For Love of Grace [Werewolves Wanting Love 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Adams

  Grace’s senses were on overload. There was so much happening at once. Hands petting her skin. Mouths sucking and licking her flesh. Legs entangled with her legs. But most of all the two cocks driving steadily in and out of her body. All she could smell was the scents of the two men and sex. All she could feel was her body alight with need. Her hearing had narrowed to the slide of sweaty bodies against hers, and the slap of slick flesh against hers.

  The climax in her belly was coiled hard and tight inside her. It was close, gradually consuming all her thoughts with the need to come. And then, out of nowhere her body simply exploded. Her eyes slammed shut and her mouth opened. She had no hope of opening her eyes but she managed to close her mouth and bury her face against Jarin’s chest. Grace’s arms and legs shook, and her entire body melted between the men until her brain grayed out with the emotional overload of such an intense orgasm.

  Both men were pressing kisses to her skin but she had no hope of reciprocating. It was as if the various parts of her body had minds of their own and reacted as they saw fit. Her inner person was left lying pressed between Mark and Jarin and unable to move a muscle independently.

  At some stage Jarin rolled her in a blanket and turned her on her side, with Mark against the rock wall of the ledge and Jarin on the outside. She was glad to be between them. Safe and protected, but unable to think or move. Later she’d thank them later for the most awesome orgasm ever.

  * * * *

  Jarin woke to what he thought was the sound of rain. Cursing silently to himself he found his boots, shook them carefully before sliding his feet into them, then stepped out from the overhang to rescue their firewood stack. Fortunately all their backpacks were under the ledge with them, but they’d need dry firewood to cook breakfast.

  But there was no rain at all. He tipped his head to the side listening carefully, and realized he was hearing rushing water. But that was impossible. The Colorado River was several miles away and this was a dry canyon.

  His eyes now adjusted to the pre-dawn dimness, he walked away from the overhang to where they’d had their campfire. In the middle of the canyon was a rushing river.

  Fucking hell. The overhang was much higher up the canyon and this river was in the lowest part, but still, the others needed to be awake dressed and ready to move still higher up in case this new river kept growing.

  He bent and picked up an armload of their wood, then marched back to the overhang.

  “Time to wake up, Grace, Mark. We need to pack up this camp right now.

  “It’s still dark and I saw the dawn yesterday,” moaned Mark.

  “There’s a river flowing down the middle of this canyon. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t bring my swimwear or a life raft.”

  “Fucking hell.”

  Mark sat up and scrabbled for his clothing. He upended his boots and banged them against the wall of the shelter, then shook out his socks, before putting his socks and then his boots on. Only then did he step out of the shelter exactly as Jarin had done. Laughing, Jarin pulled off his boots to put his pants on and found a clean T-shirt before putting his socks and boots back on.

  Checking for wildlife in their boots before putting them on was inborn in all desert dwellers.

  Grace hadn’t said a word but she was already half-dressed and her fingers were busy braiding her hair.

  Mark staggered back and got dressed then they all packed their backpacks but left them on the ledge. Jarin collected the rest of the firewood, moving it under the shelter, then looked around. There was nothing of theirs still unpacked. Of course, they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet either but they needed to decide whether they’d stay here or move up higher before they laid a fire and started cooking.

  “I think the shelter will stay dry. It’s a lot higher than the water and the river doesn’t seem to be rising. But worst case scenario we could climb up onto the roof of the overhang,” said Grace.

  Jarin looked at her and smiled. “That’s pretty much what I thought, too.”

  “That makes sense because the wood we found was in the lower down parts of the canyon, not up here,” added Mark.

  “It’s obviously been raining really heavily somewhere east of here. The real question is, are we about to have a downpour here as well. Because if so, the longer we can stay under the overhang, the drier we’ll be,” said Grace.

  “I checked the weather forecast before we left and rain wasn’t predicted. Of course, that might have changed. It’s more than twenty-four hours ago now. Okay, well, since we’re all awake we might as well make our breakfast,” said Jarin.

  “Or I could unpack my bedding roll and go back to sleep,” added Grace.

  He couldn’t help a feeling of pride surging through him. “Did we wear you out last night?”

  She blushed, which he thought was absolutely adorable.

  They collected more wood and returned to the overhang, making their fire just outside the ledge and storing the wood undercover in case it did start to rain.

  Grace insisted on using their bottled water to cook though. “We don’t know where this water has come from or if it’s contaminated. Bottled is safer.”

  “As long as we don’t run out,” said Mark.

  “It’s only a couple of miles to the Colorado if we do. We can get that far easily enough.”

  All the time they were cooking and eating their breakfast, Jarin was scouring the sky trying to decide if they should stay here where there was shelter, or start walking back toward home. Only after he’d decided they could walk did he remember he was supposed to be consulting Grace. Mentally patting himself on the back for remembering before he spoke, he said, “I think we can probably start for home, but Grace, this is your expedition. What do you want to do?”

  He was rewarded with the most beautiful smile from her and by a slightly dropped jaw in surprise from Mark.

  “I agree. There’s no sign of rain and the river isn’t getting any wider. We’ll be fine.”

  “Mark?”

  “I agree. Let’s go.”

  They shouldered their backpacks and started back down the canyon. Mark strode out ahead of them and Jarin made sure Grace was in the middle. No matter how much he trained his mouth, his heart still needed to protect her.

  * * * *

  Mark wasn’t able to enjoy their hike back down Red Canyon nearly as much as he should have. The rushing water sounded wrong. He never noticed it when it was the Colorado River, but there shouldn’t be a river in here in Red Canyon and it pulled him out of his comfort zone. It also meant he was constantly looking all around wondering if more water was going to join the flow and change the way they needed to hike.

  But everything was the same as normal—except for a fucking great river in the middle of the canyon—until they got to the entrance to the side canyon which led to Red Canyon. He stood on a boulder and looked at the Colorado River. It was wider and faster than it should have been at this time of year. The sandy beach alongside the water had disappeared completely. It was going to take them a whole lot more than four hours to hike back.

  “It’s just as well we didn’t wait until lunch time to leave,” said Grace.

  “And that our packs are a bit lighter than when we arrived,” added Jarin.

  Mark strode on ahead, watching where they walked carefully. There were long stretches where there wasn’t beach to walk on normally, but they were used to alternating climbing over rocks with fairly easy walking on hard-packed sand. Now it was all rock and no regular trail to follow at all. They spread out across the canyon floor, each picking their way forward over the rocks in a manner which suited them best. After an hour Mark called a rest. He didn’t want Grace becoming exhausted or anyone getting so tired they broke an ankle.

  Grace sat on a boulder and removed her backpack, wiggling her shoulders and stretching her spine. “It’s good to take a break but we also need to keep an eye on the time. It’ll take three hours to climb the canyon wall when we get back.”

&nbs
p; “It’d be better to spend another night in the canyon than break a leg, though,” said Jarin.

  “That’s true.”

  Nevertheless they were all keen to keep moving. Mark let Jarin lead for a while wanting to watch Grace and make sure she wasn’t too tired. He thought of offering to carry her backpack but reasoned that might make her feel that he was demeaning her. It was hard to know where the line between protecting her and smothering her fell. So he simply continued to keep an eye on her. She walked with smooth strides, easily moving from boulder to boulder or picking her way over rocks and pebbles. In fact, right now, she was probably making it took easier than he was.

  Mark gradually became aware that the canyon floor seemed to be getting narrower. Of course it was wider in some places and narrower in others. It was a canyon, formed by rain, water, and wind over centuries, not a nice, neat aqueduct built by engineers. The river looked to be getting wider, too. He looked at Grace suddenly worried.

  She was damn smart though. He saw her measuring the distance between the canyon wall and the water with her gaze.

  Jarin was walking faster now, so he’d noticed, too. Mark stayed with Grace but they’d increased their pace as well.

  The answer was less than half a mile ahead, at Tyson’s Corner. Another brand-new river had joined the Colorado, racing down from a side canyon. The combined waters had created a seething, foaming maelstrom of water at the junction which had completely flooded the area.

  But the problem facing them right now was that here the canyon walls were smooth. There was no way in hell they could climb out from here.

  Chapter Six

  “I don’t suppose either of you brought some rope along, did you?” Grace eyed the whirlpool where the waters joined and grimaced. She could swim just fine, but trying to swim through that foaming racing water would not be a sensible thing to do at all.

  “Rope? No. Whatever for?” asked Jarin, staring at her.

  “To tie around a big rock so we could pull ourselves out if we didn’t make it through, of course.”

  “Make it through? No one in their right mind would attempt to walk through that. You’d be swept away and dashed against the rocks in about two seconds flat,” said Mark.

  Yeah, that’s why she wanted rope. “In that case I suppose we need to walk back down the canyon until we get somewhere we’re sure won’t be flooded.” She sighed. She loved the canyon but choosing to stay another night and being obligated to stay another night were two totally different things. And there was no guarantee the water would disappear as fast as it had arrived. What if it was still raining wherever this water had come from?

  Grace turned around trying to remember how far they’d need to retrace their steps to come to a safe place to wait for the river level to fall. She couldn’t really picture anywhere. The canyon floor had been quite narrow because of the increased river flow ever since they’d emerged from the side canyon that led to Red Canyon. Great. Maybe we’ll have to go all the way back to Red Canyon. Oh well, at least there’s shelter there, but it’s a bit of a nuisance.

  Mark was staring up at the rock walls. Grace thought likely he was planning for them to climb out. That would be fine. It’d be an easy enough walk along the rim back to the truck. But the canyon here was most definitely not climbable. For a human. Oh. Wait. He was a wolf. So if he could climb the wall, and Jarin could turn into his vulture, they could both get out. But that would mean leaving her, the human, behind with all their luggage.

  Staying behind alone didn’t worry her, but they were so protective she couldn’t imagine them doing it. Unless they were going to fetch climbing equipment to help her climb out. But why not just wait for the river to die down? Likely it would only take a day or two.

  They walked for perhaps half an hour before Mark stopped and said, “We could camp here.” He looked at the others. The canyon floor shelved fairly steeply up from the water, but then was quite flat near the wall. If they made camp against the wall they should be safe, she thought. Grace waited for Jarin to reply. They were both more expert at this sort of thing than her.

  Jarin turned and faced her. “Grace, I could fly out of the canyon and go get the truck. I could bring ropes, food, whatever we need to the rim of the canyon here. But as a vulture I couldn’t get anything down to you.”

  “Besides, driving around town naked is probably not a good look, even in a shape-shifter community,” she said.

  “But if I climbed the wall as a wolf, I could fetch him a pair of pants in my wolf form and then we could together get you out of here,” said Mark.

  “It would be easier if the two of us worked together.” Grace thought that statement probably took a lot of effort from Jarin. He was so determined to be in control, in charge, that to admit he needed help was quite a big thing.

  “I’ll be fine here alone. I like being alone and this area is well clear of the water,” she said.

  “I hate to leave you. It’ll likely take us quite a few hours. The other alternative is for all of us to wait together, but the water might not go down for days or even weeks. We don’t know how many miles away the rain is. It could be raining a couple hundred miles away and the storm still going on now.” Mark was staring at her wanting her to understand. But she understood just fine. She needed to reassure them.

  “I’ll be perfectly happy and safe. You don’t need to worry about me at all. I’ll make a fire and heat some of the dehydrated food. I agree it’s better for you to go than all of us just to sit here waiting until our food and water is all consumed.”

  Jarin stripped off his clothing and forced it into his backpack, tying his boots to the straps, using their laces. Then he gripped her in a tight hug. “I love you, Grace. Please don’t do anything dangerous. I need to know you’re safe.”

  “I’ll be sensible, I promise.”

  “Mark, I’ll fly home, get dressed, and pack up the things we need. I’ll take the dirt bike back to the truck with your clothes. By the time I’ve done that you should have made it out of the canyon. If you’re not waiting at the truck, I’ll drive along the rim and meet you on the way. Then we can load up all the equipment from my place and come back here for Grace.”

  Mark grunted his approval.

  “Have you got a spare set of keys to your truck at your house or do you need to take them with you?” asked Grace, wondering if he could carry car keys in his beak.

  “There’s a key at home and another one in a box glued onto the truck. I sometimes drive way out into the desert and then fly around for my job. I’m supposed to check for tourists in the wrong places and things like that. Actually, there might be an e-mail back home for me about this flood water. I’d better check that as well. But I’ll be back as fast as I can for you, Grace. I hate leaving you alone.”

  For what seemed like the hundredth time, Grace replied, “I don’t mind, truly I don’t. I’ll enjoy just sitting here in the sun, listening to the water, and breathing in the scent of the rocks and the desert air.”

  Grace watched with fascination as Jarin stood on a flat boulder. He was completely oblivious to his nakedness. His body was wonderfully toned and tanned, but even so, she thought most men would have put a hand over their cock unless they were trying to attract a woman’s attention. But Jarin hadn’t even seemed to be aware that his genitals were in plain view.

  The air around him shimmered briefly, and then a large black vulture flapped its wings and lifted off. She tipped her head back to watch him soar up to the rim. He circled overhead then flew up the center of the canyon. He was so high in sky she was able to watch him for several minutes before he became too small for her to really distinguish from the sky.

  Beside her Mark grunted, sighed, and began undressing. As Jarin had done, he forced his clothing into his backpack. Then he sat on a rock and unpacked it all again. Grace assumed he’d had an attack of conscience and decided to be tidy, but instead he just dumped things on the ground willy-nilly until he came to a packet of trail mix a
nd two oranges. He handed them to her. “You might as well have these. We’ll be quite a few hours and these will go with your soup.”

  “Thank you.” She’d been down in the canyon with no food not all that long ago, but back then at least there was the possibility of catching a fish to cook. With the water rushing so fast the fish would all be hiding in the still water far from here right now.

  Grace watched in silence as Mark repacked his backpack, and set it against the wall of the canyon, moving Jarin’s backpack there, too.

  He cupped her chin in his hands, whispered, “Please, please, be safe,” kissed her softly on the lips, and then stepped back.

  The black wolf stared at the canyon wall for a moment or two then bounded over the rocks, leaping this way and that but gradually moving higher and higher up the canyon wall. Sometimes he seemed to go quite a long way forward or back for only a small incremental increase in height, but over time it was clear that his progress was continual, if uneven. Watching him, Grace thought that maybe she as a human could do that, too. But there was nowhere for a human to rest, and to continue such a slow and difficult climb for several hours would be very draining if it wasn’t possible to sit down and take a break.

  * * * *

  Climbing the fucking canyon wall was every bit as fucking exhausting as he’d thought it might be and took a hell of a lot longer than he’d expected even in his worst-case scenario. The speed he was currently making was about a quarter mile in the wrong direction for every two or three steps upward. At this rate he’d be lucky if it wasn’t fucking dark before he reached the top. Not to mention that he was damn thirsty and his fur didn’t come with a handy pocket for a water bottle.

  Mark crouched on a boulder and gathered his strength. His paws hurt already and he was barely halfway there. And god, he’d kill for a nice drink of water right now. Mark heaved air into his lungs and stood back properly on all four paws, ready to plan his next step upward. There was a scent just tickling his nose. Cautiously he sniffed the air deep into his lungs, then turned his head to the right and sniffed again. Prickly pear. The answer to his thirst if not to the way ahead.