Chapter Twenty-One

I was exhausted, after everything that had happened. Too tired to protest any further about wearing their clothes and also recognized that it was pointless to do so. I could not ride the elevator down to our floor in the nude. It was bad enough that I must look like I was coated in syrup but with a far less pleasant smell.

Grim gathered me close, but I recoiled. "You're already going to have to throw your shirt away. You don't want to get this on the rest of your clothes."

He grunted and held firm. He spoke less than the others but often managed to say at least as much.

When the elevator doors slid open, we all stepped out into the hallway, and I turned toward my room, but they herded me in the other direction. "This way, Minx." Theron opened their door and they all ushered me inside. "We need to debrief you after this evening."

"Debrief? Is this a spy novel?"

Bodhi chuckled. "Sometimes he makes it seem like one, but mostly we just wanted to talk about what happened. Unless you don't want to?"

"I don't want to offend you with the stench and my appearance." The goo was pretty well dried on me, but it did not improve the smell. "I could go shower and come back later?"

"Maybe stay here and get cleaned up?" Theron put in. "Then you can go back to your room in one of our shirts and not get the stuff all over your room. Also, Stevie is going to have a bit of a hard time with the fact that you've managed to do what she cannot. If you show up nice and clean and fresh from the shower in our clothes, she'll never even think to ask."

"Because she'll assume we've been doing other things."

"Hey, if her mind goes there…" Bodhi winked. "Or maybe she'll be right."

I stared at him. Was he serious? He wasn't laughing now.

"She is tired," Grim said. "There is no hurry."

They showed me to their bathroom which, like their room, was the same general size and shape as ours. Of course the bath products were a whole different set of scents, but I sure didn't mind that at all. I stood under the showerhead and let the water wash away the gooey coating from my body. How had I never heard about this being a thing on a first shift?

Must be one of those facts you learned in a pack or growing up with parents who thought you might actually grow up into your heritage. As I shampooed my hair and washed myself clean, I tried to send my anger toward Mom and Dad swirling down the drain with the lather. I never doubted they loved me, and did their best, but with what I knew now…had it been enough?

They'd also given up on me. That was what made me go grrr.

I turned off the water and grabbed for one of the big, fluffy towels—where did they get these anyway? The ones in our room were highway-motel quality. A T-shirt big enough to be a nightgown lay folded on the counter. One of the guys had come in while I showered, at least long enough to leave it for me before withdrawing. What if they'd asked to come in with me?

Would I have minded?

The astonishing answer was no. And, having been revived by the water, I was ready to take my mates in hand and in places they'd probably really be happier to find themselves. The T-shirt was halfway on when I pulled it back over my head and tossed it in the sink. Not folded as it had been left for me but not on the floor either. I studied my image in the large mirror and, while I was no supermodel, I was healthy and not ugly.

And if I was a true shifter, as tonight seemed to have proven, then there was only one thing to do. Shifters knew their mates. In the novels I'd read, it was an instantaneous thing, and they often went right to making love.

By that rule, we were late. I gave my face in the mirror a nod and turned to the door and my destiny. The word made me giggle, and that's what I was doing when I joined the guys in the bedroom.

"We left you a shirt," Grim blurted.

"I know, but I didn't want to wear it." I pranced into the middle of the room and pivoted. "Don't I look okay?"

"You look perfect," Theron said, "if you are planning to seduce us."

"Little old me seduce three big wolf males?" I batted my eyelashes at them, flirting but not sure I was doing it right. "Would that work?"

He gathered me in his arms and kissed me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other guys stripping out of their clothes, and they handed me from one to another for kisses and caresses and the most affectionate yet extremely hot touching I had never imagined.

I'd kissed a boy or two in high school, just those quick things that happen at dances or such gatherings, but I'd never wanted to take that further. In this case, as Theron laid me on the bed and lifted an eyebrow in question, I pulled him into me. It might be going to hurt, especially if the size of him offered any other indication, but when he pressed into my willing body, Grim and Bodhi were kissing me and stroking and caressing. If it did sting like in the books, I never felt it. Each of them made love to me, and none of them rushed. I felt like I was rising and falling on a sea of sensation, absorbing how each of them felt when they were inside me. Theron was firm and rhythmic, Bodhi quicker and more playful, and Grim? Well, nobody had to tell me he was touching my soul because I knew he was.

Each took me right to the top and then held me there before allowing me to tumble down the face of the wave in orgasmic pleasure. I groaned and sighed and reached out to touch any part of them I could reach until suddenly I did feel pain. Three sets of teeth sank into my neck at once, and I found the darkness I'd visited when I shifted.