Owned for Christmas (17 page)

Kate smiled at the happiness around her. She’d never thought a holiday could be like this. Not about things or wants, but about love. The presents weren’t about what was inside, but more the affection they represented. The thought and love that had gone into finding the perfect gifts.

She didn’t know how she’d ever been so blessed as to spend her holiday—and hopefully her future—with these people. It seemed like a dream she hoped never to wake up from. A Christmas gift she’d been asking for her entire life. And now, thanks to Grant and Daniel, she’d finally received it.

“Kate, dear, aren’t you going to open a present?” Gale raised her coffee cup to her lips, taking a sip.

“Uh…” Kate looked down at the five presents at her feet stacked together, like little boxes of hand-wrapped love. She hated to open any of them. The love they expressed meant far more to her than anything that could be inside them.

“Go ahead, open one up,” Gale encouraged.

“Okay.” Kate didn’t want anything else. Having Grant and Daniel was more than anyone deserved. But if Daniel or Gale had taken the time to shop for her, the least she could do was open the presents.

Daniel reached down into the heap, picking out one gift from the stack. “This is from me.”

Her heart stopped beating. She stared down at the box Daniel held up for her, small enough that it easily fit in the palm of her hand. Her fingers shook as she accepted the gift from him. She ripped apart the decorative Santas dancing across the wrapping paper, revealing what she’d dreaded and hoped to find.

Popping the top of the small square, she sucked in a deep breath. A diamond sparkled up at her. The Christmas lights from the tree twinkled across the stone’s multifaceted surface and the gold band surrounding it.

In front of her, Daniel dropped to his knee, his eyes focused on her. He reached for her hand, his grip firm and warm. She almost melted beneath his touch.

“Oh, my God.” Gale covered her mouth with one hand.

If Kate had had the strength to speak, she would have said the same thing. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest that her ribs hurt. All Daniel’s hints now made sense—all the little comments about marriage and the future had been gearing her up for the moment he’d give her this ring and hope she’d say yes.

But that had all been before this weekend. Before he and Grant had decided to share her. Before she’d reunited with the man who had broken her heart. Before she and Daniel had agreed to move here, to give this place and this multi-partner relationship a try.

They were only a few hours into this relationship. They couldn’t possibly be ready for marriage yet, if they ever would be. Kate had trouble believing that Grant could ever handle another man owning her—at least the legal part of her—over him.

She looked over at Grant, his body hard as stone, his face a blank slate, devoid of opinion. He focused his stormy eyes focused on the wall behind his brother.

With the fingers of her opposite hand, she touched the bracelet, the one he’d placed around her wrist only an hour ago in the barn, before he’d fucked her brains out while she sucked down his brother. The bracelet that told the world—and more importantly her—that he owned her. Completely.

“Kate, sweetheart, I bought this for you almost a month ago. I can’t imagine anyone else I would want to spend the rest of my life with. And after this weekend…” He swallowed, his lips trembling a little as he spoke. “I feel that way even more. You’re the girl for me, Kate. Forever.”

She focused on breathing. She stared down at the man she loved kneeling before her. She wanted to throw herself in his arms and be with him forever. And for the first time since she’d met Daniel, she felt capable of loving him as completely as he loved her. She hadn’t been able to do that before. Her heart had been too broken. But now those cracks had mended, and Kate wanted to give Daniel all her love.

Could a relationship as complicated and confusing as theirs last forever? Or were they just setting themselves up for heartache farther down the line?

Kate might be a masochist in the bedroom, but she wasn’t one when it came to her heart.

Beside her, Grant reached for her free hand, squeezing it in his. His grip was strong, confident, so like Grant, and her stomach fluttered. She looked up, meeting his gaze, shocked not only by the kind, gentle touch but also by the moment that he’d decided to offer it.

The corner of Grant’s mouth kicked up, just a slight tuck up that would have been unperceivable to anyone else. He dipped his head slightly toward Daniel, squeezing her hand a little harder.

All the air left her lungs in one giant whoosh. Her heartbeat sped up. Grant was encouraging her, pushing her to accept his brother’s proposal. The last string of her resistance snapped. If Daniel wanted her to marry him, and Grant agreed, what argument did she have to say no? Too much love, too much affection, too much happiness? Surely none of those reasons held water.

“Yes.” She threw herself into Daniel’s embrace. She kissed his throat, his cheeks, before going for his lips.

They still had a lot to work out. She doubted that the negotiations would ever end between the three of them. Being caught between two brothers would always require some work. But in that way they were like every other couple in the world. And the fact that Daniel and Grant were both willing to try was all she needed.

Gale let out a cry of glee, jumping up from her chair and almost upending her coffee. Kate burrowed tighter into Daniel, fighting the urge to duck at the noise. She’d never heard anything quite like it.

“See? I told you.” She slapped her oldest son on the arm. Gale jumped up and down, stamping the balls of shiny wrapping paper around her feet flat into the carpet.

Grant nodded. “You were right, Ma. She is a keeper.”

Kate smiled back over at him then threw a glance up at Daniel. The ‘for both of us’ went unsaid.

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

Valentine Next Door

Willa Edwards

Excerpt

Chapter One

“You need to get out of there, buddy,” Brett declared.

Jeremy huffed into the phone. He didn’t need his best friend to tell him that. He’d been back in his childhood bedroom for three weeks now, while the damn bone in his leg healed. Being waited on by his mom, unable to even leave the house, was driving him stir-crazy. After years of moving from place to place searching out the next great photo, sitting still was taking a serious toll on his mental state.

“Are you offering to let me stay at your place?”

“Fuck no. I like you, dude, but not that much.” Brett chuckled into the phone. “I’m not giving you a sponge bath.”

They both laughed. Best friends since elementary school, they’d done a lot for each other, but they had their limits.

“I can bathe myself, dude.” It required a plastic garbage bag and a few strips of duct tape, but he could do it. “I’m not
that
handicapped. I just couldn’t get up and down the stairs to my place.” His third-floor walkup in the city had seemed cool and Bohemian before his injury. Once he healed, he’d be looking for a new apartment in a high rise with a doorman and an elevator. Maybe a condo in a neighborhood that would be good for families.

He’d been thinking a lot about the future since his injury, not that he’d admit it to his buddy. Maybe it was the staying still, or maybe it was the injury itself, but the call of the road had tamed down to a gentle breeze. The idea of coming home to someone was starting to sound appealing. If it was the right person.

“Isn’t there somewhere you can go for a little while? Just for a break.” Papers rustling echoed over the phone.

Brett must be at work. The man worked from dawn to midnight some nights. Not that Jeremy could say much. He put in a lot of hours at his job too. But at least it wasn’t in an office.

Jeremy knocked his fist against the cast on his right foot. “Can’t drive with this thing, and I won’t get far walking.” All he could do was sit and think. About everywhere he’d been and where he might be going next. He’d never been much of a thinker. He was a doer. Whenever he’d seen what he wanted, he’d gone after it. Now, all he could do was spin his mind in circles.

“There’s got to be something you can do,” his friend declared.

But the words didn’t register with Jeremy. All he heard was the slam of a door. He stilled. His heart sped up and his cock perked to attention. It was a sound he knew well. A sound he’d waited for so often as a teenager and had now begun to anticipate each night since returning home. It was one of the few joys he’d had since he’d been stuck back in his childhood bedroom.

Next door, Mrs Valentine, the school librarian and the star of his every adolescent fantasy and most of his adult ones, had shut her front door. He held his breath, waiting for her to walk through the house to her bedroom that stood across the small twenty-foot lawn from his own.

“Mrs Valentine’s home,” he whispered, even though, logically, he knew she couldn’t hear him through the walls of two houses.

“Are you fucking kidding me, dude? Mrs Valentine?”

Brett groaned, and Jeremy understood his pain. Just the thought of Mrs Valentine had Jeremy’s balls tightening and his dick hard.

“You were always the luckiest shit in school to live next to her.” Brett’s voice rumbled in his ear.

The sound distracted Jeremy—momentarily—from the beautiful sight before him. Jeremy wasn’t the only one who’d had a crush on the school librarian.

He waited with bated breath as she walked into her room then shut the door behind her. Mrs Valentine always changed as soon as she got home from the library, switching from her pumps, tight pencil skirts and curve-hugging button-down blouses, into more relaxed sweats or jeans.

And he got a front-row seat for the action. As a teen, it had been one of his favorite times of day. As an adult, it was starting to become the same. Thank God the woman had never discovered blinds.

She stepped into the middle of the room, her tiny bare feet curled into the plush carpet. Standing in front of the dresser mirror, she dropped her hands to her chest, her nimble fingers unbuttoning her shirt. The pale color was perfect against her exotic caramel complexion. Each released button showed off a new inch of flesh. Even from his vantage point across the yard, her skin looked soft and kissable.

Nothing about Mrs Valentine had changed in the ten years he’d been away. Not her habits, her figure or her ability to strike him deaf, dumb and blind with her beauty.

She tossed the white shirt to the floor. She slid her hands behind her to unbutton her skirt, thrusting her chest forward, her ample breasts threatening to overflow from her white-laced bra. The very edge of one nipple almost escaped the frilly trim, tempting him to insanity. She twisted the skirt around her waist, released the zipper then pushed the fabric down her full hips—hips that would be just the right size to hold onto as he pounded into her from behind. From this angle, he couldn’t see her ass but he knew it was plump and round. The kind of ass he’d always loved. He’d do almost anything for the opportunity to explore those hills and valleys.

The skirt dropped to her feet and she stepped out of it. Her matching white-laced bikini panties were cut high, showing off even more of her shapely legs. Mrs Valentine was five three, barely reaching his shoulder, but he’d always liked that about her. Her small, curvy frame was perfect for him to hold, to protect, to love.

His cock thickened further in his sweat pants. He fought back a groan, not wanting to share the noise with his best friend. He’d forgotten how hard it was to watch from afar and not be able to touch her. In the years he’d been gone, being allowed to touch a woman hadn’t been a problem. There were very few women he’d met who he couldn’t charm, either with his handsome but still boyish good looks or with his exciting and prestigious profession. Though he’d never found the right woman.

In his life, there must have been other women he’d been unable to seduce. There certainly must have been a few others in high school. He hadn’t started working out until college. And he hadn’t discovered how appealing women found being photographed until a few years into his profession. But the only one he remembered was Mrs Valentine.

“How’s the view?”

He held the phone tight to his mouth as he rose then limped around the corner. He hid behind the faded Spiderman curtains his mom planned to take down but hadn’t gotten around to yet. At least they offered some protection from Mrs Valentine’s view. He’d hate for her to find him watching her.

Jeremy smiled, straightening his stance for an even better view. “Just as good as ever.”

It may have been ten years, but Mrs Valentine looked as amazing as she always had.

As a teenager, he hadn’t realized the invasion of privacy it was to spy on her, to see her in her states of semi undress, even if she allowed it by never closing her curtains. Now he was old enough to know better. But he couldn’t make himself look away. He made a career of capturing the most beautiful visions on Earth, and he couldn’t avert his eyes from the most gorgeous creation he’d ever seen, no matter how wrong it might be.

Mrs Valentine had taught him the most important lesson of his life. If someone stayed quiet and still long enough, he would see the most glorious sights. It was a skill he used every day in his career. His editor was always amazed by how Jeremey managed to get the best shots, even from his first days on the job. Jeremy didn’t care if he had to wait in a mud puddle for three days to get the perfect photo of a sunset over a pack of sleeping lions, he’d do it. It was a skill that had rewarded him well, making him a highly paid nature photographer in record time. For that, he had Mrs Valentine to thank.

She wrapped her hands around her neck, finding the clasp to her necklace and pulling the delicate chain away from her throat. The small diamond rose from the valley of her cleavage. He’d kill to be that necklace, warm from her skin, tucked between her gorgeous breasts.