by R. E. Butler
Her hands fumbled at the button on her shorts from a mixture of exhaustion and nerves. Crux said, “Let me help you, baby.”
With nimble fingers, he stripped off her clothes, slipped a clean shirt over her head, and pulled the covers over her. He stretched out next to her on top of the covers, still wearing jeans but with no shirt.
“Can I hold you, baby?” he asked in the darkness.
“Just don’t let go.”
“I promise.”
Chapter 12
The relief that Crux felt over the end of Sydney’s suffering was incredible. Even though he could have lost her, especially with that stunt she pulled in the basement, he knew that the only thing that really mattered was that she was finally, truly free. They’d hoped to just keep her hidden forever, but he realized now that she probably would have looked over her shoulder for the rest of her life. And that was no way to live.
She fell asleep quickly, with her head resting against his chest and one arm across his stomach. He liked the way she felt in his arms, a slight weight that was more precious to him than anything else. He’d never considered dying, but when he’d faced off against her former mate, he knew in that moment that he would rather go into the afterlife knowing she was safe than live if he failed.
He slept lightly, one ear trained for the door, which opened several hours later. His brothers checked in with him and then went to shower, which reminded him that neither he nor Sydney had really cleaned up. But he liked the way she smelled now, a mixture of woods, wolf, and woman. The bed was big enough for four, and his brothers joined them, Orion on Syd’s other side and Sterling next to him. For the first time in several weeks, he finally felt like their family was whole.
He was the first one to wake, late in the morning. Sydney had turned over while they slept and was now snuggled close to Orion, who looked as content as Crux had ever seen him. Even Sterling looked content in sleep, which he knew was the effect of finally having their mate with them. Crux couldn’t remember a night when he’d slept so well, a combination of Sydney’s sweet scent in his nose and the knowledge that she was really, truly theirs, with the chains of her past finally cut.
He heard the air conditioner running, and knew that meant that Sterling had fixed the electricity situation while he and Sydney had slept. Slipping out of bed as quietly as he could, he stepped out into the hall and closed the door. It was just after ten, and he didn’t know how long Syd would sleep, but he wanted to have breakfast ready for her whenever she woke. As he pulled items from the fridge, he smiled to himself. This was what he’d always wanted. To have his mate in his arms and be able to take care of her. Before tonight, he’d felt like they had a timer counting down on their chances with her. But that timer was gone. A phone beeped and he saw Orion’s cell on the table, so he answered it.
“Just checking in,” Dante said. “How’s Sydney?”
“Still sleeping, but I’m taking that as a good sign that she’s feeling safer. Do you need me to take a shift at the fire pit?”
“No. We’ve got you covered. Take the day and night to spend with your mate and you and your clan can take a shift tomorrow before work. Let us know if you need anything.”
“Thanks for everything, Dante. I never really knew how important the baro was until our mate’s life was on the line. How is Mason?”
“He’s still a bit bruised up, but he’s good. I’ll let him know you asked.”
Sterling came into the kitchen just as the last piece of toast popped. “She’s up. Need help carrying things?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
The two men grabbed the heavily laden trays and carried them into the master bedroom where Sydney and Orion were propped up on pillows against the headboard. She looked better than she had since they brought her here that first day. Having one’s demons dead and buried was definitely one way of ensuring a good night’s sleep.
She sat up further, the sheet pooling around her waist, and said, “Oh man, you are so awesome.”
“Because I made you breakfast?” he asked, smiling.
Crux handed her a cup of coffee from his tray and she inhaled the steam with a groan. “Because you’re psychic. I’m starving.”
He and his brothers all laughed. Orion stroked a hand over her hair. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to shift? I know how hard it can be to force yourself out of your shift and then feel unsettled.”
She shook her head and took a small sip. “I feel really good. I don’t think I need to shift again. My wolf is happy now.” She paused, her eyes lowering to the mug that she held with two hands. “I’m happy now.”
Relief and his own happiness flooded through Crux. He was glad that she was happy, glad that she was safe now and free.
She lifted her eyes and met each of theirs. “Some of last night is kind of a blur, so if I didn’t say it…thank you. For finding me, making me feel at home here, and keeping me safe. I wouldn’t be free if it weren’t for you.”
They each said you’re welcome and kissed her. As he passed out plates and utensils, Crux told them what Dante had said.
“The day is yours, sweetheart,” Orion said. “What would you like to do today?”
She smiled as she lifted her egg-laden fork to her lips. “Talk.”
Orion smiled at her, and so did Sterling and Crux.
Talking was very good.
* * * * *
Once breakfast was over, Orion encouraged Sydney to take a shower and get dressed so they could talk. Her things were still in her bedroom, so she kissed each of them once and left the room.
“So while we have a few minutes alone, let’s talk about Syd.”
His brothers looked at him expectantly and he realized they were waiting for him, as the oldest, to make a decision.
Letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, he said, “I think it goes without saying that we need to take some time to let Syd come to terms with the changes to her situation. She knows that we’re her mates and that she’s not going to live in Alaska.”
Crux asked, “Should we tell her about our mating needs? What if she wants to make love to us like the night we rescued her?”
Sterling grimaced. “I don’t think I can be with her without wanting to mate her completely.”
Orion agreed. “As long as we’re honest about what we want and need, then she can make the decision on when we mate her fully.”
Crux asked, “What if she doesn’t want to wait?”
“She might not. But I don’t want it to happen today or tonight; it’s too soon, and she’s most likely in an emotional place.”
By the time Orion and his brothers had showered and dressed, Sydney was sitting on the couch in the family room, ready to talk. Orion sat down next to her, his arm across the back of the couch behind her. Crux and Sterling sat on the coffee table in front of them.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” he asked.
“Good.” Her eyes moved from him to his brothers in turn.
“I was going to start off our conversation about how hyenas are different as mates, but I think after living with us for three weeks, you already know how we’re different. Three males, usually related, form a clan and share a bride. But it’s not just any woman that will appeal to all three males. Only their truemate will fully speak to them and their beasts. It’s an instantaneous connection.”
She frowned, her brows drawing together. “But you haven’t laid a hand on me since the morning after you rescued me.”
It was his turn to frown. “We didn’t want to rush you, Syd.”
She snorted delicately. “Okay, I get that, but at the rate you guys were going I’d be thirty before we really kissed.”
He chuckled. “Probably. We were waiting for some signs from you that you were ready to move forward.”
“Oh.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Then all of our wires were crossed, because I was waiting for you to show me a sign that you cared about me as more than an obligation.”
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Sterling snarled unhappily. “You were never an obligation, love.”
She smiled softly. “It felt like that sometimes, though.”
“I never meant to hurt you that first day at work. I was afraid to tell you that we wanted to be your mates. You were so determined to go to Alaska.”
Crux reached his hand out and took hers. “Could you really have gotten on a plane and left us?”
Only a heartbeat passed before she spoke. “I don’t think so. Or I would have at least laid my feelings out for you before I left, so that I wouldn’t have any regrets if you said you weren’t interested. I’m not sure I would have been able to walk away, even though I kept reminding myself that we were just friends.”
As the morning wore on, Orion and his brothers explained the mating ceremony and the truth of their mating time after the ceremony, when they would share her at the same time.
Her eyes widened slightly and she snuck furtive glances at their crotches, her cheeks pinking. “Are you sure you guys will all…fit?”
The looks on his brothers’ faces had Orion almost laughing loudly, but he held himself in check so he didn’t embarrass Syd or make her think she couldn’t ask them questions. But he couldn’t help but smile at Sterling’s proud grin and Crux’s worried frown. Sterling clearly took the question as a compliment, while Crux was most likely now wondering if it was possible.
He touched her chin with his fingertip and turned her face towards him. Her blue eyes were glinting with happiness and the small smile on her lush mouth was enchanting. “We promise to treat you like a queen for the rest of our lives, Sydney. When you’re ready to take us as your mates, I swear that we’ll take our time and make sure that it’s the first of many wonderful nights.”
Her head tilted to the side, her hair sliding across her shoulder like a golden curtain. He could smell her arousal as her body heated at whatever erotic images were playing through her mind. His beast growled in his mind and he couldn’t resist leaning forward. Bypassing her mouth, which he very much wanted to kiss, he kissed her ear and whispered, “Can you see us together in your mind, Syd? Me, buried deep in your hot pussy, Crux in your ass, and your lips around Sterling’s cock?”
“Oh,” she moaned, so softly that he wouldn’t have heard it if her lips hadn’t been near his ear. He pressed a kiss behind her ear. Her hand slid up his arm and curled around his shoulder and he was dimly aware of his brothers joining them. Kissing down her neck, he nipped at her pulse, where he wanted to sink his fangs and mark her as his forever.
She shifted slightly and he eased back, finding Crux and Sterling on the floor in front of them, her legs spread wide. Sterling’s hand was unbuttoning her shorts and Crux’s hand was underneath her top. It would have been so easy to just let things take their natural course, which would lead to them mating her right now, on the couch, without any of the ceremony. But he didn’t want to take things the easy way with her. He wanted her to know that they had wanted to mate her since the beginning, that she was worth waiting for, and deserved their best.
He stilled Sterling’s hand and looked at Sydney. “If you want us to touch you, sweetheart, we will. But we can’t make love. Not today. The next time that we’re with you, we want it to be the first night of our mating.”
Her head tilted again. “Do you mean that you’ll never make love to me individually again? It will always be a foursome?”
He shook his head. “We will, love. There will be times when it will just be you and one of us, or you and two of us, or all of us. But until you’re ready to be our mate, so that we can make love to you for the first time as a group, we’re not going to have sex with you individually.”
Crux, whose hand had stilled under her top, said, “What are you thinking about, baby?”
She smiled, dropping her head and chewing on her lip again. “I’m turned on. And this time it’s not drugs. It’s because I love you guys and I want you. But if you don’t want to make love until we’re mated, then all I have to say to that is…when can we get mated?”
Orion and his brothers laughed. He was relieved that she wasn’t scared of their mating night. “We could do it next Saturday night. There’s a small ceremony and then we’ll spend twenty-four hours down in the den. Is that too soon?”
“It sounds just right,” she promised, her eyes dancing.
Sterling’s voice was laced with a growl. “Will you let us give you pleasure?”
There was awe in her voice. “I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before.”
Orion picked up her hand and kissed each finger, watching her eyes follow his movements. “We’ll ask you that all the time from now on.”
“Yes, please,” she whispered, her eyes darkening with passion.
The two best words in the English language.
* * * * *
Sterling could hardly keep his hands still as they waited for Sydney to say whether she wanted them to touch her or not. She could have easily said she wanted to wait until the weekend. It would have killed him, but he would have honored her request. Her sweetly simple yes, please, was enough to make his balls draw up tight with need, but he put the brakes on the sex-train in his head and reminded himself, and his cock, that they were here for Sydney’s pleasure and not their own.
Orion kissed her and Sterling unbuttoned her shorts. Her hips lifted and he tugged them down her shapely legs. She was curved in all the right places. His beast growled in satisfaction at the heady scent of her arousal. She was turned on by the prospect of their coming mating night, but this would be just a taste of the pleasure that they would give her.
She and Orion parted only long enough for Crux to tug off her top, and while Orion unfastened her bra, Crux took the opportunity to kiss her. Sterling stroked his hands up her legs, from her knees to the tops of her thighs and back down. Her skin was soft and warm. Part of him wanted to tear her panties off and finger her hard and fast until she screamed in ecstasy. But the larger, smarter part of him knew that wasn’t what she needed now.
Crux pulled away from the kiss and her eyes met Sterling’s, dark with passion and heavy-lidded. Straightening on his knees, he planted his hands on either side of her and met her lips with his own. She tasted sweet, her lips soft and lightly swollen from earlier kisses. A small sound came from her throat as he tilted his head and deepened their kiss, sliding his tongue across hers.
Her hand touched his neck, her palm grazing his throat as her thumb rubbed along his jaw. Her touch was electrifying, charging his blood and making his brain misfire. Pulling away slowly, he watched her ease back against the couch cushions, her hand drifting down his cheek. He caught it and pressed his mouth to the center, and let it go as she relaxed in front of him and his brothers, in only a pair of peach-colored bikini panties.
He brushed his fingertips up the inside of her thighs and she shivered, which made him want to howl. She was so responsive. Skimming his fingers over the tops of her thighs, he eased them underneath her and pulled her gently towards the end of the couch. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and dark blue. His brothers sat on either side of her, touching and kissing her, but her eyes were locked to his.
He brushed his fingers across the front of her panties and then delved down to lightly touch the satin that covered her heated flesh. Rubbing up and down, he smiled inwardly as her hips began to follow the motion. Sliding a finger underneath the satin, he stroked the soft curls that covered her sex, keeping his eyes locked with hers. Pressing slightly, he parted the lips of her pussy and grazed her clit, which was wet and swollen. His mouth watered to taste her, and he leaned back and pulled her panties down her legs. With a toss over his shoulder, the panties went airborne and he spread her legs apart slowly with his hands and returned to his place between them.
Her pussy was wet and glistening with her arousal, and he rubbed his fingertip in a circle around her clit several times before sliding it down to her entrance and pressing his finger slowly inside. She arched her back as his b
rothers caught her nipples in their mouths and her eyes finally closed.
Dropping his head, he used the fingers of one hand to expose her clit, the little pearl glistening and begging to be tended to. Setting a slow in-and-out rhythm with his finger, he pressed a single, chaste kiss to her clit and then stroked it with his tongue. The sweet taste of her arousal was like melted sugar, and he lapped at her as her pussy clenched his finger.
Her legs moved restlessly, and he added a second finger. She moaned in approval. Increasing the pace of his fingers, he captured her tight bud between his lips and lashed it with his tongue. He could feel how close she was to coming, because her pussy was clenching his fingers and her legs were now pressing against his arms. She made little breathy sounds when he deviled his tongue on the side of her clit, and he kept it up, driving her over the edge. She exhaled on a soft cry of pleasure, but he wasn’t done yet, curving his fingers up and stroking the soft walls of her pussy until she fell apart again.
He released her clit and watched as her back bowed and she rolled to one shoulder, crying out with a throaty sound as her hands gripped his brothers. All three men watched her quake in pleasure, the sight among the most beautiful things he’d ever witnessed. Her head rested against Orion’s shoulder as she gasped for breath, her eyes squeezed shut.
He pulled his fingers from her and her eyes opened slowly, her gaze at first unfocused but then sharpening quickly. She leaned forward and hooked her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too, Little One.”
They kissed, and then Crux tipped Sydney’s face towards himself and said, “My turn?”
She smiled, that awe returning to her face, and Sterling switched places with his brother. As he settled next to her, Sterling cupped her breast and ran his thumb over her tight nipple.
“You guys are going to make me melt from the inside out.” Her voice drifted into a moan and he grinned.