“Sorry,” Anso said again.
His legs not yet up to rising, Ty slid back, turned, and sat next to him on the cold tile floor. Both their backs rested on the couch, both their faces matching shades of red from the vigorous sex. Anso’s mouth was swollen from their earlier kisses, his hair stuck with sweat to his broad cheekbones. Ty didn’t usually think of Anso as beautiful, but in that moment he was. His honey-lashed eyes were closed, his mind probably on anything but him.
“No need to apologize,” Ty made himself say lightly. “What’s a friend for if not to take a jolly rogering now and then?”
Without opening his eyes, Anso snorted out a laugh. “That was the best distraction I ever had.”
Ty knew Anso didn’t mean this as an insult. Somehow, though, in spite of Ty’s own profligate habits, it damn well felt like one.
CHAPTER FOUR
ANSO
had hoped his mating instincts would lead him to Resurrection, a Pocket city in New York where humans were aware his race existed. He should have known he wouldn’t be that lucky.
His mother had been a native of New Jersey.
He and his three-man escort swam in seal form. Ty had chosen the Corlier brothers to round out the squad. Nico and Mark were close-mouthed as well as tough, ideal recruits for a mission Anso was trying to keep under the radar. If their king’s quest to find a mate ended in shipwreck, the fewer people who knew the better.
Once they emerged from the Helike Tunnel, they continued south along the Atlantic coast, avoiding boats and tankers as best they could. Outsiders liked seals as a rule, but they couldn’t be sure some idiot wouldn’t take a shot at them. If the mundane human was drunk or nearsighted, they might be mistaken for sharks.
Their lack of dorsal fins aside, they were the same size as some.
The further they swam, the harder it was for Anso to remember dangers. Even in seal form, his body was aroused. He couldn’t precisely smell his mate, but by God he could sense her. Every nerve in his pelt was twitching, every whisker spread at full alert. He worked his tail and hind flippers harder, willing his already swift body to cut faster through the water. It wasn’t long before the others were struggling to keep up.
When he hit a hundred yards out from one particular sheltered beach, he braked so abruptly with his tail that his seal body rolled backward. His bones hummed like tuning forks as he righted himself.
This was it. She was here. His awareness of his mate was strong enough that his more rational human half simply couldn’t doubt it was real. His pulse was rippling beneath his skin, his genitals so erect it embarrassed him. Unless his kind were
very
adventurous, wereseals only had sex in human form.
Given that Anso knew this, Ty shouldn’t have had to grip his scruff and shake him as a reminder to transform. The others had already done so, while Anso hung there quivering. Changing took almost more concentration that he had. He visualized himself in man form, with arms and legs and the other accessories of bipedal life.
Slo-ow-ly
, the tingling sparkle that signaled he was successful rolled down him.
By the time it finished magically unpeeling him, he had a human body and a full erection. Anso didn’t think he’d been this hard ever. No way on land or water could his companions miss seeing it.
“Well,” laughed Nico, the older Corlier brother, his voice distorted by the murky sunlit water. He shrugged back into the small supply pack he’d volunteered to carry. “To judge by your reaction, I guess this is our last stop.”
“Are you sure?” Ty asked. “I mean, of course you’re sure, but we’re past the borders of the Pocket. This is going to be tricky. Your mate won’t have a clue why you’re kidnapping her.”
Anso met his friend’s yellow eyes. “You can wait here,” he said, knowing damn well Ty wouldn’t. “I can collect her on my own.” Ty flinched, probably because Anso’s tone was icy. Anso didn’t know what had happened to his conscience either. He only knew his mate was here, and he was claiming her - preferably in every way possible very soon. If she was pregnant by the time they reached Oceana, that would be fine by him.
Come to think of it, being this focused on a goal was a pleasanter sensation than he’d have predicted.
“
I’m
not waiting here,” Nico Corlier announced. “I’ve got to admit this is my idea of fun.”
“Mine too,” Mark said with a quiet laugh.
Under other circumstances, this might have been more than Anso wanted to know about his guards. Under this one, he was grimly satisfied.
The more overpowering force he could muster, the less chance his mate would be harmed in a struggle.
“All right,” Ty said. “I guess we’re all going ashore.” The transition from sea to air was necessarily an unpleasant one. One moment he was buoyant, and the next he was heavy. At first, he breathed rich smooth fluid, which he traded for desiccated gas. Once he reached the edge of the waves, Anso gave a great cough to clear his lungs, wishing as always that there was a nicer way to do this. For a second, his entire breathing apparatus burned, his eyes tearing violently. Then he recovered.
He noticed his discomfort hadn’t lessened his erection. Ignoring that for the moment, he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. No one seemed to be on the beach, which was clean and white and overlooked by a single weatherworn gray cottage with cedar shingles and a white back porch.
Was his mate inside that building? He wasn’t getting an inner ping as he examined the square windows. He knew she was near, not farther inland, because the rest of his body was going wild. Then his eyes lit on one of the taller dunes.
The hair on his arms stood up.
There
, he thought, his soul seeming to jump along with his cock. She was behind that small hill of sand. He strode toward it without hesitation, barely aware that his escort followed, spreading out behind him and scanning the land for threats.
Despite the handicap thrusting from his groin, Anso reached the goal first.
His heart nearly stopped. His mate was beautiful.
And naked.
And she wasn’t alone.
She and a rugged looking dark-haired man were curled in sleep on a blue-striped towel, snuggled into each other as trustingly as pups. That they’d been doing more than sleeping on the beach was obvious. Smears of semen had dried glossily on the woman’s slender thighs. With a sense of unreality, he noticed she was a true redhead.
Oh God
, he thought, half surprised he didn’t say it aloud.
His mate was married. She wore a gold band and diamond on her left hand.
Ty jerked to a halt beside him, drawing Anso’s stupefied gaze to his. Of all the problems they’d imagined, this had not been one. Ty didn’t speak any more than Anso, but his eyes were definitely saying
What now
?
What now indeed. His mate was married, and clearly not unhappily. If Anso’s mother had been miserable in Oceana, what would stealing this woman from her spouse do to her? Anso
couldn’t
take her, and yet he couldn’t not.
As if they’d been dragged there, his eyes returned to his sleeping mate. How delicate she looked - and how kind, cradling her sleeping husband’s head against her breast. It almost hurt to witness their entwined pose, to see how much they loved each other. Distantly, he sensed Ty looking at them too. Considering who Ty’s parents were, Anso could imagine what he was thinking.
His friend’s feelings didn’t matter as much as they usually did. Faint lines curved around his mate’s mouth, due to her smiling a bit in sleep. Anso was glad she was old enough to have laugh lines. A teenager wouldn’t have suited him at all. Pleased, his eyes drank her in like food: her soft round breasts, her muscular curving legs. She had the velvety skin wereseals weren’t ever born with, as if one-natured humans were more touchable than normal folk.
Despite his dismay at finding her with a companion, Anso’s blood hadn’t stopped thundering through his cock. The thought of touching this lovely woman sent an itchy tingle through his balls. There was only one way to solve this, one narrow strait through which all of them might pass safely.
“Take them both,” he said harsh and low to his men.
CHAPTER FIVE
OLIVIA
dreamed someone was easing her off the towel and lifting her in his arms. The sensation was very pleasant, like being a child again. Probably James was carrying her back to the cottage.
Smiling at his sweetness - because her husband’s lower back wasn’t twenty anymore - Olivia opened her eyes.
Life as she knew it turned upside down.
A stranger was carrying her. He was quite good looking, his dark gold hair slicked around his head by water, his cheekbones broad and slanting like a Russian prince. His eyes looked straight into hers. They were an unlikely shade of blue, the same shade as the London blue topaz necklace James had given her last Christmas. Olivia doubted she could have matched the color even with contacts.
She didn’t think it was her imagination that the stranger’s eyes were glowing.
They stared at her adoringly.
Alarming as all this was, it didn’t compare to the shock she felt at her own reaction. Neither terror nor outrage seized her. Instead, she felt precisely as she had when she was a freshman at NYU, the first time James grinned at her in the hall outside her dorm room.
This was her man. The one who’d keep her safe and help make her life a joy.
The one she wanted to sleep with, the one she hoped would father her child. She and James had tried to have another after Violet, but a little brother or sister hadn’t been in the cards. Some primitive part of her sensed this man could fulfill that wish. Her pussy squeezed with excitement, heated moisture dewing its walls.
In a single heartbeat, she was fully aroused, her clit swelling like a berry between her labia.
As she recalled, James had been an instant panty-wetter too.
“Holy crap,” she whispered, realizing she didn’t have panties now - or a single other scrap of clothing.
The stranger’s adoring regard softened. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured tenderly. “I’ve no intention of hurting you.”
He had a slight British accent, which Olivia admitted to having a weakness for. That weakness didn’t explain why her hand lay quiescent on the stranger’s rock-hard chest. He wasn’t very hairy. The fine gold peach fuzz that overlay his pecs felt a bit like fur. She should have been struggling to get away, but all she could think was that she wanted to pet him. Olivia’s mouth fell open in horror at herself. James was her husband - her soulmate, if there was such a thing. She’d never in her life wanted to cheat on him.
The stranger’s gaze slid to the pebbled tips of her breasts, which had drawn so tight they ached. “I know how you feel,” he growled, his voice as low as before.
“I’d kill to make love to you right now.”
That startled Olivia into shoving at his chest. “I don’t -” And then she heard James wake up. She jerked around in the stranger’s arms so that she could see. Three big naked men were struggling with her naked husband, who hadn’t quite made it to his feet. James was trying to fight, but they had him at a disadvantage, both in numbers and experience. James was fit, but he was no trained warrior - as these men seemed to be.
Navy seals
? she wondered, but that didn’t make much sense. Forster Media specialized in corporate presentations - flash and sparkle for shareholders or employees. They had no sensitive accounts. She and James had never worked for their government or anyone else’s. No one from any military organization would bother coming after them.
“Olivia!” James cried frantically as he wrestled with his attackers. “Put my wife down, you cocksucker!”
I should say something
, Olivia thought.
Do something
. But she’d gone quiet in the stranger’s arms again, as if her body knew something her mind did not. It was like being in a dream where you’d forgotten how to scream. The three naked attackers were wrapping her husband in some sort of semi-sheer white tape, trapping his arms so he’d stop fighting. The man who held her observed this as if their actions were no surprise. She concluded he was in charge.
“What are they doing to him?” she forced her mouth to say.
“Olivia!” James cried again.
“Silence him,” the man who held her said.
Olivia expected them to gag him. They had that tape after all. Instead, one of the men, whose skin bore the faintest pattern of leopard spots, clapped his hands overtop James’s ears and kissed him full on the mouth.
Their profiles faced Olivia. She could see the spotted man shoving at James’s lips with his tongue. James resisted that for about six seconds.
And then he kissed him back.
The shocks were piling on faster than Olivia could absorb. Did James know this man? Was this some sort of joke? But it couldn’t be. Pranks weren’t James’s style at all. She also didn’t think he’d be moaning with arousal in front of her - not if he could help himself. That he couldn’t help himself seemed clear. Bound though he was, he was pushing back at the spotted man, forcing the kiss deeper, which the other man appeared eager to allow. Beneath all this, her husband’s cock was swelling, the curve of it lifting, straightening, then thrumming thick as a flagpole toward the tape that wrapped his torso. Olivia knew James liked bondage, but more than that had to be behind his reaction.
She should have been hurt or frightened - especially with her recent suspicions about his sexual past. Perversely, Olivia thought she’d never seen anything as erotic as those men Frenching each other. Her pussy was so aroused it hurt.
“We’ve gone mad,” she murmured. Someone at the grocery must have spiked their root beer.
“Ty’s from a noble line,” said the man who held her. “Among other things, he has an aphrodisiac in his saliva. Once his hormones absorb into your ... husband’s blood, it will make traveling easier.”
Olivia had no idea what he meant by this. She returned her attention to him and was caught again in the spell of his deep blue eyes. “You didn’t kiss me,” she said.
Her captor smiled and - oh God - he looked so beautiful her heart momentarily stopped. His strong arms tightened under her. “No, I didn’t. I guess you naturally want me.”