by Maia Dylan
“A pool? You have a pool downstairs?”
Rhys stepped through the door and led her down the stairs. “Yep, we sure do. It was one of the things Jase insisted on when we started building. The house looks like it is built on flat ground, but it is, in fact, on an incline. We dug it out a little more. From the front, the house looks like its two stories, but from the back, it’s actually three.”
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Rhys turned left, pressed the codes in the door, and led her into the pool area. “There is a sauna against the far wall and all that glass over there that gives a beautiful panorama of the mountains outside is a series of bifold doors.”
Parris looked around in awe and Rhys had this absurd feeling of accomplishment.
Jase’s voice came down their familial link. “How’s she doing?”
“I’m showing her the downstairs, and judging by the joy and eager anticipation on her face, our mate is as mad about swimming as you are,” Rhys sent back.
“What’s Jase talking to you about?”
Startled, Rhys turned to look at Parris. She stood with her back to the light pouring in through the glass wall, and Rhys nearly swallowed his tongue at how beautiful she looked in the fading light of day.
“How did you know he was talking to me?” Rhys asked as he stepped closer to her, drawn into her like a moth to a flame. And, damn, did their beautiful flame burn hot and so very bright.
“Your eyes flicker a little, and there is a bluish tinge that appears,” Parris tilted her head in curiosity as he moved to stand as close to her as he dared. “And I recognize your wolf in your eyes.”
“Yeah,” Rhys admitted, tilting his head to match hers, and grinned when she giggled. “No one’s ever noticed it before.”
Parris began to nibble on her bottom lip, and Rhys’s careful plan to go slow went straight out the window. But he didn’t want to scare her either.
“Parris, Jase and I have already told you that you are our mate. I know you don’t know what the truly means, but we hope to show you. We also want to have the opportunity to prove to you that we can be what you want at the same time.” Rhys lifted his hand and gently cupped her cheek. “Damn, you are so beautiful.”
“That she is, brother,” Jase said from the doorway as he stepped into the pool area and walked toward them. Parris’s breathing rate sped up as Jase moved in behind her, and when he gently placed his hands on her hips, Rhys felt her shiver.
“Now, in a few minutes, we are going to go upstairs, and Jase and I are going to prepare dinner and try very hard not kill you with our cooking.”
Parris giggled again, but this time the sound was slightly higher and sounded a little breathless.
“But right now, unless you tell us to stop, I am going to kiss you because I can’t think of anything else but getting a taste of your sweet lips.”
Parris’s eyes widened, and Rhys looked for any sign of fear but saw nothing but need and desire.
“You hold all the cards, baby. You want this to stop all you have to do is say so. I’m going to count to five, and then I am going to place my mouth on yours, and I am going to kiss you the way I’ve dreamed about since the moment I pulled you out from behind our shed. One…two…”
“Five,” Parris whispered. She surprised him by moving against him, rising up onto her tiptoes, and placing her mouth to his.
As soon as her lips touched his, everything within him seemed to fall into place. It was as if until this moment, with this woman, nothing had actually tethered him to this world. But now something did.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tighter against him. He tilted his head at the angle he needed and took over the kiss. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, tangling it with hers and reveling in the sound of her moan of pleasure. He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and nibbled on it, before claiming her mouth again.
After a few moments, he pulled back and pressed a few more light kisses to her mouth to ease the sound of her disappointment that he had ended their kiss. The taste of her was enough to drive him to the point of coming in his jeans. Christ, the minute they got this woman naked and between them, he didn’t know if he’d fucking survive it!
“Parris,” Rhys whispered as he gave her one last tight hug, burying his nose in her hair and pulling her scent into his lungs. He placed her back on her feet. When the hell had he lifted her off them, he had no clue, but once she was steady, he turned her gently to face his brother.
Rhys couldn’t stop the smug smile he shot Jase when he saw the impatient look on his face, and if Jase’s jaw were clenched any tighter, Rhys knew his teeth would shatter. As soon as Parris was facing him, Jase swooped in, kissing her hard and with so much passion that Parris whimpered. For a brief moment, Rhys thought that she might be scared or that Jase was perhaps being too rough, but then Parris pushed up against him, wrapped her arms tightly around Jase’s neck and kissed him just as passionately.
Rhys growled at the sight of their mate going up in flames in his brother’s arms. It was the hottest damn thing he had ever seen. She was the perfect mate for them—passionate and so damn responsive. Rhys was now more determined than ever to prove to her that they were just as perfect for her.
* * * *
Parris laughed as Rhys entertained her with stories about his and Jase’s childhood. That the two were more than just brothers was obvious.
“I’m telling you, Parris,” Jase grinned in her direction as he leaned on the breakfast bar she had taken a seat at after dinner and handed her a cup of coffee. The two of them had cooked a lovely dinner, hadn’t poisoned her at all, and wouldn’t let her help in any way. “Rhys was a hellion as a child. He was always getting us in trouble, and I always had to get him out of it.”
Parris turned toward Rhys when he made a sound that clearly said he disagreed.
“What childhood were you actually referring to there, big brother? Your memories and mine of that time are very different.”
Rhys turned to face her and placed his hand on her right arm where it lay on the table. Parris’s breath caught in her throat at the sudden shock of awareness that pulsed through her. “I spent my fair share of time trying to get us out of trouble, too, you know. When we were little, we used to watch Zorro on TV with our dads. One day, when Jase and I were playing Zorro inside the house and Jase insisted on being Zorro—”
“Because I’m better looking than you are,” a grinning Jase said.
Rhys snorted and shot him an incredulous look. “Whatever, fugly duckling. We all know who got the looks in this family, and it sure as hell wasn’t you. So butthead here insisted on being Zorro, and if you have ever watched that old TV show, you know that the bad guy was always hanged for his crimes. Mom heard all this ruckus and noise as Jase here started pretending to fire off a gun and ran around the chair that he had his better-looking and more impressionable little brother standing on. When she walked into the kitchen, she found Jase about to pull the chair out from under me.”
Jase made a scoffing noise and waved his hand dismissively in his brother’s direction. “Christ, you are such a damn drama queen! The fall wouldn’t have killed you.”
Jase stretched out his hand to take the fingers of her left hand into his. Again Parris felt awareness for the two men wash through her.
“That’s true,” Rhys admitted. “But the curtain cord you’d tied around my neck like a noose might have.”
Parris gasped at what that could have meant.
“See, Parris gets it. You could have killed me before I could become the paragon of male perfection you now see before you.”
Parris couldn’t help but laugh at the cocky expression on Rhys’s face. Jase and Rhys began smack talking each other while Parris sat there simply enjoying the normalcy of the moment.
This was what it must have felt like to grow up in a family and to have people to care about. Oh, she’d had Melaina and Pepper, and she cared for both of them a lot. But she couldn’t remembe
r a time where they had simply sat around a table and laughed together. They were never given the freedom to simply be themselves without being monitored or guarded. The reality of what had been robbed from them had never been something that she had thought too much about, but right now it seemed all too real and very cruel.
“Parris, darlin’?”
Rhys’s voice was soft and filled with concern, and when she looked up at him, she could see that concern mirrored in his expression.
“The look on your beautiful face is breaking my heart. Tell us what makes you so sad. We’ll do everything we can to make it better.”
Parris turned to Jase when he gently lifted her hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“We know that this whole mate thing is new for you, and it probably freaks you out a little, but for us, it is more than just a physical thing. Yeah, we think you are beautiful. Damn, Parris, you are the hottest fucking woman on the face of the planet as far as we’re concerned, but our connection goes deeper than that. We are now bound to you on a level that goes beyond the physical. We feel what you feel. And right now, we can tell that something had made you sad. Now, I really fucking hope it wasn’t us. But if it was, then tell us what we did, and I swear we won’t ever do it again. If it was someone else, then tell us who it was that made you sad.”
“And then we’ll go and rip his balls out through his intestinal tract,” Rhys added in a quiet, matter-of-fact way that had her giggling, which was no doubt the reaction he was after.
“Jesus, Rhys,” Jase said dryly with a wry shake of his head. “Is it any wonder Mom wanted to send you to charm school for boys? You have absolutely no tact.”
“Hey, our mate is no longer sad, so I say it was exactly the right thing to say,” Rhys answered with a wink in her direction, and Parris felt a layer of sadness that had wrapped itself around her heart slip away.
Parris smiled at them both, thinking they were quite possibly the hottest damn men she had ever seen in her life. “You two are lucky to have each other. And you were definitely lucky to have had each other growing up. I had Melaina and Pepper, and I will thank God for them every day of my life. But seeing how you are together, and hearing about how much laughter you had in your lives, it just makes me a little sad that we never had that.”
Jase and Rhys shared a glance, and then Jase stood up from the breakfast bar, walked around it, and came up beside her. Parris gasped in surprised when he plucked her up from her seat and tugged her up and into his arms. He turned and carried her over to the large leather couch that held pride of place in the living area. From here, during the day, she could stare out the window and the surrounding forest or watch the game on the humongous TV that hung over the brick fireplace, which was currently lit and filling the space with warmth. The lights were off in this part of the large room, but plenty of light came from the kitchen and fire.
Jase sat down in the center of the couch, with Parris over his lap. Rhys gently lifted her legs, slid beneath them, and then held them in her lap. He sat forward and slightly turned in her direction. Both men looked at her intently, and Parris’s heart began to beat a little faster at the look of open adoration on their faces.
Jase swept her hair from her face, and Parris ran her gaze hungrily over his handsome face.
“We don’t want you to feel sad. Rhys and I would give anything and everything to be able to go back in time and take you away from that place. Hell, to never have had allowed you to face whatever the hell it was that drove you from your home and out onto the streets, and we would have never allowed Drake to take you. We would have fought to keep you safe and worked every day to make you happy.”
“We can’t change the past, darling.”
Rhys’s voice was deeper than normal, and Parris felt her body soften at the raspy need in his tone.
“But we can definitely make it so that you have everything you can possibly want for your future. All you have to do is tell us. What do you want?”
Parris looked at the two men who had somehow worked their way into her heart. To think that she hadn’t even known they existed a month ago was hard for her. Now, it was almost impossible to imagine her future without them in it. But there needed to be a few fundamentals in her life to ensure her happiness or at least her chance at it.
“I-I want to feel safe.” Parris nibbled on her bottom lip, a habit Aristos and his trainers had tried to break her of but had always failed. She had always lacked confidence, and her habit of chewing on her bottom lip was a physical manifestation of that. “I want to know that the people that mean the most to me in life are safe and close by so that I can protect them.”
Jase smiled gently as he snuggled her closer against his chest. “That is definitely something we can help with. We want you to feel safe here in Grey River. You need to know that Rhys and I will not allow anyone to hurt you ever again. Grant and Kyle have gone after Melaina, and as soon as we get more information, then our pack will do everything in its power to bring her back to you safe and sound.”
“Pepper, too,” Rhys added as he gently stroked his hand up and down the calf of her left leg.
Parris tilted her head to the side as she studied their faces. “There’s one other thing I want for my future as well.” Parris paused for an obligatory deep breath and bottom lip nibble as she gathered as much courage as she could. “I’d like to know what it’s like to be a mate, to be your mate. I want to see what we can be together.”
The joy and pleasure that bloomed on both their faces had her heart racing. “But you have to know one thing about me. I’ve never been in a relationship before. I don’t know a lot about the interactions between a man and a woman, let alone a woman and two men. I’m not sure I can be what you want or need, but I-I really want to try.”
Jase squeezed her to him. “Parris, first, we want to get to know everything about you. Relationships between a man and a woman or a woman and her men, all of that starts with a level of interest on both parts. Now, I can assure you that there is interest on our behalf. Shit, Parris, you’re not just beautiful. You’re loyal, protective, brave, and so damn perfect for us that it’s scary. Hearing that you want to be what we want and need fills my heart to overflowing.”
Rhys leaned in so that she almost felt as though they completely surrounded her.
“You need to know something, too. You are already what we want and need. There is no reason for you to try to be someone or something other than who you are. You tell us that you want to see what we can be together? Hell, Parris, there is nothing on this earth that we want more than to see that, too.”
Parris smiled. For the first time in forever, she felt truly wanted.
Chapter 6
“Xanthe, how do you make a man want you? Not like get him to fall in love with you or anything but, you know, want to have sex with you.” Parris stared at her reflection in the mirror on the wall beside Xanthe’s homemade beauty products. She knew that she wasn’t as beautiful as Xanthe or Melaina, but she was thought that she was okay to look at. Rhys and Jase told her often enough that she was beautiful, and after two weeks living with them, healing and eating healthily, she looked rested and at peace.
“Uh, what do you mean, exactly?” Xanthe asked as she stepped out from behind her sales counter and made her way over to where Parris stood.
The shop had just closed, and Parris had come down to help Xanthe restock for the next day. Valentine’s Day was only two days away, and Lotions and Potions was doing a roaring trade with men and women coming in to buy products for their loved ones.
Ty and Trent had convinced Rhys and Jase that everything had to appear normal in town, and that meant that they needed to continue to work in their garage and oversee the store attached to it. They only agreed to that when Ty suggested that Parris spend the day upstairs in Melaina’s apartment, helping Xanthe with her product mail-outs and not just sitting in their house. Parris thought that having Xanthe’s two large lion shifter mates guard
ing her at all times made it easier for them to say yes.
Melaina was still out there somewhere, but from what Jase had heard from Ty, Grant and Kyle were closing in. Hunter Reed and Dane Smith had sent two of their Enforcer team out after them to help them track her. Apparently the Reyes brothers were the best trackers in the business. As Enforcers, they were tasked with keeping the peace and carrying out the laws imposed on all shifters by the Shifter Council, and Tomas and Diego Reyes were without equal when it came to finding people who just didn’t want to be found.
Parris turned from the mirror with a sigh and turned to look at her friend. “I mean, how the hell do you turn a man on to the point where he is so desperate to have you that he simply just grabs you and, you know, takes you to the bedroom for…stuff.” Parris cursed the sweep of heat she felt swell across her cheeks but kept her chin raised.
A mixture of admiration and affection crossed Xanthe’s face for a moment before she cleared it. “Parris, if you want to convince your men that you are ready for them to take your relationship to the next intimacy level, then I think you should be able to say the word sex. Don’t you? I mean, it’s almost a prerequisite to the act itself I would think.”
Parris grinned sheepishly. “I can say the word sex. It’s not like I have a hang-up about it or about my body or anything. It’s just that Melaina, Pepper, and I never really talked about being intimate with a man. It’s just not something I have spent a lot of time talking about.”
Xanthe nodded. “I can understand that, sweets. I really can. Have Rhys and Jase been talking to you about taking your relationship to the next level?”
“Not really. We’ve, um…fooled around a little over the past couple of weeks, and I’ve really, really enjoyed that. Both Rhys and Jase have let me touch them, and they seemed to enjoy my touch, and I am definitely not as tentative as I used to be. But it’s like they are holding back for something. I can see them both clamping down on their reactions and fighting to stay placid, and just when I think I might be getting somewhere with them, they swap places.”