Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (14 page)

He came back up her body, his arms on each side of her and his weight pinning her to the bed. When he kissed her and she opened her mouth for him, she tasted the sweetness of her own climax on his tongue.

“You’re mine,” he told her in a raw voice that brooked no denial of his claim.

Her chest was heaving so hard she could hardly get the words out. “Yes, Lance…Yes…I am yours, darling.”

“You won’t ever leave me or the pack!” This came out as half demand, half plea.

“No. You’ve convinced me I belong with you three guys. We’ll make it work out somehow.”

“I have to be with you, Sarah. I can’t give you up after just one night.”

“I need you, too, darling.” She held him and kissed him and braced herself against all that would surely come from these errant promises made in the night.

* * * *

They lay in the jumble of bed linens, their naked bodies entwined, Lance holding Sarah protectively against his chest. He had kept good on his promise to worship her body through the night. Once more he had eaten her pussy until she had begged him to both stop and continue at the same time. Then he had covered his painfully swollen cock in rubber and buried himself between her legs, driving them both to new heights that resulted in the sated exhaustion and peaceful afterglow that they now rested in.

Outside their window the world was turning pink as Sunday morning had arrived over a city they had forgotten even existed once they shut the door to their room.

Lance’s mind was quiet, and he was thinking better than he had in years, probably better than he had in ten years since he’d lost his first mate. He gently stroked Sarah’s shoulder and whispered assurances in her ear that all would be well.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” he spoke softly, too awed by the beauty he held in his arms to raise his voice above a murmur.

“What’s that?” she asked through a drowsy state of half sleep and gave him a kiss on top of his chest. “We talked about a lot of things yesterday.”

“About you coming out to the Circle T to visit us.”

“I loved the Circle T,” she assured him as she smoothed down his chest hair with a feathery touch.

“In the beginning you could come to visit us a couple times a month. We could introduce you to the families who make up our pack. I think once you got to know everybody you’d like them.”

“A couple times a month?” Sarah picked her head up from his chest as the sleepy state fast left her and her mind started to focus on the problem he’d laid before her. “Darling, I can’t afford to fly out there that often. Unlike you guys I’m not a rich land owner. I have to work to make a living.”

“That isn’t a problem.” He patted her back down to his chest with a soft touch of her arm. “We can book the flights for you and pay for them.”

She shook her head but stayed down against his chest. “You can’t do that,” she corrected him.

“But why not?” Lance was at a loss as to why she would put up a fight against something so simple when they all seemed to want the same thing.

“Darling, just think about how that would look to my friends and family here in New York and also how it would make me feel.” Her voice was gentle. She wasn’t upset. She was just trying to bring him around to see a delicate point.

“I guess I don’t understand,” he admitted.

“I’d be taking money from three men who were flying me out to their ranch to fuck me…”

He put a finger over her lips to stop her. “Don’t say it like that,” he chastised her. “It sounds very crude, and you know that’s not the way any of us feels.”

She removed his hand from her lips, gave it a kiss, and continued. “I know that’s not how it would feel to you, but that’s how it would feel to me. Please just try to understand.”

“All right. I’m trying.”

“As nice as it sounds, that isn’t a solution.”

The sticky details of their unsolved problems were needling the back of his mind, and Lance put his arm over his head, stared up at the ceiling, and tried to think things through.

“Very well,” he announced to her. “We’ll just have to fly out here to the city to see you then.”

This brought a smile to her face. “I’d love it if you could.”

“It won’t be easy,” he told her and mentally started calculating the problems the absence of the pack leadership would cause. “We’ll have to move some things around and adjust some other things. One of us might be able to make it out here to see you every other month or so.”

Her face darkened, and her gaze fell, dejected, back down to his chest where she still fingered his hair. “If you all can’t come together then I’d only be able to see each one of you individually a few times a year.”

“We can’t all come out together. TJ and I shouldn’t both be out here now at the same time. If any trouble gets started back home, Ryan wouldn’t be able to deal with it all on his own.”

Sarah gave a sigh and readjusted her body next to his, her soft, naked curves fitting snuggly up against his much harder form. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know if Ryan wants me, and quite frankly I don’t think I know Ryan well enough to say if I want him.”

“I thought you already slept with Ryan?”

“Yes. That’s when he put this ridiculous mark on my shoulder.”

Lance felt a stab of pain at her words. “That mark isn’t ridiculous,” he told her sharply. “As a matter of fact we’d all want to put one on some part of your body if we go through with a relationship together.”

“Oh God!” Sarah was starting to get upset, and frankly she had angered him with her comment about the mating mark.

But this was the exact opposite of what he wanted especially after spending such a lovely day and night with her.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he tried to soothe her with a soft voice. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

She calmed down, but rolled over on her side facing away from him. Curling her body into a little ball beneath the covers, she didn’t speak to him again and soon fell asleep.

Lance got up out of bed a few minutes later after he had made certain Sarah continued in a peaceful sleep. Careful not to disturb her, he walked over to his window, facing the park from so many stories in the air, and looked out at the city, a city he really didn’t like all that well because it’s very presence was responsible for keeping his new mate from him.

Sarah stirred under the covers of the big hotel bed. Exhausted from a most eventful weekend, she had only gotten a few hours of sleep and needed this time to crash and catch up.

Her dreams turned on a dime from a sense of serenity to one of disquiet. She was out west on the Great Plains again, but everything was purple and golden, and she knew this was not a real place, only one conjured from her subconscious.

Ryan was there with her. He didn’t have his shirt on and looked big and strong and very capable. If it came down to a vote, though she doubted there was democracy in a wolf pack, she would have voted for Ryan as her Alpha in a heartbeat. He was everything a leader should be, and his presence made her feel like she didn’t have to bear anymore burdens alone. Ryan would always be with her to be a partner in everything.

“I’ve been so worried about you, Sarah,” Ryan told her.

To her horror, Sarah looked down at her body and saw she was naked, only clasping the bedclothes from the hotel around her body to protect her modesty. If it was possible to blush in a dream, she did so right then.

“I’m fine, Ryan. TJ and Lance have been with me. We had a wonderful time. I think I’ve fallen in love with them.” She wanted to hearten Ryan so he would not be so concerned about her well-being. “But this all started with you and me right out here on these plains. I wanted to know how you felt about our relationship.”

He placed a tender hand on her shoulder. In her dream she was not wearing the bandage to cover his mating mark. It was in full bloom now as a bright, shiny star against her skin. Some might have mistaken it for a tattoo, but to Sarah it looked far more beautiful than any tattoo she had ever seen.

“I’m sorry I gave you my mark without your permission, Sarah.” His voice was crestfallen and pained. “I’ll live with the shame of what I did for the rest of my life. I’ve even thought of giving up my position as Alpha because of what I did to you. I wonder if I’m a strong enough man to hold the position now.”

“I was mad at you at first,” she admitted. “But now I don’t mind it so much. Look how beautiful it is next to my skin.” She lowered the satin sheet to fully expose her creamy white shoulder to his eager glance.

“I don’t deserve a second chance with you, Sarah. But if you give me one I promise to work hard for the rest of my life to be the kind of Alpha mate you deserve, one who will always love and cherish you.”

She traced fingers down his sculpted chest and felt his taut muscles flex at her light touch. “I forgive you, Ryan,” she said, feeling nothing but love in her heart for this big, wonderful man who she was confident would always care for her and be the best provider any woman could ever hope to have.

He kissed her then. It was a dream kiss, and it was wonderful. Sarah saw stars shoot before her eyes as his lips touched hers, and he fondled her in his mighty hold.

“I want to see you in person,” she pleaded with her dream man. “We have so many problems to solve, and TJ and Lance and I don’t know what to do. The only solution I have is that we just break up and get on with our lives before we all get hurt really bad. But none of us want that. If you were here I think you could find a way for us to all be together.”

“I’m in the air now flying to New York. We’ll be landing before noon.”

Sarah smiled even though she knew it was only a dream. “That’s wonderful. Thank you, Ryan.”

“What hotel are you staying at?”

“The Ritz-Carlton, Central Park.”

“That’s where I’ll meet you. Let Lance and TJ know I’m coming. I didn’t have a chance to tell them yet. Just sit tight and I’ll see you soon.”

Fog swirled across the plain they were standing on, and Ryan disappeared.

* * * *

The dream was over, and Sarah’s eyes fluttered open. Bright sunlight filled the bedroom, and she blinked a few times to adjust her vision. The bedclothes were the most comfortable she had known, her naked body was wrapped self-indulgently inside them and she lay back on the soft sheets and basked in a warm glow for a minute, allowing the cobwebs to clear out of her mind.

The weekend had moved at light speed, and for a moment she didn’t even recognize the room she had slept in. Then Lance came out from the bathroom buttoning his shirt, freshly shaved, his hair wet from the shower, and the glorious events of the night before all came back to her in a rush.

He sat down on the bed and gave her a smile when he saw she was awake. Bending to her, his well-defined features hovered before her vision. He ran gentle fingers under her chin and tipped her up for a kiss of her lips.

“Good morning,” he greeted her.

“Good morning,” she answered and returned his kiss. “What time is it anyway? I feel like I slept for a hundred years.”

“Just after ten.”

“I haven’t slept this late since I was in college.” She stretched languidly under the covers and felt the soft satin envelope her once more. Then she reached up and gave him another kiss. “But it was a wonderful day.”

He patted her knee through the fabric of her covers. “Go take a shower and get dressed, and I’ll take you down to the dining room for a Sunday morning brunch.”

“That sounds terrific.” She gave him a smile and reached for her robe. Cinching the robe around her waist, she climbed over the side of the bed, her legs still weak from the activities in the night. The plush carpeting welcomed the bare soles of her feet as she stepped across the room headed for her shower.

“I asked TJ to come over and join us for breakfast. He’s going to meet us down there,” Lance called after her.

The mention of TJ, her lover from Friday night, brought a flush across her face, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back. She was really going through with this. She had loved both of the men, and this morning felt a little wicked for her endeavors but all sorts of wonderful. Shape-shifters were pretty cool, she mused as she turned on the hot water for her shower.

Then a thought gave her pause. Her wild dream came flooding back to her, and she stuck her head back outside the door of the bathroom. “Is Ryan flying up here to be with us today?” she asked Lance.

He shook his head. “He can’t. With TJ and me away he’s probably working twenty-four-hour days for the pack. He won’t be able to get any time away until we get back home.”

Sarah felt puzzled why she would even ask such a dumb question. It was just a dream after all. But she couldn’t help feeling a little sad because it had been such a nice dream.

Before she stepped under the spray of the shower, she peeled back the bandage on her shoulder to take a peek at Ryan’s mark. It was sorer than it had been, and as she examined it in the bathroom mirror, realized it was no clearer for TJ’s home remedy. The mark was red and building up nicely into a bright star, but thankfully it didn’t look infected, only odd as it stood out in contrast to her skin.