Chapter 4

To say that Honor was entirely smitten with Holden and Jackson by the time they stopped for dinner near Fort Wayne was an understatement. They were the two nicest, sexiest guys she’d ever known, and they couldn’t stop touching her. They were always holding her hands or putting their arms around her and dropping little stolen kisses that made her mind swim with possibilities for what the night might bring. She was more than ready to stop for the night, and not just because she was feeling a little crazed from being in the truck all day.

The guys wanted to eat something hearty for dinner, so they found a steakhouse. As the meal wound down, she was aware of how soon they’d be going to the hotel. Although she’d had sex with males over the years, she’d never actually spent an entire night in bed with any male before, let alone two that she was mated to.

Or was she actually mated to them? She had no idea how mating worked for mountain lions.

Jackson paid the check and pushed his chair back. “Ready to find a place for the night?”

“Definitely,” she said, her heart kicking up a notch at the thought of being alone with them in a hotel room. Really alone.

“We’ve got two choices,” Holden said, looking at his phone. He paused when they got to the truck, and looked at her. “Do you want us to get you a room of your own?”

“What?” she asked.

“We’ve been talking non-stop since we left Canada, but we haven’t talked about sleeping arrangements for tonight, or… anything else. I don’t want you to think that Jax and I are taking anything for granted when it comes to you. If you want a room for yourself, that’s okay with us.”

She touched the cold metal of the truck door, sliding her fingertips along the smooth surface to give herself a moment to think. She knew that mountain lion males were thoughtful and kind; she’d grown up in a town full of them. Even with the females cursed and behaving like total bitches, they would have done anything for any female who asked. There was an inherent hopefulness in the males that before, when she was under the curse, she’d found grating. But now that she was free, she thought it was wonderful.

“Do you want me to have a room to myself?” she asked.

Both males snarled softly, and she couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips. “Hell no,” Jackson said. “We don’t want to let you out of our sight, not even for one night.”

She let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I don’t want to be apart from you either.”

“We have some talking to do,” Jackson said as he pulled the door open for her.

“We’ve done nothing but talk since you saved me,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but there’s a few things we still need to discuss, and it wasn’t the best time when one of us was distracted with driving,” Holden said.

They found a nice hotel ten minutes away. While Holden checked them in, she and Jackson stood in the lobby with their bags.

“You can call me Jax if you want,” he said.

“Do you always go by that nickname?”

“Yeah, since I was in school. I kind of like you calling me Jackson – no one since our dad died has called me that. But Holden calls me Jax, and so do all the lions. I just didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t.”

“At least your name lends itself to a good nickname. You can’t do anything with Honor.”

He chuckled. “I never thought about it.”

“I’d love to call you Jax, but maybe sometimes I’ll call you Jackson, and you’ll know it’s special.”

He smiled at her, one of those breathtaking ones that made her whole body light up.

Holden joined them with the room keys. “Ready?”

She nodded. “Definitely. Thanks for doing this.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Holden said.

They took the elevator to the fourth floor. Holden unlocked the room, holding the door open for her and Jax. She found the light switch and illuminated the large suite. A king-sized bed sat against one wall, with nightstands on either side. There was a couch and a television on the dresser.

“I’d like to take a shower if you guys don’t mind,” she said.

“Help yourself,” Holden said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“I won’t take too long.”

“Take as long as you like,” Jax said.

She took her backpack into the bathroom and set it on the counter, closing the door. She washed her hair and shaved her legs, then dried herself swiftly. Finding a hair dryer on the shelf, she dried her long blonde hair and then hung up her towel. She opened her backpack and stared at her clothes. While she was in the shower, she’d been thinking about putting her pajamas on, but now that she was about to walk out into the bedroom where Holden and Jax were waiting, she didn’t want to put anything on.

Although, she wasn’t sure what would happen tonight, if anything.

She wasn’t used to wrestling with emotions so much, and ever since she’d been freed from the curse, it seemed she’d done nothing but. There were a million things about her past that she wished she could change, but chief among them at the moment was that she’d never left them in the woods on the September full moon.

Glancing up at the mirror, she saw the reflection of a robe hanging on the door, and she turned and took it, putting it on. The fluffy white terrycloth would at least keep her covered when she went out into the bedroom, and she could see where the night would take them. After brushing her teeth, she picked up her backpack and opened the bathroom door. She set the bag on the floor of the closet and said, “Who’s next?”

“I’ll go,” Jax said. He rose from the couch where he’d been sitting with Holden and grabbed his duffel from the dresser.

She sat next to Holden on the couch and saw three bottles of water, three glasses, and a bucket of ice. “Are you thirsty?” Holden asked.

“Not really.” She turned to face him and got comfortable. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“What’s mating like?”

He blinked rapidly a few times. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you said I’m your mate, but we never… did anything.”

He looked past her toward the bathroom. “We should wait for Jax.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about this, sweetheart, because I do, but Jax and I agreed to talk to you together.”

She nodded and blew out a breath.

“I can tell you this, though. Our cats recognized you immediately that night in the woods. When you almost fell and I grabbed you, my cat was so content to just hold you. And then that kiss, woman! Damn.”

Her cheeks heated. “That was my first kiss.”

His brows rose. “Really? Well that’s damn cool. I’m honored to be your first kiss. It was a great one.”

She smiled. “Good. I don’t know what came over me when I bit your lip. Was it the curse being broken?”

“We think so. I remember you from King, but I don’t recall ever feeling that you were our mate back then.”

“I certainly never had those thoughts either. But when I came back to Ashland, I felt strange. My cat was antsy, I felt like there was something I needed to do, but I didn’t have a clue what it was.”

“I think Jilly felt the same way when she was found by Wyked and Fate. Timing seems to be everything with the curse.”

“I wish Gretchen and Julia and the others weren’t still under the curse. It’s unfair that our people suffer for something that happened so long ago.”

“I agree one hundred percent.”

The bathroom door opened and Jax walked out, wearing jeans and nothing else. His upper body was on display, from his broad shoulders to his thick arms to the taut muscles in his abdomen. There were a few glistening droplets of water on his skin, and she wanted to lick them up and strip him quick.

He growled softly, his green eyes flashing to the amber of his cat. Hers responded with a purr that she’d never heard before: one of lust and contentment.

“Put a lid on the sexy looks, you two,” Holden said. “I need to clean up.”

“Be fast,” Jax said.

“Super fast,” she added.

Jax joined her on the couch. She heard the shower turn on, and she glanced over her shoulder, wondering what Holden looked like naked. Then Jax cleared his throat, and she turned back to him.

He was so handsome, and she was getting her first good look at his upper body, which was deliciously muscled. A purr rumbled in his chest, and she smiled.

“What’s going to happen?” she asked.

“Whatever you want.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

His upper lip curled. “Hell no. You’re our mate, Honor. There’s no one we would mate with like this except for you.”

Her eyes widened for a moment at his outburst, and then she relaxed with a chuckle. “I actually meant if you and Holden had ever shared a female before, not if you’d ever mated anyone.”

The fire in his eyes died. “Oh, sorry. No, actually; Holden and I didn’t expect to share a mate. The males in King don’t seem to do that, so until we moved to Ashland, we weren’t around anyone who was in a multiple-mating.”

She mulled on that for a moment. “Do the males in King think it’s strange that the Ashland pride has multiple-matings?”

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “When Melody came to King, her mates said some males thought there was something wrong with them for wanting to share her. Holden and I thought we might share a mate, but we weren’t really sure until we found you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if we were meant to share then we knew that we’d both be attracted to you and feel that connection, and that you’d want both of us, too. If it wasn’t meant to be, then one of us wouldn’t feel that connection.”

She nodded, thankful that both Holden and Jackson felt as connected to her as she did to them.

The bathroom door opened and Holden stepped out. He was dressed just like Jax, except the button of his jeans was undone, as if he’d been too hurried to fix it. She liked the way he prowled toward her, every step intentional and unhurried, his eyes fixed on her as if she were the most important thing in the universe to him.

“We need to talk,” Jax reminded him.

“Yeah, but how about on the bed?” Holden asked, stopping in front of her and offering his hand.

She took it and allowed him to pull her up. Her body brushed against his, her curves to his tight muscles, and every feminine instinct within her cheered.

He led her to the bed and lifted her up, setting her in the center. The robe slipped off her shoulder, but she didn’t bother to fix it, too entranced with the males climbing onto the bed to move at all.

“We can go as far as you want,” Jax said. “Or we can talk and go to sleep without doing anything. Whatever you want is what we want.”

“I want it all,” she said. “I want the two of you with me, however that happens, and I want to be yours in truth.”

“Then we need to talk fast,” Holden said, “because we want all of that, too.”

“Our people,” Jax said, taking one of her hands, “don’t really have any mating rituals because we didn’t mate for life. When we started to find mates outside of the mountain lion females, we made our own rituals, depending on what the female was and what the group wanted to do. No matter the other things that happen, the marking is what binds the group together: the males bite the female on her neck, and the marks scar. The scars show her as mated to anyone who sees them.”

“Does the female bite the males?” she asked.

“Some do and some don’t. It’s up to you.”

“I want people to know you’re mated.”

“Then give us marks, and we’ll wear them proudly,” Holden said.

She stared at his throat, unable to think of anything except putting her teeth in his flesh. Suddenly, it was all she wanted to do, and she wanted their marks as well.

“I bit you already,” she said, looking at Jax and then at Holden. “I bit both of you.”

Jax showed her his palm; she could see the scarred marks from her fangs. Mentally, she asked her cat if she knew what she was doing then. All she got was a happy purr in answer.

“I still want your fangs in my neck,” he said.

Holden nodded. “Me, too.”

“When do we mark each other?” she asked.

“When we make love,” Jax said. “We’ll make you feel really good first so you’re not as aware of the bites. Our fangs need to break the skin, and that comes with some pain.”

“Okay,” she said. “Do you want me to make you feel really good, too?”

Jax chuckled. “You first, babe.”

Holden moved behind her, rising onto his knees and gathering her hair in one hand. Jax leaned forward and kissed her. He swiped his tongue along the seam of her lips and she opened them, shivering as his tongue connected with hers. As Jax teased her tongue, Holden bared her neck and kissed slowly from her ear down to her shoulder. He let go of her hair and pushed the robe off her other shoulder. Her nipples tightened, the soft fabric brushing against them as it fell to her waist.

Jax eased from the kiss, nibbling on her lips, and lowered his gaze to her breasts.

“Fucking magnificent,” he murmured, running his fingers lightly over her skin.

Holden pressed against her back and tipped her chin, until she was looking at him. “It’s my turn for another kiss, sweetheart.”

Holden devoured her mouth, groaning when their tongues touched. He cupped her other breast, squeezing it and running his thumb over her nipple. She felt Jax’s mouth close over her nipple and she moaned, Holden eating the sound as if it were food he could live on. She reached for both her mates, sliding her hands into their hair and fisting the strands. She held Jax close to her, wanting him to keep licking and tugging at her nipple.

Jax growled softly against her nipple and undid the tie of her robe. She panted for breath as she watched Jax open the robe slowly. Holden helped pull it from her body, and then he was at her back again, his mouth on her neck and his hands cupping her breasts. Jax held her gaze as he reached down to tease her pussy, rubbing his fingers up and down, barely grazing her clit. He pushed his finger inside her so slowly that she thought she’d go up in flames. Letting out a moan, she spread her legs farther apart and gave him more access. Jax pulled his finger out just as slowly, and then as he pushed in again, he pressed his thumb to her clit. Her body throbbed as he added a second finger and circled her tight bud. He curled his fingers and rubbed her inner walls, and her body tightened, her legs shaking as he touched something deep inside her.

She let out a sharp gasp and grabbed Jax’s wrist, keeping it in place. He chuckled with a growl and rubbed that place inside her more firmly.

Holden pinched her nipples and tugged on them, she pressed back against him as heat flooded through her. Just a heartbeat before she came, Holden bit her neck, sinking his fangs into her flesh. She screamed as her climax struck, her stomach fluttering and her pussy gripping Jax’s fingers. Holden extracted his fangs and licked the marks, and although she smelled blood, she didn’t feel any pain. Jax eased his fingers from her and sucked on them, his eyes hooded and flashing with heat.

She pushed on Jax’s shoulders and he stretched out on the bed. She crawled over him, undoing his jeans and shoving them down to free his cock. He was thick and long. The velvety feel of his skin over the hard length of him made her mouth water, but she wanted to make love to him first, to know what it was like to have him inside her. She straddled him, gripping his cock and slowly lowering herself onto him, the slickness from his attentions making it easy. The broad head stretched her soaked pussy and she groaned as she slid down on Jax by slow inches, throwing her head back when their bodies touched.

Pausing for a moment to just revel in the feel of Jax inside her, Honor lowered her head and planted one hand on his chest, over his heart. His eyes were bright amber and she could feel the rumble of his purr in his chest. Holden lowered his jeans and revealed his cock, stepping closer to the side of the bed when she beckoned. She grasped him, stroking him from root to tip. Using her hand for leverage, she began to move on Jax as she stroked Holden. Her wildest fantasies were coming true, and it was even hotter than she imagined.

Jax wrapped his hands around her waist, lifting and lowering her on him as she kept the same tempo on Holden’s cock. Jax growled, sliding his hands up her sides and pulling her down by her shoulders. He began to pump into her swiftly, his hips jerking up and down. Then Jax struck, his fangs sinking into the other side of her neck and sending a riot of sensations cascading through her. Jax lifted from her and groaned as he thrust into her once and then again, his cock thickening as he came, a groan pushing from his lips.

He kissed her, his fingers sliding into her hair and holding her close as his tongue played with hers. He ended the kiss and gazed at her rapturously; then he tilted his head and exposed his neck. Without a thought, her fangs descended and she bit him. She could taste his blood and feel the connection between them as mates solidify.

Pulling her fangs gently from his neck, she kissed the wound and smiled at him. “Mine.”

“Forever, babe,” he said roughly.

She looked at Holden and realized that in the throes of passion she’d stopped jerking him off. “Come inside me,” she murmured.

“I’ve thought of nothing else since we met,” he said, moving back on the bed.

She slid off Jax and rolled to her back, reaching for Holden. He settled between her thighs and sank into her pussy. Their bodies came together again and again, until he was roaring his pleasure to the ceiling and she’d marked his neck.

He collapsed to her side with a satisfied groan and pulled her against him, kissing her soundly.

“You’re mine, too,” she said, brushing her fingers down his jaw.

“Damn straight,” he said with a smile. “And you’re ours.”

Holden moved to her back, caging her between them. He kissed her shoulder and slid his hand slowly down her stomach. “Ready for round two?”

“Just for the record,” she said as she opened her legs for his questing fingers, “you never have to ask. I will always be up for this.”