“I don’t know. Fuck, I didn’t mean to argue about it,” Jake said. “I’m trying not to get possessive of you, but…I don’t want to let you slip out of my fingers. And when we’re working together I wonder why you even look twice at anyone else. But…maybe I’m not good enough for you. I don’t mean that as an insult. Just a fact.” He suddenly stalked back to the van and Jasper looked at me apologetically.
“He has a temper,” Jasper said.
“I noticed. I didn’t mean to set him off. I’m not trying to make anyone jealous! I genuinely like all of you a lot and I don’t know what I’m doing. I must seem like I’m just leading you all on.”
“Do you want a bond-marriage? Like your brother?” Jasper basically just got on the elephant in the room and rode it around.
“I wasn’t even…thinking about marriage, but…”
“You’re not as opposed to it as you thought?”
“I guess I see the appeal now. Just a little?” I looked at him sheepishly. “But it doesn’t seem like a fair thing to suggest.”
“Let’s see how it all goes. One date at a time, huh?” He held out a hand.
Was he trying to tell me that he wasn’t entirely opposed? At the least, he was giving me space to figure it out. “I think the carnival could be fun. I’ve only seen carnivals in movies,” I said. “If Jake isn’t too pissed off.”
Jasper nodded and said to me in an undertone, “The one advantage I have being the sensible brother is that he listens to me, most of time. Hey, Jake!” he said. “We’re going to hit the fair. Hel’s never been to one before.”
“Never?”
“Do you think my parents ever packed up seven kids and took us to a carnival for fried food and creaky thrill rides? Nooo. I was actually a very deprived child, Jake. I hope I don’t look down on anyone anymore.”
“I don’t usually lose my temper,” Jake said, holding eye contact with me a little longer than he ever had. “It’s just what you do to me. I want you to look at me like you’ve forgotten every other man exists.”
Jake and Jasper had started out as my colleagues. So I got what he meant. I treated them more like family. But when he looked at me like that…
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jake
I’m such a fucking idiot.
I didn’t mean to show my hand so much with this girl. I wanted to play it cool, like if she preferred Graham or Byron, or Graham and Byron, we would just walk away into the sunset and find someone better.
With every passing day, I was convinced that there was no one better. It wasn’t because Hel was cute, although she was, or smelled good, although she did, or that I wanted to feel her skin against mine and put my hands on her, taste her, fall asleep beside her. Although, I definitely did.
But I’d felt that way with women before. There were cute girls in the greater Boston wolf community.
I had never wanted to have a girl around me when I was working. When we were finishing up the bathroom all I could think about was how excited I was to show it to her. I knew she’d love it, and she did. And when we argued about a remodel, she always had some good points (although ultimately, I was right).
I don’t ever want to work on a house without you at my side again, I thought, as I watched her walk through the ticket booth and do a half-spin on her toes to take in all the lights of the fair.
“I’ve never had a corn dog before!” she said. “Are they actually good?”
“They’re awesome,” I said. “Clearly you need to acquaint yourself with carnival food the same way you need to embrace the cheap beer at a bowling alley.”
“I’m actually pretty excited about this,” she said. “I’m glad we didn’t go to the fancy place. After all, you don’t need to step up to my level when I’m trying to come down.”
“That could be taken as an insult, but I’ll accept it.”
“What about thrill rides?” Jasper asked, pointing at a Himalayan type ride.
“I’ll try it! It can’t be worse than falling through the rotten floor of a house.”
“So maybe a thrill ride or two before we eat every greasy food that exists,” I said. “Nothing ruins a date like puking.”
Unfortunately, rides were not designed for threesomes, so Jasper took her on the first one while I got a ride car to myself. But soon Hel was next to me, laughing a little nervously on a giant swinging ship. She clutched my arm. I hoped it was on purpose. She managed not to scream until the ride let out a creaking noise and then she gripped me harder.
“I’m more worried it’s going to break than anything else!” she said.
“Well…considering our line of work, I don’t blame you.”
“Things do break a lot!”
The ride slowed down and she was still holding my arm. She let go slowly, her eyes so big and blue when she glanced at me that the beast in me was straining at the leash.
“I really haven’t dated much,” she gasped. “Like, never anything serious.”
“I can tell.” I grinned.
“I’m always questioning whether I’m doing it right.”
I pulled her to her feet as we walked off the ride. “No one really knows how to do this right. We really haven’t dated much either.”
“You seem awfully confident.”
“That’s a skill I’ve honed, and you don’t need to date much to do it. It serves me everywhere I go. But you were probably taught to be a modest lady, huh?”
“Too true. So…” Her hand was still holding mine as we fell in line with Jasper. “If I wanted to learn to be more confident, what would you suggest?” The hint of flirtation in her tone and the way she gave us both a little glance through long eyelashes suggested that she hadn’t just learned to be modest. But I suppose flirtation was a tool in the witch arsenal.
“Maybe something like this.” Jasper took her other hand and we drew in close, squeezing her between us.
“People are going to wonder if I’m with two guys!” she squealed.
We both laughed a little mercilessly. I didn’t give a shit about what random humans in Louisiana thought. They’d never see us again.
“Twins at that. What a scandal,” I said. “Of course, that’s only the beginning of what a confident person would do. Maybe something like this.” I pressed my lips to hers, a little longer than a peck.
“For the sake of fairness…” Jasper kissed her next.
She was completely crimson now. And a few people were giving us funny looks.
“So do you think you’re ready to face the world with more than one man?” Jasper asked.
“You are both…so…just so…”
“If you can’t come up with a word, I’ll find one. Charming? Wonderful? Shameless?”
“Oh, sure. Something like that…” But she didn’t fight our hands. She let us walk with her. Deep down, I think she was enjoying the naughtiness of it all.
“Do you want to ride on that big swively thing, or are you ready for corn dogs?” Jasper asked.
“Corn dogs! Definitely corn dogs.” She paused. “Unless this is going to turn into something even more embarrassing.”
“Well, now that you said it, we have to do it.” We shot for the nearest corn dog booth and kept ahold of her while we ordered three. While I paid, Jasper held them all in one hand.
I took two of them and he put one to her mouth. “Open wide, it’s a thick one,” he said.
She was giggling uncontrollably now. “Stop, stop! Oh god, those kids are watching us!”
A gaggle of tween boys and one girl were staring at us pretty rudely.
“You said you wanted to know how to be confident,” I said. “Hey, fuck off,” I told the kids.
Hel bit the corn dog in Jasper’s hand, chewing through little shakes of laughter, and we finally let her go so she could actually taste it.
“It’s good,” she said. She patted us both on the head with an imperious expression, like we were Her Majesty’s dogs. “Feed me more of these ‘carnival foods’ you speak of
.”
“You’re in for it now.” I grabbed her around the waist, lifted her over my shoulder, and made a dash for the funnel cake.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Helena
“Okay, I think you’ve had enough.” Jasper took the funnel cake out of my hands. “I’ll finish the rest.”
“What? No!”
“Trust me,” he said. “Trying all the carnival food might sound like a good idea, but…you will suffer for it later.”
“Remember that time Mom took us out for dinner to treat us for behaving at the dentist,” Jake said, “and she let us get all appetizers? Cheese sticks, jalapeno poppers, buffalo wings, onion rings…”
“I could remember, but I’d rather not.”
“Fried macaroni bites. I knew I was forgetting one.”
“Your mom took you out for junk food because you were good at the dentist?” I could not imagine my mother doing this. “I imagine your parents are probably a lot of fun.”
“Of course! Our mom’s a gem. She’d tease you just as much as we do, though,” Jake said.
I felt awful when I considered how my parents spoke of werewolves, like they were barbarians who just ran around naked in the woods and were in-bred, which yes, I realize is especially rich coming from anyone whose family was European royalty.
With Jake and Jasper, I started to relax and just have fun, and forget everything I’d ever wasted time worrying about, but at the same time, I felt a palpable tension over whatever this relationship was going to be.
Do we want this? Do we want to explore…a bond-partnership?
It was starting to become clear to me that Jake and Jasper still felt jealousy and were unsure of even poking at the possibility, but also, that they weren’t necessarily opposed.
Is it just because they don’t want to lose me? They want to make me happy?
It will never work if Jake and Jasper didn’t form a bond with Graham as well. And Byron…if he was able to live.
Graham would be here probably by tomorrow night or maybe the day after. I felt like there would be a certain reckoning with the possibility. If we formed a bond between us, it sounded to me like Jake and Jasper’s family would still welcome them. And Graham had no family.
I would be the one who would be disowned by my parents and cut off from Etherium.
Of course, all of this supposes that we make it out of this whole crazy thing alive.
So maybe I just needed to live for the moment.
I certainly knew what my body wanted. Every time they took my hands and caught me between them, the humans looked at us and whispered, and my core heated to a simmer…and then, a boil. I kept trying to just play it cool, but their hands gripping mine were so masculine and possessive that it was twisting something inside me and making me wet, and I knew they could smell that, and that was turning me on even more. Every time their hip or arm brushed my skin, I felt a tingle. And all the while, we were having so much fun.
By the time we left the carnival, I just wanted to jump their bones.
“So what now?” Before I could get in the van, Jasper and Jake stood in front of me and pinned me against the Wolves at the Door logo on the side. “I think our witch is still pretty hungry even after all that food.”
“Hungry for a twin sandwich,” I blurted.
“Wow. That was to the point.” Jasper looked a little embarrassed now.
“I would rather have honesty,” Jake said. “What if we married her someday? Better start off open. Wolves aren’t much for being coy.”
“I guess I never have met a coy beast.” I grinned.
“If we go back to the house, we’ll have company,” Jake said.
“And the van is full of our crap…,” Jasper said.
“So what we need is a blanket—we’ve got one of those—a lonely spot, and the stars,” Jake said.
“But it’s cold!”
“So we’ll keep you nice and warm,” Jake said. “Get in the car.”
He took the driver’s seat this time and started going off the main road down some side road out to gods-knew-where.
“Did you scope out a place to have sex in the woods!? Or are you just driving wherever?”
“We scoped out a place to run around in our wolf forms,” Jake said. “Just in case we get the urge to do a little hunting. But if we’re too busy chasing you, maybe we won’t need to.”
After driving for about twenty minutes, he pulled up to a park or nature preserve. It seemed to be one of those largely ignored places with nothing more than a sign with some trail maps, no gate or restroom. The lonely road and the dark woods were a bit intimidating to me at night, especially since I could smell the swampy atmosphere even through the November chill.
“Is this the night I get eaten by a gator?”
“This is the night you get eaten by wolves,” Jake said, his eyes and smile gleaming at me in the dark after he cut the engine on the van.
Okay, I walked into that one.
“It’s safe,” Jasper said. “Our night vision is good. And we can smell danger coming.”
“But you have to admit this is a little like the setup for a murder.”
Jake laughed as he took a blanket out of the back. “Are you worried that you might get murdered tonight? If we were actually secret murderers, we wouldn’t be spending time trying to figure out how to wrangle a relationship with you and Graham and Byron.”
“I think it’s pretty romantic here,” Jasper said. “I like outdoors dates.”
I guess this was a wolf thing I’d have to get used to. I liked ‘outdoors dates’ too, but I had never defined them as ‘let’s drive into a lonely bayou at night and fuck on a blanket’. It was obvious that neither of them found this weird at all. It was likely all their previous girlfriends (hopefully few in number) had been fellow wolves.
So I would just have to trust them. They took my hands again and led me down a path. Dark trees, still thick with green leaves and smelling rich with life, blotted out the stars and the moon the moment we stepped onto it. The dirt path soon led to a boardwalk that lifted over a swampy forest with patches of shallow water and lush flora. I could barely see more than a gleam of moonlight on dark water, the shadowed fingers of cypress knees, and the dark trunks surrounding us. The buzz and trill of night creatures was quite loud. My eyes were slowly adjusting, and I started to see finer details of moss and the grooves in the tree trunks.
This was not at all the way I expected the night to go, but as we walked I found it unexpectedly romantic after all. My initial fear melted away. Jake and Jasper seemed so at ease in the forest. No warlock or incubus would take me to a nature trail at night.
After a little ways, we reached a spot on the boardwalk that widened with some benches, and the moon was right above us. Jake spread out the blanket.
“How’s this for privacy?” Jake asked.
“It’s beautiful.” Once I stopped worrying about the dangers of a forest at night, knowing they were probably minimal with two wolves beside me, it was like a dream. I always loved roaming the woods of my parents’ house in New York, and when we went to Palm Beach in the winter I would walk along the ocean by moonlight. It actually felt right. “But I am cold.”
“We’ll take care of that.” We folded together. Jasper kissed me as Jake put his hands around me from behind. I leaned back into Jake while my neck angled forward to meet Jasper.
“Still too far apart,” I murmured, reaching for Jasper and hooking my fingers on his belt loops. “I said I wanted a sandwich.”
“Pretty naughty, Hel,” Jake chided me.
“Well, if I am going to descend into Sinistral, I might as well do it right…ohh…” Jake’s lips fluttered along my jaw as Jasper’s tongue slipped into my mouth. Jasper’s kiss was tender, exploring my tongue with his own, but just as my tongue explored back, he nudged me over to Jake and now the other brother’s mouth met mine.
And they were both so hard, pressed against me. In every way.
“Maybe we don’t even need the blanket. We could just pin you between us just like this…” Jake’s hand slid up my thigh and found the elastic of my panties, pushing past it and meeting my soaked folds.
I moaned, gripping Jasper’s shirt as he now kissed me again.
“I’m actually getting pretty hot,” Jasper said, unbuttoning the shirt.
“Oh, yes,” I whispered, helping him get it off.
I was swiftly overwhelmed with desire, succumbing to the moment as their mouths and hands grew steadily more urgent…and yet, they weren’t all beast. They took their time as my desire built with every caress—and theirs too. Their cocks pressed against me and let me know that in no uncertain terms.
Being with two men at once, I thought, requires a level of surrender I wasn’t used to. They could have all of me at once, while I had to choose between them. The eye contact, the caught breath and the sighs and the groans that communicated subtle things to a lover had to be divided too, and in the end, I had to trust them more than usual.
It was surprisingly sexy, and I immediately knew why I could relax. We had already been communicating together for many weeks, and not about sex. Just working together. Building trust.
I knew they wanted to make me happy.
And I knew they just plain wanted me too.
“Make me yours,” I panted.
“Oh, be careful what you ask for,” Jasper said in a low, sexy voice that vibrated down my whole spine. He dropped to his knees and pulled my panties down, his other hand bunching my skirt up against my waist. Jake’s hand pulled back from my clit as Jasper’s tongue dove in. Jake held me as I went weak in the knees, letting out a cry that sent some tiny forest creatures rustling off to get away from the freaky humans having sex in their woods.
“How does she taste?” Jake asked.
“You’ll just have to try her,” Jasper said.
“Have you guys done this before?” I murmured through my increasingly jelly-like state. “Because you make a good team.”
“No, actually.” Jasper stood up but he was still holding my skirt up, leaving my pussy shivering in the cold. “But I guess we’ve always made a good team.”
Wolves at the Door Page 15
