Lyndee's Saviors [Men of Montana] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (6 page)

Raising her head to face him, a tear slid down her cheek as she asked quietly, “Then why did I like what they did to me? What both of them were doing to me?”

Trey’s heart seemed to break at that moment with just one teardrop. A sigh was released from the man, not sure how to start the explanation, but he needed to clean up what his brother had started. Usually it was Trey that started on the ladies, but for some reason, Storm and Austin took matters into their own hands tonight, though it proved that all three of them were of the same mind when it came to the beauty before him.

“Out here we are alone most of the time. We have learned to share our women. They are a little few and far between out here. That way we are all happy and we don’t fight over them. We tend to like the same type of women, which really helps.

“We all instantly knew we wanted you when we saw you. It was hell watching you all the way down the mountain hoping you would wake soon. Then when Doc said you had a concussion and said you had been shot, we were all so angry. We wanted—” he said before he corrected himself. “We want to know who did this to you and might likely kill them when we find them.”

“I think it all goes beyond just one or two people,” she said innocently before her hand went to her head in pain.

Trey stood and stepped to her side quickly. “Are you okay? Did you remember something?”

Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not sure. It seems like my brain is trying to tell me something, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around everything.”

Sitting next to her, Trey innocently laid his hand on hers, his fingers touching the metal of the handcuff. “It’ll all come back to you eventually. It’ll just take some time.”

Standing, Trey started to leave but Lisa grasped his hand. “Please don’t leave me. I promise I’ll be good.”

“I’ll be right back. I need to get something and then I’ll come back and stay with you during the night.”

He was gone for a few minutes. Returning to the bed, he sat down and took her hand in his, and slipping a key into the lock of the handcuffs, he popped it and the metal teeth let go, letting the device fall to the blanket.

Exhaustion seemed to overtake her as she tried to reach over to the nightstand to place her plate on it but couldn’t reach so far from the middle of the bed. Trey took it from her along with the handcuffs and placed them on the bedside table. Standing again, he removed the tray from the table, exited the room, and returned a few moments later after depositing it in the kitchen. Stepping to the nightstand, he turned off the lamp and made his way around to the other side and turned off that lamp also.

Sitting on the bed, he removed his boots and let them fall to the floor with a thud before leaning back against the headboard and taking the petite woman into his arms. Her head was on his chest and her hand splayed across his hard abs as a light mewling emanated from her as she snuggled against him. He heard her soft snores a few moments later as she had fallen asleep, and he tried to move himself down on the bed to get comfortable but was too afraid he would wake her so he opted to be uncomfortable for a while.

Austin was the first to rise the next morning as it was his custom to make sure his men began working when they were supposed to. It was still dark with just a tinge of gray beginning to paint the eastern horizon. The chill in the air was ignored by him in his T-shirt stretched across his wide chest but was noticeable when he entered the barn and found the twelve men inside wearing their winter coats. Those would be shed as the day went on, but for now they needed the protection from the worst of the seasonal elements. Winter was going to come early this year, his body told him. A great way to keep their little woman warm was in bed with them making sweet, passionate love to her day and night. That warmed him more than any coat could.

Normally he would join in the daily work, but he was anxious to get back to the house to check on their newest addition to the family. After issuing orders he made his way back to the house, put on a pot of coffee, and made his way to the back bedroom, bumping into Storm as he exited his own room. The two stepped over to the door and peaked into the master bedroom and could make out the forms of both Trey and Lisa lying next to each other as the light from the hallway illuminated the darkness. They were spooning, Trey with his back to the woman who had a hand on his hip in a possessive pose.

Stepping back, the two men made their way to the kitchen before Storm let out a breath of irritation. “Damn that little shit!”

“Which one?” Austin asked, sitting at the table.

“Trey, of course. He came in all righteous last night acting like he was our boss and telling us to stop loving on our woman, and then he goes in and sleeps with her?”

Austin had to be the optimist at this point. “Perhaps they just fell asleep talking. I’m sure that he was the perfect gentleman to our guest. He did have a good point, that she did just have a nasty fall and injured her head. I can’t imagine the headache she must have.”

“Or the pain in her arm where some bastard shot her,” Storm seethed. Austin watched Storm rush from the room and returned a few minutes later fully dressed with boots on. Pouring himself a cup of the black brew from the pot that had just finished dripping, he mumbled he’d be back in a little bit and left the house, letting the screen door slam shut in his wake. Austin just watched him go, though he knew something was bothering his cousin.

For the first time in a long time, Austin felt like an outsider. Trey was working with the local sheriff’s department to find out Lisa’s true identity while Storm seemed to be working on something else about the woman. He was sure it was an oversight that Storm hadn’t thought to include him, but it still hurt, just like back in school when he would be chosen last for activities because he was a Native American, though in these parts it wasn’t a bad thing to be, now. When high school came along and he joined the football team and drove them to three state championships and three regional championships, he showed them that he was more than an outsider.

Standing, he moved to the coffeepot and poured himself his own cup and sat back at the table. He often wondered if the only reason he worked here was because he was related to the boys but deep down inside he knew it wasn’t true. Running his hands through his long, dark hair in frustration, he knew he had to stop self-sabotaging himself.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, thinking he was alone until a noise caught his attention at the doorway of the kitchen.

Looking up he found Lisa leaning against the doorframe watching him. His T-shirt hung down her body, one shoulder on, one off. Her hair was mussed up and her eyes puffy with sleep but to him she was beautiful. Standing, he pulled a chair out for her for her to sit before moving toward the coffeepot. “Coffee?”

“Yes please,” she answered with a yawn. “Do you have cream and sugar?”

“Yup.”

The tall, muscular man watched her shiver involuntarily as he set the mug down in front of her along with the pint of half and half and the sugar bowl, wondering what she was thinking. Returning to his seat, he took a sip before asking, “Did you sleep well?”

Nodding, she continued to watch him through lowered lashes. “What made you upset?”

The right side of his mouth turned up a bit. “Nothing. I was just thinking about you and this situation. You have all of us doing things we don’t normally do.”

Raising her eyes to him fully, coloring flushing in her cheeks, she said, “Then perhaps I should leave. I don’t want to inconvenience you guys or cause you to fight amongst yourselves.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, cupping his hand over hers and feeling the electricity that passed between them. “I just mean that everyone is trying to help you and it just has us doing things we don’t usually do. Trey, for one, is usually carefree and he was trying to protect you last night, and Storm is the one who has everything under control, and he lost it last night, as did I.”

“And what about you, what are you doing differently now that I am here?”

“I should be out making sure my men are working and not slacking off. Instead, I want to be by your side to protect you and make sure you get well.”

Austin felt the shudder this time that traveled through her body moments after her gaze turned wistful. “Are you sure you are all right?”

She nodded. “Yes. I just keep getting little images flashing in my head. I just can’t put them all together. It makes my head hurt, too.”

Patting her hand, the one that he wanted to have holding his cock soon, Austin spoke breathily. “It’ll come in time.”

“That’s what I said last night,” a sleepy Trey said coming into the kitchen. “It was happening last night also.”

Feeling a bit sinful at the moment, Austin looked at Lisa with a glimmer in his eyes but asked Trey, “Did you behave yourself last night, pup?”

Trey gasped at the question, probably more from the embarrassment of being called a nickname he hadn’t heard in years. Austin and Storm were two years older than him, and when he was little, they started calling him pup since he reminded them of a puppy who would follow them around. The name stuck until a few years ago when he finally stood up to them and threatened them that if they called him that again he would kick their asses.

Looking at Austin, Lisa defended him. “He was a perfect gentleman. He didn’t even give me a kiss good night.”

Possessiveness seemed to overcome Austin’s younger cousin for Trey bent over and let his mouth cover Lisa’s gently at first. As the two battled for control of the kiss, Austin watched the heated display lustfully, his cock growing behind the zipper of his jeans. He remembered how lethal her kiss was from the previous night and his body screamed for him to go over and join in, but Trey was a gentleman the night before so he gave them this moment. The sound of boots stopping at the door seemed to break the spell the two were under, and they broke away from each other as Storm entered. Austin watched as guilt seemed to seize both Trey and Lisa. Trey stood quickly and moved over to the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. Lisa lowered her eyes and took a long drink of coffee, which he was surprised she didn’t spill with how much her hands were shaking at the moment.

Trey returned to the table and sat at Lisa’s free side, and Storm, a look of confusion on his face, sat across from Lisa. Austin tried his best to hide his merriment in the whole situation.

Storm looked at Lisa and smiled. Apparently he remembered he was a gentleman and in a ménage, there could be no jealousy. His actions pleased Austin.

“Good morning,” Storm greeted her. “How are you feeling?”

“Good. Thank you.”

“I want to show you some pictures and I would like to know if you remember being there. Would that be all right?”

Austin saw the tentative moment she took before nodding, knowing anything could trigger her memory, and he was afraid they would lose her. What if she was married or had kids? None of them had thought about that last night, but it had to be done.

* * * *

Reluctantly, Storm slid pictures of the cabin over to the woman. Looking at all three men before looking at the pictures, she knew there could be a two-edged sword effect. If she remembered her life before now, she might be able to control the spiral her life had obviously taken. Yet there was the possibility that it would take her away from these three sexy men who caused liquid to form in her slit by just being in the same room with them. Swallowing hard, she picked up the first picture and examined it.

A brief image flashed through her head when she saw the picture, but something was off about it. The furniture was arranged differently so perhaps it wasn’t the same cabin. Shaking her head, she set the picture down and picked up the second picture. The bedroom scene registered as she tried to put scenes together in her mind. Her hands began to shake and a sob escaped her throat and tears welled in her eyes.

Memories of being manacled to the brass bed flashed quickly through her mind as if she was watching an old flipbook she and her friends had made in school when they should have been studying. Remembering the terror that swept through her caused her to drop the picture and stand quickly, turning away from the men.

They all stood and surrounded her, hands on her shoulders, arms, and waist. Trey spoke first. “What did you remember, baby?”

Unconsciously she rubbed her wrist where the handcuff had been, remembering the feel of it. “The bed, it was downstairs. I was handcuffed to it. My arms and my legs were shackled to it. I remember waking up that way.”

“Were you alone?” Trey asked quietly.

Nodding, she spoke softly with a sob. “At first I was. I couldn’t hear anything. I was blindfolded and gagged. Then there was a man. He was large and he had a gun. He was telling me what he was going to do to me. I was so afraid.”

Fear engulfed her as the memory flooded her and she sank to the floor before any of them could catch her. “He said he was going to take me over and over again before he killed me!” she wailed.

* * * *

Austin went to his knees and gathered her up in his arms. She had gone limp with the statement, as if her body couldn’t take the impact of the realization. Standing and picking her up, he hugged her close to his chest as his shirt absorbed the tears she was shedding and made his way back to the room they had given her. He knew the others were right behind him.