countertops.
“Damn it, Kane!” Braden slapped the wall beside of him. “Evan, get him away from her and get her in bed. If either one of you lay a hand on her, so help me God, I’m gonna kill ya. I’m gonna run over and see our neighborhood doctor real quick. Maybe he can rush over here. Don’t touch her. She’s obviously not in her right mind.”
Right mind? Hell, who said she had a mind at all right now? Kane’s fingers were the only sanity she needed. She closed her eyes tighter.
“Get your fingers out of her.”
“Move them and I swear it, you lose them,” she warned.
“In case you haven’t noticed, he already has.” Braden’s inability to understand didn’t matter. He still watched and that counted for something.
Kane reluctantly withdrew his fingers, and she cried out before she ordered them out. “Damn it! Now, you leave me no other option.” She played with her clit, tears poured down her face. “Okay, go get the doc. Something is wrong here. I think I’m going to explode.”
“You mean cum?” Evan asked.
“You’re not funny, Evan.” Although, he hit the nail on the head.
“Don’t you dare tell him I’m sitting here with my couchie in a tub of water!” she shouted at Braden as they started out of the bathroom.
As if they’d practiced it for years all three men stared back at her and asked in unison. “Your what?”
Peyton was irritated now. Maybe it was the medication. “Don’t play dumb with me. You call it a pussy, and I call it various things. I should call it ‘hot momma’ about right now! This is sad. I need help and all any of you can do is stare at my dick trapper!”
“Lord help us, I’ll be right back.” Braden disappeared. Evan and Kane didn’t move. Now, the heat poured off their foreheads with one bead falling right after the next.
“Both of you quit staring and get out of here. Braden will take care of it when he gets back.”
“The hell he will,” Kane growled and yanked her from the sink.
Evan grabbed a towel from the rack behind them and covered her about as quickly as Kane pulled her against his chest.
By the time Kane dried her off, her body was flushed and her eyelids heavy. She mumbled something against his skin while he patted down her thighs. She moaned out in a heavenly whimper when he’d gently swiped at her center.
“Kane?” she whispered into his shirt as she fell back asleep and Evan was envious. He hated the feeling he had when he saw the two of them together. Sometimes, it bordered with an intimacy he feared he’d never have with anyone at all. Worse still, he often feared he soon would have the same sort of bond with Peyton. The abnormality of it drove him to the brink of lechery.
Evan sat in the far corner watching them. Observing how kind Kane was to Peyton led him to all sorts of assumptions. After he tucked her back in bed, Evan motioned for Kane to follow him, and the two went downstairs to the kitchen.
“How’s Peyton now?” Braden met them in the foyer and instead of going to her, he followed them.
“She’s asleep.”
“Doc said this kind of reaction is rare but seldom lasts very long. I told him she was out of her head anyway. He thinks she doubled up on those pain pills, and since she’d had all that morphine, she had a reaction.”
Evan looked out the window, not paying a bit of attention to Braden. “Damn if that wasn’t the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Yeah, one of them anyway,” Kane remarked.
“I guess you’ve had a few of ‘em since you’ve had her in a way we can only dare imagine.”
Braden grabbed a beer, popped the lid and studied his brothers. “We gotta do something about her, and damn it if you didn’t make it tough, Kane.”
“What the hell do you want me to say? Want me to say I’m sorry? I’m not.”
“I didn’t think so,” Braden said.
“Well, you two heard Peyton. She had the best solution, I think.” Evan’s hand rested at his belt buckle. “Good hell, I’m hard just thinking about it.”
“I don’t care about your cock problems,” Kane sneered.
“Who said it presented a problem?” Evan laughed. “I gotta feeling there’s a pretty little solution waiting on me upstairs.”
“Damn it, Evan,” Braden muttered, took another gulp of beer and slammed the can against the counter. “Would it be too much to ask of you to stay the hell out of her bed?”
“Yeah, it would,” he said before he pointed at Kane. “He’s not going to stay out of it. Why should we?”
“Yeah, Braden.” Peyton tripped into the kitchen in her delusional state. “Why should you boys let Kane have all the fun?” She fell straight into his lap head-first.
Chapter 17
Six Weeks Later
Graduation loomed, and Kane was more excited than Peyton. After her accident, the Cartwells reached a decision. It wasn’t an easy one for them, but they all agreed somehow.
Peyton needed to finish high school as a teenager without baggage. Since he came with a lot of it, he had to stand back and keep things platonic between them. She didn’t make it easy.
“Kane, have you seen Braden?” Peyton rushed into the kitchen in her T-shirt and thong. He didn’t look up. To glance away from the Daily News meant to give in to guilty pleasures. The closer Peyton moved toward graduation, the more he ached to touch her, just to remind her of the pleasure they’d once shared.
“Don’t know if he’s up yet.” Kane ducked his head and stared harder at the words in front of him.
Evan walked in and swatted her on the ass with the newspaper. “Where were you last-” He stopped suddenly. “What the fuck is that?”
Kane’s entire body jerked to attention, realizing the alarm in Evan’s voice sounded out with far too much warning. Immediately, he glared at the adornment around Peyton’s neck.
She ran a lone finger over her throat. “Oh, you mean this?”
Evan’s gaze stayed at her neck. “That’s it.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kane shoved his chair back, made a sudden leap for her and Evan immediately threw back his arm to keep Kane from getting his hands on her. No doubt, a few seconds slower and Kane might have wrapped his hands around her neck and yanked the collar right off of her. Right after he choked her for wearing it with far too much pride in the first place.
“Down, cowboy, you know what I’m doing if I have this around my neck,” she purred, slowly running her finger back and forth over the leather choker.
“He’s gonna kill ya,” Evan began with the warning, the one signifier to let Peyton know he volunteered for the job of tattling to big brother.
He’d have to stand in line because this went way too far.
Every nerve ending in Kane’s body pulsed with anger and with lust. It was a dangerous mix. “Peyton, go to your room right now and get that damn thing off your neck.”
“Sorry, Kane, I can’t do it.” She popped a hip and smiled seductively. “I’m afraid my Master may punish me.”
“Your what?” Evan’s skin didn’t turn red, it flamed violet. Oh hell, violence loomed everywhere.
“The hell you can’t.” Kane stayed focused. “Just run on along and take it off. Now.”
“Braden!” Evan started his immature rant for big brother. “Braden! Hurry, get down here!” He walked out of the kitchen and stood at the steps long enough to scream. “All hell’s loose and there’s an outbreak!”
