Chapter One
Case nuzzled her neck, and Maggie lifted her chin to allow him better access. She could feel the weight of Eli’s gaze on her back, could scent his desire as strongly as she did Case’s. The leather crinkled as he shifted in his seat. This time she wanted Eli to watch. Case had given her so much last night—a safe space for her to explore her every desire, the bodies of his pack mates, his bed—and she wanted to give him something in return.
She didn’t think Case was as comfortable with sharing her as he’d have her believe. Maybe this was the way it’d always been—one female shifter taking multiple male mates—but that didn’t mean it was going to be easy for everyone involved. She’d been raised as a human in a society that would condemn such an arrangement. Case might have been raised by a pack to accept it. He’d urged her to accept it. But there was something in the way he watched her when she was with his pack mates that told her that acceptance didn’t always come easy. He was definitely the most possessive of her mates, and she’d have to respect that if they were all going to get along.
Case’s fingers slipped under the hem of her shirt, and her abdomen twitched at the gentle slide of his hand. He skimmed his open palms up her torso, tickling the edge of her ribs and then tracing the line of her bra with his thumbs. Stupid bra. She should have just left it off.
“The clasp is in the front,” she said.
“Hmm.” He caught the edge of her shirt in his teeth and pulled it up to expose her belly. When his mouth touched her skin, she moaned and arched her back, wanting more.
With a flick of his fingers, the bra fell open and her breasts spilled into warm, waiting hands. Case had hard hands, wide and roughly callused, but his touch was very careful. He massaged her gently, his thumbs stroking over her pebbled nipples and bringing them to painful attention. She wanted his mouth there. When she tangled her fingers in his hair to urge him closer, he lifted his face.
“These are magnificent, have I told you that?”
She squirmed on his lap, pressing herself against the solid ridge of his erection. “I think you have, actually.”
“Good. You should know how perfect you are.”
She wasn’t perfect. At least not out in the real world, she wasn’t. Out there she was too tall and too big. Too everything. It was only here that she fit in.
Case dipped his head to catch her nipple on his tongue. Closing his mouth over the tip, he sucked at her with a long, deep pull. Her hands fisted in his hair and he growled, a low, pleased sound that rumbled right through her, stirring the heat in her blood to a bright flame.
Case pushed her shirt up and she obediently lifted her arms so he could tug it over her head. His mouth returned to her breasts, licking and sucking at them until she thought she couldn’t stand it anymore. When she cried out and slipped her hand between her thighs to soothe the throbbing ache there, he gripped her hips and urged her to her feet.
“Take off your pants,” he said roughly. “Everything. You don’t need clothes while you’re here.”
She shrugged free of the bra that still hung from her arms and dropped it on the floor beside her shirt. Naked to the waist, she felt exposed. She glanced at the wall of windows and, as if he were able to read her mind, Case said, “No one will get close enough to see you. We’ll guard the property. We’ll guard you, with our lives if need be.”
“I don’t want that,” she said. “I wouldn’t want any of you to get hurt for my sake.”
That was at least part of the reason she’d come here willing to consider claiming strangers as her mates. Because she trusted Eli and Case and was already well on her way to loving them. She didn’t want them to get hurt, and casting anyone out of their pack would hurt them deeply. She definitely didn’t want anyone to lay down their life for her sake.
Case clearly wasn’t in