by Alison Paige
“We’re, uh, exploring our options,” I said, feeling like the new girl on a date with the star quarterback.
The group dynamics had changed over the past ten years since I’d last seen them. Brad and Amy were mates; I could see it in the way they touched each other, always some part of their body in contact with the other whenever possible. But more than that, I could smell it. A melding of individual scents to create something new and unique to the couple by the simple act of accepting the other as mate. Werewolves didn’t need a formal ceremony or even a verbal declaration. It just happened. Life mates.
Brad chuckled and tipped his chin toward the other side of the clearing. “Yeah. Looks like Anthony’s exploring a few options on his own.”
I looked over my shoulder. The Gathering took place every year in a thousand-acre animal reserve in rural southwestern Pennsylvania owned by the werewolf council. After more than fifty years of Gatherings the forest had succumbed to our needs and now trees refused to grow in the football-sized field we used to set up fire circles, food tents and run carnival type games for the kids.
My eyes found Anthony after a quick scan through the three hundred or so faces dotting the field. My stomach rolled then twisted tight.
“I don’t know how you girls do it,” Amy said. “I couldn’t share Brad with anyone. It seems so, I dunno…unnatural. Oh. Not that I’m prejudiced or anything. I mean, if that’s what makes you happy. Some people are just…different. Right?”
I nodded, still watching the three nymphets clustered around Anthony. They were pretty, all of them—long haired with bright eyes and tight, shapely bodies. They laughed when he spoke, pressing against him, touching him. Though Anthony’s hands stayed firmly in the front pockets of his jeans.
“The way your dad felt about giving everyone a voice—women same as men—never pegged you for a future Purist when we were kids,” Brad said.
“I’m not.” I was mad, upset, and when I’m upset I get blunt. “Anthony and I are fucking. That’s it. Obviously, our lifestyle choices make anything more than that impossible.”
“That’s a relief.” Amy sighed. “I love Anthony to death, but for years his father’s been pushing him to seduce females who have either money or power, or both.”
“He’s damn good at it too,” Brad said. “The guy’s either a wild man in the sack or he’s hung like a friggin’ donkey.” I knew the answer to that. I kept it to myself.
Brad traced a finger down the arm Amy had nestled against his side. I don’t think he realized he was doing it. I looked away. I hated being jealous, but I was.
“Actually, I’m a little disappointed in Anthony. I thought he’d stand up to his father. But those women all think he’ll choose one as his life mate and he has yet to do it.” Amy pointed to the brunette on Anthony’s left. “Candice was so sure he’d choose her, her body started producing mating pheromones. Now her offer’s kind of…out there, waiting for him to make a decision. Bet it’s the same for the others. Once their body starts the process they can’t turn it off until he commits to someone.”
“And if he doesn’t commit he gets them all for as long as he wants,” I said, glancing back at Anthony.
“I’ll admit,” Brad said, “if I didn’t know better I’d say he finally caved to his dad and started collecting women for a new Purist pack.”
“You sure he hasn’t?” I said. A chill iced down my spine. Was I supposed to be the newest member? A sixteen-member pack had a lot of power and it’d go to whoever I chose as my mate. Even if Anthony never committed to me he’d still have the benefits that came with my choosing him.
Brad scoffed and shook his head. “I don’t buy it. He’s never been into the Purist scene the way his dad and the others are. You ask me, I think he’s been holding out for someone special his whole life.”
Amy turned soft, romantic eyes to her mate. “Aww, that’s so sweet.”
“Yeah. Whatever.” Their sappy lovey-dovey crap made me ill. My foul mood might’ve had something to do with it, too. Hard to say.
“It’s not fair these stupid mating pheromones don’t work the other way.” I could feel my scowl narrowing my eyes. “A man’s mating pheromones can overpower a woman’s. He can force her to be his mate, but not the other way around. Unfair!”
“Yeah,” Amy said. “That, periods, bloating and PMS, totally unfair. What else is new?”
At least he couldn’t force me into a Purist pack. Committing to me would free the other women to rescind their offers. Bye-bye harem. But how close had I come to choosing him? I would’ve been trapped just like those girls fawning over him must be. My stomach roiled. I couldn’t keep thinking about it.
“You’re Mattie, right?” I turned at the sound of a masculine voice behind me and almost strained my neck.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, do I know you?” The guy was seven feet if he was an inch, lanky but toned. He was cute though, with long sun-bleached hair, spiky ends brushing the tops of his shoulders, and skin bronzed so perfectly he looked like he’d been dipped. He reminded me of an ad for sunless tanner.
“Awe-some,” he said, very surfer dude. “Name’s Brodi. This here’s my bud, Samson. Word is you’re lookin’ for a mate. Like fast, right? Well, uh, me and Samson might be able to help you out.” He shrugged. “You know, if you’re willin’ to make a couple…allowances. Right?”
I shifted my gaze to Samson. The anti-Brodi. He couldn’t have been more than an inch taller than me. The top of his neat, dirt-brown hair barely reached Brodi’s shoulder. With paler skin, a heavier build and a freckled face, Samson’s dark brown eyes said timid, beta, whereas Brodi oozed alpha male.
Samson slipped his hand into Bodi’s larger, long-fingered grip and dropped his gaze under my more dominant stare. He tucked his free hand under his arm, hugging himself and shifted his weight to lean into Brodi. Suddenly Samson’s body language wasn’t saying beta as much as it was screaming I bat for the home team.
They weren’t the first today to throw their hats into my ring, so to speak, but they were definitely the most interesting. I struggled not to let my smile grow too wide, not to let the crazy laughter tickling up my throat color my voice. “Thanks for the offer, but—”
“She’s taken.”
The group of us turned to see Anthony striding toward us, butterscotch hair waving over his shoulders, thick arms pumping at his sides. His blue silk shirt gave his eyes an unearthly luster that I noticed even at a distance and clung to his chest and arms so every roll of muscle made my heart race. The crazy desperation I’d felt swamping me a moment ago vanished. Lord, what he did to me.
“Am not,” I said. Yeah. Clever. That’s me.
Anthony’s hypnotic violet eyes shifted to Brad and Amy. “Guys. Thanks for entertaining my future wife. You won’t mind if I steal her away.”
Reaching out he snagged my hand as he passed, not even breaking his stride. Like a boat on water my body turned and followed, my brain too stunned to protest. We needed to talk anyway, to end what was going on between us before it went too far and I stupidly found myself joining his stable of women. But the power that swirled around him, the warmth and strength of his hand, the confidence in his stride, it was all too intoxicating. Damn, I was sunk.
Twenty feet beyond the tree line into the forest Anthony spun me around, pinning me against the fat trunk of an oak. His face nestled against my neck, warm breath and hot kisses snaking ribbons of heat along my skin that pooled fast between my thighs. “Drives me crazy to see all these other guys sniffing around you.”
He pressed his body against mine, sealing us from chest to groin so I knew exactly how happy he was to be alone with me. “And yet you managed to contain your mental distress long enough to tighten the leashes you’ve got on your current pussy supply.”
He raised his head, the upper part of his body separating from mine, and looked me straight in the eye. “I didn’t ask those girls to offer to be my mate. I don’t even know why they did. I’m not gonna be
mean, though. What am I supposed to do, commit just because they offered? Doesn’t it matter what I want?”
“What you want?”
“Yeah. Don’t I get a say in who I spend the rest of my life with?”
Wow, that sounded familiar. “You didn’t seduce them, make them think you were interested in life mates?”
His brows lifted, a dimpled smile tugging his cheeks. He chuckled, looked away and back again, a bad-boy glint in his violet eyes. “Yeah, I seduced them. I like to fuck. But I never offered to be life mate to any of them.”
“Right.” God, I wanted to believe him, but everything I knew about Purists told me he was lying. He had to be. It was what they did.
The lines across his forehead deepened, tightening his brows and turning his smile serious. “You’re the only one, Mattie. Ever. If they sensed I wanted a life mate then they sensed my feelings for you.”
He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger and brought my mouth to his. I let him. Even as our lips touched and he coaxed mine to part, somewhere in the back of my brain I knew dictionaries were quickly switching the picture next to the word chump with mine. But I couldn’t care.
He just smelled so damn good, like fields of sweet hay after a spring rain and musky human male. I was swamped by the scent of him; every breath took him deep inside me, flavored my tongue, made it hard to think. My heart raced, hot blood flooding my nerves, tingling through my senses. He rocked his hips, reminding me his hard cock was thick and ready, pressing against my belly. It’d take zero convincing to have him naked inside me. And I wanted him inside me, filling me, making my body melt and my sex muscles spasm. The very thought of it made me wet.
Crap! I turned my head, breaking the kiss and gulping air while I could. “Anthony, stop. I have to think of my pack. It’s over. You’re not right for me. I have to choose someone else.”
His hand slipped between my legs, stroked the curve of my pussy through my shorts. “Bullshit. No one else gets you this hot, Mattie. Admit it.”
“You don’t know that.” Never mind that it was true. Something about him seemed to trigger instincts in me I had to fight hard to ignore. Saying no had never been so hard.
“It’s the same for me,” he said. “We’re meant for each other. Our bodies recognize it.” His hand stroked between my legs. I wanted to push it away. Or at least I wanted to want to push his hand away.
“Anthony, I—” A low growl and then a rustle of leaves off to my right drew our attention.
A flash of fur, a flicker of flesh, it was hard to see clearly through the bushes and leaves. A tail swooshed, hindquarters pumping fast, a woman moaned and an instant before my mind puzzled out the pieces, the image changed. Fur vanished, replaced by the taut, hard ass of a man thrusting deep behind the plump bottom of a woman on all fours. A heartbeat later the rhythmic, frantic sounds of flesh smacking flesh left no doubt.
“Oh.” I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. Anthony’s fingers rubbed along the lips of my pussy through my shorts, his scent filled me, his body pressed warm and hard against mine. It was too much to refuse. I let my legs relax, allowing the caress. It felt too good.
“She’s going to come any minute. So is he. Do you smell it?” Anthony turned his face into my neck again and mumbled, “I can feel you want it too, Mattie. Let me make you come with them.”
I didn’t answer—not a yes, but not a no either. My belly tightened, my sex flooding with cream watching the man’s body tense, glisten with sweat as he pounded his cock into her pussy. Her body shuddered with each hard thrust, rocking back and forth on her knees to drive him deeper, harder.
Anthony’s kisses heated down my neck, his teeth nipping my skin, sending jolts of pain and pleasure tingling through my veins. His hands slipped behind the elastic band of my shorts, pushing them down, snagging my underwear as they went, shoving both past my knees.
I looked to see him kneeling before me, pushing my bottoms further down my legs then coaxing me to slip one sandaled foot free. He straightened, running his hands up my thighs, an expression of rapt desire filling his face. His mouth was belly level and he slipped his hands around to my butt, pulling me to him, and pressed a kiss there. I felt it…everywhere.
“Anthony.” It was barely a whisper.
“Let me,” he said, his lips tickling my belly, his voice vibrating through my sex.
I was going to stop him. I’d pretty much decided…almost. But then he kissed lower on my belly, his fingers squeezing the cheeks of my ass. And then he kissed lower still. I leaned my head back against the tree, dug my hands into that thick wavy hair and caught my breath when his next kiss teased right above my clit.
His palms seemed to burn across my skin as he smoothed them over my hips to between my thighs. He nudged my legs wider, his thumbs spreading the lips of my sex, holding me open to him. I rocked forward, couldn’t help it—the heat of his breath tickled like wicked feathers over the sensitive flesh.
The noise he made sounded more like growl, but when I looked I don’t think he’d even realized he’d made the sound. He lunged forward, like a wolf devouring a kill, pressing his face into my pussy, his tongue finding the sensitive flesh of my clit. With firm, teasing licks, he brought me into his mouth, suckled, drawing a rush of sensation from every part of my body straight through to my sex.
I bit my lip, fought not to cry out and glanced at the couple fucking on the other side of the brush. I gasped, surprise stealing my voice.
He was watching me, watching us, even as he pounded into his lover’s pussy. His gaze traveled over me, watched Anthony eating me out, watched me holding him to me. My body tightened, a quick thrill zinging through my veins. Our eyes met, and for a second I don’t think he realized I was seeing him. And then it clicked. His eyes focused, his blank lustful expression warmed.
A crooked smile tugged across his face and a kind of intimate heat flashed in his eyes. He looked to the woman’s ass, and my gaze followed. He shifted, bringing one hand to his hip so I could see his ruddy cock, wet with her cream, driving in and out of her swollen pussy.
As though he knew what I was seeing, Anthony slipped a finger inside me, filled me like the man’s cock filled the woman. I couldn’t keep the moan in my throat.
“Oh, God…” My breaths came in pants, my hips moving with the ever-quickening rhythm he set. My pussy tensed, clamped around his finger even as moisture gushed, slicking the way for him to add another.
The man’s cock pumped in and out, keeping pace with Anthony’s fingers fucking me. My hands fisted in his hair, held his face against my pussy. Sensation swirled through me, excitement swelling so fast I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
Like the undeniable pull of the ocean, a delicious tide pushed me closer and closer toward that blissful edge. I tried to hold back, tried to ignore the muscles tingling and coiling inside me, the knot tightening low in my body. But it was too much, the feel of his mouth suckling me, my sex milking his fat fingers, the sight of the couple fucking, the man’s big cock rosy and wet, pounding into her. Too much.
The man’s cheeks flushed, ropy veins pressing along his neck and forehead, his thrusts frantic, both hands gripping her waist. Sensation crested inside me. Muscles flexed on his ass, his thighs and arms, his jaw tight. The woman cried out, throwing her head back and the hot wash of release flooded through me. Orgasms rocked her, him and me all at once and filled the forest with our lascivious cries.
My knees buckled and only Anthony’s fast reflexes, snaking his arms around my waist, kept me on my feet. I closed my eyes and let my head tilt back against the tree trunk, struggling for breath, for clear thinking.
“Jeezus, Mattie, I almost came listening to you,” he said, nuzzling my belly. “You drive me crazy, woman. I told you we’re perfect together.”
I flicked my gaze to the couple. They were gone. I sighed, glad for small favors, and looked down at Anthony. Most men couldn’t do to me with their whole body and several toys what he
’d done with just his mouth and fingers. My heart slowly found a steady beat but I knew the ache pressing at my chest had nothing to do with exertion.
“I’m sorry, Anthony,” I said. “It’s not going to work. I can’t do this. Tomorrow night, I’m choosing someone else as my mate.”
Chapter Four
“What do you mean you didn’t ask? You’re an alpha, boy. Lead the damn pack,” Richard Ricci said. “They’ll follow if you’re even half the man I raised you to be.”
Twenty feet across the clearing I could hear him as clearly as if he stood next to me. Richard’s deep baritone voice, like his son’s, carried as though he spoke through a megaphone.
I looked at Anthony standing in front of the big man, arms folded tight across his chest, feet planted wide, chin high, firm. “Don’t worry about it, Pop. I’ll work it out.”
Richard snorted, his hard barrel belly shaking up through his chest with a laugh. Even at this distance I could tell there was no humor in it. “The rabbits are loose, boy. The hunt’s about to start. You’ve got no time left to work it out. If you can’t lead them tonight, you won’t pull them in line tomorrow night when it really counts.”
“It’s just a stupid game, Pop,” Anthony said. “Some things are more important.”
“The hell you say, boy. Nuthin’s ever just a game.” He stood four inches taller than Anthony and looked like he outweighed him by forty pounds easy. He wore his pure white hair cut short enough to see the pink hue of his skin underneath. He had a round face and arms as thick as my thigh. Even happy the man could intimidate a rattlesnake. And Richard Ricci was not happy.
Anthony shook his head and turned to leave, but Richard reached out his long arm and snagged him by the scruff of the neck. It was really the back of his shirt collar, but the effect was the same. The big man jerked Anthony backward so fast he nearly fell. Good balance and an athletic build was all that saved him.