The Gifted 1: Passions Awakening (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Logic fell silent, and the mind ceded control to the realm of the heart. There was only one answer she could give them. There had only ever been one answer for her.

  “Yes. Please, make love to me.”

  Chapter 9

  “Give over to us, Cheri.” Max kissed those words against her lips, and then his mouth and tongue traveled down her body.

  Tony slid his hands down her arms until he’d linked his fingers with hers. He nuzzled her neck, kissing and licking her just under her ear, and Cheri felt the strength leave her legs.

  “I have you.”

  Tony used the power of his grip on her hands to keep her upright. Max knelt before her and looked up. Once she met his gaze, he reached up and opened the button and zipper of her pants. He hooked his fingers into the elastic top of her panties and brought both garments down her legs to rest on top of her feet. It took him only a moment to slip those sandals off and remove her pants completely.

  She stood naked before them. Uncertainty rose up, but they knew it. They felt it. Tony squeezed her hands, and Max shook his head.

  “You’re perfect for us,” Max said.

  Cheri inhaled deeply and made a decision, one that she promised herself she would never recant.

  She chose right then and there to believe them. “Show me.”

  Max rose to his feet and placed a soft kiss on her lips. Tony stepped back, and Max scooped her into his arms.

  She’d barely noticed the room but understood it was large when he carried her into a separate bedroom and laid her on the bed. Then, being a man of his word, he began to show her how perfect she was for him by practically tearing his clothes off. Beside him, Tony did the same. Finally they came down on the bed, one on either side of her.

  “We never thought to ask you, sweetheart, and it doesn’t matter to us. We just need to know if we have to be very—”

  Cheri placed her hand over his mouth. “No, I’m not a virgin.” There were so many differences between this world and the one in which she’d been raised. There was a difference between mating and making love. Mating happened when a woman met the two men destined to be hers. It didn’t happen for every woman. Some had no desire to belong to a permanent family or to even have children. In the meantime, when women and men became adults, they sought pleasure in the physical, in whichever way they defined that.

  People learned what they liked so that when—if—they did find lifelong mates, they could please and be pleased.

  “Good. We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t hurt me.”

  There was joy and excitement and comfort in making love. And because Cheri knew what that felt like, she immediately sensed the difference in making love with these two men. They touched and kissed, stroked and licked and caressed, and everywhere their flesh met hers she felt their heat and their power. Tiny little sparkles of electricity awakened her arousal, setting her ablaze wherever they touched her.

  She felt cherished and worshipped, but she needed more. She needed to touch and kiss and lick and show them how much she wanted them, too.

  Max’s mouth covered hers, his tongue bold, insistent, and Cheri sucked on it, stroked it, as if this was all there would ever be. The fingers of her right hand combed through his hair, and she held him close, drinking him down in big, greedy gulps. He lifted his head, his glittering gaze saying so much more than words ever could. He moved down the bed slightly, circled her left areola with his tongue, then closed his lips over her nipple and began to suckle.

  Tony reached for her, his fingers on her chin turning her head toward him. She didn’t wait but opened to him, sucking his tongue into her mouth, using hers to taste him, to drink him as eagerly as she had Max.

  Their hands caressed her, learning her dips and her curves, seeking, saluting, seducing. Fingers found the flesh of her wet, swollen folds. They stroked in the dampness, and then slid into her pussy, pushing deep. In and out, one and then the other, both men finger-fucked her. Tony’s mouth on hers, Max’s lips sucking in her nipple, surrounded her in an erotic heat and heart that captivated her. Cheri shivered as, for the first time in her life, her true passion awakened within her. Desire soared to desperation, and she couldn’t help the sounds that emerged, as if finally freed from their prison within her soul.

  Wrenching her mouth from Tony’s, she mewed and panted, her hips thrusting to capture the fingers that teased her.

  “So wet.” Max’s words caressed her breast. “There’s so much more I want to do, but I have to…”

  Tony left her for a moment and then a packet landed on her stomach. Max reached for it, but she stayed his hand.

  “It’s safe. We’re safe. The magic…” She thought she might have to explain when finding even those few words had been so difficult. But then she saw the light of understanding in his eyes.

  He swept the condom off her and then covered her with his body.

  The need clawed inside her, talons of desire that ate at her patience. She wrapped herself around him, even as she felt his cock brush against her pussy. He waited only a moment, gathering a tiny bit of her body’s nectar on his cockhead.

  And then he plunged balls deep inside her.

  They moved fast and hard as passion exploded, as every color of the rainbow shimmered around them. Max’s cock fucked her with such passionate deliberation, she could only moan, and meet him thrust for thrust. Heart and mind, body and soul, their joining surpassed her imagining. Tony’s hand stroked her arm. He was a part of this, a part of them, with them on this wild ride of erotic celebration. Passion awakened and became a life force, an entity that gathered them and led them, showing them heights and sights of emotion-wrapped ecstasy.

  Feral sounds of frantic need erupted from her as she moved with Max. The sensation of his cock brushing against the walls of her tunnel, of his rough groin hair moving against her clit ignited her passion burning hot. Faster and faster they moved until everything shimmered and sparkled in orgasmic bliss. More than a climax, the cosmos moved with them, united them, with a depth of binding that was wondrous beyond knowing.

  Max’s shout of completion joined hers, and their awareness became one. Cheri reveled in the sensation of his cum filling her. For one instant in time, she felt what he felt as he came inside her, and she knew he shared her joy in being filled.

  Heaving for breath, hot, but not yet sated, Cheri whimpered when Max rolled away from her.

  And then Tony was there, between her thighs, thrusting his hot, hard cock into her, and the ride began anew.

  Now in the grip of her passion, Cheri dug her nails into Tony’s bottom, her hips raised, giving of her body and her heart, all she had.

  “Yeah, baby, just like that, fuck me just like that.” He melded his mouth to hers and thrust into her again and again, his need matching hers, drawing them all up and up. Cheri’s arousal soared, the sensation of the hard cock inside her, the friction, and the heat compelling her, driving her. Desperation drove her, with the promise of more and more and still more.

  Max beside them was with them, in this sacred bower of consciousness. The thrill of Eros was so massive that, for the moment, Cheri became prisoner of passion, and a slave to lust.

  “Your cock feels so good, Tony. Fuck me harder, deeper. I need to come again. I need... Oh, oh God!” Cheri’s body exploded in a second orgasm, one so hard, so complete, all that she was submitted to it. On and on the rapture captured her, bound her, and united her with the two men who now were a part of her, her heart, her mind, her soul.

  The sound of heaving breath and the sultry aroma of sex surrounded her. Her men—one on her and in her still, the other beside her—placed gentle kisses on whatever part of her they could reach.

  Her smile came slowly, as her awareness returned from that sacred place they all three had explored.

  “Wow.” Tony lifted his head.

  Cheri opened her eyes, not even having realized they had been closed. The images she’d experienced over the last
several minutes had seemed so real she would have sworn her eyes had been wide open. They’d been enclosed within a bower, under a tall willow whose tiny twigs had grown to the ground, encasing them in privacy. There, they were drenched in peace and joy, as arousal, a brilliant red ribbon, had woven itself around and through them. Every color of the rainbow had exploded into tiny butterflies, glittering and luminescent. And, for a heartbeat, it had been as if they’d merged into one being. It had been but the slightest taste of what might be, should they choose to mate for life.

  “Yeah. Wow.” She knew her mind would begin to work again, eventually.

  “You sure we didn’t hurt you?” Max stroked her arm. His voice, deep and gentle, soothed her. “I was uncontrollably frantic to have you. I was rough.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t hurt me. It was perfect. You were perfect. You both were.”

  “There’s more,” Tony said. “But not for now. There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “My senses tell me yes, there is, as do yours. We’ve made the first connection, the three of us.”

  Tony eased off her but stayed close. Cheri found herself cocooned between the two of them. I think this is my new favorite place.

  “That place…I sensed it was a real place, somewhere.” Tony’s hand rested on her abdomen, just below Max’s.

  Cheri smiled. She’d recognized it, of course. She really didn’t know how all this worked—she’d never made love to her mates before—but she sensed that the three of them together determined where and what they saw when they were together. “It is. A place close to where I grew up. A quite, secluded spot, under a huge willow tree. A good place for meditation and dreaming.”

  “Thank you for sharing it with us. Maybe we can go there for real, one day.” Max kissed her lips lightly.

  She liked that she was lying flat on her back, with these two men not only so close but also looking down at her so she could look up see them at the same time. Even so, it was hard to keep the twinge of sadness Max’s words had brought from showing.

  “That little frown tells me it’s time for us to talk.” Tony kissed her in the same light fashion Max had.

  Cheri sighed. “Yes, I think it’s time to talk.”

  Max got up and headed out of the bedroom while Tony got up and lifted her in his arms. Max returned and pulled down the bedding. The large bed was covered with pillows, and in short order, they all three were sitting up, with her in the middle, and chilled bottles of water in hand.

  “Now, Miss Teacher, why don’t you tell us a story?” Tony nodded as if to back up his words.

  “Can you tell us all of it?”

  “I can tell you most of it. But some, I don’t even know.” Cheri looked from one to the other of them. “I think some will be revealed to us when we’re meant to know it.”

  Max nodded. “That feels right. There are some things Tony and I think we know, and we promise, we understand that this”—he waved between the three of them—”this is happening to you as much as it is to us. You said this morning that destiny is. We both accept that now, though we don’t necessarily like it.”

  “Well, destiny is, but you still have free will. You can always say no.”

  Max sighed. “I didn’t mean to sound bitchy, sweetheart.”

  “You have a right to sound bitchy. When I found out some—again, but not all—I was bitchy, too. And I’d grown up in the homeland, where the existence of magic and destiny are, quite frankly, taken for granted.”

  “Just tell us the story, all right?”

  Cheri wondered where she would begin explaining everything to them. And then she decided the best place to start was at the beginning.

  “In the beginning of human history—when we began to walk upright and form societies—there were two kinds of humans on the earth, those with magical power and those without. Those gifted with powers were charged with a sacred duty to watch over those who were not. I don’t know why that difference existed. No one alive does. I just know that’s how it was. And then, at some point, within a few centuries of the beginning, some of the Gifted began to think that they should do more than just protect the ungifted. They began to believe that they alone should rule them.”

  “Gotta figure that would happen,” Tony said.

  “Human history is a long list of one megalomaniac after another.” Max said.

  Cheri grinned. “Agreed. So those who wanted to rule, who coveted that kind of power and the obeisance of their unpowered brethren, had a plan. They began to stir up unrest, plant suspicion of those with powers, and inciting the unpowered to revolt.”

  “Wouldn’t you file that under the heading of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’?”

  “You would, unless you were an evil genius. There were nine families at the heart of this plot. Their plan was—well, evil and genius. They knew the rest of the Gifted wouldn’t fight their ungifted brothers. So they calculated that the ungifted would kill the gifted while they themselves used their magic and hid out. They had no qualms about using their powers to kill, maim, or destroy.”

  “So when all the good guys were gone, they’d be in control. There is a kind of genius to that.”

  “Is that what happened?” Tony asked.

  “No. The Gifted made a difficult decision. A few volunteered to stay behind, to go into hiding and to guide and protect as best they could in secret. The rest knew the only way to preserve their existence was to create a new realm—I guess you could call it like another dimension—and live there. That decision and the action that followed is called the Great Separation.

  “But in doing that, in saving the gifted and ungifted alike from a war that no one could really win, there was a cost, and there was a limit. The cost was that those who stayed behind had to stay where they were, forever. They couldn’t go home again. The limit was that the day would eventually come when there would have to be a unification. The first Unification Prophecy states that, when the time is right, three women of power would come here, to this realm, in search of their mates. Those mates would be descended from the Gifted who’d stayed behind. And from the union of these three triads, there would be children born with greater power than the people had ever known, ready to act when the moment was right.” Cheri shook her head. “I know that’s vague”—she held open her hands—”but then, that’s prophesy for you.”

  “What happened then, to all those who were on this side when…was it a wall?…went up?” Max asked.

  “According to the Concilium, which is our ruling council as well as the body that writes and protects our historical record, a very very few of them, on both sides of the fence, have at their command a large amount of power. Some were blessed with excellent genetics, which allowed for truly strong power to be passed down to a few of their progeny. And some of the empowered ones who remained ensured the gift passed by remembering that, in order to ensure the birth of children with power, you needed a normal family, which, for us, is a ménage of two men and one woman. I don’t know why that’s so, only that it is.”

  “So down through the ages, the powers of most of the gifted who stayed here eroded?” Tony asked.

  “For most of the descendants, yes, that’s exactly what happened. Like I said, a few of both groups—the Chosen, descendants of those who stayed to protect and the Scorned, descendants of those who wanted to rule—have a great deal of power. But most of them in this world do not. And don’t ask me why, but the proclivity for good versus evil isn’t necessarily hereditary. For most of the descendants of both groups, according to what I’ve been told, what’s left is talent. For example, you’re both surgeons. I’ll go out on a limb here and guess you’ve both been called gifted surgeons.”

  Both Max and Tony blinked, the surprise evident on both their faces. “You’d win that bet. And there have been times when I, when we’ve each felt as if there was more to our talents, though we couldn’t put on fingers on just what.”

  “There is. Apparently, beyond a certain lev
el, there remains inside each descendant—on both sides—an ember, if you will, of power. I recognized the two of you because I could see that glimmer, and when I looked at you, there was just a sense that you were the two I was…” Cheri stopped. There was being open and then there was what some of her kids called TMI. These two men had already let it be known they didn’t like the idea of having their futures chosen for them.

  Max cupped her chin. “Finish what you were going to say, Cheri.”

  She couldn’t lie to them, even if a slight prevarication would be the wisest course of action right then. Cheri licked her lips. “When I looked at you both, I knew you were the two men who were destined to be my mates.”

  Chapter 10

  “Well, that’s certainly clear enough.” Max was having the devil’s own time keeping his emotions in their usual little box. He’d always been leery of being emotional, even before the pain Madelyn had inflected on him and his best friend.

  “I’d kick you, pal, but I don’t see how I can at the moment.”

  Tony’s words brought him back to the moment. This moment when he was lying in bed naked next to the woman he’d just made completely satisfying, very passionate love with. The woman who, at this very moment, was staring down at her hands and, by all appearances, trying not to cry because he’d put his foot in it.

  Cheri has never learned how to hide her emotions.

  Max felt two inches tall. “I really didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  “No, I think you did. And that’s all right. I have to remind myself that the concept of destiny and the reality of magic, these are things that I have never questioned because they’ve been my reality all my life. But there is something you should know. You can walk away at any time. No one is going to force you to do anything you don’t, with a whole heart, want to do.”

  “Will you tell us how you came to be a second grade teacher in New York City?” Tony’s voice sounded not only gentle but also …loving.