“You’re beautiful,” Liam mumbled. He stroked her bare arm up and down her bicep and tilted her chin up to face him.
She smirked. “Sure, right. Men have always been beating the door down to get to me.”
“Well, if they haven’t, I, for one, am glad. It made you available at this time and place for me to claim.” He narrowed his gaze. “Me and Jaden.”
She sucked in a breath and shook her head. “You can’t. It’s not safe.” The words flowed out before she could stop them.
“How so?” Liam asked.
Jaden returned to sit at her feet again. “Whatever your issues are, we’ll figure them out together. This is not really something we three can ignore. It’s unconventional. I get that. But here we are.” He set a hand on Liam’s arm, his other on her good leg. “Liam and I have been together for several years. We knew we wanted a third, a woman. Fate put you here for us to find. Does the idea scare you? Is that what you’re worried about? There being two of us?”
She shook her head. Truly, the idea of having two men hadn’t even really entered her mind yet. Now it did. She flushed, a warmth covering her cheeks and running down her chest. “I can’t do this no matter how many of you there are.”
“Why?” Jaden cocked his head.
She had to tell them. There was no other way. “People are after me. As soon as they find me, they will kill me on the spot, and you too if you’re with me.” She wrapped her arms under her chest as though the room had a sudden chill. “You won’t be safe with me. If I leave, hopefully they won’t find you.”
“Who are they? You think the people who killed your parents are still after you? Is that why you were alone in the woods?” Liam asked. Neither man seemed very concerned with her plight. At least not with the level of worry she would expect.
“Humans. The ones who killed my family. They must have been hunting me all these years. I have no idea why. But they found me. I was working at a coffee shop in Kentucky in a tourist area. I saw them come in. They looked around. I knew immediately they were after me.”
“How?” Jaden asked.
She chuckled. “Well, for starters, they were looking around as though they’d lost someone. I have a radar for bounty hunters that reaches a mile radius. I’ve been living in fear for fifteen years. But, if that didn’t raise a red flag, the picture they began to pass around asking if anyone had seen me solidified my doubts.”
“They had a photo of you?” Liam gripped her hand and squeezed.
“Several in fact. I caught a glimpse. None were recent, and I had changed my appearance some, so no one readily recognized me, but still, I knew they were on my tail. I had to get out of town right then.”
“You shifted and ran, leaving everything behind?” Liam’s look was one of shock, his blue eyes huge.
She stared at him a second before continuing. Obviously, he’d never experienced fear like she had. “Liam, I don’t have things like other people do. No family mementos. No treasured memories. I have a box of stuff I left with my foster parents when I moved out of their house, but other than that, the items in my small apartment weren’t worth risking my life for.”
“Oh, baby, that’s horrible.” Liam stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “I’m so sorry. You’ve lived on the alert like this since you were eight?”
“Well, not entirely. I knew I was in danger. That’s why my aunt and uncle sent me to live with a foster family. But I didn’t think about it much while I was young. I went to school like other kids and played with my human friends and kept my shifting ability to myself as my aunt had instructed me when I left her. Whoever killed my parents didn’t seem to know anything about my extended family. If I had stayed with my aunt and uncle, they would have been at risk as well as me.
“I was a teenager when my aunt sent me a package that filled me in on all the details of my existence. Somehow, years earlier, a group of humans had gotten wind of the fact my family members were shifters. They took it upon themselves to eradicate the vermin from the face of the earth. They believe we are an abomination, much like so many other hate groups throughout history. My aunt feared they would never give up looking for me. Apparently she was right. I read every detail of the letter my aunt sent, committed it to memory, and burned the pages before my foster family saw it.”
Jaden climbed up on the bed, over her legs, and sat on her other side. He grabbed her free hand much like Liam held her other one. “You’re safe with us.”
She shook her head. “I’ll never be safe. And whoever I’m with will be in jeopardy too.” She yanked both hands from the men crowding her space. Her entire body tingled from their touch. She couldn’t think properly when they stroked her skin. And they kept doing just that.
Liam narrowed his gaze at her but graciously didn’t reach out to touch her. “You ran all this way from Kentucky in the last few weeks?”
“Yes. I think I lost them. I went north first and then floated down river many miles before running in wolf form. I’ve gone a few hundred miles.”
Liam relaxed. “That should do it. Especially if the people after you never knew you were even there.”
“I took off so fast there is no telling what they found out. My boss must have realized I was the woman in the pictures when he couldn’t find me and I never returned.”
“Maybe he didn’t tell anyone?” Jaden questioned. “Or maybe the men were gone before he even had the opportunity.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. She shivered, slunk back down under the covers, and drew them up to her chin. It wasn’t cold, but she was nervous just considering the possibilities. What if someone had seen her leave out the back door? What if they’d tracked her? They could this very minute be outside the cabin waiting to get her.
“I don’t think anyone is going to find you here, Emma,” Liam stood. “We’re pretty secluded. Just rest and we’ll figure out what to do, okay?”
She nodded again, biting her lower lip. Not a chance in hell. The first opportunity she had, she would run. But she needed food, and she needed to heal. She’d at least take a few days to let these men pamper her and get her strength back. It made her stomach hurt to trick them like this, but there was no avoiding it. They were positive she was safe, and she was just as positive they were wrong.
Chapter 5
Jaden leaned over a group of plants and gently held up a bloom. He balanced precariously on the balls of his feet, trying not to crush the rare type of flora. He released the yellow flower, typical of its type from the aster family of plants, and catalogued the specimen in his notebook.
“Did you find another one?” Liam asked from several yards away.
“I did. It’s gorgeous.”
Liam smiled at him and cocked his head, not saying a word.
“Stop gloating. You were right. I do enjoy this work. It’s exciting every time we find something rare. Just imagining stepping on this little piece of nature makes me want to vomit.” Jaden stood and cautiously tiptoed away from the cluster of plants. He glanced at the cabin. Neither of them had ventured far from the little structure in the two days since Emma had finally rejoined the living.
They hadn’t discussed it, but Jaden knew Liam was worried about the same thing. Would she run? She was skittish and barely spoke to them. It seemed she was sorry to have told them as much as she had. Her hands shook all the time from nerves.
Jaden glanced up at the sun where it cast a long beam of light across the land. It was late afternoon. He’d rather have spent every moment of the day with Emma, at least next to her, but the two men had come here to do a job, and they’d needed to get started and make up for lost time. By silent agreement, they’d begun their work within sight of the cabin so they could at least keep an eye out for Emma in case she needed them…or decided to hobble off and leave them.
Letting her run wasn’t an option, but they hadn’t discussed it with her again after making her incredibly nervous the last time.
They were going t
o have to confront her soon though. Her leg was getting stronger.
And Jaden’s cock was getting harder. This was not how he’d visualized the summer going down. Five days they’d been here, during which he’d intended to fuck Liam several times a day. By his count, he was behind by about ten good screws. Hell, even in their comfortable apartment in the city they didn’t go this long without sex.
By tacit agreement, neither man had even so much as touched the other more than a quick graze in passing since they’d found Emma. They had no idea how she was going to react to the two of them being lovers in addition to wanting her. She had to know, but that didn’t mean she was going to jump on board without some warning.
Hell, Jaden and Liam had never had a female who was completely willing to enjoy not only two men, but also allow them to enjoy each other in her presence. The idea of having them both always sounded like a good plan to women until they learned the plan went both ways. Jaden and Liam had learned to take things slow with their thirds, easing the women into their lifestyle. It hadn’t ever gone quite as they’d prefer.
Jaden stared at his sexy partner’s ass and stifled a groan. He adjusted his aching dick under his jeans and thought about what he’d like to be doing with it. At this point even wandering away into the trees to jerk himself off didn’t sound half bad. But it was a shame since Liam’s tight ass encased in perfectly snug denim sat right in his line of vision, and Emma’s sweet, sexy body lay not more than twenty yards away in the cabin.
While Jaden watched, Liam stood and adjusted his own cock, a grimace on his face as he turned toward Jaden and then caught his gaze. His cheeks pinkened in embarrassment at having been caught stroking himself, but then he grinned and stared down at his poor dick. “We have issues,” Liam stated as he stepped out of the foliage and toward Jaden.
“That’s an understatement.” Jaden sauntered in the direction of his partner until they were eye to eye. They leaned toward each other until their foreheads met, and they grasped each other’s biceps. Jaden dropped his notepad on the ground and inhaled the scent of his lover.
Lover. It was a word he’d not managed to say to Liam yet. Nor its root: love.
He’d seen the look on Liam’s face many times. He’d watched Liam bite the inside of his cheek and known he’d been forcing himself not to say the word.
Jaden hated doing that to him. He did love Liam. He knew it with all his heart. But he hadn’t been raised in a family that was very demonstrative. His parents had loved each other. He’d always known they had, and they had loved him and his siblings too. But no one ever said it. At least not often.
Jaden breathed Liam’s air for several seconds before he leaned back and turned toward the cabin. “We have to confront her.”
“And claim her.”
Liam was right. It was underhanded in a way, but the only way to ensure she didn’t run would be to claim her and hope it was true what they said about matings—that it was almost impossible for mated wolves to deny their claiming and walk away.
It surely wouldn’t be hard to convince Emma to succumb to them. The entire cabin smelled of her arousal every time they walked through the door. Hell, half the reason Jaden and Liam scampered outside to work each morning was to escape her pheromones in the cramped space that nearly demanded they claim her.
It was time though. And beyond necessary. Jaden couldn’t take another moment of this need that consumed him all hours of the day and night. He and Liam had taken turns sleeping on the couch and the floor, but he missed having Liam in his bed at least as much as he yearned to add Emma to their mix.
Jaden stooped to pick up his notebook and the one Liam had dropped alongside it. Taking Liam’s hand, he headed toward the cabin.
*
Emma stared hard at the door to the cabin. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t expecting two sexy men to walk in at any moment. Nor had she ever really removed her gaze from the only entrance. She’d spent the last two days in a state of suspended angst, filled with concern over being found by the men who wanted her dead while, at the same time, wishing the door would open again and fill her vision with the two hunks who’d taken over her dreams—both day and night.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or anxious each time they came through the door—relieved that it was them and not her killers or anxious that it was them because she knew what they needed from her.
Hell, she needed them too. More than she’d ever dreamed possible. Her pussy ached with desire. Their scents filled the cabin even when they weren’t in it, leaving her bat-shit crazy all day.
She’d even risked rubbing herself to completion several times, praying they didn’t happen to come inside while she was masturbating under the sheet.
Hell, she didn’t have clothes. She didn’t even have panties or a bra. All she’d worn for the entire five days she’d been here had been T-shirts that made her moan with their saturated scent of male wolf, her very own mates whom she was torturing day in and day out while they graciously treated her with the utmost respect.
Without underwear or a bra, it had been too easy to slink down under the covers of her convalescent bed and stroke her clit or pinch her nipples. The relief was always short-lived and did nothing to eliminate the need. In fact, she was growing concerned that each time she got herself off she made the situation worse.
She wanted those two men inside her more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life, including food and water. Even the hunger and thirst she’d felt when they’d found her days ago trapped in the woods didn’t compare to the sexual energy radiating off them in waves and making her unable to concentrate on any single thought save that of being fucked hard and fast and now.
She knew she was on the cusp of giving in, if for no other reason than the fact that she couldn’t stand not having them in her bed, wrapped around her body, sandwiching her between them.
Rationally, her logical self knew she couldn’t have sex with these two men and then leave, but she was past rational. All she could think about was getting laid. She’d worry about the fact that she had to leave soon afterward. Her damn traitorous body didn’t care about later. It only considered now.
When the door opened, she flinched, like she did every time. As usual, Liam and Jaden entered the cabin, filling the small room so there wasn’t enough oxygen for all three of them. It was afternoon. She saw the sun spilling through the open door before Liam shut it with a quiet snick that made her jump.
Emma had never been as on edge in her life as she was now. Even though she’d spent years watching her back, and both sides, she still hadn’t experienced the kind of restlessness as she had since being rescued by tall, dark, and handsome and his blond-haired, blue-eyed sidekick. Both men approached her now with narrowed gazes.
“Emma, we need to talk,” Liam began.
She swallowed and pushed herself to sitting more upright. She even used her ankles to help herself up and knew in an instant her leg was almost healed enough to shift and move on.
Two gazes pierced her, seeming to hold her in place. The men’s expressions were serious. Their usual banter was absent, and she thought they might be even more menacing in this state than their fun-loving selves. At least as far as her sex was concerned.
Jaden broke eye contact first, tipping his head back and scenting the air as though he were in wolf form.
Emma shivered. She squeezed her legs together, imagining he could smell her heightened arousal that had notched up when they both entered the cabin.
“What did you need to talk about?” she muttered, licking her dry lips as they trembled.
They flanked her, which they had a habit of doing every day. Liam sat on one side and Jaden climbed over her to the other. When they did that, she felt tag-teamed. They used her air and left her heaving for breaths, especially when they leaned toward her, crowding her.
“How’s your leg?” Jaden pushed the sheet aside and stroked his hand down her thigh, reaching for her ankle. He picked it
up without looking her in the eye and turned it back and forth to examine it.
Emma held her breath, watching as his strong hand held her shin, his fingers grazing her skin and raising goose bumps. She could hardly remember why he might find her foot interesting right then.
“It looks good.” Jaden released her leg and let his hand drag back up her now bare skin until he settled his palm on her thigh.
She watched his movement, mesmerized as though in a trance. Any thoughts she’d ever had of escaping this mating were long gone. There was no avoiding it now. She couldn’t stop this from happening even if an earthquake shook the cabin at that precise moment.
Liam took her chin in his hand and lifted her face from the spot she had focused on where Jaden gripped her thigh. When her gaze met Liam’s, she inhaled sharply. His eyes were clouded over with the same lust she felt. “We need you, baby. We can’t go another night without claiming you. We wanted to wait until your ankle felt better, but it’s quite healed now, isn’t it?”
She nodded, even though a part of her wanted to shout “no”. There was no going back from this. She would be theirs in every way imaginable after they had sex. Would she still be able to leave? It was a chance she would have to take. It wasn’t even a choice anymore.
After several days of living in the same small space, Emma noticed the scents of all three of them had woven themselves together in a way that filled the cabin with a new, united scent. If anyone walked in the door at that moment, they might even mistakenly believe they had already mated just from the juxtaposition of pheromones alone.
It seemed as though their souls had already mingled in an unbreakable connection. Sealing their fate was now only a formality.
Liam’s hand landed on Emma’s other thigh, and both men leaned in closer to her until all three of them bumped foreheads in a close-knit triangle, breathing the same air, heaving together in unison.
Wolf Trinity Page 4