She didn’t want to note the regret in his eyes, concentrated only on the hint of triumph lingering in his hard features. And then her gaze dropped to his cock, still standing red and erect.
“I didn’t take my pleasure of you. This was meant as a gift.”
“It was meant to tempt me.”
“That too, but I didn’t overstep. Not that far.”
She turned her face from him. “I don’t want them to know.”
“Fine,” he bit out. A moment later, he fell like water pouring from an urn into her bath.
Wrapping the towel around her, she eased from the floor. She’d have that massage. In the nude. To hell with whether he approved or not.
When Miren left the bathroom, she left the door ajar, making Renner’s escape tricky. He waited until her steps faded before forming again to leave the tub. He really should feel shame for having tricked her, but he didn’t.
Not after she’d begged him to love her. There was no pretending to it. He’d been balls-deep. As fucking exposed as a man could be when she’d asked him. And he’d been unable to lie. Although he’d known she would be prickly when she awoke, he couldn’t regret anything that had happened.
Yes, he’d taken advantage, but he’d wanted to leave her body as sated as her mind. Give her twinges of discomfort that
would linger.
Fuck, he’d forgotten about the love bites he’d left all over her chest. And she’d been too mad to notice. He gathered his clothing, lifted the window and stepped out onto the gabled roof.
He made it back to his room, dressed quickly in the dark and then let himself out into the corridor. Her door was already closed. Voices sounded from inside, too muffled for him to know what was being said, but the mermen were definitely inside.
He pulled down the door handle, slipped inside and halted. She was nude, lying on her bed on her belly, both mermen kneeling on the mattress beside her body.
Mikkel shot him a glance over his shoulder. “She doesn’t want you here.”
“He can watch,” Miren said, her voice tight. “But we don’t have to think about him right now, do we?”
Mikkel and Elias shared sly grins, shot him a glare and then bent over their task. Elias streamed oil down her spine. Mikkel scooped it with his hands and began the massage. Elias poured more oil into one palm and then set the bottle of oil on her bedside stand. After rubbing his hands together, he framed her hips, beginning at the notches, then working downward, kneading her buttocks.
A groan from Miren, one of pure bliss, sent a shudder through Renner. And knowing he was close to violence, that he’d break his word not to interfere, he turned on his heel and left the room.
He stomped the hallway, clattered down the stairs and opened the door to the porch. Outside, he fell to his knees and shook his skin, shivering out a thick pelt of cougar’s fur, completing his transformation inside a second before leaping off the porch and into the night.
Miren heard a yowling roar in the distance and knew it was Renner. She shouldn’t feel guilty, not after he’d tricked her the way he had, but deep inside, she knew she’d hurt him by allowing the two men on her bed to touch her.
Demons were possessive sorts. Mikkel and Elias would have reacted the same way toward any other demon. Hell, they’d bristled as though they wore fur the moment she’d stepped outside the bathroom.
When their gazes had fallen to her breasts, she’d glanced down too, realizing too late that Renner had left evidence of his trickery on her skin. Hickeys for fuck sakes. Something she hadn’t had to hide since she was a teenager with Mathias kissing under the staircase at their private school.
Thinking of Mathias sent another quiver of anger through her. What was it with demons? Why did they think the sun and moon rose just for them? If Mathias had had even an ounce of empathy for her fears regarding their union, she might not of have fled Michigan with her sisters, although she would have missed them. But she’d left behind her friends and the community, left the comforts the wife of a future leader promised.
Not that she had any true regrets. Sure, she worked hard running her own small shrimping company. She ran three boats, manned by experienced human crews, and her own trawler, only because she loved keeping the connection to the water, whether she was dragging the canals for shrimp or out in the shallow waters of Barataria bay.
As angry and confused as she was, all those hands applying pressure and soothing over knotted muscles had her yawning.
“Time to roll over.”
She wasn’t sure which of the twin of the twins spoke. They were identical—in looks and voice. Without gauging their expressions, she couldn’t tell them apart. Mikkel always had a twinkle of mischief in his dark blue eyes. Elias was the more thoughtful, quiet one. He studied her when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Both mermen were extremely handsome, but she wasn’t tempted to allow them deeper intimacies. Her heart was set on Renner, and she wouldn’t betray him although he’d already broken her trust. “I think I’m ready to sleep. But thank you so much.”
A sigh sounded, hands petted, but they only provided comfort.
“You’re in love with Renner.”