by Helena Ray
Sam lunged forward and tangled his hand in Marta’s hair. Her heart raced as he pulled her face to his. Their lips crashed together, and Sam licked along Marta’s bottom lip. She opened her mouth, allowing him to bite her lower lip as she grazed her teeth along his top lip. She plunged her tongue into the wet heat of his mouth, and her pussy clenched as he groaned his approval. His other hand went to her back and plunged downward, this time clutching and kneading at her ass.
Her clit throbbed from the sudden intimate contact and begged for some kind of friction. Sam answered her unspoken plea as he used his hand on her ass to pull her forward. She clambered over the gearshift, never breaking contact with his mouth, and straddled his lap. His other hand traveled to her ass and pressed her against his crotch. The feel of his erection against her tortured clit was too much for her to handle, and she broke their kiss to let out a moan.
Sam moved his lips to her neck, sucking and nibbling at the sensitive skin. Each bite sent waves of pleasure flowing to her pussy, and she could feel the dampness gathering there. When he reached the base of her neck, he traced his nibbles over her collarbone then back to the base of her neck. He dwelled there, allowing his tongue to roam down to her chest, then traced his nibbles back up the other side of her neck.
As he dragged his tongue along her jawline, she shivered and bucked her hips forward, needing more friction, more pressure, something against her quickly dampening pussy. Sam responded to her needs by pushing his hips up, rubbing his twill-clad cock against her, and caressing one of her breasts as he reclaimed her mouth. She whimpered into his mouth as his thumb traced over her nipples through the thin fabric of her sweater and bra.
More, god, she needed more. She tried to scoot closer to him, press her pussy more fully against the line of his erection. He squeezed her breast harder, and her hips moved forward of their own volition, crashing against him.
As Marta bucked backward, her ass made contact with the steering wheel, and the blaring beep! of the car horn sounded. Marta couldn’t help but chuckle against Sam’s lips at the absurdity of the situation, and soon his chest heaved with his own laughter. Marta broke the kiss as she threw her head back in hilarity. As she came down from her laughter, she looked into Sam’s sparkling eyes. Clearly, he was just as amused as she was. She concentrated on the heaving of his chest as she tried to regain her composure.
“So,” she started as she thrust a hand in his blond locks. He turned his head to the side and kissed her palm then nuzzled his face into her hand. “Are you worried about what people will say?”
He chuckled, the musical sound warming her very soul, and shook his head.
“Not a bit.”
“Good,” Marta whispered, and she began moving forward to taste Sam’s full lips again. She stopped once she was a breath away from his kiss and feathered her lips against his, looking into his deep blue eyes glazed over with arousal. Her eyes drifted closed, but before her lips could land on his, a slight whiff of spicy male musk filled her nostrils and stopped Marta in her tracks.
Mel. She smelled what she had yesterday on Mel. Is it on me? Guilt washed over her, stilling her advance. Her heart raced, but now for a different reason. Ideas played in her head. Was she really straddling the lap of one man while she still had a scent of another lodged in her senses? She couldn’t comprehend how Mel’s spicy scent, distinctive as it was, had stayed on her through a double shift at the diner, but she couldn’t dispute concrete sensory evidence.
“What’s wrong?” Sam’s hand rubbed her back, and the action only intensified her guilt.
“Nothing,” she lied. “Still a little hungover, that’s all.” Not entirely false, but the hangover she referred to had little to do with alcohol.
Sam eyed her with skepticism but nodded anyway.
“Good night.” Marta swallowed the lump at the back of her throat and forced herself to focus on the man in front of her. She had gotten what she’d thirsted for since she first laid eyes on Sam. That would have to be enough for her for the time being.
“Good night, beautiful.” Sam’s voice was soft as he leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. Her lips tingled at the soft touch, and her worries lessened as she opened her mouth to welcome him, to savor one last taste before she went.
With a light nip on her bottom lip, Sam pulled back. Reluctantly, Marta reached for the car door and clicked it open. A rhythmic, high-pitched beep—the signal the keys still dangled from the ignition—was the only sound as Marta dismounted from Sam’s lap and exited the car. She placed one hand on the top of the car door and looked down at Sam. His expression was earnest and open, indicating he expected nothing. While the throbbing between her legs addled the sensible part of her brain, she managed to override her arousal.
“Good night, Sam.” She couldn’t move. She could only stare into his handsome face, wondering what exactly she thought she was doing.
“You already said that.”
“I know.”
The two of them laughed, providing a much-needed release for Marta.
“Good night,” Sam said, still laughing.
She watched him close his car door, start the car again, and pull away, waving as he steered down Treaty Lane. For a moment, she felt paralyzed, the tension of the past two days holding her in its grip.
Funny, how her jubilation was so easily tainted. No longer could she concentrate all her daydreams, her feminine fantasies on Mel. No, the taste of Sam’s lips saw to that.
She lifted one hand to her mouth and ran one of her own fingers along her bottom lip. No solo dance parties to Michael Bublé tonight. The night only promised a long vigil as Marta tried to unravel one feeling from another and figure out whom, exactly, she was falling for.
* * * *
“Fuck the legends.” Sam slammed the door to the one-room cabin behind him and stormed in.
“That’s quite a change of pace from your opinion last week.” His brother, Phil, turned from the computer on his desk in the corner of the cabin. “Last I recall, you were all aflutter about attempting to get Mel on board.”
“Yeah, well, I hadn’t spent two entire weeks trying to get a hold of that motherfucker then. I hadn’t spent a whole fucking week dealing with NormCorp bullshit and letting all of the stress just—”
Sam stopped suddenly as he felt a sharp tingling beneath his fingernails, the telltale sign that his anger was near to the boiling point, to prompting his shift into mountain lion form. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then blew it out. Never a particularly talented shifter, Sam had to work harder than the rest of the pride to keep his lion at bay.
“Hey, don’t get too worked up about it,” Phil said as he jumped to his feet and crossed to Sam.
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have any problem stopping the shift.”
“Regardless, you don’t see me getting so worked up over Marta.”
“Yeah, of course not. You’ve avoided her all week. I may not have been at Savage Hunger, but don’t think I haven’t heard about what you’ve been doing from Rita.”
Phil looked away and made his way back to his desk. “Being around her is impossible.”
“That’s why I’m ready to fuck the legends, fuck the treaty, and fuck Bo’s rules.”
“Bo doesn’t make the rules, Sam. The Shoshone tribe—”
“Fuck the Shoshone!” Sam’s words were more roar than intelligible language, but he didn’t care. “I’ve spent my entire adult life worrying about what Mel was going to do to our chances at happiness, and after meeting Marta, the worries have become obsessions. He won’t answer my phone calls, he’s not at the Yeats cabin, and frankly, that’s fine by me.”
Tension hung in the air around the two brothers.
Phil turned and finally broke the silence. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Sam only nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak.
“We invoke the infertility clause.” Phil ran both of his hands through hi
s hair and moved to the leather couch across from the fireplace. “No one’s ever done it successfully. Not with a family splitting like this. Do you really think that sharing Marta will work without the Shoshone power binding us together?”
Phil’s words stung. Sam hadn’t considered the possibility that breaking away from Mel could also mean losing his brother and closest companion. He swallowed his doubt, letting the memory of the heaven he found in Marta’s mouth block out logic and rationality once more. He needed her, his lion self needed her, and nothing would stop his pursuit of possession.
“Look, I’ve thought it all through.” Sam sat on the edge of the fireplace, across from Phil. “If the pride approves it, and then Bo approves it, we can break the curse.”
“Sam, it’s been one hundred fifty years. Do you think you’re the first one to think of this? The pride always votes it down. Savage Valley is too big and too complex for four lion families to protect.”
“Yes, that’s always been the case before.” What Sam was about to say sickened him and twisted his gut, but he didn’t see any other way out. “But now there’s NormCorp.”
His brother’s face went white. “No, you can’t…”
Sam nodded slowly. “We sell out to Ulysses and his cronies. They’re desperate enough we can specify that they have to protect our sector in the deed to Savage Hunger.”
“Since Savage Hunger is technically in the neutral zone.”
“Exactly.”
“Sam, it’s a deal with the devil. Have you thought about the future? Have you thought about our legacy in the pride? We’re fucking over our best friends, the people who have surrounded us our entire lives.”
“We’re not fucking them ov—”
“Can you think past your Faustian plan for just a moment?”
“Ulysses C. Norman isn’t the devil.”
“Sam, what are you thinking? Norman is Mephistopheles incarnate.”
He knew Phil was right, but damn it. He couldn’t find a way to make this work. Not without his estranged brother.
“Look, I’ll call Mel.”
“It’s not your duty, Phil.” Sam dropped his face to his hands and muttered, “It’s my duty, and I failed.”
“Give me my goddamn phone,” Phil said as he crossed to his desk and picked up his cell phone. “I’m calling him, and that’s that. Your drama’s getting old, you know.”
Sam only grunted in response.
“Hi, Mel?” Phil pointed at the phone and gave Sam a smug smile. Sam returned an unenthusiastic one-fingered salute. “Hey, Sam just told me to call you about—don’t hang up.” Phil sat on the bed and nodded as he presumably listened to Mel. “Okay, but it’s about our mate, Mel. We’ve found her.” Sam’s heart stopped in his chest as Phil quieted. He studied Phil’s face, searching for something in his expression that would indicate what Mel was saying, but Phil kept his features stoic as he listened.
“I see,” Phil said after an infuriatingly long wait. “Well, think it over, okay? No, don’t talk to Cleve and Ezra about it. Why not? Because they’re—Okay. Just say you’ll think about. Okay, man. Go see Mom and the Dads. They miss you. Bye.”
“So? What’s the verdict?”
Phil gently placed the phone on the bed and took a deep breath before speaking. “He met someone.”
“Shit.”
Apprehension, anger, doubt, and desire seized Sam’s throat, rendering him incapable of continuing the conversation. He needed out. Without a word, he walked to the door and pulled it open, delighting in the cold night air hitting his face. The pitch-black night spoke to the beast inside him that tore at his resolve.
Silently, he removed all of his clothes, his skin turning to fur as each blast of cold hit it, prompting his transformation. His canines extended, and the shift was almost complete. Coherent human thought slipped away, freeing the leonine imagery and desires to commandeer his mind, surrendering the human control over his brain to the basest fight-or-flight urges.
As he grasped to the last human thoughts, an overpowering sensation took hold of his senses—desire, unfettered by human inhibition.
And Marta. All he saw was Marta.
Chapter 5
Damn, it’s cold.
Phil’s first human thoughts reminded him how frigid the early-morning Colorado air could turn in October, especially when he was out naked. He scampered behind the Dumpster out back at Savage Hunger and prayed that Mel and the Yeatses hadn’t played another one of their tricks and hidden his spare set of clothing. Holding his breath, he felt for neatly folded pile of clothes and released it when he found them.
The last patches of fur receded into his skin as he hopped into his pants, chef’s jacket, and tennis shoes. He entered his personal code into the keypad to gain admittance to the back entrance to Savage Hunger—the first improvement he and Sam had installed when they remodeled the diner a year ago. Reentering the diner after shifting into lion form made such technological advances necessary, especially with a little brother fond of stealing spare keys.
He closed the door behind, thankful to be out of the wind. Once he fired up the ovens, he knew he wouldn’t need to worry about heat. Blindly practicing his morning ritual, Phil flicked on the lights and made his way to the walk-in freezer to grab the ingredients needed for the morning’s breakfast.
The ten-pound bag of frozen strawberries plummeted to the tile floor from Phil’s shoulder as he froze in the middle of the kitchen. There, in the middle of the cavernous room, stood a brand-new stainless steel oven range. Phil dragged his hand along the cool metal as he circled the standalone unit. He knew his mouth was dangling open in awe, but he couldn’t help his astonishment. When he and Sam had remodeled the diner a year ago, other improvements pushed new kitchen appliances to the bottom of their list of priorities. Phil had made do with his father’s equipment but secretly hoped for something new.
Sam. Phil stood back and shook his head at the unit. Was it a gift from Sam, an apologetic gesture for his behavior a few nights ago? Phil wanted to believe it. He desperately wanted to believe that his brother hadn’t meant what he said. Phil had had to travel into Denver on pride business the previous day, so their paths hadn’t yet crossed.
He began preparing the honey almond muffins for the morning, and thoughts plagued him as he worked. The idea of leaving the pride kept him up all last night, and dreams of persecution by the Shoshone and the rest of the pride infected his brief moments of sleep. But when he lay awake, he saw Marta. Her verdant gaze seemed to hover over him, staring down on his sleeping form from the ceiling of his cabin. His body had such a visceral reaction to her presence, but he couldn’t stand being near her knowing that she couldn’t be his, at least not yet.
Phil held more hope for Mel than his brother. Maybe it was the fact that he was closer in age to the youngest Pope, but Phil hadn’t ruled out his brother joining in their ménage. Sam had never taken the time to understand how deeply Mel hurt and how alienated he had always been.
Their little brother had always been a precocious hunter, and Sam had never grasped how Mel could be as intelligent as he was himself, but in an entirely different way, as a hunter instead of a businessman. It tore at Phil’s heart to withstand the stalemate between the two that had stretched throughout the past two years. Maybe, just maybe, Marta would finally break through his brothers’ hubris.
A knock on the glass door to the diner drew Phil’s attention back to the moment.
“Coming!” he shouted as he took one last look at the new oven range. A note on the side of the unit drew his attention. “Just a second.” His heart dropped into his stomach when he picked up the note that was taped on the side of the appliance. “Fuck.” Its text was simple.
I so look forward to doing business with you, Philip. –Norman
Emotions fought for dominance in Phil’s chest—anger, shock, disappointment—but none of them won out. Instead, he just stared at it, numb. It was a gift meant to persuade Phil to entertain the not
ion of selling out to NormCorp, but not even something of this magnitude would win his affection. More disturbing, it signaled that Sam hadn’t stopped the transaction, even when Phil objected. Fuck.
The knock sounded again, and Phil dropped the note on the ground. As he emerged from the kitchen, his heart jumped from stomach to throat. Marta stood outside with her arms wrapped around her chest. He hurried to the door and opened it.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said as she stepped into the diner.
“Not at all.” Phil smiled at her and couldn’t help but step back to admire her as she took off her jacket. Even if he hadn’t felt the pull to her, that overwhelming desire that rushes through a mountain lion-shifter’s body when he first spots his mate, he would have found her beauty utterly intoxicating. Her soft body was womanly, with curves that he wanted to run his hands over. Her breasts pulled against the fabric of her T-shirt, and his mind filled with thoughts of taking them in his hands, running his fingers over the hardened tips, sucking a deeply colored nipple into his mouth.
“Sorry, I just couldn’t sleep.” He dragged his gaze up to her face, his cheeks warming at the realization he had been overtly admiring her feminine assets, and he found confirmation of what she had said. Dark circles stained the pale skin under her eyes, and she raised a hand to stifle a yawn.
“I know what you mean. I haven’t had such a terrible night’s sleep since my first night in Europe.”
“Yes!” Marta’s eyes lit up, dispelling some of the sleepiness. “Jet lag is the absolute worst. People say not to sleep when you get to Europe—”
“But after spending eight hours on a plane, who could possibly resist a nap?”
“Certainly not me.” Marta laughed, and color flooded the round apples of her cheeks. Every cell in Phil screamed for him to run his hand over her face, to feel the heating of her skin as she laughed.
Realization dawned on Phil. Why couldn’t he? If Sam and Mel were going to continue their show of stubbornness, he might as well benefit from it. But Phil hadn’t inherited his fathers’ charm like both of his brothers had.