Your To Take - Connaghers 03 (19 page)

Jesse’s breathing was labored. “I’ll try.”

“Take him,” Elias growled in her ear. “But your ass is
mine.”

It was incredibly easy to rise up and slide over Jesse. It
wasn’t easy to keep from throwing her head back and letting loose like a
bucking bronco. So good. Elias hot against her back, Jesse moaning and shaking
beneath her.
Another dream come true.

Elias’s breath came hot and heavy against her ear. His other
hand gripped her breast, holding her close to him. He rocked his body with
hers, guiding her in a slow rolling ride, pushing her down on the other man,
even while he pushed his finger deeper into her.

So full. She couldn’t stand it. Pressure built with each
incremental thrust. She couldn’t stop thinking about his cock sliding into her.
Surely he’d be too big. His finger alone was too much.

She cried out, instinctively trying to withdraw, but pulling
away from him only put her in harder contact with Jesse. She ground her hips
against him, seeking relief, and suddenly he was the one bucking, his back
rising off the mattress, his hips thrusting up, hard, driving Elias deeper, and
she lost it. Stars detonated in her head. Elias held her, his body rock-hard
and steady against her. Her protector. Always at her back.

She was falling again, the world simply tumbling away, but
he caught her. He tucked her tightly against him, drawing her into the shelter
of his arms with his body curled against her back. Eventually, their breathing
steadied, enough for her to realize that Jesse lay shivering beside her, his
hands still bound to the headboard.

Guilt made her eyes burn. How long had she left him like
that? She rose up and tugged on the scarf, struggling to get the tightened
knots out. Not the smartest choice. She should have listened to Shiloh weeks
ago. The scarf had bitten into his skin.

“That was incredible,” he whispered, struggling to keep his
eyes open. “You can tie me up any time you want, Vicki. Especially if that’s
the outcome.”

“I shouldn’t have used the silk. I’m sorry, Jesse. Can you
still feel your fingers?”

She finally got it loosened enough for him to pull his hands
free. Shaking his hands, he grinned up at her. “I’m good, but I won’t be
opposed to handcuffs next time.”

Next time. She suddenly couldn’t meet either man’s gaze.
Could Elias do it again? Or would he just walk out one day, never to return?

“Why don’t you go take a shower,” Elias suggested to Jesse.
Without a word, the younger man slid out of her bed. Even in the darkness with
another man lying behind her, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his ass. Her
own backside burned, remembering the stretching pressure of Elias filling her
up.

“Your ass is prettier than his,” Elias whispered in her ear,
drawing her back against him. “I don’t feel anything when I look at him, until
I look at you and see the heat in your eyes.”

“Does it bother you?”

“I thought it would.” He admitted, dropping his chin to her
shoulder. “I thought…” He swallowed hard. “I thought you might want him more
than me. That it’d be different between us now.”

“Elias—” Her voice broke.

“Hear me out, babe. It is different now. I didn’t think it
possible to improve on our sex life, but it’s better. Touching you like that…
Damn, Vicki, it was so hot I came without even needing to be inside you. It’s
going to get even better as we get more comfortable with each other. I see how
much you want him, and it’s okay. It’s okay because you still look at me and
want me too.”

She rolled over in his arms so she could see his face. She
stroked her fingers over his brow, the grim line of his jaw. “I’ll always want
you.”

His lips quirked, giving a nudge with his hips that showed
her somebody was hard yet again. “Prove it.”

She pushed him flat on his back. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

Chapter Twenty

The kitchen was dark except for the light radiating out of
the fridge as she scrounged for something to eat. After such a rousing night,
she needed some protein after all those brownies.

“I made something for you,” Jesse said in that shy way that
made her want to push him up against a wall and sink her teeth into his full
bottom lip. He offered a heavy, thick sheet of paper.

“Turn on the light.”

He did so, illuminating an ornate tree spreading across the
page. Long, curling branches filled the sky, dotted with blue-green leaves and
curls. The trunk was a deep, rich blood red, solid but gently curving in
feminine hourglass. The base of the tree spread out into dark, thick roots
reaching deep into the soil.

The colors were bright and vivid, not his usual chalks.
Turquoise, red, black. “My colors!”

He grinned and reached across her shoulder to trail his
finger along the tree’s trunk. “This is you.”

She cocked her head and she could make out her name written
in the swirling bark. Tiny, detailed, elegantly curved letters became part of
the pattern. His name floated in the leaves that matched the color of his eyes.
Elias was dark, earthy, his name written in the soil and the foundation of the
tree.

“You connect us. You’re the trunk holding everything
together. Without you, the leaves will dry up and crumble away.”

Her throat ached. “Yet without the roots, the tree can’t
live either.”

“Exactly.”

“Thank you.” She pulled him into her arms and brushed her
lips against his. “It’s perfect. I’m going to get it framed and hang it over
the mantle.” Staring into his eyes, she whispered, “I’m going to ask Elias something
very important tonight.”

Jesse let his breath out in a long exhale, as though
preparing for the worst. “Okay.”

“You know how much you mean to me, don’t you?”

He smiled but his bottom lip trembled. “I’m yours to take,
if you want me.”

“You know I do. In fact, I want to keep you forever. If you
want to stay with me, that is.”

He blinked at her and opened his mouth, but no words came
out.

“I love you, Jesse, and I want you to always be here, but I
love Elias too. I don’t want you to feel like a hand-me-down, or like I might
ever change my mind and kick you out some day. I’d never do that, okay? You’re
part of my family now, so I want to give you something that is special, so that
you know…”

“That I’m home? I already know that, Vicki. Even if you
marry Elias, there’s no place I’d rather be than with you.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out the flat velvet
box that Victor had helped her pick out. Her fingers trembled as much as her
voice. “This isn’t something I ever imagined doing, let alone offering to
anyone, before I met you.”

Holding the box in front of her, she flipped it open to
reveal the collar inside. On a heavy, masculine platinum chain, turquoise
sapphires the same color as Jesse’s eyes formed the elaborate V of her label.

He stared at the jewelry, his eyes going wider and wider,
but he barely breathed. She couldn’t tell if he liked the idea or not. They’d
never talked about the significance of a collar,
her
collar, because
she’d never known herself. Maybe she’d guessed absolutely wrong. “If you don’t
like it…”

“Vicki,” he breathed out her name like a prayer. Finally, he
raised his gaze to hers, and his eyes shone brighter than the stones. “You got
this for me?”

“Only for you. I want you to know that you belong with me,
as long as you choose to stay.”

He stepped closer so he could press his forehead to hers. “I
never dared dream that you’d want me, let alone that you’d understand the rest.
I’d love to wear your collar, Vicki. Whenever and however you want me, I’m
yours.”

She slipped the box back into her purse so she could hug him
close. “I thought we could go somewhere, just you and me. Like a ceremony or
something. Would you like that?”

“Our park,” he whispered. “Where you first found me.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Hey, do you have anything to eat in here?” Elias strode in
still wet from the shower and as naked as a jaybird. “I thought I smelled
chocolate when I came in. I’m starving. Hey, that reminds me, Jesse. Are you
free for another poker game this week? Colby’s not the new guy on the force anymore,
and we’re breaking in the newest recruit. I swear no one will try to bust your
face this time, unless you win too much.”

“Sure thing.” Jesse grinned, his relief and happiness at
being included twisting her heart in a very good way. “You know it’s a really
good game when someone bleeds.”

Elias saw the half-devoured pan of brownies still out on the
stove and moved to dive right in, but she smacked the back of his hand.

“Ouch! What the hell was that for?”

“Those are my pity-party brownies. The ones I made because I
was heartbroken and lonely. You can’t eat them.”

“Aw, babe, come on. I already apologized.” He reached around
her, sinking his fingers into the pan, but she shoved him aside before he could
get more than a bite of the gooey batter. She hated dry, overcooked brownies.
They’d eaten her brownies with a spoon. “We’ve had make-up sex, more sex, even
shower sex. This man needs sustenance. He needs brownies!”

“Not yet. I’ve got something to say to you.” She planted her
hands on her hips and gave him her most determined courtroom glare. “I want a
ring.”

“Sure, babe.” He laughed and reached for the pan again, but
she punched him hard enough in the solar plexus that he grunted and took a step
back.

“Not just any ring. An engagement ring. If you want me.”

He narrowed his eyes and gave her his own belligerent,
bad-cop glare. “I think I just proved pretty damn well that I want you, Vik.”

“You did.” She kept her voice pleasant and she smiled, the
wide, toothy one that always made him blanch. “But if you want to prove it ever
again, Detective Reyes, then I want a ring. I want to be your wife. I want you
to answer your phone every single time I call you. I want you to come home
every single night and eat all my brownies without me wondering if you’re ever
going to come home again.”

He jerked his chin at the other man hovering off to the
side. “What about him?”

She glanced at Jesse and gave him the same formidable smile.
The difference with him: his knees went weak and his eyes smoldered like molten
jewels. “I’m going to buy him a ring as proof of my solemn promise and
commitment that he will always have a place in my house, my heart and my bed.”

Elias took a growling, threatening step closer. “So I get to
give you my name and he gets everything else?”

“No,
babe
,” she drawled, lifting a handful of gooey
chocolate from the pan. “You get my name, my house, my bed and my heart. I’ll
even give you my brownies.” She reached out and wrapped her chocolate-covered
hand around his cock. “If you let me eat some off you at the same time.”

With a wicked grin, Jesse headed for the shower, leaving
Elias to suffer her brownie punishment alone.

He groaned and leaned back against the counter. Reaching
around him with her free hand, she scooped up more brownies, letting him eat
off her fingers.

“You make the best brownies in the world. Vicki Connagher,
will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

“Yes,” she whispered, smearing his lips with chocolate. Then
she went to her knees before him. She licked just the tip of him and he trembled,
gripping the counter like it was the only thing holding him up.

“Uh, babe? I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be on their
knees for this question.”

She smiled up at him. “You will be. Soon.” She licked him
again and the counter creaked in sympathy. “I’m going to make you grovel.”

Before she got back to the pan for another brownie, he did.

About the Author

Joely always has her nose buried in a book, especially one
with mythology, fairy tales and romance. She, her husband and their three
monsters live in Missouri. By day, she’s a computer programmer with a Masters
of Science degree in Mathematics. When night falls, she bespells the monsters
so she can write. Read more about her current projects on her website,
www.joelysueburkhart.com
.

A dangerous technology could conquer the universe. Love
could set it free.

Lady Doctor Wyre

© 2011 Joely Sue Burkhart

A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 1

Charlotte, Duchess of Wyre, once held the Queen’s highest
confidence—and the technological secret that keeps the royal heart beating.
Fearful of what atrocities that Britannia might commit with her research,
Charlotte turned to the galaxy’s most infamous assassin, Lord Sigmund Regret,
to stage her own death.

Even without the simplest of luxuries, seven years hiding in
the Americus colony is preferable to one day in the Tower of Londinium. Until a
bounty hunter’s bullet forces her to revive her research. Now the same nanobots
that keep the Queen alive also run rampant in Lord Regret’s body. Making his
yearly Solstice visits increasingly…intimate…and complicating her courtship
with the safe and honorable Sheriff Gilead Masters.

When the Americus colony declares independence, and her
humble sheriff makes a shocking confession, Charlotte has had enough. Weary of
running, tired of living without tea and silks, she fires a warning shot across
Britannia’s bow: cease hunting Lady Wyre, or lose the technological power the
crown holds so dear.

Her next task isn’t so simple. Somehow she must keep the two
men she loves alive—and prevent them from killing each other.

Warning: Ladies in positions of power, stylish
spaceships, BDSM. A ménage a trois featuring a duchess on the run, a
gentlemanly assassin, and a rough-and-tumble sheriff willing to gun down anyone
who gets between him and his lady.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Lady
Doctor Wyre:

“I cannot marry you.” Charlotte Wilder struggled to take a
deep breath through the heartache banding her chest, made even more difficult
by her corset. A lady could have some luxuries even on a backwater colony
planet. “I’m sorry, truly.”

“I mean no disrespect, my lady.” Sheriff Gilead Masters
stiffened but kept his voice mild. “I know it’s customary on Britannia for the
lady to make the proposal but we don’t hold to such rigid tradition here.”

“I’m not offended, Sheriff, but my answer is still no.”

He made no hasty retort, but the tightening of his eyes and
the flexing of his jaws betrayed him. Once a colonel in what the Americus
colonists called the Revolutionary War—where they’d managed to take over the
small Imperial space port and cut communication with Britannia—he rarely showed
any emotion. Only someone who knew him very well indeed would recognize his
silent growl of frustrated agony, and Charlotte had come to know him very well
indeed in the past months.

Oh, how she knew—and appreciated—him. Broad shoulders to
block the miserable heat of the fiercest summer sun, powerful chest and arms to
hold a woman through the long blizzards, and a big, rough body strong enough to
separate a foolish man from his gun without drawing his own weapon. Although
she bemoaned the provincial cut and cloth of his coat, he’d never looked at her
with scorn like the grand ladies and their lords at Court, or worse, fear at
what she had wrought.

Because I haven’t dared tell him the truth
, she
thought with a wince.

“I thought,” he rasped out in a graveled voice as he twisted
the brim of his old cavalry hat in both big hands, “that you…that we…”

“I do,” she whispered, blinking the tears from her eyes. “I
never meant to mislead you in any way.”

He gathered his tattered pride about him, looking anywhere
but her face. He jammed his now lopsided hat on his head and whirled to leave.
Spurs jingled, a merry sound punctuated by the heavy thud of his boots as he
retreated. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you in any way, my lady.”

It would be better, safer, for him to leave. Even after the
spectacular incident in which she’d presumably died seven years ago, she
couldn’t count on safety from Her Majesty’s Guards. Eventually even this
insignificant colony would fail to provide sanctuary. She’d be forced to run
and hide again, no matter how much it galled her pride.

The heavy outer door beeped at his approach and
automatically slid open, letting in blowing snow. Winds moaned and howled, an
endless, agonizing wail in the dead of winter. Her first winter on Americus had
almost succeeded where the Queen’s torturers would have failed. She would have
babbled every last research secret she knew in order to escape the endless
winter. Others looked forward to the Solstice, but she dreaded it more and more
each year. A holiday of renewal and hope had come to mean only one thing to
her: Loss.

And if the Solstice had come to represent loss, then the
Solstice Eclipse every seven years was even worse. She’d died on the last
holiday. Now, she faced losing her only friend on Americus. Another holiday,
another loss.

Befriending Masters had provided a charming outlet to
pretend that she was simply a lady he fancied and not the feared Duchess of
Wyre, the traitorous doctor whose experiments had worked entirely too well. Her
harmless flirtation had become something dreadfully more important to her, no
matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise.
I can’t bear to lose him
too.

She rushed after him. “Wait, Sheriff Masters. Don’t go yet!”

“You have made your affections—or rather the lack
thereof—perfectly clear, my lady. I won’t bother you again.”

She laid her hand on his straining back and he quivered
beneath her palm. “Gil, please. Let me explain.”

Slowly, he allowed the door to whoosh shut against the
blowing snow and howling winds, but he didn’t turn around.

“Don’t you want to know why I can’t marry you when I love
you so very much?”

“You love me?” He whirled around so quickly he knocked her
off balance. “Then why can’t you marry me, Miss Charlotte?”

Seizing both of her arms above her elbows, he hauled her
close so her skirts tumbled against his thighs. At least her gown was sensible,
warm homegrown wool and not fine, crushable linen. Or silk. How she longed to
wear silk again! Every night she pored over cycles-old transmissions of the
Royal
Gazette,
though she knew she’d never again have cause to wear such
wondrously frivolous clothes.

She let him hold her for a moment, enjoying the feel of his
warmth, protection, and yes, his respect. He’d been so courteous these past
months that she’d never allowed herself to contemplate a physical relationship
with him. With his arms around her and his heart pounding beneath her cheek,
she suddenly ached to take him to her bed.

He smelled of wool, tobacco and some sort of sweet oil she
suspected he used to polish his pistol. The antique weapon gleamed from his
exceptional care, even if he chose not to use it unless forced by necessity.

I wonder if he’d let me modify it slightly…

No.

She pushed out of his arms as she pushed that traitorous
thought away. She couldn’t indulge in her hobby for it would bring the Raven
Guards flocking upon her like a fresh corpse, for that was exactly what she’d
be.

A corpse.

Years of running and constantly being on guard, jerking
awake at the slightest noise, denying her intellectual and scientific gifts
that burned to be used… It all weighed upon her shoulders like the massive
Tower of Londonium, which would no doubt be her future home if Queen Majel
found her.

“Sit down,” Charlotte sighed. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Or at least not enough to get you killed.

In her tidy kitchen, the tall, muscular soldier turned
lawman sat down at her table and folded his rugged, scarred hands together.
She’d reluctantly fallen in love with him and those hands, so incredibly gentle
in their ruthlessly slow attack against her every resistance without ever once
touching her intimately. Slow, careful and deliberate, he’d groomed his horse
until the animal drooped with sheer bliss, polished his silver star and glossy
boots until they blinded her, and gently wiped a child’s tears who’d lost her
mother to influenza. Yet she’d also seen him plow a meaty fist into a
miscreant’s jaw and haul him off to jail and, yes, she’d seen him shoot and
kill a criminal in the act of robbing the town’s only bank.

Gentle but strong and unwavering when the town—and I—need
him the most. How could I not love him?

She’d known scores of men, from Court dandies to
sheepherders, princes to highwaymen, and none had ever touched her heart like
Gil. Not even
him
, the dark outlaw standing in her memories between her
and this honorable man.

Lightly, she touched the locket hanging around her throat,
the gold glowing hotter than her skin. The delicate filigreed heart made a
beautiful piece of jewelry, but costly metals didn’t make the simple heart so
irreplaceable. Inside, the last of her most skillful technology resided,
keeping a violent, wounded man alive and providing a tie to her that would
never be broken.

Silently, Gil watched her stir the coals, add a few sticks
of wood to the stove, and set a small coffee pot on the hottest spot. She’d
nearly starved and frozen to death before she’d learned how to work the
medieval stove, so she was quite proud of the skills she’d learned without the
shining technology to which she was used. After rumors began trickling in from
other conquered planets, she was extremely thankful for that lack which she’d
once sorely rued, for once the Empire had ultimate control of one’s food, drink
and housing, then they could do whatever they wished. Including the injection
of experimental “enhancements” into meals, water, even the air.

The thought made her stomach twist painfully. If Gil knew
that her research as Lady Doctor Wyre had made all these Imperial abominations
possible, would he turn from her in horror? Or be the first to lynch her?

He cleared his throat, but his voice was still ragged as he
asked, “Is it another man?”

Pouring a vile brew the colonists called coffee, she let her
mind whirl through possibilities. Indeed, he’d given her a way out without
having to tell him the full sordid story of her past. It would hurt him, but it
was the truth as far as she could tell him.

“Yes.” She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and
turned to face him holding two cups of steaming brew. “In fact, there is
another man.”

The look on his face would have made her laugh if her heart
wasn’t weeping at the hurt she caused him. His dark eyes flared with shock, his
mouth slackened, and the wooden table groaned beneath his fierce grip. To keep
his hands from trembling, or from drawing his ancient six-barreled pistol? Was
he the kind of man who’d hunt down his competition?

She paled at the thought, for that would be far from an even
match. Gil might be a respectable shot, but he didn’t have a prayer against a
man rumored to have killed over a thousand men throughout the galaxy and
beyond, sometimes for little more than an insult regarding the tie of his
cravat.

Fearing she’d caused Gil to leap from one threat to an even
more dangerous situation, she quickly went on. “I met him my first Winter
Solstice here on Americus and we have a standing arrangement to share each
holiday.” She forced her voice to brighten, although the accompanying smile
practically shattered her face. “Why, he should be arriving in the next few
days at the latest.”

“You haven’t mentioned him before.”

She had to applaud the evenness of his voice, though he
still gripped the table as though his life depended on it. “He’s not a
very…pleasant man.”
A perfect match for me.
“I didn’t want to worry
you.”

“Do you love him very much?”

So even and hard his voice, cutting her heart like the
finest trillium blade.
How can anyone love a murdering assassin?
She
took a drink from her cup, trying to buy a few moments for her to gather her
thoughts, but the swill made her mouth twist. “It’s complicated.”

Gil leaned across the table and she suddenly realized that
he could be a very large and intimidating man when he chose. “Explain it for
me. Please. Do you love him more than me?”

Her heart thudded, blood pounding hot and frantic through
her veins, her skin burning hotter to match the unnaturally warm locket. It
seemed an eternity since she’d held a man and felt his heat and solid presence
in her bed. She couldn’t count the man who came to her but once a year and
almost always left the very next day. He needed much more—and less—than simple
lovemaking.

In the beginning of her exile, she’d been too consumed by
survival to even think about selecting a lover. Then she hadn’t dared let
anyone too close for fear she’d unconsciously betray her breeding and heritage
no matter how hard she tried to pretend to be just a common colonist.

When Gil had come into her life, she’d enjoyed his gentle
but insistent courting. It’d been nice to pretend for just a while that she was
of no importance, that she had no duty to her House or dread threat from the
Queen.

The locket weighed very heavy on her chest, a fiery
brimstone reminder of the man who’d be coming to her in less than a fortnight.
He wouldn’t care if she took a lover and she’d never required fidelity from
him. In fact, he’d likely find the very notion of her pining away for him
laughable. Their relationship was founded on need—base, raw and primal. Not
romance.

Never love.

Her mind wanted to probe that tender, sore spot in her
heart, but she refused to dwell on what she could not have. Especially when a
most pleasing male stood before her, jealousy pumping, muscles bunching for
battle, and she knew very well that this one she
could
have, at least
for awhile.

She planted her hands on the table and rose up, leaning in
so they were eye to eye. “I’ll explain it to you,” she said, letting her voice
drop to a husky purr that darkened his eyes. “In my bedchamber.”