Healing Pleasure (7 page)

She gnawed her bottom lip, drawing his attention to her mouth. His cock danced behind the button fly of his cargo shorts at the sight and the image it created in his mouth of her luscious lips gliding up and down his shaft.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether or not you promise you won’t get angry with me or Trey.”

“Sweet thing, it takes a hell of a lot for me to get angry with a woman. Now, Trey…” He shook his head. “I ain’t making no promises on that one.”

She turned her head, rested her chin on the front of her shoulder for a long moment as if trying to decide if she was really going to answer him or not, and then finally met his gaze. “I’m a grief counselor.”

Red outlined Brit’s vision as he stared at her. The son of bitch had tried to trick him.

“Do you always have a scraggly beard or are you trying out a new look?”

Her question came from so far out of left field he blinked at her. “What?”

“It’s just something I’ve been wondering since I saw you on the treadmill. Not that you don’t look good with a beard…Well, if you’d trim it up a bit, it would look good.” She shook her head as if to get herself back on track. “I think you’re gritting your teeth right now, but I can’t quite tell if your jaw muscles are moving through all the hair.”

“Trust me, I’m grinding them to stubs,” he said tightly.

“Yeah, I thought you were.”

“How did he hear about you?”

She made a “who knows” face. “Got me? My step-mother I just told you about, she’s a grief counselor, too. The help and guidance she gave me showed me that was how I wanted to spend my life, helping other people through their troubled times. I have a private practice I run out of my house. I get referrals from hospitals, doctors, previous clients…all sorts of people.”

Brit lifted both brows. “Are you done?”

She raked a frustrated hand over her forehead. “I can’t get anything past you, can I?” When Brit continued to simply glare at her, she slapped her thigh with her hand and groaned. “Fine. Trey said Horace told him to call me.”

Brit nodded slowly. “Which means May told Horace about you.” May was the last on the ranch to visit a doctor recently and Lena had just said many of her referrals came from doctors.

She got to her feet again, this time moving to stand near his head, and put a soft hand on his shoulder. “Brit, they were only trying to help you. I’m sorry we tried to trick you into think I’m dating Trey, but—”

“You will be.” He looked up at her and saw her snap her lips shut at his statement. “That kiss he laid on you in the yard, that wasn’t just for show, darlin’. Neither was the way you melted in his arms.” He hooked an arm around her waist and yanked her into his lap the way he’d been thinking about doing since she’d first walked into the parlor. The move surprised a squeak out of her that turned to a quiet gasp when her gaze locked with his. “The way you look at me ain’t for show either.”

Panic moved through her eyes and he felt her start to quiver in his arms. He’d scared her. Fucking hell! That hadn’t been his intention. He cupped her cheek, momentarily at a loss for words as his palm absorbed the soft heat of her flesh.

“And I promise you there’s no fib, lie, or show in the way you’ve seen me looking at you.” He caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb, marveling at the satiny feel of it. He had no right to be touching her. He had no right to expect a woman to accept the half of a man he’d become. Well, he was physically three quarters of man, but mentally…Hell, he’d started to wonder if there was any man of him left there. “I want you.” The admission was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “I wanted you the second you started walking across the yard toward me and, the instant you told me you were dating Trey, I wanted you even more.”

Her lips tilted in a shaky smile. “Competition?”

Brit gave her a half laugh. “Not even close. That’s not the way Trey and I work, darlin’. We take women together.”

Her throat worked in a visible gulp. “Does that mean you’re not angry with him?”

This time, Brit threw his head back and laughed. Funny how he’d barely been able to manage a smile before she stepped onto the ranch mere hours ago. “You want honesty, sweet thing? If I can manage to stand on both legs in front of him, I’ll kick his ass as soon as he returns from the field.” She made a protesting sound, but he cut off her words. “And once we’re done kicking each other’s ass, you can nurse both our wounds before we take you to bed tonight.”

Her jaw dropped, but there was no way he could miss the wicked excitement in her eyes. “That’s not how this is going to play out, Brit.”

“Are you sure?” He inched his face closer to hers, stopping a breath away from her mouth. “Because I didn’t hear any form of an option in what I just told you.”

She shivered again, but this time he didn’t sense any fear in it. Only anticipation. “Are you going to talk to me? As a counselor, I mean. Will you let me help you?”

Brit growled and threw his head back, smacking the chair. “Darlin’, talking ain’t going to do be a damn bit of good.”

It wouldn’t bring his teammates back. It wouldn’t change the order he’d given for Team Bravo to hold back instead of moving in where they could’ve been in a better position to spot the kid who’d been hidden in the group of tangos until they’d gotten close enough to his men. That kid had wandered out of the group, stumbled on one of his men, and the clusterfuck had begun.

Her hand snaked behind his neck to cup his nape and she pulled his head up. She leaned over him, her breath fanning his lips when she spoke. “You would be surprised how healing it can be when you talk about the grief in your mind.”

Before he could say anything to that, she kissed him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had kissed him without permission. It was nice. He wouldn’t necessarily let her make a habit of it, especially not the way she attempted to control the kiss, sliding her tongue into his mouth and taking possession of his soul. Still, it was nice.

He let her have her fun for a few seconds before he fisted a hand in the back of her hair and assumed control. He closed a hand over her breast, felt her nipple already beaded to a hardened point through her thin bra and shirt, and ground the pad of his palm over it, enjoying the way she slithered on his lap.

Then he heard the back door of the house open and footsteps pounded down the hall. The next generation, as they often called them, had returned from the land for lunch. Somebody needed to teach those boys about timing.

* * * *

Lunch at Rescue Ranch consisted of sandwiches, chips, and sweet tea served in the main dining room. Though the setting was more elaborate than the meal, Lena quickly understood why. Ten teenage boys and six adults, not including herself, gathered around an enormous custom-made table that seated thirty. The additional spaces were necessary when all of the original ten boys of the Rescue Ranch were all home at once, especially if they brought guests home. Today the original boys present were Brit, Trey, Trent, and Bobby. Conversation went from rowdy to calm and touched on every subject from working to be done on the ranch to how the boys wanted to spend the remainder of their off time during their summer vacation.

It was a family, Lena realized as she kept quiet through most of the lunch, content to listen to the byplay and occasional banter between the boys and men. It helped her to keep her mind off the completely ludicrous thing she’d done in the parlor. She’d kissed Brit. What the hell had she been thinking? She’d let Trey goad her into another kiss in Horace’s office and then she’d turned around and planted a big wet one on Brit. She often used unconventional methods to get clients to open up, but throwing herself at a man had never been one of them.

Though her and May were the only women at the table, she never once felt out of place. If anything, she felt at home, as if being on the ranch for less than half a day had already made her part of the family. May certainly seemed to think so, enlisting Lena’s help to clean up when lunch ended, then cajoling her to stay in the kitchen and aid in the dinner preparations.

Lena pulled an onion from the bag on the counter and placed it on the cutting board. “Is this what you do all day?”

“Not all day.” May winked as she passed her on the way to the stove. “I take out an hour here and there to read, take a dip in the pond, or go horseback riding.”

Lena ignored the echo of the conversation she’d had with Brit that morning about riding a horse. “I can’t imagine cooking for the crew you do day in and day out. An hour here and there away from this kitchen wouldn’t be near enough for me.”

“It would, if it’s what you enjoy doing. I love to cook.” She patted the back of Lena’s shoulder as she moved by her again. “Besides, I get help from sweet things like you when I ask for it.”

Lena shot the woman a smile over her shoulder. “How did Rescue Ranch start? Are any of the boys your real son?”

“They’re all my real boys, honey, even if I didn’t give birth to a one of them. The good Lord didn’t put me on this earth for the purpose of birthing children. He put me here to raise them.”

In other words, she couldn’t have children. At least, that’s what Lena took from that comment. Figuring that would be a touchy subject for a motherly woman like May, she didn’t put voice to the thought.

“We didn’t plan Rescue Ranch to become what it is.” May settled in beside her, dumping ingredients for a homemade chocolate cake in a large bowl. “We were gifted with Trent and Bobby first.” She slid Lena an ear to ear grin. “Can you believe they wanted to be here so bad they tried to rob us?”

Lena gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. She’d sat across from Trent and Bobby at lunch. The impression she’d gotten of the handsome cowboys had leaned far more toward two well-mannered, well-educated, very levelheaded men rather than thieves.

May nodded. “May the good Lord strike me dead if I’m lying? They broke into the house. Not this house,” she add, casting a quick look around at the room behind them. “Horace, Hank, and I lived in the little place where the hired hands live now. We hadn’t built this house yet.”

“Did they try to hurt either of you?”

“Oh, no.” May shook her head vehemently. “They told us later they’d just planned to take whatever they could get their hands on that they thought they could sell.” She paused, her expression warming with a mother’s love. “They didn’t know any better.” This time the look Lena gave her had a half laugh bursting from her lips. “They knew it was wrong. What they didn’t know was any other way to live. Both of them came from thieving parents. That’s the way they’d been raised. They grew up with parents who were partners in crime together, as the saying goes, and that’s what they had become.”

“Where are their parents now?”

May shrugged and started stirring the mixture she’d created in the bowl. “Jail, I suspect. Neither pair of them put up a fight when Horace, Hank, and I petitioned for custody. We thought they might at first. You know, because of the lifestyle Horace, Hank, and I were leading. They didn’t, though.” She shrugged again. “The courts didn’t say much about it either seeing as how we wanted the boys and no one else did. I think they were happy to have them off the streets and out of trouble.”

Lena put down the knife she’d been using to chop onions and leaned a hip against the counter. “You took in two boys who tried to rob you, sued for custody, won, and raised them as your own children.” She put a hand on May’s shoulder. “You know, even if Brit won’t talk to me and I end up not taking him on as a client, I’m really glad I got the opportunity to meet you.”

She meant it. There were far too few women in the world like May Hoskins.

“My Brit will talk to you, honey. The key to handling that man,
any
man, is patience.”

Lena would get Brit to talk one way or another. It was the “another” that had her concerned. She’d already guessed exactly what it would take. He wanted to have sex with her. Trey wanted to have sex with her. Men like them would require her total submission, something she’d only done with one other man in her life.

“What’s his story?” She turned back to the cutting board, vowing to keep herself in line despite the desires both men were awakening inside her. She picked up the knife and moved on to chopping the green onions May had set out for her. “How did he and Trey come to live here?”

“That’s not my story to tell.” She bumped her shoulder lightly against Lena’s. “Use that question as an ice breaker to get them to talk. Trey’s got some emotions he needs to let out, too, you know? He’s not struggling as bad as Brit, but he could use a good pair of willing ears.”

“Yeah, I suspected that when we met at the diner yesterday morning.” Had it really only been yesterday morning since she’d met him? Of course, it had. She’d barely been on the ranch eight hours. It was surreal how she felt as if she’d known Trey and been here for so much longer than that.

“You brought clothes with you, right?”

Lena blinked at the change of subject. “I have a small bag in the trunk of my car. I figured I would head back to town once we clean up after dinner. I saw a small motel I fi—”

“You will do no such thing.”

Though May’s voice remained sweetly conversation, the firmness that outlined the words had Lena snapping her mouth shut.