by Ashley Shay
Shane’s breath caught in his chest at the sight of her creamy skin in the white corset with the pink robe bundled around her hips. She reminded him of the cotton candy he’d loved so much as a child. He could still remember the sugary sweetness as it dissolved on his tongue like magic. Now he wanted to taste Carly’s sweetness, to run his tongue into her juice and experience the flavor of her body. He couldn’t wait to get a taste of his mate. “You are beautiful, baby.”
Carly blushed prettily and looked down at her feet. Her pink-tipped toes curled against the carpet, and he wanted to suck them, one by one, between his lips. “Thank you.”
Shane loved the way she accepted a compliment with shy pleasure and wondered how many she’d heard over the years. Not enough, he figured, but she’d hear plenty now. She wasn’t like those women that constantly needed reassurance. Shane figured if they needed to fish for a compliment, they weren’t all that pretty anyway. That could never be said of Carly. She was as pretty as a fallen angel in that silky white corset.
“Did you buy that for me?” he asked.
Carly looked up to meet his eyes. “Lisa said you like the classier stuff, and I loved this corset. I thought you’d like it too.”
“I do indeed,” Shane murmured.
“What did Lisa say I liked?” Dusty said, snuggling his face against her neck.
“Something tasteless, uncoordinated, and not fit for our goddess to wear,” Shane quipped at his brother.
Carly giggled and turned her face, pulling Dusty to her for a kiss. “Don’t listen to him. He’s being mean. She said you liked playful things like rumba panties with red ruffles across the butt.”
Shane arched one eyebrow, and Dusty looked momentarily embarrassed. “Lisa talks too much I think, but she’s right. I do like ’em.”
Carly laughed again. “Then I’ll show you the ones I bought later.” She dropped another kiss on his lips. “I bought a whole bunch of things for all your tastes.”
“I’m looking forward to the fashion show, but right now, sugar, I’d like to see what’s beneath that corset you’re wearing,” Dusty said. He untied the sash, and the pink robe dropped into a terry cloth puddle at her feet.
Shane stepped up to Carly and gathered her into his arms. “You’ll get a chance to, right after I get my fill of looking at our beauty in this getup.”
* * * *
Cougar stared at the video feed, his eyes glued to the brown-haired woman that paused at the door to the dressing room and taunted Carly with “Shane will like that.”
Each shrill word drilled into his head like a spike and made the situation abundantly clear. She knew Carly. She knew where Carly lived. She knew who Carly lived with. Though the face remained a mystery, he certainly knew who had sent her—the same man she’d seen in Washington—but still, one crucial piece of the puzzle was missing. Why hadn’t she hurt Carly?
He watched in horrible fascination as Carly struggled to find the call button, staring with sick fear as their new mate fell to the floor. Cold sweat broke out on his face when he thought of how bad the whole situation could have been.
“Carly’s right.” Gabe’s voice caught his attention, and Cougar refocused on Gabe’s face in the corner of the monitor. Gabe looked a bit greener than when they’d opened the call. “That’s the jackal from San Antonio. Damn, I should have stayed in town longer.”
“You couldn’t have watched her forever,” Tyler said. “It’s obvious she was sent there for a reason. I only have one question. Why the hell didn’t she do something to hurt Carly? Why did she just leave like that?”
Cougar shook his head. He’d been wondering the same thing since he first viewed the tape, and it seemed important to find out why.
“Good question,” Gabe said. “Let me dig around here and see what I can come up with.”
“We don’t seem to have a lot of time here, Gabe,” Cougar said. “Whoever this bastard is, he obviously knows where Carly is.”
“I get that,” Gabe said.
Cougar leaned back in his chair and stared at his pride mate. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “So how exactly does something like that happen, Gabe? I thought Justice was on top of this.”
Tyler leaned forward. “Cougar, watch yourself.”
“Back off, Ty,” Cougar snapped. “It’s a fucking legitimate question.”
He could feel the growl winding its way through his body. In another moment, he was going to blow, alpha or not, federal agent or not. Their complacency amazed him. How they could both just sit there and pretend this was something they could handle with a few phone conferences was beyond him. They were deep in some serious shit, and Carly could well have been dead if the jackal bitch hadn’t fucked up her assignment. There was no doubt in Cougar’s mind the goal had been to kill their mate. Why that hadn’t happened remained in question, but he thanked any higher power available that it hadn’t.
Cougar let his gaze travel between his alpha and the coyote. “This isn’t just a pride situation. Tyler, you should know better than anyone how this works, and I can’t believe you’re jumping my shit because I want to do my fucking job. I’m supposed to provide security for someone in witness protection, and I have a right to know if something’s gone wrong at Justice.”
“Nothing’s gone wrong,” Gabe said.
“You’ll have to prove that to me,” Cougar said.
“And you’ll have to give me time,” Gabe said.
“Forty-eight hours,” Cougar said, leaning forward. “I don’t care if you have to raze the department to the ground. I want to know who we’re dealing with, and I want to know how he got this intel.”
Cougar peered at the screen, willing the coyote’s cooperation. He knew Gabe was as worried as they were, but fuck it all. He was the only one with access to all the databases necessary to figure this out. When Gabe nodded, Cougar fell back into his chair.
Tyler shuddered. “My hackles are up. Anytime I’m in a room with the two of you, I feel like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
“We’re cool,” Gabe said.
“We’ll be a lot cooler when I have the answers I want,” Cougar said.
He heard Tyler’s exhausted sigh and didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t about to drop his attitude because it made Ty’s life easier. He wanted the fucking answers.
“I’m on it, Cougar,” Gabe said, holding out his hands. He smiled. “Trust me.”
Cougar pinched the bridge of his nose. Talking to Gabe gave him a headache. It always had, but Tyler got what Tyler wanted, and he’d wanted Gabe in the pride. Fucking BFFs. It irked him to no end. He didn’t know what it was about Gabriel Laughton that set him off, but Cougar tried not to analyze it too much. When he did that, he became mired in the whys.
The coyote was just too smooth or too charming or too…something. He always felt like he was being manipulated when Gabe was in the room, even via technology. For some reason, things became muddied. Everyone lost focus, and the level of intensity fell as though every day was a happy walk in the park. Even now, he and Tyler were chatting away like two old grannies at a tea party. Just like any other day. Fuck that.
“Jesus Christ,” Cougar said, interrupting their yakfest, “I don’t know about you two old biddies, but I’ve got shit to do. Is there anything else we need to talk about?”
By some freaking miracle, Gabe became serious again. “Are you sure Carly’s okay?”
“She seems to be,” Tyler said. “We had her checked out by the doc. She said physically Carly’s fine and had probably experienced some sort of adverse reaction to the shifter.”
“Like she had in San Antonio,” Gabe said.
“Exactly,” Tyler said.
“Like what?” Cougar growled. “If you two are fucking keeping something to yourself, you’d better clue me in now or there are going to be serious consequences.”
He watched as Ty and Gabe exchanged one of their patented secret stares. Fucking BFFs.
“I’m
not kidding,” Cougar snarled. “Since I’m your chief of security, alpha, you’d better come clean or find yourself a new one. I can be out of this family and out of this pride in a couple hours.”
He hated slapping that card down on the table, but it was the only one that ever worked with Tyler. He sure as hell couldn’t use Suzie’s tactic and turn into a cougar. Cougar knew he was strong, but Tyler was alpha for a reason, and he’d rip him a new one in cougar form.
Cougar waited patiently while his oldest brother came to terms with the blackmail. When Tyler nodded, Gabe started talking, relaying an impossible story about something Cougar had never heard about in his entire life.
“An empath?” Cougar fell back in his chair. “Who feels negative energy? That’s too strange to believe.”
“The doc said she’d never seen anything like it either,” Tyler said, “and that’s saying something because the doc’s been around the block a few times.”
Cougar wanted this call over. “Believable or not, it must be true. The sickness disappeared as quickly as it came on. She was fine by the time she got home, and as you saw, the jackal never laid a hand on her.”
Gabe said, “We can be thankful for that. I’m out,” and broke the connection.
Tyler left the room, and Cougar leaned back in his chair and turned off the video feed. “I’m thankful,” he murmured. “But I’ll be more thankful when I know why.”
* * * *
Dusty watched Shane devour Carly with his eyes. He turned her around and around so he could appreciate all the nuances of her corset with the miniature pink bows at the top of two matching ribbons threaded up the sides.
He couldn’t understand out how Shane held himself back. Fuck, his dick was so hard he figured he could hammer nails with it, and Shane was going on and on, turning Carly this way and that, running his fingers over the tiny thong, telling her how beautiful she was.
Dusty reached out in one quick movement, grasping the head of the zipper that ran the length of Carly’s corset. With nothing more than a light tug, the satiny material parted. Carly gasped, then laughed, as her gorgeous breasts spilled out.
“Sorry.” Dusty lowered his face to one pale rosebud nipple. “Couldn’t wait for you to work up your nerve.” He gave a sudden lick across the tip of the rosebud, and it tightened just as he took it between his teeth for a teasing nibble. Carly moaned in pleasure and dropped her head back.
Shane snorted at his remark and lowered his head to the pouting nipple on his side. He must have done something right because Carly arched toward both of them, her hands reaching to grasp their heads and draw them closer.
Dusty felt her fingers entwine in his hair, tightening almost painfully when the pleasure became too much for her. She raised up on tiptoe a time or two and moaned out their names in a breathy sigh of desire. A hot bolt of need speared through Dusty’s belly, and he sucked harder on her nipple, wishing he could draw all of her inside.
“I just want to eat you alive, baby,” he breathed against her breast. “You taste so fucking good. Like candy.”
Shane walked her backward to the bed, and Dusty had no alternative but to follow if he wanted to stay attached to Carly’s nipple. Which he did. Besides, getting Carly on the bed was exactly what Dusty had been thinking about since they’d entered the room. His need had grown painful, and he needed release. He needed to reassure himself his mate had returned from the incident in town unscathed mentally. Some shifters had ways of ruining lives with enchantments that couldn’t be immediately detected. Not until it was too late to reverse them. He doubted a jackal had that much finesse, but he wanted to be sure.
As her knees hit the bed, she slowly went down, holding on to both men, making sure they followed her while still attached to her body. The transition from standing to lying on the bed went smoothly, with Dusty taking one moment to pull that pretty thong down her legs and fling it to the floor. They stretched out on either side of Carly as she wiggled in erotic delight. Dusty’s hand found her thigh and stroked upward until he touched her pussy. She felt warmly moist and inviting. He let his fingers explore, brushing across the head of her swollen clit, dipping inside her soft nether lips to find the core of her need. Carly shuddered and gripped his hand, pushing it tightly against her pussy so that his fingers were shoved deeper into her hole.
“You like that, don’t you, darlin’?”
Carly gave a breathless reply that Dusty took to mean yes. He curled his fingers as much as possible, stroking deep inside her channel, hitting sensitive spots that made Carly writhe with delight.
“You want more, don’t you, baby?” Dusty asked.
Carly’s wide blue eyes opened to impale him with their need. “I want you both inside me. Now.”
Dusty glanced over at Shane and rolled Carly toward his brother. He would take the back door this time. His cock throbbed at the thought of breaching that tight little pleasure hole. Shane gathered Carly into his arms and pulled one of her legs over his hip, allowing him access to her dripping pussy. The position also widened her ass cheeks so that Dusty could get a good look at the path he would be taking.
He dipped his fingers between her legs stealing some of the juice that had made a dewy bed of natural lubricant. With his fingers slick from her desire, he pushed them gently into her ass and stroked back and forth, making sure he lubricated the ring of tight inner muscles.
“Ready?” Shane asked, and Dusty positioned himself against the hole of Carly’s ass. He didn’t push inward. He would wait for Shane to enter and shove her back against him until his head breached the tightness. Slow, double penetration seemed to drive women crazy, and he wanted Carly to experience the sensation for herself.
Shane reached between Carly’s legs and maneuvered himself into her body with one well-aimed thrust. He began a steady ascent into her body, while he pushed her back with excruciating slowness against Dusty’s throbbing cock.
“Oh fuck.” Dusty’s groan rumbled with the edginess of cougar wildness, and he had to fight the change. He could feel his beast trying to tear from him, wanting to roar, and scratch, and bite his mate with the mating habits of wild beasts. He would not release the beast. Carly was human. She couldn’t take the full onset of a cougar in the throes of a mating frenzy.
Shane sheathed himself fully, and Carly’s anal muscles popped over the edge of Dusty’s swollen head. He slid into her so deeply he could feel the pressure from his brother shoving back at him. Carly was wild with need, pushing and shoving to meet their thrusts. Her hands gripped at both of them with an urgency that pushed them over the top.
Shane went rigid and grasped Carly’s hips, holding her tight as he plunged into her over and over in a mindless desire for release. Carly’s long moan of surrender was enough for Dusty. He let himself tumble over the abyss, crashing head first into an orgasm that threatened to tear him apart. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop the roar that burst from his throat when he felt his cock ejaculate the first hot burst of cum into Carly’s sweet ass.
He could feel her trembling in his arms and wondered if he’d terrified her with his outburst. “Carly, sweetheart, are you okay?” His heart stuck in his throat as he waited for her answer.
She snuggled just a little closer, pushing her ass tighter against his spent cock. “That, Dusty Lucas, was the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.” And as if she didn’t want to leave Shane out, she cupped his face in both of her hands and pulled him to her for a long lingering kiss. “And you, you deserve a prize for the sexiest entry in the world. Slow, but forceful, just like I like it.”
* * * *
Juan Santos, aka Viper, recrossed his legs and drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa.
“Miranda,” he said quietly.
The woman froze, pausing mid word, and her gaze locked on his. She straightened up a bit. He was happy to see it. He hated a woman who slouched, and this jackal, though she was one of the prettier ones, was a real sloucher. In more ways than one.
�
�Yes, sir?” Her voice quavered a bit, and he was happy to hear that. All around, it had been one big happy day…so far. He had a feeling that was about to change.
Damn, he hated jackals. They gabbed on and on and on. He wondered if they ever found a point in anything they said.
“Is there a point to this story?”
He heard a snicker from the corner. Talon needed to learn to keep his opinions to himself, but he’d deal with the eagle later.
“Yes, sir,” Miranda said.
His brow rose. “Would you care to share it?”
She nodded, her hair flying around her shoulders. “I—” Her mouth snapped closed like she’d forgotten every word in her pea-sized brain. She stood staring at him stupidly. Her gaze shifted to the corner where Talon stood.
“Do you know what my biggest pet peeve is, Miranda?”
She shook her head. Her hair flew around her shoulders again. She had pretty hair.
“Tell her, Talon.”
Talon took a step out of the shadows. “People who waste his fucking time.”
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“And what are you doing, Miranda?” he asked softly.
She swallowed audibly, looking like she wished she was anywhere but his hotel suite. “Wasting your time, sir?”
“Yes, goddamn it!” he screamed. “You’re wasting my fucking time!”
She jerked back, and he heaved a mighty breath, clenching his fist on the arm of the sofa. He sighed again then ran his hands over his hair, loving the feel of the sleek strands under his fingers. The feel of it always calmed him down.
“Now,” he said lightly, “let’s begin again.” When Miranda opened her mouth, he lifted a finger. “Quickly, and succinctly. That means to the fucking point. Please.”
“Yes, sir.”
She retold the story, and to give her credit, this time she managed to spew it all out in under a minute. It was, however, the most agonizing minute of his life as he realized exactly what he’d had almost within his grasp and how he’d lost it. His heartbeat sped up as he listened, and he hated, positively hated, when his heartbeat sped up. Jaw clenched, he stared at her when she finished. She had the audacity to give him a smile, like a prize student waiting for some kind of accolade.