Lucy sucked a short breath, and her mouth fell open at the sight of Caleb’s hard muscles backlit by the sunlight. She could see the smooth outline of his biceps and the little tufts of hair that curled on his chest. She puckered her lips and looked away. She could hear Elijah chuckle as he set down the basket and spread out a blanket on the sand.
He invited her to sit, pulled his own shirt off, and joined his brother downstream. Lucy’s pussy clenched, and her heart did cartwheels. The magnitude of hotness was absolutely stunning. She blinked her eyes repeatedly. Was this a dream? They dropped their pants and galloped into the stream. Silver droplets of water sprayed in the sun’s glow.
“What are you doing?” she called to them. Water rippled down their taut forms and clung to their dark, masculine chest hair. She didn’t know how much more of this she could stand. Were they intentionally teasing her?
“Just watch,” Caleb said before diving under the water.
She pulled a bottle of water from the picnic basket and began to chug. Her throat suddenly felt so painfully dry. Her entire body buzzed with arousal as her nipples pricked and her pussy throbbed to be touched. She barely knew these two, and she had abruptly gone from believing they were keeping her prisoner to being devastatingly turned on by them.
Confusion reigned in Lucy’s mind. However, there was no denying that her body wanted them, wanted them in all kinds of dirty, naughty ways. Damn being a good girl, damn being the harassed and threatened legal secretary, damn being the woman who always came in last! This time she knew what she wanted. She wanted them.
But the rational part of her rebelled and reminded her that Caleb and Elijah were strangers. She didn’t know what their intentions were, and there was still the possibility that they were lying to her about everything. Why they would lie to her, she didn’t know. What had they meant by wanting to mate her? She hoped to god it meant hot, sweaty sex with both men.
A moment later, a fish came flying out of the creek and landed at her feet, wriggling and writhing. She shrieked and jumped back on the blanket.
“What the hell!?” she yelled as Caleb trotted toward her, his body soaked to the bone. Water tugged at his boxer shorts as it flowed down his skin, exposing his Adonis belt and the treasure trail of black hair leading down, under the sagging elastic band. She could see his cock, half stiff under the thin fabric. She gasped as he shook his hair and water flew all around on her. He dropped to his knees on the sand and cut the fish. It stopped moving.
“We’ll have this for dinner.”
A second hearty trout flew over the bank and landed at Lucy’s feet. This time, Elijah sprinted up the bank to claim his fish. “Here’s a second for the fire,” he said.
“How did you catch these?” Lucy asked. They’d been swimming around, and suddenly fish started flying all over the place.
“Hand fishing. It’s tough with trout. They’re fast.” Elijah shook his head and smiled broadly at her before dropping down next to her on the blanket. Caleb put the fish on a line in the water to keep them fresh and sat on the other side of her on the blanket. Warm sun shone through the branches of the tall trees on the opposite side of the creek, and a gentle breeze drifted past, bringing with it the sweet, rosy scent of wild azaleas.
Elijah passed out the sandwiches, and they all ate as Elijah and Caleb spoke briefly of their business. The conversation turned to small talk about the good weather and then to Lucy, her life in Portland, and her past.
“I used to like my job,” she confessed. “But it’s become tedious. My boss is a jackass. I should totally sue him. I’d never win, but I still should.”
“Why?” asked Elijah, seeming genuinely concerned.
“He basically threatened to fire me if I don’t fuck him. He grabbed my boob at work on Friday. I was so sick about it, I left. I don’t know if I can ever go back there.”
“Then don’t,” Caleb said before taking the last bite of his sandwich.
“I have to make a living. What else am I going to do? This is my career.”
“I’m sure we could find something for you to do,” Caleb said. Lucy looked at him skeptically, and Elijah glared.
“What do you mean?” she said. What was he talking about? She wanted to get to the bottom of what they’d meant by biting and mating. Even if she had to go home and face Mr. Bars, at least she could have a little fun first.
“Caleb just means we could help you find a job in Mystic Harbor. We know everyone there. It’s a close-knit community.”
“Oh. Thanks. I don’t know about that. I’m a city girl. You know?”
“Don’t you like it here?” Caleb asked. He seemed upset suddenly, and Lucy didn’t understand why. Did he want her to stay? He barely knew her. He couldn’t possibly be interested in a real relationship.
“If there is anything you need, we want to help,” Elijah said, redirecting the conversation into understandable territory.
“You’ve already been so kind to me. I couldn’t ask for anything else.”
“Just let us know if there is anything we can do,” Elijah said.
“Anything,” Caleb said, his voice gravelly and thick. The way the brothers were looking at her, she wondered if they were about to start kissing her and biting her at any second.
Chapter 9
“We should get the fish back to the fridge,” Elijah said, cutting the tension.
They all stood and packed what was left of lunch into the basket. Caleb carried the fish and Elijah carried everything else as they all walked down the path toward their stately house. The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows over the meadow and garden, and Lucy couldn’t help but think how beautiful it was here.
Perhaps in another life, she could live in the country like this, with no phone or Internet. She’d grown up in the city and lived there all her life. She was used to having lattes and funky clothing stores all around her. She had no idea what she’d do with herself way out here in the woods.
The sunlight glowed over Elijah and Caleb’s perfect asses, over the fabric of their form-fitting jeans. Dirty thoughts flashed through her mind. Maybe she did know what she would do with herself out here.
By the time they made it back to the house, the sun had faded into dusk. Lucy went upstairs to wash the sand out of her clothes and check her cell phone for a signal. She wanted to believe the brothers about the truck and the phone lines, but it annoyed her that they weren’t doing anything about it.
She picked up her phone and held it in front of her eyes: no signal. Stepping toward the window, she lifted it higher above her. Nothing.
Taking the phone, she trotted down the stairs and out the front door.
“Where are you going?” Elijah called from the kitchen.
“Trying to get a signal on my phone,” she called back.
“You won’t get one,” he said behind her as she closed the door.
Lucy strode down the front steps and out into the driveway, holding her phone up and turning in circles. She didn’t have a single bar. Growling, she stomped around the outside of the house.
Anger built in her stomach as she searched aimlessly for a signal. Around the back of the house, she found Caleb building a fire in a wide fire pit. Twilight fell violet beyond the red flicker of the growing bonfire.
“Damn it!” she shouted, pounding her foot into the gravel.
“What’s wrong?” Caleb said, throwing another log on the fire.
“I can’t get a signal anywhere!”
“Closest tower is in Mystic Harbor. We’re too far in the forest to pick it up,” he stated simply, throwing more branches into the flames.
“What is the fire for?”
“Thought it would be nice. We can barbecue the fish, have some beers, and hang out here tonight. Ever been to a bonfire before, city girl?”
Lucy shrugged, frowning. Her bad mood began to melt away, especially since Caleb looked so delicious in his form-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt. He still had sand on his jeans and in his hair
, which only made him look more rugged and handsome.
She trudged over to a comfortable outdoor chair and sat down, putting her tired feet up on a footrest. The warmth of the fire radiated over her feet and up her legs. It felt so good that she sighed and looked up. A blanket of stars twinkled in the purple-black sky.
“Oh, look at the stars!”
Caleb sat down next to her, picking up a bottle of beer from a cooler by his chair. He looked up at the night sky with her. “It’s nice,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to live in the city were you can’t see this.”
“I see your point,” she said breathlessly. They sat silently for a moment before she turned to him. He took a sip from his bottle and gazed at her, raising his eyebrow to give her a questioning look.
“Do you ever go to the city?” she asked.
“I lived there for a short time when I was young. There was a girl. But ultimately, I came home to Mystic Harbor.”
“A girl?” she asked, her inflection rising.
“Sasha…” He had an erotic hint in his tone.
“Sasha? Tell me about her.”
He laughed and fidgeted in his chair. “Sasha was the sexiest girl in high school, but she went to Portland for art school. I followed her. But it didn’t work out. She changed. Or I did. Anyway. I belong out here.”
“You were in love with an artist?” she giggled. He looked at her in the firelight, his expression open as he smiled deviously.
“Hey. I’m an artist, city girl. You’ve seen my work.”
“I just had you pegged for a rough, tough mountain-man type.”
“Well, that much is true,” he said, humor in his voice as he sat back in his chair and looked up at the sky.
“Are the coals ready?” Elijah asked as he joined them, carrying a tray of prepared fish fillets. Caleb nodded, and Elijah set the tray down on a bench before placing an iron rack over a pool of glowing coals. The fish sizzled as Elijah dropped them on the grill.
“That smells good,” she said, sitting up and putting her hands between her thighs for warmth.
“Have a beer,” Caleb offered, flipping the cap off a bottle and handing it to her.
“Thanks.” She sipped the cool brew and stood up to get closer to the fire. The smell of cooking trout, the taste of crisp beer, and the warmth of the fire licking against her body made her entire being relax. She smiled and sat on the footrest near the fire, watching Elijah cook.
They passed the night talking and laughing while they drank beer and ate Elijah’s dinner. She told them about her family, her father and stepmother, and her life growing up in Salem.
The brothers told her about growing up in Mystic Harbor. They’d spent most of their lives hunting and fishing and playing sports, learning their trade from their father and uncles. They told her about their close-knit family and friends, and Lucy got a sense that all that was missing from their lives were good women. Or a woman.
By the time the fire began to die down, Lucy had had six beers and was pretty tipsy. Caleb and Elijah helped her upstairs as she giggled and tripped over her own feet. Elijah opened her bedroom door, and Caleb helped her to the bed, holding her.
She fell back so heavily and quickly that he came down on top of her. Lucy squealed as his hard body pressed between her legs. Caleb’s eyes burned brightly, and he parted his lips as if he wanted to kiss her. She felt his erection press against her pussy.
“Caleb,” Elijah said, a hint of warning behind the calm. Caleb pounded his fist against the bed and pulled away from her. Lucy grasped him with her hands, but he slipped away. She groaned and giggled.
“Not like this,” Elijah hissed when Caleb came to meet him in the doorway.
“Damn it, Elijah. I’m not going to wait any longer.”
“If you screw this up, we both lose.”
Lucy’s eyes were so fuzzy and her head spun with such velocity that she wasn’t sure what they were saying. She wished Caleb would have stayed with her and kissed her. Lucy’s body begged for him to press himself against her again.
Elijah approached and pulled off her shoes and helped her under the covers. “You are a lightweight, my dear,” he said as he tucked her under the blankets. Lightweight. No one had ever accused her of being that. She giggled as he backed away and turned off the light.
“Sweet dreams, Lucy,” Elijah said as he closed the door.
Chapter 10
Caleb growled and bared his teeth at Elijah, passing his brother and bombing down the stairs. He could hear his brother’s mental link in his head, telling him to calm down, talk it through. He was tired of his brother’s careful ways.
They were the alphas of the Cascade pack. Why were they walking away from their perfect mate and trying to seduce her as if they were mere humans? The woman needed to be bitten, marked, and claimed. Now.
Elijah could explain it all to her afterward, but Caleb was done waiting. His inner wolf wouldn’t stand back a second longer. He needed to take her for his own.
Why Elijah wanted to wait to put their mutual mark on the woman, Caleb could not understand. He and his brother might be identical twins, but their ways could not be any more different.
Elijah constantly wanted to analyze, think, study, research, wait, wait, wait. Caleb needed to act. If there was something he wanted, he went out and got it. All the standing back and waiting made him weak and sick in the head.
Their differences had come in handy in managing the Cascade pack. While Caleb liked to take action and was physically stronger, Elijah had a way of understanding people and situations that Caleb lacked. But in this situation with the woman, Elijah’s reluctance could cost them the mate they had been waiting for all this time.
The elaborate ruse to keep her at their property until she agreed to mate with them would never work. The longer they waited, the more time she had to get away. After the bite, she couldn’t leave. She’d shift at the next full moon and be marked by them forever.
Elijah’s link buzzed in his head, telling him the woman had to decide for herself. If they forced her, no one would be happy. Did he want to live with an angry, trapped she-wolf for the rest of his life?
Caleb was convinced she wouldn’t be angry once they gave her the gift of shifting—and the gift of his cock in her tight little pussy. He could smell her arousal and desire for them both a mile away. Sitting next to her at the bonfire without bending over her curvy little body and fucking her from behind while she sucked Elijah’s cock had been absolute torture.
“Just trust me, Caleb. You trust me about personal relations when it comes to the pack. Why can’t you trust me when it comes to our mate?”
“Damn you, Elijah.” He stomped out the door to go jerk off in the woods, but he picked up the scent of his packmates galloping toward the house.
Tyson Gavel, a long-time friend and packmate, led a group of wolves from the Cascade pack to his porch. Elijah joined him on the porch as Tyson told them of a rogue pack of coyotes coming into the area. It had to be the very same pack that had been snatching the red foxes from Elijah and Caleb’s traps.
Coyote shifters were notorious opportunists and thieves, and neither brother wanted them anywhere near Mystic Harbor, not without learning the laws of the land and agreeing to abide by them. You didn’t hunt on other shifters’ lands, and you certainly didn’t poach anyone’s traps, be they human or shifter.
The brothers threw off their clothes and fell into the shift before running off into the night with their pack. Caleb could smell the scent of the coyotes as soon as they crossed the creek. The bastards were coming close. They’d back off without a fight if they knew what was good for them, but coyotes rarely did.
Caleb picked up a strong scent and yipped for the others to follow him. The pack galloped through the forest, their footfalls as light as November snow. The scent grew stronger as the pack approached a clearing that lead into a meadow. The waning moon glowed overhead and cast pale blue light over the ground.
He could see
the shadows of the coyotes moving in the distance, their stench blotting out the clean scent of the forest. The pack circled into formation, and Elijah and a small group galloped around the coyotes, cutting off their escape. Caleb and the rest circled around the front, closing in on them step by step.
The wind changed, and the coyotes picked up the wolves’ scent. The leader yelped and made for the forest beyond where Elijah and his group now stood. The wolf pack pressed forward in an ever-tightening circle.
Cornered, the coyotes growled and formed a tight pack of snarling teeth and narrowed eyes. Caleb lunged forward, gripping the leader’s neck in his strong teeth. The rest of the coyote pack jumped on him, but the wolf pack was not far behind. The wolves attacked the smaller canines, fur and blood flying in the cool night air.
Caleb could hear the coyote screaming for release through their animal link. The intruder relented, promising to adhere to any demands the wolf pack might have.
Caleb let the smaller animal go and stepped back, growing tall and lean in his human form. The others followed his lead and shifted in the moonlit clearing.
“You’ve been poaching our traps. That is a capital offense for any animal,” Caleb sneered, not acknowledging the coyotes’ humanity.
“I had no idea they belonged to a wolf shifter,” said the coyote alpha.
“Is your nose broken?” Caleb bellowed. “Can’t you smell?”
“It was my mistake, sir,” the coyote alpha said, holding his hands out in supplication. “It won’t happen again.”
“You’re damn right it won’t. You leave this territory or you abide by our rules—the rules agreed on by all shifter clans in Mystic Harbor. You do not take another shifters’ kills. You do not hunt on other shifters’ lands. Seeing as how coyote opportunists like you can rarely follow these standard rules, I suggest you leave. Now!”