Acceptable Risk (9 page)

“You can’t join the military at sixteen.” There
was so much more she wanted to say, but she started with the
easiest.

“It was a supernatural force, and not a nice
one. I joined the United States military at eighteen, to get away
from them.”

She was figuring out what to say next when
Ranger said, “You already know my most traumatic story, being
turned into a werewolf and having to live apart from my family for
years until I gained control of my wolf.”

“My mom was killed in a car crash during my last
year of college,” Mac said. “My sister is married to my best
friend. He knows I’m a werewolf, but she doesn’t. My dad won’t be
able to know, either. I don’t have any major childhood traumas, but
you know what happened to me just before I was turned, and you know
what I am.”

They were trying. She was still pissed at Ranger
and Mac, as they seemed to be the ones who’d snooped. Jonathan,
though, she discovered she was no longer angry with.

He was sitting on the sofa, and she ignored the
other two as she walked to him and sat in his lap facing him, with
a leg on either side and her hands on his shoulders.

“I’m good, Raggedy. No leftover trauma, and
somehow I escaped the life without becoming a psychopath. I only
told you because I thought it fair you knew my deep dark
secret.”

“You were turned at eleven?”

“No, I was born a wereleopard and my first
change
happened at eleven. I was stronger than a normal
child, but wasn’t superhuman-strong in human form until I was
probably twelve or thirteen.”

He pulled her close and she relaxed into him.
She wasn’t ready to end up in bed with all of them, though, and
wanted to talk more.

She opened her eyes, looked at them, and asked,
“Have ya’ll ever played Cards Against Humanity?”

After four hours of playing games, they went to
bed, but there was only snuggling and talking before everyone went
to sleep. Her guys seemed to understand she wasn’t up for more,
tonight.

Last night, they’d just fucked. The next time
might be more than mere sex, and the thought terrified Bethany.

Ranger awoke before everyone else and went to
the kitchen to start breakfast. They’d already learned Mac couldn’t
cook for shit, and Jonathan could only cook meat and fish. He did a
damned good job with it, but Ranger had turned into their main
cook.

Bethany didn’t have to work today, and Ranger
planned to woo her with adventures and keep her mind off the fact
the four of them were growing close.

Her mom had chosen men badly, and so had Bethany
while she was young. She hadn’t let anyone get close to her in
years, the best Ranger could tell. She’d decided she was better on
her own than with a man, and they were going to have to convince
her she could trust them.

Ranger chopped and cut onions, tomatoes,
mushrooms, and spinach. He grated a few kinds of cheese together,
and then started frying up three pounds of bacon. She had a French
press and an electric kettle, along with a dozen kinds of coffee.
He put water in the kettle, but would wait until people started
waking before heating it.

Mac stumbled in first, picked vanilla coffee as
it seemed the least flavored, and made himself a cup as Ranger made
his omelet.

Bethany came in next, chose a gourmet coffee
with caramel and chocolate, made it really strong without about
half as much water as she should, but then poured as much milk into
her cup as she did coffee. Ranger made a note of her preferences,
and of which coffee flavors were in the front. The next time she
spent the night with them there’d be a coffee press and whole milk,
along with coffee she liked.

He had her choose what she wanted in her omelet,
and talked to her as he cooked. She seemed more laidback today, but
Ranger knew they still had a ways to go before she let them in.

Jonathan joined them a few minutes later and
helped with the bacon while Ranger made Mac another omelet, and
then several for himself and Jonathan.

“I’m going to conserve water and take Raggedy to
the shower with me,” Jonathan said as they finished eating.

Ranger chuckled at her surprised face as
Jonathan picked her up and walked through the house with her.

Bethany’s house was nearly as big as Jonathan’s,
and was closer to her work. He’d need to talk to the guys about how
to see her as much as possible during the week without making her
feel as if they were invading her space.

* * * *

Bethany barely kept from squealing when Jonathan
picked her up, but didn’t protest as he started the water and
helped her out of her shirt.

She grinned as he bent to lovingly kiss each
breast, and did as he said when he suggested she finish getting
undressed and into the shower.

His hands moved hers away from her head as she
lathered the shampoo, and she leaned against him as his fingers
worked her scalp. “How often do you treat yourself to a massage?”
he asked, his voice soft.

“I traded off with a friend where I used to
work, but over the past two years,” she paused, sighed, and
answered truthfully, “not enough.”

Jonathan had magic fingers, and as they made
their way from her scalp to the tight muscles at her shoulders and
neck, and eventually to her breasts, she melted into him.

He used the handheld unit to rinse the shampoo
from her hair, and then went to his knees, put one of her feet on
his shoulder, and proceeded to bring her so close to an orgasm she
was afraid her remaining knee would collapse.

Before it did, though, he donned a condom, sat
on the bench, pulled her into his lap, helped her sit on his cock,
and pulled her left nipple into his mouth. Bethany didn’t have to
be told what to do, and she rode him like a wild woman as he played
with her breasts and nipples.

“Ah, god, I’m so sore. You tortured my nipples
the other night, and now they’re so
fucking
sensitive.”

He took his mouth off, wrapped his hand around
one of her breasts and compressed it, and moaned when he felt her
spasm around his cock. “They like to be treated rough,” he said
with a sadistic smile. “I’m going to have fun binding them with
rope, torturing them for real.”

Just the thought was enough to send Bethany over
the edge, and she sped up as she felt her climax approaching.
Jonathan talked her through her orgasm, pinching her nipples and
manipulating her clit when she started coming down, so she
skyrocketed into another orgasm. And then another.

When she collapsed forward onto him, he stood
with her, put her on her feet, and turned her around, “Hands on the
bench, Bethany. I wanna take you from behind.”

“Not without lube!” she protested.

“Not your ass, Raggedy. I want to take you
from
behind.”

“Oh,” she said as she turned and put her hands
on the bench, “that’s different.”

He moaned as he pressed into her, and she went
up on her toes as she heard herself say, “
God
, yes.”

“So fucking responsive, I could stay buried in
you all day,” Jonathan said as he sped up.

Bethany wanted to make him lose control, and she
arched her back and pulled her legs closer together so she could
milk him as he fucked her.

He let loose with a half-dozen expletives and
then said, “Safeword for me if it’s too much, okay?”

“Not a problem, but we aren’t even close to too
much,” Bethany gasped.

Seconds after the words left her mouth, it was
almost too much. Jonathan’s hips moved faster and harder than she
thought humanly possible, and thank goodness he held her in place,
or she’d have slammed into the wall as he jackhammered into
her.

He seemed to know he needed to back off, and he
did just a teensy bit as she was opening her mouth to say yellow,
and suddenly she was screaming through another orgasm, her shouts
reverberating off the tiled walls.

Jonathan came with her, and sat on the bench to
pull her into his lap as they finished.

“You okay?” he asked, as he held her and kissed
her cheek, her neck, and just under her ear.

“Fantastic,” she said, so out of breath it was
embarrassing.

He conditioned her hair while their heads were
out from under the spray, and she was surprised he knew to get as
much water out as possible before applying the conditioner.

“I had long hair as a teen, and not even my
shapeshifter status made this red mop behave without
conditioner.”

“It was just the one time, with your uncle?”

“Yeah,” he said, busy working the conditioner
through her hair. “He tried to take me hiking a few other times but
I always found a way to keep from going.”

She had so many questions to ask, but only said,
“Thanks for telling me.”

When they came out of the shower, Snowy was
sitting in Bethany’s bedroom, just over the line between tile and
hardwood floor, as if he were making a statement.

“What’s up, Snowy?” she asked her cat,
forgetting for the moment she’d just showered with someone who
probably smelled like a much larger cat.

Snowy glared at her, then Jonathan, and back to
her.

“He isn’t sure about me,” said Jonathan. “Ranger
won him over with food, but I haven’t had a chance to feed him when
he’s hungry, yet.”

“He slept with me,” Mac said from the den,
raising his voice enough Bethany could hear him. Under normal
circumstances, someone in the den couldn’t hear talk from her
bedroom and bathroom, and she kept forgetting her guys weren’t
normal.

She didn’t raise her voice to say, “I’m glad you
didn’t sleep alone. It doesn’t feel right, all of us together and
you off to the side.”

“It won’t be forever, Raggedy,” Jonathan said,
as he watched her bend over and twist her hair into a towel. “Keep
bending over, though, and I may feel the need to take you
again.”

“You can’t be serious!” She laughed as she
stood, secured the towel, and reached for her robe. “We just…” She
eyed his cock and made a point of tying her robe’s sash. “Okay, so
you’re serious. Ya’ll sort of gave me the night off, except for the
quickie with Mac, but I’m still sore from the night before!”

Ranger stepped into her bedroom and leaned
against her dresser, his hip against it and one ankle crossed over
the other. “You didn’t tell him he couldn’t bind your breasts.”

Her gaze met Ranger’s and desire pulsed through
her veins. She’d played around with a few Doms, but nothing super
serious, and Ranger both scared and excited her. The promise of
what he could do, and the knowledge she’d probably like it…

She recognized her own depravity in him, and
worried a little what she might agree to. Most of the guys she’d
been with would’ve been disgusted by some of her secret desires,
but she instinctively knew Ranger would be turned on.

“Both of you, out of my bedroom or I’ll never
get dressed. Ya’ll promised to take me shooting and then out to
eat.”

“No, I’m going home and sleeping alone tonight.
End of discussion,” Bethany told them outside the restaurant, her
hands on her hips.

“Ranger and Mac are flying to Washington
tomorrow and we don’t know how long they’ll be gone,” Jonathan told
her. “We also don’t know for sure how much longer Aaron and Sophia
will be gone, and my schedule will be all over the place when they
return. Aaron only trusts four of us in his house to guard her when
he’s away, and she’s the most comfortable with me. We work in teams
of three to six, but I’m almost always with her when her husband
can’t be. You aren’t going to have me at your beck and call
forever, so you should take advantage of it while you can.”

Bethany looked to Mac. “Are you ready? Will you
be okay?”

“Don’t have much choice. I did okay at the club
Friday night and the restaurant yesterday and today. They’re going
to try to push me, so it won’t be easy, but if I don’t show up
they’ll consider me to have gone dark and will organize a capture
team.”

“He’ll be fine,” Ranger said. “Aaron Drake may
be on his honeymoon, but he isn’t out of pocket and he has
connections high enough up we’ve been able to arrange for who’ll
handle Mac’s interview and debrief. His interviewer will have to
make it look good on camera, but he’s a shapeshifter, too, and will
back off if he senses Mac losing control.”

Bethany stepped to Mac and practically flung
herself into his arms, the idea of him not coming back too painful
to consider. “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know.” He held her tight and rubbed her
back. “Probably at least three or four days, hopefully not longer
than two weeks.”

“When do you leave?”

“Our plane leaves at midnight. They want me to
check in by four in the morning so they can process me and have me
ready to be interviewed at eight. I’ll be in Drake Security’s
private jet, so I won’t have to deal with airport security, at
least.”

“This was why you and Ranger kept stepping out
to talk on the phone, today. And why the guy brought paperwork for
Mac to sign while we were at the range.”

Ranger nodded and Bethany said, “
Shit
,
okay. Let’s go to Jonathan’s house so I can give you and Mac a
proper goodbye, and then Jonathan can take me home and stay with
me, so he won’t be alone.”

Suddenly, sex with them before they left was
more important than her fears it would turn into making love.

The rope circled the base of her right breast
and she closed her eyes, unable to watch as Ranger wound it around
and around, tighter and tighter.

“We can all smell how turned on you are. Don’t
hide from us,” Jonathan told her, his voice bordering on a growl
and full of sexual heat. He
would
like this, he was a boob
man, after all.