by Dianna Hardy
“It's not about the condoms.”
“Oh.”
“I can't believe you bought ten packs. What is that – 120 condoms?”
“They were buy one, get one free.”
“So I heard.”
“Between the three of you, I have sex at least twice a day. That's, like, fifty-plus times already. It's a good job I'm flexible, and I can't believe I'm saying these things. I've always craved sex, so in one respect it's no big deal, and it's kinda nice to know why I always have – 'cause of the lovely, not-at-all hindering breeding gene – but on another level, it feels like everything's just sex, sex, sex.”
His arm tightened around her and his tone dropped. “You talking about sex is getting me hard.”
She threw him a stare. “See what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do.” And he didn't look in the least bit like it bothered him.
“And the worst bit of all is, I'm getting horny talking about it. I'm horny all the fucking time.”
He pushed her with his arm until she was lying back across the footstool they were sitting on, her head resting on the top of it, and her knees bent off the end with her feet planted on the ground. Ryan's chest was a welcome weight on hers, and the rest of him firmly nestled between her legs. “Are you sure that's the worst bit?”
“See?” she repeated, this time on a moan. “This is why ten packs.”
“Sweetheart…”
“Mmmm?”
“I think you should tell Lawrence about your nightmares.”
She froze beneath him, although he didn't let her freeze too much with his stroking of the side of her left breast, through her dress, igniting fire all the way down her torso. “You know about those?”
“You talk in your sleep – sometimes, the words are strangled screams. Incoherent mostly, but I've heard enough to get the gist.”
“I thought you were sleeping. I didn't want to wake you just because I have an active imagination.”
“I don't sleep through everything, you know – not when you're in pain.”
She feathered his cheek with her fingers. Such a familiar action she'd carried out a thousand times in her mind since she was fifteen, and the last ten years of hot-Ryan dreams flooded her memories. Dear god, she loved him so much.
“Please tell him.”
“They're not just nightmares – they're his memories. I relive them.”
“All the more reason to confide in him. You and he need to start communicating.”
“You take such good care of us all, Ryan. And you've always taken good care of me.” I love you, I love you… “I haven't told him because I don't want to cause him worry when he's got so much else on his mind.”
“He's always worried about something. He's a fucking drama queen.”
She unsuccessfully tried to hold back a laugh.
“There's no good time, so just tell him.”
“Okay.”
He smiled. “Good girl – now…” his voice dropped low, a hint of menace to it, “did any of them touch you?”
“What?”
“The policemen,” he growled out. “Did any of them touch you?”
“No. Mr Garrison was here.”
“Did he touch you?”
Whoa.
“No. Oh, god…” He sucked her left breast through her summer dress, hard, circling her already erect nipple with his tongue.
“I can smell them in this room – their body odours waft around you. It's annoying me. One of them found you attractive, I can tell. There's a hint of human male pheromones in the air.”
She gasped as he treated her right breast to the same glorious sensations, the ache between her legs already spreading up to her abdomen. “I didn't even notice.”
“Good. It's us you belong to. You're ours.”
She met his gaze, surprised at his declaration. He'd never referred to the four of them as a unity before, and it turned her on like nothing else. She grabbed at his hair, writhing against him as both his thumbs squeezed her nipples relentlessly. She bit her lip to keep from climaxing. Shit – he hadn't even touched her anywhere else.
“Say that again,” she pleaded.
He smiled, knowing exactly what she meant. “You're ours.”
A wave of euphoria washed over her, taking her out of her body, and then both of them were sparking with electricity, tendrils of lightning dancing all over their skin.
Ryan groaned in pleasure, and squeezed her harder. “Do you have any idea how totally insane that lightning feels when you wrap us in it?”
She cried out in heated bliss when he pushed the front of his jeans, straining with the bulge of his cock, against her centre.
“Come like this,” he demanded, hoarsely, adding his thumbnails into the methodical torture of her nipples. “Come for us.”
Her teeth cut her lip where they'd elongated against it, and she shrieked as a furious orgasm crashed over her.
Not letting her come down from it, he hauled her legs up at the knees, until she was splayed, dress up around her waist; then made her hiss when he ripped her knickers off her.
He moaned long and low. “It's you I can smell now. That's so much fucking better.” And then he was stroking her slippery clit with his thumb; building her up again, but it was almost unbearable on the tail of her previous crescendo and she pushed against his hands to close her legs against the beautiful torment.
He denied her body's request, forcefully holding her open, pressing just a touch more firmly…
“No!” An automatic response that wasn't a 'no' of dissent, but of the sheer, unstoppable power of her agonising pleasure. She hoped he got it, 'cause if he did stop, she'd probably go psycho on him.
He didn't stop, but with arms keeping her thighs wide apart, added his fingers to her decimation by sliding them inside her.
“Ryan!”
“That's it, sweetheart. Fill the room with your scent.”
Sinful tongue! Oh, the things he said to her had always rendered her useless under their intensity.
He pulled his fingers out of her, slick with her juice, and glided them downward until he was pressing on her back entrance.
Desire like no other coursed through her.
“Relax…” And the minute she did, he invaded her tight passage, his entrance surprisingly easy considering his finger, alone, felt enormous inside her.
“Fuck!” She cried.
He twisted his digit in her once, and her entire body bucked in response.
“Ssssshh…” He stilled. “Not yet.”
“Ryan, please!”
“Not yet,” he repeated. His thumb resumed its stroking of her clitoris, and she was seriously going to start sobbing soon.
“Ryan…”
“You haven't a clue how bloody gorgeous you look. You're glistening, Lydia. Lips, soaked and quivering. It's taking every ounce of strength I have not to taste you; to dip my tongue inside you and lap at all that silky cream…”
He pushed his finger deeper into her; her tender, muscled flesh clutching him to her. He pulled back out slightly – one of those sobs at the sheer deepness of everything she felt escaping her – and then he began to thrust inside her, his thumb speeding up to match the rhythm he set.
“I want to drink you down, but I want to see you come more. I want to see you squirt.”
Jesus Christ!
“I want anyone who walks into this room to smell exactly who you belong to…”
Jeeeeesus Christ!
“Us.”
If she'd thought for one minute that her second climax couldn't be as strong as the first, she was proven wrong. Good job she hadn't placed any bets.
On the edge of her orgasm, he pulled out of her sharply, and it rocketed her onto the crest of her frenzy before she could register it was happening. All thought disappeared. There was only sensation – sharp, focused, clear and catastrophically euphoric.
She was only mildly aware of lightning flashing from her; ricocheting along her body
, or so it seemed, and lighting up the room.
She dreamily heard Ryan's low growl, turn into a moan, and then a groan, and then he was gripping her thighs tightly with both hands as he came right there where he knelt.
Ten seconds of panting as they both tried to catch their breath, and then he was pulling her up; swooping her into his arms as he captured her lips in an all-consuming, yet tender kiss made up of everything he never said.
She smiled into his mouth. “That was … wow.”
“It's always wow. You're wow. I'll never get enough of you, Lydia. Not after ten years in dreams; not after forever in real life.”
She soaked in his words with delirious joy and a full-to-bursting heart. This was the absolute most of his emotions – everything she had ever felt from him in their dreams – that he'd shown her for the past four weeks. And it was pretty damn close to what she needed to hear.
Make the first move – sometimes you have to. Tell him you love him.
Her hand found his face; so ruggedly handsome with its two faint scars, dark brown hair and liquid-brown eyes. “Ryan, I … erm … I—”
He stopped her words with another kiss. “Me first. I wanted to speak with you alone, and not just about your nightmares … there's something else I need to say…”
Oh, god, this is it! But it wasn't joy that burst her heart on his next words – it was a lancing pain.
“I'll be out of reach for a bit. I have to go to Wiltshire, and I'm leaving in fifteen minutes.”
Chapter Eight
It shouldn't matter. It was just a few hours. But not having Ryan around, today of all days, pressed her panic button. It was her first full moon, and the pack was wary of her. She really needed him here – why did it have to be now he left? Why not tomorrow?
She'd spent less time with Ryan – the heart-to-heart kind of time, not the sex time – than she would have liked since moving here, but more than either Taylor or Lawrence, Ryan was her rock. He was certainty and solidity, and at a time when she needed those things the most, she felt it all being ripped from under her feet.
That, and the crushing disappointment that she didn't feel like she could admit the true extent of her feelings to her mates, was enough to make her feel more than unsteady.
Damn it, she'd known it would be like this: the need to be around her mates all the time, and the feelings of pain and anxiety when she wasn't. Her friends would have scoffed at it and called it being 'under the thumb' – it was the reason she'd never done relationships. Suffocation rose within her at the inconsolable difference between her human half and her wolf half.
There was also the inexplicable sense of unease that had begun since she'd scented Selena in the house with Taylor this morning. That feeling of apprehension hadn't worn off, and she was certain it wasn't just down to her wolf's possessiveness. The calm before the storm was probably an accurate way to describe it – it was exactly how she felt – but she couldn't say it out loud without sounding like some kind of jealous freak. Lawrence had already put it down to her first full moon, which was logical, and she didn't blame him his reasoning, but … no. There was something else…
She reached her bedroom to find Taylor standing outside her door smelling … god almighty – her stomach somersaulted – smelling like Ryan all over! And earth.
Ryan, Taylor and earth, combined.
Steaming hot, man-on-man action – in mud, and leaves and stuff – corrupted her mind, just as it had earlier.
He smiled. “Hey, you.”
Shake those thoughts right out! “Hey.”
“How are you doing?”
“I feel like I've got cabin fever. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd give anything to be waiting tables right now – anything to get me out of this house.”
“It's too risky, you know that. After tonight, everything's going to be so much easier.”
Why didn't she believe him?
“Did Ryan tell you … what he needed to?”
“That he's leaving? Yeah.”
“He'll be okay.”
“You know, everyone keeps saying that everything's going to be okay, and it kind of just makes me feel like it's not,” she said, not really meaning to snap at him, but managing to anyway.
“Sorry.”
She sighed. “No, I'm sorry.”
“Come here…”
She fell into his open arms and sank into his chest with a little sound of appreciation.
“Ryan's sworn he'll be back for your change. I'll stay with you until he returns … if you want me to that is.”
She smiled. “I'd love you to.”
“Also, I'm happy to wear condoms.”
Her smile turned into a grin. “Are you teasing me, Mr Harper?”
“No. I mean it … and yeah, maybe a little.”
She laughed. “They seemed like a good purchase at the time.”
“Yes, those buy one, get one free offers are gold.”
She gave him a slap on the arm. “Hey! Am I never going to hear the end of this?”
“Not for a while, I should imagine. We'd be the first wolves in the history of werewolves to wear protection during sex, and you'd be the first female to make it happen … although if anyone can make it happen…”
“Shall I just get all three of you neutered instead?”
“Ouch.”
“Definitely ouch – let's stick with condoms. I'm willing to roll them on myself with fingers, tongue and teeth.”
“Now we're talking!”
She grinned. She was feeling better already. “I love playful Taylor.” And then she froze. That hadn't been a clumsy declaration of love, right?
Apparently not, since he didn't pick up on it. Relieved, she reached up to plant a kiss on his lips. After what had just happened with Ryan, she needed to be ready before laying herself bare like that. She needed to prepare for rejection, because it wasn't like she could stop being mated to them if they never felt the same way. And even though she was in love with all three of them, she knew they weren't yet ready to love her.
~*~
Sarah numbly rifled through the papers in the box that had been on the top of the wardrobe in the spare room. Beth and Holly were doing the same with two other piles. They'd been at this for almost an hour and had already ransacked the wardrobe and drawers in her own bedroom.
The conversation with her mother on the phone had been just as odd as anything else that had taken place today. Her entire family had no recollection of Taylor, or her wedding, and just like her, they had no idea why she would have changed her surname to Harper by deed poll. If she'd been feeling uneasy earlier, it was a full blown, fractious, anxiety taking its place now.
“Here!” cried Beth. “I've got it.”
Sarah and Holly both leaned over her shoulder to find her clutching Sarah's old diary open on the date of her wedding. You wouldn't recognise the book as a diary. The cover had been falling apart and Sarah had created a new one for it that made it look more like a plain notebook.
I remember doing that.
“See? Right here…”
“Oh, fuck,” she whispered, because there, in her very own handwriting, ♥ Getting Married! ♥ was scrawled buoyantly across the page, surrounded by hearts and everything.
“And look at previous pages – the whole year. You've noted dates and parties that you and Taylor went to.”
She grabbed the book off her. “I've actually written his name? I've written Taylor?”
“Yep – lots of times.”
“Oh, god…” She swayed, even while seated, and ended up leaning onto the wardrobe with her right shoulder supporting her. “What do I do now?”
Holly huddled in next to her. “We need to find Taylor. He obviously knows more than he's letting on. Any idea where he's living now?”
“And how would I know that when I don't even know who he is?” she snapped.
Holly flinched.
“Sorry, Holly, I'm just…” Her hand shook as she brought i
t up to wipe a strand of hair away from her eyes.
“I know, and it's fine. I have an idea.” She pulled out her iPhone.
“What are you doing?”
“Emailing an old flame – Michael. He's in the police force, and he still has a thing for me.”
“Are you serious?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He's never gotten over—”
“No, I mean about contacting the police.”
“He'll do it off the record, and hell, yes! We're going to track your husband down.”
“Don't call him that!”
“He is your husband.”
“But the police? Seriously? They're going to take time out of their busy schedule hunting down dangerous criminals to find a random guy that probably went missing of his own accord?”
“I don't know, but Michael would still do anything for me.”
“Lucky you.”
“This is the only thing I can think of since we already tried Googling him and nothing came up – not even a trace. It's as if he's wiped himself from all records including your own bloody marriage certificate!”
Okay … whatever. Holly could do what she liked, because she sure as hell couldn't do anything herself right now. She felt like a wreck. And stupidly, what she really wanted was Amil. Here. To hold her. Ridiculous, but there it was. As if he could somehow make this whole thing go away. “Beth?” she asked, weakly.
“Honey, what is it?”
“Can you make me another cup of tea?”
Beth grinned. “No problem.” She stood up, but Sarah grabbed her hand. “Wait … are you all right?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You don't remember him either. Whatever was done, it was done to both of us.”
“I'm holding it together.” She leaned down and placed a kiss on the top of Sarah's head. “You're my best friend since forever. We'll stick together and we're going to figure this thing out, okay?”
“Okay,” she smiled through shimmering eyes. “I love you.”
“Love you, too, babe. I'll go get tea.”
“Coffee for me, please,” quipped Holly.