The Tiger's Tale Page 5

  “We need to get you out of those clothes. Peel them off and you can have my dry ones.”

  She couldn’t look away. A silver thread of desire dripped from the tip of his cock. Her tongue slid over her lips.

  “Marie?”

  “Um, yeah. Take off my wet things.” She fumbled with buttons and zippers. He did a bad job of pretending not to watch her strip.

  He shrugged out of his down vest as well as his flannel and undershirt. She clamped her tongue tight between her teeth and forced her eyes to his bellybutton. Her tongue still throbbed. She wanted to lick him there too and follow the softly furred path lower. Marie’s hand shook when she reached for his clothes. His fingers closed around hers.

  “Nope. I get to do the honors.” First, he pulled her close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body and then he used his t-shirt and rubbed her hair as dry as he could before helping her into his shirt. His scent was like a drug. The fabric was soft and still warm from his body. It teased and tented over her hard nipples when he drew edges together to fasten the first button. His knuckles grazed her collarbone and her body responded with a tightening and a hot trickle between her thighs. She watched his fingers work lower, slip each small white button into its proper hole. She squeezed her legs together, refusing to let that erotic symbolism rise up through the fog filling her mind.

  Then his hot cock bumped her there, like an arrow landing on the bull’s-eye. The head of his cock bounced right against the apex of her thighs and rested. His hands went still. He had to notice the fresh sticky heat. She held her breath, waiting for him to say something witty and break the spell.

  She might suffocate before he gathered his wits enough to do so.

  She put her hands over his. They were so hot. He would make a good masseur. He wouldn’t need heat stones. He could just lay his hands over the tight spots and let the heat seep in and soothe away the tension. She thought how nice it would be to let go and soften under his touch. It would be heaven.

  It would land her in an emotional hell.

  She took a step back. “Tell you what, Ean. I’ll ignore your elephant’s trunk if you ignore my hot spring.”

  Ean, unlike Adam, was readable. She watched the thoughts paint themselves in expressions on his face. Total blank… To huh?… To ahhh…and ending on a sly smile that said exactly where he’d like to park his trunk. Then he got that drowsy, unfocused look that swooped in and was halfway to a kiss before she figured out it was coming. His fingers scooped hair back from her face and her own fingers twined around the backs of his hands when he leaned in, gently bumped her nose with his own and teased her lips open with his tongue.

  She let him. How could she not? She wanted that kiss, wanted the rough scrape of his tongue against hers, wanted his hard, hot chest pressed tight to her breasts where she could feel his heart beating next to her own. She wanted.

  She opened. His tongue thrust hungrily in and out. She felt every thrust between her legs. A soft buzzing sensation spread from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. He pressed deeper. She heard her own whimper, a pathetic kittenish mew and didn’t care. She sucked at his tongue.

  She wanted. She wanted him in a primitive, animal way. She craved.

  Craved more. Craved deeper.

  Craved Ean.

  Then he set her away from him, took a breath and nodded. “Okay.”

  While she stared up him, she could swear the gold flecks in his eyes coalesced until she was looking into black-slitted gold eyes. She closed her own and opened them again to find just gold-dusted blue and concern.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She opened and closed her mouth, curled her fingers to fists and then opened them to press her palms against his chest. He’d been teasing her, a little sex play. She didn’t tease back. She didn’t laugh it off. It didn’t feel like a game anymore. Something was happening. It was like a magnetic wind moving through her, pushing her toward…

  Pushing her toward what? Ean would be the logical answer, but something else she couldn’t name beckoned her. She gave her head a shake to clear it. “I don’t know. I’m a little dizzy. Maybe a touch of the motion sickness is hanging on.” That and the need to throw him in the hay and fuck him senseless.

  “I’m a slug.” His hand closed tightly around her fingers and he tugged her across the loft to where he’d dropped the pack. “There are blankets and food in here.”

  He bought her explanation. Another difference. Adam always knew. Adam wouldn’t have let her slide. She found comfort there and clung to that difference between the men as if it was a life preserver, even as Ean led her into darker, more dangerous waters.

  “Please don’t fuss, Ean.” And she might as well tell the wind not to blow. He soon had her tucked into a small fleece throw and was feeding her crackers and sweet hot tea.

  His concern for her didn’t diminish his own appetite. He wolfed down two sandwiches and at Marie’s insistence followed those with the two he’d made for her. And all the while the vision of those gold eyes stayed in her mind. Those and another pair—black-slitted silver. It was a trick of her mind. She knew that. A symbol. What could it mean?

  Ean was working tangles from her hair, threading his fingers through, catching knots and gently working them apart, a process that could take hours. But it kept his hands busy and helped her think of other things besides being under him here in the sweet hay, with him stroking in and out, hot, hard, steady… “This can’t work.” His fingers stilled. She shouldn’t have just blurted that out.

  “It has to work.” He kissed her shoulder, a gentle brush of lips. “Why fight it?” Teeth lightly nipping emphasized his point. “We want to pleasure you.” His tongue soothed the sting. “We can make you happy.”

  She sighed, wishing. She wanted to let go and enjoy. She couldn’t.

  “There is more to it than that, Ean. At least it is for me.”

  He didn’t say anything. He leaned in and kissed the nape of her neck, let his tongue swirl there against the skin. Hot breath warmed the moist skin, whispered over it in a way that made a shiver slide down her spine and keep going down to her toes. He leaned over her shoulder and pressed his face to hers, nuzzling there, sliding his cheek back and forth against hers, and the magnetic wind came whistling back like a storm blowing in. Tumbling her thoughts like dry leaves. Snatching her breath.

  “It is so much more, Marie.” Lick, nuzzle. “You’ll see how much more.” Lick, nip. “Let go. Let us show you.”

  She tried to fight it. She snatched the first coherent thought she could find and voiced it. “I don’t believe this whole genetics thing. It’s so…farfetched.”

  His hands had moved from her hair down to her ribs. She hadn’t noticed that drift until they tightened in a fierce grip. “We wouldn’t lie to you. Only a monster would lie about something so important. You might not know me well but you know Adam.”

  His voice had a rough growling edge to it. It was his logic, more than the anger she stirred, that swayed her. She raised her hand to smooth her palm over his cheek, feeling the faint trace of stubble already coming back since his morning shave. Her breath came out in a sigh.

  “I know. I know. It doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t lie. But this is impossible.”

  “Courage, sweet,” he murmured. “It takes courage to have a miracle. Grown men will run into a wall of flames to save a life but shrink in terror at the idea of a rose appearing out of thin air.” He opened his palm in front of her to reveal a handful of golden petals. The unmistakable scent of roses perfumed the air.

  Her heart did a quick sprint around her chest and fear prickled over her skin in the breath of time it took logic to still fear.

  It was a trick, of course, but she couldn’t help the smile shaping her lips and reaching down inside to warm her. A sweet trick. She stroked the petals, velvety soft. The perfume sweet, intoxicating, like Ean’s voice. She turned her head and looked straight into those cosmic eyes.

  “I’d
choose the flames. I’m not brave enough to tackle magic roses.”

  “I am.” His eyes didn’t waver. He leaned close, his nose bumping hers playfully. He rubbed his face against hers again. His tongue teased her earlobe. A humming rose in her blood, almost a purr.

  “Can you let me be brave for you, Marie?”

  Could any woman have said no? He pressed her into the soft hay. Could any woman have pushed away those exploring fingers that found and pinched her nipples to peaks while his tongue filled her mouth and the scent of roses bloomed around her? Wouldn’t any woman beg, like she did now?

  “Lick my nipples, Ean. Bite them.”

  He bit the buttons from his shirt instead, the one he’d wrapped her in. He plucked the first one free, held it between his teeth while he held her gaze and then blew it off into the hay, like a dart from a blowgun. His eyes fixed on hers. Then he dipped his head for the next, repeating the process. She felt the tug, heard the soft snap of rending threads and cloth. She watched him send another button flying. Hair tousled, face flushed with passion, his eyes glittered with a promise—a promise of passion, a promise of something not so civilized or proper.

  When he had plucked the last button from the shirt, he paused, resting on his elbows, gazing into her eyes. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe under that stare. She shouldn’t be doing this. They shouldn’t.

  “We’re not supposed to have sex, Ean.”

  Her mouth said one thing. Her body said something else. Her hands itched to explore him. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t.

  She ignored her better judgment and found the courage to reach up, running a finger over his firm bottom lip. He captured her finger between his teeth and made a soft growling sound deep in his throat. Her pussy responded, clenching and growing slicker. He had to know what that growl did to her. The scent of her desire gave her away.

  He released her finger and said, “We won’t.”

  He bent his head to her breasts and showered them with small, sharp nips. She squirmed. She hissed. She panted. If this wasn’t sex, it was a flawless imitation. She needed to get away. Or, she needed to try. She pressed her hands against his shoulders, attempting to wriggle free, half hoping he wouldn’t let her.

  He didn’t.

  His tongue traced a small circle at the crest of her nipple. He filled it in with a hot, wet stroke. Then his teeth closed, drawing up skin, gently. He held her nipple captive while she squirmed, until she went still and lay under him panting and waiting. Then those teeth closed in a hard nip that had her arching under him. Making her gasp. Making her drip.

  She could feel the length of his cock pressed between her sticky thighs, nudged tight against the folds of her pussy, sliding back and forth over her clit when she squirmed.

  She could see them, see as if she was outside her body watching, his cock, the flared head glistening with her nectar. Her own sex, bright pink and glistening as well, the petals parting for his thick shaft, clinging as it rode back and forth over her swollen clit. Yet she was fully in her body, feeling that buzzing pleasure that started against his cock and hummed, resonating outward through every cell.

  Mindsight. It was in her mind, but she knew what she saw was real.

  She saw his balls swing and bump against the soft curve of her ass and she watched her own frantic ride. Juices glistened, clinging to fine dark hairs like dew.

  She pressed tighter, working her hips and feeling his ridged cock bump back and forth over her clit. He caught her other nipple between his teeth and clamped down. Her head came up and she sank her teeth into his shoulder to stifle the snarl that ripped from her throat.

  A climax stalked her, circled, ready to pounce.

  His skin should be velvet soft there, right where it rubbed her pussy.

  It burned. Hot enough to scorch.

  Velvet rippling over a steel core. Would he feel that hot in her hand? She imagined squeezing him tight, her fingers curled around his cock, watching the flesh gather in folds against the circle of her thumb and finger when he drew back and smoothing when he thrust forward. He moaned as if she had done it.

  He should feel like velvet.

  His effect on her was more like the steady back and forth stroke of the finest sandpaper. A feathery scrape, scrape, scrape. It set her nerves vibrating and peeled away the thin varnish of propriety that clung tight long after she was ready to be done with it. Each scrape opened her more, made here raw, drove her to that wild dark place she craved and dreaded.

  “No,” she cried. “No, no, no…” Her breath came in frantic little pants and her mind screamed stop, while her body desperately pushed on, sliding up and down his muscled flesh. Like an animal. Hungry. Starved.

  She couldn’t stop.

  A dark cloud swirled up around her.

  Fear warred with need. So close, the pleasure was so close. But so was the darkness, shifting, waiting to suck her away.

  She had to stop.

  She couldn’t stop.

  She clung to Ean, her teeth still clamped on his shoulder, like that might anchor her there against his hard, strong body. She came, the sensation like every cell in her body was exploding and she whimpered, clawed, fighting and spinning away all at once.

  Ean’s cock jerked between her thighs, hard spasms that sent his seed spilling over her bottom, her own juices flowing to mingle with his. So hot she wondered that they didn’t scald him, soaking him while he came. That throaty growl resounded in her ears, like thunder first and then receding as she felt herself slipping away.

  The magnetic wind had grown to a cyclone force and the darkness sucked at her. It felt like the two might tear her in half but the dark gained strength. She didn’t want to go there, fought it with every ounce of her will and it wasn’t enough. She was going. She couldn’t get back.

  Chapter Four

  “Right here. I’ve got you,” Adam called to her.

  “Adam,” she whimpered. “Adam?”

  “Shh. Right here.”

  And he was. He was right beside her, kneeling in the straw. How?

  Ean was kneeling on the other side, his face hidden in shadow. She shook her head. The spectral memory of her teeth sinking into to taut skin wouldn’t leave. Reality sank in, slammed her awake and aware. A bloody tang lingered on the back of her tongue.

  “Adam—I didn’t mean…” Where had Adam come from? Had she been out that long? She could swear no more than a second blinked by between the time an orgasm ripped her from Ean’s arms and Adam spoke to her.

  “We didn’t mean to,” she said, struggling to sit. Adam fussed over her, smoothing her hair, brushing away bits of straw. How long had she been dreaming? It had to be a dream, a nightmare. Or, a nightmare come to life?

  “We didn’t mean it,” she repeated.

  Ean sat back on his heels, angled so the murky light revealed the bruise on his shoulder, a purple ring, blooming to red where the imprint of her teeth remained. Blood seeped from parallel scratches striping both arms. Cold crept from her belly into her lungs. She couldn’t draw a breath. A dense weight settled low in her stomach.

  “Ean?” Her hand trembled when she reached to touch him, sliding her finger along between two stripes as she tried to absorb that she could be capable of this. She touched his face, making him turn his head to look at her. “Ean?”

  He nodded, possibly to reassure her, his breath coming short and shallow. But he didn’t speak. And what could he say about…this? About her? He was looking at her like…like she was some kind of crazed animal. She felt crazy.

  She glanced around. She needed her clothes and she needed to get out, get away from them.

  A gun blast froze them all.

  Feeling her way through disasters on a gut level usually served her better than reasoning through them. And that was why she was open to the doe when the blast came. It was like that hammering heart had lodged inside her own. A panic-fogged brain screamed run—run faster! But there was no electric sizzle knifing through her stomach,
the kind she got when she allowed herself too close to another creature’s suffering.

  “She’s okay. He missed,” she said.

  The continuing baying of hounds, faintly audible now, confirmed that they were still at the chase.

  She’d closed her eyes when she heard the shot, to feel the result. And when she opened them, both men were staring at her.

  She hadn’t meant to say that.

  She had confirmed any suspicion that she was delusional. And maybe she was. Her skin prickled with dread as the baying continued. Not dread for the quarry. Dread for the three of them.

  * * * * *

  When Adam had helped Marie down the ladder, Ean collapsed in the loft. He curled up on his side, closing his eyes and fighting nausea. He gritted his teeth against the pain sparking through his brain. He rarely had headaches, and they were fleeting things, chased away with a quick shift. This writhing beast threatened to split his head apart. How did humans cope?

  He tried to raise his vibration, just enough to let his consciousness float above his body without making a full shift, but the effort to concentrate only intensified thrusts from the knives stabbing the back of his eyeballs. And then Adam was beside him again, pressing Marie’s soggy shirt to Ean’s forehead.

  “Sorry but this will have to do for now.” Ean could smell river water and the faint scent of the soap Marie used.

  “Marie?” He swallowed against another wave of nausea.

  “She’s in the truck. Ready to run of course, but doesn’t have her legs under her yet.”

  Adam laid a hand over Ean’s stomach, drawing off pain.

  “No, Adam,” Ean growled. As the pain diminished, he let his head drop to the straw and stopped fighting.

  “It’s fine,” Adam told him. “It doesn’t hit me as hard.” His voice took on a gravelly edge and Ean suspected that was a lie.

  “Tell me this. How are we going to live through four days of mating with her?”

  Adam sat cross-legged in the straw beside Ean. “It won’t be as hard with two of us to balance the energy. When she learns to stop fighting herself, the pleasure will be more intense than this pain.”