Both men stepped behind her. All her fears jumped to the surface when she noticed she could already sense them. Not just their presence, but she could even distinguish one from the other by their smell, one distinctly more outdoorsy—Charles. The other, Reese, with a stronger hint of his particular soap, some masculine bar of something she’d rather not have ever been in the presence of since she’d never shake it from her conscience.
She could almost feel—or hear?—their heartbeats without touching them. They often beat in sync. And fuck all, if she wasn’t mistaken, the essence of their thoughts was even niggling into her head.
“You have to go.” She spoke without turning around. Hugging her arms around herself, she intended not to ward off the welcome chill of the evening air but to put up a wall that kept out unwanted intruders of the heart.
“Swear to us you won’t skip town.” Reese spoke inches from her right ear. “Promise you’ll sleep on this. Revisit it tomorrow. If we don’t have your word, we won’t leave you.”
They both stepped around her and gazed deeply into her eyes. She glanced back and forth between the blue, piercing depths of Reese’s eyes to the deep chocolate brown of Charles’. They burrowed like a mole into her soul.
Breathlessly she let a small squeaky “yes” slip her lips, followed by a nod of consent.
Charles tipped his head and gazed into her with a scrutiny unlike anything she’d ever experienced. “Jess, don’t run. We’ll give you a day to think. We’ll come by tomorrow night and talk again.”
Jess laughed, a chortle of sarcasm combined with a snort. “Talk? Like we talked tonight?”
Both men smiled, their faces softening at her quip.
“Tell you what,” Reese began, “you promise not to leave town with that packed suitcase, and we’ll promise to keep our hands off you tomorrow until you call uncle. ’K?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip to keep from smiling.
Charles touched her lip and pulled it from between her teeth. “Stop that. It drives me crazy. I can’t even think when you do that.” His words were so soft, his tone so low, she wouldn’t have heard him at all if she’d not been lupine.
Releasing the offensive lip from the grip of her teeth, Jessica backed inside, shut the door, and leaned against it to gather her wits.
Several minutes went by before she realized the error of their conversation. Tomorrow? She was supposed to go to Kara’s tomorrow for a Christmas celebration. And two very naughty wolves would be there also. Would they tell everyone? Would she survive the day?
She was fucked.
* * * *
It was nearly eight o’clock when Reese slipped in the back door behind Charles and the two of them made their way to the room Charles had occupied for most of his life. The house was big, thank God, because on numerous occasions one or more sibling had actually stayed at or lived in the house with their mates when the situation warranted.
“Jesus, guys. Where have you been?” Alyssa’s hissing voice jagged through the darkened room and wrapped around Reese like a thorny branch. He jerked in his spot as Charles soundlessly shut the door behind them.
“Shit. You scared the crap out of me.” Reese turned toward her voice and found her sitting in the dark in the window seat where she’d apparently been staring out into the night. “We—”
Without waiting for excuses, she cut him off and continued. “Your parents and your brother Michael tiptoed around me, attempting to avoid eye contact so I couldn’t see how sorry they were for the weird behavior of their asshole of a son and his friend. I finally had to proclaim exhaustion and retreat to your room to escape the looks. And then I had to sit here in the dark and do nothing but wait for you to return so they’d think I was sleeping.”
Reese flinched. He really was an ass. No doubt about that.
“You’re gone most of the day, breeze through here for like one minute this afternoon, and then don’t show again until way after dark. People are suspicious, and I feel like a heel lying to everyone. Do you want me to go?”
“No. Sorry.” Charles spoke sheepishly and crossed the room to her side. “It was … unavoidable, and unexpected.”
“Whatever.” Alyssa glanced at both men in turn.
Reese himself felt like a heel now. “We—”
She held up a hand and stopped him again. “Why did you bring me here if you were just going to dump me and run? I thought… Well, I’d hoped…” She looked down and fidgeted with her fingers.
“God, what does she expect from us?” At least now, Reese could communicate with Charles in front of Alyssa. There was a shining pot of gold.