you twisting your pretty, little ankle in a hole. That’d ruin everything,” Cord told her. In no time, he entered their campsite. Horses grazed nearby, paying no attention to the odd human behavior near the fire pit though one of them made a soft nickering sound as the soon-to-be lovers approached. Somewhere nearby, a stream burbled past, and evening bugs sang their nightly symphony. It was really quite peaceful here under the millions of bright stars—far more peaceful than the jangling anticipation inside her.
Large, flat stones surrounded the flames, and Moon suspected this must be a regular stop for the Flying D cowboys. Two pans rested on the stones, indicating that the three men had been cooking when she’d had her fit and reminding her stomach of the granola bar she’d had before noon today. Almost ten hours ago. Her stomach growled, but food wasn’t what she was most hungry for.
The men had opened their sleeping rolls near the blaze, and Cord set her down on one of them.
“You guys aren’t out to put a notch in your bedposts, right? You’re not gonna go bragging all over town about this?”
“You wound us, ma’am,” Pete replied.
“It’s a valid question. I don’t want men around here thinking I’m easy. I like my job, and I like living here. If guys think I’m an easy target for sex, I might have to leave.”
“Moon,” Sully dropped beside her on the blankets. “No one thinks you’re easy. You’ve been here for months, and no one has even gotten you to go on a date. How many bouquets of flowers and boxes of candy and other sundry items do you get a week?”
“Too many. It’s really embarrassing. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about you three. You drop in and talk to me, joke around with me, but you’re not always showering me with stuff—not that I don’t like presents once in a while but…”
“But you want it to mean more than ‘you’re a woman and we’d really like you in our bed’? Geez, Moon, how shallow,” Pete laughed.
“Sorry to say,” Cord deadpanned, “But…well, you are a woman, and we do want you in our bed.”
Moon cleared her throat and looked down at her crossed legs. “I know.”
“It’s not all we want,” Sully said.
“What do you want?” she asked, unwilling to assume anything and hoping they didn’t desire more than she could give.
“Maybe…to date you. To get to know you well. To see where things go,” Sully offered.
“But kinda in a reverse order? Sex first?”
“Hell no,” Pete cut in. “We’ve been courting you for a bit now, sweetness. We’re just glad to finally get past the sitting room.”
She giggled, unable to help herself though she hated giggling and it drove her a little nuts when she heard it—usually from silly, coy girls. She hoped she was neither. “I guess you have been. So what now?”
To her surprise—and delight—Sully leaned right over and planted his lips on hers. His hand cupped the back of her head, and he tilted her for better access as his mouth parted hers. She opened readily, accepting his tongue as he pushed forward to explore her. One of her hands lifted to his shoulder while either Pete or Cord grasped the other and brought it to his chest. Her fingers splayed, feeling the taut muscle underneath.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Sully tilted her back on the blankets, his body following as his mouth never lost contact with hers. She groaned at the pleasure of his body pressed to her side. Futilely, she tried to focus on everything going on around her. Hands seemed to touch her everywhere. She smelled dust and heated man and horses. The guys’ scent wasn’t offensive, but full of power. Clean and saturated with hard, manly work. And it revved all her engines to know these strong, dedicated men wanted her.
Suddenly, deep down she knew she was making the right decision. The car problem, the moon and her flightiness aside, this was right. Those were just catalysts for what she’d been