Page 28 of Wrangled Up (Menage a Trouble #2)

Dale dissolved into sniggers. Leon shook his head and the pair of them loped back around the barn to where their four-wheelers were obviously parked.

For a long moment, the air was fogged with tense silence. When the engines started and droned away up the ridge, Tucker’s shoulders slumped.

“Goddamn, I never should have left.” He spoke so quietly, and the words were edged with such pain, Claire’s heart pricked.

Christian turned to her. “Go into the house. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She swallowed hard. Things needed to be said between Tucker and Christian, and she wanted to be privy to it. But she also respected that they might hold back if she was present.

With a nod, she started to move toward the house. Christian caught her back, and Tucker wrapped his hand around her arm. They spun her into them, sheltering her, warming her.

Letting her know that despite the insanity of the past few minutes, their feelings hadn’t changed.

Tucker grazed her forehead with his lips. “You need us to go inside and take care of your daddy? ”

She shook her head. “Letty and I can handle him. Don’t worry about us.” She shot him a grin and a comical roll of her eyes. Tucker released her with a smile of his own. Christian gave her a parting smooch and sent her off toward the house with a pat on the bottom.

By the time she reached the kitchen, she was ready to take on her daddy as well as Tucker’s overbearing family. He’d come back to them, which counted for everything.

* * * * *

Tucker stared at the pink gems on Boomerang’s ankle cuffs.

His eyes blurred. Leaning against the fence until the wood cut into his forearms did nothing to wake him out of his strange dream.

A dream where his own relatives had completely turned against him, Claire’s father finally showed up after a year and butted into their business, and where alpacas were suddenly prima donna pets named Boom Boom .

Christian stood beside him, arms on the fence and head dipped in the same pose Tucker chose.

“What the fuck happened to my alpaca?” He scudded his gaze over the silly bow on its head and the way its body had been sheared into fluffy balls like a poodle. From the depths of the shed, he spied the glittering pink of a leash.

His lover gave a snort. Lover. How had it happened?

Easy—he’d set eyes on Christian and allowed his true feelings to emerge with no thought to the fog of pain Heather had left behind. In fact, at this minute, he felt more alive than he had since that fateful night of her accident.

“She’s somethin’,” Christian said.

Tucker shifted, bringing his hip flush against Christian’s simply to feel his heat. “That she is.”

“But you hurt her badly when you left, Langley.” Christian pivoted his head to eye him.

Tucker met his gaze then let it skitter away. He saw too much hurt in Christian’s eyes. Hurt he’d put there and deserved to see every day of his life, but dammit, didn’t they understand his reasons for running?

No, they didn’t. He hadn’t spoken to them in weeks or explained himself in any way.

When he didn’t reply, Christian plowed on.

“There were a lot of things we didn’t know how to do on the ranch, she and I.

But she’s tenacious. If she doesn’t know, she spends hours on the Internet looking it up.

Or asking people at the diner. And Letty is a valuable source of information.

” Christian swept a hand before him to indicate the land behind Boomerang’s pen.

“So we managed to keep this up. For you.”

Tucker ducked his head between his hunched shoulders. “It’s complicated.”

“Always is, man.”

How to tell him about Heather’s family kicking him out forever? Or that he’d had to run from the love he felt for Claire?

“Forward,” Christian said to Boomerang, and she strutted across the pen like a goddamn supermodel. If Tucker’s chest wasn’t so tight, he would have burst into hysterical laughter .

Christian turned to him. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Tucker cocked a brow. “I’d say you’ve been spending too much time with Letty. You’re talking like an old lady.”

The corner of Christian’s mouth quirked up. “That’s true. We’ve been living here like a cozy family. What do you have to say to that ?”

It hurts like hell that you were able to survive at all without me.

He couldn’t say it. Jealousy was a hot coal in his gut. “I’m thankful that you took care of things.”

“Things meaning Claire.”

“Yeah, and more. She sure deserves someone better than me.”

“Someone like me,” Christian said in a voice that said he really believed it. He met Tucker’s gaze head-on, the lights in his eyes as challenging as the headlights of a big rig barreling at him without brakes. “If you intend to hurt her again, I’m going to have to kick your ass, Langley.”

He nodded once, hard. Then probed Christian’s stare deeper. “And if I hurt you? ”

“You have. I think you know…my feelings for you. In case letting you take me in the ass wasn’t enough of an indication.”

A huff of laughter left Tucker, making room in his lungs to draw a breath big enough to make his ribs creak.

Working his new piercing between his teeth, he slung an arm around Christian’s shoulders and drew their foreheads together until they bumped.

The spicy scents of his lover infused him with fresh lust.

“We’re in a tangle, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah.” Christian’s breath washed across his face, smelling of mint. “We’d better go rescue Claire.”

“You sure you want me to come in there with you and do that?”

Christian glared at him. “You runnin’ again?”

He considered it for the first time. While away, he’d spent many long hours contemplating his life’s path. Heather was his entire existence, but she no longer could be. There were people in his life too important to let suffer because he couldn’t get his head together .

He squeezed Christian’s nape lightly. “Not runnin’. Well, I am, I guess. I’m running straight at you and Claire.”

Christian’s eyes flickered shut at his words. Before he could open them, Tucker leaned in and brushed his mouth over Christian’s. Lightly. Then getting a real taste of him, he went back for more.

A groan rumbled in Christian’s chest as they grappled with each other, mouths hot and open, tongues liquid mercury. Slipping, demanding, plunging deep. The Wyoming wind that seemed to be ever-present plucked at their clothes, as if asking for consent to strip them.

Tucker kneaded Christian’s spine, skimming the hard planes of muscle he’d watched straining while he fisted his cock. Before he could think twice about what he was doing, he tightened his hold on Christian and dragged him toward the barn.

Christian followed without resistance, plucking at Tucker’s shirt buttons as they hit the pool of dark shadows inside. Hay and clean stalls greeted Tucker’s nostrils, and he took a second to appreciate all that this man had done for him .

For them.

He shoved Christian against the wall and slanted his mouth hungrily over his. Lust sparked between them, primal and greedy. They tore at each other’s waistbands, searching until they found their prizes.

He groaned as Christian wrapped his thick fingers around his cock. Tucker reached deep into Christian’s boxers, gliding his fingers up from the base of his cock to the velvety head.

A bead of pre-come welled on the tip, which he flicked with his thumb. Christian growled into Tucker’s mouth. Tucker bit his lover’s lip savagely as he began to pump his shaft.

Christian worked over his cock with nimble fingers, applying the perfect pressure, tugging his length and knowing all of Tucker’s sweet spots. Tucker hooked his pinky around Christian’s and they stroked each other in wild abandon.

Curls of heat rose through Tucker’s body and stole his mind. He shoved his lover harder against the wall. He angled Christian’s cock so it rubbed sensuously against his own.

Their breath rasped louder .

“Hell,” Christian groaned.

“Spill on me. Let me feel your come on my dick.”

Christian stiffened and pumped Tucker’s shaft faster. Squeezing, releasing. Tucker’s balls drew up tight to his body. Fuck, he was going to explode first, and he didn’t want that.

“Not yet. Together,” Christian grated out.

Tucker ran his tongue around Christian’s mouth. Christian chased his right back. Passion elevated to a level so high, his head was fogged with cloud cover. He could no longer see, only feel.

Rough hands, scrape of beard, velvet tongue. Come .

Christian erupted. He shook as each pump of cream shot from his body. The heated drops struck Tucker’s shaft and he lost it.

He tore his mouth away from Christian’s and roared his release. Their spurts mingled. “Shit, shit, shit,” he growled. The idea of their juices mixing made him empty completely.

At that instant, a snippet of a song floated through his head—a line from the chorus of a song he associated with Heather. A song slated to play at their wedding reception .

He jerked back. Gave Christian’s cock one last slow pump then released it as pain froze his heart. Did he really have any business giving himself to Christian and Claire if he couldn’t even fucking orgasm without thinking of Heather?

In a blinding second, the pendulum of his decision to stay swung sharply to the other side. He could leave his lovers to each other—watch their love build until their initials were emblazoned in gold on a linen invitation. C and C.

There could never be C, C and T.

Afraid to hurt Christian further, he gave him one last brush of his lips. Then still breathing heavily, he tried for a smile. “I’ve got horses to tend.”

He zipped up, mess and all, and headed out to his truck. Deep down, he knew he was being a coward for leaving Claire to deal with her father alone. But Letty was there and could obviously handle the big truck driver.

And Christian would probably walk into the kitchen and charm Jake Mickelson with his solid, down-to-earth personality. By the time Jake walked out, he’d be ready to write a check for a big wedding .

Tucker revved his engine and headed down the drive toward town, away from too many emotions.

He needed a beer.