by Ever Coming
“She’s right here.” I dropped to my knees because my patience was nowhere to be found.
“So very perfect,” Noah agreed before I shut him up with my mouth on his cock as my hand wrapped around Shane’s.
I was right where I was meant to be.
Chapter Eight
The ride back was filled with chitchat and banter designed to keep me from thinking too hard about what we were about to face. It wasn’t as if we could make a plan. Even after listening to my mother’s messages, I still didn’t know who I would be meeting once I got to the door.
The only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn’t going to turn into a bleeding. My apartment might be shifter owned, but it had occupants of all kinds, and a bleeding would mean being noticed.
Humans might know shifters exist, but that didn’t mean they believed it, and we tried to draw attention to ourselves as little as possible to keep the peace. No, there wasn’t going to be a challenge, at least one on the spot.
As we pulled up to my building, my heart ,sank at the sight of my father’s SUV. It was one thing for my mother to have her meddling self here, but for my father to be there—that was an entirely different situation altogether.
“I can smell your fear, Juniper. What is it?” Noah turned off the car and unbuckled enough to see both of us in the back of the car. I’d left my truck at the inn. We had every intention of driving back there and enjoying the week they’d booked. Sort of like an impromptu mating moon.
“My father.” I pointed to the monstrosity of a vehicle that screamed look at me.
“He will never lay a hand on you.” Shane vowed.
He was right. My father never would. That didn’t mean he would stop my mother, if she felt so inclined, or my future mate, for that matter. He just liked to keep up the appearance of being levelheaded, even though his hyena was driving him insane from the inside out, as often happened when alphas stayed in power too long. He needed to pass the position on to someone before he snapped. Not that he ever listened to any one save my mother, and her only to avoid the nagging.
“I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried for you.” Because as much as my father wouldn’t lay a finger on me, he would be more than happy to stomp on my heart in the form of bleeding my mates dry if he thought it would benefit him. My men could hold their own, but I very much didn’t want it to come to that.
“You’re mated to the alpha and beta of the largest tiger clan in the United States. He can’t hurt us. Nor would he try.” He was right on at least the first two counts.
“What make you say that?”
“Because you are his daughter.” Shane said as if it were fact. If it were his daughter—our daughter—that would matter, but my dad was a hyena—completely different beast.
“Whom he sold.” Maybe for power instead of money, but still.
“Maybe. Who he maybe sold.” Noah tossed Shane the keys. “You won’t know what is going on for sure until we go in there.”
“So, put on my big-girl panties.”
“I prefer you pantiless.” Shane nudged my side with a salacious smile.
“Not helping.” Noah ground out, his arousal hitting the air. Oops.
Note to self: get big-girl panties to make this an ongoing dialogue.
“Actually he is helping quite a bit.” And he was, too. I found myself more at ease with every word.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you two.” Oh yes, he very much did. I envisioned quite a few spankings for a start.
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” Shane rolled his eyes.
“We should go inside.” I glanced at the clock. “It’s almost three.” They nodded, and we climbed out of the car, our animals scanning the area for danger before making our way to the door.
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered as we crossed the threshold.
“Never,” They said in unison, flanking me as we went to my apartment.
I opened the door to find both my mother and father inside. I didn’t even want to know what they told my landlady to make that possible, but she and I were going to have words.
My father stood stiffly, very obviously there less by choice than by my mother’s demands. My mother stood, a thick folder in her hand, looking more like a real estate agent trying to close a deal than a mother visiting her daughter. Technically, she was trying to close a deal, though, so I guessed it fit in some sick way.
“Where have you been?” she barked out, completely ignoring the men by my side, her eyes glued to my mating marks, or at least the two she could see.
“I was with my mates.” I grabbed their hands to remove any possible doubt who I was referring to.
“How dare you,” she seethed. I’d never seen her that angry before, and my hyena went on high alert. I so very much didn’t want to fight my mother, but I would if push came to shove.
“Where did you find these two—men. I spend so much time and energy finding you the perfect match, and you decide to become a rebel and mate the first men you meet?”
Her interpretation of what was happening was so beyond warped.
“First of all, I never asked you to find me anyone. Nor did I want you to, and I was more than clear on both those issues.” How I refrained from shouting at her would forever remain a mystery and the lack of slapping her a testament to my self-control.
“Still you bring these riff raff into your life after I find you the most perfect mate.”
Riff. Raff. Heck to the no, she did not just insult my mates.
“Father?” I growled out as he just stood there pretty much ignoring it all, looking more bored than anything else.
“You know we only want what’s best.” He spit out her canned response. He was no help whatsoever. Not that I had thought he would be, but I had hoped.
“And in this you get no say.” I addressed them both before pulling down my mates’ collars. Technically, I was showing them my mating mark on Noah and Noah’s on Shane, but the point was loud and clear. “It’s done.”
“I see that.” My father shook his head once in distain.
“There are ways to break a bond,” my mother threatened as an older blond woman sauntered on in without so much as a knock.
“Eleanor you did not just send a very loosely veiled death threat to my son.”
As Shane squeezed my hand with a brief raise of his eyebrows, everything fell into place.
Of all the people in the world for my mother to sell me to, she’d picked the clan of my true mates. Not that it made it any less awful, or any less not gonna happen, but, still, it held some humor.
What shocked me was that my mother was willing to mate me to a non-hyena. His mother had to have offered her a butt ton. Not the best way to meet your mother-in-law.
“Y-your son,” my mother stuttered as Shane stepped forward, extending his hand.
“Shane, ma’am.” He was having far too much fun with this. The anger I felt racing off of him, all directed at my mother, not his. What was up with that? He hadn’t come across as a mama’s boy, but who knew?
“You—you—”
“Mother,” I reprimanded as she refused to shake my mate’s hand.
Shane turned to his mother, nodding to her to speak.
“I meant well. You have been so sad waiting for your third, I thought I’d help it along.” There was more to that, but her sincerity permeated the air, so I was willing to let it go for the moment.
“By buying your son a mate,” Noah interjected softly. He wasn’t mad, either. Not at her, anyway. Odd.
“I didn’t buy her.”
“Contracts have been signed,” I quoted my mother, willing myself to sound as calm as my mates.
“Fine, I maybe paid a bride price, but she’s a hyena who comes with her own money, so, it’s a wash.”
“I see where you get your almost-logical-sounding logic.” I hip checked Shane, who belted out a beautiful laugh.
“Plant a potato, get a potato, and all
that.” Noah agreed.
“I do believe the children are mocking us.” My mother tried to get the others on her side. They just let her hang herself out to dry, which she’d very much earned.
“I do believe you all deserve it. I was leaving never to return after your announcement that I was good as sold.” Because maybe she truly didn’t get the severity of what she’d done.
“We stopped her.” Shane pointed to our mate. “You’re welcome.”
“Shane,” his mother scolded.
“Mother, you have not an inch of room to be talking right now.”
She nodded twice before looking down.
“Where are the contracts?” Because those suckers were being destroyed before I kicked their asses out of my apartment. My mother glanced down at her folder, clutching it tighter.
“Hand them to me.” I reached for them, daring her to deny me.
“You—you can’t,” she protested.
Shane snatched them from her clutches before handing them over to me.
I took them out of the folder and let it fall to the floor before ripping the contracts to shreds, letting them flutter to the floor as well.
“I just did, and you should be glad.” That I didn’t bleed her. “You don’t want your grandchildren growing up thinking you are going to sell them.”
“We would never.” She held her hand to her chest as if I’d just uttered the most ludicrous of things only seconds after destroying the proof that she tried to do the exact thing to her daughter.
“Grandchildren?” Shane asked, his smile reaching his eyes.
“I saw a passel.” I smiled back. I didn’t even know how many were ours, but I was happy, so very happy, so, that was all that mattered.
“At a barbecue,” his mother added.
Well, that explained why she got so weird about finding me. She’d already seen me. I was going to have to give the woman a second chance—after things died down. I gave her a nod and was pulled into both my mates’ arms.
“Yeah.” I scented them. I was never going to get enough of that. “So, that’s real.”
“It is.” Shane nipped my mating mark.
“I saw it, too,” Noah whispered in my ear.
All three of us plus a meddling mother-in-law saw it.
“It’s kind of freaky,” I admitted, my hyena no longer all right with any of us giving my parents our back and not at all caring what Shane’s mother was doing. Not that she was doing anything other than smiling at us.
“True, but pretty fabulous at the same time.” Noah angled his body to partially block me from my mother. Good tiger. Mine.
“Also true.” Shane leaned in giving us each a far-too-short kiss.
“Juniper—” my mother started before I cut her off with a glare. She was all done for the day. If she started in again, things were going to escalate, and I just wanted to enjoy the rest of the day with my mates.
“You all can leave, now. My mates and I have important things to deal with, and you aren’t invited to join us.” I was being rude, but since they’d just tried to barter for me without my permission, I wasn’t too concerned about it.
They left without a word, Shane’s mother feeling the need to hug me on her way out. I hugged her back, my anger no longer directed at her. It was a dumb move, but since it sounded spontaneous and based on a premonition, I couldn’t be too harsh with her. My mother, on the other hand, had been at it for years against my will so that anger was going to be sticking around for a while.
Chapter Nine
“So what important things were you talking about?” Shane asked as the door closed behind them.
“Packing.” I lied. I mean, sure, I had to pack, but my plans were more about feeling my mates pressed against me, reassuring myself they were real and mine and that none of this had been a dream except the actual dream.
“I had a better idea.” Shane kissed my cheek before pulling his shirt over his head. It was a safe bet we were on the same page.
“Oh, yeah? And how does your idea look?”
He reached over, relieving our mate our mate of his shirt, Noah just watching things unfold.
“I was thinking we get naked and try that thing.” He grabbed the bottom of my shirt and made it gone as quickly as he had their two.
“That thing?” I knew what he was referring to. As we were falling asleep the night before, I’d told him about a little fantasy I’d developed over the course of the evening and, being one of the two best mates ever, he remembered and was offering it to me. That said, playing the game was fun, so I kept up the façade. “Shane, you need to be clearer. You know how Noah can be.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of annoying in a sexy way.” He snapped his jeans open before snapping each of ours open as well. It was like a sexy conveyor belt of clothing removal.
“It is, but, still, we should probably make sure we spell all things out.” I rolled my eyes before focusing them to his hands which were pushing down his jeans, his lack of underwear both surprising me and turning me on.
“As I see it, we have two options.”
I pushed my jeans down, trying to give him the same rush his show had just given me. Unlike him, though, I was wearing undergarments and not my big-girl panties as I had teased earlier, either, but my lacy thong.
“Because, upon reflection, there were two things we had been discussing.” He swallowed audibly as I bent over, giving him a full view of my ass as I stepped out of my jeans.
“Very true.” I unhooked my bra, both men’s gazes glued to my every move, even as Shane assisted Noah in getting rid of those pesky jeans. “I say we do one here and one at home.”
“Home.” Shane pulled me in for a kiss. “I like the sound of that. Are you sure? We could move here.”
“My hyena hates it here.” No lie. “And you have responsibilities.”
“To a clan that would buy a bride.” Had he not figured out I’d forgiven her already?
“Not the clan, your mother. And she’d thought she was following her vision. Notice how your dad wasn’t there?” Because I sure had.
“Because he knew I’d never allow it but figured my mother could learn her own lessons.”
Or he possibly knew the die was already cast, but, either way, it meant something.
“So, home it is.” I smiled brightly. “After our time at the inn of course.
Smack. Smack
Noah smacked us both on our bare asses.
“What?” We squeaked out in unison.
“I’m here, you know.” He tapped his foot.
“Welcome to my world.” I rolled my eyes, exaggerating the motion in the hopes of getting a few extra spanks.
“You still didn’t tell me.” I eyed Shane.
“Guess you’ll have to wait and see.” He threw me over his shoulder and marched into my bedroom, dropping me on the center of the bed before kissing Noah soundly, their cocks rubbing together in their embrace.
“On the bed.” Noah turned on his alpha sexy bedroom voice as their lips separated, and Shane jumped to comply.
“Now, what was this nonsense about a thing.” Noah tapped his foot, waiting for a reply.
“Two things, actually,” I pointed out.
“Sassing me?”
“Absolutely.” How else was I going to earn more time with his hand on my ass.
“Just for that, all your spanks go to Shane.”
My jaw dropped. Talk about a plan backfiring.
“Win-win, I tell you.” Shane smirked, I guess he liked to give a spanking as much as he liked to receive one. Who was I fooling? So did I. Watching his ass brighten with each smack had my hand flying to my clit at embarrassing speed.
“Enough,” Shane snapped, his playfulness gleaming in his eyes even as his voice held all the authority. Sexy, sexy man. “So, Shane what is this thing you think we should try?”
“Last night, before we went to sleep our sexy mate mentioned a fantasy she’s developed of the two of us were marking each
other.”
“Where was I during this discussion?”
“I had thought you were awake, but there was no way you’d have forgotten the discussion had you not already fallen asleep.”
I watched them as they volleyed what could have been answered forever ago back and forth. Turnabout was fair play and all, but I was holding back by a thread.
“You are probably right.”
And the thread snapped.
“Enough already. I deem foreplay over. I need one of you inside me, stat.” Or posthaste, or whatever was faster. I couldn’t even think anymore, my desire taking over the space in my brain for things like words and thoughts. “And the other of you better get inside the man who is inside of me because you are going to fuck me via our mate.” Was I even making sense? Did it matter as long as one of them touched me—anywhere, at that point, would do.
“I think our mate knows what she wants.” Shane. Arggg. Sounding so cool and calm. If not for the glistening tip of his very erect penis, I’d have thought him unaffected by the entire conversation and our nakedness and their kissing. Oh, their kissing.
“I agree with your assessment. Her plan sounds good.”
Great. My plan sounded great. Amazing, even. Let’s enact it—now.
“Flip a coin?”
“I think I have one in my jeans.” Noah took a step toward the door. “I’ll go grab it.”
“Noah,” I all but shouted, stopping him in his tracks. If they had any doubt about whether they owned me, it was shattered by that sexual-frustration-filled cry of desperation.
“What is that, beautiful?” He so very much knew.
“I want you inside me, Noah, and Shane inside you.”
“Excellent” He tapped my nose. “You only need tell us what you want. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“No, but you both are,” I sassed because, when sexually frustrated, earn more spankings. Not that sexual frustration was the best way to describe the way they had me so worked up that my needs outweighed my ability to reason.
“It seems to be the way of things with you near us.” Which, in my estimation, was exactly the way it should be. “Now, off with your panties. Shane and I are each going to make you come with our mouth before your plan can begin.”