That brief thought, alone, was enough to jumpstart an onslaught of sexy, erotic memories from the previous night. They had paused only briefly after their nap, to freshen up before round two had commenced where the brothers had each switched place and they had woken her again during the night for an encore. She really hadn’t had that much sleep. But then, neither had they.
She gave a huge yawn as she smiled and stretched. Multiple orgasms were surprisingly tiring.
There was no sign of the three of them when she got downstairs, and as she poured herself a mug of coffee from the pot that had been brewed, she immediately felt guilty that she hadn’t been there to take care of them this morning.
It didn’t help that she knew they had a whole day away from the ranch, since they were off to a livestock auction. She wouldn’t see them now until tonight, and that gave her an entire day to stew and second guess everything that had happened between them. Because as wonderful as it had been, the one thing she didn’t know was where things stood now and exactly what it meant for their future.
Did it change anything at all? And if it didn’t, what did that mean and how were they supposed to move forward?
Never mind the fact that she’d had intercourse with all three of them without using protection. What if she got pregnant? She wouldn’t even know which of the brothers was the father. Could DNA testing be accurate enough to provide an answer if the prospective fathers were so closely related? And how would she even go about trying to explain all that?
After spending way too much time fretting over something she didn’t have any answers to, Ellie decided that the best option was to take her mind off it. She was just borrowing trouble right now.
By the time the clock had slowly ticked around to the hour when her men were due home, the house was spotless, all the laundry had been done, she had a complicated dinner cooking and had baked far too many treats for the four of them to eat - but at least some of them could be frozen.
The final wait was excruciatingly agonizing. She kept straining her ears for the sound of the pickup, the clatter of footsteps or the chatter of conversation.
When they were late, she worried that they might have had an accident, or maybe they just didn’t want to come home and have to face her. Perhaps in the cold light of day they had decided it was all a mistake, something which should never have happened, and they were, right now, drowning their sorrows in a bar and trying to work out how to get out of it.
She nicked her finger with a sharp knife because she was so distracted and just minutes after bandaging it up, she burned her hand on a baking sheet and ended up dropping an entire tray of cookies on the floor.
In the end she didn’t even hear them come in at all, because she was too busy holding her hand under the tap to cool the burn and sniffling away the tears which she told herself were solely because she had hurt herself and had nothing to do with the fact that she was scared they wouldn’t want her anymore.
She squawked and jumped in surprise when first Cody’s strident voice exclaimed, “Shit, what happened? Are you hurt?” and Syrus immediately appeared, pressing up behind her, as he peered over her shoulder to assess the situation while Ezra grabbed a broom and started sweeping up the mess.
“I-I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I burned myself and dropped the cookies.”
“Where’s the blood from then?” he demanded, pointing to the droplets on the counter.
Syrus grabbed both of her hands and inspected them, before placing butterfly kisses on each one and thumbing her tears away before gently kissing her lips.
Not to be outdone, Ezra dropped the broom and pulled her to him for a fierce hug. When he let her go, Cody was there. He looked at her hands, looked at all the baking and cooking she had done and said, “You’re not usually such a butter fingers. And the house looks like you’ve scrubbed every inch, plus you’ve cooked enough to feed an army. What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, then to Syrus and Ezra who were standing at each of his shoulders looking similarly concerned, and promptly burst into tears all over again.
Cody simply scooped her up, sat himself down and arranged her on his knee while Ezra and Syrus pulled up a chaireitherside.
“Okay, spill it,” Cody demanded. What’s got you so upset? Is it us?
“Did we overstep last night?” There was a certain amount of trepidation in Syrus’ voice that she didn’t care for. She never wanted them to imagine they were less than perfect, but before she could put his mind at ease, Ezra had joined in with his own concerns.
“Did we hurt you?”
“No, oh no, none of those things. For me, last night was amazing,” she replied hurriedly, shaking her head and wiping the tearsfromher face with the back of her hand.
“I just got worried because you weren’t home on time, and I’d spent all day thinking and wondering about everything and you weren’t here and so my mind kind of ran away with me a bit and I guess I was fretting, but when you were late, I thought you might have had an accident, except then I thought that perhaps, um, maybe, you didn’t want to come back and that last night wasn’t enough for you - that I wasn’t good enough so you stayed away and I think maybe I love you, all three of you but I don’t know how we make that work and…”
The words spewed out like a torrent of water from a ruptured dam, babbling out and all running together without so muchasa breath until Cody calmly put a finger on her lips to stop the diatribe.
“First, I’m sorry we weren’t here for you today. In retrospect, that was an oversight on our part and something we should have thought about a little more carefully,” he said apologetically.
“Last night was absolutely perfect, Ellie. Nothing in the world could have made it better.” Syrus took her hand and kissed her fingers once more as he reassured her.
“Now why would you ever think you weren’t enough for us, baby?” Ezra asked, capturing her cheek in his palm and forcing her to look up at them.
Cody cut in before she could reply. “We did what we did to prove that you alone are enough for all three of us.”
“But what happens now?”she asked in a small voice, hardly daring to hope for what she was really dreaming of.