Ensnared (Brutes of Bristlebrook #1)

by Rebecca Quinn

Dear Satisfyer Pro2 Rechargeable Clitoral Stimulator, Our time together has been a glorious, passionate affair. Here’s to many more years together, gorgeous. (And no, I promise I wasn’t eyeing off a newer model . . . yet.)

I just barely stop myself from rolling my eyes. Bastard’s laying on the apple-pie accent thick. He always does it when he has a crush; it might have been a while, but I’d recognize the tone anywhere. God damn it. I just have to be out with the two bleeding hearts of our fucked-up little group.

Her nervousness excites me—it pricks my instincts hard—and a raw, unexpected picture of those lips wrapped slickly around my cock slides into my mind.

We don’t have time for this. Damn her for being nervous. Damn me for wanting to taste her fear.

Her voice is deeper than I was expecting, rich and husky as hell. A voice made for sex.

Beau has always been good with women. And horses. And children. His steady manner puts people at ease. Unlike me, who puts people on edge.

Also, funny how his accent just smooths out to a barely perceptible drawl when he’s sniping at me. The petty part of me wants to point it out to the mouse.

His cheek dimples as he smiles at her, clear even under his short beard. Women always love Lucky’s dimples. Dick.

Survival tip #12 Laugh lines can be deceptive. Sure, maybe this person is good humored and trustworthy. But maybe they laugh while they dismember corpses. Exercise caution.

“Twenty? Sweetheart, there are a lot of words I want to hear come out of that mouth, but that’s not one of them.” I shoot him a level look, not enjoying his flippancy. He winks at me.

Dom is climbing along a nearly invisible path up the cliff face, aiming for a ledge I didn’t notice from front-on. I have a great view of his tight ass as he pulls himself up. No, bad Eden. He is an ass. You shouldn’t be noticing his.

Something flashes in his eyes that makes me take a step back. After a tense moment, he mutters, “I like the way you say my name, darlin’.”

When we reach the ledge, he stands long enough for me to drop my legs, but his hands linger on my hips, holding me close to him for a moment too long. I’m unable to miss his interest—it presses insistently against me.

Amber eyes, molten with ire, glare at me. Dom’s skin is dusky brown and stubble lines his strong jaw. He really is a beautiful man. Or he would be if he weren’t so cranky.

Dom’s lip tenses, almost a curl, his brows lowering with unholy rage.

There are too many things to think about and I just . . . don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to worry. Right now, I just want to be held. As though sensing my thoughts, Beau doesn’t set me down.

The larger man crosses his arms. I try not to notice the way it pulls his V-neck tight over his broad chest.

Lucky seems younger than the other two, closer to me in age than Dom and Beau, who I’d guess to be in their early thirties. But despite the lightness in his demeanor, that teasing voice still has a bossiness to it I’m not sure I appreciate.

The confident implication in his voice has my stomach flipping and dropping all at once. Are they arguing over whether to keep me?

“Come with us, sweetheart. We’ll keep you safe,”

“You won’t have to worry about this sort of thing”—his head tilts to indicate the corpses decorating the area—“ever again.” It sounds like a promise.

“In exchange for . . . ?” Lucky awards me a cheeky, dimpled grin. “The best orgasms of your life?”

The tip of Lucky’s tongue wets his bottom lip. He bites down and lets out a pained groan. “A librarian? You’re joking, right?” Something hotter, more intent, joins the twinkle in his eye. “That’s . . . Damn it, Dom. I want her. Gimme.”

The man is huge, well over six feet, and better looking than any man has a right to be. Where Lucky is impishly beautiful, with those long lashes, devilish smile and glorious hair, Beau is golden tanned and clean shaven, all hard planes and angles. And Dom . . . Dom is dark and dangerous. Stubbled and broad and deadly.

“There are five of us at Bristlebrook, darlin’. We’ve had women there before and it . . . Well, it don’t work too well. Not when there’s the chance she’s the last woman we’ll ever see, you understand? Too much jealousy. Whole heap of drama. Whether you can pull your weight or not, well, that isn’t really the problem.”

“We decided after the last time that if we had a woman under our roof again, she’d belong to all of us. Equally. Or she couldn’t stay.”

“You ever even been under a man? Well, how about five? Not that we’d all take you at once—” He tilts his head as if considering that, then shrugs. “Probably not, anyway. But none of us have been with a woman for nearly three years now. You think you’re ready to keep up with that kind of demand?”

Dom leans in close enough that I can smell his warm, earthy scent. His voice is full of delicious threat. “You think you’re ready to keep up with me?”

“Is the thought of it really so awful for you?” he asks, voice low and demanding. His eyes flick up and there’s a fire lit behind them, the gentleness gone. “Would it be so hard for you to give yourself to me?”

The steely strength of his arm locks around my waist, and he pulls me onto his lap. I can’t protest, don’t want to, can’t string together a thought complete enough to know where I’d begin if I did. I’m needy, out of control. He’s hot and hard between my thighs.

Beau’s gaze crashes against mine, dangerous desire turning them a darker shade of emerald, drowning out the golden flecks.

Survival tip #2 Don’t wait for the next bad thing to happen. Move on before it does.

You can never experience as much in your lifetime, or see through so many eyes, as you will by reading what others have to say. Books will glue our world back together, if anything can.”

“Did you really work for a circus?”

“You don’t understand how to play games at all. We’ll have to work on that. But yes, of course. Where do you think I learned to juggle and eat fire and do trapeze?”

“Is he joking again?” I ask Beau. “I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.”

“Joking! Me? No, no, beautiful, I am never anything but deadly serious. How else could I have tamed the lions?” Lucky protests. “They respect strength, you see. Discipline.”

“I’ll have you know that I was the best acrobat in our troupe. It was one of the best and most beautiful shows in the US. I’m also an excellent dancer and am quite good at making balloon animals.”

“Rapid deployment, darlin’. We were Rangers.”

Survival tip #230 Beautiful men make your brain fuzzy. Thinking is important. Abort!

Strong arms steady me, and though I don’t recognize him, his scent—books, ink, and parchment—settles me instantly.

I make out a sulky, almost femininely curved mouth. The second thing I realize is that this man is starkly, utterly beautiful. His angular face has an underlying masculine strength to it that belies the thick eyelashes and sweet softness of his lips.

His eyes are darkly shadowed and fiercely intelligent as they study me. Small lines fan from the corners. Older than the other three, in his early forties perhaps, his steady maturity is both unnerving and comforting.

This is not a man to be trifled with—but his quiet authority is all the more vital and interesting to me because he doesn’t radiate raw strength. It’s in his obvious self-assurance. In how he radia...

A faint smile curves his lips, as though I did something interesting. It isn’t like Lucky’s delighted grin, or Beau’s slow warmth. It’s restrained. Bitingly amused.

I blush at how intensely he regards me. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with such single-minded focus. Like the whole world has just faded away and we stand together, alone in some kind of hazy, dreamy abyss.

The man is tall, about Beau’s height, but stockier with it. His face is rough-hewn—rawly attractive rather than classically handsome. He has elaborate, full-sleeve tattoos on both thickly muscled arms and his once-white T-shirt strains across his chest; it’s dirtied with some sort of black paint. Not that he seems the artistic type. Despite his stillness, his eyes hold a kind of dangerous turbulence that makes me uneasy . . . even as I wonder what kissing him might be like.

It’s as though Beau sparked something by the river, then Jasper fanned the flames, and now Jaykob and Lucky and Dom are just sitting around like sexy man kindling.

“The mouse?” he scoffs. His voice is gravel and windburn. “Whatever. I’ll make do.”

I barely see the dark intent in his midnight blue eyes before his hand grasps my chin and his mouth fits flush against mine. My lips part on a sound of surprise, and he takes the opportunity to plunder my mouth. His grip moves to the back of my head, almost painfully, and his other hand grasps my backside, pulling me hard against him.