Free Tied Up, Tied Down by Lorelei James

neither of us has balls enough to ask the blonde tornado just what she was thinkin’ when she popped out a matched set,” Kade said wryly.
    “True. Dad’d skin us alive if we upset the queen bee, even now.” Kane twisted the wire cutters. “Anyway, I’m thinkin’ about changin’ my name.”
    Kade laughed. “Right.”
    “I’m serious. Something that don’t start with a ‘K’ or a ‘C’ like everyone in this damn family.”
    “How about…Dick?”
    “How about you fuck off, smartass?”
    Kade grinned. “So whatcha thinkin’? Bubba? Spud? Deuce? Fred? Ethyl?”
    “I think Bennett’s datin’ a woman from Thermopolis named Ethyl.”
    “No kiddin’?”
    “Yeah, I’m kiddin’. Goddamn you’re easy to tease, Kade.”
    “Give me a break. I ain’t had to make small talk besides with the cattle for the last year. Good thing Eliza ain’t expectin’ me to be a brilliant talker.”
    Kane clipped a section of wire. “What about Skylar? Does she expect that from you?”
    “Who the hell knows?” Frustrated, Kade pounded his foot against the metal jaws of the posthole digger. “We don’t talk about nothin’ except Eliza.”
    “That’s to be expected, ain’t it?”
    “Probably. But it’s been a few weeks since I moved in. I thought since I was up with the baby last night that Sky would be rested and we could talk about something else this mornin’. But after I got out of the shower, she’d already made up the bed. When I tried—”
    “Whoa whoa whoa.” Kane held up a gloved hand. “You said she made the bed? As in—you’re sharin’ a bed with her?”
    “Uh. Yeah.”
    “So, man, why are you worried about talkin’ if you’re already nailin’ her?”
    “Because I’m not.”
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    Tied Up, Tied Down
    “Not what?”
    “I’m not nailin’ her, okay?”
    A stunned look crossed Kane’s face and then he laughed so hard he fell over on the ground.
    When Kade suffered enough of his brother’s hysterics, he said, “It ain’t funny.”
    “Yeah, it is. Jesus, Kade. The last year turned you into a Wyoming monk? You’ve been sleepin’ in the same damn bed with Skylar, the woman you have a child with, the woman you’ve been crazy in love with for over a year, and you haven’t tried to get busy with her? Not even once?”
    “No.”
    “Does the thought of screwin’ her with the baby in the room…give you performance anxiety or something?”
    “What the fuck do you mean, performance anxiety ? No. I don’t have any problem gettin’ it up.”
    “Does havin’ the baby listenin’ to you squeakin’ the bedframe freak her out?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “That is just plain sad, man. Sad.”
    “No shit.”
    “I’m assumin’ you still want her?”
    “Like you wouldn’t fuckin’ believe.”
    “So why would you throw in the towel so soon?”
    “I haven’t.” Kade kicked a clod of dirt into the ditch. “I promised Sky I’d be a gentleman. At first I needed to be in her room to learn how to take care of Eliza. I thought maybe after Sky got used to me bein’ around and I rebuilt her trust, things might change.
    We’d use the bed for more than sleepin’. Nothin’s changed. I’m waitin’ on her to give me some kinda damn sign.”
    “There’s your problem. Waitin’ on her. Actin’ like a lap dog, happy for scraps.”
    Kane stood and jammed the wire cutters in his back pocket. “See, women tell you they want a gentleman, when in reality, they want a man to take charge. Sexually speakin’.”

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    Lorelei James
    “What?”
    “Hear me out. A woman wants a man who can’t keep their hands offa them. A man who can make them feel feminine, sexy and needed. Desired, but not in a way that diminishes their independence outside the bedroom.”
    He stared at Kane with his mouth hanging open. What’d gotten into his brother?
    Kane was worse than him when it came to talking about touchy-feely relationship crap.
    Kane never