Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 21

  Sabrina got out of her chair and came around the table to pound him on the back. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he rasped, thinking that this woman definitely reminded him of Maia. She was sharp and didn’t bite her tongue for anyone. She still didn’t float his boat, either, though he wasn’t incapable of appreciating her attractiveness in a purely aesthetic way. He could even see them being platonic friends. He had plenty of women friends back in his time. Of course, they didn’t become that way until after he had had sex with them—go figure.

  Once Sabrina was satisfied with his well-being, she went back to her seat, staring at him across the table. “I suppose you want to keep your piehole shut on that?”

  Cade chuckled, really liking this woman and more curious than ever to know what her story was.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I understand.”

  Cade was glad that she understood, because he certainly didn’t.

  He’d never been a one-woman man in his life. He had never seen himself settling down. Yet, with Maia and his brother he could see a future of little rug rats underfoot, of quiet evenings spent reading, discussing the day’s events, or otherwise relaxing with each other on the front porch when they weren’t working or just taking turns making love.

  Strangely enough, he saw that future here in the nineteenth century.

  How messed up was that?

  “She’s a lucky woman,” Sabrina said.

  Cade looked at her and felt no jealousy or malice in her voice, just a deep, pervading tone of sadness and loss.

  She sounded how he would feel if something happened to Maia or Thayne.

  Cade resolved that he’d never have to actually experience that loss.

  His parents had said they needed to protect each other and keep Maia safe, and that’s what he intended to do. “No.” He shook his head. “We’re the lucky ones.”

  Chapter 19

  When Thayne woke the next morning dawn had barely broken so he didn’t really expect anyone to be up and about. He wasn’t disappointed to feel both Maia and Cade still in the bed beside him and asleep.

  He sat up on his side of the bed, listening to their soft, steady breathing in the dark, so unaccustomed to company in bed that the noise disoriented him for a moment.

  Goddess, had it been that long since he’d allowed anyone to get this close to him? He’d never been like his brother, into sex for sex’s sake, looking at it as recreation and sport. When Thayne had sex with someone, it meant something to him, even if it hadn’t always meant something to the woman, at least not the same thing it meant to him. His serious relationship with Tiffany immediately came to his mind at the thought.

  Looking back at that whole affair made him wonder what his major malfunction had been. Had he been desperate for company or someone to call his own? Independent to a fault and always the one that his friends and family had counted on to act as a stabilizing, levelheaded force in their lives, he’d never seen himself as particularly needy.

  Had Tiffany sensed some weakness in him that made him an easy mark? Had something he said or did clued her into his inner turmoil and the best way to reject and get back at him for his dedication to work instead of her?

  Thayne shook his head at the self-examinations and useless self-recriminations. What was done was done. He couldn’t change what had happened. He could only move forward and try to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again.

  He knew in his heart that Maia wasn’t like Tiffany by any means. Sure she was a big-time flirt and highly sexual, but Maia had soul, and not because she was black. Maia had substance where Tiffany had been shallow, an empty shell.

  He reached for Maia in the dark, gently cupping her face with one hand, appreciating the warmth and softness of her skin. She turned into his palm with a quiet sigh but didn’t wake. At least he didn’t think she did.

  Thayne slid from the bed now as carefully as he could, not wanting to wake Maia or Cade if he didn’t have to. They had all had a long day yesterday, but he figured he was used to putting in long hours on little sleep, at least a little more than Cade and Maia were used to it.

  He searched the room in the dim light, doing the impossible when he located his boxers and jeans and threw them on. At least he thought they were his jeans. There was only an inch or two separating him and Cade, and though there were fifteen or so pounds between them, if that, it was negligible when measured against their similar proportions. The jeans could very well have been Cade’s.

  Zipped and buttoned up, Thayne threw on a shirt, not bothering to button it as he carefully opened the door and headed out into the hall.

  He went down the stairs in his bare feet but needn’t have tried to be quiet, not when Sabrina was up in the kitchen already knee-deep in her preparations for the day.

  “I can help with the cooking.”

  She didn’t miss a beat, pulling staples from the cupboards. “A man in the kitchen? Perish the thought. You’ll only get in my way.”

  Of course she hadn’t heard of Bobby Flay or Emeril Lagasse.

  Thayne grinned, not letting her dig stop him as he took the bag of flour from her. “Really. I’m a pretty good cook.”

  She paused to put a fist on her hip and looked him up and down. “Helping me get breakfast done is not going to get you out of the heavy-duty work around this place, I guarantee you that.”

  Thayne shrugged. “Like I said. We’re not afraid of hard work.”

  “So where are your companions anyway?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Hmph.”

  He wondered now what sort of run-in Cade had had with their hostess last night and what exactly had been said during their little tête-à-tête over tea.

  Thayne had been trying to picture it ever since his brother had returned to the room and mentioned the meeting last night. He just couldn’t imagine, first, his brother sitting still in a kitchen longer than it took a tea kettle to whistle, or second, sipping tea with his little pinky set just so and having a leisurely chat with a beautiful woman on whom he wasn’t trying to put his famous lothario moves.

  He’d seen his brother in action and knew how Cade rolled.

  It was for this reason that Thayne had wanted to ask him precisely what had been said, what Sabrina had been like in a relaxed, quiet setting. Cade, however, had been pretty cagey and closemouthed about the encounter, which worried Thayne to no end.

  A month ago, he might have welcomed his brother’s defection to another woman, leaving Thayne to have Maia all to himself. It was the way things had started and were ultimately supposed to be, at least in Thayne’s book. Now, though, he couldn’t imagine being with Maia, making love to her, without his brother right there. He wanted, needed Cade along for the ride and every breathy sigh and devastating orgasm they could ring from Maia together.

  When had things changed so drastically for him? What had been the tipping point?

  Thayne knew now that he hadn’t needed as much convincing as he thought. He’d been primed and ready for consummation last night, and he couldn’t help but thinking deep down he agreed with his brother—and their parents by default—that they were all fated to be together and Maia wasn’t just his soul mate but Cade’s.

  Did Cade still feel the same way, or did he think their mission had been accomplished, their fate sealed, with just the one encounter? Did he understand that this had to be for the long haul for all three of them for any sort of sex magick to work and stick or for them to have a halfway-decent fighting chance against Prentice?

  Thayne wasn’t even going to pretend that the danger for them all was over. He knew the madman was still out there somewhere, plotting for another attack against the three of them. It was just a matter of time before he’d show up here to take out his pound of flesh, especially after they had outsmarted and escaped him in such a dramatic fashion the first time.

  If Prentice had been furious before, Thayne knew that he would be ten-times angrier afte
r what he, Cade, and Maia had accomplished. Prentice didn’t strike him as a man who took a defeat like that lying down. Thayne knew it from that brief encounter back at Aunt Aura’s. He had felt the black heart that beat within Prentice’s chest. He had sensed the vindictive soul within.

  “Well, after all your yammering about helping, are you just going to stand there like a bump on a log, or are you going to help?”

  Thayne shook himself out of his stupor to see Sabrina with that now-infamous fist on her hip again as she frowned up at him.

  “On second thought, why don’t you do the heavy-duty work now? I’ve got a pail of water boiling on an open fire outside. You can finish filling the two tubs in the bathhouse for you and your brother and your lady friend’s baths.”

  “We didn’t reserve it.”

  “Your brother did it last night. No one else was in the book for it, so I booked you three.”

  His brother exercising forethought and being responsible? Times they were a-changing.

  “Go on then. Be off with you.” Sabrina shooed him out of her kitchen, waving a dishcloth at him and steering him to the back door.

  Thayne laughed as he opened the door to leave, Sabrina’s laughter following him outside into the early dawn light.

  He stood on the back porch for a moment, looking out at the salmon-hued horizon with a sense of wonder. He took a deep breath at his unobstructed view of the lush countryside beyond the town’s boundaries.

  After a couple of years living in McCoy, Thayne had become reaccustomed to small-town life, to having the wide-open spaces at his disposal and visible from almost any window in his house. He’d especially had an enviable view of the Rocky Mountains for miles and miles from his bedroom window and back porch.

  The sight always took him back to his days on the ranch with Aunt Aura and Uncle Jeff. Aside from the fact that the death of his and Cade’s parents had made it possible for them to grow up on the ranch full-time, he couldn’t say that the experience had been a negative one.

  He’d loved the ranch life, had a particular affinity for horses that made his time spent on his aunt and uncle’s ranch ideal.

  He wondered now if, as in the case of Aunt Aura, Prentice had had anything to do with the death of his and Cade’s parents. He instantly chided himself for being ridiculous. Prentice couldn’t have been much older than Cade. He would have been a kid when Thayne and Cade’s parents had been murdered.

  Of course, homicidal children had existed since time began, though maybe not as prevalent a phenomenon as they appeared to be in the twenty-first century, and maybe not as common as homicidal adults. Violence and murder were invariable parts of the human condition, built into Homo sapiens’ DNA, affecting young and old alike.

  Thayne tried to figure out where or when his mom and dad could have crossed paths with Prentice when he was a boy. Of course, his and Cade’s parents had had a particular affinity for the downtrodden. They’d volunteered their time and services at various youth centers, literacy programs, and soup kitchens in impoverished areas throughout LA on a routine basis, helping whoever needed it, but specifically in-jeopardy teens. Helping and mentoring youths had been a particular pet project for his parents, as Thayne and Cade’s dad had been a troubled teenager from everything he and their mom told them.

  Had Prentice been a part of any of those centers or programs? Thayne couldn’t see it, not from the glimpse and sense he had gotten of the dapper madman who had invaded Aunt Aura’s home, though stranger things had happened. Prentice might have been a deprived kid, but from everything Thayne had seen, he’d managed to pull himself up by the bootstraps to attain a certain amount of success and wealth.

  What had transpired between his childhood and adulthood to turn him into a cold-blooded, vengeful killer? Where were Prentice’s parents, and where did they fit in the grand scheme of things? Had he been orphaned at a young age like him and Cade?

  At that latter thought, Thayne could almost muster sympathy for Prentice, but not at the expense of forgetting what the madman had done to Aunt Aura.

  Thayne shuddered at the possibilities, surprised by the turn his life had taken in the last week when he seemingly hadn’t been looking.

  He stepped off the porch to retrieve the pail from the fire, carrying the heated water into the house and to the dedicated bathhouse, where one of the tubs was already half-full.

  For the next hour or so, Thayne pumped, heated, and hauled pails of water to the bathhouse to fill the two tubs, wondering the entire while why Sabrina didn’t just hire someone full-time to do this type of stuff for her. Oh yeah, that’s right, she had boarders like him. He could see her getting other boarders to do this task. Why not, since it was for their own baths?

  Near the last couple of hauls, Thayne went upstairs to wake Maia and Cade so they could take advantage of the water while it was still hot.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Maia said with a teasing tone to her already low and seductive voice that made Thayne’s cock instantly stand at attention.

  “I’ve got a feeling the water’s going to get cold before this is over,” he said.

  “We’ll probably need to cool things down before breakfast anyway.” Cade grinned and wiggled his eyebrows Groucho Marx-style.

  “And waste all my efforts heating and lugging most of the morning?”

  “We won’t have to waste anything. We’ll just kill two birds with one stone and take our baths together.”

  “You mean kill one bird with two stones,” Cade joked, approaching Maia from behind and sliding his hands down her front from her lace-covered breasts to her crotch. He ground his hips against her, showing her just how hard his “stone” was, and caressed her panties-clad pussy before sliding his hand under the waistband to tease her slit.

  Goddess, watching them turned Thayne on! Separately, there was no question they were attractive, but together they looked so hot he couldn’t help but be affected by the sight of them touching, limbs entangled, all flushed and healthy and…sensual.

  The sight of them together made him wonder what sort of tableau the three of them had completed together when they’d made love last night. If they’d looked even half as good as he’d felt, they must have made a striking display.

  Thayne took a moment to appreciate his brother and Maia in the throes of foreplay, Cade’s lips tracing a path of carnal destruction down Maia’s throat, if her shuddering whimpers were anything to go by. He removed himself from the scene—paradoxically an objective observer and a voyeur—watching the two of them, especially the looks on their faces, their expressions of both lust and tenderness.

  Should he use this moment, his brother’s appearance, as a barometer of where their threesome was going? He wanted to believe what he saw, that the look of total devotion on Cade’s face couldn’t be manufactured or pulled from a skilled playboy’s arsenal of inveiglement and seduction. He wanted to believe that Maia loved him as much as she appeared to love Cade. Thayne wanted her to love him like he loved her.

  He practically gulped at the thought, frightened by both the simplicity and power of it.

  Thayne loved Maia, and he knew that he’d lay down his life for her if it ever came to that.

  “You look like you want to join us, bro,” Cade said. “Don’t be shy.”

  Thayne chuckled, his brother’s sense of humor never failing to get a response from him.

  “I don’t think shy is a part of my repertoire anymore, if it ever was.”

  “Come here,” Maia commanded.

  “So bossy,” he said but found himself standing before her a second later without being conscious of his feet having carried him over.

  “It’s the only way to get what I want.”

  “You know, all you have to do is crook your little finger and we’ll both bend to your will,” Cade said, nuzzling her neck.

  “That’s more like it.” Maia purred. “Are the bathtubs big?” she asked Thayne.

  “What are you thinking?”


  She didn’t answer, not verbally anyway. She just reached out and caught his hand, drawing it to her pussy, where Cade’s had been only seconds before. Now Cade was busy fondling her breasts through her bra.

  Thayne followed her lead and slid his hand into her panties, teasing her moist folds with the tip of a finger. He tormented himself with the promise of experiencing her wet heat. Slowly, he inserted his finger, massaging her inner walls before pushing deep into her pussy and turning his finger this way and that. He knew he hit pay dirt when Maia clutched his biceps, digging in her nails as her inner muscles tightened around his finger.

  “You want to come for us now, baby, or later?” Cade murmured against her throat.

  “Now and later.”

  “My favorite candy.” Thayne laughed, intensified, and sped his thrusts until Maia wildly bucked against his hand, consequently forcing her into contact with the ridge of Cade’s hard cock on her backward pitch.

  She wrapped her arms around Thayne’s neck and curved a thigh around his hip, holding him as if for dear life. A moment later, she started to come, and an instant after that, Thayne opened himself up to her, ravenous for a sample of her orgasm.

  He closed his eyes tight against the double vision, his brain battered with an explosive show of light and sound. His testicles tightened in his jeans and his cock throbbed. It took every ounce of self-control in him to keep from echoing Maia’s completion.

  Thayne came around to himself a moment later to find Maia and Cade staring at him.

  Goddess, what had he done?

  “Are you all right?” Maia asked.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  She licked her lips. “You look like you just came.”

  Had he? The crotch of his jeans was dry, though he could feel the pre-cum gathered at the head of his cock. For all intents and purposes, however, he had experienced a climax. He’d undergone Maia’s.

  “You naughty boy.” She smiled. “I know what you did.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean—”

  “Why are you apologizing? I liked it.”