My stomach quivered and I began to shiver.
Tayte took my hand. “Let’s just lie down and we’ll hold you, sweetheart. Don’t worry, no one’s going to seduce you today.”
I looked around the group and expected angry glares.
Instead, Sam smiled and Dane stared at me with nothing but hope.
That made me want to try. For them.
“I… don’t mind. Like I said, I’d never reject you. If you really want me.”
Tayte chuckled. “Come to bed, sweetheart, and explain all this to us.”
The men kept their jeans on but climbed into the bed.
I stared at them, blinded by the huge muscles and clear, perfect skin.
“You guys are so… perfect.”
Tayte chuckled and Sam grinned. “What do you mean?”
“Come here, beautiful,” Dane invited me.
He was by far the smallest, and yet his belly was like slices of granite. Perfectly square and hard.
I went to him and lay on the bed next to Dane.
They moved around me like a warm cloud, enveloping me.
I lay on Dane and the other two kept their hands on me.
My heart raced and I tried to settle it down by breathing deeply.
I waited for them to make their moves. To have sex with me.
But they didn’t.
They just stroked me, held me, sighed beneath me.
I let myself relax, the tension in my muscles releasing into the room and floating away.
“Tell us where this fear of acceptance and everything is coming from, Celeste. Tell us your story.”
So, I did.
I told them about me thinking I belonged in the den, only to discover I was a human they’d found in the woods, years ago.
That no one wanted me, even the lowest of all the bear shifters. Of all my years of servitude and struggle.
How I’d gone to the pub that night to drown my sorrows and I’d found Tayte.
“And Tayte actually wanted me.”
He laughed from his back where he lay beside me, his leg thrown over mine. “Of course, I did. You were, and still are, beautiful, sweet, and as lonely as I was.”
I lifted my head so I could look down at Dane.
“How come you guys thought I wouldn’t want you?”