Jay set out to give Nathan a few good memories to assuage the bad ones. It wouldn’t prove a difficult task. He knelt by the sofa, lifting Lucille’s top gently, persuading her to help him. He wouldn’t force her to do anything.
When she sat up and pulled the lacy, stretchy garment over her head, her arousal rose. She let it blossom in her mind so Nathan and Jay could perceive it.
Jay wasn’t sure which of them growled, but he could revert to animalistic here. Nathan had never left that. He was part animal and always would be. A shape-shifter of his age kept in contact with the other half of him, used it when he needed to.
Jay felt for Nathan’s mind, a simple mission moving along pathways he hadn’t used for years until recently. The dragon, the sigil in Nathan’s mind, stood out, to match the symbol on his upper thigh, the intricately delineated sign of what he was. People mistook those marks for tattoos, but no tattoo ever behaved like these, glowing with heightened emotion, almost alive with detail no tattoo artist, however skilled, could ever achieve.
No tattoo anywhere else, Jay noticed. He hadn’t bothered either. With their swift recuperative powers, Talents had to have them renewed almost monthly, or they’d disappear. Some managed to get ink that stayed, but he wasn’t so dedicated to his appearance. Not anymore. Those signs that shape-shifters bore lasted a lifetime.
She wore one of her lacy bras. He liked the silk ones too, but the lacy ones were more sheer, and the shadow of her rosy nipples showed against the lilac of the lace. Such a lovely contrast, delicate and utterly feminine.
“Pretty,” came Nathan’s voice in their minds.
“More,” Jay said, gesturing at the bra. He wanted it gone. “If you don’t get rid of that, I’ll slice it off you.” Shooting his claws from their sheaths under his nails, he displayed them for her. “What’s it to be?”
“I like this set.” She unfastened the garment with a practiced twist. When she released it, she clamped her arms by her sides, keeping the cups loosely in place. He gave her the time she needed, watching her in silence.
With a sigh of submission, she lifted her arms and let her bra straps slip down, shaking them off when they reached her wrists. Now she was naked from the waist up, and she let them both look.
Only Jay could touch. He cradled them in his palms, allowing the nipples to peak. He lifted her breasts, making his hands into a living bra. Nathan growled once more. Jay kept all his attention on the beautiful woman putting herself in his hands in every sense of the words. She let him caress her and allowed him to show her off to his friend.
“Look what I have,” he said, smiling then. She smiled in return. It wavered, but it was there. He kept his mind firmly inside hers, not allowing any break in case she lost her nerve and wanted him to stop. However, all he felt was increased arousal.
“Go on,” she said. “Kiss them. Suck them.”
“Ah, Christ.”
Jay ignored Nathan’s choked exclamation and bent forward to take her nipple into his mouth. It stiffened instantly, lengthening on his tongue as he sucked and lavished her with all the caresses she deserved. However, he needed to touch and taste her. To claim her.
Mine. He wouldn’t allow Nathan to put his hands on her now. Not the way she gazed at him, almost worshipful. Although he didn’t deserve it, he’d take it. Before he put her wise to what he really was. She made him feel like a king, not the charlatan he knew himself for.
“Fresh. So fucking pink,” Nathan said into their minds. “As in shell pink, rose pink, the pink of a new dawn.”
“Poetic.” He tried for laconic but sounded too sincere for that. Ah well. He couldn’t keep any distance. Nor did he want to.
Gently he disengaged and went for the snap of her jeans. He unzipped the garment. “Too rough for skin this soft.”
She scoffed a laugh. “They’re my favorites because they’re so soft.”
He ran his hands down her thighs, then scooped his arms under her hips so that he could lift her and strip the jeans down her legs. “Not enough for you. You wouldn’t believe skin felt this good.”
Nathan was there with them. “I can feel it. You’re a lucky bastard, Jay.”
Jay sent the acknowledgement.
Her navel dipped in wicked invitation, and when he circled it with his tongue, she sucked in a breath, and it dipped even more. He licked it and carried on to her hips, loving the firm bone under giving flesh. The structure of her body, the way it flexed under him, responded to his touch—everything about her intoxicated him. So did her aroma rising from her panties. He wanted it out in the open, perfuming the room.
The panties matched the bra, and he remembered she’d said “set.” She’d worn them for him, and he loved that she had. However tempted he was to tear them off her, he’d respect her choice. He slid them off, watching each inch of her flesh. He paused to kiss behind her knee, her calf, her ankle on the way down. He gave her toes some attention, trying for the massage she’d like, but it was no good.
“I want you,” he said. “Prepare yourself for me.”
They felt Nathan’s deep sigh when he saw her pussy for the first time. “Fuck, your hair’s red.”
The first words he’d spoken for a while echoed around the room. He was working his cock now. He stroked it with long, firm motions.
Jay could see his other hand curled around the base, adding pressure to prevent him coming so soon. “What color did you expect her pubic hair to be?” he demanded. “Blue?”
“No.” Nathan paused. “It’s very rare. I can’t remember seeing it before. Maybe once.” His presence flickered in their minds before he returned. “Show me more.”
With a sinful glance at Nathan—the first she’d managed since Jay had begun to disrobe her—she opened her legs. She kept her pubic hair trimmed short, and so the motion revealed her pussy in all its glory. It glistened with her juices, and Jay badly wanted them.
“Lick her, Jay. Take it.”
Oh he liked this part all right. He’d let Nathan take control, sent the message to him before he dived in and licked her from opening to clit. She arched her back, tilted her head so her glorious hair flowed down to the soft, dark blue upholstery, and cried out. “So good.”
“That’s it. Work her, fuck her with your tongue.”
Jay did as he was bid and speared his tongue inside her, greedily lapping at her clit to get as much of her as he could. He sucked hard, took down her essence. “The best taste ever.”
“Fuck, yes.” Nathan couldn’t share the flavor, but he could sense Jay’s satisfaction as Lucille gave it up to him. Gleaming as brightly as the best chef’s sauce, but with an intense, delicious flavor no chef, however many stars he had to his name, could get close to.
Jay let the sensation flow through him and opened the outer part of his mind fully so they could share his delight. The heart of her senses belonged to him. And her. Nobody else.
He licked and tickled, encouraging her to make more. Her clit was hard, pressing against his tongue, eager. She groaned, lifted her body up to his mouth, and he gave her all he had, pushing her to let go. He could feel her tension, preventing her from coming.
He spoke directly into her mind. “Come on, sweetheart. Let go. Give it to me.”
With a cry of surrender, she did, her channel pulsing around his tongue, the tang of her flooding his senses—scent, taste, touch—overwhelming him. She gave a little scream, a yelp, and then a longer cry.
Nathan moaned and struggled to keep control. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
Jay knew how he felt. He raised his head and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, not troubling to hide the savage side of his nature. His fangs dropped down, pricking his lower lip when he closed his mouth.
She was safe with him, but he’d take her to the edge as far as she would go, and then he’d take her further. Every time a bit more until she discovered all she could be, the sensual creature waiting to burst forth from the shell of the shy creatur
e she was now.
She could be so much, achieve so much.
A pang reminded him of what he’d nearly forgotten. Who was he to hold her back? What gave him the right?
Hastily he shoved his thought down, well away from where anyone could pick it up, praying it was fast enough.
Rising up, he took his cock in hand and stroked it down her cleft. Instead of entering her, he drew away and glanced at Nathan. “Do I do this?”
“Do what?”
“Fuck her?”
Nathan’s eyes were wild. Blue fire gaining an amber ring where the dragon was making its presence felt. The sigil on his leg pulsed with red fire. “Do it.”
Jay turned his attention to Lucille. “Are you with me, sweetheart?”
“All the way.” Her mouth was half-open, her lips full, her eyes dark. The pretty flush went as far as her breasts, and he bent to pay them tribute once more before he pushed his cock inside her welcoming body.
The joining came as relief, their coming together natural and much yearned for. He wanted it so badly, and she did too. The man in telepathic communication with them both could sense pleasure.
The smile on Nathan’s face was reflected in his mind—warmth and heat. “Fuck her,” he said roughly. “Put your hands under her ass, and take her fast and hard. No mercy.”
“I don’t want mercy,” she said. Her mind was a blaze of desire now, and the more Jay delayed, the more desperate she became. He loved that, wanted it, but he needed to have her.
His first thrust reminded him how utterly perfect she was inside and out. The second set up the rhythm, and his arousal grew into a primitive ache. He couldn’t have stopped, all artistry gone in a flurry of need.
Nathan wanted it too and added his raw desperation to Jay’s, so they fucked her together. Nathan worked his cock in earnest now as if he were really inside her.
Lucille watched him, clutched Jay’s shoulders, and hung on for the ride.
The crescendo loomed, as inevitable as the end of a symphony or the ribbon across the finish line in a race. A place where this would end. Until Jay was ready again. That might not last long. Nathan’s presence fueled him and added to what he wanted from her. The knowledge that Nathan was witnessing something he couldn’t have sent Jay higher. He could fuck this woman, and Nathan couldn’t, except by proxy, and the thought made him more excited than he could remember. This woman belonged to him in the most basic way. She was his. But he belonged to her as well.
He couldn’t let them see that. He shoved that away because she couldn’t know.
Then he gazed into her face. Nobody came between him and her. She stared up at him, her features bathed in trust and delight. He couldn’t hold back, God help him. Just before he orgasmed, as his seed gathered in his balls and shot up the length of his cock, he told her the truth. “I love you, Lucille.”
THE WORLD CAME to a screeching halt. Had he said it? This experience, so wild, so different from anything she’d even dreamed of, culminated in the one thing she wanted to hear. Before she could reply, he howled, the sound unearthly, and his fangs emerged from the buds in his mouth, gleaming below the line of his upper lip. Not because he needed to feed, but it was a vampire’s instinctive response to extreme emotion.
At this moment she didn’t doubt that everything he said was the truth. His yell filled the room, and she had reason to be glad her brother couldn’t hear. She’d left him with headphones clamped on his head, listening to something loud.
She could scream all she liked, and he wouldn’t hear her.
Jay cradled her, as tender as he’d been fierce earlier when he’d demanded she satisfy him, so she had no choice. It had been delicious. She adored the way he’d taken her, following the instructions of the other man in the room as if they were performing for his pleasure. Like dolls or paid actors.
Wow. A fresh gush of liquid, not all of it from Jay, dampened her thighs.
“I felt that,” he murmured, softly stroking the hair away from her face. He kissed her, softly caressing her lips with his, cupping her cheek to guide her to the position he required.
Clothing rustled. When she glanced to one side, she saw Nathan had taken Jay’s jeans. “You guys stay here. I’ll get you some robes.” His face relaxed into a blissful smile. “It’s the least I can do.”
Although he left them alone, she dared not ask Jay about what he’d said before he came. That he loved her. It could have been the passion of the moment. He’d climaxed with a ferocity even he didn’t achieve often, and he might have been carried away. That had to be it. Not that she didn’t love him too, because she did, but if she told him now, she had the feeling he wouldn’t welcome it. After that lingering kiss, he tidied them—busywork, as if he wanted to break the almost painfully intimate time they had shared. She’d never forget it.
He loved her, but perhaps he needed time to get used to the idea. She didn’t. She’d be waiting when he finally accepted it, and they could decide what to do with the knowledge. It wouldn’t take him long.
A sense of joy filled her. This was the man she was meant for. True, she’d never met anyone as devastating to her mind and senses as Jay, but deep down she knew nobody, however powerful, however wealthy, would reach her like that. Nathan was probably Jay’s equal in that respect, but not in anything else. Not as handsome, not as strong, not as brave. Not to her.
“I’m sure too,” he said quietly.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. “You’re in my head?”
“Always, sweetheart, when we’re close enough.” He drew her nearer, the bar in his cock nudging her as she cuddled in.
“When I first met you I never imagined you were the snuggling type.”
He kissed her. “For you I make exceptions. Lots of them, and snuggling is one. I love to hold you, to look at you. It’s been my privilege to care for you.”
Her heart soared. Despite the trouble still facing them, she felt better than she had in her life before. “I love you, Jay.”
He touched his finger to her lips, and she nibbled, trying to suck it in, but he frowned. “This doesn’t alter anything. This can’t last.”
“Can we take it one day at a time?”
The tense lines around his mouth relaxed. “That’s a good plan. I like that. It’s how I’ve learned to live my life. Most of the predictions I’ve ever made haven’t worked out, so it’s probably the right way.”
Nathan entered the library to their shared laughter, but they barely spared him a glance. Jay helped Lucille into the white robe Nathan had brought and shrugged into the plainer dark blue one.
Nathan sighed. “I’d have fetched champagne, but you guys can’t indulge for a few hours.” He’d returned to his light American accent, slipping into it as he had the jeans. “We’ll do that later. Or, looking at you two, I’ll do it alone.”
“There’s some Scotch in the cabinet over there,” Jay said, nodding toward the piece. “Help yourself.”
Lucille went into Jay’s arms as if she belonged there, dreamy and wondering. “Is this normal for you two?”
Jay exchanged a flicker of a glance with Nathan.
Nathan sipped his whisky before he answered her. “It’s usual for me. I have clubs where I can indulge my fancy, but they’re not sleazy. Sleazy doesn’t usually do it for me, although it has its place. There’s a market for the classier place, and I’m working on one in Chicago. I don’t know if it’s normal for Jay. The last time I saw him for any significant length of time was nearly two hundred years ago.”
“We were close.”
“We were. Remember David Thorndyke? Used to be Lord Fullerton.” Jay nodded in response to Nathan’s question. Nathan went on. “I kept in touch with him. We’re still good friends. He’s Dalton Thorndyke now.”
“I know,” Jay said. “He helped me set up the station. Persuaded me to do it, really. He said the ranch was perfect if I could devise a way to keep it hidden. The parties cover the activities beautifully. The family who own
ed it before me was around a long time. But they went bankrupt, and I always wanted to be a cowboy.”
Lucille snorted, and Jay turned to her in mock indignation, lifting her chin with a laughing query. “What?”
“Cowboys don’t own ranches. The original cowboys were criminals. All of them.”
“Sounds like me.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “I stand by what I said.”
Nathan was studying them, not a trace of amusement on his face.
“Something wrong?” Jay asked.
“I don’t know. I have to think about something. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” With a sudden motion, he tossed back his drink. “I have to be up early in the morning. Some of us have to work.” He regained the smile, but it wasn’t as sincere as before, and his mind was carefully controlled. It didn’t take a genius to know he was hiding something. “See you, kids. Thanks for the play. You were both amazing, and I appreciate it.”
He left, striding jauntily out of the room without looking back.
Chapter Eleven
“What?”
Late the next afternoon, Jay confronted Nathan at his place of work. He’d just sent two giggling city women on their way with a drawled joke and a smile guaranteed to warm more than their hearts. He was a slick bastard, but then he always had been.
“What’s wrong?”
“In what way?”
“You clammed up last night, right after our little scene.” Jay would throw him through the nearest barn, powers or not, if Nathan didn’t tell him soon.
Nathan tipped his hat back with one finger. He was grubby with a day’s ranch dust. If Jay were gay, he’d be dragging him off to the closest convenient spot or just bending him over the log set by the side of the stables.
Nathan glanced around. “If the Wheelers discover you’re here, they’ll kick you off their land. Violently.”
“Oh, you talked to them about me, did you?”
He shrugged. “I might have. They hate your guts, and it’s personal.”
“Any sense of anything else?” “Like a sense that I’m a Talent?”
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