Spirits Shared (14 page)

Tilting her head back, her eyes met his and
she willed him to read her complete acceptance and her desire to
give him some time alone with Tekoa. "Fair's fair."

Tekoa's cheek rubbed against her hair. He
hugged her more tightly. Surprised her by saying, "I like the idea
of us celebrating this day with a special meal."

"Guess I've been outvoted," Clay said, eyes
probing hers, asking if she was sure.

"I'm not leaving this cabin naked or just
wearing Tekoa's shirt."

Clay grinned, gave her a hard kiss. "I'll
grab our stuff. The only one who gets to see you naked is us."

He pulled his sweatpants up and left. Tekoa
nuzzled her neck, cupped her breasts.

Heat flared in her stomach and slid downward
into her pussy. She moaned and arched her back.

He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples. "When
you get home I'm going to give these the attention they deserve.
I'm going to latch on and suck until you come for me."

She reached behind her and grasped his hair.
Clay entered with their things, his gaze going to Tekoa's hands on
her breasts and his eyes heating. "Change of plans?"

Tekoa kissed her neck and released her.
"Just telling Jess what was going to happen when she got home."

Home
.

She wasn't ready to address that issue.

Clay dropped his backpack and her purse next
to the door then carried her small suitcase to the bed. She
followed, grabbed jeans and a blue-and-white oxford shirt along
with matching light blue panties and bra.

He stopped her with a laugh and a hand
around her wrist. "No panties. No bra. We in agreement, Tekoa?"

Tekoa was crouched in front of the
fireplace, feeding in more wood. "We are definitely in
agreement."

She dropped the panties and bra back into
the suitcase. Clay tugged her to him, gave her a quick hard kiss
then let her escape to the bathroom to clean up and dress.

When she left the bathroom, Tekoa was
leaning against the couch back and Clay was fishing through his
backpack near the front door.

Tekoa pushed away from the couch,
intercepted her on the path to Clay. He kissed her, said, "Don't
stay gone for long," then relinquished her to Clay.

Clay's hug was hard and possessive, his kiss
thorough and breath-taking. And his gaze, when his lips left hers,
probed and asked,
Are you sure?

"I'll be back in a little while."

He kissed her again, released her. "No
speeding. Might be kind of embarrassing to get pulled over for
breaking the law in the sheriff's truck."

She laughed and left. Climbed into a truck
that smelled like cedar, not the chemical scent of an air fresher
dangling from the rearview mirror but the natural odor of the trees
on either side of the cabin.

It wasn't raining, but dark clouds promised
the pause was temporary. She followed the dirt road, parked and got
out at the totem poles.

Like the first time she'd seen them, the
mist gave the totem poles an almost eerie, from-the-past presence.
And like before, she could hear ancient drums beating. She could
feel the spirit and promise of the Thunderbirds perched on top of
the poles, their wings outstretched as they claimed everything they
could see.

Wispy tendrils of gray rolled across Tekoa's
road and it was easy to believe the poles stood guard, like
sentries placed on either side of a gateway leading to a mystical
place. A healer. Lover. Warrior.

Tekoa's imagined voice rose and fell as it
had during the sing for Clay. The words had been foreign and
unrecognizable but they'd resonated like a chord that linked her
soul to the past and to the power that was earth and wind and water
and fire.

She'd experienced something equally primal
when Tekoa had positioned her in front of the fireplace and mounted
her. The sounds she'd heard with her ears had been ones of passion
instead of healing but she would have sworn there'd been a deeper
song, an ancient voice accompanied by a drum. And ecstasy
shimmering through her, the Thunderbird carved into the mantel had
seemed so real that she would have sworn lightning flashed in its
dark eyes as it filled the room with unknowable power.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. Was it just a
flight of fantasy?

Clay's injuries had been real. So much had
happened, her focus had been on
The Revelation
, the
attraction to Tekoa, and just how far she could go, that she hadn't
dwelled on the healing, on the impossibility—

But it wasn't impossible. It'd happened.

She moved closer to the totem poles. They
were beautiful awe-inspiring works of art. Ukiah's work? That's
where she'd put her money.

Reverently she traced the figure of a badger
carved at shoulder height. Next to it was an eagle, below it, a fox
and above a bear.

Her eyes lifted to the Thunderbird. Its
lower body blended into the wood while its wings stretched
wide.

She'd illustrated a children's book once
about Thunderbirds. They were found in the traditions and beliefs
of many Native American cultures.

For some they were deities. For others they
were supernatural beings.

In some traditions they were the Creator's
messengers. In others they were protectors. In a few cases they
lived as men but took the form of a Thunderbird when necessary. In
almost all belief systems the beat of their massive wings created
thunder and lightning shot from their eyes.

Her earlier impression of the poles standing
as sentinels returned. She remembered the lines on the map, the red
marking Tekoa's official territory as sheriff while the blue
designated the wider area he felt compelled to protect.

Tekoa had said his people were the People of
the Thunderbird. She had nothing to base her assumption on but she
felt sure that they viewed themselves as guardians of this
land.

He wouldn't want to leave and not only
because he was Sheriff. He'd want them to make it their home.

It'd been there in his voice and she'd shied
away from thinking about it. She could write and illustrate here.
Clay could run his business from here, but there'd be no hiding
their relationship.

Her heart rabbited into her throat, making
it impossible to breathe. She rubbed her upper arms and tried to
imagine telling their close friends that it was now her, Clay and
Tekoa.

The alternative was to live a lie.

Her stomach tightened with thoughts of
walking into the diner or the general store in Hohoq and having
everyone know she slept with two men. She wasn't as painfully
introverted as she'd been as a kid, when the beauty pageants that
were her mother's obsession were a living hell, but she remained a
private person. She'd intended to go to Hohoq, have lunch at the
diner and pass some time there before finding a grocery store, but
now… No.

She got into the truck, fired the ignition.
The radio came on. Another convict had been captured. That left one
on the loose, a man convicted of assault, rape and murder.

* * * * *

Clay rolled his shoulders in an effort to
get the tension out of them. He felt Jess's absence in a way that
made him want to tell Tekoa to get on the radio and have her turn
around. Of course, that was assuming the telephone calls would ever
stop. It seemed like there'd been one after another since Jess
drove away.

He sighed, a long exhale into a grimace. He
should do them both a favor by disappearing into the bathroom and
jerking off in the shower.

Nah. The last couple of hours had been
torture. He'd suffered alone while Tekoa was with Jess.

And yeah, the argument could be made that
last night Tekoa had been the one to suffer…

Clay sprawled across the sofa, closed his
eyes and gripped his erection through the borrowed sweats. How
twisted was that? He had his own clothes but was still in Tekoa's
because having his dick rubbing against material that'd been next
to Tekoa's dick apparently flipped some seriously kinky
switches.

He grinned. So be it.

The phone dropped back into its cradle, and
though he didn't hear footsteps, he knew the moment Tekoa was
standing over him. Probably the testosterone in the air, or maybe
it was feeling like the hand on his dick was in the crosshairs of a
sniper's scope.

The grin widened. He opened his eyes but
didn't sit or take his hand off his cock. "You need to leave?"

"Not yet. There are others monitoring the
situation."

A sudden pressure in his chest had him
easing the grip on his cock. "The situation with the convicts?"

"Convict. All but one has been recaptured.
Some of my relatives are afraid he may be on our lands."

Clay sat up. "Close to here?"

Tekoa shook his head. "Unlikely." He sat on
the couch edge, his hip close to Clay's. "Jessica shouldn't be in
any danger."

"Good."

Their mouths slammed into each other. A
crash of heat and want.

Fuck, he needed this. Where Jessica liked to
stroke and tease, Tekoa's hands were a rough, bold sweep. He didn't
linger to explore but went straight to the waistband of the
sweats.

His hand plowed underneath the material and
captured Clay's engorged penis, its tip already flushed and
wet.

Clay's hips bucked and his hand mimicked
Tekoa's. Locked around a shaft as hard and hot as his own and
Jesus, it felt good. Like his arm was a conduit for white-hot
ecstasy to streak from Tekoa's dick to his own.

He thrust against Tekoa's tongue, stroked
Tekoa's dick in the same rhythm as his was being stroked, the
foreskin sliding over his engorged shaft.

Oh Jesus, he wasn't going to last.

He ass clamped. His hips bucked.

He allowed himself to be pushed backward so
he was sprawled on the couch. Didn't care that he was being
positioned like a bottom when in the fantasies—the ones that didn't
involve Jess—that had been raging since he emerged from the
concussion and saw Tekoa in that loin cloth, it'd been his body
covering Tekoa's. It'd been his cock finding the tight, dark hole
and pressing inside. It'd been his hips pistoning, bringing them
both to the point where they came.

The kiss deepened and he couldn't contain
the moan or the shiver of need. Tekoa jerked the borrowed sweats to
his thighs and visions of Tekoa going down on him had Clay
struggling to keep from coming.

"Fuck," he panted and Tekoa grinned.

"We will. You have my word on that."

Tekoa's hand moved to his balls, fingertips
prodding the skin behind them, glancing over Clay's hole.

His ass might have clamped like a virgin's
but his hips jerked upward. And he shoved Tekoa's sweats down like
he was in a hurry to be fucked by a dick as thick and wet and ready
as his own.

Tekoa lay more heavily on top of him and the
press of Tekoa's cock to his nearly blew him up. Jesus. He thrust
upward. Couldn't care that he was on the bottom humping against a
cock instead of gripping it while he fucked.

He wanted it that bad. Needed it. Panted,
"I'm not going to last."

Tekoa rolled to his feet and stripped out of
his sweats. His cock jerked away from abs that didn't come from
sitting behind a desk or in the driver's seat of a patrol car.

He'd never felt such raw lust for another
man. Yeah, he'd gotten hard-ons and been attracted, but this was
different. This was intense, extreme, something that went deep, the
same as what he felt for Jessica went—except different,
rougher.

Another day, another time, maybe he and
Tekoa would slow down, use a softer touch as they explored each
other's bodies. Or maybe not. Somehow he didn't see them cuddling
unless Jess was between them, gentling them.

Clay sat, shed the borrowed sweats. He
leaned forward, wrapped his hand around Tekoa's shaft and that move
put his mouth close to Tekoa's dick, close enough he wasn't going
to say no.

He used his other hand to cup Tekoa's balls
and Tekoa's head went back on a groan. It was a sight to memorize,
the rigid muscles, Tekoa's chest rising and falling in short pants,
his fists balled like he was fighting to keep from begging to have
his dick sucked.

Do it. Beg.
The words were right
there but Clay flashed to those sublime moments when Jessica had
gone down on him, clearing the way for that first kiss between him
and Tekoa.

"Fair's fair," he murmured. Making Tekoa beg
could wait.

He slid from the couch to his knees and took
Tekoa into his mouth.

Tekoa nearly passed out from the rush of
pleasure that whipped from his cock to his brain. He gripped Clay's
hair. Thrust in an effort to drive all the way to the back of
Clay's throat.

Clay blocked the move with the tightening of
his hand, but ratcheted up the need to thrust with the squeeze of
Tekoa's balls and a stroke of fingertips across the pucker of his
ass.

A fingertip pushed inside and Tekoa's hips
jerked. He fought against closing his eyes. Fought to continue
watching as his shaft slid past Clay's lips.

He lasted one heartbeat, two—until Clay took
his cock all the way to the back of his throat and swallowed.

Ecstasy ripped and splintered through him
like a lightning strike. He came and it was a discharge of electric
energy so raw and violent it took him to his knees and then to his
back.

He ended up on the rug in front of the
fireplace with Clay's body covering his, with Clay's rigid cock
rubbing and sliding against his softened one. Clay's mouth came
down on his and he met Clay's tongue and tasted himself. He yielded
to the pressure of Clay's thighs against his own and spread his
legs.

They both moaned as their sacs touched more
intimately. "My turn to come," Clay said, his face taut, his body
slick with sweat, his breathing as rushed and rough as Tekoa's.