Healing Pleasure (10 page)

“What the hell did Horace do with my exercise equipment this time?”

All heads turned his way at the question. Trey smirked. Lena’s jaw dropped as her gaze slid over him like a physical caress that made his cock hard. May lifted both brows and gave him a stern look. That’s the one he paid attention to first.

He cleared his throat and tempered his tone. “My apologies. May, could you please tell me where Horace put my exercise equipment?”

May nodded once. “That’s better. However, these two will have to answer your question because I don’t know, son.”

Brit shifted his attention to Trey’s still smirking face before locking gazes with Lena. The look in her eyes had him narrowing his. “Why am I getting the feeling you had something to do with this?”

Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. It was bad enough he had the remembered torment of her slender fingers wrapped around his cock last night, but now her luscious lips were moving into the picture. He ignore the way his balls drew up painfully between his legs and continued to glare at her.

“You shaved.” Her gaze moved over his face, lust filling her eyes. “And you’re definitely gritting your teeth.”

“Lena?” He made her name part question and part warning and repeated his question. “Why am I getting the feeling you had something to do with this?”

“Good instincts?” she suggested sweetly. “If you’re going to be angry with anyone, I’m your culprit. I asked some of the boys to hide it for me.”

“You d—” Realizing his tone had risen again, he quickly dropped to his normal speaking voice before May put his head on a platter for the day’s lunch. He took a deep, calming breath and then asked, “Where did you have them hide it? Please.” He added the last for May’s benefit and saw her smile out of the corner of his eye.

Lena shrugged, turned back to the table, and reached for a cinnamon bun. “I’m not telling you.”

Brit gritted his teeth. “Darlin’, you’ll tell me or I’m going to—”
Turn you over my good knee and paddle your ass a beautiful red until you scream the location of my exercise equipment.
His gaze snapped to May’s as he smartly and silently finished the threat.

She’d turned back to face him and was holding out one of the sweet breakfast treats. “Cinnamon bun?”

“No, I don’t want a da—” Her eyes twinkled with equal parts mischief and challenge. Was the damn woman trying to get him in trouble with May?

No, he realized. The little vixen knew exactly what she was doing. It likely the reason Trey was still in the house when every other boy and man except himself was out on the ranch. She knew he wouldn’t blow his top in front of May and, if he did, Trey was there to knock him down a few pegs.

“I’ll take some coffee, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” She was out of her chair and across the kitchen in a flash, looking back at him over her shoulder. “Black?”

Still gritting his teeth, he nodded. “Yes, please.” All the
please
s were making May’s grin widen so he grudgingly gave her a few more. “Could you, please, tell me, please, where my exercise equipment is, please, so I can do my morning exercises? Please?”

Lena shrugged as she came back across the kitchen to hand him the cup of coffee. “I can’t. I don’t exactly know where it’s at.”

Doing his damnedest to control his rapidly rising temper, he tightened his grip on the coffee mug almost hard enough to shatter it. “Who does?”

She made a considering face. “That’s a really good question. I made it a point not to know so that, when you asked me, I wouldn’t be forced to tell you another fib.”

“Darlin’, I’m trying really hard to hold onto my temper.”

She nodded. “I can see that. Thank you.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why my stuff is being hidden from me.”

“You need to get out of the house, Brit. It’s a beautiful day outside. The fresh air and sunshine will do you good.”

“I got out of the house yesterday. As a matter of fact, I was in the front yard when you met me. I’d be out there again now if you’d tell me what you did with my treadmill.”

“Lena has something different in mind,” May commented. “And I think it’s a fabulous idea.”

“I’ve never been on a working ranch. I’d like a tour of the place. Horace has graciously given Trey the day off so the two of you can show me around.” She paused, hooked her thumbs in the front pocket of the figure-accenting jeans she wore, and rocked back on the heels of a pair of boots he recognized as belonging to May. “I’ll even help you look for that treadmill while we’re out and about if you want.”

What he wanted to do was toss her over his shoulder, carry her to his room where he’d strap her to the bed and torment her sweet pussy till sundown for trying to pull one over on him. Except, she hadn’t tried anything. She’d succeeded. Without his treadmill, he didn’t have any other way of giving his knee the walking exercise it needed to heal. Not to mention, he figured if he wouldn’t get very far at carrying her anywhere before his knee would likely buckle and he’d drop her on her sexy ass.

“Fine,” he muttered grudgingly. “We’ll do it your way.” He leveled a glare on her that would’ve had most women squirming in her skin. Vixen that she was, she met his glare with one of her own. “This time.”

“I’ll load the picnic basket with some sandwiches and a thermos of sweet tea,” May announced as she got to her feet. “That way the three of you won’t have to head for the house when you get hungry for lunch.”

* * * *

“See? Isn’t this much better than walking in one spot for an hour?”

Brit made a noncommittal sound.

He wanted to be angry with her, but she could tell by his easy gait and the relaxed expression on his handsome face that her plan had worked. Trey had warned her it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to poke the bear, as he’d put it, after the night Brit had. She’d disagreed. Sure, he’d had the nightmare that had drawn her and Trey to his room in the night. But, once she and Trey had climbed into bed with him, he’d slept like the proverbial rock. He hadn’t budged when she and Trey had carefully and quietly crawled out of the bed this morning. They’d been up for a good hour and a half before Brit had come into the kitchen.

She’d taken one look at him this morning and the only coherent thought she’d managed at first had simply been
whoa
. He’d cleaned up. His long dark hair had still been slightly wet from his recent shower, the strands hanging in straight, silky looking waves around his face. His very smooth, clean-shaven face. It had been all she could do not to gawk at him…and melt into a puddle of horny mush at his feet.

“Come on.” She bumped his arm lightly with her elbow. “You can’t tell me it’s not. Look at this.” She gestured to their surroundings with a flourish of her arm. “Everything is so green. You’ve got all these trees around this wide-open space and you can listen to the sounds of the animals and nature instead of the constant hum of a treadmill motor.”

“Earbuds and some good ole’ George tune that out.”

Lena threw her head back and growled before looking at Trey, who was walking on her opposite side. She hooked a thumb at Brit. “Can I deck him?”

Trey grinned. “Sugar, there are some things I require my woman to ask permission to do, but decking him when he deserves it isn’t one of them.”

Whips of heat lashed through her at the calm lilt of authority lacing his rusty voice. She ignored the anticipation shimmering through her and dragged her attention back to Brit. He wasn’t grinning at her, but a smile was toying with the edge of his lips and sheer heat had turned his dark eyes nearly cobalt.

“Deck me and I’ll paddle your sexy ass until you come.”

It was more than a warning. It was a promise. She got the impression it was a hope, too, as if he was merely waiting for her to give him a reason to discipline her in a variety of creatively sexual ways.

She focused her attention straight ahead as her ass erupted in a fit of tingles that coaxed juices from between her feminine lips. There was something different about both of them today. Trey hadn’t wanted to go along with her plan when she’d told him about it this morning. She’d sensed it hadn’t just been the whole hiding-the-treadmill-from-Brit that he hadn’t wanted to do. He’d been having second thoughts about taking the day off and she suspected she knew why.

It was amazing the things a woman could learn about a man while helping his mother in the kitchen. Though she hadn’t intentionally pried May for information, the woman had been more than open about her feeling when it came to both her boys. Trey hadn’t done much but work since he and Brit had returned to the ranch. Lena was inclined to agree with May’s assumption that working kept his mind off the op, Brit’s injury and mental wellbeing, and his own fears of not only returning to the SEALs without Brit, but of his feelings that he’d failed his friend when Brit had needed him most.

As for Brit, she figured the good night’s sleep he’d enjoyed likely had a lot to do with the more relaxed posture and cleaned up look he was sporting today. He seemed to be in a better mood, too, despite his earlier irritation at her over hiding his exercise equipment. She chalked that up to his finally really getting out of the house. A walk in a familiar setting with a soft breeze blowing and the sounds of nature all around them. Trey had told her Brit was the outdoorsy type. She hadn’t been able to think of anything more therapeutic for him than this. Judging by the expression on his face, she’d been right.

He pointed toward a line of trees slightly to their left up ahead and she saw him exchange a glance with Trey over her head. Slowly, as if being magnetically drawn to those trees, their walking course veered that way.

“What was it like growing up here on the ranch?”

“Hard,” Brit answered at the same time Trey said, “Scary,” then both of them added, “At first.”

Their answers surprised her, not just in the sincerity of them, but the words they’d used. “What was hard about it?” she asked after a few steps when neither of them seemed intent on elaborating. Watching both the older and younger men on the ranch yesterday had showed her all were expected to work. She didn’t think for an instant any labor to be done on a ranch was easy. Yet, she’d gotten the impression from all the men and boys yesterday that they loved every second of it. Unless Brit had meant…

“The difference,” Brit finally said. “The change.”

“Learning to accept it, to understand it, and believe we could be a part of something like this,” Trey chimed in. “Once we did, it got scary thinking we might somehow fuck it up and lose it.”

Lena got it. Of course, she’d never quite understand what it felt like to be in that situation, but their answers made sense now. Nothing about the way Horace, May, and even Hank—a man she’d heard so many fond things about, but would ever get to meet—treated them had been hard. What the three of them had done was give Brit and Trey something neither of them apparently ever had…a loving family.

“How did you end up here? What about your real parents? Are they still alive?”

“I couldn’t give a rat’s ass in hell if they are or not.” Brit winced, shot her an apologetic look, and flattened his hand on the small of her back as he steered her down the narrow path through the trees. “Sorry. I guess that sounded pretty harsh.”

She bit back a grin, knowing the apology was May’s influence coming out in him. “It did, but I’m betting you wouldn’t feel that way if you hadn’t been given good reason to.”

He barked a half laugh that held more derision than humor. “Do you consider thirteen years as a punching bag good reason enough?”

Oh, you poor man.
Her years of training and experience in helping people in various stages grief enabled her to keep a steady step and composed expression even as her heart broke for him. She’d worked with people who struggled with depression over abandonment or the loss of a loved one. She helped people work through feelings of inadequacy and what she’d come to think of as the left-behind syndrome, a battle she still thought Brit was fighting as he found himself unable to reason he’d been spared during that horrible op when his teammates had perished before his eyes. But the kind of physical abuse he was speaking of fell outside of any training and experience she’d ever gotten.

“I definitely consider that reason enough.”

The corner of his lips tilted in a hint of a smile. “Don’t worry, counselor. I’m passed all that.”

Was he? Did a person really get passed something like that, or did they simply learn to accept it and move on the way she’d accepted and moved on after her mother had abandoned her?

“You ran away,” she guessed. “Maybe fell into the system?” she added slowly.

He shook his head. “Didn’t do either, at least not for a while. I was a good boy, did what I was supposed to, and took care of myself.”

Trey’s snort made her smile. “Is he fibbing to me again?”

“Well…” Trey drawled as he reached in front of her to push aside a tree branch hanging over the trail. “That all depends on how you look at it, sugar.”

“And just how should I look at it, lemon drop?”

* * * *

Brit’s laughter echoed off the trees, catching Trey off guard as much as the fact that she’d just called him…