Shift bodies filled it.
Their heads were all different shapes and sizes and their arms thrust forward like they would claw their way into Gallandrian at all costs. One of them turned upside-down eyes on Nikki, and leered.
“Close it!” Arcan screamed, his voice thin with fear.
Max held his bear hands out in midair and tried to press them together. There was a resistance to the motion that kept him from doing it, like the air between them was too thick for his bulging muscles to press through. Nikki quickly understood. He was trying to control the portal and the Shifts were keeping it open.
He wasn't strong enough.
With no more thought than she would put into breathing, Nikki jumped and spun in midair, her naked leg lashing out and her foot catching one of the Shifts on the chin and rocking his head sideways into another. Hands flashing, knees jabbing, she injured and hurt and gouged as much as she could. One caught her in her midsection, slashing her skin open, but she never stopped. She drove them back, inch by inch, all by her little Black woman self.
Yeah, she thought. Come and get some! Black power!
Until one of them pounded a heavy arm into the back of her skull.
Her knees buckled. She fell.
If Arcan hadn't come in to her aid as his bear self and severed the head of that shift with his teeth, the monsters would have made it through. Into Gallandrian, where they would have tortured and murdered as many of the Ursallin as they could. As it was, with the one dead, Max was finally able to get the portal closed. With a strained cry, he forced his hands together and the passage followed his command. It snapped back into a line and then drew in on itself until it was only a spark that winked out completely.
Pieces of Shift body fell to the ground at their feet, severed from their bodies, flopping and twitching until they became still, melting into a thick black liquid that stained the green grass.
Nikki couldn't get her breath. Stars blossomed in the darkness that was encroaching on her vision and she saw the world around her—Max's world—falling away from her.
The ground came up to meet her. Her legs wouldn't work. Her arms wouldn't move. She was passing out.
The last thing she remembered was someone's arms folding around her and holding her safe.
She couldn't tell whether they were Max's or Arcan's.
Chapter 10
Nikki woke up warm and comfortable. She was in a bed somewhere. The comforter was heavy and soft. The sheets smelled faintly of lavender. The lighting in the room was dim, just bright enough for her eyes to gradually focus as they opened lazily after a long, dreamless sleep.
Flashes of what had happened to her there in that abandoned warehouse came and went in her mind and she was in a panic that was there and gone again when she realized she was safe. She wasn't in that crush of deadly monsters. They weren't trying to kill her anymore. She was safe.
Her side. She remembered being cut there and bleeding and burning with pain. Reaching over with one shaking hand she felt for the injury. It wasn't there. Just smooth, unbroken flesh. Maybe she had imagined it?
How long had she been out? Finding out what time it was now might be a better place to start. She rolled over onto her left side in the bed to see if there was a clock in the room.
And rolled on top of a sleeping, very naked Arcan.
His body was tight and strong, like a metal spring coiled down and ready to spring, all pent up energy waiting to be released. It was a shock to find herself in bed with him but after the surprise of it wore off, she found she didn't mind. In fact, she felt herself tingling where his skin met hers and wondering how long she could stay like this without him noticing. He was asleep like she had been, deeply asleep, and her smooth body rubbing up against his didn't make him stir. Her hand slid up the subtle lines of the muscles in this abdomen, across his bare chest.
Bear chest. She smiled at the little joke.
Then she wondered...
Gently moving her hand down the length of his torso, Nikki felt into the prickly stiff hairs of Arcan's groin, black and mysterious like the color of his bear form, letting her fingertips tickle down the length of his penis. Nothing little there to joke about. It was soft, and supple, and long. How much longer would it be erect?
She gasped, a soft little sound that surprised her with its intensity.
Not that she would ever admit this to Arcan or to anyone else, but it had been torture for her to be in their world and see all that male frontal nudity all around her and not tear into someone every five minutes. She'd seen Arcan parade around like the cock of the walk—literally—but she'd had to keep her eyes up or risk losing her will power altogether.
A girl could only take so much before she needed to be taken, hard.
Not that it was just him. Or even mostly him. Mostly, it had been the sight of Max walking around and strutting his stuff without meaning to, turning her on and making her steamy hot, ready to go at him if only he would have asked. They almost got into it there today before the Council sent them back. Bad timing. She sighed in frustration and took her hand away, slowly. Arcan had begun to twitch in his sleep, right where her fingers were, and she wasn't looking to stroke any fires right now. Stoke! She meant stoke…well, stroke too, but…
Ungh! Frustrated didn't begin to cover what she was right now.
She needed to figure out where she was first and why she was in bed with Arcan. That was the most important thing right now.
Rolling the other way, she nearly squeaked with surprise.
She had just been thinking of Max. Now here he was, his pale nude body lying so close that as she had rolled away from Arcan she had straddled Max's waist, her legs spread wide, her sweet spot resting on a very intimate part of his anatomy.
Feeling Arcan had already started her going. This was sweet torture.
Her hands might have been able to tell better, but what she felt against her proved that Max wasn't just physically bigger than Arcan. Max was bigger in every way.
Every way.
Even her torn bra had been removed from her and she was way naked. The tips of her nipples brushed over his broad chest. Oh, damn. Naked in bed with two men who were complete opposites, as different from each other as night and day, but both extremely hot and desirable and damn it all to Hell what was going on here?
How exactly did she end up in bed with these two guys? Not by her own choice, that was for sure. She'd never done a three way in her life. Not that she hadn't considered it. Um. Not that she wasn't considering it right now, for that matter.
Well. An image of him and her and him had come into her head. Very graphic. Very intense. Something she could imagine herself pulling up later to savor…slowly…
This was crazy. She needed to get her black ass out of this situation before her black ass ended up doing things that usually only happened in Penthouse.
As she tried to slide back off Max, he stirred in his sleep, and arched his back, and the tip of his flaccid shaft stroked into her cleft and electricity made her brain dance.
Nikki couldn't suppress the tremor that rolled through her, or keep her body's heat from rising what felt like a few hundred degrees.
“Unh,” she moaned, unable to stop herself from doing it out loud this time. She was wet, and she was aching for a release. Max stirred underneath her again, which didn’t help the fluttering in her core at all. Damn, damn, damn. She was naked, and worked up, and in between two of the hottest guys she had ever seen in her life. She could smell them too, clean male flesh, the best aphrodisiac there was.
She could smell her own sex, too, mixing into her arousal.
Managing to slide herself back in between them, somehow, she lay on her back, exposed and aroused and pulling in hot little breaths of air through her parted lips. This was crazy. This was every hot blooded city girl's dream, was what it was, but she couldn't let herself enjoy it. Her hands did their best to work the feeling out of her soft, wet cleft, but it only made things worse.
Rolling her head to the left, she looked at Arcan's dark skinned beauty. The blankets had been pulled away as she moved around and he was there for her eyes to rake in. She was attracted to him, she had to admit, even if he was cocky and arrogant and full of himself. Hell, maybe she was attracted to him simply because he was all of those things. She studied his face just as much as her eyes drank in the length of his dick and the smooth lines of his toned muscles. He was an amazing piece of male flesh.
Turning the other way, she looked at Max, the big, soft-hearted Max, in all of his glory. Big, corded muscles were everywhere on him, and the thickness of his male member made her legs squirm to put him in between her. His White skin was another big difference between him and Arcan. Black and White, lean and bulky, rough and kind. They couldn't be more different.
Suddenly she realized what she was doing. She was trying to choose between them. She would have to choose, she knew, because she couldn't have them both. There was an amazing attraction to both of them boiling inside of her, and her skin tingled from everywhere she had touched them, with every part that had touched them. It was enough to make her nipples tighten and her pussy pulse with heat and desire, and her heart to race.
Her fingers worked faster, and her body responded.
Two men. She knew instinctively that she would end up with one of them. Shouldn't she just choose now? But how?
Oh. Of course.
Nikki shifted herself onto her left side, her left arm tucked under her head and her right hand free to roam over Arcan's torso, to drift mischievously to his groin. She bit her lower lip. This was the naughtiest thing she'd ever done. For her, that was saying a lot.
She cupped her hand around his shaft while he slept, slowly stroking up its length to his tip. He wasn't circumcised, and as she held him in the circle of her thumb she artfully rolled the foreskin down to expose his head, feeling it swell against her palm.
This wasn't the first time she'd played with an uncircumcised man. She knew how to do it.
His cock stiffened and rose up at her touch, and Nikki's hand buzzed with electricity. She didn't know what she was going to do next until she did it. Leaning closer, curling her body into his, she put her mouth over his tip.
The tingling along her lips made her eyes roll back in her head. Her tongue popped with the current that flowed between them, something to do with werebears themselves. Or at least her reaction to them. All she knew was that it was something she enjoyed. A lot. Sucking him slowly into her, deep into her mouth, she moaned against him and held him there.
When she opened her eyes again and looked up along his body, she found he was awake, watching her.
His dark eyes were full of lust. He didn't speak a word to her, but she could read his thoughts plainly in those eyes. What he wanted from her, what he was willing to give, what it would mean to him. She knew it all in an instant.
She purred, and the vibration of it stimulated him so that he arched up into her, a little more than she could handle. With her one hand she caught hold of him, making sure that only half of his length would be in her mouth.
Then she went to work on him.
Kneeling, one of her legs between his, she bobbed her head up and down, up and down, mimicking real sex, watching him to make sure he understood that was a very good possibility as long as he played his cards right. With her tongue, she licked up his underside, his skin smooth and warm against her lips. It made him growl.
Popping her mouth off, she licked the little hole at the peak of his penis, rapid little strokes, while she held him in place to make him take it. His reaction was swift and feral, grabbing her by the shoulders and neck and trying to force her head down on him. He wanted this. He wanted everything she could do to him.
Gently, she pulled his hands away, and gave him one last, slow lap of her tongue. Then she pushed him back down on the pillows, and held a finger up to her lips. She could still taste him, still feel the prickly, erotic sensation his skin had left on hers. What if he…? Oh, wow she would so have to try that someday. It was time for him to lie still, though, because she had a choice to make. She had to know, first.
Turning away from Arcan, she moved over on the bed until she could grab hold of Max's cock with both of her hands. She squeezed and kneaded him in her hands, the sensation like holding an electric vibrator. A thick, huge electric vibrator.
It didn't take any time at all for his cock to stand up stiff and tall. Not as arrow straight as Arcan's, maybe, but bigger and more symmetrical. He was actually circumcised, which made her wonder briefly if that was a choice the werebear baby boys had, just like in the world she knew. The skin of his penis was paler than the rest of him and she could see the dark veins just below the skin, lines of sexual power like tattoos. She twisted her hips, hoping she didn't orgasm while she was holding him. She wanted one of these two men to take her over that edge themselves. She was just so damned worked up. If either of them touched her down there, right now, she wouldn't be able to hold back on them.
“Nikki?” Max asked, groggily coming to as she massaged her thumbs into the underside of his swollen head. “What are you...?”
“Shh,” she told him. “I need to know.”
His eyes followed her every move, tracing every line of her body. Where Arcan had devoured her with his gaze, Max drank her in slowly, thoughtfully, getting to know her all over again even though he'd seen her naked dozens of times or more.
That look in his eyes was what turned her on, even more than the feel of his cock in her hands or the way she had played with Arcan.
Dipping her head low, she took him in, sliding his strong girth into her mouth, opening wide to accommodate him. The hum of electricity made her skull buzz.
Cupping his balls seemed to be the right thing for him. Holding his tight sack in between her fingers, she felt him twitch between her lips and wondered if he was that close already. She glanced up, arching her back as she did, and saw that his hands were fisted into the sheets, his mouth hanging open, his eyes tightly closed.
Oh yeah. He was that close.
She didn't want him to go off yet. Not yet. So she slid him out. Her fingernails raked across his groin. As she did, he put his hands on her shoulders in much the same way that Arcan had, with one big difference. He wasn't trying to pull her into him. He was holding her back, making sure she knew that she didn't have to do anything else. She didn't have to do anything she didn't want to.
That was everything she needed to know. Flopping down on her back again between them, she laid her hands on both of their cocks, gently stroking them, feeling them over, and making sure in her own mind that she had chosen correctly. Was it what she wanted?
Yes. Yes it was.
Her stroking became fiercer, more intense, and soon she was breathing hard as she gave both of them a good strong rubbing. She could tell when both of them were right there, right at the brink of exploding all over her. Neither of them told her to stop. Neither of them tried to walk away from what she was doing. It was her choice.
A choice she'd already made.
“Arcan,” she said. He turned to her, a wide smile on his face, certainty in his eyes. “Please, can you leave us alone for a moment?”
He blinked, his expression falling. “What?”
“Leave the room,” she clarified. “I need to talk to Max.”
Both men stared at her. Arcan rose up on his elbows. “You can't be serious.”
With one final jerk she took her hand back from him. Arcan was still stiff, his cock still throbbing and ready for more. He'd have to find it somewhere else, though, because she did not want to give her sex to someone who would only be interested in what he could take from her. That was what sex was for him. All taking, no giving.
That was not what she wanted.
It had been different for Max. He had really been into what she was doing, but if she had asked him to stop, he would have. He would only take what she was willing to give him, and then he'd giv
e back everything she gave and more.
That, right there, was what she wanted in her life.
That was what she had just learned from having these two men in her hands—and her mouth. Sex could tell you a lot about a man. If you knew how to listen.
Arcan threw himself out of bed, his feet hitting a wooden floor with a hard slap-slap. She saw where they were now, in a cabin made of wooden beams with a low ceiling. The room was small, and neat, and bare of anything except the bed they were on. Arcan stalked around it and was out the door before another moment had passed, his erection leading him out. He didn't look back. Nikki could feel his anger from here.
Max's arms were suddenly around her. His hands felt around her shoulders and down her chest. “Let him cool off,” he offered. “Arcan never took rejection well.”
“I'm not rejecting him. I mean, I am, but that's not what I mean.” She rolled her eyes. She couldn't figure out how to explain it. “I'm choosing you but it has nothing to do with him. Oh, dear God this is so confusing. Why couldn't you just let me live my normal life?”
“Because,” he said, his hands reaching down further to cup her breasts, “in your normal life you would have been killed by a Shift already.”
She leaned back into him, loving the way his hands worked her over. His fingers felt across the stiff nubs of her tits and sent electric lines straight into her core. “Mmm, mmm, yes please.”
“You're sure?” he asked her.
Taking his hands, she pulled them down, around her waist, to put his fingers right on the wet, swollen tip of her clit. She showed him how to do it, moving his fingers in her until she quivered and her toes curled and her mind began to disconnect. “Max. Listen to me. I'm into you because of the kind of man you are. Even if you are a white boy.”
“You mean the kind of bear I am, right?”
“Don't be an idiot.” She moved his finger in deeper and couldn't draw a breath for several seconds. When she could talk again, she said, “I like that you care about my feelings. That's beyond important to me. That's why I chose you instead of Arcan. He'd have used me and then moved on. When I'm with you, I know you're here for...me...oh.”
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 36
