Influence Read online

  “I’ll go get them and we’ll come home.”

  “They belong with you and their father. If you want to come home to us you can, but not with your children.”

  “What do you mean?” Ariela faced him again and appeared devastated then. She collapsed against him and wept. “You don’t want my children?”

  “Ariela.” He brushed her hair away from her face. “I would love your children as I would love my own, but they aren’t my own and you didn’t see the Lane we saw back at the house a little while ago.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yes.” His lips twitched as he thought of the ol’ langle. He deserved to fret after what he’d done.

  “And you lived to tell about it?”

  “He lived, too,” Jagger pointed out, offended she didn’t think he could hold his own. “He loves you, Ariela. He was hurt. It’s in his nature to retaliate and the only way he knew how was through that ex of his. What’s her name?”

  “Cara,” she drawled, dragging out the c and a.

  “Well, Cara doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

  “She likes the same things Lane likes.”

  “So she likes you then, I take it?” He peered around her golden hair.

  “You’re not funny, Jagger.”

  “I’m trying to help here.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it. It’s just—”

  “It’s just what, kitten?”

  “Jagger, look at us. We’re here on our rock. Things were supposed to be simple for us. We were supposed to love one another till the end of time, have our own family, enjoy our lives, and now…everything is royal mess.”

  “It may seem that way now, but it won’t be this way forever.”

  “You don’t know,” she dragged her knees to her bare chest and locked her arms around her legs. “You didn’t see them together.”

  “Want to talk about it?” He really didn’t want to hear about it, but he would listen if it would make her feel better.

  “She was on this machine.”

  “What kind of machine?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was a wheel. Her legs and arms were tied. She had a dildo in her…her twat…and she was bound to some sort of board.”

  On second thought, maybe he might want to bend an ear. Listening would make him feel better. He repositioned his cock against her hip, hoping the damn thing didn’t start stretching without proper motivation. Ariela would view his arousal as an act of betrayal, all things considered.

  “She had this look on her face, like she’d won the man or won first prize, or—”

  “Bested you?”

  “She did, Jagger. She was in my children’s home fucking my children’s father.”

  “And you had been with us all day. What did you expect?”

  “I’m your mate! I’m his mate! He’s supposed to share!”

  Jagger stood and forced her to stand with him. “Ariela, it’s important for you to understand the way men think, because Leon and I have talked about this. We have spoiled you. We’ve pampered you. Sanchez says we’ve ruined you.”

  “Sanchez said that?”

  “Yes.” He cupped her face with his hands and took a deep breath. “What’s acceptable for some men may not be acceptable for others or their women. Lane didn’t want to share, but the fates had a different plan for you. It doesn’t mean he had to like it, doesn’t even mean he had to accept it.”

  “Why did you? Why did Sanchez and Leon?”

  Jagger looked at her then and could’ve answered her a million different ways and given her a different answer each time. Instead, he dragged her against him and brushed his hand down her hair. “I just love you, kitten.”

  “So what was this stuff about Melinda?” She pulled away.

  “I’m a man, too, Ariela, but you were right to come to the house today. I was feeling neglected, and if you hadn’t given us a little attention, who knows what any of us would’ve done.”

  Ariela pulled back and her expression then was priceless. She fluttered her eyelashes and set her lips in a grim line.

  “What?”

  “You know what, Jagger.”

  “No. I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “You wouldn’t have fucked Melinda.”

  “I don’t know,” he sang. He dragged his fingers through his hair and searched his heart. She was probably right, but he couldn’t say for sure. “It’s hard to guess at this point.”

  “You wouldn’t have fucked Melinda and Leon wouldn’t have hired a prostitute, not even for a hand job.”

  “You don’t think so?” Jagger arched his brow, amused by her faith in them and warmed all the way to his soul, too.

  “Ask me why.”

  “Why, kitten?”

  She dropped to her knees and looked up at him. Taking his cock in hand, she lowered her lips over his shaft and pulled him to her throat. “On second thought, you tell me why.”

  “Because you’re the best, baby.”

  “We’re the best, Jagger,” she whispered, using those delectable reflexes to massage the head of his cock. She slurped his dick like a good piece of rock candy and waited at the tip, teasing him. “And you believe that.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said, changing his stance and appreciating the view. There was nothing better than Red Rock Canyon, the beautiful desert surrounding them, and a sexy woman on her knees in front of him. “You are right, kitten.”

  “Hmmhmm.” She sucked at his shaft, bobbing up and down. She stopped then and nuzzled him. “Besides, Jagger, I’m your match as much as your mate.”

  He grabbed her hair and guided her over his cock, watching as her cheeks swelled with his dick. She was right about that.

  They’d always been one another’s greatest love, and it was because they were a perfect match. Even now, when her life was upside down, they’d taken to their lion forms, run into the wild, and would soon end up fucking like wild lovers in their human forms before shifting and running home. They had a good time together. They understood one another.

  And Jagger could wait. He didn’t want to wait, but he could wait.

  Eventually Ariela would find her way home.

  Chapter Eight

  “You smell like sex,” Lane said as soon as she entered the bedroom.

  “That’s because I had a sex-filled afternoon and evening. How about you?”

  “Do you want to do this now?” He lowered the book he was reading, but not before she caught the title How to Make Passion Last Forever.

  “Interesting book. Fidelity, believe it or not, tops the list.”

  “Then it would work both ways.”

  “It should work both ways, Lane. The men you seem to hate don’t have anything against you. Would you like to know why? They understand you’re my mate just as they’re my mates. Why do you have to make this so difficult?”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” He rose from the bed and went to her. “Why didn’t you just say you were going over there?”

  “Would you have let me go?”

  He stared at her blankly. “No.” He returned to bed. “That’s not the issue here.”

  Ariela went to the bathroom and closed the door. By the time she started the shower, her tears were rolling down her cheeks as quickly as the water poured from the spigot. She cupped her hand over her mouth and tried not to cry out loud. She didn’t want Lane to hear her. She didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt her.

  Nearly mechanical in her motions, she grabbed a washcloth from a nearby tile inset and rubbed soap all over the rag. She bathed, rinsed, bathed, rinsed, and made sure she smelled like the Irish springs or whatever else the soap in the dish seemingly smelled like.

  She turned her face to the water then, standing there so the drops would beat down on her cheeks and remind her of one lone fact. She had the capacity to feel. She could feel on the outside, feel on the inside.

 
; Her emotions were as real as her sensitivity to pain and pleasure. At the thought, she became aware of the eyes on her. She turned the water off and stepped out of the shower.

  Lane held the towel wide, waiting for her. She fell victim to his kindness as soon as she saw the troubled look on his face.

  Ariela went to him then, humbled by his first step in her direction. He wrapped the large cotton towel around her and held her close.

  “I forgive you. Will you forgive me?”

  “That’s just it. I shouldn’t have to apologize, Lane.” She tilted her face up. “I’m not sorry. I can’t explain how hurt I am because you betrayed me but I understand that you feel as if I betrayed you. I didn’t.”

  Lane thinned his lips, picked her up and carried her to bed. He entered her closet, opened a few drawers and returned with her lingerie and panties. “Put this on for me?”

  She smiled at the lavender gown. A sexy silk number with matching lace panties to boot, the lingerie was the kind of garment a woman could slip over her head and become transformed.

  “Put it on for me. Will you?”

  Ariela didn’t want to be transformed. She wanted to be loved, completely, just as she was and the way she was forever meant to be.

  Taking a deep breath, she relented and Lane dressed her. He tossed the panties aside. “We won’t need these.”

  “No,” she said, turning to the bed.

  Lane locked his arms around her middle and nuzzled her neck. “I love you, Ariela.” He weaved his nose through her hair. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”

  She leaned on the bed, parted her legs, and arched her back. “Show me.”

  “You still want me?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m weak where my mates are concerned. Of course I still want you.”

  His eyelids grew heavy and he peeled off his black silk pajama pants. His rod-like cock sprang forward and he went to the nightstand. Retrieving lube, he squirted some on his dick and worked his hand up and down, lathering his erection as he watched her. “You’re so damned beautiful.”

  She bent over. “Show me, Lane.”

  “I intend to.”

  Instead of coming in behind her with his cock, he dragged his fingers down the seam of her ass. Finding her hole, he lodged his fingers inside her bottom, wedging them high inside her. She wiggled her hips and he released a guttural racket. “Hmmhmm, baby. I’ve dreamed of this.”

  “Me too,” she whispered, understanding.

  He pushed her forward and went to his knees, spreading her cheeks still wider. Pushing his face between her globes, he licked her rim in a complete circle. A few moments later he blew a tight breath over her pulsing rim and whispered, “Is this what you like?”

  She shuddered at the sound of his voice, fearing she had somehow taken away his confidence. He’d watched Jagger love her this way, and now he felt he had to do the same. At the moment, she didn’t want the teasing. She didn’t want anal play or tongue play or foreplay.

  She wanted to make love to her mate.

  “Lane, I just need you,” she said, a cry falling from her lips.

  “I’m right here, baby,” he assured her, rising to his feet and wrapping his arms around her. “I’ll never let you go.”

  She believed him.

  * * * *

  He had been hell bent on giving her the oral pleasure he thought she enjoyed but instead, he’d ended up fucking her through the night. They’d fucked against the wall. She’d ridden him on top. He’d come in from behind and taken her doggie style. And now they were on their sides and he was thrusting inside her ass as fast as he could go, more turned on than he’d been the four or five times before.

  She bucked against him, hollering out his name. The animals inside him stirred and before he knew it, he’d thrown her to her stomach. He came over her like a force of nature was driving him then.

  Ariela went to all fours again, and he stood on the floor, slamming into her like a reckless man without the good sense to stop. He bottomed out quickly in her tight channel, but she kept pushing against him, begging for more and telling him to spank her.

  For one second, he stopped.

  “Spank you?”

  “Punish me, Lane,” she whispered, seemingly needing him to spank her the way he’d often spanked his subs.

  His cock danced inside her then and he threw his arm behind his back and hand-whipped her, noticing how much she liked it and gauging her response by the way she tightened around his dick, squeezing and releasing, squeezing once more. “That’s good, baby. Real good.”

  “No.” She shook her head and her blonde hair fanned wildly around her shoulder. “I want to feel punished.”

  “You’re pregnant, Ariela. I’ll hand whip you, but I’m not striking you with a belt or paddle. Not while you’re carrying my child.”

  She crawled forward then and flipped to her back. “Come here and fuck me then.” Her eyes nearly destroyed him in that moment. Her face was pure sin—sex and only sex was all she wanted then. His woman wanted it hard and raw, fast and quick.

  He knelt on the bed, spread her knees and aimed his cock at her small pulsing pucker again. As soon as he entered her, he cried out, feeling the pulse of her channel as much as the sensitive tingling sensations in his cock.

  “I won’t last like this.”

  “Then don’t last.”

  He flattened one hand on the bed for balance and moistened his fingers on his free hand. Wedging three digits inside her pussy, he slammed his cock inside her ass, pushing high inside her channel until his cock throbbed for release.

  “Lane.” Her ass clenched. Her pussy tightened around his fingers. “Oh God, Lane!” Her body undulated underneath his weight and total rapture overtook his body as he slammed against her harder and harder and harder, enjoying that good old slapping rhythm they always found together.

  An hour later, they were showered and exhausted. They fell in their bed together and he spooned her, curling his arm around her waist and pulling her against his rigid cock.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow,” he whispered, kissing her cheek. “I love you, Ariela. I love you more than I love anyone.”

  “Even more than the kids?” She apparently wanted to hear his response. She probably wouldn’t mind if he told her he loved the kids more. Surely she would understand.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Ariela.” He snuggled closer. “No one will ever be as important to me as my children. They’re langles, and langles are a superior force. You’ve mothered the next generation of the most powerful shifters on earth.”

  “So you’re saying you love them more?”

  “What is this?” He rolled over and topped her, smothering her lips with his kiss. Before their arousal gained the best of them, he backed away and whispered, “I love you. That’s what matters. I have enough love to go around.” He fell against his pillow and stared at the ceiling. “Just don’t ever ask me to choose between you and the kids. I’ll always choose them over you. That’s what good fathers do. They choose their offspring before their women. It’s the way things are. It’s the laws of the universe.”

  “According to a langle?” she asked quietly.

  “That’s right,” he said, already snoring in between syllables. “According to a langle, and langles are all that matter.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I’m going to the casino,” Ariela announced, grabbing a Styrofoam cup from the pantry and pouring a cup of coffee.

  “Mrs. Tangerly and the kids have a play date with another nanny. I’ll drive you.”

  Ariela removed a plastic lid from the drawer and said, “I’ll drive myself. I need some time alone.”

  “With Jagger?” Lane asked, draping his arm over his chair and turning to look at her.

  “Jagger and Leon are at the casino, but no, I don’t need time alone with Jagger.” She thought of his words the night before, how he
’d fallen asleep muttering how langles were all that mattered. She forced a smile. “Besides, I had time alone with Jagger last night before I came here.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you mean home, Ariela?”

  “No, Lane. I have a home. It’s about ten minutes from here. I thought you knew.”

  Lane rose to his feet. “Am I missing something here?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She removed the keys from the key tree and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you a little later.”

  Lane snatched the keys from her hand. “I’ll drive you. I don’t have anything else to do.”

  She grabbed them back. “Maybe you should call some of your langle pals and see if they can recommend some hobbies.”

  He frowned. “What’s this about? I thought we settled our differences last night.”

  “Differences?” She tilted her head and smiled at the man who could still make her heart flutter an extra beat. Defying the urge to think about his good qualities, she backed away. “I didn’t know we had any differences. I’ll return soon.”

  “Ariela.” His heated gaze followed her to the door. “I will drive you. I’d like to swing by Dr. Scotch’s office today.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you need to have an ultrasound.”

  “I’m perfectly healthy.”

  “I’d like to have Dr. Scotch check you out. I’d feel better.”

  Ariela marched back into the heart of their open kitchen. “What’s this about?”

  “Do you really want me to say it?”

  “It would help if I knew what you’re thinking, yes.”

  Lane slammed his hand against the counter. “You had wild animal sex with three mates and you want me to pretend I’m not concerned?”

  “I didn’t have wild animal sex. You fucked me harder than anyone else. If you’re concerned, then maybe you could try that slow and passionate lovemaking that once made you so appealing to me.”

  “Are you trying to insult me?”