Her heart thudded irregularly in her chest. “Oh?”
Grant picked up her right hand. “This one, too.”
Aaron kissed her nose. “Later, though, we’ll ask you for real. You make your plans for us to visit your parents, the sooner the better. And we’ll ask your father if he’ll let us have your hands.”
She couldn’t stop her silly grin or the way she wanted to cry again with happiness. “I love you,” she said to both of them.
They both repeated the words back to her, and Grant hugged her tightly. “Don’t ever be afraid to tell us what’s on your mind, good or bad. We’re here for you forever. And when we promise forever, that’s just what you get. Do you believe us?”
She looked into the depths of his green eyes and saw utter sincerity. “I do.”
“Good. Now, let’s get back to bed. It’s cold as hell down here.” Aaron chuckled, swinging her up into his arms.
“I know a good way to warm up,” Grant offered.
“Me too.” She laughed.
In the morning, she walked downstairs with Grant and Aaron. The kids were all sitting at the island eating breakfast and Wesley, Ray, and Micah were talking quietly over coffee.
The kids nearly fell off their chairs in an effort to get to her, and she laughed as they pulled her with them back to the island and insisted she sit down for breakfast. Aaron and Grant gave her amused looks as Grant poured coffee for the three of them, and Aaron gathered dishes from the cabinet. The kids had known she’d stayed over when they came downstairs and found her coat still hung up and her car buried in the snow. She had thought it might feel strange to see them like this, but it felt completely natural. Grant and Aaron asked her, after they made love again in the early morning, if she wanted to live in the boarding house with them or if she’d rather them find a home of their own, and it touched her that they were worried she would feel uncomfortable in a house full of men. She appreciated the gesture, but she knew in her heart that mountain lions were meant to be together, in their pride, and it would be incredibly selfish of her to take them away from the people they cared about.
After breakfast, she went out in the backyard with the kids and built snowmen while the men of the house dug out her car and shoveled the long driveway. The snow had stopped by morning, and a light wind caused it to drift. She and the kids built a big snow family, and then armed themselves with snowballs and snuck around the front of the house to attack the men. Aaron and Grant chased after her when she was out of ammo, catching her easily and swearing to get her back for several well-aimed throws that covered them in hard-packed snow. Their version of
getting her back
involved a hot bath and a sinful amount of pleasure, prompting her to promise to attack them with snowballs more often.
When the road home had been cleared by the town’s snow plows, they drove her home, Grant driving her car for her and Aaron following in his car. When they left her later that night, and she settled down into her big, empty bed, she smiled in realization that in a week, she’d be cuddling with them full time. She couldn’t wait.
Chapter 9
Late Saturday afternoon, Sam stepped from the shower in her apartment and wrapped a towel around herself with a slight yawn. Being with two men was tiring. But in a really excellent way. When her hair was dry, she clicked off the dryer and heard Grant’s muffled voice through the door. “I’ll stay home with them. I don’t mind.”
“You stayed home last month,” Aaron pointed out.
“I said I don’t mind.”
“I know that, but you should go out and hunt, and I’ll stay home with the kids.”
She opened the door and leaned against the door jam, looking at her two handsome men. Grant and Aaron were sitting on the bed, fully clothed, looking like a mixed up advertisement for a clothing store. Grant’s worn jeans and flannel shirt contrasted sharply with Aaron’s tailored slacks and dark pullover. They were as different as night and day, except that they both, inexplicably, loved her.
“What are you guys talking about?”
They looked at her. “Someone always stays home with the kids when we go out hunting, and I was just telling Grant that it’s his turn to go hunt.”
She looked towards the window where the sun was slowly setting and the sky was turning orange and red. “Do you guys always hunt on the full moon? I thought that was a wolf thing.”
“It is,” Grant said, fixing his watch on his wrist. “But when Callie came along and the full moon dictated when she had to shift, we kind of got in the habit of it.”
She liked how their family just swelled naturally to include new people and their habits and needs. “Why can’t I stay with the kids?”
The silence was deafening, and she felt her confidence in their relationship begin to shatter. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. Maybe that was something a mother did. Maybe they didn’t see her as that yet, since they hadn’t met her parents and she wasn’t officially living with them yet.
“Never mind,” she mumbled, turning back to the bathroom so they couldn’t see how crushed she felt at their rejection.
“Wait, baby, are you serious? You’d really like to stay with them? Because I know our boys would love you to hang out with them tonight, and I’d love it, too,” Grant said.
“They sure would. They’d think it was Christmas and their birthdays all wrapped up into one.” Aaron chuckled.
She felt such relief at their words that the tears she’d tried to hide when she was feeling low slipped over her cheeks in happiness. Both men were at her side in a heartbeat.
“Why are you crying?” Aaron demanded in that harsh tone that meant he wanted to kill whatever had upset her.
Grant tenderly brushed the tears from her cheeks, and she sniffled. “I thought you maybe didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“What? No, it’s a great idea, sweetheart. I’m just surprised. Happily surprised. You’d have to spend the night, you know, because we’ll get back late.” Grant gave her a rakish grin and an arched brow, and she laughed.
Aaron chuckled lasciviously, “I can’t think of anything I’d rather see waiting for me after a hunt than our woman.”
“You sure you want to babysit six rotten lions tonight?” Grant smiled.
“It’s not babysitting if they’re your own kids,” she quipped, and then her eyes widened as she realized what she’d just said. She’d called the kids her own. Now
that
had to be some kind of huge faux pas.
“Do you mean that?” Aaron’s voice was soft, yearning almost. When she met their eyes, she saw identical looks of wonderment and hope. It just about broke her heart.
She shrugged helplessly and wiped at a stray tear. “Of course I do. I love your kids. I love you both. I just didn’t want to overstep my bounds with them, I —”
They cut her off by pulling her between them with happy shouts.
Grant kissed her mouth, and Aaron kissed her ear. “We were worried that you would think it was too much, too fast, or that the only thing we were looking for from you was a mother for the boys,” Grant said.
“I never thought that,” she said sincerely. She’d known they were a package deal, but they were excellent fathers and had such a support group with their family that she never doubted for a moment that their affection for her was pure.
“Then tonight you’ll stay the night,” Aaron said eagerly. Tugging her to the dresser, he hurried her to dress so they could get to the boarding house. She quickly packed an overnight bag.
Aaron hooked the bag over his shoulder as they ushered her out of her apartment. “Pretty soon, you won’t have to pack a bag to stay with us. You’ll just be home.”
“It does feel like home there,” she said.
Grant said, “It feels more like home to us when you’re there, too.”
The drive was over quickly, and five young voices greeted her when she walked in the front door of the boarding house.
“Sam!” they cheered in unison.
She braced herself for the push of the boys’ small bodies as they wrestled with each other to give her a hug. Grant and Aaron grinned as the boys all found a place to latch onto her, two wrapped around her waist, one on each leg, and one holding her hand. She kissed each boy on the forehead as she said hello and encouraged them to untangle from her before she fell over.
Grant hung up her coat as she unzipped her snow boots and pulled a pair of comfy tennis shoes from her bag. “Are you really staying tonight?” Brian asked, claiming her hand again.
“If that’s okay with you guys.” She smiled down at him.
He nodded vigorously, and the four others agreed.
They surrounded her as she worked her way into the huge kitchen. Grant and Aaron shooed the boys away while they brought her over to the kitchen table to greet James, John, Alek, and the other pride members. They lounged around the kitchen like … lions … and she smiled at the mental imagery.
“Good to see you again, Sam,” James said, kissing her cheek.
She returned his kiss and said hello to the rest of the men, trying to ignore the still-curious stares she received. James, John, and Alek kept their interest to a respectful minimum, but the others seemed to have trouble hiding their curiosity. The kitchen, although spacious, felt suddenly smaller with all the large men and their attention focused on her.
Aaron and Grant tensed possessively as they pulled her between them, and she felt the subtle vibrations of their low, warning growls. Clearing her throat, she said, “Where’s Henry?”
“Henry’s … unhappy right now and in his room,” John said, scrubbing his hand over his handsome face.
Grant asked, “What happened?”
“I don’t know. He won’t say, but I think it had something to do with a girl at school. He’s been miserably moody for the last two days, and I can’t get a word out of him.”
She was about to say that teenage boys could be as moody and temperamental as teenage girls, more so in some ways, but she realized that she didn’t really know if them being lions made them different from humans when it came to emotions. The adult males were certainly different from human males. Kinder, more attentive, sweeter, more passionate. But there were probably human men out there like that, too. Just none she’d ever known. Since she didn’t know enough about lion teenagers to know what she was talking about, she kept her mouth shut and leaned her head on Grant’s shoulder, slipping her arms around both of their waists.
Grant made a happy sound in his throat that was a little more primal than a human hum, and she looked up at him and smiled.
James clapped his hands together. “Let’s get hunting, guys.”
The males trooped out behind James, several of the younger ones casting surreptitious glances her way. She chuckled at the situation. She didn’t think the men had any idea how desirable they were. Not just because they were handsome, because they all were in their own way, but because of their giving and protective natures.
“What’s so funny, baby?” Grant asked as they stopped inside the screened-in back porch.
She cocked her head at him. “I was just thinking how lucky I am to have two such handsome, sexy cats as my mates.”
“We’re lucky,” Aaron said with a low voice that slipped down her spine like a caress and made her skin tingle in awareness.
She heard a zipper, and Aaron turned her around to face the wall. She laughed. “It’s not funny,” he groused. “You don’t need to see any other males naked but us.”
“I wasn’t looking,” she protested as Grant moved in front of her and kissed her. She unbuttoned his flannel shirt while Aaron stripped next to them.
“Since it’s the weekend, the boys can stay up late, but don’t let them talk you into staying up later than ten, okay? They ate dinner, but they’ll want a snack, and you help yourself, too. Everything we have is yours, baby.” Grant shrugged out of the shirt, and Sam was momentarily stunned by how gorgeous he was. All that smooth, muscular flesh. It was all hers.
Aaron’s naked, hard body pressed against her as he pulled her into his arms. “I want to stay home with you,” he growled, fisting his hand lightly in her hair and tipping her head to the side to lick up the length of her neck.
“Oh,” she breathed, her hands flexing on his biceps as the wild scent of him filled the air around her.
His voice tipped deeper, “I want to lick every inch of your body until you’re writhing under me and screaming my name.”
Her eyes fluttered shut as the mental images flipped through her mind. Her body flushed and heat pooled in her core. He licked the shell of her ear. “Then I’m going to sink my fangs into your pretty neck and mark you as mine forever, sweetheart.”
If it was possible to come from words alone, she was walking a fine line of doing just that. She shivered from head to toe and slowly became aware of the complete and utter silence around them. Her eyes popped open, and ten pairs of eyes were watching them hungrily.
Blushing sharply, she buried her face in Aaron’s neck and laughed nervously. “Thanks for horning me up and then leaving me hanging.”