Shared By the Cowboys by Cassie Cole

31

Cody

“So what do you think?” Mason asked me.

We were sitting around the campfire, heating chili in a small pot. After a day spent riding through the mountains, it felt good to rest our bones in front of the fire.

“What do I think about what?” I asked.

Mason’s eyes flickered on the other side of the fire. “You think she’ll stay?”

It was the question that had been on my mind for the past few weeks, since we brokered the subject to Becca. Things had been going well. Once Blake caved, he dove into her like she had always been his, rather than a new relationship. For Becca’s part, she seemed to have been loving our arrangement on the ranch.

Yet we hadn’t received an answer from her yet.

“Why wouldn’t she stay?” I said casually.

Mason shook the pot of chili, checked on it, then stuck it back into the fire. “I don’t know. She seems resistant. Like she wants to say yes, but something’s holding her back.”

“Maybe,” I said. Even though it had been on my mind, I didn’t want to think about it too hard. I didn’t want to lose sight of all the fun we were having now by worrying about the future. Things would sort themselves out, one way or another. They usually did.

But deep down, I knew I was falling for this girl. And I was willing to bet both Mason and Blake were too. She wasn’t just a hired hand on the ranch. She was part of the family.

Did she feel the same way, though?

There you go, thinking about it again, I thought. Stop worrying and enjoy the here and now.

“Think it’s weird she went to get clean?” I asked.

“Weird how?”

I shrugged. “Maybe she was dirty from the ride. Or maybe she wants to make sure she’s clean enough to…”

Mason’s eyes widened with realization as I trailed off. “You think that means…?”

“I do. And even if it doesn’t, it’s got me thinking about what we should do with her tonight.”

“You think she’s ready?”

“The three of us have already had her every which way, individually,” I replied. “I think she’s ready to take it to the next level. I sure as hell am!”

Mason lowered his eyes to the fire. “Yeah. Been thinking about that myself.”

“What better night than tonight?”

I saw the look in my brother’s eyes as he considered that.

A flock of birds suddenly took flight to the south, flapping their wings as they flew above our camp. “Wolves?” I asked.

Mason twisted to look to the south. “Not a chance. They would only come near the fire if they’re starving, and there’s too much game in the mountains for that. Rebecca probably made a noise.”

“Yelping when she touched the cold water!” I agreed with a laugh.

But then we heard a rustling sound, and Becca’s curvy shape came running out of the darkness toward us with her dirty clothes under one arm. She was favoring one leg, and her face was red and panicked.

“A snake!” she blurted out. “I got bit. On the leg…”

Mason was on his feet in a flash, taking her into his arms and lowering her to the ground. She rolled up the leg of her jeans, revealing a wide red mark on her fair skin.

Snake bites were usually easy to identify: two symmetrical holes about an inch apart meant fangs from a venomous snake, whereas a non-venomous snake bite was wider and more like a rash because they had rows of teeth instead of fangs. But Becca had been bitten through her jeans, which made her bite a lot less obvious. It looked like a non-venomous bite, but there were two especially deep cuts that could have been made from fangs…

“Was it a rattlesnake?” Mason demanded.

Becca replied in a rush, “I don’t know, I don’t know, it happened so fast, and I panicked and kicked at it to make it let go, and as soon as it was off me I came running back… I didn’t hear a rattle, but I think it was a rattlesnake. It looked like it.”

I shared a look with Mason. If we left now, we could be back at the ranch in thirty minutes. It was dangerous to ride at night, especially in this rocky terrain where a horse could turn an ankle, but if it was a rattlesnake bite…

Mason jumped up and grabbed a flashlight from his pack. “We need to know what bit you. If it is a rattler…”

Then venom is currently coursing through Becca’s veins, I thought.

“It was by the stream,” Becca said in a panicked voice. “There’s a big rock with my towel on it. The snake was next to that.”

Mason took off at a dead sprint, the cone of his flashlight swaying with each step.

I grabbed the walkie-talkie on my hip, then hesitated. There was no point to telling Blake about it yet. My brother was headstrong and impulsive, and he was likely to break his neck galloping into the forest to try to be a hero.

Best to wait until Mason gets back, I told myself. In a few minutes we’ll have all the information we need.

“What do we do?” Becca asked, growing more frantic. “Should we apply a tourniquet to my leg, to stop the venom from spreading?”

“That’s the opposite of what you want,” I explained in a calm voice. “If the venom stays concentrated in your leg, it’ll start destroyin’ your cells and you might lose the leg, or your foot. If it spreads, it gets diluted. Trust me, I’ve been doin’ this a long time.”

My words did little to calm her down. “What about sucking it out? My dad did that once when I got bit by a snake on our ranch.”

“Doesn’t do anything,” I replied. “Don’t get my wrong: I don’t mind puttin’ my lips on your body, no matter the context. But it won’t help anything.”

I retrieved the med kit from my saddlebag and used a disinfectant wipe to clean around the wound. It was tough to tell in the flickering campfire light, but one of the cuts looked deep. She might’ve gotten a glancing bite, with just one fang breaking the skin.

“If it’s a rattlesnake bite, we’ll ride back to the ranch and take you to the hospital in Missoula. They’ll have antivenom.”

“Will we get there in time?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, without a doubt,” I said, although in truth I wasn’t sure at all.

Mason came jogging back into camp, holding a dead snake in one hand like a coil of rope. “Found him where you said I would. Is this the one?”

“That’s it!” Becca said. “Brown and tan, with stripes…”

Mason and I slumped our shoulders with relief.

“That’s a gopher snake,” I explained, gently rubbing Becca’s back. “Not venomous.”

Mason knelt beside her and used his knife to pry open the snake’s mouth. “No fangs. Just rows of teeth.”

“So I’m okay?” Becca asked. “Nothing’s going to happen to me?”

“Just a rash,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “And a bruised ego, on account of all the teasing we’re going to give you for a while.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry for freaking out! I grew up on a ranch, so I should know what a rattlesnake looks like. I don’t have any excuse.”

Mason tossed the snake aside and retrieved the pot of chili from the fire. “It was dark. I almost didn’t see the sumbitch myself.”

Becca threw her arms around me and clung to me tightly. “Thank you.”

“Nothin’ to thank us for,” I said. “Next time watch where you’re steppin’.”

She pulled away, looking distraught. “I know, I was lost in thought. I wanted to get clean in the stream because I thought that the three of us out here would have some fun, especially since you only brought one tent for us to share, and I let myself daydream about that instead of looking where I was going…”

I shared another look with Mason. So she had been thinking about that. Our suspicions were correct.

“Funny you mention that,” I said casually. “We’d been thinkin’ about it ourselves.”

Shadows danced across her face from the flickering fire. “Really?”

Mason put the pot of chili away and covered it with the lid. “We’ve been wanting to take things to the next level, but weren’t sure if you were ready for it.”

Becca’s eyes were beautiful and wide as she looked up at him. “I’m ready for anything you two can throw at me.”

My brother moved before I could, cupping her cheek and kissing her deeply. For a while I just watched the two of them make out, mouths churning faster with every passing second. Becca surged upward with her body in a way that made my balls twitch.

It’s finally happening. We’d been waiting to do this with her, going slow and biding our time so that we didn’t scare her away, but now she was ready and we were doing it.

She pulled away from him to turn to me, eyes sparkling in the moonlight. Beckoning me. She reached behind her to unzip the tent, then crawled inside on her hands and knees.

I shared a look with Mason, then followed in a daze, still unable to believe it was finally happening.

Becca, this beautiful creature I couldn’t get enough of, was resting back on her palms inside the huge tent. I crawled toward her and lowered my lips to hers, and as soon as we touched I stopped thinking about whatever it was I had been thinking about.

I was dimly aware of Mason joining us, zipping the tent up behind him. Becca turned away from me to kiss him, and then we took turns with her wet, luscious lips. When she was kissing Mason I ran my tongue over her shoulders, nuzzling her neck while waiting my turn. We swapped her mouth back and forth between us as she sighed and whimpered.

Mason tugged her shirt off as I kissed her, then deftly unbuttoned her jeans and slid them off. I paused a moment to worship her with my eyes, taking in the magnificent sight of her nude body, glowing in the light of the electric lantern hanging from the tent.

Hot damn.

Becca’s skin was on fire everywhere I touched—her neck, the soft mounds of her breasts, down along her belly. She spread her legs and I dove my fingers lower, touching the molten heat of her slit.

She jumped adorably as I sank my finger into her dripping-wet entrance. “Ohh…”

I silenced her moans with my mouth, drinking her kisses like they were cool water and I was dying of thirst. Mason’s head was bent over her chest, swirling a tongue around her nipple while she arched her back.

It was thrilling to share a woman with him. Like things were finally right again.

We fed on her for a while, passing her mouth back and forth, making out with her from either side. My fingers were so slick with her arousal that I could barely take it anymore.

I was so desperate for Becca that I practically ripped my clothes off until I was as nude as she was. I climbed over her, kissing her neck and chin and cheek as I guided myself forward, finding her wet heat with my tip.

It’s time to really give her a good time, I thought as I sank into her.