by Dani April
“I’m fine, Ryan. TJ and Lance have been with me. We had a wonderful time. I think I’ve fallen in love with them.” She wanted to hearten Ryan so he would not be so concerned about her well-being. “But this all started with you and me right out here on these plains. I wanted to know how you felt about our relationship.”
He placed a tender hand on her shoulder. In her dream she was not wearing the bandage to cover his mating mark. It was in full bloom now as a bright, shiny star against her skin. Some might have mistaken it for a tattoo, but to Sarah it looked far more beautiful than any tattoo she had ever seen.
“I’m sorry I gave you my mark without your permission, Sarah.” His voice was crestfallen and pained. “I’ll live with the shame of what I did for the rest of my life. I’ve even thought of giving up my position as Alpha because of what I did to you. I wonder if I’m a strong enough man to hold the position now.”
“I was mad at you at first,” she admitted. “But now I don’t mind it so much. Look how beautiful it is next to my skin.” She lowered the satin sheet to fully expose her creamy white shoulder to his eager glance.
“I don’t deserve a second chance with you, Sarah. But if you give me one I promise to work hard for the rest of my life to be the kind of Alpha mate you deserve, one who will always love and cherish you.”
She traced fingers down his sculpted chest and felt his taut muscles flex at her light touch. “I forgive you, Ryan,” she said, feeling nothing but love in her heart for this big, wonderful man who she was confident would always care for her and be the best provider any woman could ever hope to have.
He kissed her then. It was a dream kiss, and it was wonderful. Sarah saw stars shoot before her eyes as his lips touched hers, and he fondled her in his mighty hold.
“I want to see you in person,” she pleaded with her dream man. “We have so many problems to solve, and TJ and Lance and I don’t know what to do. The only solution I have is that we just break up and get on with our lives before we all get hurt really bad. But none of us want that. If you were here I think you could find a way for us to all be together.”
“I’m in the air now flying to New York. We’ll be landing before noon.”
Sarah smiled even though she knew it was only a dream. “That’s wonderful. Thank you, Ryan.”
“What hotel are you staying at?”
“The Ritz-Carlton, Central Park.”
“That’s where I’ll meet you. Let Lance and TJ know I’m coming. I didn’t have a chance to tell them yet. Just sit tight and I’ll see you soon.”
Fog swirled across the plain they were standing on, and Ryan disappeared.
* * * *
The dream was over, and Sarah’s eyes fluttered open. Bright sunlight filled the bedroom, and she blinked a few times to adjust her vision. The bedclothes were the most comfortable she had known, her naked body was wrapped self-indulgently inside them and she lay back on the soft sheets and basked in a warm glow for a minute, allowing the cobwebs to clear out of her mind.
The weekend had moved at light speed, and for a moment she didn’t even recognize the room she had slept in. Then Lance came out from the bathroom buttoning his shirt, freshly shaved, his hair wet from the shower, and the glorious events of the night before all came back to her in a rush.
He sat down on the bed and gave her a smile when he saw she was awake. Bending to her, his well-defined features hovered before her vision. He ran gentle fingers under her chin and tipped her up for a kiss of her lips.
“Good morning,” he greeted her.
“Good morning,” she answered and returned his kiss. “What time is it anyway? I feel like I slept for a hundred years.”
“Just after ten.”
“I haven’t slept this late since I was in college.” She stretched languidly under the covers and felt the soft satin envelope her once more. Then she reached up and gave him another kiss. “But it was a wonderful day.”
He patted her knee through the fabric of her covers. “Go take a shower and get dressed, and I’ll take you down to the dining room for a Sunday morning brunch.”
“That sounds terrific.” She gave him a smile and reached for her robe. Cinching the robe around her waist, she climbed over the side of the bed, her legs still weak from the activities in the night. The plush carpeting welcomed the bare soles of her feet as she stepped across the room headed for her shower.
“I asked TJ to come over and join us for breakfast. He’s going to meet us down there,” Lance called after her.
The mention of TJ, her lover from Friday night, brought a flush across her face, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back. She was really going through with this. She had loved both of the men, and this morning felt a little wicked for her endeavors but all sorts of wonderful. Shape-shifters were pretty cool, she mused as she turned on the hot water for her shower.
Then a thought gave her pause. Her wild dream came flooding back to her, and she stuck her head back outside the door of the bathroom. “Is Ryan flying up here to be with us today?” she asked Lance.
He shook his head. “He can’t. With TJ and me away he’s probably working twenty-four-hour days for the pack. He won’t be able to get any time away until we get back home.”
Sarah felt puzzled why she would even ask such a dumb question. It was just a dream after all. But she couldn’t help feeling a little sad because it had been such a nice dream.
Before she stepped under the spray of the shower, she peeled back the bandage on her shoulder to take a peek at Ryan’s mark. It was sorer than it had been, and as she examined it in the bathroom mirror, realized it was no clearer for TJ’s home remedy. The mark was red and building up nicely into a bright star, but thankfully it didn’t look infected, only odd as it stood out in contrast to her skin.
The bandage wasn’t helping so she balled it in her fingers and threw it into the trash receptacle before she stepped under the water. The warm shower did wonders in bringing her back to life from the long night of passion, and when she stepped into her barley colored lightweight shorts and shrugged the apple-mint blouse over her head she felt ready to face the day.
Lance gave her a hug when she came out. “You look beautiful,” he told her. “But I didn’t get to see enough of your body last night.”
“You got to see plenty of my body last night,” she demurred.
“I can never get enough of my beautiful new mate.”
Sarah laughed. Lance was so lovely when he was like this. He was no longer the sad, dour cowboy she had met on the Circle T. “Let’s go get something to eat,” she said, putting an arm around his waist.
TJ was waiting for them at a table when they got downstairs to the dining room. He gave Sarah a kiss and a hug, and she found no trouble returning his affections. Not only was it not weird as she had feared it might be to have her two lovers from the past two nights sharing a table with her, it felt downright good.
There were few diners eating in the room with them at that hour on Sunday morning. The prices probably scared most away, but Sarah felt privileged her and her two men were afforded so much private space. In this city she was used to having it crowded wherever she went, and the elegant surroundings were made even more opulent by the quiet solitude.
The buffet-style brunch was scrumptious, and Sarah pigged out and tried a little bit of everything set out on the rich silver trays of the counter.
“Did Ryan mention anything to you about coming out to New York today?” she asked TJ as they were bringing back their overloaded breakfast plates to the table.
“No. Ryan won’t be coming here to New York anytime soon,” TJ assured her.
“Why do you keep asking?” Lance asked her.
“Just a dumb dream I had this morning.” Sarah waved it off.
TJ gave them both a knowing smile and looked from her to Lance and back again. “So, I take it the two of you got along all right yesterday?” he asked Sarah.
Sarah blushed and looked down at her f
ood. Of course TJ knew exactly what they’d done last night here in their hotel room, the same thing she had done with him the night before. These shifters seemed to think it was just a normal part of the relationship-building process, but for Sarah it took some getting used to. She felt embarrassed to have two such handsome cowboys fawning over her and to have undertaken an intimate relationship with both, but it was also ten degrees of awesome, and they made her so happy. She resolved not to question the unusual aspect of the relationships too closely just yet and merely enjoy them. Certainly with these two men there was a whole lot to enjoy.
Lance linked fingers with her across the table. “Sarah wants to be with us,” he announced to TJ.
TJ let out a whoop that drew the attention of the scattering of other diners in the room, and Sarah put a hand on his arm to try and quiet him.
“But it isn’t going to be that simple,” she warned him.
“If you want to be with us it should be very simple because being with you is all any of us have thought about since we met you.”
“I’m a human, and I don’t want to live in a wolf pack in the middle of nowhere,” Sarah told TJ bluntly. “You shifters don’t want to come up here and live in the middle of the biggest city on earth with me. Don’t you see the obstacles we face?”
All three of them were silent, Sarah’s depressing words having brought a sudden end to their conversation.
“Perhaps I can help.” The deep baritone of authority caused them all to crane their necks and look around.
“Ryan!” Sarah exclaimed as her heart leapt to her throat, and she hoped the wolf pack’s Alpha had come to save the day and not break her heart again.
Chapter Sixteen
Ryan was driving through midtown, and of course there was a traffic jam. There always was at this time of day, even on Sunday. Sarah was at his side in the front seat. To get her to leave the hotel and come away with him in a hurry, he’d had to be curt with her and assert his Alpha status over his two Betas who did not want to part with her company on such a beautiful summer afternoon.
At the airport he had rented a black SUV that was rugged and reminded him of the vehicles he drove at home. Stuck in traffic at the moment he longed for the open plains of the Circle T and hoped to soon be back there. How anyone, be they human or shifter, could handle a place like this city was beyond him. But a quick glance across the seat at the beautiful woman, who sat next to him, his mate, gave him his reason for being here. For Sarah he would have traveled to hell itself and never looked back.
She had been timid with him ever since he’d whisked her away from her two lovers of the weekend and the opulence of the Ritz-Carlton, and he didn’t think she was any too happy right now. At first she had tried asking him a hundred questions that he didn’t have time to answer so he had silenced her with a look of meaning and assured her all her questions would be answered before the day was finished.
As Alpha, Ryan knew how to take charge. He had been born to the role and learned leadership from a young age. When he made up his mind on a course of action, he went with it and took his chances, brooking no obstacle to get in his way. This time around it was harder than simply handling pack business. Now he was making decisions that would affect his future with the one and only mate he’d ever had. Despite all his better judgment that told him to take things slow, he had fallen in love with this woman and knew he was in way over his head with these new feelings of passion.
“If you were just going to drive around in traffic all day we could have gotten a cab to do that,” Sarah told him. She was sarcastic and perturbed with him. Back in the Ritz-Carlton dining room when he’d taken her by the arm and told her in a forceful voice that she was coming with him, she had not liked it at all.
“I don’t take cabs,” he explained to her. “I never let anyone else drive me. Anyway, have you seen how some of these cabbies drive around here? I’d rather take my chances with an angry bronco than get in the back of one of those things.”
Sarah gave him a sidelong glance. “How is it that I knew you were coming here today and your two Betas didn’t?”
“It was the dream.”
He knew he had her full attention now. Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him for a long moment without saying a word. He pulled up to a traffic light and watched, waiting for a further reaction.
“How in the world could you know I had a dream about you coming to New York?”
“Because I was in that dream, too.”
“I don’t understand.” Sarah put her hands over her face and looked like she wanted to hide from him.
By way of explanation he reached over and pushed down the shoulder of her blouse. “The mating mark,” he told her.
She closed her eyes. To Ryan it looked like she was either trying to count to ten or just plain trying to shut out the world. She’d had a lot of shocks recently, and this was going to be one more.
“TJ told me it wouldn’t take on a human.”
“TJ was wrong,” Ryan told her flatly.
“He told me I could get rid of it.”
Ryan felt angry. Angry with himself for having marked her against her will, but also angry at Sarah for all the trouble she had caused. “I’ve never marked a woman before,” he told her fiercely. “But when I mark a woman it stays.”
“Perfect!” Sarah exclaimed in an acerbic tone. To Ryan it very much looked like she wanted to hit him. “Now I’m going to be stuck with this thing on me for the rest of my life.”
“There are plenty of females in my pack who would be proud to wear that mark,” he countered her and raised his voice.
“Yeah? Well I’m not a female in your pack, and I’m damn sure not proud of it.” She impressed him by shouting right back at him, raising her voice louder than his.
Ryan had been in too many fist fights as a young man, most of which he had won, to not know the signs. Sarah’s fists were balling. She wanted to take a poke at him.
“I’m very angry at you,” she said through clenched teeth as she turned her head away from him to look out the window at passing traffic on Fifth Avenue. “Why did you come to New York, Ryan?”
“Because I’ve fallen in love with you.”
* * * *
Ryan looked different to Sarah. He was still big and tough and the chiseled features on his face made him the most attractive and interesting man wherever he went. But the last time she had seen him had been on the Circle T. He had been dusty from the range and dressed as a cowboy. They had sat by the campfire under the big star-filled Montana sky eating marshmallows and getting up the nerve to make love for the first time.
Today Ryan was dressed in a suit and tie and driving a luxury vehicle along New York City’s swanky Fifth Avenue. There was a big change from the cowboy who had seduced her out on the prairie.
His last words were still sinking in on her. He had just said he loved her. The last man to tell her that had been her fiancé, and he had been one of those men who wasn’t really very good at showing affection through words of endearment so she hadn’t heard it from him all that much even when they had been living together.
Sarah made an effort to cool her anger and decided to take a different tack with Ryan. “Just because we slept together once, you’ve come all the way to New York to tell me you love me?” She knew she sounded incredulous.
“Sleeping together when we did was a mistake. I apologize for that. Normally I am better at keeping my primal urges under control.”
The cold reserve of his voice stoked her anger again, and she decided she liked the passionate Ryan better, the man who made love under the stars and proclaimed his love for her unreservedly.
“I’m sorry I marked you without your permission.”
An angry retort was on the tip of her tongue. Then she let it die. “Apology accepted.” She kneaded her sore shoulder with her fingers. “I can always have it removed with a laser. Most of my girlfriends from college got a tattoo at one time or another and had to ge
t rid of them.”
“It’s not a tattoo, and a laser won’t take it off. You’re stuck with it for life.” There was a hard edge to his voice.
“Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that.” Sarah didn’t like the Ryan who had come to visit her in New York. She wanted the cowboy from the range back. That was the man she had been prepared to fall in love with. Dressed in his expensive suit he looked more like a stock broker at the moment, and she had dated a few Wall Street men in the past and never liked any of them. “I don’t want you poking around in my dreams anymore. It’s way too creepy.”
“I’m sorry about that, but it seemed like an effective means of communication at the time.”
“Next time try a phone.” Sarah looked out the window. They seemed to be making no headway in traffic. “Are we going somewhere?” she asked.
As if calculating his words, he regarded her in silence.
Having a chance look at him in that frozen moment, she was uncomfortably aware that the chemistry from the Great Plains was still with them inside the SUV. If she had it to do over she’d go to bed with him again. There was little wonder why she had done it the first time. Though it had complicated her life and the pain in her shoulder seemed like it would never go away she couldn’t regret the decision to have sex with this fine specimen.
At the moment she was infuriated by his macho attitude and wanted to argue with every word he said just on principle alone. Also she felt heated lust for him, and that irritated her still more. His presence next to her in the seat was so close she could feel the warmth of his body and count the whiskers on his chin. It made her hot with desire, and she had to admit he cut a fine figure in his suit and tie.
“As a matter of fact we are going somewhere. We might be a little late because we got stuck in all this traffic. But that’ll give you time.” He motioned to the backseat.
“Time for what?” she asked. “And where are you taking me?”