Poppy's Passions Read online

  She trembled and ached with unsatisfied desire. Her tortured body was screaming at her mind to hurry the hell up and make a decision. Standing in the doorway, their chests bared, but jeans firmly in place, it was impossible for her not to want Michael and Trevor. Cody was beside her, keeping her on edge and doing something incredibly erotic to the crook of her elbow with his tongue.

  “Did you plan this?” she croaked, helplessly arching into Cody but he wouldn’t finish.

  “Maybe a little,” he admitted. “It’s still up to you though, darlin’. I meant what I said earlier. You decide what you want. Trevor can be in you in about four seconds, and Michael’s wanted to get his mouth on your pretty breasts since the first night he saw you.”

  She moaned in answer and fell back onto her shoulder blades, her resistance gone at the sweetly erotic words. “Yes, both of you, hurry.” She grabbed Cody’s hand when he tried to back off again. “You. Quit teasing.”

  The sound of masculine chuckles didn’t bring her out of her near thrall and when Cody’s promised four seconds were up, Trevor was between her legs. He wasted no more time before impaling her soaking vagina, picking up where the bigger, blunter Cody left off.

  The differences in Trevor’s longer, slimmer cock changed the sensations enough to delay her orgasm while her body grew accustomed to the new angle and depth. Impossibly, the change compounded the pleasure Poppy thought couldn’t get more explosive.

  With Michael’s mouth on one breast and Cody’s on the other she was losing what little was left of her mind but that, she knew, was their intent. She wanted their kisses and was a little shocked when she realized any of their kisses would satisfy. There wasn’t a clear preference to who she desired. It answered one of the many questions she’d pondered while repeatedly telling herself she didn’t want any of them. She was so glad she’d let them prove her wrong.

  Michael kissed up from her oversensitive breast, to her neck and chin to cover her mouth with his. His lips devoured hers as Trevor continued to pillage her aching vagina with his own long, deep strokes until he was swearing and pounding so fast and furiously it snatched her breath away.

  Without breaking the kiss, Michael took Trevor’s place as he swore and moved slowly away. Before she could catch her breath from the peak Trevor drove her to, Michael settled between her thighs and rolled to his back, taking her to sitting astride his very willing and ready cock.

  She’d only ridden once before, and her partner hadn’t enjoyed it. Tension seeped into her body as nerves and uncertainty filled her at the position change, but Michael wouldn’t have it. He helped her position her feet beside his hips into a squat, and she felt a whole new sensation come over her. With his help, she found a rhythm. When she lost her balance he helped her find it again, giving her all the time in the world to explore the new sensations.

  Lost in herself and lost on Michael’s cock, she felt herself go over again. With every motion she stayed in the incredible moment of climax. Such hang time was not in the realm of her experience. Her own manipulated orgasms were small, but they took the edge off. The ones her men were demanding redefined “edge.”

  The fingers on her ankles began to dig in harshly, and she opened her eyes to find Michael’s face a contortion of pain and pleasure. Groans coming in surround sound filled the room. Trevor and Cody were watching, their eyes wide, each with a fist on their own hardened cocks.

  She’d never been surrounded by so much sexual power. Three gorgeous men looked at her like she was the only woman alive. The smile curling her lips felt nearly predatory in the amount of satisfaction it held. In her moment of distraction Michael reached up and pinched her nipple, hard. It sent her from enjoying the aftershocks of an orgasm into a new one.

  The men took turns bringing her to climax over and over, using their mouths when she regrettably grew too sore for their wonderful cocks. They switched to her mouth too, where she all too happily learned what they liked under their friendly, carnal instruction.

  It was a “bar hookup in a hotel,” she admitted to herself in one of the infrequent lulls, but she didn’t feel cheap or used. Letting the friendship and affection grow had been the right decision, she knew because as they lay together and played, the ease between them continued to grow.

  They laughed when she had time to catch her breath, adding all sorts of things to her bedroom playbook. Nothing had ever inspired her to laugh in bed with her former fiancé. Nothing. Laughter and smiles were aphrodisiacs with the Patriches. If she was smiling or screaming her pleasure, they looked happy.

  It was long after the sun rose on the San Antonio skyline that she cuddled down between Michael and Cody in Michael’s clean bed. Exhausted and unresponsive, Trevor crashed on the floor and she let him after the others assured her it was what he did.

  The phone rang hours later, and Poppy reluctantly let go of her dreamless sleep. She pushed herself to her elbows when Cody swore.

  “Fuck. Okay, we’re on our way.”

  “Who?” Trevor muttered from his place on the floor.

  “Mom. Dad had a heart attack,” he answered, jumping out of bed. Poppy winced when he kicked Trevor as he passed. “Move your ass, it’s Paul.”

  “Dad?” Trevor said, instantly awake and off the floor like he hadn’t been nearly catatonic hours before. “Can we get a flight?”

  “Yeah, Mom already booked it. We’ve got an hour and a half before it leaves.” She watched as Cody quickly dressed and began throwing Michael’s things in a suitcase. “Poppy, I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t worry about me.” She moved from her warm spot and found her pants half under Michael. Tugging them, she realized he slept like the dead. Apparently Trevor wasn’t the only one with sleep quirks. “I hope your dad’s okay.”

  “Thanks. I wish we had more time,” Cody said. He absently handed her the bra he’d stripped off her the night before. “Fuck”

  She looked up to see Cody holding his fists to his eyebrows, the tension in his body a familiar stance after medical emergencies. There was nothing he could do. Being a strong man made admitting that incredibly frustrating.

  “Take a deep breath.” She went without her bra and threw on her top instead. After pulling on her pants, she closed the distance between them and pressed a calming hand to his chest. So often tragedy stole a person’s breath. It was hard to do the most basic tasks, let alone think clearly without fresh air. “Now think. What can I do to help? Do you need a ride?”

  “No, we’ve got a rental,” Trevor answered when Cody only covered her hand with his. Despite the situation, the middle brother looked impossibly handsome in a wrinkled t-shirt and jeans, his curly black hair disheveled, old sneakers untied. “Settle the fuck down, Baby Boy. Dad’ll be fine until we get there.”

  Cody nodded and patted her hand again. “Can you try to wake Mike while I check out?”

  “Sure.”

  Since there wasn’t time for a shower she reluctantly accepted their offer for a ride. They would have insisted anyway and she didn’t want to add to their frustration, so she climbed into the backseat of their rented SUV. Michael was the least shaken at the news it seemed, but she figured he handled stress better, so he drove. She realized how close Cody must be to his father when he stayed pensive and held her tight on his lap during the ride to her apartment.

  She hugged him the whole way and gave the limited reassurances she could. Heart attacks were scary things and she hoped, no matter what the future held, they would get home in time for their father. Before he let her off his lap, Cody promised what they’d started wasn’t over. Michael and Trevor added their instant agreement. They packed an hour of big city safety tips between hugs and kisses in the four minutes before they had to go or miss their flight.

  Back at her apartment, and fresh from a shower, Poppy wondered if she’d dreamed the episode. During her failed, brief pregnancy her dreams had been crazy, vivid, and though she’d never had one starring three brothers spending a night worshiping her
, the question still edged into her mind. Had she dreamt them?

  She wandered through her apartment, checking her empty answering machine. Her sex ached like hell with each step and her nipples rubbed uncomfortably against her t-shirt. The friction the night of sexual excess had caused wasn’t pleasant, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

  There would be no pretending it was a dream. Reality was better. Poppy Maguire had an incredible night with three delicious brothers, individually and all at once. Menage, not trois, but while her French was non-existent the Spanish was quatro, maybe a quartet.

  The thought made her laugh, surprising because she never thought she was the kind of girl who could do something sexually daring. It went to show how hungry she’d been for contact and emotion, even if it was only one night. She wanted more, she couldn’t lie to herself. She’d been prepared to feel the recriminations of reality settling in, yet she felt fine, like it was perfectly normal to spend the night being loved by three men.

  They weren’t going home to the best circumstances and she worried. She wished she’d gotten a phone number to check in on them, or even given hers. She had their hotel’s number but it didn’t do any good with them on their way home. The Patriches hadn’t lied to her yet, and when they promised to be back, she wanted to believe them. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t end up disappointed, but for the first time in months she had a little faith in someone, even if it wasn’t herself.

  Chapter 2

  Four Months Later

  Cody stared at the checkbook. Dinner was over and he had to get payroll done before he could read the book Paul had left on his desk. They were considering adding a few Irish shorthorns to the cattle bloodline, but he was still researching options.

  The book lay next to the stack of medical journals he’d been reading, reminding him of Paul’s heart attack. Thankfully it was only a minor attack, but it had been enough to scare them all.

  Duane was a hell of a doctor and had done CPR the whole way to town, keeping Paul alive. Cody couldn’t imagine life without any one of his parents, but during the flight he’d thought about the possibilities.

  Paul, Duane, and Thomas loved his mother, and one was his father, though all three claimed the right. The arrangement made the family tighter than most. To lose one would have left a hole he couldn’t fathom repairing. The closeness extended to him and his brothers. When they grew up they left the ranch, but Cody had always known they would all return one day.

  Living alone held little appeal for him. It was one thing to be out in the pasture surrounded by nature’s quiet, another to go home to an empty house. He’d done his two years of college but staying in the city never crossed his mind.

  Michael and Trevor made friends easily, but Cody knew they preferred life on the ranch. It was the leaning toward family that made the three of them sit down one night and really talk for the first time in their lives.

  Over a case of beer, they’d hammered out the details of the sort of relationship they needed. They could do more, protect, and care better for one woman they all loved, rather than three they loved individually.

  It wasn’t easy to sacrifice exclusive sexuality and love. The fact they would share one woman in bed and wait their turn when they wanted alone time was a hard thing to accept, but they were willing to compromise and make sacrifices for the woman who deserved the best they could give her.

  Their fathers’ relationship was a great ball of sacrifice stemming from their childhoods. Thomas and Paul’s father died young, leaving their mother with nothing but twin sons to raise alone. She’d struggled because there was no one to help after Simon Paraby’s death. His dads and brothers talked about her often. She’d been a spitfire, able to take care of herself even during the hardest times.

  Simon’s brother Sam had been around when their grandma struggled, but Cody heard from his own mother why Grandma Paraby had never gone to him for help. Unlike Simon, Sam Paraby was a real bastard.

  Duane was his son. He’d been a dirty, bruised boy. Because they shared a name, Thomas and Paul shared their food and toys when Duane’s lunch bag was empty and he played alone at recess. Sam was an abusive drunk who killed his wife, leaving Duane alone in the world. The situation left Duane with mixed feelings, ones of regret for not being able to help his mother, but also of disgust for the one he’d been sired from.

  Before he left for the army, Duane and the twins discussed what an ideal relationship should be. They knew they were predisposed to screw up. Duane was terrified of becoming a drunk, Thomas and Paul feared dying young and leaving a woman alone. They decided if they had a chance, it would be best if they worked together.

  Thomas became a lawyer while Duane nursed on the battlefields in Vietnam. Paul turned what had been a floundering farm into a paying ranch. When Duane returned, he finished school and became a doctor. The relationship with Mary hadn’t been an overnight event, and they had struggled because they all had dominant personalities. Thirty-seven years later they still worked together and put aside their full desires to see to the happiness, welfare, and pleasure of one very special woman.

  Cody couldn’t ask for better parents. When he and his brothers had been young, they’d heard arguments like all kids, but unlike their peers they’d also seen the content, happy look on all of their parents’ faces, especially their mother. Cody wasn’t a genius but despite his humble brain, he was able to see he and his brothers would have been settling if they’d done anything but find the same arrangement.

  It wasn’t an easy prospect. Most women who’d been raised with the qualities they needed—honesty, loyalty, humor, and compassion—were one-man sort of women. In college, women his own age hadn’t interested him. Even when he found one who was mature and intelligent, there was always something he couldn’t get past. Michael had been serious enough about a woman to become engaged but it hadn’t worked out. When he canceled the engagement the only explanation he gave the family was “she wasn’t the one.” And Trevor, Cody knew, never focused enough to be in love.

  They’d been patient until Michael’s thirty-fourth birthday when they’d buckled down and began the search for the right woman. They’d started going out together, but always found themselves culled apart by women looking for a single man for a singular good time.

  When it was just sex they were perfectly capable of making their own good time, but the desire for more kept them focused on finding the woman for all of them.

  Michael was getting older and wanted a wife and family, so he’d taken the first turn looking for a woman. He’d tried, but he attracted timid, nervous women who didn’t suit what they had in mind.

  Second oldest, Trevor tried next. He was charismatic, and Cody envied his ability to turn acquaintances into friends in minutes. So he’d had good luck meeting women. The problem was, he would take anything blonde, busty, and wearing a skirt back to their hotel. They found women who enjoyed being with all three of them, but they hadn’t been looking for permanency. To be fair, there hadn’t been a single one they’d wanted to take home to their mother, but it gave them hope and practice.

  That ended when the last one was more equipped under “her” skirt than any of the brothers, so the job of scouting possible mates fell to Cody.

  Again, they’d been patient. The local women weren’t interested, so he headed to Billings and Missoula. All the beautiful women he’d seen, all the interesting women he’d spoken with hadn’t raised more than casual interest on his part.

  Then he’d seen her across a tiny San Antonio bar. Still in her work scrubs with her fuzzy hair in a ponytail, his eyes locked on her and wouldn’t move away. The woman for them was Poppy Maguire, and she was seven hundred miles south.

  If not for Paul’s heart, they’d have already been back.

  “I know that look,” Trevor announced, striding into the office with Michael on his heels. “Someone is thinking of chicks.”

  “Of one chick,” Michael corrected. “That’s the kind of
look only Poppy Maguire can bring on. Have you heard from her?”

  “No,” Cody answered, accepting the beer Michael offered. “I called the bar we hung out in, and Nick said he hadn’t seen her in weeks. The only thing I can think of is to go back down there ourselves and find her.”

  Trevor flopped on the sofa, propping his bare feet on the arm. “Bartender, good thinking. I couldn’t find anything either. Her dad’s a dick, by the way, hung up on me twice. There’s a race on Thursday in San Antonio. I’m thinking that might be karma telling us to get our asses down there.”

  “This Thursday?” Cody pushed away from his desk and checked his wall calendar.

  Trevor flicked on the gaming system he kept in every office and looked Cody’s way while it booted. “Yep, this Thursday. Can you handle three more days, Baby Boy?”

  “Can you, Middle Man?” he shot back.

  Trevor sighed, he was the smartass of the group, probably of any group, but Cody knew he was also the most sensitive of them. “I don’t know. It was one week and one night, not even the whole night, and I miss her all the fucking time. How did she get under my skin that fast?”

  “I miss her smile and the way she smells. How did she always smell good after working all day at a hospital?” Michael commiserated. Usually he was more introverted in his thoughts but Poppy changed them in little ways. For Michael, spending time with her had opened him up some. “I can go Wednesday.”

  “I’ll have to let Dad know I’m going, but Wednesday should work for me,” Cody agreed, excitement bubbling in his chest.

  “Damn, she’s got us whipped already. We are so screwed.” A prediction they all hoped would become fact as Trevor blew up a virtual prison. “Wednesday it is.”

  Chapter 3