Animal Attraction (19 page)

I didn’t so much fall asleep as shut off, too overwhelmed to cope with anything else, retreating into healing oblivion.

And when I woke up, David was the one who held me.

“LET GO OF ME.” I SHOULD’VE HAD THE STRENGTH TO MOVE AWAY ON my own, but I felt too numb inside, too drained. I lacked the will to break free of the touch that was heaven and hell all in one.

“Make me.”

I closed my eyes. Maybe it would be better if I couldn’t see him. “Don’t, David. Unless Zach kicks me out and throws me to the panthers, we’re packmates. We have to deal with each other. That would be easier if you didn’t torture me.”

“This is torture?”

“Yes. I didn’t think you were a sadist.”

“Tell me.” He moved into me, pressing his body against mine. “Tell me how this tortures you.”

Oh, let me count the ways.
 
“You don’t want me, so putting your hands on me is just mean. I can stand it if you don’t touch me, but if you do, I can’t help wanting you. I hate myself for it, but that doesn’t make it stop, so you have to. Stop. Just stop, and don’t ever touch me.”

I ended on a high-pitched note of desperation. Heat curled through me and my body trembled with the unfulfilled urge to get closer, to tear away the towel that covered me, push away the comforter, and press my naked flesh against his.

“I like touching you.” His hands shaped my breasts. I sucked in a breath. The fabric separating us wasn’t thick enough to ward off the sharp sword of desire that had me at the pointy end.

“Stop.” But my body was moving in invitation, back arching to offer my breasts to his touch, nipples tightening.

“You don’t want me to.” He pulled down the comforter, tugged away the questionable protection of my towel. I couldn’t move. I just lay there while he looked at my naked body, aching for him to touch me again, praying for him not to.

“Why are you doing this? What did I ever do to you?”

“What did you do to me?” His face darkened. “You made me want you. You made me burn for something I can’t have. I don’t want to want you.” He pushed me onto my back and rose over me, and I realized he was naked when he settled on top of me. My heart pounded. He felt so good. Too good.

“I don’t want to want you, either.” The words came out soft and throaty. I sounded as sex drugged as I felt. If he didn’t let me up, this was going to end with him inside me. “Why are you doing this, David?”

His body rocked on mine, and I moved in response, breath catching as we aligned. His hard shaft probed between my legs. So close. His answer came in a low growl. “Zach thinks I may be your mate.”

Zach. He’d done this to me? Set me up, left me defenseless against my own body’s craving? Betrayal pierced me. I’d never expected Zach to love me back. I’d said the words; he hadn’t. I still would’ve sworn he wouldn’t betray me like this.

“No.” Tears stung my eyes. “Zach said it was a choice of heart, not hormones.”

“Is that all this is? Hormones?” David shifted, and the ridge of his head pressed into me.

I couldn’t stand it. I wanted him. I needed him inside me. In another heartbeat, he would be. I had to stop this now. “Yes. No. How the hell should I know?” I shouted the words as I tried to twist away. “Don’t do this to me, David.”

“Don’t do what? Make you face what you feel?” He rolled to the side and I thought it was a respite, but then his hand was between my legs.

“Lust. I feel lust.” I closed my eyes, wanting to shut him out even as his fingers slid in, my slick and swollen sex offering no resistance.

“Nothing else?” He lowered his head to draw a nipple into his mouth. He tongued and suckled while his fingers pushed deeper into me and I wanted every tormenting sensation his hands and mouth could give me.

“Self-loathing.” I couldn’t stop myself, and I couldn’t stop him, either. “Betrayal.” Zach had given me to David like I was an impulse purchase and he had buyer’s remorse. I’d told him I loved him, poured my heart out to him, and he’d sent David to fuck me.

David released my nipple and raked the curve of my breast with his teeth, making me gasp. “Get over it.”

Oh, if only I could. “It’s not your baby, if that’s what this is about.”

“I know. Zach told me.” He kissed the slope of my other breast. “I wouldn’t have pinned you this morning if I’d known. That won’t happen again.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. “You think that hurt me? That was nothing. You treated me like I was garbage. You said you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I never said that.” David’s mouth burned a path up to the curve of my neck.

“You called me a bitch in heat. You threw what I did yesterday back in my face.” The pain of that hit me all over again. “How dare you put me down for that when you were standing in line to take your turn?” I rolled away, dislodging his hand in the process, turning my back to him. I curled into a protective ball. “Go away, David. Go chase a cat.”

“The only pussy I want is right here.” David spooned behind me, his body curving around mine. His cock probed between my legs and I drew in a sharp breath. “We’re going to settle this.”

“Settle what?”

“You. Me.” His lips caressed the back of my neck and his hand played my breast with expert skill. “If you’re not my mate, you won’t let me roll you over onto your knees. If you’re not my mate, you won’t spread your thighs and raise your sweet ass in the air for me. If you’re not my mate, you won’t love the way I take you and you won’t moan and beg for more until I make you come.”

His words and his hands did their job. I didn’t resist when he pushed me up on my knees. He stroked the upraised curve of my butt, and when his hand dipped lower I parted my thighs and deepened the arch of my lower back, offering myself to him.

“This doesn’t prove anything,” I said as he guided his head to my willing entry. “You’ll still hate me when it’s over, and you still won’t want to be king of the wolves.”

“I don’t hate you.” David trailed kisses down my spine. He began to press forward. My eager flesh opened to accept him.

Since I couldn’t push him away with my traitorous body, I tried to do it with words. “I fucked Zach in this bed this morning. I loved it. I love him.”

“Maybe you love us both.” David thrust all the way inside me. When the knot swelled to lock us together, I wanted to cry in relief because it was what I needed, what I wanted, what I ached for.

“I can’t love you both. Wolves are monogamous and they mate for life.” But if I didn’t love him, why did he have so much power to hurt me? Why had his rejection cut so deep that I still felt like I was bleeding from it?

“Red wolves are special.” David’s torso covered my back, a protective gesture. His arms wrapped around me, holding me close while he took me with forceful thrusts. “There’s never been a red queen before. Maybe you have two mates.”

“You said you didn’t want to want me,” I reminded him as my body moved in counterrhythm to deepen each stroke he gave me.

“I don’t.” His teeth grazed my neck. “I don’t want to need you so much that I’d share you with another man because I can’t give you up.” His tempo increased, his cock driving into me with relentless insistence. “You’re mine. But you’re his, too, and if I challenge him for you it would tear you apart.”

I caught my breath at his words, then lost it again as he moved deep inside me, hard and hot, claiming every inch of me.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like knowing you want him, too, knowing he’s going to have you again and again, and you’ll love it every time he fucks you.” David pulled me up onto my hands and knees, gripped my waist, and hammered into me. “I don’t like any of that. I’m jealous as hell.”

“David.” I didn’t have any other words. He took me higher with each stroke, need and heat spiraling into an orgasm that swept us both away.

“Love me, too,” he said in a rough whisper, our spent bodies still joined together. “I know you love him, but love me, too.”

I opened my eyes and brought the world back into focus. “I do. I love you, David.”

He pulled out of me, leaving me empty and hollow. “Roll over.”

I did, turning onto my back to look up at him. His eyes were almost black, his face taut. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry I shut you out. Sorry we fought. Sorry I said all those words that hurt you.”

I licked dry lips and stared up at him. All my defenses were down and I knew my heart was in my eyes. “You can’t ever do that again,” I whispered. “I love you, but you can’t hurt me like that again.” If he did, I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.

He bent and kissed me, a long and thorough exchange. When it ended, he rested his forehead against mine. “I will never give you cause to run from me again. Zach told us all what happened. It’s my fault you were in danger today. My fault Ray almost got you. For the rest of our lives, I’ll be the one you run to and I promise to keep you safe.”

I shook my head. “It took two of us to be that stupid,” I said. “I put myself in danger. I won’t do that again, either.”

David settled beside me and pulled me close. His hands stroked and caressed me, as if he needed to keep touching me after the passion was spent. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” I snuggled into him. “If you mean the baby, it’s too early to notice anything different.”

“Not quite what I meant.” David rested his hand over my abdomen. “Jack’s happy. Are you?”

“It’s all sort of mixed up and overwhelming.” I put my hand over his, a tentative effort to reach out. “I want it, and I’m glad Jack does, too. I don’t know how everybody else will feel. You and Zach. The rest of the pack. It complicates things.”

“I don’t think you need to worry.” David stroked the soft skin of my belly. “They’re all arguing about where to put the nursery.”

I let out a little laugh. “Lots of doting uncles. This kid will be so spoiled.” Then I sobered. “And three dads. That’s going to lead to some interesting questions.”

“One dad, two especially devoted uncles. We won’t try to displace Jack.” His hand ran up to cup my breast. He rubbed his thumb over the nipple and I made a soft sound of pleasure, loving the feel of his body pressed close to mine and the way he touched me.

“I thought at first Zach sent you up here because he didn’t want me anymore,” I said. “Passing me on like some kind of hand-me-down.”

David frowned at me. “Hand-me-down. Piñata. I can’t decide if it’s us or yourself you have a low opinion of.”

“I’m adopted. Maybe I have abandonment issues.” I reached out to touch him back, delighted that I could. “You said you’d share me with him. Is that what he wants, too?”

“He wants you to be happy.” David moved his hand up to stroke my hair. “So do I. So does Jack. What do you want?”

I rolled to lie on top of him so I could have all of my body pressed against his. “Besides world peace and a good story to tell my adoptive parents?”

“Besides that.” His arms enclosed me and his lips touched my forehead.

“I want the three of us to talk about it.” I kissed the curve of his shoulder, infatuated with every line and plane of his body. “How we think it’s going to work. I don’t want to announce to the whole pack that you’re both my mates only to have to admit we can’t handle what that means.”

David slid his hands down to cup my bare butt. “You already know what it’s like to have sex with both of us together.”

I shook my head. “I know what it was like in special circumstances. When I was in heat. When both of you were willing to share me because it was what I needed at the time and neither of you had a claim on me. It’s not the same as knowing you’re both going to be my lovers for the rest of our lives. Neither of you ever expected to have to share your mate.”

“Well, neither of us will step aside.” His hands flexed, digging into my flesh. The possessive gesture underscored my concern. “Even if one of us could let you go, I think the pain of losing a mate would crush you. Zach thinks so, too. And we’re not going to test that theory.”

I processed that while I absorbed David through my pores, drawing in strength and comfort. I’d felt so broken without him. Touching him healed my heart. I didn’t even want to contemplate what it would feel like to lose Zach.

I couldn’t give either of them up. I needed both of them. I loved both of them. I couldn’t deny the truth, but it made my head hurt all the same.

“It’s not just the two of you that have to accept this three-way arrangement,” I said. “I have to figure out how to deal with loving you both. And then there’s the pack. They’ll have to support our arrangement, too. I don’t want to cause resentment or a split, especially now.”

A chill went through me, thinking about the combined forces of werepanthers and rogue werewolves descending on us. “That’s another thing. We’re outnumbered, David. If we aren’t all solidly together, we’re going to lose. Even if we are solidly together, we might lose.”

“We have the home ground advantage. We’re also expecting them. And the Leshii keeps showing up to defend you.”

“He saved my butt today.” I burrowed into David. “I don’t think I could’ve kept outrunning all of them.”

He held me tighter. “And you wonder why you need two mates. It’s going to take two of us to keep you safe.”

I couldn’t argue that. The night before the full moon I’d fought off a werepanther. The next night, I’d fought another. Today I’d been surrounded by the whole brigade. I might have killed Ray, but I wouldn’t have escaped the rest if the Leshii hadn’t stepped in.

“Two mates,” I said, trying to wrap my brain around it. “We need to see Zach. And we need to figure out our next step.”