Acceptable Risk (8 page)

Her shower let her wash off the last remnants of
work, and she dressed in peach underwear, her favorite jeans, and a
t-shirt made of multicolored fabric that seemed to change colors as
the light hit it.

She sometimes envied Gen her smaller breasts,
but today wasn’t one of those times as she looked in the mirror and
thought her large breasts made her stomach and waist look
smaller.

Also, she remembered Jonathan practically
worshipping them. She’d never been turned on when someone tried to
fuck her breasts before, but last night had worked for her. Maybe
it’s because there was so much going on at once, but his cock in
her cleavage, lube pretty much all over her body,
and
everyone else’s… she was getting turned on again just thinking of
it. She was tempted to pull Mighty Max out of her nightstand drawer
and let a little steam off, except she was so damned
sore
from last night.

The guys timed it perfectly, arriving as she
stepped out of her bedroom, on the way to open a bottle of
wine.

Mac came in first, pulled her to him, and she
forgot to breathe as his lips met hers. The other guys went on into
the kitchen and left Mac and Bethany at the door.

Bethany’s back hit the wall and her body took
over, kissing him. She wanted him inside of her and felt as if the
world might end if their kiss stopped. She lifted her left leg,
wrapped it around his waist, and moaned into his mouth.

Mac gave a wild noise, lifted her, and she felt
his granite-hard cock through both layers of jeans. His frustrated
growl let her know his need for her was just as bad as hers.

“Too many clothes,” she said, and he let her
down and started working on her jeans.

She unbuttoned his jeans, slid the zipper down,
and then pushed her own pants down her legs. Seconds later Mac had
a condom on, her shoulders against the wall again, and was buried
balls deep.

And Bethany was in heaven, despite being so
fucking sore.

“Move!” she ordered, and he backed her away from
the wall, wrapped his arms around her to hold her tight, and began
fucking her like the world was about to end. She forgot the guys in
the kitchen, forgot everything. Nothing existed except Mac, his
arms, his cock. He let her lean back a little, her spine arching as
an orgasm engulfed her. He kept pounding her, but held her so well
she knew she could move however she wanted and he wouldn’t drop
her. She pressed back a while, then leaned forward and held onto
him, and finally found a way to ride him. He went still and let her
have control, riding him slow, then fast. She gave herself another
orgasm, and then he stepped forward, put her shoulders against the
wall, and pounded her until they both found a screaming, growling
release together.

When she could breathe again, and realized the
other two guys were in the kitchen, she asked, “Did you win the
coin toss, or what?”

“No, Bethany.” He kissed her cheek, pushed her
hair away from her face, his eyes tender. “We won’t do that to you.
You aren’t something to be won. This wasn’t planned, Cupcake, it
just happened. Don’t go overanalyzing things, okay?”

She still had her shirt and bra on, and stepped
away from him to find her panties, which were still in her jeans.
She looked down as she got dressed, and looked up to see Mac
buttoning his jeans. She expected him to have a cocky look on his
face, but she saw something else.

Bethany wasn’t up for anything too deep right
now, not after Mac had literally rocked her world, so she went into
the kitchen to see what the guys were up to in there.

Surprisingly, Ranger was out back working the
grill, and Jonathan was rubbing a dry mixture into the steaks.

“You’ve done this before,” she commented, and
Jonathan looked up with smile as he said, “Yeah. This is my special
recipe — sea salt, brown sugar, onion powder, fresh ground pepper,
paprika, a little cayenne, and a touch of cocoa.”

Her eyebrows rose, and she said, “I was going to
make the veggies. I don’t want ya’ll doing all the work.”

Jonathan put the steak down, stepped to her, and
hugged her, his hands out so he didn’t get anything on her. “Let us
take care of you a little.”

She melted into him, but asked, “You aren’t mad
that Mac and I had a private moment? Without you?”

He pulled her closer, snugged her to him. “Not
at all, Raggedy. If we’re going to make this work, no one can be
jealous. As a cat, I’ve been in a lot of ménage groups, and there
are rules to keep the human side of us from screwing things up. Our
cats are fine with it, it’s the supposedly civilized humans who
screw things up. So, do me a favor and try to forget all the rules
you’ve been taught. Tell us what you’re thinking, how you’re
feeling. Be honest, and just go with it, okay? Can you do
that?”

Bethany shook her head. “No promises. I think I
made enough of those the other night. I’ll let you know if I have a
problem with something, and I expect ya’ll to do the same, but I’m
not agreeing to tell you my feelings.”

Ranger stepped in the door and said, “No
pressure. Not today, anyway. Cats can be a little bossy and
demanding, don’t hesitate to tell him to back down when he
pushes.”

“Ya’ll trusted Mac with me? Alone?”

“It isn’t a matter of trust, Cupcake,” Mac said
from behind her. “It’s about my control, which seems to be fine
during sex. Still, we weren’t exactly alone. They were close.”
Bethany turned to face him as he continued. “Now that you know what
I am, it won’t be the end of the world if I
change
around
you. I have enough control to know before I lose it, and if I tell
you to get away, you know to get a door between us until I’ve
changed
. Once I’m calm, I’ll be safe around you, it’s only
the first fifteen to twenty seconds there might be a risk. It used
to take me a long time to remember who I am, after I turned wolf.
Now there’s only a few seconds of confusion before I remember.
Eventually, I won’t forget.” His eyes shot to Ranger’s, back to
hers. “Or so I’m told.”

Dinner was a nice, relaxed affair. The guys
drank beer — they’d brought their own, as well as margarita fixings
for her, but she insisted it was a wine evening. This led to a
conversation about her favorite drinks, everyone’s favorite foods,
and the news that shapeshifters metabolize alcohol so fast, it’s
impossible for them to get drunk. If they work hard they can get
buzzed, but that’s about it.

The guys helped with the dishes and she said,
“You know ya’ll aren’t normal, right?”

“Yes, we’re aware, but is there something
specific you have in mind?” Ranger asked with a happy smile.

“Cooking? Helping with dishes?”

“We’re all grown-ups,” Mac said with a shrug.
“Not a big deal.”

“I’m thinking I need to look into putting a hot
tub on my back deck,” Jonathan said, changing the subject.

“You don’t have a back deck,” Mac reminded
him.

“Not yet, but it shouldn’t take the three of us
long to build one. I have another couple of weeks of vacation
before my charge gets back in town, Mac probably has a few months
before he starts working with Drake, and you’re on reduced duty
right now while you bring Mac up to speed.”

“Your charge?” asked Bethany.

“Yeah,” Jonathan answered. “I’m head of security
for Aaron Drake’s wife. She comes from money, and I’ve been with
her since she was thirteen. She and Aaron are on their delayed
honeymoon, and he’s acting as her sole security while they’re gone.
He wants time alone with her, and I deemed it a bad idea to insist
I came along. Turns out,” he said with a cocky smile in her
direction, “he did me a favor.”

“You’ve been with her since she was thirteen? I
guess I need to ask how old ya’ll are?”

“Ah. We’re probably older than you think. Most
shapeshifters age slower than humans. I’m thirty-seven, even though
I still look twenty-five, apparently.”

“I’m thirty-six,” Mac told her, “and Ranger’s
the baby at thirty-three.”

“I’ll be thirty in a few weeks.”

“Yeah, we know,” Mac said as he looked at the
other guys and then back to her. “I’m still officially working for
Uncle Sam, and my job position requires me to do a background
search before I become intimate with someone a second time.” He
shrugged and added, “Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you
anything, even that, but you saw a little of what happened to me,
and I know Ranger explained a few things. I can’t ever tell you
much, even with our binding, but I don’t want to lie about looking
into you. I’ll always have to keep some secrets from you, but I
don’t want any of them to involve you.”

Bethany took a breath, got off the sofa, and
walked to her window. She lived in an upper middleclass subdivision
in the Hamilton Place area, but it was an older neighborhood so she
wasn’t looking at cookie cutter houses, thank goodness. Her back to
the men, she said, “So, Mac was a spy of some sort, I think Ranger
was or is Special Forces of some kind, and now I know Jonathan is
apparently an elite bodyguard.” She shook her head and turned
around. “I was worried about Gen, being on the arm of a motorcycle
club president, but something tells me I’ve
really
stepped
in it.”

“I was an Army Ranger for eighteen months, and
was promoted into a top secret unit I can’t tell you about,” Ranger
told her. “I gained the name when I joined, because they don’t
usually pull from the Ranger unit, and it was kind of a slam, at
first. Eventually, it wasn’t anymore, but I had to prove myself to
them.”

“And now you work for this Aaron Drake?
Why?”

He shook his head. “You share a little more
about yourself, I’ll consider sharing more.”

“But ya’ll already know about me! I can’t
exactly do a background check on all three of you!”

“We know you make nearly two hundred dollars an
hour, and you specialize in sports injuries,” Mac said. “You’re
under contract with the local university system and are approved to
work on their athletes, and it sounds like we won’t see you much on
the weekends during football season, as you’re also under contract
for two professional teams, to work on their injured people before
and after games so they’re loose enough to play.”

“You were attacked when you were seventeen,”
Ranger added. “The report says you were drunk but still managed to
fight him off. You ended up in the hospital with a sprained
shoulder, but the culprit was never caught. You had a black eye and
a busted lip, and the officer who wrote the report thought you’d
had a fight with your boyfriend and were protecting him.”

“That’s supposed to be sealed,” Bethany said,
her eyes shooting daggers.

“It is,” Mac said, without even an ounce of
apology.

“We know your mom’s been through four husbands
and was never married to your father,” Ranger said in a soft voice
as he walked to her and rested his hands on her hips. “My intuition
tells me the one she married when you were nine took a special
interest in you. You were sent away to camp for the entire summer,
and your grades took a dive the next year.”

“How fucking deep did ya’ll look into me?” she
asked, her voice low, too.

“They’re telling you what they found out,”
Jonathan said. “Trying to be honest and upfront. No secrets we
don’t have to keep.”

She shook her head and told them, “I think I’d
like you all to leave now, please.”

“Gen’s big brother and his best friend were
considered persons of interest in an incident that sent an eighteen
year old to the hospital with major brain trauma and several broken
bones a couple of days after you were hurt. They took care of your
boyfriend, didn’t they?” Mac asked.

They could tell if she lied, so she told them,
“Yeah. I didn’t ask them to, but I wasn’t terribly upset when I
found out.” She stepped away from Ranger, and thankfully, he let
her go. “You aren’t wrong about my stepdad, either. It doesn’t mean
any
of it’s any of your business, though. I take care of
myself. I may not carry a gun everywhere like Gen, but I have one,
and I have my carry license. Sometimes I go to Frisco’s house and
shoot with Gen — he has a range out back. I carry pepper spray, and
I’ve taken some self-defense classes. I also have a
really
good grasp of human anatomy, and how to hurt someone with just a
touch. I know I can’t force the three of you to leave, though, so
I’ll ask nice,
again
. Please, leave.”

“What kind of gun do you have?” Mac asked.

Bethany looked at the three men, touched her
pocket to make sure her phone was in it, and walked to her front
door, grabbing her purse on the way out, saying, “Lock the door
when you leave,” as she slammed her own front door behind her. The
men had ridden together and pulled in beside her, so she wasn’t
blocked in, thank goodness. She half expected them to stop her from
leaving, but Mac stood on the front porch and watched her drive
away.

No idea where she was going, she drove three
blocks to a manicure shop and went in to see if someone was
available to give her a pedicure. They were, and an hour later she
was out the door, her toes a beautiful shade of metallic
purple.

The guys’ car was still in her driveway when she
got home, but she went inside anyway. It was her damned house.

“How did ya’ll know I was coming back?” she
asked as she stepped into her den. They’d been watching TV, but
Ranger turned it off and they all focused on her as he said,
“You’re too damned stubborn to let us run you out of your house for
long. It’s one of the things I like about you.”

Bethany sat in a chair and leaned forward, her
elbows on her knees, her face in her palms, not looking at any of
them.

“I’m pissed, and hurt, and I feel as if I’ve
been violated.”

“When I was eleven,” Jonathan told her, “a few
months before my first
change
, my uncle took me hiking and
raped me. I didn’t tell anyone, and when I was sixteen, I found out
he was planning a hiking trip with my seven year old cousin, and I
killed my uncle. It’s why my family sent me away to be a soldier at
sixteen. I have a high school diploma, but it isn’t a standard
one.”