by Edith DuBois
“Woo-and-charm routine? What exactly does that entail?”
“So after I introduced you to my brothers—”
“That’s James, right?” She pointed to the one driving, the one who looked older. She’d only caught quick glimpses of Jeremiah’s brothers up close, but she’d been able to pick up small things about them at least. James had an intensity in his expression. It was almost like a constant frown, but it didn’t make him seem dour. Just intense.
“Yes,” Jeremiah answered.
“And that’s Johnny?” She looked at the man sitting in the passenger seat. The wind from the open-topped Jeep was too loud for the two in front to hear her, so Marina didn’t feel shy about discussing them and ogling them. Johnny had reddish-brown curls atop his head and two dimples, one in each cheek. Despite the beard that covered the lower half of his face, she’d noticed at the bar that the dimples gave him an impish air. She hadn’t decided yet if she liked the beards each of them were sporting.
“Why do you all have beards anyway?” she blurted out. “Is this some kind of bear-shifter, mountain-man fashion statement?”
“We’ve been living in the woods for the past six weeks. That’s why you never saw us around town. When we got back, we headed straight for Catdaddy’s. And then we saw you.” He pressed a kiss against her neck. She forced herself to ignore the pleasurable shock it caused.
“So go on. What’s the woo-and-charm routine?”
“Basically it’s a three-pronged approach. James is the dark, mysterious brooder. Johnny is the sensitive, easygoing jokester.”
Marina peeked at him over her shoulder. “And you? Where do you come in?”
“I’m the totally sexy, irresistible charmer.” He lowered his mouth to hers, darting his tongue inside her lips to wiggle against her teeth. Then his lips captured her bottom one, sucking and teasing. She almost grabbed his shoulders so that she could get better leverage and deepen the kiss, but then she remembered herself.
“Stop fucking doing that shit.” She jerked away from him, more to hide her reaction than anything else.
He groaned, and his frustration excited her, made her want to play.
“Your lips taste like whiskey.” He spoke in a harsh whisper. “You smell so good.” He put his mouth against her ear. “I want to taste all of you.”
“Quit it!” She swatted at him, but he dodged.
“I bet your pussy tastes like honey.” His hand slid up her leg. “And the wind on the edge of a storm. I see that it in your eyes.” Through the fabric, his fingers danced across the lips of her cunt. She bit back a moan.
He rolled the heel of his palm against her clit. “Your smell intoxicates me. My mouth is watering for your flavor.”
She knew she should resist, but hell, that kind of talking really turned her on. “What else?” she asked, rolling against his hand between her legs.
“I want to push my tongue inside your cunt.”
“Oh, shit.” Fire whipped through her veins at his blunt words.
“I want to roll it all around the soft, fleshy walls you keep hidden away from the world, so sweet and tender with your flavor. I want you to let me in, let me in deep. I want you to beg my cock to enter you and stroke you to life and possess you.”
“Oh god…”
“I want to ride your cunt so fucking hard, Marina. I want to command every moan, every cry, every aching howl. I want to know your flesh. I want you to succumb—to me and to my brothers.” Her eyes flew up to the two men sitting in front. They were both watching. She caught James’s gaze in the rearview mirror, and the pleasure Jeremiah was stroking to life blazed up stronger. Johnny turned to look, and the flames jumped higher inside her body. “I want you to succumb to your own dark desires, Marina, and to the call of our flesh as we crash into each other. Again.” He squeezed her pussy. “And again.” He squeezed harder. “And again.” He squeezed and he held her tight.
“Jeremiah.” She could barely breathe, much less form words. She pushed hard against the hand that held her pussy captive.
He began unzipping her skimpy blue-jean shorts and then dipped his hand inside her stockings, moving his fingers under her lace thong. The fingers darted between her lips, scraping up and down the innermost folds of her pussy. “Your flesh is calling, all right. You feel how easy my fingers slide across your slick lips?” He dipped his fingers into her throbbing entrance. He swirled them around, barely pushing them inside, and then swiped once fast and deep inside her, making her body jerk at the sudden intrusion. But he took his fingers away. They were gone and left her wanting. He pulled them out of her shorts and held them in front of her, rubbing his thumb against them, rolling the moisture between the three fingertips.
“I’ve found you.” He smelled his fingertips. “Hot, wet, secluded, and hidden. What secrets am I going to uncover when I explore you?” He nibbled on her neck. “What am I going to see and smell there?” His tongue licked up the back of her ear. “What am I going to taste?” He moved to rest his chin on the top of her shoulder and then plunged his fingers into his mouth. Making a deep, satisfied sound in the back of his throat, he sucked every last drop of her juices from his fingers.
“Open your mouth,” he ordered. So engrossed with his command of her desire, she obeyed without hesitating. He pushed his fingers into her mouth. She could taste him, and she could taste a hint of herself. His fingers rolled against her tongue, and she sucked. When he pushed his other hand down her shorts and plunged two fingers deep into her cunt, she moaned around the fingers in her mouth.
Both sets of fingers began moving inside her body. They stroked and jabbed and swirled as one. Marina held on to the wrist in front of her face and then used her free hand to massage her clit. Her hips rocked violently against the hand buried in her pussy.
And all around her was Jeremiah.
She leaned back against him. She dangled her legs off the side of him, and his arms held her pinned against his body. His fingers curled up inside her to scratch at that magic place. She felt a tingle start in her toes, and with each stroke of his fingers, the tingling sensation shot up through her legs, her thighs, her stomach, her heart. He stroked and stroked. She pulled his hand away from her face and turned to him, kissed him, and whimpered.
“Just a little more,” she said, a low note of desperation in her voice. She scraped her teeth along Jeremiah’s lips, wanting to urge him on, needing to release the mounting tension in her body. His fingers pressed hard against her insides. She bit him. Desperate and stretching toward that ultimate pleasure, she rubbed her fingers on her clit with a vicious, unrelenting vigor.
Then it happened. Her orgasm exploded into existence. With a wild cry, she arched up and away from him. Though one of his hands was still partially embedded in her body, his other wrapped around her waist and pulled her back against him.
It took her a moment to catch her breath. She didn’t want to open her eyes, afraid everything she felt would disappear like smoke in a bar when the morning comes calling.
“Now that was fucking sexy as fuck.” Johnny’s voice came from the front. Marina snapped her eyes open, not realizing they’d turned onto Treaty Lane. Aunt Agnes lived just off Treaty Lane. If they lived somewhere nearby, she could easily make an escape. Strangely, that thought made her sad.
She scrambled out of Jeremiah’s arms, not necessarily embarrassed, but discomfited by how easily she’d capitulated to his demands on her body. And that James and Johnny had been watching. And that she didn’t mind.
Buttoning up her shorts, she peeked at James, and his eyes darted up to hers in the rearview mirror.
“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath. After all the crap she’d given Michelle, she’d been turned on by Johnny’s and James’s eyes on her as Jeremiah fingered her. She didn’t understand and didn’t want to think about it. But she couldn’t ignore the desire that was already building up inside her at the thought of more, at the thought of Jeremiah
moving inside her as his brothers watched.
She clenched her eyes shut, trying to dispel the idea, but she couldn’t. Her pussy was already pulsing again.
“Honestly, how do you expect a man who’s lusting so strong after you to keep his eyes off that little display of sexiness?” Johnny asked, his speech flavored with a bit of a twang. “I’m about ready to spew all over this dash.”
“You’re cleaning it up if you do,” James said in an even tone.
“James, brother, that was a joke.” Johnny winked at Marina.
Jeremiah took her hand in his and gave her a smile, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes.
“So y’all are really kidnapping me? This is really happening?”
“Looks like it,” Johnny said.
“Well then, can we at least go by my aunt’s house first? A lady requires things, you know. Plus, I promised my puppy I’d take extra good care of him. I need to check on him, make sure he’s all right. Y’all have space for one more critter, right?”
“I don’t know. That sounds kind of fishy, don’t you think, Jeremiah? We can’t let our hostage have any- and everything she wants.”
Marina narrowed her eyes at him.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to give us something in return for these privileges.”
“Like what exactly?”
“Oh, the possibilities are endless.” Johnny tapped his chin as if in serious consideration of the matter.
She rolled her eyes. “What’s your asking price?”
“How about one night with us gets you fifteen minutes. Two nights means thirty minutes. Three nights et cetera.”
“Whoa now, that’s pretty steep,” Jeremiah jumped in. “How about let’s make that one night for every two minutes spent inside. That seems more reasonable.”
“Oh yeah, I like that better.” Johnny nodded. “But you know, I wasn’t sure. I’m not used to all this bargaining stuff.”
“It’s okay. You’ll learn soon enough, bro.”
“Y’all are ridiculous,” she said. “Last I checked, bargaining was something that happened between two opposing parties, not two people in the same party.”
“Hush, hush,” Johnny said. “We’re ready to start the bargaining process, and the official offer I’m putting on the table for you is that you have to spend one night with us for every thirty seconds you spend inside your aunt’s house.”
“What the hell! You said two minutes. I won’t even get in the front door before half of that is up. No. Absolutely not. I’m not agreeing to that.”
Jeremiah leaned over and whispered in her ear. “I’m not sure if you know how this works, but now it’s your turn to make us an offer, usually one that’s more in your favor.” He patted her on the head like she was a simple child.
“Get off,” she said grumpily. “I don’t want to bargain. I don’t want to be kidnapped. I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed. Alone.”
Both Jeremiah and Johnny threw back their heads in laughter, and when he’d caught his breath again, Jeremiah said, “You are such a fibber, Marina. You can’t wait to spend the night with us. Admit it. Your insides are all aquiver just thinking about it.”
She crossed her arms and jutted out her chin. “I wouldn’t deign to answer that question.”
Jeremiah laughed again. “You can’t even deny it.”
They had reached her aunt’s house, and James put the Jeep in park. He turned to look back at her. “Marina, we’re not going to keep you hostage. If you want to stay here, stay here.”
Johnny had been grinning at her, but at James’s words, his smile dimmed until it morphed into a scowl. “You are such a buzzkill.”
She crawled out of the Jeep and headed for the front door, so confused about what she wanted. After all the shit she’d been saying to Michelle, how could she contemplate going with them? But at the same time, Jeremiah had just made her orgasm…with his fingers! That had never happened to her, not even in her more eager but less experienced days.
James’s voice broke through her tumultuous thoughts. “If you want to stay with us, Marina—”
She paused, waiting for his next words, her pussy hot and suddenly pulsing between her legs.
“We’ll give you five minutes.”
Marina locked eyes with him. Shit, he was gorgeous. His hair was straighter than both his brothers’ and a little longer. He had even cheekbones and a straight nose, maybe a little too sharp, but it worked on his face. He had lips that pursed slightly yet somehow still looked generous and giving. His eyes, like his brothers’, were deepest black. They bore into her, and she stood locked in his gaze.
“Marina, sweetheart,” Johnny called from behind his brother, “time’s a-wasting.”
She blinked a couple times, knocked out of the trance that James’s eyes had placed upon her.
“Oh, is it?” she asked, letting her sarcasm drip freely through her voice. “Doesn’t look like I’m too concerned, does it?” With deliberate slowness, she turned, sauntered up to the front door, and casually threw it open. She walked through and then kicked it closed behind her.
When she was safely out of sight, though, she leaned heavily against the wall and let out a long sigh. Nothing made sense. Her mind and her nerves and her heart were all fighting with each other.
Oh lord, she had to choose. She hated to admit that a part of her had been excited by the prospect of playing their hostage tonight, just letting herself go along with what happened and then blaming it all on them in the morning.
Her thoughts continued to tangle around themselves as she walked to her room. Roy yapped when he saw her and jumped in her lap as she sat on the bed.
“Hey, boy,” she said, scratching him behind the ears and smiling at how his whole butt moved when wagging his tail. “So what’s it going to be, huh? Am I staying here, fella? Or…” Roy perked his ears up and tilted his head to the side, making her giggle at his perplexed, expectant look.
“Am I gonna let those bearded bear-shifter-thingies have me?”
* * * *
His fingers gripped the wheel. Marina’s time was almost up, and James felt the pressure of each passing second push down on him.
“How long has it been?” Jeremiah asked quietly from the back.
“She has twenty-five seconds,” Johnny answered in surly tones. “Damn it, James! Why did you give her a choice like that? She was playing along. She was gonna come home with us, and she was gonna…” Johnny fidgeted nervously in the passenger seat, leaning out the side of the Jeep to get a better look at the front door. “Now she’s gonna chicken out. I know it,” he muttered under his breath.
“This coming from the ‘let’s not do this,’ ‘mating is for life’ guy,” James said, keeping his voice deadly cool.
“Everyone calm down. She still has time to walk out the door.” Despite his equanimous words, James knew his brother. He could hear Jeremiah’s underlying anxiety. “She still has time.”
“Fifteen seconds.” Johnny glared at James.
Resigning himself to the fact that Marina had not chosen them, James put his foot on the brake and shifted the Jeep into reverse. He couldn’t ignore the frustration and disappointment washing through him. He’d watched her in the rearview mirror as Jeremiah fucked her with his fingers. She had such an expressive face. When Jeremiah did something she liked, the pleasure flitted across her doll-like features like a feather in a wild wind. Each little twitch of her features sent an answering jolt to his cock.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Johnny asked. “She still has time. Just hold your damn horses.”
“Besides, we can give her a couple extra seconds, right?” Jeremiah asked. “There’s no law saying we can’t.”
“I’m not going to sit around waiting like a love-struck puppy. If she wants us, she’ll come.”
“Ten seconds!” Johnny called, his eyes darting between his watch and the door. “Ni
ne.”
James watched the door with his foot smashed hard on the brake.
“Eight…seven…six…”
“Are you really counting this shit down?” James ground out.
“Five…”
“She’s gonna come. She’s gonna come,” Jeremiah repeated softly in the back.
“Four…three…two…”
“Fuck,” James spat and let his foot off the break.
“One.” Johnny said with finality. “She’s not—”
“Wait!” Marina flew out of the front door. She held a dog in her arms and had a bag slung over her shoulder. “I’m coming!” She somehow managed to get the front door closed and then came running, the dog’s ears flapping with each running step. “Don’t leave me!”
Johnny and Jeremiah hopped out of the Jeep before James could smash his foot back on the brake. A large welling of relief moved through his body, and he let out a long breath.
“You cut it a little close there, sweetheart.” Johnny gave Marina a kiss, smashing the dog between them. The dog writhed and maneuvered until he could lick Johnny’s face. Johnny jumped back with a yelp of a surprise. “I’m a self-professed kinky bastard”¾Johnny took the dog—“but that’s just a little outside my comfort zone, fella.” He strode back to the Jeep with a huge smile on his face.
“Let me take this from you.” Jeremiah slid the bag off Marina’s shoulder. He kissed her slow and sweet, and James noticed how she stood up on her toes to meet his brother’s lips. James wanted to feel that soft, pink pout on him—on his lips, on his skin, on his cock.
After breaking away from Jeremiah, Marina turned to the Jeep. She made her way with slow and tentative steps, her eyes peering questioningly into his.
“What took you so long?” James asked when she reached his door, annoyed at the gruff note in his voice.
Marina shrugged. “I had to keep you three guessing, you know, had to make you really sweat it out.”
“I think you’re full of shit.”
She grinned. “I got my stuff packed up in less than a minute, and I was watching you through the window. I didn’t know if I could actually do it, and then you started rolling down the driveway, and I just started running.”