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The smile on his face as I got to my feet was what I was looking for, sort of.

Was his heart still breaking? Would he feel this was betraying Jack?

Slade's words came back to me. He was a grown man, and this was his fantasy, and he was more than capable of negotiating it without me micromanaging him.

He wasn't a child, something that became more than obvious when he stood up.

He towered over me, blotting out the moonlight with his broad shoulders as he reached out to cup my head in his hands.

When he bestowed it, his kiss was warm, prickly, and gentle.

He'd said he'd go slow, and he did. He kissed like this would be his only opportunity, like he needed to memorise every bit of me and file the details away for later.

When he pulled away, I stood dazed in the darkness, my lips throbbing, and he smiled.

He liked seeing me disorientated by his touch, and emboldened, he grabbed my hand and drew me inside.

We were just inside the door when he pressed me against the wall. Looking into my eyes—always, always checking to see if I was OK—he yanked my shirt up to bare my breasts.

"These make me wish I was a fucking poet," he said, cupping one, then both. He almost appeared to weigh them with his hands, getting a feel for their heft. "I need words I haven't got to describe them."

"Don't need you to tell me what they look like," I said, grabbing the back of his head and drawing it down. "Human men do that all too much."

"Have pity on them," he said, placing small, glancing kisses on my lips. "Mortals struggle to describe the forms of goddesses."

I pulled back and cocked an eyebrow. His dick was rigid, and though many a man had blathered bad poetry to get into a girl's pants, he had to know this was a sure thing. I told him as much. His smile in the darkness was something altogether different, rakish even.

"Allow me a little gratitude, then. You wake up every morning and see this body. You have no idea what it does to someone like me."

"Oh, I think I have some idea."

His lips dropped open slightly as I cupped his balls, feeling the tight weight there. His former claim of aching made sense. He panted as my hand slid upwards, my fingers straining to wrap around his impressive girth. Then his eyes rolled back when I moved them up and down.

"Fucking hell," he said, head hanging down. "It feels so different. Your hand is so soft, so small, like you can barely fit me."

"Um, yeah, that's about right. We're going to have to go damn slow and find some lube, otherwise you're going nowhere near me. I get Jack is obviously a pro at taking monster cock, but I've got a ways to go until I'm at his level."

His hand snapped down on my wrist. "Don't talk about Jack. I get he's masterminded all of this, inserted himself as he always does, but this is not about him. This is about me."

I covered his wrist with mine and pulled him gently off.

"There's no one else here but you. No one else I'm touching, no one else's beautiful body on display, no one else aching to come."

"If you're not yet," he said with a growl, "I'll get you there.

" He shifted in closer, a shadowy figure now looming over me.

His kisses, when they came, felt completely anonymous.

A thrill of fear ran up my spine as he grabbed my hands and placed them above my head against the wall, holding them there with one hand while his other slid between my legs.

"Is it going to feel like silk, sliding into you? Because that's what you feel like now."

I didn't get a chance to answer, as a loud thumping on the front door made the two of us spring apart. I was surprised when Hawk pushed me behind him, hiding me from whatever threat he'd detected. That was admittedly sweet. Striding over and unlocking it was less so.

The intruder barrelled in, a flurry of blond hair. For a moment, my heart leapt, thinking it was Shaun. Then I saw the stranger shove Hawk up against the wall, stumbling over the crap left lying on the floor, but the other man had him.

"I can't do this," he hissed at Hawk. "I fucking can't. I've been lying in our bed, tossing and turning. Fuck, I buried my face in your pillow like some lovestruck moron, trying to trick myself you were still there with me."

Jack—I'd worked it out now—kissed the other man, hard and long, looking almost as if he was trying to climb inside the other man's mouth.

"Hawk, you've gotta come home. I can't... Please."

Hawk's hand, when he raised it to stroke Jack's hair back from his face, was shaking. I felt like some kind of unwelcome voyeur, standing half-naked in my lounge room and watching the emotions spill across their faces.

"Please..." Jack's voice was less a desperate plea and now a dark, seductive sound, tempting as much as it begged.

His long fingers spidered down Hawk's chest, moving lower and lower until he circled the other man's hard length. I saw the difference then—I was positively timid compared to Jack. He jacked Hawk’s cock with a rough, swift efficiency.

Hawk widened his stance to keep from being pulled over or due to the pressure building, I wasn't sure.

"Spreading your legs for me?" he asked in a low growl. "Turn around, I've got what you need."

"Julie," Hawk rasped, his breath catching in his chest.

“What?” Jack jerked away from his lover as if stung, then looked over his shoulder, finally noticing me. "Well, well," he said, taking a step towards me. "What do we have here?"

In the day time, Jack was all golden skin and hair, an errant sun god come down to earth to work on strengthening the fence line, but the darkness suited him better. All the radiance was muted, and a much more sullen energy was allowed to shine. "You watching the show, sweetheart?"

"Up until you thumped on my door, I was part of the show," I said, crossing my arms across my chest. "There's obviously something complicated happening here, something I never wanted to get in the middle of.

You approached me, several times from memory.

You made him your token, left him here with me.

What did you think we'd do? Sit around, playing cards? "

"So that's you I tasted on him?" His grin was a slice of brilliance in the gloom. He licked his lips slowly. "Mmm...sweet."

"What is your fucking story, Jack? I'm tired, was about to go to bed with the lover you left here, to do what people do when they’re naked. One minute, you act like I'm trying to horn between you, and then you want to spend the rest of the day licking every inch of me. Am I enemy? Or prey?"

"You think I fucking know? You've got the lot of us panting after you, desperate for the merest look.

That changes shit up. Friendships, relationships are all up for grabs.

Blokes left their mates for you when you changed.

They didn't want to, but their instincts smashed through everything they'd built.

Things might have gotten a bit stale, humdrum, but what long term relationship doesn't? They tried to go home to their wife and kids, and found the doors locked against them. "

"This isn't about married guys," I said. "Though I'm sorry for any hurt I caused. I never wanted to split anyone else."

"No, that's just it with you," he said, stalking closer. "You don't want to hurt anyone, but you do. Shaun only stopped drinking when he passed out." I flinched at that. "Didn't say anything, but I could see it. You ripped his heart out without even trying. Imagine what you could do if you did?"

"And you're worried about Hawk. Whether I'm going to hurt him, or tear your relationship apart."

He laughed at that, but there was no joy in it.

"If only that was it. I love him enough to be able to fight like the devil to keep him, I'm smart enough to outwit a small-town girl, but that's not it.

No." He shook his head, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

"I'm lying in bed, just after we've fucked, my dick like granite, when Beloved there is drifting off to sleep, aching for you, just like all the others.

No matter how hard he tries to drain me—and I'll thank you for the crazy monkey sex of late—part of me wants your hot little cunt fluttering around my cock as I wring every fucking orgasm I can from you. "

I took in a sharp breath, realising only now that I'd been holding it, my oxygen-starved lungs breathing deeply.

"It's just biology, just hard-wired instinct trying to force the strongest of us to fight to be by your side and sire your kids, but that's not what it feels like. You broke my friend's heart with no more thought than squashing a bug."

"It wasn't like that!"

"Wasn't it? Why didn't you give him an opportunity to stand beside you with your other lovers? Why didn't you give him a chance to offer you his grandmother's necklace?"

"Because he is not pack."

My words were not my own, the low rumble, the whip of authority something I've never been able to wield.

"And there it is," he said, poking his finger into my shoulder.

A snarl was on my lips before I even thought about it, my hand whipping out and grabbing his wrist, then yanking him to me.

He might be taller, but I felt his arms tremble as he tried to break free but couldn't. "You, me, we're all at the mercy of some kind of beast, who rides roughshod over everything we build.

There's no point to creating anything, building anything.

" The muscles in his jaw flexed as he looked over his shoulder at Hawk.

"You're afraid, Jack, son of Kelly." My voice echoed throughout the room—not my voice, but my beast’s.

"You fight what you are, tie yourself and those who love you in knots, trying to avoid what you are.

This is as inevitable as the stars. Waste your energy resisting, it'll only make your surrender all the sweeter. "