Forever Midnight

by Kate Hill

Trey straightened, and she reached toward him, unbuttoning his shirt. She had no idea where Brice and Nadia were right now, and had no desire to look to find out. She assumed they were nearby, standing near the door perhaps, watching, quiet. It didn’t matter. Her head was swimming, and the only thing she was really aware of was Trey.

  Which was as it should be, she thought, at least for now. The rest would work itself out later.

  She unfastened his shirt, a button at a time, slipping her fingers under the fabric to touch his skin. The smell and taste of the wine—lust, desire, uncontrollable need—had filled her mind, her body, seemed to move under her skin, into her nerves. She wanted him so badly right now she didn’t care where she was, didn’t care that they weren’t alone. That was the idea, probably. That was why the wine and the herbs were part of the ritual. To release the inhibitions, to make it easier.

  She pushed Trey’s shirt open, letting her hands move over the familiar shapes and textures. The springy hair on his chest, the soft nubs of his nipples, which rose and hardened as she touched them. His hand rose to cup the back of her neck, holding her. She just watched his chest, watched his nipples rise, watched the steady rise and fall of his breathing as it began to quicken. Her fingers explored, touching the small moles, the places where she could see the blue tracery of veins through his skin.

  He was beautiful. There was no question of that. And the fact that he could change this beauty at any time, become anyone else, someone just as beautiful, more beautiful, become a woman if he chose, didn’t change the fact that this body, that they had chosen together, was beautiful and perfect and lit desire in her in a way no other man ever had. Not even Billy, though it had taken her a long time to understand that. Trey was Trey, and Trey was the other half of her heart.

  He leaned down toward her and she moved to meet him halfway, her lips touching his. His lips tasted of the thick, lusty wine, and she drank the flavor, devouring his mouth, need pounding through her body. Whether induced by the liquor or not, she had never wanted him this badly.

  She kissed him hard, devouring him, her hands pulling at his shirt, seeking his skin. Her breath was coming fast and shallow, rapid with need. She smoothed her hands over the firm planes of his body, the familiar bumps and textures seeming amplified under her fingers. Reading the Braille of his body, the small ridges here, the bumps here, the textures of his hair. Smooth here, rough here, places she rarely touched, places she had memorized.

  His big hands cupped her shoulders, moved down to unbutton her blouse, peeled it back, palmed her breasts. Piper bent her head back, arching her body into him—

  And saw Brice.

  He stood on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall next to the dresser. His eyelids drooped sleepily, obscuring the cool sapphire, but he was watching. As Piper looked at him, his attention seemed to focus, to sharpen. His eyes opened a little and she caught a vague flash of the bright blue.

  She smiled at him. Learn. Watch, learn how to touch me. His mouth curled up on one corner, a smug little grin. To her own surprise, desire curled through her. She’d thought she couldn’t contain any more need, but there it was, a slow, easy frisson of warmth. Just for him.

  Trey jerked her harshly closer, his teeth scraping along her neck, and she moaned at the sensation, at his sudden, rough possessiveness. One hand pushed down the back of her trousers, fingers digging into her, pulling her close and hard. His mouth plundered hers, exploring every corner, every crevice. His free hand found her jeans button, the zipper, and he loosened them, pushed the clothing out of the way.

  Brice was watching. Piper could feel it now, the imagined caress of his attention like fire on her skin. Her eyes were closed, her attention focused totally on Trey, but now that she had met Brice’s eyes, acknowledged his presence, it was as if he were there, next to her. Touching her.

  The herbs, perhaps, or something in the wine. She knew Trey had a superficial telepathic ability, that he could sense her emotions to some extent, that he knew the levels of her desire and what nurtured them. If she would let him, he would change, shift to suit her mood. She rarely wanted this, but when she did—the results were sensational, intense. Worth the wait. Worth making them rare.

  Maybe one of the effects of the wine was to give her that ability. And if it gave her that ability, was it having the same effect on Brice? She opened her eyes to look at him again, but there was no way to tell.

  Nadia was there now. Where had she been before? Close by, certainly, but Piper hadn’t seen her. She was leaning against Brice, and Brice had put his hand down the front of her pants.

  But he was still looking at Piper.

  Trey was intensely aware of Piper’s focus on Brice. This was good—it was part of what the ritual was supposed to do, to make the process easier on everyone. But he couldn’t help a pang of jealousy. Ridiculous, he knew. He focused on it, let himself feel it, while he molded his hands to Piper’s body.

  She felt so good. He had wondered once, a long time ago when he was still too young and stupid to know any better, why any shapeshifter would want to commit to a human for life. Humans stayed the same all the time. Humans were boring. Why would anyone want the same woman or man every day for a lifetime when they could have a mate who could change faces at a moment’s whim? It seemed wrong. Perverted, almost, from his perspective at the time.

  He’d been an idiot. Not surprising—most men in their teens were, human or not. In spite of her “handicap” of possessing static features, Piper was perfect. His perfect mate. He couldn’t imagine ever leaving her.

  His hands slid over her breasts, the firm pebbles of her nipples pressing against the centers of his palms. She arched into him, rubbing her nipples across his hands. Her body was taut, and her hands rose to close on his shoulders, her fingers digging into him hard. He smiled. The smell of the herbs, simmering in the wine in the potpourri burner on the dresser, had gone to his head, as well, stoking his need, lowering whatever inhibitions he might have had. He had a few, though not many.

  He could sense the emotions swirling in the room, the sensations augmented by the herbs. The currents of need, the flow of desire. Brice wanted Piper. Piper wanted Brice. Nadia wanted Trey. Nadia wanted Brice. Brice wanted Nadia…

  Trey wanted Piper. More than he’d ever wanted her before, his need increased exponentially by the simmering herbs. He pushed her down into the bed suddenly, pulling at her shirt, ripping it back and off her. He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him—Brice. Trey looked up, directly at him, then yanked at Piper’s jeans, tearing them down, shoving them out of his way.

  Without taking his eyes away from Brice, he cupped Piper’s face in his hand. She had softened under him, her body loose and waiting, her breath coming hard and fast. He lowered his other hand between her legs, touched her gently, rolled her clit until he felt her cunt begin to tighten, then pushed hard into her, all the while looking straight into the deep sapphire of Brice’s eyes.

  Piper gasped as he entered her, hot and hard, startled by the roughness. She grabbed tight to his shoulders, anchoring herself as he pounded her into the bed.

  He wasn’t looking at her. She looked up and saw his throat, his head turned away, and realized he was looking at the others, at Brice and Nadia, and he was pummeling her, spearing her, taking her harder than he’d ever taken her before. His cock had grown inside her, widening until she could barely accommodate it. It was almost more than she could take.

  She leaned up, put her mouth against his shoulder, and bit him.

  His head jerked back, and he looked at her, finally, his eyes dark with desire and a deep, primal, possessive lust. She met his gaze and held it, wrapping her legs tight around his waist.

  “Look at me,” she said. “Look at me.”

  Trey finally focused completely on her. And gentled, but only a little. He thrust into her, again, again, and she felt his body tighten, ready…

  She pushed him back, hard. He blinked, staring down at her. “What?�
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  “Give it to her…” The words seemed to come out of someone other than herself. She felt disconnected, high in a way. But she knew this was the right thing to do, the proper way to play it.

  Trey looked up, across the small room at Nadia. Piper, looked, too, and saw the need burning in the small woman’s eyes.

  “Do it,” she said.

  Nadia took a sudden, staggering step forward, and Piper realized Brice had nudged her. Not hard, but obviously enough to catch her off-guard. Nadia looked back toward him, uncertain, but Brice nodded.

  She stepped forward. Piper continued to hold Trey back, her hand in the middle of his chest. She looked at Nadia, then Brice, then down at Trey’s cock, still erect and slick with her own juices. Pushing him farther away, she moved out from under him.

  Trey rose from the bed, watching Nadia. She was unbuttoning her shirt as she walked the few steps across the room, and let it drop to the floor when she met him there next to the bed. Trey closed his hand around the waistband of her jeans and yanked her close, unbuttoned her, unzipped. She pushed the jeans down. Trey grabbed the side of her thong panties and ripped the fragile silk. The rent garment fell to the floor.

  Piper watched, unabashedly, with longing. She took in the sight of Nadia—her small, slim body, her large, round breasts. The soft down of hair between her legs. She wondered what she would taste like, if her pussy held the same salt-bitter, musky flavor as her own.

  Trey’s big, square hands closed on either side of Nadia’s hips, and he pulled her against him, then turned her around. She was facing Piper now, and she looked down, at Piper’s open thighs, her open cunt. Piper shuddered at the sensation of being watched, at Nadia’s intense regard.

  Nadia jumped then, her body lurching tautly, and Trey made a sharp grunting sound. Piper’s eyes widened. Trey had taken Nadia, hard, from behind. Piper fought the urge to look down, afraid to look, afraid to see Trey’s cock inside Nadia.

  Nadia’s body jumped a few times as Trey drove into her. Then Trey leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Do it.”

  Nadia nodded. Piper shivered suddenly at the look in the other woman’s eyes. And Nadia looked down.

  Piper tried not to follow her gaze, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her attention jerked down, past the soft curve of her stomach, to the soft, curling, blonde hair.

  Out of which a cock had begun to erupt. Piper watched in fascination as what had been the small, pink nub of Nadia’s clitoris rose, grew, expanded. Her hips jerked as Trey continued to push into her from behind, but she seemed almost disconnected from the act as she reached down to wrap her fingers around the growing appendage sprouting from her body.

  “How big do you want it?” Nadia asked.

  Piper’s eyes jerked up to look at her, disbelieving. She hadn’t expected this. She’d thought of a lot of things that could happen during this encounter—this had not been one of them.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Make it slim.” Brice came up behind them, and Piper looked at him in surprise. He gave her a reassuring smile.

  She realized then that he was naked, that he had come not just to join them, but to join in. He had a determined expression on his face and he was erect, ready.

  Piper glanced down at his tumescent cock. It was blunt and heavy, thicker than she’d expected, given his lean build. Then she looked back up at his face, and he kissed her.

  It startled her. Perhaps the effects of the wine and the herbs were wearing off, or perhaps she simply wasn’t as prepared for this as she’d thought she was, but the sudden press of his lips against hers caught her off-guard. She pushed her hands against his shoulders, starting to push him away.

  “Do it,” Trey murmured.

  Piper started to look back over her shoulder, but Brice cupped her face in his hand and turned her toward him. He kissed her again, his hands going to her breasts. It felt good—his square hands kneading her, manipulating her. Fire moved quickly through her, filling her, skating along her skin, pooling between her legs.

  He caressed her confidently, stroking down her ribs, over her belly, her back, and then she felt Nadia touching her, as well, her smaller, softer hands tracing down Piper’s spine, over her hips. Then slipping between the tops of her thighs, and small, female fingers dipped into her sex, trailing her creamy, wet arousal back along her skin.

  Nadia’s small fingers touched her anus, and Piper flinched a little, then relaxed. Made herself melt, settle, as Nadia’s fingers invaded her, pressing in gently. She understood, now, what was coming.

  Nadia worked her gently for a few seconds. Trey must have stopped, waiting, because Piper had no sense anymore that he was thrusting. But Brice’s hands were gentle on her body, easing her, and he kissed her face as his wife gently invaded her from behind.

  Piper kissed him back, brushing her lips over his carved cheekbones, the jut of his nose, his forehead, his chin, absorbing his taste, his smell. This would be the father of her child. She let that thought float up, like a bubble, let herself accept it, then let it disappear.

  Nadia’s fingers pressed deeper, and Piper felt her body relaxing, responding, begging for more. She was surprised at how good it felt. Intense, burning, but deep, satisfying. When she slid her fingers back out—Piper was fairly sure there had been three inside her, at the last—the sensation came slick and sweet.

  Then Piper felt the head of a cock—Nadia’s specially grown, female Shapeshifter cock—press against her. She pushed back, facilitating, bringing it in. She felt the shape change a little, narrowing to accommodate the tighter girth and the taut muscles of the opening. Piper let out a deep, keening sigh.

  Finally, Nadia was all the way in, and thrust softly, a few times, heightening the intense sensation, the burning pleasure. Piper looked up at Brice.

  He was watching over her shoulder and jerked his attention back to her. Piper reached down and palmed his cock.

  He closed his eyes and gasped as she worked him, then touched her wrist, stopping her. At her questioning look, he sat on the bed and drew her close to him.

  Piper moved carefully over him, straddling his cock as he lay back on the bed. She bent forward as she moved, to allow Nadia better access. Somehow Nadia stayed inside her, pressing deep. She was shapeshifting, Piper thought, to accommodate Piper’s change in position. Brice’s thick, blunt cock pushed high into her and Piper moaned. She was so full, Brice filling her vagina, Nadia filling her ass. She felt as if she might burst open. Her head had started swimming again, dizzy from arousal, from the herbs.

  She straddled him and he thrust from beneath as Nadia thrust from behind, and Trey began to work, as well, embedded in Nadia from behind. Piper had little sense of what he was doing, or how Nadia and Trey had shifted to make it all possible, but she could feel Nadia’s body jerking, off-rhythm a little from her own thrusting into Piper. Only a little, though, and only a few times, as the superficial empathy the shapeshifters enjoyed brought them into more exact synchronization with each other.

  Arousal, physical stimulation, chemical stimulation, had all combined to force all rational thought from Piper’s head. She didn’t have the thought or the energy to focus on the fact she was being fucked by two cocks, one of which was attached to a woman, the other of which was not attached to her husband. Or that her husband was fucking the woman who was fucking her… There was no point. There was only the wave of intense sensation, the burning penetration of Nadia’s cock in her ass, the intense invasion of Brice in her pussy. Trey’s familiar, breathy moans behind her as he took Nadia.

  Then, suddenly, his sudden gasp as he came.

  Nadia tensed behind her, and Piper felt the pulsing of her cock, deep inside, as she, too, came, and a moment later Brice came, hard, pounding one last, hard stroke into Piper’s body, and then Piper let out a choking keen as she hit the precipice. The orgasm spiraled through her, harder and harder, shaking her apart. She dug her fingers into Brice’s shoulders, anchoring herself as best she could
, riding the high, unbelievably intense wave of deep, deep fire.

  They all clutched at each other, hanging on, making that final connection as the chain reaction of orgasm bound them together. Piper could hardly breathe, and her eyes were overflowing with tears.

  Slowly, gradually, they slid apart. Nadia moved back first, slipping free from Piper’s body. Then Brice’s erection flagged, and he, too, broke the connection. Piper looked up into his face and saw his formerly sapphire eyes gray with spent desire.

  Brice rolled back on the bed, taking a place on the far side. He looked up at Piper and smiled, a little awkwardly, as if finding it difficult to acknowledge what they had just done. Piper felt much the same way. It had all been surreal, strange. She moved as Nadia brushed past her, noting as the small blonde woman snuggled against her husband that she had returned her body to fully female constitution.

  Piper turned to Trey. He stood gloriously naked, his flagging cock wet with Nadia’s juices. He took a step toward her and put his arms around her, kissing her forehead, then led her toward the bed.

  Piper said nothing as he lay down, as she lay down next to him. He spread the blankets over her and took her in his arms. His warm lips against the back of her neck were the last thing she felt before she drifted into sleep.

  Chapter Six

  When she woke, she no longer lay in Trey’s embrace, instead curled up against his warm back. She opened her eyes, looking at him, cataloguing the familiar lines, shapes, the patterns of moles and color variations. How did he maintain every miniscule detail in his sleep? She had often wondered. Once she’d asked him, and he’d shrugged, and said that it required no thought, no focus. It was automatic, like breathing.

  She reached out, touching his skin. He stirred a little at the contact.

  “Trey?” she whispered, flattening her hand against his shoulder blade.

  He rolled over and looked at her through bleary, blue-gray eyes. After a moment, he smiled and pulled her against him.