by Roxie Noir
She didn’t care.
Daniel groaned, sinking himself entirely inside of Charlie, her fingers and toes curling. Charlie’s mind went completely blank, and the only thing that existed in the world was the white-hot pleasure of Daniel inside her, as he slowly began pulling out and thrusting into her.
“Charlie,” he whispered.
She couldn’t think of anything to say, or anything that wasn’t just noises.
Charlie felt transported. Her back didn’t hurt at all for the first time all day, and it felt like the only thing that existed was Daniel as he thrust, harder and harder, like he was afraid to hurt her but also utterly desperate to take her as hard as he could.
“You don’t have to be gentle,” she gasped out.
She felt him touch her bandages very, very gently, and then thrust just a little harder.
“For now,” he said, through gritted teeth.
Somewhere in the bedroom, a drawer opened and then shut. A bottle opened, and Charlie looked over her shoulder to see Kade’s cock in his fist as he rubbed something onto it in long, firm strokes.
Then he disappeared behind Daniel, who stopped thrusting into her, leaving himself sunk to the hilt.
Charlie bit her lip. She felt like she was so close to coming, again, and she was afraid that if she moved she’d simply explode from the pressure of Daniel’s cock, pressing against her pleasure zones.
“Ready?” growled Kade.
“Always,” Daniel responded.
Moments later, Daniel gasped and Kade groaned, and Charlie felt Daniel harden inside her even more.
She bit her lip so hard she drew blood, the metallic liquid on the very tip of her tongue.
Then Daniel began thrusting again, cautiously now, and slower. Charlie looked over her shoulder again, and suddenly realized: Kade was also fucking Daniel from behind.
“I’m not gonna last very long,” Daniel growled.
Charlie pushed herself backwards, sinking him into her, and Daniel gasped. She did it again, and again, and within moments, she could feel the white heat spreading through her entire body one more time as she tipped over that edge and came, even harder than the last time, lowering her forehead to the bed as she thought that she might pass out from the sheer force of it.
Her body rocked back and forth, like she was getting every last drop of pleasure from Daniel as he stayed buried inside her. She barely noticed when, suddenly, he hardened and then jerked, his fingers digging into her hips and thighs, groaning through his clenched teeth.
Behind him, Kade grunted once, then twice, his arm tight around Daniel’s waist, holding the other man against himself.
Then he leaned his face against Daniel’s, nuzzling the other man’s neck. Charlie could see sweat beginning to trickle down Daniel’s neck and chest, and with one final hard sigh, he pulled out of her, Kade pulled out of him, and all three collapsed on the bed.
Charlie collapsed very carefully onto her stomach, feeling so utterly exhausted and spent that she thought she might never move again.
11
Daniel
Daniel woke up with a jerk. He was on his bed, lying between Kade and Charlie, both completely sound asleep.
Despite himself, he grinned, and then got out of the bed as quietly as he could.
This always happened to him: he fell asleep immediately after sex, then woke up half an hour later, wide awake. He knew from long experience that it would be a while before he could sleep again, so he padded around the cabin naked, picking up the clothes that they’d left scattered all over and double-checking that the doors and windows were all locked.
As he washed a plate, he heard a sound behind him and Kade appeared, naked and scratching his belly. His short hair was tousled, and he yawned as he padded into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water, leaning against the counter to drink it.
He sat the glass on the counter and looked at it for a moment, then spoke.
“We can’t let her do this,” he said.
“Go to the wolves?”
“Right.” Kade paused, looking out the window. “She’s asleep,” he went on. “I say we go over there right now and rip some wolf throats out, free Olivia, and we’ll be back before Charlie’s even awake.”
Daniel leaned forward and kissed Kade on the lips, his hand brushing against the other man’s side.
“You never did like it when someone had a better idea than you,” he said.
“I’m serious,” Kade said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Daniel dried his hands, then grabbed the water glass Kade had used and refilled it, drinking it down himself.
“Her way is better and you know it,” he said.
Kade’s jaw flexed, and he started to growl.
“I’d rather do it our way too,” Daniel said. He put the glass in the sink and locked eyes with Kade. “And if something goes wrong, I’ll do it. But after that, we’ll be on the hook for murdering wolves.”
Kade broke eye contact and looked away.
“You know what happens to shifters who get convicted of murder. That’s why you want to find Olivia so bad.”
Kade was still frowning hard, and Daniel could see the wheels turning in his head.
“I don’t like it,” Kade said.
“I don’t want her to leave either,” Daniel admitted. “But this is bigger than us. It’s more complicated.”
“Fine,” Kade muttered.
They let Charlie sleep. She woke up once, around ten that night, to brush her teeth, and then got back into the middle of their huge bed. Kade and Daniel tucked themselves around her, careful not to touch her back, and then went to sleep themselves.
Daniel didn’t sleep well. He wasn’t anxious by nature, but the thought that he’d only just gotten Charlie, only to lose her right away nagged at him.
Isn’t there some other way? He thought. It wasn’t that he didn’t think she could take of herself. That, he was totally and utterly sure of.
No, it was the part where the FBI was going to take her home. Once she was gone, why on earth would she want to come back? They were just some former fuckup and his grumpy, surly mate, nothing spectacular. Nothing to write home about, and the city offered her so much more than their lonely cabin in the woods.
In short, Daniel was nearly certain that she wasn’t coming back.
Deal with it, he thought as the dawn broke through the windows, shining pink light into their bedroom. At the end of it, she’ll be alive and happy somewhere, and that’s what matters.
Charlie yawned and stirred, then opened her eyes.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said.
The three of them tried to eat breakfast, but no one had any enthusiasm for it — besides, all they had was a couple of eggs and the venison Kade had gotten then day before. Kade tried to make an omelet, but it didn’t turn out very well.
In the end, Charlie dressed in their clothes — much, much too big — in the hopes that it would make her look like she’d escaped.
Then they left the cabin, Daniel and Kade shifted, and they walked to where her pack was in silence, Kade leading the way.
The forest was quiet. It was almost too quiet, but Daniel knew that he was just on high alert, listening for every twig that snapped and every bird that called out even once. Charlie had to stop and rest a couple of times, but she insisted on walking herself, rather than riding one of them.
“Stop it,” she told Daniel, as she was sitting on a rock. He was nudging her leg with his nose. “I’m not riding you. I need to look like I actually walked through the woods.”
He sighed and sat down, his head on his paws. In bear form, it was much harder to control his impulses — and his impulse in this case was to pick her up as gently as he could with his mouth and carry her back to safety.
Humans didn’t like that, and he knew it.
At last, they reached her pack, and he could tell that Charlie was relieved. All the way over she’d been fretting about what she would do if
it were gone, but as she pawed through it, everything was there.
“I don’t know why they didn’t take it,” she said. “They probably should have.”
Daniel and Kade shifted back to human, both on high alert, as Charlie shouldered the pack.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Kade asked.
“Didn’t I promise?” Charlie said, smiling up at him.
He kissed her hard, and then Daniel did too.
He felt like his heart might kick through his chest, but he’d laid awake all night without thinking of a better alternative.
“Be safe,” he told her. “Please.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
She kissed them both again.
“Go,” she said.
Then she turned around and started walking toward the wolves’ ranch, at least a few hours’ walk away.
12
Charlie
As soon as Charlie was certain the bears were out of earshot, she crumpled to a fallen log and sat there, gasping for breath. Her back hurt, her sides hurt, her feet hurt. Luckily she still had the shoes she’d been wearing, but everything else fit wrong, and she was chafing like hell.
She was beginning to wish she hadn’t had this idea, because she wasn’t certain she could make it to the ranch.
Have a granola bar, she thought. You’re just hungry and grumpy, and you’ll feel better after you eat.
Charlie knew that wasn’t the whole story. When she’d had the idea to go to the ranch, free Olivia, and then call in the FBI, it had seemed genius. It solved all of their problems without killing anyone.
Well, except it involved Charlie leaving Cascadia. The further she got from Kade and Daniel’s cabin, the more she felt physically broken, like a chunk of her heart was missing.
How is that even possible? She thought. You dated Todd for like two years and couldn’t wait for him to visit his parents alone.
But there it was. She didn’t want to leave them.
She only had a few hours to figure out how to stay.
Charlie finished the granola bar, put the wrapper in her pack, and stood. The going was slow, but Kade and Daniel had told her that as long as she walked straight, she was in the wolf territory and they were certain to find her.
She hoped they were right.
Then, twigs and leaves crunched off to her right and Charlie heard a snort.
She froze. A huge gray wolf stepped out of the shadows, its nose curled in a snarl.
She heard another sound to her left. It was another one.
Please be shifters, she thought.
Charlie cleared her throat.
“I want to trade myself for the feral girl,” she said.
The wolves just snarled more.
Oh my god, they’re not shifters, she thought.
Then they looked at each other, almost like they were considering, and at last, one of them stood up, his fur folding back into his body, his yellow eyes turning blue.
“You’re the girl the bears had captive?” he asked.
I’m never going to get used to seeing people shift, Charlie thought. Just watching them always made her a little dizzy.
He was naked, of course, and tall, though not as tall as the bears. He had hard blue eyes and floppy brown hair, and as he talked to her he folded his arms across his chest.
Charlie forced herself to smile.
“That’s me,” she said. “I got away from them, and I’ve been walking since.”
He gave her a long, hard look, but Charlie was too tired to care much.
Finally, he spoke again.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a truck on a fire road not that far away.” He started to walk, and Charlie followed him, the wolf taking up the rear.
Thank God, thought Charlie, but even as the thought went through her head, she remembered: you can’t seem like a threat. You have to seem like you’re barely alive after escaping the bears.
She intentionally hit her foot against a tree root and went down, landing on her hands and knees. Her gasp of pain wasn’t an act, though, and she gritted her teeth together as the stitches in her back screamed in pain.
The man turned and looked at her, then crouched down next to her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Charlie took a few deep breaths before she could answer.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m okay. It’s just my back.”
She looked up into his face. His jaw flexed, and his mouth made a flat line.
Then he stood and extended his hand down, offering it to her. Charlie took it.
“It isn’t much further,” he said. “We’ll slow down. You can hang onto me.”
He cast another look back at the wolf behind them, and then Charlie and the blue-eyed, dark-haired wolf shifter walked slowly to the fire road, her hand gripping his arm tightly.
When they found the truck, Charlie thought she might cry with relief. The hike had been harder than she’d thought — after all, it hadn’t been very long since she’d lost so much blood.
Be easier on yourself, she thought.
Soon.
The truck entered the ranch through a gate, which slid back in front of them and closed behind them. Charlie noted that there was a fence around the ranch, but it was only a few feet high — for cattle, not people.
Even though the shifter in human form hadn’t talked much, she still liked him better than the wolf, who’d hopped into the truck’s jump seat and then sat there, staring at her.
Finally they pulled up in front of a big farmhouse, in the middle of four or five other outbuildings. Two looked like barracks, one was a barn, and the other two were some sort of farm buildings that Charlie couldn’t identify.
To be honest, she didn’t really care. She was tired, her back hurt something fierce, and it was going to be ages before she saw Kade and Daniel again. She wasn’t even sure which part was the worst.
They got out of the truck, and the wolf trotted away, its tail held out straight behind it. The man watched it go, and then turned his face toward Charlie.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he said.
Charlie frowned.
“Thanks,” she said uncertainly.
“The people in charge don’t speak for all wolves,” he said, his voice tight and angry. “Not all of us take part in stupid pissing contests over territory or think that humans should be used as bargaining chips.”
“I see,” Charlie said.
“Aiden and Dwayne got what they deserved,” he said.
The names sounded familiar, but Charlie couldn’t put her finger on who they were.
“The dead wolves,” the man explained, as they mounted the steps to the big house. Then the man was opening the door, ushering Charlie into the front hallway.
The two of them walked back to the kitchen, where Buck stood along with an older woman, leaning against the counter, holding beers.
When the man and Charlie walked in, the conversation stopped dead. The woman looked from one man to the other and then left without a word.
“It’s the human that the bears were keeping,” the man who’d brought her said.
Buck started at Charlie’s toes and let his gaze sweep upward.
“So it is,” he said. “They let you go?”
Charlie shook her head.
“I escaped,” she said, trying to think fast. “They thought I was too injured to go anywhere, so they left me alone for a while when they went out for bear time.”
“I see you’re better than they thought,” Buck said. “Maybe not anymore, though.”
The other man opened a cabinet, took out a glass, then poured water from a cold pitcher into it and handed it to Charlie. She drained it in seconds.
Buck pulled out a chair, and motioned for Charlie to sit on it.
“You’ll free Olivia?” she said. Her voice sounded tired, even to her.
“Of course,” Buck said, like it was an afterthought. “Trevor, a word?”
&
nbsp; Trevor, she thought.
The two men left into an adjoining room, and Charlie sat still, just looking around.
Then she realized that she could just barely hear them through the door. She leaned toward it straining her ears.
“Of course the bear can’t go free,” Buck said.
Trevor murmured something that she couldn’t hear, and she could hear Buck reprimand him sharply.
“Too hurt,” Trevor said. “Not yet.”
“Tomorrow,” Buck said.
More murmuring from Trevor, but nothing that Charlie could hear.
She was dismayed, but not surprised. She hadn’t believed Buck’s offer to free Olivia any more than Kade and Daniel had. Now she was just going to have to find the bear, free her, and then call the cavalry.
All in a day’s work, right?
Unless there was some way she could escape without calling the FBI. The truck, maybe? She didn’t have the keys, though — and besides, she barely knew where she was, let alone where Kade and Daniel’s cabin was.
The mere thought of it sent a pang through her heart. More than anything, she wanted to be in their kitchen, watching Daniel carve lions into wood, at the table he’d built. Instead, she was here, dealing with wolves.
The door swung open, and Charlie tried to look like she hadn’t been listening.
“You’ve had a long day,” Buck said. “Get some rest, and we’ll do the rest tomorrow.”
“Let her go tonight,” Charlie said, even though she didn’t feel like there was much fight in her. It would be so much easier if they just let poor Olivia go.
“Tomorrow,” Buck said again, his smile slowly taking over his face. “It’s dark out tonight, and I don’t think she knows her way around just yet.”
Charlie just shrugged.
“Come on,” Trevor said. “I’ll put you up in the dorms. You can get a shower and I can bring dinner over.”
He led her to one of the outbuildings, this one apparently designed just for people to stay in. As they walked, he explained that in season, lots of people lived on the ranch. Mostly cowboys, and mostly wolves.
Finally he opened a wooden door to a nice, small bedroom with a single twin bed. There was one towel on it.
