Lords of the Were (5 page)

A moment later he was joined by Tim, whose eyes snapped fire as he looked down at Allie. Surprisingly, he seemed less angry than he’d been

before and had a few scratches on his face that needed tending. She couldn’t draw her eyes away from the drying blood on his cheek and before she realized quite what she was doing, she’d taken Tim by the hand and was leading him down the hall toward the small bathroom.

“Where are we going?” Tim’s voice was tinged with a surprising humor she hadn’t yet seen in him.

“You’re hurt.”

She’d been up all night and perhaps that’s why she thought it should be obvious to him that if he were hurt, she would care for his injuries. It seemed perfectly logical in her tired mind, though later she would admit she hadn’t been thinking clearly from the moment she saw the twins in that sacred circle the night before.

Tim tugged on her hand, slowing their progress. “I heal faster than a human. You don’t have to tend me.”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “You don’t want a scar do you?

Or an infection? Those scratches have dirt in them, Tim.” His eyes flared as he searched her face. “So you can tell us apart.

Why then are you being nice to me? I’ve haven’t been very nice to you so far, as my brother pointed out earlier.” He fingered the drying blood on his face and suddenly Allie realized the brothers had come to blows over her. The very idea caused her heart to clench in anguish and wetness to gather behind her eyes. She never wanted to come between them…at least not in a bad way.

“You’re hurt,” she repeated stubbornly, tugging him into the small bathroom. “I don’t like to see anyone suffer needlessly.” She closed the lid on the toilet and pointed. “Sit.”

Tim actually laughed. “I’m a wolf, not a dog,” he protested, but sat anyway, his gaze tracking her around the tiny room as she gathered a small washcloth and some bandages.

She ran warm water onto the small cloth and began gently bathing the long scratches on his angular face. The angry gouges started at his left temple and went down all the way to the corner of his mouth. Dirty, the nasty gashes were crusted already and had bits of what looked like tree bark and moss mixed in with the dried blood.

Tim didn’t complain as she scrubbed gently at the mess on his face, and watched her every movement. Hesitating only briefly, she worked towards his firm lips, using the fingers of one hand to stretch his skin and the other to cleanse it so she could cause him the least amount of pain and still be thorough. The heat of his gaze and the warm, firm feel of his lips against her fingers began to distract her from her task.

“I haven’t been very nice to you since we met, Allesandra, and I’m sorry.”

Rocking back on her heels, she was more surprised by his soft tone than even his words. His expression was tender but his eyes lit with a secret fire as he took one of her small hands in his and brought it back to his mouth. Gallantly, he placed a warm kiss in the center of her palm and closing her fingers around it.

Allie shook her head. She was operating on too little sleep and everything had a fuzzy edge, but she kind of thought this man would muddle her senses no matter what. She had to clear her throat before she could talk at all.

“You don’t have to apologize. I think I might understand a bit of what you were feeling. I know I’ve been overwhelmed more than a few times in the last few hours and have resented it.” She resumed her work. Once again she had to place her fingers on his lips, but this time, he sucked them inside his mouth, swirling his tongue over her digits as she gasped.

“So you think you’ve got me all figured out, hmm?” His eyes sparkled as he held her wrist, placing little nibbling kisses on her fingers and knuckles.

“I didn’t say that.” She squirmed a little as he sucked on her thumb, letting her go with a wet popping sound as he moved up to her wrist, and then higher to the sensitive valley of her elbow.

“I need to put some ointment on your scratches, Tim.”

“In a minute.”

He stood, towering over her in the small space, wrapping her in his embrace. She went to him willingly, unable to deny this man anything he wanted, though she’d only just met him. She felt the rightness of his arms around her, felt the desire, the passion and the burgeoning emotions she didn’t dare name. In her heart, she knew it was the beginnings of love. Whether he could love her remained to be seen, but she was fast on her way to falling head over heels in love with this man and his rakish twin, though the idea of loving two men at one time was still startling in the extreme.

Tim’s firm lips drifted down, placing kisses on her shoulder, her collar bone, working toward the hollow of her throat and up her neck to her ear where he swirled his tongue briefly inside, making her shiver. He didn’t stop there, biting down on her earlobe, making her yip in surprise.

He moved to her temple, then her eyes, placing soft kisses on each one before tracing down in a sinuous seduction, finally capturing her lips with his in a kiss of discovery, of question and of undeniable passion.

He sought entrance and she gave in with a sigh of delight. He seduced her with every motion of his mouth, every sweep of his hands down her back, every squeeze of her ass gripped in his big palms. He began a rhythm with his tongue, echoed by the press of his hard cock against the apex of her thighs. She still wore the thin ceremonial robe, but he was clad in soft denim that molded his every bulge. And she was fast learning his bulges were very impressive indeed. Allie ran her hands over his muscular arms and wrapped her arms around his hard middle.

He was all she could have imagined and more, and he kissed like a dream. His rhythm was seductive and hypnotic, inciting all her senses as he stroked her with his whole body, making love to her with his mouth.

She felt coolness on her back as the door opened, but Tim didn’t let go. Instead, a moment later she was enveloped from behind as well as in front, and she knew it was Rafe who’d entered the small room and now sandwiched her between himself and his twin.

“I came to make sure he was playing nice with you,” Rafe rumbled into her ear as he swept his hands up her ribcage to her breasts and squeezed. “But I see you’re getting along better than I expected. I have only one question.” He tugged at the little buttons holding her robe together, freeing them one by one as Tim moved back obligingly to make room. Before she knew it, she was naked in their arms in the small bathroom. Tim’s mouth moved down her neck as her breath came in harsh pants.

Rafe held her breasts in his big hands, up and ready for his brother to suck. Tim latched on to one nipple while Rafe plucked at the other with his fingers, his breath hot against her neck.

“Don’t you want to hear what my question is?” Rafe prompted, making her crane her neck to try to see him.

“What?”

Rafe smiled as he bent forward to capture her lips with his. He kissed her long and hard, zeroing in on her tongue, worshipping at her lips with a hunger she’d felt only once before—from his twin. When Rafe let her up for air, it was only to allow Tim to switch over and torment her other breast with his lips, teeth and downright sinful tongue.

“I was going to ask if you planned to do this without me,” Rafe teased, biting her neck with nipping teeth, “but the question is now moot.”

Allie moaned as Rafe’s fingers found their way to the wetness between her thighs. Big, strong fingers tangled in the neatly trimmed curls, delving within and dragging moisture back toward the back entrance that had never known a man. Allie gasped when Rafe’s finger pushed down hard and was admitted with just a bit of resistance. It stung at first, but as he began a slow motion in and out of her rear, she began to feel things she never would have expected.

Tim’s hands stroked downward too, his fingers plunging up her pussy with little ceremony, working in counterpoint to his brother’s shallow thrusts in her virgin ass. When he dropped to his knees in front of her to suck her clit between his firm lips, she let out a little scream as she came, clenching her inner muscles hard around both of their invading fingers.

“That’s it, Allie,” Rafe encouraged, plunging in deeper now as she sought out his touch. “Come for us, baby. Let us show you how it will be.”

Allie thrashed in their arms but neither of them let her go far. Rafe’s fingers rode her ass through the maelstrom while Tim’s fingers flexed and bobbed in and out of her pussy. His lips remained fastened to her clit, sucking hard as she experienced the most prolonged orgasm of her life.

And something told her these two were just getting started.

“That’s enough, you three!” Betina’s voice scolded them from the other side of the closed door. “Don’t think we all don’t know what you’ve been doing in there. It’s not only the were who have good hearing. Now clean up, cool down and come out here and greet your guests, Allesandra. You can play with those boys later.” Allie’s face flamed as Rafe reluctantly pulled his fingers with steady but firm pressure from her body. He swatted her butt lightly as he leaned over to retrieve her robe from the floor. Tim seemed less inclined to leave

his place between her thighs, but he kissed his way up her body. He ended with a deep, passionate salute to her mouth that left her head spinning, while Rafe slid the robe up her arms and fastened it around her body.

She was powerless to dress herself, much less think, while Tim kissed her that way. When Tim let her go, finally, Rafe spun her around and clamped her into his arms, kissing her deeply while Tim watched, smoothing his hands over her back, her butt and her thighs, hiking the robe up to stroke her soft skin.

But Rafe stopped his twin, breaking the kiss and putting Allie away from them both.

“If you don’t get out of here now, we won’t be able to let you go.

Betina’s right. Go out and make friends with our people. We’ll be along in a minute.” He turned to the sink and began to wash his hands, but Tim stopped her by grabbing her hand.

“We’re not leaving here today, Allie. We need to finish what we started.”

Holding his gaze, she nodded quickly and left. She wasn’t running scared exactly, but now that the heat of the moment had cooled, she wondered what she was letting herself in for. She liked these men—no, she might actually love them—but it made no sense. She’d only just met them hours before, but already they’d taken up residence in her heart as if they’d always been there.

Hell, maybe they had always been there, just waiting for the right time to come into her life and make her yearnings real. How many times had she dreamed of a man to cherish her the way they had just done?

How many times had she wished on a star for the man who would make her feel whole? And how often had she prayed for a strong man to protect and honor her, love her and make love to her?

She’d always thought it would be just one man. That’s all she’d ever asked for, but the Lady apparently had other plans. They were one man.

They shared the same face and the same genetics, but there were two of them. Two to pleasure, to two pleasure her and protect her. Two to make her dreams a reality.

Perhaps the Lady really knew what She was doing after all. Allie grinned at the irreverent thought as she made her way down the hall to the living room that was once again full of people.

“So do you believe me now?” Rafe asked his twin as he faced him down in the small space of the bathroom.

Tim hung his head, kneading the back of his neck. “You’re so damned smug when you’re right. I really hate that about you, you know?”

Rafe threw the towel he’d been using to dry his hands squarely at his brother as he grinned. “Yeah, and I hate your stubborn streak, so we’re even. But you could’ve done some real damage to that girl if you’d kept up the cold shoulder. Can’t you feel how she’s joined to us already? And it’s only just started!”

“Shit. I wonder what it’ll be like when we’re fully joined.” Tim’s voice was soft, speculative. “She’s sweet, isn’t she?” He shot his brother a look of pure masculine approval as he remembered her coming apart in their arms.

Rafe leaned back against the sink and folded his arms across his chest comfortably. “Sweeter than anything I could’ve imagined and she’s most definitely ours.”

“Damn. I didn’t want to believe it, but I think you’re right. There’s no other way she could feel so much so soon.”

“Or that we could,” Rafe agreed with his twin. “She’s already in my heart, Tim. She has been from almost the moment I saw her. I want to

protect her, but I want to cherish her too. I’ve never wanted that with any woman before. She’s special.”

Tim had to agree, but he wasn’t as comfortable talking about his feelings as his brother was. Still, this woman touched something deep inside. “It’s like…like she’s in my soul, somehow.” Rafe’s eyes widened, obviously surprised his brother would go even that far expressing himself. “She’s part of us, even now, and we can’t let her go, Tim. We have to keep her safe at all costs.” Tim’s expression hardened. “We won’t lose her the way her sires lost her mother.”

“So if my sire was a were cat, why can’t I change?” Allie asked Betina as the crowd started to disperse. They’d all shared a huge breakfast in her new home, talked over all kinds of subjects and gotten acquainted, but most were now headed home. It’d been a long, festive night, but there were things to be done with the light of day.

Betina shrugged. “Perhaps you can, but you’ve just never tried. Not all daughters of priestesses become priestesses themselves. For that matter, not all priestesses become the mate of a prime twin pair, and not all twins take a priestess mate. Your mother did, and had she lived to have more children, perhaps some of them would have lived quite happily with the pack. Male children of such unions are almost always fully were, but the females can be either were, magic user or both.”

“Magic users?”

Betina nodded as she helped clear the dishes. “Like us, dear.

Priestesses usually have to have some magic of their own in order to serve Her.”

“But I don’t—”

“Stop right there, Allie. You do have magic. You always have. It just hasn’t been awakened fully. We started the process last night in the sacred circle. Over the next few months, you’ll come more fully into your power and then it will mature with you over the years, as it has for me.