by Maia Dylan
This was the moment Noah was dreading. He was going to have to admit how much of a dumbass he had been and hope that Angel was able to forgive him.
“You weren’t the reason Chris was pissed at me, Angel, that’s all on me.” Angel locked her gaze to his and Noah couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried.
“Explain that to me, Noah, because it sure as hell felt like it was me. You left town so damn fast the morning after we met you practically left skid marks on the road out of town. Then you cut yourself off from a bond that even I had felt starting to form which screams that you want nothing to do with me, and the reason you came back was because of your job. Chasing another bad guy and trying to save the world one scarred basket case at a time.”
“I left because I thought it was the best thing for you.” Noah’s stomach dropped when Angel rolled her eyes and turned around to leave. Damn it she didn’t believe him. He felt Chris’s pain down their link and Noah knew it was up to him. He had caused this clusterfuck of a situation and by god he would find the words to fix it. Calling on a little of his enhanced speed he moved around her before Angel had taken a step.
“Wait! It’s true!” Noah held his arms out from his sides. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to show her he was harmless or trying to block her escape. It was probably a little of both. “Angel, I have done some things in my life that I am not proud of. I am flawed and damaged and fucked up in ways I am not sure I will ever be able to tell you about, but one look at you and I knew I wasn’t worthy of you and probably never will be.
“I’d already left Grey River and you’re right, I had no intention of returning at that stage, and I sure as hell never thought that the fates would actually deem me worthy of a mate let alone one as beautiful and flawless as you, and you deserve better than me! Chris deserves better than a brother like me, and I said some dumb shit to him in an attempt to make him believe that I didn’t want to be here or a part of our triad, and the biggest fucking lie of them all, that I felt nothing for you. Thankfully he has forgiven me and is willing to take my ass back as a brother and partner.
“Now, I have to work on getting you to forgive me, too. We want to have the chance to court you and fuck, yeah I used the word court because I looked that shit up on the internet and it means to engage in behavior that leads to marriage, and when it comes to you that is exactly what we want to do! We want to court you, hopefully get you to fall in love with us because we for sure are falling for you, and let us be mates to you in truth, and bound to you in every way I can think of. And we both absolutely want to be fathers to that beautiful baby of yours, and all the other babies to come. We want to protect you, to love you, and to cherish you for as long as you’ll let us, Angel.”
Noah was breathing hard by the end of his impassioned speech. He had the very real feeling that he was gripping on to his future as hard as he could, but it was slipping away despite his efforts. Chris had come to stand beside him at some point and they presented a united front to the woman the fates judged should be theirs.
“Angel, that’s the most I have ever heard Noah say at any one time, and I am thankful because I wasn’t sure I could find the words, but he did. And that’s what being mated to two men is like. When one of us opens our mouth and promptly shoves our foot in it, the other one is there to translate and mediate, and probably plead the others case for them.” Chris reached out and gently took her right hand. Noah took a page from his book and reached out to gently cradle her left in the both of his.
“Everything Noah just said is true,” Chris spoke gently. “We want in for the long haul and we definitely want you and Mateo as our family and our future, and we are willing to wait for as long as it takes for you to believe it, and we would sure as hell welcome the opportunity to prove it to you.”
Noah watched Angel as her eyes flittered between him and his brother, no doubt searching their faces and their expressions for a sign. When he saw her face softening his heart leapt.
“You know, you two have spent the last couple of minutes telling me what you want, but have never asked me what I want.” Angel tilted her head to the side and Noah’s hope soared again at the slight glint of mischief that shone in her eyes.
“Okay then, sweetheart, what is it that you want?” Noah asked with a half-smile.
“Well, right now, I could really do with a drink.” Noah’s smile slipped a little. Not really the answer he was hoping for. “So I think it would be a damn good idea if the four of us headed back to the Country Blue to celebrate the union of our friends, and spend some time together, and once we get to the point where we might look at starting something more than just a friendship, then perhaps I will tell you what I want.”
Noah’s grin came back and he shared a quick glance with his brother, noting that Chris was grinning just as broadly.
“Then I guess, Angel-mine”—Chris turned and placed her hand in the crook of his arm and Noah followed suit—“we’ll do just that. But know that Noah and I can’t wait to hear exactly what you want in great detail.”
The three of them turned to walk back to where they had left their cars and Noah couldn’t help feeling hopeful. He and Chris were a team again, working to win the heart of their mate, and Angel had agreed to at least let them try to convince her that they could be what she needed. They were determined and failure was simply not an option. It was just going to be a matter of time.
Chapter 5
“It’s time,” Angel murmured and reached out to lay a hand on each of her men’s chests. She felt both their hearts begin to beat a little faster and she couldn’t help but flex her fingers, pressing her nails into their muscles. They both growled low in their throats and pressed in tighter around her.
“Jesus, Angel-mine, are you sure? Once Noah and I finally take you as our own, it will be forever. No turning back.” Chris’s voice was low and filled with such an intense desire that Angel felt her pussy clench with need.
“I know,” she whispered back.
Noah groaned with need then pulled her up against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck, loving how strong he was and how feminine and small he made her feel.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Noah looked so deeply into her eyes, Angel felt as if he could read her every thought. “Thank you for trusting us enough to give us this chance to show you what you have come to mean to us.” He lowered his head and placed his open mouth against her neck and Angel cried out, arching her neck to give him better access.
“Now that we have you pressed between us,” Chris murmured as he stepped up behind her, and she could feel the hard steel of his arousal pressing against the top of her buttocks, making her shiver with need. Hot liquid gushed from her pussy. “We finally have you exactly where we want you and we won’t ever be letting you go.”
“Oh, god!” Angel felt out of control. She was finally pressed between the two men who were fast becoming as necessary to her as breathing and she felt like her world was finally complete.
“Damn, Angel,” Noah groaned against her skin as he ravaged her neck, dragging his teeth down the sensitive tendon that ran the length of her neck and making her shiver. “I can smell your arousal, sweetheart, and it is driving me crazy.”
“Me, too, brother.” Chris rocked his hops against her and she felt the steel strength of his erection. The way they touched her should have been outlawed and she ran the very real risk of spontaneously combusting.
“Please, Noah…Chris, please. Take me to bed, make me yours, and show me what it’s like to be made love to. Please.” Angel heard the desire and pent-up need in her own voice but didn’t give a shit. She was so close to coming she just didn’t care. All she needed was one touch. One touch on her now throbbing clit and she would be flying into an orgasm of epic proportions.
She felt Noah begin to grind his hips against her and she held her breath, waiting for the explosions of pleasure to rock through her. She angled her hips just right and—
“Angel! Get the
hell up!” Angel sat up in bed with a gasp, her eyes snapping open and her heart pounding a staccato rhythm any dancer would find difficult to follow. What in the hell? “I mean it, Angel! We have some serious discussion to have and you need to get your ass out of that bed right now. Rowena has Mateo and is feeding him, but we are due some quality time, honey, so hurry up!” She heard Faith stomp away from where she had been standing outside her door, muttering something that Angel couldn’t really hear.
Angel took another calming breath and pressed a hand to her still thudding heart. Jesus, she’d almost had a wet dream, or whatever the female equivalent was called, about Noah and Chris…again. The first time it happened it had shocked the hell out of her, but she’d enjoyed more than one over the past three weeks since Rowena’s binding ceremony, as she spent more and more time with them, getting to know them, and falling that much more for them each and every minute. And yeah, getting increasingly turned on by them as well.
She swung her legs out of the bed and made for the bathroom for a quick shower before she faced her friend who was probably not going to give her more than five minutes before she came barreling into her room.
Five lightning-quick minutes and after the fastest shower in the history of the world, Angel slid to a halt in her living area, surprised to see the gathering that awaited her. Faith, Lucy, Cassadee, and Rowena were all sitting in chairs around the coffee table which held a tray with mugs of coffee, and what looked like the triple-layered German Chocolate Cake she had made yesterday. Apparently they were settling in for some time.
First things first.
Angel swooped Mateo out of Rowena’s arms. “Buenos días, mijo,” she said as she kissed his perfect chubby little cheek and he squealed in his happy baby way, making all the women in the room laugh gently.
“He’s been changed and fed and is all good to go,” Rowena said and Angel sent her a smile in thanks. She loved the fact that Mateo had so many aunts and uncles in Grey River all clambering for a chance to spend time with her little man.
She cuddled him some more then moved to sit on the space left for her on the couch.
“Angel, he is so precious!” Lucy said with what Angel would have said was deep longing. Smiling to herself, Angel thought it wouldn’t be long before there were more pitter patters of tiny feet in Grey River. She glanced around and thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be just one set either.
“Thanks, Luce, he’s my everything.” Angel placed Mateo on her lap and took a deep breath. “So, what is this, an intervention with cake?”
“You could call it that,” Faith answered with a wink as she served up the cake and coffee. It was Angel’s day off and she had slept late so this was, in effect, her breakfast. She thought about the yoghurt and muesli she would usually have since she was carrying a little extra weight since having Mateo. Then she made the mistake of looking at the decadent cake in front of her. To hell with it!
She stood and moved to place Mateo on the play mat she had in the corner of the room, and then sat down with a steaming mug of coffee and a huge slice of cake. The women all chatted for a few moments, then conversation dropped away and they all looked at her. Angel paused with the last delicious morsel of chocolatey goodness halfway to her mouth.
“What?”
“Angel.” Rowena placed her empty plate back on the coffee table and leaned forward. “We have all noticed that you are starting to exhibit an inability to disengage from a, shall we say slightly stupefied state and the tendency to inappropriately reenter this state whenever you look, or I would hazard an educated guess, think about Chris or Noah.”
Angel blinked and for a moment no one spoke.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Faith said as she threw her hands in the air in a truly Faith-like move.
“I’m talking about the fact that Angel gets all spacey whenever she sees or I reckon thinks about Noah and Chris.” Rowena’s voice lost its doctor speak and now that she had translated what she had said the first time, Angel felt heat rise in her face.
“Oh!” Faith’s face cleared of confusion and she rolled her eyes. “Well, why the hell didn’t you just say so!”
“I did!”
“No, you damn well didn’t. Not that first time. That time you rambled on about being stupefied and tendencies and lost me with too many damn syllables. Christ, even the doctors at the hospital speak in English, why the hell can’t you?”
“OK, time out!” Cassadee leaned forward, making a T out of her hands. “You two take to your corners so that we can talk to Angel about the fact that now we all know what Rowena was saying, she is now redder than a tomato!”
Angel groaned as she pressed her hands against her hot cheeks. Why had she started wearing her hair up? Right now would have been a great time to hide behind a curtain of hair.
“Is it really that obvious,” she asked on a whisper. Oh God, this was equal parts embarrassing and mortifying. Did Noah and Chris know? And did it really matter?
“Oh, honey! Don’t be silly now.” Faith leaned over and rubbed her knee and Angel started to feel that maybe she had hid it better than she was starting to believe. “Of course it is. You would have to be blind not to see the lust and I would dare to say caring that simply explodes across your face whenever the brothers Carson enter a room.”
Groaning, Angel buried her head in her hands.
“Angel,” Cassadee said and waited until Angel lifted her head to look her in the eye. “You have to know that the feelings are mutual, right? That as soon as Chris or Noah catch a glimpse of you, they could be run over by a truck and not notice.” Angel smiled shyly. Yeah she had noticed that, and had reveled in the fact that they were just as in awe of her as she was of them.
“So.” Lucy sat forward, placing her coffee cup on the table and turning her intense kind gaze on Angel. “It begs the question, sweets, of what the heck is the holdup here? They are falling for you faster than Faith here can zing back a comeback!”
“Which is pretty damn fast!” Faith grinned.
“That is very true, my friend.” Lucy grinned and the two high-fived each other before turning back to her. “And you, well, Angel, we can tell that the fall is absolutely mutual. As your friends, and partners in margaritas any damn chance we get, we have to ask why the hesitation?”
Angel huffed a deep sigh and collapsed back on the couch, staring around the room into the faces of her friends. If anyone could help her past this, then it was the four women in this room. “I’m scared,” she whispered and her breath started to come faster.
Rowena nodded and sent her an encouraging smile. Angel got the impression that she knew exactly what Angel was feeling and why, but just as it had been in their sessions as therapist and client, Angel had to come to that conclusion herself and put it into words.
“I have no concept of what it is like to be with a man. And that’s man as in singular. You add in another and I am just not sure what the hell I am supposed to do!” Angel’s frustration rose so she pushed to stand and began pacing back and forth across the room, all four women turning to watch her. “I don’t mean physically because I am pretty sure I can work that out for myself. It is more to do with the fact that I don’t know how to please a man.
“My one and only time with a man, I would put down as a huge mistake and a disaster if it didn’t result in the best damn thing in my life.” She paused to look at Mateo, who was currently waving his little fists and making raspberry noises. “And as a result I met Rowena and got the hell out of Dallas. I’m only just starting to find myself as an individual and as a confident woman, and now I’m in the position of having to find myself as a member of a mated triad with not just one hot man but two sinfully hot wolf shifters who I am falling for more and more each and every day we spend time together.”
Running a little out of steam, Angel stopped for a moment and looked around the room. Noticing the compassion and understanding on each of her friends faces.
“Angel, we
get that. Hell.” Faith moved her arm to indicate everyone in the room. “Each and every one of us has had to travel a dangerous and scary road to reach our happily ever after. Every one of us has had to face our fears, conquer them, and grab a hold of what we want with both hands. Noah and Chris aren’t going anywhere soon, if you need more time then take it. Take as much time as you need.”
“But that’s the point!” Angel threw her hands up in exasperation. “I am scared shitless, but I want them both! I dream about being with them. I dream about what it would be like to be taken by either of them or both, to feel like I am the center of their world and worthy of being loved. I look at them and wonder if I am woman enough to please them. I look at them and wonder what in the hell is it that they see in me that might make them want me. I look at them and think they could do so much better than me.”
“Angel-mine.” She froze at the familiar male voice that came from behind her. Sure the voice was filled with need and no small amount of wonder, but it was so damn familiar it hurt. “I am going to spend the rest of my life, telling you every day that you are worth so much more than you think. You are so damn beautiful you make my heart ache just looking at you.”
“And, sweetheart.” Noah’s voice was just as intense but there was a slight thread of dominance to it that made her shiver. “It’s me and Chris who are the unworthy ones. You are and always will be the only woman in the world for us, and the only one that can complete us. It is our job to love you, to cherish you, to make sure you and Mateo know that you are loved and have everything you want and need and to protect you.”
Angel remained where she was, her heart filling to overflowing with love for these two men. It amazed her that in such a small amount of time they had come to mean so very much to her. Her friends all murmured words of encouragement as they filed out of the room.