"Why don’t you sit with me, then?" Sam said, sliding back into his chair. "If you’re so fired up to spend the game seated, anyhow."
A challenge. Well, she couldn’t let that pass her by. Miko moved over to his side of the table and trailed her fingers along the table, waiting for him to scoot his chair out so she could perch on his leg like she had with Jeremiah.
Sam didn’t pull out his chair. Instead, he patted his leg and indicated that he was ready for her to sit down. Between his lap and the table-top, there were only a few inches, just enough for her to squeeze in. His ploy was totally obvious. The question was, did she accept his dare or did she decline it?
She’d never backed down from a dare before, especially not one by a man she was considering as a potential mate. And if she was honest with herself, it had been a long time since she’d had a relationship, and both men were tweaking her interest. She was considering both of them.
So she eyed Sam’s lap, put her hands on the table, and slid in. She could hear his breath suck in slightly as she settled in, her ass flush against his erection.
"Deal," she said, her voice husky.
Sam dealt again, reaching around her to do so. His hands brushed against her arms as he laid out each card.
Her next hand was decent, but Jeremiah’s was better. Her loss. Miko shrugged and undid the buttons on her shirt, letting it slide off her shoulders and down her back. Now she straddled Sam in her panties and bra only. Jeremiah had said nothing the entire time, simply watching her with hot, unrelenting eyes. He didn’t tease or play like Sam, but she knew he was just as interested, just as intensely fascinated with where the game was going.
She lost the next hand again. Her eyes narrowed when Jeremiah quietly revealed three aces. "Is that just luck or something more?”
He gave her a slow, sweet smile. "Are you implying that I’m cheating?”
She didn’t want to offend him. Who knew how proud cougars were? Maybe they were as stiff about their honor as she was about her sexuality. "No," she said, backing off. "Just thought that maybe you wanted to see my breasts a little more than Sam here.”
"I can’t think that’s possible," Sam interjected, and he gave his hips a little roll, bouncing her and making her gasp at the feeling of his cock pressing against her ass. Heat and want flooded her body.
Sam slid a hand up her back. "Want some help?" His fingers tugged at her bra snap.
Miko shrugged, reaching behind herself to undo the clasp with expert hands and letting it fall free as well. The air conditioning made her nipples tighten, as did Jeremiah’s gaze. She felt Sam strain under her, trying to catch a glimpse. Her breasts were not large or bountiful, but they were high and tight, and her nipples were small and dark. She liked her breasts, and judging by the look on Jeremiah’s face and the way he shifted in his chair, he approved as well. Her hands glided lightly over her breasts before she leaned over the table and tossed her cards away. "Next hand."
To her surprise, her next hand contained the three aces that Jeremiah had won with in the last round. She didn’t question the fact that the three aces seemed to be chained together since it was currently working in her favor. Miko stood and gestured for the two men to remove an article of clothing. In front of her, Jeremiah slowly removed his shirt, pulling it off his body, and her mouth went dry at the sight. God, his chest was perfect. Six pack abs, tight, tanned, with only a trail of hair descending down his navel. "Very nice," she said. Very, very nice. His shoulders were large and defined with muscle. Not too much, just enough.
She glanced behind her at Sam’s body, and was delighted to see that his was equally hard and lean. Where Jeremiah was tanned, bulging muscle, Sam was a bit more compact, leaner, every muscle in his chest finely detailed. Jeremiah might be built like a brick house, but there wasn’t an inch of fat on Sam, down to the smooth plane of flesh below his navel. He had a large tribal tattoo covering an entire shoulder, a sunburst design. She decided she liked it.
"One more hand?" Sam suggested, running a hand around the waistband of his boxers, as if he were itching to get rid of them. Her nipples tightened at the sight, and she felt the curious urge to feel both men pressed against her.
Her fox hormones were going wild with two seductive men at hand. Instead of picking between them or leaning one way or another…she wanted both. Both hot, nearly naked bodies pressed against her own. Sandwiching her between them. Both mouths and four hands roaming over her needy body. A shiver rushed through her.
"One last hand," she agreed.
"Winner take all," Jeremiah said in a low voice, and that sent a bolt of heat through her. What was there to take? Other than their bodies. A visual of her pinned between them, one feeding his cock into her mouth as the other rammed her from behind – rolled through her mind like a hurricane.
The three of them stood around her small dining room table, watching with strangely tense faces as Sam slowly dealt three more hands, and Miko turned her hand over. Three aces. He’d obviously given her the winning hand this round. She laid the cards out on the table and glanced over at Sam. "So, how many rounds were really dealt?"
His mouth lifted at the corners and he gave a little shrug. "Were we not supposed to cheat?"
She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused. "So how am I supposed to know if this was just an excuse to see me naked?"
"Are you going to tell me you’re not even slightly interested in seeing my cock?" He gestured at Jeremiah. "Or his?"
She didn’t like how Sam was trying to take control of the situation. Or rather, she liked it, but she knew that if she wanted to keep them in control, she needed to take charge once more. So she slid over to Jeremiah and cupped his straining cock. "I have a feeling that if I wanted to see this, we wouldn’t have to play games. All I need to do is ask."
Jeremiah brushed his fingers along her jaw, a look of longing on his face.
"However," she said softly, "that won’t be tonight. I want to be the one to call the shots. Understand? My body, my house, my rules."
With that, she left the room.
*** *** ***
The next day, she avoided the two men. Partly because she wanted them to understand that she had the upper hand in their relationship, and partly because she needed to get her head back in her work. She had a deadline, and she was going to miss it if she didn’t pay attention and start producing some pages. So she locked herself in her studio and worked. About midday, there was a knock at the door, and she answered it, only to see a sandwich and soda had been left for her. The deliverer was nowhere in sight.
It was nice to have someone fixing her lunch. The men seemed to respect her boundaries. And she could have sworn that a short while later, she heard the vacuum running.
After she’d gotten her daily allotment of panels drawn (and then some, she’d been on an artistic tear), she emerged from her study.
Her house had been cleaned, top to bottom. Floors swept, rugs vacuumed, and her shelves gleamed as if they’d been dusted. Even the burned out lightbulbs on her track lighting had been replaced. Miko knew she was a pretty terrible housekeeper – when the urge to draw came upon her, she tended to ignore everything else, and since it was just her in the house, it didn’t matter if a few lightbulbs went unchanged or an inch of dust piled up. But seeing that someone else had cleaned her house for her? That was…nice.
She could get used to having the guys around. Putter around the house, fix her leaky faucets…satisfy her needs. Ugh. Surely she wasn’t thinking relationship? Or worse, relationships. They’d barely even gotten past the flirting.
Still, she found she couldn’t shake the thought.
A head poked out of her kitchen. Sam looked over, grinning, and waved a spatula. "Hey, dinner’s almost ready. How do you like your steak?”
"Rare," she replied automatically. "I’m a fox, remember?" She liked a fresh kill as much as any other were-creature.
"Oh, I remember." He winked at her and again the spatula waved. "Eve
rything about you is tattooed into my brain."
"Only your brain?"
“For now.” He grinned, the look so boyish and appealing that it was hard to resist.
She found herself smiling back. "Where’s Jere?"
"Upstairs. Working."
She nodded, realizing that she didn’t know what either one of them did for a living, other than working as hired muscle for other shifters. She gestured at the stairs. "I’ll tell him that dinner’s ready."
Sam nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen, and she could have sworn she heard whistling.
It was odd. Her kind either avoided men or embraced a promiscuous lifestyle. Her mother had done the latter – lover after lover entering and leaving the house during Miko’s childhood. The fox hormones made it a lifestyle choice that few could resist.
Miko had resisted, though. After seeing her mother’s relationships dissolve over and over again and her mother’s liveliness turn to bitter unhappiness, Miko had resolved to have better for herself. Her father had been a nice blond country boy from Montana, and he’d been unused to her mother’s were-fox ways, or her Japanese customs. They’d broken apart when Miko was very small, and she rarely ever saw him. After that, Yui went through lover after lover, discarding them like used tissue. Every break-up was filled with drama, and it taught Miko a valuable lesson: a simple, monogamous relationship wasn’t right for a were-fox.
So she avoided them like the plague. Miko’d had the occasional lover, but when she grew restless, she knew the cause. One man wasn’t enough to suit a were-fox’s needs, and so she’d quietly break off the relationship. Her job offered her a lot of flexibility; she could live in the countryside by herself. Didn’t need to be around others, male or female. She didn’t need anyone, she didn’t depend on anyone, and without the opposite sex around, she didn’t feel the need to be promiscuous. It was lovely and freeing. It was…kind of lonely, too, if she admitted it to herself. But she usually didn’t.
Miko knocked on Jeremiah’s door and then entered a moment later, hoping to catch him off guard. He glanced up from the computer screen and gave her the slow, thoughtful smile that she’d learned to associate with him. "Miko," he said in greeting. "I hope you don’t mind if we cleaned up a little. It’s the least we could do since we’re staying in your house."
She shrugged, moving over to his side and peering at his laptop screen. "I don’t have much of a choice since my mother sent you to stay with me."
He looked pained at her words. "I hope we’re not too much bother."
Oh, you bother me, she thought. On a whole new level. That’s the problem. "What are you working on?"
He scratched the back of his head, ruffling his thick brown hair. "Just retrieving some files off a server." He gave her a quick look. "I do network security when I’m not tied up in…other things.”
"And Sam?"
"Sam’s a plumber."
She’d have thought they’d have matching jobs to go with everything else they did. "A plumber and a computer geek? What makes the two of you team up?"
He shrugged. "Sam was my roommate in college. He dropped out, I didn’t, but we remained friends. We’re still roommates. We work well together, and he’s a good wing-man on the X-box."
How very…dorky. Still, at least they were normal. She could live with that. "I don’t have an X-box."
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "We weren’t staying here long, remember? Just until the fox hunters go away."
"Right," she agreed, but it sounded hollow. Already she wasn’t looking forward to their leaving. How sad was that? "Dinner’s ready," she said, and left the room.
The steaks were terrific. For some reason, that depressed her. Better yet, it made her antsy. She needed a good shift and run through the wilderness. But she couldn’t, because she was trapped here. Stuck with two handsome, sexy men that she knew were terrible for her easy, quiet life but she wanted them anyhow.
It was driving her nuts. Miko threw down her fork. "I need to get out."
Sam wiped his mouth with his napkin. "You want to go to town?"
"No, I want to go for a run."
"Absolutely not," said Jeremiah. "Not until the hunters have been stopped. And until they’re caught in the act, you’re not safe."
"They can’t be out hunting every night," she argued.
"This is Texas," Same said. "You think hunting every day is out of the realm of possibility?"
He had a point, but she refused to give in. Her mind raced. "So the plan is to simply wait for the law to do something?"
"It’s not a great plan, but those are our orders, and we’re going to follow them," said Jeremiah.
“They’re not my orders.” Miko stood from the table and gave them both an impassive look. “It’s not your life being put on hold while we wait for this thing to blow over.”
“Isn’t it?” Sam retorted. “We’re here babysitting you to make sure you don’t run off straight into a pack of rabid hunting dogs. Again.”
Miko flinched.
“Sam,” Jeremiah said in a placating voice.
“That’s not what I meant,” Sam said, wiping his mouth with his napkin and giving her a frustrated look.
“Isn’t it?” The sad thing was that she understood his frustration – she didn’t like sitting around and waiting any more than they did. She understood it, she really did. “No need to apologize to me, Sam Thorpe. I can’t wait for you to get out of my hair either.”
And with that, she turned and left the room.
*** *** ***
“That went well,” Jeremiah commented as Miko stalked out of the room.
Sam gave him an angry glare. “She’s being impossible.”
“She’s not the only one.” Jeremiah stood and began to calmly clear the dining room table, even though he was disappointed that she’d left. He always missed her when she wasn’t in the room. Just her presence warmed him. “You told her we were babysitting her. Of course she’s going to get offended.”
Sam raked a hand through his messy hair, and frustration made his jaw clench. “That’s not what I meant to say. I just…hell.” He grabbed a few of the discarded forks and began to toss them onto the plates that Jeremiah held. “She gets to me. I worry about her.”
Jeremiah remained silent, his thoughts caught up with the petite were-fox. He recognized the look on Sam’s face – he wanted Miko for himself. And if he was a good friend, Jere would back down and let Sam have her, because Sam needed a good woman in his life. Except the thought of backing off and seeing her with Sam left him with mixed emotions. He’d be happy for his friend, but Miko…
He couldn’t let her go. Even the thought of backing away left a sour taste in his mouth.
“I want her, Jere.” Sam said in a quiet voice. “And I know you do too.”
Jeremiah swallowed. Thoughts of Miko flashed through his head. Miko, smiling up at him over a hand of cards. Miko with a smudge of graphite on her nose, bent over her art table as she worked on a sketch. Miko, naked and arching up from her chair, her small breasts tight with longing. No, he couldn’t back off. “I do. So the question is, what do we do now?”
Silence hung in the room for a long moment. Neither man had the answer. Trying to quell his own emotions, Jere left the plates in the sink and paused, bracing himself against the counter. He wasn’t ready to give up on her just yet, but he was torn. Sam was his closest friend, and he wanted him to be happy.
He gripped the edge of the countertop and glanced over at the door frame, where Sam waited.
“No other option, brother. We have to let her choose,” Sam said.
Jeremiah nodded. But he knew very well that her choice would tear the two of them apart.
Sam gave him a hopeful look. “Do you suppose she—”
“Nah,” Jeremiah said. “Wishful thinking, there.”
*** *** ***
Even though the men were content to wait around her house, Miko was not. She stalked up and down on her big wra
p-around porch, her mind full of rushing thoughts – of the men in her house, the hunters, and, oddly enough, her mother. She headed back into the kitchen and picked up the phone again.
“Miko-chan?” Yui said softly when she picked up. “Is everything all right?”
The worry in her mother’s voice made Miko sick with guilt. She never called unless something was wrong, and immediately she felt like a jerk. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that Miko had issues reconciling her fox half. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that hunters had moved into the area. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that Miko hadn’t known about Hayami. Her mother had tried, and Miko had interrupted her, accusing her of matchmaking. She sighed. “Hello, Mother.”
Yui’s voice was mild, tentative. “I worry about you, Miko-chan. Are you well?”
“I’m fine,” she said softly, in English.
“You do not take good care of yourself, daughter.”
“I know.” Miko grimaced and leaned against the wall. “Look, Mother, I’m sorry. I know I should keep in touch more. I just get…caught up in things.”
“You want control over yourself. I understand these things,” her mother said in a wry voice. “When I was your age, I fought hard to be a normal human girl so I could please your father and make him happy. And in the end, I had to realize that I could not fight my nature. It is who we are, Miko. We are kitsune. It does not make us wrong. It just makes us different.”
She sighed. Normally she would roll her eyes at her mother’s teachings, but for once they had a ring of truth. She was so tired of fighting her attraction to Jeremiah and Sam. Would it be so terrible to choose one? To bring him to her bed and end this awful war with herself and her hormones? But even as she thought it, she knew that wasn’t the answer.
The fox wanted both men, of course. And that was the part she kept getting stuck on. Even if she could pick just one…how fair would it be to try to build a relationship, only for him to discover that he wasn’t enough for her after all? That she’d crave more than one man to sate her restless fox side?
Vixen - A Midnight Liaisons Novella Page 3
