Acceptable Risk (12 page)

“What happens if he can’t?”

Jonathan was still and quiet a few seconds, and
finally answered, “I don’t know. He can’t survive in his old job
yet, he doesn’t have enough control. He can work for Aaron in a few
months, because Aaron will know what he can and can’t handle, and
will send him with other wolves who can help him out before he
loses control. If he’s on his own in a foreign country, spying on
the enemy….” He shrugged. “It’s a high stress job with no place to
hide if he loses control, and our inner animals don’t deal well
with threats, especially those we aren’t free to act upon.”

* * * *

The next couple of days were maddening, and
Bethany wondered how she’d come to depend so much on having these
three guys around in a few short days. She felt as if they’d taken
a piece of her with them, and her house seemed empty with just her
and Snowy.

Jonathan called her in the evenings, but she’d
known there would be no communication with Ranger or Mac while they
were in Washington. She missed them — missed their voices, their
touch. And she worried.

Bethany had dinner with Gen and told her
everything
, even the bondage stuff, and her friend’s face
flamed more and more crimson with each decadent detail.

“I see Duke hasn’t cured you of blushing when
someone talks about sex,” she teased as she poured Gen another
glass of wine.

“You didn’t just have sex with them! You let
them whip you!”

“Yeah, I did,” she said, suddenly serious. “And
even though it hurt, if they ask me to let them do it again, and
I’m horny enough when they ask, I’ll let them.” Bethany shook her
head as she tried to figure out how to explain why — both to
herself as well as her friend. “It was this violently beautiful
thing, and when it was over, I felt so
close
to them. Like
when you see people in the movies who go through an awful
experience together and it brings them closer? Only this wasn’t a
bad experience — it was this special moment in time that fused us
together. It branded them into my life and me into theirs. A huge,
shared experience.” She took a long drink of wine as she realized
it was impossible to explain.

“Can I see the bruises?”

Bethany nodded and pulled her shirt down so Gen
could see one of them on her inner breast. “He hit the outside kind
of in the center, but aimed so the ones on the inside don’t show
when I wear a low-cut blouse. Do you know how much skill that would
take?”

She let go of her shirt and picked the wine
glass back up, waiting for her friend’s reaction.

“I find myself both repulsed and a little turned
on, so I guess I can’t blame you for being okay with it. I don’t
get it, but then I guess I don’t have to. If you’re happy then I’m
happy for you.” Gen smiled, her face still red, and lifted her
glass as she said, “You were the one who wanted a harem, after
all.”

* * * *

Jonathan continued to call every evening, but
his only news was, “Aaron’s working on it.”

At lunch one day, while eating alone with her
Kindle, an old client asked if he could sit at Bethany’s table. A
football player for the local university, Billy is so many levels
beyond hot he’s
scorching
. He’d been off limits while he was
her patient, but now…

Bethany sighed as she suddenly felt trapped by
her men instead of happy, and she motioned for him to have a
seat.

The conversation stayed friendly and social at
first, as she asked him how his shoulder and back were doing, and
when practice started, and the classes he was taking this
semester.

When he asked her to dinner, she wasn’t
really
considering it. She didn’t tell him no right away,
but mainly because she wasn’t used to spending her evenings alone
and she truly had no plans. Still, something must have pinged
somewhere because Ranger called, and it’d been so long since she’d
heard from him she didn’t care how rude it was to answer while
eating lunch with someone else.

“Please don’t do it,” Ranger said. “I know we’ve
left you alone longer than any of us intended, but hopefully we’ll
be home in a few days.”

When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’m
good and Mac’s surviving. They aren’t keeping him isolated anymore,
so I know firsthand how he’s doing, which is a relief, but please
don’t ask anything else.”

Right, because they should assume his calls were
being monitored. “I wasn’t going to, Ranger, but it’s good to hear
your voice. I’ll see you in a few days. Take care of both of
you.”

When she hung up, the studly football player
smiled as he said, “My ego isn’t that fragile, you could’ve told me
you’re seeing someone.”

“Sorry. We hadn’t been seeing each other long
when he got called out of town unexpectedly, so I’m not absolutely
sure where we are with each other, but I’m thinking it’s best if I
don’t go out with anyone else until we figure it out.”

He shook his head. “You care for him, it was
written all over your face.” He smiled mischievously as he said,
“And you have magical hands, so he’s a lucky man. I just hope he
knows it.”

Three days later, Bethany looked at her GPS
app’s
time to destination
yet again, wishing she could drive
faster on these damned curvy, country, mountain roads.

Mac and Ranger had flown into town and driven
straight to a rental cabin in the middle of nowhere, as apparently
the surrounding woods were safe for wolves to run without danger of
encountering humans. The front door had a keypad and they’d told
her to use the last four digits of Ranger’s cellphone number to get
in. There was a good chance they’d still be wolf when she
arrived.

The full moon was close, so Mac would be kept
away from Bethany for a while, and would need to remain near the
door so he could hit the woods if he lost control. They could be in
the same room, but no snuggling and absolutely no sex for at least
a week.

Bethany drove faster on a straightaway, knowing
she’d probably care later she couldn’t have sex with him, but right
now she just wanted to see him, talk to him, make sure he was
okay.

Make sure they were
all
okay.

It was Friday, but she’d called her four
appointments for tomorrow and moved two to today, one to Monday,
and arranged for another therapist to work on the other one
tomorrow. She never put her personal life before her patients, and
was aware the fact she’d done so meant these particular men were
more than a passing fling. The ache in her heart should’ve told
her, but she’d stopped listening to her heart a decade ago.
However, the fact she’d moved appointments around so she could see
her men was confirmation she was in way over her head.

A note on the kitchen counter told her to make
herself at home, pointed out there was wine as well as margarita
ingredients in the refrigerator, along with some of her favorite
foods, and gave her the wi-fi password. Mac signed it, and she
realized if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have known which of them wrote
it.

She didn’t know what their handwriting looked
like, their shoe sizes, how many siblings they had, or their
favorite colors. She knew none of them snored, knew their favorite
foods, and knew their deepest, darkest secrets, but there was so
much missing in between.

Her men weren’t here, but Mac and Ranger’s
things were in the bedroom, and her heart warmed just knowing they
were close and could walk in the door at any moment. She put her
suitcase next to theirs, made a margarita, and stepped onto the
screened in back porch to see a hot tub under a cover. Smiling, she
went in search of towels, put her e-reader in a plastic protective
case, took her clothes off, then the cover off, turned the jets on,
and sank into the warm water with her drink and a book.

She’d been soaking for perhaps thirty minutes
when two beautiful wolves came through a doggie door onto the
porch.

They were both charcoal and rust, and
huge
. She settled her drink and e-reader on the side and
leaned towards the edge so she could look down at them easier.

“Well, hello to both of you. Do you need me to
get you a bowl of water or something?”

One of the wolves took a step towards her,
hunched in a little, and morphed into Ranger.

“I think I’ll get myself a beer, do you need a
refill?” he asked, but she was out of the water and into his arms
as he finished his sentence.

“God, I missed both of you. I’d hug Mac, too, if
it was safe.”

“I think it’s safe right now. We’ve had a long
run and he knows who he is.”

She let go of Ranger and took a few steps
towards the wolf. His head was at an odd angle, so she sat on the
edge of a chair and offered her hand. The wolf looked at Ranger,
then back to her, closed his eyes, hunched in, and slowly turned
into Mac the human.

It looked painful, and took close to a minute,
where Ranger had near-instantly morphed from one form to another in
a handful of seconds.

When Mac was a man, Bethany stood and walked to
him slowly, and he put his arms around her, pulled her into his
warm embrace, and squeezed her tight. They were all naked, but this
wasn’t sexual, it was lovers who’d missed each other, and yet they
were all being careful.

The relationship was too new when they’d
separated, so the reunion didn’t have them jumping straight into
bed.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her heart reaching
towards Mac’s, her soul aching to be closer even though she was
wrapped in the strength of his arms.

“He’s managed to
change
from wolf to
human twice now, both times for you,” Ranger told her. “And this
time was near the full moon when his control sucks.”

Mac kept his arms around her, but looked to
Ranger and said, “My wolf likes her, and seems to understand she
isn’t safe around him in physical form. Or, he doesn’t understand
why, but he believes me, I guess, and he lets me take over so we
can be around her.”

“Twice,” Mac said as he looked at her, his eyes
dark with a bad memory, “I was locked in an interrogation room
during a debrief, and I remembered your hands on my shoulders when
I nearly lost control. My wolf doesn’t deal well with enclosed
spaces and he wanted to eat the man interrogating me. It was close,
but
you
pulled me back.”

“You’re back for good?” she asked, as they
hadn’t told her anything except the cabin’s address, and the fact
they could run in the woods naked here if they wanted — code to let
her know they could run as wolves.

“There’s some fine print saying I can be
recalled if I have an established relationship with someone vital
to the nation’s security, but otherwise, yeah, and I’d owe Aaron
big time even if he hadn’t been on his honeymoon.”

She pulled out of his arms, wrapped herself in a
towel, collected her things, and went into the house. Ranger
chuckled as they followed her in. “What’s with the towel?”

“It’s chilly in here, and I’m wet. Mac kept me
warm while I was in his arms, but I want another drink.”

Bethany donned jeans and a t-shirt, and the men
put jeans on but stayed shirtless, and they all worked together to
make homemade pizza. She watched in amazement as Ranger worked and
spun the dough. He talked her through trying it and she didn’t do
too badly, but he took over and finished it off with the four
circles on four pans.

They were cutting the toppings and arranging
them when Jonathan arrived, and she met him on the front porch,
flying into his arms with the knowledge he’d catch her.

He caught and lifted her, and she wrapped her
arms and legs around him, put her head on his shoulders, and was
happy to finally have all of her men in the same place again.

Jonathan buried his face in her neck and
breathed deep before saying, “I missed you too, Raggedy. You smell
like pizza, and I’m thinking someone should come up with pizza
cologne, ‘cause I’m suddenly hard as a rock.”

“Talk first, preferably while we eat, then the
fucking!” Ranger shouted from the kitchen.

Bethany laughed and muttered, “Damned
supernatural hearing,” and then used a normal voice to ask, “How
was your trip?”

“Uneventful, thank goodness.” He walked inside
with her still glued to his front, and she got down as they reached
the kitchen. She got him a beer as he did the one-armed man-hug
thing with both Ranger and Mac, and then she went back to helping
create the pizzas.

“So who did you almost have sex with,
Raggedy?”

Her head jerked to Jonathan and her face flamed
hot. “I didn’t almost have sex with him! I was eating lunch alone
and he asked if he could join me. He’s an ex-patient, and he asked
me to dinner. I wasn’t going to have sex with him, just wondering
if
dinner
would be okay.”

She looked at Ranger accusingly, wondering why
he’d told everyone, but Jonathan said, “We all knew when you were
considering it. Mac and Ranger were together, and Mac texted me to
let me know Ranger was calling you, so we wouldn’t both call at the
same time. His text came through as I was about to hit send on my
phone.”

She shook her head and looked down, embarrassed.
“I wasn’t planning to have sex, just considering whether to accept
his offer for dinner.”

“Yeah, so you said. Who is he?” His voice wasn’t
angry, but Bethany could tell he wasn’t happy, and had a feeling
the cat wanted answers as much as the man.

They’d smell a lie, but she had no reason to be
dishonest. “He’s a UTC football player, way too young for me, and
our entire conversation was about him, but I’m not used to going
home alone every evening. I did things with Gen several nights, but
I don’t want to intrude on her and Duke too much.”