Every Which Way

by Annabel Joseph et al.

  She moaned at the loss of his mouth as he lifted his head, but then she opened her eyes and was lost in his gaze.

  “Come for me, my beautiful little vixen. I can tell you’re close, I want to feel you squeezing my cock as you writhe under me.” He sped up and changed angles, and she was swept under by the orgasm.

  When she slid down from the summit, Bethany sighed in both relief and disappointment when Mac pulled out, but then her eyes shot wide open when he pressed into her ass.

  She mouthed, “No!” but he only smiled and pushed in as he said, “So fucking tight.”

  “Or maybe you’re just too fucking big,” she groused, but Mac only chuckled and picked up speed.

  Mac lifted his head and closed his eyes, pleasure clearly written across his face, and Bethany moved her legs to give him better access. He leaned forward, kissed her again, and said, “Sorry, my little vixen, I need to be rough with you.”

  Bethany reached for her clit, but Jonathan’s hand was suddenly there, working it for her as Mac pounded her ass, and thirty seconds later Bethany was lost in another screaming orgasm, followed shortly by Mac growling his way through one.

  When Mac sat up, Bethany knew right away something was wrong. Two seconds later, Mac’s voice snapped, “Get her out of here.”

  Bethany sat up, grabbed his shoulders from behind, and felt the bones inside shifting and moving.

  “Feel my hands, Mac. My hands on your human shoulders.” She dug her thumbs into a trigger point above his shoulder blades and pressed towards his spine in a straight line, changing direction a few inches from his backbone and moving towards his neck. “I couldn’t do this if you were a wolf. Do you want my thumbs to keep working on you? Because I can only do it if you stay in control.”

  The bones stopped moving, his skin stopped crawling, and Mac took a shuddering breath.

  “Well,” said Jonathan. “I’ll be damned. She’s the Mac whisperer.”

  They all gave a relieved laugh, and Bethany leaned in and kissed the side of Mac’s neck as she kept working his shoulders and upper back. He turned and took her into his arms, saying, “I’m good now, you can stop. We’re supposed to be taking care of you, not the other way around.”

  “No apologies,” she ordered. “What happened?”

  He looked towards Ranger and back to her. “I got too caught up in the smells and it let the wolf get too big of a foothold.” He kissed her forehead. “The scents you give off when aroused are intoxicating, but when Ranger layered pain and fear over the top…” He shook his head. “I’ve smelled true fear and true pain, and both are a bitter, acrid smell. But yours tonight was sweet, beautiful, and they all worked together, merging and layering and…” He chuffed a breath out and shrugged. “It’s like explaining the difference between red and purple to a blind man. I couldn’t have understood it before I was turned.”

  The four found a way to lie in bed together, Bethany comfortably draped over them, and they talked for an hour. She could’ve easily fallen asleep, but didn’t want to lose this last hour with them before they left.

  The final goodbyes were more difficult than they should’ve been, and both she and Jonathan were quiet as he drove them back down the mountain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Snowy was less than pleased to see Jonathan again, and when he bowed up and turned sideways with a hiss, Bethany scolded, “Oh, enough of that, you silly cat.”

  “Don’t fuss at him. He can smell what I am and I can smell his fear. It’ll take time for him to trust I won’t eat him.”

  He double-checked the locks, and then went through the house looking at windows and the other doors. Bethany watched him a few seconds, and then trudged off to her bedroom, exhausted. She put a cute pajama outfit on — shorts and a matching camisole — and climbed into bed, figuring she’d probably be asleep before Jonathan joined her.

  However, she was getting comfortable with her pillows when he stepped into the room and took his shirt off, and she quietly threatened her libido to shut the fuck up before he smelled her arousal and decided to fool around some more. Her pussy and ass were deliciously sore, but she couldn’t take any more tonight.

  “You asked if you could see my leopard,” he said, his voice a quiet offer.

  She sat up, her weariness forgotten. “Yeah?”

  “I won’t hurt you, and I can understand you, though I can’t talk back,” he told her, and she had a feeling it would hurt his feelings if he smelled her fear, so she determined not to be afraid.

  His torso moved deliciously as he undressed, and she tried to admire his beauty without remembering how he looked above her while taking her, his cock in her ass as his hips pumped and his ab muscles rippled. His smile told her he smelled her arousal, but when he was nude he stood still, took a breath… and morphed into the most beautiful leopard she’d ever seen.

  He paced out of the room and back in, his long whip-like tail alternately curling and swishing.

  “Can you jump up on the bed with me? I want to pet you.”

  He was at least ten feet away when she asked, but he turned and leapt into the air, gracefully landing on her bed and immediately lying down and rolling to his side.

  “You surprised me, you didn’t scare me, Jonathan,” she told him, aware she probably smelled afraid because of the shock of seeing a two hundred plus pound cat flying through the air towards her. He’d been nowhere near landing on her. She was never in danger.

  “Can you come closer, so I can pet you?”

  He rolled over and touched her foot with his paw, and she leaned forward to pet him.

  Bethany truly felt no fear as this huge leopard wallowed on her bed, in heaven as she rubbed his head and scratched behind his ears. He caught her off guard when he started purring, as at first it sounded more like the growl of a German Shepherd than a purr, but she soon realized what it was, and laughed with joy as she kissed him on top of the head.

  “Can I rub your chest?”

  He rolled to his back and rubbed the top of his head on the bed as she stroked and rubbed his huge chest, burrowing her fingers in his fur. He rolled to his side and she rubbed the outside of his leg, then up to his shoulder, up his neck and back to his head.

  “How about your tail?”

  He swished it in a figure eight, whipping the bed with it hard enough to make her jump a little, and she asked, “No? Really? Just a touch?”

  His beautiful golden eyes let her know he most certainly didn’t want her touching his tail, and she decided she could wait to talk him into it another day. “Okay, I get it. Leave your tail the fuck alone.”

  He nudged her hand as if to say, “Yeah, but you can pet my head some more,” and she laughed as she pet him.

  “You’re beyond beautiful, both as a human and a leopard,” she told him.

  He touched her arm with his paw, squeezing it between the pads while keeping his nails sheathed, and she turned the light out and stretched out in the bed, her arm over his shoulder, her fingers buried in his fur as she absently stroked him until she fell asleep.

  * * * *

  Jonathan awoke the next morning, still in his leopard form, snuggled against Bethany. He smelled Snowy and turned his head to see the white housecat sitting on the dresser, glaring.

  The fact he’d come into the room meant it might be easier to befriend him in cat form than in his human skin, so Jonathan rolled to his back and playfully batted his paws as he looked at Snowy upside down.

  Snowy looked away, more pissed than scared, and Jonathan knew he’d won the white bundle of attitude over — he’d been frightened before, but now he was jealous of Jonathan sleeping in the bed, and no longer terrified.

  The leopard wriggled and twisted, offering to play until the white cat looked back to him, but no way was he going to jump on the bed and play right now. Still, it was a good start.

  Bethany giggled, and Jonathan rolled to look at her, gently touching her leg over the cover as a way of saying good morning.

/>   “Hello to you, too. Are you trying to get Snowy to play? I have some catnip around here, will you get goofy if I give you some?”

  He gave her a level stare to let her know he wasn’t amused, and then took a breath and focused on what his human body felt like. The cat no longer held on when he wanted to change back, and seconds later Jonathan was in his human skin once again.

  He stalked up the bed towards her, still on all fours, telling her, “If you weren’t so sore I’d show you just how serious I can be, but I’m guessing you’re in no shape for it right now.”

  Her arms went around his neck as he bent to kiss her, and he buried his neck in her throat and smelled the feminine, musky scent of a happy, relaxed, healthy woman. The cat reminded her she was his woman, and Jonathan didn’t argue. Bethany wasn’t at all freaked out about sleeping with a leopard, or watching him change, and his heart melted a little more for this strong, brave, sensual, beautiful woman, and he let her feel it in the kiss. He knew she was skittish and they needed to go slow with her where feelings and emotions were concerned, but she’d grown important to both the man and the cat in a few short days, and it was hard to not show how he felt.

  When he finally backed away from the kiss, she glanced at the clock as she stretched under him, and he had to will his cock not to go insta-hard.

  “I don’t have to leave for another hour and a half, but I was awakened by my two cats apparently flirting with each other. Or one flirting and the other being pissy, I guess.”

  He chuckled and plopped beside her, still on the outside of the covers while she was under them. “I wasn’t flirting, I was offering to play. He was terrified of me in human form before, but apparently only cautious of me in leopard form. Or, perhaps merely so pissed off because I took his spot in bed, he didn’t care whether I ate him or not as long as he got to glare at me, first.”

  She pushed the hair out of his face, and ran her fingers through it. “So different, and yet the same,” she said, almost to herself. “My brain wants me to be sure you can play with Snowy and not hurt him, but my heart knows if you couldn’t, you wouldn’t have made the offer.”

  He kissed her forehead as she stole the rest of his heart. “Listen to your heart, Raggedy. I won’t hurt you, or anyone you care about.”

  “How could you sleep with me last night, when Mac can’t?”

  “Mac doesn’t know he’s a wolf all the time, sometimes he forgets and the wolf instincts come through. I slept with my back to you, on top of the covers, and my claws are sheathed. Wolves can’t retract their claws, so it’s doubtful even Ranger would try it, and he has tons of control.”

  He glanced at the clock and suggested, “Why don’t we get up and ready for the day, so I can take you somewhere nice for breakfast?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jonathan and Bethany had a nice couple of days, but on Wednesday, he got a phone call during dinner and she knew right away it was bad news.

  He stepped onto her back deck to talk, and she forced herself to keep eating. He’d made a fantastic salmon brisket, and had given the trimmings to Snowy, who was now Jonathan’s bestest buddy.

  When he came back in, Jonathan closed the door and leaned against it, his face solemn. “Aaron’s leaving Sophia alone on their honeymoon a few days to go to Washington and speed things along with Mac’s debrief. He needs me and a few members of the team to leave in the next couple of hours, because he won’t leave Sophia until we’re by her side.”

  Bethany’s heart nosedived into her stomach and she thought she might be sick. “Things must be bad if he’s leaving his wife alone on their honeymoon.”

  “They’re headed towards bad, and Aaron wants to intervene before it’s beyond his ability to fix.” He took a few steps toward her, pulled her out of the chair, and wrapped his arms around her. Bethany wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself as he said, “Aaron’s good, and he has a lot of contacts in high places. If anyone can get Mac free from his government obligations, Aaron can.”

  “What happens if he can’t?”

  Jonathan was still and quiet a few seconds, and finally answered, “I don’t know. He can’t survive in his old job yet, he doesn’t have enough control. He can work for Aaron in a few months, because Aaron will know what he can and can’t handle, and will send him with other wolves who can help him out before he loses control. If he’s on his own in a foreign country, spying on the enemy….” He shrugged. “It’s a high stress job with no place to hide if he loses control, and our inner animals don’t deal well with threats, especially those we aren’t free to act upon.”

  * * * *

  The next couple of days were maddening, and Bethany wondered how she’d come to depend so much on having these three guys around in a few short days. She felt as if they’d taken a piece of her with them, and her house seemed empty with just her and Snowy.

  Jonathan called her in the evenings, but she’d known there would be no communication with Ranger or Mac while they were in Washington. She missed them — missed their voices, their touch. And she worried.

  Bethany had dinner with Gen and told her everything, even the bondage stuff, and her friend’s face flamed more and more crimson with each decadent detail.

  “I see Duke hasn’t cured you of blushing when someone talks about sex,” she teased as she poured Gen another glass of wine.

  “You didn’t just have sex with them! You let them whip you!”

  “Yeah, I did,” she said, suddenly serious. “And even though it hurt, if they ask me to let them do it again, and I’m horny enough when they ask, I’ll let them.” Bethany shook her head as she tried to figure out how to explain why — both to herself as well as her friend. “It was this violently beautiful thing, and when it was over, I felt so close to them. Like when you see people in the movies who go through an awful experience together and it brings them closer? Only this wasn’t a bad experience — it was this special moment in time that fused us together. It branded them into my life and me into theirs. A huge, shared experience.” She took a long drink of wine as she realized it was impossible to explain.

  “Can I see the bruises?”

  Bethany nodded and pulled her shirt down so Gen could see one of them on her inner breast. “He hit the outside kind of in the center, but aimed so the ones on the inside don’t show when I wear a low-cut blouse. Do you know how much skill that would take?”

  She let go of her shirt and picked the wine glass back up, waiting for her friend’s reaction.

  “I find myself both repulsed and a little turned on, so I guess I can’t blame you for being okay with it. I don’t get it, but then I guess I don’t have to. If you’re happy then I’m happy for you.” Gen smiled, her face still red, and lifted her glass as she said, “You were the one who wanted a harem, after all.”

  * * * *

  Jonathan continued to call every evening, but his only news was, “Aaron’s working on it.”

  At lunch one day, while eating alone with her Kindle, an old client asked if he could sit at Bethany’s table. A football player for the local university, Billy is so many levels beyond hot he’s scorching. He’d been off limits while he was her patient, but now…

  Bethany sighed as she suddenly felt trapped by her men instead of happy, and she motioned for him to have a seat.

  The conversation stayed friendly and social at first, as she asked him how his shoulder and back were doing, and when practice started, and the classes he was taking this semester.

  When he asked her to dinner, she wasn’t really considering it. She didn’t tell him no right away, but mainly because she wasn’t used to spending her evenings alone and she truly had no plans. Still, something must have pinged somewhere because Ranger called, and it’d been so long since she’d heard from him she didn’t care how rude it was to answer while eating lunch with someone else.

  “Please don’t do it,” Ranger said. “I know we’ve left you alone longer than any of us intended, but hopefully we’ll be
home in a few days.”

  When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’m good and Mac’s surviving. They aren’t keeping him isolated anymore, so I know firsthand how he’s doing, which is a relief, but please don’t ask anything else.”

  Right, because they should assume his calls were being monitored. “I wasn’t going to, Ranger, but it’s good to hear your voice. I’ll see you in a few days. Take care of both of you.”

  When she hung up, the studly football player smiled as he said, “My ego isn’t that fragile, you could’ve told me you’re seeing someone.”

  “Sorry. We hadn’t been seeing each other long when he got called out of town unexpectedly, so I’m not absolutely sure where we are with each other, but I’m thinking it’s best if I don’t go out with anyone else until we figure it out.”

  He shook his head. “You care for him, it was written all over your face.” He smiled mischievously as he said, “And you have magical hands, so he’s a lucky man. I just hope he knows it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three days later, Bethany looked at her GPS app’s time to destination yet again, wishing she could drive faster on these damned curvy, country, mountain roads.

  Mac and Ranger had flown into town and driven straight to a rental cabin in the middle of nowhere, as apparently the surrounding woods were safe for wolves to run without danger of encountering humans. The front door had a keypad and they’d told her to use the last four digits of Ranger’s cellphone number to get in. There was a good chance they’d still be wolf when she arrived.

  The full moon was close, so Mac would be kept away from Bethany for a while, and would need to remain near the door so he could hit the woods if he lost control. They could be in the same room, but no snuggling and absolutely no sex for at least a week.