Natalie Acres - Sex party

“She had me when she was sixteen, Kane at nineteen and at twenty-two, Evan came along. We have different fathers. All with the last name Cartwell. You can do the figuring on that one.”

“Oh,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say. What’s a person to say in times like these?

One thing she realized quickly. She felt far too comfortable in her panties and bra in front of them, which made her feel free, in a weird sense. She reached for her pajamas again and decided to dress while Braden continued. He didn’t look away from her, and his gaze heated her in a way his brothers did with their lips. It only took a simple look.

Evan walked by the bedroom door right as she stepped into her pajamas. He didn’t see Braden at first. “You’d better hurry and get dressed. He’s home.”

“Yeah, he is,” Braden snapped.

“I uh…failed to see you there.”

“Well now you have, so come on in here and pull up a chair. I have a few things to say to all of you, and it’s high time I said ‘em.”

After she dressed in a pretty pair of pajamas Braden bought for her right after she moved in, mainly because he thought she ran around in provocative nightshirts, she sat down on the floor. She leaned her head against the dresser and watched him with curious eyes. His brothers had looked into those eyes and seen their future while he tried to defy it. Hell, he still planned to fight it. This thing with Peyton, whatever they were doing, had to stop before it went too far, and spun right out of control.

“Mom loved three men, Peyton. She loved ‘em all and according to her sisters, they all loved her as much as she loved them. Trouble was, they didn’t know about the things Mom shared with anyone other than them, at least not at first. See, they were all married to other people.

“By the time they found out about one another, there was so much betrayal to overcome, feelings and emotions no one wanted to sort through and a lot of dangerous anger loomed between them. One night while Mom was in the kitchen cooking supper, something bad happened. No one knows for certain how it all started or who initiated the confrontation.

Peyton shifted on the floor and Kane, as if on a dare, glanced at Evan and then at Braden before he reached for her. At first she ignored his hand but after Evan shot her an accepting smile and Braden noticed, she let Kane pull her onto his lap where she curled up against his chest. He cradled her like a small child.

It proved a point and soon Braden felt the undoing of a grown man. Kane would never give her up. He’d already formed some sort of intimate bond with her and anyone could see it.

Braden felt his heart sink into unfamiliar territory. He didn’t like where they were all headed. History would repeat itself and the only way to change the detrimental parts was to start at the beginning and work through the pain to ensure none of them experienced the kind of heartache lingering in the past.

Unsure if she soothed his breaking heart or he helped keep hers in tact, Peyton leaned against Kane’s chest. He nuzzled her hair and kissed her head while rocking with a timed pace, a silent song.

“Anyway at some point,” Braden continued, “Momma must’ve heard a lot of gunfire, and she ran from the house to see what happened. She rushed out to the barn and found the three men she loved. All of them lay dying in a pool of blood with guns in their hands.”

Peyton’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to imagine what their mother must’ve gone through when she found the three men she loved most dying, all three calling her name, perhaps, needing her beside of them as they took their last breath. “That’s horrific.”

“It’s worse than a horror story, Peyton,” Evan said as he watched her. “It was her life. She caused it. She did it with lies and deception and then when she decided it was too much to handle, what did she do?” He looked up at the beams high above her bed, and Peyton shivered before he said anything.

Kane shook his head. “This isn’t necessary.”

“Oh yes, it is. If you’re going to tell her part of it, tell her the whole thing.” He turned back to Peyton and pointed to the rafters again. “When the guilt ate her insides out, she decided to hang right here so her sons would find her.” His words were drenched in bitterness.

Braden closed his eyes, and Kane glared at the ceiling. Now she understood why Kane didn’t come in her room before she moved in.

It was more than the lullabies he thought he still heard, and it wasn’t the song in her voice he imagined. It was the memory of a life-changing discovery, the image none of them would ever shake.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered against Kane’s chest but she looked from Braden to Evan. “I never knew or heard those stories.”

“Of course not, but now you know and since you do, you might understand why I wanted to help you but why I didn’t want whatever it is that’s going on between you and Kane and maybe even Evan and you, to happen. History often repeats itself, Peyton, and the sins of fathers can fall like a gavel upon their children.”

Kane held her closer, tighter. He needed her. She felt it in the strength he used to hold her there against him. She refused to pull away even with Braden’s warning.

“Peyton, you need to understand something. It’s not that I would fear what we would do to one another. I fear what a relationship, with more than one man, could do to a woman, what it might do to you. It’s hard to explain but I think in a lot of ways, my mother ended up very lonely even though she had three men who loved her so much they ultimately died because of her.”

“Maybe she didn’t find happiness because she refused to tell the men in her life how she really felt. It had to be hard on her if she had a relationship with three married men. Maybe all she wanted was the security found in the arms of someone she knew loved her enough to stay with her forever.”

Evan managed a grin. “You’re a romantic. Just like every other woman in the world, a hopeless romantic.”

Peyton sat up then, dabbing at her eyes. “No, I’m not a romantic, Evan. I was raised without a father. My mother refused to date. I don’t know romance from a good romp in the sack.”

Immediately all eyes fell to her breasts, lust filling each pair of eyes on her then.

“What do you know about a romp in the sack?” Braden asked.

“Well, nothing now, no thanks to you.”

He chuckled. “Somehow I expected a note of thanks.”

“You might get your ass kicked if it happens again,” Kane grunted.

Braden let it slide. “Peyton, I signed on to raise you into a woman who could take on the world. I wanted to help a woman-your mother-because she once helped me.”

“My mother helped you?”

“She pretty much saved my life when I was a wild teenager.”

“Braden ran with the wrong crowd, wanted to be a wild ass after Mom died,” Kane said.

“And every morning, I ate breakfast at the diner and every morning your mother reminded me of why life is good, why it’s a gift, one we only get to unwrap once.”

“Yeah, she always said that about life and about a woman’s virginity too, by the way.”

“Peyton…” Kane raised an eyebrow. He most likely feared she was only testing the waters before she dove into an outright seduction.

Braden cleared his throat. “Let’s make a deal, want to?”

Kane stuck his thumb in her side. She wasn’t sure if he did it to let her know he was horny or to shake her enough to tell Braden ‘no deal’ regardless of what he hoped to pitch.

“What’s on your mind?” She stood up, carefully walked over to Braden and sat down on his lap.