Bethany giggled, and Jonathan rolled to look at her, gently touching her leg over the cover as a way of saying good morning.
“Hello to you, too. Are you trying to get Snowy to play? I have some catnip around here, will you get goofy if I give you some?”
He gave her a level stare to let her know he wasn’t amused, and then took a breath and focused on what his human body felt like. The cat no longer held on when he wanted to change back, and seconds later Jonathan was in his human skin once again.
He stalked up the bed towards her, still on all fours, telling her, “If you weren’t so sore I’d show you just how serious I can be, but I’m guessing you’re in no shape for it right now.”
Her arms went around his neck as he bent to kiss her, and he buried his neck in her throat and smelled the feminine, musky scent of a happy, relaxed, healthy woman. The cat reminded her she was his woman, and Jonathan didn’t argue. Bethany wasn’t at all freaked out about sleeping with a leopard, or watching him change, and his heart melted a little more for this strong, brave, sensual, beautiful woman, and he let her feel it in the kiss. He knew she was skittish and they needed to go slow with her where feelings and emotions were concerned, but she’d grown important to both the man and the cat in a few short days, and it was hard to not show how he felt.
When he finally backed away from the kiss, she glanced at the clock as she stretched under him, and he had to will his cock not to go insta-hard.
“I don’t have to leave for another hour and a half, but I was awakened by my two cats apparently flirting with each other. Or one flirting and the other being pissy, I guess.”
He chuckled and plopped beside her, still on the outside of the covers while she was under them. “I wasn’t flirting, I was offering to play. He was terrified of me in human form before, but apparently only cautious of me in leopard form. Or, perhaps merely so pissed off because I took his spot in bed, he didn’t care whether I ate him or not as long as he got to glare at me, first.”
She pushed the hair out of his face, and ran her fingers through it. “So different, and yet the same,” she said, almost to herself. “My brain wants me to be sure you can play with Snowy and not hurt him, but my heart knows if you couldn’t, you wouldn’t have made the offer.”
He kissed her forehead as she stole the rest of his heart. “Listen to your heart, Raggedy. I won’t hurt you, or anyone you care about.”
“How could you sleep with me last night, when Mac can’t?”
“Mac doesn’t know he’s a wolf all the time, sometimes he forgets and the wolf instincts come through. I slept with my back to you, on top of the covers, and my claws are sheathed. Wolves can’t retract their claws, so it’s doubtful even Ranger would try it, and he has tons of control.”
He glanced at the clock and suggested, “Why don’t we get up and ready for the day, so I can take you somewhere nice for breakfast?”
Chapter Fifteen
Jonathan and Bethany had a nice couple of days, but on Wednesday, he got a phone call during dinner and she knew right away it was bad news.
He stepped onto her back deck to talk, and she forced herself to keep eating. He’d made a fantastic salmon brisket, and had given the trimmings to Snowy, who was now Jonathan’s bestest buddy.
When he came back in, Jonathan closed the door and leaned against it, his face solemn. “Aaron’s leaving Sophia alone on their honeymoon a few days to go to Washington and speed things along with Mac’s debrief. He needs me and a few members of the team to leave in the next couple of hours, because he won’t leave Sophia until we’re by her side.”
Bethany’s heart nosedived into her stomach and she thought she might be sick. “Things must be bad if he’s leaving his wife alone on their honeymoon.”
“They’re headed towards bad, and Aaron wants to intervene before it’s beyond his ability to fix.” He took a few steps toward her, pulled her out of the chair, and wrapped his arms around her. Bethany wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself as he said, “Aaron’s good, and he has a lot of contacts in high places. If anyone can get Mac free from his government obligations, Aaron can.”
“What happens if he can’t?”
Jonathan was still and quiet a few seconds, and finally answered, “I don’t know. He can’t survive in his old job yet, he doesn’t have enough control. He can work for Aaron in a few months, because Aaron will know what he can and can’t handle, and will send him with other wolves who can help him out before he loses control. If he’s on his own in a foreign country, spying on the enemy….” He shrugged. “It’s a high stress job with no place to hide if he loses control, and our inner animals don’t deal well with threats, especially those we aren’t free to act upon.”
* * * *
The next couple of days were maddening, and Bethany wondered how she’d come to depend so much on having these three guys around in a few short days. She felt as if they’d taken a piece of her with them, and her house seemed empty with just her and Snowy.
Jonathan called her in the evenings, but she’d known there would be no communication with Ranger or Mac while they were in Washington. She missed them — missed their voices, their touch. And she worried.
Bethany had dinner with Gen and told her everything, even the bondage stuff, and her friend’s face flamed more and more crimson with each decadent detail.
“I see Duke hasn’t cured you of blushing when someone talks about sex,” she teased as she poured Gen another glass of wine.
“You didn’t just have sex with them! You let them whip you!”
“Yeah, I did,” she said, suddenly serious. “And even though it hurt, if they ask me to let them do it again, and I’m horny enough when they ask, I’ll let them.” Bethany shook her head as she tried to figure out how to explain why — both to herself as well as her friend. “It was this violently beautiful thing, and when it was over, I felt so close to them. Like when you see people in the movies who go through an awful experience together and it brings them closer? Only this wasn’t a bad experience — it was this special moment in time that fused us together. It branded them into my life and me into theirs. A huge, shared experience.” She took a long drink of wine as she realized it was impossible to explain.
“Can I see the bruises?”
Bethany nodded and pulled her shirt down so Gen could see one of them on her inner breast. “He hit the outside kind of in the center, but aimed so the ones on the inside don’t show when I wear a low-cut blouse. Do you know how much skill that would take?”
She let go of her shirt and picked the wine glass back up, waiting for her friend’s reaction.
“I find myself both repulsed and a little turned on, so I guess I can’t blame you for being okay with it. I don’t get it, but then I guess I don’t have to. If you’re happy then I’m happy for you.” Gen smiled, her face still red, and lifted her glass as she said, “You were the one who wanted a harem, after all.”
* * * *
Jonathan continued to call every evening, but his only news was, “Aaron’s working on it.”
At lunch one day, while eating alone with her Kindle, an old client asked if he could sit at Bethany’s table. A football player for the local university, Billy is so many levels beyond hot he’s scorching. He’d been off limits while he was her patient, but now…
Bethany sighed as she suddenly felt trapped by her men instead of happy, and she motioned for him to have a seat.
The conversation stayed friendly and social at first, as she asked him how his shoulder and back were doing, and when practice started, and the classes he was taking this semester.
When he asked her to dinner, she wasn’t really considering it. She didn’t tell him no right away, but mainly because she wasn’t used to spending her evenings alone and she truly had no plans. Still, something must have pinged somewhere because Ranger called, and it’d been so long since she’d heard from him she didn’t care how rude it was to answer while eating lunch with someone e
lse.
“Please don’t do it,” Ranger said. “I know we’ve left you alone longer than any of us intended, but hopefully we’ll be home in a few days.”
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’m good and Mac’s surviving. They aren’t keeping him isolated anymore, so I know firsthand how he’s doing, which is a relief, but please don’t ask anything else.”
Right, because they should assume his calls were being monitored. “I wasn’t going to, Ranger, but it’s good to hear your voice. I’ll see you in a few days. Take care of both of you.”
When she hung up, the studly football player smiled as he said, “My ego isn’t that fragile, you could’ve told me you’re seeing someone.”
“Sorry. We hadn’t been seeing each other long when he got called out of town unexpectedly, so I’m not absolutely sure where we are with each other, but I’m thinking it’s best if I don’t go out with anyone else until we figure it out.”
He shook his head. “You care for him, it was written all over your face.” He smiled mischievously as he said, “And you have magical hands, so he’s a lucky man. I just hope he knows it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Three days later, Bethany looked at her GPS app’s time to destination yet again, wishing she could drive faster on these damned curvy, country, mountain roads.
Mac and Ranger had flown into town and driven straight to a rental cabin in the middle of nowhere, as apparently the surrounding woods were safe for wolves to run without danger of encountering humans. The front door had a keypad and they’d told her to use the last four digits of Ranger’s cellphone number to get in. There was a good chance they’d still be wolf when she arrived.
The full moon was close, so Mac would be kept away from Bethany for a while, and would need to remain near the door so he could hit the woods if he lost control. They could be in the same room, but no snuggling and absolutely no sex for at least a week.
Bethany drove faster on a straightaway, knowing she’d probably care later she couldn’t have sex with him, but right now she just wanted to see him, talk to him, make sure he was okay.
Make sure they were all okay.
It was Friday, but she’d called her four appointments for tomorrow and moved two to today, one to Monday, and arranged for another therapist to work on the other one tomorrow. She never put her personal life before her patients, and was aware the fact she’d done so meant these particular men were more than a passing fling. The ache in her heart should’ve told her, but she’d stopped listening to her heart a decade ago. However, the fact she’d moved appointments around so she could see her men was confirmation she was in way over her head.
A note on the kitchen counter told her to make herself at home, pointed out there was wine as well as margarita ingredients in the refrigerator, along with some of her favorite foods, and gave her the wi-fi password. Mac signed it, and she realized if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have known which of them wrote it.
She didn’t know what their handwriting looked like, their shoe sizes, how many siblings they had, or their favorite colors. She knew none of them snored, knew their favorite foods, and knew their deepest, darkest secrets, but there was so much missing in between.
Her men weren’t here, but Mac and Ranger’s things were in the bedroom, and her heart warmed just knowing they were close and could walk in the door at any moment. She put her suitcase next to theirs, made a margarita, and stepped onto the screened in back porch to see a hot tub under a cover. Smiling, she went in search of towels, put her e-reader in a plastic protective case, took her clothes off, then the cover off, turned the jets on, and sank into the warm water with her drink and a book.
She’d been soaking for perhaps thirty minutes when two beautiful wolves came through a doggie door onto the porch.
They were both charcoal and rust, and huge. She settled her drink and e-reader on the side and leaned towards the edge so she could look down at them easier.
“Well, hello to both of you. Do you need me to get you a bowl of water or something?”
One of the wolves took a step towards her, hunched in a little, and morphed into Ranger.
“I think I’ll get myself a beer, do you need a refill?” he asked, but she was out of the water and into his arms as he finished his sentence.
“God, I missed both of you. I’d hug Mac, too, if it was safe.”
“I think it’s safe right now. We’ve had a long run and he knows who he is.”
She let go of Ranger and took a few steps towards the wolf. His head was at an odd angle, so she sat on the edge of a chair and offered her hand. The wolf looked at Ranger, then back to her, closed his eyes, hunched in, and slowly turned into Mac the human.
It looked painful, and took close to a minute, where Ranger had near-instantly morphed from one form to another in a handful of seconds.
When Mac was a man, Bethany stood and walked to him slowly, and he put his arms around her, pulled her into his warm embrace, and squeezed her tight. They were all naked, but this wasn’t sexual, it was lovers who’d missed each other, and yet they were all being careful.
The relationship was too new when they’d separated, so the reunion didn’t have them jumping straight into bed.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her heart reaching towards Mac’s, her soul aching to be closer even though she was wrapped in the strength of his arms.
“He’s managed to change from wolf to human twice now, both times for you,” Ranger told her. “And this time was near the full moon when his control sucks.”
Mac kept his arms around her, but looked to Ranger and said, “My wolf likes her, and seems to understand she isn’t safe around him in physical form. Or, he doesn’t understand why, but he believes me, I guess, and he lets me take over so we can be around her.”
“Twice,” Mac said as he looked at her, his eyes dark with a bad memory, “I was locked in an interrogation room during a debrief, and I remembered your hands on my shoulders when I nearly lost control. My wolf doesn’t deal well with enclosed spaces and he wanted to eat the man interrogating me. It was close, but you pulled me back.”
“You’re back for good?” she asked, as they hadn’t told her anything except the cabin’s address, and the fact they could run in the woods naked here if they wanted — code to let her know they could run as wolves.
“There’s some fine print saying I can be recalled if I have an established relationship with someone vital to the nation’s security, but otherwise, yeah, and I’d owe Aaron big time even if he hadn’t been on his honeymoon.”
She pulled out of his arms, wrapped herself in a towel, collected her things, and went into the house. Ranger chuckled as they followed her in. “What’s with the towel?”
“It’s chilly in here, and I’m wet. Mac kept me warm while I was in his arms, but I want another drink.”
Bethany donned jeans and a t-shirt, and the men put jeans on but stayed shirtless, and they all worked together to make homemade pizza. She watched in amazement as Ranger worked and spun the dough. He talked her through trying it and she didn’t do too badly, but he took over and finished it off with the four circles on four pans.
They were cutting the toppings and arranging them when Jonathan arrived, and she met him on the front porch, flying into his arms with the knowledge he’d catch her.
He caught and lifted her, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, put her head on his shoulders, and was happy to finally have all of her men in the same place again.
Jonathan buried his face in her neck and breathed deep before saying, “I missed you too, Raggedy. You smell like pizza, and I’m thinking someone should come up with pizza cologne, ‘cause I’m suddenly hard as a rock.”
“Talk first, preferably while we eat, then the fucking!” Ranger shouted from the kitchen.
Bethany laughed and muttered, “Damned supernatural hearing,” and then used a normal voice to ask, “How was your trip?”
“Uneventful, thank
goodness.” He walked inside with her still glued to his front, and she got down as they reached the kitchen. She got him a beer as he did the one-armed man-hug thing with both Ranger and Mac, and then she went back to helping create the pizzas.
“So who did you almost have sex with, Raggedy?”
Her head jerked to Jonathan and her face flamed hot. “I didn’t almost have sex with him! I was eating lunch alone and he asked if he could join me. He’s an ex-patient, and he asked me to dinner. I wasn’t going to have sex with him, just wondering if dinner would be okay.”
She looked at Ranger accusingly, wondering why he’d told everyone, but Jonathan said, “We all knew when you were considering it. Mac and Ranger were together, and Mac texted me to let me know Ranger was calling you, so we wouldn’t both call at the same time. His text came through as I was about to hit send on my phone.”
She shook her head and looked down, embarrassed. “I wasn’t planning to have sex, just considering whether to accept his offer for dinner.”
“Yeah, so you said. Who is he?” His voice wasn’t angry, but Bethany could tell he wasn’t happy, and had a feeling the cat wanted answers as much as the man.
They’d smell a lie, but she had no reason to be dishonest. “He’s a UTC football player, way too young for me, and our entire conversation was about him, but I’m not used to going home alone every evening. I did things with Gen several nights, but I don’t want to intrude on her and Duke too much.”
“And I’m assuming you turned the football player down?”
She smiled. “He could tell how much I cared about whoever called, and told me I should’ve told him I was seeing someone. He said he hoped the guy knew how lucky he was, and that was pretty much it. I went back to work ten minutes later and haven’t heard from him or seen him since, and don’t figure I will unless he gets another injury.”
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