Her Warriors (14 page)

“It’ll be even better in a minute. I
promise.” He finished fussing with the water jets and sprayer heads
and went over to help her stand. She was weary, but smiling as they
stepped into the mist of warm water together.

“Oh, this is heaven,” she sighed, leaning
back against his chest as the water sluiced over them both. Her
eyes closed for a moment before she straightened and reached out
for the bottle of shower gel.

She squirted some into her hand and then
offered it to him, squirting a dollop into his palm when he offered
it. Instead of using it on himself, he rubbed his hands together,
creating a foam which he then applied to her shoulders with long,
tender strokes.

He worked his way down her arms when she
stilled, seeming to soak in his caresses and massaging touch. He
worked on her shoulders and neck for a moment before taking his
hands down, over her soft breasts, pausing to cup and squeeze. The
point of the shower was to get clean, but they could have a little
fun while they were at it, couldn’t they?

She moaned when he stroked lower, over her
mons and down into her neatly trimmed curls. The way her slippery
skin slid over his body heightened his pleasure as she squirmed
against him. At this rate, he would take her again without the
least bit of hesitation if she but asked.

“Is this a private party, or can anyone join
in?” Beau’s amused voice came to them from the other end of the
steamy shower area.

Jacki straightened a bit, craning her neck
to look at Beau. “Only specially invited guests,” she quipped,
apparently more awake than Geir had thought.

Maybe he would get a chance to have her
again before they slept. He hadn’t wanted to push her for more, but
if she was awake and willing to play, all bets were off. His inner
tiger growled in satisfaction.

“Oh. So am I invited?” Beau continued to
tease as he stepped into the shower and moved closer.

“Consider yours a permanent invitation,”
Jacki answered as she reached over to snag Beau’s hand and draw him
near. She reached up to kiss him long and deep while Geir ran his
still soapy hands over her body.

When she stepped back from Beau, she turned
in Geir’s arms and gave him the same, long, hot, sultry kiss.
Geir’s hands went to her wet hair and slid into the tangled depths,
holding her mouth close while his tiger came to the fore. She
didn’t seem to mind, thank the Goddess, that his human side went
out of control every time she kissed him.

What followed was a flurry of soapy sliding
strokes from her hands, his hands, occasionally Geir collided with
Beau’s hands on a particularly luscious piece of Jacki’s real
estate, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered in the moment of
steamy, wet, slippery, sexy fun was that Jacki wanted them both and
was eager to show them exactly how she wanted them and where. She
wasn’t shy about ordering them around, which was an intriguing
change. Geir had never been with a woman who felt free to give the
orders in the bedroom.

Of course, they weren’t in the bedroom. They
were in a steamy world where only the three of them existed. The
three of them…and the passion that rose like a storm to bathe them
in its fury. Jacki demanded and the men responded. She lifted up,
showing Geir in no uncertain terms what she wanted and he gave it
to her.

He slid into her, facing her, one of his
hands positioned to hold her leg up at his side, his fingers under
her knee. Much to his surprise, she stilled him when he would have
begun to move. Watching, he was a little dumbfounded—and a whole
lot excited—when she gestured to Beau to come up behind her.

“Come in back,” she told Beau in a soft,
whispery voice barely heard above the whooshing sound of the
water.

“Are you serious?” Beau let his incredulity
sound in his voice. Geir felt a mirroring kind of astonishment. Did
she really mean what it sounded like?

“I’ve done it before. Not often, but a time
or two. You won’t hurt me,” she assured Beau. Use the slippery
stuff. It’ll go in easier.

“Sweet Mother of All,” Beau breathed as she
pointed toward a bottle of bath oil sitting innocently on the shelf
built into the tiled wall. “Are you sure?”

“Knock it off, Beau. Give me what I want!”
Her impatience seemed to decide Beau. He reached for the bottle of
bath oil and squeezed out a generous portion into his hand. Geir
couldn’t see what he did next, but he certainly felt it when Beau
made an appearance a very short distance from where Geir was
already joined with her.

Jacki couldn’t believe the feeling of having
them both inside her. It she was being honest, this was the
delicious fulfillment of a long-held fantasy that she figured would
never come true. How wrong she’d been! And how lucky she was now,
to be experiencing this—with these two incredibly special men.

She felt stretched beyond all comprehension,
but somehow nothing hurt. Nothing was too much. All was right with
her world. Finally. And forever.

She encouraged them to move, helpless, yet
holding all the cards in this position, balanced between two strong
Alphas. Just where she wanted to be.

Sweet Mother of All! Could she die of this
kind of pleasure? If so, it would be worth it. Oh, so worth it.

Geir seemed reluctant to move at first, but
then his tiger growled—a sexier sound she had never heard—and took
over. She would have to kiss his furry nose the next time she saw
him wearing his stripes. His beast half had saved this situation
from stalling out before it even got going.

What happened next was a bit of a blur of
straining and stroking, moving and trembling on the precipice of a
pleasure she had never known. When she finally went over the edge,
she realized almost at once her men came with her.

At the exact moment of completion, another
very potent wave of magic spread over them all as the mating bond
snapped into place like a taut rubber band. Jacki was glad the guys
were holding her up because she had never felt anything like it.
The strength of the bond stole her breath.

The men slipped from her body and seemed to
be almost as surprised and weakened by the bond’s formation as she
was. Geir took her with him as he all but collapsed on the bench at
the rear of the spacious shower stall. She ended up on his lap with
Beau slouched against the wall on her other side. There was just
enough room for both of the guys on the teak bench, even though it
made some alarming creaking noises with all three of them on
it.

But none of them cared. The whole house
could collapse at that moment and Jacki realized they wouldn’t
care.

“Whoa,” Beau vocalized the weary surprise
they were all feeling. “What was that?”

“Mating bond.” Jacki caught her breath as
she leaned half on Geir and half on the cold tile of the wall
behind her. “I think.”

“What else could it have been?” Geir asked,
hugging her closer for just a moment. “It was the Mother Goddess’s
benediction on our union. Our triple union. No going back on it
now, I guess.”

“Would you want to?” Jacki asked, frowning
when she heard the plaintive note in her voice.

Geir bent down to kiss her forehead. “Never
in a million years. You are mine now, Jacki. For now and for
always.”

Beau lifted her foot playfully and nibbled
on her big toe before kissing the sole of her foot.

“You’re ours now, kitten. No getting out of
it. Ever,” Beau promised playfully, even while emphasizing the fact
that she belonged to both of them. Just as she wanted it.

“Does this mean we can do that again anytime
we want?” she asked with a fond little smile. She wanted more. A
whole lot more.

“Most definitely,” Beau replied without
hesitation. “I think I can speak for both of us when I say we are
at your disposal singly or as a pair, anytime, anyplace, any way
you want us. Right, G?”

Geir nodded solemnly. “Most definitely,” he
agreed, then smiled softly. “I didn’t expect the bond to affect us
like that. You felt it too, right?”

“Yeah, I felt it. Like a wave of magic
hitting me in the face and filling my being with the…rightness, I
guess you’d call it,” she agreed. “It was momentous.” She wasn’t
sure it happened to all shifters like it had happened to them, but
then again, this triple mating was special in many ways. Why should
this be any different?

“You can say that again,” Beau said as he
stood, clearly beginning to regain some of his equilibrium. “Let’s
rinse off and find a bed. I think we all might need to sleep off
the magical whammy a bit. What do you say?”

“Sounds like a plan,” she replied with a
grin.

Beau held out one hand to her, which she
took. He lifted her to her feet and back into the spray of the
water. Geir followed close behind. This time they stuck to the task
of getting clean, their bodies happily sated for the moment, though
it was clear it wouldn’t take much to ignite the fire of passion
once more.

After they dried off, Geir led them into his
bedroom and the fresh king-sized bed in there. Jacki crawled into
the middle of the big expanse and claimed a pillow for herself
before falling promptly asleep.

When they woke a few hours later, Jacki
noticed something she hadn’t quite registered before. Her personal
magical level seemed to have gained a bit of oomph since last
night. She would have to ask Bettina to be certain, but Jacki
supposed this was another benefit of having mated with two very
strong Alphas. Maybe it would dissipate in time, but for now it was
a pretty heady feeling to have all this energy at her disposal.

While she would have liked to laze around in
bed for a bit longer, there were many things to do today. First,
she had to check on Tom and see if the spell they had worked last
night had brought him out of his unconscious state. Bettina had
said that it could take time to see the full effect of the
magic-working they had done last night.

“Come on guys!” She slapped two perfect,
muscled butts—one on either side of her. Damn, her mates were
pretty. “Up and at ‘em!” She tried to wake them up, but neither
seemed to want to move. “What? Did I wear you out, kitties?” she
said in a sing-song teasing voice.

“Stop being so cheerful,” Beau groused from
her left. “It’s too early to be up yet.”

“No it isn’t. It’s well past sunrise and
we’ve got places to go and people to see today. Rise and shine
sleepy tigers!” She tried to coax them into moving, but neither one
seemed to want to lift their heads from the pillows.

“This is technically our honeymoon, Jacki,”
Geir mumbled half into his pillow on her right. “Give a guy a break
and let us sleep just a little more.”

At that point, Jacki realized the guys
weren’t handling the magical shift in their energies as well as she
was, and she grew concerned. She climbed out of the bed, crawling
out at the foot of the giant bed, between the two slumbering
giants. She had to talk to Bettina before she really started to
worry about her new mates. Maybe this was normal? Or maybe she had
real reason to worry.

“Okay guys. You two sleep a little bit more.
I’m going to check on things. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She
tiptoed out of Geir’s room through the attached bath and into her
own room, grabbing some clothes and dressing hastily. Almost as an
afterthought, she stripped the sheets off the bed as she went,
taking them with her to dump in the washing machine she’d seen in
the utility room down the hall.

She had checked on Tom, saddened to see him
still unconscious, but heartened by the fact that his color was
much better. He hadn’t taken a turn for the worse in the night. If
anything, he appeared to be stabilizing.

Tad and Mandy had taken turns with Bettina
watching him through the night and all reports were much more
positive than they had been to this point. Tom had improved
significantly since they had performed the spell the night before.
Jacki left him in Mandy’s capable hands and was directed toward the
kitchen where she was told, Bettina was awaiting her arrival. Which
was perfect, because Jacki really needed to talk to the High
Priestess.

“Is it normal for them to be so wiped out
while I’m so…energetic?” Jacki asked Bettina a few minutes later as
they sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Bettina had assured
her quickly that nothing was wrong with her mates—after giving her
a congratulatory hug for her newly mated status.

“The three of you are joined now on several
levels,” Bettina explained. “The physical is the least of them. You
are also joined on a spiritual plane, and a magical one. It will
take some time before the new levels of your shared magic settle.
From what you’ve said, it seems like maybe your mates were giving
last night, during the joining of your hearts and souls. You were
on the receiving end, so to speak, right?”

Jacki tried not to blush as she nodded.

“Don’t worry.” Bettina reached across the
table to put her hand over the top of Jacki’s. “Many women will be
envious of your arrangement. You’ll get used to it in time. If you
need pointers on how to deal with it, you should talk to
Allie.”

“Mate of the Lords?” Jacki was nonplussed.
She might be familiar with the king of all lion shifters because he
was kin, but she had never mixed in such exalted company on a
regular basis. The idea of just calling the priestess Allesandra up
as if she were an old friend was a little intimidating.

“You’re going to have to get used to dealing
with all levels of shifter society, Jacki. I minister to the least
among them and the greatest. If you are my apprentice, so will
you.”

“It’s all a lot to get used to,” Jacki
hedged.

“And yet Sam Kinkaid speaks highly of you,”
Bettina observed rather than ask a question. Jacki knew the
question was implied.