Sexy Beast II

by Kate Douglas, Noelle Mack

  You ain’t seen relaxed, sweetheart. Mik’s soft chuckle made Tala smile. The sensation of two men suckling her breasts, two men pleasuring her sex while her body soaked in a steaming forest pool was almost more than she could bear.

  Her orgasm, when it came, was almost a gentle caress, a rising tension topped with pure sensation, a soothing slide into satisfaction. Together, AJ and Mik took Tala to her peak once again, held her there, then helped her over. Again and again they repeated the sensual process until her body felt limp and unresponsive, until every muscle had the tension of wet noodles and her heart no longer labored with their touch.

  When Mik crawled out of the pool and shifted, Tala barely found the energy to follow. AJ was close behind her and she sensed his shift as she once more regained her Chanku form. She stood still, blinking indecisively, her mind benumbed from the many climaxes the men had given her. The paw roughly scraping across her shoulder, when it happened, shocked Tala. She spun around with teeth bared.

  She hadn’t expected this. Not now, though she should have known it was coming. Tala wanted this bond. Feared it. Bowed her head and accepted that somehow, some way, the two she loved most of all would lead her through this necessary rite of passage.

  Mik was the one who mounted her, his sharp wolven cock penetrating her sex, hips pumping as he drove deeper with each thrust. Some part of Tala’s mind wondered how AJ would take her as well, but she’d not thought of the other option, the fact that AJ had entered Mik in the way they’d always had sex.

  If she’d been human, she would have smiled. So much worry about nothing. Tala dropped her barriers and welcomed her mates into her mind. Welcomed both of them as the moment of climax grew near, as the tension within their writhing bodies built, expanded…exploded in a convoluted maelstrom of images—of pain and fear and overwhelming sorrow.

  They’d shifted, reacting simultaneously to the powerful mind link with Tala. Still buried in her tightly spasming sex, Mik held Tala’s shivering body in his arms. AJ lay against Mik’s back, his cock still inside, the three of them huddled in a tangle of arms and legs while Tala sobbed uncontrollably.

  It was AJ who moved away first, who leaned over and gave his hand to Mik, pulled his lover to his feet, then helped him carry Tala to the warm pool. Though she cried, her body seemed relaxed, almost boneless, and the men floated her between them in the steaming water. Mik supported her head against his chest while her buttocks rested in AJ’s lap.

  They sat that way a long time before Mik finally spoke aloud. “We were looking for you. That’s why AJ and I were in that seedy little bar in the first place. We were looking for Mary Ellen Quinn.”

  Tala shook her head. Her voice was rough from crying, her words flat and lifeless. “Mary Ellen died three years ago. She didn’t deserve to live or I would have remembered her.”

  “She was attacked and she killed. It was her nature, your nature. You are Chanku, whether you take the supplement or not. The beast is still a powerful part of who you are, what you do.” AJ stroked Tala’s arm, played with her fingers, finally raised them to his lips and kissed the tips of each one. “You know you’re not the first to do this, to shift without warning, without the supplements, when your life was threatened. To kill without remembering.”

  Tala raised her head and stared at AJ. “What do you mean?”

  Mik answered. “There’s a pack in Montana, four Chanku who live together. One of them, a young woman named Keisha Rialto, was assaulted before she knew anything about her heritage. She shifted and killed her attackers. From what we’ve been told, it took months before she was able to remember what really happened. Thing is, once she remembered, she was able to move past it.”

  Tala shook her head, but she didn’t pull away from either man. “I was already a whore. What were two more men? I’d taken more than that before. I was bought and paid for.”

  “No, Tala.” Angry she would think this way, Mik shook his head and wished the images from Tala’s mind hadn’t been quite as vivid, the pain as intense. Those two bastards deserved to die for what they’d done to her and so did Jimmy Cole for knowing Tala’s past and taking advantage of her amnesia. She was lucky to be alive and relatively unmarked.

  “They didn’t pay to torture you. They paid Cole to use you for sex, which, as a latent Chanku female, is something you could never get enough of.” Mik kissed her soundly on the lips, reinforcing his statement. “When it comes down to it, prostitution was probably the ideal position for a woman with needs beyond the norm. But torture? No. Unacceptable. Your life force was too powerful to let them hurt you any more. What they did to you went way beyond what any woman should endure.”

  Tala turned her head away and buried her face against Mik’s arm. “I’m a whore. That’s what I do.”

  “What you did.” Mik caught her chin in his fingers, turned her face back to his and kissed her. “Not anymore. You have me. You have AJ, and eventually other members of our pack. We’ll be able to take care of everything you need, just as you do for us. Trust me. We saw what happened. That’s the thing about a bonding link. We both know what you know, what you’ve experienced, just as you know us and our backgrounds. Those men would have killed you. That was their intent. You merely beat them to it, a lot more mercifully than what they had planned for you, I imagine.”

  “Mik’s right, sweetie. Get over it.” AJ laughed, breaking the tension with his flip remark. Then, kissing her lightly on the forehead, he added, “You know we love you. You’re not alone anymore.” He grinned again and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but you don’t look much like I’d pictured Mary Ellen Quinn.”

  That brought a slight smile to Tala’s lips. “Why were you looking for me? Because of Bay? I saw him in your minds, saw him as your lover.” Tala blinked and seemed to bring her world back into focus.

  A world that had suddenly exploded wide open. Baylor was alive! There was a chance she might even find her sister, with the help of these amazing men of hers.

  “He’s one of the newest members of Pack Dynamics. When he told us he had two sisters he’d lost touch with, we knew we had to find you.” AJ shook his head and chuckled. “Unfortunately, we were looking for a plump little blonde.”

  Tala frowned as she searched her memories. “I haven’t seen Bay in about ten years. He described how I looked when I was married. I’d gotten heavier and I used to bleach my hair.”

  “That explains a lot.” Mik kissed her.

  “What about Lisa? Has anyone looked for her?”

  Mik shook his head. “I don’t know about your sister. Last we heard, she was in Tampa. One of the pack will find her. Right now, though, we need to get you back to the cabin and get you to bed.”

  “Why do I sense an ulterior motive beyond sleep?”

  AJ stood up and pulled Tala out of the pool. “Because we rarely go to bed merely to sleep. We’re Chanku. There are better things to do between sheets.”

  “Or on top of sheets, or even in the forest.” Mik followed them out of the pool. Standing in the pale swath of moonlight, his long hair hanging in shimmering ribbons over his shoulders, across his broad chest, he looked like a god.

  Tala swallowed back a moan and turned to AJ. Even more beautiful than Mik, he gazed on her with absolute devotion. His beautiful amber eyes glittered and, like his packmate, he was already massively aroused.

  She could take them here, in the depths of the cool forest beneath a starry sky. Take them as wolf or as woman, whichever they chose. Or they could return, go back to the warmth of the cabin with a fire crackling in the big stone fireplace. After running as Chanku, she realized sex would be even more intense, and suddenly the violence, the levels of arousal she’d noticed earlier when they made love, made sense to her.

  A cool breeze popped up and Tala shivered. Then she shifted, regaining her wolven form as easily as…ah, was it really all that easy?

  Was anything? The thick pelt now covering Tala’s body warmed her. The male wolves running at either s
ide protected her. She was woman.

  She was Chanku. Waving her plume of a tail in invitation to follow, Tala took off in a steady, ground-eating lope back to the cabin. She might be wolf, a creature of the forest and one with the night, but she was still civilized.

  There was a lot to be said for hot sex with her own personal gods in the comfort of a warm bed. Thinking of the possibilities, Tala raced along the woodland trail toward the cabin.

  Epilogue

  “Hey, Tink. Take a look at this.”

  Martin “Tinker” McClintock grabbed the sheet of white paper his boss, Lucien Stone, ripped out of the printer. He stared at the brightly colored map and short paragraph printed below. “Lisa Quinn? Bay’s sister?”

  “Looks like. She’s not in Tampa at all. I found her working at a wildlife center in Colorado, a place that’s sort of a rehab for lost souls and injured animals. Everyone else is on a job, and AJ and Mik won’t be home from the cabin with Mary Ellen or Tala, whatever she calls herself, for at least another week. I thought maybe you’d have the time to see if you can find her.”

  Tink tried really hard to control the broad smile that split his face. Tried and failed. He tipped a salute to his boss and grinned at the beautiful mulatto woman sitting behind Luc. Tinker’d bet his soul Tia had a part in this assignment, bless her heart.

  “I’ll do my best. Luc, thank you.”

  “Good luck, Tink. If she’s out there, we know you’re the one to bring her home.”

  Home. Tinker looked around the apartment he’d shared with Tia and Luc for so many months now and realized that, as much as he loved them, it really wasn’t his home. Not his at all.

  Carefully folding the information about Lisa Quinn and sticking the paper in his back pocket, Tinker headed down the hall to pack.

  Fantaisie

  Noelle Mack

  To JWR, the best bête

  1

  The lion seemed to enjoy the attention. Good. This was one client who really could bite her head off if he didn’t like her work. Tanya ran a large-toothed comb once more through the section she had just finished, and clipped it to one side.

  The beast had a magnificent mane that would be the envy of a rock star. But it took forever to section and comb out. And even though the lion’s trainer, a stocky guy in khakis, was close by, Tanya was careful not to pull or tug on the coarse locks. Closing its golden eyes, the lion allowed the grooming to proceed.

  She fanned out a handful of hair across her palm, running the comb through it slowly. Money couldn’t buy highlights like this. Overall, the lion’s mane was black, but on close inspection it was streaked with russet and fine threads of pure gold.

  Tanya had sketched and scanned a few styling ideas before she got to France, including a fantasy braids-and-beads look, and e-mailed them to Jean-Claude, the lion’s owner, the creative director and founder of an unusual small circus, a man she had heard of once or twice before he contacted her through a friend. He was descended from nobility and he was rich.

  She guessed Jean-Claude had liked the sketches. Without further comment from him, an invitation to his chateau and a reservation for a first class flight to Paris had popped up in her in-box the next day, waiting for her approval.

  There had been only one possible reply, the only French word she knew. Oui.

  A week later, she was explaining why she was bringing twenty pounds of crystal beads and two huge suitcases full of hairstyling products into France to a bemused customs official. He shrugged once she got to the part about the lion and slapped a sticker on her suitcase, waving her out to look for a sign with her name on the other side of the glass door.

  The chauffeur waiting for her didn’t seem to speak English, so she’d contented herself with looking out the window for the long trip to the chateau.

  The mix of office parks, factories and dreary outlying suburbs that seemed to surround every city in the world had thinned out after a while and a gentler landscape of golden fields appeared. Glimpsing the first chateau she’d ever seen, she’d had the odd feeling of traveling back in time. It was much smaller than this one, nestled in trees and overlooking a placid river in which its reflection shimmered.

  The stone walls were covered with lush green ivy that gave the chateau the illusion of fading in and out of the woods as they sped by. Tanya had been enchanted by the sight, racking her brains for the French word for stop, hoping to wander around the grounds and take a few pictures. She’d rapped on the panel that separated her from the chauffeur, but he’d ignored her, driving on at a pace that terrified Tanya, even though she was used to careening New York taxis.

  She had been relieved to get out of the limo and surrender her luggage to the servants who came out of the massive wooden doors of Jean-Claude’s chateau. They took her upstairs, brought a light meal on a tray, and left her to her own devices. She would have loved to explore the rooms she’d seen from the shadowy hall but had decided to save that for later.

  A note in perfect English, signed by Jean-Claude with a calligraphic flourish that reminded her of old documents, had instructed her to meet the lion’s trainer the next morning in the fenced field behind the chateau, and added that her room overlooked it. Tanya had pushed aside the heavy brocade draperies that covered one tall window of her chamber to see.

  The field had been empty then. Of course. No one would let a lion just wander around. Judging by the size of his palatial house, Jean-Claude had the money to provide the animal with a little chateau of its very own. As far as she knew, his fabulous circus only gave private shows for Saudi royalty and reclusive billionaires and people like that. People who didn’t want to mingle with screaming kids waving glo-sticks.

  Once upon a time, she’d been one of those kids, impressed by the majesty of the big cats. But only once. The man inside their cage made the lions and tigers bat at striped balls and jump through hoops at the crack of a whip. She hadn’t liked the show.

  Tanya clipped back the hair she’d just combed out, and the lion turned its massive head suddenly to gaze at her. His golden eyes held a look that seemed as old as time.

  There was a soulful intelligence and dignity in their depths that took her by surprise. Her lips parted in surprise and a soft oh came from her before she could think. Tanya turned to the trainer—and found that he had gone away.

  And left her alone with a wild beast. She took a step back, clutching her comb like a weapon. The lion blinked and rested its head on its enormous paws. Tanya worked out and she was a fast runner, but a lion was a lion.

  Continue.

  Tanya stared at it, telling herself that the lion hadn’t spoken. Her imagination was talking. She hadn’t slept well last night, troubled by work worries and yesterday’s long flight. Mesmerized, she looked deep into the lion’s eyes and he looked into hers. The golden warmth of his gaze seemed to dissolve the tension in her body. Without another thought, Tanya obeyed the unspoken command to continue, wherever it had come from, and approached the animal without a trace of fear. She could swear that a catlike smile curled up the corners of its mouth as she did.

  You put a spell on me.

  “Same here,” she said flippantly. The lion gave her an interested look. “Quit staring at me.”

  He shook his massive head and looked up at the sky. Well, if she was under a spell at the moment, it was a peaceful one. She began combing and sectioning again, just as if she were back in her Manhattan salon on East 57th Street, absorbed in the soothing rhythm of hairdressing.

  An hour passed and then another without her realizing it. She was nearly finished and the lion seemed to be asleep. The trainer reappeared and nodded to her casually, as if leaving her alone with a wild beast was no big deal.

  Maybe not to him, Tanya thought with a start. What had just happened? She should have run away screaming when she realized she was alone with the lion, but she…hadn’t. Coming back to reality, she reminded herself of the main reason she’d taken this gig. She desperately needed the money. Sp
ells, hah.

  Her salon lease was up and the rent was being raised to a zillion dollars a month. An international coffee chain was eying the space even though they already had three franchised cafes on her block and they had deep, deep pockets. If she couldn’t come up with the rent increase, the nice people who worked for her, including two single moms, were going to be standing in line at the unemployment office, which would break her heart.

  Plus she would have to go back to Texas and live with her parents. She loved her folks but that thought was truly scary. One tame lion who liked to have a woman run her fingers through his mane, not so much so.

  Absent-mindedly, she wound a coarse wisp of its hair around her finger and made a spiraling curl. Her signature touch. She pressed it into the mane and stepped back to admire the effect, wondering if she should hold up a mirror so the lion could see how he looked. But his beautiful golden eyes were still closed.

  A young housemaid in a long dress and white apron came out of the side door and crossed the field, bucket in hand. She set it down, wringing out the towel in it, which she offered to Tanya, murmuring a few words Tanya didn’t understand.

  Tanya nodded her thanks. Since her arrival, she hadn’t been able to make out what the servants were saying, although a word or two sounded familiar. She figured it was French but she couldn’t be sure. They were unusually quiet and deferential, as if they would just as soon not be noticed anyway.

  But they anticipated her needs. The maid must have been watching her work from inside the house and ventured out into the field when it seemed safe. Tanya took the towel as the maid turned around, calling to a little boy. He came through the field next, giving the sleeping lion an awed look. He was carrying a dish of tiny strawberries. Another thoughtful gesture. She was hungry. Someone must be reading her mind.