A half hour later, we were in a field off a dirt road. Road being a generous term. I’d not been to this area before, and it was beautiful. The mountains filled the background with beauty as the field filled with wildflowers. I was impressed something so naturally beautiful could be so close to the city yet feel so far removed.

“Where are we?” I asked as Parker popped the trunk and retrieved a blanket.

“A friend’s land.” Curtis took my hand and led me to where Parker was now laying out the blanket.

“You have friends here?” Maybe they would be able to build a life here with less of a sacrifice than I assumed. Not that I’d had strong ties here, but knowing we both had positives in both places was a bonus. If my reaction to their going away for a few days before we even fully established a relationship was any indication, the long-distance thing was not for us.

“By friend, I mean another clan said it’s be cool if we came here.” Clan. Parker said clan.

How had I not known the city was filled with shifters? Or, maybe not filled, but had some. I generally was pretty decent at spotting those with oddities. I knew Gerri was off, for instance, even if I didn’t know how exactly.

Maybe it was only humans I could sense. Assuming Gerri was human, that might be it. Or maybe I just could sense gifts I knew, like premonitions and mediums because I grew up surrounded by them. Not that any of that mattered, but it was curious to be sure.

“Ah. Stanley from the insurance building.” I thought back to that day. Nope, he seemed normal. By my newest theory, that meant he could be one of them.

“That’d be the one,” Parker said over his shoulder as he trotted back to the car.

“He’s a lion?”

“No, but his mate is.” Curtis shot my theory out the window. His wife was a lion. No, he didn’t say wife. Mate.

“Mate meaning wife?” Was I going to be a mate? A wife? A girlfriend?

“Husband.”

I laughed at myself as he caught me putting myself into the situation. Because it made perfect sense to jump from a handful of dates to marriage. The things these guys did to me. “But that’d be the human equivalent.”

“So, not just some guy he shags.” My attempt at humor caught Parker’s ear as he returned with a thermos and a few mugs. I had to give it to him, the man was prepared.

“See, she gets it.” He winked at me before pointing to a coffee mug at which I smiled with a nod. Coffee was always good when you were running low on sleep. I accepted the cup greedily, taking a sip.

“Is this where you get naked?” Unlike with Barry, I was going to be watching very carefully and, if I saw all the bits, yay for me. A growl filled my ears. Holy cow, they’d both growled at me. “What is with the growling”

“You saw Barry naked.”

Crap on a cracker. That was where their brains went. How did they think I saw him change, and why on this green Earth would they believe I’d want to see the man who was like a brother to me naked? No. Just no.

“Not the eww bits.” I shook my head at them in disbelief. Here they were, sexy, handsome, successful men with all my attention, and they got caflustered because I might have seen a random set of balls.

“Eww bits?” Curtis looked legitimately confused. I took another drink of my coffee before even bothering to answer because, seriously? That needed an explanation?

“Yeah, the bits for Roxanne only.”

Parker was watching me far too intently for the topic at hand.

“They would not be ewww on you.”

And then they relaxed. Had they really thought I wasn’t into them—all of them? I needed to amp up my game. Roxanne had mentioned that Barry had been less than confident in them before she accepted him, maybe this was reminiscent of that. And goodness knew he had confidence now. Or cockiness, as Roxanne called it.

“Just checking.” Parker held out the car keys. “Here. In case you want to leave.”

“I won’t.”

“You may. We are pretty ginormous.” He looked to his package as he spoke. He did not just tell me his junk was scary huge. And then he fell to his side, a smug looking Curtis looking down at him. I guess that answered that.

“Good to know.” I winked at Curtis.

“Aren’t you feeling sassy.”

“I may have had some dreams that have me a bit worked up.” I might not have slept enough the night before, but those precious REM cycles paired with the far-too-short kisses, had me not only sassy but completely wanton.

“Were we in them?” Parker pulled himself up to a seated position, head resting in his hands as if I were about to give him a play by play, which I so was not, if only because I was dead curious to see their lions.

“Center stage.” Or center bed as it were—and shower—and couch and… Wow, I was a naughty one when I slept.

“Damn, you may be the perfect woman.”

Curtis nodded his agreement to Parker’s assessment of my worth. I didn’t correct them that it was one thing to dream about debauchery and another to be comfortable enough to attempt it.

“Get naked.”

The both smirked as they obediently complied with my demand. First, they peeled their shirts off, revealing bodies sculpted with lean muscle, Parker’s completely smooth to Curtis’s more natural look. Both of them sported tattoos. I was so going to have fun exploring them when a more opportune time arose.

As they kicked off their shoes, I focused on not drooling. The two of them standing there in just jeans was the stuff those sexy calendars were made of.

When their hands reached their flies at the same time, I knew I was being toyed with. They had choreographed their routine to some extent. The zippers made their slow decent before the jeans pooled at their feet. They were both commando. Commando, and not unhappy to see me. Before I could form words, they walked into the field, hand in hand, kicking their jeans off within the first two steps. My gaze was glued to their asses. It was official. They were trying to kill me with sexiness. There were far worse ways to go.

Their hands dropped to their sides as they took their form. None of the cracking and pain I’d read about in books and seen in crappy movies. It was a fluid, graceful motion that if I had blinked, I’d have missed.

Parker stood a bit taller than Curtis, both of them larger than any lion I’d seen in a zoo or at a circus. I put my cup down, getting to my feet before I chickened out and closed the distance between us. Up close, they were even more beautiful.

“Stunning,” was all I managed to verbalize before reaching my hand out, tentative at first, not out of fear I would be harmed but that they might not want me to treat them like a pet in that way. Each of them lowered their heads in a nod, and I petted them one after another, their fur not as soft as I’d imagined it would be.

I pointed to the blanket and wandered back, both of them padding behind me.

“Can we just lie here, like this? Together?” I asked. They both settled down, their bodies reaching beyond the scope of the blanket, and I climbed into the space they left for me and snuggled in, feeling safe and warm and suddenly sleepy. I let my eyes close and sleep take over when I heard the soft sound of their breaths slowing as well.