by Amira Rain
He then moved his mouth to my ear and spoke in a low, husky voice. “Sometime very soon, Eric and I want to take an entire night to make you moan like that. We hear there’s a party going on here at the house on Saturday night, and we’re thinking maybe then.”
At that moment, Ryan gave my right nipple a gentle, prolonged little pinch, applying just enough pressure to make me moan yet again, following this sound by breathing the word yes with my gaze locked on Eric’s face. It was now just slightly flushed, and his rate of breathing seemed to have increased too. Licking his lips, he held his fork suspended over his plate, clearly having found something more interesting to look at than food.
Further turned on by his obvious interest and arousal, I began wondering if maybe he and Ryan would be willing to just forget about waiting until Saturday and just take me upstairs right then. I knew they were still dealing with ever-worsening Creeper problems outside the community walls, but maybe their pack members could handle things for an hour, I figured. Or maybe even two or three.
However, just then, as if breaking some spell, a loud knock sounded on the front door.
I groaned, turning my gaze to Ryan. “What is it with you, me, and being interrupted by knocks on the door?”
This time, knocker turned out to be one of Ryan’s pack members, telling him that there was a physical fight going on between two of his other pack members.
“I think it’s over Darcy again, and they’re really ripping each other to shreds out there. You’d better come quick, Ryan.”
Apparently, from what I could gather, not all wolf shifters were as content to “share” a woman as Eric and Ryan and as Jessie’s two husbands seemed to be.
After giving me a quick peck on the lips, Ryan soon flew out the front door. Disappointed that out titillating breakfast had been cut short, I returned to the kitchen, which was where I suddenly realized something.
“Oh, dang it. I completely forgot to even thank him for the art supplies.”
I’d been speaking mostly to myself, but Eric looked up from his plate, frowning.
“How are you so sure that they were from him?”
Suddenly hot-faced, I stammered briefly. “Well…I guess I just figured…I mean, just based on my interactions with him so far, as opposed to my interactions with you….”
Feeling thoroughly stupid, I trailed off without finishing the thought.
Having finished most of the second helpings of food on his plate, Eric abruptly got up and began bringing his plate and coffee mug over to the sink without looking at me. “I changed our deal, Ellie…pretty drastically. I get that. But I’m not the cold, calculating monster that you seem to think I am. I did what I did for the good of my people, so that our community would be stronger.”
With his back turned toward me, he began loudly and forcefully scraping the remaining bits of food on his plate into a trash can beneath the sink, and I waited until he’d finished to speak.
“I haven’t been thinking that you’re a cold, calculating monster, Eric. Well, at least not ‘calculating’ and at least not a ‘monster.’ But you have to admit, you have been a little cold to me. That’s why I just thought that it must have been Ryan who left me the art supplies.”
Loading his plate, silverware, and mug into the dishwasher with his back still turned toward me, Eric didn’t say anything, and I spoke again.
“Thank you for them, by the way. That was really kind of you. Ever since the Chaos started, I’ve missed painting so much.”
Looking distinctly uncomfortable, he closed the dishwasher door and finally turned to face me. He didn’t, however, look me in the eyes, and instead focused his gaze somewhere just beyond my shoulder, moving a hand to massage the back of his neck while he did so.
“You’re very welcome. I had to go into Westin to scavenge a few tools from their hardware store yesterday, and I happened to spot the art things in a crate of odds-and-ends in the back room. I’d seen them before but just never took them, but then I remembered that you’d said you used to paint.”
Touched by the fact that he’d remembered that from breakfast the day before when I’d thought that he wasn’t even really paying any attention to me, I thanked him again. “That really was very kind of you. And, just for the record, I don’t see you as ‘cold’ anymore. I did at first, just because I…maybe I just got the wrong impression of you at first or something.”
Still wearing a slight frown and still avoiding my eyes, he raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. “For a really long time, my primary focus has been on protecting the people who have willingly put their lives in my hands, trusting me to keep them safe. Maybe that’s made me strangely hardhearted or closed-off or something; I don’t know. At any rate, I don’t blame you for thinking what you first thought about me.”
Having a very sudden thought and acting purely on impulse, I dashed across the kitchen, took Eric’s face in my hands, and planted a kiss on his cheek before I could give thought to what I was doing or change my mind. “There. That was just to show you that I’ve officially changed my mind about you, and I don’t think you’re ‘cold’ at all anymore.”
With his eyes a little wide, he just looked at me for a long moment, then lowered his mouth to mine and gave me a tender, lingering kiss before looking at my face again. “That was just to show you what I’ve wanted to do since the first second I saw you.”
I laughed a little, having another sudden thought. “Tell me the truth. Did you really brave the Creepers to go to the hardware store yesterday just because you suddenly needed more tools? Because it just seems like the hardware store is probably pretty picked-over by now.”
He cracked a smile, the first one I’d ever seen on his face. “I didn’t really need any tools. I just didn’t know how to tell you in person that I’m happy that you’ve come to this community, but then I thought of the art supplies, so…I suddenly decided that another circular saw was needed to repair a section of wall. My men thought this was kind of funny, since we already have eleven circular saws, but one good thing about being an alpha is that you’re not often questioned about anything.”
Eric smiled, and I smiled in return, thinking that he had the most handsome face I’d ever seen in my life. Just looking at it, with his eyes lighting up from within, I had the idea that it was maybe a face I could look at for the rest of my life and still get a wave of butterflies every time.
As much as he seemed to not want to, he soon left to lead his men out on patrol, although not without giving me another lingering kiss that sent a current of electricity racing through my body all the way down to my toes.
Despite my best efforts to stay up late that night, hoping to get to see him and Ryan again, I fell asleep before they got home, exhausted from helping other women in the community harvest apples from a small orchard to the north of all the houses but still within the walls. I also spent several hours in the dairy barn nearby, helping Alicia, Jessie, and another woman named Jen milk the cows and take them out to graze.
The following day was Friday, and because of the Creepers destroying part of one of the wooden sections of the wall, Eric and Ryan were again occupied all day. Then, immediately after this section of wall was repaired and reinforced with metal sheeting, another problem arose about seven in the evening, in the form of a gang of two dozen or so men, who attempted to break down the front gate with trucks, probably intending to pillage the community and take any women inside for their own.
They might have even thought they could take the entire community for their own, some people figured. Most of these men were fully human, apparently having not been affected by the chemical weapons that had turned some men into shifters in the early days of the Chaos; however, at least a half-dozen of the men in this group were wolf shifters, probably ones who’d gone “rogue” after being kicked out of various packs, Alicia told me. Wherever they’d come from, they proved to be especially strong and wily, and Ryan, Eric, and others were gone late into the night, tryin
g to hunt them down in order to take them out so that they could never threaten the community again.
Finally, Saturday rolled around, although the cloudy, chilly day, the last day of September, wasn’t exactly ideal for an outdoor gathering. The community picnic went on nonetheless, with shifters rotating guard patrols frequently so that everyone got a chance to stop by, have some food, and meet any new neighbors that they hadn’t had the chance to meet yet. Being alphas and needing to supervise the guard patrols, Ryan and Eric couldn’t stay at the picnic very long; however, they were able to stay just long enough to convince me with little looks and smiles that they were both really looking forward to the party that night and what might come after.
CHAPTER TEN
A little after eight that evening, I found myself sitting on one of two couches in the living room, sandwiched between Eric and Ryan with a glass of wine in my hand while the “inner circle” party kicked into high gear. Dressed in black jeans and a crisp, white Oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves and open at the collar, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his bare, hard, lightly tanned chest, Eric looked just about good enough to eat with a spoon. Ryan looked equally delectable, dressed similarly in dark wash jeans and a cream-colored collared shirt fitted just well enough to display the contours of his biceps, pecs, and six-pack abs. Up to this point, I’d only ever seen him and Eric in very battered jeans and t-shirts..
I was also a little dressed up myself, wearing the short, low-cut red dress that Jessie let me borrow. Like she’d thought it would, the dress fit me perfectly, hugging every curve; when I’d first come downstairs, trying to get used to wearing high heels again for the first time in over a year, Eric and Ryan’s eyes had just about bugged out of their heads.
Once everyone had had a chance to have a drink and get loosened up a little, Alicia put a CD in a CD player in one corner of the living room. “Does anyone want to dance to some slow country songs?”
That afternoon, she and Mark had moved all furniture to the walls in order to create a makeshift dance floor in the center of the spacious room.
In response to Alicia’s question, Jessie bounced up from a folding chair and grabbed her two husbands’ hands. “Come on. I love slow dancing. We’ll have to flip a coin or something, though, to see which one of you gets to dance with me first.”
Terry, who was one of Jessie’s husbands, flipped a beer bottle cap, calling “top up.” However, the bottle cap landed with its top down.
Groaning quietly, although while wearing an amused expression, Terry sat back down. “All right. They say patience is a virtue.”
A few people laughed, and Ryan gave my knee a squeeze. “What do you say? Should Eric and I flip a bottle cap too?”
I said yes, and soon I was out on the makeshift dance floor with Eric, who held me close in his strong arms while leading with strong, sure steps. Maybe halfway through the song, really beginning to feel the effects of the large glass of wine that I’d drunk quickly, I kissed him, to the sound of a few wolf whistles and cheers from people still sitting in chairs. Slightly embarrassed, I broke our kiss, apologizing, but Eric said there wasn’t anything to be sorry for.
“A woman should never apologize for giving a man a kiss like that.”
Smiling, I said, “So, do you mind if I give you another one?”
With his dark gray eyes twinkling, Eric snorted. “Just one? How about ten?”
We basically kissed our way through the rest of the song, and when it ended, I was disappointed, though not for long, because I was soon in Ryan’s arms, kissing him too.
For the next few hours, he, Eric, and I danced, kissed, talked, laughed, and ate. And by eleven o’clock or so, when the party began winding down, I felt like I’d known each of them for years instead of days. In fact, a little buzzy on a few glasses of wine I’d had, I started to have thoughts that I was maybe even beginning to fall in love with them both. This thought made me happy even though at the same time, it filled me with a little trepidation, just because I wasn’t sure if I should be trying to rein back my feelings. After all, the thing that had brought me to Silverfield had been a simple business arrangement, and I wasn’t sure if Eric and Ryan wanted it to be any more than that in the long term.
As the party guests began to leave, this feeling of uncertainty and trepidation made me head to the kitchen to pour myself another little splash of wine. Then, sipping it while nibbling on some pumpkin spice cookies that Jessie had made, I started to feel a little uncertain about what might happen once all the party guests left. The fact of the matter was that I knew that I definitely wanted to sleep with Eric and Ryan that night. I wanted to sleep with them both badly.
The only problem was that I was beginning to feel increasingly shy or nervous or something, I supposed just because having a fantasy about sleeping with two men at once was one thing, but having it play out in real life was another. Washing down a bite of cookie with a sip of wine, I wondered if it was even possible for the fantasy to be as fulfilling as it was in my mind. I wondered if the whole thing would be fulfilling for Ryan and Eric too, if they still both even really wanted to do it. They’d both seemed content to “share” me on the dance floor all night, although I knew that when it came to things in the bedroom, it was possible that one or both of them had changed their mind.
After eating two cookies, I began covering the plate with foil, for the first time, feeling truly homesick for the gymnasium. Although we hadn’t had electricity and running water, let alone hot water, and although daily life had been fraught with constant danger and uncertainty there, at least I hadn’t felt so conflicted emotionally. At least I hadn’t been in a situation where I was developing strong feelings for two different men but was unsure of how things in the bedroom might play out with the three of us.
I’d just finished covering all baked goods in the kitchen with foil when Jessie and Alicia came in, with Jessie asking me how everything was going.
Wanting to appear perfectly normal, I said fine. “I just came in here to cover all the cookies and cupcakes and things. Do you guys want me to cover all the hot food dishes too, so that you guys can take all the leftovers home?”
With her eyes glassy and unfocused, indicating that she was extremely buzzed and maybe even outright drunk, Alicia picked up a chicken teriyaki kebab from a platter, eyeing me with a frown. “Just go ahead and put all the leftovers in your fridge. That stuff’s not important right now. What is important is…why do you look so weirdly pale?”
I quickly ran a hand over my face, as if that would suddenly fix everything. “Am I looking pale? I don’t think I am. I mean…I’m not that nervous about being alone with Eric and Ryan once everyone leaves or anything. I mean…it’s not like it’s that big of a deal or anything.”
Alicia frowned even harder at me. “Do the three of you have some kind of a thing scheduled for tonight or something?”
Before I could respond, Jessie jumped in, leaning a hip against the counter catty-corner from me with a knowing little look on her face. “I’ve been here before, Ellie…and I totally get the nerves. The most important thing, though, is…well, are you receptive to things, if you know what I mean?”
Knowing what she meant and slightly embarrassed about it, I said yes, avoiding her eyes. “I want what I think Eric and Ryan want too…and I’ve kind of been wanting it for days, but…I just didn’t think I’d be so…so suddenly nervous about everything, I guess, when the time finally came.”
With a little smile that made me think she understood me perfectly, Jessie picked up a zucchini, chicken, and cheese appetizer from a tray, then took a tiny bite and chewed and swallowed quickly before responding to me. “Yeah…I’ve been here before. Just make sure that Eric and Ryan are patient with you, and if they’re not, just tell them to stop, and be firm about it. You’ll be okay. Even if things don’t get as far as everyone might want them to tonight, that’s still fine. Just remember that these sorts of things are best eased into very slowly sometimes, and re
mind Eric and Ryan of that too.”
Swallowing the last sip of my wine, I nodded. “Okay.”
Setting her uneaten kebab back on the tray, Alicia suddenly clutched her stomach with her free hand. “Guys, I don’t feel very great, to be honest. I was feeling good just drinking wine until I did that shot of whiskey a few minutes ago…but that just didn’t sit very well with me.”
After setting the rest of her zucchini appetizer on a dirty plate, Jessie went over to her, put an arm around her shoulders, and began steering her out of the kitchen. “Let’s just go find Mark and get you home right now.”
Alicia said okay, and Jessie glanced at me over her shoulder. “Everyone else has already left, so I’ll tell Eric and Ryan to come find you in here, if that’s okay.”
With my pulse accelerating, I said okay, hoping that the butterflies swirling in my stomach weren’t going to ruin the night.
*
I put the leftovers away, loaded the dishwasher, and then started it while trying to focus on what Jessie had said about it being fine to take things slowly. Trying to calm my nerves, I was sitting in a chair, taking slow, deep breaths, when Eric and Ryan entered the kitchen. A little startled by them, I stood, although a bit too quickly, borderline flying up from my chair. This had the result of making me feel a little embarrassed, which just further increased my case of sudden, unexpected nerves over what might soon happen.
Feeling the need to speak as a way to try to cover my embarrassment, I said hi to Eric and Ryan, not even waiting for a hi in return before continuing. “So, have all the party guests gone home, then?”
Eric said yes. “Which means that you, Ryan, and I now have the house all to ourselves. Most importantly, Ryan and I have given word to our men that we aren’t to be summoned for anything tonight, unless the Creepers are literally knocking down entire sections of the wall, which definitely won’t be happening. We have too many guards posted outside the walls for that to happen right now.”