STORY EXCERPT

A bang of thunder shook the room and her. “How long has it been storming?”

“Over an hour, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up.” Cody walked to the door. “How about some tea, sweetheart?”

Her mouth felt like cotton. “Yes. I would love some.”

“How do you like it?” he asked.

Another simple question but one she couldn’t answer, her memory still lost to her. “I’m not sure.”

“We’ll all discover your likes and dislikes together.” Emmett’s tone was deep yet tender and comforting, too. “Make her three cups. One plain. One with sugar. One with cream.”

“I’ll make four. She might like cream and sugar.”

“Good call.”

Cody smiled and sent her a wink. “Everything is going to be just fine. You’ll see.”

She couldn’t help but smile back at him. Stranger or not, the guy was charming, a kind of devil-may-care cowboy. Suddenly a bout of the shakes took hold of her. She couldn’t stop trembling. Her skin felt cold.

Bryant leaned in and whispered, “Don’t fret. This is normal. These shivers will end.”

His words reached into her and the quakes subsided a little. “Are you a doctor?”

“No, but I won’t let you down. I saw a lot of action in Afghanistan.” Bryant took her hand. “We’ll see you through this. You don’t have a fever. That’s good.”

“You’re a soldier?” Was he home on leave?

“Marine. I’ve been out for a couple of years.” Bryant nodded towards the kitchen. “Cody and Emmett, too, though Emmett was in earlier than we were. He went to Iraq.”

No wonder she felt so safe even though they were complete strangers. “Soldier cowboys came to my rescue. Someone should make a movie about that.”

“Not a bad idea.” Emmett glanced over at his brother. “I would’ve stayed in if I hadn’t lost fifty percent of my hearing in my right ear from an IED exploding under my team.”

Bryant squeezed her hand. “And Cody and I would’ve re-upped if you hadn’t needed us to help at the ranch.”

Emmett shrugged. “I would’ve managed with Sawyer and Reed just fine. They’re the best hands around. Besides, with the force reduction going on two years ago, I doubt either of you would’ve gotten an assignment.”

“Why am I shaking?” She didn’t expect an answer, only needed to voice the question.

“You’ve been through a helluva a lot, miss.” Bryant released her hand and pulled the covers up to her neck. “Nerves would be my bet. Who wouldn’t be shaking after such a traumatic event?”

“But isn’t that just it? I don’t know what happened. You don’t know what happened. I don’t even know who I am or where I come from or where I was going.” The trembles came back stronger and more frenzied than before. “What if I never gain my memory back?”

Emmett took a cloth from a bowl on the table by the bed. She hadn’t even noticed it. He wrung it out and wiped her face. “You will. Bryant is right. Besides, someone as beautiful as you must have loved ones who will come looking for you. They’ll help you sort things out. Until then, you’re going to have to depend on us.”

“My brother is right, miss. We may look rough around the edges, just three cowboys, but we won’t let you down. Cross my heart.” Bryant took his finger and traced an ‘X’ over his manly chest. It was an action that seemed to reveal the boy he’d been long ago.

Her body wouldn’t stop trembling as her mind continued to wrestle with itself. Who am I? The question rolled over again and again with no resolution. Her heart thudded in her chest hard and fast. “Emmett, you found me, right?”

“Yes.”

“What else can you tell me that might jog my memory back into place?” She looked down at the tattered clothes she was wearing—slacks and a shirt. No shoes. “Was this all I had on?” They could’ve stripped her while she was out but hadn’t. It made her feel better about them.

“You likely lost your shoes when you walked away in a daze from your car.”

“What about a purse or identification?” She knew this was a feeble attempt to grasp at any shred that might pull her out of this nightmare, but she had to try.

Emmett shook his head. “Maybe this might help you remember. You were muttering something I didn’t understand. What was it?” He rubbed his head and then snapped his fingers. “Right.”

“Right what?” Bryant asked.

“That was one of the words she was saying over and over. Right and bliss. Does that help you?”

She sure wished it did, but it didn’t spark a single thing in her locked down brain. “No. Anything else, Emmett?”

He touched her cheek. “I’m sorry, but no.”

Cody walked in carrying a tray with the four promised mugs, each was steaming hot. “We don’t have any fancy teas, sweetheart. I hope you like tried and true Lipton.”

She held out her hand and saw the tremble of her fingers. Immediately, she recoiled her hand back. “Thank you, Cody. I’ll drink it later.”

“You’ll drink it now, doll,” he commanded. “You get to pick which cup, but once done, you’ll drink all of it. Consider it your medicine.” His I-mean-business tone was easy to detect, but his eyes sparkled with mischievousness that was not hard to miss.

“It will make you feel better,” Bryant cajoled. “Might stop your trembles, too.”

“Lucky me,” she joked. “Three nurses disguised as cowboys. I’m not sure I’m really awake.”

Bryant cupped her chin. “You’re awake. And by the looks of you and the tone in your voice, I’d say you’re doing well. Drink.”

She had a feeling these cowboys could persuade her to do just about anything if they worked together. “Three against one isn’t fair.”

Emmett’s fixed gaze unnerved her. “We never play fair, miss. Drink.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Bryant nodded and handed the scary-looking black paddle to him—the same paddle Emmett had threatened her with the first time in the playroom. Then it had been a test. When he’d asked her color state, she’d confessed with “yellow.” Now this wasn’t a test. This was punishment, plain and simple. Trust. I trust Emmett. I trust Cody. I trust Bryant. She absolutely did trust her cowboys, but that wasn’t backing down her nerves, not one bit.

Emmett swung it in front of her, and she felt the blast of air it moved on her face, giving her the worst case of the willies. “You’re reckless and headstrong. Tonight you’re going to learn what it means to disobey us. What happened in the past, back in Chicago, in the sheriff’s office can’t happen again. We take the risks, not you. After tonight, you’ll think twice before you act so rash.”

He swung it again, and her heartbeats sped up in her chest and her breathing hitched tight in her throat.

What would the monstrous thing feel like on her ass? The other paddle had warmed her ass up quite nice. Would Blackie burn her until she couldn’t stand on her own?

As Cody removed her bra and Bryant her panties, a palpitating shudder shot through Amber as her trepidation and wantonness came to blows, warring for supremacy inside her.

Bryant’s lips feathered along her neck, raising her temperature several notches. “Time to get you on the bench, baby.”

Her nipples and clit were tingling in anticipation as he and Cody tied her to the bench with ropes, real ropes.

“What your Masters, my brothers, are doing, little one, is trussing you to the bench so you can’t move. We could’ve used handcuffs, but we want you completely immobile. Each of us carries two pairs of scissors in case you start to panic beyond the pleasurable state we want you in. Do you trust us, slave?”

“Yes, Master,” she choked out, since getting enough oxygen in her lungs was becoming increasingly difficult. She was so turned on, and they’d only stripped away her clothes. God, she would never tire of their commands from their mouths, their hands, and yes, even their cocks. She could feel the bite of the ropes on all her flesh save one place, her bottom. The bites there would come from Blackie. She gulped thinking about Emmett, who she could no longer see, standing behind her, staring at her ass, and holding the wicked punishing tool in his hand.

“I’m done with my knots.” Cody informed in a deep lusty tone.

Bryant brushed the hair out of her eyes, giving her a little dose of courage and a whole bunch of goose bumps. “Me, too. Our slave is ready for her punishment.”

“How about a blindfold and ball gag?” Cody’s suggestion heightened her tremors. “I know we didn’t talk about using them, but I think our pet might get more out of the experience if we did.”

“Good thinking,” Emmett said. “But just the blindfold tonight. I want to hear her screams. Color, slave?”

“Green, Master.” The truth was her green was vacillating in shades of worry and want. Still, she couldn’t believe how easily she was settling into her cowboys’ lifestyle. She was taking to BDSM play lickety-split. Lick? God, please lick me again, Emmett. She didn’t dare say it out loud or anything else for that matter unless instructed to speak or answer. She didn’t want Emmett to change his mind on the ball gag thingy Cody had mentioned.

“Let us train our slave, brothers.” Emmett’s voice was harsher than she’d ever heard it, sending butterflies aloft in her belly.

“You.”

The first whack from Blackie in Emmett’s hand to the very middle of her ass shocked a scream out of her, but she couldn’t move even an inch with Cody’s and Bryant’s ropes around her. The sting continued to sizzle when he removed it from her backside.

“Will.”

The next whack landed in the center of her left cheek. Blackie’s chomp sizzled on her flesh, causing her nipples and clitoris to throb like mad.

“Obey.” Her right cheek was scorched by the monstrous paddle’s next attack, releasing a flood of tears from her eyes and pussy.

“You.” Thwack. “Will.” Thwack. “Obey.” Thwack.

Over and over, Emmett said the same words, punctuating them with Blackie’s teeth to her ass.

Never had she felt such overwhelming heat or mind-blowing dizziness. Every spank chipped away at her resistance, her hesitation, her walls, her doubts. The more the paddle landed on her now-molten ass, the more she surrendered herself to them. Trust. Absolute and total.

“Color?” Her Master’s voice came through the delicious haze, filling her with rapture.

“Green, Master.” Her own words seemed distant and faraway.

“Are you ready to obey us, little one? Always?”

“Yes, Masters. Always.”

“Sweet surrender,” Emmett said in a hushed tone that sounded like satisfaction to her.

“Beautiful,” Bryant added in a similar timbre.

“She’s ours. All ours,” Cody said in a resonance matching his brothers.

Their words filled her with pride. She’d pleased her Masters.

In a flash, they removed the ropes.

“We’re going to keep you on the bench, little one. Grab Bryant’s hands. That’s my girl. We’re going to lower the bench so that we can all fuck you at the same time.”

Her first thought, in her light-headed, lusty-filled state, was she had no idea the bench could be adjusted to a different height, and her second was how did they plan on fucking her simultaneously? As the contraption locked into the position her Masters wanted, her pussy got even wetter.

“Cody and I are going to slide you down the bench a few inches to give us better access to your pussy and ass,” Emmett said in syllables clearly chocked full of carnality.

They shifted her down. “Open your eyes, pet,” Bryant growled.

“Yes, Sir,” she said, finding his heavy erection staring her in the face.