Tag had waited until they were back at the house to bite the back of his neck hard and wrestle him onto the bed, Paul fighting back playfully. They’d waited that long only because it was cold in the woods.
The reminder of that incident made Paul shiver and buck against Tag at the same time he bit down on Tag’s invading tongue and tried to twist away from his grasp. He didn’t try hard because he didn’t want to get away from Tag’s strength, the heat of his body, his rich, musky scent that, while far more pleasing to human senses than a fox’s, wasn’t remotely human when he was this aroused.
No, Paul wanted to fight only enough to provoke a take-charge response from Tag.
Tag pushed him back onto the bed, pressed him in place with his weight, and started humping against Paul’s ass, letting Paul feel the length of his cock pushing against him. Neither man was lubed, but Paul found himself opening regardless, aching for penetration. Red throbbed on the inside of Paul’s eyelids and, when he opened his eyes, red energy danced on his skin, still faint, but getting brighter by the second.
“Please,” he groaned, bucking his hips back.
Tag, stealthy fox that he was, had palmed the lube when Paul wasn’t looking. He spread some on Paul’s pulsing asshole, stroked some onto his own cock—Paul couldn’t see him, but sensed the movement, heard the pleasured intake of breath as Tag ran his hand over the sensitive cockhead.
Normally, Tag would open him up slowly, teasing him with his cock, kissing and caressing while Paul moaned and writhed and described what he was feeling in luxurious detail.
Today, Tag speared him, one swift, relentless thrust that would have been painful if Paul hadn’t been open and craving it, pushing back to take his husband and all his fierceness inside. Tag gave him a second to adjust to the fullness and then began to fuck in earnest, pinning Paul to the bed and biting the back of his neck. Paul was taller than Tag, but Tag approached his weight, and Paul felt thoroughly and deliciously overwhelmed.
Pleasure built in him, dark and rich and wild as Tag himself. Paul’s cock throbbed, and his whole body throbbed in rhythm with it.
At the same time, he felt echoes of a tight ass gripping his dick, hips pushing back to meet his thrusts, and knew he shared Tag’s sensations.
At the rate they were going, neither would last long and Paul, for one, didn’t care. Instead of trying to slow things down, he rammed himself back onto Tag’s cock, squeezing and milking with his internal muscles.
“Mine,” Tag barked as he came, driving into his husband with a fierce rush that Paul felt in every inch of his body and spirit. He added, as he reached around to stroke Paul’s cock, giving him the final stimulation he’d need to reach his own climax, “Yours. Belong to each other…no matter what.”
The roughly spoken words, as much as the touch, drove Paul over the edge. He bucked and spent himself into Tag’s waiting hand.
The room swirled with red, laced with all the colors of Paul’s powers and with Tag’s clear red-brown. But different hues, silver and a tawny orange brighter and sharper than Tag’s, mingled with the dancing energy as well, fine threads of a spirit alien and yet familiar that hung on the sidelines almost shyly.
Akane. She must be thinking about them, perhaps fantasizing about them or at least of release from her curse.
Either that or the Powers were taking this opportunity to give him a not-so-subtle clue.
He hated when They did that. But it forced him to a decision.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Paul and Tag knocked on the door of Akane’s cabin, carrying a covered dish of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and wearing sheepish smiles.
Akane bowed as they entered and took the food gratefully. Paul drew a deep breath. “Tag has convinced me that we not only may help you, we must. It’s the right thing to do—even if it means breaking a few rules. And before either of you say it, we Donovans are stuffy about certain things. Not like sorcerers, but a little set in our ways. It’s good to have foxes to shake us up now and then.”
Akane clapped her hands and laughed with pure relief. Then she threw her arms around them both. “Here?” she asked, eagerness making her voice girlish.
“No,” Paul said. “With the amount of energy we’ll be playing with, we’d better get away from the house and other people. Most of us shield well, but the kids—and my twin the telepath—don’t need a play-by-play.”
“Not to mention,” Tag said dryly, “they don’t need to hear all the screaming. This may be magic, darlin,’ but I intend to make sure you both make some serious noise.”
By afternoon, the early fall weather had taken a turn for the more typically Oregonian—drizzly and gray, with a stiff wind off the water—but Paul opted to take them to an open pavilion where they could be surrounded by forest, within sight and sound of the waves crashing onto the rocky beach, yet under cover from the rain.
Tag didn’t mind that. Spacious and comfortable as the Donovans’ rambling compound was, being outdoors was almost always preferable to being indoors, and the gazebo in question was one he and Paul had used often, so he knew it came equipped with a large, comfortable bed. Donovans liked their creature comforts. They claimed it had something to do with the magics of hearth, home and heart, but he figured they were all sensualists, except for the annoying monogamy. What would you expect from people who held both the kitchen and the bedroom to be sacred power spots?
No, what bothered him was that Paul insisted on calling what was about to happen “the ritual”, as if it were some standard full-moon celebration where the witches got together and communed with the Lord and Lady, and foxes went to a logger bar and ordered fruity umbrella drinks for the biggest, meanest-looking guys in there to honor Trickster.
Sure, it was a ritual, a spell, and sex was a holy, magical blessing and yadda-yadda. But if they couldn’t all go into it with the spirit of play, Tag wasn’t convinced it was going to work and that it might, in fact, go horribly wrong. If two men who loved each other couldn’t make love with a beautiful woman (who was supposed to be a beautiful fox) and relax enough to enjoy it, where would the power to work the magic come from? Tag would be the first to admit he was a bit shy in the magical-theory department, but from what he understood from doing red magic with Paul before, the more pleasure you felt and made your partner feel, the more magical energy you built up.
It would probably take a dump truck full of energy to break up a curse strong enough to bind someone Paul had compared to a fae, someone who was as least as much magic as she was flesh and blood and the other stuff mortals were made from.
If Paul had a stick up his ass—instead of, say, Tag’s cock—it wasn’t going to work.
Akane seemed to feel his nervousness. As they walked through the damp green of the forest, which was lush even by the high standards set by the local temperate rainforest, thanks to the Donovan penchant for plant magic, she slipped her hand into his and squeezed gently.
He startled, enjoying the feel of her tiny hand there, but wondering if Paul had noticed.
Then he realized she’d done the same with Paul.
Energy flowed from Paul to her, and from her to him. He recognized a blend of Paul’s familiar love and cocky confidence and some unfamiliar energy that tingled like a full moon rising over the wild waves, or like the smell of redwood in the snow, or like the sweet mist of the Tennessee mountains where he’d grown up. With a tang of ginger and wasabi to boot.
Paul was pulling them together.
Tag felt for the connection between himself and Paul and zinged his own energy down it as best he could, passing his feelings for Paul through the tiny form of the kitsune, while silentspeaking the equivalent of, “I like you, little lady. I like you and I want to see you set free. And I want you and Paul both.”
He wasn’t sure if kitsune had their own equivalent of dual silentspeech, or if she’d be able to understand it in her human form.
He got an answer back, though, a weak, foggy one, but an answer. Gratitude.
Hope. Anxiousness.
And a gratifying streak of raw lust that went straight to Tag’s never-too-reluctant cock.
They didn’t speak out loud, though. None of them did, as if afraid to admit that there were feelings involved, not merely expedience.
The overhanging branches dripped cold water on their heads, but that wasn’t enough to distract Tag from his worries.
Or from the heated images that galloped through his head of all the ways two men and a woman could join.
It took forever to reach the gazebo, but at the same time they arrived much too soon. Too soon to face certain concerns. Like whether Paul could handle this. Like whether it would work.
Like whether Tag might end up, after an afternoon in Akane’s arms, as bad off as that poor kid two centuries ago who’d been ready to dump the man he loved for another taste of her. Tag liked to think he was made of stronger stuff than that, and his bond to Paul was iron-clad (or, as Paul would say, silver-clad).
At least he was forewarned she was a magical being and, even in this cursed form, might have some fae-like glamours that would boggle him.
The problem was he couldn’t remember when he’d last been this attracted to a woman.
He could remember the last time he was this attracted to a man. It had been Paul, and when they’d made love for the first time, Paul’s magic had danced and his own wild-rover fox had started sending him images of a cozy den built for two—which came as a complete surprise to him.
Tag had been raised in a typical fox dual family: Mom, Other-Mom, Dad, Daddy and Uncle-Pop and all the kids on the farm, and Daddy Clyde and Mama Sharon, who hadn’t lived with them but visited from Chattanooga whenever their work schedule allowed. Even four-footed foxes, while more often than not monogamous, would share dens and kit-rearing. Fox duals simply took it the logical step further—because it was fun and had the added bonus of annoying stuffier normies. All of his siblings had ended up in similar relationships, except for Stella, the youngest, who hadn’t settled down yet at all.
Just wasn’t natural living alone. Even with Paul’s love, he wasn’t sure he could have handled the loneliness of monogamy if the whole crazy Donovan clan hadn’t been around to keep him company.
The gazebo felt dank and chilly when they entered, but Paul concentrated for a moment, chanted something under his breath—all Tag caught was “hearth, home, heart”—and suddenly it was warmer and draftless, yet still open to birdsong, the roar of the ocean, and the scents of the forest.
“It’s charming,” Akane exclaimed. “It reminds me of a moon-viewing pavilion, only cozier.”
Then they all froze, staring at each other—and at the huge four-poster bed that dominated the little building.
“Uh, now what?” Tag finally said. It was easy when it was only the two of them. Sex flowed like water between them, and working red magic seemed only slightly more complicated than sex for pure pleasure.
This was different. Fraught.
He felt, rather than saw, Akane drawing a deep breath. “First, we get naked. Western clothing is hard to work around.” A slight quaver in her voice betrayed that she wasn’t feeling as bold as her words suggested.
Chapter Nine
Western clothing had its merits. Jeans and fleeces and boots were far more suited to hiking through damp autumn woods than kimonos and hakama. But at times like this, she missed loose, layered silks that could be pushed up or slipped aside for easy access, and missed even more the glamours that allowed her to conjure beautiful clothing from leaves, flowers, the color of the sky, then have it conveniently vanish when it was time to be naked.
Trembling hands and zippers were a poor combination, and for all her centuries of experience, Akane found her hands shaking. Not to mention that she probably should have started with the boots.
Sex had always been easy for her. Kitsune were creatures of whim and pleasure, and besides, the magical charge from sex with an exuberant, hot-blooded mortal fed her spirit for days. Now, with so much at stake, she didn’t know where to start.
Taggart seemed equally at a loss, looking from her to his lover and back again with his brilliant amber eyes. His cock bulged inside his sweatpants. She was almost close enough to taste. If she’d been fully herself, she could have seen the heat rising from his body, could have smelled his lust and need as strong those cloying perfumes humans had favored in the Heian period, but much more enticing.
But still he didn’t move. Paul had done slightly better, dropping his wet slicker and the hoodie he wore under it onto the floor, but he still had far too much clothing on.
“Sad,” she said, still trying to make her hands obey her brain. “Two foxes and a witch should be able to do this thing with more style.”
Fine. If the zipper wasn’t cooperating, the top layers should be easier.
The fleece, which belonged to a Donovan woman quite a bit bigger than she was, peeled off easily, the thermal shirt slightly less so.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. She felt a surge of uncharacteristic embarrassment, then a more normal surge of pride as Tag breathed, “Lord, Lady and Trickster, you are beautiful!”
Paul didn’t say a word at first, but his blue eyes darkened to the color of lapis, and his pupils widened to almost eclipse that lapis. But he too was hard inside his jeans, and she couldn’t mistake the hunger in his eyes. “Tag,” he finally said, his voice breathy and urgent, “help me help her.”
She thought there might be more, an undercurrent that she couldn’t follow but was as clear as speech to them.
Suddenly Paul was behind her, nibbling on her neck and cupping her small breasts in his long, elegant hands. He wasn’t touching her nipples yet, but they were already straining, swelling, deliciously sensitive.
Tag knelt before her. He unlaced her boots while Paul played and kissed, helped her step out of them. Unzipped her jeans, which had a skull-faced Hello Kitty embroidered on the back pocket, courtesy of some teenaged Donovan girl, and worked them down and off until she was naked except for wooly socks.
Reverently, as if she were a goddess instead of a particularly naughty kitsune, Tag kissed her bare belly, where her navel was in this assumed body.
The sensation of his lips traveled from her belly to her groin, making her clench a little and open her legs, imagining that caress on her clit. His hair, where it brushed her skin, felt as soft as fox fur. Delicious.
She closed her eyes, imagined Tag with pointed ears and a tail.
“Taggart,” she heard, amusement and consternation mingling in Paul’s voice.
When she opened her eyes, Tag had fox ears on his human head, and he was struggling to try to get his sweatpants pulled down around a cock and a tail that both had minds of their own. Awkward, but she couldn’t laugh in the face of such beauty. A well-made human body, compact and muscular, combined with those alert, pointed ears and a handsome bushy tail was almost unbearably hot.
“Taggart,” Paul repeated. “What are you doing? I thought I was supposed to be running the show here.”
“I think she needs it, lover. Needs me as much a fox as she can take in this form.”
“I’m just jealous,” Paul said with a creditable imitation of a predator’s growl, “that you’ve never done that for me. It’s sexy as hell.”
They were tall enough to kiss over Akane’s head, so she was surrounded by male flesh, male scent and, underneath that, the earthy musk of a male fox ready to mate.
Tag swept his tail around them, caressing them both with its russet warmth. Paul laughed—it was almost a giggle, as if the fur tickled, but at the same time, he sounded immensely pleased.
To her, it felt like coming home and unimaginably alien at the same time. She had never felt a lover’s tail brush over her skin before. She’d occasionally made love with a dual, out of sheer desperation for contact with someone strong enough not to die from her curse, but they’d never known what she was or that she’d recognized them, and they’d always stayed in their wordside form
s.
She flooded with lust and floated on the tide of their love and desire for each other.
After that, it got easier.
Working together, she and Tag helped Paul out of his clothes. Naked, he was as elegant as he was clothed, his body lean and ivory white and almost hairless except for his groin, and that was neatly trimmed. Still, like the Japanese men she’d known in an era where strength and elegance were not seen as contradictory, he was unmistakably masculine, and almost unspeakably delicious. He looked more poet than warrior, except she’d seen his aura. He wouldn’t need a sword, a gun, or anything messy like that if he had to defend himself. His enemies would have a hard time even getting close.
If they did, they’d have to reckon with Tag, and she suspected that in a physical confrontation, the dual might be as dangerous as certain small, unassuming, good-natured martial artists she’d known.
Paul’s cock was beautiful. Like the rest of him, it was long and lean. It wasn’t quite as thick as Tag’s, but it was about as pretty as a penis could be.
Or maybe she was that hungry for him.
Although he was a shorter man, Tag was more solidly built, broader-chested. The thick down of red fur on his chest might be unappealing on someone purely human—Akane’s aesthetics had developed in a part of the world where humans tended to have little body hair—but with his perky fox ears and elegant tail, it fit.
Especially when she noticed the small vee of pure, startling white where a fox’s would be.
For a moment, overwhelmed by the wealth of gorgeous man around her, Akane almost forget the curse, forgot why she was able to be with them at all, forgot everything except that she hadn’t dared to have sex for…well, she didn’t want to think about how long, but it was longer than these two men had been alive.
She was pulled back to the reality of her circumstances when Paul intoned, “I honor your body as I honor the Goddess, the female principle in all life.” Tag followed along a few beats behind. Paul’s tone was solemn, Tag’s predictably less so.
Foxes' Den Page 4
