by Helena Ray
A sharp squeal escaped her throat as he pushed one finger through her folds, brushing infuriatingly briefly against her clit. His finger teased at the entrance, gathering moisture there, then plunged into her.
“Fuck, Anya,” he groaned as he slowly began moving his finger in and out of her clenching pussy. “You’re so wet”—he inserted another finger, drawing a yelp from Anya—“and so fucking tight.”
No more words were spoken as Anya’s hands followed Clay’s head downward, his hot breath dangerously close to her mound as his fingers withdrew from her. When Clay’s tongue laved at her clit, every square inch of flesh felt the soft caress of his mouth, her nerves becoming a tangled network or pleasure. He traced up and down her slit, and every tiny movement of his mouth combined to drive her closer and closer to the brink.
His mouth opened then and pressed over her pussy, the tip of his tongue teasing the hard bud of her clit. The power of speech left her, and any words she may have said turned into one low, passionate moan. His mouth retreated for just a moment, and two fingers plunged into her without warning. Clay began a furious pace of finger-fucking, and Anya met his hand’s every thrust. She rolled her hips, and his fingertips brushed against her G-spot, sending a shower of sparks hurling outward over her body.
“So close, Clay, god, so close,” Anya gasped. Only a few more thrusts, a few more seconds of overwhelming erotic stimulation, and she knew she would be a goner. She tried to breathe deeply and extend the experience, extend the realized fantasy of being at Clayton Abbott’s sexual mercy. Her efforts were shattered, though, when Clay’s tongue returned to her clit and flicked it as he brushed against her G-spot once more. Something within Anya snapped, propelling her into a stratosphere of erotic fulfillment that nothing, not the steamiest corners of her imagination, could ever come close to replicating. Throughout, Clay’s fingers kept working at her, kept her from leaving the ecstatic state of orgasm.
After what seemed like whole minutes of pure carnal bliss, Anya’s senses returned to normal, and she panted as she lifted her head to stare down at Clay. Slowly, he rose from between her still-quivering thighs. A smile pulled at his handsome features, and his tongue stole out to lick her juices from off of his lips.
The wind howled outside them, but all Anya cared about was the man crawling up her naked body, a Cheshire Cat smile plastered across his face. Clay pulled himself to lie beside Anya and traced his hand up and down her heaving chest.
“That was…Wow,” Anya managed between pants.
“You’re telling me.” Clay leaned forward, and his shaggy hair tickled the side of Anya’s face and his lips brushed the tip of her nose. She could smell the strangely erotic aroma of her own juices on his lips, and her clit throbbed in response.
“You taste delicious, darlin’.”
She could feel her face flush at his comment, and she reached up to brush her fingertips against his cheek. He pressed his face into her palm, the intimate gesture so similar to the fantasies she’d harbored for years.
“But what about you?” she asked as she dragged her hand down his neck then over his collarbone. She rested her palm over one firm pectoral and looked into his eyes. Even though heat still flared in her pussy, she couldn’t stifle a yawn. The day had been long, and the aerobic activity of her orgasm combined with the wine to drag her toward exhaustion.
“Don’t you worry about me,” he said, brushing his lips over hers. “We’ve got all night, and I’m planning on tasting you again.” He pressed a trail of kisses from the corner of her lips, to her jawline, and down to her neck. Warm contentment spread from where his lips grazed her skin, encompassing her entire body and easing her toward sleep.
“But I want…” she began to say, but another yawn interrupted her. “But I want to worry about you.”
“You worry about taking a nap right now, and we can play later. I can tell you’re exhausted.”
“Promise?” Anya said as she closed her eyes and snuggled against Clayton’s still fully clothed body.
“I promise.”
She started to reply, but sleepiness finally tugged her into its warm grip.
* * * *
Jack saw the snow before he felt it. He blinked open his eyes and saw the muted moon reflected off the hard surface of each snowflake, casting the world in an eerie white. For a moment, he admired the snow swirling around him and lying unbroken, shimmering like a thousand tiny crystals.
Then, as his fur retreated into his skin, the sharp edge of those crystals turned on him, driving into his skin like another thousand tiny, frozen swords, and he was human again. He shot to his feet, desperate for the cold to sting the least possible skin, but even with his feline grace, he stumbled as his feet sank into the snow when he landed, toppling face-first into the frigid powder.
“Motherfucker!” The snow stung his skin and formed an icy glove around his prick, sending jolts of very unpleasant sensation spiraling to his groin. He kicked his legs, finally getting a foothold in the snow. Much to his chagrin, it rose up to his shins, at least a foot and a half deep. His hands shot to his crotch as he stood, trying to squelch the growing pain long enough to find his…Shit. His clothes were stashed beside the Dumpster, buried under the thick layer of snow insulating the earth.
Another blast of wind caused Jack’s skin to pebble into gooseflesh and his groin to contract again in pain. He needed heat, and he needed it now. When he didn’t hear Clay’s call, Jack had stayed in shifted form all night, a better way to weather the storm anyway. But his human rationality had broken into his leonine mind when all the lights in the town had flicked out. He’d shifted, but as usual, his highly irrational lion brain had failed to take into account what Jack would do without his fur. Frozen to the bone. Totally naked. In downtown Savage Valley.
“Clay! Clay, are you in there?” Jack pounded on the back door to the Ninth Time, inwardly cursing his brother for not installing a keypad entry system like they had at Savage Hunger. “Clay! Open up, man!”
He pulled on the door, and much to his dismay, it only opened a tiny crack. Clay didn’t normally leave the back door unlocked, but Jack was in no mood to question his luck. He pulled it again, this time pushing the snow back a bit more and opening the door further. He leaned over and scooped the snow back from the door, making room for it to open.
This time, when he pulled, the door groaned open, and a welcome blast of warm air smoothed over Jack’s skin. The light from a gas lamp blotted out Jack’s vision briefly, but when his eyes finally focused, they followed the thin beam of light from the crack in the door across the paint-splattered carpet to where his brother lay strewn on a pile of blankets on the floor. Curled against his body was what appeared to be a naked woman, unfortunately covered by a tattered quilt. Her ample chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of sleep.
Her head rolled back suddenly, tossing a mane of dark hair away from her face, and that was when Jack recognized her noble features, her alabaster skin, and her chocolate hair. The beauty from the woods, the one that had captured his mountain lion’s attention and seeped through his human thoughts, slept on the floor of the Ninth Time office.
Moving with a silence only possible due to his two-sided nature, Jack eased the door closed behind him. When it softly clicked into place, he stopped, holding his breath as he awaited any movement from his brother or the angel pressed to his side. Neither moved, and Jack felt a distinct stirring in his cock as he was finally rid of the cold air. He studied the woman closer, noting that the quilt fell to the side, revealing long, creamy legs that he desperately wanted to run his hands over. As he studied the substantial swell of her chest, his cock lengthened, ready for action even after its recent cold shock.
His gaze moved up her long neck, made more beautiful for the contrast between the pale, rosy skin and the dark hair, to her full pink lips. He looked down and saw a droplet of pre-cum had already gathered on the tip of his dick from the sheer power of his attraction to her. With the same smooth, gra
ceful movements, he took his cock in hand, the long strokes up and down his shaft powered by the erotic visions that took hold of his mind. He imagined that mouth wrapped around him, sucking his seed from him as he tangled his hands in that dark hair, but it was supplanted by an even more intimate vision. He could almost feel the skin of her neck underneath his lips as he kissed up, over her jaw, and to those perfect full lips.
Why couldn’t he? Some part of his mind knew it was wrong, but he had to taste her lips, at least had to smell her. He tightened his grip on his cock as his fist bumped against the swollen purple head, driving the need within him higher. The animal and human blended together, creating one variegated will that called for him to touch, to taste, his…
His mate. Jack’s hand stilled. Jack recognized the certainty from the minds of the lions that had already found their mates. It was a full-body knowledge that permeated all the human and leonine senses, and some part of Jack had been anticipating this moment since he first found the recollection in the pride alpha Oliver’s mind of scenting his mate Chelsea. And Jack knew, just as Oliver and Roarke had, just as Sam, Phil, and Mel Pope had. It was why the flickering images of the woman in the woods flashed through his mind and why he felt so pulled to her then. Seeing her wedged next to his brother only confirmed this notion.
Jack padded across the floor, stepping over his brother without a sound, and knelt in front of the precious creature. Trying not to wake her, he leaned his body toward her and anticipated the sweet taste of her pink lips. He was within a hair’s breadth of her lips, about to sup from the sweet berries, when her long eyelashes twitched.
Her wide brown eyes flew open, and a bloodcurdling scream sounded through the office—and Jack guessed through the rest of Savage Valley, too.
“Who are you?” she shrieked as she bolted upright, her shoulder knocking Jack on the forehead and sending him reeling backward. “What are you doing here?”
“Come back to bed,” Clay mumbled as he rolled onto his side, still in the throes of sleep. He reached a hand up toward where she held the quilt to her chest in a white-knuckled death grip, but she swatted it away.
Jack scrambled to his knees and tried to hold out his hands in a conciliatory gesture, but a look of horror overtook her face and her eyes shot downward.
“You’re naked!”
“Oh, um, shit.” Jack’s hands shot to his crotch as he tried to crawl closer to her and assure her that his intentions were far from harming her. “Look, I’m Jack, and I—”
“Nice to meet you, Jack, but could you get out of here?”
Clay finally stirred from his soporific state and blinked open his eyes. After a moment of disorientation, he looked between Jack and the woman then wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Anya, hold on, darlin’.”
Anya. Jack knew he had heard the name before, but his brain couldn’t connect his scattered thoughts. Before he had any time to contemplate the matter, the woman shrugged Clay’s arm off her shoulders, then scrambled to her feet and backed up, slamming into the desk as she did so. Her ass landed on a pile of papers, and she began sliding to the side. Without thinking, Jack darted forward, saving her from an unpleasant landing on the floor.
The flesh of her upper arms was soft underneath his hands, and only the fear of another earsplitting scream could motivate him to release her. He took a few steps back, carefully covering his crotch with one hand as he held the other up in a gesture of surrender.
But with her mouth dangling open as that quilt barely covered her succulent form, Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to hide his erection long at all.
Chapter 6
“C–Clay,” Anya stuttered as she regained her footing, “who is that?”
“Jack Abbott, at your service.” The handsome blond stranger extended his right hand to her, inadvertently revealing himself at the same time. Although Anya had to admit, despite her frustration, she was quite glad that he did. A long, thick erection sprang from the bottom of his sculpted torso, causing her sleepy, sated body to flare back to life.
“Take this,” Clay mumbled as he clambered to his feet next to Anya. He handed Jack a blanket from the pile they had fallen asleep on, and the other man wrapped it around his waist, letting it hang casually from his hips like a beach towel on a summer day. Clay threw his arm around Anya’s shoulder just as she noticed Jack’s erection tenting the thin fabric. A pang of guilt coursed through her, and she shied from Clayton’s embrace.
What was she doing? The man of her dreams had finally, after ten long years, returned her affections and driven her to the most satisfying climax of her life, and here she was, lusting after his brother. At least, she assumed he was his brother.
“Jack Abbott? So you two are brothers?”
“We are indeed, and co-owners of the Ninth Time. If you can’t show up naked at your own business in the middle of a blizzard, then where can you?”
Anya cut her gaze to Clay, and he sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “My brother has a tendency to be a little…overly peppy in stressful situations. Forgive him. He means well.”
Jack punctuated the words with a blindingly white smile, proving Clay’s point. Anya couldn’t help but note the similarities between him and his brother. While Clayton had rugged, unconventional good looks, Jack could easily have been the star of a teen soap opera with his messy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and instantly likable smile. With a hard, chiseled chest thrown in, Anya was a goner. Admiring the smooth planes of flesh that led to where the blanket draped from his temptingly toned hips, Anya felt her nipples pebble against the scratchy fabric of her quilt.
With her arousal climbing again, she suddenly noticed her nakedness. She spotted her clothing in a pile by Clay’s feet and began wrapping her quilt tighter around her torso.
“Um, if you boys don’t mind,” she started as she inched out of Clay’s grasp toward her clothing, “can we delay the formal introductions until I’m dressed a little more…uh, appropriately?”
“Well, considering that two out of the three of us are only sporting a blanket, I’d say you’re dressed very appropriately, dear.” Jack winked at her then nodded at his brother. “Looks like Clay here’s the one that’s overdressed. What do you say he grabs himself a blanket and suits up like the rest of us?”
Anya tried unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle at Jack’s request for Clay to strip, and her pussy clenched at the idea, causing moisture to gather between her legs. God, she needed to get her clothes on as soon as possible or her libido would certainly lead her to do something she’d regret. She used one hand to hold the quilt closed behind her as she crossed between the two hard, masculine bodies to retrieve her clothing.
“Uh, Clay? Is there somewhere I can change?”
Anya turned her face up, expecting his answer, but it didn’t come. Instead, his lips captured hers in a chaste kiss. Anya began to pull away, but the soft flick of his tongue against her lips made her stay for a few more moments of his kiss. All thoughts about anyone but Clay dropped away as his arms wrapped around her, holding the quilt in place.
Jack cleared his throat, and Anya stilled. Shit. That went on a little longer than intended. Clay continued to kiss her for a moment then stopped, apparently sensing her sudden reluctance. With one hand, she secured the blanket around her body, and she placed the other over Clay’s chest, longing to dig her fingers into the hard muscles. Her bodily instincts would have to take a backseat, though, at least for the moment. The spicy, woodsy scent that rolled off of Clay combined with the sight of two ungodly attractive Abbotts made rational thought impossible.
“Clay, I need to change.” Her voice sounded breathy, her sudden arousal manifest, and she looked up into his flushed face.
“The bathroom,” he choked out and, without breaking eye contact, motioned toward a door on the wall to the left of the entrance to the store.
His ice-blue eyes made it difficult to turn away, but Anya mustered the willpower to lean over and retrieve her clothing. As she
placed her hand on the doorknob to the bathroom, she couldn’t resist one more look at Clay and Jack.
“Don’t you worry.” Jack’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “I’ll work on talking Clay into getting out of all those clothes. After all, everyone knows the quilt-toga look is what’s in for fall.”
The idea of the hard muscles she’d felt beneath the thin material of Clay’s wifebeater on full display sent another electric pulse to her clit, and she rapidly opened the door to the bathroom and slammed it behind her. She rested her back against the door and slid down to the linoleum. Deep breaths, she reminded herself as she curled her knees to her chest and tried to dispel the excitement that held her in its grip. Her clothing fell to the side as she lowered her forehead on her knees and tried to figure out what exactly was happening out there.
Her thighs tightened from the tingling inside her pussy when she remembered the feel of Clay’s tongue between her legs, his silky blond hair between her fingers as she rode his face straight to an earth-shattering orgasm. But then she had seen his brother, and after she recovered from the shock of a naked man interrupting her long winter’s nap, the sight of his erect cock had just added to her arousal.
How could she be so attracted to two men? Brothers, no less? Anya remembered when her grandmother awkwardly explained ménage relationships to her when she asked about her Aunt Cora’s two fathers. Sometimes, her grandmother had stuttered uncomfortably, two men would fall in love with one woman. When Anya explained that she had seen Gone with the Wind enough times to know all about love triangles, Grandma Rita had corrected her. Ménage relationships were not love triangles, she specified, but one relationship that developed organically between three or more people. Yes, the woman would get something different from her relationship with each man, but it would be understood from the first moment that both men would love the woman together.
