Authors: Kate Douglas
She started to back away, to tell him it was just sick, but the serous gleam in his eyes made her stop and think about what Oliver asked. If she really thought about it, did the fact the three of them made love seem wrong? She’d seen them together, watched the way they interacted. It was obvious what they had wasn’t just about sex. It was more. So much more. They truly loved one another.
“The same way we want to love you.” Oliver kissed her, then pulled her close in a warm hug. “The thing is, Mei, we need to know more about you. About who and what you are.”
“You know who I am. Eve can vouch for me.” She straightened up, out of his embrace. Who the hell did he think…?
Oliver shook his head. “It’s more than that. The telepathy thing? Very few people can do that. Only the ones who have a very special genetic background. We want you to be part of us, to come with us when we go back to Montana, but we can only take you if you’re like we are.”
“You’d leave me?” Mei felt her skin go hot and cold, all at the same time.
Oliver shook his head. “Adam and Eve would go back. I’m willing to give up my life with them to stay with you, but only if I absolutely have to. Exile from my own kind is not something I’d choose lightly. Not something I want to even think about. Thing is, I think you’re like we are. Will you let us find out?”
She stared at Oliver, then glared at Adam and Eve. This was their fault. She knew it. “How? How will you find out?”
Oliver stroked her shoulder. She grew hot, just from the slight touch of his hand. Aroused even while anger simmered deep inside her. She wanted to step away from his touch, but already he was a drug. One she couldn’t willingly ignore.
“We make love,” he said. “All of us, together. You know how it is when the two of us climax?”
Oh, God! Did she ever! Just thinking about it made her palms sweat and a deep coil of heat swell deep in her belly. Mei nodded, almost speechless with the sudden rush of desire. How could he do this to her? “We hear each other’s thoughts.” She hoped he could hear her whisper, but she couldn’t dredge up any more sound. Not for this. “It’s like I’m you, and you’re me. We’re one person.”
Oliver smiled. “Exactly. If we achieve a climax at the same time, all of us together, and if Adam, Eve, and I can focus our energy on you, on your thoughts when you’re at your most unguarded, we’ll be able to tell if you’re just like us. It won’t hurt, I promise.” Oliver glanced over at Adam and Eve who waited quietly on the bed. “I have to be honest with you. We, me and Adam, thought about just doing it and not telling you. Eve wouldn’t let us. She said it was up to you, that it’s your mind and your decision.”
Mei looked over at Eve and had to bite back the tears. She’d never, not since she and Eve were children, had anyone stand up for her before. It had been Eve all those years ago. Once again, Eve was protecting her. “You said that? You told them…” She nodded sharply at both Oliver and Adam, then took a deep breath. “You told them they couldn’t do it without my permission?”
“I did.” Eve practically glared at Oliver and Adam. “No man, or woman, has the right to our thoughts, or our bodies, without our permission. Not ever.”
Adam nodded, agreeing. He took Eve’s hand and held it against his heart, but his eyes were directly focused on Mei. “She’s right. I’m glad Eve had the sense to remind me of the importance of honor and integrity. Sometimes we, not just Oliver and I, but men in general, focus too much on results. We forget the process is just as important, if not more so.”
“What happens if I’m not like you?”
Adam answered first. “Then Oliver will stay with you, and Eve and I will return to Montana. He’s already made his choice, Mei. He chooses you and exile from the rest of our kind. We don’t want to go without you, and we really don’t want to leave Oliver. He has more history with our group than either Eve or I do. The man loves you, Mei. Eve loves you. I want the chance to know you better, because right now I like you one hell of a lot, and I also find you extremely desirable. I know I could love you as well, given time to know you. But, we don’t want to do anything you don’t agree to.”
Mei pulled out of Oliver’s embrace. She stood back far enough that she could see all of them. See them, but not be touched by any of them, especially Oliver. She needed to make this decision on her own. Treat it with the importance the three in this room gave to it. It was a new feeling, knowing her decision actually counted.
These three offered her a choice that would change all their lives, for good or bad. Knowing her decision still might not alter the eventual outcome, should she not prove to be one of them, put even more pressure on her to think this through. Knowing three people would be probing the deepest recesses of her mind was even more frightening than the act of sex with all of them. That she actually wanted.
She studied each of them, considering her options. Did she trust them with knowledge even she wasn’t aware of? Oliver, though slight of build, had a presence about him that defied description. Eve was just flat-out gorgeous, and she’d been so nice, and so kind. She’d stood up for Mei when they were kids, and she was doing it again, against her lover’s wishes. That meant she was willing to take chances for a friend, and that told Mei she was brave. And sexy, too, when it came right down to it. Mei would never forget what they’d done yesterday morning.
The question was, did she want to do it again? Not just with Eve, but Oliver as well…and with Adam, a man she barely knew, added to the mix. Was she willing to turn herself over to them, knowing they planned to use the most intimate acts possible to see into parts of her mind where even Mei hadn’t journeyed?
She tried to imagine sex with four people. Then she glanced at Oliver and remembered what he’d said yesterday, when they’d first gone into that motel room. Before they actually made love and he’d described his fantasy of the four of them together. The words were engraved on her brain and she drew them out now, remembering how passion had roughened his voice. How it made his accent more pronounced.
I’m imagining all four of us together, our bodies twisted in a hot and sweaty tangle and we’re sucking and licking and touching every erogenous zone possible. I’ve got my head between your legs. You taste utterly delicious, by the way, and while I’m licking and sucking you, Adam’s working his cock deep in my ass and Eve has my cock in her mouth and her fingers on my balls.
She’d gotten hot when he talked about it. Now, standing here in this room, faced with the chance to experience exactly what was in this scene, she felt her labia swell, felt her own moisture, thick and hot, breaking free and trickling down her inner thighs. Her breath caught in her lungs with the full realization she wanted to experience what he described.
Not only could she do this, she wanted it. Craved it. They were all going to get naked and have wild monkey sex, but with one feature not included in the original fantasy.
All three of them were going to be crawling around in her head. Probing. Searching. Knowing her more intimately than she’d ever known herself.
Could she handle it? She, who prided herself on what little privacy she had and was proud of her lack of need for others? She took a deep breath. Admitted her needs. Almost laughed at her fears.
Well, things change, damn it! That they did. Mei nodded, slowly. “Okay. I think I can do this, but on one condition.”
Oliver stepped close and put his arm around her waist. He kissed her cheek. “What’s that?”
Mei laughed. She felt like flying, felt as if her world had expanded and opened up an entirely new future, one she would embrace with heart wide open and both arms stretched wide. “My condition is, I get the best damned orgasm any woman on earth has ever had. Bigger than what happened today, Oliver. Bigger than anything. If you’re maybe going to kick me out of your lives tomorrow, you’d damned well better give me some great memories to take with me.”
Chapter 7
Adam reached down beside the bed and pulled up a bottle of champagne he’d left in ice. “I think a celebration is in order. It’s obvious Oliver has found a woman every bit as strong as he is, one who will stand beside him.” He rolled off the bed, bottle in hand and took the crystal flute Eve handed to him.
Carefully, he filled the glass and held it out to Mei. She took it from him, hands trembling and eyes wide. Adam caught the wary look in her green eyes and tried to see what she was thinking.
Chaos swirled in her mind. So many images, so many thoughts it was impossible to discern which led where. The only thing he could be sure of was her difference. If she were truly Chanku, there was something about her unlike any he’d known. Different, and powerful.
Forcing himself not to frown while he pondered her myriad thoughts, Adam handed a second glass to Eve, the third to Oliver, then carefully poured one for himself. “To Mei Chen,” he said, holding his glass high. The others stood, forming a perfect triangle with Mei at its center. Each lifted their glass, tapped the edge lightly. When the three tapped their flutes to Mei’s, the air vibrated with an otherworldly ring, like the sound of a bell echoing from far away.
Adam sipped his champagne and soaked up the thoughts of those around him. Oliver, desperate to find out Mei was indeed Chanku. Eve, concerned for her friend, ready to fight even Adam if she thought he was treating Mei unfairly.
His own thoughts were more convoluted and hard to assess. He wanted her to be Chanku. Wanted it more than anything, for Oliver’s sake if nothing else. He’d always been able to fix things, and he wanted to fix this situation. Failure wasn’t an option, not ever again.
He would never forgive himself for his greatest failure. He’d not been able to fix the horrible mess that was his twin sister’s life. No, it had taken someone else to find her, to correct a lifetime of injustice.
He thought of Manda now, a young woman he’d known intimately in his dreams for most of his adult life, yet hadn’t known existed for real until just last month. She’d called out to him in a familiar and hopeless voice in nightmares of pain and loneliness, dreams that haunted him. He’d tried to comfort her, his imaginary friend, yet he’d never truly believed she was real. He’d not discovered his Chanku heritage, had no idea that shapeshifters existed, but that wasn’t an excuse. He’d not believed her existence even remotely possible—a creature trapped in the middle, halfway between woman and wolf.
Thank the Goddess she’d managed to save herself with the help of his packmate, Baylor Quinn. Thankfully she held no animosity against Adam, no matter how little he’d done to help her, but Manda had been a lesson to him. Believe, accept, and trust in love. There was nothing more powerful. Manda loved him enough to forgive him. She’d said it was his love that kept her sane through years of agony and confusion, when she was held a virtual prisoner and treated like a lab specimen by scientists who neglected to see the woman inside.
Whatever happened tonight, Adam knew he had to make it possible for Mei to come with them to Montana. He wasn’t sure how he was going to manage, but he would. He had to, for Oliver’s sake. Sipping his champagne, he made a solemn promise. No matter what the outcome, he’d not leave his friend behind.
Eve touched his arm. He felt the current from her fingertips all the way to his groin. He turned and saw the smile in her eyes, felt the love in her heart. I’ll not leave any of you, either. Stop worrying, Adam. It’s going to be absolutely wonderful. I feel it. She stood on her toes and kissed him. She tasted of champagne, but it wasn’t enough to disguise the raw sensuality of her own personal flavors.
Adam finished off his champagne and set the glass aside. He wrapped one arm around Eve’s waist and leaned past her to turn out the light beside the bed. A smaller one glowed in a corner of the room, bathing the area in a soft golden haze ripe with shadows. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I don’t make love to Eve right now, I think I’ll explode.”
He lifted her in his arms and her head fell forward and rested against his chest. Her lips teased the warm flesh just above his left nipple and he felt the jolt all the way to his balls. His cock swelled and stretched until it tented the front of his silk boxers. He turned toward Oliver and Mei. “Join us whenever you like,” he said. “I’m not waiting any longer.” Then he set Eve gently on the bed.
Oliver laughed. Mei remained silent, but everything—sound, even the presence of two other people standing silently at the foot of the bed—faded away until it was only the two of them. Adam and Eve, as it always should be. Adam stood beside the bed and stared at Eve for a long moment, savoring her presence, the fact she had finally said she loved him. He’d never doubted, had he?
Yes. He had to be honest with himself. The fear had been with him for the past three weeks. He admitted it, now, silently thanking the Goddess for giving him this woman, this perfect moment. Adam slowly untied the sarong and pulled it away from her body. Long and lean, she lay there, one leg slightly bent, her hands stretched up over her head. She arched her back, raising her flat belly and bringing Adam’s focus to the small thatch of blond hair at the apex of her thighs. Moisture glistened in the soft curls. Her scent was rich, ripe with her arousal, an aphrodisiac all on its own. Groaning, he knelt beside the bed, leaned over and planted a warm kiss just below her navel.
Her muscles rippled beneath his lips. He kissed her again, nuzzling the silky hair. It was smoother now than the first time they’d made love, something Keisha, Anton Cheval’s mate, had explained. It had to do with the shift. Keisha’s thick, black hair fell in soft waves, totally unlike her hair before she became Chanku. Then she’d always worn it slicked back against her skull or in corn rows to contain it. Not any more. She’d said the same thing happened to any hair on the body. Even there, in that secret place between her legs.
His thoughts of Keisha passed through faster than a heartbeat as he used his tongue to part the blond wisps. Eve’s clitoris peeked out, swelling away from its protective hood, glistening with her juices. Adam touched the slick bundle of nerves with the very tip of his tongue.
Eve moaned and arched closer to his mouth. He licked her this time, delving between her soft folds, teasing the inside of her labia with the sides of his tongue, then curling forward once more to lap at the base of her clit. She writhed beneath his mouth, following his tongue, pressing close against his mouth, and he forgot everything else.
There was only Eve, his Eve, lying here on the bed, her legs spread wide, her breasts upthrust, her juices flowing. Tempting, teasing him to ask for more.
There was something else he knew was important, something he needed to do, but Eve’s hand reached up, fingers splayed wide, and she threaded them through his hair, tugging him closer between her legs. Whatever urgency had caught him sifted away like so much dust upon the breeze.
Mei squeezed Oliver’s hand so hard she was afraid she might hurt him, but she was rooted here, empty champagne flute dangling uselessly from her right hand, breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
Nothing could have prepared her for the pure eroticism of watching two people, people she already cared about, make love. It was obvious, as far as Adam and Eve were concerned, she and Oliver no longer existed. Standing just at the foot of the bed, close enough that her legs touched the comforter, she turned away, overcome by emotion. It was too much, from the combined beauty of Adam’s powerfully lean body as he knelt on the floor and leaned forward, one arm covering Eve’s thighs, his face buried between her legs, to the pure carnality of his tongue dipping between his woman’s legs.
Mei’s sex seemed to swell and thicken and she knew she was drenched, aroused already beyond belief. Oliver tugged her hand. As if she’d been drugged, Mei slowly turned to him and frowned. What? What do you want?
To join them, of course.
Mei shook her head. Not yet. I want to watch. I had no idea how sexy it was, to be so close, to watch them. They’re beautiful.
Okay. We can watch, but I need to touch you. I have to feel you close to me. Eyes glittering and jaw set, Oliver untied his sarong and let it fall to the ground. He tugged Mei around in front of him. She swayed, drunk with desire, and leaned into his body when he drew her close, her back to his chest. Chuckling softly, Oliver took her champagne flute from her lifeless fingers and set it on the table beside them.
Mei’s thighs bumped the foot of the bed and her toes curled when Eve’s foot shifted and came to rest so close she could have reached out and touched her.
Oliver wrapped his arms around Mei’s waist. His erect cock rode in the crease of her ass, a thick, burning brand between her cheeks. Slowly he raised the hem of her sarong, gathering it between his fingers. She felt the silk creeping up her legs, shimmering over her smooth skin. It slipped above her knees and she moaned. Oliver’s erection slid between her cheeks, riding on silk and sweat. She spread her legs even as she clenched her buttocks around his thick length. She ran her hands along his arms, urging him on.
Adam crawled up on the bed and knelt between Eve’s legs. His butt was right there in front of Mei, all taut muscle and dark cleft between. She clenched her fingers into tight fists to keep from reaching out and stroking his smooth flank. Her body trembled with the desire to touch him, to cup his sac in her palm and feel the weight and heat of him.
Oliver’s cock grew longer and harder, the pressure against her more intense. She knew Oliver and Adam had been lovers, and she pictured them now together. Oliver’s dark body covering Adam’s fair one, thighs flexing and stretching with each thrust, his long, thick cock buried completely inside, their sacs coming together, balls touching on each thrust. One man dark. One light.
The visual, so clear in her mind, made her giddy, made her heart pound, her sex contract, and her legs tremble more as the image took hold. Her silk sarong reached the tops of her thighs and air moved over her drenched labia and smoothly shorn mound. Oliver grasped the fabric in one fist, clutching the flesh-warmed silk against her belly. His other hand was splayed across her belly and she felt him slide closer to that neediest part. One finger crept along the crease between thigh and groin, following an invisible line of sensation. He stroked her smooth mound, barely touched her greedy clit and circled the tight bud, then pulled away.
Mei clenched her muscles again and groaned. She heard Eve’s soft moan of pleasure, a sensual echo to her own involuntary sound and a reminder she and Oliver were not alone in this room. Blinking like one coming out of a dream, Mei realized her focus on Oliver’s fingers and cock had cut Adam and Eve entirely out of the picture. Oliver paused, barely touching her, his cock holding steady against her butt, trapped against her in the silken folds of her crumpled sarong, his chest pressed tightly against her back. She felt his heart beating and the rapid tempo telegraphed his arousal every bit as much as his hot thick shaft against her buttocks.
His finger traced closer to her, dipped inside her wet heat and stroked her thickened labia. Breathing in through her nostrils, taking short, sharp breaths and biting her lips to keep the sounds of her arousal inside, Mei felt like screaming her frustration. Touch me. Damn it, Oliver, take me over. You’re killing me!
His finger brushed the side of her clit, slipped along the downside of the slick little bit of sensitized flesh and teased the wet and swollen entrance to her pussy. She rocked her hips against him. He pulled his touch away.
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. She whimpered, a strangled sound. Not hers. It couldn’t be hers, so needy and pathetic, and she clenched her teeth to hold everything else inside.
Adam rocked back on his heels. He lifted Eve, turned her as if she weighed nothing, grabbed the stack of pillows and shoved them under her belly. It raised her hips in the air and she buried her face against her folded arms. When she spread her legs, exposing her dark pink pussy, Mei felt her own sex shudder in response. Moisture not only glistened in Eve’s folds, it ran in a shimmering stream down both sides of her inner thighs.
The same moisture that coated Adam’s lips and chin. He turned his head and looked back at them, his eyes glazed with arousal, his lips and the lower part of his face shining. Mei felt as if he locked with her for a moment, unaware who he saw, who she was. He blinked, slowly, then turned back toward Eve.
Mei held perfectly still, body tense, heart pounding in her chest. She’d never played the voyeur, never realized how powerful such a visual feast could be. Oliver moved behind her and his cock seemed to grow even larger. She clasped her buttocks, holding him down even tighter between her cheeks. This time it was Oliver who choked out the strangled, needy cry.
Adam covered Eve. His legs were spread within the confines of hers and he leaned forward, his cock pressed somewhere between them, his hands tugging and twisting her nipples. Mei watched, transfixed. She felt every tug, every pinch, felt the pressure of Adam’s cock, the slick heat as it rested against her warm pussy. It took her a moment to realize she’d caught Eve’s thoughts, that she experienced Eve’s sexual response to Adam.
Oliver rubbed gently at the side of her clit. Almost close enough. Not quite. She shifted her legs to bring the tip of his finger into contact. He moved away. The pressure built. She was a rubber band, stretching…stretching. Lord, she was ready to break but he wouldn’t take her that last step over the line. Oliver’s cock pressed harder against her, a thick brand of fire behind while his finger wove molten circles in front. Mei clasped his forearms until her fingers ached.
He held her there, on the edge of climax. He had to know how close she was. Each time he brought her to the edge, he stopped and her frustration grew. Her clit throbbed, begging for his touch. Her pussy wept and she pictured the glistening fluids coating her inner thighs as thick tears of yearning and need. Adam rocked back once more on his heels, grabbed his cock and thrust into Eve. Mei lurched with the thick slide as he filled Eve, felt Adam’s heat as if he entered her, the sense of his massive size stretching her. Eve was in her head, and Mei was Eve and she was coming so close, so desperately close with each powerful thrust.