Under the Alpha's Protection (Steamy Werewolf Shifter Menage Romance) (6 page)

I came up for air under the bridge, and what I saw almost made my heart stop beating altogether.

Three bears were wandering out from the trees and onto the lakebed. Large, shaggy animals with powerful muscles beneath their fur, they wandered along the edge for a moment, one pawing at the water. After a moment, they seemed to look at each other, before the light around them grew to a glimmer, and they…

…They
changed
. It’s the only way I can describe it. It was over so quickly that I can still barely remember it. Their fur receded, their bodies shrunk, and their limbs contorted until they were three broad, powerful men, laughing and running for the bridge, ripping off their jeans and boots.

But they weren’t just regular men.

They were the ranch hands.

Brad was the first to dive in, landing just ten feet in the water in front of me. Next was Petro, shouting “
Cannonball
!” at the top of his lungs. But Caiden, the last one, paused before lunging in after them. As I continued to tread water, ducking behind the thick column of the bridge, I realized all too late what had stopped him.

“What’s the matter, boy? You change your mind after all?”

“We’ve got company,” Petro told them. I heard a rustling up top and knew he was digging out an article of clothing, and judging by how the ranch hands looked up, he was probably holding it out.

“It’s that niece of his,” Brad mentioned. “Where are you? Come on out! It’s fine, we’re not going to hurt you!”

I bit my lip, still hiding behind the bridge. They hadn’t spotted me yet…

“Maybe she’s not here anymore?” Caiden offered. “Maybe she just got scared by somethin’ and took off.”

“Without her clothes?” Brad asked incredulously. “No…I’m more worried that she’s hurt herself…it’s dark, what if she slipped, she have drown out here…fuck, we’ve gotta look for her!”

Petro stumbled around up top, and I could hear him moving towards the edge of the bridge.

“You see anything, man?” Caiden called out.

“…Nah! Nothing! I don’t see anyone out on the lake!”

Brad turned to Caiden. “We’ve gotta tear this place apart, if anything’s happened to that girl…”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened my mouth to call out to them…

But something caught my foot. Before I could utter a syllable, something drifting snagged my foot and dragged me underwater. I struggled to grasp at it — something metal, by the feel of it, that just happened to clamp around it — but whatever it was, it was sinking, and I couldn’t even touch the top of the water now…

I let out a panicked burst of air as I struggled to pull myself free. Whatever it was, it was going to spell my doom. They hadn’t seen me under the bridge, and I had no idea how close they were…

I heard a tremendous splash nearby, and something new grabbed my arm. It was a hand, and in the dark, murky water I couldn’t make out who or what it was…but it was incredibly strong, and joined by the other. Another hand grabbed my leg, sliding down to feel the metallic trap around me, struggling to disentangle it.

My lungs struggled for air, burning, and everything was growing even darker than before…

*              *              *              *

The next thing I remember, I sat up with a burst, gasping for air. The ranch hands were there, and I was clutching at them, begging, pleading…

“It’s okay,” Brad told me assuringly. “Don’t worry. We got you. You’re alright now.”

I struggled to regain my composure, staring up at them. I realized that I had been loosely redressed in my clothes. “How did you…why…did…?”

“It’s stupid, probably, and maybe even life-threatening. But we didn’t want you waking up naked and wet, if you were comin’ back,” Brad looked sheepish. “We weren’t sure, actually…you were out of it a while, and none of us knew CPR. We didn’t want to bring you back to your uncle like we found you.”

“That is the…stupidest thing I have ever…” I grumbled, glaring at all of them, “…but the sweetest. You are the oddest bunch of people I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Caiden chuckled.

All of a sudden, the whole “bear-dude transformation” thing came roaring back into my head, and my eyes bugged out as I drew back slowly.

“Fuck, why did you have to remind her?” Pedro asked, slapping Caiden up the back of the head. “She could have just thought that was some kind of a dream.”

It was Brad’s turn to punish
him
, grabbing him by the back of his hair. “And thanks to
your stupid mouth
, now she
definitely
knows it wasn’t.”

“Sorry, boss!” Pedro mumbled, yelping as Brad’s grip grew tighter.

“I won’t…I don’t understand…just…don’t hurt my uncle!” I blurted out. “I don’t care what you do to me, just don’t hurt him! He’s a good man!”

Brad let go of Petro’s hair. “Wait, what? Why would we hurt him? He’s been nothing but kind to us! Even without knowing…no, we won’t lay a finger on him,” he reassured me. In the moonlight, his features took on a somewhat wicked tone, but they — and his voice — considerably softened when he realized what was happening.

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” he murmured gently. “We’re not going to hurt either you OR your uncle. You’re both safe. Although…now we don’t know what do do about you learning our secret…if you were just some stranger, we’d probably have to do something drastic, but you two? Never.”

The confusion must have been apparent in my eyes.

“Now, now, don’t you worry yourself at all,” Brad continued. “Besides, even if you weren’t Jack’s niece…you are the most
wildly
attractive woman we’ve ever seen in these parts.”

Suspicions confirmed: awesome ranch dudes, bears or not, totally have the hots for me.

“You’re…wow, I thought I had just been making that up,” I told him. “I’d seen you looking at me a little too much and thought, you know, I’m no one special…”

“Oh, don’t you think that at all,” Brad whispered while the others shook their heads in agreement. “You’re incredibly special. And we’ve been struggling to keep our hands off of you.”

“We?” I asked, glancing around at them. It was true — they were looking at me
very
hungrily now, and in an odd way, it was
seriously
turning me on…

“Well, it’s true that you guys
just
saved my life…let’s just say I’m pretty wet, and I’m not talking about lake water…”

Without sparing a second, the three bear-guy ranch hands descended upon me, ravenously ready to take me for a ride — all of them, at the same time.

*              *              *              *

Brad pulled me into his embrace, and my nostrils filled with his earthy musk. The sheer power of his presence called to me, teased me, made me crave more.

So much more.

His lips locked with mine, and I felt his strong fingers tenderly brush locks of my hair from my face. As he dove in for another kiss, I felt his tongue flit between my lips, pushing against mine into my mouth, and our mouths collided with force now. My hands slipped up the back of his bare shoulders, clenching into his skin, then grasping at the back of his head. I held him pressed against me, his lips to mine, and tasted his rugged strength.

Unable to control himself, he pulled free, his fingers going for my buttons. I began prying them all open, top to bottom, but his impatience forced him to rip them all free. As he pulled my shirt open and off of my skin, my buttons flew against the ground, and my dark bra was exposed in the semi-light of the lakeside.

My fingers immediately flew for his buckle, and I started to unzip him before he could coerce me further out of my clothes. While the other two watched, I sank to my knees in the soft earth, withdrawing his thick manhood from its prison beneath his jeans.

I was no virgin, having grown up in a small town with nothing terribly exciting to do. But this cock was the largest, thickest one I’d ever seen. It put the boys I’d climbed into bed with to absolute shame. As I plucked it free into the night and began to stroke it, the thick erection continued strengthening itself, rising just a little higher and a little thicker.

Brad took control, pushing my head down upon the shaft. My lips parting around it, I tasted the evidence of his anticipation. It was like salty nectar from the slit of his bulbous head, and I gracefully accepted the gift as my tongue slid around the mighty rod of his passion. Pumping my lips up and down it, I took as much of it into my mouth as I could, tugging his jeans down to his knees before cupping his balls and stroking with my free hand. Using everything to please him, I set to work getting him off, exhilarated that I was doing this
outside
where Uncle Jack could come out at any moment, and with others watching me…

Brad’s hands on my head controlled my rhythm, pushing me towards the edges of my comfort. But I enjoyed the challenge, knowing that he wouldn’t
truly
hurt me, and adjusted to fulfill his needs. My hands moved to hold onto his jeans now, while his forceful pressure pumped my head up and down faster now, making me take more of him between my lips. He was so thick, so salty, so passionate that I was in absolute bliss on my knees for him.

But we both knew that wouldn’t satisfy him for long.

Brad plucked himself from my needful lips with a fistful of my hair, then pulled me onto my feet. The others descended upon me, unclipping my bra, ripping my boots free, and dragging my jeans down. Lifting me up for a brief moment, I was set back down on my feet with not a stitch of clothing on me. But the others backed off again while Brad settled me down against the grass, slinking up between my knees and kissing my chest. I tried to drag his face to my puffy nipples, but he continued downward, his tongue trailing my abdomen until he finally came to the wet lips of my pussy. Gently but ravenously, he dove his tongue inside, lapping away at my juices as I clutched his head with my fingers, grasping into tufts of his thick hair.

The others slipped down now, each settling down on either side and grasping at one of my pillowy breasts apiece. While their strong hands kneaded softly but firmly, they took my nipples into their mouths, flicking and teasing the pointy peaks as they did so. My hands soon flew back up, taking their heads into the crooks of my arms as they focused on pleasing me. Meanwhile, my legs clamped around Brad’s head, and my ankles settled over each other on his lower back.

My back arched with the near-electric sensations that rippled down my spine. My chest heaved as I clutched these teasing, sucking, biting lips to my yearning nipples. My legs quivered with delight as I squeezed tighter around the handsome werebear ranch-hand who was sucking at my clit now, pushing two calloused, sturdy fingers deep into my wet, aching pussy. I had never experienced even half of these sensations with anyone I’d taken to bed, and the exhilaration turned me on harder than I’d ever been.

My hands snaked down to grasp at Brad’s thick hair again, and I pulled his tongue free from me. “Fuck me,” I begged him, my spine twitching from a fresh wave of nipple biting. “Please, for the love of…just fuck me.”

“And who am I to turn down that kind of request from such a pretty little thing?” He smirked confidently, pulling free from my pussy. As he rose up, kicking off the rest of his jeans, one of the others plunged their fingers down to fill the void. I gasped and groaned, throwing my head back into the soft earth again, and my hips bucked to meet the pressure. While Brad got himself ready, I felt a thumb rubbing circles against my raised nub, and I clenched to the shifters tasting my breasts even harder than before.

But Brad was back now, standing tall and handsome in the moonlight. Just as naked as I, he dropped to his knees between my own, pulling my ankles up onto his shoulders.