The Thorndykes 1: Dispossessed (17 page)

“No. I’m still looking. At least I know where they’re not. The Talents, that is. But I’ve detected traces, very faint. Another less experienced Talent would never notice.”

“It’s a dude ranch. Talents could well pass through.”

Nathan nodded. “We can’t discount it, but I don’t think it’s that.”

“You found anything else?”

Nathan shook his head. “More instinct, really. Are you going to kiss her again?”

“I might.” Jay gazed down at Lucille. She stared up at him, her expression wary, but that spark of arousal had grown. Unmistakable now but tucked inside her mind, in a place only he could reach. He rarely let anyone in at that level, even though women had opened themselves to him in the past. This time he’d chosen to share.

Deep down he knew why, but he wasn’t ready to acknowledge it yet.

She leaned up, her lips parted in obvious invitation, so he took it, kissed her, and enjoyed the fuck out of it. She tasted sweet, a unique flavor he could describe as singularly Lucille. No other person tasted like that, not in his whole two hundred and fifty years of existence. Nobody ever would again.

She responded, stroking her tongue against his with a shyness he suspected was not just because of her relative inexperience, but part of her nature. She had a reticence he loved. Very few women these days were reticent about anything at all. While he enjoyed the forthright and outspoken women he met, he missed the manners and mores of his youth.

“Do you want to let him in?”

She drew back, stared at him.
“What do you mean?
”

He sighed. So much for tact.
“I mean that Nathan doesn’t just have an exhibitionist streak. He likes other people to have one too.”

Her eyes widened. Such pretty eyes.
“You want us to…”

“Only as far as you want to go. If this is it, then he’ll have to suck it up. He won’t ask, but…”
He waved a hand in Nathan’s direction before returning it to the curve of her waist. “His appearance is a tiny hint, don’t you think?”

Nathan waited. He uncrossed his arms. Said nothing, but he must know what they were discussing. He was waiting for her response.

“Is it something that interests you?”

“Would you share me?” She sounded more than shocked, but the arousal had dampened down. She didn’t want to do it.

“The idea of taking two men doesn’t intrigue you?”

“No.”

Thank God
. He shared women before, but not her, never her. She was his. Oh, he’d let Nathan watch because that was what he wanted, and Jay didn’t give a shit. Except he wouldn’t let it all go. He wouldn’t show the tenderness that belonged between them alone. Fucking, not lovemaking.

She said no with a firmness of mind and voice that held no possibility of persuasion.

“Would you let him watch?”

“I—I don’t know.” She really didn’t. That in itself aroused Jay, made his cock full to bursting—to help her into her sexuality, discover what she liked and what she didn’t. A privilege he never expected to experience, and now here it was. Already he knew her preferences in bed. He could touch her, knowing how to arouse her and how to keep her waiting, hovering on the edge.

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t forget, you can say no. At any time.”

She glanced over at a now aroused Nathan. Unashamedly he reached down and took his cock in hand, easing the foreskin back, displaying the red, shiny head.

“Never mind him,” Jay said. He guided her over to the big sofa in front of the windows, the one with the soft throw over the back. If she balked at any time, she could cover herself with it. Something Nathan might have done if he’d wanted to. Christ knew Jay had enough clothes, and he’d shared them with shape-shifters before. That was how he knew Nathan’s entrance was more than unselfconscious display. He guessed Lucille would react to his nakedness.

He laid her down, gazed at her while he divested himself of his shirt. He undid each button of the black silk carefully, letting the expensive fabric rustle while he took his time unfastening his cuffs. That was for her, not anyone else. He needed her to watch him, only him.

He stripped the garment off his shoulders with a sensuous twist, shifting his muscles for her to enjoy, displaying himself as boldly as any peacock. Then he started on his pants and smiled. “You’re doing beautifully.”

“What do you mean?” She glanced at her body, still decorously dressed.

“You know what happens next.” He pushed his pants down his legs, taking his socks and shoes with them, but leaving his tight boxers in place. The undergarment barely held his erection, the beads at each end of the bar he wore through it visible against the fabric. He didn’t give a fuck who watched him or why, just that he had her.

“Yes.” She did, and he let her see the pictures in his mind of him pushing inside her, wet and pulsing for him because he’d made her that way. He didn’t show her how he’d take her. Let her have some surprises in store. Just not ones that would unhinge her.

Her voice had dropped to the sultry level he loved because she only used it in situations like these. Intimate situations.

He doubted Nathan was looking at him and the way his butt shaped his boxers, but he didn’t care either way. Nathan was usually straight. Easier, he’d always said, and his natural inclination. Both of them had fucked men, had been fucked by them but not had each other, although they’d shared plenty of women back in the day. Jay wasn’t sure why, just that they hadn’t wanted to. God knew they’d committed their share of debauchery in the short time they’d spent together. Amazing how many women they could get through in twenty-four hours.

He watched Lucille closely, her eyes dilated. He felt her want him and him alone. She concentrated on him, but he didn’t want that. “Look at him. How aroused he is when he sees you. He’s watching you, not me. He’s seen me naked in the past. He knows what I look like. Nathan likes women. Beautiful women, and you, my sweetheart, fit every part of that bill.”

She looked at Nathan and flushed a pretty pink, but she didn’t stop him. Jay stripped his underwear down his legs. He’d like to bet this was the first time in her life Lucille had been in the same room as two naked, aroused men. The thought made him sweat.

Chapter Ten

“Your turn.” Jay kept his voice low and unthreatening. “You don’t want him to touch your body. Is your mind forbidden too?”

After swallowing and flicking her attention between him and Nathan, she gave a short, tight nod. “He can stay out of your mind.”

Nathan tilted his head to one side. “Thank you for letting me in this far. I will leave whenever you wish.”

He’d reverted to the more formal English of his youth. His voice changed, became lighter, more mellifluous. “I will also ensure that Drew will not surprise us.” He would set up a mental barrier warning the youth not to come in, he told them. The sound of Nathan’s clipped tones took Jay back years, to when he was young and wild and didn’t care about anyone or anything but himself. He wasn’t sure he liked himself as a youth, but he couldn’t deny what he’d been. It had gone to build the man he was now.

Was Nathan feeling the same way? Jay didn’t have an ear for accents, so he tended to stick to a version of his English one, cultured and soft. Understated. Nathan could change and convincingly, Jay had learned, so he wondered why Nathan had dropped his chosen accent. The answer came almost as soon as he’d posed it.

“To remind you of what we were. We can never go back, but sometimes we can remember. I want to remember.”
The yearning in Nathan’s voice was like nothing Jay had ever heard from his friend before, and thanks to his recent conversation with Cristos, he could guess at some of it. To go back before the horror of losing half the team he’d worked with for years. When his world was new and all he had to do was enjoy himself.

Nathan glanced at Jay, more assessing than aroused. His gaze lingered at Jay’s erection. “Still have that piercing, I see.”

“I do.” No words to explain. None needed. He liked it; that was all. He’d had it done before his change, a link with the man he used to be.

Jay set out to give Nathan a few good memories to assuage the bad ones. It wouldn’t prove a difficult task. He knelt by the sofa, lifting Lucille’s top gently, persuading her to help him. He wouldn’t force her to do anything.

When she sat up and pulled the lacy, stretchy garment over her head, her arousal rose. She let it blossom in her mind so Nathan and Jay could perceive it.

Jay wasn’t sure which of them growled, but he could revert to animalistic here. Nathan had never left that. He was part animal and always would be. A shape-shifter of his age kept in contact with the other half of him, used it when he needed to.

Jay felt for Nathan’s mind, a simple mission moving along pathways he hadn’t used for years until recently. The dragon, the sigil in Nathan’s mind, stood out, to match the symbol on his upper thigh, the intricately delineated sign of what he was. People mistook those marks for tattoos, but no tattoo ever behaved like these, glowing with heightened emotion, almost alive with detail no tattoo artist, however skilled, could ever achieve.

No tattoo anywhere else, Jay noticed. He hadn’t bothered either. With their swift recuperative powers, Talents had to have them renewed almost monthly, or they’d disappear. Some managed to get ink that stayed, but he wasn’t so dedicated to his appearance. Not anymore. Those signs that shape-shifters bore lasted a lifetime.

She wore one of her lacy bras. He liked the silk ones too, but the lacy ones were more sheer, and the shadow of her rosy nipples showed against the lilac of the lace. Such a lovely contrast, delicate and utterly feminine.

“Pretty,”
came Nathan’s voice in their minds.

“More,” Jay said, gesturing at the bra. He wanted it gone. “If you don’t get rid of that, I’ll slice it off you.” Shooting his claws from their sheaths under his nails, he displayed them for her. “What’s it to be?”

“I like this set.” She unfastened the garment with a practiced twist. When she released it, she clamped her arms by her sides, keeping the cups loosely in place. He gave her the time she needed, watching her in silence.

With a sigh of submission, she lifted her arms and let her bra straps slip down, shaking them off when they reached her wrists. Now she was naked from the waist up, and she let them both look.

Only Jay could touch. He cradled them in his palms, allowing the nipples to peak. He lifted her breasts, making his hands into a living bra. Nathan growled once more. Jay kept all his attention on the beautiful woman putting herself in his hands in every sense of the words. She let him caress her and allowed him to show her off to his friend.

“Look what I have,” he said, smiling then. She smiled in return. It wavered, but it was there. He kept his mind firmly inside hers, not allowing any break in case she lost her nerve and wanted him to stop. However, all he felt was increased arousal.

“Go on,” she said. “Kiss them. Suck them.”

“Ah, Christ.”

Jay ignored Nathan’s choked exclamation and bent forward to take her nipple into his mouth. It stiffened instantly, lengthening on his tongue as he sucked and lavished her with all the caresses she deserved. However, he needed to touch and taste her. To claim her.

Mine
. He wouldn’t allow Nathan to put his hands on her now. Not the way she gazed at him, almost worshipful. Although he didn’t deserve it, he’d take it. Before he put her wise to what he really was. She made him feel like a king, not the charlatan he knew himself for.

“Fresh. So fucking pink,”
Nathan said into their minds.
“As in shell pink, rose pink, the pink of a new dawn.”

“Poetic.”
He tried for laconic but sounded too sincere for that. Ah well. He couldn’t keep any distance. Nor did he want to.

Gently he disengaged and went for the snap of her jeans. He unzipped the garment. “Too rough for skin this soft.”

She scoffed a laugh. “They’re my favorites because they’re so soft.”

He ran his hands down her thighs, then scooped his arms under her hips so that he could lift her and strip the jeans down her legs. “Not enough for you. You wouldn’t believe skin felt this good.”

Nathan was there with them.
“I can feel it. You’re a lucky bastard, Jay.”

Jay sent the acknowledgement.

Her navel dipped in wicked invitation, and when he circled it with his tongue, she sucked in a breath, and it dipped even more. He licked it and carried on to her hips, loving the firm bone under giving flesh. The structure of her body, the way it flexed under him, responded to his touch—everything about her intoxicated him. So did her aroma rising from her panties. He wanted it out in the open, perfuming the room.

The panties matched the bra, and he remembered she’d said “
set
.” She’d worn them for him, and he loved that she had. However tempted he was to tear them off her, he’d respect her choice. He slid them off, watching each inch of her flesh. He paused to kiss behind her knee, her calf, her ankle on the way down. He gave her toes some attention, trying for the massage she’d like, but it was no good.

“I want you,” he said. “Prepare yourself for me.”

They felt Nathan’s deep sigh when he saw her pussy for the first time. “Fuck, your hair’s red.”

The first words he’d spoken for a while echoed around the room. He was working his cock now. He stroked it with long, firm motions.

Jay could see his other hand curled around the base, adding pressure to prevent him coming so soon. “What color did you expect her pubic hair to be?” he demanded. “Blue?”

“No.” Nathan paused. “It’s very rare. I can’t remember seeing it before. Maybe once.” His presence flickered in their minds before he returned. “Show me more.”

With a sinful glance at Nathan—the first she’d managed since Jay had begun to disrobe her—she opened her legs. She kept her pubic hair trimmed short, and so the motion revealed her pussy in all its glory. It glistened with her juices, and Jay badly wanted them.

“Lick her, Jay. Take it.”

Oh he liked this part all right. He’d let Nathan take control, sent the message to him before he dived in and licked her from opening to clit. She arched her back, tilted her head so her glorious hair flowed down to the soft, dark blue upholstery, and cried out. “So good.”