Disgraced Cowboys (Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 3) [Siren Publishing Ménage Amour] (14 page)

The men’s chests pressed together as Marcus shoved Seth’s hand from his groin and grabbed the man’s ass cheeks. He yanked their hips together, and they ground against one another’s jeans while their growls turned increasingly feral. Her arousal grew animal, too, and she found herself in the same stiff, fist-clenching posture Marcus had been in moments before.

The sound of hastily worked zippers interrupted her internal struggle between her desire to join in and earlier resolve to distance herself from men who were bad for her. Pants dropped to the ground, and their cocks sprang free. Both were hard and thick and ready to drive her and each other to the brink of madness. Hands wrapped around shafts, working those long rods firmly while they hissed out breaths of pleasure.

“Take me,” Seth said, his gaze rapidly turning wild. “Claim me now, or I’m gonna claim you.”

Marcus shook his head. “I ain’t claimin’ you. But I am gonna fuck you.”

With that, he pushed Seth down by the shoulders, and the man sank down. He turned to face Brandi on all fours, and Marcus wasted no time getting on his knees behind him. His cock was almost purple with need as he grabbed the base and fitted it against Seth’s round, tight ass. With the same single, tooth-grinding thrust she remembered from the previous night, he rammed his cock inside the other man.

Seth reared his head back with a grimace, but his cry definitely wasn’t one of pain. His cock stuck out beneath his belly, jerking and bobbing while Marcus began thrusting. Marcus grabbed Seth’s hips and pounded away in frenetic, feral, movements, and when Seth looked up at her, his eyes blazed with alien fire. Still, he wasn’t so much looking at her as staring right through her. He was lost someplace else, a place where animals roamed free, hunting and snarling and taking whatever they wanted.

A place she couldn’t—no,
wouldn’t
—go.

Seth lifted one of the palms supporting him and reached for the hand gripping his waist. He tugged it around to his swollen erection, and let out a grateful moan when Marcus’s fingers curled over it. Marcus’s thrusting motions shifted to adjust to the new pose, longer and slower but not any less desperate while he jacked Seth’s cock.

“I want to come so bad,” Seth said. “I’ve wanted this every minute of every day since I saw you in the bar.”

Marcus growled and rammed the man faster, tugging the dick beneath Seth’s belly with jerky movements.

“Admit you felt it, too,” Seth said over his shoulder. “Tell me you’ve wanted this.”

“You know I’ve wanted this,” Marcus said in that deep, rumbling tenor that yanked Brandi by the stomach. “Even without my hard cock poundin’ your hot ass, you can feel how bad I want you.”

“Then do it,” Seth said. “Bite me.”

“No.”

Marcus gritted his teeth, but as she watched, something more bizarre than an internal struggle took place. She blinked and rubbed at her eyes, then looked again. But it was no trick of firelight. Marcus’s jaw was getting longer, and when Seth began rocking himself backward to force his ass harder against Marcus’s hips, his cry in response displayed sharp points in his mouth. Fangs.

Brandi gasped and stepped back, her eyes wide.

“You know it’s right,” Seth said, driving himself back harder. “You know it’s meant to be.”

“I can’t,” Marcus said, but his yellow eyes focused oddly on Seth’s shoulder. He leaned over the man’s back, appearing mesmerized by the rippling, hard flesh there. His mouth opened wider, and those fangs protruded.

“Oh, my God,” Brandi whispered. A hand flew to her mouth at the sight of his longer jaw and jutting teeth. They truly were animals. Monsters.

“I’m gonna come,” Seth said, squeezing his eyes shut. “Do it now, Marcus.”

The fangs drew closer to Seth’s shoulder, and Marcus snarled. “Stop sayin’ that.”

Grunts of impending orgasm came from Seth’s throat. “God damn it, Marcus.
Bite me.
”

His volume rose on the last, the words booming through the cave. She jerked at the vehemence in the command, and at the response she felt from Marcus. His humanity was slipping.

Fear shot through her at the thought, and she knew she couldn’t stick around for what would happen next. She had to get out of there while she still could. She turned on her heels and ran from the cave, barely pausing outside as wind and water spray and the roar of the falls battered her. She’d never make the graceful leaps from boulder to boulder that Seth had managed with her on his back. There was only one way out.

She plunged feet-first into the water behind the falls and gasped, struggling against muscles shocked by the chill as she turned toward the riverbank. She couldn’t touch bottom, so she had to swim and pull herself along the jutting rocks to make her way over. Her teeth were chattering as a man’s cry came, audible even above the wailing roar of the waterfall. Seth screamed long and loud, and the sound penetrated her even deeper than the icy chill threatening to drag her body underwater.

“No,” she cried, swimming faster. “Seth.”

Why on earth he would want to be bitten, she didn’t know. But it was clear that Marcus had given into the monster Seth deliberately taunted to the surface. Marcus had attacked him, and she might well be next.

She flailed against the choppy water, finally reaching the edge and climbing out on her knees. She coughed and struggled to catch her breath, but there was no time to waste. She dragged herself to her feet and headed off the way Seth had brought her, hoping she would remember the way.

“The phone,” she muttered through violently chattering teeth.

With jerky, disjointed movements, she pulled the purse from her shoulder as she stumbled along the mossy bank toward the large boulder she’d leaned on when they had exited the woods. She zipped the bag open and dug through the contents. Thank heavens it was leather and not fabric. Water had seeped in a few places, but when she grabbed her phone, it was dry and intact. Once at the boulder, she turned and headed in the direction she was sure they’d emerged from. She divided her attention between switching on the phone and not falling on her face as she hustled past rocks and pine cones that were much more visible in the light of day. Her hands were soaking wet, so getting her phone to cooperate took time. She found a spare stripper thong in her bag, of all things, and dried her hands a little on it.

It was a wasted effort, she saw, when the phone clicked on and she held it up.

“No signal,” she said. “Great.”

She tried to think through chattering teeth, shivering limbs, and panicked thoughts. No GPS signal, no way to call out. How was she supposed to find her way back? She could barely see the night before. No way to follow landmarks back to her car, and she was freezing. Why the hell had she done something so stupid? Oh, right. To escape a pair of ravenous werewolves.

She ran faster.

Was she going the right way? She knew they’d come out of the woods right at the monolith boulder, but was she still headed on the right course?

A branch scraped the side of her face as she pushed past, and she rubbed her cheek gingerly. The mark burned, but no blood came away on her fingers.

Seth had told her his place was north of where she’d left the car, which was in a tourist parking area. South should take her to her car. But which way was south?

“Wait!” she said aloud. “The compass.”

Trembling fingers punched up the phone app she’d downloaded when she first decided to move to Shay Falls, thinking she might get lost finding her way around the mountain. She’d been thinking of getting to her job at the time, not fleeing from supernatural creatures. Either way, she’d found a compass app that required no GPS guidance to function—or so the description had claimed. Time to put that to the test.

The compass sprang to life on her device. After she fiddled awkwardly for a few moments and fogged up the screen twice with her breath while she was at it, the virtual needle began spinning.

A silly grin broke out on her face as she watched the needle hover over “north.” “It works!”

North was off to her right, so she adjusted course and prayed Seth’s comment had been literal enough to take her where she needed to go. A noise behind her whipped her around, sure that she was about to find two pissed-off wolves hot on her trail. But there were no snarling fangs, no glowing, yellow eyes. A pine cone fell from one of the towering trees around her, hitting the ground with a soft thud.

Jesus, she was jumpy. Not to mention colder than she’d ever remembered being in her life. Her limbs were stiff and barely wanted to work. How much farther to her car? They’d walked, or, in her case, stumbled for about twenty minutes to get to the cave. Surely she could make it.

Thirty minutes later, however, she still hadn’t found the small parking area at the end of Falls Overlook. Maybe Seth hadn’t meant literal north but northeast or something. Maybe the damn compass didn’t work, after all.

She folded her arms over her and leaned against a tree, exhausted. She wouldn’t last forever like this, frozen and soaking wet. Why had she left the comforting heat of the fire pit? Maybe she’d have been better off taking her chances on being bitten by vicious dogs.

More sounds of things hitting the ground came, this time off to her left. More pine cones, perhaps. She listened, rubbing her hands together. Then her eyes widened. Footsteps were headed her way, fast. They were looking for her.

Automatic panic hit, and she launched away from the tree, snagging her wet jacket in the process. Her legs wobbled with fatigue and cold as she stumbled away from the noise, but it was no use. Her strength was giving out, and the steps were getting closer.

She stopped and turned to the sound. Maybe it was better to be bitten. Being a werewolf was probably better than being an idiot who froze to death on a mountain.

Voices came, and she held her breath.

Unfamiliar voices.

“Hello?” she shouted. “Help!”

The footsteps stopped for a moment, and there were more voices. Then, “Hello? Where are you?”

“Over here!”

The red plaid and black fabrics she saw flashing through the trees seconds later weren’t what Marcus and Seth had been wearing. When faces became evident moments later, she waved her arms and started forward.

“She’s there!” one of the men called out, pointing her out when he spotted her.

Three men approached her, none of whom were familiar. Campers, maybe. Or hunters.

“I’m lost,” she said when they were several feet away, staring at her soaking wet, bedraggled form with expressions ranging from concern to almost horror. “Can you help point me the right way?”

“Jesus, lady,” a gangly man in a red plaid coat and matching hat said as he gawked at her. “Did you fall into the river?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re sure not dressed for a mountain hike,” said a muscular man with a broad nose and bushy, brown mustache that twitched furiously as he chomped a stick of gum. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of food.

“Hiking wasn’t the plan when I got dressed,” she said, shivering harder.

A third man with a pockmarked face shrugged off a black jacket and held it out to her. “Here. Take off that wet jacket and put this on.”

“Thank you.”

As she battled stiff joints to trade her soaked, heavy jacket for his, she eyed the last man. This one was familiar. He was shorter than the others and stockier as well. His pale hair was starkly contrasted by skin tanned to the shade of strong-brewed tea. His nose bore a pronounced hook. She’d given this guy a lap dance before. She was sure of it. What was more, the way he was eyeing her suggested that he was sure of it, too. Crap.

“You’re out here all alone?” he asked, and a jolt of suspicion hit.

Calm down, she thought to herself. This was a survival situation, and these men were here to help her. Still, didn’t hurt to be cautious—especially with the way their expressions were changing.

She shook her head. “No, I was visiting friends. I got lost on my way back to the car.”

“We should take you to the ranger’s station,” said the red plaid guy, whose nose was as red as his outerwear. “They can give you first aid and help you find your way.”

“Maybe we can give her first aid ourselves,” the guy with the scarred face said in a tone she didn’t quite care for.

“No. I just want to get back to my car, please. It’s got to be right around here. I parked in the little lot by the hiking trails.”

The Nose was still giving her an uncomfortable, measuring look. The other two men exchanged glances.

“You’re way off,” said the red nose guy. “That lot is right against the ranger station, anyway. It’d be smart to let them have a look at you before you try to drive.”

“I know you, don’t I?” said her old customer.

She swallowed. “I doubt it.”

He snapped his fingers and grinned. “Hell, yeah, I do! You’re Brandi Lyn. You gave me a lap dance a couple times. I’m a big fan.”

Even as her heart sank, she pasted on a fake smile. “Oh, of course. Sorry, I guess I’m just too cold right now. Sure would be nice to get to that ranger’s station, if you fellows wouldn’t mind pointing the way.”

All three sets of eyes lit up with something new as they watched her now, and she pulled the black jacket tighter around her. It didn’t do much good. She knew they were staring right through the layers of fabric, picturing her naked.