Sexual Healing for Three (33 page)

“Bite your tongue.”

“What? I think men who can cook are sexy, not to mention very masculine.”

“Nice try, but don’t get too used to me making you breakfast all the time. You’re a guest, and this is a special occasion.”

Donna arched a brow and looked from Russ to Chance, sitting beside him, and back again. “Okay, you got me. What’s the occasion?”

“We’re celebrating you being on the road to independence.”

Now she frowned. Road to independence? Independence from what? “I thought I was pretty independent before you came along.”

“It was a false sense of independence. What we experienced last night, that was real. Don’t make the mistake of thinking because
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you’re submissive and I call you “slave” that you aren’t independent.

You have more power than you know—over me and Chance.”

“Kind of like handing me a loaded gun, saying something like that, don’t you think?”

Russ shook his head and reached across the table to take her hand in his. “I trust you.”

She just looked at him, stunned, trying not to gawk. After a long moment, she blinked and brought her glass of OJ to her mouth to take a swallow, washing down a bite of syrup-covered pancake and scrambled eggs.

Russ didn’t take his eyes off of her as he raised his own glass of OJ to his mouth. After taking a big gulp, he put his glass back on the island top and grinned at her.

What was she supposed to say? Was he waiting for her to say she trusted him too? He was going to be sorely disappointed then.

Donna glanced at Chance. “How do you feel about what Russ said?” she asked, though she thought she already knew what his answer would be, especially when Chance fixed her with his tender brandy gaze and shrugged as if the conversation didn’t mean anything to him.

Someone rang the front doorbell, and Russ got up to answer it with a “Be right back” flung over his shoulder.

Donna was not ready to let Chance off the hook and peered at him as he too washed down a mouthful of pancake with his OJ. “Chance?”

He paused to wipe his mouth with a napkin. “You know how I feel about you.”

“Unlike you, I’m not a mind reader.”

“You’re more gifted than you think.”

She didn’t even want to think about their experience in the hospital, when she had realized how gifted she was. She already felt like someone who’d been exposed to the euphoric effects of heroin.

Now she looked for that thrill of feeling Chance’s feelings every time 262

Gracie C. McKeever

they were together. That wasn’t good. She didn’t want to get used to having him around. She didn’t want to get used to
needing
him.

“Too late,” he murmured.

“Tell me how you feel about me.”

He fixed her with a searing look that just about had her melting into a puddle on the floor. “I love you, Donna. I’ve loved you from the first moment I met you, and the feelings have only gotten stronger this last month being with you and Russ. I love you, and nothing we’ve all done these last two days together has changed that.”

Someone cleared her throat from the threshold, and Donna realized they had an audience.

She and Chance both jerked their heads toward the doorway where an impassive Russ and gawking Suzie now stood.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Donna leapt to her feet to go to Suzie, but the other woman backed up, an expression of utter bewilderment and disappointment clearly written across her face, before she turned on Russ with a glare.

“So this is why we had to get a divorce? So you could be
you
?”

She pointed her finger to encompass Chance and Donna. “
This
is you? Keeping house with a woman and
sharing
her with your brother? My God, Russ.”

“It’s not what you think,” Donna croaked.

“It’s exactly what I think!”

Duly chastised, Donna snapped her mouth shut and let her arms fall back to her sides, saw the woman’s tears, and recognized that she was hurt more than angry, but that there was nothing she or Russ or Chance could do to comfort her, not now anyway.

“So all that BDSM stuff wasn’t enough for you? You had to go out and start some kind of kinky commune?”

“Suzie, you need to calm down and think about what you’re saying,” Russ said, so calmly Donna stared at him in awe.

She wished she could be so calm when things were coming apart at the seams around her. But despite some of her coworkers and
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clients believing she had nerves of steel and considering her their personal hero, she knew the truth. She was nowhere near as fearless as Russ and Chance, nowhere near ready to open herself up and trust someone as Russ had done earlier, nor brave enough to declare her love as had Chance.

“I don’t need to calm down. What I need to do is get away from you.” Suzie turned on her heels and marched through the living room toward the front door.

Russ followed, and Donna followed Russ, couldn’t help herself.

Suzie froze before the door and suddenly pivoted to glare at Russ again. “And to think I wanted to come over to wish you well and congratulate you, in person, on your new relationship. I was so happy for you.”

“What’s changed? Why can’t you still be happy for me?”

Her eyes went saucer-wide, and she moved her lips several times before anything came out. “How dare you ask me that!”

“Why? Is it that hard a question to answer?” Russ asked, clearly working up a head of his own steam, but still in control. “So what we’re doing isn’t the
norm
, isn’t
conventional
. It doesn’t make our relationship wrong or any less respectable than your marriage to Harold.”

“How can you stand there and flaunt your indiscretion and irresponsibility in my face? And how can you compare this…this
orgy
with my marriage to Harold.”

“This isn’t an orgy. It’s just three people who care about each other. That’s all.”

Suzie shook her head, the tears finally falling. “I cared about you once too, Russ.”

She was speaking in the past tense. That wasn’t good for Russ, not at all.

“Suzie…” He stepped to her, and she let him put his arms around her.

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Gracie C. McKeever

For a moment, Donna thought everything would be all right, that Suzie was willing to listen, forgive and forget. But she suddenly pulled away from Russ, pounding him in the chest with her fists, much as Donna had at the barbecue.

And like Russ had done with Donna, he let Suzie get out her frustrations on him for several moments before he finally caught her wrists to restrain her.

“Let go of me.”

“Not until you calm down.”

Suzie gritted her teeth. “I’m as calm as I’m going to get. Let me go.”

Russ released her as she jerked away to open the door.

She stepped outside before she turned back to give Russ one more glare. “You can forget about seeing the kids anytime soon.”

“Suzie, don’t make any rash deci—”

“Don’t touch me.” She held up a hand to stop Russ’s forward motion, and he stopped in his tracks. “I have some things to think about, and so do you. Don’t call me, and don’t come by. I’ll call you.”

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He watched the pretty blonde leave Russ’s house in a huff and almost cheered.

He considered catching up with her to confirm why she was so upset, to commiserate, but thought better of it.

She was just as much a nemesis to him as the heifer and pretty-boy brother were. She couldn’t
really
understand how he felt. No one could, except Russ.

But getting close to her could prove useful. He just had to figure out how. Or maybe it would prove more troublesome than throwing the rock through the heifer’s window had been.

He was still stinging over that little setback, could see now how the act had done the exact opposite of what he had planned.

There had to be a way to alienate Russ from the heifer, and maybe the brother too. He had to do
something
before it was too late and Russ was irrevocably bound to her and committed to this ménage.

He’d come too far to lose Russ now.

* * * *

Love and trust were the cornerstones of any successful relationship.

Chance felt them for Donna. And even though Russ hadn’t
said
he loved her, only that he trusted her, Chance knew better, knew that his brother loved Donna as much as he did.

The question was, did Donna love them?

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Gracie C. McKeever

He knew she enjoyed their company, liked the sex, even cared about them to a certain degree. But she hadn’t said she loved them.

Chance could have read her, had thought about doing it several times in the last couple of days, but refused to violate her that way. It was enough that he knew half of the things he knew already without her permission.

Like Russ had said about her trusting them, she had to come to the realization herself, admit, of her own volition, that she loved them, and no amount of scenes, discipline, or spankings were going to get
that
out of her.

Chance knew this like he knew no amount of empathy or telepathy was going to help Russ in his situation with Suzie.

He watched his brother and Donna now as they made it back to the kitchen, didn’t have to read them to know how disastrous things had turned out with Russ’s ex-wife.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said all that.”

“It’s not you’re fault. You were only saying how you feel,” Russ said and retook his seat.

Donna sat across from them as before, looking from one to the other.

Chance felt her gaze fasten on him and tried his best not to fidget beneath her scrutiny.

He couldn’t blame her for looking at him like he had lost his mind. He certainly felt like he had, hadn’t been right in the head since he met her. It was through no fault of hers. It was all him, chasing after someone who was so emotionally unavailable, more so than he had ever been.

After a long moment, he raised his gaze to meet hers and froze with his heart in his throat at her confused, incredulous look.

Was what he said so unbelievable to her? Didn’t she believe him, or did she think she wasn’t worthy of his, or anyone else’s, love?

Chance lifted his eyebrows in question. “What is it?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I just…”

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“You just?”

“Maybe I should go.” She looked to Russ, as if she wanted him to disagree, but he didn’t say anything, which told Chance just how out of it his brother was.

“No,
I
should go. I’m the one who caused this me—”

A piercing whistle split the air, and Chance and Donna both looked to Russ, who was now standing and had his index finger and thumb in his mouth. He whistled again as if to make sure he had their undivided attention.

“This is no one’s fault. You can’t take the blame for Suzie’s intolerance.”

“I don’t know how tolerant
I
would be in her place,” Donna said.

“How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true.”

“I’m not going to let you use this situation to push us away.”

Chance didn’t think she needed much to justify pushing them away. She hadn’t committed herself to this like they had. Her heart wasn’t in it. And that thought just made
his
heart ache—for all of them.

“Russ, you can’t force her to feel something she doesn’t.”

“This isn’t about forcing anyone to do anything except face the truth.”

“
Your
truth?” Donna asked.

“Truth is truth.
You’re
just in denial.”

“Okay, that’s it.” Donna threw down her napkin. “I don’t need to sit here and listen to you criticize me for my
failings.
”

Chance caught her arm to stop her as she leapt from her stool and tried to leave the kitchen. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You don’t have to defend me, Chance. I know exactly what I meant, and I said it. She’s running scared, and she knows it.”

“Fuck you,” Donna said.

“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?”

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“No wonder Suzie left you. You’re a bossy, insensitive brute. You don’t deserve her, or me, for that matter.”

“If that’s what lets you sleep soundly at night, believe that if you want.”

Her hand whipped out so fast neither Russ nor Chance could stop her. The resultant crack of Donna’s palm connecting with Russ’s cheek was deafening.

Chance gawked, watching his brother’s face redden with the mark of Donna’s handprint.

“You feel better now?”

“I think I could get used to that, yeah, and I so see what
you
get out of it now.” Donna jerked her arm out of Chance’s grasp, turned on her heel, and stalked out of the kitchen.

Damn, two women storming off within a matter of minutes. The morning that had started out so promisingly had really gone to shit.

“Aren’t you going to stop her?” Chance asked.

“Do you think she’d really listen to me in the mood she’s in?”

“Maybe if you took your head out of your ass to understand how she’s feeling.”

“How
she’s
feeling? I laid my heart out on a silver platter for her, and she calls me an insensitive brute.”

“Don’t forget bossy.”

Russ grinned, but his humor was short-lived as he raked a hand through his hair and released a tired sigh. “You want to know what’s so messed up about this whole situation?”

“What?”

“Suzie’s reaction. I just don’t understand it. She’s never been the type of person to jump to conclusions, never been judgmental.”

“You have to admit it’s a lot for the average person to take in.

You can’t just expect her to be all hunky-dory with this. She’s a mother raising two kids.” Not to mention the fact that she was probably still more than a little bit in love with Russ.

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“And you think I would do
anything
to jeopardize Suzie’s and my kids’ well-being?”