Riptide [Kismet Cove] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (30 page)

“Mine, always,” Evan said as he finally lifted his head and released her, only to place his injured hand over the bite he’d just put on her shoulder. A strange heat pulsed from his touch and Jess jerked again, but this time in surprise. The pain was gone, and instead she was infused with a sense of warmth and security.

“Ours.” Rory stepped behind her and Jess could feel his rigid cock press up against the small of her back.

Jess turned her head to ask Rory what was going on when she caught a flash of metal and then watched as Rory ran a knife across his hand, reopening a scar that was nearly identical to the one Torin had showed her when he’d explained about blood bonding.

They’re claiming me. Here and now. This is the bonding ritual.

Evan lifted his hand away from her shoulder and Rory took his place, covering the bite with his still-bleeding palm. Again a pulse of heat entered her shoulder and again the sense of safety and comfort filled her. Her legs gave way and she sagged against Evan as the euphoria grew and swept her along with her.

She heard whispers and fragments of conversations, but it all seemed to be happening to someone else.

“Jess?” She heard Rory’s voice calling but her mouth wouldn’t work and her body felt so heavy she just wanted to lie down. “Jess, answer me.”

“Too loud,”
she told him, and it took her a second to realize she hadn’t said anything. At least not out loud.

“Well, that didn’t take long.”
Evan was talking now, and Jess realized she wasn’t hearing them with her ears. They were speaking to her inside her head, just like when they’d all been in their seal form.

“Evan? Rory?”
She pushed the thought out carefully past the fog that still shrouded her thinking processes.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

“Baby, how are you feeling?”

She could feel their presence inside her mind, both of them radiating love and affection. Jess realized that while she’d been in her fugue her men had carried her down to the forward cabin and she was snuggled between the two of them on the same bed where she’d woken up after being rescued the first time. The three of them had come full circle.

“I feel pretty funky,” she spoke aloud this time and was pleased to find that her mouth worked again.

“It’ll wear off soon,” Evan promised.

Jess opened her eyes and turned toward Evan’s voice. “You bit me!”

“You bit me first.”

“You threw me overboard!”

Evan chuckled. “Okay, you got me there. In my defense, though, you did turn into a seal the minute you hit the water.”

“You didn’t know that was going to happen. I could have drowned.”

Evan sat up enough that she could see his face, his expression completely serious. “No, you couldn’t have. I would never put you in danger. Never, Jess. You’re far too precious to both of us.”

“You still bit me.” Jess reached up to rub the spot on her shoulder, and as her fingers brushed over the tender skin she frowned. It was tender, but it didn’t
hurt
. She pressed harder and got nothing but a slight twinge. She tried to turn her head to look at her shoulder, but it was impossible. “What the hell happened? I know you bit me harder than that!”

Evan grinned at her, looking irritatingly smug. “Sit up, please. I want to take a look.”

Jess sat up and Rory brushed her wet hair off of her shoulder, exposing the place where they’d both touched her, blending their blood with hers.

“She’s healed up perfectly.” Rory ran a confirming hand over the spot.

“And the first time any of the women see that, I’m going to get my head handed to me.” Evan glanced down and sighed. “If my mother doesn’t kill me, yours will.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jess demanded, still trying to crane her head to see whatever they were looking at.

“Evan bit you, but it’s healed already. But, like our hands, it’s left a bit of scar.”

“I have a scar? Evan Sinclair I am going to bite you again next time we change! What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking. You bit me and I…it…damn it Rory did you have to tell her about the scar just yet?” Evan scrubbed a hand through his blond hair and gave Jess an apologetic half-smile. “Biting is serious foreplay, sweetheart, especially considering we weren’t bonded yet. Once you drew blood, I may have lost my mind, just a little bit.” Evan held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

“You lost your mind a
lot
a bit.” Jess held her hands up three feet apart to make her point. “How bad is the scar?”

“It’s barely visible. Just a little half-moon circle of paler skin, that’s all.” Rory pressed an openmouthed kiss to her shoulder and Jess shivered as a shimmer of heat passed between them.

“I thought we had going to cut our hands to do the bonding thing?” Jess took one of Evan’s hands in hers and leaned back into Rory’s embrace.

“Well, that’s the nice and tidy modern-day approach. What we just did was the barbaric, old-fashioned way. That’s why Evan’s going to be in trouble with our mothers when they see that scar. Not only did we bond before they could plan the party, but Evan finally showed his true colors.” Rory laughed. “My mom thinks
he’s
the sweet one, and sweet boys don’t bite their mates.”

“Well, we could do the bonding, anyway. I mean, it won’t hurt to do it again, right?”

Evan and Rory exchanged thoughtful glances. “You’re suggesting we don’t tell anyone? Let Evan off the hook?”

“No, I’m suggesting we don’t tell
everyone
. There’s a difference. Anyone close to me is going to spot that scar at some point, so there’s no point in lying about what it is. That doesn’t mean we can’t have the ceremony. It’s as close to a wedding as we’re going to get, right? So why not do it anyway?”

“You’ll be our wife in every way, Jess. It just won’t be government sanctioned.”

“I don’t need a federally certified document to know where I belong,” Jess announced.

“I just need the two of you. And now I have that, forever.”

“You’re ours.”
Evan’s voice sounded in Jess’s mind again, along with a sense of love and wonder.

“All ours.”
Rory’s mind joined with hers and Evans and for a moment Jess felt a sense of completeness and harmony that filled her entire being with light.

Evan leaned in and kissed her, his lips possessive as they slanted over hers. She nipped at his lower lip and he let her feel his need for her, the heat and yearning blazing with golden fire as he let it flow into her mind. He lifted his mouth from hers reluctantly and Jess felt his mental withdrawal, leaving an empty place inside her that she knew only Evan would be able to fill from now on.

“I need to get us to anchor somewhere, and then we can be together.” He winked as he rose from the bed, his engorged cock evidence that he’d rather not be leaving her to Rory.

“I drove last time we had you out here, so this time it’s his turn.” Rory pulled her down beside him as he dropped to the mattress and planted a torrid kiss to her lips as he waved Evan off. “I got this, you make sure we don’t run aground or drift into a shipping lane.”

“Just don’t wear her out, bro,” Evan shot back as he disappeared through the door and headed to the deck where they had all left their clothes.

“Yeah, don’t wear me out, big guy. I still have lots of family to meet, packing to do, and somewhere in there we need to do this bonding ceremony over in front of witnesses or your mom will kill you and Evan both.

Rory gathered Jess up and rolled them both over so she was lying on top of him. Once she was settled, he dragged a handful of blankets over them both so the weight of them pressed her even more firmly against him. Her hair fell over her shoulder and lay like cool, wet silk across his chest. She smelled of the sea and her own rich scent, and Rory’s dick was a shaft of pure iron where it lay pinned between their bodies.

Jess poured her feelings for him directly into his mind, filling his thoughts with a heady mix of love and lust. As Jess pushed further into his mind, Rory instinctively started to shield himself, but Jess was not backing down. Her soft hands framed his face and he found himself staring up into her pale blue eyes.

“I love you, Rory. Let me see you. All of you.”
Her thoughts were a silken whisper and there was nothing but love in her expression as Rory finally dropped his walls and let her in. He waited, expecting her to turn from him, but instead she smiled and tears fell from her eyes to splash hotly against his neck and chin.

“How could you think I’d be afraid of this?” She said the words out loud, but in his head she was holding up images, fragments of his memories for him to see. He and Darius fighting, the two of them screaming and pushing at each other as their tempers got the better of them yet again. Another memory, this one of his younger self watching his grandfather berate his father, the old man’s anger and disappointment clear as he called into question everything that Darius believed. Self-loathing filled Rory and he tried to push her out of his mind, away from the dark side of his nature but she held him off.

“I’m not a good man,” he told her, ashamed.

Her mental voice grew louder and more insistent. “You are a good man, Rory. You just don’t see it. I understand what Evan was talking about now. You think you’re like your grandfather, but you’re not.” Jess held up more memories, ones Rory had forgotten. Memories of him and Evan rescuing a seal pup that had been orphaned when his mother had been shot by a fisherman and carrying it carefully back home wrapped in Rory’s jacket. They’d visited it at the local wildlife rescue center every week until it had been returned to the wild. There were recollections of fishing with his father, the two of them enjoying peaceful companionship with never a harsh word spoken.

Just as he thought she was done, Jess shared one of her memories, and Rory nearly came off the bed as she let him experience the spanking he’d given to her that night in their hotel room. Her excitement, her lack of fear, and the pleasure he had given her struck him hard, destroying the last of the walls he’d built up.

She isn’t afraid of me. She loves me.

Rory speared his hands into her hair and dragged her head down to his, kissing her wildly. The link between them stayed wide open and for the first time he shared everything he was, letting their minds and thoughts blend until he no longer knew whose thoughts were whose. He loosened one hand from her hair and slid it between them, homing in on the seam of her pussy that he could feel resting just along the hard swell of his dick. He slipped a finger inside and found her already wet, and when he teased the delicate pearl of her clitoris with his fingertip a fresh flood of juice flowed over his hand and made her even slicker. Jess made a soft, impatient sound and wriggled herself over his cock and then arched her hips, taking him inside her with a slow, steady roll of her hips.

Her cunt was hot, slick, and so tight around his dick that he could feel every twitch of her inner muscles as they rippled up and down the length of his shaft. Her mouth was still on his and he plunged his tongue past her lips, needing to possess her body completely. Her mouth, her pussy, every part of her was his, now and always. Her thoughts were just as wild as his and he caught echoes of needs that were not his own, along with flashes of pain and sadness that he knew came from Jess. As he loved her with his body he pushed into her mind just as she had pushed into his, finding the shadows where her self-doubts and loneliness were hidden.

He let her see herself the way he did, every lush curve and sensuous inch of her, ripe and soft and able to bring him to arousal with just a smile. When she cried and tried to retreat from the double assault of his mind and body he flipped them over so that she was beneath him, their tongues entwined and his dick slamming into her pussy again and again. With each thrust he shared his love for her, driving back the sadness and tearing away her insecurities. Salt flavored their kisses and he realized she was crying, but he couldn’t feel fear or pain from her so he pushed again, until finally the two of them were of one mind as well as one body, racing together toward the shared oblivion of orgasm.

Rory reached down and coaxed her legs higher until her legs were wrapped around his waist and her body was open to him. Her juices coated his cock and her thighs, easing his passage as he lunged deep into her body, needing to possess her completely. He ended their kiss and lifted his head as he braced himself on his arms and pushed his upper body up above hers, increasing the angle so that he could hit her sweet spot, pushing her closer to release.

Beneath him Jess cried out and writhed in time to his thrusts, taking him into her body with a hunger that was as fierce as his own. Her fingers curved into claws and she raked her nails down his chest, the fiery sting adding another level of pleasure to their lovemaking. He felt her channel pulse and tighten around his cock as the first flutter of her orgasm bloomed and sent a rosy flush up her body and stained her breasts, then her throat, and finally her cheeks pink.

With her love and her need still echoing inside his mind, Rory let himself go, pounding into her with everything he had, all of his desire focused down to the point where their bodies met. “Come for me, Jess, just let it all go and come for me,” he encouraged her and he knew the moment she was swept away. Her pussy locked around him so tight he bordered on pain and she arched up off the bed as she screamed his name. Her nails slashed down his chest again and the overwhelming force of her orgasm traveling from her mind to his shattered the last threads of his control and sent him spiraling into his own release.

Again and again he shot his seed deep into her womb, until his balls emptied themselves inside her and he lowered his head to brush a kiss to her lips, both of them panting and dazed as they stared into each other’s eyes.