Caught in the Middle

A small smile touched her lips as a slow heat churned in her belly at the handsome sight that greeted her. Dressed in a black silk shirt and black trousers, Gabe was a striking vision with his dark good looks. While Roarke stood behind him, looking rough and tumbled in a white dress shirt and worn jeans, wearing his most unique accessory-his classic dimpled grin.

“As always, you are stunning, my dear,” Roarke said, pushing past Gabe to sweep her into his arms, and plant a hard, swift kiss against her lips, before releasing her to march down the hallway.

“Something smells good,” he called from over his shoulder, just as he disappeared into her kitchen.

“Yes, well just help yourself,” she yelled after him, but knew it was already too late when she heard dishes clinking against each other.

At the sound of Gabe’s heavy sigh, she turned to face him, and an apologetic scowl marred his handsome features. “Sorry about that. We planned to hunt, but would have been late if we stopped.”

Being lycan, she consumed both raw and prepared foods, depending upon her cravings, and she knew vampires did the same. They could exist on human food for quite a while, but their strength and longevity of life could only be sustained with blood. Supranaturalblood being the richest source.

“You can drink from me if there should be a need.”

A small smile lifted his lips as he stepped inside. “There shouldn’t be. Roarke is obviously not suffering from weakness, and I fed last night, so I am fine.”

For now, she wanted to say, thinking of how draining the full moon phase would be for all of them.

“Roarke and I are strong enough-”

She gasped as her eyes widened, surprised that he would read her thoughts so openly.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said softly, as he stroked his hand down her cheek.

“You just did it again.” With just the slightest touch of his fingers against her skin, her body ignited, making her voice weak, and causing the slight reprimand to sound more like an empty statement, given how badly she trembled. It was always like this as she neared the full moon. Within an hour, she would become a slave to her lusts, completely blinded by her desires.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to be rude, but you had your shields down for once, and I just found myself curious. Again, my apologies.”

“For once?” She said, her brows lifting in question.

“Excuse me?”

“You said I had my shields down for once. Makes me wonder how many times you’ve tried to probe my mind.”

A sheepish grin tugged at the corners of his lips, and for the first time ever he didn’t look like he carried the weight of the world on his broad shoulders.

“I’ll be honest. I’ve probed a few times before.”

Her eyes widened. Now, that was interesting. “Why? Why would you try to read my thoughts?”

He shrugged. “General curiosity, mainly. But, in some instances, I wanted to gauge your reactions to certain things, or hear your thoughts about other people.”

“Well, why not ask me then?”

Something flashed in the depths of his eyes. Suddenly their benign conversation seemed to transform into something more when he slipped his arm around her waist and dragged her flush against his body.

“Would you have told me the truth, Collette? Would you have been honest about your thoughts, your feelings about something or someone?”

“Of course.”

“If that’s the case, then why are your shields once again back in place? What is it that you’re hiding, Collette? What is it that you don’t want me to know?”

Nothing. She screamed inside her head, but she knew this time he couldn’t hear her. She opened her mouth to tell him that just because she kept her shields up didn’t mean she had something to hide. Besides, it wasn’t like he was an open book either. Come to think of it, Gabe always had his mind closed to her. Yet before she could get a word out she found herself battling against the onslaught of his powerful sensuality when he dipped his head to cover her mouth with his.

Heat radiated from his body, nearly scorching her with its intensity, and she melted into him, giving herself over to the arousal he awakened within her. She wound her arms behind his neck at the same he slid his hands down the side of her body to slip them under her shirt. His fingers moved almost absently, as he caressed her skin in a lazy manner, sometimes creeping up to nearly graze the swells of her breasts, before inching down to the curve of her hips.

He teased her with his hands, the rough pads of his fingers causing tiny goose bumps to break out along her bare skin as she shivered with need.

The Call was starting to heat her blood, slowly making her a thrall to the spell the waxing full moon wove over her body, but it wasn’t just the moon. Gabe was a master in all things, and he wielded his own power over her, taunting her with his skilful mouth and hands to surrender completely to him-if she dared.

“You’ve started without me again. If you’re not careful, I might get jealous.”

Unlike the week before in the break room, Gabe did not break their kiss. Actually, quite the opposite. His hands tightened around her hips, trapping her to him, and his mouth lingered on hers until the harsh sound of Roarke, noisily clearing his throat, forced them to finally separate.

“I thought we were supposed to be having dinner,” Roarke said with a slight chuckle.

Right. She’d prepared a meal, but it had been completely forgotten from the moment Gabe touched her.

The look on his face told her he felt pretty much the same. Whatever meal was in her kitchen followed a distant second to the delights they’d just savoured.

“Are you guys hungry?” she asked as she spun around and walked in the direction of her kitchen, but stopped when she nearly collided with the hard, solid wall of Roarke’s chest.

He licked his lips as he grinned down at her, his hand reaching out to grasp her hips, an instinctive gesture to keep her from crashing into him.

“I’m not hungry anymore-at least not for food,” he whispered, his lips furling into a wicked grin as a naughty gleam lit up his face.

“I never was hungry-at least not for food,” Gabe said from over her shoulder, his husky words sliding over her like smooth velvet.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t hungry either, but even if she were, it would have been secondary to satisfying the needs of the two men who stood before her.

She parted her lips and ran her tongue along the seam, dragging Roarke’s gaze to her now glistening mouth. He smiled that classic, cocky smile of his and tugged her closer. Gabe closed the distance between her body and his as he sidled up behind her to press himself against her.

A tiny gasp tumbled from her lips when Gabe nudged his hardening length against the cleft of her ass.

“Before this night is over, I plan to take you there,” he whispered against her neck, his tongue drawing lazy circles along her skin. “I plan to take you everywhere.”

She shivered at his words, which were so like him-insistent, erotic, possessive. The heat of both men wrapped around her, igniting a blaze of warmth deep within her belly. Her body was in need of both men, and the release they would give her, and she trembled with anticipation as her pussy swelled with moist heat, eagerly preparing her for the night to come.

She curled one arm behind Roarke’s neck, as she slipped her other hand behind her back, to curve around Gabe’s taut, firm ass. She held their bodies against her as she finally allowed herself to succumb to the onslaught of sensations that swirled inside her.

Gabe continued to nibble along her neck, as he wrapped his arms around her, but instead of touching her breasts, he teased her once again, by stroking his hands up and down the plain of her belly. Every nerve ending stood at attention as he skimmed his rough fingers across her sensitive skin, bringing her closer and closer to full arousal.

He drew a needy moan from her lips, and she tightened her arms around both men. Roarke seemed to sense the urgency within her, and she found herself tilting her head back when he tangled a single hand in her hair and lowered his head to her waiting mouth.

The pulsing flames of arousal leapt higher, and she closed her eyes as waves of heat gathered inside her.

Roarke’s tongue probed inside the hot cave of her mouth, and she slipped her own between his lips to taste him. Again, she found herself noticing the differences between the two men. Roarke was a skilled lover, adept in the knowledge of pleasing a woman, so he knew how to tempt her, tease her, nip her here and there to elicit a certain response, but he was always in control of his emotions, in control of his desire. Gabe was completely instinctive, giving and taking what he felt she needed, when she needed it. At times, he was in control, but there were other times, like now, when his desire raised the beast within him, and she could feel it crawling inside him, begging to be unleashed.

Let go. She whispered into his mind, giving him free reign to lose control, because in less than an hour, she was going to lose control, too.

Blood rushed to Gabe’s ears as Collette’s whispered command brushed against his mind like the most delicate of fingertips. She didn’t know what she was inviting with her innocent words, but she’d given him permission, and the primal being that lurked just beneath the civil facade he normally presented instantly broke free.

His incisors lengthened, and he stroked his tongue against her neck, trying to soothe her with his touch. She quaked in his arms, sensing the dangerous creature within him, but there was no fear in her, instead she arched her neck, openly surrendering to him.

He closed his eyes and dragged in her heady scent that hovered in the air, heavy from her arousal. The smell of her hardened his body, and he was driven to touch her more intimately, so he let his hands wander, sliding a single palm down her body to slip within the confines of her pants. Stroking through the soft hair of her mound, he easily found the wet treasure that awaited him, and he teased his fingers along the swollen folds of her sex until she was writhing and panting against him.

The soft, sensual dance she did against him was sweet torture, and he found himself drowning in her explosive heat. With his eyes still shut, he slid a single finger inside her at the same time he pierced her neck. The warm gush of blood flooded his mouth, and he drank deeper from her, at the same time he invaded the hollow spaces of her mind, lulling her into an erotic trance with the ancient song of the Vampese, used for centuries to mesmerize and seduce.

She rocked against Gabe, her sharp cry muffled by Roarke’s mouth, who’d deepened his kiss. Her legs buckled, and she probably would have collapsed had Gabe not tightened his grip on her. Gabe slowly retracted his fangs, and swiped his tongue across the tiny pinpricks that marred her silky skin as he gently withdrew his finger from the clenching warmth of her pussy. Still holding her against him, he gently lowered them both to the floor so that she sat with her back against his chest, and her legs spread.

Roarke, soon followed, dropping to his knees before her, and with the practiced hands of a modern day Casanova, he undid her pants and tugged them from her body within seconds, dragging her panties off in the process.

She bent her legs at the knees, and Gabe couldn’t resist stroking his hand once again through the slick heat of her sex.

“Open for Roarke,” he whispered against her ear, but he needn’t have said a word. She sat, nestled in the crook of Gabe’s body, her legs already spread, with his fingers parting the lips of her sex.

Roarke grasped her thighs with his large hands, spreading her even wider before he lowered his head to drink from her honeyed cunt.

“Roarke,” she hissed, her body arching against Gabe’s as she slid one arm behind her head, to wrap around his neck and tangle in his hair, while the other gripped Roarke’s head, clenching tight against his scalp until her knuckles reddened.

Gabe lowered his head to that small space at the base of her throat, but this time he didn’t bestow upon her the saruta d’vampese, the vampire’s kiss. With dusk just on the horizon, he could already feel her temperature climbing as she drew closer to her heat. He’d purposely awakened her arousal before the full moon, so when she entered full blown heat, she wouldn’t be quite so ravenous. But the more blood he siphoned from her before that time came, the more aggressive she would be when it happened, as her body fought to find its equilibrium.