“I don’t recommend taunting us.” Luc’s voice sounded strained.

She wriggled again, and flashed him a come-hither smile. He hissed in a breath.

“I’ll stop taunting if you’ll start fucking.”

“Deal,” Deke growled, even as he eased back—then plunged forward in a killer stroke, punctuated by a little pinch of her clit.

Kimber yelped, but it did no good when Luc’s mouth covered hers and he teased her with a slow, friction-fantastic withdrawal just as Deke surged all the way inside her ass. Then they reversed, Deke drawing back, Luc arching his hips and shoving into her swollen sex with every inch he had. They repeated the process again and again, their mouths, fingers, and cocks relentless.

Like a well-oiled machine, they worked her. Clearly, they had done this before—

lots. They knew exactly how to work with and around each other to maximize everything she was experiencing. She no more than had an inkling that something would feel good before one of them was all over it, making it happen…making it blindingly sublime.

In minutes, sensation overwhelmed her. Her whole body shook as the ache swelled between her legs, grew, expanded, multiplied faster than she could deal with. Breathing nearly came to a stop as she used all her energy to move with them and handle the onslaught of pleasure they kept throwing her way.

“You’re about to come,” Luc whispered against her mouth. “I’m dying to feel you again.”

She was dying, period. Overwhelmed, overpowered. The sensations were huge, almost frightful. Everything inside her fixated on the hot rhythm of the two cocks working in and out of her body, insistent fingers plucking and twisting, two mouths breathing, laving, biting…demanding.

“You’re not going to outlast us, kitten,” Deke vowed. Luc stroked deep inside her, until she felt him nudging her womb, shooting off a new barrage of sparks that battered her selfcontrol. Deke included a gentle pinch of his thumb and forefingers to her clit, then a blindsiding little rub that spelled the demise of her restraint.

Sensation shot her straight up into the stars. Her body shivered, bucked, as her womb convulsed, her sex contracted, and pleasure torched her body. She spun into a realm beyond her imagination. Her throat stung, and she realized suddenly it was because she couldn’t stop screaming. Orgasm was always a fabulous experience, but this wasn’t just a big O, it was ginormous, threatening to consume her as the pleasure poured all over her.

“Oh, damn.. Hell! I—”

Luc didn’t have to finish his sentence for Kimber to know that he was about to follow her in orgasm.

“No! Suck it up,” Deke growled to his cousin. “We’ve waited too long to lose it like teenagers.”

After a sharp peak, climax let Kimber down gently. The warm honey of languor spread sweetly.

Luc wasn’t so lucky. As she regained her wits, she watched him in fascination as he tensed, shook, sucked in a harsh breath, and fought with squinted eyes and clenched fists. Tendons striped his neck. His cock had never felt so hard inside her.

Finally, he let out a shaky breath. “Bastard.”

“As long as you hold it in and fuck her until she comes again, you can call me whatever the hell you want.”

“Again?” Kimber gasped. “Deke, I don’t think I can—”

“You can. I know your body. You’re like a temperamental car. Once you’re engine is warmed up, it’s easy to rev you repeatedly. It’s getting your motor to purr the first time that’s a bitch.”

And he was damned determined to make her motor purr like it never had. She might have regrets later about the choice to give him her virginity and engage in full ménage with them, but until then, he intended to take her every chance he had to give her so much pleasure that any regrets would be all tangled in it.

Maybe then he’d have a chance of keeping her when the truth came out. Maybe.

Knowing that Luc’s self-control wasn’t on his side and that his own was fraying too fast for comfort, Deke started the dance into Kimber’s body again. Luc followed his lead. With each stroke, he gritted his teeth, fighting the crushing sensitivity.

He’d never felt so rigid and engorged. His thrusts grew rough. And Luc…he kept rhythm, but now wracked by tortured need, he wasn’t nearly as gentle as he had been. Deke hoped that worked in their favor.

As they began their efforts again, Kimber responded with pleasant moans and sweet ahs, like she was in the midst of a lovely afternoon, bathed in spring sunshine. Like she thought the sex was warm and enjoyable. Nothing earth-shattering. Totally unacceptable. Time to turn up the heat.

Deke leaned over her back and delved his fingers back into the slick flesh of her clit. As he had earlier, he used that alternating pressure—light on the top, friction on the sides, hard circles above.

In the span of a heartbeat, her body drew taut. Her clit swelled, hardened. She gave them a throaty growl between pants. Ah, yes. God, yes.

She writhed, trying to accommodate him and Luc deeper into the silken perfection of her body. She moved with them as Deke slid every hard inch across the electric hot zone inside her that begged to be stroked. And despite Luc hanging on by his fingernails, he was, no doubt, doing the same.

Kimber struggled against the quicksilver change in her body, Deke wasn’t having any of that. He wanted her drowning in pleasure.

“You don’t know how many times I imagined you between the two of us while we fucked you from anxiety to arousal, from arousal to orgasm,” Deke whispered in her ear. “Once wasn’t enough. Give it to us again. Take us with you.” Kimber glanced over her shoulder at him. A flush spread across her fair complexion. Her hazel eyes looked unfocused, dilated. Needy. Beautiful. Sweat trickled from his temples, filmed his chest. His insides burned with determination.

She was going to come again, damn it. He wasn’t giving up until she did.

“Damn,” Luc panted. “The more my cock swells, the more friction I feel from you.

And she keeps closing in on me. It’s mindblowing.”

“And it’s only going to get better. Give her everything you’ve got now.” The look of relief on Luc’s face would have been comical if Deke had been in the frame of mind to do anything but tunnel into Kimber over and over, to compel her into perfect surrender. Luc grabbed her hips, Deke her waist. They unleashed the well-practiced rhythm he knew would bring them all to climax.

But this was more. Last night, inside her pussy, the sensations had been different.

He’d been swamped, like a soldier on a mission with tangos all over him.

Overtaken. The sensations hadn’t all been in his dick.

Kimber hit him square in the chest, and everything he felt there splintered through his body, melding with the physical gratification that being inside her gave him.

Today was no different…except it was more intense. Holy hell. Being buried inside her, exposing his heart to more of her, was so damn dangerous, like walking a tightrope above a swamp full of hungry gators. He was only going to fall more every time he touched her. And someday…

She tightened around him, killing his train of thought, as she demanded, “Harder.

Please. Hurry!”

The last bit of his restraint snapped. With Luc’s next wild thrust, Deke knew the same had happened to his cousin. He filled her once, then again, hoping, imagining that with each lunge inside her, each hard press of his body, she could feel how much more was behind the act than lust. That she could feel how much he cared.

Saying the words scared the shit out of him.

Her breathing began to shut down until it resembled little pants. She trembled hard and braced herself, fingers clutching Luc’s shoulders.

Deke felt her begin to flutter, squeeze his cock, a moment before she cried out.

Clawing at the bottom sheet, she thrust back at him, even as her body wrapped around him so tight, he had to fight to move at all.

With a toss of his head and a shout, Luc tumbled off the cliff, losing his grip on control.

Hearing his cousin lose it and the hoarse groan that blasted through the room ripped a new hole in Deke’s restraint. Inside his balls, the need to come built up like a faulty valve with every rasp of his flesh over Kimber’s. Damn, he wasn’t going to last…

Finally, Kimber cried out, a long moan of surrender. Deke basked in it, drowned in her total acceptance of the ecstasy they gave her.

And he let go, releasing everything he was and had deep inside her as pleasure knifed him, carving straight into his heart. If his inability to fuck Alyssa hadn’t been a big clue, this feeling right now sealed the deal.

For better or worse, forever, he loved Kimber. And Deke knew that if she walked away now—or his nightmare came to life—either would kill him.

CHAPTER 15

Deke nursed a cup of coffee in silence, listening to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, the splash of water hitting Kimber’s naked skin, then dripping onto porcelain. Across the table, Luc stared out the picture window at the early morning sun shining over the swamp.

Once the night was gone and the desire temporarily spent…that’s when the second-guessing started. The regrets.

This one was a killer. He’d fucked up. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. But he hadn’t been able to keep Kimber at arm’s length anymore. Twenty-nine, and he’d finally fallen. Hard. She was his now.

God help her.

He glanced at his cousin and sighed. Well, Kimber was his and Luc’s. And given Luc’s goal of getting her pregnant and his own of preventing it, the truth, his past—

it was all going to come up, likely in one big chunky-puke pool.

What then?

“You did the right thing,” Luc said suddenly.

“Making love to Kimber?” He shrugged. “Time will tell. I doubt it, but I’d sure like to be wrong.”

“She loves you.”

“That’s not going to help much when she finds out the truth.”

“Heather wasn’t your fault.”

Of course she was, at least in large part. Everyone knew it. Her father had certainly laid the blame at his feet. He’d had Deke beaten, arrested, harassed. Deke had taken it numbly. He’d deserved it. Only Luc insisted differently.

Yeah, it took two to tango, but Heather…hadn’t been able to think past her emotions. Kimber didn’t seem off-kilter like that, but under those circumstances…

Who knew? Over the years, he’d realized that combat showed how unpredictable soldiers could be. Life’s battles revealed the same about civilians.

“We’ve been over this. Let’s not rehash it again.” Luc gritted his teeth. “You’re going to have to get over this before you hold back so much you destroy everything with Kimber. She’s an all-or-nothing girl. You’re not giving your all.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do? Get down on one knee and propose in the next ten minutes?”

“Soon.”

It was on the tip of Deke’s tongue to tell Luc to propose. But after last night, he knew better. Luc would do it, and if he didn’t want Kimber to belong to his cousin in the eyes of the law, he’d better shut up now. Sharing her was hard enough.

Necessary for normalcy, but a bitch. Watching her become Luc’s wife… Deke swallowed against the unwelcome pain crushing his chest.

“To start with,” Luc went on, “I think you should tell her everything.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind? It’ll all come out soon enough, and she’ll probably run screaming. Call me stupid, but I’d rather delay the inevitable.”

“Until you do, you’ll keep holding yourself back from her, and it’s hurting her.”

“I didn’t hold back last night.”

“I don’t mean just sexually. You won’t tell her you love her. She’s given up so much to be with you: years of believing that she belonged with Jesse, her pride, her virginity. You won’t tell her one little secret.” Deke stood, his chair scraping across the wooden floor as he shoved it back.

“Back the fuck off.”

Holding up his hands, Luc signaled surrender. “Your funeral. But I’ll tell you now, if she’s going to be alienated about anything, it won’t be the past. It will be the fact you didn’t trust her enough to tell her and didn’t believe in her strength enough to see that she wouldn’t suffer Heather’s fate.”

Fists clenched, Deke took a step toward his meddling cousin. Luc stood, meeting his challenge. Deke hadn’t swung a punch at his cousin in twelve years. At the moment, he wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from decking the son of a bitch. In the background, the shower turned off, and water stopped flowing through the pipes. The men stood in silence, staring in angry standoff.

“You don’t want to keep pissing me off,” Deke warned.

“Yes, Mr. Special Ops, I realize you know twenty ways to kill me with your bare hands. But if you want to try to beat my ass for force-feeding you some honesty and common sense—”