Melindas Wolves (34 page)

“My clit. Oh God please. Trace. I need you to stroke my clit.” A week ago she would have been mortified to speak in such language or beg for a man to make her come. Now, it just came naturally.

Trace kissed the side of her neck as he reached around with one hand and pressed his middle fingers against her throbbing bud.

She screamed, the sensation instantly shooting through the roof in its intensity.

Tipping her head back so her neck was more fully exposed, she ground herself on Trace’s hand.

The orgasm was so close, but instead of tipping over the edge when she expected, it continued to grow. Her entire body shook, knowing she was going to shatter.

Keegan and Trace pumped faster, seeming to reach deeper. Her pussy and ass gripped them both tighter. Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to survive the crash, Trace flicked his fingers over her clit and spoke in a low deep voice, his breath hitting her ear. “Come, baby. Come for us. Now.”

She didn’t just tumble, she leaped over the cliff, allowing the orgasm to consume her. The ensuing freefall was so peaceful as she slowly came back to Earth. Her body shook.

Thank God her men held her. She sensed when each of them came on the heels of her orgasm, but she was so overwhelmed by the incredible feeling that tore into her soul and left it bare, she couldn’t even open her eyes to acknowledge her mates’

experiences.

It wasn’t until four hands stroked her heated skin, cupped her face, her breasts, her belly, that she opened her eyes to look down into the powerful blue depths of Keegan’s eyes. The pool of love she saw was so deep, the blue far darker than she’d ever seen.

He smiled. “I love you so much, Melinda. It takes my breath away.”

“I love you too, Keegan.” She twisted her head to find Trace smiling at her from the side. “And you too, Trace. Love you both as if we were one being instead of three.”

Trace’s face flushed as he kissed her nose. “I love you, Melinda. More than I can express.”

For long moments, the three of them held steady, both men still imbedded inside her as they caught their breaths.

Finally, Trace pulled out, angled to one side, and lifted Melinda off Keegan’s cock to let her fall with him.

She lay trapped between her men, not caring she could hardly breathe, a smile permanently pasted on her face as she snuggled into Keegan’s side and luxuriated in the sandwich of Trace at her back.

Pure bliss. If she never moved from this position, she would die happy.

No one spoke. She concentrated on her racing heart and that of her mates’ pinning her between them.

Suddenly, they all three froze at once.

Melinda inhaled deeply and bolted to sitting.

Smoke.

“Fuck.” Trace jumped off the bed and dashed to the window.

Keegan moved just as quickly, even though he shouldn’t have had the energy for such exertion.

The scent of something burning increased so fast Melinda scrambled to jump off the bed. She spun in a circle, thinking to grab her clothes, but Keegan set a hand on the bedroom door, opened it a crack, and then slammed it shut. “Shit.”

Her eyes bugged out at the flash of fire and smoke she’d seen. She spun around to find Trace opening the bedroom window, flames licking at the glass from the outside.

How had a fire spread this fast? It had been less than a few seconds since they’d first scented the smoke.

No way in hell they’d been so consumed by lust they had missed the signs. No.

This fire had taken on a life of its own with great haste.

Melinda screamed. She froze in the center of the room, unable to think what to do.

Keegan grabbed her by the shoulders. “Melinda,” he yelled. “Shift. We need to jump.”

She couldn’t move. She stared at Trace by the window as he shifted before her eyes and leaped toward her. He pawed at her leg.
“Shift,”
he commanded into her head.

She glanced at the window. The flames were too high. They wouldn’t make it out alive.

Keegan yanked on her arm. “Look at me.” She could barely hear him. “You have to shift now. Do it, honey.
Now
.” He was screaming so loud she could see his throat working hard, but she was numb.

Trace growled, pawing incessantly at her legs.
“We won’t leave you, baby. Never.

Please.”

She snapped out of it with those words. If she didn’t shift, all three of them would die in the flames. She dropped to all fours and let the change take over her body with the most haste ever. When she finished, she turned to find Keegan also in wolf form at her side. He nudged her forward.
“We’re going to jump.”

It wasn’t far. The house was a ranch. It was just that the flames were licking higher by the second.

“
Go. Melinda
, jump.” Trace’s insistent voice in her head sent her into action.

She stumbled forward almost awkwardly in her confusion, and before she could consider the repercussions, she leaped through the open window. The heat of the fire singed her fur, but she ignored it as she twisted around as soon as she hit the ground to watch both Keegan and then Trace jump out behind her.

Her heart pounded. She lifted her gaze as soon as she was sure her mates were both safe. The house was totally engulfed. A whimper escaped her lips. Their narrow escape was more than she could handle as she sank to the ground, all four paws collapsing.

“Baby, we need to move. We’re too close.”
Trace grabbed her by the scruff of the neck with his teeth and lifted her off the ground.
“Head for the tree line behind the house. We’ll
be safe if we get out of sight before someone sees us.”

Keegan bounded in that direction while Trace released her to nudge her forward.

With strength that could only be explained by the adrenaline rush, she followed Keegan, sensing Trace on her heels.

As she darted into the tree line, she turned around to glance at the back of the house. She froze, blinking in confusion at the sight. Surely her eyes deceived her.

•●•

Wayne had backed away from the house as soon as he tossed the match. He’d been shocked at how fast the flames consumed the structure. The amount of gasoline he’d doused the outside with had been more than sufficient.

For a moment, he stared at the structure as it was consumed. There was no way in hell the sleeping occupants would be able to escape.

He’d meant to ease into the trees behind the house and disappear into the night, but a presence behind him made him spin around, his heart pounding with the fear he’d been caught.

Nothing was there. He scanned the area, squinting in the darkness. And then he blinked as he imagined a dark shadow seemingly emerge from the trees. He had to be hallucinating.

He blinked again, stepping backward toward the house. The inky blackness came closer, coalescing as it approached. It gathered in on itself.

He blew out a breath and chuckled as he realized it had to be smoke from the fire.

His imagination at work to turn the blackness into something else entirely. But his mouth fell as the black thickened, gathering tighter, coming at him.

He wavered on his feet, feeling the heat of the flames at his back. He knew he needed to run for the trees, but the strange force in his face seemed to exert control over him, hypnotizing him with its intensity.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. But he was pinned in his spot, at the mercy of the creature. It was a creature, right? Almost like a black bear now. An enormous presence that commanded him to back up closer to the house.

It infringed on his space until it was inches from his nose. All he could see was black, a frightening inky black that wouldn’t abate. The heat at his back was too much.

He was too close to the flames of the fire he’d started.

He glanced to the left and saw no way to escape. When he looked right, his eyes bugged out farther. He had to have lost his mind. It appeared that three large wolves stood at the edge of the tree line, six giant eyes glowing in the darkness, blinking like fireflies. If he wasn’t mistaken, they were smiling at him. One of them cocked his head to the side and nodded.

The first lick of flames at his clothes made him jump. He screamed. He was truly trapped. He backed away from the house, batting at his burning pant leg. But the force behind him wouldn’t let him escape.

He doubted anyone could hear his cries for help. The fire was too loud. The sounds of the house collapsing in on itself filled the night.

The blackness pressed in, pushing him, as though it were an actual physical force, toward the flames.

Wayne staggered backward, but to no avail. He was doomed. He dropped his shoulders in defeat as he realized the devil was at his back, punishing him for his crimes on earth.

A tear escaped his eye as he gave in to his fate.
No bad deed goes unpunished
, he thought as the flames jumped toward him, engulfed him, and sucked him into the intense heat.

Melinda sat huddled in a blanket on the foreign couch of Keegan’s sweet elderly next-door neighbor. She was naked under the quilt. Keegan stood next to her, another blanket wrapped around him.

Trace wore a towel around his waist and towered over the old man who owned this house.

Sirens wailed outside from the many emergency vehicles. Firefighters worked feverishly to put out the flames. There would be nothing left of the house, but at least they could stop the fire from spreading to any nearby homes.

It had been scary for the last hour since the entire area was like a tinder box. July in Montana was not known for its rainfall.

The homes were not close together, but Melinda and her mates had little choice but to shift and trudge naked to the neighbor’s house.

At least the man was someone Keegan had known for years and even helped out on many occasions when he needed someone younger and stronger. Keegan had explained this from the porch as they waited for the man to open his door.

It wasn’t entirely ridiculous for people to have escaped a burning building in the middle of the night wearing nothing. Melinda suspected the neighbor was far more shook up to find
three
people on his porch than he was to find them naked.

He was incredibly polite, however, and didn’t utter a word or even shoot Melinda a concerned glanced. He ushered them into his home, handed her a quilt off the back of the couch and padded to the bathroom, returning thirty seconds later with towels and blankets.

Melinda had no idea how Keegan had the sense to wrap his body in a blanket, which kept anyone from realizing he didn’t suffer from any of the broken bones, cuts, and bruising they should have seen so soon after the accident.

A deputy entered the front room.

Trace shook his hand, holding his towel with the other.

This guy did raise an eyebrow and smirk. But then again, he would have been from the station where Trace worked. “Trace?”

“Mark.”

Melinda shivered when she realized this same man had ogled her as if she were a piece of raw meat on Tuesday.

Now his glance darted around the room, taking in the three of them as his eyes widened. “What the hell happened?”

Melinda huddled under the blanket, wishing she were anyplace else in the world.

Instead she listened as Trace explained how the fire consumed the house so fast, he and his partners had only narrowly escaped through the bedroom window with no time to grab clothing.

He continued to explain how they had first circled to the rear of the house where they’d seen a man. Trace didn’t know who the man was, but he’d obviously started the fire and then gotten too close to the flames himself and been consumed. They would find his body several feet from the back door.

Trace did not explain the black spirit that pressed the sick bastard—who had surely been working for the casino builder—into the fire. He did not explain how the three of them shifted into wolf form to jump out of the window, even though it should have raised eyebrows that none of them had any burns to speak of.

And Trace did not mention the fact that Melinda and Keegan were both his life partners. Although, it would be nearly impossible for Mark to not surmise that last detail from his observation.

The door to the house opened again, and this time Sheriff Terrance Bergman entered. He tossed a pair of jeans to Trace and another to Keegan.

Mark blinked at his boss, but didn’t question how Bergman happened to have clothes in his cruiser and knew to bring them into the house.

“I’ve got it from here,” Bergman stated. He held the door open for Mark, who glanced several times at all three mates before shaking his head in confusion and stepping onto the porch.

“You guys okay?” Bergman asked.

The elderly man left the room, mumbling something about coffee.

“Give me the short version,” Bergman stated in a low enough voice no one else could overhear from the kitchen or outside.

Keegan came to Melinda, zipping up his jeans, and held her close.

She listened as Trace spoke. “Someone wanted us very dead. You’ll find his body out back.”

“And why will I find a man burned by his own fire exactly?”

“I’d be happy to explain it to you, but it isn’t part of the short version. Nor would you be able to put a word of it in your report. Some other day. We’ll have you over for dinner and give you the rundown.”

Bergman turned to look out the window. “I’m not sure I want to come to your place for dinner.” He was chuckling as he faced them once again. And then he sobered. “You should know, we arrested a man named Roy Steinmetz earlier this evening. He happens to be one of the upper echelon at Templeton Construction. He got sloppy, and we caught him tampering with the casino site after everyone had left.”

Melinda’s shoulders relaxed marginally at this announcement. “That’s good news, right?”

“Could be,” Bergman said, turning to face her.

“But then who is that asshole in my backyard?” Keegan asked.

“I’m going with Wayne Lassiter. The two men were partners. They worked together. We’ve been looking for him for several hours. He hasn’t been home, and his wife says she has no idea where he is.”