Stealing the Bride (4 page)

Tomorrow.

Now, she needed to bathe. Steeling herself for the cold, she stepped into the frigid water. The chill traveled quickly up her limbs, cooling her overheated flesh. Carefully, she knelt and splashed water over her upper body.

“Well, look at this, Jacob. A mermaid.”

Mara glanced up to find her two lovers standing a few feet from her. Sliding her legs from under her, she stretched them in front of her and leaned back on her arms. She wasn’t as self-conscious around them as she would have been before they’d had sex earlier. The words they’d spoken, the way they’d adored her body, they made her feel like the most sensual woman they’d ever met.

Jacob stood on the very edge of the stream, looking down at her, his serious expression making her shiver with a sensation that had nothing to do with the river. The turbulent emotion in his eyes spoke of more beneath the surface of this tryst than she’d suspected.

“I was worried,” he murmured.

She reached out with her water-chilled hand and grasped his ankle, running her thumb over the small indention at the base of his inner leg. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I needed to get cleaned up and cooled down. The water feels so good,” she sighed as the frigid rivulets ran over her. “You should try it.”

Watching them through hooded eyes, she ran the soap over her body and slowly rubbed it into a lather. Though she wasn’t much of an environmentalist, she knew the soap was nature-safe or some other tree hugger mumbo jumbo her cousin had uttered when she’d given Mara her supplies. Thankfully, her cousin was on top of things because such a thing hadn’t occurred to Mara who was a complete city girl.

The soap felt good as did her hands running over her body. As she watched, the men’s erections grew until they saluted her at full mast. She stretched then ran her hands over herself again, relishing the sensation of being a hedonist.

“So…” she sighed as pleasure wrapped her like soft, muzzy cotton. “If I don’t marry Marco—”

“You’re not marrying Marco,” Jacob snapped.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “If I don’t marry Marco,” she continued, “where does that leave me? I mean…what do you want?”

Daniel knelt beside her, and she reached out her icy, soapy hand and wrapped her fingers around his burning flesh. He groaned and leaned in to kiss her. “We want you to be with us,” he said as he released her mouth. “Permanently. The three of us as a family.”

“But—” She bit her lip. What Daniel proposed sounded like a permanent ménage. A threesome. It wasn’t exactly the fairytale happily ever after she’d dreamed of as a child. And truthfully, she wasn’t sure if it was something she could do…butting up against society’s concept of marriage.

She looked up at Jacob as she continued to stroke Daniel. “This is what you want, too?”

“Yeah.” Reaching around Daniel, Jacob lifted her out of the water. “I think you’re clean now.”

“Let me down!” she squealed as he carried her back to the campsite. “I’m too heavy for you.”

Jacob blew out a disputing puff of air and continued toward the dining shelter with Daniel striding closely beside them. At the picnic table, Daniel spread out the towel she’d discarded by the stream’s bank. Jacob let her down out of his arms and guided her to kneel on the bench and bend over the table. She rested her cheek on the towel-covered table as Daniel stretched her arms out on either side of her. She was thankful for the slight padding of the cloth as her nipples fit into one of the wide grooves between the boards. She had a feeling it was gonna be a rough ride.

Mara smiled. She’d love it. No doubt about it.

Jacob moved aside, going to his backpack as Daniel moved between her legs.

“So pretty,” he murmured, running his thumb over her slick folds. “Ready to get fucked hard, honey?”

“Hurry,” she urged.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Without any more preamble, he drove home, pushing his cock deep within her as she cried out at the sudden invasion. God! It felt so good despite the way her tender tissues struggled to accommodate his girth. Her nipples rasped against the table’s groove as the force of his entry moved her, the effect much like the peaks had been pinched. Pleasure soared through her, arrowing toward her center.

“More,” she urged.

“Yeah, a lot more,” he answered. Grasping her buttocks, he plunged in and out of her passage as he fiercely claimed her.

Suddenly, he fell forward over her, bracing himself on elbows to either side of her body. She looked over her shoulder at him as he groaned but didn’t move. A look of intense pleasure-pain twisted his features as he closed his eyes and tossed back his head. Behind him, Jacob had a hand planted in the middle of Daniel’s back while his hips moved toward Daniel’s ass, the movement pushing Daniel deeper within her. Her eyes went wide. Jacob was fucking Daniel while Daniel fucked her.

“Yes, Jacob,” she groaned. “Hard. Take him hard.”

Jacob complied, surging in and out of his lover. Daniel’s body pushed against her with each move, his balls slapping her clit. Anxiously, she moved beneath him, working up and down his cock.

Daniel thought maybe he’d died and gone to heaven. Pleasure surrounded him from the warm breeze licking at his body to the soft woman beneath him to the hard lover over him. One fucked his cock while the other took his ass, and he was helpless to do anything but take it for fear of crushing Mara against the table. Her cries mingled with his as her release drew closer.

For the first time in his life, it seemed everything he’d always wanted was within reach, and this time, he thought maybe, just maybe, he’d actually get it. Not a bit or piece of his desires but the whole package. Jacob, Mara and happily ever after.

Tension balled behind Daniel’s cock as Jacob seesawed over his prostate and Mara’s pussy squeezed his rod. His breath came in short gasps while he struggled to hold on, but he knew it was a losing battle. All too soon, his release would starburst through him and the ecstasy would end.

Mara thrust up at him, and her channel suddenly clamped around him like a fist. She dropped her forehead to the table as she shook with her release and her fingers clawed against the towel-covered wood. Her body shuddered under him as he pressed his face into her neck. His body seemed to implode to the end of his cock then explode into her, flooding her with his cum. Marking her. Claiming her. Mara belonged to them.

A moment later, Jacob stiffened behind him, and Daniel felt his heat filling him. If he had his way, he’d do this or a version of it, every day for the rest of his life.

Mara turned her head, and he saw the smile on her face. Her eyes were closed as she relaxed beneath them. “You know what I’d like?” she said, her voice drowsy.

“What’s that, honey?”

“One of these days, I’d like to actually watch you two together. I’ve heard you.” Her grin deepened. “And I’ve felt you—man, that was good. But I’d like to watch you. Seeing you together makes me hot.”

Jacob leaned around him and kissed her. “I think that can be arranged, baby.”

Daniel figured if they stayed together, that she’d see it a lot.
Please let it be,
he thought.
Please.
He swallowed back the bile that rose at the thought of things falling apart. That would be par for the course though it was the last thing in the world he wanted. Whenever something seemed great, it suddenly seemed to slip through his fingers. His blogging gig was fantastic, and his relationship with Jacob was more than he imagined could happen to him, but he constantly watched for the other shoe to drop and take it all away.

Jacob pulled free of him and headed for the stream to clean up. Reluctantly, Daniel rose. Pleasant aches ran through his body. He embraced them, knowing he’d been well-loved. He lifted Mara’s lax body into his arms. She curled into him with a quiet moan as she drifted toward sleep. As tenderness washed over him, he carried her to the tent and laid her gently on the bed.

“Stay here,” he said then headed out of the tent. Quickly, he warmed some water on the camp stove.

“Good idea, luv,” Jacob told him as he returned to the site. He came up behind Daniel and kissed him on the shoulder. His hand smoothed over Daniel’s ass. “What are you thinking? I can see trouble screaming across those wrinkles on your forehead.”

Daniel sighed. “That it’s all too good to be true. That it’s going to evaporate, and I’ll be alone.”

Jacob was silent for a moment—a moment that scared Daniel to death.

“It’s not going to just disappear. It’s not like before,” Jacob assured him, and Daniel knew he was referring to Daniel’s childhood. His parents had abandoned him when he was six—not that life had been great before that since both of them had been heavily into drugs. Then he’d been bounced from one foster home to another, being uprooted whenever he started to get comfortable. Jacob was the first roots Daniel had ever had.

Daniel got a washcloth from the nearby clothesline, wrung out the rain water and dipped the cloth it in the water he’d warmed. He headed for the tent.

“Daniel,” Jacob called.

Daniel turned, looking at the lover who’d been the center of his life. Why couldn’t he, Daniel, be more secure in their life together? It wasn’t fair to Jacob that he had these doubts.

“I’m not going to just disappear on you,” Jacob promised. “What we have means more to me than that. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Uncomfortable with his earlier midnight confession of weakness, Daniel headed into the tent to wash Mara and whisper that he loved her, too.

* * * *

Boneless. There was no other way to describe how Mara felt as she woke the next morning. Sunlight filtered around the edges of the tent flaps and cast mottled beams across the floor. She stretched and turned her head. Daniel was asleep beside her, but Jacob had apparently risen for the day. Old habits were hard to break. He’d always been an early riser, getting up in the wee hours and doing a yoga routine before his roommates rose for the day. She wondered if that was the case today.

She stifled a groan as she climbed out of bed and realized she wasn’t as boneless as she’d thought. They’d been awfully vigorous last night, and she felt it in her muscles which were unaccustomed to such activity. It was something she could easily get used to. She’d always felt a connection to Jacob and Daniel that she hadn’t felt with anyone else—even Marco. Being with them sexually just skyrocketed that to another level.

Quickly, she pulled on her shorts and a T-shirt and went in search of Jacob. It wasn’t much of a search. She found him sitting in a camp chair, his foot propped on the picnic table’s bench as he sipped coffee. He stared blindly into the distance, deep in thought.

“Morning,” she muttered, as she squinted against the bright sun and headed for the camp stove to get a cup. Jacob set down his drink and pulled her into his lap as she passed. Cupping her cheek, he kissed her, parting her lips with his and dipping his tongue inside. Languidly, he explored her mouth. Heat spiralled through her as his kiss roused her pleasure centers that had only just shut down a few hours earlier. Her nipples tingled, and she suspected they poked against her shirt, obvious flags of arousal.

“It’s so good to finally be able to kiss you,” he said against her lips.

“You should have told me sooner…”
Like the first day.
They could have had months together already, and she wouldn’t have to break off things with Marco because she never would have become engaged to him. Damn. Marco. She’d have to call him shortly. It wasn’t fair to put it off though she’d prefer to tell him face to face.

She started to get up, but Jacob’s arms tightened around her. “Stay here. I have to tell you something.”

“Okay…” she said. Trepidation hit her full force at his serious tone. This was it. He was gonna tell her this tryst was only a one-night thing.

“I got a job offer,” he started. “A sitcom. They want me in California next month to start filming.”

“What!”

They both jumped at Daniel’s exclamation. Taking advantage of Jacob’s surprise, Mara slid from his lap and stood.

“I need to take a walk and call Marco,” she said. Her heart seemed filled with cement as it heavily thumped in her chest, sending an ache through her body. If Jacob was going to California, where did it leave her? On the opposite side of the country. Alone.

Quickly, grabbing the phone, she headed out of camp before either man stopped her. She had to call her fiancé. Ex-fiancé. Her—Marco. What the hell would she say to him?

* * * *

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Daniel demanded, grabbing Jacob’s arm and stopping him from going after Mara despite the stricken look on her face. She was obviously upset, but he and Jacob needed to deal with this before they talked to Mara. By then, she would have called Marco and perhaps had time to calm down a bit. Since they were cut off from the world for all intents and purposes, it wasn’t as if she could take off without them hammering this out.

And they
would
hammer this out. Daniel was not losing his family.

Jacob lifted a shoulder. “I know how you worry, and I was afraid you’d go over the edge and push me out of your life before I could push you out of mine—which isn’t my intention. I don’t want it to be over.”

“Oh, luv,” Daniel said, dropping to his knees in front his lover. His forgiveness and relief mingled, tainted with the reality that Jacob’s fear had legitimate basis. Reaching out, Daniel pulled Jacob toward him until he could kiss him. Tenderly, he sipped at his lips, caressing and releasing until Jacob groaned and crushed him to his chest. Daniel made a trail to Jacob’s ear. “I’m not letting you get away,” he whispered then nipped at his lobe. “I’m so sorry my insecurities made you worry over this. I’m so proud of you. And if you want me along, I’m going with you.”