Their Perfect Mate [Wolf Pack Mates 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  “I’m so tired of men who just want a one-night stand, or worse, plan to move in with a woman and then have her look after him just like mommy did, with the extra bonus of sex thrown in,” said Angie.

  “God yes. At last we have the opportunity to meet men who want a relationship. Men who want a permanent partner, not just a fuck buddy on call whenever their dicks stand up,” added Ruth.

  “I suppose I’ve been spoiled, living at Carnal Connections, surrounded by men who are genuine, not just out for what they can get.” Jill was thoughtful. She’d never looked at life quite like Angie and Ruth described it, but she knew what they were saying was true. The singles bars were full of men who only wanted a bit of fun, not a genuine partner. And there were entire businesses designed for people who were in relationships already, even married, but wanted a fling on the side as well. Jill shook her head. “Trust. If we can’t trust the man, there can’t be an ongoing relationship. These men have had to prove they’re serious about finding a genuine partner, which means that basis of trust is already there.”

  “Someone who will accept me for what I am. Neither human nor big cat, but a mixture,” added Bethany.

  Jill smiled at her friend. “You’re strong, Bethany. Life hasn’t always been good to you, but you’re courageous and you’ve grown and learned from it, and now you’ll find your Mr. Right.”

  “Or two or three Mr. Rights.” Angie giggled.

  “Hell yes!” Ruth replied.

  “Ladies, have you chosen the colors you want on your nails?” asked the beautician.

  “I was thinking about different colors. One color for my fingers and a different color on my toes,” said Jill.

  “Not a problem. Choose whatever you want and we’ll get started.”

  Bethany had already lifted a bottle of deep blue polish from the rack and she went and sat down at the beautician’s stand. Jill was very attracted to the bright red, but that seemed to be such a predictable choice. She didn’t really want to be so very obvious. Almost stuck in a rut. She wanted something different. New. A whole new her. She thought about her various dresses. The women at Carnal Connections had insisted she and Bethany have a new dress for each night’s party, so there were seven dresses hanging in her closet at the cabin. Well, actually there were fourteen dresses altogether. Her seven and Bethany’s seven.

  Jill stared at the bottles of nail polish. Every color of the rainbow and then some more as there was glitter in various colors to cover the color already on the nails. There must be a hundred or more bottles here. Rather like the men. A huge range of choices, but is there one—or two—just right for me?

  Jill’s hand hovered over the rack as she looked at the colors. The red still appealed to her, so she decided to go for that on her toes. But she really did need to step out a bit more from her rut. The dress she planned to wear to the ball tonight was a color she’d never worn before, but her friends had assured her it looked perfect on her and she loved it so she’d bought it. The color was a deep gold, but with the faintest hint of red just shimmering under the surface when the fabric moved. An amber nail polish looked about right to her, and it’d go with her cropped red shirt for the following day’s boot scooting party as well. It wouldn’t match, but it would complement her choices. Her decision finally made, Jill walked over to the other women sitting at the little table with the beautician.

  But this is just a symbol of the thinking I need to do. I know I need to be more adventurous with my life. I’d better talk to all sorts of different men about what life might look like for me in their pack.

  “What sort of work do you do, Angie?” she asked the woman sitting beside her.

  “I teach kindergarten. I was really lucky to be able to get this week off work, but I helped out a colleague a year or so ago when she broke her leg falling on ice in the winter, and she’s home on maternity leave right now, so her husband took this week off to mind the baby while she’s looking after my grade.”

  “That’s amazing. I’m so glad you could come,” said Bethany.

  “Yeah, me, too. I’m ready to settle down. In fact, I’ve been ready to settle down for a little while, but finding a like-minded male is way harder than I thought.”

  Jill thought about her friends at Carnal Connections. Many of them would put themselves out to help other members of the community. So that was one value she definitely wanted in her new life. Friends who would be prepared to genuinely help each other, even if it took a bit of effort to organize. Just like Angie’s friend.

  So now her list of requirements was getting longer. A man, or men, she could trust. A worthwhile job she could enjoy. And friends she could share her life with. Was she asking too much, or were these reasonable requests? After all, she’d be starting a whole new life.

  * * * *

  Keir stood at the tennis court, wondering if Jill played tennis. Right now four wolves were playing a fiercely competitive game, smashing the ball across the net at each other. Fortunately it was only a temporary tennis court, the lines having been painted on a flat area of grass, because he had the feeling if it had been a real court, the surface would have taken a beating. As it was, the conference center would likely need to replant the grass in a few places where the men had dug in their heels. Luckily, it wasn’t a golf course. He knew golfers got really upset about divots in the grass.

  But what he was really thinking about was how to entice Jill into playing a full-on BDSM scene with him and Jarrah. One which led to some fucking. He needed to devise a scene which would bind her to them, show her they’d love and cherish her, if she’d agree to mate with them.

  The problem was all the men here could offer that same promise to a woman. He needed to use their link as followers of the BDSM lifestyle to draw her closer to them, and to demonstrate to her that with them her life would be fuller, richer. Her orgasms more powerful than in a more traditional partnership.

  All the men here were worthy mates, but only a handful of them would be Doms. And Jill needed a Dom. But how could he convince her she needed him, as distinct from any other Dom. All he could do was show her some of his techniques. Which meant he’d need a few things from his toy box. First of all though, he’d have to plan a scene. A scene nicely balanced between punishment and anticipation. A scene that would cause her to want more, and specifically, more from him and Jarrah. But how could he do this? He still knew almost nothing about her and her tastes, and without a fully equipped toy box he couldn’t leave the scene to develop organically during the evening.

  Also, he didn’t want to put the toys he had brought with him in the maintenance shed and leave them there for hours until Jill agreed to visit the shed with him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the other men here, although he had to admit to a slight feeling of worry, it was more that someone else might decide to use the shed first and lock the door, then he’d have no toys as well as no neutral venue to play games in. Obviously, he could invite her back to their cabin with him and Jarrah, but she was far more likely to agree to go to a neutral venue. So, first he had to plan that scene. An arousing scene that would build a firm foundation for this relationship together.

  Keir crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels, watching the tennis players race from one side of the court to the other, listening to the dull thwack as they hit the balls, and gradually a scenario started to form in his mind. It would take quite a bit of organizing, but he thought it would work. First he’d need to take a good look at the maintenance shed again, maybe take a few measurements, and then there were some things he needed to collect.

  * * * *

  Sloan was fast becoming a bundle of nerves. So far he’d done everything he could to meet as many of the women as possible and tell them his mission. His pack was desperate for women. There were ten unmated eligible wolves and that made the pack almost unworkable. Unless some of them could mate soon the pack was going to reach a point where the men would have to leave to find mates. Actually, in some ways, if a few of them
left it might take the pressure off the rest.

  He’d known a few of the men would never pass the preregistration tests. The tests were very, very difficult. But some of the men in his pack really had no idea how to treat a woman nicely. And that worried him, in case he took a woman back to his pack. She was supposed to choose another man or men to join with them. What if it was one of the wolves who he didn’t one hundred percent trust? How could they all live happily together then? What if all nine other men pressured her to accept them all? That would be totally unworkable. He knew in some religions four women shared a man, so he was ready to accept four men sharing a woman, but any more than that really couldn’t see how it’d work, unless they each spent a night with her by turns. Which wouldn’t be a true union. It was more like separate sequential relationships rather than a united family.

  Sloan shrugged. He’d been tasked with finding the woman. That was what he had to concentrate on. He definitely hadn’t spoken to all sixty women yet, although he was doing his very best. He figured he’d talked to maybe thirty though. So he needed to get back to work.

  Sloan dressed in board shorts and sandals, and picked up a towel. Sitting in the hot tub would be a good place to start. He’d thought about going on one of the runs, but that wasn’t so suitable for talking. Sitting in the hot tub would be much better. He could draw each woman out and get to know her a little, as well as tell them about his pack’s dilemma. Their urgent need for a woman, or some women.

  He might even meet up with Jill. He liked her. She was really nice to talk to and her lush curves turned him on. Oh, yes. He just knew she’d look very special in a swimsuit, preferably a bikini.

  * * * *

  Keir seemed to be busy thinking about something this afternoon, so Jarrah hoped he was planning a BDSM scene for the two of them and Jill. Meanwhile he decided to join on one of the walking groups. Each morning there was a series of runs over different distances and starting at different times. Maybe one day he’d run, but he was way too late for that today. Each afternoon there were several walking groups. Led by a security guard, they pretty much followed the same route as the runs around the property here at Konference Kabins, but were conducted at a brisk walking pace, not a run. So they provided a chance to get some exercise yet still be able to talk to people as he did.

  Jarrah hadn’t met anyone he liked as much as Jill, and he’d danced with a hell of a lot of women last night, but he hadn’t talked to all sixty of them yet, and it’d be crazy to miss this opportunity to meet a few more women just because Jill was off at the beautician with her friends, and Keir was busy elsewhere.

  The walking group was a large one, and it soon divided itself fairly evenly into two groups, one with each security guard. The faster half gradually got farther and farther ahead of the slower group. At first, Jarrah had stayed nearer to the four women walkers, but they talked among themselves mostly, and even a couple of very persistent men who hovered close to them weren’t able to contribute much to the conversation.

  Jarrah was fine with the women wanting to spend time with their friends. There was no way he’d ever try to prevent Jill from hanging out with her friends, but he also saw no reason to walk slowly on the outer fringes of a group where he’d be unlikely to share the conversation, so he stayed with a group of half a dozen men who gradually broke away from the women and talked among themselves.

  “It’s good we’re not walking anywhere near the boundaries of the property. Even with a security guard it’d be a nightmare trying to keep so many women safe,” said one man.

  “Yeah. I heard one pack had a few bitter wolves in it when none of them passed the preregistration tests. Some of those videos, it was damn hard to work out the correct answers,” added another.

  Jarrah nodded. “I agree. I was so glad each time the button came up on the computer screen telling me I could progress to the next video. It was far more tense than any computer game I’ve ever played.”

  “This place should be safe though. No one knows we’re here. The confidentiality clause made sure of that,” said the second man.

  The first man shook his head. “Not so. Almost three hundred people are here. Someone will have left their papers laying around where someone else could see them, or have programmed the journey here into a GPS other people use or something. I’m not saying anyone deliberately sold the information, but with so many people, it’s not possible to keep a secret this big.”

  Jarrah had a sinking feeling the man was correct. He’d been absolutely rigid about telling no one the address, although his friends knew he’d gone to the mating party. A few of them had been very excited for him and Keir that they’d passed the tests. But he could see how someone might have used a pack vehicle’s GPS to plan the journey and innocently given away the address. He hoped not. He hoped there’d be no trouble. But now the question had been raised, he had to admit it was a possibility.

  The second man spoke again. “The security here is really good, though. CCTVs on the boundary, security guards everywhere. Even the ID passports and the number stamp are all good for keeping everyone safe. He waved his left hand in the air. Jarrah looked down at the big blue number stamped on the back of his own left hand. Everyone had to carry photo ID at all times and the number on their hands wouldn’t wash off. Apparently it’d gradually fade over the next month. But it meant that even if someone stole the paperwork and dressed themselves close enough to the image of the person whose paperwork they stole, they’d still need to imitate the ink and number which wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person could just look up on Google.

  “You don’t seriously think there’ll be some kind of attack though, do you? An attempt to steal away any of the women?” It was going to upset him a lot if Jill decided she liked some other man better than she liked him and Keir, and that was her own free choice. The thought of some rogue group of wolves stealing her was a whole other issue and made him feel sick to his stomach. If a group was prepared to mount an attack, that absolutely proved they weren’t the kind of pack that deserved to have any women let alone his beautiful Jill.

  “I certainly hope there isn’t an attack, but being realistic, it must be awfully tempting for a pack desperate for women. Here, all in the one place are sixty females prepared to mate with wolves. Even if they only took a handful, it’d solve their gender imbalance problems for at least twenty years,” the first man said.

  “Also, people are saying the lack of female births is a wolf thing. If they mate with non-wolf women for a few generations that imbalance might correct itself. That makes mating with a human woman even more attractive,” added the second man.

  The men started talking about specific issues to do with security but Jarrah was thinking. On the one hand it would make sense for a pack to try to steal some women. But on the other hand, the security here was exceptionally good, so surely no attack would succeed. At least, that’s what he wanted to believe. He desperately wanted to believe there would be no trouble at all, and that Jill would fall in love with him and Keir. Hell, he was almost halfway in love with her already, and he didn’t even know all that much about her. But he knew her luscious ripe body, her sparkling eyes, her bright intelligence. He knew he wanted her.

  * * * *

  Robert and Edward, brothers who were pursuing Bethany, walked them over to the party that night, and Robert danced with Jill. He was friendly and nice, but didn’t stir her libido the way Sloan did, and Keir and Jarrah did. However, she thought if Bethany liked Robert, he’d make her a fine mate.

  Tonight’s party had a live DJ, which gave it a different feel from the band the previous night and Jill was impressed with the thought and planning that had gone into the event. Even quite small details, like the women were always scanned into and out of rooms first, were a nice mannerly touch, and the fact that the women had been given the closer cabins and the men the ones farther away. Tiny details, but they set a tone of consideration and thoughtfulness which she truly apprec
iated.

  Jill had decided to see and talk to as many different men as she could this night. She did dance once with Sloan, because he was so charming and naughty. Her panties dampened the moment he placed his arm around her waist and licked her earlobe. “Oh, wow, cheeky,” she said.

  “Shall I do it again?”

  “Hell, why not.”

  His blue eyes glittered with lust. An emotion she was almost certain was reflected in her own face. He held her gaze for a long breathtaking minute, and then his tongue flicked out and inside her ear, making her entire body tingle. “If you come to my cabin tonight, we can do more things you’ll like,” he said.

  “I’m sure I would like them very much. But I think sex is a commitment I’m not ready to make yet. I am seriously considering your proposal though. I like the idea of going with you to your pack. It’s just that I’m not prepared to make a decision.”

  “I’ll be here all night. If you change your mind, I’ll make sure you don’t regret it,” he said softly, leaning his chest hard against her breasts and wiggling slightly. Once again her hormones sat up and sang and danced. Damn, the man could arouse her in a nanosecond. But she remained firm, simply saying, “Good-bye for now, Sloan.”

  Jill went and got a glass of ice water to calm herself down before dancing again. Sloan had aroused her so easily and to such heights, she was beginning to think she should say yes to him, but it was too soon. She needed to stick to her plan to dance with many men tonight and see how many others appealed to her.

  She was still sipping the ice water when two men asked her to dance. She looked from one to the other, then went with the one who’d arrived first by the smallest of margins. He spent the entire dance talking about his pack, which gave her a good overview of it, but there were no warm feelings running through her veins toward him or the picture he painted. Still, he’d been courteous and attentive, so she thanked him and moved on to dance with another man, then another.