by Edith DuBois
“What the hell?” he heard Thomas ask as he rounded a corner from the kitchen to the living room. A second later, Elias followed suit and then stopped dead in his tracks.
Franklin lay in the middle of the living room, naked ass on full display, a pair of long, shapely legs wrapped around him. The two bodies on the floor were frozen, and Michelle’s wide eyes peaked out from under Franklin’s shoulder.
“What the hell is going on here?” Elias asked, his bear becoming frantic. Its power shook within his body, threatening to explode out of him right there in the living room.
“Well,” Franklin said, turning to look over his shoulder with a smug, self-satisfied grin, “if you can’t tell, brother, we sorta mated.”
Chapter Twelve
“What is that god-awful noise?” Ulysses’s smooth voice came over the line as Skyler slammed the bathroom door closed.
“Marina Andrews, the girl I told you about, drunk and in the shower.”
“It’s not even ten o’clock.” Ulysses sounded impressed.
“She knows how to drink. Unfortunately, no riot tonight at Catdaddy’s, but I did wonder aloud to a young bar-goer how much a person could make sending in pictures of the famous Marina Andrews, drunk off her ass and in the middle of nowhere.”
“Good. You should have the date set by now. Do you?”
Skyler allowed himself a small smile. He loved Ulysses’s curtness. He only spoke of what he needed to. He didn’t waste time. He’d called to find out about their plans, and that was all he wanted, all he had time to discuss. The man wore his power so comfortably. It gave Skyler thrills.
But he shifted his thoughts. He felt his smile drift off his lips, and he was the businessman again. “This coming Saturday,” he answered.
“Good. I’ve hired two men to assist you. There are no cameras, you say?”
“Right.”
“Then make sure there are at least three witnesses in the store when you send them in. Nothing like having a few eyewitness accounts to get a murder case on the news.”
Marina hit an exceptionally horrendous note. “Ulysses?”
“Yes?”
“What if Marina was there? Of course, we’d have to be sure she came to no harm. But if she were somehow involved…”
“Yes, I like that.”
Something volatile curled in Skyler’s stomach. It billowed up suddenly. Just those few words of approval from Ulysses had an instantaneous effect on him, but he stifled it. He pushed it away. He must keep those thoughts in their place.
“My men will arrive Friday afternoon,” Ulysses continued. “Make sure the singer is out of the house.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t fuck this up.”
“I won’t.”
The line went dead.
* * * *
The rain had stopped. Only mist swirled through the air and hit her naked skin like a cool embrace. But it wasn’t the mist that made Michelle shiver.
Her men, her three bear-shifting men, stood before her, stark naked in the fading light of day. As soon as Elias and Thomas had found out about her and Franklin, they’d all four gone outside.
They stood before her now, stripped of all clothing, stripped of every barrier.
Without saying a word to each other, they erupted into bear form. They stalked toward her, and she couldn’t help but take a step back at the sight of three huge bears approaching. Elias and Thomas breathed deep and, as they continued to step toward her, shifted back into their human form.
Elias reached her side and kissed her neck. A shiver rippled across her skin at the touch of his lips. She reached her hand up to hold the side of his face, and when she did, Thomas kissed the skin that stretched over her shoulder blade. She looked back at him and arched her back when he slid his hand across the curve of her spine and then over her ass to cup a cheek.
Franklin stood before her, still in bear form, as she, Elias, and Thomas went down to their knees on the ground. Elias moved so that they were lying down and he was on top of her, but she could still see Franklin. He moved toward them, shifting back into his human form as he did. Reaching down, he grabbed her feet and held them at a high angle, massaging her soles as Elias lined his cock up with the entrance to her pussy.
Thomas sat on his heels beside her head, and she grabbed on to his cock with one hand then wrapped her other arm tight around Elias. She began stroking Thomas, holding on to his hot, hard shaft. Then Elias plunged into her depths. He rooted himself deep in her body, and she gasped.
As he pulled back and then forth, as his cock stroked her insides, Thomas put a circling finger to her clit. A whimper tumbled softly from her lips. She loved that none of them had to say anything. They knew each other. They spoke in looks and in touches and in breaths. She understood the need in each of Elias’s thrusts because she felt the same need burning through every vein and every nerve in her body.
The wildness that she’d felt lashing out inside herself when she was with Franklin came growling and clawing to the surface again with each penetrating slam of Elias’s dick. Still holding her feet, Franklin pressed his thumbs into the arches, and she cried out, shoving her hips up hard against Elias. Her harsh movement disrupted Elias’s rhythm for a moment, but he soon joined her, both of them berserk in this first joining of their flesh.
She wanted to consume him.
She wanted his body, his heart, his soul. She wanted to devour him.
Elias growled, looking into her eyes, calling up the wild creature that stirred so restlessly within her. Franklin yanked her legs higher, causing Elias’s cock to push deeper. Her hands fell from Elias and Thomas down to the earth, and she thrust her cunt up so hard. She held herself so tight against him and around him. His hot seed spilled into her channel as the explosion of orgasmic pleasure took away everything she was.
As her body collapsed back onto the ground, his scent washed through her body. And she belonged to him. Completely.
And forever.
* * * *
The world floated in front of Michelle’s eyes. She felt utterly suspended. She knew neither how long she had existed nor what she had done before this moment on earth.
Someone spoke her name, and she turned her face toward the sound.
It was Thomas.
He was the answer. He was what she needed. If she wanted to be whole. If she wanted completion. If she wanted to return, she needed to feel him moving inside her.
Elias had collapsed on top of her as they both came, but she shoved at him now, her cunt ablaze and wanting.
“Thomas,” she whispered.
His black eyes locked on hers as she moved out from under Elias. She rose to her knees and then launched herself into Thomas’s arms. As she kissed him and fell upon him, his cock slid into her pussy. He lay back on the grass and thrust up into her in one motion, causing her back to arch at the pleasurable, arresting slide of their flesh. It brought forth a deep moan from Michelle as she felt his dick plunging far into her body, and she squeezed her thighs tight around his hips.
And they held their eyes tightly to one another.
She put her hands on his face and rode him hard. She held on to his neck and clawed at his shoulders. She kneaded her fingers in his flesh with each penetrating, upward thrust of his cock.
There was no imaginable way to take her eyes from his. He took everything from her. She put her hands on her breasts, panting and flicking and pinching her nipples in time to his driving, merciless pummeling.
Placing his hands on her hips, Thomas lifted her and then yanked her back down on his dick. “You won’t come until you let go.” He fucked into her hard. “Until you give me everything you are.” He did it again, his fucking driving her past what she thought she could take.
“Thomas,” she whimpered, unsure. His hard upward thrust took away all thought, all further speech.
“Give in to me, Michelle.” Her hands gripped his arms, holding on as he ravaged her cunt.
�
��I can’t,” she screamed. “Thomas, I can’t. It’s too much.” Even as she screamed the words, her pussy squeezed tighter around him. Each stab of his unyielding cock echoed through her flesh more harshly than the one before. “You won’t come until you let go. Fucking let go, Michelle!” he roared up at her. Yet she heard a note of pleading in his voice. His eyes begged her.
“Thomas.” She needed to say his name. She needed him to be real.
“Let go!”
Suddenly, all of her doubts, all of her insecurities, everything that kept her from being herself, from being Michelle, ripped away from her heart. She felt it all flying away, and that feeling made her scream. She didn’t know if it was terror or happiness or sadness or anger that caused her to scream, but it was the most powerful thing she had ever experienced, and it tore through her body.
“Yes!” Thomas roared up at her as her pussy held him, as pleasure incarnate overcame every sense, every feeling she’d ever experienced. Her body, her heart, her soul—all of it was tied up in Thomas, in Elias, and in Franklin. She could no longer exist as Michelle without them.
The power of that thought had orgasmic pleasure roiling through her body anew. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and the scent of Thomas filled her lungs.
This was what it felt like to be alive. This was what it felt like to be truly and completely alive.
Chapter Thirteen
“God, I fucking hate this town,” Marina said, tossing up and catching a pillow while she lay stretched out on Skyler’s couch.
“Why don’t you leave then?”
“That’s genius, Skyler. And what the hell am I supposed to do once that happens?”
He shrugged. “Climb a mountain. Go scuba diving. Paint a mural. I don’t know, Marina. The world is your oyster.”
She sighed. “My fucking label won’t let me back in the studio until that cunt of a therapist says I’m ready. And now after all this shit with my sister, it’ll probably be even later.” She thought back to her meeting with Dr. Brine the day before. The therapist had been less than pleased that Marina was no longer staying at her aunt’s, and even more disappointed that she and Michelle hadn’t talked to each other in almost a week. How the hell was she supposed to get out of here and back to her career? “Goddamn this shit hole!”
“Well, speaking of shit holes, you used the last of the toilet paper.”
She looked at him, nonplussed. “So what?”
“So I’m going to Denver this afternoon. I have a meeting at NormCorp.”
“It’s Saturday.”
He stared at her.
With a huff, she put the pillow behind her head. Then she cut her eyes over to him standing in the doorway in his tailor-made business suit, his designer glasses, designer shoes, and designer briefcase. He was a beautiful man. His dark hair was stark against the paleness of his face, and he had high cheekbones that cut an aristocratic line below bright-blue eyes. He had an aquiline nose and beautifully lush lips. Lips that Michelle had yet to taste.
She’d been staying with him for almost a week. “So are you ever going to fuck me? Or what?”
His bright eyes became suddenly fevered and tight. They held hers for a long moment. They were angry. A dark, deep-buried emotion swirled violently to the surface, and Marina froze, afraid he might attack.
After a moment, though, the dangerous emotion that had risen so forcefully dimmed, and he returned to his usual cool self.
“There’s nothing to eat here,” he said. “This shitty town doesn’t sell the food I like, so I get my groceries in Denver. If you want anything, you’ll have to get it yourself.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll see you later.”
But he had already slammed the door shut behind him.
* * * *
Michelle hadn’t opened her eyes. The sun shining through the bedroom window had her seeing nothing but rosy pinkness. Its warmth danced delicately across her cheek, her shoulder, and one exposed breast, and her lips curled up in delight at the sensation.
“Rise and shine,” came a man’s voice from the doorway.
“Oh god, is that coffee?”
“Sure is, but you have to open your eyes first.”
She cracked one lid. Elias, Thomas, and Franklin stood at the end of the bed, each with a mug of steaming coffee in his hand. Thomas had a cup for her, and Elias and Franklin both had trays stacked full of breakfast foods.
“Are you trying to butter me up for something?”
“Yes,” Franklin said, grinning, but then Elias elbowed him in the ribs.
“May we join you in bed?”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Flashes from the night before flickered through her mind, and she felt her cheeks burning. They’d had to carry her up the stairs after she and Thomas had finished. She’d never had so much sex in one day, and she’d practically passed out after mating with all three of them in the way that she had.
This morning, her body felt raw and exposed and vulnerable, but at the same time, she’d never felt like such a woman.
“I’ll be right back,” she said and flew out from under the covers. She was completely naked, but surprisingly unconcerned as she scampered into the large bathroom that connected to their loft-like master bedroom. When she closed the door behind her, she stood across from a large, free-standing oval mirror with ornately carved gilding around the reflective glass.
In awe of its beauty, she approached the mirror a little breathlessly. She could see herself from head to toe. It was the same body she’d lived with for twenty-eight years, but somehow it looked so very different to her eyes this morning. The long, dark hair cascaded over delicate shoulders. She tossed the curls, enjoying the weight of her hair as it fell across her back. The cheeks in her reflection were rosy. The legs were long and shapely, the hips rounded out and curvy. The breasts were a nice size, too, not small but not overly large, either. The nipples perked up a little at her scrutiny. She never completely shaved her pussy, but the hair was nice and neat, a lovely dark V between her legs.
Her eyes, though, showed the biggest change. They were burning, bright and fully alive. When she looked in them, she saw strength staring back at her. Her lips curled up, and she was struck with the realization that she looked damn sexy.
She grabbed a white T-shirt hanging on the bathroom door and returned to the room a few minutes later, where her men had set up a little tray for her in bed. She crawled in, careful not to knock anything over or spill any coffee. After they had all four settled, she looked at each of them, one by one, drinking in the sight of each of their gorgeous faces.
If she didn’t feel so connected to them, so completely theirs, she wouldn’t have believed it was real. She wouldn’t have thought to exist in such a moment. But she was theirs, and they were hers. It felt exquisitely good.
“So what’s with the breakfast in bed?” she asked, needing a distraction before she threw all of the food off the mattress and began devouring a completely different kind of breakfast. She plucked up a wheat bagel and spread cream cheese on it.
“It’s a sort of thank you,” Thomas said, taking a couple slices of orange. “For trusting us, for being with us.” He shot her an impish grin and popped in a slice. “And I mean that in more than just the physical way.” He slid his hand up her calf as he swallowed the bite of orange. “Even though that is certainly something to celebrate.”
Michelle drizzled a little honey over her bagel and took a big bite, trying to tamp down the desire that flared up at his touch. Her pussy, a little sore from previous activities, answered his touch as well, growing warm and damp as his fingers tickled up her leg. He stopped at her knee, though, and began tracing a lazy pattern.
“Also,” Elias said, “As Thomas said, this is a celebration. We’ve found our mate, and not only are you beautiful, but you are smart and caring and good. You are a rare find, Michelle.” His voice had lowered. “We will cherish you until the day we die.”
They were sil
ent, the air between them suddenly tense and full of emotion.
“I love you,” she said, feeling the truth of the words to the deepest, purest part of her soul and needing to express that truth.
They smiled, but Franklin was the one who grabbed her hand. He gave her a reassuring squeeze and said, “We love you, Michelle.” He leaned in for a kiss, an enduring and slow melding of their lips and of their hearts.
When they finally pulled away from each other, Michelle ran her thumb across his full bottom lip, her breathing ragged and uneven. “You”—she swallowed, attempting to regain some of her equilibrium—“you never told me how your family became human again. I never got to hear the end of that story.”
Franklin kissed her forehead and then relaxed back against the headboard next to her. Elias was on her other side, and Thomas leaned against the footboard, still massaging her calves.
The master bedroom was directly above the kitchen and the dining room table below. Across the room from the bed, there was only a panel of glass that separated the outermost edge of the room from the living room below. All of the early morning sunlight streaming in through the large glass wall downstairs also spilled into the master bedroom.
The floors of the bedroom were wooden, and the walls and the bed covers were white. Everything was brilliant and clean. It made Michelle feel fresh on the inside. There were also several windows along the side walls of the room, so everything was lit up by the sun. Its light gleamed off the naked chests of her three men, her beautiful men, whom she loved and who loved her in return. She smiled at all the warmth that surrounded her.
“So you want to know how our bear ancestors got back into human form?”
“Yes.” She smiled at Elias. “I would like that very much.”