by Donya Lynne
"You know," Trace said, looking up at them. "I envy you two."
She leaned in toward Micah, feeling shy all of a sudden.
"Why, bro?" Micah gave her his beer after taking a sip.
Trace shrugged. "Because you have each other." He looked down at his beer. "I've always wanted a mate. What's it like?"
Sam glanced up at Micah as he looked down at her, his eyes reverent and full of adoration.
"It's the best feeling in the world, Trace." He took a deep breath as if he was breathing in her very soul as he held her gaze. "She's more important than anything else. She's my breath, my heart, my soul, my better half. I couldn't live without her."
"Jesus," Trace said. "I can't believe you're the same person I knew only a few weeks ago. Holy fuck. You've gone from being a hard-ass son-of-a-bitch to Chaucer."
Sam pressed her hand against Micah's chest and felt his heart beating as he inhaled long and deep again. "Trace, someday you'll know what I mean. Someday, you'll take a mate and then you'll be fucking Chaucer. You'll see." He lowered his voice and smiled at her. "You smell like lilacs."
"You do," Trace said, confirming Micah's statement as he lifted his beer for a swig.
Sam glanced over and laughed as Trace shot her a sideways glance.
"Seriously, you do." Trace lowered the bottle. "It's nice."
Micah purred quietly, sounding perfectly content. "Are you sniffing my girl, Trace?"
Trace shook his head dramatically and grinned. "Wouldn't think of it."
"Uh-huh." Micah threw a pretzel at him and chuckled before sinking back on the couch and pulling her down with him. "But he's right," he said to her. "It's nice."
"Must be my shower soap." She laid her head on his shoulder.
"Or just you."
Trace picked up the pretzel and ate it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The game ended and they watched the post-game, then the news, then a movie, and before long it was almost four o'clock in the morning.
"Well, I should be getting home." Trace slapped his hands on his thighs and stretched as he stood up.
Sam was still lying on Micah, listening to his heart beating hard and fast in his chest. The calling was pushing him to the brink, and she could feel it. Heat practically poured out of his body, both physical heat and hormonal heat, and she was nearly delirious with arousal, especially with his hard-on pressing against her thigh.
Micah rolled his head to the side to look at Trace as he pointed to the window. An ice and snow mix was coming down hard and fast and had been for a couple of hours, the ice crystals blowing against the windows on violent gusts. "Um, no dude. Look out there. You're staying here."
"I'm a big boy." Trace looked down at him. "I'll be fine. Besides, you two need to be alone."
Clearly, Trace could sense Micah's state as well as she could.
"Like hell." Micah's voice broke as he spoke. "We'll be fine. You can take the spare room."
Trace was about to object, but Micah cut him off. "Don't push me, Trace. I'm not letting you leave. And that's final. Spare room." He pointed. "Take it."
Sam forced herself to sit up, and she grabbed the remote and turned off the TV before getting off the couch and stretching out the kinks from lying on Micah for so long. Then she walked over and gave Trace a loose hug and kissed his cheek.
"Good night, Trace."
Decision. Final. Trace was spending the day here.
"Come on, Micah. Time for bed." She held her hand out to him.
He sat up, his erection evident in his sweats. No use trying to hide it, right? Not like Trace didn't already know what was going down, anyway.
"Okay. Fine." Trace sighed. "I'll stay."
Micah took Sam's hand, and Trace gave them a simple wave before yawning and turning to follow them down the hall.
"Good night, you two. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Trace opened the door to the spare room and chuckled.
"Oh, we won't," Micah said.
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of." Trace closed the door, leaving Sam alone with Micah.
She grinned at him and quickly ducked into the bedroom as he followed and shut the door. He was on her in a heartbeat, his hands shoving her sweatshirt up and off as she gave in to him.
He pushed her sweats down, revealing her nudity. "Do you still want —?"
"Yes." She grabbed two handfuls of his hair and blistered his mouth with hers.
"Fuck!" He pushed her backward, re-engaging the lip lock, backing her into the wall.
Her body was a sunrise of desire, a glow breaking through her as the sun breaks the horizon each day, casting light and warmth over the earth. Every cell in her body called for him, and she knew it was because every cell in his was calling to her. She was beginning to understand the essence of the calling. This was it. His body called, and hers answered. What a magical, wondrous feeling this was.
Together, they worked him out of his clothes and he lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around him.
"Sssshhh." She smiled at what they were about to do as he carried her to the bedroom door.
Quiet as a mouse, he opened the door and carried her past Trace's room and back into the living room as she rode herself up and down the hard column of flesh pressed against his stomach.
"Female, you're going to be my undoing," he said quietly as he sat down on the couch and situated himself beneath her.
"Mmm, well, I'll be sure to put you back together again when I'm through." She lifted herself up, eager to feel him inside her again to quench this fire of hormonal heat baking her core like a kiln.
Impaling herself on him, they both expelled their breath on quiet moans. Yes, this was what they had both needed for the past several hours. Now he was where he belonged. Inside her, locking into the place reserved only for him now. Micah was her mate as much as she was his. She felt the way her body responded to his. If she were a vampire, she was sure she would have formed the same biological link to him that other female vampires formed to their men – males, whatever. Gah! She needed to remember, Micah was not a man. He was pure male. One hundred percent animalistic male vampire.
"Yes I am, and I claim you, Samantha."
She bit her lip, locking her fingers behind his neck as she rode him, rocking against him, up and down, forward and back, needing to feel his release as much as her own.
"Not if I claim you first," she said, keeping her voice quiet.
"Oh, baby, you have no idea how I want that."
"Ssshhh." She grinned and glanced toward the hallway.
Trace was only just a short distance away. At any moment, he could come out for a glass of water or a snack and catch them in the act.
"It excites you." Micah bucked up against her, gripping her hips and pulling her down hard as he rose to meet her body with his.
She saw stars and gasped loudly before looking back at him. "What does?"
"The thought of being caught." He did it again, slamming into her, making her fight to keep from crying out.
"Yes," she whispered breathlessly. "It does."
"Mmm." With renewed energy, he fucked her hard, making her bounce with every rapid thrust of his hips. "It does me, too."
* * *
Trace couldn't believe what he was hearing. Lying in bed, wearing only his boxers, he wasn't imagining the obvious sounds of sex coming from the living room.
He closed his eyes and rolled his head back, trying to ignore them, but he couldn't. Micah had what he so desperately wanted. A mate. And Sam was perfect, so perfect for him.
Trace wanted a mate like Sam. A female who would know how to turn him on and turn him off as needed. Someone who could control his intense power when it grew out of control and threatened to consume him. A mate who was made expressly for him.
He feared he would never find such a person. As the enigma and freak of nature he was, Trace didn't think God could create one being who could fit everything he needed, if God was indeed in charge of such things. Whic
h he wasn't entirely sure He was. What God would allow someone like Trace to be created in the first place?
One with a sense of humor?
What kind of mate would Trace need? He had been with both males and females in the past, depending on the dom who could arouse his interest enough in that way, but none had provided everything he needed. They gave him the pain, but not the understanding, and certainly not the love.
Was it possible that Fate intended a male for him? Trace didn't think so. For some reason, he knew that if he ever took a mate, it would be a female. His mate wouldn't be male, because Trace had too much of an affinity for the feminine and gravitated toward those of the female persuasion more often than not.
Which made it even more unlikely that he would find a mate, because what female could dish out what he needed while supplying the feminine energy he craved? What he needed physically wasn't something most females could provide.
When he had discovered Micah years ago and learned of his reputation in the BDSM community, he hadn't been interested in sex with the guy. He had wanted what Micah could give him in the scene. Trace saw in Micah someone who could control the beast of power that loomed and threatened to consume him and turn him into a mutant.
Ever since losing his brother, who had been his sense of balance, Trace had been off-kilter. He no longer had a countermeasure to even him out. That had been what his brother had provided, and he had lost that long ago. And now Trace's power grew stronger and darker and harder to control every day. The only thing that collared it was submission. When Trace submitted to pain and humiliation, his power diminished to the point he could actually feel free for a while. But then his power would slowly creep back in after the scene was over, which meant he had to be vigilant against it 24/7.
Consequently, the only time he could harden sexually was during a scene.
Well, wait a minute.
Trace looked down to find a semi-tent in his boxers.
What the hell?
He couldn't remember the last time he had gotten hard outside his dom's dungeon. And yet, he was suddenly aroused.
His sorrow over not having a mate had been enough to push back his power, and being subjected to Micah and Sam taking pleasure in each other had added to the mental beating. Their love and closeness made him ache for companionship he didn't think he would ever have, and that, combined with his sorrow, had shoved his power into the shadows so his body could awaken.
If just hearing them was enough to send his power into time-out, what would watching them do? Could it give him just enough of a fix to sustain him longer before he had to visit his dom? He had to find out, because he needed every weapon he could get to use against his power.
Trace sat up and looked at the door then swung his legs over the side of the bed. Was he really considering playing Peeping Tom on Micah and Sam? He rubbed his palm over his shaved scalp and took a deep breath.
He had to know. He needed to know if watching them have sex could give him a reprieve from the power that cursed him. But he couldn't let Micah catch him. To look upon Sam like that could be the death of Trace. The two of them had joked earlier, but when it came right down to it, Micah surely wouldn't tolerate Trace looking upon Sam in that way.
Fuck. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.
Trace took a deep breath and blew it out as he stood, and then he made the short walk to the door and carefully opened it. He couldn't even breathe, he was so nervous. And yet, something drove him onward.
After entering the hall, Trace quietly followed the sounds of their muffled grunts and gentle, rhythmic gasps. A soft cadence of slapping flesh beckoned him forward, and his cock kicked up to full mast as he thought about the two people dearest to him making love in the way of true mates.
Damn, but he wanted what they had so fucking badly.
He kept to the shadows, using his power to partially cloak himself, which wasn't hard to do in the dark hour before dawn. The blinds and drapes hadn't even closed over the windows, yet, and no lights were on. Only the lights from the city below, brightened by the snow, illuminated the room.
And then he saw them.
On the couch.
Their coupled forms faced each other, and their bodies moved in perfect synchronization. Sam was on top, her hands pressed against the back of the couch on either side of Micah's head, her body churning and bouncing aggressively as Micah took her hard from the bottom. She faced Trace, but her eyes were closed. Her face was the picture of bliss with her bottom lip dropped open as she breathed heavily.
Her breasts were small, but buoyant, and they jiggled with the power of Micah's thrusts.
Trace pressed his back against the wall and watched, his cock straining as he gaped.
The two of them together were beautiful. So in love. What did it feel like to love someone like that? And to be loved the same way in return? To want someone so badly you didn't care about anything else?
Micah suddenly changed tempo, slowing down, breathing hard. Sam's eyelids opened halfway as she smiled at him and rotated her hips around and around.
Trace hardly dared make a sound for fear of being discovered. He didn't want them to stop.
The air smelled of sex and of lilacs mixed with Micah. Sweet and sultry. Heavenly.
Then it happened. Sam's gaze lifted and caught Trace's. He froze, unable to turn away, unable to move, and unable to speak.
Almost immediately, Sam's body seized and shuddered as she fell into orgasm. Her eyes rolled back as her body collapsed forward against Micah, her breathing erratic and choked as she wrapped her arms around Micah's head and held his face against her chest before opening her eyes and staring right into Trace's once more. And she came again, gasping, but not looking away from him.
Oh fuck! Fuck! He was dead. Micah was going to kill him. And yet, Trace couldn't move.
* * *
He's watching us. Trace is standing in the hall watching us.
Micah heard Sam's thoughts as clearly as if she'd spoken them, and he grinned against her breast before taking her nipple in his mouth and sucking.
Now he knew why she had come so hard. Twice no less. He thought he had sensed Trace's presence, and now Sam had confirmed it.
She continued rocking against him through her second orgasm and then finally pulled away and kissed him, her gaze still averted toward the hallway.
His little Sam wanted to put on a show, did she? Well, Micah was more than game for that.
Pushing her away, he stood up, jumped around behind her, and shoved her forward against the back of the couch before he pressed up behind her and pulled her hair, jerking back her head. She gripped the top of the back cushions, her fingers curling over the fabric.
"Are you my little minx, Sam? Do you like to play?" He dove his hand down the front of her to between her legs and clamped down.
Sam cried out and shivered, her arousal spiking. "Yes. God, yes!"
Micah looked up and caught Trace's eye. Trace looked positively besmirched, but in the way a child plays in the mud and thinks it's the greatest thing on Earth. With a sneer, Micah thrust forward and into Sam, pulling her back to meet him with one arm while releasing her hair from his other hand and pushing her upper body forward.
She splayed against the back of the couch, her knees split wide on the cushions as he climbed up behind her and fucked her hard.
With one hand, he pressed against her spine, holding her down as he spanked the side of her ass with his other.
"Mine, little one. You're mine." He glanced up at Trace again, leering for effect. As much as it turned him on to see Trace watching him take Samantha, pretending to play the possessive mate intensified the electric heat in the room even more.
What a fucking turn-on this was. Nobody else but Trace could get away with watching him make love to Sam. Nobody! But with Trace, he liked it. Sam liked it. Trace liked it, even though all he did was stand in the shadows and watch. Trace didn't even go for the obvious erection in his boxers, but Mi
cah wouldn't have cared if he did. Hell, it might have upped the state of excitement even more.
"Micah! Oh God, Micah!" Sam's body tightened yet again, and he could tell she was looking at Trace, too.
"That's it, baby. Come for me. Come for both of us." He met Trace's gaze again, making it clear who both of us meant. "Come for us, Sam."
Their plan had turned out better than they had expected. Neither of them had dreamed Trace would actually come out to watch them. They had just thought it would be sexy fun to flirt with the possibility. But the reality was turning out to be hot as hell.
And Micah was about to lose control and go over with his on-fire mate.
Locking his gaze with Trace's, Micah felt his orgasm tighten his balls and coil inside his body, and then he exploded just as Sam fell into spasms again. He came so hard he practically pushed Sam over the back of the couch as he collapsed against her and pushed her forward.
Then it was over, the two of them a heap of spent flesh draped over the back of the couch, his cock still twitching inside her quivering core.
"Oh baby. Fuck." He could hardly breathe, and his hair hung over his face.
"That was…." Sam's voice trailed off.
"Fucking hot." Micah finished for her.
Micah slowly lifted his head and looked at Trace, who was still rooted in his place against the wall, his chest rising and falling deeply.
Trace was clearly lost for words, probably wondering why Micah hadn't ripped his head off for looking on his mate's naked body. Fact was, something was happening among the three of them. A bond was forming, connecting them to one another at a level deeper than mere friendship, and it was happening quickly.
Micah pulled out of Sam and stood up before helping her off the couch.
She joined him and wrapped her arms loosely around his waist as she nuzzled her face against his neck and shoulders. Sam was still turned on. He could feel it. What they had just done in front of Trace had startled her and set her aflame all at once, as if she couldn't believe how hot being watched by Trace had made her. Micah had been inside her mind the whole time, and she had been lost in intense pleasure playing the exhibitionist to Trace's voyeur.