Amber Eyes (Wild 2)

“Are you hurt?” Jericho demanded, ignoring Hunter’s reprimand.

Not giving her a chance to respond, Jericho laid her back and ran his big hands over her slim body. Hunter turned away from the sight of her pale flesh all but glowing underneath Jericho’s caress.

He wanted to be the one touching her, and yet he had no cause.

Kaya stared up at Jericho inquisitively. “Jericho, why are you so angry?”

Jericho’s mouth fell open. “Angry? Angry? I’m furious! Are you trying to kill yourself?”

She was honestly puzzled over why Jericho was spitting nails. Hunter watched the confusion simmer in her eyes, and his own grew. Something wasn’t right here. More than the obvious of her bizarre behavior.

“Could I…could I have some clothes?”

She stared earnestly up at both men, her arms clutched around her body to shield her nudity. Which seemed pretty damn odd when you considered that she seemed to spend her life cavorting about in the nude.

Jericho rose, his face still drawn in anger—and worry. “You stay here and make damn sure she doesn’t go anywhere,” he ordered Hunter.

Hunter’s eyebrows rose at Jericho’s tone. Jericho stalked away, and Kaya’s troubled gaze followed him.

“You can’t be surprised that we’re angry,” Hunter offered in a soft voice.

Kaya turned to him, and for a moment he was lost in the sheer beauty of her eyes. He’d looked into those eyes earlier. He sucked in his breath at how alike she and his cougar pet were.

“I did not mean to make you angry.”

“Kaya,” he began, “what were you doing out in the snow with no clothing?”

“I had no clothes,” she said simply.

Hunter shook his head in absolute confusion. He was ready to beat his skull on the floor.

“We gave you clothes when you were here, and you left them. Why?”

Her gaze dropped. “They were not mine to keep, and I did not want them to be ruined.”

“Ruined? How would they get ruined?”

She looked away, turning her face and resting it on the arms laid over her knees. Jericho stomped back into the room with the same shirt and sweats she’d worn before.

“Put these on,” Jericho directed. “Then I’ll make some hot chocolate. Are you hungry?”

She hesitated a fraction, looking first at Hunter and then Jericho. “I would like something to eat, yes.”

“Have you eaten since you left here?” Hunter asked bluntly.

“Y-yes.”

He didn’t believe her. You only had to look at how slight she was to know food wasn’t in abundance wherever she lived. He looked at Jericho in silent surrender. No matter what, she wasn’t leaving again.

Chapter Eight

Kaya stepped into the living room after a trip to the bathroom to see both men sitting. Waiting. Hunter was on the couch, and Jericho was in a chair adjacent. They’d built the fire back up, and it licked warmly at the logs that had been added.

She walked around the couch, feeling the eyes of both men on her. Hunter wasn’t reading his book. It lay to the side, page-down to mark his spot.

Without waiting for an invitation, she carefully got onto the couch next to Hunter. Drawn by his warmth, by his comforting scent, she crawled close and snuggled underneath his arm. He stiffened all over in surprise, but he didn’t push her away.

Slowly his arm lowered until it curved around her, holding her against his side. She laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“Hunter?”

“Yes, Kaya?” His chest rumbled against her ear.

“Why don’t you like me?”

He went very still beneath her. She couldn’t even feel his breath. His fingers that had been lazily making their way up and down her arm froze at her elbow.

For a moment, she thought he would lie and deny his obvious discomfort and conflict. But then his chest seemed to cave in as his breath expelled once more.

“You remind me of someone I lost,” he said simply.

She sat up so that she could look him in the eye. There was sadness there. A flash of grief. She ran her fingers through his light brown, muddy blond hair. They trailed over his temple and then traced his cheekbone ending close to his mouth. “I’m sorry. I should not have come here. I don’t wish to cause you pain.”

He caught her hand as if to pry it away, but instead he simply held it there close to his mouth. And then he kissed the tip of her index finger. Just one light brush that sent a shiver quaking over her entire body.

“You’re not causing me pain, Kaya. As Jericho has told me, it’s time to let go of the past.”

She turned to Jericho. For a moment she’d forgotten his presence. He sat a few feet away studying her and Hunter with stark interest. There was hunger in his eyes. She’d seen that look in many of her predator kin.

She turned back to Hunter and curled into his body once more. “Touch me,” she pleaded softly.

Again his breath caught and held for a moment. His fingers once again trailed down her arm. Then he took her shoulders and pulled her down until her head was pillowed in his lap.

Like a ray of heated sunshine in the spring, his palm slid up her body, over the curve of her hip and to her shoulder.

She sighed with absolute pleasure. How wonderful his touch felt. He continued to stroke her, petting her as he’d done the cougar.

She wanted to shed her clothing and feel his hand on her bare skin. Flesh on flesh, human contact. She wanted no barriers. She twisted restlessly underneath his seeking fingers until he applied firm pressure to her hip.

“What’s wrong, Kaya?” he asked.

“My skin,” she whispered. “Touch my skin. I don’t like the clothing.”

He sucked in his breath. His legs tightened underneath her, and his groin stirred to life. She did affect him. Did he feel all the wild and breathless cravings that she did?

Slowly and carefully, his hand slid underneath her shirt to the smoothness of her back. His fingers danced like fire up her ribcage to the crease where her arm rested on her side. Flat down, his palm caressed and made tight circles over her shoulder blade and then traveled down her spine.

A moan, soft and needy, floated past her lips, mixing with the popping sounds of the fire.

Jericho watched from his perch on the chair, his hands curled into fists. His pulse pounded in his ears, hot, loud like a freight train. She was his. Not Hunter’s. And yet he watched with a helpless fascination as his friend opened himself to a woman for the first time since Rebeccah.

Rebeccah who had loved them both but hadn’t trusted them to love her back.

It was a sort of torture watching Kaya arch with pleasure under Hunter’s tentative but seeking touch. Jericho wante

d to be the one touching her. Such a strange, beautiful woman. Full of mystery. Her eyes a wash of an amber sunset.

Was she as fascinated with them as they were with her?

Hunter pushed her shirt higher, revealing more of her pale skin. His hands were gentle and coaxing, almost like he was soothing a wounded animal. She quieted and settled against his lap, calmed by the caresses.

Jericho knew the moment she surrendered to sleep. She gave a delicate little shudder and all the air escaped her in one long sigh. Still Hunter continued to stroke her skin. His gaze was locked on her face, and Jericho knew he had no idea how much tenderness shone in his eyes.

“Why does she remind you of Rebeccah?” Jericho asked quietly so as not to wake Kaya. Kaya was light, a study in burnished golds and liquid amber. A lot like the aspens in fall when the trees caught fire and lit up the earth. Rebeccah was dark yet vibrant, like a storm at midnight. The two women couldn’t be more unalike.

“Because she stirs me,” Hunter said simply.

And there it was. No woman had stirred him since Rebeccah. Jericho could relate. It wasn’t that another woman didn’t have the power. They just hadn’t given one the chance. Were they giving Kaya that chance?

“What are we going to do, Hunt?”

It was a simple question, and yet a wealth of meaning lay just below the surface.

Hunter met his gaze. “You want her.”

He wasn’t going to lie. “Yeah.”

“So do I.” Apparently neither was Hunter.

He blew out his breath. “Goddamn it, Hunter. We said we weren’t going this route again.”

“I know,” Hunter said calmly.

“There’s a damn lot we don’t know about her.”

Hunter nodded. “That’s true. It would seem we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“What if she doesn’t want to stay? She was pretty adamant before.”

“And yet she came back.”

“Like your cougar pet always seems to do,” Jericho said.

“She reminds me of her. Her hair and eyes. Her seeming need for solitude.”

Jericho rolled his eyes, but he could see why Hunter had said it.

“We’re going to have to be patient. I don’t know what it is about her, Jericho, but…” He trailed off as he touched her hair.

“How long?” Jericho asked. “What are we talking about here? A fling? Sex? Something more? We take off to parts unknown for weeks at a time.”