Double Your Pleasure Bundle (4 page)

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Ménage a Cowboy 2

Chapter 1

Grace

I watched the brothers from afar as I basically hid behind my dad in the bleachers at the rodeo.

My eyes bounced back and forth between them as they seemed to be discussing something rather passionately. If anyone asked, I'd probably just say that I was eyeing the cutting horse and its rider about to compete, but honestly?

I was trying to figure out which brother was which.

Which brother was Adam, the one who I'd originally thought was his twin, who kissed me, a total stranger, as I stood half in and half out of the bathroom after my shower?

Which brother was Scott, the one I thought I'd been kissing, until he showed up in the same hallway, with my father? The one who later teased me with words and kisses until I came, fully clothed, in a horse stall in the barn?

I shook my head in confusion as the pair talked and gestured animatedly on the rodeo arena floor as I watched from higher up, in the bleachers.

I must have snorted, or sighed heavily, or something that caused my dad to ask me if I was all right.

"You've been weird all week, Grace. What's up? Boyfriend troubles?"

"What? No. I told you, Jake and I broke up."

"Nervous about starting vet school in the fall? You did great in college, you'll do great in vet school as well."

I sighed again, I couldn't help it.

"No, everything is fine dad, really."

"Well, you don't look like everything is fine. You keep looking over there and huffing and puffing. You have money on a bull or something?"

"No! Wait, is that a serious question? People bet on bull riding?"

The thought of bull riding being a betting sport for some reason dragged my full attention to my dad's face.

"Really?"

"People will bet on anything."

I heard his answer, but my attention was already being pulled back to the two sexy twin cowboys.

It was irritating as hell that I couldn't tell them apart. I'd kissed them. Both of them. One of them more than the other, and yet I could not tell who was who.

"As a matter of fact," he continued, following my gaze, "I'd be willing to bet you that those two are nothing but trouble."

"What two?"

I figured dad was still talking about bulls, until he kept going.

"Either one of them will break your heart. I know you girls are all about the summer flings sometimes, but that's really all it would be with either of them. I've heard things. You hear a lot sitting quietly in the corners of barns with your head bent over sick animals. People forget you're there, and they talk. Those two, both of them, they love 'em and leave 'em, Grace. And you have vet school starting soon. You don't need that kind of heartbreak, or that kind of distraction. You're supposed to be working with me this summer, getting prepared for vet school, not traipsing through the tulips with one of the twins."

"Traipsing through the tulips, dad? What tulips? This is Texas. Did you mean traipsing through the cactus?"

I was trying to lighten the mood, to pull his attention off of me and the twins, but it didn't work.

"What was wrong with Jake? He's steady, he's headed to law school, he seems like he'll be a good man, Grace. Maybe you should give him a second chance? Us men can be complete idiots when it comes to women, I know. But he seems like one of the good ones. He's here, you know?"

"Jake is?"

"Yep, right over there," he said, pointing with his chin to a spot just past the twin cowboys who'd been occupying all of my attention all night.

Hmm, I guess I never noticed that Jake was here. I wasn't too surprised though. In fact, I probably should have expected it.

He often rode bulls in the regional circuit. He did it mostly as a hobby, and to help pay for college and the law school he was headed off to this coming fall. He was pretty good, too. He was good enough to graduate from the local circuit to regional, but he'd never make the national circuit. His heart was set on becoming a lawyer, not turning pro as a bull rider.

Great, now my eyes were bouncing around even more. From one twin to the other, and now jumping past them to keep an eye out on Jake, too.

"Or just stay single," dad continued talking as I volleyed back and forth between three cowboys, like some kind of fucked up tennis match or something.

"Vet school is going to take a lot of your attention. If I'm paying good money for it, so you can come back here and work with me like you always said you wanted to, maybe distractions of the male variety are something you could do without?"

That was a lot of words for my dad. If he was going to spend that many words on a single subject, I knew it was a subject he felt strongly about.

I also knew that most dads wouldn't even bother, they'd leave that kind of talk for the mom to deal with, but since mom died when I was young, he was basically my dad
and
my mom.

I personally thought he'd done a hell of a job raising me, but I also really did not want to be talking about this right now. I wanted to make sure that I stayed as far away from Jake as I could, now that I knew he was here. And I wanted to be able to tell at a glance which man it was that made me come, fully dressed, in the barn. Well, mostly fully dressed.

It just didn't seem right that I couldn't tell them apart.

Granted, when I first kissed Adam, I'd had no idea there were two of them, so I wasn't mentally sorting freckles or scars or anything to file away information on telling them apart. I was too busy kissing him.

And then, once I knew they were two, I was too busy making out with Scott to take inventory either.

When I'd left Scott that last morning, he asked if he could see me again, but I never heard from him.

"Keep an open mind, Grace. I'll see you later," were the last words he spoke as I ran off, late, to meet my dad.

I half expected my phone to ring all week long, and every time it did, I held my breath until the voice on the other end proved not to be a hot as hell half of a pair of sexy cowboys, but he never called.

The bastard.

He'd blown me off!

He'd kissed me like there was no tomorrow, he teased me to orgasm with naughty words about being between both him and his brother, and then he didn't call.

Oh!

Maybe that was why. Maybe he was one of those twins who wanted to separate himself and his identity from his twin, and my being turned on my both of them, my kissing both of them, was a deal breaker.

Maybe he wanted a woman who only wanted him. One who could actually tell them apart from the bleachers, to start with.

Well, he was the one who started it!

"Do you always do what's right, Grace?"

"Do you wish my brother was here...with me?"

"Would you be willing to date both of us?"

Those were his words, not mine. I never would have suggested anything like that.

"Sometimes you just have to jump in with both brothers, Grace, and see how it goes," he'd said.

Not exactly the words of a man who wants to separate himself from his brother,
I thought.
But what else would make him not call?

Maybe the fact that you claim to not be one who jumps in, but you let him practically fuck you less than twenty-four hours after you first laid eyes on him, in a barn of all places,
I thought.

Dad's voice pulled my mind back from its wanderings when he said, "Just cause trouble comes visiting doesn't mean you have to offer it a place to sit down."

With a sigh I just said, "Yes, dad, I know."

I knew he was still talking about the twins, but little did he know that his words fit Jake just as easily.

I hadn't discussed the reasons behind the breakup, mainly because Jake's family and mine were friends from way back, and I didn't want to ruin that by having my father kill their son, so I just kept my mouth shut.

The rest of the rodeo went pretty smoothly. The rodeo clowns were well used, as there were quite a few times that a cowboy needed one of them to divert a bull's attentions from stomping on his head with their massive, angry hooves, but dad's veterinary services weren't called for this time.

He was grateful, saying he could use a night off, and after all the events were over, we headed toward the dance in the dance hall across the parking lot.

About halfway there he got pulled into a long and teasingly heated conversation with a couple of old friends of his that we ran into, and I motioned that I'd meet him inside.

With a nod he let himself be dragged into an only half serious conversation about women, beer and from what I heard as I walked away, the Dallas Cowboys.

I was grateful for the peace and quiet as I continued to head to the glow of the dance hall. I veered off just a bit when I saw an old friend, Beth, in the parking lot.

After a few hugs, and an introduction to her newest boyfriend, the three of us headed in to dance.

As we got closer to the entrance, we heard raised voices. It sounded like two men were arguing over by an old, beat up pick-up truck. We mostly ignored them, until one of those voices hollered my name.

"Grace! Hey, Grace! Hang on a sec, would ya?"

I looked harder at the pair, and realized that the two men by the pick-up were Adam and Scott. With a reassuring wave, stating that yes, I did know them, and no, I did not need an escort, I promised to meet back up with Beth and her flavor of the month inside.

I walked toward the twin brothers with both nervous excitement and a sense of dread. What did they want? And why did I not blow them off completely and continue on with Beth? Stepping into dark shadows in a full parking lot was not the brightest move I'd ever made. And yet, I was drawn to the pair almost against my will.

"Grace! Damn, you are one sexy woman. Have I ever told you that?"

One of the brothers, hell if I knew which, swayed a little as he spoke.

"I guess that depends, doesn't it? Which one are you? The one who kisses strangers in hallways? Or the one who throws out dangerous propositions in horse stalls?"

"She's a feisty one, isn't she?" The drunker of the two seemed to be doing all of the talking.

"Yes, she is. There is a lot of passion hiding behind those pretty eyes."

"We were just fighting over you," the other brother said as my head volleyed back and forth between the identical, sexy as hell brothers.

The drunker one's quick smile was oddly endearing, while the other one's quiet speaking of hidden passions as his eyes seemed to pierce into my very soul was just exactly what my dad had said- trouble with a hugely capital T.

"Well, this has been fun and all, but I'm going to go dance. Once you two fight it out, send the winner my way so I only have to disappoint one of you when I tell you where you can stick whatever it is that you're fighting about."

As I started to walk away, one of them caught my wrist. Electric shocks of heat flowed up my arm from where he gripped it. He held my arm tight enough to tug me back to them, but loose enough that I could easily pull away if I really wanted to, or if I felt threatened.

I didn't feel threatened, but I did feel like a damned fool.

I'd let them both have a tiny piece of me, and I felt like an idiot for letting both of them, in turn, get through my defenses to the extent that I'd practically pranced over here like an ignored dog looking for a pat on the head when one of them had called my name in a parking lot.

On one hand, neither one of them had bothered to get in touch with me since I'd seen them last, and on the other, I suddenly realized that dad was right.

Nothing but heartbreak waited for me down this path.

"Grace, don't go. He's right, we were fighting over you. He wanted to be the one to ask you to dance first, since he's a little put out that you left before he got to see you last time you were at the ranch. I told him that he was a little too drunk to be asking anyone anything. Plus, I wanted to be the first one to ask you to dance."

"Ah, that must make you Scott, then. You know, you two should really wear name tags, to protect the women if nothing else."

"What do you need protection from, exactly?"

Flustered just by their nearness, I shook my head, trying to clear it of the unwelcomed and sudden memories of Scott that flooded my mind now that I knew which brother was holding my wrist and slowly teasing the inside of it with a warm and wandering thumb.

Flashes of him pressing me against the closed stall door mixed with where we now stood, and I pictured him pressing me against the side of this truck instead.

I could almost feel it, my legs wrapped around him again, my back pressed against some strange truck while he tugged my skirt up and my panties aside and did everything that my body had wanted him to do last time, only here, now.

"You're angry. Why?"

Scott's words pulled me from my erotic thoughts. I was grateful, too. That way lays madness, I was sure of it.