“Because I made love with Cam,” she said quietly. “Because . . . I’ll make love to Sawyer.”
His breath blew slightly over her hair, ruffling it from her forehead.
“Cam said . . .”
“What did Cam say?” he asked, a note of curiosity in his tone.
“He said that if it had been you or Sawyer who made love to me the other night, that while he would have wanted it to be him, he wouldn’t have been upset. He said he’d have been relieved.”
“Relieved.” He frowned a little as he said it, and she held her breath until his expression eased. “I suppose I can understand why he put it that way.”
“Can you?” she asked. “Are you angry or hurt that I was with him?”
He shook his head emphatically, even as his expression remained indecisive. He slid his knee between her legs and shifted a little to her right so they rolled to their sides. He pillowed her head on his muscular arm, and he stroked his other hand down her side until it came to rest on her hip.
“I’m not angry or hurt, baby. I knew if this was going to work for us that you would be making love with Cam and Sawyer. I don’t expect the times you spend with them to always be in a group setting. I don’t expect to share my every moment with you with them, so it isn’t fair for me to expect it of them.”
“But are you really okay with it?” she asked anxiously. There was still an undercurrent of doubt in his voice, and it pulled at her.
“Define ‘okay,’ ” he said with a wry laugh. “I won’t lie to you and say that when I walked downstairs and saw you lying with Cam on the couch that my chest didn’t cave in just a little. But there was also a lightness there,relief, as Cam put it. I wanted it to be me, but I also realized that itwouldbe me. All I had to do was give you time.”
He worked his hand back up to her shoulder and then to the curve of her neck and finally her face. He kissed her again, just a light peck at the corner of her mouth, but she felt the love behind the gesture, felt it to her toes.
“I feel like I’ve loved you forever, Reggie. Ever since we met in that creek bottom, and if I didn’t love you then, I lost my heart when you decked Sawyer and Cam for making fun of me. There are times when I resent the fact that I have to share you with them. In my heart, you were mine first.”
She sucked in her breath and trembled as tears welled in her eyes.
“But I also know as much as I love you that they love you too. And then I imagine having to be without you, and it hurts me. It’s a physical ache I can’t control. I know it’s how they’d feel. They’re brothers to me, and I know you love them too. I can sit here and talk about the hurt it would cause me and them, but it’s nothing to the pain it would cause you if we made you choose. I know you well enough to know it’s something you’d never do. It’s why you ran so hard. Because you didn’t want to hurt us, no matter how much you were hurting yourself.”
Tears slid down her cheeks. He gently thumbed them aside as he gazed earnestly into her watery eyes.
“I do love you, Hutch,” she whispered. “Thank you for understanding and for not feeling threatened by the fact that I love Cam and Sawyer too.”
“We just want you with us,” he said so seriously as he stroked her hair. “We know it won’t be easy, but we’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep you with us always.”
“Make love to me, Hutch. I’ve waited so long.”
He rolled over her, planting his knees into the mattress as he looked down at her. With clumsy fingers, he eased her shirt up her body until it gathered around her neck.
Slowly, he moved each arm above her then worked the shirt over her head. He tossed it aside then lowered his head to her belly.
Warm, sweet lips pressed to her rib cage. He feathered kisses over her skin, starting at the edge of her bra and working down to her navel.
His damp tongue brushed over the hollow, swirled around the center, and then his teeth grazed the shivering skin. He fumbled with the button of her fly, finally popping it. The zipper scratched downward, and his fingers tucked into the waistband.
She arched upward to allow him to pull the jeans over her hips. They slid down her legs, gathering at her ankles. She kicked as he pulled, and seconds later she was free.
She lay there in the middle of the bed in her bra and panties. Her plain white, unsexy underwear. He didn’t seem to mind her taste in lingerie. He looked too interested in getting her out of it to notice.
He leaned down again and gathered her in his arms. He pressed a kiss in the valley of her breasts as his hands dug between her and the bed. His fingers found the clasp of her bra, and he worked it free.
He moved his hands up and over her shoulders, dragging the straps with his fingers as he lowered them down her body. His eyes glittered with desire as the cups of her bra came away from her breasts.
Her nipples puckered and tightened painfully, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. The bra went sailing across the room and then his hands returned to her sides. He wrapped those long, lean fingers around her rib cage, his touch firm and possessive.
A whispered sigh escaped her lips as his dark head bent to her breast. He lapped his tongue over one sensitive point, dragging it slowly over the tip.
She closed her eyes and whimpered as flashes of pleasure centered in her core, tightened her pussy and sent a raw, aching need straight to her heart.
