Leaf, Erin M. - Tango Trio [Dream Marked 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (8 page)

Jared watched the two of them lob verbal darts at each other, an indulgent smile on his face as he finished eating. “I don’t think you’ll be fainting anymore, Tessa.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What makes you say that?”

“I think the bonding is complete. I can feel you inside me, part of me. Completely. I know it’s been strange, but I feel your strength.” He clenched his fist and put it over his heart. “Here. I can feel you here.”

Tessa sighed. “I’m just a bit freaked out about it all. I mean, not just the bonding, but visions? I know you saw the forest, too, while we were having sex.”

Jared nodded. “I did. And even when you swiped at us mentally, I wasn’t afraid. I know we’ll be okay.”

“How can you possible know that?” Tessa felt the panic starting to come back.

“I know you,” Jared stated.

Parker nodded, sipping at his beer. He looked down at the bonding tattoo on his forearm, absently rubbing a finger over the paw-print pattern. When he looked at Tessa, he pursed his lips. She wondered what he thought of it all.

“What is it, Parker?” Jared asked. He leaned forward. Tessa loved how the men unconsciously reached for each other.

“Am I the only one who can see the weird halos?”

Tessa sat back, eyebrows lifting. She felt inexplicably relieved. “No, I can, too. Only they’re more like smells. Sort of.” She didn’t know how to explain it, but the two men were nodding. She looked down at her tattoo, trying to focus her eyes on the pale golden sheen set into the black. She couldn’t. It was like trying to look at a star—easier to see with peripheral vision. The sheen extended past the tattoo, but somehow it seemed easier to focus on the bonding marks. Maybe it would get easier to see with practice. She sniffed, and her perception of the aura strengthened. It was definitely linked to her sense of smell.

“Yeah. You have a sort of gold aura, sweetheart. It’s beautiful,” Jared said.

Tessa smiled as Parker reached for her arm and ran his fingers down the length from her elbow to her palm. “Yeah, golden. And if I do this”—he ran his fingers back up—“it makes the color swirl, but it’s not like I can actually see it. It’s like looking at something from the corner of my eye rather than right on. If I
scent
it, though, I can see it in my head in all its glittery yumminess. It’s gorgeous.”

Tessa pulled her arm away. “What about Jared?”

Parker leaned back, and suddenly Tessa couldn’t read him. She felt a stab of worry at his lack of response. He glanced at her then winked mischievously and turned toward Jared, who held out his hand. Parker took it then leaned down to kiss the very center of the other man’s palm. A burst of heat flashed through Tessa.
So erotic
. When Parker closed his eyes and licked, his face blissful, she gasped. Jared cupped Parker’s face, rubbing his thumb over his lips, and Parker’s eyes flew open, the green irises luminous. He drew a shaky breath. “Jared’s aura feels like silver mint. If I concentrate, I can see his spirit running through the forest, the moon shining on him jealously.” He stared at Jared for a long, fraught moment before sitting up again. Jared smiled at Tessa, his eyes hot.

Damn. My men are gorgeous
. Tessa returned his look
.
She was stunned both by the easy acceptance the men had for the bond and by Parker’s poetic words. Tessa bit her lip, trying to work it out in her head. Was Parker really that easygoing about the bond? He’d gone from straight to bisexual in a day. That had to be disconcerting, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it. She cleared her throat. “Did you ever dream about Jared before? I mean, before the bond?” She thought about Jared, how she had the same dream over and over again for weeks. She didn’t realize it before in the chaotic heat of the bonding, but Jared had already been a part of her, long before they actually met. And Parker was her best friend. She didn’t have to get to know him at all. She already knew him inside and out. He was six years younger than she was, sure, which made her hesitate, but the real difficulty was realizing she suddenly wanted to fuck him until they both collapsed. She wasn’t used to wanting anything that bad. After her husband died, she felt numb for a long time, but she was ready to wake up again. Parker fidgeted, looking out the back window. Tessa frowned.
Hmm. He’s hiding something.

“You’re right. I am hiding something,” he said, still staring outside. He swiveled his head, and Tessa almost flinched at the look on his face. Love? Fear? Maybe both? She forced herself to pay attention as he explained further. “Or rather, I
was
hiding something. I dreamed about Jared, every single night for weeks. I was scared. I knew that people who bonded often dreamed about their mates beforehand, and I didn’t want to be tied to a stranger. To another man. I wanted you, Tessa. I’ve loved you forever. And I’m not homophobic, but it was weird to suddenly be dreaming about a guy. That’s never happened to me before. I fought it.” Parker shook his head. “Then, last night, I dreamed about you, too. You were in my dream along with Jared, and suddenly I
knew,
but I didn’t understand. Not really.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I hoped that I was going to be able to have you, too, but I don’t think I truly believed it until we met Jared. That changed everything.”

Tessa felt tears pricking. “Why didn’t you say anything?” She remembered how scarce he’d been the last few months. He didn’t return her calls as quickly as he used to. Their visits dropped down to once a week, then once every two weeks. “I would’ve understood. Hell, I was dreaming about Jared, too! Maybe if you’d told me we could’ve figured this out sooner!” Tessa wanted to scream at the lost time.

“I don’t think it’s that easy, Tessa,” Jared interrupted, his voice soft. “I was dreaming about both of you for a while, but I don’t think we would’ve really recognized each other until today. At first I didn’t see either of your faces in the dreams. I didn’t know your names until last night.” He sighed, rubbing his fingers over his bonding mark. “I knew how you smelled, though.” He smiled. “Imagine how ridiculous that would’ve been, me trying to hunt the two of you down by smelling everyone I met.”

Despite her frustration, Tessa couldn’t help but smile. She imagined Jared sniffing strangers on the street. “But Parker and I knew each other already.”

“I think that’s why you dreamed about me.” Jared looked at Parker, who nodded. “You needed to get to know me. You already knew Parker and vice versa. That’s why Parker dreamed about me. And it’s why I dreamed about both of you. I didn’t know either of you.” He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “And were you really ready to accept Parker as a lover? In some ways, it was a struggle for you to think of him like that, even with the bonding.”

Tessa bit her lip then sighed. “You’re right. That makes sense. I just wish it had been sooner. Or easier. Or something. I didn’t even know trio-bonding was possible.”

“Neither did I.” Parker stood up and started pacing. “I mean, I’d heard about Duncan Green, so I knew who he was when you mentioned him before. But I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t part of my life.”

Tessa sighed. “It is now.”

Parker stopped in front of her. “It shouldn’t be any different from any other bonding, except we’ve got three people in it instead of two.”

Jared slipped up behind Parker and slung his arm around the larger man’s waist. “I agree. I don’t see what difference it will make.”

Tessa nodded slowly, hoping they were right.

* * * *

By five o’clock the next morning, Tessa knew the two men were wrong. This wasn’t a normal bonding. She had a splitting headache, her tattoos itched horribly, and her mind kept trying to tell her that something was terribly wrong. She felt like part of her body was missing. Or part of her brain. Something essential was just not there.
I’m an emotional amputee
, she thought, then winced as the two men caught the image from her mind.
This isn’t working, guys
, she thought at them more deliberately.

I agree, but I’ve got to go to work in a half hour
, Parker sent, his mind voice as irritable and pained as Tessa felt.
We’re already behind schedule.

What can we do? I have a day full of classes to teach
, Jared thought. His mind voice was more controlled, but Tessa sensed the desperation beneath his calm.

We can manage until we come to class tonight
, Tessa thought.
If you start canceling classes
, she sent to Jared,
or skipping work
, she sent to Parker,
everyone’s going to find out about our bonding. And after the uproar that happened with Duncan Green and his bond-mates, you know the press will be all over us, too. There haven’t been any other reports about trio-bonding, so if we’re the next ones…
She let her mind voice trail off as she felt Parker wince.

Yeah, okay
, Parker thought tersely.

I’m going to spend the morning doing some research on the web. I thought once our bond was fully established, we wouldn’t feel this way, but maybe trio-bonding is different,
Tessa thought.

Tessa felt Jared and Parker’s agreement, and then her awareness of them faded into the back of her mind. If she concentrated, she could “see” them in her head, but otherwise the connection felt more like a low buzz of awareness. She rubbed her eyes, hoping that a cup of coffee would help her headache.

* * * *

Three hours later Tessa knew her headache wasn’t going to get better, but it subsided just enough for her to function. She’d eaten breakfast, and that helped, then spent the last several hours on the Internet, doing searches about bonding. She’d discovered pretty quickly that a few months after the phenomenon began early last year, the news reports about it on the web had been wiped. Erased.
Who would do
that?
Tessa tried to wrap
her brain around the massive information purge. When Duncan Green, Jake Mackenzie, and Emma Bell came forward with their trio-bond, the news reports began again, but none of them contained any useful information. Everyone agreed that bonding created a connection between two people, but there was no discussion about telepathy. Or a heightened sense of smell.

Tessa sat back in her chair, thinking about what she knew. Every bonding involved marks like tattoos on the bond-mates’ forearms. She fingered the marks on her arms. It made sense that she had two bonding tattoos since she was part of a trio—so did Jared and Parker. Next, every bonding created a connection between the people involved, usually empathy, the ability to sense each other’s emotional state. She had that as well, except the bond with Jared and Parker went further—they could actually talk to each other mentally. Tessa wondered if trio-bonding had some extra abilities. It seemed a logical conclusion, but she couldn’t find anything about it on the web. The only other trio-bond involved a famous rock star, and he probably had teams of people working to keep his life private. So, no information from that source. For a stray moment she considered her mother then squashed the thought without compunction. She hadn’t spoken to the woman in ten years. Her mother hated her, and Tessa was ashamed to say she didn’t exactly have warm fuzzies toward the woman who’d birthed her.

Tessa stretched and made her way to the kitchen for some more coffee. In the back of her mind, she sensed Jared teaching a class of young girls the basics of ballet. He was incredibly patient and funny and gentle with the children. She smiled and sent a pulse of affection to him through their bond. He grinned, caressing her mind with a light mental kiss. It helped her headache a little. She turned her attention to Parker, not surprised to find him yelling at a group of construction workers. She almost laughed out loud. From what he said, a large part of his job involved him yelling at people. Ironically, Parker’s natural inclination was the opposite of mean, but he put on a good show. He had to. His job was half fieldwork and half office politicking. If he didn’t know how to adapt to each of those situations he’d never get anything done.

Hey, don’t distract me from my rant, darling
, Parker sent to her. She sent him a mental hug as she felt him trying to suppress a smile and knew he wasn’t really angry at the men. She looked at their faces through his eyes and could tell they knew it, too, but this was the way the construction site worked. She smiled to herself and went back to picking apart the bonding problem.

The phenomenon had begun to occur at the beginning of last year. Tessa swiveled in her chair as she thought. No one knew how or why it started, and people really didn’t like to talk about it. Most bonded couples kept information to themselves. Tessa frowned. Why was that? Why was it so taboo to talk about bonding? She ran a few more searches but found nothing except reports on the ‘Path drug. Okay, so, this new drug comes out about six months after people begin bonding. Tessa scrolled down the search window results, clicking when she found the article she wanted. The drug created massive problems with the crystal meth industry by taking many of its markets, and some hidden group seemed poised to restructure the entire illegal drug economy of the East Coast until Duncan and his bond-mates rescued a bunch of kidnapped bonded couples late one night, killing the supposed leaders of the drug cartel. Except they hadn’t actually killed them all. Later reports showed one of the leaders had escaped. The entire report was strange, not least because Duncan was a singer and not a cop.
Hmmm
. Tessa read more.
Seems Duncan and his bond-mates stumbled into the kidnapping by accident. Sort of.
One of Emma’s students was in the group of kidnapped girls.