The Gifted 1: Passions Awakening (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  Cheri turned to face the two of them. “What’s wrong?”

  She doesn’t know. She’s been keeping her mind open, looking for those two snakes.

  I think now is a damn good time to tell her.

  Tony thought so, too. “Nothing’s wrong,” Tony said. “We just thought you should know that we love you.”

  “Well, I…what? What?”

  “We love you. I love you.” Max stood closest to her. He bent down and placed a light kiss on her lips.

  “I love you, Cheri.” Tony kissed her, too.

  “But…we haven’t talked about…” Tony could see they’d completely surprised her. Considering the amount of power the woman had at her command, that was some feat on their part.

  Then he lifted her chin. “As we’re about to do battle against the forces of evil, it would be nice to know if you feel the same.”

  Even in the small bit of light provided, he could see her blush.

  “I love you, too. I love both of you. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. It scares me a little.”

  Tony looked at Max. Then he met her gaze again. “Yeah, us, too. But that’s okay. Since we’re all on the same page, we can face it, together. Just as soon as we get back to New York. Just remember that nothing is impossible, as long as we keep on loving each other.”

  “I don’t know about you, Vincent, but I feel as if I’ve walked onto the set of one of those disgusting soap operas.”

  “At least, if we feel the need to vomit, we’re close to the water.”

  Tony moved without thinking, reaching for Cheri’s arm and placing her behind him. Max moved closer so they stood, shoulder to shoulder, brothers braced against a common threat, their woman behind them, protected. Tony opened the channels of communication as his companions did. It felt as if they were enclosed in a separate space.

  “Oh, now isn’t that gallant? A waste of time, but gallant.” Emilio’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “Not gallantry, but something I doubt you’re familiar with.” Tony grinned. “It’s called decency.”

  “I’m insulted.” Vincent appeared to be the leader of the two. Perhaps he’d recognized that quality in Max at dinner because it had been his thoughts they’d heard, and he’d selected Max as his personal target.

  Maybe Tony could throw them off their game, just a little. “You need to leave.” Tony used a bit of his power and pushed out, what he considered a kind of magical smack across the face. Meant to be more insulting than a threat, the move was calculated to rattle their opponents.

  Both men felt the push and barely recovered their footing.

  “You have no idea what we can do to you, Latent. We have more experience than you at this sort of thing.” Emilio Fortuna had spoken. He raised his hand, and a whipcord-lean, flaming spear of power left his fingertips, aimed directly at Tony’s heart.

  Max shoved him just enough that the bolt hit his arm, instead of his chest.

  “Fuck that hurts!” He looked down and saw the fabric of his shirt singed away and, beneath it, a bit of charred skin.

  “And we’ve only just begun.” Vincent raised his hand, clearly preparing to send another fiery jolt. Tony imagined a baseball bat and swung for the man’s wrist.

  The fire spear went wide, and Vincent howled in rage, grabbing his wrist. They might have more experience than he and Max, but they also seemed wedded to gestures.

  I think they read those rulebooks you were talking about earlier.

  Tony tried not to laugh out loud as Cheri’s words echoed in his mind. Then he felt her power, and the pain in his arm went away. A quick glimpse down showed his recent injury already healed.

  Emilio cursed and then lifted both arms, clearly pushed by his emotions, ready to strike back. Max then waved his arm, an imitation of giving the man a back-handed smack. Emilio stumbled back several feet. He shook his head and dabbed his lip with his fingers. His eyes widened when he looked down. He likely saw blood, which meant Max’s smack had split his lip.

  “We don’t have to do this, gentlemen. Stop it now.” Max stepped forward. “We’re no threat to you. Go away and leave us alone. We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You exist, and you’re clearly men of some power. That’s threat enough. There are only a handful of Warlock families. That is the way it’s always been. That’s the way it will remain.”

  The brothers worked together, though it seemed an awkward maneuver for them. They produced a fireball, one about the size of a small car. It hung suspended between them, and Tony didn’t doubt, as soon as they could figure out how to lob it together, it would be deadly.

  Maybe they need to cool down. Try dumping some ocean water on them.

  Because the three of them were in a kind of mind-space together, Tony and Max moved at the same time.

  The spout of water came up over the side of the ship and sprayed over the two Warlocks and their fireball as if it was water shot from a large fire cannon.

  The sound of hissing and the scent of sulfur filled the air. The fireball died, and both men sputtered.

  “I don’t think that cooled them off enough.” Max took in the way both brothers were glaring at them. He could actually feel their power amp up.

  “Time to let them really cool off.” Tony joined his thoughts with Max and Cheri. They didn’t waste any time or give any more warnings. As one, they poured their power out over the two Warlocks. In a heartbeat, they appeared covered in a thin sheet of ice.

  “Go back to your cabin. Reconsider. This need not go any further.” Tony’s voice sounded as cold as the Warlocks looked.

  Then they used their power once more, and the two men disappeared. Max and Tony turned to Cheri.

  “They’re back in the presidential suite.” She shook her head. “They don’t believe in the prophecy, but they want to kill you. They want to kill us all.” She stepped closer. “I don’t think they’re going to change their minds.”

  “No, I don’t think so either. Did I sense their power…lessen?”

  “Yes. It’s because it’s been diluted over so many generations. In the beginning, those of the Spurned who made this their home were powerful, indeed. But they strayed from tradition, and over time, that weakened them.”

  Tony nodded. In the clearing, their hands joining the five of them together, they’d vowed to do all they could to dissuade the Fortunas from their plan, first.

  “Let’s get some rest. I don’t think they’ll come after us again tonight.” Then he turned to Cheri. “But I’ll rest easier, away from here.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Anywhere, as long as we’re together.” He picked up her hand and kissed it. Max took her other hand.

  Amazing how a person could get used to this kind of thing. He grinned when he felt the grass beneath his feet and his big king-sized bed beside them.

  “Perfect.” The battle might resume tomorrow, but for tonight, he was a very happy man.

  Chapter 14

  Cheri had learned enough about men in general, and the men of this world specifically, that she wouldn’t have been surprised if Max and Tony had given a couple of fist pumps in response to having won that round. Their encounter with the Fortuna brothers had gone exactly as planned, after all. And while Tony had suffered a minor injury, quickly healed by magic, basically they’d come out of it unscathed.

  But their mood post-victory was somber. They took no pleasure in using their newly discovered powers to gain advantage over others. Cheri had thought she couldn’t love them any more than she already did. She’d been wrong.

  “Now that we’re in a more appropriate place…I love you.” Max bent over her and kissed her. His lips brushed hers, a gentle salute, and she stretched up, needing more. She pressed against his lips and licked the seam of his mouth with her tongue. Then she eased her head back onto the pillow.

  “There’s no such thing as an inappropriate place to tell me that. I love you, Max.”

  “When we wer
e heading into danger, I realized that I would do anything, anything at all, to keep you safe—because I love you.” Tony bent down and laid his lips on hers. His tongue invaded, and hers begged his to dance. His smile caressed hers, and then he lifted his head.

  “Tony, I love you.”

  Cheri reached up, both hands, each caressing the beloved face of a man who’d become a part of her. Was it all because of the magic? Or was it pure human emotion? She didn’t have the answer to that. She just knew the longer they were together the more entwined they became—and in more ways than just the physical.

  “It’s so huge, what we feel for you, Cheri.” Max’s hand trembled as it stroked her.

  “Our words aren’t enough.” Tony nuzzled her then eased back and met her gaze.

  On her back and naked between the two men she’d come, in so short a time, to love so deeply, she could only say one thing. “Then don’t try to tell me. Show me.”

  Cheri gasped. The passion in their eyes nearly outshone the moon. They looked up at each other for one moment. She didn’t have to wonder if they were communicating between them. She knew they were.

  Together, they pulled the sheet off her, baring her completely to their sight. Nearly identical expressions of lust and admiration left her in no doubt they liked what they saw. Then they moved, and Cheri’s ability to think disintegrated. She could only feel.

  A rough, wet tongue stroked one nipple while a firm, strong hand cupped the other breast. Lips, moist and heated, claimed hers, a tongue plunging deep. Inside her, in the depths of her soul, colors and textures merged and swirled, dancing on the siren song of Eros, as her arousal became a lithe and lovely dancer. Hands stroked, the heat of bodies pressed close, and Cheri’s heart filled with need—the need to feel more and the need to give.

  Reaching down, she fisted hot cocks, squeezing and pumping, purring when they began to thrust into her grasp. Their erections honored her feral woman, visible signs of her pure, earthy power over them.

  Hands covered hers, gently prying them off and then moving those hands above her head. She moaned when fur-lined handcuffs, conjured by magic, surrounded her wrists, effectively immobilizing her.

  Their message couldn’t be clearer. They wanted her submission to their loving. Then the words floated in her mind, let us pleasure you. Soft as a sigh, she gave over.

  Everywhere they touched, tiny explosions of pleasure stimulated her nerve endings, drawing her nipples impossibly tight, slicking her sex and feeding her hunger. Soft breaths bathed moistened flesh. Hands nudged, and she surrendered completely, opening her legs wider. Fingers touched and teased her slit and her clit, pinched and plunged inside her, fucking her, and Cheri lay captive to the bliss they poured out onto her. Arousal burned, an agile and graceful phoenix freed from its prison, and, soaring, took her with it. She cried out as the first waves of climax washed through her, the rapture so sharp, so ripe, she had no choice but to let it control her.

  Masculine sounds of approval trembled against her wet folds as a tongue drank the juice of her release. Lips captured a nipple, tugging, nipping, and arousal grew once more.

  She cried out, her need for more both sharp and piercing. Kisses up her body from her pussy were followed by the raging heat of an aroused lover’s body tenting and then laying upon her own. Opening her eyes, she focused on the beloved face before her. Passion, need, and, yes, love, shone in Max’s eyes.

  Hot, hard, silky, the head of his cock caressed her slit one time, and then he penetrated her, sinking until coming up to the barrier of her cervix. The nudge sent a twinge of pain through her, pain that curled around the arousal, making it more, making it deeper.

  She needed to wrap herself around him completely. Whether it was her magic or theirs, the cuffs restraining her vanished. Max began to move, slow and steady, long and deep, and Cheri curled around him, meeting him thrust for thrust, countering his movements, using her inner muscles to squeeze his cock and caress his shaft.

  His eyes glittered so brightly. She could smell her juices on his face. Of one mind, they melded their mouths. Cheri drank herself and his hunger. Max lifted her into his rhythm then changed his thrusts slightly so that he not only stroked her sweet spot he also brushed his groin against her clit.

  Cheri cried out, her orgasm bursting within her, sudden, unexpected, and fierce. Wave after wave of ecstasy held her as captive as their cuffs had done, holding her and pleasuring her over and over again. Max’s shout of triumph and the stream of his hot seed filled her body with promise and her soul with pride.

  Heaving for breath, he reversed their positions. Slipping out of her, he settled her upon him.

  Tony kissed her shoulder, his front just above her back. One finger caressed her anus. Cold and silky, the sensation of a gel being smoothed back and forth raised her arousal once more.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.” She’d never taken a man in her ass but wanted, desperately, to take this man there. She pushed against his finger, moaning in response to the burn when that one digit breached her tight ring and sank into her. Max stroked her back as Tony used his finger to stretch her. He eased out for a breath then returned to her, with more gel and another finger, and pushed into her again.

  She whimpered, the burn turning to a pain that made her nipples tingle. She felt more of her nectar slide from her body. It scented the air, and Tony growled. He worked his fingers in, out, around with an increasing eagerness.

  Then he withdrew his fingers, and she felt the press of his condom-covered cock on her rosebud.

  Pressure increased, and her anus began to open, a burning, burning welcome into the dark and delicious unknown. Burn morphed to pain, a pain that licked hot fire down her spine then sent sparks out to her clit and somewhere deep inside her belly.

  “So tight. So damn good.”

  Tony’s deep voice rippled through her, and the basic woman in her knew his pleasure was her doing. She pressed against him, needing to give him this, needing to show him how much she wanted nothing more than to make his quest complete.

  “Yes!” He sank into her to the hilt, his scrotum bouncing against the bottom of her slit. Need awakened inside her, changing to desperation in a heartbeat. She moaned, pushing against him.

  Tony cursed a word so basic and earthy she nearly laughed. Then he pulled nearly all the way out of her and sank in again. Cheri repeated his word, and both men chuckled.

  “Hang on to her.”

  Max’s hold tightened as Tony began to move inside her, fucking her with a rhythm covered in a trembling kind of strength. Everything inside her answered those thrusts, and Cheri growled as the arousal within grew talons. Their need, their passion, entwined, a dance or a battle, she didn’t know. All she knew was she needed more, craved more, and cried out, begging for more.

  “Cheri!”

  Tony’s thrust became rapid-fire forays into her, the friction fierce and fiery. And then he held himself deep and shouted. The vibration of his voice so deep and coming from his soul, and the heat of his cum filling the condom, hurled her over the abyss once more. They came together, hard, fast, and the stars that exploded within wrapped them all in another layer of bliss.

  The golden ropes that bound them grew just a little bit thicker.

  * * * *

  Relaxing on the promenade deck of the Eugenia, Maxwell Tanner took a moment to look around. He, Cheri, and Tony had just settled into chaises, all three of them intent on immersing themselves in the vacation experience. The sun shone down with a brilliance he’d never noticed, the sky seemed bluer, and the ocean, ah the ocean, cradled the ship they were on in a soothing, nearly rapturous embrace, a giant cradle rocking them into a state of restful relaxation.

  Max acknowledged his mood, and his thoughts were definitely more fanciful than usual.

  Whether it was love or the newly found magic within him really didn’t matter. He was a changed man, and he really couldn’t say that he minded that fact at all.

  He still wa
sn’t one hundred percent certain what the future held. There remained within him a thread of resistance. He’d been a man following his own path, captain of his ship, master of his fate. Now here he was, all but neutered, ready to fall in line with whatever so-called destiny had in store for him, a whimpering, simpering fool.

  Ah, how the mighty have fallen.

  Max reached out with his hand and gently clasped Cheri’s. He felt her move, felt her squeeze back, and felt her reach for Tony.

  As soon as Tony took hold of Cheri, Max focused on that last thought and sent a measured, precise punch of power right back.

  “That was not only sneaky it was rude.” His words, quiet, only reached his companions.

  “Very sneaky.” Tony looked over at Max. “Subtle. What tipped you off?”

  “The sneer in that last thought. I never sneer. It’s bad form.”

  Tempting to erect that bubble and keep them out.

  Tony’s thought reached him easily. Both men mentally turned and looked at Cheri, silently asking her opinion.

  Yes, we can do that, but…

  She didn’t have to finish her thought. Max finished it for her. If we do that, then we’re blinding ourselves to them, as well.

  “I’d really hoped they’d give up.” Cheri sighed. “I know that’s naive of me.”

  “No. You only know what you know, sweetheart, and when you’ve never before dealt with evil in the world, you don’t understand how real, or how determined, it can be.” Max had seen the evidence of evil throughout his career. A lot of the trauma surgery he’d performed had been as a result of man turning on man with knives, clubs, and guns.

  “Is that it, then? They’re going to keep coming at us, not because it’s logical, not because it will somehow stop what is to come. They can’t do that anymore than our ancestors could have prevented the separation in the first place.”

  “They’re going to keep coming at us because they are evil.” Tony’s words echoed the truth Max had spoken.

  He gave Cheri’s hand another squeeze. “They’ve chosen to be evil. No one made that choice for them. And that choice, once made, is very rarely recanted.”