by Aubrey Rose
She knew Aidan stood next to the bed watching and waiting, but she couldn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see the longing in her face. She needed sleep. Somehow things would be different after a solid eight hours. They had to be. Otherwise someone would be committing her before nightfall.
Chapter Eight
A knock at the bathroom door startled Jayde from the steady stream of hot water running over her face. She sputtered and wiped her eyes and mouth. “Hang on. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Jayde, may I please come in?” Marc asked from the other side of the door.
She let her head fall back, and a deep sigh resonated through her. Why did he insist on being with her when she was at her most vulnerable? It was as if he did it on purpose. Was he testing her for something?
She looked toward the door, but the steam across the glassed-in shower obscured her view. “Yeah, I guess so.”
The door opened on a whisper, and a bare-chested Marc walked in. She didn’t have to see clearly through the glass to know his chest was chiseled to a fine, perfect specimen, or that a light sprinkling of dark hair covered his pecs and trailed down his ridged abs to a small strip that disappeared into his jeans. That trail led to heaven and hell. Her head tapped against the glass.
“Are you ready to hear me out now?”
She inhaled a deep breath through her nose and let out a slow exhale through her mouth to steady her pulse. When she’d woken from a surprisingly restful sleep, she’d been shocked to find Aidan in bed with her, sleeping as far from her as the bed would allow. Marc had left him here to babysit her all night while she’d slept.
Jayde turned the shower off and squeezed the excess water from her hair. “Can you hand me my towel, please?” She slid open the glass enough to hold out her hand. Marc did as she asked and placed the warm, fluffy towel in her grasp.
She took her time wiping herself dry and fluffing out her hair so it wouldn’t drip all over the floor. Wrapped tight in the comfy bath sheet, she stepped from the shower, coming face-to-face with Marc. Although she was covered from her breasts to the tops of her thighs, she felt vulnerable standing there in front of him. She imagined this was how Little Red Riding Hood felt in front of the Big Bad Wolf, right before the wolf ate her.
“You are so beautiful, Jayde. Incredible. Really.” The heartrending tenderness of his gaze and words shocked her speechless. What could she say when someone devoured her very thoughts with one simple statement?
“I know what’s happening to you seems incredible, but you’re going to have to take a leap of faith here, babe.” His hand reached for her hair and brushed it from her cheek. Her body stiffened at the erotic thrill of his callused fingertips against her soft skin. She forced back a moan when he grazed her neck in the process. She had no defense for this.
“Why here, and why now? If there are sex demons—and I’m not saying there are—then why haven’t I seen them before?”
“Katriona was a very powerful witch. She kept them locked away. She has passed her gift on to you, and now you must do the same.”
A dull ache of foreboding spread through her body, making her limbs heavy and tired. “My grandmother? No way did the no-nonsense woman with the all-knowing eyes I remember believe in all this stuff.” She brushed past him. She just couldn’t go where he wanted to take her. Whatever he was up to she’d had enough.
Walking out of the bathroom, she came face-to-face with Aidan, standing between her and escape.
“Give us a chance, Jayde. We can’t do this without you.” Desire flamed in his eyes. Strength. She needed to find some.
“This can’t be true. I’m not the one you seek or whatever. Do you not see how ridiculous this sounds? Who would choose me?” She crossed her arms over her breasts, holding the towel in place.
Aidan cupped her face with his warm hands. “You are the one in so many ways. I don’t understand how you can not see.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t see past her own confusion. “I can’t... I don’t understand.”
“Open yourself to the truth, and you will.” Marc’s whisper brushed at her ear from behind. “The box you took from your grandmother’s safe-deposit box is the doorway to sexual obsession, my sweet. By unlocking it, you now bear the weight of its power and complications, and its source remains around your neck.”
Her hand flew to the moonstone resting between the crest of her breasts. “The dreams come from the necklace?”
“It’s not just the necklace. By wearing it against your body, you’ve allowed the dark magic almost free rein over what you do. The fudge that you made, the one all the locals can’t get enough of? It carries a weaker, more temporary power of obsession. It’s what makes them so aggressive for more.”
“And the sex? The cravings I have for the two of you, are you saying that just comes from a stone too?”
Neither answered her question.
“Is the stone what makes the two of you want me as well?”
Marc’s fingers traced down her spine. “We’re immune to the power of obsession; it’s why we were chosen as Guardians to watch over you. What we want comes only from what we feel for you and from the connection we share as protectors. There is no easy explanation for that; it is what it is.”
“Yes, but more. Our lives are destined to be intertwined,” Aidan said.
Marc’s long, strong fingers reached for the knot of the towel and tugged it apart, letting it fall to the ground. The ice-cold air swept over her damp skin, raising goose bumps all along her limbs. She found it hard to concentrate on their revelations when Aidan’s eyes shone with heat that nearly seared her from across the room. They had to be wrong. Her gran would never let her walk into something like this unaware.
Moments later, the naked warmth of Marc’s body heat cloaked her, seeping into her bones, making her want to burrow against him, soaking in his scent and taste as well. All semblance of logical thinking fled her mind as she watched Aidan strip off his clothing one piece at a time in front of her, while Marc trailed kisses along her shoulders and back.
Jayde reached for Aidan and pulled him close. Her hands wound through his hair, and the silky black strands tickled her wrists. “I want you.” The tone of her voice surprised her, husky and rough with a desire out of control. With Marc pressed against her backside and Aidan rubbing up against her naked breasts, she found it impossible to hide the emotion and passion coursing through her. Heat welled between her thighs as Marc propelled her forward, nudging Aidan backward until he bumped into the bed and fell backward, pulling her down on top of him.
The air whooshed from her lungs when she landed on his chest in a flurry of arms and legs. Aidan’s thick, rigid cock pressed into her hip, reminding her precisely how much he wanted her and Marc together. In the back of her mind she vaguely thought she heard Marc rifling around in the bathroom, but she couldn’t be sure, not with all the blood rushing to her erogenous zones, which now ached to be touched.
Aidan guided her head down to his for a kiss, and she dived between his lips, anxious to find his tongue and tangle it with her own. Skin to skin, heat to heat, Jayde was certain she would explode if Aidan didn’t make love to her soon. She wriggled her hips against his shaft, rising a few inches more and putting the tip of him right at the entrance of her core. Aidan moaned into her mouth and fisted his hands in her hair, sending frissons of pleasure along her head and neck.
When a hand slid between the cheeks of her ass toward her heated slit, she froze in shock at the sudden sensations.
“Relax, beautiful, it’s my turn to play.” Marc’s hand touched her now. He moved to grip Aidan’s cock and rubbed it against her sensitive opening.
Her eyes widened.
A finger dipped into her wet pussy, and her body jerked in response, pushing back against it. She wanted more.
“Is she ready?” Aidan had wrenched away from her mouth when she moved.
“What do you think? She’s so wet, I’m not even sure she nee
ds the lube I found.”
She moaned again when Marc rubbed Aidan against her clit. “Please,” she whispered, moving against him.
“What was that, Jayde? I don’t think I heard you.”
“Dear God, Marc, please don’t torture me.”
His laughter bubbled up in a gentle rumble from his chest. “Oh baby, we haven’t even begun the torture part of this program yet.” With those words, his finger slid from her quaking center and was replaced with the swollen crown of Aidan’s cock.
Beneath her, Aidan sucked in a sharp, shallow breath. “So warm and wet. Damn, woman, you’re going to kill me, and I think I’ll die a happy man.”
Before either of them could say or do anything else, Jayde moved against Aidan’s shaft, sliding it deep inside her with a single stroke. A long groan slipped from her lips as she watched Aidan’s eyes go wide. She squeezed around him, his cock filling her.
“Greedy little thing, aren’t you?” Aidan groaned, his hips rotating, moving, thrusting upward.
Jayde shook through the intense pleasure of each stroke rubbing along the sensitive nerves of her inner walls. “Desperate, actually.”
“Desperate for what, baby?” Aidan’s voice was strangled, his corded abs tightening against her belly.
“For you both,” she whispered hoarsely. “I want you both to fuck me.”
“Have no fear, Jayde; we’re both here, and we’ll both have you right now.”
To emphasize the last word, Marc slipped a lubricated finger into her tighter hole, surprising her with the intense sensation of his skin rubbing against even more nerve rich endings. She fought to draw breath in and out of her lungs with each stroke of his finger, until he added a second, giving her a slight burn with her pleasure. Deeper. She wanted them so much deeper inside her. Jayde ground her body backward against Aidan’s cock and Marc’s fingers, seeking even more. More what, she couldn’t think. She was dying now. Her body was on the edge of the abyss, and she thought with one more stroke...
“She’s going to come.”
“I know. She’s strangling my dick with her—”
Jayde screamed out, shaking and quivering as her climax washed over her, tumbling her headfirst into a pool of sensation she couldn’t get enough of. As she pumped her hips against Aidan, drawing out the pleasure, Marc released his fingers and pressed the tip of his cock to her ass, pushing steadily as she bumped against him. Pain mingled with her ongoing pleasure until she thought she would burst from it.
“That’s it, baby; fuck us together.”
Gone were the easy movements of their initial thrusts as Jayde thrashed wildly against them. Her discomfort dissipated in the incredible bliss and fullness she felt with two men inside her. Her two men.
“I...I can’t... She’s going to make me come now.” Aidan grunted.
She bucked harder with every pulse of Aidan inside her.
Marc leaned across her back, taking over the movements as he pumped against her backside. His rough and steady shafting had her falling again. She was too hot. She was burning from the inside out at pleasure so intense, she started to fracture.
“Come on, baby. Come with me now. Together we can conquer anything.”
Marc’s rough words shot her over the edge, colors exploding behind her eyes as she screamed out another orgasm.
“Oh yeah.” Marc plunged twice more, until he too succumbed to the mind-numbing pleasure created between them, groaning as her contracting muscles milked him. Muscles flexed and quivered as sensation after sensation rolled over her, more than her brain could process.
Marc sliding from her body brought her back to earth as he rolled over onto his side, perspiration covering his sleek chest and his dark curls plastered around his face. In that serene moment she wanted to forget about everything but the two men in her bed. The two men she hungered for daily, but more importantly, the men she had grown to care for more than anyone before them.
Here between them was a cocoon of safety and place of comfort she had never experienced. She finally belonged.
That thought struck her hard, because right behind it was the realization that if what she felt came from a box and a stone around her neck, then if she removed them, her happiness and sense of belonging would go right along with them.
How could she possibly give that up? Maybe that was a selfish thought, but dammit, she deserved happiness as well. Surely they could find another way to control the effects of the box. Provided what they told her about the box was even true. She couldn’t get past the unrealism of it all.
She lifted her hips and shifted between the two men, her body automatically seeking the warmth and comfort of touching them together.
“I need to get up. There’s a lot of work to do,” she murmured. None of which she was really interested in at the moment.
“Rest awhile. There’s time.” As her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep, she wondered how these feelings and needs could be created by a box.
It was impossible...
Chapter Nine
Hours later Marc and Aidan walked into the bakery to a nearly identical scene as the day before. Beth and Jayde were selling boxes of her fudge as fast as they could, and customers were fighting to get their share before they ran out again.
“Apparently the talk we had this morning didn’t work.” Aidan sounded worried, and Marc agreed.
“Maybe some startling facts will wake her up to the effect she’s having on the town. Things are about to get much worse, real fast, if we can’t get her to listen.” The distracting sight of her bending over to package the fudge heated his blood, leaving him hard and pissed off as hell as he spied the blue stone dangling in front of her. He had expected her to follow his advice on that cursed box, yet here she was, smiling and handing over her obsession-laced baked goods, all while wearing that damned moonstone.
He had half a mind to bend her over his knee right here in front of half the town and spank that round, beautiful ass until she was red and sore and begging for him to stop. Maybe then she would listen and get the message he was trying to tell her.
It was then that she spotted him and flashed him a generous smile. That smile, however, died out quickly as she picked up on the anger that surely clouded his features.
He watched her turn and smile at her customers, waiting on them one after another until the last of the fudge was gone, and Aidan had to help her usher the rest of the crowd out of the shop. Some of them got a little angry and tried to start an argument, but Beth was quick to get in the middle and defuse the situation. Lucky for them, the obsession hadn’t gotten too far out of hand, and they could still see reason enough not to hurt a pregnant woman standing right in front of them. The dark looks ravaging many of their faces worried him. Violence was in the air, and it wouldn’t be long before it couldn’t be contained.
“Are you about done glaring at me?” Jayde’s angry voice sounded from behind him.
He whirled to face her. “So I guess everything we told you about the necklace and the danger we’re all in because of it meant nothing to you.”
“I’m still considering what you and Aidan told me about it, but I’m not sure how much I believe yet. Other than the three of us having wild sex these past few days—and some delicious fudge—I’m not seeing that much of a difference.”
“You’re being naive, Jayde. You are now the root of its power, and everything you touch is being affected. When you make that fudge, you are sending it out of here to create chaos.” His control slipped as he moved forward.
“Come on, Marc. Don’t you think you’re exaggerating now? It’s chocolate and sugar and a few other secret ingredients from my grandmother’s cookbook. Nowhere do her directions say anything about a pinch of sexual obsession.”
He took a deep, steadying breath. Her behavior was stretching his patience to the breaking point. “And what about last night? If you think those incubi showing up last night was a fluke, you’re sadly mistaken. Demons of all kind are drawn
to demon magic. What’s it going to take to convince you? Anger, pain...death?”
“Seriously, you do not have to be so melodramatic. I’ve got my eyes open, and I’m looking for signs of obsession, as you so eloquently put it.”
He grabbed her arm and dragged her over to the front plate-glass window, which overlooked the busy street outside. “Then I suggest you get out of this shop and take a look around. Already things are changing with the locals. Businesses are abandoned, police cars are sitting empty on the side of the road, and people are grabbing at each other like love-starved teens.”
Jayde did look out the window, ignoring her irritation about how roughly he’d grabbed her arm. He released her, and she moved in closer for a better view, letting her head swivel from side to side, looking up one side of the street and then the other.
“What’s going on out there?” Aidan walked in between them to see for himself.
“Nothing much at the moment.” Jayde sounded contemplative.
“That’s exactly my point. Normally, this time of day, the streets are all hustle and bustle with constant business going on.”
“Stop it, Marc. This doom-and-gloom attitude is getting on my nerves.”
“And you’re not giving a shit is pissing me off.” Actually, he wanted to shake her, to find a way to make her understand, obey. “Like it or not you have a duty to protect what you grandmother gifted you with.”
She stood transfixed, staring at him, her hands placed belligerently on her hips. Her mouth opened to stay something and, instead, abruptly closed as she stomped from the room, not giving him a second glance.
“Ease up, Marc. I’ll see if I can talk some sense into her.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” Marc watched Aidan hustle from the shop to follow Jayde as she stormed out the front door.
* * * * *
Jayde stepped out onto the sidewalk and slammed the door behind her. She was so angry, she had to stop and take a few deep breaths to calm herself. She rubbed her arm where he’d grabbed her. She didn’t know who she was more upset with, Marc or herself. Damn this. Why did things have to get so complicated?