The feminine growl, low and frustrated, had his lips quirking into a smile.
“He’s still my lover, Brock,” she declared mutinously. “I don’t want to share him.”
“He shares you,” Brock pointed out. “And don’t try to say you don’t enjoy it.”
“That’s not the point, Brock.” She closed her eyes, sighing heavily. “Not one of you will explain this to me. N
ot in any way. Yet you expect me to willingly accept it. If Cade wants to continue in his stubbornness and not confide in me, then I can continue in mine.”
“Even knowing how much it hurts him?” Brock asked her, trying to keep his voice gentle.
She looked up at him, her deep blue eyes shadowed, regret and resignation swirling in her expression.
“What about my hurt, Brock?” she asked him, her voice quiet. “He beat the shit out of Rick because Tara told me as much as she did, which was damned little. He becomes furious if I question him about it. He has nightmares and begs brokenly in his sleep and he refuses to let me help him. Do you think this is just about whether or not he fucks the woman you love?”
Brock’s cock went to instant attention at those words. Damn. There were times he hated his more than willing flesh. It was causing him more problems than he needed.
“Look at you.” She nodded at the erection straining his casual pants. “Just the thought of it has you hard as a rock, just as it gets Cade. There’s more to this than the three of you finding your pleasures, or your little male bonding ritual or whatever the hell it is. Explain it to me. Make me understand it.”
He would give anything if he could. But he knew the consequences, just as well as Marly did.
“And get my ass kicked?” he asked her carefully. “Rick spent a night in the hospital if I remember correctly, Munchkin. I like my bones unbroken if it’s all the same to you.”
“Then make Sarah understand it.” Her voice hardened. “Listen to me, Brock, she wasn’t raised with Joe’s abuse. With the evil he stank of. She wasn’t raised seeing the three of you alone, lonely, searching. She doesn’t love all of you the way I did at one time or another, so she isn’t going to accept it as easily.”
Brock tilted his head, memories washing over him then. Good memories for a change. The year she had her crush on him, then on Sam. Her teenage years had been more hormones than good sense as she went around rubbing on one of them at one time or another. Innocent touches, flirtatious glances. He shook his head, feeling a warmth he hadn’t recognized where Marly was concerned.
“Wouldn’t loving me be enough?” He had once thought that was her reason for giving into Cade’s desires, and ultimately his and Sam’s.
“God, you men are so dumb.” Amazement washed over her expression.
“Would you sit quietly and let her ex-husband fuck the hell out of her while you watched? Would you join in with that?”
He frowned, jealousy filling him at the thought of Mark Tate touching her to begin with.
“See? Look how angry you are. Ready to kill him now,” she pointed out.
“She’s mine. She was mine to begin with,” he told her stubbornly.
“Yet you’ll expect her to accept you fucking me, right?” she asked him.
He narrowed his eyes, his teeth clenching.
“Right,” she answered herself. “And you will expect her to let Sam and Cade touch her, whether you’re with her or not when it happens. When you come into a room, realizing one of your brothers had just shot his cum inside her body, you’ll feel pride, not fury.”
“They’re my brothers,” he reminded her. “It’s different.”
Marly took a deep, fortifying breath.
“Love isn’t enough for a woman who wasn’t raised with you, seeing your interactions, loving you all to one extent or another.” It was obvious she was growing irritated with him. “When a woman loves, it’s possessively, Brock. She doesn’t want another woman touching him, or another man touching her. The thought of it is abhorrent.”
“It excites her. I saw it in her eyes,” he denied, remembering the flare of heat that made her golden eyes sparkle.
Marly shook her head, her eyes flashing at him in impatience.
“I know Sarah, Brock. I went to school with her. If it excites her, it’s because she sees and feels your excitement for it. That might make her fantasize. Make her wonder. Women do that. All the time. But the reality of it is a different matter entirely.”
“So what do I do?” He pushed his hands through his hair then rested his elbows on his knees as he regarded her. “Marly, I need her.”