Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (15 page)

The bandage wasn’t helping so she balled it in her fingers and threw it into the trash receptacle before she stepped under the water. The warm shower did wonders in bringing her back to life from the long night of passion, and when she stepped into her barley colored lightweight shorts and shrugged the apple-mint blouse over her head she felt ready to face the day.

Lance gave her a hug when she came out. “You look beautiful,” he told her. “But I didn’t get to see enough of your body last night.”

“You got to see plenty of my body last night,” she demurred.

“I can never get enough of my beautiful new mate.”

Sarah laughed. Lance was so lovely when he was like this. He was no longer the sad, dour cowboy she had met on the Circle T. “Let’s go get something to eat,” she said, putting an arm around his waist.

TJ was waiting for them at a table when they got downstairs to the dining room. He gave Sarah a kiss and a hug, and she found no trouble returning his affections. Not only was it not weird as she had feared it might be to have her two lovers from the past two nights sharing a table with her, it felt downright good.

There were few diners eating in the room with them at that hour on Sunday morning. The prices probably scared most away, but Sarah felt privileged her and her two men were afforded so much private space. In this city she was used to having it crowded wherever she went, and the elegant surroundings were made even more opulent by the quiet solitude.

The buffet-style brunch was scrumptious, and Sarah pigged out and tried a little bit of everything set out on the rich silver trays of the counter.

“Did Ryan mention anything to you about coming out to New York today?” she asked TJ as they were bringing back their overloaded breakfast plates to the table.

“No. Ryan won’t be coming here to New York anytime soon,” TJ assured her.

“Why do you keep asking?” Lance asked her.

“Just a dumb dream I had this morning.” Sarah waved it off.

TJ gave them both a knowing smile and looked from her to Lance and back again. “So, I take it the two of you got along all right yesterday?” he asked Sarah.

Sarah blushed and looked down at her food. Of course TJ knew exactly what they’d done last night here in their hotel room, the same thing she had done with him the night before. These shifters seemed to think it was just a normal part of the relationship-building process, but for Sarah it took some getting used to. She felt embarrassed to have two such handsome cowboys fawning over her and to have undertaken an intimate relationship with both, but it was also ten degrees of awesome, and they made her so happy. She resolved not to question the unusual aspect of the relationships too closely just yet and merely enjoy them. Certainly with these two men there was a whole lot to enjoy.

Lance linked fingers with her across the table. “Sarah wants to be with us,” he announced to TJ.

TJ let out a whoop that drew the attention of the scattering of other diners in the room, and Sarah put a hand on his arm to try and quiet him.

“But it isn’t going to be that simple,” she warned him.

“If you want to be with us it should be very simple because being with you is all any of us have thought about since we met you.”

“I’m a human, and I don’t want to live in a wolf pack in the middle of nowhere,” Sarah told TJ bluntly. “You shifters don’t want to come up here and live in the middle of the biggest city on earth with me. Don’t you see the obstacles we face?”

All three of them were silent, Sarah’s depressing words having brought a sudden end to their conversation.

“Perhaps I can help.” The deep baritone of authority caused them all to crane their necks and look around.

“Ryan!” Sarah exclaimed as her heart leapt to her throat, and she hoped the wolf pack’s Alpha had come to save the day and not break her heart again.

Ryan was driving through midtown, and of course there was a traffic jam. There always was at this time of day, even on Sunday. Sarah was at his side in the front seat. To get her to leave the hotel and come away with him in a hurry, he’d had to be curt with her and assert his Alpha status over his two Betas who did not want to part with her company on such a beautiful summer afternoon.

At the airport he had rented a black SUV that was rugged and reminded him of the vehicles he drove at home. Stuck in traffic at the moment he longed for the open plains of the Circle T and hoped to soon be back there. How anyone, be they human or shifter, could handle a place like this city was beyond him. But a quick glance across the seat at the beautiful woman, who sat next to him, his mate, gave him his reason for being here. For Sarah he would have traveled to hell itself and never looked back.

She had been timid with him ever since he’d whisked her away from her two lovers of the weekend and the opulence of the Ritz-Carlton, and he didn’t think she was any too happy right now. At first she had tried asking him a hundred questions that he didn’t have time to answer so he had silenced her with a look of meaning and assured her all her questions would be answered before the day was finished.

As Alpha, Ryan knew how to take charge. He had been born to the role and learned leadership from a young age. When he made up his mind on a course of action, he went with it and took his chances, brooking no obstacle to get in his way. This time around it was harder than simply handling pack business. Now he was making decisions that would affect his future with the one and only mate he’d ever had. Despite all his better judgment that told him to take things slow, he had fallen in love with this woman and knew he was in way over his head with these new feelings of passion.

“If you were just going to drive around in traffic all day we could have gotten a cab to do that,” Sarah told him. She was sarcastic and perturbed with him. Back in the Ritz-Carlton dining room when he’d taken her by the arm and told her in a forceful voice that she was coming with him, she had not liked it at all.

“I don’t take cabs,” he explained to her. “I never let anyone else drive me. Anyway, have you seen how some of these cabbies drive around here? I’d rather take my chances with an angry bronco than get in the back of one of those things.”

Sarah gave him a sidelong glance. “How is it that I knew you were coming here today and your two Betas didn’t?”

“It was the dream.”

He knew he had her full attention now. Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him for a long moment without saying a word. He pulled up to a traffic light and watched, waiting for a further reaction.

“How in the world could you know I had a dream about you coming to New York?”

“Because I was in that dream, too.”

“I don’t understand.” Sarah put her hands over her face and looked like she wanted to hide from him.

By way of explanation he reached over and pushed down the shoulder of her blouse. “The mating mark,” he told her.

She closed her eyes. To Ryan it looked like she was either trying to count to ten or just plain trying to shut out the world. She’d had a lot of shocks recently, and this was going to be one more.

“TJ told me it wouldn’t take on a human.”

“TJ was wrong,” Ryan told her flatly.

“He told me I could get rid of it.”

Ryan felt angry. Angry with himself for having marked her against her will, but also angry at Sarah for all the trouble she had caused. “I’ve never marked a woman before,” he told her fiercely. “But when I mark a woman it stays.”

“Perfect!” Sarah exclaimed in an acerbic tone. To Ryan it very much looked like she wanted to hit him. “Now I’m going to be stuck with this thing on me for the rest of my life.”

“There are plenty of females in my pack who would be proud to wear that mark,” he countered her and raised his voice.

“Yeah? Well I’m not a female in your pack, and I’m damn sure not proud of it.” She impressed him by shouting right back at him, raising her voice louder than his.

Ryan had been in too many fist fights as a young man, most of which he had won, to not know the signs. Sarah’s fists were balling. She wanted to take a poke at him.

“I’m very angry at you,” she said through clenched teeth as she turned her head away from him to look out the window at passing traffic on Fifth Avenue. “Why did you come to New York, Ryan?”

“Because I’ve fallen in love with you.”

* * * *

Ryan looked different to Sarah. He was still big and tough and the chiseled features on his face made him the most attractive and interesting man wherever he went. But the last time she had seen him had been on the Circle T. He had been dusty from the range and dressed as a cowboy. They had sat by the campfire under the big star-filled Montana sky eating marshmallows and getting up the nerve to make love for the first time.

Today Ryan was dressed in a suit and tie and driving a luxury vehicle along New York City’s swanky Fifth Avenue. There was a big change from the cowboy who had seduced her out on the prairie.

His last words were still sinking in on her. He had just said he loved her. The last man to tell her that had been her fiancé, and he had been one of those men who wasn’t really very good at showing affection through words of endearment so she hadn’t heard it from him all that much even when they had been living together.

Sarah made an effort to cool her anger and decided to take a different tack with Ryan. “Just because we slept together once, you’ve come all the way to New York to tell me you love me?” She knew she sounded incredulous.

“Sleeping together when we did was a mistake. I apologize for that. Normally I am better at keeping my primal urges under control.”

The cold reserve of his voice stoked her anger again, and she decided she liked the passionate Ryan better, the man who made love under the stars and proclaimed his love for her unreservedly.

“I’m sorry I marked you without your permission.”

An angry retort was on the tip of her tongue. Then she let it die. “Apology accepted.” She kneaded her sore shoulder with her fingers. “I can always have it removed with a laser. Most of my girlfriends from college got a tattoo at one time or another and had to get rid of them.”

“It’s not a tattoo, and a laser won’t take it off. You’re stuck with it for life.” There was a hard edge to his voice.

“Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that.” Sarah didn’t like the Ryan who had come to visit her in New York. She wanted the cowboy from the range back. That was the man she had been prepared to fall in love with. Dressed in his expensive suit he looked more like a stock broker at the moment, and she had dated a few Wall Street men in the past and never liked any of them. “I don’t want you poking around in my dreams anymore. It’s way too creepy.”

“I’m sorry about that, but it seemed like an effective means of communication at the time.”

“Next time try a phone.” Sarah looked out the window. They seemed to be making no headway in traffic. “Are we going somewhere?” she asked.

As if calculating his words, he regarded her in silence.

Having a chance look at him in that frozen moment, she was uncomfortably aware that the chemistry from the Great Plains was still with them inside the SUV. If she had it to do over she’d go to bed with him again. There was little wonder why she had done it the first time. Though it had complicated her life and the pain in her shoulder seemed like it would never go away she couldn’t regret the decision to have sex with this fine specimen.

At the moment she was infuriated by his macho attitude and wanted to argue with every word he said just on principle alone. Also she felt heated lust for him, and that irritated her still more. His presence next to her in the seat was so close she could feel the warmth of his body and count the whiskers on his chin. It made her hot with desire, and she had to admit he cut a fine figure in his suit and tie.

“As a matter of fact we are going somewhere. We might be a little late because we got stuck in all this traffic. But that’ll give you time.” He motioned to the backseat.

“Time for what?” she asked. “And where are you taking me?”

“Get in the backseat and take off your clothes,” he ordered her.

His clipped tone raised Sarah’s hackles. “Excuse me?” She folded her arms across her chest and gave him her worst stare.

“It may surprise you to know I have friends in New York as well. I actually come here several times a year on business. One of my responsibilities as Alpha is to invest pack money wisely. I do business with a couple of the large firms on Wall Street. You’d be surprised after you’ve invested ten or twenty million dollars a few times with a firm how nice they can be to you. They send me invitations to cocktail and dinner parties all the time. The CEO of one of the firms I invest with is having a little get-together at his Park Avenue condo this afternoon, and I thought you might like to go.”

Sarah was taken aback. She had never seen Ryan in this light before. It was intriguing. It made him all the more powerful and yes, goddamn it, all the sexier, causing the warmth of her lust for him to spread through her loins.

She turned to look over the head of her seat and saw a couple of boxes laid out in back. One of them had the label of a very expensive women’s clothier stenciled on top.