Love Under Two Benedicts(54)

The heat of his body against her back as he held himself just off her became a wonderful blanket. His heavy gasps for breath tickled her ear. She focused on breathing.

“Did I hurt you, sweetheart?”

“Nuh.” She didn’t have a hope of forming a coherent word, let alone a sentence. Matthew’s kissed her shoulder then left his face nestled there, and she felt him smile.

“So, I fucked you senseless, did I?”

“Mmm.” She smiled, too, and in that moment, she felt that nothing bad could happen, nothing could touch her, because this man and his brother loved her.

“Ah, that scene reminds me of this morning.”

At the sound of Steven’s voice, Kelsey turned her head to the side and opened her eyes. Steven stood at the doorway, a smile on his face.

“Did you feel like a train wreck after loving her, too?” Matthew asked his brother.

“Hell, yes. No woman has ever taken me apart and put me back together again the way our Kelsey does.”

Matthew kissed her neck, then slid off her, claiming the right side of the bed as he had every night they’d slept together.

Kelsey eased onto her back so she could better watch Steven as he moved around the room.

“Benny is clean and tucked into his bed. I read him one story, and he fell asleep before I was done.” Steven checked that the volume of the monitor had been turned up, then came over to the bed. He dropped his clothes in a heap on the floor, Kelsey had noticed he tended to do this but always picked them up the next morning, then slid into bed on her left.

“How are you feeling?” Steven turned to face her and propped his head up on his right hand. Like his brother had, he gently traced the bruise on her shoulder, then moved down to the smaller ones on her hip.

She decided not to sugarcoat her answer. “Still a bit sore, but not as bad as when I woke up before dinner.”

“Might be really sore tomorrow,” Matthew cautioned.

“Yes, I know. There is just one more thing, though. Under the heading of how I feel.”

“What?”

Both men asked that at once. Kelsey fought back a smile. She lay on her back with the Benedict brothers now half propped up over her, one on each side. The perfect position, she thought, for seeing both their expressions at the same time.

“I love you.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I love you both. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it or what our future is yet. But I do love you.”

Their smiles reminded her of lilies in bloom, and Kelsey felt love unfurling in her heart, warming every bit of her.

“It’s about damn time,” Matthew grumbled. When he kissed her, the caress was gentle.

“You can say that again,” Steven echoed. He kissed her just as gently, and then they both just grinned like fools.

“That’s the first step, baby. We both sure as hell love you,” Steven said.

“Let’s just take things one day at a time,” Matthew said.

Kelsey wondered then if they didn’t know her better than she knew herself. She’d said she had no idea what the future held for them, but the men didn’t seem to have any doubts at all.



* * * *



Connors had known there was a good reason he’d left his fledgling career in larceny behind. Being a crook was just too damn nerve-wracking, not to mention the fact that he wasn’t really very good at it. At least he hadn’t been today.

When he heard the siren and seen that cop car come over that hill in his rearview mirror, he’d nearly shit his pants. He had his gun in one hand and the door handle in the other. Instead of moving on the Madison woman, though, he slammed the car back into drive and floored it. Of course, the cop had to stop and see if anyone was hurt first, but cops had radios. He hadn’t stopped shaking until he’d been back in his own vehicle and headed for home.

Connors drove aimlessly through the streets of Austin. He stopped for an early dinner at a burger joint, and by the time he finished his fries and cola, had nearly gotten his cool back. He’d pulled over at a service station in Waco and removed the disguise he’d worn for the morning’s adventure. No one had noticed him going into the washroom wearing a cap and moustache and coming out without them. He ditched both items there, shoving them deep into the trash can.

He hadn’t planned to run the woman off the road. That had been an act of opportunity. When he’d seen her car hit the tree, he figured it was a good sign. It would have been easier to put a bullet in her head while she was unconscious.

The gun was a holdover from his life of crime, a Glock he’d gotten from a friend of a friend that could never be traced to him. After doing what he had to do to protect the new life he’d built for himself, he’d planned to dump the gun in the Brazos River.