“Manners?” Jace lifted her ankle to pull her shoes and pants free of her leg. “Like what? Always apologize with a kiss?”

Before Amanda could respond, he leaned up to give her an open-mouth kiss right on her parted pussy lips. He lifted her ankle higher, bringing it to rest on his shoulder and leave her more vulnerable for his foraging tongue.

She was soft, wet, and tasted so damn good. He nibbled on the fleshy side of one fold and her gasp turned to a moan as he let his tongue come out to soothe the small wound. Licking his way upward, he lapped at her clit, teasing her into a frenzy. Only when she scraped her nails along his scalp and moaned his name, did he remember the game.

Time to stop.

It wasn’t easy, but he managed to lean back and force a grin. “Hmm, smooth pussies. My favorite midday snack.”

He stood up and faced a panting Amanda. She looked delectable with her puckered nipples and breasts heaving. The proof of her arousal lingered on his lips even as it kept her eyes glazed, her skin flushed, and her mouth pouted and looking delectable. Man, he wanted to kiss her.

Instead he grinned down at her and said, “Do you know how many cunts I’ve shaved right here on this very counter?”

It was outrageous, completely ungentlemanly, and the answer wouldn’t have impressed anybody, but she didn’t know that. Amanda couldn’t even understand the question at first. She just stood there blinking while he started the shower. When it hit her, she hit him, smacked him right across the shoulder.

“Jerk.”

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“I thought we agreed no more comments about the sluts you’ve been with before.”

“I’m sorry. It just slipped out.” Jace rubbed his hands down her back and did his best to sound sincere. “I promise no more. I’m going to focus only on you.”

“Good, because my patience is at its end,” Amanda muttered, pouting. “I’ve had a really bad day, and if it’s too much to ask for a little sympathy, then I’ll go find Cody. I’m sure he’d be happy to scrub my back.”

Low blow. Blow, what a great word. It gave him an idea. It was cruel and normally the worse thing a man could do, but this had turned into open warfare. He’d show her jealousy was an emotion best left unprovoked, and he just might get her to reveal some truth about her emotions while he was at it.

“No need to find him, baby, really. I’m going to take good care of you.” Jace backed his pledge up with a little kiss to the tip of her nose and then a more thorough one on her lips.

Again he got lost in Amanda’s taste, in the feel of her naked and soft in his arms. For a moment, the game was forgotten and the passion fueling his soul took over. Only the need for air drove them apart and returned some measure of sanity to his brain.

“Go on, baby, the water should be warm.” Jace turned with her until she faced the oversized stall and gently pushed her through the arched doorway. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”

With that promise, he retreated around the curved wall encasing the stall and steadied himself for what came next. I have to make this point to her. Amanda has to get it, truly get it. Keeping his mind focused on the ultimate goal, Jace stripped out of his clothes.

Pausing to ask God not to let this gamble end in his broken heart, he pushed in the shower door and headed into battle. The first round went to the grumpy Amanda who’d already soaped up her body. Lifting sudsy hands to her head, she cast him another one of her quick little sexy smiles over her shoulder, a challenge as much as it was an invitation. God, I am in love with this woman.

“Here, let me.”

Jace brushed aside her hands, taking over the task of massaging the shampoo through her hair. He knew just how to touch, where to touch, how much pressure to exert to make her moan. She melted before him, slumping into his chest as she gave herself completely over to his control.

He didn’t disappoint. In a repeat of their first shower together, Jace worked his sudsy hands down over her neck and shoulders, moving slowly as he worked out the tension gathered in her muscles. Soon nothing was left but a sweet, vulnerable woman.

It was time to strike. May Amanda forgive me for this. Jace turned her around and took her lips in a kiss. Sweet-tasting, soft-feeling, her tongue dueled with his in a dance as old as time. Playful and fun, the kiss brightened the desire tensing his muscles.

Until Amanda sucked the sweetness right out of him. Locking her lips around his tongue, she pulled his savage desires up to the front. Not in the mood to be teased, Jace broke their kiss so he could push her lips downward. Neither kind nor gentle, Jace kept enough pressure on her head to force her to her knees.

His dick bobbed in the direction of her breath, drooling against her lips as he thumbed her in the mouth. The silent command earned Jace not the kiss he wished, but a teasing, tormenting tongue. Leaving a wake of searing pleasure trailing behind her wicked lips, Amanda slowly, gently explored his cock.

Her touch was so light it was almost ticklish, igniting every cell of his body in a glorious dance as she worked her way down the length of his dick, to the very base. Then she sucked. Jace sighed, letting his back arch as Amanda sucked a trail of pure ecstasy right up one side of his cock and down the other. Swirling her tongue around his balls, the little vixen made him jerk hard under the lash of pleasure.

He couldn’t control the tremors working their way through his muscles as she rolled the tender sack around her lips, applying just enough pressure to bring him to the edge of his control. Jesus, I’m ready to shoot now, and she hasn’t even begun to blow me.

Jace didn’t know if he’d survive this experience, but what a way to die. He slumped back into the smooth stone surface of the shower stall when Amanda released him, taking the moment to catch a breath.

The relief lasted barely a moment as she feathered kisses back up his length, only to rake her teeth across the sensitive head. The slight sting, the instinctive warning of that small action had him jerking upright, only to groan as her tongue came out to smooth his hurt.

“Mmm, talk about tasting good,” she purred against him, letting him feel the words move across his flesh in their own kind of caress.

Oh, God. I’m going to embarrass myself. No. No. No. He had to remember the plan. Any hope he had of catching on to that thought was lost when her full, soft lips parted. They slid down over the flared head of his dick as she took him into the heavenly paradise of her mouth.

Jace’s breath shortened, coming in hard chops as Amanda took him all the way to the back of her throat before she locked those lips tightly around him and pulled back. Slowly, sensually, she repeated the motion until his eyes watered and the pleasure turned painful. Jace couldn’t take any more. His need overwhelmed him and he overwhelmed her.

Burying his hands in her hair, he flexed his hips and forced her into a motion matching the savage beat of his own desire. No longer was Amanda in control of the moment. He took that away from her as he fucked himself hard and furiously into her mouth.

Jace’s balls felt like they were on fire, burning with the need to unload. He fought to hold back, trying to hold out for just one more stroke before it all crashed on him. There was no stopping the pressure from bursting through the gates. Even as his seed spilled from his body, Jace didn’t stop the motions of his hands, keeping her head bouncing over his length until every last drop of his strength was exhausted and he collapsed into the wall.

“Oh, baby.” Jace swallowed, trying to find a voice that wasn’t scratchy and hoarse. “A—” The plan! “Abby!”

Jace closed his eyes even as he said the words, knowing the world would explode around him in seconds. Just as he predicted, Amanda went ballistic.

“What?” She had to be standing on her tiptoes. Her eyes almost reached his nose. “What did you call me?”

Jace blinked, playing the role of the confused man for one last line, one last strike. “I called you Abb…Ohh…”

“You are the lowest, most despicable man I have ever met!”

She hit him. He had kind of figured that was coming, just as he anticipated her storming out of the shower.

“You’re lucky I don’t have a knife on me or you’d be singing soprano.” She jerked her shirt off the floor. “I should have bitten it off!”

“Amanda—”

“Bring that thing near me again and I will!”

“Amanda.” Jace snatched up her jeans before she could grab them. “We need to talk.”

“I’m not talking to you! Don’t think I won’t walk out of here naked. Now give me my pants!”

Jace ignored her demand, not even bothering to play the repentant man. She’d turned this into a war and he intended to claim his victory. “What do you care if I called you by the wrong name? You’re the one who said this was just about sex.”

“No. I said you were just interested in sex and I was obviously right. You with your fancy line about love and you can’t even remember my fucking name!”

She turned and stormed out of the bathroom wearing nothing but her shirt. He wasn’t about to let her get away. He caught her halfway across his room. True to nature, she turned on him with clenched fists. Jace knew he deserved the beating, but he didn’t intend to take it.

“Let me go, you cockeyed son of a whore.”

She tried to wrench free, tried to kick him, and when all else failed, she tried to bite him. That got him annoyed enough to lift her off her feet and toss her on the bed. Sometimes it was good to be the bigger, stronger one.

Before she could roll off the side, he was on her. Grabbing her arms, he kept both wrists locked in one hand as he forced her thighs apart and settled himself between them. She twisted, bucked, but could do no damage. Giving over to words, she lashed out at him, cursing and screaming, calling him just about every dirty word he knew and making up some creative combinations.

It took over ten minutes before she even began to show signs of settling down. Well, not calming down, but at least accepting nothing she said was going to get her free. When she fell silent, Jace still gave her an extra minute to stew before he spoke.

“I think perhaps it’s time for a little honesty here.”

“Do you even know what the word means?” Amanda sneered.

“I know you tried your damndest to make me jealous on the ride out here.” Amanda didn’t deny it, nor did she own up to it. Silence and a heated glare filled with rage and hurt were all the response she gave him. “And I returned the favor.”

“Oh, please.” That got her. “Are you actually going to claim this was planned?”

“I’ve never been with a woman named Abby.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Yeah, right,” he shot back at her in a mock of her disbelief. “Abby is the name of one of the dogs who works on the ranch.”

“Like I’m going to believe you.”

“I can haul your naked ass out onto the range and introduce you, but I’m warning you, she likes to lick people.”

“A dog?” She still didn’t look like she believed him. “You realize I can check that out?”

“Do it. I’ve never lied to you.” Jace paused. “Well, I did lie about one thing.”

“Really?” Amanda smirked. “And I guess you’re confessing now.”

“I am. I—”

“Wouldn’t the list be shorter if you just told me what you have been honest about?”

“Shut up, Amanda, I—”

“I’m not listening to this, to anything you have to say. You are a lowlife dirtbag and I regret the day I ever met you or your brothers!”

“Do I have to gag you?” Jace asked with enough tolerance to make her teeth grind.

Amanda’s head drew back in offense and she responded very coldly. “Fine. Say it and then get off me.”

Because I don’t give a shit what you have to say. Jace knew the end of her sentence. As long as Amanda kept silent, he could live with it.

“Ménage relationships aren’t easy, and there is always some amount of jealousy lurking beneath the surface. We are human, and we suffer the same emotions as other people. I can’t lose my relationship with my brothers. I wouldn’t let a woman come between us. Do you understand?”

Amanda didn’t respond, but she did look a little less pissed and ever so slightly guilty. “That’s why you did this? Pulled this horrible stunt?”

“You really left me no choice.” Jace relaxed slightly before sighing. “You are as thick-skulled as a mountain is dense. I know you wanted to make a point, just as I knew I had to make my point in such a way you could understand how devastating the consequence of making somebody jealous can be.”

Amanda’s eyes narrowed. Jace knew no matter how noble his goal, he’d pay for it. “You hurt me to make a point? Did you ever think about just talking to me?”

“And that would have worked? You wouldn’t have taken what I said and seen it as a vulnerability to manipulate?”

“How dare you?” Every muscle in her forehead wrinkled as she glared at him. “I would never—”

“Didn’t you already?” Jace cut her off. “How do you think I felt on the ride home? Good? Or hurt? Don’t laugh. I love you, Amanda. Whether or not you want to accept my feelings, they’re real. You know what I think?”

Amanda groaned. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I think you’re scared to admit you love me, too, because you think this is all some kind of game, but it isn’t. This is real, Amanda.”

“Real?” Amanda smirked. “You want to share me with your two brothers and yet you love me. You don’t think maybe that’s a little insane sounding?”

With a sigh, Jace released his hold on her wrists and rolled to his side. She surprised him when she didn’t jump out of the bed and take off. Maybe, just maybe, he had actually survived this skirmish.

He’d taken a big risk, but now he had to take another. “You want to know why.”

“Yeah. I want to know why.”