Werewolves and Chocolate

Werewolves with Chocolate

By Shauna Aura Knight

INTRODUCTION

Werewolves with Chocolate
is
the sequel to
Werewolves in the Kitchen
, where Jake and Kyle mate with
Ellie while all three are living at the SpiralStone retreat center. Moira, a
powerful priestess and mage, helps defend Jake, Kyle, and Ellie from the
Hagalaz pack of werewolves. However, the Hagalaz are known to hold a grudge….

CHAPTER ONE

Just under her skin, Ellie could feel the
seething heat of lust from her two werewolf lovers. Being mated to the two shifters
had its advantages, but when all three of them were pent up, their desire for
each other was sexual torture. She was human, but the metaphysics of the mating
bond meant that she felt a ghost of their emotions. Sometimes even a phantom
brush of physical sensations they were experiencing. Kyle and Jake had mated
her less than a year ago and she was still getting used to what she thought of
as the echo effect.

For the past weeks she’d been busy at the
University lab analyzing information from the observation of thousands of stars
and galaxies. As she had transferred into the school and was the newest person
in the astrophysics program, she got one of the crappier data crunching jobs.
Not that she really minded; she’d just been thrilled to be able to return to
school to finish her degree. The shy geek she’d been before wouldn’t have
minded the long days at the lab at all.

But, now that she had Jake and Kyle…the two
randy shifters ratcheted her libido up to an eleven. They hadn’t been together
in nearly two weeks because of their various work schedules. Between classes,
homework, and additional hours in the lab, Ellie typically got home, ate, and
dropped into an exhausted sleep. She realized she hadn’t gone a whole week
without sex since she’d mated Jake and Kyle the summer before.

Finally, however, she had an actual weekend
off. She still had homework, but she didn’t have any major assignments due.

Just thinking about the two of them, Ellie
had to bite back a groan. Her pussy was plump and ripe as she imagined Kyle
dipping his dark blond head down to kiss her, black-haired Jake nibbling at her
neck…Kyle’s defined muscles pressing against her front before he lifted her up
to slip inside her…Jake grinding against her from behind, his hand curving
around to tease at her nipples while Kyle took her harder.

She thought about the last time all three of
them had been in bed together, their hands all over her, the veins and muscles
and the spirals of the tribal tattoos up their arms….

“Hey, do you have the figures yet on cluster
M-486?”

Ellie looked up at Ted and shook her head,
freeing her brown hair from the clip at her neck. “Sorry, my mind was in outer
space.”

Ted laughed. “You and everyone here.”

“I’ll have it for you in about fifteen
minutes.”

“Take your time. I’m blowing out of here.”

“Hot date?” she asked.

Ted grinned. “My boyfriend has demanded I
leave the lab and join him for dinner and a movie. So yes.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Don’t stay too late. I bet those two men of
yours are dying to see you.”

Ellie flushed to her neck. Ted was one of the
few people she could tell about Jake and Kyle. Neither she nor Ted were out
with most of the people in the program. While it was unlikely Ted would face
discrimination, he didn’t want to chance it. Neither did Ellie; she and Ted had
occasionally commiserated and wondered which one of them would face more
discrimination. He was male, but gay. She was female and heterosexual, but had
two boyfriends. Well, mates…but it wasn’t a word humans used. And they weren’t
her husbands, given she wasn’t married to either of them

The two werewolves seemed to feel their
mutual biting and mating ritual had constituted a formal bond. However, Ellie couldn’t
think of herself as married to the both of them without some kind of formal
ceremony.

She thought about a “traditional” wedding and
shuddered. The thought of inviting her family, Kyle’s family, and Jake’s family
was bad enough. In her case, she’d have to tell her mother that she wasn’t
going to invite her stepfather. And of course explaining to her mom she was
marrying two guys…the entire scenario was rife with disaster.

Maybe they could just host a wedding with
friends at SpiralStone. Moira, the priestess who ran the spiritual retreat
center and intentional community, would let her. And the three of them had
plenty of friends there who wouldn’t bat an eyelash at a triple wedding. She
could rope her friend Angel into helping since Angel still lived at SpiralStone.
Of course, then she had to approach the guys about a wedding. She was pretty
sure it wouldn’t occur to them to propose to her. While Ellie didn’t care for
outdated gender conventions, she had to admit she did fantasize on occasion
about their proposing to her the old fashioned way.

No, if they were going to get married, she
was the one who was going to have to bring it up, and she wasn’t ready to deal
with that. For the moment, she just needed to focus on school. She could think
about the longer-term complexities of her relationship later.

Blinking at the clock, she groaned, and
dialed the number for home.

“Ellie?”

“Hi Jake. Ummm…I’m sorry, but—”

“You’re running late at the lab.” She could
hear the smile in his voice.

“I’m sorry.” This was a conversation they had
a lot. “I’ll be home soon though. I just need another hour to wrap up. Maybe
less.”

“Take your time, babe. We’re finishing
dinner.”

Of course the two were cooking. When she’d
met them, they ran the catering kitchen at the SpiralStone retreat center. They
both seemed convinced she needed to eat more, which was ridiculous. She was
going to have to get a gym membership to lose the ten pounds she’d gained just
from their feeding her. But she loved that they took care of her, and that they
put up with her schedule shifting all the time. “Oh, I’m still going to hurry
home. I miss you.”

She could hear the low, bass rumble of Jakes’
growl. “We miss you too. And we’re going to demonstrate that to you in several
very visceral ways.”

Her lips parted and she felt herself creaming
just at his words. “That’s…good.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t torture you. What
exciting things have you discovered about the universe today?”

“This work is so cool, Jake. We’re working
with data…it’s not just the observation of the expansion of the universe, but
specifically, the cluster of galaxies moving in a recognizable pattern from the
moment of the Big Bang. We’re creating a map of something so huge, we’ll never
actually be able to see it. And we’re doing it through observations of
galaxies, through what’s called the Hubble Constant. We’re looking at the
movement of entire galaxies in a cluster. It’s breathtaking.”

“You are such a geek, sweetheart.”

Ellie laughed. “Well so are you!” The three
of them loved camping out on the couch and watching sci-fi movies of any kind.

“I’m the kind of geek who likes to watch Star
Trek. You’re the kind of geek who could follow Geordie into the engine room and
help fix the warp core.”

“Fixing the warp core is more of an
engineering thing. I’d probably serve better over in Stellar Cartography—”

“Baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Finish up and come home.”

She laughed. “All right.”

~* * *~

“She running late?” Kyle asked.

“Yup.”

“Hmmph.”

Jake snorted. Kyle tended to get more miffed
when Ellie ran late. But then, of the two of them, Kyle was more likely to be
sexually tense. “Hey, we could use an extra hour. This chocolate needs time to
cool.”

“All right. Why don’t you dip the
strawberries and I’ll start cutting up the fruit.” Kyle looked Jake over.
“You’re going for the suspenders and jeans look again, huh?”

Jake stiffened. “She likes the suspenders.”

Now Kyle snorted. “She likes pulling them off
of you.”

“I’m not going to argue there.” Jake stirred
the chocolate. “You know she’s going to tell us we’re trying to fatten her up
again.”

“It’s just a few truffles, and strawberries
in chocolate.”

“And cheesecake, and fruit, and—”

“This was your damned romantic idea!” Kyle
fumed, flinging a piece of peach at Jake.

“Oh, it’s still a good idea.” Jake let out a
growl. “Not like we need to turn her on any more than she already is.”

“I trust you to know more about human
intricacies than I do. I don’t get their courtship dances.”

“Obviously.” Jake smirked.

“You asshole.”

“Sometimes we do things that still intimidate
the crap out of her.”

“Well, that’s obvious. You know, I have a
wolf nose too. I can smell it when she’s about to bolt.” Kyle piled the peaches
onto a platter and started peeling oranges.

Jake shrugged and pulled the leaves off of
more strawberries. “She’s not used to our directness, I think.”

“Let’s face it. Neither of us are very good
at some of the human subtleties she’s used to. And yeah, yeah. I admit it.
You’re better at it than I am.”

“Trust me, Kyle. She’s going to love this.”

“I just want her to feel better about having
mated us. I know we still make her nervous. I want her to feel safe”

“She does love us.” How was it that Kyle
could be bold and brash and still need that reassurance?

“I know,” Kyle grumbled.

“Are you still upset she hasn’t introduced us
to her mom? You know most humans are pretty uptight about the monogamy thing.
And it’s not like threesomes are common with shifters.” Jake wanted her to
trust them too, but he understood the complexities. Plus, Ellie’s stepfather
was a jerk.

“I know. And it’s not like we’ve been taking
her to family gatherings.”

Jake barked out a laugh. “Yeah…that would
freak her out. She needs a little more time with just us before we start
exposing her to more shifters.”

“Yeah. She’d just get that deer in the
headlights look.”

“Mmmmm.” Jake privately enjoyed that
particular look in Ellie’s eyes. Usually it was a look she gave them right
before the two of them ravished her until all three of them fell asleep
exhausted and sated.

“Dammit, stop letting the little head do the
thinking,” Kyle snarled.

“Fuck.” Jake was dripping hot chocolate all
over the place as he attempted to roll the dipped strawberries in the mini
chocolate chips.

“Don’t daydream. We have to get this done by
the time she’s home.”

“We’ll be fine. She hasn’t even left the lab
yet.”

Kyle started chopping up some cantaloupe and
swore, nicking his finger. “You better light the candles. I’m too wound up.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Some wolf warrior you
are.” Though, not as if he was much better. With almost two weeks without being
able to touch Ellie, both of them were practically ready to split their skin.
He hoped Ellie was as turned on as they were, because tonight was going to be a
long night.