by Roxie Noir
“And he exploded?” asked Ash.
“Nothing happened,” Cora said. “He asked me over text, so after I said, basically, ‘You’re nice but no thanks,’ I didn’t hear from him at all.”
“Rude,” Ash muttered.
Cora shrugged. “That was fine,” she said.
She took another sip.
“I forgot about the whole thing, until flowers showed up on my doorstep. From Neil.”
Hunter felt a spark of rage start inside of him, just listening to Cora tell the story.
What is wrong with people? he wondered.
“For a while, it was just stuff like that. Flowers, chocolate, cards, and even though it was really creepy, it was hard to put my finger on why. I’d tell people that I had this guy sending me tons of stuff, and they’d act like I was crazy not to enjoy it, but I really didn’t.”
“Because he couldn’t take no for an answer,” Hunter said. By now his grip was tight on his mug of hot chocolate, and what he really wanted to do was chuck it against the wall, shift, and go tear this fucker limb from limb.
Calm down, he told himself. You can’t protect her if you’re tearing through the woods when he comes for her.
He ground his teeth together and took another sip.
“Then, one day there was a picture of me, sleeping, in my mailbox. Taken from across the street or something.”
This time, Ash and Hunter both growled. Hunter jumped to his feet, unable to keep still any longer, flexing his fists and cracking his knuckles.
“Did you tell the police?” Ash asked. He’d finished his drink and put his mug down, and had his thick arms crossed over his chest. Hunter could see the muscles in his forearms flexing as he made his hands into fists.
“Of course,” Cora said. She shook her head. “They said they couldn’t do anything.”
“You have to be shitting me,” Hunter exploded. “Nothing?”
Cora pinched the bridge of her nose between her finger and her thumb.
“I couldn’t prove that it was him sending the pictures,” she said. “The police told me that the fact that he was sending notes and stuff was only circumstantial, that it could easily be someone else sending the pictures. The best they could do was a restraining order.”
“Which is useless,” Ash muttered.
“It got worse,” she went on. “More pictures. More notes, about stuff I’d been doing, places I’d been. He’d do weird things like compliment outfits I was wearing.”
“And the police didn’t do anything?”
Cora just shook her head. Hunter could see that she was furious again, and trying her best not give in to angry tears.
His bear was ready to tear through his skin and go on a rampage. He felt like he could knock down the entire forest if that was what it took to find the jerk who was stalking Cora.
The only problem was that it might not help.
“I moved twice,” she said. “I stayed with my sister, with friends, in a motel a couple of times, but he always found me. It wouldn’t take more than a day or two.”
“Is that why you moved here?” Hunter asked, quietly.
Cora nodded.
“I got fucking tired,” she said, still pacing. “Tired of trying to shake him, and tired of trying to convince the police to do something. So I got a job on the other side of the country and moved.”
“That rock that smashed your window,” said Ash. “Was that him?”
Cora bit her lip again. “I really, really wanted to think that it wasn’t,” she said. “He did it twice before, once to my work and once at work, but those both had pictures attached.”
She drained her mug of hot chocolate.
“That one didn’t, so I let myself think it was just asshole teenagers,” she said.
Then she went still.
Hunter was still ready to tear up everything in Granite Valley until he found this guy who was stalking Cora, but something told him Cora wasn’t done.
He narrowed his eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The last picture he sent me before I moved had a knife in it,” she blurted out, looking at the ground. “He was holding the knife up in the foreground of the picture, and I’m asleep in the background.”
Ash turned and stomped for the door.
“That fucker—”
“Wait,” Cora said.
Ash stopped.
“You can’t just go murder him,” she said.
“I definitely can,” said Ash.
“She means legally,” Hunter said. He forced himself to stay still, even though he wanted to taste Neil’s blood just as much as Ash did.
“You don’t even know where he is,” Cora pointed out.
“There are only so many motels in Granite Valley,” he said.
“So you’re going to tear through all of them, terrorizing everyone until you find him?” Cora asked.
Ash hesitated. He glanced at the door one more time, then walked back into the living room and sat on the couch, glowering.
“I’ll be okay here for the night,” Cora said. She walked over and sat on the coffee table, facing Ash on the couch and Hunter, still standing behind the couch.
“If he tries anything while you’re here I swear to god I’ll tear him into a million pieces,” Ash offered.
“You could just arrest him,” Cora said.
Ash shrugged.
“We’ll see,” he said.
“We’ll figure this out tomorrow,” she said. “Once we’ve gotten some sleep and we’re not so rattled. There’s gotta be a way we can catch him.”
Ash nodded. He finally unfurled his hands and rubbed his palms on his pants, the very picture of concentration.
Suddenly, he spoke up.
“The note said he’d see you soon,” he said. “Is that anything?”
Cora leaned back on her hands, still sitting on their coffee table, and thought for a moment.
“Maybe,” she said, thoughtfully. “I don’t think he’s ever said he’d see me before.”
“It sounds like a threat,” offered Hunter.
He walked around the couch and sat next to Ash, Cora’s knees in between theirs.
“I bet you pissed him off by moving across the country,” Ash mused. Now that he had something to do besides tear everything apart, he seemed calmer.
“He’s probably just seething right now,” Hunter added.
“Furious,” said Ash.
Cora put her feet on the couch, wedging them into the space between Hunter and Ash’s thighs.
“I don’t give a damn about his feelings,” she said, wiggling her toes.
She leaned back on her hands, and now that his anger had faded some, Hunter let his eyes wander over her soft form. The way she was sitting, her breasts jutted out over her small waist, making her tank top hug her curves perfectly.
Her skirt was just covering her knees, and Hunter could almost — almost — see up it, that warm, dark, secret area tantalizing him.
Then, her scent hit him: warm and spicy and, best of all, aroused.
12
Cora
What are you doing, Cora thought to herself, even as she wiggled her toes, touching both men on the couch at the same time.
The last time you so much as went on a date, the guy stalked you for six months, and not even moving to Cascadia dissuaded him.
Then Hunter put one hand on her ankle, slowly moving his fingers up her calf.
Cora quietly thanked her lucky stars that she’d shaved her legs that morning. Even if she did get the sense that hairy legs wouldn’t exactly be a problem for these two.
“We were having a very good date before you got the card,” Hunter said, his face breaking into a sexy grin.
Cora felt herself go molten, her entire core hot and liquid.
“We were,” she agreed. She moved her leg on the couch, pushing Hunter’s fingers a little further up her leg, the tips of them just reaching the sensitive spot on the back of her kne
e. His fingers were strong and calloused, and the feeling of them sent a shiver down Cora’s spine, straight to her core.
“Actually, I think you were about to invite me back here anyway,” she said.
She straightened her leg, pushing Hunter’s hand under her skirt, just above her knee.
“You got us,” he said, his thumb tracing circles on her thigh, the sensation driving her wild.
She wiggled her toes against Ash’s leg.
“What about you?” she asked, teasingly. He hadn’t said anything in a bit, and only a few minutes ago, he’d been really pissed.
Ash settled back into the couch and looked at Cora. With one hand, he delicately tapped his fingers against her toes, almost like he was counting them.
Then he smiled, finally.
“So, you were impressed with my dancing?” he said.
Cora threw her head back and laughed.
She couldn’t believe what she was doing — sitting here, flirting with two shifters. Hell, she hadn’t had a real boyfriend in a year and a half, let alone two boyfriends, let alone two shifter boyfriends.
Fuck it, she thought, arousal throbbing through her. Jump into the deep end.
“Stop worrying about the dancing,” she said, leaning forward. “Your dancing was fine.”
Ash clearly didn’t believe her.
“You need to lighten up,” she said. She stood, though Hunter’s hand stayed on her thigh.
Then she straddled Ash on the couch, one knee on either side of him.
“Now, how can I get your mind off of what a bad dancer you are?” she asked, tapping him on the chest.
Between her legs, she could already feel him stiffening, and she squeezed her thighs together, the whole of his bulk between them.
Already, she could feel her juices gushing, and for a moment she wondered if the two shifters, with their superhuman senses, could smell how wet she was.
Then she decided she didn’t care.
“I’ve got other talents,” Ash rumbled.
Then his hands were on her back, and he pulled her into him, kissing her hard. She could feel his stubble against her skin as he swept his tongue along her lower lip, then opened his mouth and began exploring hers with his tongue.
A groan sounded from deep in Ash’s chest, and Cora felt her whole body respond, grabbing his face in her hands and pressing herself against him, tangling her tongue with his, moving her hips against the bulge in his pants. She felt carried away, like her need was a force larger than herself, as her hands made their way down Ash’s neck, finding the top of his shirt and pulling at it.
All at once, she was desperate to see him shirtless again. The taste earlier, when he’d shifted, had been tantalizing.
She broke the kiss, gasping, and then Hunter was right there, his lips on her neck, his hand gently pulling at her hair, tilting her head to one side. A soft moan escaped Cora’s lips, her mouth slightly open, her eyes closed.
Hunter’s lips moved down her neck to her shoulder, and Ash’s lips found hers again, growing ever more insistent, his hand on her back moving up under her shirt, fiddling with the back of her bra strap. Hunter’s other hand was under her skirt, tracing circles around the very top of her right thigh even as he sucked and licked at her neck.
Then Cora felt something tear, and looked down. Hunter’s surprised face was right below hers, and she smiled sheepishly.
“Sorry,” he said. In his fist he held part of her tank top, and he wiggled one finger through the hole he’d accidentally punched in her shirt.
Instead she pulled his face to hers, still straddling Ash, letting Hunter plunder her mouth. His tongue curled around hers as his stubble scratched her face, one open hand sliding up her belly and onto her full, perky breast.
Cora could feel her nipples go hard immediately, their peaks visible even though she was wearing a padded bra, a slight moan escaping her lips. Ash redoubled his one-handed efforts to undo her bra, tugging and yanking on it, but Cora swatted his hand away, still kissing Hunter hard, and undid her bra herself, pulling it out through the arm holes of her tank top.
She tossed it somewhere in the living room, not bothering to see where it went.
As she did, Hunter pressed his lips against Ash’s, even as his hands sought out Cora’s nipples, squeezing them through her shirt.
She slid her hands under Ash’s shirt, finding his rock-hard abs and chest, letting her fingers play with his chest hair. Then his hand was on her ass, squeezing her through her skirt, and it was all she could do not to moan, feeling the heat of his erection through just his pants and her panties.
Then he and Hunter broke apart and Cora tugged his shirt over his head, reached over, and tugged off Hunter’s shirt as well.
Cora’s mouth went dry as she looked from one man to the other.
Hunter stood behind Cora, reaching below her tank top without removing it, and pinched her nipples, rolling them gently between his fingers. She sighed, letting herself melt back against him, the rock-hard bulge of his erection tight against his jeans against her upper back. Her hips felt like they were moving on their own, rubbing her against both men at the same time, rewarded by twin groans of anticipation.
Cora pressed herself against them and heard the hiss of Hunter’s breath as he exhaled, pinching her hard nipples with just a little more force.
In front of her, Ash watched, his eyelids heavy with lust, both his hands on her hips, his own erection throbbing below her.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.
Cora couldn’t respond, other than to moan softly. She felt like the things they were doing to her were making her brain short-circuit, and the only sounds she could make were animalistic, pleasure noises.
“This is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he went on, his eyes glued to Cora, her hips still moving fluidly against him
“So far,” Cora said. She was breathing hard, and she felt almost out of control with lust — she wanted them both, now, right now.
“What?”
“It’s the hottest thing you’ve seen so far,” she said.
Then she reached behind her and unbuckled Hunter’s jeans, sliding the belt out of its buckle while holding Ash’s gaze. In the same way, she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and then, she finally turned her head, moving Hunter to the side as she reached into his pants and found his erection.
Despite herself, Cora gasped in surprise when her hand closed around the thick, velvety shaft. It barely fit in her hand, and for just a split second, she rethought what she was about to do.
Then it throbbed in anticipation, and she felt a bolt of pure lust shoot through her body, her panties getting even wetter, and she pulled Hunter’s cock out of his pants.
The long, thick rod sprang free, and Hunter groaned, almost like it was being freed from a cage.
Cora put both her hands on it and pumped it twice, from root to tip, watching in fascination as droplets of liquid gathered at the tip.
Then, very carefully and slowly, she licked the droplets off.
Hunter groaned again, louder this time, and Ash gasped. Between her legs, Cora could feel his cock straining against the material of his pants, and her hips bucked against it.
She flattened her tongue against the underside of Hunter’s cock and wrapped her lips around the bulbous tip, careful not to use any teeth as she swirled her tongue around it.
Slowly, she moved her lips down the shaft until she could feel the tip of Hunter’s cock hit the back of her mouth, and she sucked at him, hard, moving her tongue against the underside of it. Hunter moaned his appreciation, and Cora slowly pulled her mouth back, following with her right hand, savoring the feeling of his cock jerking and stiffening for her.
For a moment, she looked back at Ash, flicking the end of her tongue against Hunter’s tip.
Ash’s hand was under her skirt, and in one quick move, he slid his hand underneath her panties, letting his fingers play along her slick lips, teasing her before
moving his fingers back to find her clit.
Then, with one tug, he tore her underwear off of her, leaving her bare.
Hunter relaxed back onto the couch and Cora followed, moving onto her hands and knees in front of him, still moving her lips on his cock as he lay on the couch, one hand now gently perched on the back of her head.
Before she knew it, Ash’s head was between her thighs, his hands squeezing them, hard, the tip of his tongue dancing along her lips. She moaned out loud, practically willing him to find her clit.
He did, lazily circling it with his tongue.
“Just like that,” Cora whispered, one fist around Hunter’s still-throbbing erection.
Ash’s tongue moved again, this time exploring between her lips, just barely ducking into her channel, and this time she gasped and arched her back, letting out a long, low groan.
She licked at Hunter’s cock again, taking the head into her mouth, and then Ash began flicking his tongue across her clit, lightly at first, taking his time. Just when Cora started to moan, he would move back down, teasing at her lips, before tracing his tongue back to her clit and licking at her again in slow, languorous circles.
Cora thought she might lose her mind, as she kept coming up to the very edge, feeling herself about to shatter, and then slide back down as Ash kept her wanting, constantly close but never quite there.
“Oh, fuck, yes,” she moaned, Hunter’s thick cock still in her hand as Ash’s tongue teased her and teased her, bringing her within inches of the brink, until he stopped again, her mouth around Hunter’s cock again.
Ash chuckled, his breath hot against Cora’s wetness, and she pulled Hunter’s cock from her mouth.
“Just make me cum and stop teasing me,” she said, feeling the delicious sensation of his tongue sliding back and forth yet again.
Then, on her command, she felt two fingers slide into her opening and sink deep, all the way to his knuckles.
“Oh, god,” she shouted, leaning her head against Hunter’s abdomen, his cock still in her hand. She pumped it slowly, barely able to focus on anything but what Ash was doing to her.
His tongue began making slow circles around her clit as his fingers moved inside her, curling slowly, stroking her sensitive inner wall as he licked her, faster and faster, harder and harder.