I wondered about Jack as I followed my own directions. He seemed awfully glad to have his lover back in his arms. Everything between me and him was centred around Hawk, and he wasn’t asking me for one-on-one time. Should I initiate that as pack leader? See where things were with us when Hawk wasn’t in the picture? I made a mental note to myself to do that at some time that didn’t feel tacked on to what had just happened with Hawk. I watched the two of them kiss, feeling that bloody painful throb in my loins as I did. Working out where we all stood should be done sooner rather than later.
I stepped outside, leaving the guys to sort themselves out, and smelled the delicious scent of roasting meat. I might not know what was cooking, but it smelled great.
“Jules.”
My head whipped around to see Slade weaving his way between the tents. The boys were correct—we were close, and the walls of the tents were thin. Everyone would hear us getting up to mischief tonight. I wasn’t sure how I was going to meet the eyes of Aaron’s men tomorrow morning, which was perhaps why he had me simmering away right now, ready to discard some inhibitions as the need grew.
“Hey,” Slade said, drawing my attention back to him. His nostrils flared when he scented me, his eyes widening slightly, and then he drew me in closer. “Look, about before…”
“Before?” It took me a bit to remember the conversation by the cache. God, that felt like it had happened days not hours ago. That expansive feeling of contentment we’d experienced together pushed out little infractions like hard words. “Oh, you mean at the cache?”
“Yeah, look, love—”
“Jules, you coming?” Aaron stood a little distance away, holding out his hand. “The guys have cooked up a storm, and it looks like it's ready.”
“Um…”
Slade watched me glance from him to Aaron and smiled. “It’s OK, it's his night tonight. Have a feed and a good night. We’ll talk later.”
“Thanks,” I said, bouncing up and kissing him on the cheek.
His arms closed around me automatically, holding me still for a second before letting me go.
“Smells bloody delicious,” Slade said, following the two of us to the campfire.
“There’s certainly something that’s making my mouth water,” Aaron said, his hand squeezing mine.
“So, where’s the beer at? Been a day since I’ve had one, and I mean to remedy that.”
Aaron directed Slade to where the drinks were sitting in a tub full of cool water. They probably needn’t have bothered, the wind was starting to pick up, making me shiver.
“I think I need to go grab a jumper,” I said, turning to return to the tent, but Aaron grabbed me and spun me around.
“I’ll keep you warm, mate,” he said in a low rumble. He drew me closer, sheltering me from the breeze with his body, and wrapped his arms around me, then dropped his m
outh down on mine.
Aaron kissed slowly, thoroughly, patiently nipping and sucking at my lips until they parted, then slid his tongue in. He chuckled when he finally pulled away while I just stood there, dazed but certainly not feeling cold anymore.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered.
Everyone was seated around the campfire, the sun having already set. Most were grabbing food or drinks, but I sat between Brandon and Aaron, centre stage. Some of the guys raised their beers to us and shouted some kind of congratulations, but that wasn’t where my focus was. Instead, it was on two points of my body—one at my nape, where Brandon’s fingers drew circles on my skin, and the other where Aaron’s hand rested on my thigh.
There was something possessive, slightly coercive about Brandon’s caress. Like his fingers were moving lazily right now, but could grip the back of my neck at any point if I decided to make a break for it.
Brandon glanced at me for a second, an eyebrow raised, and then slipped a finger under the collar of my shirt. He held my gaze as it slid slowly south. Not towards anything, not even close to anything significant, yet somehow that small caress had a weight to it. As he continued to stare, his eyes told me long, explicit, filthy stories about what he’d like to be doing to me right now, would do to me right now, in front of everyone to my shame. But it wasn’t just shame, was it? That would make it a horrible thing. Rather it was the war between the pleasure I knew he could pull from my body, the low burning need for it, and the social inhibitions that made me feel like stripping off and riding his face in front of company would be a bad idea.
As if in counterpoint to this subtle caress, there was Aaron. I sat with my back against a tree trunk that had been dragged over to the fire, my knees bent, and his hand resting on my inner thigh. Not the sweet, ‘I’m here and I love you’ touch on your knee thing. Nope, I watched him take a plate and balance it on his lap, eating very competently with one hand as the other snuck up, up, up, until he was just about able to high five my vagina.
Both of them managed to occupy all of my attention, as my own plate was sitting uneaten on the grass. I wanted Brandon to stop fucking around and reach out and touch me where I ached. I wished I’d been able to wear a dress or a skirt so Aaron’s fingers could graze the elastic at the leg opening, tease the fabric from my skin, and slip under. I watched Aaron fork food into his mouth and wanted to knock it away, put my pussy where the plate was, and watch him eat that from a whole other angle.
“I need to…” I couldn’t get the words out, they clogged, choked in my throat.
“We know what you need,” Brandon said, glancing out at the crowd, looking for all the world like we were having a conversation about the weather.
“Why? Why is it so intense? Is this another heat?” I asked.
Brandon grinned when he removed his hand, and it felt like a cool breeze washed over me, removing some of the cloud of lust. I blinked, then said, “It’s you. Both of you.”