by Amira Rain
“What happens if we ever find one female—or one human woman—that neither one of us can let go?”
Nash pointed a finger in the air. “There. That. Do we go on trying to share her? Do we try to compete for her? Or does one of us step aside?”
Pearce said, “There’s one thing that the question leaves out. She could decide the whole thing for us. You said that yourself.”
“Right. What if she doesn’t want to be shared permanently? What if she doesn’t want to be the thing we’re competing for, like a prize? What if she just dumps both our wolf asses? We could both get our fur burned.”
“What do you think is the chance of that?” Pearce asked.
Nash bowed and shook his head, frowning as Pearce did before. “I don’t know. She is human, after all. And humans…they’re not always consistent. It’s funny about them, they’ve only got the one body, and they can be more changeable than we are. You know how they can be. They can do things against what they know they really feel. They can think one thing, feel something else, and do something completely different.
They’re the most contradictory things in the world. It’s not like us; we trust our instincts every time. Humans second-guess themselves, question themselves, doubt themselves. And you know they’ve got this way sometimes of convincing themselves that the best fucking in the world is no reason to fall in love and no reason to stay together. She could convince herself we’re wrong for her, just like she convinced herself she didn’t have a future with that Tate she used to sleep with.”
“There was only one of Tate,” said Pearce. “There are two of us. We could convince her to trust her instincts.”
“There’s still the problem of our instincts. We don’t mind sharing a sex partner. Can we share a mate? A mate is for keeps, especially for a wolf. A mate is territory—marked territory. In any territory there can only be one Alpha. So which one of us is it? And can the other one live with that?”
Pearce’s frown deepened. “I don’t know,” he simply, solemnly answered.
“Well, we’d better figure that out,” said Nash. “Because if we manage to bring Megan all the way into our life, it’s going to affect not just her but everything: the way we are with each other, and our work, and our business. Everything. And this won’t be a simple thing to figure out. We’ve both marked her—both of us. Most humans can’t even share a mate, or be shared by two mates. There’s only one human in this relationship and it’s not us.”
There was a long, serious pause. The brothers sat on the steps, not facing one another, just looking out at the hillside and the road down which the trolley bus had taken the object of their growing desire—which was quickly and obviously becoming more than just a desire for both of them.
“The guys will be waiting for us in the shop,” said Pearce. “We’d better get to work.”
“Yeah,” said Nash melancholily. “We’d better.”
_______________
Sitting on the quaint, old-fashioned-looking bus into town, Megan hardly saw the scenery passing by. Her mind was filled with the melody of an old, old song—with different lyrics.
“Bang, bang, bang” went the werewolves…
She had agreed to spend the whole week with them, and even now the thought of it made her moist and tingly. Together, Nash and Pearce Maguire were a sexual experience more perfect than she ever thought possible. She could get accustomed to this place on repeated visits—not that she expected to see a lot of the town during such visits. The most she expected to see was Nash and Pearce’s bed.
And their shower and their fireplace. Perhaps she might even persuade them to do her in their workplace, showing her how they worked their “wood” in the place where they work with lumber. It would likely not take much persuading. She might even talk them into doing her there right after finishing work and sending the other guys home. They could take her while they were still sweaty and dusty and smelled of sawdust. They would get her as dirty as they were—and then they’d have the sexy fun of cleaning up together.
Megan felt positively wicked. She had not given herself so completely to the abandon of raw sex since her relationship with Tate, not even in her marriage to Andrew. For some things a girl just needed a werewolf. And this was the real point of her trip to Rendall Glen. It was something that she and Amy used to sit up talking or whispering about, when they were girls in school.
They would talk about what it would be like to be naked with a boy, to “touch it” and let a boy touch everything on them, and the way it would feel to let a boy do it. (The reality was so much better than the imagination.) They would talk about one day being married and having just one man—so much for that idea.
And sometimes they would also talk about neither being married or even being really in love, but just having a man for the sex, the pure sex. Megan had that fantasy “for about a minute” with Tate, but it quickly turned to love. Having it again, and sharing it with Amy, was the whole idea of being here with the twins—except Amy backed out, leaving her to have it alone. And love it alone.
Yes, it was the pure, raw, all-consuming sex with Nash and Pearce that Megan loved. They were all lust, all the time. As twins they shared a perfect face. They had perfect bodies. They had tools as big and hard as anything in their shop, and they knew how to use them. They were just what Megan wanted. Perhaps it was just as well that Amy went back to Chris. Megan felt greedy for the twins.
_______________
On the main street of the town was a place that said exactly what kind of place Rendall Glen was and exactly who lived here, if one knew as Megan did what to look for. The name of the antique and consignment shop was Moonlight Bay, and its logo was a silhouette of a wolf baying at the moon. This place I have to see, she thought when she stepped off the bus and found it right across the street. Inside, if the name and logo of Moonlight Bay were not a tip-off, the inventory made it even more explicit.
A silver-haired gentleman of a certain age, with a triangular-shaped face, stood behind one counter and acknowledged Megan when the tinkling of the door announced her entry. “Good morning, young lady,” he said cordially.
“Good morning,” Megan replied, casting her eyes about for a first look at the layout of the place, searching out initial things of interest.
“Anything I can help you with?” he asked.
“Um…no, not really right now,” Megan answered. “This is my first time here. My first time in town, actually. I’m just having a look around.”
“Didn’t think I recognized you,” said the gentleman. “In a place like this you get to recognize everybody.”
“Yes, I guess so. I was just interested in seeing what you’ve got here.”
“Be my guest,” the man said. “Anything you like, just give a shout. My name’s Jules; I’ll be around.”
“Thank you, Jules,” said Megan, and quickly chose a direction in which to begin her browse. Nice old man, she thought. Chances are he’s a nice old wolf too.
Wolf-themed things were not all that Moonlight Bay sold. There were plenty of things of general interest; things that any antique lover might buy. But in every nook and at every turn were the shapes and images of wolves. There were glass cases of sculptures and figurines. On the walls were wolf’s head door knockers, wall sculptures, and plaques. Megan found a table with a glass top into which was carved the figure of a proud Alpha wolf. Amid the items in the jewelry cases were wolf pendant necklaces and lockets, wolf rings and earrings, wolf charms.
Among the items on shelves were wolf glasses, beer mugs, and ashtrays. She found mirrors of different sizes with frames carved elaborately into wolf figures. And the old paintings: the wild canines were interspersed widely among the pictures on the canvases. This was a town whose history and heritage one could read in the things that people collected and used, assuming one knew the facts about some of the local population. (Or “pup-ulation,” Megan shamelessly joked to herself.)
The thing that amused her the most
was the collection of antique canes. How perfect was it that one of them had a handle carved into—of course—a wolf’s head? She picked this one up from the brass umbrella stand in which the canes were collected. Examining the handle closely, she thought of Nash and Pearce, and smiled. It took her back to the old movie, The Wolf Man, that she had watched so many times in her life because it reminded her of Tate.
She never told Andrew, of course, why that film interested her so. What could she say to him? Well, darling, the boy I was with before we started dating happened to be a werewolf… The film was not so much a romance as it was a horror tragedy about a man who bought a cane with a silver wolf’s head handle from a lady antique dealer with whom he was falling in love. When he was later bitten by a werewolf and became a killer lycanthrope himself, it was the blows of the silver wolf’s head that put him down.
Her relationship with Tate was nothing like that film, nor was Tate the kind of monster that Hollywood liked to make of his kind. And certainly, the Maguire brothers were no more monsters than Tate was. The cane amused her because she knew the reality—the incredibly gorgeous, steamy, sexy, relentlessly copulating reality—that put the lie to the fantasy and the horror. In the movies, to be mauled by a werewolf was a nightmare. In reality it was a carnal, sexual dream come true.
Megan returned the cane to the stand and directed her attention to the furniture section of the store, wondering what other lupine wares it might hold. No doubt she would find more wolves carved in more things. She made her way among the rows of old tables and chairs and looked them over. Something soon caught her eye, a logo carved in the back of a wooden chair. She blinked when she first saw it, and went over to it and leaned in for a closer look.
The logo was a wolf’s paw print, with a name etched next to it: Maguire. She was startled and fascinated. It couldn’t be a coincidence—not here, not in this place. On a hunch, she looked around at other chairs, at bedframes and the bottoms of tables. Here and there she found the Maguire logo again. How about that…?
It was when she was hunkered down on the floor, looking up at the bottom of a sturdy old stained wood table with a Maguire logo on the bottom of it, that she saw a pair of legs in slacks and feet in dress shoes come ambling up to a stop beside her. Megan came out from under the table and peered up into the friendly face of Jules.
“Anything interesting yet?” Jules asked.
“Oh…” Megan began, pulling herself up from the floor. Jules gallantly offered her his hand and she took it. Once she was up, she dusted off her hands and Jules pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his own. “I was just noticing the…er…brand on some of these things. The Maguire brand…”
“The Maguires?” said Jules, nodding. “They’re an old family around here. We get things from home sales and estates, and some of ‘em were made by the Maguires. Old-school workmanship, that’s them.” He tapped on the tabletop. “Do you know them?”
“Uh, yes. I’m…acquainted with them. Or…a couple of them.”
Jules smiled subtly. “The boys. The twins, Pearce and Nash.”
Rolling her eyes a bit and turning up one corner of her mouth into an equally subtle grin, Megan confirmed, “Yes. Pearce and Nash.”
Broadening his smile just a bit, Jules said, “I expected as much.”
“Oh…?” she said.
“Pearce and Nash are the only ones who still live here, for one thing. And for another…well, if you don’t mind me saying…you’re a young lady.”
“Oh,” she repeated, eyebrows raised.
“You’re visiting Pearce and Nash, then. Houseguest, right?”
It was obvious from his tone—and his basic knowledge—that Jules knew exactly what the situation was. Megan had the distinct and likely correct impression that her “hosts” had a reputation. “I’m…staying with them, yes,” she said. Staying being a euphemism for They’re humping my brains out day and night.
Continuing his knowing way, Jules said, “Sometimes I think we ought to put those boys in the town visitors’ directory, for the attention of female visitors.”
At this, Megan could not help smiling broadly, looking off and blushing.
“Don’t worry, honey, they never mean any harm,” Jules said gently. “You can tell that.”
“I know,” she said, meeting his eyes again. “They’re nice. Really, very nice.”
“They’re the way nature made ‘em,” said Jules. “The way nature makes all young lads like them. And truth to tell, they’ve made a lot of females—your kind and our kind—very happy, and not only from Rendall Glen.”
Megan blinked again, surprised at his candor. “‘My kind…’?”
“Your kind,” replied Jules. Leaning in confidentially, he said, “We always know who’s who and what’s what. Empathy does it. We always know.”
“Oh…of course,” Megan realized.
“We accept it,” Jules said. “Women like you have been here from all over to see them. Nobody ever leaves sad or disappointed, not from those two. You enjoy yourself and don’t think anything about it.”
Megan nodded, sensing absolutely no judgement or wish to shame her in Jules’s manner. It wasn’t the way of his kind to judge and shame, that much she knew very well.
“Thank you,” she said.
“They’ll be good to you—like they’ve been all along. They’re good boys. They just have a way about ‘em, that’s all. But they’re good boys.”
“I know,” said Megan.
“Well, I’ll let you get on about your business now. Anything you like, let me know.”
Megan gave Jules a little wave as he walked off to respond to another tinkling of the door. She stood there for a moment, pondering what he said. He was right about Nash and Pearce, after all. As relentlessly libidinous as they were, as dominating and demanding as they were, what Jules said was true. They were good. And she was realizing more and more that she liked them. Not only the way they looked, not only their magnificent bodies, not only the magnificence of the contents of their trousers and the way they used it—but them.
She liked them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Later in the day, Megan took to the bike and jogging path, not for a jog but just for a walk. Nash and Pearce were right about Rendall Glen; it was a town made for walking. Along one side of the path, some of the more stately homes in the community stood around a pond, actually a shallow lake, that stretched along like a serpent of water. Along the other side, wooded hills rose into the mountains. The path was not seeing a lot of traffic today. Megan found it quiet and tranquil, which gave her a chance to reflect on the time since she arrived here, including her chat with Jules.
The gentleman who ran the antique shop had been tactful and discreet about it, but his meaning was clear. The Maguire brothers were more than prolific, and had been so with women—female lycanthropes and humans—from all over this town, all over this region, and beyond. And Megan understood that it was their nature. She could hardly hold it against them.
She had met them on a message board for werewolf hook-ups, after all. She knew who they were, what they were, and how they were from the very beginning, and she had known that about lycanthrope men all along. Tate had known many beds and many partners before they met. And Megan was sure that just as Jules said, she would go home very, very happy from her time with Nash and Pearce.
That brought her to the thought of coming back. It was true that Megan, like the brothers themselves, was in it for the incredible sex. She did not need the empathy of a lycanthrope to know how much they enjoyed having her. But the more she thought of it, the more she realized that she hoped they were enjoying her enough to make it more than just the adventure of a week.
It was too good for just that. At the end of the week, she would tell them how she felt. She would let them know in no uncertain terms that she wanted them to ask her back. She would even invite them to visit her in the city. Megan grinned mischievously at how Amy’s jaw would drop at Megan being visited b
y the lycanthrope hunks that she passed up in favor of Chris.
Here’s what you missed, Amy, right in front of you. You could have had some of this. Was Chris worth giving this a pass? Megan scolded herself for that. She shouldn’t taunt her friend for choosing a second chance at love over a sex-only ménage, no matter how spectacular the twins were or how phenomenal and prolific the twins were in bed. Love was no mediocre thing to be written off that way.
Still, Megan was enjoying something rare and extraordinary that most human women would never know, and of that she was not ashamed. She would gladly give them all that she had, sexually, and accept everything that they would give to so many others, if Nash and Pearce would only be willing to have her as their regular partner. Please, guys, she thought, all I ask is that you want me enough to make this a regular thing. Just go on wanting me the way I want you, that’s all.
