At the time, rumor was that bets were being placed on who Mac would eventually approach to bring to their bed as the third for her first ménage.
The gossip was the worst part. Whispers behind her back. Veiled comments that she could never fully confront. Smug smiles from the men and a glimmer of jealous snappishness in the women. Things she could have ignored if she hadn’t suspected the truth behind them.
Standing up, Keiley cleared the kitchen table, loaded the dishwasher, and stood in the middle of the kitchen as she tried to figure out how to handle this.
The best bet was to confront Mac about it. Just ask him about it. He wouldn’t lie to her if she asked him straight out if he intended to invite Jethro into their bed.
Another part of her warned her to stay silent. If she didn’t push the subject, then neither would he. If Jethro was visiting on the off chance of being the third in their bed, then Mac would hold back if she pretended ignorance.
If she could pretend ignorance.
She waved her hand before her face again, realizing that she was overheating, flushing from her thoughts and the images her mind was suddenly flashing before her.
Mac holding her, kissing her, but other touches as well. Touches from strange hands. Kisses from strange lips. Mortification blazed within her as she gave her head a quick shake and moved quickly from the kitchen to prepare the guest room for Jethro.
She wasn’t going to think about this right now. She couldn’t think about it right now. She was already aroused, already upset over the fact that Mac hadn’t touched her since the afternoon before last. And too aroused by his statements before he left the house. She didn’t need to add the forbidden to the mix.
And she could be wrong, she told herself as she moved up the stairs. She knew for a fact that her husband was incredibly jealous if other men came on to her, so it could simply be paranoia. Jethro Riggs’s visit could be entirely innocent. A friend on vacation dropping by for a little male bonding or whatever men did. That simple.
Yeah. Right. The suspicious part of her brain was snickering smugly. Because it knew better.
Keiley knew her husband, and she knew something had been growing inside him for months now. A well of dark hunger that marathon bouts of sex hadn’t sated had turned into a brooding predatory interest whenever he watched her that made her highly nervous. Excited, yes. Interested in that darkness, most definitely. But also extremely wary of it.
Aroused by it.
After finishing the preparation of the guest room and laying in clean towels, washrags, and essential items, Keiley moved back downstairs to the back of the house and her office.
She didn’t sit at her desk, though; instead she walked to the patio doors and stared out at the barnyard where Mac had taken her so wildly not two days past.
Today, the farmhands he employed were working the horses in the attached corral. The Thoroughbreds Mac raised were gorgeous, high-spirited, and extremely intelligent. The foreman, Teddy Raymond, had been hired out of Virginia two years before, and he seemed to love the horses as much as Mac did. He was an odd little man who kept to himself when he was working, but Mac seemed to think he did his job well enough.
The trainer, Wes Bridges, was working with the yearlings outside the stables, and beyond that, cattle dotted the grass-rich fields and beyond. The farm sat in a wide, lush valley dotted with natural ponds and streams and thick, nutritious grass. Mac’s cattle sold well, and the horses were becoming a very lucrative sideline with the bloodlines Mac had chosen.
The farm was idyllic, serene, but suddenly Keiley’s life was anything but that. She felt as she had when she first met Mac. Jittery inside,
excited, nervous, and so aroused she could barely sit still.
Tonight, he was going to have to take care of business, she thought, because she would be damned if she was going to toss and turn all night long again, burning for her husband’s touch.
She pouted at the thought. Married women should not have to do without their daily allotment of sex, no matter their husband’s brooding determination to drive them insane for it. He could be broody through the night. When he slipped into the bed beside her, then he should be ready to perform those husbandly duties that she had become so well accustomed to.
A smile flitted across her lips. Maybe he just needed a little push. She could provide the push. He could provide the orgasm.
With that thought she turned to her desk, sat down, and powered up her computer to get to work. She had clients waiting, and the paycheck was dependent on keeping them happy. She would take care of that; then she would take care of her husband.
Jethro took the exit to Scotland Neck, staring around at the rather large town curiously as he drove through it. With the top down on his Mustang, the fresh air blowing through his overly long hair, he got more than his fair share of feminine looks as he traversed the main thoroughfare and followed Mac’s directions out of town toward the farm.
His lips quirked as the red light brought him to a stop into a turn lane. The young women in the car beside him waved flirtatiously, then giggled like teenagers as he shot them a wink.
Damn, he loved women. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, or dark as midnight. Women were his favorite subject, hobby, and sport.
As the light turned green, he threw his hand up in a farewell and, with his foot heavy on the gas, sped out of town and checked the clock on the dash.
He was a little late. It was edging into evening rather than afternoon, but the more leisurely pace he had taken on the drive had helped to clear his head. And his head sure as hell needed clearing.
Janet hadn’t been happy when she awoke to him packing his bags for a trip out of town. Actually, she had been downright pissed.
How the hell was he was supposed to know she had planned to shack up with him during the suspension? The thought of it sent a shiver down his spine. It wasn’t the good kind of shiver, either.