibit spot. They were walking us to the restroom and Val asked me a few questions about being in a committed ménage. I thought he was just curious in the general sense. He asked me if Patrick and Beck ever got jealous of each other and he wondered if I felt worn out by all of the baggage two men might bring to a relationship. He asked me if I thought all the changes, challenges, and strife I went through to be with them was worth it.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told Val that they made it worth it. All of it. That was true then and it’s even truer today. In the course of that conversation, he mentioned that the two of them already had their hearts set on a woman. I was understandably curious but didn’t ask because it wasn’t any of my business and I had my distractions that day as well. But when I heard that you and Justin had added the two of them and formed a ménage…”

“Yeah?”

“It made perfect sense,” Lucy said, with a simple nod. “I wasn’t a bit surprised but I was very happy, for all four of you. You fit together perfectly. Oh, man. That didn’t sound the way I meant it to.”

Charity burst into laughter and hugged Lucy’s shoulders. “I know exactly what you meant and you’re right.”

Across the club, Ethan waved at her and gave her a thumbs-up from the DJ’s box. Charity excused herself and left the group to their planning and squeezed her way through the crowd to where her men were sitting, all their eyes on her, clad in her leather miniskirt and halter and tall boots. The bandage on her upper arm was a much smaller flesh-colored one and was barely noticeable now. Her wound had healed well and most days she didn’t even notice it unless she overused the muscle in her upper arm. Her men had been like mother hens, keeping her from doing that. She was really missing rear-entry sex and planned to do something about that soon.

She squeezed in between the three of them, returning their kisses as they crowded even closer to her.

“Anybody feel like dancing with me?”

“Me,” all three of them said at once, and then chuckled.

As the funky beat of “Locked Out Of Heaven” began to pump through the sound system, she said, “I was hoping you’d say that, gentlemen. Come with me.”

“Bruno Mars? In the Dancing Pony?” Val asked, as he clasped one of her hands.

Charity was already moving with the music, her arms rising over her head and her hips swaying as she strode forward confident all three were in her wake. “Of course. Ethan played it just for me. That okay with you?” she asked as she gently gripped Justin’s T-shirt collar and pulled him in for a light peck.

“As long as you’re rubbing up against me,” Justin said, “I don’t care what we dance to.”

“True,” Ransome said as she turned on the dance floor. Justin slid in behind her with his chest to her back and she began grinding with him. She grabbed Val by his belt buckle and pulled him close until he was chest to breast with her and his thigh slid between hers. She held him near while she reached out for Ransome and tempted him closer, until she was surrounded by her sweet, hot, sexy giants. She arched her back and pulled Ransome down by the collar of his button-down until his lips met hers and she wrapped her arm around his waist so his chest rubbed against her and she slid her fingertips into the waist of his jeans, enjoying the feel of his muscular ass flexing under her hand.

Once she had them where she wanted them, she let her hands roam, and spent time dancing chest-to-chest with each of them, grinding her ass against one while rubbing her breasts against another, and caressing the third wherever she could reach until she’d done a full turn with them surrounding her, blocking out the nightclub.

As the song continued, and her temperature began to rise, Justin leaned down to her and in a husky voice said, “We have a surprise planned for you.”

“You do?” she asked, almost losing her rhythm in the dance.

“We thought it was time for another role-play scene.”

“All three of you?
When
?”

She knew better than to ask and he didn’t disappoint when he chuckled and trapped one of her nipples between his fingers and gave it a light tweak.

“You know half of the fun is springing it on you, babe.”

Still dancing, she slid out her lower lip and pouted teasingly, and Ransome bent down and nipped at it before he kissed her and said, “We can’t wait, either, angel.”

Giving another playful pout, she replied, “Yeah, but he’s not springing it on
you
.”

“You love the anticipation, though, don’t you?” Val said as he took a kiss of his own. He tasted of tequila and his own alluring flavor and made her think of another flavor of his that she liked very much.

“You know I do,” she replied as she rubbed her mound against the hard ridge at Val’s groin, making the lust in his eyes flame higher. She lifted her arms again, moving with the pounding beat, and slid her fingertips along Justin’s thick shoulder and around Ransome’s neck and into his long, silky hair. Connected to all three of them like that, she felt like the luckiest woman in the universe. “I’m yours to play with.”

* * * *

Jessica startled when Lydia patted her shoulder. The crowded nightclub throbbed with music and she had to lean over in order to hear her friend as she spoke. “Are you all right?”

Jessica smiled at her, appreciating how much Lydia looked out for her. “I’m fine.”

Lydia gave her a knowing smile. “I’m sure Bella is doing just fine with LuAnn and the guys. I’m glad you were able to join us.”

LuAnn worked with Lydia at the ranch, helping out with the house and cooking, and Jessica had grown close to her. LuAnn and her men, Mayn and Daniel, had offered to babysit for Jessica so she could have a night out, now that Bella was six weeks old. Lydia had talked her into going out that night because she thought she’d been isolating herself too much. The Dancing Pony nightclub, with its noisy jostling crowd, was certainly a contrast from the quiet solitude she’d been living in recently.

Thanks to long walks and getting plenty of fresh air, she was bouncing back from her rather stressful pregnancy. She even had a job lined up with a local optometrist’s office in Divine, which she planned to start the following week. Things were looking up and she’d been hoping for an opportunity like that night out to spread her wings a little.

When she’d heard that Val and Ransome were going to be there as well, she’d decided to seize the day and give them a chance to see her as more than a pregnant woman in need of help. To that end, she’d spent an hour primping and had arrived at the club only a few minutes before, hoping for a chance to express how she felt to them.

As she watched the foursome on the dance floor, she realized that she’d insulated herself from a certain reality. She supposed it was her fault for not saying something about it sooner, maybe mentioning it to Lydia and finding out Val and Ransome’s status. Rather, she’d continued in her fantasy-land crush on the men who’d saved her from Trevor Dornan the year before. All other men had seemed pale in comparison to them.

She’d been in her own little world, feeling a little intimidated by the big crowd and the loud music, but she’d barely hidden her surprise a few minutes before when she’d caught a glimpse of Charity, who she’d also begun to idolize for her brave part in bringing Dornan to justice, sliding in amongst Val, Ransome, and her husband Justin, kissing all three of them, as they surrounded her.

It was obvious by the warm looks they gave her that Val and Ransome’s hearts belonged to Charity and that she was in love with them, as well as her husband. Jessica was happy for them but it still stung. As Jessica watched the four of them move in an incredibly sensual dance, it was obvious that she’d had her head in the sand. She just hadn’t realized.

“Hadn’t realized what,” Lydia asked as she looked at Jessica and then followed her line of sight out to the dance floor before she could avert her gaze. Understanding dawned in her friend’s eyes.