by Alexis Wilde
No matter how badly his wolf demanded he keep her for himself.
Chapter Three
Benjamin Turner was so different from the other two men that Natalie couldn’t stop staring. She’d thought Jackson was tall, but Ben was taller, with shoulders that would make a football star jealous. The flannel shirt he wore couldn’t hide a rugged expanse of muscle, tapered to a lean waist and trim hips in worn jeans. He wasn’t exactly enormous, Jackson was wider with muscle, but something about him screamed predator in ways that Jackson didn’t.
She felt safer with Jackson. Battered from every side by the strength of his presence—all hunger and heat and intensity—but less afraid. Ben carried himself with an eerie restraint that had her second-guessing the wolf pushing against her human resolve.
The beast inside wanted to test him; the human part of her couldn’t decide if he scared her or tempted her more.
Natalie wasn’t exactly sure why. He’d driven up in a plain, brick-red van with old siding—the kind of vehicle that didn’t get a second glass on a busy road. She’d watched him approach, his stride long and slow, ducked her head under his cursory glance.
“Is she coming willingly?”
Four words, delivered in a voice that didn’t so much stroke her skin as wrap velvet-covered steel fingers around her flesh. Sink deep and hold, long after the timber of it faded into silence.
Jackson hadn’t been kidding.
Every instinct she possessed both cowered and perked up; something wicked and frightening, darker than hunger and more ragged, curled in her belly. Sank deep to flood the flesh between her legs.
She’d come willingly, all right. And often.
That was probably her heat cycle talking.
Maybe.
Jackson put a hand at the small of her back. Encouragement. “Natalie.”
She wiped her sweaty palms down her thighs. “Yes,” she said, staring at Ben’s knees. “I understand who I am and where I’m going and—” Her mouth went dry. “And why.”
Ben tipped his head. She kept her eyes downcast, unsure if this werewolf lieutenant would care if she met his eyes directly. Victor’s second had cared. He’d made it a point to scruff anyone weaker than him who’d dared.
Jackson’s hand, warm at her back, pressed lightly. Such a big hand, big and scarred and strong. It amazed her that it could be so gentle.
Ben finally nodded, a dip of dark hair in her peripheral, and turned around. “Then let’s take you in.”
It was the only thing he said to her. Natalie couldn’t figure out if she was relieved or something else entirely.
Wary, yes. A little disappointed?
A little…tingly, especially around the fringes of her awareness where the heat simmered. Content, for now, but she knew her biological demands would spike again. It was just a matter of time. Of waiting for it.
And maybe… Maybe she didn’t want to wait for it. How was that for obedient?
Natalie hid a smile she couldn’t help, even if it didn’t mesh with the nerves fluttering inside her belly. God, if Victor knew what she was thinking, he’d blow his top. She wasn’t a prude, she’d never been one, but his interest in the subject of Natalie Baker ended at “full-blooded” and “mate”.
She couldn’t say Jackson and Ben weren’t the same, but a part of her—hopeful and unsure—wanted to trust them. To believe in them. They were taking her to their cabin, after all. Risking trouble to do it.
It meant something. But what?
Regardless of Ben’s eerily silent disposition, she didn’t want to be alone in the back of the van. Instead, she took the space between both men in the front, seated cross-legged on the floor. It wasn’t much more comfortable in the cramped cab than on the cold, hard ground, but she’d take it over the box. Everything felt like a win over that box.
Not that the interior was particularly small. Two seats dominated the front, with enough space between for Natalie. Ben, surprising her, had said nothing about her closeness. He’d given her cushions and a blanket, and once, when she wasn’t paying attention, he reached down to tuck the edge of the blanket against her shoulder without looking away from the road. That little kindness eased some of her fear.
Jackson didn’t seem to mind that she remained close to the warmth of his side, her shoulder against the solid muscle of his thigh like a touchstone.
She wasn’t exactly hurting for space. It was just that both men seemed to fill the van, powerful auras clashing in a way that scored the air with an undercurrent of fractured electricity. As she studied the strong line of Ben’s profile through her lashes, she wondered if he remained silent out of courtesy—or out of dislike.
He was so calm, so reserved, that she couldn’t get a read on him.
At her right, Jackson leaned forward to shoot the second-in-command a glare. “Dude. You want to ease up on the whole deep-waters bit? You’re making her nervous.”
Heat suffused Natalie’s cheeks. “N-no, I—”
One large hand wrapped around her mouth. “I can hear your heart beating,” he pointed out. “Don’t bother to deny it.”
Okay. Fine. She was a little scared. A little overwhelmed.
Uncertain and cautious and under all of that, like it wasn’t enough, she couldn’t stop looking at the silent wolf with the chin-length dark hair pulled back from his face. It bared the line of his jaw, sharp as cut glass and, unlike Jackson’s, closely shaved.
She wondered if it’d be smooth under her fingertips, or raspy with the start of a day’s growth.
Wondered if he’d smell as good up close as he did from here.
Ben glanced away from the road. His eyes were also dark, gleaming like jet in the light of the dashboard. His gaze touched her face, dropped to Jackson’s hand at her mouth, and flicked back to the nearly empty interstate he navigated. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, and again, the tonal richness of it seeped into her skin.
Skimmed like a command over her senses.
There was power in his voice. Not magic, not the kind of power that the strongest among them could bring to bear on a pack, but something indefinably different.
Masculine, yes. Rife with authority, definitely.
Natalie wanted to hear more. Wanted to make him talk to her, and wondered what he’d do if she disobeyed.
She shivered as her blood warmed. As her thighs clamped together.
Jackson chuckled, his breath ghosting over her ear. “What did I tell you?” he asked, a husky tease.
Natalie sucked in a breath colored by the scent of his skin, rich and musky. He smelled like the forest they’d left behind, all sun-warmed earth and pine.
And like sex.
Ben’s hands remained loose on the wheel, comfortable for a long drive. Behind them, the interior of the van remained dark and quiet. It was sparsely furnished. Two smaller seats—though she couldn’t imagine anyone but the leaner Alek fitting in either—and a futon bolted into place. Maybe for those trips where they didn’t want to spend money on a hotel.
She wasn’t sure how it worked for other packs—especially for the strays—but Victor wasn’t the generous type. Natalie was used to roughing it.
A fact that had worked in her favor up until she’d been caught.
As the van thrummed beneath her, vibrations seeping into her legs, her spine, she couldn’t help but wonder what it might feel like to lean over the narrow distance and press her lips to the quiet Ben’s knee. His thigh. Whether he’d retain his implacable calm or if it’d crack.
The composure she’d scraped together fractured. Her voice, muffled by Jackson’s hand, squeaked on something that skimmed dangerously close to pleading.
Telling.
Embarrassing.
Jackson’s teeth caught the fragile shell of her ear, a bright note of pain that eased into a crackling hum of arousal as he licked the stinging skin. She shuddered in his hold.
The heat infusing her body ratcheted up another notch.
“What did you tell h
er?” Ben queried, his gaze still firm on the road.
She curled her fingers around Jackson’s wrist.
“That you’d get off on telling her what to do,” he replied, not a shred of embarrassment in his tone. She wanted to look at his face but he held her against his side with effortless ease. “That’s she’d get off.”
Deliberately, she dragged her tongue over his palm.
His hand jerked. His breath caught.
From the side, the severe line of Ben’s lips tilted—an upwards slant that did dangerous things to her pulse.
So he did know how to smile. The deep calm she’d sensed in him rippled.
It found an answering echo in the slow, deep furrows her wolf clawed into her psyche. Hunger seeped into the cool, hollow quiet she’d found in the wake of Jackson’s ministrations—the simmering whisper of her arousal, never more than a breath away, flickered into sudden, alarming flame.
The urge was like that. The soothing balm of male semen was only part of the physiological process. What she wanted—what her primordial instincts craved—was more than just science.
Compatibility. Strength.
Sex.
The kind that left an indelible mark.
Natalie wasn’t shy about the concept, but she felt shy around these men; strangers, both of them, and yet indefinably addicting. She needed to test them. To taste them.
To be wanted.
Jackson eased his hand from her mouth, but his fingers stroked over her lower lip. It tingled. “She’s been looking forward to it. You can smell it on her, can’t you?”
Natalie’s breath shortened.
Her body clenched.
With startling nonchalance, Ben eased back in his seat, guiding the steering wheel with his left hand and draping the other across the back of Jackson’s chair. He smelled different to Natalie’s wolf, less like sun-warmed forest and more like the smoky rasp of desert sky. Not as soothing.
Twice as dangerous.
Natalie gasped as the tip of Jackson’s index finger dragged at the corner of her mouth.
“Is that what you want, little girl?”
Ben’s question forced a shuddering moan from her.
“You’ll have to answer with words,” Jackson said behind her. His hand cradled her cheek, kept her chin upright when she would have buried her face against the blanket she held around her shoulders. “What do you say?”
She didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes,” she managed. “Please.”
“Good girl,” Ben said, with such obvious praise that it should have felt false—but didn’t. It felt sincere. Approving. She was good. Exactly the way he liked it.
She found herself nodding.
Waiting.
Eager for the next word, the next command.
He didn’t disappoint.
“Take his fingers into your mouth. Let me see you suck them.”
Jackson’s grip on her face altered. His index and middle fingers slid over her lips.
She obediently opened her mouth, curled her tongue around the broad tip of both. He tasted like sweat and sex and warmth; his breath hissed out behind her.
Emboldened by the sound, she drew his fingers deeply into the wet cavern of her mouth, wrapped her lips around them and sucked gently. His calluses were rough. His fingertips deliberate as he pressed hard against the softer flesh of her tongue.
An answering pulse of need knocked between her legs. She could feel herself dripping with it.
Could taste herself on Jackson’s skin.
“She’s eager,” Ben commented. His voice warmed. “Are you feeling it, little girl?”
God, nobody called her that and got away with it—but then, nobody had ever called her that and sounded so damned hungry at the same time. Somehow, the cadence of Ben’s voice changed. Hardened.
Jackson thrust his fingers into her mouth, murmuring, “Say it, sweetheart. He likes to hear it.”
She could only moan around Jackson’s fingers, laving them, scraping them with her teeth. Each pull of her lips sent another tug through her body. Her nipples tightened. The van shuddered, and she was so sensitized, she found herself grinding herself against the van floor.
Her jeans were getting damp.
“Has she blown you yet?” The question was aimed over her head.
Natalie could only stare at Ben’s profile as he asked. Jackson’s voice strained. “No.”
“Did you talk about it?”
“No,” he rasped.
Natalie gasped around his fingers.
“Take your fingers out.”
She whimpered when Jackson obeyed, a wet sound accompanying the slide of his fingers from between her lips.
Ben watched the road with care. “What’d he do to you, Natalie?”
She forced herself to sit still, but the hunger rolling under her skin howled for something more. Something deeper than fingers and lips and words. She licked her wet lips. “He…had me.”
“You can do better.” His voice was pure magic. His growl, that thread of his wolf undercutting his human voice with visceral demand, scored through her senses. Stirred her up, jerked her into a raw nerve—desperate to be touched. Afraid what would happen if either tried.
She clasped her hands between her thighs, tucked hard against the denim concealing her throbbing flesh. She needed…something. Something more than just fast sex. “He fucked me,” she managed. “Just his cock. Inside me.”
“Inside you where? In your mouth?” Ben’s eyes, near black, slid to her. “Your ass?”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, shaking uncontrollably. The thought of it—the visuals undid her. “Can I? Is that…?”
“Possible?” Ben turned back to the road, but this time, he put both hands carefully on the wheel and gripped it hard. “Oh, yeah. It’s possible.”
“N-now?”
“Fuck,” Jackson said, a throaty failure in restraint. He grabbed her hair, a fist full of her tangled waves, and tugged her head back until she had no choice but to look up at him. “Does the thought of a cock in your ass turn you on?”
She wasn’t sure if she was more shy or more aroused by the idea. To be taken from the back, in a place that wasn’t meant for reproduction—it had to feel good or people wouldn’t do it. She didn’t know. “I-I’ve never…”
“Ever?” A note of surprise from Ben.
“I suspect her last pack had neanderthal views on the subject,” Jackson said tightly.
“I see.” Something passed between them, something wordless and indefinably charged. Anger battered at her skin, but with it, a fierce resolve enclosed her between them. Held her.
Natalie didn’t get it. All she knew was that her body had soared off into the stratosphere and the hunger was beginning to sear around the edges. A low, frustrated sound seeped out from her clenched teeth.
To her surprise, Ben’s lips quirked again—that mind-altering half-smile that she couldn’t read, but seemed somehow keyed into his pleasure. “Okay, then,” he said, conversational but for the fact his voice conveyed dark, dangerous promise. “Jackson, lean back. Let her get to your zipper.”
He let go of her hair, which let Natalie shift to her knees. She watched Jackson’s face as he shot Ben a long, hard stare. But he didn’t argue. Instead, he eased back into the worn chair, very deliberately lowering his hands to his sides.
It left him open to Natalie’s hungry gaze, his broad shoulders not so much curved into the back of his chair as rigidly held in position. The muscles at his biceps and forearms strained.
The tented denim at the front of his jeans brought another desperate growl to her lips.
She forced it back.
“Undo his jeans, little girl. Take out his cock.”
Oh, God, oh, God. She’d never done oral before, either. It seemed sort of beside the point. Mating was about reproduction, about getting a cock inside her and easing the ache.
But as she reached across Jackson’s lap, undid the button at his waistband wi
th shaking fingers, her mouth watered. The sound of his zipper tore through the silence, and her heart leapt in her chest as she eased the long, thick length of his cock out.
He was searing hot in her hand, smooth to the touch and already glistening at the wide head. The flesh there was darker, flush with blood, contrasting with the veins corded along the length. It jerked and throbbed in her grip like a live thing.
“Lick the tip,” the other man said—quiet, steady. “Taste him once. Make him jump.”
She bent over his lap, darted her tongue just over the center where a bead of liquid gleamed. Jackson’s cock leapt. So did Jackson, locked down to a wrenching shudder.
Air hissed in between his teeth. Hissed out on a strained, “God.”
She couldn’t help herself. She did it again, smoothing her tongue over the wide head, delving into the little divot at the very tip. He tasted a little salty, strongly musky. His hips twitched, thigh muscles bunched, and Jackson’s hands fisted at his sides on a low, strangled groan.
This time, it was Ben’s hand that fisted in her hair, jerking her back with a sharp tug—not vicious, but firm. The pressure at her scalp was better than fingernails. Hotter, delicious. She gasped. “I didn’t say you could do that,” Ben warned.
Tears stung her eyes, but it wasn’t all pain—and it wasn’t fear.
She wanted Jackson’s cock in her mouth so badly, she was panting for it. “P-please,” she gasped.
“Please what?”
Jackson sealed his teeth together, his jaw a stony line of unbearable control.
Natalie’s spine tingled from the awkward line Ben had forced her into, but that, too, was a kind of pleasure. Her body ached, wanted desperately—and he made her draw it out. Put it in words. She swallowed hard. “Please let me suck him,” she whispered. “His c-cock.”
“Good girl,” Ben said again, and that praise made her want to wag her tail, for all she didn’t have one. “I like good girls, Natalie.” The hand in her hair eased. “Do it. Wrap your beautiful lips around him, Natalie. Slowly,” he added, “as far as you can. Jackson.” His voice darkened. “I want to see.”
She looked up at Jackson’s face, a peek from under her lashes. His expression was taut, muscle at his jaw ticking.