Free Three Shifters for Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Dani April Page A

back here with her. But it had been so long since she’d had a date and this one had been especially nice. She just didn’t want it to end.
    TJ was seated on her couch. She handed him his glass and sat across from him on a comfortable old chair she had salvaged from a rummage sale in the Bronx. She took a swallow of her wine and regarded him across the small space between chair and couch. He was so handsome, and she had been so irresponsible to bring him back home with her.
    There wasn’t going to be any shared future for the two of them. She hoped she had already made that perfectly clear to him earlier and was not leading him on now. But at twenty-eight Sarah was starting to wonder if she would share a real future with anyone, and the thought of indulging herself with TJ as an overnight guest had never been more appealing. Opportunities with men like TJ didn’t come along every day, and she was willing to risk a little morning-after second-guessing for a continuation of their night together.
    “I’m going to make that poultice I promised you.” TJ hopped up off the couch and went to her kitchen to put together the ingredients. She watched him rummaging around in her kitchen. A couple pots and pans banged together as he opened a cabinet to take down a box of salt. “You know I think my hotel is a pretty piece down the road from your apartment.”
    “Don’t worry about that, TJ.” She wanted to tell him he was spending the night, but didn’t quite want to go there just yet.
    “I’m not worried about a thing except getting that mark off your shoulder.” He sat on the back of her chair and began unfurling a cloth bandage he had made wet under her faucet. “May I?” he asked as his fingers went under the shoulder of her blouse and he got ready to take it down enough to reveal the troublesome mark.
    “Be my guest.”
    He made her shoulder bare, and his fingers were massaging her skin. “This is going to sting a little when I put it on.”
    She tensed, waiting for the inevitable burn of the poultice. TJ hesitated, and she looked over her shoulder at him.
    “Are you sure you want to get rid of this?” he asked her.
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “Well I was just thinking if you ever do decide to become our mate, Ryan will have to mark you all over again. Maybe it would be better to just leave it and let you think for a while.”
    Sarah sighed and put her face in her hands. Perhaps inviting him back here to her place had been misleading to the young cowboy after all. She had to be a straight shooter with him because that’s what he had been with her.
    “TJ, I don’t ever want to be your mate.”
    “Okay.” He gave her a nod and seemed to accept her terms. When he pressed the wet bandage against her skin, he was gentle and there was only a small sting which didn’t feel bad at all with TJ’s sure hands touching her.
    “That actually feels good.” She looked down at her shoulder and watched his hands work their miracle on her skin. “How long will I have to keep this on for?”
    “Give it twenty-four hours. When you take it off, the mark should be gone.”
    Finished, he taped some gauze over the offending area and left it in place to heal her. With great care he brought the shoulder of her blouse back up and set it to rights over the tape.
    “How about some more wine?” TJ refilled her glass and took his seat back on the couch across from her.
    “What hotel are you staying at?” Sarah cleared her throat and decided to make small talk.
    “The Plaza.”
    “The Plaza? We were right by your hotel tonight when we took our walk after dinner. Now you’re another forty-dollar cab ride away. Why didn’t you say something?”
    “Would you have thought I was trying to get you up in my room if I had?”
    Sarah thought about it a moment. “Well maybe.” She had to agree with him. She probably would have.
    “Sometimes a man needs to know when to keep his mouth shut.”
    “You’re a gentleman, TJ.”