They’d likely be there for only a handful of hours before it was time to put their plan into motion.
Diana shook her head as she realized they’d likely spend a fair bit of time between now and then “tweaking” their plan. It didn’t look to be shaping into a smooth process, either.
“I’m not trying to put myself in the crosshairs. All I’m saying is I should be the only one to broadcast, as it were. He’ll be expecting me after our last encounter. I know his power now, and I’ll be able to find him. It makes no sense to give the bastard advance notice that there are three of us with strong magic ready to take him on.”
Diana scowled at Logan and tried to come up with a logical argument against this particular point in the plan—that she and Cameron should lock down their magic until they were needed.
Unfortunately, Logan was right.
They’d had a choice to make. They could hole up and wait for Gregor to make a move against them, or they could make a move themselves.
They chose to go on the offensive. With the information Ryan and Jeremy had provided, they knew where Gregor Fortuna lived. They were just waiting for one more thing to fall into place before they took themselves to where they needed to be—and that was right in Gregor Fortuna’s face.
“The moment he tries to strike, we’re throwing off that cloak of powerlessness, brother.” Cam stood with his arms akimbo and faced Logan.
“It’s just too bad that we couldn’t end this by simply becoming officially mated.” By their facial expressions, Diana knew her words shocked them. She returned their gaping stares with a small smile. “You really shouldn’t be so surprised, my loves.”
Logan was the first to recover. “Somehow, I thought we were going to have to work a lot harder to get you to say yes to being mated to us.”
“Oh, trust me, you will. But who said all the hard work had to come before the vows?”
The men met each other’s gaze for a moment. “Well now,” Cameron said, “at least we won’t be bored for the rest of our lives.”
“True.” Logan took her hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. It was all she could do not to let him see how he made her heart melt so easily. “No, our taking those vows now won’t change anything,” he said. “And I’d rather wait until we’ve dealt with this distraction so we can focus on us completely.”
“Yes, that’s what I want, too.” It didn’t amaze her that she’d gone from trying to put them off to wanting to be mated now. She brought Logan’s hand to her cheek and reached out for Cameron.
Her other mate stepped closer, and she reveled in their nearness. “Part of the reason has to do with what you said last night—destiny. I think there’s something else going on here, above and beyond Gregor Fortuna’s mad quest to stop the prophecy we’re a part of from coming to fruition and becoming more powerful himself in the process. Because, with everything we’ve learned, we still don’t have the answer to that one crucial question.”
“Who is the other person in the power equation, and what does he or she want?”
“Exactly. And we likely won’t know the answer to it until the last possible minute—if then.”
“So all we can do for the moment is wait.” Logan’s gaze glittered. “Do you have any ideas how we can pass the time?”
“I might have one or two.” Diana hungered for their touch, even though they’d made love that very morning. She’d always enjoyed sex, but this, of course, was more than sex. She craved them in a way that defied her attempt to put the sensation into words.
“Tell us what you want, baby. Tell us what you need.” Logan’s words vibrated inside her.
“All we want is to give to you.” Cameron moved in closer. Her men cocooned her, making her feel safe and secure, yes. But their closeness ignited her arousal as well. She leaned against Cameron and looked up at Logan.
“I need both of you, together, inside me. I want us connected that way. I need that.” She believed with all her heart that the three of them together could defeat Gregor Fortuna. Their connection, their love, added to the power of their magic because love really was the strongest and purest magic of all.
But there was still that unknown element, and she couldn’t overcome that foreshadowing fear, a very real fear that all three of them might not survive what was to come.
The looks her lovers sent her told her she didn’t need to speak of her fears. They knew. They knew her, and loved and wanted her, regardless of her flaws.
That made them just about perfect as far as she was concerned.
“Is there someplace special you’d like this coming together to happen?” Logan used the fingers of one hand to comb through her hair. The way he touched the long, black strands and the way his eyes glittered spoke of ages past, of lazy afternoons spent in a bower near the crofter’s cottage they’d called their own.
“No. All I need for this to be special is you and Cam. For us to be together, as three, and as one.”
“Then come and lie with us, my love.”
Soft touches, sweet kisses, and a hunger that burned deep became her reality, her everything and her all. Arousal matured from embers always burning to a soft and gentle flame that danced and swirled. Passion ascended to a fire that spun and grew, touching every part of Diana, every fiber, every atom, spanning the spectrum from body to heart to mind to soul.
In turn, her need to give would not be denied. She touched and cupped, kissed and licked, fisted and pumped, encouraging the passion her men held for her to expand, to take hold, and, simply, for them to take her.
Naked, on the bed between them, she rejoiced in the way they held her down, her arms high above her head, her legs parted. As they stroked her, they said nothing, but their thoughts, their emotions, met hers in that special dimension that belonged to them alone. They oh so naturally slipped into that private room within mind space, a sanctuary for mates where no others could go.
They thought her beautiful and special, soft and delicious, and she gloried in the touch of their hands and the caress of their hearts and minds. Arousal became need, an almost desperate need to meld with her men, to be closer, and then closer still.
Fingers brushed her slit, and she felt her juices on those fingers that then teased and delved. Cameron found her clit with his thumb and her sweet spot with his fingers, and with little more than a few gentle strokes, he sent her over the first crest, the orgasm shivery and quivery, an appetizer for a much more sumptuous feast to come.
Cameron kissed his way up her body, made a place for himself between her thighs, then covered her and impaled her. The sensation of his cock entering her, rubbing against the walls of her tunnel, caressing the flesh inside her, made her whimper with pleasure. She bowed her back off the bed, her pussy seeking contact with his groin and the thrill-inducing hair nesting his cock.
She urged him to hurry and shivered with delight when he kept his thrusts slow and steady and deep. His gaze seared to hers, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he was in control.
“Hang on, darlin’.”
She wrapped her arms even tighter around him just as he lifted them off the bed, turned them mid-air, and then gently lowered them to the mattress once more. He’d reversed their positions so that, now, she rode him.
Logan gained his knees and moved closer. The heat of him blanketed her back, and as he kissed her shoulder and stroked her body, his distinctive aroma filled her. She inhaled deeply, breathing in both lovers. They smelled like hot and lusty sex, making her mouth water and her nipples pinch.
Diana hissed when Logan began to spread lube over her rosebud. A single finger pushed and then entered her. Cameron still controlled her, moving her on his cock, his rhythm never once faltering.
Logan moved his one finger in and out of her to the same cadence with which his brother fucked her, and Diana felt every nerve ending in her body vibrate. Logan withdrew and then returned almost instantly, this time two fingers pushing deep. Diana moaned as the burn spread, h
ot, stretching, and edging toward pain.
So hot and tight. Are you sure, sweetheart? This will hurt some.
I’m sure. I need you both inside me.
Don’t let me hurt you, Diana.
You won’t. I need that bite of pain, Logan. I can’t explain it, but I have to have it. Fuck me. Fuck me now.
Opening their thoughts, one to the others, was another kind of merging from three into one, another level of intimacy. Then Logan moved and eased his fingers out of her. She felt the heat of his condom-covered cockhead press against her anus. Cameron drew her down so that her head rested on his chest. In mind space, it was as if he met her gaze and held it, watching.
He would experience—they both would experience—what she felt. There was no hiding one mate from the others. They were three, but here and now, they were one.
Logan pressed his cock against her anus, the pressure strong and relentless. Diana felt the burn, shivered as it edged to pain, and then moaned when that pain grew. Then Logan’s cockhead breached her sphincter, and Diana felt an almost desperate need for more.
She pushed back against him, gently, inexorably, until his cock filled her ass completely.
Both lovers were a part of her, in her, and it was the most gloriously erotic sensation she’d ever known.
“Give over.” Logan’s command sounded almost tortured, and Diana realized she’d still not ceded complete control to her men. When Cameron smoothed his hand down her back, when Logan groaned and gripped her hips even tighter, Diana sighed and did the one thing she never thought she would ever do.
She let go completely, becoming a willing vessel for her men to fill and pleasure. Every muscle in her body went lax as she extended the greatest trust a woman could—she trusted her men to use her without harming her and to fulfill her completely.
They moved in her, a perfectly balanced ballet in which one lover withdrew while the other thrust home, so that she was not an instant without the thrilling sensation of a cock thrusting into her. On and on they moved, their cocks hard and hot within her, their muscles quivering as they reached the limit of their control.
She had surrendered to them, and gladly. But they needed to surrender, too—to their hunger and their need.
“Take me. Take it all. Let’s ascend, together.”
As if they’d just been waiting for her invitation, Logan and Cameron both shouted out, their passion snapping the tethers of their control. No longer smooth, no longer coordinated, they took what they needed and, in return, gave everything.
Diana screamed as her orgasm exploded, the electric thrill so sharp and fierce it became a life force of its own. Melded with the climaxes of her lovers, they each of them reveled in the almost painful pleasure of ecstasy. White-hot flames of rapture consumed them as wave after pounding wave of erotic spasms banded them, marked them, and lifted them to the apex of passion.
* * * *
No wonder mating is a forever joining. Cameron struggled for breath, as his heart felt as if it would pound right out of his chest. His father had hinted at something special for the man who was mated with his soul brother to one woman.
Logan had only collapsed on Diana, and thus on him, for a moment. Then he eased himself off.
Together, they eased Diana onto her back and used their magic to ensure she was unhurt. Cameron met her gaze and returned her smile.
“You didn’t believe my smile?”
“I did, yes. But I also know that we both lost total control, Logan and I. We had to make sure you were all right.”
“I think if I was any more all right I’d be in heaven. Literally.”
They were still joined in mind space, and when Diana urged him and his brother to press closer to her, they did.
“I didn’t know it could be like that,” Logan said.
“Me, neither.” Cameron pressed a kiss against Diana’s forehead. He sensed his brother’s inner rawness and understood it was born of his total lack of restraint moments before. He kissed Diana’s forehead again and whispered in her mind that Logan needed her.
Diana turned onto her side and laid her head on Logan’s chest. Cameron spooned her and brought the blankets up to cover them all.
“Thank you.” Diana sighed. “I’m trying not to let fear of what may come take hold.”
“Shh. We knew you were afraid, and it’s all right to feel so. We love you.” Cameron kissed her shoulder. He knew he’d never get enough of her, not ever. He thought of the way his father and stepmother were always touching, and he saw that now with the eyes of a man who loved totally and completely.
The next time I see Mother I’ll tell her how grateful I am for her. Surely she’d lifted his father’s heart—because Cameron knew Diana had lifted his.
“You’re the center of us, Diana, our very heart.” Logan stroked their woman and met Cameron’s gaze.
They made a pact, then and there, he and his brother, to protect their woman with their lives.
Yes, Diana would rather they live for her than die for her, as she’d already said as much. But Cameron understood now why it was their kind had always mated this way.
Life could be harsh and unyielding, and destiny could be a capricious bitch. So their kind had decided on two warriors to protect their lady, and one, if necessary, would sacrifice all for the others.
“There will be no sacrificing, Cameron Gilbert. So get that right out of your head.” She’d spoken with her eyes closed, and though her words had sounded tough, she remained relaxed, using his brother’s chest for her pillow.
“Diana.” He met Logan’s gaze, and then, together, they moved so that she lay flat and they could both look down on her. “Trust me when I tell you that wouldn’t be my first choice, nor would it be Logan’s.”
“You’re going to have to accept, my love, that your men will protect you, even at peril to themselves. As Cameron said, it would not our first choice. But it would be our choice if necessary.”
“That’s just the way it is because that is the way nature wired men to be.”
“Then I guess we better be damn sure it doesn’t come to that. Because you know what? All those years when I assumed responsibility for my sisters—even though it truly wasn’t mine to assume—must have bred some warrior genes into my makeup, too. Because, you see, I would die for either of you, if it came to that. And I know, if it did, that would be a choice made without a moment’s hesitation or thought.”
“Well hell. You are as stubborn as that mule.”
“Before you call me stubborn, pal, look in the mirror.” Then, because she knew her men, and because their emotions were likely as open to her as hers were to them, she reached up, a hand to each, to touch, to caress. “I love you both with all my heart. Without you, life really wouldn’t be worth living. Please, let’s not fight about this. Let’s just take this time—because this moment is all we ever really have—and be together and love.”
Cameron wanted to fight his woman’s assertions because all that was in him demanded he be the warrior and the protector. He could feel the tension in his brother and knew Logan felt the same way.
This was their history, their pasts, threatening to overtake their futures because they had loved in the past—and died in the past. Times had been brutal and the threats many and constant.
It was this past that was railing against a woman who would stand as a true equal in battle as she did in bed.
Yet Cameron knew this was an argument he and his brother would lose. Times had changed. Humans, both those who were gifted and those ungifted, had evolved.
“Then we just have to be damn sure we win.” There could be no other option for him or, he knew, for any of them. The next days would determine whether, in the end, they had all or they had nothing.
Chapter 12
They came together after dusk in a public park a few miles away from Gregor Fortuna’s estate. Diana didn’t know if what they’d planned would work, or not.
Just as she and her sisters h
ad each been blocked from helping one another at moments during the last several months, she expected her sisters and their husbands might be blocked now.
When she, Logan, and Cameron materialized in the park, it was to find the others already there. Not just Cheri, Max, and Tony, with Meghan, Ryan, and Jeremy, but Cynthia and Alistair Gilbert as well.
Diana looked down and saw their friends were all standing within a large white circle. Candles had been set out, aligned with the points of the compass, and she didn’t need her senses to know that this circle, and those who stood within it, could not be seen by any but the eleven the circle had been created for.
Diana and her men stepped into the circle. A shiver of power skimmed over her as she did so, similar to the sensation of having stepped through a beaded curtain.
“Those without power who know me believe I’m simply Wiccan,” Cynthia said. “And I am, after a fashion. Wicca, as you may or may not know, doesn’t have just ‘one true way.’ There is magic in life, magic in the earth, and magic in love. These magicks don’t cancel each other out. Because I’m a descendant of the Chosen, my inner magic is not as pure as those who are of the Gifted. So I’ve enhanced my power where I could.”
She held out what appeared to be a jewelry roll and began to unfurl it. She approached each of them in turn, revealing amulets of amber on silver chains. “Amber has been used to ward off evil for millennia. I’ve fashioned, with the help of Alistair and our combined magic, nine amulets wrought from one piece of amber, surrendered by Mother Earth into my own hands. This amber has been enchanted not just for protection but for connection.”
The chains were long enough that the amber amulets rested beneath their shirts, near their hearts. Diana felt the warmth of the stone and the power infused in it as it kissed her flesh.
“It is your magic that will keep you—three plus three plus three—focused on what is to come. These stones will draw from Mother Earth to bolster your efforts. The circle drawn here, blessed and sanctified, will hold you who remain here safe from harm. It is all we two are allowed to do to help you. Blessed be, my loves.”
The Gifted 3: Passions Ascended (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 11
