by Amy Lane
Phillip groaned again, more loudly this time. His hands knotted in his lover’s hair, working, trying hard to force Marcus’s head to move faster. Marcus chuckled—the sound tormented Phillip even further.
Cory choked on a whimper I could feel against my hand, and then her own wicked tongue came out and traced a wet pattern against my palm.
Slowly, I sank to the floor of the woods, leaned back against a handy tree, and balanced Cory on my lap. The thrust of my erection ground against her ass and settled into the little fabric valley of her cleft.
Phillip was about to come.
His hands in Marcus’s hair were clenching and unclenching, and Marcus made a sound of pure animal hunger as his lover started thrusting in his throat without inhibition, with a frenzy that Marcus matched with every slurp of his taut, welcoming mouth. Phillip gave a hoarse, muffled scream and stood jerking his body as Marcus kept suction and swallowed loudly enough for us to hear across the clearing.
There was a breath, a rest as Phillip tousled Marcus’s hair, and then Marcus pulled away and looked up into his beloved’s eyes, panting in arousal. He didn’t have to say a word, probably didn’t even have to think it, because they had been sharing a bed for twenty years—and although Phillip was the bloodless leader in public, it was obvious who led when they were skin to skin.
Before we could even blink, Phillip was on his hands and knees on the forest floor, his body open, stretched by Marcus’s busy fingers and glistening in invitation.
Marcus lost no time in shucking his shorts and taking Phillip up on that.
Cory whimpered again and quivered, releasing another flood of damp that I could feel through my shorts. I wanted her. I wanted her hard, bent over, face against the wall, wailing for my come. I wanted her helpless against my sex, whimpering and mindless, all of that will bent on taking me, raw and huge, inside her slickened, tightened, madly convulsing body.
But first I wanted us both to see the end of this.
Marcus’s own erection was fully sheathed in his lover’s body. He was making furious, conquering noises—feral growls of domination and pleasure, of the ruthless taking of sex from someone who would give and give and give.
Phillip was pleading for Marcus to take.
The sound of their hips slapping together filled the clearing, and after a few uncomfortable, terrible, arousing moments, Marcus gave his own roar and reached out to grab Phillip’s hair. He hauled Phillip upright, and without ceremony or finesse howled and buried his fangs into Phillip’s throat.
Phillip keened, and his body jerked as he spattered a few remaining drops on the leaf mold in front of him. Both of them growled and heaved frantically in a terrible frenzy. Marcus howled again and shuddered, his hips jerking, buried inside his beloved and pouring himself into Phillip’s cold, spasming body.
Silence electrified the shadowed clearing. Then there was a low, tender chuckle, and Phillip turned his head to bump noses with his lover. There was no more violence, no more crazy, sexy aggression in their touch—there was gentleness and humor, and it was time for us to go.
I stood with Cory in my arms and blurred away in the dark so quickly that I don’t think even Marcus saw us go. I didn’t stop until we got to the back of the cabins, where I dropped Cory’s feet to the ground at the rise at the cabin’s foundation and whirled her toward the wall.
She stood patiently, chest heaving, feet splayed, while I ran my hands up her inner thighs, feeling the moisture that had pooled there as she’d watched. I thrust my fingers under her panties and drew intricate, slippery patterns against the stubble on her mound as she stood.
She let out a keening whine. “Please, Bracken, please….” But I needed to talk to her, heighten her, bring her to the place where she came just from my cock inside her.
I stood behind her, the slope of the hill making my height just perfect, cupped her breast from behind with one of my hands, and grated in her ear.
“You liked that.”
“So did you… aahhhhh….” I’d penetrated her with my fingers again and was using her moisture to play with all of the sensitive places between her thighs.
“Of course I did….” (play, lubricate, penetrate, stretch) “The question is, what part did you enjoy imagining me in?”
“Auggghhhh….” Because now she was being penetrated in two places, and she flexed her knees to drive my fingers deeper. I wouldn’t let her, and she whimpered again. “The bottom,” she snarled viciously. “I want you on the bottom, I want you receiving, I want to see you fucked into the… aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh….”
I tore our shorts down so quickly I might have been using the Goddess’s speed, and I thrust into her heedless of her tiny size or her vulnerability. I knew that tonight, as furious as she was for it, she’d be matching me stroke for stroke.
Cory: Briefly
BRACKEN SURGED into my body, and I bit my arm so I wouldn’t scream. Ahhhh…. Goddess….
He wasn’t being gentle tonight because he’d driven me to violence with his passion and his throbbing words, and he knew I’d fight back with the same weapon. I couldn’t move, could barely stay standing as my toes scrabbled for purchase on the top of the incline, so I was at his mercy, and he held me pinned to the wall with his hands on my hips and his driving, thrusting body inside my own.
And the bastard wouldn’t stop whispering in my ear.
“You want to see me fucked….”
“Oh Goddess….” Pound pound pound…. A hand at my hip disappeared and worked its way between our bodies, and a finger penetrated me again. The dark deliciousness of the way he wanted to be taken made me whimper.
“Say it….”
“Yes, you bastard… I want to see you fucked into the fucking gr—” Two fingers, and I saw stars in the backs of my eyes and the orgasm was bursting at my skin again.
“Oh fuck…,” I breathed desperately—but we’d done this before.
“Purple,” he ordered and drove himself into me again.
I muffled another scream on my arm—I’d have bruises tomorrow—and thought purple with olive trim and yellow stars to match the silver ones dancing across my vision, and he growled into my neck and bit me, hard enough to leave a mark. Then I was coming, bursting, flying through the warm summer darkness, and Bracken was right there with me, warm and liquid in my body as we shuddered violently in climax.
It took a while for our breathing to settle down.
I was still panting a little as Bracken pulled up my shorts and buttoned them around my waist, then helped me down the hill so we could take the long way around the cabins. We slipped into our cabin, heedless of the party that seemed to be going on down by the water, and merged into the darkness—kissing, licking, giggling throatily, our bodies still humming and still ready.
And when we were bare in the starlight streaming from the high windows, we did it again.
Nicky slipped inside shortly after that. After scenting the air, he slid off his wet trunks, dried off, and slid into bed next to me, naked and ready. The three of us tumbled again, my body so rapaciously tender that by the end of the night, their every touch made me quiver and shriek and gasp. We fell asleep when the moon had set, nude and sticky and not caring, not even a little, that the whole world would know.
Shortly before dawn, the vampires came knocking at the door. I greeted them in one of Bracken’s T-shirts down to my knees and nothing else, sliding outside into the chilly black of deep predawn.
“Mornin’,” I yawned, trying not to blush when Marcus met my eyes with his very ordinary brown gaze. I failed. He grinned and blushed too, and I rolled my eyes and tried to pretend like we hadn’t just watched him naked, pounding Phillip into the forest floor.
“We didn’t get to talk last night…,” Phillip inquired delicately, and I nodded. Not nice to leave the vampires out of the loop when you’re off getting laid—must remember to powwow with them before the sex and not after.
“We’ll have a dress rehearsal tonight, before w
e leave,” I told them. “Be in the cars by ten thirty. Wear something that can be taken off or moved so I can see your tats—it’s part of the show.” Fortunately, the vampires were all about the arms. “If you need something, try to contact someone back at the hill before you go to bed. Did you guys talk to anyone about the… the… the….” I moved my hands vaguely.
“Random chaos generator?” Kyle asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah, that. You guys all know about that?”
Marcus must have fed well from Nicky, because I was pretty sure I could see him blushing again in the dark. “Uhm… no offense, Cory, but I think we all sort of lived it last night.”
Oh my Goddess, he was right.
“I hadn’t even thought.” I was stunned. Phillip and Marcus exchanged heated and flustered glances, and I guess they had taken time out to talk about our bizarre encounter in the woods the night before. Well, shit. We still had to work together, right?
“I guess I should have,” I said briskly after a truly uncomfortable moment. “The key is, just give your people a break, you know? Uh, well….” I blushed. “The sex is fine, if it’s consensual. We all live with that sort of heat anyway—we can deal. But you know, don’t rip anyone’s head off if you can help it. Remember self-control, right? We’re all pretty decent at that by now anyway.”
The guys all nodded, and then Kyle—who spoke about as often as Teague—said, “That civilian chick with the big boobs and bigger mouth…. Are you sure we can’t kill her?”
I blinked and swallowed, and realized that there was a tiny part of me on the verge of blurting out, Sure, just make sure you hide the body, would you? I had even opened my lips on the “sh” sound when I clamped down on my unruly thoughts and shook my head.
“Sadly, no,” I grated. “Don’t worry—she’s one of those cases where just being allowed to live is its own punishment.”
There was scattered laughter, and then I yawned hugely. We’d been up late, and here it was early, and….
Then Marcus and Phillip were both kissing my cheek and saying good night, and Kyle gave a short little bow and did the same thing, and I crawled back between my men. Bracken spooned up behind me, and sleep came quickly.
An hour later, there was another pounding at the door.
“Awww, shit….” Why was I the only one waking up? Fuck it. I stumbled to the door to open it on Tanya’s bemused and exasperated expression in the cold gray dawn.
“What the furry hell?” I whined.
“What in the fuck did you do to my cabins?” she demanded, half-amused and half-appalled.
I squinted against the light and tried to focus on the outside of the room instead of the inside, and I could see now in the dawn what I couldn’t when the vampires had woken me up. My eyes widened, and I was a little more awake. Purple, Bracken had said. Well, it was purple. With olive trim and yellow stars. As ordered.
“Uhm—” I managed, but she cut me off.
“And my tree!” She gestured behind me, and I stumbled onto the gravel in my bare feet so I could see the tree when I turned around.
“Tree?” There it was—behind the cabin, probably right behind Bracken and me when we’d first gotten busy—purple, with olive-colored pine needles and bright yellow pinecones.
“And the Kestrels’ car!”
“Green will pay for that.” Because sure as shit’s afire, Nicky’s parents’ sedan was purple with olive trim and yellow stars scattered across the hood.
“And if you were going to redecorate, why for the love of the Goddess couldn’t you have made all the cabins the same?”
“What the fuck?”
The cabin at the end, where the teenaged civilian had been staying unobtrusively with his mother, was decorated in the same colors—but at negative values. Instead of purple walls, there was bright sunshine yellow, and instead of olive trim there was purple, and the scattering of stars on the front was that understated green.
“You didn’t mean to do that?” she asked, her eyebrow rings rising with her amused expression.
“Which part?” I asked, my face flaming in embarrassment.
“Any of it.”
“Well, I was expecting some of it,” I told her and tried to rub my face into an expression that showed I had my shit together. It wasn’t working. I needed soda and oatmeal first.
“What did you do?” she asked, laughing in earnest now.
“I got laid,” I told her frankly, feeling a sleep-deprivation headache coming on. “Look,” I yawned, “I’ll call Green, and he’ll pay for the repairs….”
“Don’t bother.” Whatever irritation she’d felt at the beginning had completely receded. “I sort of like it… even that random one at the end. Besides—if I’m lucky, I’ll get to listen to you explain how this happened to the in-laws. That’ll be peachy.” She gave me a grin and flashed her tongue stud at me, and I stuck my tongue back out and wished I’d gotten one of those when I’d been into piercings.
“Wench,” I said affectionately. Tanya waggled her eyebrows.
“Go back to sleep. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to start looking like a sprite or a nixie in my sleep.”
“Fat chance,” I groused. “But I’ll keep it in mind the next time I get laid.”
“So, this afternoon, then?” Tanya laughed, turning to leave.
“It’s a hard life,” I told her philosophically.
This time the knock came as I crawled back between Bracken and Nicky, but I was done. I elbowed Nicky awake, and as he was climbing out of bed and stumbling for the door, pulling on his boxers as he went, I told him, “Tell them Green will pay for it,” before I snuggled back into Bracken.
The last thing I heard was Nicky laughing, “Jesus, Cory—purple?” before his mother’s shrill shock took over the conversation. But he was still chuckling as he closed the door behind him to deal with her, and sweet silence took over the cabin once again.
Needless to say, our excursion onto the lake on the flatboats was even more awkward than it had promised to be already.
I sat on the boat as Nicky’s dad piloted. Nicky stood by him, making standard human conversation about how the boat worked and how much horsepower and what speeds and stuff it could do. To me, the answer to all that stuff was usually “magic.” It was as good an answer as any. The air, however hot it was, felt good on my face. I’m always fascinated to see a boat’s prow—or flattened edge, in this case—cut through the water, and even though our top speed was about fifteen miles an hour, I liked sitting on my knees in the front and looking below me, trying to see if I could fathom anything under the opaque green of the flashing surface.
I’d brought one of my knitting projects—socks—and the waterproof bag was looped securely around my wrist, the top cinched closed until I was ready to open it. For the moment, I was content to watch the land whiz by in a flash of green trees and red earth. We could also see the occasional boatful of people who had nothing to do with us, and I enjoyed looking at them and wondering who was out there and what they thought.
The rest of my entourage—ulg!—was in the boat behind me. Every now and then we’d slow down and motor into some inlet or other, and I could hear them laughing and chatting excitedly over the lowered engine noise. Bracken was with them, I thought unhappily, and I wished heartily that I was too.
With a sigh, I sat sideways on the seat with my legs in front of me and pulled out my knitting. It was a plain sock, and I was working the leg, so it was a lot of knitting around and around and around, which was just perfect for something like this—especially with the magic loop method, where I didn’t have to worry about all the little pointy needles.
Nicky’s mother, who hadn’t said much to me since she’d greeted my shy apology about the car with a stony silence, came to sit in the jump seat next to me, obviously to have a little chat.
“What are you working on?” she asked brightly. Blessed knitting—always a conversation builder.
“A sock,” I replied p
olitely, showing it to her.
“You make your own socks?” she asked, surprised. A lot of people are surprised about socks—people just don’t get how cool they are to make.
“Actually, it’s Nicky’s,” I told her, smiling shyly. “He tends to lose a lot of his in trans.”
Mrs. Kestrel made one of those little surprised-mother moues and gave a little laugh. “Yes, he did that when he was a little boy.”
I grinned at her. “I really freak out on him when he loses the handmade ones.”
She nodded, grinning back. “But you still make them.”
“Oh yeah.” I looked at my knitting for a second and decided to work another inch before I started the heel.
“I’m surprised you’re not making socks for Bracken,” she said into the relative silence of engine noise and wind.
It was a pointed question—we both knew it—but it was civilly asked, so I answered back nicely. “I just made him a pair, but the elves hate sh… stuff on their feet, so I think Bracken’s going to stick with sweaters.”
“Have you made Nicky a sweater?” Another pointed question. I looked to where Nicky and his father were discussing engines and wondered if men talking about mechanics and women talking about crafts had been code for neutral family prying since time began.
“I made him a vest last winter,” I said, liking the way his rusty hair ruffled in the wind like a bird’s feathers. He was tanning—the werecreature fast-healing thing kept him from burning—and his freckles were coming out, making him look like a little kid.
“And this year he got a knit hoodie,” I finished. I was faster this year, so knitting him something that would last a season or two, maybe, before the colors lost their appeal didn’t piss me off like it might have the year before.
“And Bracken?”
I was tired of this conversation—and I never get tired of talking about knitting. “I knit them all sweaters, Mrs. Kestrel.” I noticed there was no more pretense about “Call me Terry.” “I knit them all sweaters and socks and hats, and when I’m not knitting for them I’m knitting for Renny or Max or Mario or LaMark or any of the other people you’ve met. I like to knit for people I care about. Is that wrong?”