Jade heard Troy speaking, but she was lost in sensation. Her eyes were open, but all she saw was a red haze as her body burned hotter. She needed him. He was all that could stop the rising heat inside her.
“Fuck! What have I done?”
She heard Troy curse and felt him begin to pull away from her. “No. Troy, please.” Her attempt to hold on to him failed, he lifted from her body and slipped away.
“I’m here, love. Hang on, Jade.” His cool lips planted soft kisses across her heated brow. His hands caressed down her arms, soothing her rising panic. The fact that he was here helped, but she feared she’d die if he stopped touching her.
“I won’t leave you. I won’t stop touching you, Jade. I won’t let you die. I’m so sorry for doing this to you. I didn’t mean to start this now.”
His words held no meaning for her, so she clung to his promise not to leave her. He won’t leave me to burn. She felt like she had a fever, a fever that was burning her alive.
“I’m here, honey. I’ll make this better. We’ll all make this better. They’ll get here in time, I promise they will. I’m so sorry.”
Troy’s words both soothed and confused her. She was trying not to panic as she stared blindly into the red haze of her body on fire. Then it struck her like a bolt of lightning. This was mating. The insatiable need to have Troy inside her. To have his hands on her. His mouth on hers. His cock inside her. It was a primal need. Her body knew what it wanted. No, needed. If I can’t have my men I’ll die. It was that simple.
Chapter 10
Barrett remained on full alert as he patrolled the perimeter of their new home. He’d been running for nearly six hours straight, and thanks to their training with Samson he still wasn’t fatigued. This was why they’d trained. He was no longer simply a soldier for his pride. He was protecting his mate.
“What the fuck has that idiot done?” Asher’s furious voice blasted through his mind so suddenly that he stumbled and crashed to the snowy ground in a very un-feline heap.
“Barrett, get home immediately. I’ll have someone call the Willis brothers to take over our patrol. We need to get to Jade.”
Barrett acted without hesitation. Rising swiftly, his cat started for home. About to ask what had happened, Wes’s panicked voice shouted the answers he needed into his mind.
“Troy started the mating. He didn’t mean to. I would have told him to stop, but I didn’t hear him.”
“He wasn’t transmitting, Wes,” Asher said. “I didn’t hear him either.”
“I assume he started the mating in his human form,” Barrett said. His snarl shook snow from the trees around him. “So how the fuck would you have heard him, Asher?”
“I’ve heard them for a couple of months now. The training… Shit, now is not the time. Jade’s in pain.”
Asher had some explaining to do, but he was right. Jade’s safety was paramount. Is she even ready for this?
“I don’t want to hurt her,” Barrett said. “She’s not ready for us to make love to her. To bite her.”
Barrett was the first to arrive home, but he knew Asher and Wes were fast approaching. Asher had been farther away, but he expected Asher’s strength and speed would get him here momentarily.
Shifting once he’d reached their porch, Barrett pulled open the front door and ran up the stairs at full speed. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but Troy and Jade locked in an intimate embrace had not been it.
“What?”
“Barrett, thank God,” Troy said, gasping as Jade moaned loudly. “She’s in pain, but it seems better when we’re touching.”
Barrett sighed deeply in relief. He’d thought Troy was hurting her. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was easing her pain. Nature would see her dead or mated. Those were the only options for Jade. The only options for him, too. He wanted her. Wanted forever with this delicate, precious, damaged woman.
Barrett moved onto the bed and lay down behind Jade. The bruises marring her back and legs were a road map of her injuries and he would need to be careful of those areas until the mating healed her. His cock filled as his fear waned. He allowed the scent of her arousal to pull him into her thrall.
“I’m here, Jade. Asher and Wes will be here soon.” He kissed the back of her head and she pushed her ass back against him, rubbing the globes against his cock and making him moan. “Oh, Jade. You’re so perfect.” He moved so close that his much larger body touched every inch of her soft skin. Her soft, heated skin.
“She’s too hot, Troy. We need to start now.”
Barrett quickly, but gently, pulled the T-shirt from Jade’s body and tore the sides of her panties to pull them free. Jade sighed and pulled her lips from Troy’s as she turned to gaze at him. Her eyes were unfocused and his cat snarled loudly. She needed them all touching her.
“Barrett, what’s happening to me?”
“You’ve accepted the mating, Jade.”
She frowned as she writhed between them, her pain increasing. He struggled to find the words that would explain what was happening to her. He needed her to know exactly what she was doing before she bound herself to them for hundreds of years. Even if she died by denying them, he’d never want to feel she was forced into their joining.
“We mate for life, my love. If we make love to you now we cement the bond between us. You’ll be unable to love anyone else, unable to leave us for the rest of your life, and it will be an extremely long life. You’ll live for hundreds of years once we’re mated.”
“She knows all this, Barrett,” Troy said. “Why are you making her suffer like this?”
Jade moaned and released her hold on Troy to grasp the sides of her head. She trembled between them, her skin so hot it was becoming painful to be in contact with her.
“Because we don’t want to live hundreds of years with a mate who resents us. Who feels she was forced into being with us,” Asher said.
Jade grasped his arm and pulled herself to a sitting position. She shook her head and took several deep breaths.
“Asher.” She smiled and Barrett saw her blink several times, her gaze finally focusing on his brother as Asher walked into the bedroom. “You’ve been in my heart since the night we met.” Her smile was wide, and tears filled her eyes. “The night you looked right at me through my paintings. You saw me. I think I’ve loved you since then.”
Asher moved to kneel at the foot of the bed. Jade struggled to rise, and he and Troy helped her to kneel in front of Asher. They didn’t touch, but the air around the four of them sizzled with electricity and heat.
“And now?” Asher asked, leaning closer to Jade but still not touching her.
Jade stroked one trembling hand down Asher’s face. “Now I can’t deny that I love you.” She reached for Barrett’s hand and he took it, bringing it to his mouth and kissing her cooling skin. “That I love all of you.”
When she reached for Troy with her other hand he too kissed it. “Wes?” she asked, and a fine tremor ran through her body.
Troy frowned briefly in concentration and then smiled. “He says he’s about a minute away. He can see the house.”
“You’re so beautiful, Jade,” Barrett said. He gave in to the temptation of her body and rose to kneel behind her. “Too damned beautiful for an old cat like me.” He kissed her shoulder as he ran his hands gently over her bruised ribs to her breasts.
“Feeling better now, little one?” Asher asked. He moved closer and cupped Jade’s face with his hands as she nodded.
“She’s better now?” Wes asked, as he skidded to a stop beside the bed.
“Wes,” Jade breathed his name on a moan as Barrett sucked up a red mark on her neck. On the sensitive spot he’d just chosen to wear his mark.
Jade moved toward Wes, but Barrett was not about to let her go. He knew this reprieve was only temporary. Her pain may have eased with the arrival of each of her mates, but if they delayed much longer it would return. Fate would not be denied its perfect match.
<
br /> “We need that answer now, darlin’,” Barrett said. He was not trying to coerce her by caressing her breasts and teasing the full plump nipples with his fingers. He was just helpless to resist the pull of his mate. He pressed his throbbing cock between the firm globes of her delectable ass.
“Barrett.” She pressed back against him, rotating her hips slightly and nearly making him come from the delicious friction of her ass on his cock.
“Barrett, stop teasing our mate,” Wes said. “She needs to tell us something before we make her scream our names when she comes.”
Wes caressed down Jade’s arm to take Troy and Jade’s joined hands in both of his. The gesture was natural and so symbolic of the twin’s joined souls that a lump formed in Barrett’s throat. By sharing a mate their twin bond would only grow stronger, the bond between the four of them would now be stronger. They were truly a family because they’d found the perfect gift that was their mate.
“Wes,” Jade said, “I need to tell you lots of things, but there’s only a couple of things that can’t wait.”
“A couple,” Barrett said, not stopping his oral assault on the sweet spot he’d discovered on Jade’s neck. Her skin was now covered in goose bumps and she was wriggling her ass in a maddeningly enticing manner against his pounding cock. Barrett wrapped his arms loosely around her hips in an effort to still her movements before he came all over her back. He wanted to come inside her.
She took a deep breath and shuddered before continuing. “I want you all forever. I understand little of what you’ve all been saying.”
Asher opened his mouth and Jade brought their joined hands up to cover it. “But I know how I feel. I’m a different person around the four of you, and it feels right. I feel complete. I know what my heart is telling me, and that’s what I’m going to follow.”
Barrett’s heart soared at hearing Jade articulate so perfectly how he felt. Being bombarded with unfamiliar emotions had left him feeling confused.
“You just described exactly how I’ve been feeling, my love,” Barrett said. “Thank you for saying you’ll be ours.”
“She didn’t actually say it,” Asher mumbled against Jade’s hand.
Barrett could see the joy in his brother’s eyes. The joy that replaced the deep melancholy that had been consuming Asher over the last two decades. Asher had effectively hidden it from the twins as they toiled in their ivory tower, but Barrett had watched it slowly consume Asher.
“I want to be your mate,” Jade said. “Is that clear enough for you, counselor?”
“Ha,” Troy said. “You’re so perfect, Jade.”
“It’s going to be so good to see Asher put in his place at last,” Wes said. “He always thinks he knows everything.”
“I suspect that’s because he does,” Barrett said. Asher radiated his happiness that they were finally a family.
“What was the other thing, Jade? You mentioned a couple of things,” Asher said, placing kisses up Jade’s arm between each word. “Tell us now, because I have no intention of halting once we start the claiming.”
Jade shuddered against him, then shook her head as she seemed to steel her resolve. Fuck. She’s going to say that bastard raped her.
Asher shook his head imperceptibly as he shot him a glare. What the fuck? Can Asher hear my thoughts as well?
Asher’s face was devoid of emotion as he continued to lay gentle kisses on Jade’s arm, quickly approaching her shoulder.
“I’m kneeling here naked, accepting I’ll not only be making love to all of you, but that I’ll be lucky enough to be doing so for several lifetimes, and yet I’m still embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed is not a word the perfection of your naked body reflects as possible,” Troy said.
Wes slapped Troy upside the head with his free hand. “Just say she’s gorgeous. You’re giving me a headache.”
Barrett felt Jade relax at the banter between the twins and he quickly glanced at Asher to see if he had any idea what Jade had to be embarrassed about. Asher shook his head. Asher being inside his head was a revelation he would have to think through at another time. They needed to mate Jade. Not just because his cock was about to drop off it was so hard, but because he didn’t want her to be in any pain.
“I have,” Jade said, pausing to look at him over her shoulder, “had sex before.”
“Yes, Jade,” Barrett said slowly. She hadn’t seemed self-conscious when she’d been furious with them.
“Well, I’ve never had sex with…” She pulled her arm from Asher’s hold and waved it between all of them.
Asher spoke before he did. “More than one man?”
Barrett felt overwhelmed with relief that Beau and his slimy friends hadn’t sexually assaulted her. Her boss may have been a sniveling coward, but Barrett couldn’t think ill of the man for saving his mate before she’d had to suffer that abuse as well. And there was no doubt in Barrett’s mind that Beau would have eventually done it.
Barrett kissed Jade’s neck and turned her in his arms. “None of us has ever made love to our mate before, Jade. I’m sixty, in human years, and yet you can feel me trembling with nervous excitement just by having you in my arms.
“I can’t believe I’ve actually found you and you’ve accepted me as yours. You’re also the most amazing and beautiful woman on the planet. No one gets that lucky. But I have. I want our joining to be as wonderful and special for you as it for me. I want you to know what a miracle you are to me.”
“I know now, Barrett,” Jade said with a smile, wrapping her slim arms around his neck. “I don’t feel nervous anymore.”
Barrett’s cat roared in his mind and Barrett submitted to its driving need to make Jade his. He lowered his mouth to hers, gentle despite his desperation. Her lips were still sore. He would give her nothing but pleasure. Only ever pleasure.
His hands lowered to her small, firm ass and tugged her up and against his throbbing erection. He swiped his tongue into her mouth and lapped up her taste, swallowing her soft cries of pleasure.
Lowering Jade to the bed, his brothers moved aside but continued to caress Jade’s skin. They remained connected to their mate.
“I love you, Jade. I’ll love you forever.” Barrett almost purred at the smile she gave him. That she was giving him her love, agreeing to share his life, was almost enough to bring him to tears, and he hadn’t cried since he was five.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Jade. You must tell me to stop if anything I do…”
Jade pulled his head down, silencing him with her lips, her hands tangling in his hair. With a growl he told his mate how much his cat enjoyed her zeal.
“Gentle with him, Jade,” Asher said. “I know for a fact he’s a bit soft.”
Jade wrapped her legs around his, bringing her hot pussy in direct contact with his aching cock. He clamped down his muscles, holding off his orgasm by the barest of threads. Releasing Jade’s lips he leaned on one arm, freeing his other hand to position his cock at her entrance. A moan escaped him when the sensitive head slid through her juices.
“So hot and wet for me, mate.”
Jade’s eyes grew wide and her breath caught as he pushed slowly inside her silky heat.
“I don’t think I…”
Jade’s silence would have worried him had she not moaned her pleasure so loudly while he slid his cock smoothly inside her pussy until his balls were pressed against her ass.
“We’re made for each other, my love. Never forget that.”
“You do have a massive penis, Barrett,” Wes said, caressing the hair from Jade’s face and kissing her forehead.
Jade moaned again as Barrett held his weight off her delicate, damaged chest and started to move. Wes disappeared. The world disappeared. There was only Jade. There was only him and his mate, his cock stoking into her, her pussy starting to spasm with her approaching orgasm.
* * * *
Jade had never before experienced the kind of pleasure and connection she was feeling with Ba
rrett. With all of them as they touched her. She felt Barrett’s cock thrusting deeply inside her. Wes was a warm reassurance as he stroked her hair and relaxed her with the gentle teasing of his brothers.
Troy was gently stroking her arm as she clung to Barrett’s massive shoulders. Asher was clasping tight to her thigh, like he was ready to pull her free if anything his brother did caused her pain. It was a sweet pain she was feeling now. Barrett was truly huge all over and the way his cock was stretching her felt incredible.
She was close to release. Poised tantalizingly on the edge of something phenomenal.
“Please,” she said, begging for something, but not sure what.
“I’m here, honey,” Troy said.
She screamed his name as his fingers slowly circled her tender clitoris. She didn’t care how he’d known what to do. She just prayed he didn’t stop. Barrett’s thrusts grew deeper and more rapid.
“Jade.” Barrett moaned her name and lowered his head to nip at the hickey he’d made on her neck.
As soon as his mouth connected with the sensitized spot her orgasm hit. He stroked faster and harder as her pussy clenched around him. Her body shook and she gasped for breath, the pleasure so intense she thought she’d black out. Nothing had ever felt like this.
The sharp pain to her neck and the soft caress of Barrett’s lips seemed to spread the pleasure to every inch of her body. Can you die from an orgasm?
“No, darlin’. But I think I’ve just been to heaven.”
Barrett licked over her neck and her pussy clenched in pleasure again, making her gasp. As her breathing slowed she found she was stroking Barrett’s back as his chest rumbled in a rough sounding purr.
“Barrett, I have no words for how that felt.”
Barrett’s arms were trembling as he rose off her, his cock sliding free and leaving her feeling empty, despite his warm body remaining over her. The thought that she’d made this huge man weak with pleasure brought a smile to her face.
“You should feel smug, little mate. I’ve never come so hard.” Barrett clasped her chin so she couldn’t look away from his burning golden eyes. “Nothing has ever felt so incredible. You’re mine now.”
Jade [Eminence Shifters 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 9