Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (17 page)

“Yes, we can.” The faint whisper of his seductive voice was in her ear.

His fingers had found the hem of her dress and were lifting it up. Rough palms caressed her thighs and moved up to her underwear.

Sarah realized she had become a spectator to her own seduction, watching it all in the giant mirror of the restroom as she leaned against the vanity, her spaghetti legs barely able to support her own weight. She saw a dashing man in a suit adoring her, paying homage to her body with his kisses and long, torturous caresses while his arms folded her much smaller form back against him.

Behind her she felt the urgency of his swollen cock as he ground his erection against her buttocks.

When his thumbs hooked into her panties to take them down her legs, she let out a gasp, but knew she was going to have to be quiet. People could be right outside.

Leaving her underwear stretched between her knees, he traced back up her legs, slowed as his fingers ran over her thighs and then tickled her clit with a wicked touch that almost forced her to climax.

Sarah reached behind her and cupped his face in her hands and brought him down so her lips could find his. His cheeks were rugged under her touch, the stubble of his beard well defined.

His fingers were opening her. One dived inside, then two. He was testing her readiness. She bit down on her lower lip, this latest intrusion causing her to want to cry out again. A strong climax was approaching, and she was going to go mad unless she soon had the relief her body craved.

“I’m going to have you now, Sarah,” he whispered against her lips as their tongues played.

“Yes,” she demanded, but could hardly form words.

The few seconds he removed his fingers from her sex caused her to silently groan with need. Behind her there was the distinct sound of his zipper. He fumbled for another agonizing minute to free himself, and then she felt the burning weight of his erection against her right buttock.

Spreading her thighs just enough he positioned for his entrance and then pushed forward. She let an errant cry as his first thrust went deep.

His hands snaked around her waist and between her thighs. Bringing his wonderful fingers back again, he started to rub her clit from the front as he penetrated her with his cock from behind.

She started to tense as he brought her into the home stretch. This was the danger zone, and she greedily reached out to embrace her approaching orgasm, arching her butt back against his driving cock and forcing him down her velvet depths deeper.

Spasms began to wrack her body, and she reached back and grabbed him by the neck, her other arm searching for his waist to hold on to.

For a few minutes after it was over, he stayed inside her, her panties still stretched at her knees, his arms still encircling her.

Sarah leaned over the vanity, breathing hard, gratified to see she’d had the same effect on him as he bent over behind her and his chest heaved fitfully.

There were a couple dozen Park Avenue millionaires in this apartment. Now all Sarah had to do is go back outside and partake of the food and drink and hope to hell she didn’t look like she’d just been fucked.

The large outdoor terrace of the apartment was open to guests. During the windy season this wouldn’t have been practical since they were more than three hundred feet in the air, but this was a placid summer day and the breeze blowing over the stone railing felt good and was a relief from the heat.

Ryan suggested they get some air out here, and Sarah had readily agreed. Only a few other guests were outside with them and they had some privacy, affording a chance to talk and enjoy the spectacular view.

Watching her, he noticed how flushed she was after their bathroom sex. She looked beautiful.

“Did you mean what you said in the car?” she asked him. No longer was there any need for pretense or anger between them. For the duration of the day they would be a couple and Ryan hoped for much longer than that.

“What did I say?” Ryan asked her.

“You said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

“With all my heart.”

“But does love mean the same thing with your kind as it does with humans?”

Ryan gave a laugh. There was so much Sarah still did not know about shape-shifters. “I’m a human, too,” he told her not unkindly.

This seemed to confuse her. She removed some hair from her eyes that the wind had blown across her face. “Lance kept referring to humans as the bad guys. I just thought you wouldn’t want to be thought of as human.”

Ryan sighed. He had made a mistake in letting Lance talk to her first. “Lance had a very bad event in his life that changed him. However, when I saw him at the hotel this morning he looked more like the old Lance I used to know a long time ago. One night with you did him a lot of good. Think what a lifetime would accomplish.”

Sarah looked embarrassed. The idea of being shared by the men was still new to her. She looked out at the panorama of the city and tried to hide her blush, but Ryan saw it anyway and smiled at her shyness.

“I didn’t do anything,” she told him.

“Please know that TJ, Lance, and I are all humans. Everyone in my pack is a human just like you are,” Ryan reassured her. “The only difference is we have a gift that other people don’t have. Because of our gift and the challenges that come with it, we live life a little differently.”

She looked up at him. He thought he was finally getting through to her. “That’s the reason I brought you to this party this afternoon. Everyone here is a normal person. I am the only shifter present. Nor does anyone else know what I am, and frankly they have no need to know. I suppose I wanted you to see me mingle with other people and prove to you I could be just like everyone else.”

She took his hand and laced their fingers. “No,” she told him quietly. “You’re not just like everyone else. You three men are so much more than everyone else.”

“I feel love the same way other men feel it, Sarah,” he gently explained to her. “Only problem with that is I never knew what love was before. Then you came into my life.”

Her smile became bright and hopeful. “I really liked it when you called me your girlfriend,” she admitted to him.

“I’d like it better if you’d call me your mate.” He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her and love her and let her know that he would make everything in her world right for her. However, there were just too many other people milling around that terrace, and he knew he would have to hold back his passion for later. The bathroom sex had been nice, but he wanted her again.

“Will you do something for me?” she asked him hopefully. “But it won’t be as glamorous as this cocktail party.”

“If it involves the two of us being together the answer is yes.”

She put a hand on his chest to hold him back. “Wait here for a minute.”

He watched her as she moved across the terrace behind a couple of artificial trees and pulled her phone out of her handbag. This puzzled him because he had no idea who she was calling and could not hear her conversation removed by distance and the whistling of the wind. But whoever she was talking to he was okay with it because it seemed to make her happy, the smile on her face and her animated conversation proof of her good mood.

Ryan saw a couple fellow investors and spoke briefly with them as they passed. He got a glass of champagne off a table and waited. Sarah was gone from him for about five minutes before she ran back across the terrace, the high heels of her shoes making it hard for her to get up much speed.

She seemed happy, but in the way of the cat who had just swallowed the canary.

“What is it?” he asked her.

“That was my dad,” she informed him with a beam. “I just got him to invite us to dinner tonight.”

Ryan knew the shock was displayed on his face. Though not displeased he had certainly been caught off guard by this turn of events.

“I figured you’ve told all the millionaires at this party I was your girlfriend, so I might as well tell someone who matters in my life.” Her eyes grew wide as she looked up at him with a question. “Will you take me to dinner at my dad’s tonight?”

Damn the other people around them, Ryan thought. He pulled her into his arms and gave her a kiss full on the lips. “I would be honored to have dinner at your father’s home,” he told her and settled the matter.

* * * *

An hour later they were pulling up out in front of her father’s Cape-Cod-style home. He lived in a small bedroom community outside of Stamford, Connecticut in the house Sarah had grown up in. Having lost her mother to cancer when she was still in high school, her father had lived alone in the house ever since.

During the drive up Sarah slipped into the backseat and changed again into her blouse, shorts, and comfortable shoes. Ryan asked her to keep on the pearl necklace, and Sarah had to admit the elegant little pearls went as well with her casual attire as they had with her formal.

Sarah gave her father a big hug when he met them at the front door and he was quick to extend his hand to Ryan in a gesture of friendship.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.” Ryan stood on formality when he was first introduced.

“Call me Bill,” her father told him in an affable tone and with a pat on the shoulder. “Come on inside and let me get you all something to drink. Ryan, how about a beer?”

“That sounds nice, Bill.”

“I made a pitcher of lemonade for you, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You two take a seat. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. I made us a pot roast.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to that trouble, Dad.”

“No trouble at all, sweetheart. It was one of your mom’s old recipes.”

Sarah was proud of Ryan. He was handsome and polite and most importantly he was all hers. Though a bit nervous about the hastily arranged dinner, Sarah knew Ryan would be cool about it and the perfect gentleman. Sarah was more worried about how she would act around her father and Ryan. Unfortunately there were certain aspects of her relationship with the men Sarah could not share with her father, and this caused her to worry she might say something by accident that would embarrass them all.

Her father handed her a glass of lemonade and gave Ryan his beer. Sarah got comfortable on the couch in the living room, and Ryan sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. It felt good to have his arm around her, and Sarah beamed with pride that this was her man.

Taking his seat across from them in his easy chair, her father threw her a suspicious look, and Sarah didn’t know what it was until the words were out of his mouth. “Is that a tattoo, Sarah?” he asked her with a mix of alarm and surprise. “I didn’t think you liked them.”

Sarah gave a sigh and pushed up the shoulder on her blouse in a self-conscious gesture to hide Ryan’s mating mark. Coming to her rescue, Ryan gave her arm a squeeze and took over. As the pack Alpha, he was pretty good with taking the lead.

“I gave it to her,” he explained in a level voice. He was not defensive but merely breaking the situation down for her father’s benefit. “It was when we first met on my ranch out in Montana. I put that on her shoulder as a symbol of my love for your daughter.”

“It’s unusual,” her father said. “As long as you’re okay with it, honey…”

Was she really okay with it? Sarah had vacillated back and forth on this. If only her father knew all the trouble this one little mark had caused her. On second thought it was a good thing he didn’t know all the trouble it had caused because it would have brought into question the future of her relationship with Ryan.

She had neither the time nor the courage to tell her father the full history of the mating mark, so she dissembled. “I’m fine with it, Daddy.”

He father seemed to accept that and moved on. “So you two met when Sarah took her vacation out west?” He directed his question at Ryan.

“That’s right,” Ryan started in his always-sure-and-strong Alpha voice. “I own a ranch that I open up to the public. I have a couple dozen cabins on my ranch, and we rent those out to tourists. It’s a way of generating some extra cash for our business, but mostly just a way to stay in touch with ordinary folks. Sarah rented one of my cabins for a week, and that’s when we met.”

“I must say I was surprised at Sarah’s announcement that she had a new boyfriend. It seemed so sudden. The two of you must have gotten to know each other awfully fast out there on that ranch.”

“We only had a week, Dad,” Sarah reminded him.

“I’m glad to see you doing well, honey.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Sarah was happy to see her father was pleased and excited for her, and this was exactly why she had wanted to bring Ryan to dinner tonight.

“It was love at first sight between us,” Ryan told her father.

Sarah looked up at Ryan and realized she had a really romantic guy on her hands here. She gave him a playful elbow in his ribs and laughed. “I don’t know about that,” she corrected his assessment. “But there was a strong attraction between us right from the first.”

Images of TJ and Lance filled her mind, and she almost mentioned them to her father. But it was best if she didn’t just yet because her father was already operating on information overload with Ryan sitting in his living room, and if they just gave it a little time and were patient everything would work out.