by Amanda Boone
Another slow rock down, and then Arthur was breaking the kiss to drop his head to her shoulder, growling against her skin. His hand reached down. She was pretty sure, when he stilled for a moment, lifting his head to follow his hand with his eyes, that he hadn’t expected to rip her underwear entirely off. But then he grinned at her, entirely unapologetic, and threw them aside, and Jenna couldn’t find it in her to really be mad at him.
She wasn’t really thinking of anything, in fact, except how good it felt to be naked against each other, writhing against his length. It was better like this, slick and hot, her clit bumping against the head of his cock and making them both moan every time she slid forward.
“Barrett,” Arthur said abruptly, voice rough.
Barrett must have known what he meant, though Jenna didn’t, because his warmth left her back, and she heard him rustling through their packs. A moment later he was back, dropping a couple of foil-wrapped packets on the ground beside Arthur’s thigh.
Jenna reached down for one, pulling back enough that she could rip it open and roll the condom down Arthur’s length.
“Impatient,” Arthur chided, sounding anything but displeased with the fact.
She had planned on riding him, sinking down on his cock right there, but he caught her hips in his hands and nipped gently at her earlobe. “I want you on your hands and knees,” he breathed into the curve of her ear. “That okay with you, babe?”
Yeah. That was okay with her. Jenna nodded, and he turned her so that she knelt with her back to him. She dropped forward onto her hands, and he was kneeling up behind her, his big hands on her hips, and pushing forward. Jenna moaned low in her throat as he slid inside, bigger than anything she’d taken before. She swore under her breath and Barrett was there, his hand stroking her cheek. She reached up and curled her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand there as she turned her head to press her lips to his palm.
“You okay?”
“Fuck yes,” she answered, grinning up at him. “More than okay.” Arthur pulled slowly back, then thrust forward again, and Jenna shuddered, her elbow threatening to buckle. “God yes.”
Barrett was still in his jeans, but they’d slipped down, and she could see that he was hard. Jenna reached down, slipping her hand into the opening in his boxers, and curled her hand around him, stroking once. He gasped, and she wanted to see him do it again, wanted him to come apart for her.
“Jeans off,” she ordered.
He scrambled quickly out of them, and out of the underwear too, and knelt naked in front of her, his hard cock arching up toward his muscled stomach. Arthur leaned down and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, his beard tickling a little against her skin, and rocked in deeper.
Jenna couldn’t exactly manhandle them around the way they did her, but she beckoned Barrett closer with a crooked finger, dropping her head for a moment to groan softly as Arthur thrust again, rubbing against her g-spot.
When Barrett was close enough to reach, Jenna leaned down and licked the head of his cock, enjoying the way he gasped and rocked up for more. Curling her hand around his length, she stroked upward slowly, then slowly back down, watching him shift with little faltering motions like he was trying not to buck up into her hand. His long fingers twitched against his thighs.
“How badly do you want my mouth on you?” she asked, voice skidding into a moan when Arthur hit her g-spot again. She panted a little, rocked back to meet him on the next thrust.
Barrett was staring at her mouth, at her parted lips. “Oh, fuck. A lot. Come on, Jenna.”
Jenna laughed breathlessly, rubbing the palm of her hand over the head of his cock on the next stroke and watching his fingers curl until his hands were fists.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Please,” he breathed, low and heartfelt.
She didn’t answer him, just leaned down and took the head of his cock into her mouth. He swore, voice rough.
They found a rhythm, Jenna moving between Arthur inside her and Barrett in her mouth. When she moaned around him, he shuddered and moaned in echo, and she could feel the tension, the strength it took not to buck up into her mouth. She rewarded him with a long, slow drag of her mouth upward, her tongue pressed to the underside of his cock, and he reached out and caught at the bedding with one hand, fingers white-knuckled. Arthur groaned behind her, deep in a way that sent heat up her spine.
“Can’t begin,” he said, pulling back and rocking in hard, filling her deep. “Can’t begin to tell you how hot you look like that.”
If the new pace was a hint, she thought she might be able to guess. A moan vibrating in her throat, she took Barrett farther, pulled back again, matching the shift in the rhythm that Arthur had set.
They moved together, sounds of pleasure filling the tent. Jenna didn’t think any of them were going to last long, could already feel her body pulling tighter, straining toward the edge. As the motion went on, she felt it falter, Arthur getting closer too. Barrett’s thigh trembled under her wrist.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “’M close, Jen.”
She curled her hand tighter around the base of his cock, and he let his head fall back, his body shuddering. Slowly, she pulled up, lingering at the head to tease with her tongue before she drew back entirely.
Arthur’s arm slid around her waist and pulled her up so that she was in his lap again, her back to his chest, and Jenna dropped her head to his shoulder with a moan when the new position slid him deeper inside her.
Barrett shifted closer when she beckoned him, until they were body to body, almost touching, and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and drew him closer. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, his cock hard against her belly. She reached down between them to curl a hand around it again, stroking in time with the thrusts that rocked her in Arthur’s lap. Barrett’s head dropped down against her shoulder.
“Gonna come?” she asked against his ear, tracing the curve with the tip of her tongue. “Going to make a mess of me?”
He curled a hand around her hip, just above Arthur’s, and his groan was muffled against her shoulder.
“Yeah,” Jenna said, voice catching when her breath did. “Come on. Want to see you do it.”
She stroked him faster, forgetting words as Arthur matched her pace, his hands on her hips guiding her, lifting her easy as though she weighed nothing. She was panting, moans slipping out between breaths, and Arthur’s breath was hot and fast against the back of her shoulder. Barrett was tense and trembling, on the edge of release.
When he came, his teeth closed the curve of her neck, a shock of pleasure-pain that made her gasp. She felt him spilling hot against her stomach, stroked him through it until he shuddered and stilled against her, chest heaving. Arthur’s hand reached down and his fingers pressed against her clit, rubbing fast little circles over it until her hips stuttered against the touch and her fingers clutched at Barrett, until she came in their arms with a soft cry. Arthur followed her over the edge.
Chapter Six
When they remembered how to move again, Arthur got up and got a cloth from his pack, silencing Jenna’s protest that she could clean herself up with a kiss. His hands were gentle. Reasonably clean, they curled together in the sleeping bags. Arthur was still against her back, his arm wrapped around her waist, his leg slipped between hers. Jenna lay with her head on Barrett’s chest, her own arm over him.
“Stay tonight,” Arthur said against the nape of her neck, nipping gently at the place where the vertebrae curved under her skin. “It will be dark soon.”
There was nothing back at her camp that she couldn’t leave until morning, Jenna decided after a thoughtful moment. And it was warm here, wrapped up between them. She didn’t exactly relish the thought of dragging herself from their embrace to dress and hike the three miles back to her camp at dusk.
She stayed that night, and the next morning they went back to her camp together and dismantled it, and she carried her gear back to the
irs.
They hiked during the day, climbing hills and fording icy little streams, sitting together in the afternoon sun and eating their simple meals. They saw moose feeding in the rivers, otters along the coast. Sometimes from a distance, they saw bears feeding in the meadows, and once a trio of wolves, moving through the trees a few hundred yards away, on business of their own.
At night, they went back to the tent. Jenna had never considered how many ways three people could fit together before, but in that week they found a great many of them. She began to dread leaving, and wondered if Arthur and Barrett felt the same.
They had four days left when the entirely unexpected happened.
Chapter Seven
“And if you look at it that way,” Barrett was saying, his arm slipped through Jenna’s as they walked, the sunlight slanting toward dusk, “it’s—”
The bear rose out of the tall grasses with a suddenness that made Jenna take a step back, nearly stumbling over her own feet. Barrett caught her, held her steady.
“Slow,” he said, voice low. “Just back up slow.”
She knew that. Jenna took a step back, Barrett matching her, and from the corner of her eye she saw Arthur do the same. The bear snuffled, rising up onto his hind legs, where he towered over Arthur. Though he took another step back, Jenna thought Barrett looked surprisingly calm. Maybe he was just a better actor than she was. Her heart was racing, her stomach twisting sickly. When the bear took a step forward, Barrett’s arm suddenly left her own, pushed her back behind him. Arthur, ahead of them both, growled, and for a moment she thought it had been the grizzly, but it was definitely Arthur, standing there with his shoulders squared like he intended some kind of challenge.
The bear paused. Looked at Arthur. Then, as Jenna watched, it shifted, and shrank, and became a man. Her jaw dropped open.
“Arthur,” the man who had been a bear said, shaking shaggy blond hair back out of his eyes. “Barrett. Didn’t know you two were back in the park.” He grinned, his eyes sweeping over her. “And who’s the lovely companion?”
Like Arthur and Barrett, he was built big and muscled, though he was heavier than both of them, like he’d been bulking up. Or, she realized, like he was preparing for hibernation. He was also completely naked, and she was glad for the long grass that covered him to the waist.
“Sloan,” Arthur said, polite if a little tight in his throat.
Barrett was looking at her sideways, then back at Sloan and Arthur.
“Jenna,” Arthur said. “This is Sloan. Sloan, this is Jenna, who up to this moment was not aware of the existence of our kind.”
Sloan had the grace to look a little embarrassed. Jenna wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about our kind, about the way Arthur had growled at Sloan and the bear paw tattooed on his chest. She looked at Barrett, whose open expression gave away the rest. Both of them, then.
“Okay,” she said, pleased with the way her voice came out even. “Explain this to me.”
“Well,” Barrett said. “Um.” He looked at Arthur.
“It’s pretty simple,” Arthur said, turning to meet her eyes. He didn’t look upset at being found out. “We’re shape shifters, as you’ve now guessed. Bear shifters, if you want to be exact.
Why didn’t you tell me? The question was almost on her lips before she realized she already knew the answer. Why should they have, when they’d only known her for a week and a half? Sure, she’d told them things about herself, and they’d told her about themselves in return, but she hadn’t told them the secrets that she kept a little closer. Hadn’t told them anything that was likely to upset the easy balance of their camaraderie. Of course they hadn’t told her.
“Okay,” she said again. “That’s… It’s a lot to take in.”
Barrett was looking at her like he wanted to come closer but wasn’t sure he was allowed, and she wasn’t sure if she was going to allow him, understanding of the secrecy or not. But for a grown man who could apparently shapeshift into a bear, he did puppy dog eyes really well. She sighed. Who was she kidding? She lifted a hand and beckoned him closer.
He was there an instant later, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into the warmth of his body. It felt, she thought, the same as it had every other time she’d touched him, and she wondered if she had expected him to feel different now that she knew. As though somehow something of the bear would be suddenly obvious. But the only kind of bear he reminded her of at the moment was a teddy bear. Laughter bubbled up suddenly in her throat.
“Of all the things I expected on this vacation,” she said through it, “this was definitely not on the list.”
Arthur was chuckling, obviously relieved with how well she was taking the news.
“But then,” she admitted, “neither was meeting you.”
Sloan had apparently taken it upon himself to give them privacy, because he’d ambled off a little way, and she watched as between one step and the next man became bear, dropping down to all fours and strolling through the high grass toward the mudflats. Jenna stared after him for a moment, not sure if she was actually calm or if she was just in shock, before she pulled her attention back to Arthur and Barrett.
“You two have a lot of explaining to do.”
Chapter Eight
Arthur did most of the talking as they walked back toward camp, explaining how shape shifters existed in the legends of nearly every culture, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Most real shape shifters were just people, trying to get on with their lives. There weren’t many of them, he told her as he continued. And there were even fewer who moved between worlds the way he and Barrett did. Many tried to stay completely human, for fear of being discovered changing. Others, like Sloan, took it the opposite direction, living almost entirely as animals. He had grown up on Admiralty Island, among shifters who lived that way, but the human world had always intrigued him too much for him to leave it entirely alone.
“That’s why he’s bigger,” Barrett said, the curve of his mouth a little rueful. “He grew up on the Alaskan coast.”
“I happen to like you the size you are,” Jenna said, pleased to see his expression brighten.
She had a lot of questions. Wanted to ask them what it was like to be a bear. Whether they still thought like humans in their animal shape, or if it was harder. Arthur told her that in the bear shape thoughts took simpler forms, and the longer a shifter stayed as a bear, the longer it took them to come back to human thought patterns. Some of them, the ones like Sloan, eventually chose to never come back at all.
They made dinner, cooking out over an open fire rather than over her camp stove, and when it was cleaned up and they had returned to the tent, they stretched out on the sleeping bags side by side, and Jenna’s thoughts turned from bears to Sunday, when she would be leaving.
She didn’t want to go. There was still so much to see. So much to learn about the men she was coming to think of as hers. So much to share. As though he knew what she was thinking, Arthur rolled over and wrapped an arm around her, drawing her close. Barrett slid nearer on her other side, curling his arm over her stomach, below where Arthur’s arm rested.
“What are you thinking about?”
Jenna took a breath and let it out again slowly. “About having to leave,” she admitted. “I don’t want to.”
They looked at each other over her head for a moment, and then Barrett leaned down and kissed her, slow and soft, his palm against her cheek. When he pulled back, he smiled, small and a little crooked, but there.
“I’ve never been to Iowa.”
Her eyes lifted to his face. “Would you?”
“Of course we would,” Arthur said from her other side. His arm tightened. “I don’t let go of things I want that easily.”
Jenna looked up into two pairs of brown eyes, both of them looking back at her with an affection she had hoped she wasn’t alone in feeling, and she drew them down close to her.
“My home will always be open.”
> And maybe it wouldn’t be that simple, she thought, tipping her head back against the sleeping bags as Barrett pressed his mouth to her throat, the motion echoed by Arthur on the other side. Relationships were never simple, not with two people, certainly not with three. But that was the beauty of them, wasn’t it?
She lifted her hands, tangled them in thick, soft hair as the kisses continued, moving slowly downward.
Maybe in two months they would realize that it didn’t work. That the time and the distance were too much, or that a shifter and a human couldn’t really work out. But for reasons she couldn’t really put a name to, Jenna didn’t think that would happen. What they had here, right now, it was something special. She raised her arms so they could lift her shirt over her head, wrapping them around two pairs of broad shoulders as she lowered them.
Arthur, the photographer, so focused; Barrett, so surprisingly sweet behind that shy exterior; and her, the soon-to-be ranger who’d stumbled upon more than one completely unexpected thing in a windswept park on the southeastern tip of Alaska—they made something good together. Something right. And whatever happened tomorrow, she thought as she lifted her hips for Arthur and Barrett to skim her jeans down her legs, they had today. These hours in a tent in bear country.
And then she stopped thinking about tomorrow, and about next month or the month after, and gave her attention to the moment, and the men who were leaning down over her, their touch warm on her skin. She smiled into two pairs of brown eyes, and gave herself over to the hands and the heat and the soft sounds of three people together in a tent—warm and lit against the chill fall night. Thinking could happen later. Right now, there were better things to do.
THE END
By the way, have you solved this book’s Riddle?
Q: Give me food and I will live. Give me water and I will die. What am I?
>>See answer
Abducted by the Dragon King
