Three Men and a Woman: Liberty (Siren Publishing Menage Amour)

  Three Men and a Woman: Liberty

  Not every woman is built for life on an isolated Wyoming bison ranch. On the Chimney Bluff, Taggart, Orion, and Keegan Harper have two failed marriages to prove it. But when Tag meets Liberty Clark, a drama teacher in Denver, he thinks he’s found the one.

  Tag brings Liberty to the Bluff for her spring break week. There, she falls in love with both the handsome cowboy and his land. But he has more in mind—he sees her as the woman not just for him, but for all the Harper brothers. When Liberty realizes his crazy intent, she takes off back to Denver.

  Then a crisis strikes the ranch. Critically injured, Orion is on his way to Denver by air ambulance. Keegan is hurt, too. Tag needs Liberty’s help. He needs her.

  Lib is too loving a person to say no. By the time all three men are safe and well, they’ve each found their way into her heart.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys

  Length: 71,149 words

  THREE MEN AND A WOMAN:

  LIBERTY

  Rachel Billings

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  THREE MEN AND A WOMAN: LIBERTY

  Copyright © 2017 by Rachel Billings

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-809-7

  First Publication: December 2017

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2017 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rachel Billings takes her pen name from her hometown. She lives in Western New York now, where she works, writes and gardens. But she still misses the Big Sky.

  She comes from farmers and likes to dig in the dirt then sit back and watch things grow. She takes a similar approach to the raising of her three children. Her husband, being a scientist, takes a more methodical approach.

  Rachel started writing stories in her head when she was five. They featured spunky girls who performed heroic acts while looking great and earning the admiration of attractive males. She had a good thing going then, and she’s stuck with it.

  In her day job (which happens to be a night job, too), she works to help women have stronger, healthier, happier lives. In her writing, she hopes to entertain and maybe even enrich women’s lives through romantic and erotic fiction. She does consider her work to be fantasy and realizes that not everything described in her books should be tried at home.

  She has learned that love has power and believes that when two (or four) people love each other, many good things are possible. Happiness. Growth. Laughter.

  Hot sex.

  For all titles by Rachel Billings, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/rachel-billings

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Landmarks

  Cover

  THREE MEN AND A

  WOMAN: LIBERTY

  RACHEL BILLINGS

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  “Marry me.”

  Liberty Clark turned her head, not certain what she’d heard. She’d already come once—okay, twice, but once in the last minute—and her ears were still ringing. “Tag? What?”

  Maybe he hadn’t spoken at all. He was busy, for sure, one of his hands gripping her ass as he fucked her, the other on her breast working her nipple hard, his mouth sucking a bruise into the base of her neck. He was using his teeth.

  “Tag?”

  His only response was a growl—and harder fucking.

  Taggart Harper was one hell of a cowboy. She’d met him three nights ago, when she and a couple friends who taught with her at Denver School of the Arts had gone out to celebrate the start of their MLK three-day weekend. They went to Beta Nightclub, pretending they were younger and hipper than they actually were.

  Well, maybe Amanda and Fran really were a bit hip, because they’d both hooked up, and Liberty found herself going home alone. At least, heading out the door alone.

  Seventy-four inches of handsome cowboy leaned against the rail outside the nightclub, brawny arms crossed over a massive chest, and brown eyes looking like they’d been waiting for her.

  “I can’t hear a damn thing in there,” he’d said, as though that explained why he was waiting for her outside. As though they might have already tried for a conversation and had a fail because those world-class speakers were loud.

  Which they hadn’t. She hadn’t seen him, much less tried to speak with him.

  She wasn’t surprised at the complaint, though. Beta was so not a cowboy bar. He looked like the sort who typically expected to be able to understand the lyrics of his music and sing along with them. With a twang. About beer and his truck and a girl with painted-on jeans.

  But the truth was, the club had been stinking loud, and her eardrums felt the relief of relative quiet, a lessening of pressure like coming up from underwater. Maybe that was what had her pausing a step when he spoke.

  Or the fresh, cool air of a warmer-than-it-should-be January night.

  Most likely, it was all that height and muscle and the little peeks of dark brown curls from under his hat.

  “You lost, cowboy?”

  He grinned, and Liberty could imagine him moving a well-chawed wood match from one side of his mouth to the other. Like some hot movie cowboy had done somewhere in her recollection.

  “Well, I’ll admit I did let myself get talked into a little experimentation tonight.” He tilted his hat back and resettled it. “Didn’t see a single soul in there doing the two-step.”

  “Or anyone else in a cowboy hat.”

  “Or boots.”

  Or a belt buckle that said, I used to ride rodeo. She smiled and, for reasons she couldn’t have identified, leaned her hip along the rail. A little bit close to him.

  Those eyes were dark and maybe appreciative as he looked at the small space between them and then back at her. “I saw you, though.”

  Liberty suspected that was more line than truth.

  “I saw when your two girlfriends left you.” He appeared to notice her surprise at that. She
guessed maybe he was telling the truth after all. “I’m not sure the blonde made the right choice. I figure she’s got a walk of shame ahead of her.”

  At best, Liberty thought. Fran was notorious for choosing her men poorly. Luckily, her two older brothers were cops, so she didn’t generally have trouble handling what came.

  Liberty felt his gaze run down her body and back up. He wasn’t seeing much now—January, unusually warm or not, in Denver. Her wool coat was girly and tailored, but it reached past the tops of her boots, which were also dressy but, still—flat, practical for snow. But his eyes lingered like he’d gotten a look at her inside, remembered what he’d seen, and liked it.

  Probably most of the Beta clientele had outgrown their emo days, but they still wore a lot of black. For the women, it tended to shimmer and sparkle, but even so—black.

  Liberty had long, dark brown hair and a bronze tone to her skin. Black didn’t do much for her.

  At least, not outside the bedroom.

  She’d worn gold—a satin sheath, spaghetti straps, a fair hint of her size Ds showing. She was five-eight and no skinny Minnie. At a hundred and forty pounds, she had curves, and the dress fit closely enough to let them be known. Her four-inch heels were in her hobo bag now, but she thought they’d made an impression.

  The cowboy appeared to agree. He suggested they warm themselves up over a cup of coffee someplace quiet, and that place turned out to be at his hotel. He was at the Residence Inn near the National Western Complex because, of course, he was in town for the livestock show. Specifically, the Gold Trophy Show and Sale because he owned a bison ranch a bit north and east of Cheyenne.

  They did have coffee, and he did, in fact, make plain how much he liked what she wore under her coat. He liked what she wore under that, too.

  She spent the weekend with him. The man knew how to use his mouth and his hands—all his parts really—and she’d found him a fine, fitting end to a hell of a dry spell. She’d had an engagement go bad more than a year earlier—pretty close to two years, though she hesitated to admit it. Taggart Harper was just exactly the horse to climb back up on.

  He delayed his return up north by a day so they’d have Monday together. They spent most of that day in his bed—she didn’t want to ask if he was working off a dry spell, too, but the man had a lot of energy.

  Friday night had been sweet, creative, and vigorous lovemaking. Things had ramped up on Saturday and Sunday to pretty much wild fucking. He did about everything a man could do to a woman, and she did most of it back. He had a good imagination, and she was willing to be inspired. But by Monday noon, they both seemed to be feeling a little forlorn, and they were back to kissy, clingy, touchy lovemaking.

  Until he said what she thought he’d said, and she had to wonder if he was mistaking Denver for Vegas.

  In Denver, a couple didn’t go see wedding chapel Elvis just because they’d had a hot weekend in bed.

  Though it hadn’t been only in bed that they’d enjoyed each other. He’d taken her to the livestock show—a better date than she might have guessed—and to the rodeo. They’d been out to dinner, and they did some fine two-stepping. She’d taken him—well, he’d driven, of course, in his pickup, of course—down to see Garden of the Gods, pretty as ever with the red rock dappled by snow.

  Still—not Vegas. Plus, she had a job she loved in Denver, and he had a ranch in Wyoming, the epitome of geographically inflexible work.

  But he had his teeth at the crook of her neck, and all she could think was how he was branding her. His hands—they totally knew what they were doing. And his cock was, well…big. He filled her so good, made her feel so fine.

  He growled again, like nothing had ever felt that amazing, and she had to agree. He hunched over her, his big body totally containing hers, and fucked hard into her until they were both shivering, shuddering, and crying out. Whimpering wails that almost became screams on her part. Deep, feral groans on his. Liberty came apart, almost so far gone that she wouldn’t feel the way he clutched her, wouldn’t sense that urgent rush as he spurted out his cum, the blast of it obvious even through the condom. Wouldn’t hear those two, crazy words.

  Almost, but not quite, that far gone.

  * * * *

  Taggart Harper knew what he wanted, and Liberty Clark was it.

  He’d had things that were hard to get before.

  At fifteen, he’d had to get his brothers, three and six years younger, and himself into town for school each day. He’d had to get them home, too, and get them fed, because their mother had taken off and their father drank his meals.

  At eighteen, he’d had to get a hold on a two-thousand-plus acre ranch that had been run into the dirt pretty much literally by the failed, short-sighted, overgrazing, get-rich-quick schemes of his father. The old bastard had finally done them all a favor and run his truck off the road at the one place on the ranch that he’d hit rock instead of soft, Great Plains grassland.

  They put him in the ground, and then Chimney Bluff Ranch belonged to Tag and his brothers.

  There’d been some tough years—some of them real tough—when he’d worked like a dog and needed a lot of help from Orion and Keegan even as those two had been finishing high school and then college. There’d been lean years, while he’d learned how to manage beef cattle, with plenty of time that he hadn’t had two nickels to rub together.

  Slowly, the brothers had made a go of it. They’d never become what a person might call cattle barons, but they’d managed to move enough beef to the stockyards in Cheyenne to meet their costs. Most years, anyway.

  Then Orion had come back from Laramie talking about land stewardship and conservation. Ecosystems and natural balance. Native grasslands and indigenous species.

  By that last one, he’d meant the American bison.

  There followed some more lean years while they’d gotten Chimney Bluff converted to a bison ranch.

  Other shit had happened, too. Both his brothers had made bad decisions with women, marrying and bringing to the Bluff females who were barely more than girls and had no sense at all about what it meant to really work and help out another person. Tag had gotten his brothers through the divorces he’d seen coming.

  All those things had been tough, but he’d gotten the job done. Gotten what he wanted. At thirty-four, he had a pretty good handle on his life.

  Now he lay beside this pretty woman, both of them still working for breath, and didn’t really regret those two words—more command than proposal—that had slipped past his teeth.

  He’d left the Gold Trophy Friday evening with a couple of young guys who were more businessmen than ranchers. He knew there were plenty of cowboy bars in Denver—he’d slugged back some beers in a fair number of them over the years. But these guys thought they were cool, and they talked him into checking out Beta.

  Which turned out to be as noxious to the human senses as a place could be—way too loud with music that mostly just hurt his ears, flashing lights that made him jittery, and bad, expensive beer. A bar in Denver, and not a Coors in sight.

  There was only one thing there he found worth looking at—six feet in her heels, spectacular curves in shimmery gold, blue eyes an unexpected contrast to her dark good looks.

  Tag couldn’t figure a way in hell of approaching her and making an impression in that crazy ruckus. So he just waited her out—waited until her two girlfriends hooked up and left her there alone. Until she got her coat back and changed her heels out for nice but practical boots—a measure that reassured him she had some sense to go with that beautiful face and body.

  And smile, which was what had truly seduced him. Not just a pretty curve of her lush mouth, but something that was warm and tender. Sincere, he thought, even as she chatted with her friends or turned down the guys who approached her.

  Most of them, anyway. She said yes to a couple of them, enough that he got to watch her dance, enough that he could imagine what she’d be like in bed. Enough that he got hard, watching and imagin
ing. She used that smile on those guys again as she said no to a second dance or whatever else they suggested.

  Good thing, that.

  He tucked into his shearling coat, got out the door ahead of her, and got her into his bed.

  Learned enough about her to know she was what he wanted. He was pretty sure of it before he ever spoke to her and dead certain now.

  He dumped his spent condom over the side of the bed to deal with later. He always had a small stock at hand, but Liberty was who she was, and he’d had to make a drugstore stop on Sunday, when he’d driven her back from Garden of the Gods. With no small effort, he rolled to his side facing her and put a hand on her hip to turn her, too.

  She was so pretty, that mouth all kissed soft, her hair a dark waterfall along her neck and shoulders, her eyes that light blue and easy on him.

  “I meant that,” he told her. “What I said.”

  She turned her head a little, a frown at her brow.

  “You heard me, Lib.”

  She lifted a hand and ran her fingers through the curls of his hair. He’d meant to get shorn while he was in town, but he’d learned already by Friday night that she liked to take a good hold there, so maybe that cut wasn’t going to happen.

  “Taggart,” she said on a kind of sigh.

  “Liberty.”

  “We really don’t know each other that well.”

  “We know what’s important. I don’t think there are going to be any bad surprises.”

  That pretty mouth curved. “I might have a bunch of nuts in my family tree. Or a tendency for my hips to go double-wide after a couple babies.”

  “Well, there you go, talking about bearing my children already. Don’t go thinking that’s going to scare me off. We both have enough sense not to raise nutty kids, and you’ve seen my hands. They’re big enough to hold you right where I need you, no matter how wide you get. I’m willing to take my chances on that.”