Animal Attraction (17 page)

THE THREE OF US MOVED TOWARD OUR GOAL IN UNISON. ONCE WEreached the pile of cushions, they sandwiched me between them while we were still standing. Zach facing me, David pressing into my back, both of them framing me with the heat of their bodies.

I ran my hands over Zach, caught by the lines of muscle, the sheer harnessed power in his body. I rubbed myself against David and felt intoxicated by the slide of his skin against mine.

A sudden insecurity struck me and I moved into Zach. “Is it okay?”

“Is what okay? Having an audience again? Letting you be on top this time? Having you between us?”

I shook my head. “Being last.”

“Seems fair.” Zach’s lips brushed against my forehead. “I was first.”

First and last. The rightness of it resonated in me.

“Zach.” His name trembled on my lips. He bent his head and kissed my voice away. His hands moved down to cup my breasts. David’s teeth raked the back of my neck and took a sharp nip at the nape that made my body clench in expectancy.

It was heaven to stand between them, being touched by both of them. And then pleasure twisted into an inferno of need. I took a long, shuddering breath, trying to calm my thundering heart and to draw this out just a little longer.

I wanted to touch them and be touched by them, to take time to kiss and hold one another. My body screamed that it wouldn’t be enough. I had to have more. Now.

The conflict showed in my face. Zach let his hands slide down to my waist, a more neutral caress. “What do you need?”

I gave a faint shake of my head. “Too much.”
Breathe. Breathe
. “I want to go slow, and I don’t think I can. I feel like I’m on a runaway train, rushing forward, and I can’t find the brakes.”

“It’s okay.” His hands moved around to my lower back to press me closer.

“I would slow down if I could. I want to touch you everywhere and take you in my mouth. But I can’t. I’m being selfish. I’m sorry.”

“Not selfish.” Zach nuzzled me.

“Zach.” I belonged to him. I belonged to both of them, and I needed both of them to take me. “David. Now. Please, now.”

They eased me down. David supported me while Zach arranged himself on his back. The two of them lifted me and helped me settle onto Zach, my upper body resting on his, my knees on either side of him. David’s hands moved over the round swell of my butt. Zach’s stroked my shoulders. I shifted on him, feeling a restless urge to move.

David smoothed something cool and slick over my anus. I let out a soft moan and pushed up, offering myself, inviting more. His lubricated finger slowly penetrated, withdrew, returned, the action readying me and arousing the fever inside of me to an almost unbearable degree.

I slid up until I felt Zach’s erect penis align with my entry. The urge to push back and down and sheathe his flesh with mine made me tremble. I needed Zach inside me again, but I needed both of them to enter me together. So I waited and sank my teeth into my lower lip while David positioned himself. I felt the head of his cock, slick with lubrication, make contact and then press forward as if eager to claim another part of me.

“Now.” I said it in a low voice, but they heard me. I let them direct this step. Even relaxed and ready, it might be an effort to accept the dual invasion that would join all three of us together.

Zach began to push inside my sheath as David worked into me from behind. Tissue stretched and heightened the sensation of indescribable fullness. They were slow and careful and penetrated me by inches, giving me time to adjust and accept the reality of two cocks thrusting into me. When they were both inside me all the way, I rested on Zach and blinked back the sting of tears.

This was what I wanted. The two of them taking me, claiming me, fucking me. Burning out the fever in my blood.

“All right?” Zach asked the question, his voice rumbling deep in his chest under my ear.

“No.” I carefully levered myself up to look into his face. “I’m not all right. You’re both too still.”

Amber fire leaped in his eyes, but he didn’t move. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me.” I lowered myself back down, caressing his chest with my lips. My voice sounded soft and dreamy in contrast to the words that spilled out to inflame them. “Fuck me so hard I can’t take it. Make me come screaming from the force of David’s cock fucking me from behind while yours fucks me in front.”

David let out a guttural groan behind me. His cock pulsed in my anal passage. Zach surged up under me, making me take him even deeper, the head of his cock bumping the opening to my womb.

They began to move and established a rhythm that sent first Zach’s swollen shaft as far inside me as I could take it while David pulled back. Then David thrust forward to fill me while Zach stroked out as far as the knot allowed. The pattern repeated endlessly. Both of them taking turns plunging into me while neither ever left me. They thrust slowly at first, then harder and faster as they caught my feverish response.

“Yes. Yes. Like that,” I moaned in abandon. “More, Zach. Oh, David. Yes.”

“Want you.” David’s harsh whisper filled my ear as he drove home, burying himself in me with fierce hunger.

“I’ll give you more,” Zach gritted, and did with a force that made me gasp.

My lovers. For this moment they were mine, and I took them into my body, over and over, welcoming the joint claim they made on me. They were mine, and they made me theirs, and I surrendered myself to both of them. Urgency gripped all three of us, escalating into a frenzied mating. Zach’s cock throbbed inside me as orgasm approached. An answering pressure told me David was on the edge, too. Knowing they were both going to spill themselves into me made my inner muscles spasm, and then all of us went together into a white heat.

I lost time somewhere. When I could hear and see and feel again, I was lying on my belly in the pillows, with Zach and David braced on either side of me. Hands stroked my body, smoothed my hair. Bare flesh warmed me. I swallowed hard and raised my head, finding myself eye to eye with David. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He kissed the tip of my nose.

“What happened?” I asked. Then I blushed dark red as I remembered every explicit word I’d said to them and the porn star performance I’d carried out, and added, “I mean, besides the obvious.”

His face was solemn. “Did you know if you come hard enough you can pass out?”

I blinked. “No. Did you?”

“Almost.”

Zach stroked the nape of my neck in a caress that sent pleasurable shivers down my spine. “You got the brunt of it since you were in the middle,” he said.

I blew out a breath. “You’re both just trying to make me feel better about swooning like some Victorian maiden.” Of course, any Victorian maiden probably would’ve swooned just imagining today’s events.

It seemed almost like a fever dream now, surreal. Except that I was still naked. With two naked men touching me as if they had the right. I rolled over so I could look at both of them more easily, and that gave me a wider view of the empty library. “Where’d everybody else go?”

“Dining room. Jack ordered in dinner.” Zach kissed me, the warm pressure of his lips on mine sending a very nice zing to my center.

“Is it over?”

“Yes.” Zach’s hand settled on my belly, caressed, slid lower to cup my mound. David stroked my breasts. My nipples tightened at his touch and my whole body gave a happy sigh of remembered satisfaction.

“I don’t want either of you to go, yet.”

Zach petted my tender flesh with gentle fingers. “We’re not going anywhere. Except to the tub. When you’re ready.”

“Clean up first, then eat?”

“Yep.”

We got to our feet and made our way to the waiting tub. I sank in up to my chin with a groan. “That feels so good.”

Now that I wasn’t sex crazed I could feel a thousand little aches from all that unaccustomed exertion, and every one of them wanted to be soothed.

“Overdid it, wild thing?” David climbed in and pulled me into his lap.

“Mm, no. Did it just right.” I kissed his chin, feeling silly with happiness because he was still there, holding me, touching me.

“Sure?” He ran his hand over the curve of my ass.

“Sure.” I snuggled closer. “I think I blew out every pleasure receptor in my brain, but it was worth it.”

Zach moved up behind me to kiss my bare shoulder. His quiet voice struck into my heart like Cupid’s arrow. “No regrets?”

I felt a pang as that fragile organ felt pierced all over again, buried the reaction, and shook my head. “No.”

We all washed, helping one another more than we hindered the process, but with plenty of lingering touches. By the time we dried off, I felt composed enough to face dinner with my eleven lovers.

Somebody had left us clothes. David handed me soft white terry pants with flared legs that rode low on my hips and a matching sleeveless top that left my midriff bare and zipped closed between my breasts.

“No underwear?” I asked him with the shirt gaping open.

“No.”

I shrugged. We’d all be naked again soon to change more than our clothes. Going commando would just save time. David took the bottom of my shirt and matched up the zipper, then pulled the tab up, trailing his hand between my breasts in the process.

I drew in a breath. “Thanks.”

I felt Zach’s arm slide around my waist and leaned into him. The guys were shirtless, wearing loose pants. I reached for David’s hand. After a beat of hesitation he gripped my extended fingers, letting me hold his hand while I walked arm in arm with Zach to the dining room.

Zach seated me and stood with his hands on my shoulders until he was sure I would be okay at the opposite end of the table from him. David released my hand as soon as we came into the room as if formally relinquishing any claim on me.

My official choice might as well have been announced already, but as far as I could tell, nobody minded. A celebratory mood filled the room and I found the party atmosphere contagious. There was enough food piled on the table to feed an army.

I looked at my own heaping plate. “I’m supposed to eat all this?” I asked Nathan, since I didn’t trust myself to talk to David.

“Yes.” He surprised me with his serious expression and the emphatic tone of his voice. “You have to have enough energy to fuel your transformation.”

Oh. Right.

Nathan saw my expression and leaned closer to touch my hand. “It’s a little scary the first time, but then it’s fun. You’ll see.” He smiled at me, enthusiasm dancing in his eyes.

Sounded like a description of sex. I took a bite and discovered a voracious appetite. When I found myself staring in disbelief at my empty plate a few minutes later, Nathan just laughed and offered to refill it.

When the plates were cleared away, the conversational volume rose until Zach stood and waved us all to our feet again. But this time we weren’t going outside for dancing. The guys started to discard clothing. I swallowed hard, but it wasn’t due to the now-familiar sight of nude male flesh. This was it. Time to unleash the beast that prowled eagerly under my skin.

A FINE TENSION TOOK ME AND MADE MY HANDS AWKWARD ON MY ZIPper. I managed to get it stuck, so I gave up and pulled the midriff top off still zipped. Pants next. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I folded the clothes neatly and stacked them on my chair.

The electric hum I’d sensed first when all the wolves were in one room together intensified. My skin itched and I felt a dull ache begin in my muscles.

Everybody else had taken a place on the floor, and I remembered David in a sort of modified runner’s crouch before he’d shown me his other shape. Only yesterday. So much change since then, it felt like a week ago.

I crouched down and concentrated on breathing. I had to stretch, so I did, and I felt an odd ripple go through me, as if I was trying to use muscles this shape didn’t have. Another stretch failed to provide relief. The ache became a burn, like a muscle fatigued beyond its limit continuing to work. Tendons and ligaments in my arms lengthened, while my legs contracted. My spine softened and shifted. Hands and feet shrank and re-formed. I closed my eyes, afraid to see myself midway through the transformation, and felt the change in my nose and jaw. My whole body shuddered as the beast burst out, and then I was on four paws, shaking myself.

Excitement rose up. Free! I opened my eyes and looked for my packmates. A black wolf waited beside me. David. An auburn pelt caught my eye and a playful Jack came to crouch in front of me, shoulders down, nose almost to his front paws, then bouncing back up, body language saying, 
Isn’t this fun?

I sprang at him to agree, and we tumbled over in a flurry of limbs. Zach padded over and nuzzled me and I sat up, embarrassed that he’d caught us roughhousing inside like a pair of puppies. I let out a soft whine of apology. Zach touched his nose to mine, then stood shoulder to shoulder with me. I felt the readiness in his muscles, and remembered his earlier challenge to race.

Ah. I knew the way out, and I knew this game. I took off and found that my new body cornered with better speed than I expected. Zach kept pace with me easily, then let me take the lead, but I knew the real race would happen outside. I heard running paws behind us, and then we were going through the solarium, over the moon tiles, and out into the night.

The full moon and the glitter of stars made it easy to see obstacles. I also found my night vision sharpened, like I’d gained more shades of gray. It was so pretty, I wanted to sing, so I did, and then we all sang together. Our combined voices sent shivers through me. I felt fierce, exultant, joyful. This was where I belonged.

The song died away. Zach took my right and David my left. They dared me silently with their eyes. I didn’t need any encouragement. My muscles hummed in eagerness to run with them, swift and strong.

I leaped forward. They leaped with me, and we became blurs of speed and grace gilded by moonlight. We reached the woods, and I began to dart between trees, changing the race to a game of catch me if you can. They bounded after me, and I eluded them, all the while laughing inside and knowing sooner or later one of them would leap out at me to tumble me into an undignified heap.

Except before either of them could, a dark shape sleeker than a wolf pounced.

Panther,
 
my mind said. 
Invader,
 
the wolf snarled.
Enemy. Threat. Attack!
 
I struggled to contain the impulse. Wait for Zach or David, see if there are more of them, call the pack. But the panther wanted to fight, and then I had to dance after all.

I felt a weird disconnect when the wolf mind pointed out new strike zones to aim for instead of human weaknesses. My wolf body seemed to have muscle memory that didn’t match the ingrained techniques carried in my human form.

I knew how to fight on two legs. If I tried to direct myself like a human on four legs, this was likely to end badly.

David’s words came back to me. 
You are the wolf.

Okay, then. Get out of the way; let the wolf fight as a wolf. Instinct came to my rescue, and I let my body move with the speed and agility that came from muscle and reflex instead of conscious decision.

I didn’t want to kill. The panther was a person under the fur, and even if he’d come to kill me, I only wanted to wound or disable. But when my jaws locked on his neck, it was hard to go against the urge to bite down harder. I fought the instinct that had saved me and held him instead. Help couldn’t be far off.

Now that we were frozen in a weird tableau, I heard other sounds of fighting in the night and understood why Zach or David hadn’t already appeared. They were fighting their own battles. The werepanthers must’ve picked tonight to invade in force. Why, I couldn’t imagine. Unless they thought I’d be more vulnerable in my first change, unaccustomed to my new body, and the men would be distracted and tired because of my presence.

And I hadn’t named a new leader yet.

A new thought struck me. Had the werepanther aggression begun after the rogue wolves left the pack? Was there a bastard wolf named Ray behind all this, looking for his chance to seize control?

The idea that he might’ve been waiting years in the grip of some sick obsession creeped me out. I needed to talk to Zach and David about that.

In the meantime, I had to figure out what to do with the cat I’d bagged. I couldn’t hold him forever. If I let him go, he might continue the fight. I didn’t want to become a murderer, but I didn’t want to die, either.

The solution to my dilemma appeared from a blade of grass. I watched him grow this time and thought from my new perspective that I’d never seen anything more wonderful.

The lord of the forest. He looked like one from animal eyes. If I’d been free to move, I think I would have lain on the ground at his feet and rolled over to expose my throat.

“Now I get to rescue you again.” He smiled at me, cheerful as if the prospect entertained him. He turned his attention to the panther, and the beast I had pinned shuddered. “You don’t belong here. These are my woods. My wolves.”

His voice vibrated with power and command. I felt all the fight go out of the cat.

“Go.”

The panther obeyed, almost faster than I could loose him, fleeing into the night.

“This trouble must end.” The Leshii came forward and put his hand on my head. “You’d better let the boys finish it, though. I’ll tell your alpha I’ve sent you home. You shouldn’t be fighting in your condition.”

I turned that one over, puzzled. What condition? First change? Tired from the day’s exertions?

The Leshii rubbed one of my ears. “Ah, I see you didn’t know. My two red wolves have made a red pup.”

I pretty much had instant heart failure. Without four feet to balance me, I might have fallen over from shock. Jack? I was having a baby with Jack? How could I name him as my mate when I knew in my soul I belonged to Zach?

Either the Leshii was a mind reader or furry faces were easy for him to interpret. “You can’t choose Jack. Red wolves are special, gifted. In tribal terms, he’s the pack’s shaman. You can’t make him king. He can’t abandon his gifts or his responsibilities to take on that role.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.
 
Pregnant. Not Zach’s, not even David’s. Can’t marry the father. Can’t marry anybody else, but I’d have to name a king or there’d be trouble. Inside the pack, as well as outside the pack.

I trembled under the joint weight of fatigue and an unsolvable dilemma. Distress made my body falter. I collapsed on the ground, curled in a ball, and sometime later realized I was wearing skin again.

“What am I going to do?” I asked the question out loud, not expecting an answer.

“The right thing,” the Leshii answered, as if that should have been obvious.

“I don’t know what that is.” My voice sounded small and hopeless.

“You will. You’re special, too.”

Special. I wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny and the laughter would probably turn to hysteria before it ended in tears. And I couldn’t summon the energy to have a breakdown just now. Maybe later.

Tomorrow, talk to Zach and David. Name a king. Buy a book of baby names. Think of something to tell my parents. Then I could have a nervous breakdown. Except it might be bad for the baby. 
Hell.

I let the lord of the forest take me home. Nobody else was back yet, and I was relieved. I didn’t want to face any of them. I went up to my suite and took a shower, too tired for the tub. Afterward, I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to see if the change in me was obvious.

My own eyes stared back at me, darker than normal but otherwise the same. My face looked chalky, but redheads are always pale. My body didn’t look any different.

“You’ll do the right thing,” I told my reflection. Sure.

I left the bathroom and spotted my purse in the bedroom on the nightstand. Somebody must’ve brought it up for me. Thoughtful. I opened it and dug out my packet of birth control pills. I could take the rest of the tablets all at once, the college girl’s morning-after solution. I threw them in the trash instead.

Bed drew me like a magnet. I climbed in naked, pulled the covers up to my chin, and longed to pull the pillow over my head for good measure.

When I woke up, I was warm and safe and secure and everything felt right. I wasn’t alone in the big bed. Zach’s body curled around mine from behind, his arm over my rib cage tucking me close.

I rolled over to burrow into him, wrapping my arms around him, sliding one foot over his calf. “Mmm.” I nuzzled the curve of his throat. “Good morning. Or is it still night?”

“Does it matter?” Zach’s voice held a tone I didn’t have to work very hard to interpret. I could feel his penis pressing against my belly, full and thick and eager.

“Not if we don’t have to get up.” I reached down to close my hand around his shaft, exploring the length and breadth of that part of him, all male heat and hardness and silky smooth skin drawn taut.

His hands moved over me, cupping the bare curve of my butt, stroking the swell of my breast. Our mutual search widened. There were so many planes and angles to discover, so many tastes and textures. He liked it when I stroked the back of his neck with fingers so light they barely made contact, and he growled when I raked my nails over his muscular butt.

His lips settled on mine as he slid a hand between my thighs and cupped my mound. His fingers caressed the hidden folds with a light touch. “How does that feel?”

“Like there should be more,” I answered, smiling against his mouth. And then there was. He rolled me onto my back underneath him, covered my body with his, settled his legs between mine. I felt him probe at my soft, slick entry, and gave a low moan of encouragement.

He entered me slowly, pressing home in an unrushed stroke, allowing my sex to stretch and open and accommodate him by degrees until I held all of him.

Not all of him,
 
some corner of me whispered. I shoved the thought away. I had this much of him. I wound myself around Zach, embracing him with arms and legs in addition to the most intimate embrace of flesh that joined us.

The knot swelled, and my breath caught. Zach’s mouth claimed mine again. He began to move inside me, gentle, careful strokes, a leisurely lovemaking to make up for yesterday’s impatient, aggressive lust. The sweetness of it made my throat ache and my eyes burn.

He took me in a rhythm that was easy to match and follow, his body rocking on mine and driving him deep. He took me with kisses that drew me closer and closer to some invisible brink. He took me with thorough attention to detail that left no part of me unclaimed. Flesh to flesh, heart to heart, breath to breath, he took me, and I surrendered myself to him.