She edged closer to him, staring into his eyes, her gaze challenging. He was angry, there was no doubt about it. But she’d believed him when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t the sort of man who hurt women. He was the sort who kissed women passionately, who spent time with his face between their thighs. He was the kind of man she wished she could take for a lover.
The sort of man she’d love to pour her heart out to, if only she could.
“I can’t help you,” she said, backing away as the fire in her belly died down. “Now let me go.” She tried to pull herself free of his powerful grip, but he held on and moved with her. Soon she’d backed up far enough so that she was up against the wall next to the bed, Phair pressing in so close that she could smell his sexy musk on the air. A hard breath trapped itself in her throat as she stared at him, unsure whether she wanted to kiss him or slap him.
Something was happening between them, but she couldn’t have explained it if she’d tried. It was as though they were being pulled together by a force greater than themselves. Greater, even, than any power in all the universe. She could feel his heat all around her, his intense, hungry eyes shooting daggers into her own.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, her lips twisting into a smile. “Punish me for my silence, Béorn?”
“No. I won’t be punishing you just now,” Phair growled, his eyes glowing the oddest, most beautiful shade of gold as he released her at last. “Much as I can think of a few things I’d like to do to you…”
“Phair!” Cad called out as he strode towards them both.
But Phair didn’t answer. His eyes were still locked on Mir’s, his chest rising and falling with deep, desperate breaths.
Mir knew in that moment that he felt just as she did. He wanted her, just as she wanted him. Just as she wanted Cad, too. Maybe if she didn’t live in such a screwed up world, she could have had them both. But her life wasn’t meant to be a happy one. She wasn’t meant to exist outside of these walls, or to experience the joy of two gentle lovers.
This—the room and all it entailed—this was her life now. Solitude, isolation. Sadness.
She slipped forward and placed a hand on each man’s arm, which seemed to calm them both down.
“Come sit with me on the bed,” she said. “I think we could all use a breather.”
Chapter 6
The woman was going to be a handful, Cad could already tell. She was sexy, enticing, but reticent and frightened. He wondered how any woman could be so damned innocent and so knowing at once.
One thing was certain. He was beginning to understand what had come over Phair.
The red-haired goddess had shot them each in the heart—or perhaps between the legs—with arrows of temptation. He and Phair weren’t supposed to want her. They weren’t supposed to hunger for her, crave her, stare at her with the eyes of two shifters who knew when they’d found their mate.
Yet here they were, in serious trouble already, despite Roth’s warnings. They’d been tasked with a job, and now they found themselves locked into a literal sex den with the most beautiful woman either of them had ever seen.
Well played, idiots, Cad muttered under his breath.
Still, he obeyed Mir’s command to move to the bed. The moment she’d climbed on and sat down in the middle, her back pressed against layers of pillows, the two men approached from either side. Cad couldn’t help but stare at her legs as her dress’s hem slipped upward to show off a set of soft, creamy thighs. She was fair-skinned, her ivory flesh so biteable that it was getting very difficult to resist.
He’d determined earlier that she wasn’t wearing a bra, but now it looked as though there was nothing at all under that dress. Nothing, that was, but her arousal.
If he’d met her in a pub, Cad would have offered to buy her a drink. Would have talked sweetly to her. Perhaps he would even have found himself nibbling on her neck after a few minutes, bringing her home with him to spend the night doing unspeakable things to one another.
But this wasn’t some friendly pub, and she was forbidden fruit, this one. All the more off limits for appealing to something deeper inside him than simple carnal desire. She’d set in motion a craving far more serious than a mere urge to fuck.
He wanted every bit of her. Her mind as much as her body. He wanted to see inside her, to learn what made her tick.
When he’d slipped up next to her, he lay on his side, face cupped in his left hand as he stared at her profile, his gaze sliding over her pink lips and delicate, pointy nose.
Maybe if he got a little closer, he could get her to open up. Maybe…
Ignoring the voices of warning inside him, he lay a hand on her thigh and slipped it upwards until it disappeared under the layer of green silk that barely covered her right thigh.
“Do you mind,” he asked softly, “if I touch you?”
She turned her face towards him, a strange, distant smile finding its way to her kissable lips.
“No,” she replied. “To tell the truth, tonight is the first time I’ve ever been in this room and actually…wanted…a man to touch me.” She turned her attention to Phair for a moment. “Two men, actually.”
“Good,” said Cad as his fingers began to explore her upper thigh. Like a man possessed, he watched as she writhed under his touch.
He was just doing his job, he told himself. Trying to extract information via a form of very pleasant coercion.
No.
That was a lie.
He wanted to touch her, plain and simple. Barton’s dealings were of no interest to him at the moment. He was possessed by a desire—a need—to get his hands on Mir.
With her consent, of course. Whatever Phair might think of him, he wasn’t the sort of entitled bastard who assumed that women wanted his attention. He never forced, never pressured. The only thing he ever wanted was to bring pleasure to a woman.
In Mir’s case, though, he wanted more. Much more.
Focus on the reason you’re here, he told himself. You should at least pretend to be doing your job.
“Your boss owns you, Mir,” he said softly. “Doesn’t he?”
Phair, who’d sidled over to the opposite side of the bed, was watching intently, a look of growing irritation on his face. Apparently he didn’t entirely approve of Cad’s methods.
Funny, thought Cad, a minute ago you looked like you were about to kiss her.
Mir closed her eyes and let out a gasp as his fingers found the wetness between her legs.
“Answer me,” he whispered, easing closer, letting his hot breath caress her chest.
“No,” she said. “I work here, that’s all.”
He slid his fingertips over her opening slowly, teasing her every nerve. “You like this?” he asked.
She nodded breathlessly.
“Tell us more,” he said.
“I…can’t…” she groaned, her hips gyrating.
“What are you doing?” growled Phair.
“Talking,” Cad replied softly. “Just talking.”
The Béorn shifter moved up onto the bed and sat on Mir’s other side, watching. Cad could tell that he wasn’t sure if he should join in on the persuasion tactic or stop his Pack mate from behaving so badly.
He knew perfectly well that everything that he was doing had the potential to blow up in his face. He was giving in to his attraction, pulling her closer with each stroke of his fingers, with each intake of breath. But he was also trying to open her up to the notion that she could trust them. That he and Phair were only there to make her feel good, to look after her needs.
“You’re so wet, lovely,” Cad said as he found the spot that made Mir’s spine arch under her. “Oh, that’s the place,” he whispered. “This is what you like best, isn’t it?”
Again, she nodded. “It feels so good. No one ever does this,” she said. “No one ever tries to make me feel like…this…”
“I want you to feel good,” he replied, pressing forward, kissing her shoul
der, her chest just above the place where her dress was drooping down low. If he pushed it a little, he could work his way to her nipple. “I want to give you everything you need, Mir.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Do it.”
He drove his fingers inside her, then out again, slipping them over her clit before dipping them back in. “Tell us about Barton.”
“I can’t,” she moaned, squirming under his touch.
“Yes, you can. Tell us why he’s willing to hand you over to two strangers like us. Tell us why you’re willing to sell yourself.” He slipped his fingers out again. Then in. Out. In. Out. He could feel her tightening around him as he rubbed his thumb over her clit.
Fuck, she was so wet. Clearly, she wanted them both as badly as they wanted her. He almost hated himself for interrogating her when he should have been making love to her. All he wanted was to get his mouth on her, to taste her, to lick her until she came for him.
You’re meant for me, he thought. Meant for us.
“Tell us what Barton’s doing with this place,” Phair said. He still wasn’t touching Mir, wasn’t trying to use Cad’s tactics. But his eyes were focused on the other shifter’s hand as it pleasured her to near orgasm. “How does he force you to stay here?”
“He doesn’t force me…he…he doesn’t…” she said, but she shut her mouth, swallowing a moan.
“What does he have on you, Mir?” Phair growled, his voice growing aggressive. “Does he force you to work here? Is he using your family to get to you?”
For whatever reason, the last question seemed to set Mir off. She reached down, pulled Cad’s hand away and sat bolt upright, straightening out her dress to cover as much of her legs as she could. “Stop it! No more questions!” she shouted. “If he finds out that you’ve been asking these things, he’ll…”
“He’ll what?” asked Cad.
Mir fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare. “You don’t want to know.”
“But that’s the point,” Cad protested. “We absolutely want to know. We need to know, in fact.”
“Why?” she asked. “What good will it do? The guy runs this city. If you’ve come to his club asking questions, chances are that you already know that. So what the hell do you have to gain by pressuring me into telling you anything more? You know he’s powerful. You know…you know he hurts people.”
“What do we have to gain?” asked Cad. “I—we—have answers to gain.” He pressed his palms to the mattress and leaned in towards her. “We need them, Miranda.”
“Yeah? Well, you’ll have to get them from someone else.” She moved rapidly towards Phair, who leapt off the bed to give her space. Cad opened his mouth to speak again, but the big man was already holding a hand out to silence him.
“Shut it,” Phair said. “Don’t say another damned word.”
“Why the hell not?” Cad asked. “We were sent here to…”
“Not another fucking word.”
Phair moved around the bed, incredibly agile for such a large man, and grabbed him by the collar. “Stop harassing her. Can’t you see that you’re making this difficult? She doesn’t want to talk.”
“No? Well, she was pretty fucking happy to have my fingers inside her a minute ago.”
As soon as he spoke the words, he regretted it. They were sleazy, a cheap shot at a woman who didn’t deserve them. He watched Mir slip back over to the desk chair, plopping herself down to turn her back to the two shifters.
“We’re leaving,” Phair said. He turned around. “Miranda, we apologize for our vile behaviour. We hope you can forgive us.”
With that, he headed to the door, unlocked it, pulled it open and stomped out. For a few seconds Cad hesitated. He stepped towards Mir.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
But it wasn’t enough.
He wanted to say I want you. I fucking crave you. You’ve done something to me and I don’t want to leave you here, not with that bastard in charge of your life. I want to take you away from this.
But instead, he simply repeated, “I’m sorry.”
Then he followed Phair outside, unsure if he’d ever see her again.
Chapter 7
When they’d left the club and walked some distance towards the car in tense silence, Phair pivoted around, grabbed Cad by the front of his jacket and slammed him against the stone wall that flanked the sidewalk. He didn’t give a toss if he wrecked the other shifter’s tuxedo—or his own, for that matter.
“What’s the problem, mate?” Cad asked, an annoying-as-all-hell smile on his face that told Phair he wasn’t sufficiently concerned that he was about to be killed by a very large, very angry bear.
“The problem is you, mate. What the fuck were you up to back there, taking advantage of her like that?”
“I was fucking doing my job, that’s what the fuck I was up to. Getting answers. Besides, do I really need to remind you that you literally pinned her against the wall, sort of like you’re doing to me right now? You want to talk about taking advantage, how about not grabbing hold of a woman who’s probably about a third of your weight?”
Phair released him, but not before shoving him one more time. Cad brushed himself off, a low, annoyed growl vibrating its way into his chest.
“Well done with your tactics, then,” Phair said sarcastically. “Really, I mean it. We now have all the information we could possibly want. Oh, and in addition to that, you managed to man-handle a woman who could have ended up trusting us if we’d treated her like a real human being instead of a mere object put in front of you for your horny fingers’ amusement.”
“I wasn’t treating her like an object.”
“No?” Phair spat. “Then tell me—did it occur to you for even a moment that she didn’t want to be touched like that? That maybe we should have given her a sodding break from living a life of whatever sort of twisted prostitution Barton probably forces on her?”
A look of remorse settled over Cad’s features, but Phair wasn’t about to let him off that easy. There was no way he was letting the bastard off the hook until he admitted that he’d been irresponsible, idiotic, cruel. Any of them would do.
“You’re right,” Cad said finally, his eyes moving to the ground in a gesture of submission. “I shouldn’t have touched her.”
The Béorn shifter finally stepped backwards. “No,” he said, “you shouldn’t have.”
Cad drooped back against the wall. “To be honest, I don’t actually know what came over me,” he said. “I know you think I’m a right arse, but I just…something in me clicked. You might see me as a womanizing shite, but I wasn’t trying to be, not with her. I was drawn to her, Phair.” He lifted his eyes to look into the other shifter’s, his irises glowing blue. Phair knew what that meant—that Cad’s Wolf was near the surface.
It meant he was telling the truth.
A shifter in human form could lie, but his déor couldn’t. Animals never lied. “I feel something for her. Something big.” Cad drew a hand through his hair. “It’s mad, I get that. I don’t know her at all. Not to mention that I know the rules. I’m not supposed to become so immediately, so deeply attracted to a human, especially one who works for Barton. But I don’t think she’s our enemy. She’s not under his thumb. I think she despises him.”
Phair let out a slow breath. “I think so, too,” he said.
“Well…good.” Cad pulled himself away from the wall. “But just so you know, I wasn’t merely acting on some horny impulse. It was something more.”
Phair swallowed hard. He didn’t want to admit that he understood what Cad was talking about, but the fact was that he knew all too well. “You felt something for her. Something you haven’t felt before. Your déor, too.”
Cad nodded. “I wanted to claim her. My Wolf wanted her. It was almost as though something took over my mind, something external. Like my déor was sending me a message, asking me to mark her—to take possession of her, before it’s too late.”
Phair stiffened at the words. “Ye
ah, well,” he said, “maybe your Wolf needs to learn to control himself. Because we’re going back there tomorrow. We’ll talk to her again, and this time, no touching. No fingering. No anything but talking, at least not until we get what we need from her. Do you understand me?” He stepped forward, aware that he towered over the other man. Cad wasn’t small by any standards, but he was no match for the hulking Béorn shifter.
Phair didn’t tell his companion what was in his own mind. Didn’t admit that some transcendent force had reached out and grabbed him, pulled him towards Mir. He’d wanted to bury his nose between her legs, to inhale her scent, to taste her. He’d craved her as though he’d developed an instant chemical addiction to her skin.
Perhaps this was what shifters talked about when they told stories about fate, destiny—about the moment when they first set eyes on their mate.
The thing was, Mir couldn’t be his destined mate. Because that would mean Cad was the other in their threesome. How could his fate possibly include such a man? The thought made him want to chuckle and gag at once.
Maybe one day he could learn to tolerate the wanker, but right now, it seemed like a stretch.
“Come on, you fucker,” he grunted as he started walking towards the car. “I’ll call the club and set up another date, then let’s go home. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”
Chapter 8
Mir sat against the headboard of the Blue Room’s king-sized bed, once again staring into the distance at nothing in particular.
She wondered if she’d ever see them again, those men who’d pulled her in and pushed her away at once. The men who’d transported her, if only for a few precious minutes, to another place, lured her into the promise of a sweet dream. One where she could all but taste freedom, affection, intimacy.
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