Wild Ones: Prowl
Zoey Daniels

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Copyright ©2010 Zoey Daniels

ISBN: 978-1-60521-396-5
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Editor: Margaret Riley
Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

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Wild Ones: Prowl
Zoey Daniels

Most folks don’t think a woman, especially one who’s just turned forty, can make a go of it working a small ranch by herself on an agri-moon. A strong, independent woman, Lainey plans to prove them wrong.

A pair of shapeshifting wolves seem to have adopted Lainey’s new farm as their home. Though wild, winning their favor is considered to be lucky. They have a sense of sexuality that other women would pay anything to taste.

And they’ve chosen her.

Gifted with the experience that comes with maturity, Lainey has no plans to abandon sensual pleasures. She’s tough enough to win the wolves’ respect, sensually rich enough to pique their tastes, and she’s hungry for the love of men who can not only match but overcome her.

Lainey’s not crying wolf. She’s crying “God, yes, harder!”

Chapter One

Lainey closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the sun. Had any sun on any world ever felt so fine? She thought not. Leman’s sun caressed her skin as gently as an accomplished lover, but it was no weakling. Its rays burnished the world brown, carried forward over fields of gold in heated breaths of wind that reminded her of hot kisses traced down her body.

A fine world to live in. She’d like it here.

“It hits us all that way at first,” Rosemary remarked. Lainey could hear the smile in her voice. “Don’t ever get used to it. Then it’ll lose most of its charm.”

Lainey let her eyes drift open and let out a soft breath of satiated desires. She gazed across the gold and brown of the fields and unpaved roads, the green tops of trees already afire with the reds and golds of autumn. It was only natural to take her hat off and rest it not over her heart, but her hip, as a woman of her professional background might in a sign of respect.

“I don’t ever plan to take this for granted,” she said. She wished she could strip naked in the sensual warmth of this world and stretch herself out in the grass to let it saturate her through and through.

Rosemary chuckled; she had an infectious laugh and she was around the same age as Lainey. They’d probably led the same kinds of lives before they came here, to the world no man wanted and every woman dreamed of. Any woman with any sense, that was.

“Good,” Rosemary said. “Let me check once more to be sure…” Proprietress of the small mercantile that was the only place one could buy supplies without traveling a few hundred kilometers in any direction -- not that that bothered Lainey -- she indicated they should get back to business by removing the stylus she’d tucked behind her ear and pointing it at her digital slate.

Lainey knew as well as Rosemary what she’d need and wouldn’t need and that she hadn’t forgotten a single thing on that list, but no harm in letting the woman do her job. She stood by with her hat at her hip, half-daydreaming through the double-check. “I have gold, not credits,” she reminded Rosemary.

“Good. Gold spends; credits are almost worthless out here.” Rosemary patted the side of the wagon. “Right, then. I’ll go total up your bill.”

Politeness, that. Lainey watched Rosemary retreat inside the mercantile and approved of it. She’d have the bill already totted up on her tablet, of course, but it would have been bad manners indeed to stand by and watch a lady retrieve her money from its hiding place. Even if she likely already knew where that’d be after packing the sturdy farm wagon with everything from seeds to vegetable growth supplements to pitchforks and a tin washtub big enough for Lainey to stretch out in.

Homesteading on a new frontier or not, Lainey was stubborn enough and fond enough of her few creature comforts that she’d no plans to give up any time soon.

Though Lainey liked Rosemary just fine, she was glad enough to have the peace and quiet back to herself for a moment. She extended her arms wide, as if she’d embrace the heat from the sun, and let the golden light wash down over her, better than rain.

A slight scuffing sound broke the silence that’d fallen. Not much of a noise, but Lainey’s ears were sharp and some training lasted throughout a lifetime. She could tell even without looking that whoever had come visiting wasn’t Rosemary, nor any of the other women settlers she had a nodding acquaintance with.

No, this was a Man. Lainey could smell the musk, wilder than most of the polished rich boys she’d dealt with once as mistress and madam in turn, before selling off all that hubris and heading out here to make her way, by her choice.

Not just a man, Lainey’s senses told her. A strong man, one who walked with the confidence of a fellow who had no fear of anything, but who stopped far enough away to show her he meant no harm. And -- she cocked her head, intrigued -- another man, not far behind him.

She wasn’t afraid of them; they’d given her no reason. Lainey let her eyes drift open and got her first look at this pair from between the sweeping curtain of her eyelashes.

Oh my. Lainey’s skin heated from more than the baking warmth of the planet. These were a fine pair to look at, weren’t they? One tall and rangy, dark hair clinging to his forehead, cheeks and nape; the other slighter and fairer and springier of step. Both had smiles broad and white enough to rival the sun and the moons, and stood close enough to reach out and touch if she wanted. Teasing her, just a little, by being that close and no closer.

There were no men this far West, not that Lainey knew of. Some fishermen still lived along the coastlines, but not one man who’d come inland to ranch or farm had managed to stay. Bully boys, most of those, or so she’d heard, and it seemed like the land had taken objection to them. Might be a story made up to scare folks, might not be, but for whatever reason, the men had left these prime ranch lands. Left them for women fool enough to try to tame them. And try they had. Leman liked women. Liked them fine. Her sun and moons were kind to the ladies, and they treated her as best as they could in return.

But one look at this pair and Lainey knew down in her gut that while this planet might be kind to the female strangers who’d colonized her… it loved these men without rhyme or reason. They were the sun and moons, somehow.

Lainey couldn’t help smiling at that pair. Five seconds’ worth of acquaintance or not, they brought it out in her. “Now if you aren’t a treat,” she said. “Something I can help you with?”

The men glanced at one another, communicating silently in the way long-time friends sometimes developed. A quirk of the eyebrow and the tilt of a wicked grin spoke volumes.

Laughing, the taller jostled the smaller aside. He had a strange laugh, one that made Lainey sit up and take notice. Something between a rumble and a ruff, ruff, ruff. Not unpleasant to hear, Lord no. Quite the contrary. Gave her a pleasant sensation of warmth in her belly not unlike the sun on her skin. It belonged here, same as they did even if they weren’t supposed to.

Curiouser and curiouser.

“Need help?” the taller asked, gesturing toward Lainey’s loaded wagon. “I Asher. No. I… am, yes, I am Asher. He is Russ. You have long road back to cabin. We help you.”

Lainey’s eyebrows lifted, despite her years of training. Not supposed to be here and didn’t speak the language? Call her intrigued, yes ma’am.

And… they knew where she lived. Lainey figured she ought to be more alarmed about that, but so help her, she couldn’t be. She didn’t believe these two would hurt her, but if they tried? She had a rifle in the wagon, and she knew how to use it.

The taller took one half-step closer, his shorter companion jostling him in play as he followed. “Help with more than this,” the tall man murmured. He reached to touch her face, taking clear care not to startle her but not about to be denied. His fingertips were rough, as tough as paw pads, but his touch was gentle. Almost worshipful.

Lainey’s lips parted. So help her if she didn’t want to promise them anything for the pleasure of their company. It made her laugh. The shoe was on the other foot now, wasn’t it? Good thing for her she liked the fit of it just fine.

She glanced over her shoulder, glad to see Rosemary in the doorway. Damn; better get that gold out.

The strange, enticing men stood patiently, as if they’d nothing better to do -- no, nothing they cared more to do, or could enjoy more -- than wait and see what she’d do.

“Probably not a good idea,” she said, but followed that right up with, “Not right now, at least.”

The smaller man cocked his head. “Later?”

Lainey hid her smile. “Maybe. You come find me, and we’ll see what we’ll see.”

The men exchanged glances. They didn’t bother hiding their amused expressions. Half little boy, half very grown man, all playful and enjoying themselves in a way that drew equal pleasure out of anyone they wanted to draw into their games.

They liked her all the better for not giving in easy. Lainey liked this unlikely pair all the more for giving her something to pique her mind as well as moisten her thighs.

“Tonight,” Asher said. He pressed his finger to his lips and winked at her.

Lainey would have said more to him, or maybe lifted her hat to them as they went wherever they planned to go, but at that moment her ears pricked to the sound of Rosemary emerging from the mercantile with a bill of sale in hand.

She glanced back a second later, wondering what Rosemary would make of them. Turned out she didn’t need to. Whoever those men had been, they were gone as if they’d never been there at all.

Lainey settled the cowboy hat, already nicely worn in, atop her head. The brim shaded her eyes and hid her expression, all the better to let her consider this new set of circumstances in as much privacy as could be had.

There were other old wives’ tales she’d heard before boarding the ship for Leman. One of them -- the first of them -- she’d heard from an old client who’d come back from less than a year here pale and shaken, half the man he’d been. Not that he’d been too much of a man to start with, though he’d had kingly opinions of himself.

Not after he got back from Leman, he didn’t. Lainey could see him in her boudoir now, thin as a rail and tense with nerves and barely restrained anger. “That place ain’t natural,” he’d insisted. “Not fit for anyone except fools.”

She’d knelt by his feet, as the job demanded; besides, he was paying her well enough to indulge his whims. “Go on.” The sound of this world had tickled her sense of whimsy.

“Nothing to go on about,” he’d snapped.

Liar, liar. Lainey had known he’d gone out to Leman with a full herd of cattle and careless of the expense, still a rich man, and left it all there to come back to his home planet with barely enough credits to keep him in whiskey and women.

“Do what you’re paid for,” he’d barked at her, still snot-nosed proud, like he hadn’t been chased off a world that was supposed to be easy pickings.

Lainey never had cared to sit still and take what was handed to her. She raised her chin stubbornly before she did as the client commanded. “It was just the men that Leman didn’t care for? The ranchers? Women were all right?”

“When are women all right? Weak, all of you.” He’d rubbed his face. “I don’t know, whore. I guess. Didn’t any of them see what the men saw.”

“Which was what?”

“Weren’t you listening? Bah. Wolves, woman. Crazy wolves that didn’t act like wolves, dogging our heels. Couldn’t rest, couldn’t work, couldn’t grow or harvest. Couldn’t go nowhere without them darting out to nip at us or howling under our windows at night.”

Lainey hmm’d and said nothing.

Her client hadn’t liked the turn of this conversation; stung his pride something fierce. “Why? You got a mind to go out there?”

Lainey had shaken her head and said nothing. She’d hidden her smile, too. Bad for business.

But inside, she’d been busy thinking…

And she’d figured, well, we’ll see who’s weak, won’t we?

* * *

Lainey dusted her hands off on her hips and slipped her small pouch of gold coins from a hidden compartment in the wagon, all ready to present to Rosemary when the woman came back out. Didn’t take her long once she heard the jingle of Lainey’s cash, but she came clearing her throat in a mannerly way to make sure Lainey knew she was coming.

A good woman. Lainey hadn’t had a friend in ages. Might be she’d come across one now. Time would tell.

“Fifteen gold,” Rosemary told her, holding out the bill of sale. A pittance on sophisticated planets; a fortune here.

Lainey had saved every coin she could over the years, and light-fingered away a few more when clients pissed her off. Fifteen gold wouldn’t break her. Nothing could.

But that didn’t mean she was immovable, nor hard as stone, feeling nothing. She still had a sense of humor, and she appreciated other things that did.

Other things… other folks…

She glanced at the overgrown wheat fields, cut just far enough back to leave the unpaved trail out of town clear, and thought she heard rustling amongst the dry stalks.

Wolves, her client had said. Now, the sound of an animal in the weeds might just have been Rosemary’s dog chasing a rabbit. Somehow, Lainey didn’t think so.

And, after a sideways look at Rosemary, Lainey knew Rosemary didn’t think so either.

Rosemary took the gold Lainey offered her and dropped the coins down into her boot for safekeeping. She didn’t so much look at Lainey as she returned her sideways glance with a nod to show she knew they heard and understood one another, woman to woman.

Lainey propped her hip on the wagon and waited.

Rosemary laughed quietly. “I don’t expect I have to tell you not to be afraid,” she said. “And you needn’t be. If they’ve spotted you, and they like you, then you’ve got a blessing to count.”

“That so?” Lainey reserved judgment. Mostly. Though it was hard to keep a straight face when she saw a wolf poke its muzzle through the weeds, panting and giving her a wolf’s grin.

Rosemary laughed louder. No fool, her. “I left coyness far behind,” she informed Lainey. “So did you. Plain, that’s the only way to be. I can’t tell you what they are. No one that I know of can. All I can say is they chased off the settlers who would have raped this world to dust, and they’re kindly to us who’d like to make it grow strong. If they like you, then celebrate it.”

Lainey could hear the wolves in the weeds, playing like puppies. “I might do at that,” she said, very solemnly, winking at Rosemary.

Rosemary got what she meant right away. “No one likes it when the game’s too easily won,” she murmured. “Then again, I expect you know how to play.”

“I do.” Lainey’s own laugh came naturally, if low and soft; she always had had a husky voice for a woman. She settled her hat on her head and gave her horse’s flank a pat. She wasn’t nervous around these wolves. That told her more than anything. “We’ll see what we’ll see. Ready, set, and go.”

The dance had begun; might as well start the music. About time, too. Because if they could play, then so could she…

Chapter Two

The pair of wolves followed Lainey all the way home, to the frontiersman’s abandoned cabin she’d claimed for her own. Didn’t follow her openly. That would have spoiled their fun, and truth be told it would have spoiled Lainey’s, too. These wolves weren’t tame dogs to run behind anyone’s cart.

She liked them better still for it, and was hard put to keep her smile from bursting out. Not quite time for that yet. Not when hide-and-seek was still the nature of the game.

And it wouldn’t last forever. The closer she got to home, the bolder they grew. Testing her, teasing her. They knew she knew. Every so often she saw a peek of a wolf’s noble head and strong muzzle through the wheat stalks; every now and again she got a glimpse of a man’s strong, bare leg crouching before, in a blink, a wolf ran from where the man had been.

Whenever that happened, the smaller wolf had to rush to keep up. Hard as hell to keep a straight face, yes ma’am. Harder still not to linger on the images left behind in her mind’s eye of the bare male bodies she only saw snatches of as the wolves -- men -- ran through the wheat. Long, firmly muscled legs; sleek hips, strong chests and broad shoulders. Mischievous smiles and a flash of knowing eyes.

No hardship for Lainey if they chose to run naked. Must have left those clothes behind them in town, and no doubt they’d been borrowed off some unguarded clothesline anyway.

Yes ma’am, Lainey thought, enjoying the view. Naked suits them well.

It would have been hardest of all to ignore the growing heat in Lainey’s belly, or the liquid warmth wetting her cunt. There were prettier words for a woman’s parts, but she’d never cared for them. Besides, “cunt” fit. This was a plain world with plain rules… and there was a certain wildness to the word that she liked.

She expected the wolves would like it, too, once they understood the subtleties of the language.

Still. The more Lainey watched, and the more familiar she grew with their musky, rangy scent as they followed her cart, the slicker her thighs grew. These two were a treat, and a woman who worked hard as she did had the right to play hard.

But she wanted to play it right, so she said nothing, and didn’t look at the wolves straight on. Except, that was, for when one pounced out of the weeds and nipped a few inches away from her good steady mare. Didn’t bother the mare much; she snorted and kicked.

Lainey took a different approach. She pulled her wagon to a halt and stared at the wheat fields where the wolf had gamboled back in. “None of that,” she said, “Or you can just go home. Understand?”

She’d heard a quiet wolf whine, followed by a flash of white teeth. Chuckling silently to herself, she clicked her tongue to urge the wagon forward. There. They knew for sure now how far to push her.

And they wouldn’t be put off with a sharp word; something more to like them for. They followed still, just far enough distance not to tease her mare, but to play plenty with Lainey.

So beautiful, she thought. Wild and free and full of the same sort of boundless appreciation for a woman as Leman itself, opening its arms wide to let in the women that it treated kindly. Lovely as wolves, and breathtaking as men.

The tips of Lainey’s breasts ached, her nipples hard, but constrained under the leather vest she wore. She didn’t mind. A little pain -- a little, on her own terms -- with her pleasure made the growing need in her cunt a pleasure and made her shiver with excitement.

Could they smell her? Oh yes, Lainey thought, for sure they could. She saw them in man shape more and more as her arousal grew hotter than the sun. Yet she was like embers, too. Banked for now but with a little fuel, she’d burst into flame.

When the time was right.

It’d reached nearly full dark by the time Lainey’s cabin hove into view. Lainey lifted her eyebrow to see the wolves hanging back then, not disappointed, but plenty intrigued. Now what did those two have in mind?

They gave her plenty enough time to consider it, too. Made her wait and wonder while she brushed and curried her mare, and secured her in the barn with a net full of wheat straw and a handful of oats to munch on. Lingered long enough to get her impatient and amused as all hell wondering what they were up to.

Clever, clever wolves, putting the shoe on the other foot, weren’t they?

She wasn’t surprised -- pleased, but not surprised -- to see the pair of wolves sitting at either side of the broad, shallow wooden steps that led to her front door. Guarding it like some sort of temple dogs.

“Don’t you get cute,” she told the wolf who’d dropped two sets of clothes beside him and panted at her, muzzle open in a broad canine grin.

His companion put one paw on the steps, and stopped right quick when Lainey shot him a stern look over her shoulder. The other whined, sounding curious, and tried his luck.

Lainey reached the top of the steps and turned, hands on her hips but not in anger, the wide spread of her fingers displaying her curves and all ten of them pointing toward her womanhood. Tempting them even as she played the game.

“I am not that easily won,” she told the wolves. Mostly, by now, it wasn’t true, and she knew they knew, but partly it was the truth and they needed to know she wasn’t going to give in as easy as falling off a log. That was no fun.

The smaller wolf wrinkled his muzzle; the larger wolf sat up straight and barked.

“You’ll see,” Lainey told them. “Stay outside. I’ll let you know when I’m good and ready.”

Bolder than his companion, the larger wolf bounded up the stairs to butt Lainey’s legs with his head. He lapped at her hand, inviting her to scratch behind his ears, then turned around as quickly as he’d come to bound off into the wheat stalks.

Lainey couldn’t hold back the laugh any longer as the pair of wolves romped away. She stretched her arms over her head, reaching for the setting sun and the waxing shapes of Leman’s moons.

Call it instinct, but she had a feeling that this night was going to be one of the best of her life.

* * *

Homesteader’s law allowed Lainey to claim a cabin that’d been left behind. She supposed those who made the laws thought it was a joke. A little more indulgence of the women, and, she suspected, their way of discouraging those who might show them up.

To be sure, the little cabin Lainey took for her own had been in bad shape. And? she’d asked, looking up at it. Nothing hard work can’t fix. She’d show them, and shown them she had. The hands she’d once kept so soft were roughened now from hard work and she’d tanned herself a deep brown, but never burned under Leman’s sun.

Anyone who looked at Lainey’s cabin might think it shoddy, unless they looked a second time, and looked inside, and seen it in good-as-new shape. No, better than new. Lived in, and lived in well. Comfortable. Inviting. Like the world itself, these homey pine walls stained a warm dark hue seemed to enfold themselves around those who appreciated it.

Lainey ran her hand down the walls of the front room, feeling the roughness of the wood beneath the firmness of her flesh, soaking up the sturdy pleasure of being here, savoring the thought of what was sure to come.

Too bad she hadn’t brought in the tin washtub, but she had a smaller basin, a fresh dried sea sponge, and gentle soap made from saponin-rich flowers she’d harvested herself. She had a kettle big enough to fill the basin with hot water, and in two shakes she’d have a fire to place that over.

She had other things, too. A soft crimson pillow to kneel on. A scarlet robe that caressed her bare skin when she shed her dusty work clothes. A ribbon to bind up her hair with and bare her shoulders.

Lainey had been a successful courtesan -- successful enough to buy her way. She was the best, and not ashamed to admit it. She didn’t know if the wolves who were men would appreciate a show, but she did love to give one. It pleased her, if no one else, and she wanted to draw out the anticipation just a little more. Long enough to drive them all half mad with waiting and wanting.

As she settled before the newly kindled hearth and waited for water to warm in the kettle, Lainey tipped her head to listen for signs of activity from the outside world. She thought… yes, there… she heard soft scuffling on her porch, the sound of tough paw pads on wood. Wolves sneaking to the one good glass window her home boasted and jostling for space to peek in.

Nowhere near as subtle in their spying as they’d like to think they were, were they? The thought made Lainey’s smile soften and made her shiver with another peak of anticipation.

The water took its sweet time to heat, but once Lainey poured it into the basin over the shredded soapbark, she was satisfied it’d been worth the wait. Curls of steam warmed her cheeks, the fragrance vaguely like chamomile and fresh-mown hay. Natural and gentle, no frou-frou about it, but feminine all the same.

It was pure pleasure for Lainey to let the crimson robe slide off her shoulders to pool around her waist and to run the sponge over her breasts. Posed as she was, mostly in profile with her back turned to the window, the wolves wouldn’t be able to see more than a hint of the fullness of her breasts and the supple flex of limbs.

Lainey tipped her head back and ran the sponge along her throat, then raised her arm to skate the sponge down her smooth flesh. She might be closer to forty than thirty, but age mattered not a bit when a woman knew how to use her charms -- knew, and enjoyed to the fullest.

A small wuff! outside made her laugh.

“You wait your turn,” she murmured. She drew the sponge in a line down her belly, trailing fragrant soapsuds in its wake, and turned to look over her shoulder at the wolves framed in her front window. Lingering there, she smoothed the sponge down one shoulder and the tops of her breasts.

Oh yes. Want. No less recognizable from wolfen eyes than from a man’s, because while these might be wolves they had a man’s intelligence, a man’s needs, and a man’s desires.

Just as Lainey had a woman’s.

She closed her eyes in pleasure and basked in the still warmth of the night that embraced her, the beads of water that ran down her skin, and the quiet crackling of the fire. Imagined the press of lips to her body, the touch of a worthy man’s hands, and the stroke of his tongue, wherever he and she pleased. The daydreaming made her breasts ache and her cunt slick, eager for the wolves who were men. Who would take her first? It’d be fun, finding out.

You wait your turn, she’d said, and she’d meant it.

But she wouldn’t make them wait too long.

* * *

Lainey settled the robe back over her shoulders. Her skin was still damp from the bath, but she’d dry, and she rather liked the way the fabric clung to her now, displaying her breasts, her hard nipples, and the curve of her waist.

It’d gone silent outside. Surely they hadn’t gone. Lainey hadn’t known them for a day, but she was certain the wolves wouldn’t grow bored and lope away. She’d retired because she wanted to, not because she’d lost her ability to hold a man’s attention.

She padded barefooted to the window and laid her palm against the glass. Outside, two of Leman’s three moons shone bright as chips of ice. They waxed toward full in a sky of black velvet sprinkled with diamond stars -- a sky that looked as lush and rich in its darkness as a panther’s pelt. Below it, her fields spread out as far as the eye could see even in this cool night’s light. Wheat, left to grow wild, not harvested for two years or more, coming back from seed and sweeping out in an ocean of gold.

Yet amongst all those riches, she saw no wolves.

Then she heard a rustle. A growl. Playful barks and the rustling rush of a chase through the tall stalks of gold. Lainey chuckled. “All right. You made me look. Rascals, both of you.”

She didn’t mind. Not as long as she could take her fill of watching them, and Lainey could see them more clearly now, tumbling through the tall wheat grass as if they were puppies. They didn’t look alike as wolves any more than they had as men, one long and sturdy and silver-black, one almost russet and smaller, but lean and wiry, tough as nails, like the man, she’d bet.

Were there more to their pack? Doubtful. Lone wolves, she’d say. A pair of outcasts who’d joined together to make a pack of their own. Maybe for more than one reason. Every now and again, after one or the other scored a point, Lainey could see affection in the way the one comforted the other, then nipped his flank to get him back in the chase.

Once, when they stood in a mostly bare spot of soft earth, illuminated by moonlight, she saw the russet wolf licking and biting at the muzzle of the silver-black wolf.

If they were men, they’d be wrapped about one another and taking their time with a hard, sweet kiss. Lainey hummed, well pleased. Most men she’d known pretended to scorn those who loved their own sex as well as the other. Most of those men had been denying desires of their own.

How good it was to see two souls enjoying themselves as they liked, with no one to tell them no, that’s not right. How fine to watch them play. How exciting to see the way they cared for each other. Wanted each other.

Lainey slid her hand between her thighs and stroked the soft curls over her cunt. Only teasing, still. Drawing it out. What folks didn’t know about this world, abandoned by all who weren’t tough enough to take it, could fill a book.

The wolves raced halfway to the house before the russet jumped the larger wolf and rolled him over. They leapt away and faced off, growling as playfully as puppies and cuter than they had any right to be -- and knowing it, too.

“Got tired of waiting, I expect. Now you’re trying to get me to come out and play, aren’t you?” Lainey murmured, stroking the smooth coolness of the window glass.

As if he’d heard, and understood, the larger of the wolves lifted his head and howled. He danced a few steps forward, then back. He couldn’t have invited her more clearly if he’d projected words clear into her head: Yes, yes; come play with us. Run with us.

Mate with us.

Lainey stroked the heavy neckline of her crimson robe. The tips of her breasts strained against the softness that restrained them; the weight of the velvet molded itself along the warmth of her body, and an ache deepened between her legs that would have made Lainey’s mind up for her if she hadn’t already chosen her course.

She smiled broadly, savoring the sight of the wild wolves -- the men who’d claimed her -- cavorting on the land she’d claimed. These were wild wolves, to be sure, but they wouldn’t hurt her. She’d stake her life on it.

Afraid? No. Excited? Oh God, yes…

Lainey stepped away from the window, ready -- more than ready now -- to take pity on them, and on herself. She made it three steps toward the door before she heard something new -- the scream of a bobcat, not five feet from her porch. A true wild beast, enraged, and on the hunt…

Chapter Three

Pure instinct had Lainey dropping the robe and pulling the rifle down from the wall. She’d heard that bobcat before, and never without something living around her place suffering for his presence. Last time she’d shot at him, he’d nearly gone for her.

That bobcat made her uncomfortable, the way the men who’d been here before her were discomfited by the wolves. An icy chill tickled the back of her neck, but it was chased away right fast by anger.

Nothing came on her land without her say-so, damn it!

She’d practiced enough that the rifle felt natural in her grasp, and she could run without shooting herself or the walls. Not as good as a pistol. Why hadn’t she brought in her goods to keep them safe, or at least the sturdy shotgun she’d bought? Lainey swore at herself and pressed her shoulders flat to the wall by the side of the door. Open it and shoot --

A bark that made her ears hurt worse than a shotgun blast ripped apart the still of the night. Startled Lainey enough to pull her out of her stance and look head on out the door.

What she saw made her laugh. Then, made her proud. The shorter and stockier of her two wolves -- yes, she’d started thinking of them as hers -- stood foursquare in front of the steps, snarling in a low growl so deep it vibrated through Lainey’s bones. The taller, leaner wolf had come to a stop at the boundary where clear space ended and the overgrown wheat fields began. Through a trick of the moonlight, Lainey could see him clearly, his teeth bared and his ears flat.

That was a fine thing, but finer still was the sound of a bobcat’s retreat through tall grass. It stopped every now and again to voice a challenge, but by the Lords it kept going until Lainey could barely hear the rapid rustling of wheat stalks.

The russet wolf closer to Lainey sneezed and shook himself like an ordinary dog. It swung halfway about to check on her and stopped, cocking his head to eye her in her nakedness with an all too human-like -- and extremely male -- interest.

Lainey didn’t try to hide her amused smile -- or put down the gun, though she did point it away from her wolf. “Get this finished first,” she told her wolf. “Finish one thing before you start another.”

The russet wolf sneezed again and wagged his tail. He faced forward and barked, loud, short and sharp, aimed at the bigger wolf. Well. Lainey didn’t have to guess what he might be saying, and she didn’t feel inclined to waste time questioning how he understood her or they understood each other.

Nor did she think that bobcat would be bothering her again.

Out by the wheat fields, her tall wolf shook himself from shoulders to haunches. Lainey frowned. Was that a streak of blood on his foreleg? “That damn cat got a bite of him,” she said, thinking twice about putting down her rifle.

The russet wolf swung around to trot up the steps as free as he pleased; well, Lainey supposed he’d earned it. She rested her hand atop his head, finding his pelt to be both soft and scratchy at once. Reminded her of a man’s whiskers when he hadn’t shaved for two or three days. Neither beard nor stubble, kinder and more exciting against a lover’s skin.

“All right,” she murmured to her russet wolf, hanging the rifle back in its place. “I won’t shoot. You feel like telling me why? I wouldn’t hit him.”

The russet wolf wrinkled his muzzle. He took her hand in his mouth, so gently and so quickly she felt the light pressure of his teeth before she’d known he was moving at all.

Lainey held very still. “If you try it, I will shoot you.”

The russet wolf sighed. He let go of her hand and nudged her hip, guiding her to look out at the taller wolf. The taller wolf ignored them save for one quick peek back. He barked at the wheat fields. And stay out! Made Lainey laugh.

The taller wolf wagged his tail once, twice, three times, and took off running, making a full circuit of the perimeter, and around the house. If the bobcat had bitten him, he didn’t seem to be bothered, but Lainey could tell for sure he was marking his scent all around the boundaries of her home.

Well now. Lainey had to watch, and as she did her pleasure grew, as did her smile. Rosemary had been right. They’d protect her.

Lainey could take care of herself. She’d not been looking for someone to take any burdens off her shoulders and expect to be thanked for it. But when they gave her this gift because they wanted to…

The taller wolf finished his circuit and pranced up Lainey’s steps, looking so pleased with himself that Lainey had to laugh out loud. “You’re proud enough of yourself to pop, aren’t you?”

Both wolves butted their heads against her legs. Russ stole a sniff while he was in the vicinity, for which Lainey twisted his ear.

A tussle of any kind always did wonders for her mood, and here and now, bathed in moonlight as cool as water and satin on her skin, with the memory of two handsome men fresh in her mind, Lainey knew exactly what she wanted.

“Stand up,” she told them, soft as velvet and strong as steel. “Stand up as men and let me get a good look at you.”

The taller wolf cocked his head to a side. And then? he seemed to be asking.

Lainey hadn’t enjoyed herself this much in years. “To the victors go the spoils,” she said. She cupped her breasts. “Stand up as men and find out.”

Lainey couldn’t have told anyone what it was like to see the two wolves change. There weren’t words, at least not in any language she knew, and it was over as quick as a heartbeat. Wolves stood, unfolding into men, smooth and hard, as naked as she herself.

And -- she checked -- as happy to see her as if they were still wolves wagging their tails. Though truth be told, Lainey liked the looks of this excitement far more. “Aren’t you a treat,” she said, a deliberate echo of the first words she’d spoken to the pair, to tease them and to get another look at those broad, infectious grins of theirs.

That enjoyment made the taller wolf -- Asher -- bold. He reached for her, as smooth and graceful as he’d run in wolf shape. “Mine,” he told her, fingertips grazing her supple flesh. “Ours.”

“Is that a fact?” Lainey did enjoy teasing them. She folded her arms under her breasts to lift and present them, as well as to keep the ground rules straight. She gave herself; no one took unless she asked for it.

Not that these two had to do a lot of asking, for they’d already won her. But she had her ways, and she had a few desires of her own to satisfy. And, she thought, frowning briefly, she wanted a second to think about the way Asher had said ours.

The wolves leaned against each other, as comfortable with touching one another in this shape as they’d been in their other. Playful, affectionate, and with the kind of ease only lovers developed.

Now, now. Things had just gotten a bit more interesting. Again.

Lainey lifted her chin and raised her eyebrow. “All right, then. That’s how it is.”

Russ winked at her, so human an expression that it near about broke her faux-sternness. To punish him, she shook her finger at him. “Turn around, handsome. You too, Asher. I want to get a good look.”

Asher’s laugh still sounded a bit like a bark, but Lainey was growing to love the sound. Her body found it favorable too, the shiver the sound produced hardening her nipples and bringing fresh liquid heat to her cunt.

Asher stopped laughing, and quick, too. His nostrils flared. Looked like his sense of smell suffered not at all when he took on man shape. He licked his lips and took a step toward her. Stopped when Russ nudged him back and, with his face wreathed in mischief, turned around in a slow circle to show both of them what he had to offer.

Lainey was the one to lick her lips this time. A treat? Yes indeed. No woman could fail to appreciate the sleekness of Russ’s hips and the cut of muscle, the fine trail of hair that led down to his sturdy hard-on and that cock itself… lords, he might spoil her for other men.

If there ever were any other men, and Lainey had a suspicion there might not be.

Suited her fine.

Russ turned in a second circle, slower this time, giving Lainey a sideways look that told her he knew she liked what she saw. As did he. Tight ass, firm enough to bounce a gold coin off, long and sturdy legs, and supple muscles in calves and arms and chest. His hair tumbled too messily about his face, but Lainey liked it. She rubbed her nipples with the balls of her thumbs to satisfy enough of the ache to keep going.

“Asher,” she said, giving him a pointed nod. “You too, gorgeous.”

Asher’s grin was lazier and more satisfied. No, not satisfied. Well pleased.

“Conceited?” Lainey said, to poke at him and see how he’d take it.

Asher shrugged easily. He spread his arms and turned in a circle, but too fast for Lainey to enjoy the view. Another circle, one that brought him closer, and, by the end of his third circuit Lainey had only gotten a few glimpses of sleek skin and a cock that would make anyone’s mouth water. That didn’t so much matter, for at the end of that third circuit Asher had Lainey in his arms.

He moved with the confidence of the best lovers she’d ever had, but the way he held Lainey was so much better than any of them had ever managed. Confident, sure of himself, and sure of her -- but with a certain reverence and a wholehearted appreciation that only the likes of a wolf, with his simple desires, could manage.

Asher’s arms were long enough to encircle her waist and to rest his hands at the small of her back. His fine, fine cock, long and sturdy, rubbed against her belly. Not where she wanted it. Looked like her tall wolf was too tall by half.

Lainey frowned. Asher kissed the side of her mouth and licked beneath her ear, rubbing their cheeks together as he went. Surprising her with its tenderness, especially considering how stiff he was sliding so close but not close enough to her nether regions.

They were skilled, those wolves of hers. While Asher had Lainey good and distracted, moving in slow circles around her still, Russ padded to her on his hard bare feet and bent his face to her breasts, resting his head on her cleavage in a manner that made her want to stroke his hair and kiss him. Then, when he looked at her with all the wickedness of a devil’s gleam in his eye, made her want something much more.

Russ might have smelled her wants, or he and Asher might have had this planned all along. Who knew? But with Asher now behind her, his firmly corded arms wrapped around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder to keep her anchored, she was open for Russ to end the first game and begin the second.

Yet he looked at her, once, asking, as a gentleman should. Lainey drew her tongue across her bottom lip, thinking she’d have to teach these wolves to kiss properly.

Later.

For now, with Asher holding her upright and not a damn thing in the world that she gave a flying fig for to tell her she shouldn’t, Lainey slid her bare feet further apart on the porch to give Russ the room he wanted and needed.

She slid her fingers through Russ’s hair and guided his head. Turned out he didn’t need the help. He gripped her by the hip and thigh, giving her a taste of his strength, and then he took a good taste of her, making Lainey more than glad she had Asher behind her to keep her on her feet.

Oh God, yes. Yes. Yes!

The soft rumbling of Asher behind her, chuckling against her skin -- well, Lainey might have been indignant any other time, for a man to laugh at her expense, but not now. Let any woman who could hold herself together against the loving assault of a tongue this sleek and nimble stand up to be counter, and Lainey would call her a liar to her face.

Rosemary had said if the wolves liked her, she should count it as a blessing. Rosemary seemed to have a gift for understatement.

Russ made a rumbling noise, as if he could sense he’d lost a fraction of her focus, and took steps to correct that situation. For which Lainey was properly appreciative -- and surprised. He began by taking one of her calves in his surprisingly gentle grasp and lifting; behind her, Asher helped by lifting and balancing until Russ could hook her knee over his shoulder.

Left her wide-open. Exposed. And wet, so wet the cool moonlit air kissed her as intimately as a lover. Lainey moaned, fast losing any trace of shame and not in the least bit bothered by it.

Russ teased her clit with the tip of his tongue. He nibbled the lips of her cunt so lightly it almost tickled; he caressed the slick insides of her thighs, thumbs skating through the trickling liquid heat.

Lainey leaned fully on Asher and dug her heel into Russ’s back. She couldn’t speak, but she could and did growl, her best impression of them. Russ perked up, then threw his head back to laugh. His lips shone with her juices.

A pretty sight, but no time to appreciate it in, for no sooner than Russ had started to laugh than he stopped, spread her legs wider still, and plunged his face between them.

Oh God. Not just his face, but his hands, got to work. She sensed he was gauging by the shaking of her thighs when he hit the right spot and lord, but he was a quick learner, wasn’t he? Zeroed in where she wanted him most and showed no mercy.

And backed off every time the delicious pressure began to rise toward a peak.

Lainey kicked him with her heel, not hard, and growled. Russ’s chuckles vibrated against her cunt, and whether he was a tease or not that almost did the job -- almost --

Asher pressed a kiss to the side of Lainey’s neck and then, much as Russ had taken her hand in his teeth in wolf shape, he opened his mouth to rest his blunter human teeth over her pulse. The shock brought Lainey back to herself, just enough to balance on that fine edge of control; the pleasure, unexpected though it was at the dangerous nature of Asher’s kiss, sent her spiraling back and forth between them.

Oh, they did not play fair, these wolves, but they did play. Lainey gave up the effort to hold on to dignity and thrust her pelvis forward, demanding Russ’s prompt attention.

And that attention he gave, nuzzling back in to lap slowly, steadily at her soaking cunt, drinking her juices down as if they were the finest, purest nectar. He held her legs when her knees would have given out beneath her.

A good thing, that, for when between them they tilted her backwards to hold her balanced between them, and Russ could let go, he slid two fingers inside her cunt and stroked up, hard, hitting the spot like so few men could and none had ever done so skillfully, so perfectly, as if he knew her body inside and out and knew where, just where --

Lainey lifted her other leg, because she could with the two of them holding her safe, and draped it over Russ’s shoulder. Asher held her as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow, the strength in his hard muscles betraying no strain. She dug her heels, hard, into Russ’s supple back and rolled her hips, straining to take those callused fingers deeper.

Russ grazed her clit with his teeth. The faintest pressure, but -- oh, that was all it took, that hint of danger and wildness, and Lainey came with her cunt clenching fiercely around Russ’s sturdy fingers, drenching him with her cream. He licked her, cleaning her flesh and his fingers. Moaning under his cunning assault, Lainey rose to a second peak, and a third, turning her vision white as the moonlight that stroked her skin. She nearly screamed in pleasure.

Asher growled behind her, not angrily, and kneaded her breasts with a touch that was both light and taut, betraying how much of his strength he held back. Lainey could feel the rigid length of him pressed to her back, so eager for his turn that he leaked pre-come in hot, wet trails along her skin.

He growled at Russ with more meaning, and shifted Lainey’s weight to pull her back and away. Lainey laughed to the skies. He’d known exactly when Russ’s licking was almost at the edge of too much for her sensitive clit.

Russ sat back on his heels, cheerfully and wholly unashamed. His face gleamed with her juices, slick and shiny on his nose and the fullness of his lips. If he’d been in wolf shape, he would have been wagging his tail and rolling on his back for sheer pleasure.

Lainey tickled him with her bare toes. “You think you’re something else, don’t you?” She sounded throaty to herself, her voice stripped raw though she hadn’t screamed. She’d sure wanted to, though, and she expected she would before the night was over.

For it was not over yet. No sir, not by a long shot. Russ’s cock hung red and stiff between his legs, as needy as Asher’s. She’d be hard put to judge which had the finer equipment, but why should she when she’d be reaping the benefits of both?

Lainey rubbed her head across Asher’s bare chest and arched her back to bring them in closer contact. “Come inside,” she said. “Come inside and see what a real woman can do for a real beast.”

Chapter Four

For the first time since she’d laid eyes on them, Lainey saw her men hesitate. She’d suspected they might. Wolves had dens, not cabins; they had comforting burrows and not sawmill-cut logs that shaped four walls to box them in.

Truth be told, if they’d strode right in Lainey would have been far less impressed by them. She liked wild things.

Lainey laid her palm against the frame of the door and turned to the side, displaying her profile. Russ and Asher followed her movements with hungry eyes, eyes that narrowed dark when she arched her back to push her breasts forward, but not a step would they take further toward her.

Unaccountably, Lainey felt a pang of remorse. Cruel of her to tease. Some things still came too naturally after all those years of being on the job. She relented and faced them with her arms naturally at her side. Unadorned, with no artifice -- and she liked the way they looked at her now much better.

She stood before them in her natural state, flushed and damp from their sensual attentions. They looked at Lainey as if she were something to be loved, not just lusted after.

“You don’t care for the indoors, then I won’t make you go in,” Lainey said, soft and low. The affection they showed would have scared most women. Too much, too soon, but she saw it was just their way.

They exchanged looks Lainey found hard to read. Russ made a small noise, answered by a rumble from Asher that sounded as if it should have a question mark attached.

As for her, she waited, watching them. Seemed like the start of a disagreement brewing, or at least it did until Russ kissed the side of Asher’s mouth, bit gently at Asher’s lip, and laid his head on Asher’s shoulder. Asher stroked his back.

Lainey had known a thing or two about wolf behavior even before she’d come here. Interesting. Not unexpected or surprising, either, to suspect the pair were lovers. They had that way about them. And opening the way to include her?

Well. Even former whores had fantasies they pleasured themselves to sleep with at nights. “Problems?” Lainey asked, watching them, still gentle. Showing them she didn’t mind, though as like as not they could smell it on her.

Asher’s nostrils did flare when he caught her scent. Though he released Russ from his embrace enough they could both face her, he didn’t entirely let Russ go.

“Questions,” Asher said. His voice had that same rusty-rumbling edge to it, as if he didn’t use it much at all, and now Lainey knew why. Seemed like they might communicate better as wolves than as humans.

Well, she’d get them to teach her. Later. For now, she only nodded. “Ask what you like, but fair’s fair. For everything you ask, I’ll ask my own question in return.”

Asher broke into one of his broad, white smiles, wide enough for Lainey to see that his canine teeth were longer and sharper even in man shape. “Fair,” he said. “First you. A gift.”

That smile came wreathed in so much mischief Lainey knew he knew exactly what she wanted to ask. Lainey chuckled, enjoying this game as much as they did. “I know you’re not tame. I know you’re man and beast.”

“Not mind?” Russ tipped his head to one side, studying her as a dog might.

Lainey cupped her breasts and teased the nipples with the work-toughened, deliciously stimulating slight roughness of her fingertips. “Does it look like I mind?”

Darkness of a different sort flashed in Russ’s eyes. Lainey liked this smile. This was something that passed between lover and lover alone. Something sure of itself because it knew it could be.

Lainey smoothed her hand between her breasts and down to tease the smooth skin inches above the thatch of curls between her legs. She enjoyed the look on their faces when they smelled her afresh, mixed with their own scents. “I don’t mind a bit,” she said. “My turn to ask.”

Asher blinked at her with a questioning bark.

“You went first,” she replied, pointing at Russ, “You jumped the line. So I get to go twice.”

More than twice, she suspected, but they’d stop bothering about counting before long.

Asher’s shoulders shook with very human amusement, though he looked at her in the same way Russ did, with that masculine look that said, very simply, mine. “Ask.”

“There’s something I want to know.” It didn’t bother her either way, except to satisfy curiosity. “You’re wolves, and you’re men. Suits me fine. But I want to know, which came first? Are you wolves who learned how to walk on two legs, or are you men who learned to walk on four?”

The pair laughed. Russ threw his head back and howled to the sky, an ululating spear of delighted noise. Asher jostled him and hugged him tight. “My turn to ask. What do think you?”

“Wolves,” Lainey answered, promptly. She cupped her breast to ease the aching fullness, and pressed her wet thighs together. “Wolves, now and always, no matter what skin you walk in.”

Asher and Russ parted from one another and made bold enough to climb the steps and press closer to Lainey. Not so far as the door, though, and Lainey took that opportunity to step back a pace. She held out her hand, palm facing them.

They questioned her with their eyes.

“I know what you are,” she said, firm and as flat as she could. “You ought to know what I am. What I was. I have no shame; I did my job and I was damned good at it, but I am no virgin and I am no girl. You sure you want this?”

Dumb question? Maybe. But even if it was, a woman needed to hear that sort of answer made as solid as sound, as words.

Asher answered for them. “Know everything,” he said. If he’d been a cat she’d have called it a purr. “Know all there is to it. Smell your past on you, under your skin. You have two skins, also.” He shrugged. “Both human. Still. Two skins. We like both.”

Honesty. Lainey could taste it in his speech. Rare, that, and she liked it all the more. “Do you want to please me?”

The looks they gave her now fairly smoldered. “Very much,” Russ said, reaching for Lainey.

She took one step inside. Not to be cruel, but only to tease just far enough. “Enough to gift me with something besides your fine, eager selves inside me? For now.” Better make that last part clearer. “Give me a little treat before I give you my body.”

Asher and Russ looked puzzled, and intrigued, and amused. “Ask,” Asher said. He put his arm around Russ to cuddle him close, and could it have been a more perfect set up?

Lainey softened the demand she’d have made. They made her heart warm almost as much as they readied her body. “Kiss for me,” she said. “Touch each other, and let me watch. Don’t come. That’s all I ask for.”

She spread her hands wide, asking silently, Will you give this?

The whiteness of Asher’s smile would have blinded her in that dark, still night, the blackness of the sky lit only by the gentle mistress moons with their diamond chips of stars and the song of cicadas and frogs. Russ drew his tongue across his lower lip.

“Yes,” her wolves answered, one voice echoing over the other.

Russ turned to Asher, enfolding himself within a circle Asher formed of his arms. Lainey saw in them the heat, yes, and the passion they rarely bothered to contain, but more… she saw the affection between them that transcended all games. She saw comfort, and she saw love, too.

The fine bodies and well-shaped cocks the pair boasted might have won her body’s interest, and the games they played charmed her head, but this -- this won Lainey’s heart.

They won Lainey’s heart before they’d so much as kissed. Made her want to warm herself against the glowing heat of them and never back away.

And they hadn’t even kissed.

But as she watched, softening in feelings she hadn’t even known had grown hard and brittle, kiss they did. Asher’s arms were well long enough to wrap them around Russ and he was tall enough to need to bend his head to nuzzle their mouths together.

Russ made a sound somewhere between a hum, a growl and a moan; he tilted his head to give Asher all the access he needed to drop a line of open-mouthed kisses along his exposed throat while his own lips fell apart, his gaze hazy with arousal and sheer pleasure that he saw no reason to hide.

Not that he gave without taking, mind. Russ dug his nails into Asher’s back, making Asher hiss into the kiss, then made Asher shiver and growl sweetly when he trailed the bare tips of those nails down Asher’s back. Laughing quietly, Russ nudged their lower bodies closer and wound one arm around Asher’s waist.

Lainey could not help but notice that though they stuttered with the effort, neither wolf brought their engorged groins into contact with one another. She didn’t know where to look first, or what she wanted to see more: the all-consuming fire of Asher’s kiss and Russ’s return press of mouth, or the stiff fullness of cocks that ached to near-bursting point to be buried in sweet, willing flesh.

She let herself stroke the top -- just the top -- of her pubic hair. Just enough to tease, and to keep herself as excited as them, though the heavens knew she didn’t need more than the sight of those two to make her ache and burn for them inside her.

Russ writhed luxuriantly in Asher’s arms. He rose to bite the underside of Asher’s jaw even as he grasped and kneaded Asher’s ass. Asher feinted a sharper bite at Russ to make him jump, and dove in to kiss Russ into submission in that second when he was off his guard.

Lainey had never seen a kiss like that before in her life, and she knew it was an honor almost no one could ever have to witness such a thing. Pure as an animal’s love, and all the better for being shared.

The wolves breathed heavily when they parted, their lips swollen and their bodies sheened with sweat that made them luminous in the moonlight that seemed to shine down as if the moons themselves would bask in this moment. Asher pressed his forehead to Russ’s; Russ rubbed Asher’s back as if to encourage him, though his lips were parted with need and his legs shook.

Lainey knew that look. Men trembling on the edge. So why’d they stopped? Hot as fire as they were, and young too, she’d have bet good honest gold one or both could have come without a hand on them and truth be told she’d wanted to see that very thing happen. Or had she?

No, she decided, she hadn’t. She liked knowing they’d obey her, so far as they chose to. If they expected the same of her… well, like she’d said. Fair was fair.

And also fair was the way the wolves turned their heads to better look at her, proud and in control despite the slick sweat of their human bodies and the almost-restrained quiver of their strong limbs that betrayed what a struggle it was not to throw one another down and fuck wild, fast, and free.

“I owe you a question,” Lainey said, fairly sure that was what they wanted most. Well. Second most. “Ask.”

Asher’s lips were moist from Russ’s kisses, but he drew his tongue across their plumpness nonetheless. “You know us, what we are. We know you. You know how those -- before are not -- here now?”

Lainey nodded, intrigued and waiting.

“You are not like them,” Asher said, utterly confident. “We treat with you. Treat? Treaty. Alliance. Not because we must, because we want. We protect. Make these lands our run.”

“And in return?” Lainey asked, because it was a fine offer, and it would want payment. For just a moment, she was as suspicious as ever she had been when times were at their worst.

Russ’s smile was as innocent and delighted as a child’s when he spoke, and the rest of him was every bit a man. “In return, mate with us.”

“Play with us,” Asher added, cuddling Russ closer.

“Care for us,” Russ said.

“Share our food. Come see our den.”

“Maybe one day we see yours. But not stay inside.” Asher raised his head, parting he and Russ only far enough to make space for her to fill the emptiness between them. “But here, we stay here. Outside. We protect, we serve, we guard.” He lost some of the rustiness, and beneath that he had a fine light bass of a voice, something warm as whiskey and sure as the sun and moons and his place in the world he stood upon. “Do you say yes?”

Lainey considered that. Much asked of her and taxed of her pride, but much given as well. Gifts that precious few women ever enjoyed.

She knew her answer before she’d bothered to think hard. No one had ever called Lainey a fool. She stepped lightly off the porch and down to the patch of yard, where the sparse green grass, wet with evening dew, tickled the soles of her bare feet. Walked to them as naked and sun-browned as a goddess, and waited until she was sandwiched between them to make them her answer.

First a kiss for Russ, because he was not quite as alpha as Asher and she always had liked the strong seconds-in-command. Then a kiss for Asher, one that drew her fully between them where she belonged.

“I promise by my hand and my heart,” Lainey said. “I say yes.”

Chapter Five

Lainey supposed men couldn’t properly howl, but wolves could, and she was most glad these two were neither ordinary men nor ordinary wolves. And she couldn’t have picked a better word than “howl” for the joyous noise those two raised to the stars. You’d have thought she’d plucked one of those stars down for each and placed it in the palm of their hand.

Well, who knew? Maybe they saw it that way, and wasn’t that something remarkable?

Asher took Lainey by the waist and lifted her high, spinning about in circles. Lainey gasped like a girl, and heard laughter spilling from her like water from a cup brimful with good golden wine. She raised her own voice in jubilant noise while Asher turned her around and around, until the stars blurred dizzily together and the chorus of cicadas seemed as fine as a trained orchestra.

He stopped, laughing at her crossed eyes; she focused quick enough to look down at him and marvel at the naked admiration and darker want that made him boyish and all man at the same time. Lainey stroked what she could of him, amazed at how he needed to use so little of his strength to raise her up. She might as well have been made of feathers.

“You are wolves, but I am not a bird,” she pretended to chide him.

From the blazing brightness of his grin, Asher didn’t take that scolding one bit to heart. He lifted her higher still and dropped her -- or she thought he’d dropped her, her heart in her throat -- until Russ caught her and spun her again, down to land lightly on her bare feet in the dew-wet grass. Russ enfolded her in his arms and embraced her tightly.

His skin tasted salty on her tongue when she nipped Russ’s shoulder. “There’s a time for play, and there’s a time for mating. You two make up your minds.” She finished with a light slap on his rump, because she wanted to.

She could sense Asher’s keen interest at that, and pressed as close as she was Lainey could feel Russ’s definite appreciation. She slapped again, harder, and felt Russ shiver.

Maybe too hard, that’d been. There was the tiniest bit of doubt in Russ when he pulled far back enough to eye her quizzically. “Angry?”

Asher snorted, an uncannily human sound that made Lainey look about at him and wrinkle her nose at the handsome man-wolf. She turned back to Russ and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips across his, giving him a taste of what was to come.

Russ hummed, pacified, and sought her mouth for a deeper, hungrier kiss. “Not mad,” he said, utterly self-satisfied, when he released her.

“Boys, when I’m mad, you’ll know.” Lainey pressed her nakedness to Russ’s, letting him feel how wet she was and how tightly furled her nipples. “Now,” she breathed in Russ’s ear, knowing Asher could hear her too, “Does that feel like I’m mad?”

Russ and Asher looked at each other over her and laughed in a way that was utterly masculine, and would have infuriated Lainey if it hadn’t been -- them, here, now. If she didn’t avidly want to take them up on the sexual certainty of that dominant male rumbling. Now.

She tweaked Russ’s ear, then, to indulge her preference, dragged her nails ever so lightly down his chest to pinch his nipple. He drew in a startled breath. Hmm, hadn’t known he liked that, had Russ? Lainey gave him her most wicked smile.

He’d love this, then. She trailed her fingertips, softer in her touch now, down his finely muscled chest, through the wiry hair around his groin, and took the length and width of his shaft in her hand. She had small hands, and almost couldn’t touch thumb to forefinger. A little too much for most women to handle; lucky her, she was no ordinary woman and she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

There, she thought, somehow stunned and somehow relieved over fears she hadn’t even known she’d entertained. Safe with them. I will always be safe with them.

That was even finer than their touch.

But with Asher crowding in behind Lainey and Russ panting hot breath against her neck while she stroked his ever so responsive cock, she’d have to admit the touch of these wolves was worth its own weight in gold.

Considerable weight, too. Asher’s cock was of equal size, if not a little more than Russ’s. He was so eager to sink himself inside Lainey that his cock left drops of warm wetness behind where it rubbed against the small of her back. Still in Russ’s arms, Lainey twisted to kiss Asher as she had Russ.

He indulged her only a moment, then drew away to feign a puppyish snap at her nose. She swatted him for that, but with Russ’s blessing and guidance turned to kiss him properly, long and sweet -- and then not so sweet, as dominant Asher lifted and guided her legs around his waist until she clung to him, the wolf bearing all her weight once more.

She wondered if he’d throw her into the air again, but Asher had other plans. Still with barely an effort showing in the flex of muscles in arms and chest, he lowered Lainey to the ground.

The cold of the dew made Lainey gasp, but not for long. Russ lay down as she did, and rolled her into his arms to devour her with his kiss. Asher followed, putting her in the middle once more with him at her back.

Whatever tiny bit of Lainey’s mind could still think wondered from the way they kept positioning her whether she’d been mistaken thinking Asher the more dominant. Not that it mattered. Lainey sat up and rolled to her knees, gazing down at the wealth of male flesh spread out for her pleasure. She stroked their strong, firm thighs and teased at their balls, enjoying their reactions.

There was one dominant among them that mattered. Her. And she had the feeling they would not want her any other way.

Still on her knees, Lainey cupped her breasts, offering them to her wolves. Symbolic, yes, and literal. She wanted those pretty man-wolf mouths on her breasts, sucking her nipples.

Asher scrambled up first, followed fast after by Russ. Lainey clasped both by the backs of their heads. She almost couldn’t breathe, swallowed up by the wild and musky scent of them, and the dense silkiness of their hair. She thrust her fingers through each man’s hair and held them closer still, drowning in texture and smell and the drawing sensation of lips and tongue pulling at her nipples.

Natural talent, Lainey thought. She did appreciate that in a man. In her men.

Asher stopped just shy of making her sore -- he had an intuitive gift for knowing just how much was enough and not too much. Russ bit softly at the fullness of her breast and rolled down to stretch out on his back.

Well. Turnabout was fair play, wasn’t it? Lainey pushed Asher with the palm of her hand. She’d no chance of budging a man as strong as him if he hadn’t wanted to go, but he did, eyes sparkling with pleasure in this particular game. He lay on his back beside Russ -- coincidentally enough, or not, as Lainey thought wryly, leaving just enough room between them for Lainey to fit into.

She liked that. Space reserved just for her.

Lainey caressed her breasts, savoring the light burn and the fullness they’d drawn to her, and let her gaze drift to the pair of stiff cocks so rigid they rested flush to Asher and Russ’s bellies. A wolf and a gentleman. Who’d have thought?

“My turn,” Lainey told them, not polished at all, and glad of it. This was the time to be primal.

Asher looked at her quizzically and Russ lifted his head.

She touched the tip of her finger to his ankle. “Don’t know what I mean? I bet you do.” She dropped to her knees and slid just far enough between the pair to make her intentions clear. When she lowered her head and her loose hair swept their bare stomachs, they got the idea.

Russ howled. Asher groaned. Lainey liked both noises enough to want to see how loud she could get them shouting again. Asher first, for she had ached to wrap her lips about that length since she’d felt it pressed bare and throbbing against her back. She wrapped her fist around the base and slid her lips around the fat crown, letting his glide into her mouth.

He tasted as good as she’d hoped; he tasted of wildness and freedom. And his reaction? Better still. Her Asher howled and arched his back into a half-bow; he lay flat and panted. Now he shuddered, wanting nothing more, she was sure, than to take her by the hair and thrust deep into the wet slickness of her mouth.

Lainey drew off with one lick to the head. She knew when a man came close, and she knew, too, just how far to go. And she’d be damned if she didn’t want to taste both of them. With two, a woman could be as greedy as she pleased, and please all who played the game.

Asher laughed, rough and more masculine still despite the near painful-looking swelling of his cock, and as if he were of one mind with Lainey together they pounced on Russ and held him down. He tasted different than Asher, a flavor that reminded Lainey of home and safe.

Reacted just about the same, though, Asher had been wise as well as wily. Took the two of them to hold Russ down. He was the stronger, Lainey saw, and Asher the more cunning. Together they made a good match.

Stronger meant more control once he’d gotten hold of himself, and when he’d settled with his fingers drawing deep furrows in the dirt beneath the soft grass, Russ had the sort of stamina that could have pitted itself against Lainey’s for hours.

That was, until she slipped a finger between her lips to wet it with his pre-come and her saliva, and teased it beneath his balls to touch, ever so lightly, the tight puckered opening she found behind them.

Lainey sat back on her heels and laughed, laughed like she hadn’t since she was a girl, watching Asher wrestle Russ down. Her mouth tasted of manhood and licentiousness that was somehow pure, and she couldn’t have been happier.

No, that was a lie. Game wasn’t finished, yet. Lainey let her laughter die down to a smile that felt, even to her, like that of a seductress -- without effort, coming naturally -- and spread her knees apart to give them as good and long a look as they liked at her wet cunt.

To tease them, and to make sure they knew what she wanted, Lainey dipped her fingers between the folds and brought them out wet. She licked them clean, and trailed them down the calves of her men.

“Which?” she asked, for she couldn’t have made up her mind.

They understood. A glance passed between them, that silent sort of communication that only lovers who had known one another for a long time could manage, a shared nod, and grins of such savage wickedness that they brought delicious chills to Lainey’s too-warm skin.

After a look like that, Lainey was happy to let them manhandle her. Arrange her as they wanted, for they did it with reverence as well as lust fast approaching the point of no return. Russ lifted her onto Asher as Asher knelt, arranging her straddling his lap with his cockhead teasing her opening. Russ then crowded in behind, his cock nudging her ass. He stroked that cock between the cleft of her cheeks, but not inside, and laid a kiss on the side of her neck, so tender it near made her weep.

Lainey flexed her thigh muscles to rise up, then to sink down, taking all of Asher’s length inside her. Asher’s hands flexed tight on her hips. A long, low groan escaped him, and he stared at her with his hunger showing.

“There,” Lainey said, squeezing him deep inside. She canted her hips and glanced over her shoulders. “This is my favorite game.”

Russ shook with laughter. He covered Asher’s hands with his own and, as if it had been some sort of signal between them, the two began to move.

Lainey -- howled. There was no other word for it. Raised her voice in an ululating wail that seemed to make the sky echo; for savage joy she did it again. How could she not, speared deep with the finest cock she’d ever known, with the heft of another gliding hard and fast without hurting her, with wolves that were men savaging her with kisses where they could reach and eager, eager hands sweeping everywhere they could not reach with their mouths.

Trapped between them by her own choice, rocked from pleasure to pleasure that spiraled ever higher, Lainey rode the pair of wolves to her ultimate freedom, and let herself scream as loud as her throat could bear -- no, louder -- when the pleasure reached its highest point and she escaped her skin in her way, flying apart in myriad points of ecstasy.

She heard Asher choke on his breath when he dug his nails into her hips; she felt him come deep inside, drenching her with his seed. She heard the groan Russ muffled against her neck and the violence of his shuddering when his orgasm burst out of him and slicked her with thick stripes of come.

They fucked her still, softening slowly, gliding through their own come, and guided her down at the same time. Lainey ached inside and out, felt bruised and tender as if freshly sunburned, and as white and pure as the moons above them.

Then, as cherished as a queen when her men laid her down between them and licked her clean of themselves, of herself, and finished with kisses so light as to feel like the brush of fur.

As one, Lainey’s wolves rose to their feet, offering her a hand apiece to draw her up. They walked her to her porch, and up the shallow steps, and to her very door. There, Russ kissed her once more, lingering and sweet, and Asher kissed her still one more time, dominant and pleased. He traced her cheekbone with utter tenderness and a tiny hint of his playfulness beneath a look of pure satisfaction.

Asher drew her to him in an embrace without a kiss; Russ drew himself to her to hold her. “Mate,” Asher said, echoed by Russ. “Our mate. Your mate. It is good.”

“Good,” Lainey agreed. She drew her tongue across her lips, still feeling as if she were floating. Mind, she knew this was goodbye -- for now. They wouldn’t come inside. Not yet. But she liked that about them, she thought. And some night she would sleep beneath the stars with them. Curl up in a hummock of grass still warm from the sun and drowse away to dreams in their arms.

Asher thumbed Lainey’s lip as Russ nibbled at her ear. “Dream sweet,” he said. “We will run. Mark this land. Tomorrow, we return.”

Lainey caught him by the hand, and Russ too. She lifted her chin, proud and pleased and triumphant as a queen. “You see that you do,” she said. “I’ll be looking for you.”

“Never have to look hard.” Asher’s last kiss of the night was both hard and soft, proud and gentle. “Always we are here.”

“With you,” Russ whispered in Lainey’s ear before they -- both of them -- let go reluctantly and leapt off her porch. They flowed from man shape to wolf shape as she watched, her lips parted in wonder, going from one to the other like water flowing over smooth stones.

Lainey lingered on her porch, no less warm and satisfied, as she watched the two wolves lope away. Lucky, Rosemary had said? More than lucky. Lainey wasn’t one to use this word often, but it fit after a night like this and men like them, and an arrangement that suited her far better than what she’d imagined.

Lainey watched her wolves run wild and free, and knew that whatever kind gods looked down upon these worlds had done this for her at last: she’d been blessed.

Epilogue

Autumn and then winter weren’t far off on Leman, and on most days Lainey woke to a chill in the air that seemed almost too crisp to breathe, but too pleasurable to resist.

Today, she’d woken to a kindly sun that had yet an edge to it. Work to do, and good warm light to do it by. What more could one woman ask for? She’d dressed herself in the simplest of shirts, no sleeves and a low neck, proud enough of the whisker burn that made her breasts as red as if they’d been sunburned.

Lainey could feel the wolves sneaking about in the wheat fields as she harnessed her mare to the wagon. She didn’t bother taking her rifle with her. Anything out there that might threaten to cause her harm -- it wouldn’t last past a hint of challenge.

Her wolves made good on their word. Let others say what they would, if any on this world would -- which Lainey doubted -- but wolves at heart or not, they were that rarest of creatures: honorable men.

Lainey glanced back over her shoulder to see the wolves, as proud as they pleased, trotting along beside the wagon. She had to laugh. Honorable, yes, and as full of mischief as the devil. She’d have them no other way.

They met no other wagons on their way to the crossroads and the mercantile, not uncommon, but Lainey had a feeling there’d be more soon. Word got around between women, always had, and a distance that could be measured in stars wouldn’t stop them from hearing and coming to see for themselves. The lonely, the jaded, and the strong.

Leman would thrive because of women.

As if he could understand her thoughts, Asher picked up the pace to run beside her, close enough for Lainey to see, and far enough not to tempt the horse to kick at him. The mare snorted a disgusted equine snort but otherwise left Asher alone.

Asher looked almost disappointed. Playful, beloved beast! He wrinkled his muzzle at her and let his tongue hang out. He knew what she’d been thinking, all right, and he approved.

And as he approved, so would the rest of the wolves and hunting animals on Leman. Those who favored the human women and had much to give them. “Just as long as you remember who you belong to,” Lainey warned him.

Asher sneezed. Lainey chuckled and gently slapped the reins across her mare’s rump. No, Asher wouldn’t forget, and neither would sweet Russ, running on the other side of her mare.

When they came within sight of the mercantile, Lainey slowed the horse to a peaceful amble. The wolves fell into step with her, and it was as a unit that they drew close to the one place on Leman -- so far -- that its women gathered. Three wagons there that day, and Rosemary as well.

Rosemary ducked her head out of the dim, dusky depths of the mercantile, wiping her hands on a cloth. She carried with her the scent of fresh-baked bread and the smoke of drying meat. She shaded her eyes to look up at Lainey, then forgot to when she noticed the wolves sitting just close enough to tease.

Rosemary’s eyes sparkled. If she and Lainey had been the hugging sort, Lainey knew she’d have gotten a sister’s congratulatory embrace. “What did I tell you?” Rosemary offered the back of her hand to Russ for him to sniff.

Russ took his time about it, the deep thoughtfulness that separated him so visibly from other wolves foremost in his approach. He yipped over his shoulder at Asher, who returned a bark that sounded like a laugh.

“They are good luck,” Lainey said. She jumped lightly down from her wagon, glorying in the delicious stretch and pull of muscles that’d been well-used in loving hard and long, not just last night but every night before. “The best.”

She raised an eyebrow at the sight when Russ licked Rosemary’s hand and bared his teeth in a canine grin before loping back to Lainey’s side. “Well, now.”

Rosemary looked as awed as did the other women in Lainey’s peripheral vision, but far more delighted. “They like me.”

“Not as much as they like me,” Lainey pointed out, basking in the sunlight and savoring the reflection of simple truth. Russ nudged her leg with his head and looked up. Asher too, with such puckish playfulness that it made her warm inside as well as out. Gave her an idea of exactly what they were up to, as well.

“Good luck,” Lainey said, resting one hand atop both of her wolves’ heads. “Only for those they deem worthy.”

Rosemary looked briefly disappointed. “I’ve never been this close to one before.”

Asher leaned heavily on Lainey’s leg. She could feel his flanks shaking, just as a human might with a belly laugh, and yet there was respect in the way he eyed Rosemary.

“Owls,” Lainey said, the word tripping lightly off her lips since Asher’s muzzle wasn’t made for speech. “What do you think of owls?”

“I think well of owls,” Rosemary said, puzzled. “Beautiful, and fierce. I like owls just fine.”

Lainey let her mouth curve into a smile that only women understood. “Wolves aren’t the only creatures on Leman who crave mates,” she said, knowing Rosemary would know exactly what she meant. “Leave the windows open at night, if you care to.”

Rosemary laughed as freely as Lainey’s loving wolves. “I’ll do that very thing. Now,” she said, dusting her hands off and producing her stylus, “How can I help you?”

Lainey sighed, content at last, bracketed by wolves and by love, with sunlight darkening her browner, with the red dirt of the roads and the golden wheat that spread out as far as the eye could see.

She was home. And just like she’d sworn, she’d do this. But not alone.

Asher nudged her. Lainey had to hide a smile. “Let’s start with some rawhide,” she said. “And a good quilt, for sleeping out beneath the stars…”

Zoey Daniels

Who’s this Zoey Daniels person? (Or, why indulging multiple personalities can be healthy for us creative types.)

Zoey Daniels is the part of Willa Okati who occasionally has the yen to write a good ménage. “She” likes strong women, equally strong men, and faraway worlds filled with sci-fi cowboys and alpha shapeshifters. She also loves older woman/younger men. Yum, yum. Come enjoy!

http://willaokati.com/Willa_Okati/Zoey_Daniels.html

zoey.daniels.yum@yahoo.com

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