Shadow Lovers

by Jenny Penn

  “And how do you know that?” Cookie puckered up indignantly. “You have been watching me! Mrs. Navel was right!”

  “No.” Ryder shook his head before smirking. “We’re alphas. We have minions that we can order to follow you. You made it all the way to see Mrs. Navel in one day. That’s quite impressive, but then that’s why the Great Spirit has chosen you to love us.”

  Cookie froze at that revelation. This time as her heart raced it was powered by a sense of panic. “I haven’t said I love you.”

  “But you will,” Ryder insisted, impressing Cookie with his sheer arrogance.

  “You’re that sure of yourself?”

  “It’s not a matter of assurance. It’s a matter of fact,” Ryder corrected her. “Your soul was cut from the fabric of ours. We are one in the same, three thirds that make a whole.”

  That had Khal casting Ryder a strange look, but it was Cookie who spoke up first.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She really didn’t, and she couldn’t help but look toward Khal for an explanation. Of the two, he seemed to be the more pragmatic one in that moment, but he proved to be just as whimsical with his response as Ryder.

  “I’m sure Mrs. Navel told you the story of how Malsumis lost his love, but what she doesn’t know is that he created his love.”

  “Created?” Cookie wasn’t sure how to take that word, and Khal couldn’t have been clearer with his answer.

  “She died in the womb, and he filled her body with his soul.” Khal shrugged as if that wasn’t one of the grossest things Cookie had ever heard.

  “Why?”

  “Who knows,” Ryder answered, matching Khal’s shrug with his own. “Gods do whatever they want. Besides, everybody’s soul comes from somewhere.”

  Cookie blinked that in as a horrifying thought struck her. “And me? Was my soul swapped in the womb?”

  “What?” Khal scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’d be dead if it was.”

  Cookie released her pent-up breath with a rush of relief, only to suck it back in as the insult in Khal’s words hit her. “I’m the ridiculous one? You two shift into wild animals, fade in and out of the shadows, talk about mating and flaunting and molest me whenever I click the lights off. And I’m the ridiculous one? I don’t think so!”

  By the time she was done, Cookie was wagging her finger at both men, not that either looked impressed. It was Ryder, though, that present an illogical and irrefutable argument.

  “Well, then maybe we’re all a little ridiculous. That just goes to show how perfect we are together.” Ryder smiled with a silly hopefulness that had Cookie unable to do anything but cough up a laugh.

  “I’m not going to win this argument, am I?”

  “Nope.” Ryder shook his head. “But we can pretend you did if you want to.”

  “What I want is for you to donate whatever you’ve got concealed in those chests to charity.” Cookie didn’t want to be tempted by seeing what they had. Greed, after all, was as seductive as sex. She’d already proven too easy to seduce when it came to these two men.

  “What?” Khal blinked, glancing down at his chest in what appeared to be a mixture of confusion and irritation. “But I spent a lifetime collecting all of this. Three lifetimes!”

  Cookie was not impressed by his complaint. “So? You’ve spent a lifetime creating wealth at the expense of others, which is basically like stealing from the poor. Profiting off their loss is wrong…unless, of course, you give it to the less fortunate.”

  “Is that what you do with everything you steal?” Khal shot back, proving that he knew a few things about her, too.

  “Yes.” Cookie lifted her chin up. “I am like Robin Hood.”

  “You’re nuts,” Khal contradicted her. “You take all that risk and for what?”

  “For the betterment of society.”

  “Then you should have become a doctor or a missionary,” Khal retorted, clearly unimpressed by her grand proclamation. “At least then you get paid.”

  “I get by,” Cookie informed him indignantly.

  “No, you don’t.” Ryder shook his head. “You have no home, no assets, no security of any type.”

  That was true, and it didn’t bother Cookie in the slightest. She was a free roamer but didn’t expect that point to change either one of their minds. So, she went with something as insane as the conversation itself.

  “That’s not true.” Cookie smiled. “I have you two. Between your income from antiques”—Cookie nodded toward Khal before turning her gaze on Ryder—“and what you make at the casinos, I imagine you can afford to keep me safe and rolling in computers.”

  “We’re going to keep you safe and rolling in babies.” Khal smiled, looking very pleased by that idea. Cookie, on the other hand, was a little nervous about that suggestion. “A couple dozen should do.”

  “What the fuck?” Cookie gaped at him in shock and amazement. “You haven’t even taken the moment to introduce yourself properly to me and you’re already thinking of turning me into some kind of puppy mill? I don’t think so.”

  “Fine.” Khal raised his hands in defeat. “A dozen will suffice.”

  The man was certifiable, and so was his buddy, given that Ryder was nodding along. This situation was obviously out of control, which just went to prove that it was time to establish some. Obviously she was going to have to be the sane one and enforce not only her will but also some rules.

  “Okay,” Cookie began reasonably. “Why don’t we do this? You two take those chests back to wherever you got them from and bring back a table full of sweets. Then we can sit down and have a nice long chat.”

  “That sounds like my kind of deal,” Ryder agreed instantly with a wicked glimmer glowing in his crystal blue eyes that warned her of just what he was thinking, but Ryder was in for a surprise. Cookie wasn’t going to be seduced out of their planned conversation. That is if they ever got around to having it.

  “Where are we supposed to get all that shit from?” Khal demanded to know. “It’s not like we twitch our nose, and, poof, stuff appears. We’re not witches!”

  “No, but we do have minions,” Ryder reminded him. “And millions.”

  “We’re still going to need some time,” Khal insisted.

  That was something Cookie was willing to give him.

  “You’ve got an hour.”

  Chapter 8

  An hour later they were back, impressing Cookie with their punctuality. Having just come out of the shower and still dressed in a towel, she was the one who found herself running late as she stepped back into the candlelit main room and found a table overflowing with treats and liquor. The sugar she could do with. The liquor was just a bonus.

  “You rob a supermarket?” she asked, wondering just how they’d come by so much so fast. They didn’t even try to deny it.

  “More like bought them out,” Khal retorted.

  “And the donut store.” Ryder held up an all too familiar box before nodding toward the tubs sweating on the table “And the ice cream parlor. Want to be made into a sundae?”

  Cookie stood there dripping wet with her hair a mess and her makeup flushed down the shower drain and feeling less than desirable, but their heated gazes swept over her with a frank approval that had Cookie’s confidence blossoming. They really did want her. This wasn’t a game, not to them, and in that moment, Cookie realized it wasn’t for her either.

  She’d been fighting back the desire that their mere presence provoked since they’d first showed up with their truckload of flowers. It flared brightly as they continued to stare at her, making her go weak in the knees. Cookie could feel her cunt softening, awakening with the need that had been nearly a constant these past few days.

  Ryder took a pointed sniff of the air and smiled, and she knew he could smell her growing wet. Just the idea had Cookie blushing, but she wasn’t about to fold under either her lust or her embarrassment.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Cookie warned both men a
s they started forward. “We’re having drinks, chocolate, and a long overdue conversation. So break out the rum, and I’ll go get dressed.”

  “You can get dressed out here,” Ryder was quick to assure her as she picked up the clothes she’d thrown on the bed. Khal was right there to support him, too.

  “We promise. We’ll behave.”

  He was lying, and Cookie let him know she knew as she shot him a dirty look before turning back the bathroom without a comment.

  * * * *

  “We’ll behave?” Ryder lifted a brow in Khal’s direction as the bathroom door shut behind Cookie. “When did you start speaking for me?”

  “When we got stuck sharing a mate,” Khal shot back with a snicker.

  Ryder was glad to see him lighten up at least a little. He still had a far way to go, but Khal wasn’t denying the truth anymore. Ryder let that issue go, along with Khal’s comment, turning his attention to more pressing matters.

  “So what do you think she wants to talk about?”

  “Probably something to do with this.” Khal picked up the notebook Cookie had dropped along with her purse on the bed earlier. “It’s a list of questions. Are you a werewolf? Am I going to become a werewolf? Who is Mayla?”

  Khal lifted a brow at that and cast a glance over at Ryder. “You want to answer that one?”

  “Nope.” Ryder certainly did not, but more than that, he didn’t want find out what kind of answer Khal came up with. “But I will, and if she’s starting to ask those kinds of questions, don’t you think we ought to discuss just how we’re going to manage her before we lose all control over the woman again?”

  “No woman is beyond my ability to manage.”

  Ryder didn’t respond to that, just stared at Khal until he sighed and admitted defeat.

  “Okay, so maybe that’s not true.”

  Maybe wasn’t a condition Ryder would have put on the matter. “Two dozen babies is a hell of a lot more than one.”

  “It was a compromise,” Khal shot back before pausing to glance at the bathroom door and then lean in close to whisper to Ryder. “You think, maybe, we ought to tell her our kind tend to breed in multiples?”

  “No.” Ryder’s answer was instant and honest, and for a moment, Khal’s hard shell cracked enough to release a smile as they shared a look.

  “Yeah, that was what I was thinking.”

  “And what were you thinking about regarding careers?” This time it was Ryder who glanced at the bathroom door before dropping his voice and leaning in closer. “I don’t want her taking the risk of keeping up her Robin Hood duties, but I get a feeling from what she said earlier that’s going to cost us our money as well.”

  “Already considered it and…I have not a fucking clue.” Khal’s smile grew over that confession along with the twinkle in his eyes.

  “Well, I got one.” Ryder paused before finally giving voice to the idea that had been brooding in his mind all evening. “I say we open a charitable foundation and let her run it.”

  “A foundation?” Khal repeated, as if the idea were somehow abnormal.

  “Yeah, man.” Ryder nodded, warming to his idea. “Let her give away our money but control the flow.”

  Khal seemed to consider that for a moment before finally nodding. “That might work. We could control her strange obsession with helping people.”

  “Control? Cookie? Ha! Good luck, man.”

  “Actually I do have, at least, one bone to pick with her.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “You.”

  “Oh God.” Ryder heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head. “Are we back to that again?”

  “Yep.” Khal nodded. “But I’ve come to realize I’ve been directing my anger at the wrong person.”

  Ryder blinked that in and scowled, following that thought to its logical conclusion. “So, you are going to start directing it at Cookie now?”

  “She should be punished.”

  Ryder couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. He couldn’t wait to see this.

  * * * *

  Cookie checked her hair one last time. She’d blown it out and curled it just so it brushed along the edges of her chin, highlighting her naturally high cheekbones and full lips. A little eyeliner and a touch of mascara helped her brown eyes to appear darker, deeper, and made her look a little more smoldering than she had without the bit of makeup.

  Her outfit had been picked to highlight her breasts and her ass. Both looked nice and plush and should make it hard for Ryder and Khal to notice little else. Of course, they couldn’t notice anything in the dark.

  Cookie scowled as she stepped out of the bathroom into a sea of blackness, sensing her men were near but uncertain of what they were up to, that was until she got all but lifted off her feet. Before Cookie could figure out what was happened, she found herself facedown on the mattress, her clothes shredded and her ass being propped up into the air.

  “What the hell⎯”

  Cookie’s outraged question ended in a squeal before she could finish it as a hand smacked down over her ass. It sent a bolt of heat rushing straight out of her rear and flooding her pelvis until her cunt blossomed with a strange hunger. That hunger was only fueled by the second hand coming down to spank her.

  “This is punishment for denying us three hundred years ago,” Khal declared, as if that made any real sense.

  Not that Cookie could really concentrate on anything right then other than the pleasure searing through her. It was being driven higher and hotter by every slap that rained down over her ass.

  “And making us wait three hundred years,” Ryder tacked on, sounding outright aggrieved as he delivered another well-placed blow.

  Cookie lost all sense of time after that. Whatever they said, their words fell on deaf ears. She was lost in the splendor, moaning into the sheets as her whole world bloomed with a miraculous rapture that shattered into a glittering frenzy of delight as she felt the hot wash of breath fan over the swollen lips of her cunt. She couldn’t help but taunt herself by wiggling her hips and grinding her pussy up against the mouth waiting to pleasure her.

  That got a snarl, and a second later, his lips were latching onto her clit and making Cookie squeal. Searing spasms swamped through her, making her pant and giggle until a hand fisted in her hair and pulled her head up to the cock weeping for her attention. There was no thought, no hesitation left in her as she opened her own lips and returned all of the pleasure one lover was giving her to the other.

  It all quickly spun out of control. While Cookie tried her best to focus on the cock fucking in and out of her mouth, she was too mindless with the tension winding through her to do much more than slobber over him. Ryder didn’t seem to mind. His hand kept her moving in a fast-paced rhythm while he grunted out wildly inappropriate compliments.

  Not to be outdone, Khal continued to drive her to distraction, thrusting two thick fingers deep into her cunt. Then his fingers were growing longer and thicker until her muscles were stretched delightfully wide. Cookie lost all touch with reality as he began to pump them deep and hard within her, making her cry out as she forgot all about sucking Ryder’s dick and began to beg for more.

  Still, it wasn’t enough. Not for her. Not for him. With a snarl, Khal released her molten flesh to slide his fingers down the sweet crease of her ass and discover the entrance hidden there. Her muscles clenched around him, sucking him deeper as he prepared her for the fucking to come.

  Cookie wanted it. There was no disguising the wanton sounds of welcome falling from her lips as he pulled back to grip her hips in a tight hold. Then he was lifting up and bringing the thick head of his cock to press against the aching entrance to her ass. As he slid slowly in, a wave of intense delight twisted through her, leaving her moaning all over Ryder’s cock.

  Not to be outdone, Ryder jerked back and all but shoved Cookie up onto her knees, forcing her ass down tight over Khal’s cock, even as Ryder’s began to press into her cunt. It was too much. The pressure,
the pleasure, it was all too much. Cookie cried out, clawing at Ryder’s shoulders as he continued his steady possession.

  “You feel that?” Khal growled over her shoulder, his breath a humid caress against her sweaty skin. “This is what you’ve been missing out on for three hundred years. We’re going to punish you every night for the rest of our lives, and you’re going to like it.”

  “Oh God yes.” Cookie loved it.

  Nothing else compared to being pinned between Ryder’s and Khal’s hard bodies except feeling them start to move. Tiny little bubbles of frothy bliss began to pop all along her spine as she felt their thick, heavy cocks sliding back and forth along the sensitive walls of her sheaths. In and out, one then the other, they fucked her with a slow, rolling rhythm that had the moans falling from her mouth as she began to twist and buck, needing more of the delicious friction, the mesmerizing fullness.

  She needed them to come together at the same time. That’s just what she begged for.

  “Together,” she pleaded, her cries answered instantly as both men picked up speed, changing their tempo to match and driving her completely insane.

  The rapture searing through her burned all the brighter. Cookie could feel it cresting within her and strained toward her release. When it hit, the whole room exploded.

  Actually, she just passed out.

  Cookie didn’t know for how long, but she woke up to find herself bathed and tucked into bed. Naked, bathed, and alone. Again. Though this time the men had remained in the room, even if they hadn’t snuggled down with her. They, at least, had a good excuse. They were busy eating dessert.

  * * * *

  “This shit is excellent.” Khal popped another hazelnut-flavored chocolate into his mouth and smiled. “You’ve got a try one.”

  He was feeling good. Real good. The kind of good that normally only came from very powerful pain pills. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal, but that was his life. He didn’t have any right to complain at this point.