“He did, indeed. Lexi isn’t terribly happy with Aidan right now. We’ll see. I have some plans that might bring her around.” Now that he’d started down the path that led he and Lexi into a permanent sexual relationship, he was impatient. He’d play a very long game with her. Being with Lexi forever was far more important than immediate gratification, but now that the finish line was in sight, he was anxious. The D/s relationship they were exploring gave him exactly what he needed to move this along. And he knew he was fooling himself. Short-term wasn’t what he was interested in with Aidan.

Bo’s head shook. “I don’t understand a lick of this. If some guy was coming after my girl, I would kick his ass, not try to come up with a way to get her into bed with him.”

“Oh, my plan doesn’t involve a bed at all, so don’t worry about it.”

“What’s going on in here?” Aidan’s big, beautiful form suddenly filled the doorway. He walked in from the back porch into the kitchen. He wore a pair of faded Levi’s, cowboy boots, and a T-shirt that was already drenched in sweat and clinging to his chest. A cowboy hat sat on top of his head. His brown eyes shifted suspiciously from his brother to Lucas and back.

“Not a thing,” Lucas said, watching the way Bo suddenly puffed up the minute his brother walked in the room. His demeanor went from slightly unsure to arrogant in a heartbeat. Bo’s face tightened, and his lips became slightly cruel.

“I was just talking to your little butt buddy here. I think I’ll go into town, be around some real men.” Bo turned on his boot heels and started toward the front door.

Aidan’s face hardened, and he started to go after Bo.

“I would prefer you didn’t, Sir.” Lucas kept his voice even and quiet, not argumentative. He really was making a request.

Aidan stopped, his hand on the door. “He’s being an ass, and I won’t allow it. He won’t insult you or Lexi in my home.”

There really was something about another person protecting him that just got Lucas’s juices flowing. Perhaps it was his crappy childhood, but Lucas was well aware he was a sucker for a protective man or woman. Lexi had made him her slave the day she defended him to some of the nastier people of her mother’s hometown. Of course, his crappy childhood had taught him other things, too. “First, it’s his home, too. And second, I seriously doubt Bo would ever hurt Lexi. He cares about her. Now, I’m another story.”

“He’s being a small-minded, homophobic little prick, and I won’t stand for it.”

Sometimes siblings couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Lucas’s own siblings saw him as a waste of flesh. Of course, his father had done nothing to help. But Lucas knew what it was like to want an older sibling’s attention. “No, Sir, he’s being your little brother. Tell me something, Aidan. Were the two of you close when you were younger?”

Aidan’s head came up, turning to Lucas. “Yes. We were really close. That’s what makes me crazy. We had to survive our father. He was remote and unapproachable and exacting. We were never quite good enough for him. He was really hard on Bo. I had to take care of him, especially when Dad got to drinking.”

“Yes, and then you left him to go to college, and then the Army, and now you’re back and in control of the ranch with not one, but two potential lovers. He doesn’t understand where his brother went,” Lucas explained. “He misses his brother. You might consider not being so hard on him.”

“Lucas, you can’t expect me to just let that go.”

“It was merely an observation.” Lucas started back out the door.

“Wait. I’ll think about what you said.” Aidan stood close. Lucas could feel the heat from his body, but he couldn’t give in to it. “Can you come out and help me in the barn? My foreman hasn’t come in to work, and obviously Bo isn’t going to be helpful. I need an extra set of hands.”

Ranch work. Yeah, he knew a little bit about that. Some hard physical labor might calm his cock down. Between cuddling with Lexi and being so close to Aidan, he was pretty damn frustrated. He held up the coffee mug. “I can do that. Let me feed the beast, and then I’ll go with you.”

Aidan’s lips quirked up as he looked at the mug in Lucas’s hands. “Be quick. She’s deadly before she has her coffee.”

Lucas’s heart seized a little. This was what he wanted. He wanted the camaraderie of a threesome. He was self-aware enough to know that he wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. There was a component of getting everything he wanted sexually in there, but it went beyond that. He wanted to not be alone. Even in a traditional relationship, there was a certain amount of loneliness. If he married Lexi, no one else would know what it meant to be her husband. Oh, but if they had Aidan, he would always be there, backing Lucas up and laughing over all of Lexi’s adorable quirks. When she confused him, he could lean on Aidan. When she was hurting, they could surround her.

“Lucas?” Aidan’s hand came out as though he realized Lucas was getting emotional.

Lucas stepped back. He couldn’t. Not yet. Sex was fine, but he wasn’t ready for that true, pure intimacy that came with comforting another human being. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

He didn’t miss the way Aidan’s face fell.

* * *

Aidan wanted to scream. Every time he thought he was getting close to making a breakthrough, Lucas pulled away. As for Lexi, well, she’d made herself plain the night before when he’d shown them to the room he’d renovated with every bit of savings he had. He’d taken the master bedroom and turned it into something comfortable for them.

And Lexi had slammed the door in his face.

“You can make me come out here, but you can’t make me sleep with you,” she had said.

He hadn’t expected to, but it rankled that Lucas was on the other side of that door and he wasn’t. Would they have sex now that he’d gotten them together? Aidan was well aware that they hadn’t had intercourse. Would they use the big bed he’d had made for the three of them to remedy that little problem?

Jealousy had burned through his gut. He wanted to be with them. He had to be patient. Lucas was the smartest man he knew, and Lucas had been patient. It was time to take a cue from him.

Aidan watched Lucas walk away and promised himself he wouldn’t fuck up again. He’d lost them once because he’d been an idiot who couldn’t handle his own emotions. He’d been a slave to convention and terrified of what his father would have thought. His father, who had never once said he loved him. His father, who had told Aidan that playing the guitar was for wimps and real men ranched or went into the Army.

Patience. He had to believe he could win them back. Bringing them out here was the first step. He just wished he had a nicer place to bring them to. Lucas had grown up rich, and Lexi’s stepfather was one of the wealthiest men in Texas. The ranch was falling apart around him. The land itself was worth a fortune, and he had a fine herd, but Aidan was putting almost everything he had into changing his practices so he could go organic. He had gone into business with Barnes-Fleetwood, but it wouldn’t pay for a couple of years. What could he really offer them?

The back door banged open, and Dwight came in. “Hey, nice to have you back, buddy. I thought you were staying in Dallas for a while.”

“My plans changed. I brought Lucas and Lexi back here.”

Dwight’s eyes widened, and he whistled through his teeth. “I hope Deer Run is ready for that.”

“I don’t care if they are or not.” The town could go to hell for all Aidan cared. This town was one of the reasons he’d walked out on the best thing he’d ever had. It was important to fit in. Small towns thrived on community, and flaunting one’s individuality didn’t work. He’d been horrified at the thought of bringing Lucas home with him, horrified that someone might find out he wasn’t “normal.” Normality could rot. Aidan wanted love.

Dwight put a hand on his back. “Well, I’ll stand behind you. You know I got your back.”

Aidan smiled. Dwight had proven a dependable friend. It was strange. They hadn’t really been close until that terrible day when Aidan had almost died in the sand, the sound of gunfire and barking dog filling his senses, the thought of Lexi and Lucas the only thing he could cling to. Since that day, Dwight had been by his side. Sometimes Aidan worried it was all survivor guilt that made Dwight follow him back to Deer Run. They were the only two of their squad to survive that terrible day.

“Where did you get off to last night?” Aidan asked, remembering Bo’s complaint from the night before. Dwight lived in the foreman’s house behind the barn. He was a loner. He didn’t have many friends aside from Aidan.

“Oh, I just went out for a beer and then, well, you know.”

Aidan grinned. “Which lovely young lady caught your eye?”

“One of the new waitresses at the Two Horse Saloon.”

“Ah,” Aidan said, happy Dwight was getting out a bit. The Two Horse Saloon was a bar on the edge of town. Deer Run was dry, but cowboys always found a way around little things like the law when it came to getting a beer after a hard day’s work.

“And I am really sorry about Karen. Did she find you?” Dwight said, his mouth turning down. “She caught me in a weak moment. I was talking about you to Darla, the waitress I hooked up with. I was talking about The Club and how nice you said it was. I didn’t realize she was sitting next to me. That girl is psycho.”

Well, at least he understood how Karen had shown up. He’d tried to explain to her that he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t sure she’d gotten the message. But that wasn’t Dwight’s fault. “Don’t worry about it.”