by Edith DuBois
It made sense that she’d chosen him. He was the non-mate. He was the safest choice. He should have said no. He should have pushed her away and accepted that she would never be his, but in the darkness, in the quiet honesty of midnight hours, he’d pulled her in tight to his body and curled his legs around her.
He could no more keep her out of his arms than he could keep the seasons from following each other. She belonged to them. She was their mate. It was the nature of things.
But she was being so goddamned stubborn about it.
And now she was getting worked up about her upcoming concert at the new Woodland Den amphitheater. After the fire back in September, Cora Copely, owner and proprietor of the small resort, had decided to build the town amphitheater. After that night at Bo’s and as soon as Marina found out about the theater, she’d headed straight over and requested to play at its grand opening. The concert was scheduled to occur exactly one week and six days after Bo agreed to make the severing compound, exactly one day before it was supposed to be finished.
When she’d first told him and his brothers about her idea to play a concert there, Jeremiah was furious. It was like she wasn’t even trying to give them a chance. He forced himself to draw in three deep, steady breaths.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to pursue her music. She was one of the most talented musicians he’d ever met. What he didn’t want was Marina destroying herself while trying to manage her fame and her career. He’d understood, almost from the moment he’d met her, that she wasn’t healthy. She needed them. She needed their love.
He chastised himself. Instead of wallowing in the despair of unrequited love, he should be trying to forget her, trying to dig her out of his heart.
As the week progressed, however, and as she threw herself more and more into her music, he realized he would never stop caring about her. He wanted to take care of her so much, but she just wouldn’t let him.
She didn’t want to give him or his brothers a chance. She was afraid to, afraid she would give in, afraid of leaving her old life behind, but hell if he was going to let her go without a fight.
He’d crawled out of bed that morning as he usually did. He’d taken care of the animals. He’d showered. He’d headed into town and left Marina behind with his brothers.
But when he pulled into the Woodland Den on his way to do his singles nature walk, he suddenly realized that he couldn’t stomach the idea of watching hopeful, young lovers all gaga and lovey-dovey over each other.
The wonders of the wild be damned! If Marina was determined to leave him and his brothers behind, he was just as determined to spend every waking second with her until she did.
And she would not deny him. His body craved her. He knew hers craved his, craved his brothers’. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. He would grab her, he would hold on, and he would do his damnedest to never let go. He whipped the Jeep around and zoomed back toward the preservation center.
When he arrived, he stalked through the kitchen, ignoring his brothers’ stunned expressions, and then exploded into the bedroom.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, playing something silly on the guitar to Roy, wearing nothing but an overlarge sweater. His dramatic entrance made her jump, and she looked up at him as he strode across the room.
“Jeremiah, what? Aren’t you supposed—”
He ripped the guitar out of her hands, yanked her off the bed, and put his burning lips to hers. He forced his tongue between her lips. He dove in. He didn’t let her resist. She wouldn’t. Not today.
“No, Jeremiah.”
“Don’t lie!” He broke the kiss and glared down into her teeming blue eyes. He saw the storm there. She used everything to hold it back. “Tell me you don’t want me, Marina.”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t do this.” Her voice was strangled, but he didn’t care. He would show her no mercy. Why should he? She showed none to him or his brothers. Her distance was cruel, and she knew it.
“Open your eyes and tell me you feel nothing.”
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”
“Tell me!”
“What difference does it make?” Her porcelain features looked near to breaking. “We can’t have this.”
“Look me in the eye.” When she didn’t immediately comply, he shook her. “Look at me, damn it.” She did. “Say you don’t want me.” Her lips pressed together. Her eyes pleaded. “Tell me I mean nothing to you.”
She shook her head.
“You can’t say it.” He moved his lips closer. “You can’t lie to me.”
“Please, Jeremiah.”
“Yes, I mean to make you beg, Marina.” Her eyes grew wide. He smiled, but the smile felt harsh and unbending on his lips. “This is one day you won’t have your way. I am going to have you. You won’t turn me away.”
She bit her bottom lip. It was trembling. He shook her.
“Do you understand me?” Lust and rage filled his veins. He crashed his lips onto hers. He pushed her. His scorpion lips struck and stung. He wanted a reaction. He knew there was a fire in her. Her heart was pure, wild fury. She thought it was dead. It wasn’t. He knew her heart. He would pull it out of her. He demanded nothing less.
Her hands came to his chest, but instead of pulling him closer, she struggled against his embrace. She whimpered and fought for release.
“Damn it, Marina.” He broke away. “What?” he shouted. “What? Tell me what!”
They were both panting, glaring at each other. “You know what, Jeremiah. I said I didn’t want this. I need a clear head. It’s hard. I know it’s hard, but you have to believe me.” Her hand came up to his cheek and held his face. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to be anybody’s mate. I told you from the very beginning. I told you I would walk away. Why won’t you believe me?”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand from his face. “Because I know you better than you know yourself. I’m what you want.” He pressed a harsh kiss to the palm of her hand, and she flinched as the coarse hairs of his beard scraped across the tender skin of her palm. “James,” he said. “Johnny. They are what you want.” She pulled on her hand, but he didn’t let go. “The longer you deny that, the more it’s going to kill you.”
“It’s only four days until Bo has the compound finished. After that, none of this will matter. I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again.” She said it to hurt him. He knew she was only trying to tear herself away. “Why make this any harder than it has to be?”
“Marina,” James said. He and Johnny had approached. They all three surrounded her. Johnny brushed a kiss against the corner of her mouth. James ran gentle, persuasive fingers down the back of her neck. Jeremiah felt a surge in his cock when she shivered in response.
Marina sucked in a deep breath. Her hand came up to hold Johnny’s cheek. “This isn’t fair,” she whispered. “I should hate you for what you’ve done to me, for making me your mate, for making me care about you.”
She looked at Jeremiah as James moved all of her hair over one shoulder and then placed light kisses, slow and soft, over each knot of her neck and spine.
“Do you?” Jeremiah asked.
She shook her head.
“You want to give in,” Jeremiah said.
She nodded. “I shouldn’t want to. Somewhere in my mind I know I shouldn’t.” Her fingers crawled up his chest. She stepped into his arms. “But when I’m with you three, something is happening.” Her eyes drifted to dimness for a moment. She put her fingertips on his face and trailed them down. “When I touch you, I forget.”
Her lips touched his, and he was lost.
He pulled her tight and then whisked his hands up under the bottom of her sweater. He could feel a growing dampness on her panties. His cock strained against his jeans. Her wetness, the way she trembled, a tiny whimper in the back of her throat—these things called to him. Moving his tongue into her mouth, he rolled its tip along the tops of her teeth, against the roof
of her mouth, and then deep to the back. He dominated every crevice.
He grasped the backs of her thighs just under her ass cheeks and pulled her legs apart. His fingertips prodded against the back edges of her pussy. She growled, her response growing in strength at his touch.
It was what he wanted. He would bring her carnality to the surface. He would possess it, possess everything.
He stepped back and began taking his clothes off, holding Marina’s face with his eyes. She watched him, her tongue darted out to moisten her lips as his cock sprang free. Her eyes slid back up his body and met his. When their gazes locked, their bodies flew together.
They stumbled toward the bed, and he fell back onto it with her on top of him, landing crossways on the mattress. “James, remove her panties.”
James pulled the skimpy bit of fabric over her ass and then down her thighs while Johnny moved around the bed, and then Jeremiah tugged on her sweater. Lifting her arms over her head, Marina obliged, letting him remove all barriers between their hot, needy flesh. Johnny took the sweater and threw it across the room.
“You’re going to take all three of us at the same time, sweetheart,” Johnny said as he and James removed their own garments.
She swallowed and then nodded. “I want that.” She put her hands to her breasts, and closed her eyes in relief, as if they ached, as if her need to be touched was so great she had to do it just to think. “Everything’s outstretched,” she whispered. “Every nerve is reaching.” She sat atop Jeremiah, and warm, thick moisture from her pussy leaked down onto his skin. His rigid cock nudged up against her ass. He could wait no longer.
Placing his hands on her hips, he lifted. “Grasp my cock, Marina. Guide me in.”
She put one hand on his chest, and the other snaked down between their bodies. Her fingers wrapped around his length. She stroked up and down and up and down, and then she held him. Grasping and tugging her hips down, he sighed as the warmth of her cunt’s lips kissed his tip. She sank onto him, and her inner muscles clenched and unclenched. They sucked him deeper and deeper, until finally she sat atop him.
Reaching up, he put his hands over her breasts. Her pebbled nipples scraped against the palm of his hands as he gently massaged her. Using his thumbs, he tweaked and teased, drawing tiny moans from her plump and parted lips.
“Lean over. I want to taste these tits.”
She obeyed, and he sucked in a nipple. He grasped it between his teeth and then used his tongue to toy with its hardened peak. James approached from behind, squirting some lube into the palm of his hand. Marina gasped when he firmly grasped her hips and then pressed his fingers between her cheeks, vigorously applying the lube. Her pussy shivered around Jeremiah’s cock the moment James thrust his lube-covered fingers into her asshole.
“You okay?” Jeremiah asked.
She bit her bottom lip, nodded, and then maneuvered her hips, anxious for them to begin their motion. For a few tense moments, James worked his fingers inside her ass, stretching and preparing her for his cock. Then he pulled them out, wiping them on a nearby towel. After smearing some lube over his cock, James grasped her hips and then lined himself up to her rear.
Before beginning to press inside her, he ran his fingers from her neck down her spine. Marina sighed. That was their signal.
James pulled on her hips, causing her to rise off Jeremiah’s dick. Then she slid back down. He wanted to thrust harder, to pound up into her, but he knew he had to keep their rhythm steady. He was her master, her maestro, conducting her pleasure, moving them all toward bliss-induced oblivion.
They worked her. Jeremiah loved watching the sweat on her forehead. He watched it soak into her hair. He watched beads of it roll down her chest between her lovely, dangling breasts as she rocked between them. He pushed his palms up on her breasts and watched as Johnny slid his fingers into her hair. He wrapped her dark, silky strands around his wrist and brought her lips to his stiffened shaft.
“It’s time to put those luscious lips to good use, sweetheart.” Johnny pressed his cock toward her, and she opened willingly. Jeremiah felt his lust ramping up to even greater heights at the fervid sight above him. Her body bounced between Jeremiah and James, each of their thrusts echoing through her and ricocheting into the next. She made tiny, sucking, sloshing noises around Johnny’s dick, and with each jolt of their bodies, Jeremiah felt ready to explode.
He knew he couldn’t take much more, so he thrust harder. With each pounding of his cock, of James’s cock, of Johnny’s cock, they rooted themselves deeper inside her, inside her body and her soul. He could feel her growing restless. She threw herself into the motion, into the cadence. Her moans grew longer and more feverish.
She grasped Johnny’s hips, and Jeremiah could see her nails digging sharply into his brother’s flesh.
Johnny was the first to go. Marina held on as he thrust a couple more times deep into her throat. Jeremiah focused his gaze on her delicate throat muscles, swallowing with a vigorous greed as Johnny’s seed shot down her throat. When he’d finished, he stepped away, collapsing onto a chair in the corner of the room.
“Oh god!” Marina cried, her body beginning to shake. She clutched at Jeremiah’s shoulders, her fast-approaching orgasm driving him and James into a frenzy around her. Jeremiah thrust up into her with everything had.
James grunted behind her and then released a gravelly groan. Marina arched in response, squeezing her eyes tight, as her own orgasm blossomed with James’s. He could see a flush spreading through her skin. Her nipples were a deep rose surrounded by delicate pink flesh. Her thighs shook. Her stomach muscles quivered. She’d lost all control.
After James pulled out of her ass, Jeremiah leaned up and rolled over, holding on to her. Then he continued pounding into her. She would be his. He would own her. He had to have her. She was everything to him. He couldn’t let go.
“Jeremiah,” she begged, tears falling from the corners of her eyes. “Please, oh god yes, Jeremiah.”
“That’s right, Marina. Give me everything.”
She called out to him, her fingernails digging into his back. He had one hand under her thigh. Her knee pressed up and into the mattress as he stroked inside her.
“I can’t,” she panted. “I’m scared.”
“Stay with me.”
Each thrust of his cock crashed into her, pounded deep and hard. And every stroke she met. Every stroke she welcomed. She wanted to surrender. He knew it. He kept driving at her. He would make her understand. He would make her see. She wanted to belong to him.
“Jeremiah,” she whispered, opening her dark-blue eyes. Then a fresh orgasm swept through her, rocked her deep, lifted her violently from the bed. She bucked hard up against him, and his cock reached its end. His cum poured out of him into her body, into her hot, gulping cunt.
He buried his face in the pillow next to her and shouted his release.
Every emotion had been ripped away. He was left with a vast white emptiness. He knew Marina was the only one who could bring him back. Her shaky breaths rattled against him. She still clung to him.
He was so entangled. No matter what happened, he would never be free from her.
Collapsing next to her on the bed, he only wanted to hold her for a moment. He pulled her close and burrowed his face in her neck. She touched the scar on his cheek, ran her fingers through his hair and his beard, and kissed his forehead.
“Please don’t leave,” he whispered into her hair.
She sighed, squeezing him tighter but not saying anything.
“Please stay with me.”
* * * *
“Hey, where you going?” Johnny called out from behind Marina. Roy tugged on his leash in the opposite direction, but she paused long enough to turn around.
“Just taking Roy for a walk.”
“Well, hang on a sec.” He ran inside the center. A moment later, he popped back out with a jacket on. “I’ll join you,” he said, grinning and jogging up next to her. They ambled
along the trail leading to Brown Trout Lake in companionable silence. Marina giggled at Roy, who kept jumping into the banked snow along the path. He barked happily and chomped down on the snow every once in a while. Johnny slipped his hand into hers, and she couldn’t help but to smile.
After that mind-blowing afternoon two days ago, she could no longer keep herself at a physical distance from the Greenwoods. The bond, the Shoshone curse, whatever the hell it was wouldn’t let her, especially around James and Johnny. With Jeremiah it was different. Half the time she wanted to throw herself on him and dissolve into his skin. Yet with him, it was easier to restrain her urges. She could tell it hurt him when she hesitated to touch him.
And every time he reached for her, it was an arduous, wearisome struggle. She was so tired of fighting herself.
Should she stay?
Or should she take the compound and destroy the connection?
If she didn’t take the compound, could she really abandon her old life? Could she turn her back on everything she knew?
Could she really give up everything and stay here?
Johnny leaned over and kissed her cheeks. “Let it go, sweetheart.”
“Huh?”
“Whatever thought is making you frown, let it go.”
“Oh sorry. I didn’t realize.”
Johnny chuckled. “Well, we all know tomorrow night is the concert, and the morning after that, you’ll have to tell Bo to throw his compound out the window.”
“Johnny, I can’t—”
“Let me finish.”
“Okay, but you know I’m not going to…you know I can’t promise you anything.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know. But how about while we’re out here with Roy and with all this fresh air and snow, why don’t we both forget about everything for an hour or so. I sort of just want to enjoy holding your hand and walking with you and maybe stealing a kiss or two.”
Her heart lurched at his words, and inwardly she cursed herself. Lately that was all her heart had been doing. It was nothing but heart lurching left and right. Every time Johnny or James or Jeremiah showed her a tender moment, she was reminded of everything she’d be leaving behind if she decided to take the compound. And then, of course, her heart had to go on a lurching rampage.
