“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.
He stretched his neck forward, willing her to touch him, longing to feel her caress him, even if she only ran her fingers across his animal form. Any physical connection was better than none at all, particularly now when he’d shown her his other self.
Carla reached for him with her right hand. Her outstretched limb shook violently as she raked her fingernails through the matted hair. Digging her fingers into his fur, she stroked his animal coat and rubbed his neck and head.
A guttural growl resounded and Jock shifted to his human form, as naked as the day he was born. Flattening his palm against her stomach, he lowered his lips to hers and took the kiss he should’ve taken so very long ago. At the very least, the day before Frank Smith moved in and changed the way their future would soon unfold.
Chapter Four
Frank phased the minute he heard the guttural longing laced through another Alpha’s vocal release resounding off the hills. He sprang forward, practically bouncing from one flat rock to the other as he crossed a shallow part of the Laramie River.
A signal had been sent and it was one he could not ignore. At his back, his pack clamored for his attention, barking out their disgust as the traditions of the past were threatened by what the future now held in store.
Frank paced himself for a moment, long enough to consider the laws in place to discourage a double imprint. Their ancestors—pack masters and tribe chiefs—failed to convey the challenges of the unthinkable.
They hadn’t disclosed the possibility because none of those who’d gone before them knew how to overcome the possible obstacle. A shifter couldn’t deny his mate. She possessed a certain enslaving scent, an alluring touch, an addictive laughter and voice.
The elders who’d gone before them on either side of the Laramie River didn’t broach the subject of a shared mate because they’d been fortunate up until then. The Alpha males and females were loyal to no one else but each other and the packs they presided over.
Frank understood his pack’s angst. No other Alpha had imprinted upon a woman after acknowledging her as another pack master’s life partner.
If Frank still imprinted upon his chosen woman, the consequences could produce a grave end. A dark outcome loomed as a new love shared by three would certainly face its challenges. While an Alpha female would be respected, a shared mate would be frowned upon by both packs. Division was imminent. A separation was unavoidable.
Considering the unthinkable, Frank paused. Could he survive without his fated mate? Could he make the ultimate sacrifice and walk away from his only chance at true love?
An inner war began. Frank envisioned what he might find, the way his woman might betray him without even realizing the ultimate test of loyalty was upon her.
As he pushed aside the need to blame her, he realized the trials didn’t lie within his mate. The ultimate decision resided inside the males foreordained to imprint upon the same woman.
Running once more, he heard a mix of voices inside his head. His pack called out to him. They pleaded with him, some suggesting he wait for a flank, still others reminding him of the powerful enemy he would soon meet.
There were risks. He faced many probable dangers.
The telepathic messages drove him rather than stalled him. Some of the wiser wolves reminded him of fated unions. Several younger pack members condemned him, chastising him for foregoing the opportunity to imprint on his mate while he still had a chance. According to them, Frank had left his mate for another Alpha to claim.
He’d known all these things when Jock Corrigan had befriended Carla several years prior, but he’d honored wolf laws. He’d respected his pack’s traditions, determined to be the kind of man, wolf, and shifter his father hadn’t been. As pack master, he had hoped other wolf shifters would admire him as much as willingly follow his example through the ultimate trials of time.
Instead of showing his strength as a leader, he’d proven himself weak. He’d placed his pack in a vulnerable situation.
With Jock in position to claim Frank’s mate, a woman Jock also believed belonged to him as well, he risked everything his forefathers had secured before him. If Jock imprinted before Frank reached Carla, two packs would inevitably join as one. Two pack masters would lead in lieu of a lone Alpha.
He shuddered as he drew closer to Carla’s home. He sensed the sexual tension in the air. The deed between two—a rival and a lover—was nearly complete.
Frank pressed forward. With every mile he put behind him, the knowledge of what lay ahead left him snarling at the dust and digging that much harder in an effort to shorten the distance between himself and Carla.
Trekking up the ridge overlooking the valley, Frank came to an abrupt halt. He tilted his nose high in the air and freed a heart-wrenching wail.
Customs would change. Legends would soon fall. History would be changed forever and while their love would be destined to test the strains of time, the pack members forced to endure the sins of one pack master would never accept the trials and tribulations brought forward by another.
Still minutes away from Carla’s cabin, Frank loped down the incline, darting through a throng of bushes and an obscene overgrowth of vines and low, sweeping branches. Even though he feared the first imprint had been made, he owed his pack the effort.
His wolves had put their faith in their leader. They’d expected him to guide them into the next generation. They’d admired and adored him.
He had failed them.
* * * *
Jarring arousal shot through Carla’s body when Jock took her in his arms and held her against his warm, masculine form. He nuzzled the side of her face and whispered sweet promises, endearing sentiments.
His kiss swept her off her feet and triggered emotions she’d decidedly only felt once before when she’d first given herself to Frank. Shuddering, she lifted her face to his, accepting his kiss as his tongue traveled over her tongue. His lips smoothed across her lips. His arms bracketed around her and he held her close, embracing her as if he’d never let her go.
Pressing his forehead to hers, he looked down on her with more love than lust seeping into his eyes. She wondered then. Did all men look at their woman as if they saw an extension of themselves, or was it a shifter trait, perhaps even a tactic some shifters used to win over the woman they felt compelled to love?
“I was afraid it would be like this,” Jock whispered, tracing the shell of her ear with his tongue.
“Me, too.” She spewed half-truths, realizing then that while she’d craved Jock’s touch, she’d always long for another man’s hand as well.
Jock closed his eyes and inhaled her scent, dragging his nose against the soft contour of her neck until she quivered against him once again. The tickling sensation left her womanhood weeping in desire, clenching in anticipation. Her nipples spiked as he pulled her closer.
He pressed his erection against her center. Mashing the length of his penis against her dress, he jiggled his hips as if he were trying to split the material in two so he could spear his cock between her legs and drive himself into the intimate depths of her desire. Shoving her hands forward, she balled her fists with handfuls of blond hair, framing his tan face with closed hands as she felt the defined ridges of his hard flesh pressing firmly against her thin dress.
Jock temporarily backed away from her. His wild blue eyes flickered with hunger as her needs heightened and her inhibitions disintegrated into the night.
Ravenous, she was oh so famished as their gazes locked. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his. Even when she tried to look away and desperately wanted to turn her head, she was unable to cast aside whatever spell he seemingly placed upon her.
Her body rocked forward. She rode his stiff length, wanting then to push aside her undergarments and just give in to the whirlwind of unleashed passion.
“You’re my mate,” he rasped, grounding his erection against her lower belly.
Her future
flashed before her. Images ran rampant in her head. She could see the past and present. She was aware of the wolf’s heritage, of traditions steeped in cultural ceremonies and territorial agreements. And for reasons still foreign to her, she realized she belonged to two shifters—Frank and Jock.
“Mine,” Jock told her, possessiveness in his voice.
“Yes,” she whispered, searching his eyes and more eager to please him than she’d ever held the desire to satisfy another.
Her back was against the cabin logs. She arched her neck, bracing for the unexpected as she prepared to give herself to the man who had certainly been the person she’d longed to hold, the man she’d longed to love.
Cupping his nape, she kissed his rounded chin and placed gentle pecks along the underside of his stern, thick jaw. Planting kisses across his solid cheeks, she avoided his lips until she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t help but love him.
Nuzzling his angular nose, she wrapped one hand around his neck and used his body for balance. While bunching the skirt of her dress at her hips, she quickly untied her lace pantalettes and loosened the opening at her crotch.
With complete access, Jock nudged the head of his penis through the parted material and sank right inside her intimate folds. “Look at me, Carla.”
“I see you,” she whispered, focusing on his handsome face as he drove inside her slick channel.
“What do you see when you look at me?” he asked, pumping his cock faster as his thighs bunched and his body melded to hers.
The pleasure spinning around her was too much to bear. She wanted to scream. She wanted to lock her legs behind his back and act like a renegade riding without a saddle.
She longed to grip him with her thighs, claw at his back wildly as he pushed the weight of his penis deep inside her. She needed him buried deep within her pussy until he not only became a part of her, but his seed remained trapped inside her forever more.
“Answer me now, Carla,” Jock rasped, feasting on her lips with a ravenous kiss.
She closed her eyes and turned her head, reveling in the pleasure. The exquisite way he thrummed inside her body left her unable to think. She couldn’t speak, much less answer his questions. She couldn’t do anything except…“Oh my God, Frank!”
Squirming in Jock’s arms, she tried to push her garments down in an effort to cover her exposed hips. Failing at the task, Carla gasped as Jock drove forward, pausing only momentarily.
“You must stop,” she whispered, unable to move with Jock’s weight confining her.
“What? Now?” Jock acted disoriented for a moment. He acknowledged the man at his side with the tilt of his head, acting as if he fully expected to find Frank there.
Jerking, she tried to free herself from Jock’s grip, but he continued pounding his cock inside her, stroking her deeper and with more commitment.
“Jock, please!” She gasped. “Oh my God, Frank! I’m so—”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Jock grated out, slowly rotating his hips.
“Don’t mind me,” Frank said casually, his eyes burdened by a mix of male heat and disappointment.
“But I do,” she whispered as Jock dropped his head to her chest and used his teeth to free the buttons on her dress.
Round pearls popped and dropped as her top opened and her full breasts were exposed. Distorted emotions filled her head as a new wave of lust washed across Frank’s handsome face.
He was watching as another man took her, another male claimed her. Yet there he was with arms crossed and one knee bent behind him, looking perfectly relaxed.
“Come, baby,” Frank told her, his eyes darkened by shadows of desire. “Let me see you come for him.”
As if all the lessons Frank had taught her came rolling to the fore, Carla came apart in another man’s arms, climbing Jock’s body as she’d climbed and rode another, the same man now observing her with budding interest, deep-seated need.
One man’s cock brought her pleasure, pushed her to that climactic moment, while another man’s eyes imprinted upon her. And in a matter of seconds, she saw their futures more clearly than before.
She belonged to two Alphas, two men who hadn’t necessarily been adversaries, but they certainly hadn’t been friends. For whatever reason, she had been chosen. She saw their pasts and their futures as separate and adjoined entities.
Her love for these men would inevitably change their perceived fates as they came together as one. A new generation of wolf shifters would follow their pack masters, two strong warriors, into the great wild of Wyoming and well beyond all borders of the Western territory they’d yet to discover.
Chapter Five
When Frank had first arrived, Jock could’ve sworn he was on the shoot and looking for trouble. If Jock had been in Frank’s boots, he might have whipped out a weapon and taken advantage of the situation.
To Jock’s surprise, Frank didn’t look as if he’d caught one in the neck, or below the belt for that matter. Instead, he appeared shadowed by lust, in the throes of some sort of remembered fantasy, perhaps one he and Carla had enjoyed in the past, or maybe even one he planned to play out in the near future.
As Jock scurried around to collect his clothes, Carla fidgeted. She nervously reassembled her dress as Frank’s gaze bore into her flesh, his eyes never leaving her as she tried, and failed, to look as if nothing of particular interest had transpired there.
“His penis was inside you when I arrived. Don’t try to dismiss this as if it isn’t anything we need to discuss.”
Carla cleared her throat. “I belong to you.”
“Yes, you do. That’s for damned sure.”
Frank’s tone was as cold as an icy river in the middle of the wintertime and Jock slowly turned, expecting to catch a left swing, closely followed by a right.
“I’m Jock’s mate, too.”
Devilment danced in Frank’s black eyes. His dimples stretched from the corner of his mouth halfway up his cheek as he stalked her then. His eyes suggested he had already forgiven her, as if she needed forgiving, but his demeanor contradicted the way he carried himself, the way he worked his walk as he approached her.
“You belong to me and Jock equally. You’re my mate as much as you’re his.”
“That’s…that’s what I meant,” she stuttered.
“Jock, it’s good to see you.” Frank didn’t turn around or offer his hand, which didn’t make a pile of potatoes one way or another to Jock. He wasn’t sure he would’ve taken a hand offered in a gentleman’s greeting.
Besides, considering what had happened there, the way Jock had fucked a woman in front of a man who’d taken said woman’s purity, well, pleasantries weren’t necessary. As a matter of fact, both men would probably count themselves lucky if they left Carla’s cabin with their lives.
“Have you shown Jock what you keep in the loft?”
Carla’s intake of air resounded like a staggered, muffled cry. Her skin was instantly red, flushed with arousal more than embarrassment if her beaded nipples told the most accurate of tales.
“I take it you haven’t seen our mate’s playthings,” Frank said, turning on his heel then. “Why don’t you and I take a trip to the barn and collect them?”
“Fine by me,” Jock said, prepared for the worst but praying for the best.
He was in a tough predicament to say the least. He couldn’t ignore his feelings for Carla. He’d known her for the better part of five years and lusted after her every day for the better part of the last four years and nine months. The way he saw things, he was finally claiming his mate. The way Frank saw things? Well, he had a feeling Frank would soon tell him what was on his mind.
“Honey, run on inside for me.”
“Yes, Sir.” There was a husky element to her voice, a brighter shine to her cheeks, and a quick swipe from her tongue dampened her swollen lips.
She shot Jock a smile and shared one with Frank, too, before leaving them to fight out their differences like starving cats
battling for the last bit of sweet cream.
“Come on, Jock,” Frank said, wagging his finger at the barn. “There’s no need in dragging this out. We might as well get on with it.”
* * * *
They’d walked to the barn in silence. Frank had tried to delve into Jock’s thoughts, but Jock had deliberately shut him out. He sensed his determination as they walked alongside one another.
Entering the darkness, Frank reached for and lit two lanterns. Handing one to Jock, he led the way through the barn to the ladder at the midway point. “After you.”
“No, I insist,” Jock said, waving his arm in front of him.
“You don’t trust me.”
“Why should I trust you?” Jock asked. “I know you would’ve stopped Carla from fucking me if you’d had the chance. I heard you coming for us. I could hear your thoughts, sense your blood thirst as much as your lust and hunger.”
Frank climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he offered Jock his hand again, which was ignored and just as well.
At this point, Frank couldn’t say with certainty if he would’ve pulled him up or pushed him down.
“How were you able to hear my thoughts?”
Jock smirked. “Use your head. You’ll figure it out.”
As if a light came on in that dim brain of his, he suddenly realized why Jock had gained a slight edge. He’d imprinted first. During the throes of passion, while imprinting on Carla, he’d seen her recent past and her immediate future. While fucking her, Jock would’ve been in apple pie order, just as fit as a fiddle. On the other hand, Frank was tuckered out, practically on his last leg as he exerted his energy and tried to stop a fate that was already sealed, a destiny he could only change by acceptance.
“Over here,” Frank said, refusing to kick up a row and cause a disturbance when there were more creative, not to mention enjoyable, ways to pass the time. “Keep your head low.”
“Doggone it!” Jock ran smack dab into a lowered beam about the time Frank had issued the warning. Rubbing his noggin, he glared at Frank as if he’d deliberately avoided issuing the caution in time to save him from a little pain.
Imprints [Dominant Wolves, Submissive Mates 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 3
