August Heat Read Online Free PDF Page B

bemusement. Had they somehow gotten what they were fighting
for, without fighting for it? Had the men not paid any attention to their
careful avoidance of being alone with any of them, other than their chosen
husbands, out of choice?
    Marly sat down
slowly. “She’s right,” she whispered, looking at Heather in surprise. “I know
Cade. All the avoidance in the world wouldn’t work if he got horny enough to go
after it. They’ve stopped on their own.”
    They had been so
concerned with their subtle maneuvers to be certain there was no opportunity
for the three men to catch one of them alone, or to try to seduce them into
their erotic, heated play. They hadn’t realized that the men weren’t trying to
do so.
    “Now what?”
Heather asked softly. “How can we be certain they won’t want to try to
reestablish those relationships later?”
    Sarah breathed in
roughly. “I’m certain, Heather. Brock is madder than hell right now.” The very
thought of that terrified her. “He pointed out to me, rather coolly, that maybe
what I wanted was right in front of my eyes and I had refused to see it. I
think he’s right. We’ve been so concerned with protecting them, with trying to
feel our way through this for the past year, that we haven’t noticed the change
in them.” And that broke her heart. “We didn’t see that it wasn’t our
machinations, but their decision to stop themselves.”
    She watched the
other two women pale. “God. We’re in some deep trouble here.” Marly swallowed
tightly. “A pissed August male is not a good thing.”
    Heather snorted. “What
are they gonna do? Divorce us?” she asked them both in irritation. “Okay, so we
fucked up. They were a little less clueless than we imagined. But they still
haven’t figured out exactly what we want. I say we tell them straight out and
see what happens.”
    Marly and Sarah
both shot her a look of incredulity.
    “Get real!” Marly
snapped. “That might work with Sam, and you can go for it if you think it will.
But not Cade. You forget his sense of responsibility. His determination to keep
this family together. This will break his heart if we do it your way, Heather.
I won’t risk that.”
    “It’s not like we
want to move to another state, Marly,” Heather argued. “For God’s sake, he
would be able to see the house outside his bedroom window. Dammit, as much as I
love you and Sarah, and the other brothers, I want my own home. I want my own
family, too.”
    There was a wealth
of pain, of growing despondency, in the other woman’s words. There was the
dream they all held. Their own homes. Their own families. The freedom to bring
children into a full, productive family unit rather than the unconventional
lifestyle they had lived.
    It had been
different when they married. New to the sexual excesses the men provided, they
had been flying on sensuality and the freedom to give into the more extreme
fantasies they all had at one time or another. But now, with Marly’s pregnancy
and Drace’s birth, they had found a core of need inside them that terrified
them all. Possessiveness. They wanted their husbands to themselves. They wanted
their own homes. Their own families.
    “So what do we do?”
Sarah asked them both softly. “We can’t destroy them. We can’t hurt them for
our needs. Where does that leave us?”
    “Damned if I know,”
Marly finally sighed bleakly. “But we have to do something now. Because sure as
hell they’re all three onto us, and they won’t wait long before they hit us
with it. We have to be prepared.”
    Damn. Sarah had a
feeling the next few days were going to be less than pleasant.
     
    * * * * *
    “They’re plotting
again.” Cade looked up from the baby he held securely in his arms to Sam as he
walked into the nursery.
    Brock was already
there. He stood at the window, silent, morose. He was letting this affect him
too deeply. Feeling too guilty over something that could be fixed. And Cade was
certain it could be