18
GOLDIE
Robert is a cuddler. He’s also a man who respects a woman’s boundaries. We were in bed together for the entire night, and he didn’t once try anything sexual.
I was waiting to see if he would, half expecting him to and half not. It’s not clear-cut why. Maybe he’s a gentleman and didn’t want to overwhelm me after his confession. Or maybe he only likes sex one way, and it doesn’t appeal to him without the cuffs and whips and clamps. I don’t feel comfortable asking, though. At least, not yet.
I wake when Robert stirs. It’s so strange to look across the pillow and see his face. He looks good in the morning, sexy in a rumpled and scruffy way that makes me want to lick him. His arms and chest are bare, and the warmth of his skin travels even though I’m not quite close enough to touch him. To be honest, he’s a furnace. Maybe it’s his bear genes .
He came to bed in black cotton shorts, which hugged just about everything he’s got going on—a gorgeous ass and that big cock that he wields so confidently. Hell. There’s no rational explanation as to why I’ve woken so horny. Maybe it’s because I’m nearing mid-cycle, and I’m probably about to ovulate.
Ugh. Will they detect that from the way I smell?
“You ready for breakfast?” he asks, smiling.
My stomach grumbles in response to his question, and Robert chuckles.
“Better get onto it.”
He kisses my forehead and springs out of bed, full of the kind of energy that I never seem to muster. Our conversation from last night comes back to me, our confessions seeming too intimate in the cold light of day.
“Come down,” he says as he’s about to leave the room. “As much as I’d love to bring you breakfast in bed, my brothers will be pissed. I can’t keep you to myself forever!”
“Can I freshen up?” I ask, stroking my crazy curls and imagining how messy I must look.
“Sure.”
I head into the bathroom as Robert practically bounds downstairs. In the mirror, I seem to look different. There’s a gleam to my skin that wasn’t there yesterday, and my hair is perfectly bouncy. Even my eyes seem brighter. Is this what good sex does? Good sex and sleeping pressed up against a bear-man’s chest. Where do I sign up for it daily?
I clean my teeth and splash my face with water. I don’t want to put my overalls back on, but venturing down the grand staircase in just this sleep shirt doesn’t seem decent. I find Robert’s robe hanging on the back of the door and slide my arms into its warmth. It’s huge, drowning me in soft fabric which smells of him. I roll up the sleeves, so my hands are visible and sinch in the waist with the tie. I can’t resist sniffing it again, with last night’s conversation still fresh in my mind. Scent sure is a powerful thing and Robert’s flips switches that are as confusing as they are arousing. His scent sends heat through my body, but it also makes me feel safe. It settles my disquiet and slows my heartrate which should be totally out of control but beats calmly.
I take a few deep breaths, considering what I’m going to walk into downstairs: breakfast with three men who are also bears, two of which are virtual strangers, but believe that I’m their fated mate. I chuckle nervously. That sounds strange even in my head.
How am I accepting this as reality? How am I not freaking out? Crazy as it all is, I somehow feel a sense of ease, one that's unexplainable to me.
I saw it with my own eyes. It was real. But Robert, for all the crazy confessions, feels like a long-lost friend. I shake my head, confusion making me dizzy, then steel myself for what’s coming next.
I drift down the stairs, gazing at the oil paintings I passed yesterday, noticing the family resemblances as I go. There are paintings of bears, too, which yesterday I thought were just pictures of the natural world, but today I’m wondering if they’re family members.
This is too crazy for me to comprehend, but I know what I saw, and it’s amazing.
A man who can turn into a bear at will is a marvel—a terrifying and beautiful marvel.
Conversation travels from the kitchen, but I don’t linger to overhear. What if they have enhanced hearing and can sense me?
The conversation stops dead when I enter.
Robert is at the stove, stirring a big pot. Evan and Hunter sit at the large wooden table, drinking coffee. Roasted, bitter beans, cream, and cinnamon scent the air.
“Morning.” My voice sounds squeakier than I’d choose, but I’m in such unfamiliar territory that my nerves are vibrating.
“Morning.” Evan grins broadly and winks.
“Morning.” Hunter speaks in a lower, growly tone than his brothers, and his eyes seem to burn with something fiercer, too. Is it because he’s the eldest of the triplets that he finds it harder to be normal around me? It was only when he saw me that the golden-eyed thing happened. I hadn’t had the same effect on Robert and Evan before that.
“Breakfast is almost ready,” Robert says. “Take a seat. Evan will get you some coffee.”
“Cream and one sugar, please” I say as Evan stands to pour me some from the pot on the counter.
“Aren’t you sweet enough?”
Robert winks at me, suggesting I am. He seems lighter today, a weight lifted from his shoulders. Is it his brothers’ presence? Or maybe it’s coming clean about who and what they are? Maybe it’s the sex or the cuddling that has given him the gleam in his eyes and the smile that’s playing on his lips. I like his happiness.
I shrug.
“Robert?” Evan points the mug at his brother. “You’d know.”
“You shouldn’t kiss and tell,” I say.
“He shouldn’t have kissed in the first place,” Hunter grumbles. He moodily thumps his empty coffee cup on the table.
“A lot of it was my fault,” I say. “Too much temptation.”
Hunter shakes his head. “Robert is man enough to know better.”
“If he did, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, would I?”
“And we’re happy you are,” Evan says lightly. “Really happy.”
“Hunter doesn’t seem happy,” I say, shrugging. “In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Hunter seems pretty angry and miserable about everything.”
“Hunter’s ecstatic.” Evan squeezes his brother’s tight shoulder as he passes me the large yellow mug. The squeeze is hard and seems more cautionary than affectionate.
“Hunter would be even more ecstatic if he wasn’t being forced to have breakfast like we’re metrosexual hipsters. Pop will turn in his grave.”
“You don’t eat breakfast?” I ask, confused.
“We eat breakfast every day,” Robert says, giving Hunter a warning look.
“We shouldn’t be eating breakfast with Goldie, though. At least not before we’ve made her ours.”
“Hunter,” Evan warns.
“Ignore my brother.” Robert turns off the stove.
“This is where you’ve ended up by ignoring me.” Hunter waves around the room. “You think that centuries of our family have survived by having breakfast dates? No. We meet our mate, and we claim her. That’s the way it’s always been. ”
“Claim?”
“It’s okay, Goldie,” Evan says. “Hunter’s a traditionalist. He wants to live like our forefathers with no regard that we’re living in the twenty-first century and the world has moved on.”
“The outside world has moved on, Evan. But in this house and in our clan, things should stay as they’ve always been.”
“I won’t take a woman to my bed unless she wants to be there,” Evan says exasperatedly. “That might be your thing, but it isn’t mine.”
“You think Goldie wouldn’t want to be there? She practically threw herself at Robert.”
“But not at us. There are three of us, and we don’t get a hall pass just because our brother has.”
Hunter thumps the table with his fist, and the mugs rattle. “I’m a bear. I don’t need a fucking hall pass. I see my mate, I take my mate, and I claim her. That’s how it is. Why am I being forced to sit here and make small talk over porridge? I don’t fucking understand.”
Hunter’s eyes flash gold, and I push my chair away from the table. His gaze is wild and feral.
Is he going to turn into a bear now? Facing Robert’s changing arm was frightening enough. Coming so close to Hunter in his bear form would be terrifying.
Is he going to take me upstairs and force me to have sex with him? Is that what claiming is?
“It’s okay,” Robert says. He stands next to my chair and puts his hand on my shoulder. “No one’s claiming anything around here. Do you understand me?”
“No one made you the fucking boss,” Hunter growls. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this. It’s my birthright. ”
“We’ve all been waiting a long time,” Evan says. “But that doesn’t mean we need to rush. Goldie deserves some time to get to know us, some time to adapt and accept. She has a choice.”
“NO,” Hunter growls, his eyes flashing like lightning. “She doesn’t have a choice. From the moment she was born on the bear moon, she was ours. Why are you pretending any differently?”
“Because you’re scaring the living daylights out of her,” Evan says. “Look.”
Hunter fixes his eyes on me, running them over my face and down to my hands, gripping the chair back. My knuckles are white, and my heart is beating hard enough to feel in my throat. Hunter’s expression doesn’t change, though. There’s no softening of his eyes or relaxation of his features. There’s no empathy for how I’m feeling at all.
“She has to accept that this is her destiny,” he says. “There’s no choice in this for any of us. I wish it were different, but it isn’t, and it can’t be. You’re just lying to her and setting up false expectations.”
I glance at Evan and Robert, searching for their reactions. Guilt is clear as day on their faces.
No choice.
Hunter has said it, and Robert and Evan have shown that they believe it to be true. They can pretend to take the softly-softly approach, but they agree it’s going to end the way Hunter says.
Born on a bear moon. I’ve never heard of it, but apparently, it’s going to have a fundamental impact on the rest of my life.
I’m not used to having no choice. I’ve lived my whole life on my terms. My parents wanted me to join the family business, but I followed my passion to set up my own. My father wanted me to marry his business partner’s son, whom I’d known all my life, but I moved out so that I could choose my own partner. I’ve battled hard to be my own person, and now these men are telling me it was all in vain.
Fuck that.
“Let me tell you something,” I say, pointing a finger at Hunter. “No one around here is claiming shit from me. What I’ve got to give is given on my own terms. Do you understand me?”
Hunter leans forward and is about to retaliate when Evan stands, his chair spinning backward noisily over the tiled floor. “Hunter. At this rate, you’re going to make Goldie hate you. Is that what you want?”
Hunter makes a grumbling sound in his throat, but he doesn’t reply. I guess Evan hit a nerve, and Hunter’s considering what it might be like to be the only brother who’s excluded.
That’s if he doesn’t decide to use his strength and determination to bend me to his will. I feel sick for getting turned on at the thought. My mind is telling me no, but my body has always had other ideas when it comes to dominant men.
Hunter’s huge hands rest on the table, and I imagine what it would be like to be held around the throat by one hand while he uses those big fingers to push inside me. He could claim me, and I’d be powerless to resist. The rush of warmth between my legs is shameful. Normal women don’t get off on the idea of being forced to have sex. Normal women are looking for men like Robert and Evan, who care about how we feel while still being as manly as fuck. Normal women aren’t looking for an alpha douchebag Tarzan wannabe to throw them over their shoulders and carry them off into the jungle.
I'm not a normal woman.
“Breakfast is getting cold,” Robert hisses. “Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut while I get the bowls?”
Hunter grunts and Evan grabs the back of his chair and pulls it. When we’re all seated at the table again, I take a deep breath and let it out of my nose slowly. Hunter’s chest is rising and falling faster than it should. He’s seriously riled up about all this. A vein on his temple throbs. It’s not just about some pathetic macho attitude. It’s physically affecting him to sit opposite me right now.
I have never had this effect on anyone before. I mean, I’ve been told I’m pretty. My hair is cute, and my nose is small and buttonish. My eyes are a delicate shade of forget-me-not blue, and my body is curvy. Maybe a little too plump for some, but I’m happy with my soft femininity. I like the contrast between my womanly body and Robert’s hard plains. But this is different.
This is a raw need.
This is animal and carnal.
This is everything I should run from, but I’m drawn to it instead.
These men want to share me. They believe I’m their destiny.
They want to claim me as their mate, and they have a room upstairs that can make my wildest fantasies come true.
I wonder why I’m not jumping at the chance when I summarize it like that.
Robert serves out the porridge and hands me a bowl first. Cream and maple syrup sit in the center of the table, and I add both. When I try the first spoonful, I’m in heaven. Porridge has never tasted this good. I look around the table at these three huge, rugged men wolfing down their creamy oats, and I want to laugh. They’re bears. Shouldn’t they be eating enormous plates of sausages, bacon, and eggs? Or even steak?
Either they read a lot of fairytales when they were kids, or fairytales are real. The prospect of the latter is more than a little terrifying.
“I want to go to my store and see what has happened for myself.”
Hunter clears his throat. “We’ll go down there today and check it out for you. It’s too dangerous for you to go.”
“I’m not a fragile flower,” I say. “It’s my business. I need to call the insurance company. It’ll take money to get the place up and running again.”
“Robert and I will go down there today. We’ll take pictures and ensure it’s secured as much as possible. Then, if you need to go home, Evan can take you to retrieve some things. But you need to come back here.” Hunter’s tone is firm enough to discourage any argument. In a way, I’m grateful that I won’t have to deal with this all by myself. Witnessing the fire damage and ruin would be heartbreaking for me.
If they’re happy to deal with it, I’m happy to let them.