Fated Mates: The Alpha Shifter Boxed Set (12 Book Bundle) (Insatiable Reads)
Page 68
“But—”
“How come—”
“Hey—”
“Now!” Naomi’s father barked and her brothers stood with sullen looks. They filed out the door, with Chris tossing back a, “No fair. I wanted to kick some ass, too.”
Her father beckoned and Naomi went to him for a hug. She snuggled her face in his plaid shirt, his Old Spice scent a familiar comfort. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad you’re safe, baby girl, and it’s about time you found some decent men to take care of you.” With those words, her dad took off briskly.
“What? Hey, I can take care of myself,” she yelled to her retreating father’s back. He just waved in reply.
Slamming the door, Naomi whirled to find Ethan and Javier gone. Following the smell of food—Chinese, her favorite—she located them sitting at her kitchen table, ladling food onto plates. How utterly domestic and at the same time sexy.
Sliding into a seat, she thought about telling them to leave, but hunger—and a stupid girly happiness at their presence—won out. Besides, she couldn’t eat all this food alone. They’d bought enough for a small army.
In between bites of chow mein, she eyed Ethan with curiosity. “How did you get them to behave? I kind of expected to see that a tornado had passed through.”
“I wasn’t going to let them get rowdy in your house. I told them that either they sat and waited, or we’d go to the gym right that second and I’d work off my anger issues.”
“And they listened?” she asked.
Ethan shrugged. “I can be persuasive.”
“Just who are you? Aliens?”
Javier choked and Naomi whirled to fix him with narrowed eyes.
“Whatever do you mean, baby?”.
“Knowing what happened to me, my brother’s should have been raving lunatics, destroying things left and right, venting. Instead, they were all prim and proper. Did you drug them?”
Javier spat out his water and Ethan chuckled. “Your brothers can act civilized. They just need reminding.”
“Well, whatever you did, thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if my butterflies had gotten trashed the same day as my car.” The reminder of her Miata’s demise soured her mood and she pushed food around on her plate.
“Don’t worry about your car. The important thing is you’re uninjured. Dessert?”
Naomi scowled. Why did they keep ignoring the fact she’d been victimized? At least her brothers wanted to hunt something down and kill it. Her supposed mates? They stuffed their faces, as if oblivious.
Isn’t that what you wanted? Nice, normal human reactions. You should be happy your home survived a visit from your family, instead you’re complaining because no one’s roaring death threats.
Their lack of impulsive action should have pleased her. It didn’t. She slid off her chair and paced. “Why are you both acting like my car getting trashed and my getting threatened is no big deal?” She blurted her thought out, and in the process of clearing the Chinese food, two sets of distinctly male eyes rotated to meet hers.
“Oh, we care alright,” Javier replied softly.
“The asshole who did this will pay,” Ethan rumbled.
“But don’t worry,” Javier continued. “We’ll take care of this out of your sight so as to not upset your delicate sensibilities.”
“You won’t even hear them scream,” Ethan promised.
It took her a moment to grasp their serenely spoken threats. “So you are pissed?”
“Of course we are,” scoffed Javier. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t contain ourselves.”
“Control, baby. We told you we had it. A prime example is how I didn’t smack your brothers around when they arrived frisky and spoiling for a fight.”
Javier turned to Ethan. “Dude, do you realize what this means?”
Ethan turned chocolate eyes, alight with smoldering lust her way. “It means we handled her family, and this situation, without violence.”
“But you’re planning on getting physical,” she said, backing up even as a fire lit in her lower belly.
“As we said, you won’t see or hear a thing, which meets the terms of the bet,” Javier replied circling the table to the left. She whirled to flee via the other side, but Ethan already stood there.
“Don’t tell me you’re a sore loser,” he chided. “This is one case, where being the loser is a win-win situation.”
She thought about protesting more—maybe a little kicking and biting as foreplay—but her body betrayed her. Her head tilted back as Javier’s hands slid around her middle from behind while Ethan crowded her from the front, towering over her.
“So you concede you lost?” Javier whispered in her ear before tugging at the lobe with his teeth.
“For now,” she gasped as Ethan cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing over the peaks. Even through the thin silk of her blouse, it felt like he branded her. Moist heat invaded her cleft and her legs trembled.
“Here or upstairs?” Ethan asked.
“Where do you usually eat dessert?” Javier replied.
Their intent caught her breath as they hoisted her onto the dining table. With two sets of hands, her clothes went flying in record speed, not that she could protest with Ethan’s mouth plastered to hers. He kissed her and she forgot everything except the burgeoning pleasure in her body. While Ethan’s lips clung to hers, caressing them, Javier also did his part, kneeling on the table behind her, his hands sweeping her hair aside to plant hot kisses on her nape. Shivers ran down her spine as he located her sensitive spots and sucked them.
But their mouths weren’t the only busy things. Their hands roamed her body, tickling her skin with their rough texture, rasping along her tight nipples, stroking across the soft roundness of her belly.
Ethan’s body pressed against her thighs, which spread wide to accommodate him. He inserted his still clothed body between them, the hard bulge at his groin pressing against her cleft. Firm hands gripped her about the waist and held her while he rubbed against her. Moisture pooled in her sex along with intense arousal. She panted against his mouth and soft mewling cries escaped her. She clung to his broad shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard muscle as her pleasure built at their simple, yet erotic, touches.
Ethan tore his mouth from hers and she made a plaintive cry. She opened eyes heavy with passion to see him looking at her with a torrid expression and kiss-swollen lips.
“You are so beautiful,” he growled. Then he knelt so that she could only see the top of his head and she shuddered. She knew what he planned to do to her, and her cleft quivered in anticipation.
However, he teased her, rubbing the bristle on his jaw along the soft skin of her inner thigh. His warm breath brushed against her pussy. She almost forgot him as the body holding her upright at her back shifted and Javier lowered her torso to lie on the cold tabletop.
Then, she didn’t even notice the chill surface because they both latched on to her body with a suddenness that made her exclaim and arch.
She couldn’t have said which felt better. On the one hand, Javier’s mouth tugged and sucked at her nipples while his hands kneaded them, the jolting pleasure travelling straight down to her pussy. On the other, Ethan’s tongue, swiped up and down her cleft, lapping at her moisture, and delving between her lips.
Apart, they would have felt fantastic; together, they were incredible. Panting cries echoed in the room. I’m the one yelling, she vaguely noticed as her bliss built with each stroke and caress of their mouths and tongues. Intense heat boiled in her and need rode her body hard, yet still they tortured her. Her orgasm tore through her with startling suddenness, making her shriek, but they continued to caress her, their oral tease not finished.
Ecstasy built again in her sensitized flesh and hung there. She thrashed as they held her on the peak, her whole body vibrating with need.
“Fuck me,” she cried.
“No,” Javier whispered against her scorching skin. “Not until you
accept us as your mates.”
“Ethan, please,” she begged too lost in the pleasure to care. Needing one of them to sink inside her and cure the burning desire inside her.
“Sorry, baby. I have to agree with Javier,” Ethan replied in a ragged tone. “But don’t worry, I won’t let you suffer.” He thrust two fingers into her, their length enough to touch her g-spot. Thrusting into her sex while flicking her clit with his tongue, Ethan threw her over the edge and Naomi screamed, a sound caught by Javier’s mouth. She clung to his shoulders as she opened her mouth wide, her tongue plunging wetly into his mouth as her body shuddered with aftershocks that left her limp.
Javier kept his lips latched to her somehow as they scooped her off the table and carried her upstairs. Only when her back hit the bed did the kiss finally end. She opened eyelids heavy with spent passion to regard them.
Still dressed, if rumpled looking, Ethan and Javier stood at the foot of the bed, the evidence of their arousal packing quite the bulge in the crotch of their pants.
Sated didn’t mean fully satisfied apparently, Naomi realized, as a tingle ran through her, making her catch her breath. I want them to fuck me. I want them to sink their cocks inside me and pump me until I come all over them. Just the thought made her quiver and she saw they’d caught her response because Ethan swallowed hard and Javier’s eyes smoldered.
“Aren’t you coming?” she wantonly asked.
“Not in you yet, we aren’t, or have you decided to accept us as mates.”
Naomi pouted. “Can’t we just have great sex and not get into the whole bite-me and own-me for life thing?”
Javier shook his head.
Ethan didn’t look happy about their stance, but he held firm in more than one way. “We don’t want you just for the night. We want forever.”
Irritated that they could refuse her—and annoyed that her wolf howled for her to give them what they wanted, what she stubbornly also wanted, but refused to admit—Naomi scrambled under her blanket. “You guys suck.”
“Yes, we just did. And we can’t wait until you can reciprocate.”
Naomi nearly went cross eyed at the thought, but they weren’t done teasing.
“Have you ever had two men at once?” Javier asked. She shook her head and a smile spread across his face. “Oh, sweetheart. When you do finally accept us, we are going to give you so much pleasure. Tonight will seem like nothing when we take you as we desire. Both of our cocks nestled inside your body, filling you up and fucking you until you come screaming. And as you thrash and claw at us, we will continue to fuck you, our bodies pumping in rhythm until you come again, and again.”
Heart pounding, pussy dripping, she just about begged them to do it. To mark her and take her. And, she might have too had the phone not rung.
Ethan frowned and Javier muttered a low curse.
That quickly, the spell was broken, but even as she reassured her mother she was fine, she couldn’t stop thinking of it.
* * *
Javier closed the bedroom door to give Naomi privacy while she spoke to her mother. He grabbed his cock and shifted it in his pants, a move aped by Ethan.
“Dammit, how much longer are we going to suffer, Javier? You heard her downstairs, she wanted us.”
“She wanted out cocks. We need her to want our hearts and souls.” What a change from a few days ago when all Javier thought he’d ever need was a warm pussy to sink into.
“I still don’t see how torturing ourselves is helping,” Ethan grumbled as they headed back downstairs.
“By showing her that her needs are more important than ours, we are laying the foundation for trust, my friend.”
“Whatever. Trust won’t matter if our dicks fall off first.”
“If that happens, then we’ll become oral experts. I wouldn’t worry though. I don’t think it will be much longer. Haven’t you noticed? She’s not threatening us or cussing us out as often. I think she’s starting to like us.”
Ethan chuckled. “But I like it when she cusses us out. It makes her even hotter and sexier.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of occasions to set her off,” Javier replied dryly. Truthfully, he liked Naomi’s fiery side too. It made the women he’d known in the past pale in comparison. Forget someone who wanted to suck up to him, figuratively and literally. He wanted a woman who knew what she wanted, went after it and wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. A woman like Naomi.
Ethan tidied up the rest of dinner while Javier went out to the car and grabbed his laptop. When he came back in, Naomi stood in the kitchen wearing a robe and scowl.
“What do you mean you’re spending the night?” she growled.
Javier bit his tongue as he tried not to grin at her bristling posture. Ethan was quite right—she is hot when she gets like that.
His friend stood his ground in the face of her annoyance and Javier could see his protective instincts coming to the fore. “Someone attacked your car. I am not leaving you alone to defend yourself.”
“I don’t need your help.” She crossed her arms over her chest in a provocatively defiant gesture.
“Too bad, sweetheart,” Javier interjected. “This is one case where you will not win. If it makes you feel better, we will sleep on the couches.” Although, he truly hoped she’d shoot down that plan and invite them into her bed. Even cramped as it would be with the three of them—shopping for a new bed was a definite priority—holding her in their arms would make the discomfort of it worthwhile.
“Fine. Whatever. But don’t expect me to make you breakfast,” she snapped, perching herself on a stool at the kitchen island.
Ethan grinned. “Finally, a flaw. You can’t cook.”
“Can too,” she retorted. Then she grinned back. “So long as you don’t expect it to be edible.”
Chuckles lightened the mood as Ethan set the dishwasher and Javier wiped down the counter. They’d both noticed her penchant for cleanliness and thought it best they do their part right from the start so as to give her less to argue about.
A bottle of wine emerged from the fridge and Ethan uncorked it, pouring them each a glass. Holding her goblet by the stem, Naomi shook her head. “Good grief. Did my mother leave me any secrets? My favorite wine. Food. The key to my house. What’s left?”
“Well, we still don’t know if you spit or swallow.”
“Maybe she’s one of those elusive garglers.”
“Forget I asked,” she mumbled, but she couldn’t hide the pink stain in her cheeks or the quirk of her lips.
Javier and Ethan each snagged a stool across from her. It gave her space, but at the same time, gave them a perfect frontal view.
“Now what?” she asked, eying them a tad nervously.
“Now we discuss what happened today. Any idea who vandalized your car? And where’s the note?” Javier asked.
“How do you know about the note?”
“Your father thankfully had the sense to not keep things from me. So spill it.” Javier fixed her with a stern look. She didn’t squirm or shy away as she had with the sexual innuendo. Instead, she flashed him her middle finger.
“I don’t see why I have to tell you anything at all.”
“Humor us,” Ethan rumbled.
“Fine. There was a note. Happy. It wasn’t signed. It didn’t say much other than back off.”
“Back off from whom?”
She shrugged.
“Did you give the cops the note?” Javier asked holding back a sigh of impatience.
“Yeah about that. I didn’t call the cops.”
“Why weren’t they called?” Ethan asked in a deceptively calm voice.
Naomi shrugged. “And let them impound my baby as evidence? No thanks. Besides, we all know if the culprit is a shifter our version of justice will be more rapid and fitting.”
Javier pretended to get shot and slapped a hand over his heart. “Wait? Did I just hear you advocating violence?”
Ethan chuckled.
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Naomi glared. “Ha ha. So funny. I never said violence was never justified; there are occasions that warrant it. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that some places, like my home, remain battle free zones.”
“I’m just yanking your tail, sweetheart. Growing up, my mama had one rule—take it outside. Anyone who started something in her house learned real quick why you never messed with my mother.” Javier raised his hand to his ear as if holding it and rolled his eyes.
The tinkling laughter almost upset him off his stool as Naomi finally relaxed enough to show them her softer side. “I think I’d like to meet your mother. Mine never seemed to mind the chaos. So long as they don’t seriously hurt each other or dare to raise a hand to her, she doesn’t care.”
“But you do,” Ethan added.
A shrug made the vee in her robe gape and it took some effort on his part to keep his gaze on her face instead of her shadowy cleavage.
“Unlike my mother, I like pretty things. Fragile things. I learned young though, owning something delicate wasn’t feasible. It pissed me off. Still does.”
“Why butterflies?” Javier asked. “I mean, I think we’d have understood if you collected wolves, but bugs?”
Naomi’s head dropped but not enough to hide the color in her cheeks. Her fingers played with the stem of her wineglass. “You’re going to laugh.”
“I won’t,” Ethan assured. “And if the cat does, I’ll put him out for the night.”
A giggle escaped her. “Okay, well, here goes. It’s kind of dorky. When I was a kid, I found a caterpillar. I hid him from my brothers in a margarine container and kept him under the porch. My first and only pet. I poked holes in the lid and filled the tub with branches and leaves just like the library book I had said to do.”
“You like to read?”
Javier jabbed Ethan at his interruption. “Shut up and let her talk.”
Naomi shrugged. “Yes, I love to read. I know, nerdy. But back to my caterpillar, I loved that thing. I’d lie on the grass and let him crawl on me, tickling me.”
“What did you name him?”
“If you laugh, I will rip your balls off,” she warned with a glare. She sighed. “Squirmy.”