Seduction in Paradise

by Tianna Xander

  Removing the cap, she placed the bottle to her full, luscious lips and took a long drink.

  Daniel wanted to protect her yes, but he was also a man and watching her lips caress the plastic bottle and the muscles of her throat working as she swallowed only served to make him want her more, to imagine what it would feel like to press his lips against hers or to feel her mouth wrapped around his cock. Taking a deep breath, he turned around, unable to watch anymore. He didn’t want to scare her and the gods knew if he showed any sexual interest in her, he would frighten her enough to run from them. They needed to get their mate to Paradise where they could protect her—even if it meant protecting her from themselves.

  “We can’t stay here all day, boys. If you’ve got to go to the bathroom, now is the time. Just pick a bush and go.”

  Sabrina looked up sharply and thinned her lips.

  Good. She was angry. At least she had gotten over enough of her fear of them to let her temper loose, even if it was only for a bit. The boys nodded, pulled free of Sabrina’s embrace and hurried off the trail to find a couple of bushes.

  * * * *

  Sabrina’s heart leapt to her throat. She wanted to run after them, but they had each taken off in a separate direction. What if there were more, bloodthirsty mountain lions laying in wait out there? What if a bear lurked in the bushes, having risen from its hibernation? Visions of the boys she’d come to love in such a short time attacked by a large, angry moose danced through her mind. Taking a deep breath, she attempted to calm herself. After all, she didn’t even know if there were moose on this mountain.

  Biting her lip, she waited, knowing that the men were perfectly capable of keeping the boys safe with the firearms they carried. Still, she worried until both boys came back out onto the path from opposite directions. Timmy, still pulling his pants up, looked up and grinned, his even white teeth gleaming. “I peed standing up!”

  “Me, too,” Tommy piped in. His smile was just as big as his brother’s.

  Sabrina stifled a laugh, the effort causing her to let out a very unladylike snort. “You did?” she asked, feigning surprise.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Both boys nodded vigorously, causing their blond curls to bounce. Lord, how she loved those curls. She always wanted to reach out and smooth them down, feeling the soft down of their blond hair sliding through her fingers.

  “Us boys can do that.” Timmy shoved his thumb against his chest and thrust his shoulders back. “Girls can’t.”

  Sabrina gave each of the men a narrowed-eyed look. “Just who told you two that?” There was plenty of time for the boys to learn of the birds and the bees and this wasn’t one of them.

  “Daddy.” The twins answered at the same time, then immediately became quiet, their bottom lips trembling, tears in their eyes.

  Immediately sorry she asked, Sabrina swallowed thickly, almost wanting to apologize to the two men for thinking them the culprits and reminding the children of their loss. This was the first day they had come out of their protective shells to talk and she had to go and remind them that their parents were dead. They would be lucky if the boys didn’t return to their silent state. They shuffled closer and she pulled them into her arms once again, Tommy on her left and Timmy on her right.

  “Did our mommy and daddy go to heaven?”

  It was Tommy who spoke, she could tell them apart easily while they wore their coats. There was a smudge on the collar of his coat. He’d gotten it that first day when he stumbled out of the car, his eyes wide with the horror of witnessing his parent’s death.

  Nodding, she cleared her throat in an effort to remove the lump that formed there. “I—I think so.” She pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and wiped first Timmy’s face, then his brother’s. “I do know that wherever they are, they’re both watching over you, proud that you’re such brave boys.” She gave them both a squeeze. “You make them proud every day. Never doubt that.”

  Daniel moved closer. She felt him move closer until she could see him clearly.

  “I think Sabrina is right about that. I also believe they are as grateful as I am that she found you so quickly and that you all found the cabin where you would remain warm and safe.”

  Sabrina heard all the words he didn’t say. Those that said he was thankful she found them before they perished and that they all made it to the cabin before the two man-eating cats found them all and made another meal out of them.

  Kneeling down next to her, Daniel reached out and ruffled each of the boys’ hair, cleared his throat, then looked her in the eyes. “I agree with Sabrina. Wherever your parents are, they are very proud to see you here safe with us. They wanted you out of harm’s way more than anything.”

  The boys eyes glazed over as they both began to chant. “Stay in the car. Stay in the car.”

  Their voices were strange, wooden, unnatural… and it scared her.

  * * * *

  Luke reached out to the boys mentally and touched their minds, healing them once again. Sweat beaded on his brow as he continued the difficult task of suppressing such vivid memories. He wasn’t sure how, but the scenes of the boys’ parents’ death that Daniel attempted to bury earlier were fresh in their thoughts, as though they had just witnessed the horrible event that stole their parents from them.

  The last thing he wanted to do was tell them they had to spend the night on this mountain. It was the one thing he knew was guaranteed to send the boys and Sabrina into a fright. He had no doubt, that given time, the boys would have no difficulty overcoming the circumstances of their parent’s death. The twins were young enough that they may forget the horror in a few years, especially with Daniel and himself to help them forget. Sabrina, on the other hand, may never overcome the trauma of finding these two younglings locked in a car while their parent’s mangled bodies lay not thirty feet from them.

  It was she who managed to get the boys to the cabin, she who took care of them those first horrible weeks when the trauma was still so fresh in their minds and it was she who had cared for them at the expense of her own health when she realized they were snowed in.

  How many times had she gone hungry to make sure the boys ate? She was thin. Too thin. Starved may be a better word. Like all shifters, he liked a little meat on his woman’s bones and he vowed to see she gained at least a few pounds when they got her to Paradise.

  It wouldn’t be long and they would reach the site where he and Daniel planned to set up camp. The clearing was exactly what they needed. A bit of level ground, where the canopy of the trees was high enough to start a fire, providing they could find enough dry wood. Finding enough dry tinder along the mountainside with the melting snow would prove difficult. Of that, he had no doubt.

  He continued along the path, alternately carrying and leading Tommy. The boys often tried to switch places and pretend one was the other, but with his shifter’s keen sense of smell, it made it nearly impossible for the boys to pull it off with him and Daniel. Sabrina had her own way of telling them apart. Whatever it was, he had to admire her for her ingenuity.

  After walking for nearly seven hours, minus a few breaks for the children to rest and relieve themselves, they finally reached the spot where they planned to set up camp.

  “There’s a clearing just though here.” He pointed to his left. “We’ll set up the tent here for the night.” He glanced back at Sabrina. “You and the boys will share the tent and Daniel and I will stay outside and keep an eye out for our bloodthirsty friends.” He made a show of cocking the rifle he carried and knew he would never use. If a cat came prowling around his mate, his leopard would stand for nothing else than defending his female with his claws and teeth. The gun was merely to chase unwanted visitors from the mountain, those of the two-legged variety that is.

  Sabrina let out a long sigh. “Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure how much more walking I could do.”

  I wasn’t sure either, Daniel said through their mind link. She looked about ready to keel over a minute ago. I h
ope that flat rock is clean. It will make a nice seat for her while we set up camp.

  Luke gave a non-committal grunt. “There’s a large flat rock in the clearing where you can sit while we set up the tent.”

  “It sounds like heaven.”

  Catching Daniel’s glance, he frowned. Perhaps we should have taken it slower. She isn’t strong enough for such a long hike.

  Maybe not, Daniel jerked his head back toward the cabin. We can’t take any chances with her. I scented others before we left. They weren’t shifters, but they weren’t quite human either. The only reason I didn’t say something before now was because I wasn’t sure what it was I smelled. It may have just been my imagination and the el calor. Whatever it was I scented, had been close to the cabin sometime last night. It’s imperative we get our mate and the younglings down the mountain as quickly as possible.

  If it weren’t for the fact that they knew their being shifters would scare the living daylights out of their mate, they would have told her and been long gone by now. Daniel could have shifted into his beast and carried them out of the forest, but he couldn’t. Her fear of shifter males overshadowed her fear of men in general and she would run at the first opportunity. Their only hope was to get her to Paradise where she could see how happy her sister was with her mates. Perhaps then they would have a shot at convincing her that not all men were the animals she’d been exposed to last summer.

  Chapter Four

  Sabrina wandered over to the large rock the men mentioned and sat on the edge. The boys, finally given a bit of leeway, decided it was time to wrestle. She smiled at their antics. It was good to see them playing and having a good time. The time they spent in the cabin was very confining. However, this wasn’t much better. The three of them would have to keep an eye on the boys all the time or they may wander off. They may have huge vocabularies and be very bright for their age, but they were still only three or four years old, judging by their size. The boys hadn’t told her how old they were yet. If they even knew.

  “Great, just great,” she mumbled as the men began to set the tent in a corner of the clearing surrounded on three sides by thick, scratchy bramble. “If those two think I’m cuddling up to them for warmth or safety, they can just think again.”

  Her stomach churned anxiously at the thought of sleeping in the open with nothing but a tent for shelter. It wouldn’t stop the big cats that killed the boys’. Her only thought was for the boys. Just thinking of the beasts who killed Timmy and Tommy’s parent’s harming her precious boys scared her more than anything else ever had. What would they do? How would they keep the children safe from the mountain lions that craved the taste of human blood?

  Fisting her hands against her thighs, Sabrina pasted a smile on her face, then turned to the twins. “Did you hear that, guys?” She fought to keep her voice cheerful. “We get to sleep outside tonight. Won’t it be exciting to stay in a tent and sleep on the ground?”

  “I don’t wanna. It’s cold out here. I wanna go back home.” Tommy’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. His bottom lip trembled as he reached out to grab his brother’s hand.

  “Me either.” Timmy’s tone wasn’t whiney and frightened like his brother’s. He was downright belligerent. “I don’t wanna sleep outside and you can’t make me.”

  Sabrina looked to the two men who had grown uncharacteristically quiet and raised a brow. “What do you two propose to do about that?” If they thought she was being the bad guy here, they were sadly mistaken. Her relationship with the two small boys was still too new and fragile to force her will on them. Let Luke be the jerk who angered the twins. He was good at it. For now, Sabrina planned to seem just as much a victim to the men’s will as the boys. So what if it’s underhanded? I plan to remain in the kids’ good graces.

  “We must stop here for the night.” Luke knelt down to look each of them in the eye. “If it were just Daniel and myself, we could have made it to town without stopping, but it would have taken more than just a day.” He glanced at Sabrina, his gaze unreadable, his expression hard as granite. He wouldn’t give in on this. “However, we have a lady with us and she needs her rest. As do you two boys. Aren’t you tired?”

  How dare he make it seem like stopping here was all her fault, making her look like the bad guy after all? Sabrina stood and fisted her hands on her hips. “Don’t you dare blame this on me, you lousy, no good, lying sack of monkey dung!”

  * * * *

  Daniel bit back a grin as he watched his mate go from zero to bitch in less than three seconds. She was beyond lovely with her eyes flashing those amber sparks that were so much like her sister’s. Her face, flushed with anger, her head bobbing back and forth as she raged, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The woman looked and smelled so damned good as she stood there, hands on her hips, reading Luke the riot act.

  “Just what the he…” she glanced down at the boys before amending her sentence with a little stomp of her foot. “What in the world was that supposed to mean? Uh-huh. It’s just like a man to blame his own mistakes and inadequacies on a woman.” She directed that at the boys before turning her full-on glare to him. “Wipe that stinking smirk off your face, white boy, or I’ll do it for you, you low down slimy skunk.” She paused for a minute as she studied his face. “What’s so darned funny?”

  “There’s nothing funny, darlin’.” Luke grinned at her and straightened to his full height. He bounced a bit.

  The action told Daniel his knees were bothering him again. The last thing Luke needed to do was irritate them. They were in bad enough shape as it was, thanks to their para-military maneuvers with the alpha and his men over the last year or so.

  Sabrina crossed her arms over her chest and shot him another glare. “Don’t you give me that load of bull chips.”

  “I’m not lying to you, sweetheart.” Luke kept using terms of endearment he knew she hated. Why not? After all, she was too preoccupied to care at the moment and it gave him the opportunity to use them so she would get used to it. “I was merely thinking that you are very beautiful when you’re angry. I love the way you move and talk when you get all righteous.”

  Her eyes widened and she gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look.

  He’d stunned her speechless. Good.

  “Can we get a move on?” Daniel interrupted. “Standing here flapping our lips isn’t going to get this tent up or get us to town. After we’re done setting this up, we can go over to the stream and wash up. Maybe we can tickle some trout for dinner.”

  Luke half-bowed and waved his arm. “After you, my love.”

  “Will you stop that?” she hissed the words out from between clenched teeth. Turning, she shook her head as she moved to precede him toward the circle of stones set by some unknown camper who was there before them. “Men!” Sabrina said it as though it were a dirty word. “Can’t live with them, can’t ship them off to Mars.”

  “Mars, why Mars?”

  Turning, Sabrina gave him a look that told him she thought he was a complete waste of skin, then rolled her eyes. “It is the popular consensus that Mars is where all you idiots with the Y chromosomes are from.” She gave him a smile that nearly brought him to his knees. “I was merely expressing a desire to send you home.”

  Daniel threw his head back and laughed. Things were truly looking up if she could joke with them like that. It meant she was finally getting used to them. For the first time since they found her half-starving in that cabin, attempting to nurse the boys back to health, Daniel felt there may be a chance for them after all.

  * * * *

  Sabrina turned away, unsure of whether she should smile or scowl. Righteous, huh? She’d give them righteous. Still, his words left a warm tingly feeling in the pit of her stomach and it felt…good. For the first time in a long time, she felt good.

  Just six months ago, she’d been ready to die, had wanted to die. Nothing and no one could have convinced her that she was worth anything. She felt as though she had no direc
tion to her life and no reason to live. Why bother when life was filled with such pain?

  What was it about the two men that made her want to try for a relationship, a new life? And what was up with men these days that they wanted to share women? Whatever happened to a good, old-fashioned one-on-one affair? Sabrina took a deep breath and glanced their way. Something, some inexplicable part of her wanted to try, but she was understandably scared. She’d heard that sex was different when it wasn’t forced, but how would she know? She knew only roughness and violence, but that didn’t stop the dreamer in her from wishing things could have been different.

  She followed three of the four males to the stream. Luke stayed behind to pitch the tent, telling the rest of them to go wash in the stream. No matter how hard she tried to keep from doing so, her gaze kept finding its way to Daniel and the way his derriere filled out the jeans he wore.

  Sabrina thought she’d be immune to such things. Six month ago, she had been immune. There was just something about the two men that made her want the fairytale. Even though she was pretty sure their version of the story would be X-rated.

  After all she’d been through, Sabrina never expected to be attracted to any man. It was a shock to realize she was attracted to the two with which she’d spent the last few months sharing a cabin, especially as dominant as they were. Luke was positively beastly at times. Still, she knew it was because he wanted to protect her that his chauvinistic side came out on occasion.