by Mari Byrne
But can I?
Her muscles interrupted her second thoughts, screaming viciously in protest as she walked forward. She was determined to land on a soft spot this time, and not settle for curling into a little ball of pain in front of the door.
“That’s all I need. Karen would come in and smack me on the other side of my aching skull to make a complete job of it.”
Even talking quietly out loud hurt her head too much, so she concentrated on making it to the couch and thinking thoughts softly.
The car coming out from the underground garage probably hadn’t been going more than five m.p.h. The poor rattled driver had been coming up the blind ramp faster than he had thought and, Bam! Knocked her clean off her feet. But when the car had rammed into her, Shari felt as if it had been going at light speed.
She had been dazed, but other than probably needing an aspirin, she was pretty sure her injuries did not need a doctor. She flat refused to have an ambulance called. She hadn’t lost consciousness, and most of the abrasions only needed bandages and cleaning. She would be fine once she got home.
“Not too smart, was it, Shari ‘you’re a twit’ White?” Shari mumbled, wishing someone was there to whine to.
As pain continued to lance its way through her head, she remembered her comment not to talk out loud. Maybe if she just whispered. Besides, she did not have time to spend seven hours sitting in an emergency room somewhere in the city waiting to be told she was fine, go home. She knew her body well enough to know she would probably be fine in a few days.
Turning slowly, she spotted the couch and stumbled to it. She was on the verge of simply falling on it carefully, and sleeping for a week, when a hammering noise sounded against the front door.
No! She gripped her head as the noise reverberated against the inside of her head. It would just top her Day from Hell if it ended up being a damn salesman intent on getting someone to buy the five thousand dollar set of encyclopedias, which would become obsolete the minute the next coup d’état in Peru erupted.
Wasn’t there somebody trying to take over Peru at the moment?
Shari’s head throbbed as her thoughts scrambled around in her head. Inconsequential things popped up and chased after one another until the pounding at the door started once again.
I could just ignore it, pretend there’s no one here.
She grimaced at the thought. She had never been able to ignore answering a knock at the door or a ringing phone.
The pounding thundered again.
Muttering low in her throat and immediately wincing at the renewed pain, Shari forced her body toward the door. Standing slowly, she started to rise. It took her longer than she would have thought as her head began to whirl. Raising her arms with difficulty, she held her head between her hands long enough for it to stop doing merry-go-round imitations, then started for the door.
Shit! The heartfelt, whispered word ran through her.
Not bothering to check through the view hole in the door, she braced herself with a hand on the doorknob and wrenched the door open, leaning heavily against it for support.
Truly, she had every intention of stripping skin off whoever stood on the other side. Until, that is, she came face to face with the pair of sex gods. Her words died a flaming death. The pain, which had so recently radiated through her body, fled.
There stood two of the most gorgeous men she would ever lay eyes on. In front of her were two six-foot-five, muscle-bound, sable-haired, chisel-jawed, Chippendale dancers. Animal magnetism rolled off the pair in waves, making her pussy weep. Taking shallow breaths, Shari saw black spots appear before her eyes.
“Please…”
She drew in the last of a shallow breath and let out a moan so close to a howl she almost scared herself. Her vision went gray at the pleasure streaking through her body and she fell to her knees, the pain in her body forgotten. Her head would have hit the floor as she bowled over if not for a skin-roughened hand slipping between her forehead and the floor.
Shari felt herself grind her hips on an erection she was sure was between her legs. She ground down as if riding a man, then gave a final shuddering scream as an orgasm rolled over and through her body in mind-numbing bliss.
It took a few moments to gather her scattered thoughts. Panting in the aftermath, Shari felt muscled arms surround and cradle her body as if it was a delicate piece of porcelain. Turning her head slowly, she looked up into a pair of eyes the color of a sunset and had to blink, thinking she was imagining things.
The eyes she gazed into were glowing.
Squeezing her eyes closed in hopes she was seeing things, she blinked several times, then looked once again.
Nope. Not glowing at all.
She stared into two different colored eyes. One a golden bronze, the other the color of crisp, green, summer leaves. She closed her eyes once more and shook her head slightly for good measure, vaguely remembering her headache. When she opened her eyes again, she still saw the same set of eyes, both different colors.
A voice, low and resonating sensations against her stimulated body seemed to be making soothing sounds to her.
Tilting her head back a little more Shari took in the whole picture. She seemed to be in the arms of one of the men who had stood on the other side of Karen’s door.
“Er…should I thank you and be offering a cigarette about now?”
* * * * *
Vincent stopped rumbling nonsensical noises and looked away from the woman in his embrace. Biting his lip at the woman’s cheeky mouth, he locked eyes with Shan Lin. His nod telling his brother the woman was all right, he gave his attention once more to the woman he held.
“We have come to insure your safety. We saw what transpired and know you for a strong woman. It is our wish to have you for a wife. I have already given you a glimpse of what is to come. You seem very susceptible to it. You also seemed to enjoy it. But since you almost blacked out from it, I will have to hold back until you are more used to our ways.”
Vincent, finishing the only explanation he intended to give, propped the woman up so Shan Lin could see the woman was better. He didn’t know if he was pleased she could climax so easily, or disappointed he would have to be so gentle with her. As he looked her over, a sense of familiarity came over him, and he wondered just where he had seen the woman previously.
Not to worry, he thought, I’ll remember soon enough.
* * * * *
Shari looked at the hunk-of-the-month still holding her firmly enough she might have trouble getting out of his grip, and gave him her ‘you’ve gotta be kidding’ look.
Carefully shaking her head at him, Shari tried to free herself unobtrusively from his powerful grasp. This barbarian was in for a huge surprise. Give her pleasure beyond her imagination, indeed!
Cripes! First the stupid man in the car who didn’t know how to watch for pedestrian traffic, now a couple of horny men at her door giving her orgasms…
She snorted to herself, then paused.
Okay. Maybe the orgasms sounded pretty good, but…
“Look, Hunk-o-Rama. I appreciate a fantastic orgasm just as much as the next woman, but I think you have me confused with someone else.” Again she tried to free herself from Vincent’s grip. This time he let her go as a pondering look crossed his face.
Shari braced herself so her legs would actually hold her and climbed off his lap. Stumbling immediately, she tried to move and put space between the man who had recently held her and herself. All too quickly, she realized she would have fallen on her face if another pair of arms hadn’t reached out and caught her.
“Thanks.” Shari mumbled, feeling the dizziness begin to abate. Turning slowly Shari looked into another pair of dual eyes. Slowly rotating her head in disbelief, she looked across the room, doing a double take.
Well Hell! There were two of them. Identical twins, right down to their different colored eyes! She thought perhaps that her vision had gone double. But no, here they both stood, male studs for the taking. Gorgeou
s didn’t even begin to cover it, and there were two of them!
Shari’s mind reeled. There was something one of them had…
“Did you say…wife?”
“Yes.” The word rumbled out huskily in unison.
“I thought you…yes…”
It was too much. First, the bastard of a client who had tried to paw her to death, then the being hit by a car thing. The orgasm… Before she could finish her thought, blackness swallowed her whole.
* * * * *
“At least we won’t need to go into the explanation of trying to convince her we need her to participate in a sham.” Shan Lin drawled sarcastically as the two men made their way to the back door of the apartments.
“True.” Vincent answered shifting Shari a bit higher and tighter toward his chest. Reaching a hand under her very female body to shift the heavy erection bulging beneath his pants, he grimaced at the sexual hunger thrumming through his cock.
“We also won’t have to explain the plan we came up with.” Shan Lin pointed out.
“Excellent. It makes things much easier. This way, if she stays out long enough, we can just tell her we’re married and be done with it.”
Shan Lin scoffed. “You don’t think she’ll buy it, do you?”
Vincent thought about it for a moment.
“Sure. Why not? It makes perfect sense. She hit her head and won’t realize she’s forgotten. We can use the old amnesia ploy and tell her she must have forgotten a…we’ll make it a week of her life. Trust me, things will go easier for us.”
Shan Lin remained silent for a moment before replying.
“Or we could tell her a version of the truth.” Shan Lin said.
Vincent grunted an affirmative as he walked down the stairs thinking about their first encounter with Shari. He knew her name was Shari because the brothers had skimmed the surface of her mind when she’d opened the door.
The climax Shari had experienced upon opening the door had been a thing of magnificence. Even as practiced as he and Shan Lin were, there were few women they had both shared who brought his shaft so quickly to attention as this woman had.
In his mind, he listened to Shan Lin agree, then grumbled about the sexual tension both men still carried. There was an added bonus to it though. With this much hunger riding both Warriors, anyone foolish enough to engage them in battle would surely pay with their lives.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, both brothers turned to each other with grinning smiles.
If only we could be so lucky. The battle would indeed be legendary, if short for our adversaries.
Chuckling at Shan Lin’s assessment of the brothers’ predicament, Vincent moved forward.
The woman in his arms stirred and mumbled something incomprehensible and Vincent shushed her soothingly. Keeping his voice to a low rumble, he stopped to work out a plan for getting an unconscious woman outside with no one seeing them.
“We need to get to a Tear near this building. Do you remember any?” Vincent asked as his brother reached the ground floor behind him.
Shan Lin looked toward Shari nestled in his brother’s arms and suddenly had an overwhelming urge to grasp onto the woman and take her away from Vincent. When she was safely away from his brother, Shan Lin could violently beat Vincent bloody.
Where the Hellios did that come from? Shan Lin heard Vincent path in his mind.
Shaking his head and trying valiantly to dislodge the vision from his mind, Shan Lin looked into the astonished eyes of Vincent.
Extending his arms out from his sides, his hands palms up, Shan Lin shrugged in a helpless gesture, shaking his head. He was clueless. But what was worse, he had never felt this kind of killing anger directed at his brother.
“I’m…Vincent…?” Struggling helplessly to put into words his true sorrow at the stray thought, his complete bafflement, Shan Lin looked to his brother with all the love in his heart.
He heard Vincent sigh, then listened as his brother gave him an out.
“It’s probably just having been in contact with our True Queen, and the sexual tension determined to ride both our cocks like a griptou lashing our bodies until we explode.”
Breathing out the pent-up breath he held, Shan Lin grasped at the explanation. It didn’t feel like the truth, but it was damned close, and good enough for him.
He saw Vincent look at him, then felt his brother give a mental shrug.
“At the moment, it doesn’t matter,” Vincent was saying. “We need to get to the Tear. Can you remember where it is around here?”
Shan Lin looked out the clear glass of the back door to the building directly in front of him and scanned the surrounding area. He knew there was one close by and almost missed it with the clutter the alley held.
He spotted the alley and could see the park, which he and Vincent had been heading for when they had spotted the woman Shari. They had both seen the determination the woman had when walking down the street. She had given off waves of anger that took little enough of either brother’s telepathy to read.
She had been thinking of scenarios ranging from a particular man’s emasculation and how she would love to be brave enough to do the emasculating herself. Or perhaps, hanging him by various body parts from hooks and chains and having him harassed by droves of women cackling about his sexual prowess.
Shan Lin had to laugh as the woman mentally shook the images away and began to prepare a wicked legal brief she would then send to the man who was starring in her thoughts, and another who looked to be in a position of authority. This was a woman whom he could get to like in a hurry. One who could indeed be an ally in any battle he needed to engage.
Vincent broke into his thoughts while he scanned the area for the Tear opening.
She has a truly amazing mind. I nearly had a heart attack when the car came out of the structure and hit her.
Shan Lin nodded absently as he remembered seeing the accident.
The woman had been in deep thought and hadn’t heard the quiet vehicle coming toward her. The driver must have thought the woman had seen him because he had plowed ahead as if there were no one walking in the path of his car.
The brothers had begun to call out to warn her, but it had already been too late. They both watched as the driver of the car finally realized someone was in front of him and braked. But the woman had been hit by then and had landed in the street, stunned or unconscious.
Both brothers raced across the park knowing they were too far away to help immediately, but determined to do something. They watched in utter astonishment as a few seconds later the woman rose to her knees, then slowly to her feet with the help of a few good Samaritans who had rushed to her side.
They had stopped in their tracks and continued to watch as the driver got out of the car, went to the woman, and gave her something. She shook her head at him, then limped off in the direction she’d been heading.
The brothers looked to one another and made a decision.
“She’s the one. She will take the place of the bride Aunt Sara assumes we are destined to find.”
As they followed her, they began to speak of the strength the woman showed, and the foolishness they would apparently have to watch out for.
Remembering now, Shan Lin shook his head in wonder. The orgasm they had given Shari at her door was designed to heal as much as to give pleasure. It was a specialty Vincent developed along with the ability to ease the minds of those in need.
Seeing the view in front of him once more, he spoke to Vincent.
“I can see it from here even with the big metal trash recycler in the way. As long as there isn’t much traffic at the head of the alley off the next building, we should be able to make the Tear we were heading for originally. One hop, one shimmy, and we’ll hit home.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Looking left, then right to make sure no one was about, Shan Lin opened the door and stepped through, Vincent following with the unconscious Shari.
* * * * *
Vincent stepped through the door with Shari still oblivious to the world. Using his body to hold the door, he followed his brother. He too remembered the scene they had witnessed. At the time, he had longed to follow the driver of the vehicle, which had hit Shari, but knew the more important job was to follow the woman they had found.
Now with all three of them making their way to the Tear, Vincent knew it didn’t matter. They had what they came for and only needed to make their way through the Tear to Aranak.
“We’ll make it. Just a bit further and…” Shan Lin’s voice trailed off as his arm gestured to the opening both brothers could now see.
“Thank Riad,” Vincent breathed, relieved.
He looked to his brother, tightening his grip on Shari, and prepared to step into the doorway to Aranak. He was suddenly brought to a halt by a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll take her through.”
“What?” Vincent asked in astonishment.
“I said I’ll take her through.” Shan Lin spoke calmly. “You must be tired having carried her all this way.”
Even as Shan Lin spoke, Vincent knew his brother didn’t believe his own words. The weight of the woman could have been a mo-go cycle and Vincent wouldn’t have complained.
Vincent stood a moment and heard the thoughts running through his brother’s head. Shan Lin knew Vincent could carry his own horse across a running river if he needed to and one tiny woman would barely make a hitch in his stride.
Looking at his brother now, Vincent had to wonder if maybe Shan Lin had hit his head on the ground too hard when they’d come through the Tear. Deciding it would be prudent to hang onto Shari because of this, Vincent shook his head negatively and continued to make his way through the Realms opening.
“Freching idjit!” Shan Lin grated out as he watched Vincent step into the opening and marveled at the new and very strange feelings gripping him. They were foreign and unwanted, but they were there nonetheless.
Disgusted with himself, he followed his brother and Shari through the Tear and vowed he would learn to control what ran through his veins at any cost.
