by R. E. Butler
He gave chase. He couldn’t have really stopped himself if he tried. She was his mate, after all, and licking the muzzle of your mate was just like putting out an open-for-business sign. He followed her easily as she darted around the circle, closing in on the fire where his brothers stood in their human forms now, watching the show. Something caught her attention; her steps faltered, and he took the opportunity of her distraction to tackle her. He felt her shifting and he shifted, too, rolling her to her back underneath him. He didn’t wait for an invitation, but pressed his mouth to hers as his body molded against hers, naked, hip to chest.
Tangling his fingers in her soft locks, he held her still while he plundered her mouth, his cock trapped between their bellies, just over the place he wanted to sink inside forever. He tasted salt just a heartbeat before she sobbed into his mouth and he pulled back abruptly. Tears leaked from her eyes as she squeezed them shut and turned her head away.
“Love, what’s wrong?”
She made a choking, growling sound. “Don’t make me choose, please, please, let me go.”
“Choose? Choose what?” He asked in confusion, glancing up at his brothers, who had ventured closer.
“I can’t. Please, don’t make me.” She struggled under his weight, tears leaking from her eyes.
He moved off her, sitting back on his heels, and she struggled to her feet and raced off towards the house, her lovely ivory skin practically glowing in the moonlight.
“What the hell was that about?” he asked, brushing the debris from his legs as he stood.
Neither of them answered him, clearly as confused as he was.
Chapter 9
Cursing herself as she ran back towards the house as fast as she could, Alyssa tried not to think about everything that had happened in the last week. Now that she’d kissed all three men, she knew she was toast. She’d successfully kept them at arm’s length for almost three weeks, not an easy feat considering how amazing they were, like every fantasy she’d ever had come to life. She knew in her heart that they all liked her. To pick one over the others would rip apart their relationship, plus cause trouble at work. She couldn’t do that. So she shoved her feelings away. Fast.
When she’d woken up earlier, the first thing she thought of was making sure that Dante was okay. She knew that he’d been injured in the fight at the gym; she remembered a knife sticking out of him somewhere. She woke up next to Mason, on what turned out to be Dante’s enormous, orgy-sized bed, and it had been the safest she’d felt in months, maybe years. But her need to make sure that Dante was okay overrode the feelings that stirred in her from waking up nude next to Mason.
She’d draped the cream colored satin sheet around herself several times and held the end tightly with one hand. When Dante opened the door, shirtless, with the tape of a bandage peeking over his shoulder, she lost it. She ran to him, and the thought that he’d saved her life coupled with what had nearly happened to her before he crashed through the front door of the gym made all her confusion at the trio disappear in a rush of lips and tongues. To say she attacked him would be like saying having your leg bitten off by a shark was just a scratch. She climbed him like a tree, forgetting all about the sheet clinging to her body, and he crashed back against the wall but held her tightly, with one arm under her ass and the other fisted in her hair.
He left her mouth, angling her jaw so he could kiss across it, latching onto her ear and tugging, before biting down her neck until the center of her body went hot and liquid. “Fuck you smell so good, Alyssa,” he growled, squeezing her tight, tighter, his fingers digging into her hip. The haze of lust disappeared like a fog in sunlight and she was aware that she was naked. Very. Naked.
She managed a squeaking, “Put me down, Dante,” and he froze, lifting his head from the crux of her neck and looking at her in confusion. It only lasted a moment, and then he put her down on the floor. She gathered the sheet up in front of her, humiliated at the wanton display she’d just put on for the man who had saved her life. She was so not the girl who said “thanks” with her body anymore.
“Lys.” He reached for her and she leapt back and slipped on the sheet, thankfully close enough to the bed that she didn’t end up on the floor.
She finally looked up at him. Poor guy. He looked completely baffled. She swallowed her pride, ignored the brutal blush making her face hot, and said weakly, “Is your shoulder okay?”
He straightened but didn’t lose the confused look. “It’s nearly healed. How are you feeling? I thought one of your ribs might be bruised. You hit the mirror pretty hard.”
Mirror?
“I’m okay, a little tired maybe. I don’t really remember anything after shifting.” She had some vague, dreamy memories; echoing voices and gentle touches. She did definitely remember him saying twice that she belonged to him. She wanted to ask him about that, but she was afraid. Afraid of what it meant to him, what it might mean to his brothers, and her.
“Do you want to come downstairs to the kitchen, get something to eat?”
She chewed her lip. “I’d like to go home.”
The confusion on his face morphed to grim determination and she knew he would say no before he opened his mouth. “The two men who were hiding in the gym, waiting for me to leave you alone like I’ve done every other Thursday since you started working for us, were part of Grady’s crew — the man that runs a gym just outside of Dalton. One of them told us that the plan was to kidnap you and…anyway, that they did it to force Cairo to take a dive at the next fight, in three weeks. They’re dead, but they aren’t the only ones at Grady’s disposal. Until this situation is resolved, we’re not letting you out of our sight, and that includes you staying here until further notice.”
All the blood slipped from her face in a rush and she felt like she might pass out. The tears she’d been too terrified to cry when she was surprised in the gym came bubbling to the surface, and she thought she would drown in them. It was more than the potential suffering she would have endured, more than Dante getting injured or the damage to the gym; it was her being forced to live here because of it. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t be with them full-time like this and not have it blow up in her face.
She couldn’t forget how Cairo tasted, how his arms felt wrapped around her in the locker room. And now, the way that Dante’s tongue had caressed hers in such an intimate way, the way he held her against him. She was full-on fucked, and not in a good way.
Before she knew what was happening, Dante pulled her into his lap and held her close, rocking her gently while she cried. It was heaven and hell wrapped up together. He was a comforting god who looked like a sex demon. He held her so tight that even when she stopped crying and started to struggle, she couldn’t move.
“You are safe here, Lys. We’ll make sure of it. You can kick ass, sweetheart, there’s no doubt of that, but if he comes at you with a handful of his henchmen, then you’d be overpowered. And he’s clearly not above torture and rape.” He put her down on the bed and stood up.
Cairo and Mason joined them in the bedroom, bringing a tray of thick, freshly grilled steaks, and her belly clenched so hard that she felt dizzy all over again. She felt vulnerable, and that made her angry. She had no clothes, no way to get home unless they took her. She was completely at their mercy.
Clenching her teeth, she said evenly, “I’d rather that someone just took me home. I’ll be fine.”
Dante folded his arms and shook his head, but said nothing.
“You can’t keep me here against my will.” She let a little kernel of anger from the situation the night before bloom into anger at them. If they thought she was a whiny bitch, they wouldn’t want her around. Then her dilemma of picking between the brothers would evaporate like steam.
“We’re concerned for your safety. You’re vulnerable because you’re alone,” Cairo pointed out, and she winced at the words. Alone. It was true. Without them, no one would have come to her rescue. She could have been used up and tossed aside, left lik
e trash on the side of the road, and no one that she’d grown up with would have cared one way or the other.
She locked herself in the bathroom and curled up in a ball on the plush rug. Eventually they stopped trying to talk to her through the bathroom door and she heard them leave. She left the bathroom and found the tray of steaks still on the bed. She ate all four of them, starved and miserable, and then buried herself under the covers of the bed that smelled like Dante and willed herself to fall asleep.
When she woke up from her nap and felt the moon’s tug as the sky started to darken, she climbed off the bed, cracked open the door, and then shifted. Sniffing in the hallway, she followed their scents until she found them in the kitchen. It would have been comical to capture the surprise on their faces when a wolf trotted into their kitchen and scratched at the door to be let out like a common house dog, but there wasn’t anything funny about the need twisting in her belly.
She would run until her legs ached and her wolf was tuckered out, and she’d find something fast and hard to catch, satisfying the bloodlust and wearing her physical lust out with exercise.
Mason went to the sliding glass door and looked down at her. “Love, you can’t go hunt by yourself. Our property is big, but there are hunters around the outskirts. A pretty wolf like you would be easy pickings.”
She growled in frustration and it ended on a pathetic whine. She had to get out of the house! Something bumped into her shoulder and she looked around, to see a large spotted hyena sitting next to her. Clothes slipped to the ground in front of her and then there was another one. Cairo opened the door. “I’ll be right out.”
One of them barked sharply and she took it to mean to stay close to him, so she did, hoping he was as intent on running and hunting as she was. And he had been. They’d all stayed right with her for hours. She was able to figure out who was who by their scents. Mason held out the longest and they lost Cairo and Dante at some point but she’d found their scent and followed it, not even really realizing what she was doing. They were looking down into a pit that was burning low and steady. The sickly sweet odor of burning flesh hung on the air, but it was a weak smell. They’d burned the bodies of the men that attacked her, but the flesh was gone and the flames were licking at the bones now.
She and Mason played chase, and she wanted him to catch her. She hadn’t meant to give him such a great opportunity when she happened to look over at Cairo and caught him stretching, his enormous muscular and incredible naked body shimmering gold and orange in the firelight, and just like that she was shifting and naked under a very naked, and excited, Mason. The kiss was hot, with just the right edge of desperation, and she forgot everything except the two of them in the clearing. Then a leaf crunched under someone’s foot and the fire crackled and spit, and she remembered that she’d also kissed Cairo and Dante.
And it wasn’t fair.
She liked them all. She could even admit to herself that she loved them all. In spite of her best efforts to stay away from them. To their credit, they’d never laid a hand on her, they’d only tried to get to know her. She’d been pushing them away because she didn’t trust herself. She wanted them too much, and she would have to pick one. She didn’t want to have to choose. Choosing meant letting go of the careful walls she’d put up the past weeks and months to protect herself. She didn’t want to just be a quick roll in the hay, the stuff of base attraction and nothing long-lasting. She didn’t want to be a booty call, or the office party favor. She was afraid to care about them, because if they rejected her when she was being her real self without all the tramp and glitter, then it meant she really wasn’t worth anything no matter what she looked like or how she behaved.
Even without clothing, she was going home, and then she’d politely quit the job and find something else to do, somewhere else to go. She managed to make it to the front of their house before Mason and Cairo stepped from around the corner to stop her. She opened her mouth to tell them to leave her alone, when Dante grabbed her from behind and tossed her over his shoulder.
She was too surprised to give much of a struggle, and before she knew it, he had tossed her gently onto the bed. “You can stay in here until you’re ready to talk.”
The door slammed abruptly and a lock clicked. Oh hell.
She walked over to one of the windows and looked out — two stories down onto concrete. That wouldn’t end well. And she still had no way to get home. Dejected and defeated, she walked back over to the bed and crawled under the covers, closing her eyes tightly and hoping things would be different when she woke.
She woke up slowly, groggily, several hours later, and heard pacing feet on the other side of the bedroom door. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and went into the bathroom to take a shower. When she came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, Cairo was blocking the door to the hall and Mason and Dante were sitting on the bed.
“We need to talk,” Dante said.
“You need to not treat me like a prisoner.” She folded her arms and kept a tight hold on the towel. She hadn’t ever wanted a shirt so badly in her life.
“You’re not a prisoner,” Mason said.
“Bull-fucking-shit! You won’t give me clothes, you won’t take me home, and you locked me in here!”
Mason stood up and walked to her. She was tempted to back up, but decided to stand her ground, which brought him temptingly close. “What did you mean when you said you didn’t want to have to choose?”
Her mouth went dry. She tried to play dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Dante stood up quickly and joined them, and Cairo came over, too, so she was surrounded: the wall behind her and the three of them in front of her, in a half-circle. “You know exactly what we’re talking about,” Dante said in a low voice.
“No. I don’t,” she growled. The scent of them swirled around her. There was no way she could choose one of them. And what if she was wrong? What if they did only want her for fun and not long-term? The potential rejection made her head swim and she wanted to scream in frustration, or cry in shame, or run away. Yes, that made the most sense. They couldn’t hurt her if she never told them the truth.
She took a step to go around them and they clearly didn’t like that. “For fuck’s sake,” Cairo growled and hauled her over his shoulder. She screamed in surprise and cried out, “Put me down, Cairo!” She did not want to be in this position again!
He stomped out of the bedroom and down the stairs as she bumped uncomfortably across his shoulder. She struggled and he clamped his hand down harder on her thighs and cracked her over the ass with his other hand. She had to clench her teeth together to stop from letting him know just how much she wanted him to touch her, even like that. Again. “Be still, Lys.”
“Fucking let me go!” she yelled and tried to unseat herself from his shoulder, but he was far too strong for her.
Dante barked, “Lock it up, Mason. We’re going downstairs.”
He said the word downstairs like it didn’t mean downstairs exactly, and she caught sight of Mason going in the opposite direction, and then the sound of a heavy door opening. She couldn’t see much past the veil of her damp hair and being upside down was making her dizzy. Steel steps covered in shadows were the only things she could really see except Cairo’s tantalizing denim-covered ass.
She counted twenty-three steps and the echoing sound of his heavy boots mixed with Dante’s and then Mason’s, after a scraping sound and the clank of what she assumed was the heavy door slamming shut. A whirling sound like gears turning filled the space. Were they locked in down here?
Her heart rate spiked. Fear. Excitement. Shame. She could smell their desire for her like a cloud of lust. They didn’t want her for her; they wanted her for what lay between her legs. They were just like every other man she’d ever been with. They’d get what they wanted and then she’d be left in the dust, picking up her fragile ego and the shards of her once-more broken heart. Cairo dumped her unceremoniously on a low bed and
the impact jarred her so she gasped and froze. And then she started to cry.
Chapter 10
Why the hell was she crying? Dante wondered. A glance at his brothers told him that they didn’t know why she was crying either, but the tears were genuine and her sorrow was palpable. Locking them down here for the remainder of the weekend to seduce her had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, with her tears scenting the air like saltwater, he realized they’d made a misstep somewhere along the line; more than one, most likely.
He climbed up the low platform bed, which they’d covered with soft furs and blankets just for her while she slept, and pulled her hands away from her eyes.
Her soft brown eyes were bright with tears and she took in a gasping breath and tried to extract her wrists from his grasp. “Why are you crying, Lys? You have to know that we’d never hurt you.”
Fresh tears spilled over her cheeks. “Please don’t do this, Dante. I’m not a toy. I couldn’t bear to be cast aside. Please,” she begged, in a voice that could only be considered fragile. She started crying in earnest again, but stopped fighting his hold.
