I pulled my mouth from Grant's, panting. "Please. Take me to the bedroom. I want you. I want both of you."
I didn't need to make my request twice. Adrian released me, moving to the side, and with a low growl rumbling in his broad chest, Grant scooped me up, carried me into the bedroom, kissing me along the way, and set me on the bed. Adrian turned out the light. Both he and Grant were out of their jeans and underwear in a flash, and I saw that I'd been right. They were both very large and appeared to be granite-hard.
Their long, thick shafts pointed straight up, nearly flush with their washboard abs. The erotic sight alone was enough to intensify the ache low in my belly to the point that it was now nearly unbearable. When I spoke, I barely recognized my own voice, it was so husky with need.
"Please. I want both of you. And I can't wait any longer."
With his lightly tanned skin made even more golden by the bright glow from the tall red candles on the dresser, Grant climbed in beside me first, took me in his strong arms, and began kissing me again.
At the same time, Adrian climbed in on my other side, hooked an arm over my waist, and began letting his fingers wander. He gripped one of my thighs, kneading it and squeezing it, before moving on to gently caress my slick feminine mound. When I felt him gently probe my lips apart and begin stroking my most sensitive spot, I cried out, breaking my kiss with Grant without even meaning to.
"Don't stop, Adrian. Please don't stop."
He didn't, and continued on stroking me with a single fingertip, his pressure not to light but not too firm, while Grant moved his hungry mouth to one of my nipples and began teasing it with his tongue. I moaned, becoming lost in rapture.
Adrian moved his mouth to my ear and spoke in a low husky voice without missing a beat, or a stroke, rather, in his task. "You should know that you're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen in my life. Simply gorgeous."
To my surprise, I turned my head and pressed a lingering kiss against his mouth. Though I honestly wasn't that surprised at myself. Simply because I could barely even recall that he and Grant were supposed to be my enemies. And the teeny-tiny part of me that did remember, couldn't even recall why.
Soon Grant seemed to grow a bit jealous of Adrian pleasuring me and all but shoved his hand to the side. With my head propped up on a stack of pillows, I'd been watching Adrian's finger moving across my most sensitive spot, and now I whimpered with frustration, turning my face toward Grant.
"Why? Just, why?"
His pale blue eyes glinted in the candlelight, and he spoke in a voice barely louder than a gravelly whisper.
"Because I'm ready to take you now."
In one swift, seemingly effortless motion, he pulled me on top of him. I straddled his hips, more than eager to feel him inside of me. And even though I was the one straddling him, he really did take me. After positioning the head of his thick manhood at my slick entrance, he quickly and powerfully thrust his hips upward, driving his stiffened rod deep inside of me.
I threw my head back, moaning. "Yes. Oh, God, yes, Grant."
Gripping my soft hips, holding me up and off him a bit, he began moving his own hips up and down on the bed, thrusting his long manhood in and out of my slickness. At the same time, Adrian, who'd raised himself up on his knees beside me, took one of my hands, placed it on his stiffened shaft, and curled my fingers around it. I began stroking him while watching the action of my hand, the erotic sight almost more than I could bear. I knew I was hurtling toward climax, and fast; and within a minute or so, I was there.
I cried out, gripping Adrian's rock-hard rod, while Grant continued to drive himself deeper and deeper inside of me, grunting. Within seconds of the first ripple of pure ecstasy shuddering though my body, he also began groaning with his own release, his movements becoming even faster and harder.
After the last wave of my pleasure had passed, I collapsed over him, panting. However, I didn't rest for long. Soon it became clear that Adrian needed some serious attention as well, and I was more than glad to give it to him. I rode him while Grant looked on, stretched out on his back, kneading and caressing one of my thighs. Even after his seemingly intense release minutes earlier, he was already becoming hard again.
When the three of us finally began heading toward sleep around midnight, I was completely satisfied for the first time in my life. I stared up at candlelight flickering on the ceiling, dazed. Adrian fell asleep right away, his breathing becoming slow and rhythmic, and one of his arms across my belly.
But, like me, Grant stared up at the ceiling. His hands were laced behind his head. His expression was unreadable. He was so still for at least a solid minute that it startled me when he spoke, which he did without even looking at me. He kept his gaze locked on the ceiling.
"When you were a little girl...when you were a little girl of maybe six or seven...did you ever wear flowers in your hair? White flowers...tiny rosebuds, maybe. And double French braids. And the flowers were somehow woven into the braids."
Thoroughly dumbfounded and mystified by what he'd said, I didn't answer right away. It took me several moments to find my voice.
"I...I don't remember exactly how my mother did my hair. And...." I paused to study his face in profile for a long moment, confused almost beyond words. "And why do you ask? What does it matter?"
"Never mind. I already know the answer to my question anyway."
His response had only deepened my mystification. I stared at him, as if his handsome face would eventually make things clear. But it didn't, and after a moment or two, he closed his eyes. And that's when I remembered he'd walked into my apartment with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Who knew how much he'd had to drink before then. And maybe he was still feeling the effects. I knew that for certain people, alcohol could make them ask the oddest questions and say the most nonsensical things. And Grant clearly seemed to be one of those people.
I soon fell asleep, thoroughly exhausted.
The following day, I awoke very late in the morning and found myself in bed alone. Grant and Adrian had surely left to run patrols with some other shifters shortly after dawn. I sat up immediately, recalling the events of the previous night, a flood of emotions crashing over me.
I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. I felt angry at myself. I couldn't understand how I could have been so weak as to give into temptation, to practically hurl myself headfirst into a night of passion with two bear shifters. Though at the same time, I could understand how I could have been so weak.
They may have been bear shifters, and they may have taken part in the attack on Gray and Estelle. In fact, they likely did. Or, at the very least, had full knowledge about it. But they were still men, and unbelievably attractive ones at that. And I was still a woman. A woman who'd been starved of physical pleasure for so long.
Thinking things over, I decided to forgive myself. What was done was done, and I figured that what had happened might even work to my advantage in my plan to get a better feel for who Grant and Adrian really were and if they were murderers. The closer I became to the two of them, the more they might reveal to me. So, I decided I couldn't pull back now. Not to mention, I wasn't sure I'd be able to even if I tried. The physical pleasure I'd experienced had been far too satisfying.
For the next week or so, although I only rarely saw them during the daytime, my nights of passion with Grant and Adrian continued. I began to feel as if I were becoming somehow addicted to the pleasure the three of us shared.
However, this didn't really reveal any more to me about who they were as people. I still didn't feel as if I could trust them, Grant especially, and I was determined not to. Grant, in particular, always made me feel as if he were hiding something from me. Some secret he wasn't telling me about. Sometimes before we fell asleep at night, I'd catch him looking at me with a look in his eyes I could only interpret as one of pain. Once I asked him if he had something to tell me, and he simply closed his eyes and went to sleep.
After another week went by with a
few similar instances, I became certain. He had killed Gray and Estelle. And whether Malachi had told him, or whether he'd found out some other way, he knew they'd been my adoptive parents. He knew. And he was feeling guilty.
I began stewing about whether or not I should confront him and demand he admit what he'd done, or whether I should just resolve to never say anything and simply choose Adrian as my husband instead. Because while I didn't yet trust him a hundred percent, or even anywhere close, I couldn't deny that I just felt in my gut that Adrian hadn't had anything to do with the attack. I guess there was something about him I was beginning to trust maybe just a teeny-tiny bit.
Before I could decide what to do, confront Grant or simply choose Adrian without a word, I began to realize that something terrible was happening. Something so profoundly terrible I couldn't even admit it to myself at first. But eventually, after a few glasses of wine alone in my rooms one evening, I couldn't deny it any longer. I was developing some sort of a bizarre attachment to Grant. Though beyond articulating it to myself like that, as a bizarre attachment, I couldn't quite define what it was.
I'd been thinking about him a lot on a daily basis. The thoughts had begun to feel something akin to thoughts of missing him, of hardly being able to wait to see him again. This, while I became even surer that he'd had something to do with the attack on Gray and Estelle. It didn't make any sense. And meanwhile, I hardly thought about Adrian during the daytime at all. Despite the fact that he was much more affectionate to me than Grant.
After my realization about my growing strange attachment to Grant, I put my wineglass in the sink, confused and even slightly panicky. Head swimming, and not just from the wine, I left my rooms, deciding I needed a walk to clear my head and think.
No one was on the ground floor when I left the house. Or, if they were, they were in different rooms and didn't see me, which I was very grateful for about a half-hour later when I decided to make a run for Stony Rapids.
I certainly hadn't intended to make a run for Stony Rapids. I'd started out just taking a walk out behind the house, trying to make some sense out of my strange new troubling feelings of attachment for Grant. But after a few minutes of fresh air, I'd begun to only feel more and more troubled. I'd begun to feel more and more uncertain. Uncertain about what, I wasn't even sure. Which just made me feel even further troubled. Like I wanted to run.
At first, I was just going to take a run down the back road that connected with the main paved road leading out of town. But then, once I was on the main road and had cleared the city, I had an idea. I'd just leave Sun Creek. I'd just go back to Stony Rapids and beg Malachi to take me back as a member of the community. Then, I'd never have to try to untangle my complicated new feelings for Grant. I'd never have to think about him again.
I hadn't forgotten that he'd paid a large sum of money for me, and I realized that because of that, he might try to come after me and reclaim me. However, I wondered if Mil might intercede on my behalf, after realizing that I must have been very unhappy in order to leave. I wondered if she'd talk Grant into just letting me go. It was at least possible. I knew she'd grown to really like me. I'd also grown to really like her. Which wasn't to say that I trusted her, but like with Adrian, maybe I did just a tiny bit. I knew for certain I would miss her.
I jogged down the tree-lined main road out of town for several minutes, lungs burning. I figured I'd run as far as I could before exhaustion overcame me. Then, I'd find a soft place in the forest to rest for the night. The next day, I'd find a source of water, and I'd forage for berries to eat, then I'd be off again. I'd run and walk during the day and sleep during the night for however long it took me to travel the fifty or so miles to Stony Rapids. All the while, I wouldn’t have single thought about Grant. Or, try not to, at least.
With my head still swimming from wine more than a bit, I became so engrossed in my thoughts of trying not to think about Grant that I didn't even notice his shiny black truck slowly coming up the road behind me until he was literally right alongside me. Both windows were rolled down, and he did not look happy.
Startled, I came to a dead stop, frozen. "You."
After putting the truck in park, he leaned across the seat, opened the passenger side door, and looked at me with his strong jaw clenched. "Get in."
With something that felt like hot lava beginning to flow through my veins, I shook my head. "I don't think so. I'm going back to Stony Rapids. Where the people may be cold and even heartless at times, but not so heartless as to attack two innocent people for no good reason."
I hadn't meant to say that. The words had just tumbled out. And suddenly, in a rush, they continued to do so.
"Why did you do it, Grant? Why did you, or your men, or whoever of you did it, do it? Why? Just tell me. I just want to know why!"
With his face illuminated by the interior light in the truck, he frowned, feigning incomprehension, I was sure. "Do what, Lila? What are you-"
"Oh, don't you dare play stupid with me."
His expression remained a mask of what I was certain was phony incomprehension. He looked me, the expression slowly changing to one sterner, harder. A long moment ticked by before he spoke.
"Get in the truck."
"Go to hell."
"Get in the truck, Lila."
So that was the way it was going to be. He and his people had killed my adoptive parents; he wasn't even going to have the decency to own up to it and he expected me to just deal with it. He expected me to just "get in the truck." Just forget about everything. Just forget the fact that he and his people had murdered my adoptive parents for a good time. Just accept it.
I felt something hot, black, and ugly churning in the pit of my stomach. It was something that told me that I was in danger of spinning out of control, of speaking my mind in a way far stronger and more forceful than I'd ever done in my life. The feeling in the pit of my stomach was an emotion that seemed to be spreading to all parts of my body with every beat of my heart, as if it was traveling through my blood like some living thing. That emotion was making my hands tremble and curl into fists. That emotion was pure, undiluted, wild rage.
I suddenly lunged forward and slammed a fist against the passenger side door of the truck, glaring at Grant. "They were my parents! Their names were Gray and Estelle, in case you don't even know the names of the people you killed! Gray spared me from death when I was just seven, and he and Estelle adopted me as their own, and they fed me and clothed me and kept me safe from all the other wolves in Stony Rapids for fifteen years. And how...." Hands shaking, I paused, fighting an urge to slam a fist on the truck door again. "How dare you! How dare you and your people just kill them in cold blood like that! They were just canoeing. And you murdered them! You ambushed them! And don't you dare try to tell me that twelve shifters against one was even remotely a fair fight. You and your people ambushed them. Gray wasn't as fierce as the other wolves. I know he would have never tried to start anything against twelve bears. I know you attacked him and Estelle without cause.
“You murdered them, Grant. You took two innocent peoples' lives, and you took a young woman's parents from her. And for what? For what? Sport? You killed them for fun and sport. You must have. You must have led the charge. It's sickening. And I know you were a part of it by the way you're so shut down and distant sometimes. The way you never try to make conversation with me like Adrian does. The way you never say sweet or joking things to me like he does. You've got a guilty conscience, and it shows."
While I caught my breath from my tirade, Grant just stared at me, his heavy-lidded blue eyes becoming filled with what appeared to be genuine, sincere pain.
After a few moments, he finally spoke in a low, quiet voice. "You're right. I do have a guilty conscience. But it's not from what you think."
Suddenly feeling frighteningly uncertain about the accusations I'd made, despite having felt so certain about them, I didn't respond.
Grant got out of the truck, slowly came around to me,
and took my face in his hands. "How did you come to the conclusion that I and my men killed your adoptive parents?"
I flung his hands off my face, though feebly. His gentle touch had made me even more uncertain and confused.
"Malachi told me that you bear shifters were responsible. He may have been a scumbag to sell me to you like property, but at least he had the decency to tell me the truth before he did. The truth about how you bears from Sun Creek attacked and killed Gray and Estelle."
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 106
