A full plate appeared before her with a beautiful greasy-looking cheesesteak sandwich with a side of waffle fries. Hope stared at the plate for a minute before she reached out to touch it. It was really there. It wasn’t as though it was some sort of optical illusion. With a grin, she picked up the plate and headed for the table where Braxton sat.
“You didn’t get a drink.” Braxton leaned to the side to look around her at Joran, who was headed back to the machine to get his own lunch. “Get Hope something to drink while you’re up there, will you?”
“I’m on it,” Joran replied from behind her.
Braxton winked at the other man and Hope frowned. What was going on between them that she didn’t understand? She was sure there was something. She just didn’t know what it was.
Joran returned carrying a tray with his lunch and three drinks. Theirs looked a lot like cola. Hers looked like champagne. It was a pink, fizzy liquid in a frosted glass. Whatever the drink was looked delicious just because it was cold.
Hope picked up the glass, took a sip and closed her eyes. “This is heavenly.” She set the drink down and looked at her sandwich. “I really don’t eat like this.” Her face grew warm. How could she eat this big, greasy sandwich in front of these two? Here she sat with her doughy belly and too-wide hips while both of them were so ripped she could feel the ridges on their stomachs through their shirts.
“I’m not sure I can eat this,” she said as she looked down at the cheesesteak and wished she hadn’t ordered it. “It’s not good for me and it will go straight to my hips.”
The two men stopped chewing and looked at her. “What do you mean it will go to your hips?” They both asked the question at the same time.
“I mean it will turn to fat.” She rested her hand over her belly. “It’s not like I need any extra. I have enough already.”
“Baby,” Joran said as he reached over to pat her hand. “Believe me when I say that you aren’t fat.” He looked at Braxton. “Just ask him.”
“We like women with a little meat on their bones, Hope. You won’t find a wolf anywhere who wants a skinny mate.” He grinned. “They’re too easy to break.”
Hope sat staring at the two men for a moment, her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m dreaming. That’s the only answer for what’s happening to me. I’m dreaming.”
Braxton took a deep breath through his nose and groaned. “I’ve been thinking that every moment since we found you.” He smiled again. “Now eat. I have a feeling you’re going to need the energy.”
Chapter Eighteen
Braxton watched as their mate slowly took a small bite of her meal. He knew she still worried about the things she ate and how it would make her look and wanted to go back to her time for just a moment and beat the shit out of the man who could undermine her self-confidence in such a way.
There was nothing wrong with a woman having curves. Women were genetically programmed to carry more fat to care for their young. The more fat a female carried on her body, indicated the more cubs she could have and care for at one time without starving to death.
His people had no prejudices about size, especially toward a female’s predilection to having curves in all the right places. That was a human disease apparently, though he hadn’t seen it much here, in this time. He had seen a few large signs in the future with women so skinny they looked nothing like the curvy female nature intended, but a skeleton with skin stretched tight over its bones.
He took another bite of his fried chicken and frowned when she stopped eating after three or four bites and a couple of the strange-looking fried potatoes on her plate. He would have to try that the next time they came to the ship. It smelled delicious.
“What’s wrong?”
Hope looked up at him. “Nothing.” She picked up her glass and took a sip of her drink.
“Then why have you stopped eating?” Braxton set his fork down and Joran did the same as they both looked at her. “If there’s something wrong with that, you can recycle it and ask Carella to make you something else.”
“It’s fine.” She shook her head, pushed her plate away and rested her crossed arms on the table. “I’m just not used to eating much anymore. I usually have a salad or soup. I don’t usually eat bread and meat anymore.” She looked almost longingly at the sandwich. “And I haven’t had cheese in months.” She shrugged. “Not real cheese, anyway.”
“Why the hell not?” Joran asked, setting his own utensils down, his brows drawing together. “Your body needs the protein from meat. That is why, like us, you have incisors. If nature intended that you not eat meat, you wouldn’t have incisors to rip meat.”
“I couldn’t afford it. My ex-husband didn’t pay his alimony like he was supposed to. He said he didn’t have the money. That the medical bills for his girlfriend and their baby must be paid first. He didn’t care about whether I ate.” She sobbed. “Hell, he didn’t even give a damn if I had a place to live. I loved him unconditionally for the best years of my life and he left me for a younger woman not a week after telling me we would be together forever.”
Standing, Hope spun around and headed for the door. She didn’t know where she was going, couldn’t know, but she obviously didn’t want to stay here with them.
“You stay and eat. I’ll follow her,” he said to Joran who started to rise. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring her back.”
Standing, he exited the mess hall and followed Hope’s scent to the right. He didn’t know why her ex-husband couldn’t see that she was a prize worth keeping, and he didn’t care. He would never wish this pain upon her, but he couldn’t help but be glad that she was free to be their mate.
Killing a man to procure a mate never turned out well when the woman loved the man as much as Hope had obviously loved her husband. As bad as it seemed, it was a good thing he left her before Carella sent them into her world to abduct her. Otherwise, she would never find it in her heart to forgive them for taking her from her world.
The center of his chest ached as he thought about the expression on her face when she told them of her neglectful husband. The hurt in her eyes, the pain in her voice was almost enough to have him demand Carella return him to her time so he could beat the shit out of the man who had hurt his mate. However, he knew she needed him here. Nothing would convince Hope she was of value the way that their love and support could. Though he knew that on a visceral level, it didn’t detract from his need to find her ex-husband and beat the jerk to a pulp.
Slowing when he came to a cross corridor, Braxton took the time to sniff the air in an attempt to follow his mate as quickly as possible. Closing his eyes to enhance his sense of smell, he inhaled.
“She’s on the bridge, General. I think she finally believes she’s on a spaceship. If her heart rate and respiration levels are any indication, she needs you.”
Turning to the right, Braxton sprinted down the hall toward the bridge. He didn’t even slow when he approached the set of double doors, trusting Carella to open them as soon as he grew near.
Braxton stopped dead when he saw her standing close to the transparent bulkhead, staring out at her planet so far away.
“It’s real, isn’t it?” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide. Tears streaked down her face and she reached up to swipe them away. Turning back toward the bulkhead, she looked out at the large blue planet before them. “How can this be happening? Why is this happening to me?”
“I’ve told you, baby.” He moved toward her, needing to touch her but unsure if she would allow it. “We come from far away. Our species is dying. We no longer have enough people to procreate without having to inbreed and weaken our gene pool.” He moved closer, moving slowly as to not alarm her. “Humans are the closest to our genome, only one chromosome away from being exactly the same. You and your people are our last hope.”
“Last hope, huh?” She turned to face him again. “What a coincidence that you found your last Hope right here, huh?”
He shook his head. “W
e had no idea it was you. Carella sent us there. We knew we would know you when we saw you, scented you. You stir something in us no one else ever has.”
“Right,” she said, but didn’t look convinced. “What if I had found you? What if you had no sixth sense or whatever it is to tell you that I was your mate? Would you believe me if I just showed up, shot you with some sort of stun beam or whatever it was you did and carried you away?” She paced away from him, turned to look out at the stars and asked, “What would you think? What would you do?”
Braxton sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I’ve always known there was life on other planets. I’ve always wanted to visit other worlds, so I wouldn’t have the difficult time you’re having with believing all of this.”
He moved closer, rested his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her beautiful, deep-blue eyes and smiled. “I do know one thing. Regardless of your scent, of the sixth sense that you call it, I would know you, Hope Ackerman. I would know you the moment I saw you. And I would know that I was meant to spend the rest of my life loving you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Hope didn’t know what to say to that. She’d just met him and he was already declaring his love. Something inside her urged her to do the same, but she couldn’t. How could she stand here and seriously tell this man she loved him when she’d known him less than a day? Or was it just a bit more than a day? Whichever it was, it wasn’t a long time and she had never believed in love at first sight—lust at first sight, yes, but not love.
As a matter of fact, she’d suffered from lust at first sight the moment she’d seen Braxton and Joran. It didn’t matter that they’d kidnapped her, obviously, or she never would have allowed them to touch her the way they had and she definitely wouldn’t have had sex with Braxton on the back of a horse.
Hell, she hadn’t even thought sex on a horse was really possible until he’d lowered her over his hard cock and rammed himself home. It had literally been the ride of her life.
She smiled when she looked up at him. A thick lock of blond hair fell over his eyes, and she reached up to brush it back. His green eyes sparkled down at her as he smiled.
“I love you. Even though it’s been only a few hours, I know this. I have loved the idea of having a mate of my own for the past several decades. Now that I’ve met you, I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”
“Neither can I,” Joran said from behind her. “I, too, have waited for you to come into our lives. I can’t imagine a life without you now that we’ve met. How could I? Why would I want to?”
Reaching out, Joran pulled her into his arms. He stared down at her with those stunning sky-blue eyes that made his tan seem that much darker. His short black hair, cut in a similar military cut as Braxton’s, wasn’t quite as unruly, but she reached up to brush his hair back anyway. She needed the contact. She wanted to know if it was as soft and silky as it looked. It was.
Without warning, he dipped his head, his lips slanting over hers. His tongue delved into her opened mouth as though searching for something he couldn’t find. What was it about these two men that had her doing things she would never do with anyone else, had never done with anyone else?
She was over worrying about them being younger than she. They had told her the truth about the spaceship. Why would they have lied about their ages? Did it really matter in the grand scheme of things? As long as they were happy, did it really matter?
Hope stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around Joran’s neck. This was what was missing in her life all these years. These two men excited her, took her to places no one else ever had. Where Bob had been comfortable, these men rocked her to her very toes.
Sliding her hands up over his shoulders, Hope thrust her fingers through Joran’s hair, fisted her hands, and pulled him closer, needing to deepen their kiss.
When he finally pulled away to look down into her eyes, he was breathing hard and Braxton stood near the door.
“I had my time with her, old friend.” He grinned. “I would suggest you take her to your room and have some alone time of your own.”
Swallowing thickly, Hope looked up at Joran. Was he built like Braxton or was he bigger, smaller? It didn’t really matter if he was smaller, but she didn’t know if she could take it if he were much larger than Braxton. As it was, it felt as though Braxton would rip her apart when the horse had started to canter.
Pulling away, Joran looked down into her eyes for a moment before lacing his fingers through hers. “Come with me.”
Hope nodded. Wasn’t that what he had in mind when he kissed her? When he started to pull her from the room, she realized he literally wanted her to go with him and almost laughed.
It was embarrassing to realize that he had meant for her to follow him instead of meant for her to have sex with him. It wasn’t until he pulled her through a door what seemed like miles from where they started.
The room looked a lot like a stateroom on a cruise ship. A large stateroom. Just on the other side of the door was a small sitting room. Beyond that was the bedroom with the largest bed she’d ever seen. It looked twice the size of a king-sized bed. It dominated the room and seemed to grow larger the longer she stared at it.
Joran wasted no time in dragging her back into his arms and pressing his lips against hers. The warmth of his mouth seeped into her, his tongue trailing along the seam of her lips until she opened them, allowing him entrance.
White heat burned through her blood as his mouth moved from hers, his lips trailing over her jaw to swirl his tongue around the shell of her ear.
Hope shivered as he drew the lobe into his mouth, then moved lower to suckle her neck, her collarbone, moving lower still to the cloth-covered tip of her breast.
“Stay with us, Hope. Let us show you how good we can be together. Let us make love to you, show you what it will be like when we leave not one inch of your body untouched.”
Her stomach clenched when she thought about it. Why not? What kind of life did she have to go back to, really? She had nothing. Hell, she didn’t even have a cat. Hope had nothing but an empty apartment to go back to, and she didn’t even know how long she would have that.
Would it be wrong to make such a momentous decision in such a short time? Did she even have the right to tell them she would do it when she wasn’t sure how she felt about them?
Whatever it was about their physiology made it possible for them to know she was the one for them, but it wasn’t the same for humans. There was no strange and wonderful power, or source, that guaranteed that they were meant for her, that this would all work out in the end. Just because the men were certain she was the one for them meant nothing.
Yet, she still kept coming full circle to what did she have to lose? The answer was nothing, the way she saw it.
Slowly, Joran began to unbutton her blouse, his mouth moving slowly over every newly exposed inch of skin. She gasped when his warm mouth closed over her taut nipple. He moved with her, almost like dancing until she felt the backs of her knees hit the bed. Her dress fell in a puddle at her feet while Joran stood staring at her, rapt.
“You’re so beautiful, Hope.” He looked down at her belly and her rounded hips, his expression filled with desire. “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of finding a woman like you.”
Reaching up, he cupped her breasts, which luckily hadn’t started to sag yet and weighed them in his hands. His thumbs skimmed over the hardened peaks, and she let her head fall back on her shoulders.
“Yes, baby. Arch your back. Thrust those ripe little berries up toward my mouth.” He leaned down to take a nipple into his mouth once again. Hope whimpered at the contact. She couldn’t wait for him to take her. Part of her wanted him to grab her, throw her down on the bed, and ram his cock inside her so deep she wouldn’t want to go home—ever.
She was almost there now. Hope thought of her empty home, her empty life and wondered if it would be so wrong to live the dream. Hope brought up he
r hands, her fingers thrusting though his hair as she drew his head closer.
Joran reached up to take her hands in his. Pulling her hands away from his head, he straightened. His eyes glowed with a strange iridescence that would have frightened her had she not already experienced his gentle touch.
Moving quickly, his actions little more than a blur, Joran ripped the clothing from his body. His boots landed across the room with a thud and before she knew it, he stood before her naked.
Hope could do little more than stare at his utter male perfection. Broad shoulders tapered down to a wide chest and narrow washboard abs. His thighs were thick, muscular, promising to drive his hips into her with hard abandon.
Slick, liquid heat seeped from her pussy to coat her thighs as she looked on, her throat dry. Swallowing thickly, Hope reached out to touch the long, thick erection that sprang forth from its nest of curls.
With a low growl, Joran sprang forward, grasped her by the waist and lifted her off the floor. “Don’t.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “I’ll lose control if you touch me now.”
Gently, he placed her in the center of the bed and came down over her. The heavy weight of his cock pressed against her thigh, wetting her leg with pre-cum. Hope reached down to grasp his hard length in her hand, and he groaned.
“Please don’t do that to me, baby. You’re driving me mad.” Slowly, he kissed his way down her body, his lips and tongue dancing over her quivering flesh.
“Don’t tease me, Joran,” she begged. “I don’t know if I can take your teasing.” She didn’t. After everything that had happened to her today, Hope found that she couldn’t wait for him. She didn’t want to wait for him to thrust inside her. In fact, she needed him inside her more than she’d ever thought possible.
“Shh…baby.” He breathed the words against the cream-soaked flesh at the apex of her thighs.
Where There is Hope [Taos Wolven Mates 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 9