Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (28 page)

Cade joined their rhythm, slowly driving his cock in then back out before plunging in to the hilt with a deep groan. “Oh fuck, baby. You feel so good.”

Despite the initial burning sensation and feeling of being stuffed beyond her limit, both men felt incredibly good inside her, better than she could have ever hoped.

Maia relaxed her inner muscles and Cade drove even deeper, swallowed by her welcoming walls as her ass gloved him.

She was so wet she felt her juices dripping down her thighs as both men drove into her. They matched each other’s beat and speed, sweeping Maia along like a fierce, powerful wave at the beach threatening to take her out to sea.

Thayne buried his face in the crook of her neck, and Maia felt his breath tickling her skin as he panted against her before kissing and nibbling a path from her earlobe to her shoulder.

“I’m close, Thayne,” she whispered.

“Hmmm…”

“I want to see you.”

When he didn’t respond, Maia fisted a handful of hair at his nape and drew his head back so that she could look at him. Her heart skipped a beat at the fresh sight of his Caribbean-blue eyes aglow with so much arousal and heat she thought they might consume her.

Thayne bent his head, ravishing her mouth with his as he rolled and pistoned his hips against her.

Maia felt him throbbing inside her, felt the pulsation of Cade in her ass. Her clit swelled and throbbed in response as both men picked up their tempo and irrevocably drove her over the edge of ecstasy into the abyss of a shattering climax.

Maia cried out, drained and unmindful of her surroundings.

Thayne and Cade cuddled and rocked her between them for Maia didn’t know how long before she finally felt them pulling out of her.

She immediately missed their solidness and warmth, almost wept at the loss.

Limp, she let them lay her back on the bed, closing her eyes as they tended to her.

She felt one of them wiping her down with a warm, damp cloth, while the other just lay close and held her. Maia enjoyed the way they worked in tandem. She sighed as if she was a cat too weak to lick herself so one of her partners took up the task.

A few minutes later, or it could have been an hour, Maia couldn’t be sure anymore, she heard the door open and close.

She opened her eyes to see Thayne lying beside her.

“He went to hunt up some fresh water and other stuff.”

Maia smiled and stretched, settling her arm around his broad shoulders and drawing him close. “I miss him already.” She thought maybe she had put her foot in her mouth again until Thayne grinned and tweaked her nose in a very un-Thayne-like manner.

“I do, too.”

Maia released her breath in relief, smiling at Thayne’s relaxed manner. She guessed good sex did that to a man.

Was that all it had been to him, just sex? She hoped not, since it had been way more than that for her.

She wasn’t even going to think about love this early in the game, not wanting to scare away either man or even herself for that manner.

Maia needed to accept things as they were, at face value, at least for now. If the three of them went deeper into this, she supposed she’d bring up her concerns, but until then she would just accept the status quo.

“Thayne?” So much for accepting the status quo, she thought.

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay with all this?”

“As okay as I’m going to be.”

“Which is how much?”

He propped himself up on one elbow to look at her. “What’s bothering you?”

“Cade and I were the ones all for this…ménage a trois. I feel like we all but forced you into this.”

“You did no such thing. I went into this with my eyes open. I knew what I was doing.”

“Are you sure?”

He cupped her face with both hands and drew her near for a soft, brief kiss. “I don’t want you to feel guilty about any of this. I’m an adult. I can handle my own angst, if there is any to be handled.” He kissed her again. “I wanted this as much as both of you did.”

“O…okay.”

“No guilt, right?”

“Not anymore,” she said, lying through her teeth.

* * * *

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Cade said before bringing the cup of tea to his lips and sipping. Not really his style, but as far as tea went, it wasn’t too bad.

Sabrina shrugged. “I don’t sleep much.”

Even if they were in the Old West, where the denizens went to bed much earlier than Cade was used to in his time in the city, he knew what it felt like not being able to sleep much. He wondered if the root of Sabrina’s sleeplessness was the same as his. He stopped himself short of asking her, however, though curiosity fairly flooded his system.

He wondered, for instance, how she could afford to run this place if she made a habit of treating and trusting all her boarders like she did him, Thayne, and Maia. If she regularly didn’t collect money but only used the bartering system, how could she maintain the place and provide the supplies and services her boarders required?

Maybe she was independently wealthy, but then why work herself unnecessarily? Did she have some demons that needed exorcising, kind of like him when he returned to Los Angeles to work with the police?

“You’re staring at me like you want to ask me something,” Sabrina said.

He grinned, sipping more tea before putting his cup on its delicate matching saucer. “Maybe I think you’re attractive and I like looking at you.”

“Quit trying to kid a kidder.”

“What? You don’t think you’re beautiful?”

“Doesn’t matter none what I think. It’s what you think. Do you think I’m beautiful?”

Cade paused before answering, considered the best, safest response.

Sabrina Walker was a knockout. He’d thought it when he first laid eyes on her. Before Maia, this fact might have meant something to him. Sure, he couldn’t help flirting with Sabrina. It was in his nature. He was a man with testosterone flowing through him after all.

Now, however, after Maia, after making love to her with his brother? He didn’t even get a flicker down below, and that was unheard of for him.

His reaction confused as well as alarmed him, the same way he had been confused and alarmed at his reaction to Lily, one which had been more clinical rather than sexual. He liked to think that he’d been a good boy because Lily was married, that he was a man-whore with standards. He’d never knowingly been with a married woman.

Sabrina’s status, however, was different. She was an attractive, single young woman. She was free and on the market from everything he could see and, unlike Lily, she gave off some definite sexual, I’m-available-and-looking signals, signals to which Cade just hadn’t responded.

“I think you’re gorgeous,” he finally admitted and raised his cup to his lips, more for something to do with his hands than because he wanted to taste the tea again.

“So, what’s your story then?”

“My story?”

“You and your brother and the woman traveling together…Which one of you does she belong to?”

Cade almost choked on the little sip of tea that he had taken and put down his cup.

Sabrina got out of her chair and came around the table to pound him on the back. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he rasped, thinking that this woman definitely reminded him of Maia. She was sharp and didn’t bite her tongue for anyone. She still didn’t float his boat, either, though he wasn’t incapable of appreciating her attractiveness in a purely aesthetic way. He could even see them being platonic friends. He had plenty of women friends back in his time. Of course, they didn’t become that way until after he had had sex with them—go figure.

Once Sabrina was satisfied with his well-being, she went back to her seat, staring at him across the table. “I suppose you want to keep your piehole shut on that?”

Cade chuckled, really liking this woman and more curious than ever to know what
her
story was.

“It’s complicated.”

“I understand.”

Cade was glad that she understood, because he certainly didn’t.

He’d never been a one-woman man in his life. He had never seen himself settling down. Yet, with Maia and his brother he could see a future of little rug rats underfoot, of quiet evenings spent reading, discussing the day’s events, or otherwise relaxing with each other on the front porch when they weren’t working or just taking turns making love.

Strangely enough, he saw that future here in the nineteenth century.

How messed up was that?

“She’s a lucky woman,” Sabrina said.

Cade looked at her and felt no jealousy or malice in her voice, just a deep, pervading tone of sadness and loss.

She sounded how he would feel if something happened to Maia or Thayne.

Cade resolved that he’d never have to actually experience that loss.

His parents had said they needed to protect each other and keep Maia safe, and that’s what he intended to do. “No.” He shook his head. “We’re the lucky ones.”

When Thayne woke the next morning dawn had barely broken so he didn’t really expect anyone to be up and about. He wasn’t disappointed to feel both Maia and Cade still in the bed beside him and asleep.

He sat up on his side of the bed, listening to their soft, steady breathing in the dark, so unaccustomed to company in bed that the noise disoriented him for a moment.

Goddess, had it been that long since he’d allowed anyone to get this close to him? He’d never been like his brother, into sex for sex’s sake, looking at it as recreation and sport. When Thayne had sex with someone, it meant something to him, even if it hadn’t always meant something to the woman, at least not the same thing it meant to him. His serious relationship with Tiffany immediately came to his mind at the thought.

Looking back at that whole affair made him wonder what his major malfunction had been. Had he been desperate for company or someone to call his own? Independent to a fault and always the one that his friends and family had counted on to act as a stabilizing, levelheaded force in their lives, he’d never seen himself as particularly needy.

Had Tiffany sensed some weakness in him that made him an easy mark? Had something he said or did clued her into his inner turmoil and the best way to reject and get back at him for his dedication to work instead of her?

Thayne shook his head at the self-examinations and useless self-recriminations. What was done was done. He couldn’t change what had happened. He could only move forward and try to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again.

He knew in his heart that Maia wasn’t like Tiffany by any means. Sure she was a big-time flirt and highly sexual, but Maia had soul, and not because she was black. Maia had substance where Tiffany had been shallow, an empty shell.

He reached for Maia in the dark, gently cupping her face with one hand, appreciating the warmth and softness of her skin. She turned into his palm with a quiet sigh but didn’t wake. At least he didn’t think she did.

Thayne slid from the bed now as carefully as he could, not wanting to wake Maia or Cade if he didn’t have to. They had all had a long day yesterday, but he figured he was used to putting in long hours on little sleep, at least a little more than Cade and Maia were used to it.

He searched the room in the dim light, doing the impossible when he located his boxers and jeans and threw them on. At least he thought they were his jeans. There was only an inch or two separating him and Cade, and though there were fifteen or so pounds between them, if that, it was negligible when measured against their similar proportions. The jeans could very well have been Cade’s.

Zipped and buttoned up, Thayne threw on a shirt, not bothering to button it as he carefully opened the door and headed out into the hall.

He went down the stairs in his bare feet but needn’t have tried to be quiet, not when Sabrina was up in the kitchen already knee-deep in her preparations for the day.

“I can help with the cooking.”

She didn’t miss a beat, pulling staples from the cupboards. “A man in the kitchen? Perish the thought. You’ll only get in my way.”

Of course she hadn’t heard of Bobby Flay or Emeril Lagasse.

Thayne grinned, not letting her dig stop him as he took the bag of flour from her. “Really. I’m a pretty good cook.”

She paused to put a fist on her hip and looked him up and down. “Helping me get breakfast done is not going to get you out of the heavy-duty work around this place, I guarantee you that.”

Thayne shrugged. “Like I said. We’re not afraid of hard work.”

“So where are your companions anyway?”

“Sleeping.”

“Hmph.”

He wondered now what sort of run-in Cade had had with their hostess last night and what exactly had been said during their little tête-à-tête over tea.

Thayne had been trying to picture it ever since his brother had returned to the room and mentioned the meeting last night. He just couldn’t imagine, first, his brother sitting still in a kitchen longer than it took a tea kettle to whistle, or second, sipping tea with his little pinky set just so and having a leisurely chat with a beautiful woman on whom he wasn’t trying to put his famous lothario moves.