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By Root 4133 0

His face rose over my shoulder, long hair spilling to one side of his face in a thick mass that was so sleep-tousled I couldn’t tell if it was waves or curls, only that it was a dark rich brown, darker than the first man’s, almost brunette. His face was too triangular, almost too delicate, crossing that line into androgyny, the nose perky, a little less than perfect, his mouth wide, bottom lip thick and pouting. It was a sensual face. But it was the eyes that made the face, or ruined it. My first thought was that his eyes were yellow. But there was a thick ring of gray green around the pupil; the overall effect was a deep golden yellow-green set in a tanned face. They weren’t human eyes, and don’t ask me how I knew, but they weren’t wolf eyes either.

I scrambled out from between them. My left arm protested the use, but it didn’t hurt enough to outweigh my embarrassment. It wasn’t a graceful exit, but at least I was standing at the foot of the bed staring down at the two men instead of sandwiched between them. Screw graceful, I wanted some clothes.

“Don’t be afraid, Anita. We don’t mean you any harm,” the second man said.

I was trying to keep an eye on them and still search the dimly lit room for clothes. I didn’t see any. The only cloth in the room seemed to be the sheet, and they were lying on that. I had a horrible urge to cover myself, but two hands weren’t going to get the job done, and standing there with my hands cupped over my groin seemed somehow more embarrassing than just standing there. I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my hands. My left arm ached in a line from my shoulder nearly to my wrist, a tracery of pink, flat scars down my flesh. “Who are you?” My voice came out a little breathy.

“I’m Micah Callahan.” His voice was calm, ordinary, as he lay on his side completely naked. No one does comfortable nudity like a shapeshifter. His shoulders were narrow, everything about him slender, almost feminine. But muscles showed under his skin even at rest, lean muscle, not bulk. You knew at a glance he was strong, but if he were wearing clothes, you might not see it. There were other things you wouldn’t see if he had his clothes on. And although the rest of him was slender, small, graceful in a way that women are graceful, parts of him were definitely not small, not slender. It seemed incongruous with the rest of him. As if mother nature had tried to make up for the feminine appearance by overcompensating in other areas. Noticing just how overcompensated he was brought heat in a rush up my face, and I glanced away, tried to both keep an eye on them in case they got off the bed and not look at them at the same time. It’s hard to look and not to look, but I managed.

“This is Caleb,” he said.

Caleb rolled onto his back and stretched like a big cat, making sure that, if I hadn’t noticed already, he was naked, too. I had noticed. What looked like a tiny silver dumbbell pierced his belly button. That I hadn’t seen. “We already introduced ourselves,” Caleb said, that one innocent sentence sounding anything but innocent. Something in the tone he used, an inflection, while he rolled around on his back and waved himself at me, made the words obscene. I was willing to bet I wasn’t going to like Caleb.

“Great, nice to meet you both.” I still couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. “What are you doing here?”

“Sleeping with you,” Caleb said.

The blush that had been almost gone flamed back to life. He laughed. Micah didn’t. Point for him.

In fact, Micah sat up, bending a knee to cover himself, which earned him even more points. Caleb stayed on his back, flaunting himself. “There’s a robe in the corner there,” Micah said.

I glanced back where he was looking, and sure enough there was a robe. It was my robe, a deep, rich burgundy, with satin edgings, very masculine, like a long Victorian smoking jacket. When I lifted it up, there was a weight in one deep pocket. I had to fight the urge to turn my back to slip the robe on. They’d already seen the whole show. It wasn’t like I could express my modesty now. When I