by Cara Adams
Asher spent about a minute and a half wondering what shopping Elijah needed to do, and then shrugged and walked from one workshop room to the next. They all seemed quite interesting. He had to congratulate the organizers. They had some good helpful stuff in their program. Even if he wasn’t the lucky one who met up with Ryia, he would have plenty to interest him here.
Once again there was a table in the hallway with plates of cookies and bottles of water. He took a bottle of water and drank it down, then crunched his way through a giant honey oatmeal cookie, and followed it up with a white chocolate chip cookie. Delicious. Then he checked the rooms again, looking for the muted-blue top Ryia was wearing today with a skirt patterned in fawns, beiges, and gray-blues. But she was nowhere to be seen.
Sighing, he contemplated another cookie, but instead paced the length of the hallway again, looking into each room. It was almost time for the session to begin and people were crowding in now. One of the rooms was very full with all the seats taken and people leaning against the walls. He took extra time there to look at each person, but Ryia wasn’t there.
When he found her, she was sitting in what he was starting to recognize as her place in the back row beside the wall. Fortunately this workshop wasn’t overcrowded, and the back row was almost empty. He eased into the seat beside her and was able to relax for the first time since she’d disappeared. He ached to speak to her, to ask her to have lunch with them, to tell her he longed to stay with her forever, but the speaker was already talking. And actually, the subject matter was quite interesting. He found himself nodding agreement with points that were made, and almost asked a question at the end. Except that he needed to stay with Ryia and couldn’t risk getting caught up in a discussion with the speaker and having her vanish on him again.
As the session ended, Ryia dropped her notepad back into her conference bag. She’d taken so many notes Asher hoped she had a second notepad because that one was going to be all used up very soon at the rate she was going.
“Elijah and I hope you’ll eat lunch with us now,” he said, holding his hand out to help her stand.
She shook her head and said firmly, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
A shard of anger drove through him as he wondered who had stolen her from him already. Then he controlled his thoughts and wondered if she was worried about eating. “Might I ask why not?” he said as gently as he could. Half of him was still ready to rip the head off any man who touched her. Well, any man other than himself and Elijah.
“I have too much work to do. I have to type up all my notes and get the data from the exhibitors loaded into my spreadsheets and we only have a one hour break.” She was already on her feet and walking toward the elevator.
“If I promise not to interrupt, can I bring your lunch to you while you work?”
“No. I’m really sorry if I misled you last night, but I’m here to work and I’m getting very behind with what I need to do. Good-bye.”
He couldn’t touch her or delay her, but he walked slowly behind her and watched her press the button to summon the elevator. It was crowded, and stopped at several floors so he didn’t even learn which one was hers. He was stunned by a vicious sense of disappointment that rolled through his body. He’d been really looking forward to being with her over lunch. He wanted to laugh and talk to her some more, to learn more about her, even maybe to tease her if she insisted on eating another stupid salad. Maybe he could coax her into eating a cookie on the grounds that they’d get plenty of exercise tonight.
Instead she was gone to her room, alone, and he was no longer interested in lunch. He wanted to be with Ryia. To talk to Ryia and spend time with her. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to plan tonight for her ultimate pleasure. Well, he could do that he supposed. But first he’d better find Elijah and own up to having lost track of their woman again. Damn, she was hard to pin down. She just disappeared in the damndest way all the time.
* * * *
Elijah hadn’t found Ryia, but the workshop he and Asher had planned to attend was damn good. He’d even found himself taking a few notes and picking up the three panelists’ business cards. Fuck, I’m even channeling the woman already, he thought as he carefully tucked the cards into his conference bag.
He hurried down to the first floor and strolled along the row of stores until he found one with jewelry and gifts. Inside, he walked straight to the counter. “I’d like to buy some 4711 Eau de Cologne, please.”
The young woman at the counter said, “Yes, sir. One moment please,” and disappeared. Elijah looked around the store. The purses on display looked very trendy and also very expensive, as did the jewelry in the locked case in front of him. Too bad. Ryia deserved a gift and he wanted to be the one who gave it to her.
An older woman approached him. “I’m sorry, sir. Was the perfume for your mother? That fragrance isn’t made to an exclusive recipe so much anymore. Perhaps she’d like something else instead?”
“My mother? What?”
“4711 Eau de Cologne isn’t made to an exclusive recipe much anymore. Would a different fragrance be acceptable?”
“Oh, yes, I expect so. It’s not for my mother but for a young woman who remembers her mother using it.”
“Ah, I see. Coco Mademoiselle is very popular and might appeal to the lady in that case.” She took a little bottle from behind the counter and opened it, dabbing the merest hint of it on her wrist and holding it up for him to smell. Elijah felt really weird smelling the sales assistant’s wrist, but guessed that she didn’t want to be seen putting it on a man. It was a nice fragrance, though, and one he could imagine Ryia wearing. And hopefully liking.
“Thank you. I’ll take it.”
With a tiny bottle carefully wrapped and in his conference satchel, Elijah hurried back upstairs to the ballroom. All he had to work out now was when and how to give it to her. After sex seemed a bit crass. Yet at lunchtime didn’t seem right either. Maybe tonight over dinner? Hmm. Likely he’d better think about it some more, and maybe talk to Asher as well.
He hurried into the ballroom, which was crowded with people all talking at once. The noise level was horrendous. But he knew Ryia’s habits now and headed straight over to the tables by the wall. Except she wasn’t there. She’d sat by the left wall each time, but maybe those seats were taken when she’d arrived, so Elijah crossed to the right wall, starting at the back of the room and moving forward. No deal. He startled when someone tapped on his shoulder. It was Asher with a plate piled high with food.
“She’s gone to her room to work. Grab some food. We need to strategize.”
“Gone? Left us? Not eating lunch? Well, fuck.” The damn woman was proving incredibly hard to nail down. In an ideal world they’d have been up in her room all right, but all three of them, in her bed, for a quickie before the next session. Instead of doing that, he couldn’t even talk to her. Fucking hell.
At least the food looked good. Really good. He was a wolf and always hungry so he copied Asher, piling his plate high with some of everything, and resting several slices of hot garlic bread on top of the mountain of food. He and Asher found seats at a table and then pulled their chairs close together so they could hear each other speak over the noise of several hundred people all talking at once. Actually, it was almost like being alone. No one could possibly have overheard them unless they’d just about had their ears in his lunch.
“We need to convince her to spend time with us. We have to demonstrate to her that we want her and plan on looking after her,” said Asher.
“Agreed. But how? I bought her some perfume but then I realized I don’t know when to give it to her.”
“Ah, that’s easy. We arrange to collect her from her room before the dinner tonight. That way we learn what her room number is and you can also give her the gift then, so it doesn’t look like we’re just buying her for sex.”
Elijah punched Asher on the shoulder. “Good plan. I like it. We need to get her cell phone number as we
ll. Just having her store name isn’t much help right now.”
“Yeah. But what we need to work out is how to get her to want to be with us. We have to convince her to stay with us by her own free will. How are we going to do that?”
“Fuck if I know.”
* * * *
Ryia hurried across the room to her suitcase and removed her laptop, which was semi-hidden under her clothing. She set it up on the tiny table in the room, patting it tenderly as it booted up. Then she went through her conference satchel, methodically putting all the business cards and brochures she’d collected into a Ziploc bag, and leaving her notebook and the marked-up conference handout beside her laptop ready to enter the data.
The notebook was almost full already and they were only halfway through the convention. Once again she jumped up and riffled through her luggage until she found a notepad she’d brought with her. Adding it to her convention bag, she smiled, saying, “It’s just as well I thought to bring that. Either they don’t give out big enough notebooks here, or else I’ve written down twice as much as anyone else.”
For the next half hour Ryia typed fast, and then carefully added entries into her spreadsheets. By the time she stopped she was worried the laptop would be overheating. It was the very first thing she’d bought herself with her own money after the bank granted her access to her own account. “Poor old friend, you’ve had a hard life. But I never would have graduated college without you.” She slid a pen under the laptop at one side, raising it off the table to help it cool down faster, before reading through what she’d written.
“Ah, that’s all good. What’s next?”
But instead of checking what room she ought to be going to for the next workshop, Ryia leaned back in her chair and thought about Asher and Elijah. Then she jumped up from the table, crossed the room, and lay flat on her back on the bed to rest her shoulders.
“One. I like them. They certainly know how to give a woman an orgasm. But two, I don’t like them following me and standing guard over me. Why do they do it? Are they really nice men who just want a conference romance, or are they going to be like Miles and abuse me?” But no matter how she turned the ideas around in her mind she couldn’t decide. One thing was definite though. “I will not become anyone else’s personal slave.”
At the word “slave,” she grinned and shivered. One thing about owning an adult store was that some very kinky stock passed across her desk. Everything she’d seen and read about BDSM appealed to her. The idea of someone spanking her to bring her to orgasm both fascinated and terrified her. Miles didn’t spank. He punched and hit, but usually he used verbal means to control despite the two times he’d broken her arm.
Ryia closed her eyes. How could she know if these men were just charming her now to get her to be their slave? What telltale signs should she look for? She wasn’t seventeen and eager to please a dying parent anymore. She knew way more about the underside of life than most females her age. Probably more than many of the women even here at this convention because she’d experienced that life firsthand. Anyone could be misled once. Only an idiot fell into that trap a second time. So what did she need to know? How could she be sure before she permitted herself to sleep with them again?
Ryia didn’t kid herself. She knew damn well they’d ask her to go back to their room again tonight, and she very much wanted to. But would it be a mistake? Never ever would she place her life under a man’s control again. What was the difference, though? What was the sign to show her the line between Miles and a real man?
“Fuck if I know.”
* * * *
The only plan Elijah and Asher had been able to devise was to keep doing what they were doing. One of them remaining on each of the levels of the convention, watching out for Ryia, and offering to help her and stay with as much as she’d permit. This time they both set their cell phones to silent, so they could text each other if they found her. Theoretically, cell phones were supposed to be switched off during the workshops and lectures, but they both thought as long as they were set to silent and they didn’t distract other attendees with their texting during the sessions, they should be okay.
Elijah hoped he’d be the one to find Ryia this time, but not if he lost her again. He was pretty sure finding her and losing her was worse than not finding her at all. And that, in a nutshell, was what he and Asher were facing in their lives. They both strongly believed that Ryia was their mate. She was an enchanting and capable woman. One they were both incredibly drawn to in a sexual way as well as by her personality and sweetness. To lose her now would be devastating. So it was up to him to ensure they didn’t lose her. He was the wolf. The one for whom finding a mate was so complicated. It was a problem for them both in the minds of some women that they hoped for a woman who would enjoy playing dungeon games. But finding a woman who would agree to mating with a werewolf shape-shifter lifted the degree of difficulty to a completely higher level. Therefore he was the one who needed to put in the hard yards to convince her they would love and cherish her forever, beyond her wildest imaginings.
But how? Especially if she wouldn’t let them stay with her during the conference sessions. Elijah was willing to bet she hadn’t eaten lunch. She’d apparently raced upstairs the moment the workshop had finished. And he knew she’d refused food at the break time. Plus since she was already in the exhibition hall when they’d found her first thing in the morning, likely she hadn’t had breakfast either. He wasn’t sure if it was worry about her weight, or simply that she was too busy to take time out of her schedule to eat, but surely she’d accept a bottle of water from him. There were no calories in water and becoming dehydrated was a possibility inside the air-conditioned confines of the convention, especially when she seemed to be racing all over the place all the time.
He collected two bottles of water from the table in the hallway, sliding one into each back pocket of his jeans. Well, that was one way he could look after her. What else? No more ideas came to him so he checked each of the rooms on this level of the hotel. A few people were already gathering in each one. A lot of people seemed to want to sit in the front row and those seats filled up quickly. He had no idea why. What was so special about the front row? The speakers were on a small stage in each room, each with their own microphone, so there was no difficulty in seeing and hearing them.
Elijah walked back out to the hallway again, smiling at the people he passed, trying to look polite and friendly even though there was only one person he wanted to see. Ryia. Her rounded body with its lush welcoming curves. Her violet eyes that sparkled with fun and intelligence. Her neat brown bob of hair. But most of all, her intriguing multilayered personality. The astute businesswoman which overlaid the self-conscious female so lacking in self-esteem she still heard her ex’s voice in her head before meals.
Her ex. Ex what? Ex-boyfriend? Ex-husband? She’d said once he was her ex-husband and then she’d said it was complicated. So how ex was he? Was he still in her neighborhood? Ryia had implied he’d been gone for a while. He pre-dated her owning her store, for example. But she’d only had the store a year. A year was plenty long enough for a separation, but Elijah wanted to know. He wanted to know everything about her. She fascinated and intrigued him on a mental level as well as physically.
He craved holding her in his arms, pounding his cock into her mouth, her cunt, her ass. But he also wanted to listen to her tell her story so he could learn everything about her. He desired to please her by planning sex scenes that would give her the ultimate in physical satisfaction. But he also wanted to please her by showering her with gifts and attention that she would enjoy.
She was walking toward him at last. Except she was deep in conversation with the woman she’d been talking to when they’d first met. Phoenix. He’d looked at Phoenix first because she had the long black hair he’d thought he wanted on his woman. Now he knew hair was irrelevant. It was all about the woman herself and Ryia was the only one for him. For them. Him and Asher.
&n
bsp; * * * *
Asher was standing in the conference hallway not far from the elevator where he could see everyone arriving for the workshops and panels. He’d already checked the rooms and there was no sign of Ryia yet. If she arrived she’d come this way.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, not surprised to see a message from Elijah saying he’d located Ryia. Well, that was fair. He’d sat with her in the previous session. Asher pulled out his schedule and hurried to the seminar he and Elijah had intended to attend.
It wasn’t anywhere near as useful as he’d expected and he had to struggle to hide his yawning, and then he had to go through the process all over again for the following workshop, which told him nothing he didn’t already know. However, the final session of the afternoon followed a fifteen-minute coffee break and was back in the ballroom with a speaker whose biography sounded really interesting. Even if he couldn’t find Ryia in time to sit with her, he expected the information would be worth hearing.
Asher ran down the stairs one level to the ballroom instead of standing in a huge line for the elevators. Once in the ballroom, he stayed at the back and headed for the left wall, snagging a seat by the wall and putting his conference satchel on the chair next to him. Then he turned sideways in his chair so he could watch for Ryia’s arrival in case she planned to sit somewhere different this time.
When she arrived, she was among a crowd of women, the only one of whom he recognized was Phoenix. But they were all talking animatedly together so he knew his hopes of sitting with her weren’t going to come to fruition. However, Elijah followed them into the room and slid into the seat beside him, handing him his convention bag and saying, “At least she’s with women, not men. If we can’t have her no one else is getting her either.”