AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Out the corner of my eye, I watched Roscoe cover his long, muscular legs with heavy canvas pants. It seemed a shame, covering up his perfect body. I’d quite liked seeing him naked. Shane, too. They were both impressive, powerful looking men and just looking at them sent fire to my core and made my senses come alive.
Seeing my struggles as my clothing became more and more entangled, my new husbands stepped forward to help me. In seconds they had the garment smoothed out and righted, both of them smiling with amusement. I felt my face flush with shame. They were laughing at me! At my ineptitude. Tears of embarrassment and fear sprang into my eyes. I couldn’t even dress myself! I couldn’t cook. I didn’t know the first thing about cleaning or keeping a home. I didn’t know how to do anything without servants. How on earth was I going to manage out here? What had I been thinking?
“Hey! What’s wrong? Why the tears?” Shane was clutching my shoulders, wiping my cheeks with his thumb. Already, I could tell their voices apart, and their touch.
“Don’t you see?” I asked him miserably. “All my life, we had household staff to help me with everything. I can’t even dress myself. You know I can’t cook. I don’t how to clean. I don’t know how to do anything that will be required of me out here. I don’t know any other life than Philadelphia society. I’m not good enough to be your wife. You need someone better.”
Both my husbands’ stood in front of me, looking at me sternly, an impenetrable wall of muscle. Although their features were so different, the expressions they wore were the same. Neither of them looked happy. What were they going to do? I knew they wouldn’t hurt me, but would they let me stay? Or would they put me on the next train back to Philadelphia?
“What do you think we want our wife to do?” Shane asked me.
I blinked. Was he daft? I looked at him, then at Roscoe, bewildered. Wasn’t it obvious what a wife did? They stood silently, waiting for me to answer.
“Well, wifely duties. Cook, clean and wash clothes, of course!”
Shane shook his head.
“Those were Coleton’s requirements,” Roscoe reminded me.
“You will do all of that, and more, in time. But that’s not important right now,” Shane said. “Most importantly we want someone willing to satisfy us sexually, and you can do that.”
“But I’m… I was,” I corrected myself hastily, “a virgin. I don’t know how to please men in that way.” I felt heat flood my face. A lady did not speak of such matters, did she? But my uncertainty was genuine. I’d never even lain with one man. How was I to satisfy two of them?
“Oh sweetheart,” Roscoe cooed. “You already did. Your willingness is all we need. We can teach you the rest.”
I looked down as shame washed over me. This wasn’t right, it wasn’t proper. I imagined the scandalized expressions on the faces of the other students at Lady Margaret’s School for Girls. The horror! And I giggled. I pressed my hand over my mouth to try to hide it but Shane pulled it away.
“Don’t hide yourself from us love,” he chided gently. “We want to see your laughter.”
“Don’t hide anything from us.” Roscoe’s voice was stern but when I looked up at him it was clear he wasn’t mad, just serious. “My parents lied, cheated and fought their entire marriage. I don’t want that. I want your complete honesty, always. Can you do that?” He reached out and touched my cheek and I nodded. “Good girl. I think I showed you this morning how important honesty is to me, yes?”
“Yes,” I breathed, remembering being upended over his dusty thighs, his heavy hand clapping down on my bottom while I cried tears of pain and embarrassment.
“And I want an obedient wife who doesn’t take any unnecessary risks with her safety,” Shane growled. “Two years ago I lost my fiancé, my Rose, in an accident when she was careless and didn’t listen.” His voice was soft again, and I could hear his pain when he spoke. Now the licking he’d given me when they first found me made sense. He’d said something at the time but I wasn’t really listening, then. I was too distraught. Too frightened. In shock. But even then, part of me had known that he was acting out of pain and fear and didn’t really want to hurt me. It was obvious he had loved Rose very much. One day, I wanted him to speak so lovingly about me.
“I can’t go through that again,” he said, shaking his head. “Not now that I’ve given my heart to you. I can’t lose you like that.”
He cupped my chin in his hand, tilted my face up to make me look at him. His dark eyes flashed. “I will spank you again if you are disobedient and reckless,” he told me. “If you endanger your life, I will spank you twice a day for a week if I have to, to make you listen. I will not have my wife endangering herself. Not for any reason.”
Sparks shot through my body at his words. They both thrilled and scared me at the same time. I had no doubt he would follow through, and it was a good feeling, knowing that he cared enough to do so. I resolved not to test him. I much preferred him to do other things to me with his skilled hands. I wanted him to make me squeal with pleasure, not in protest.
As we stood there, Shane still holding my chin, the words he’d said started to sink in. I’ve given my heart to you, echoed in my head. He had? Already? A slow smile crept across my face. “So you really do care about me then?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“You’re ours. Of course I do.” Shane squeezed my chin then let me go.
“So do I,” Roscoe’s deep voice rumbled from behind me.
“How did I get so lucky?”
I asked, not quite daring to believe that everything was working out so well. I was afraid that any minute I would wake up, realize this was all a dream, and Mr. Yates was still there, waiting for me.
“You’re maybe not as lucky as you think.” Roscoe’s voice broke into my thoughts. “You will have to work hard. There’s a lot of work to be done on our small ranch. I’ll teach you, but I’ll expect you to be working by my side.”
“And I’ll want your help down at the smithy sometimes too,” Shane added.
“I’m not afraid of hard work,” I declared. I didn’t think I was, anyway. But I didn’t know for sure. I’d never done any hard work in my life! The gentle way I’d been raised in Philadelphia hadn’t prepared me at all for a life in the wilds of the Montana Territory. “But you’ll have to teach me what to do.”
“We’ll teach you,” Shane confirmed.
