As he fucked her, Jackson lifted her on and off his cock in between Cooper’s strokes.
She curled her toes in midair. She was going to be very sore later from the spread position.
“Stroke your clit,” Cooper muttered.
She startled, finding his gaze with her own.
“Reach between us and rub that needy little nub, baby. Do it.”
She let go of his ass, her hands trailing back to his waist, and then she wiggled her fingers between his belly and hers until she reached the one spot that would send her soaring in seconds. She let her eyes flutter shut and flicked her clit in rhythm with Cooper’s thrusts. Each time Jackson lifted her, Cooper pressed home.
The mounting need to orgasm overwhelmed her. She could feel it building. And she’d already had more orgasms today than she could count. But she knew it would happen. As unrealistic as it seemed, these were her mates. They made her body hum at a much higher rate than any other man or wolf in the past could have ever accomplished.
She sucked in a breath, letting the orgasm build, knowing it was going to tear her to shreds and leave her exhausted, a blubbering pile of goo. She didn’t care. It built. She let it. It wasn’t deniable. It was right there, right within her reach.
Time stopped as she tipped over the edge, falling as if from space without a parachute. Waves of pleasure shook her frame as her pussy and her ass grasped at her men, milking them. She was only marginally aware of them both coming right behind her.
Chapter Nineteen
Cooper couldn’t breathe. He stood rigid, his cock still inside Sharon while he tried to find a way to shoot a message to his mouth to suck in oxygen. It seemed there was none left in the room. Suddenly, he gasped and eased his cock from her warmth. His legs threatened to give out, shaking violently from the exertion and the slightly bent position.
He set his hands on her shoulders to steady himself, meeting her gaze while his chest rose and fell with enough force to make it difficult to focus on any one spot. Her eyes were glazed over, and her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth.
Jackson’s forehead rested against her shoulder blades. The man appeared to be in about the same shape as Cooper. Exhausted. Wrung out. Sated.
“That was…” Cooper couldn’t find the words. Nothing came close to expressing how full he felt. In half a day these two mates of his had turned him inside out. They were indeed one. In mind, body, and spirit.
“Phenomenal,” Jackson managed. “Why did I ever doubt you on this? No one should go their whole life without feeling the elation associated with your strange mating ritual. I feel drugged. High.”
Cooper chuckled as he tried to stand straight. “Claiming. We call it a claiming.”
“Whatever.” Jackson lifted Sharon off his cock and set her on her feet on the floor in front of him, not releasing her waist.
It was a good thing too, because Cooper didn’t think Sharon looked as though she could hold her body weight yet.
Suddenly, something caught his attention, and he jerked his gaze to the other side of the room to see a black aura hovering near his equipment.
He nudged Sharon’s face with one hand to get her to turn her head to one side and witness the same thing. “Shit,” she mumbled.
“Yeah.”
Jackson twisted his neck to the side also. “Good timing.”
“Could have been worse,” Cooper commented as he inched across the room, noticing the spirit was smaller and denser this time as though sucked in on itself to take up less space.
And the reason quickly became apparent when Cooper glanced down at the computer monitor being used to track seismic activity in the area.
He leaned over the desk, catching his breath, while he forced his mind to work. “What the fuck?”
Jackson leaned on the desk next to him.
Sharon wormed her way between them. “What is it?”
He grabbed the readout coming out of the printer to the right, confused. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”
The aura still hovered, but he ignored it. He got the message loud and clear. Something was terribly wrong. The question was what?
When the building started to shake, he grabbed the edge of the desk with one hand and Sharon with the other. “Shit.”
It didn’t last long, but longer than the last few tremors. When it subsided, the damage in the room was minimal, and he suspected he would find the entire building to be as well. A few folders had fallen to the floor. Things had shifted on the desk, but nothing major.
The muffled sound of his cell phone ringing had him releasing Sharon to scramble for his jeans and extricate the cell from his pocket. He answered it before the ringing stopped. “Hamilton here.”
“Cooper, it’s Stuart. What the hell’s going on there?”
“No idea. The readouts are wonky. They don’t make sense. I was studying them when we got another tremor.”
“I see that. I mean, I see the same readouts from here. Where’s your team? Are they still out checking the seismometers?”
“Yes.” Cooper glanced at the time on his phone, feeling guilty for what he’d been doing since arriving at the office while his team was out there checking equipment. “They’ve only been gone about an hour. No one has checked in yet, but they wouldn’t have reached many locations yet.”
“I’ll give them a call now. You see if you can make sense of those readouts.”
“Yes, sir.” Cooper ended the call and glanced up to find Jackson standing next to him, his jeans pulled up but open.
He held out Cooper’s pants. “Might want to put these on.” He smirked.
Cooper grabbed them and stuffed his legs in one at a time, dragging them up over his hips and then zipping and buttoning the denim in place. He spun around and grabbed the rest of his clothes, his mind racing. He hurried back to the readout and held the paper out for several feet.
“You okay?” Sharon asked as she leaned into his side.
“I’m not sure any of us are,” he commented.
Another phone rang. Sharon’s. He recognized the tone. She pulled it out of her pocket and touched the screen. “Joyce… Yeah… At the college… Okay. I’ll tell him. Thanks.”
Cooper stared at her while she ended the call.
Jackson wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. He too was fully clothed now. “Cooper’s mom? What did she say?”
“She said several groups of people have agreed to meet Monday night. They’ve secured the high school auditorium to discuss the fracking situation.”
Cooper snapped his fingers and pulled his phone back out to get his boss on the line again.
Stuart answered immediately.
“Hey, Stu. We need the fracking site fifteen miles north of here shut down immediately. It’s on the fault line. It has to be causing or contributing to these small quakes.”
“Already on it. I called the US Geological Survey this morning. It will take days to get an injunction though, and that’s the best case scenario.”
Cooper paced the floor in front of his machines. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, fighting the urge to scream. “We might not have days.”
“I can see that. But it’s difficult to get anyone to pay attention under the best circumstances, let alone on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” Stuart sighed. “I have a call in to the governor’s office too. I’ll let you know when I hear back. If I thought it would do any good, I would head your direction, but I’m of more use to you here at the area headquarters. I have all the same readouts.”
“No. You’re right. Stay in touch.”
“Will do.” Stuart ended the call, leaving Cooper staring at the floor, wondering what the hell to do next.
»»•««
The sun was setting as Jackson followed his two mates into the home of Adam and Carlie Masters, Sharon’s parents. Almost twenty people, mostly shifters he realized, had assembled and were stuffed into the enormous
great room.
Carlie Masters, Sharon’s mom, greeted Jackson at the door. “Welcome to the family. Please make yourself at home, as much as that’s possible in the crowd.”
Jackson shook her hand and then turned to the man who set his palm on Carlie’s shoulder. Jackson reached for him next. “You must be Adam.” He’d met Carlie the day he’d brought an injured Sharon down the mountain. But he hadn’t met Adam yet.
Adam shook his hand. “I am. Sorry to meet under such dire circumstances.”
“Understood.” Jackson nodded as Sharon plastered herself to his side and set her hand on his stomach. He lowered his hand to set it across her shoulders, grateful for her presence grounding him in an otherwise unworldly experience.
Carlie and Adam turned toward Cooper and shook his hand as well. “Cooper. Welcome,” they both stated in unison.
One of Sharon’s brothers cleared his throat and lifted a hand on the other side of the room.
Sharon lifted onto her tiptoes and whispered in Jackson’s ear. “Griffen.”
“Got it.”
Griffen spoke. “Thanks for being here, everyone. I know this is a clusterfuck, but we need to organize and make a plan.” He turned toward Cooper’s mom. “Joyce, can you update us on what you’ve gathered today?”
Joyce stood from her perch on the couch. “I spoke with dozens of women today from my support group and convinced them of the danger we’re in. They weren’t a difficult group to crack. Most of them have known Mimi all their lives and respect her. They know her history is usually spot on. They will speak to their husbands and get as many of their friends and neighbors to the meeting at the high school Monday night.”
She turned toward Laurie and nodded. Laurie brought everyone up to speed from her efforts. “Melinda and I visited the biology team from the junior college earlier. We went in wolf form and didn’t let anyone see us. Their work doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the unrest of the land, but we saw a spirit hovering around them nevertheless. Undoubtedly they’re in danger from being isolated so far from Cambridge. Not shocking.
“I’m not sure what we can do to convince them to come down from the mountain. They have to have felt the tremors and be informed, but it’s not as if Melinda and I could have shifted and seemingly popped out of nowhere to warn them of some mysterious danger based on our intuition.
“Also, I spoke to Mary and Jazmine this morning. They were going to call every family whose kids attend their respective preschools. Hopefully they can appeal to the younger families and get as many of them to show up Monday night as possible. That covers a large population of both the Native Americans who attend Jazmine’s school and the citizens of Cambridge who attend Mary’s.”
Carlie stepped up next. “I spoke to every Caucasian shifter I could think of in the area. Hopefully they too will spread the word and rally their families and friends.”
Jackson watched as Cooper made his way toward Griffen as he spoke. “Good. We’re going to need as many bodies present as possible.” He lifted his face and grinned halfheartedly as he stopped walking. “Sorry.” He lifted a hand to give a vague wave. “I’m Cooper Hamilton. I know I haven’t met all of you yet.” It was eerie to realize most of the family didn’t know Cooper any more than they knew Jackson. Just because he was a shifter didn’t mean everyone had met him. He’d only arrived in town on Tuesday.
Several people welcomed him.
And then he continued. “I have a team of four men out checking the machines that monitor seismic activity now. But I’m convinced the fracking station just north of here is causing the series of small quakes we’re experiencing.”
“And you don’t think we’ve seen the end of it,” Griffen stated.
“Not a chance. If this pattern continues, we’re bound to see something much larger in the coming days. It’s imperative we get that fracking station shut down as soon as possible.”
“That’s not the end of it, though,” Joyce added. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. The woman knew things.
Jackson shuddered and wrapped his arms around Sharon, clasping her hands in his in front of her.
“Seems unlikely,” Cooper agreed. “But at the very least, we’ll be saving the lives of all the men working that station. It’s bound to suffer tremendous damage.”
“Then what do we do?” Adam asked. “Suppose we gather as many people, shifters and humans both, on Monday night and force the hands of the authorities to shut down the fracking site, what happens next?”
“We hold our breath and wait,” Melinda said, joining her mother in the center of the room. “All I can say is that my gut tells me this is serious. The unrest I feel is overwhelming. I’m sure I can say the same for my mom, Laurie, and Mimi.”
“Where’s Mimi?” Sharon asked.
Melinda turned to face Jackson’s side of the room. “She wasn’t feeling well. We convinced her to stay home. I’m sure it’s the same thing the rest of us are feeling. She’s been pacing around her home all day. She’s exhausted with worry.”
Sharon nodded, and Jackson could feel her pulse increase where his thumbs were settled on her wrists. Obviously Mimi was a respected member of the entire community, and no one wanted to hear she was so distressed.
Jackson hadn’t met the older shaman before that morning, but she had seemed frail and aging to him. He hoped it wasn’t serious. Perhaps she got that way whenever there was a spirit sighting.
He glanced around the room at the variety of faces, all with the same goals. These people were family. It didn’t matter if they were white or red or shifters or humans. They were bound to each other by love and blood, and apparently Fate.
He smiled as he realized this was his family now too. His own parents would never understand this, and it would be a long time before he would even consider telling them, but he knew in his heart this large group would be his family from now on. Only a few of them were strictly human. But that didn’t matter to a single member. They were one. They would fight as one. And he was with them.
He blinked away his wandering thoughts and glanced down at Sharon as she squeezed his hand. “Your parents live in Sojourn, right?” She must have read some of his thoughts.
“Yeah, but I don’t see them often. They aren’t the picture of sweet, kind, loving people. And they certainly won’t understand this new development of mine.” He tried to smile, knowing it was half-hearted.
She leaned in closer while Cooper spoke into Jackson’s mind from across the room. “You have us now. Forever.”
Jackson’s face flamed as he lifted his gaze to meet his other mate’s, emotion making it impossible to form words. But he didn’t need to. Cooper shot him a knowing smile, and Sharon held him close.
It was enough.
Chapter Twenty
“Where’s Cooper?” Sharon muttered into her pillow, trying to turn her face toward Jackson. She felt his presence even before she was fully awake. She also felt Cooper’s absence.
Jackson stroked a finger down her cheek and smiled. “That’s just weird.”
“What is?” She smiled back as she flipped over onto her back so she could see him better. Everything ached deliciously. The sun wasn’t up yet, but she knew it was early morning.
“Your strange psychic abilities.”
“You mean Coop? That’s not psychic. That’s scent.”
“Scent?” He stared.
“I can smell you both from a great distance. His scent lingers in the condo, but he isn’t here.”
“Ah.” He grinned wider, obviously fighting a laugh.
“What?”
“And you think that’s less weird?”
She shrugged and wrapped her hand around his neck to haul him down for a kiss. “It’s not strange to me.”
He nibbled a path across her top lip and then the bottom before leaning back again. “He went to the office of course. I think that man is obsessed with his job. We may never see him often.”
She lifted both e
yebrows. “At least when he isn’t here, we can find ways to get to know each other better without his highhanded method of directing every move.” She was teasing, but on the other hand, it was a fact that the dynamic between Jackson and herself would be different when they were alone.
A wide grin spread across his face. “So very true.” He wove his fingers into her hair and let the strands fall through them. “So soft.” His gaze moved to her mess of curls.
She couldn’t imagine anything about her untamed hair could be considered soft at that moment, but she enjoyed the feel of his hands running through the strands.
“He does have a way about him,” Jackson commented.
“Yes.” She took the opportunity to study Jackson’s face while he stared at her hair where it haloed around her on the pillow, mostly his doing.
He could be serious at times, his brow often furrowed in concentration. She imagined he got consumed in his work when he was at his computer pushing numbers. The side job as a local logging inspector was almost incongruent.
“Why do you do it?”
“Do what?” he asked.
“Work two jobs?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I didn’t. I chose to get my accounting degree in order to make reasonably good money and then took the job with the logging association in order to get fresh air and tromp around in the woods. Seemed like a win-win to me.”
“And it doesn’t now?”
He met her gaze. “Now I have these two mates to consider. It’s probably overkill working that many hours.”
Good. She was worried both her men would work night and day and she’d never see them. At least Jackson had considered that problem.
“I get a very serious vibe from you two,” Cooper said into their heads.
Jackson flinched, which didn’t shock her. He wasn’t even close to being used to their telepathic abilities.
“Just talking. How are things there?” Sharon responded.
Sharon's Wolves (Wolf Masters Book 10) Page 14