by R. M. Walker
Gwydion smirked.
Min raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look bothered otherwise. He settled into his seat, waved the waiter over, and ordered himself a sparkling water. Then he turned to her. “I’m Min.” He grasped her fingers and kissed the back of her knuckles.
“Kirby.” She was just put off enough by his assumption that she was able to ignore the twittery, swoony voice in her head.
“A stunning name for a fierce huntress.” It was the second time he’d called her that.
The way he studied her with eyes so dark they were almost black, sent delicious images dancing through her mind. Things she’d never tried. Never enjoyed the thought of—of him binding her. Spanking her?
She could almost feel the sting of his palm on her ass, and the phantom sensation reverberated along her skin.
She found the willpower to tug her hand away. “I’ve never hunted anything except the perfect slice of mall pizza.”
His lips curled into a hungry smile. “There’s time.”
Kirby’s senses were frazzled. She didn’t want to be interrupted. She wanted this weekend to get to know Gwydion, and find out what this pull was. She wanted Min to stick around so she could figure out what the fuck was going on there…
Despite Gwydion and Min’s familiarity, neither of them spoke.
The silence spurred her mind to bounce from one idea to the next. She drifted back to the simple first—wrapping her legs around Gwydion’s waist as he pinned her to the wall and drove inside her.
The imprint of brick ghosted on her back, but was washed away by the thought of Min blindfolding her. Stealing her sight so his smooth, seductive voice drilled deeper into her thoughts. Making the lack of touch as enticing as those sharp sparks where he licked along her neck, or took a belt to her backside.
She mentally cleared her throat. “How did the two of you meet?” She needed someone to talk, or she’d tumble into lust and never climb out.
If they joined her, that might not be a bad thing.
The men exchanged a glance she couldn’t interpret.
“That bar in… Where was it?” Gwydion said.
Min didn’t blink. “Belfast.”
“Right. It seems like centuries ago.”
“It was.”
They almost sounded like they believed that. For two people who had so much past, they didn’t seem to have a lot to say to each other. Maybe they’d already both said it all.
From the glances they swapped every few seconds, she doubted it.
Chapter Six
Min didn’t care for this place, surrounded by these rules and people who suppressed his ideals. But it seemed the most likely spot to introduce himself into Kirby’s life again.
The way she studied him, gaze intense and skeptical curiosity dotting her features, was enthralling. “The two of you know each other, but you’re not friends. Not best buddy dudes.” The turning gears in her head were almost audible. “Was it for business reasons?”
He loved her analytical mind as much as he did the rest of her. “Do I look like military to you?”
“No. You look like a wealthy businessman who’s used to getting his way regardless of the situation.” As direct as always. Stunning. “But he mentioned he comes from money, and his past haunts him, so there’s more to him than being an Army surgeon.”
“You assume,” Min said.
Her smile was dry. “I do. But I was hoping to confirm over the next couple of days. It was a woman, wasn’t it?”
“What was?” Gwydion asked.
“The thing that you have in common. How you two know each other. I bet it was a rivalry.”
Min was captivated by the conclusions she was drawing. In a way they were logical, but they also took overlooking several other possibilities. Did he dare hope she was close to remembering? “It was a woman, but it wasn’t a rivalry.”
“She doesn’t want to hear about your past conquests.” Gwydion didn’t seem to be enjoying this as much.
Of course he wasn’t. He’d had the Valkyrie to himself.
Kirby reached across the table to brush her fingers over Gwydion’s arm. “You don’t speak for me.”
Sparks. Delicious.
She looked at Min again. “What was it, then?”
“We loved her, and she loved us.” He didn’t care for speaking of this in the past tense, but some concessions had to be made.
Kirby’s lips parted slightly, and it was a moment before spoke. “At the same time? Are you like… reverse Mormons?”
Min swallowed his chuckle. What he represented was older than any other faith, ancient or modern. “The only worship—the only loyalty—we gave was to each other. Our universes revolved around her, and hers, us.”
“At the same time?” A flush crept over her skin, and her pulse raced.
He heard it from where he sat. He smelled the desire spilling from her. “Frequently.”
It was surprising Gwydion was quiet during this exchange. However, they had similar goals—Kirby becoming—and this seemed to be getting them closer.
Kirby licked her lips, leaving a tantalizing shine behind. “To be clear, we’re talking about sex, am I right? Both of you, plus this amazing woman from the past?”
“We’re talking about so much more.” Min traced a finger along her bottom lip, pulling it into a pout before releasing her. Her quiet gasp flooded him like a fine wine.
“But yes, sex is on the list,” Gwydion said.
The man never had been a poet. However, Kirby loved every time she met him, and Min had nothing but respect for him.
Kirby glanced at Gwydion, then back. Her mouth was quirked in disbelief, but lust and discovery still radiated from her. “Men don’t share. There’s no way that works. No wonder you hate each other.”
“We don’t hate each other.” Gwydion’s sincere denial came quickly.
Min nodded. “No, we don’t. You obviously haven’t met the right men. I’m not talking about jealousy or trying to possess another soul. I’m talking about union. Joy. Wonder. Singing your praises. Each of us tasting your skin. Drinking your honey. Setting you on a pedestal so the world knows you belong to no one.
“I’m talking about endless nights and countless days of discovery. Diving into your depths. Coaxing you toward pleasure until you sing the most beautiful songs. Then sliding into security, to begin the process anew when we’re rested.” So much for keeping things in the past tense.
Kirby’s pupils were wide. Her breathing shallow and her lips flushed. “Who are you?”
Min covered her hand and leaned in. He held her gaze. “I’m Min. I’m an ancient, powerful god of lust and sexuality. I’ve been worshipped by more people in my existence than currently walk the earth. I can make my lovers quiver with a single touch or whisper. And none of that matters unless I have you ruling by my side.”
Gwydion coughed.
Kirby stared back, unblinking. Would she laugh in his face? Call him insane and walk away?
* * *
Kirby’s heart hammered against her ribs, and she was pretty sure Min could hear it.
The flowery words were pretty, but the man was fucking insane. A god? He wasn’t just saying it. He believed it.
And she was scared. Not of him. Not the way she should be, if she were any sort of rational. There were two branches of fear inside. The first was that same sense of dread she had around Gwydion, but Min amplified it. It wasn’t because of them, but it related to them being in her life.
The second was more immediate and tangible. The longer the three of them sat here, the stronger her impulse became to surrender to this stranger. To believe him when he said he was a god. To beg him to bring his words to life, using her as a canvas. To bow down and give him anything he demanded.
The impulse thrummed in her thoughts. Each time he spoke, his meaning splashed across her skin like a memory. As if she were this woman he described.
That fucking terrified her.
No one could have he
r surrender. Especially not an arrogant stranger in a random restaurant in Kuwait.
She turned to Gwydion. “I don’t think I’m hungry. I’d like to go.” She shouldn’t have a problem keeping her tone firm, but Min had thrown her so off balance, she wanted to pat herself for her voice not cracking on the request.
“Of course.” He already had his wallet out, to set a short stack of bills on the table. He stood and extended his hand.
She wouldn’t look back at Min. She couldn’t. He’d unravel her in with a glance.
She took Gwydion’s hand, gripping tighter than she intended, and strolled with him onto the street.
Kirby couldn’t get rid of the tremble that ran through her. It wasn’t a fear of Min… Not that he would cause her harm. But her own irrational thoughts terrified her. Especially the thought that was happy he followed them from the restaurant.
“Why is he behind us?” Kirby asked.
“He’s probably staying at the same place.”
That made sense. More sense than anything else about him. Kirby and Gwydion walked into the hotel, and the world vanished behind them. Despite the chaos in her thoughts, she stepped aside and paused in the lobby, trying to take it all in. Gold and marble and leather stretched as far as the eye could see. Wide, mirrored columns raced to high ceilings.
It was more stunning and opulent in person than any Hollywood production made a high-end hotel appear.
She swallowed her awe and loosened her grip on Gwydion’s hand. The pause was enough to reset her brain. It gave her time to be more rational. She couldn’t blame her overreacting on a random stranger.
“The woman he was talking about. The one you both loved, who was she?”
Gwydion met her gaze with a sigh. Pain and sincerity reflected back. “You.”
Bullshit. She should slap him and stalk away with an answer like that. He was insane. She barely knew him. She hadn’t loved him or Mr. Very Tall Dark and Handsome. This was where she should walk away from Gwydion and straight toward the embassy. She’d demand to be reassigned. Sent to the front lines where soldiers needed her faith.
Instead, a whimper escaped. “I don’t know you. Either of you.”
“Come upstairs. Let him join us. I’m not talking about sex. This is about explaining things.”
“No.” Kirby stepped back from Gwydion. She wasn’t trapping herself in a room with two men she couldn’t control herself around. Who, as far as she could tell, were stalking her and thinking she was someone else.
Gwydion didn’t close the distance between them. “He’s not going to hurt you. Neither am I.”
Why did she believe him? Because she was a horny idiot? “Just because you say it doesn’t make it true.”
“You can say no at any time,” Min said from behind her. “Right now. Five minutes from now. Two hours from now. Any time.”
She believed him, too. She was a freaking idiot.
Whispers of memory flitted through her, of times and places she’d never been. She shouldn’t recognize the World War II uniforms from England, but she did. The French Revolution. The Hundred Years War.
Gwydion and Min were there in each instance. This wasn’t sensual like when Min had been speaking. It was war. They were fighting. Both of them soldiers.
And Kirby saw it in her mind as clearly as if she had watched it happen. Her heart felt the reality and her brain argued she was losing it big time.
She took another step back. “This is all insane. Both of you. What are you doing to me?”
This time Gwydion approached her. He lifted her chin to look her in the eyes. He studied her with stunning green eyes filled with affection and concern. He brushed his lips over hers.
Her thoughts quieted, and her fear was muffled under a heavy blanket. How did he do that with a touch?
“We’re taught so many things as children.” He dropped his hand, breaking the contact between them. “We’re indoctrinated form the second we’re born. The lessons have changed over time, but beliefs are always drilled into our thoughts until the becomes the cornerstones of our reality.
“You were raised to worship a god who can do see everyone and is capable of anything. But you were told magic isn’t real. Experience has drilled into your head that you can only trust yourself, but the world tells you that same instinct is a lie.”
“We’re telling you the opposite.” Min’s tone had shifted. It was still deep and sensual, but the seduction had been replaced with matter-of-factness. “You can trust your instinct. Believe your heart. Stop listening to everyone else’s reality, and hear your own.”
“And I do that by letting the two of you speak?” This was too much. She didn’t want to rewrite her faith. There was no reason for her to dismantle her entire core. This weekend was about getting laid.
“You do that by listening to yourself after you hear us out,” Gwydion said.
A switch flipped in her thoughts. Whatever they were talking about, whatever they were getting at, she didn’t need to jump through those kinds of mental hoops. “I didn’t come here to rearrange my universe. What if I just want to get laid?”
Chapter Seven
It was easier than Kirby expected to sweep aside doubt and focus on desire. Want already thrummed under her skin, and now it was unleashed.
“If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll have,” Min said.
Kirby couldn’t think about this anymore. The conflict between head and heart was making her dizzy. She had to do something, and her body was currently the easiest to listen to. She grabbed Min’s lapels, stood on tiptoe, and crashed her mouth against his.
More of the chaos faded, and her veins hummed with the beat of her hammering pulse. The memories that weren’t hers intensified. She tasted his skin and his sex. Felt his hot breath and his mouth between her legs.
It was as if she lived half a dozen lifetimes simultaneously, all of them frozen on a moment where she was wrapped up and consumed by him.
Fuck logic or indoctrination or reason. “I don’t care whose room, as long as we get there quickly.”
Because kissing either of them was life. Breaking that connection or thinking for too long meant surrendering the ability to breathe.
She half-expected Min to scoop her into his arms. He’d done that so many times.
No. That wasn’t right, because she’d just met him.
She also wasn’t thinking about that right now.
Instead he rested a hand at the small of her back, while Gwydion took her hand again, and they headed toward the elevators.
Apparently that was where half the people in the hotel currently were.
Gwydion dipped his head to hers. “Do you want to wait for an empty car?”
“No. This is fine.” Waiting meant more time passing. And thinking. She didn’t want either of those. There was still a tiny voice telling her she was being irrational.
And another argued with it, that if she didn’t do this now, she may miss her chance this life. It was carried on a sliver of dread that outweighed anything besides her desire.
The three of them packed into the elevator like sardines from one of those old Tex Avery cartoons. Gwydion and Min kept her between them, heat seeping deeper into her joints than any desert afternoon.
She wanted more of this. With fewer clothes, and no other people.
They reached their floor. Every step toward the room clashed with her need. Waiting for Min to fit the key in the lock and rattle the old door into submission was delicious agony.
She’d embraced impulsiveness twice with Gwydion. Is that why this kept getting easier? No. If she ignored what she’d been taught, like Min said to, none of this felt wrong. And then they were in the room, closed off from the rest of the world.
Gwydion cupped her face and brushed his lips over her.
“I want both of you,” she murmured against his mouth. She was allowed that, right? That was implied by them both being here? Her heart and the images in her head said yes.
“Something like that.” But whatever part of her knew this was safe, still had reservations about Min. Insisted she could have him, but not give him everything.
Kirby turned back to Min. Gwydion never let go of her, sliding his hands up her sides and kissing along the back of her neck.
More of her trepidation had faded. She felt stronger. Bolder. And that she needed to make up for lost time.
She crushed her mouth to Min’s again.
He rested a hand at the small of her back, drawing her body into his hard, thick, muscled form. His erection, definitely larger than she was used to, dug into her stomach. How did this two-guys-at-once thing work? Because there was no way in hell he was sticking that her ass.
With their hands roaming her body, it was easy to set aside that concern. She lost track of who was touching and kissing and caressing where. Groping through clothes. A jumble of hands and mouths for her to lose herself in.
Kirby’d only taken off her shoes, and the desire was already clenching in her core, making her thirsty for more. She broke away from Min, and held his questioning gaze as she fell to her knees in front of him. She dragged down his zipper.
He groan rumbled through her, and she licked her lips in anticipation.
She worked him free from his slacks. His dick wasn’t impossibly huge, but she’d seen smaller novelty dildos. She continued to watch his face as she traced her tongue along the head of his cock. The slight part of his lips, and the hunger written across his face, was as tantalizing as any touch.
She took him in her mouth, as much as he was able. His growl was delicious. Even better, Gwydion echoed the sound. She didn’t know where he was, but the buzz on her skin said he was close.
Kirby sucked and stroked Min’s shaft. His mounting arousal amplified her own. She’d never realized it was possible to be so turned on without being touched. It drove her to dive into the moment with enthusiasm. Licking. Stroking his soft sack.
