by Cara Adams
“There it is.”
Wade pointed to the picture of a bus, and Mason unconsciously moved faster. Adelaide kept up with him, and he had to force himself not to break into a trot. They entered the waiting room and stood in line. A bus came, was filled, and left. A second bus arrived but was full before they made it to the head of the line.
“We’ll be on the next one,” he said, more to reassure himself than to Wade or Adelaide.
“It’s all interesting. I haven’t been here before.”
“Where have you been?” Mason asked, as much to distract himself from waiting as to find out.
“Nowhere really. I’ve stayed at Lake Erie with friends a few times, and I went to Akron once, but that’s about it.
Wade patted her shoulder. “This is a big adventure for you then.”
“Of course. And here’s our bus.”
When they arrived at their terminal, Mason got off the bus before Adelaide to help her down while Wade grabbed their luggage and handed it to him. While that was happening, there was an announcement.
“Final boarding call for passengers Lucy Li, Yalan Wang, Jeng Sui, Mark Yu, Daqi Wang, Wade Sullivan, Mason Barlow, Adelaide Stuart, JS Smith, and Mr. Raftopopolos. Please report to Gate Lounge 21 immediately. Your plane is ready for an immediate departure. Passengers, Lucy Li, Yalan Wang, Jeng Sui, Mark Yu, Daqi Wang, Wade Sullivan, Mason Barlow, Adelaide Stuart, JS Smith, and Mr. Raftopopolos, this is your final boarding call. Please report to Gate Lounge 21 immediately.”
“Twenty-one is that way.”
Adelaide pointed and began running. Wade grabbed his carry-on bag and sprinted after her. Mason was still holding Adelaide’s bag as well as his own, so he slung his own over one shoulder and gripped Adelaide’s in his hand and followed. Wade was running beside Adelaide, but they were moving quite fast considering how crowded the terminal was. At least Mason didn’t have to worry about what direction to go. He just followed them.
“Fucking hell!” Up ahead was another security checkpoint, and the line was long. Really, really long. He stopped beside Adelaide, who was already shrugging out of her coat and kicking off her shoes. That made sense. They might as well be ready, but the line was way too long, and their names had already been called. He looked at his watch. “There’s still a little over half an hour before departure.”
“A lot of airlines close the gates twenty minutes before, though,” said a not-so-helpful man in line ahead of them.
Okay, time to play the Dom. He tapped Wade on the shoulder and pointed at the line and then gently pushed Adelaide in front of them both. Then loudly and firmly, in his best Dom voice, he ordered, “Clear a space for the lady please. Coming though. Make way for the lady please.”
The line automatically straightened out, leaving him a pathway on the left side next to the railings, and he guided Adelaide right through to the head of the line. When he got there, he said, “The final boarding call has been made for us.”
As if to underline his comment, there was another announcement, “This is the final boarding call for passengers Lucy Li, Mark Yu, Wade Sullivan, Mason Barlow, Adelaide Stuart, and Mr. Raftopopolos. Please report to Gate Lounge 21 immediately. Your plane is ready for an immediate departure. Passengers, Lucy Li, Mark Yu, Wade Sullivan, Mason Barlow, Adelaide Stuart, and Mr. Raftopopolos, this is your final boarding call. Please report to Gate Lounge 21 immediately.”
Their hand luggage was scanned through, Adelaide first.
“Start running. We’ll get the baggage and catch up,” Mason advised her.
He grabbed his boots and her coat then her purse. Wade collected the three carry-on bags and shoved his feet into his own boots.
“It’ll take too long to lace them,” Mason said. He tied the laces together and gripped the boots in one hand, shoved her coat over his arm, and picked up his bag, as Wade copied him and collected her purse, his own boots, and the other two carry-on bags.
“Give me the purse.”
He slung that over his arm as well while Wade knotted the laces of his boots to one of the carry-on bags and then they ran down the concourse. After they passed the crowds, they could see Adelaide almost at Gate 21. The ground crew was closing the door.
“Wait!” screamed Adelaide so loudly they could clearly hear her over all the noise of the terminal.
The two women at the gate stared at her as Adelaide arrived in front of them. Mason ran faster, the luggage banging against his legs as he pounded over the last ten yards as if he was hoping for an Olympic gold medal.
“Mr. Raftopopolos?”
“Mason Barlow.”
“Wade Sullivan.”
“You have too many carry-on items. Only one item per person is permitted,” the older of the two women said sternly.
Mason couldn’t believe what he was hearing. First they’d said the airplane was about to depart without him, and now they were worried because Adelaide’s coat was over his arm instead of on her and he was wearing socks instead of his boots? Was the fucking airplane going to leave without them after all that effort?
Chapter Five
Adelaide hadn’t run so fast since she was a kid, and she’d never ever screamed so loudly in public before. Her mother brought up better than that. But when it seemed as though the ground crew was going to shut the gate, she realized that it was up to her to stop them.
She grabbed her coat from Mason and slipped her arms into it. She had a purse, as well as a carry-on bag, but if she moved things around, likely she could squeeze the purse inside the bag. It was just that she had things she needed on the journey in the purse. The carry-on bag was just an excuse to bring some more warm clothing. Everything she’d wanted to bring for a week hadn’t really fitted into her suitcase. Boots and thick sweaters were bulky items to pack. And she’d taken the warning about cold weather seriously. Silently she dropped to her knees, opened her carry-on, and pushed items to the sides, making a gap in the middle. Gently she wiggled her purse down until it was inside the hole and she could force the zipper closed.
Just then a porter arrived, panting, pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair.
“Mr. Raftopopolos?”
“That’s me,” the old man answered.
The porter handed over the old man’s boarding card while Mason and Wade were scanned into the flight system. Then they were all escorted down the ramp onto the airplane by one of the ground crew while the other one locked the security door.
The elderly man was settled into a seat near the front of the airplane while Adelaide and the men were on the other side of the plane and a lot farther back. She took her coat off and slid into the window seat while Wade and Mason had to look up and down the overhead lockers to find space to stow their luggage.
The cabin crew had started the safety demonstration, and the plane was already pulling back from the terminal before Mason had sat down. They really had been about to leave. Except…
“Do you think that ground crew lady made you put your boots on because she saw the porter coming with Mr. Raftopopolos and she wanted to give him an extra minute so he didn’t miss the plane?”
The two men stared at her, and then Wade grinned. “What a devious mind you have. But you might just be correct.”
At Portland they were among the last to leave because Wade went down the aisle to collect some of their bags while Mason went up the aisle to get the rest. Still, there was no rush this time. They’d arrived in Maine, and they found the rental car desk quite easily. Then there was a wait while Wade and the rental clerk filled in the paperwork and Wade collected the black SUV from the lot. She and Mason waited out front of the airport with their luggage, and Wade brought the SUV to them.
“The air smells different here. I mean, there are diesel and gas fumes, sure, but the light is paler and the air is fresher,” she said, quite surprised by her findings.
“There are a lot of forests here, and trees give off oxygen. Likely where we’re going has some of the purest air in the entire Uni
ted States.”
Adelaide smiled, unsure whether he was bragging about his birthplace or whether what he said might be true.
“Instead of taking the turnpike, Mason and I thought you might like to go along the coast at first. The scenery is much better.”
“Thank you. I would.”
Adelaide pressed her nose to the window, watching out as they crossed several bridges, and then Wade took even more minor roads, stopping several times so she could get out of the SUV and experience the wind blowing through her hair as she stood on the very edge of America. “Spectacular.”
“Do you feel like you’ve left Richmond now?”
“Definitely. Thank you for bringing me here. It’s amazing.”
They returned to the turnpike then drove inland, taking narrower and less traveled roads until they were driving through the forest and all she could see were trees. “I understand what you mean by forest. No one would ever know there were any people here at all.”
“Well, there aren’t all that many. I think it’s about the fortieth of the states for population density. Something like that anyway. Where our pack lives is secluded and quiet. It’s not so far from a town that we can’t access a hospital and schools, but it’s quite isolated enough no one wants to wander around looking for us. Our people have always kept a low profile. Sometimes in the past shape-shifters have been hounded out of their homelands,” said Mason.
“I understand.” And she did. Horrible people like her who weren’t willing to accept that not everyone was human, and that not all non-humans were bad. That’s not fair. I don’t dislike them I’m just not ready yet to commit to two of them.
But she was ready to go to bed with them. All of today’s adventures and new experiences hadn’t changed that one tiny little bit. She’d caught two different airplanes—and several shuttle buses—and she’d been through three different airports. She was quite the experienced traveler now compared to when she’d left home this morning. But absolutely nothing had changed the way she desired the men. That was the strangest thing. She was more than ready to have sex with them. Hell, she wanted to have sex with them. The orgasm she’d had while they’d watched her had been hot, but feeling them holding her, making love to her was going to be so much hotter.
Adelaide was even a little bit sad there could be no dungeon play while they were here. But maybe they’d spank her or something. Besides, she was looking forward to sitting in front of a fire and just relaxing with them and talking to them. It was strange to think she didn’t have to work tomorrow, or the next day, or any day for a week. Always at home on her days off, she was focused on getting her chores done so she could be ready for her next shift. And now there were no shifts, no jobs, no chores, nothing.
Although I suppose we’ll have to cook our meals and maybe the men will need to chop wood for the fire or something.
I’d like to watch them chopping wood. That could be damn erotic.
They drove down a narrow road for quite a while and then bumped down an even narrower gravel track. It twisted and turned so much Adelaide had no idea which direction they were going. A few times she thought she might have seen houses in among the trees, but there were no crops or animals around, and it was always just a fleeting glimpse, so she decided she must have been mistaken.
The wheel ruts grew fainter and more difficult to discern until she wanted to ask the men if they were sure they hadn’t made a mistake. These were their pack lands, but they both had admitted they hadn’t been here for a while. Perhaps they’d missed the correct turn and were simply driving into the middle of nowhere. Or maybe they’d cross the border into Canada very soon. Wade negotiated a series of tight hairpin bends in the track, drove between several trees that were so close together she was afraid he’d smash the side mirrors off the car, and then pulled up beside a small wooden building.
“Thank you for bringing me here. Those tracks must have been difficult to follow. There haven’t been any road signs for a long time.”
“That’s deliberate. We don’t want anyone to know our exact address. Our lands are private. The Alpha has an apartment in Skowhegan for when he needs to do any official entertaining.”
She took her purse and her coat inside. She didn’t see where Mason collected the key from, but he went around back somewhere and returned with it, so he’d obviously been told where it would be. She expected the tiny cottage to be cold since it was standing empty, but it was a pleasant temperature, and an open fire was laid and waiting to be lit.
“Someone came and stocked the pantry and refrigerator and turned the hot water and the furnace on this morning. Everything has been left ready for us,” said Wade, who must have noticed her surprise.
“Your people are wonderfully hospitable. Shouldn’t we go and thank them?”
“We’ll do that before we leave. Why don’t you turn the coffee machine on? I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty and damn hungry. I’d expected we’d have time for a snack between flights.”
Adelaide grinned at Mason. “Instead we had a lovely little bit of exercise running madly for our flight. I still can’t believe I ran like a lunatic through the airport and yelled at the staff. My momma would have a fit that I behaved like that in public. But we did catch the flight so it’s all good.”
The men went back out to the SUV for the rest of the luggage, and Adelaide walked across to the meals area. The cottage was a single room with the fireplace on the side wall, with some armchairs and a thick rug in front of it, and a bookshelf crammed with books, magazines, and DVDs beside it. The TV was on top of a bulky solid wood cabinet, and a large bed was on the wall opposite the fireplace. At the back of the room was the meals area and a door Adelaide assumed led into a bathroom.
She found the coffee percolator and opened the pantry looking for coffee. It was well stocked with all sorts of long-lasting foods. Cans of soup, fruit, and vegetables, bags of pasta, rice, and flour, packets of cereals, and jars of spices.
Staring at the food made her realize she was hungry, too. She’d deliberately had a larger than usual breakfast, not knowing when they’d be able to eat lunch. However, lunchtime was long past without any food eaten, and cooking dinner was starting to feel like the most important thing to do next. Except she really had no idea what sort of things the men liked to eat.
Adelaide opened the refrigerator, and there, front and center, was a large bowl with a Post-it note stuck to it. “Ten minutes on high.”
She put the bowl in the microwave oven and set it on high for ten minutes as instructed and then stuck the Post-it note back on the counter so the men could thank whoever had left the meal for them all. She found creamer for the coffee, and plates, mugs, and forks, and set them on the counter as well.
By then the men were back inside, their luggage was lined up neatly against the wall, and Wade was squatting on his haunches blowing on the fire, which had caught and was starting to glow brightly.
“That smells great. How did you manage to make a meal so fast?” asked Mason.
“Someone left it for you ready in the refrigerator. I have no idea what it is, but it certainly looks and smells wonderful.”
She made the coffee and carried it over to set on the hearth, where it would stay warm, and then returned for the plates and forks. She picked up a large serving spoon and then opened drawers until she found one that held oven gloves. Slipping one on each hand, she carried the bowl over and put it on the hearth as well.
They stayed in front of the fire for hours, talking, laughing, telling stories. Occasionally one of them would add another log of wood to the blaze, and little by little, every bit of the meal was eaten and all the coffee drunk.
Adelaide was surprised to realize how dark it was outside now and in the cottage as well with only the small light in the kitchen area and the brightly burning fire to illuminate the room. Mason got up and closed the heavy drapes at the sole window and then locked the door. Adelaide’s breath hitched, and she knew what would c
ome next. There was only one bed. The men were definitely not going to refuse to sleep with her tonight.
* * * *
Mason gently pushed Adelaide flat on her back on the thick rug in front of the fire. “Are you ready for what comes next?” he asked her softly. All evening he’d watched her animated, expressive face as she’d talked and laughed. She was completely relaxed and very happy with them. Since she’d been the one who complained when they hadn’t fucked her in the dungeon, he was reasonably certain she’d agree to them fucking her now. But this was a strange place, and it’d been quite a long and difficult day, so there was always the danger she’d refuse. Still, if not tonight, there were five more nights here in the cottage to woo and win her. But tonight would be better.
“Hell yes. You’re the one who turned me down last time if you recall.”
“That was in the dungeon, though. The Dom’s Dungeon has very strict rules about what a Dom may do, even with the sub’s consent. Here there are no Doms and no sub. It’s just the three of us together. Two men and a very sexy woman they want to fuck,” said Wade, running his fingers through her hair.
Mason’s dick was aching to get out of his jeans and into Adelaide, but he refused to presume she’d give her permission. Until she said the words, he wouldn’t touch her even though he desperately wanted to.
“I do understand the rules, but I wouldn’t mind a few dungeon games. You only gave me a mere taste of BDSM. I’d like to learn more about it.”
Mason smiled at her and gently dropped a kiss on her nose. Her huge brown eyes were staring up at him, and he couldn’t resist the appeal in them. Besides, both he and Wade had brought a few toys with them just in case she wanted to play with them. “We can talk about that tomorrow and then show you around the land. But right now we might be able to entertain you a little bit.
He nodded to the fire and then picked up one of the oven gloves and walked across to the refrigerator. I hope to hell there’s ice in the freezer.