Dominating Their Mate [Wolf Pack Mates 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3

  “Which is why we’re meeting tonight. If we’re to claim her and share her, we need to have clear ground rules in place from the very beginning.”

  Zircon stared back at Malachi and the other man nodded.

  “We do everything as a team. We can’t be individuals in competition with each other. We have to be united in our joint pursuit of her. If we’re divided another man or men will find it easy to try to fracture our relationship and woo her out from under our noses.”

  “Plus it suits you just fine to use me as a place holder for your own claim when you can’t be there,” said Malachi.

  “That’s true. But I will also fight for your right to share her against all other claimants as well.”

  “I guess that’s reasonable. So how do you want to do this?” asked Malachi.

  “Yes, well, it’s a bit tricky. Since the craft markets are every weekend, I was thinking we might need to take her on a date next Tuesday or Wednesday. Take her into town to the art gallery or the museum for the afternoon, then out to dinner. Or even for the entire day, eating lunch there as well. It’d all depend on how early she wants to leave in the morning and how much there is to see when we get there.”

  “I haven’t been to either the art gallery or the museum in years but it should be easy enough to find out what special exhibitions are happening right now. Why don’t you Google and see?” suggested Malachi. Malachi walked around the table and looked over his shoulder as Zircon found the art gallery website and started clicking through it.

  “There’s a special exhibition of the romantic artist J.M.W. Turner. I suppose that’d be romantic. A romantic artist. There’s an exhibition on the interconnectedness of ecological systems and sustainability. Oh, now, this is good. American street photography from the first decade of the twentieth century up to the 1970s. Now that I’d like to see.”

  “‘Photographers’ pictures of bill boards, advertising signs and highways, demonstrating improved plate sensitivity to low light conditions, and shorter exposure times,’ well, if you think so. I guess the pictures will be interesting and I don’t have to read the explanations if I don’t want to,” said Malachi.

  “I was just thinking about the pictures. I reckon they’d be fascinating. Anyway it’ll be up to Ginnie. This outing will be all about her. We’ll look at whatever she wants to look at.”

  “And if we don’t like the artwork we look at her. She’s always worth looking at.”

  “Exactly.”

  Malachi sat down again and picked up his beer. “What about the sex? I’m a switch.”

  Zircon was glad he hadn’t just taken another mouthful of beer otherwise likely he’d be coughing up a lung about now from shock. Carefully he put down the bottle, dragged in a deep breath, and said, “Right. I wasn’t expecting that, but thank you for telling me upfront. I’m a Dom and we’ll plan to deal with it. Are you mostly a Dom, or mostly a sub? Or do you change from scene to scene? Or even within a scene?”

  Oh, fates, he hoped Malachi didn’t change within a scene. That would be incredibly difficult to plan around.

  “Generally, I am one for a while, then gradually it stops fulfilling me and I need to change to the other. That satisfies me for a while, then once again it ceases to, and I need to change.”

  “And what are you now?”

  “I don’t know. I won’t know until I see Ginnie naked and discover whether I want to punish her, or be punished with her.”

  Shit. Talk about not real helpful. “Okay. I used to enjoy role playing. What say we sit down now and plan a nice little role playing scene of doctor, nurse and patient. You can be the patient and we’ll plan our scene two ways for whether the patient, you, is a second Dom or a second sub. But Ginnie might not agree to come home with us. Hell, she mightn’t even kiss us on a first date.”

  “Will it be safe to bring her here so quickly? What if she sees a wolf?”

  “I’ve got that covered. The first thing the doctor is going to do is strip the nurse naked and blindfold and kidnap her.” Zircon grinned. There was no way Ginnie wasn’t going to experience at least some loving on the first date even if it was just his hands on her bare skin.

  * * * *

  Ginnie was surprised when Bianca Phillips contacted the three women and asked for a meeting. “I want to hire a table at your craft market. Just like you let out space for the coffee van and the popcorn, only I work with paper craft and want to hire a table inside. I won’t compete with you for customers in any way. So can I come and meet with you and show you my work?”

  Ginnie lifted her pierced eyebrow at Eve and Taige, wanting their response before she answered. Taige nodded and Eve shrugged. Well, the woman sure had balls, and it wouldn’t hurt to look at her craft to see if she was any good. “No worries come on out and we’ll talk. No promises, mind you. The three of us make all our decisions jointly.”

  “Actually, I’m in your parking lot right now. Is now a good time or should I make an appointment?”

  Ginnie laughed. Yes, she had balls all right. “Now is fine. Come around to the back door and I’ll open it for you.”

  Ginnie clicked off the call and looked around the apartment where the three of them were still sitting. “Should I bring her in here? There isn’t really anywhere else to take her.” The foyer was cluttered with the picnic tables and benches which they stored there from week to week, not wanting to leave them outside to get dirty. Even though they were piled one on top of the other, there wasn’t much space left in the foyer.

  “I’ll clear the table. We’ll sit there,” said Taige.

  “I’ll make some coffee. You go let her in,” added Eve.

  By the time Ginnie opened the back door a woman with a pale, freckled face and long red hair was standing there, a wheeled suitcase at her side. “Hi, Ginnie. I’m Bianca.”

  “You were at the craft market on Sunday.”

  “That’s right. I wanted to see if your work was any good. And it is. It’s really, really good.”

  “I’m glad you like it. Come on in.”

  Ginnie led the way back to the apartment, where Eve was setting an extra chair up to the little table they used for meals, and as a desk.

  Bianca sat down, opened her suitcase, and pulled out a handful of large Ziploc bags. Each one had a different kind of invitation card in it—engagement, wedding, birthday, baby shower, retirement—and they were all quite different and very attractive. The next handful of bags held place cards, holiday cards, thank yous and more. The final Ziploc bags, these ones puffed up full of air so the crafts inside were unlikely to be squashed, held origami pieces. Butterflies, frogs, swans, tiny delicate pink fairies, and more.

  Bianca might have had a rather assertive attitude to self-promotion, but there was no denying her work was very good.

  “Why us? Why did you come here to us?” asked Eve.

  “I’m selling my work to friends, people in the neighborhood, and so on, and I have a website which I advertise on craft sites, but for word of mouth to be successful people have to know I’m there, and not enough do, as yet. For the past month I’ve been visiting neighborhood craft shows. Frankly, ladies, at least half of the stuff there is trash. I could do better than that when I was still in elementary school. They’re not the kind of people I want to be associated with. My work is good and I’m not going to give it away. I want discerning customers, people who appreciate the hours and hours of work I put into creating every single item. When I saw your work I knew this was where I wanted to promote my craft.”

  “You know we all bought into this building? We’re partners?” asked Eve.

  “Yes. What I want to do is hire a table to display my work. I saw how busy the market room was on Sunday. I understand there’s no room for me as well in there. I’d be happy with a table in the hallway or in the foyer. As long as it was where most people would pass by me. I’d rather not be outside because when winter gets here no one is going to want to stand there and look at my stuff even if I pu
t up a tent to keep the rain off.”

  “Let’s take a look in the hallway,” said Taige.

  During craft markets all the other doors were kept locked. Taige used some semiprecious beads and gold and silver wire, which she didn’t want to disappear, no matter how innocently, and Eve hated the thought of dirty finger prints on her yarn or hangings. But from time to time they did take customers into the work room and the shipping room to show them other completed projects. Therefore Bianca’s table couldn’t completely block off the hallway because sooner or later one of them might need to get past. However she could have it against the wall, with her own chair and a sign facing down the hallway to make sure people noticed her. That’d work, thought Ginnie.

  Apparently Taige thought the same thing. “Here. A long table against this wall, with a much smaller table facing down the hallway so you can speak to people as they go in and out of the market room, and catch their gaze,” said Taige, waving her arms energetically.

  Eve talked prices with Bianca, settling for an upfront fee for each weekend and a percentage of the profits, the same as with the food vendors. Ginnie was happy to leave that in Eve’s hands. She was by far the most business minded of the three of them.

  They also made the same arrangement for length of time as for the food vendors. Three months trial. If either side wasn’t happy at the end of the trial, they’d part company with no recriminations. But Ginnie rather thought she’d enjoy having Bianca around. Who couldn’t like a woman who was dedicated to making a success of her craft?

  Ginnie was just locking the back door behind Bianca and thinking about the work she needed to be doing this day when her cell phone rang.

  “Hi, Ginnie. It’s Zircon.

  “And Malachi. On speakerphone.”

  “Hi guys.”

  “There’s a photography exhibition on at the art gallery we thought you might like.”

  “How about we take you there tomorrow? We can have lunch at the gallery as well. Make a whole day of it.”

  Ginnie leaned against the wall. A date. A date with two men. Just like Taige and Eve. What was it about this place that had the men chasing women in pairs? Well, they both seemed like nice people. And what woman would say no to two handsome men taking her out.

  “Okay. What time?”

  “How about we pick you up at nine.” That was Zircon again.

  “Thank you. I’d like that. I’ll be ready.”

  She clicked off her phone but her nipples weren’t listening. They were hard little points pressing against the soft cotton of her T-shirt. Two men taking her out on a date. Two hot hard bodies escorting her all day. Now that she could get used to. And two other hot hard things. She could get used to the idea of them, too. Hell yes!

  * * * *

  “It’s been years since I’ve been to the art gallery. I guess part of it is the digital revolution. I can look up almost anything I want to see on a computer these days,” said Malachi as they wandered down a long hallway, stopping every now and then to look at a painting on display.

  “On the other hand, it’s only when you see them in a setting like this you get a true idea of the sheer size of some of these pictures. Rather like some statues. Those people were nine, ten feet tall,” added Zircon.

  “I guess it’s a bit like movies and DVDs. Everyone likes the convenience of sitting at home in their pajamas watching a DVD. But it’s also good to go out to a movie and get the surround sound and sheer emotional impact of seeing a movie on a big screen,” added Ginnie.

  Malachi nodded. He was really enjoying this time with Ginnie. There was no shortage of conversation and her remarks were intelligent, but also witty. They were all learning more about each other as people, their interests and tastes, what appealed to them and what didn’t. If anyone’d told him he’d choose a mate who was a creative artist he’d never have believed it, but now that he’d met Ginnie, the artist, he knew it was a good thing for him, taking him out of his boring, narrow world, and filling his life with color and new experiences.

  From the top of her razor-short hair to the soles of her booted feet, there was nothing about Ginnie he didn’t like. He could only hope she liked something about him.

  For a person whose days were spent in front of an easel, she was also surprisingly fit. They’d started walking the moment they’d stepped out of the car in the parking lot, and they hadn’t sat down yet. They’d been up and down a million long hallways, around and around the edges of rooms viewing paintings, then backward and forward across the middle of those rooms looking in glass cases at more displays. They’d stood in front of the photographic displays for the best part of an hour, moving very slowly from picture to picture, and then they’d climbed staircase after staircase, looking at displays from the top floor of the museum all the way to the basement.

  Malachi was ready to suggest they go into the restaurant and eat, but he didn’t want to spoil Ginnie’s fun. This was supposed to be all about her after all. But he was hungry and it was well past the hour he usually ate. Besides, his feet were seriously getting tired.

  Fortunately just then Zircon spoke. “It’s almost two and the restaurant stops serving lunch at two thirty so we need to go and order now.”

  “Two o’clock? Really? Wow, thank you both for this. It’s been fun.”

  “We can come straight back after lunch.”

  Malachi found it hard to believe there was an inch of the building they hadn’t already seen, but he pulled his map out of the back pocket of his jeans. “We can check the map over lunch and mark any displays we still want to see.”

  “What floor is the restaurant on? In fact, what floor is this?” asked Ginnie.

  Malachi used his map to find the most direct route from the small display hall they were in, back to the main part of the building and the first-floor restaurant. Once they were sitting at a table and had ordered he took out a pen and laid the map on the table. The three of them bent over the map, talking about the various rooms and displays.

  “We haven’t been very logical about the way we’ve looked in the various rooms. We’ve gone backward and forward along these halls here, and never been to this one here,” Zircon said, pointing and marking one room.

  “We haven’t been here, yet, either,” added Ginnie, pointing to another section of the building. “Or are you both tired of looking at art?”

  “I’m happy to do whatever you want to do. Today is all about you,” said Malachi. He meant it, too. He and Zircon were doing their best to ensure Ginnie saw what interested her and went where she wanted to. A couple of times Zircon had dropped behind them and checked his e-mails on his cell phone, but it appeared he hadn’t had any major problems, because each time he’d been back with them very quickly. Malachi was pleased. He didn’t mind caring for Ginnie. He wanted to care for her. But he also didn’t want to seem to be not sharing. If they were to become a triad, it would only work if both he and Zircon were scrupulously fair, and he intended to fulfill his side of the bargain.

  Malachi pointed to the sign that said fair-trade coffee was available. “Shall I get us all some coffee?”

  Ginnie nodded, chewing her lasagna and salad vigorously, before swallowing. “Yes please.”

  Malachi walked along the counter and stared at a brochure listing upcoming displays by local artists. He picked up the brochure and took it and the coffees back to their table.

  “Have you ever thought about having your own display here?” He placed the brochure in front of her.

  Ginnie shook her head. “I’m not good enough.”

  “Says who?” Zircon looked quite fierce.

  “My art professor. I was never top of the class.”

  “And are you saying you haven’t gotten any better since you left art school?” Malachi wanted to challenge her to think before she answered. In his mind she was incredibly talented. Which wasn’t to say other people weren’t that talented as well, just that she ranked right up there with the best as far as he could se
e.

  Ginnie picked up the brochure and looked at the paintings in it. Malachi thought one of them was very good, but the other two were quite ordinary. But what did he know. He wasn’t an artist.

  However, it seemed Zircon agreed with him. “You have at least three paintings better than that one,” he said, pointing to one of the ones Malachi hadn’t thought was anything special.

  “Perhaps it just doesn’t photograph well,” said Ginnie.

  “So make good and sure any paintings you submit for a private exhibition do photograph well,” said Malachi.

  “You really think I should…”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll think about it.” But she tucked the brochure inside her purse, so Malachi knew she would indeed think about it. Hell, if the art gallery said no, they said no. After all there might be a huge fee to pay or something. But asking would be free and Ginnie’s work was good enough it deserved a much bigger audience than it had already.

  They stood up, threw their cups in the trash, and headed back to the stairs to locate the two areas they’d seen yet. Damn his feet were tired. He’d love Ginnie to massage them for him tonight.

  Malachi put a hand on Zircon’s arm and said very softly, “Sub. Foot massage.”

  Zircon nodded.

  Malachi speeded up to walk beside Ginnie again. Oh yes. He wanted to be a joint sub with Ginnie. He wanted to pleasure her under Zircon’s direction, and their naughty doctor-nurse-patient scenario would be the perfect beginning to their relationship.

  If she agreed, of course.

  Dammit. She has to agree. She can’t possibly refuse. Can she?

  Chapter Three

  Zircon was nervous for the first time in years. He was desperate for Ginnie to say yes to his request to spend the night with them, but he didn’t want her to feel pressured. All her decisions had to be totally of her free will. But this wasn’t just about sex. It was ménage sex and BDSM sex, which took it several levels above an ordinary let’s-get-to-know-each-other-better fuck. Still, he’d never have a better opportunity to ask her, and even if she said no, likely she’d let them kiss her good-bye or something. Which wasn’t what they wanted, but at least it’d be a start. And likely next time they’d do better. If there was a next time. Which brought him right back to needing to get it right now, this time.