by Becca Van
Tammy bucked and writhed when Phelan grasped her other ankle, but all she managed to do was tire herself out until she was gasping for air, but she wasn’t giving up. They’d hurt her and she didn’t want to give them the time of day, let alone mate with them.
Now you’re lying to yourself. You want them so bad you’re shaking with need. No, I’m not. The fighting has affected my muscles. Tammy snorted a laugh when she realized she was having a conversation with herself. Just maybe, she’d finally lost the plot. These two men were enough to drive a saint insane.
“Geezus, Tammy, stop fighting us. We aren’t going to hurt you.” The bed dipped as Hopper sat on the mattress and then she was pinned down. Hopper had managed to manacle her wrists with his hands up above her head and Phelan was still holding her ankles in a firm, yet gentle grip.
“Holy fuck,” Phelan said in a growly voice. “What the fuck have you been doing to yourself?”
Tammy gasped in a breath as she stopped struggling, lifted her head and glanced at Phelan. In the ensuing tussle, her shirt had ridden up to expose her belly. The hem of the shirt stopped just beneath her breasts, leaving her stomach and torso bare.
Phelan lifted his gaze to hers. “When was the last fucking time you ate?”
“About an hour ago.”
“What did you have?” Hopper asked.
“None of your fucking business.” Her words seemed to snap something inside of Phelan. He released her ankles but before she could move, his body was covering hers. She inhaled through her mouth not wanting to smell his delectable spicy pheromones, and closed her eyes trying to block him out. Her insides began to quake and the heat which had diminished slightly as she tried to fight him off, roared back to life with a vengeance.
Her insides felt like a bowl full of jelly someone was shaking, and that shaking began to move out to the extremities of her limbs like a quake ripples out from the epicenter. Tammy held her breath and tried to control the quivers that wracked her body. Her pussy was so wet her panties were soaked. Her internal muscles kept clenching on emptiness and her womb was aching. Her breasts were swollen and throbbing and so was her clit. Her lungs were burning from lack of oxygen but she’d rather pass out than inhale their aromas.
They’d hurt her and betrayed her trust. She wasn’t sure she’d ever have faith in them again. She was scared that they’d let her down over and over. Tammy wasn’t naïve and knew that she, Phelan, and Hopper were going to end up mated sooner rather than later, but that didn’t mean she was going to trust them. Just because her body demanded to be appeased didn’t mean she had to open her heart up and allow them to rip it out again.
She’d had a lot of practice shielding her heart against emotions and hoped that she could continue to do so after they were mated. She wasn’t going to let them fuck her, claim her, and pretend to be happy.
Phelan and Hopper were going to have to work for her heart and soul. She just hoped she could be as blasé as she hoped she thought she could. Her body was a traitorous bitch and not really her own, but her mind and emotions were. She knew it was only a matter of time before the mating heat became too intense to ignore, and she couldn’t condemn her mates to live the life of a wild animal, or to death. She wasn’t that selfish.
Tammy opened her eyes as the silence continued. The moment she locked gazes with Phelan, she knew she’d made a mistake, and though she wanted to close her eyes again, she couldn’t. There was so much hunger in those light blue, glowing eyes, but there was also another emotion in the depths she couldn’t discern.
All thought fled when Phelan lowered his head toward hers. She gasped when he pressed his forehead against hers and shivered when he spoke in a low tone. “That’s better. Don’t hold your breath again, baby. Your face was starting to turn red.”
Each time he spoke his sweet breath mingled with hers and she began to salivate as if she could already taste him on her tongue. She whimpered when he shifted above her and moaned softly when the hard ridge of his cock pressed against her denim-clad pussy. Her clit throbbed and her internal muscles clenched with pleasure, causing her to groan. She’d just had a mini orgasm. She wasn’t sure she’d survive the real deal.
Her body was hypersensitive, but so were her senses. She felt every inhale and exhale Phelan made. Each time his chest expanded as he inhaled, her nipples tingled, throbbed, and hardened until she was sure she’d be able to cut glass with them. She was sure she could feel Phelan’s cock throbbing along with her engorged clit, but it wasn’t enough. None of it was enough.
Tammy wouldn’t be satisfied until her mates were buried deep inside her pussy one after the other and they’d staked their claim by biting her.
However, she wasn’t sure that would be enough either.
Chapter Three
Tammy squirmed beneath Phelan and closed her eyes hoping to block out his handsome face and the way his large, warm body was pressed against hers, but it just wasn’t possible.
How the hell was she going to keep her wits about her when all she wanted to do was press her mouth against his and open her legs so she could get some relief? She shook her head trying to dispel the image of her naked with Phelan’s big, bare body heating her own as he made love to her.
“Look at me, Tammy,” Phelan demanded.
“No,” she replied breathily, and though she tried to keep her eyes closed, she found herself obeying his command seconds later.
“I’m sorry.”
Tammy frowned and shook her head again, not sure she’d heard right. “What?”
“I said I’m sorry,” Phelan repeated.
“I’m sorry, too, short stuff.” Hopper squeezed her wrists just before he released them.
Phelan braced his weight on his hands and groaned as he pushed up higher before rolling off her and onto his back. He slung his arm over his eyes and that was the moment she noticed he was panting. Her gaze wandered down his big, muscular body and she bit her lip to keep herself from moaning when she saw the long, thick ridge under his denim jeans. She followed his length and then gasped when she realized that the tip of his cock stopped just short of being indecent. The waistband of his jeans gaped where the crown of his dick was. If he’d had a belt on, she suspected he would have been in a world of pain. When Tammy remembered she was no longer being restrained, she sat up using her strong abdominal muscles and stood. She took a step toward the door, but stopped when Phelan and Hopper spoke at the same time.
“Please, Tammy, don’t go,” Hopper said.
“We haven’t finished talking to you.” Phelan sat up.
Tammy had been watching them over her shoulder as she reached for the door handle. She sighed and rested her forehead on the door, and then turned to face them, leaning her weight on the wood as she crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“Phelan and I wanted to claim you, but your dads and Tarik asked us to wait. We were pissed, but after that, they sat down and explained to us their reasoning. We agreed.”
“You’re lying.”
Phelan stood and began to pace. “No, we aren’t. We’ve wanted you for a long time, but we had to keep our distance. You have no fucking idea how hard it was for us to try and ignore you, especially since you liked to follow us everywhere.”
“It didn’t look hard from where I was standing,” Tammy said angrily. “You used to play and laugh with me all the time. How do you think I felt when all of a sudden, you didn’t want any part of me? I didn’t want to go off to college. I’d built you two up in my imagination. God, I was so fucking naïve. I waited and waited, but you hardly ever spoke to me, let alone touched me. What was I supposed to think? I thought you’d protest when I announced I’d applied to go to college in Seattle. You just sat at the table in my mom’s and the dads’ dining room with blank looks on your faces and no protest in sight. I thought you’d be livid at the thought of me being around other men, living away from home, but you didn’t care. Well, screw you. I don’t care anymore either.”
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��You think we didn’t care?” Phelan roared his question. “You think we didn’t want to grab you, carry you to our place, and lock the door against everyone? I’m older than you are. I’ve had more experience living than you ever will. And I’m not talking about the opposite sex. Your dads were right, Tammy. You needed time to experience a little of what life had to offer. You needed time to find yourself and mature.”
“Phelan’s right,” Hodge said. “You’re younger than I am, younger than Phelan. We’ve lived longer, seen more than you ever could. We know what happens out in the real world. We’ve left the island a few times over the years, as you well know. We’d experienced what life can be like away from our insulated, isolated home. You hadn’t. You had no idea what was beyond the shores of this small piece of land, Tammy. You needed to see what life had to offer other than what you’d already seen. We also kept our distance because we were worried about hurting you.”
“We also would have incited the mating heat. Our animals would have taken over and we wouldn’t be here right now,” Phelan said.
Tammy hadn’t known any of that, but she was still pissed. If they had sat down and talked to her, at least she would have understood why they stopped touching her and begun to ignore her. She was mad as hell at her dads and brother and would give them a piece of her mind later, but she still wasn’t sure what she was going to do about Phelan and Hopper. She believed what they’d just told her, but she’d also been back home for nearly six months and neither of them had made a move to court her at all.
She knew she’d changed since going to college, but maybe they didn’t see the changes were for the better. She’d learned to be independent, and though she’d always hated being told what to do, even when she’d been younger, she’d always done the right thing. She wasn’t a pushover and never had been, but she felt betrayed on all sides. Had her mom had a hand in what her dads, her brother, and her mates had decided was better for her? Why hadn’t any of them talked things out with her and asked for her input? Did they think that she was brainless and couldn’t think or make decisions for herself? Tammy was stubborn and once she made up her mind, she rarely backed down, and she wasn’t about to start now.
In fact, she wasn’t sure what she wanted right now. Ever since she’d gone away to college and come back home, she felt as if she didn’t fit in anymore. She felt as if she was on the outside looking in and wasn’t sure she’d ever be happy again.
She was also spiteful when she was pissed and right now she was pissed. All she wanted to do was find somewhere to be alone and lick her wounds. Phelan and Hopper had never even bothered to ask her what she’d studied at college. They might know from the other members of her family that she’d majored in the arts, but she wasn’t about to ask. Did they even know that her brother and dads had set up the spare room as an art studio for her? She doubted it.
She was damn proud of what she’d accomplished but she’d kept her achievements to herself. Only her mom, dads, and Celeste knew she’d been invited to a showing in Chicago. She hadn’t even told Tarik about the invitation she’d received from the Chicago Institute of Art, nor had she told any of her family what name she signed her paintings with. Of course, a mother always knew what her kids were up to, and since she knew her mom never kept any secrets from her dads, they would know her pseudonym. Celeste had worked it out for herself when she’d visited Tammy in Seattle just before she’d finished college. Her best friend had taken one look at the incomplete painting and met her gaze before saying in an awestruck tone, “You’re Stealthy.”
Tammy had nodded and before she’d been able to blink, Celeste had wrapped her up in a hug, laughing and dancing around her small dorm room. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Why not?” Celeste had asked after releasing Tammy.
“I’ve seen what you’ve had to and are still dealing with because of fame. I don’t want to be hounded by the press or end up attracting the wrong sort of attention. I like living quietly and wish for anonymity.”
“Okay, but you won’t be able to keep who you are a secret forever,” Celeste had replied.
“I know, but until the cat gets out of the bag, please don’t tell anyone.”
Celeste had sighed and nodded her agreement. “I won’t.”
“Thank you.”
Tammy blinked as she came back to the present. Her mind had come full circle.
In fact, she doubted that Phelan and Hopper truly wanted her as a mate. If it wasn’t for the pheromones and the mating heat, Tammy had a feeling they would never have looked at her once, let alone twice.
She’d seen some of the other women in town eying her mates and some of them had been married. She’d caught them ogling pretty women a time or two, but hadn’t been jealous at the time. Her mom had always said to Tammy’s dads when they caught her mom admiring a member of the opposite sex that she’d have to be dead or asexual to keep her eyes off. However, she’d also reassured her dads that she belonged to them as they belonged to her, and she wasn’t interested in anyone but her mates.
Tammy had begun to think there was something wrong with her because she hadn’t even found good-looking men handsome enough to ogle. She’d never cared for anyone but Phelan and Hopper and suspected she never would.
“Why couldn’t you have explained any of this to me? I would have understood.”
“Would you?” Phelan asked.
Tammy’s blood boiled. “I’m not fucking stupid.”
“We know that, Tams,” Hopper said.
“Then why?” Tammy shouted. “Why keep me in the dark and make me think you didn’t want me? Why haven’t you talked to me since I’ve been back home? Why the hell have you done a one-eighty? Why?”
Phelan sighed and Hopper scrubbed a hand down his face.
When the silence continued without a response, Tammy was done. She felt behind her for the lock, pressed her thumb over it without disengaging it, and grabbed the door handle at the same time. She needed to be fast or she wouldn’t be able to get away from them, and right now she needed to before she burst into tears. She waited with bated breath and the second they turned to pace away from her was the moment Tammy moved. She spun, unlocked the door and pulled on the handle at the same time, and raced away. She heard Phelan shout, “Stop,” but kept right on going. There was only one place in the whole of Savoonga that Phelan and Hopper couldn’t follow. One place where she could be totally alone to think without someone shoving their opinion down her throat. One place that no one knew about but her and her mom. At least she didn’t think anyone else knew about it. The cave that was near the shoreline to the north of the airport.
The trick would be getting there without being caught, but also without them being able to follow her scent. How she was going to cover that, she had no idea.
Tammy was out the door and running across the path when she heard heavy, pounding footsteps behind her. The urge to look back was strong but she knew if she did, it would slow her down, and if she wasn’t watching where she was going, she could end up tripping and it would be game over.
She screamed when a hard, muscular arm snagged around her waist and she was lifted from her feet. She flailed her arms and legs, but within the next heartbeat, she was slung over a firm, broad shoulder. She didn’t need to be a genius to know that Hopper had caught her. His earthy, citrusy scent assaulted her olfactory senses making her mouth water for a taste.
Tammy pummeled his back with her fists and kicked her legs, but he just clamped the arm around her thighs down on her tighter. She gripped his shirt and tugged, but when that had no effect, she placed her hands flat on his back and walked her way up on her hands. She tilted her head to get the hair out of her face and immediately wished she hadn’t. Phelan was walking right behind her and Hopper, and he was frowning at her.
“Put me down, Hopper.”
She huffed out a frustrated sigh when he just kept walking without responding. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home,” Phela
n answered.
She glanced about with confusion. They weren’t heading back to mom’s and dads’ place. They were heading in the opposite direction. It took her a moment to realize Phelan had meant their home.
Tammy knew it was no use struggling because she wasn’t strong enough to get away. She’d just end up exhausting herself even more and her muscles were still aching after their last tussle. She flopped down with a sigh of resignation and hoped she was strong enough to keep her lust under control.
If they so much as kissed her, Tammy knew it would be game over.
She wasn’t quite sure if she would be the winner or loser.
* * * *
Hopper loved having Tammy in his arms, and even though he was battling his sexual urges and his sabear, the torture was worth it. He’d never been a masochist or a glutton for punishment, but with Tammy’s scent, the perfume of her desire assailing his senses as well as having her warm, petite body against his, was heavenly agony.
He’d thought he and Phelan were getting through to her as they’d explained why they’d kept their distance from her for so long, but knew they still had a long way to go when she’d asked why they’d continued keeping their distance when she’d come back home after getting her degree. The only thing he’d been able to think to say was because it had become a habit, but that wasn’t the reason at all.
She was so fucking tiny compared to him and Phelan, and she’d lost fucking weight. He’d been horrified when he’d seen how prominent her ribs and hip bones were when her shirt had ridden up. She didn’t look anorexic, but if she didn’t eat a decent meal or ten soon, she would. He and Phelan were her mates and were supposed to look after her. They’d done a piss poor job of that so far, but that was about to change. He was carrying her back to their place and after she’d eaten a good meal, they were going to talk again.