Third Time Lucky

with a casual grace that fooled everyone who met him. It was a carefully cultivated image. He was tall and leanly muscled and looked more like a rich playboy than a dangerous soldier. Dark blond hair with tantalizing streaks of gold fell into his eyes, and he shoved the shaggy, wavy mass back to pin Harris with an emerald green stare. His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared. That easygoing mask slipped for just a minute as he waited Harris out.

“She just showed up,” Harris replied to the unanswered question. He knew his werewolf lover could scent the woman they both wanted in the house. He’d been with Ethan long enough to anticipate him. Usually. Harris half expected him to straighten and make himself scarce. He didn’t.

Instead a pained look crossed his face, and Ethan muttered, “That woman is gonna kill me.”

Harris understood like no one else could have. He wanted Ethan and Gabby fiercely, always. He wanted a right to them. A right to make demands from them. He was sick and damned tired of being on the outside, and he was pretty sure Ethan felt the same way. Gabby would only come to Harris when she was in heat, but she would only go to Ethan if she wasn’t.

The woman had serious commitment issues.

He looked Ethan over and felt the usual lust strum through his body. He rarely allowed himself the fantasy of the three of them together, but things were changing, weren’t they?

“I told her this arrangement isn’t working for me anymore.” Ethan gave him a sharp look edged with hunger. “And yet, she’s in your bed.”

“Jealous?”

He snorted. “Hell, yeah.”

“I told her, but she isn’t exactly in a position to think right now. It would be cruel of me to send her away like that.”

“The heat. I thought I scented the beginning yesterday,” Ethan murmured.

“Hmm. No telling what she might agree to in that state.”

Ethan blinked; then a slow smile curled his lips. “That’s not right. Sneaky. Underhanded. I like it.”

Harris grinned. Gabby didn’t feel any compunction about playing dirty. Why should they?

Besides, all was fair in love and war, and this was both. “After you, then.”

Chapter Two

Gabby tried not to obey Harris’s order too quickly, too eagerly, but it was impossible. She burned. Unfortunately she couldn’t blame it all on the heat. Her craving intensified each time she came to him. Heart racing like she’d just run a marathon, she shut the door behind her and stared, unmoving, at Harris’s huge bed. Three adults could comfortably share it. Leaning back against the door, she squeezed her eyes shut. This wasn’t the first time she’d thought about the number of people who’d fit in that bed. It wasn’t any more welcome now than then, especially when she reminded herself whom Harris would invite to join them. Ethan. The wolf who teased her, tempted her, irritated her, and generally made her crazy.

It’s just the hormones, Gabby. Forget about it.

Damn the heat. Men didn’t have to suffer through this indignity. They didn’t get ambushed by their hormones every three months, didn’t become consumed with lust. Sometimes the desperation was so bad it hurt. The women in the pack said it wasn’t so bad if you were mated.

In fact they said the opposite—that it was incredible with a mate. Gabby would never know. She had no intention of mating. It didn’t tend to work out for the strong females in the pack, like her mother. Even Liza, who was paladin—second in strength and power only to the alpha and beta—constantly struggled against her mates’ instinct to dominate her.

No. Gabby would rather be alone than turn her personal life into a battleground. So why was she here now, imagining Harris and Ethan in that bed with her? And worse, imagining being in their power, giving them total control. It was just the heat, damn it. Had to be. Ethan drove her up the wall 90 percent of the time, and despite the time she spent with Harris during heat, she hardly knew him. They didn’t exactly spend their time together talking. When he tried to initiate conversations, she did her best to keep it impersonal. Why tempt herself by deepening the attraction she already felt for him? It was better to keep him at an emotional distance.

With a groan, she moved to sit on the edge of the bed and put her face in her palms. None of that had stopped her from having sex with him before. She almost stood to leave, but where could she go? It was too late for the mix of herbs that would deaden the heat, and dangerous to use more than once a year anyway. If she went home, she ran too big a risk of running into a male who might scent her condition, and he’d try his damnedest to seduce her. She’d probably give in too, not because she wanted to, but because she couldn’t fight her hormones indefinitely.

No, that wouldn’t do.

At least there were no expectations of something more with Harris. They’d spend a couple of days together. She’d screw it out of her system and leave with no strings attached. And if that was getting harder to do, oh well. Life was a bitch sometimes. She’d deal.

Decision made, she kicked off her heels. Harris may like them, but they pinched her toes to the point of numbness. She gasped and wiggled them when they were free, then stood to roll down her thigh-highs. She tossed them away and hurried to reach the zipper on the side of the dress when she heard footsteps in the hall. The zipper was pulled to her waist before she realized there were two people out there. She held her breath, staring when the door opened, but she knew who was there. His scent was just as intoxicating, just as seductive as Harris’s. Rich and male. A hint of forest and dominance.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

“You’re still dressed,” Harris said.

No shit. “What’s he doing here?”

“Did you assume I didn’t have plans today, darlin’? Not very thoughtful of you.” She hadn’t considered it one way or the other. “You should have said something. I don’t want to interrupt.”

Oh gods. Was that a note of longing in her voice? Get a grip, Gabby. She couldn’t have sex with both of them and expect nothing to change. Ethan especially would be insufferable.

He’d brought up relationships and commitments more than once in the last year. Hinted at but never uttered the dreaded m word. Mate. Every time he did, she ran hard in the other direction.