Shadow Lovers

by Jenny Penn

  That was just how it had been with Mayla when she’d dared to tell him that her heart belonged not only to him but to Ryder as well. It had been the most appalling thing he’d ever heard, and Khal had not responded well. He’d accused her of all sorts of things and then sworn to kill the man she dared to put up as his rival.

  Khal should have never said that.

  “I can’t…I can’t…” Ryder panted as crawled up the side of the tree, using it as a support as he rose up to his knees.

  “You can’t catch your breath?” Khal asked, knowing he was right and not needing to wait for an answer. “Then I guess this isn’t going to help.”

  That was all the warning Khal gave Ryder before he buried a fist into the other man’s gut, sending him back down to the ground. He stood there dispassionately, watching as Ryder rolled through the dirt once again. Only this time he was groaning and moaning. That made Khal smile.

  “Nobody laughs at me, fucker.”

  Nobody except Ryder, apparently, because that bastard was still grinning. He swallowed down a gulp of air and finally came to a rest as he shook his head at Khal.

  “She told you to get, and you got. I’m sorry, man, but that was funny.”

  “Like you’re any different?” Khal shot back. “I told you to get, and you got!”

  Ryder stilled, his smile quivering with a hint of laughter. “Yeah, that was a kind of hot, man. Are there any other orders you want to give?”

  There was no mistaking the obnoxious curl of Ryder’s smirk or the fact that he was all but taunting Khal to take another swing. He might just have given into that urge if it hadn’t hit him that Ryder was setting him up. They were arguing while Cookie was making her getaway.

  Khal’s ears perked up, as did Ryder’s, as they both turned toward the sound of a motorcycle rumbling to life. Cookie was on the run, and their fun had only just begun.

  Chapter 5

  Cookie didn’t feel safe until she was tucked beneath the cheap sheets of the cabin she’d rented for the night. It didn’t matter if the room smelled or if everything, down to towels, was worn thin. The door had an electronic lock and a deadbolt. Nobody was getting in without her knowing about it, especially not now that she’d added her own quickly built alarm using her motorcycle’s horn.

  Only once Cookie was certain that she was safe for the moment did she allow herself to consider the events that had led her to this moment, and she could come to only one conclusion. She was being stalked. Something was after her. She could just sense it, but then she was prone to paranoia.

  Then again, most criminals were, or so Cookie reasoned.

  Maybe it was time to get out of the game. Doing good might be good, but she did have more aspirations in life than to simply rob incompetent government agencies. Cookie wasn’t sure what those aspirations were. She just knew she didn’t want to be running like this when she was old. She needed a retirement plan.

  That thought calmed her in a strange way. Making plans, setting goals, and creating steps to achieve them made Cookie feel somehow in control of her future and present. It calmed her enough to turn her thoughts to the two tattooed men and the wolf or dog that she’d now run across twice. There was no doubt in her mind that they were all linked together, and that the wolf and dog were the same beast.

  Cookie had a photographic memory, an odd gift that helped her overcome many obstacles in her life. Now it served to leave her more unnerved then assured as she recalled the same dark mask of fur that had covered both the wolf and dog’s face. It was a detail that was impossible not to notice, given both beasts had the same hypnotic gaze. The same gaze as the man from the tunnel.

  That observation led her to a ludicrous conclusion that only served to prove that she had lost it. Men did not turn into wolves, her rational side insisted. Her romantic side asked, where else could her mystery lover have come from?

  The door had been locked, the windows closed, and she would have heard anybody trying to enter.

  And what was with the wolf? And the second man?

  He had gray eyes. Stormy, sultry gray. The kind of eyes a person could lose themselves in. Cookie hadn’t allowed herself to get lost earlier. The adrenaline pumping through her system at the time had inoculated her, but here in the room was different. The sense of security had calmed her nerves enough to allow Cookie to examine her memories without the hint of fear.

  What she remembered heated her blood. The man had been drop-dead gorgeous. He was big and strong. The tattoos twining around his body had been just as graceful and…they’d shifted.

  No.

  Cookie shook her head, denying that thought, even as her memory painted a clear picture of the tattoos actually snaking around him even as he stood still. That hadn’t been a hallucination, but it made as little sense as the thought that the man could shift into the shadows.

  Something deep inside Cookie warned her that it wasn’t. That, though, was probably the paranoia. It kept her awake later than it should have and had her clicking on the light time and time again as she all but sensed something shifting in the shadows. There was never anything there, and eventually exhaustion won out.

  Cookie crashed straight into a dream as hot and wet as the dip in the lake had been. It didn’t just feature one of the tattooed men. It featured both.

  * * * *

  Khal lingered in the deepest pockets of the shadows, waiting for Cookie to finally fall asleep. She was cautious and nervous, acting like itchy prey and stirring the predator within him. It took all his control not to simply emerge and claim her before her rational mind had a chance to reject him. Khal didn’t have any doubt that she’d crumble to the same lust burning within him.

  He could already smell it on her. As her breathing dipped and evened, Khal could guess at the fantasies beginning to flood her dreams. That was Ryder’s bite at work. Not only would repeated biting help strengthen Cookie’s immune system and slow down her aging process, it would also awaken the memories and the need that would bind them for the rest of their lives. Khal couldn’t wait to sink his fangs into her. Just the idea had him hard, and he wasn’t alone in his need.

  Cookie was growing hot, wet, and restless beneath her sheets. The scent of her need fueled Khal’s, and it took every bit of his self-control to go slowly. Skittish as his prey was, he knew that any false move could ruin his chance, which just made Ryder’s presence all the more irritating. He sensed the other man drift beneath the door and ride the shadows into the far corner. There was nothing Khal could do about it, not without risking waking Cookie.

  He wasn’t about to disturb his dessert. Not when it smelled so sweet and creamy. Hypnotized by the scent, he snagged the sheet covering Cookie in a fist and pulled it slowly back, revealing her curves in a slow, tantalizing move that had the scent of Ryder’s desire thickening along with Khal’s own.

  He was hard and aching, his eyes glued to the sight of the plump, naked folds of Cookie’s cunt revealed by the nightshirt that had ridden up to her hips. Her legs were spread, the pink folds of her pussy parted to reveal the swollen bud of her clit and the shadowed entrance to her cunt. Khal ached to fill that shadow, to taste the liquid proof of her need.

  It was a desperate hunger he couldn’t resist.

  Gliding through the shadows and over the sweet curves of Cookie’s legs, Khal allowed himself to take form with tongue already buried in Cookie’s tight sheath. Her muscles constricted around him as she moaned and twisted with another delicious wave of cream. Just the taste had him crazed for more.

  Without thought he began to devour her cunt. Fucking her with long, deep strokes of his tongue even as he retreated to lap at her clit, Khal drove Cookie’s panted whimpers straight into shrieks of pleasure as he drove her straight into a climax that had her whole body stiffening. She arched up like a bow as her eyes popped open, and she began gasping out a mantra that would have made Khal smile if his balls hadn’t been burning.

  “Oh, god… Not a dream… Not a dream… No
t a dream…” Cookie kept babbling that out. If she had anything else to say, she didn’t get a chance to form the words before Khal stole her ability to even speak.

  Rearing up on his knees, he clasped Cookie’s hips in an iron grip. Lining up the swollen and throbbing head of his cock with the moist, spasming entrance to her cunt, Khal jerked her down his full length. Then it was his turn to gasp and go weak as pure, molten rapture tore through him, leaving him both without the strength to hold himself up and the power to begin pounding his hips back and forth.

  Slumping over to catch himself on the headboard with one hand, Khal held on to Cookie with the other, making sure she didn’t escape his wild loving as he gave into the feral desires roaring through him. Not that she appeared to be trying to do anything but fuck him back with the same desperation that drove Khal.

  Searing whips of pleasure bolted through him with every thrust, growing in intensity as Cookie’s cunt tightened around him, futilely attempting to hold on to him as he drew back. Her molten walls shuddered around him, rippling over the sensitive length of his cock. Those tickles of delight rolled down to fill his already tight balls, and had him clenching as he fought back his own release, wanting Cookie to come first.

  The challenge was made all the harder by knowing that Ryder was watching. Watching and lusting. The heated musk of the other man’s arousal thickened in the sweaty air, fueling the raging hungers tearing through Khal. He liked the idea of the other man watching while he screwed their woman right into wall because that was what the bed was banging against as his thrusts came all the harder and faster.

  Cookie was pleading to be finished off, but Khal wanted more. Sliding a hand around her hip to dip his fingers in the thick, creamy proof of her desire, he pulled back to use her own arousal to lube the tight entrance of her ass. The deep, intimate caress earned him a moan that assured him she wanted to be ridden like that almost as bad as he wanted to give it to her, but it was the feel of her muscles clenching down and sucking him deep that broke the last threads of his control.

  Without thought, Khal whipped free of her cunt and slammed straight into her ass, fucking a scream right out of Cookie as her hands began to claw at the sheets. A distant part of him warned Khal he was pushing her too hard, too fast, but he’d waited over three hundred years for this moment and didn’t have a bit of restraint left in him.

  Besides, Cookie wasn’t begging him to stop. She was pleading for more. It was too much. The needs, the desire, the wickedly wonderful pleasure of pounding into her tight ass snapped the last thread on the leash holding him back, and he gave into the violent eruption of desire that had both him and Cookie coming together in thriving frenzy.

  It was in the midst of that when Khal sank his teeth into her and began the mating rites.

  * * * *

  Cookie felt the weight of the man above her. He was still hard and thick, buried deep inside her. Their bodies were slick with sweat and stuck together in proof that this was no dream. If she had any sense, she’d stay right there because this moment was perfection. The orgasm her lover had ridden her to made almost every other one pale in comparison.

  Almost every other one.

  There was one man who could compete. One man who had snuck into her bed once before. Perhaps they were the same man. Perhaps she didn’t want to have him sneaking around anymore. It was as that thought hit that she felt the man above her tense. Cookie knew then that he’d read her thoughts or telegraphed them in some way. All she knew was the second she lunged for the lamp he disappeared, snapping out of existence as she clicked on the light.

  The room was empty, but the sticky feel of semen between her legs and the throbbing ache of the bite on her neck assured Cookie she wasn’t delusional. What she was was exposed. Shoving her nightgown down, Cookie scrambled off the bed to search the room from top to bottom.

  All she found were shadows. Finally she came to stand before the deepest of them. Tucked into the corner, this patch was darker than the rest, and Cookie could sense something hidden within it. Though she felt crazy for it, she couldn’t help but speak up.

  “I know you’re there.” Cookie hesitated but got no response. Taking a step back, she gestured to the carpet before her. “Come out…I won’t bite.”

  A rumble that sounded suspiciously like laughter rolled out from behind the curtains, and Cookie quickly swung around, only to find the room still empty. Or, at least, it appeared to be, but she knew differently and approached the curtains cautiously as she continued to pelt the shadows with questions.

  “Why do you hide? What are you hiding from? Me? Because I know you’re there. Or can’t you come into the light?”

  “That artificial bulb is not light.”

  Once again, Cookie found herself spinning around to confront that softly assured response. Her eyes rounded as her mind went blank at the sight of the man emerging from the corner she had just been standing before. He was big. Really big. Covered in tattoos. She recognized him instantly.

  “You!”

  The man didn’t respond to that. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he just stood there staring at her with those bewitching gray eyes. They held intelligence and patience and a determination that had Cookie’s stomach quivering as her breath broke over her words.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come for you,” he said simply.

  “You’re following me?” That thought probably should have sparked more fear or outrage, but Cookie was still stuck on shock as she watched his tattoos shift right before her eyes.

  They are moving.

  “I will follow you wherever you go.”

  Cookie blinked, unable to believe her eyes as the thick cut of his thighs and the hard shaft of his cock faded into the darkness as the tattoos covering his legs thickened into a pair of pants that cut into the dim light. The tattoos twisted over his chest to make a shirt that left no doubt of the power hidden beneath. Suddenly he stood clothed before her, as real as anything else in the room.

  “What are you?” That question fell from her lips, even as she found herself amazed at having to ask such a thing. It was no less surprising than his answer.

  “Yours.”

  Cookie shook her head in confusion. Not certain at all of what to say or do. “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” he vowed, his eyes dropping to the bite on her neck. “The mating ritual has started.” He lifted his gaze to pin her with a pointed look. “The flaunting has yet to begin.”

  “Flaunting?” That sounded faintly dirty, or maybe it was the way he said it.

  Cookie shifted farther away from him, both alarmed and aroused by the glimmer of wanton promise darkening his eyes. The answer was yes, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he just smiled and faded back into the shadows.

  “Wait!” Cookie found herself rushing forward without thought as she tried to pull him back. Her hands grasped at nothing but air. Then the light snapped off.

  Cookie swung back around with a squeal as she felt the darkness envelope her like a caress. It was one that took physical form as two sets of rough, callused hands stroked over her, bringing a moan to her lips. She knew she should resist but didn’t have the strength to deny the warm flood of desire that reignited her senses.

  Her skin felt ultra-sensitive, shivering with awareness as their hands slid down over her body, and Cookie melted back into the strong embrace of the man pressing in behind her. The long, meaty length of his cock brushed up against her ass before sliding between her legs. Slowly he began to rock back and forth, teasing the swollen lips of her pussy as he pressed upward to part her lips and bathe himself in the heated wash of her arousal.

  Cookie moaned and twisted, matching his movements and feeding the thrills of delight that began to tingle out of her cunt. They collided with the vibrant, throbbing pleasure echoing out of her breasts as his hands settled over them. His broad, hard palms began to rub down in a circular motion that had the sensitive peaks of her nipples
pressing into her nightshirt.

  A nightshirt that was being lifted by the second set of hands running up her legs to expose her cunt to more than just the taunting glide of a cock pressed in behind her. Two thumbs parted the lips of her pussy wide open, leaving her clit completely exposed to the tongue that licked out to lap at her swollen bud and make her squeal. Cookie wasn’t the only one he licked. Nor was she alone in the sudden shock of pleasure that tore through her.

  “Shit!” The man behind her snarled, his grip tightening over her breasts as he jerked back. “That was uncalled for, you son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah?” The other man breath brushed over her pussy. “Then stay out of my way.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “That’s exactly what I was planning on doing,” the other man assured them both with a wicked laugh.

  Then he was devouring her cunt, fucking that long, thick tongue of his up deep into her sheath until he brushed against the sweet spot that almost had her coming right there and then, but he only teased her. Pulling back to lap at her clit with quick strokes, he drove her absolutely insane. Cookie writhed between the two men, grinding her ass against the thick dick pressed against her cheek as the craving to be ridden hard and fast filled her again.

  That had been thrilling.

  It had been a first, and now she craved more. Cookie knew she wasn’t alone. With a roar and another muttered obscenity, the man behind her jerked her free of her other lover’s kiss and all but shoved her over the edge of the bed. It all happened so quickly she didn’t even have a chance to take a breath before he was pounding into her.

  Hard and fast, he pumped his thick dick deep, making Cookie shriek and claw at the bed as white-hot bolts of rapture began exploding through her body. Her cries, though, came to an end as a fist twined into her hair, pulling her head back to allow the second man to brush the swollen and sticky head of his cock up against her lips.