Desiree Holt - Caught in the Middle

Stafford tried to fit that idea in with a grown man getting into bed with him in the middle of the night.

“Packs usually sleep closer together,” Hayden observed after a little while.

“You’re in my bed, don’t push your luck, pup.”

Stafford watched the wolf warily as he thought about that. Reaching his decision, the other man pushed the blanket back and climbed on top of the covers. Moving firmly onto Stafford ’s side of the bed, he crouched over his legs.

Before Stafford could even decide what curse word best fitted the situation, the man began to morph. In seconds Stafford was looking down at a perfectly formed wolf.

Yawning to work his jaw into just the right shape, Hayden stretched and settled himself comfortably close to the only available member of his pack. Stafford looked down the bed at the other man… at the wolf… at Hayden.

He supposed it was a compromise of a sort. Humans let dogs sleep at the bottom of their bed all the time. Vampires didn’t generally get on well with animals they couldn’t eat or bite, but as he met the wolf’s eyes he saw how much the other man was trying to make him feel better about the situation.

Stafford sighed once more. “Very well then, you can stay there, but I meant what I said. You keep your paws and your tongue to yourself-especially when I’m asleep.”

The wolf… Hayden nodded.

Stafford lay back and looked up at the ceiling. “Jasmine will be fine,” he told Hayden, because the wolf and the man he’d been until a few seconds ago obviously needed to hear it.

As he closed his eyes, he repeated it to himself without so much as an excuse to hide behind. Jasmine would be fine. She had to be.

Stewart was waiting for her as Jasmine stepped through the back door of the club.

Jasmine hesitated. “Mr. Washington told me I could go away for a few days,” she said.

Stewart smiled. “I know. But my master wanted to speak to you before you go through to the front of the club. There are a couple of guys looking for you, and I think he wants to make sure you have fair warning before you run into them.”

Five minutes later, she was sitting in Mr. Washington ’s office behind the club.

“Did your time away help you gain some perspective on recent events?” Mr. Washington asked, as Stewart put a cup of tea in front of her and settled himself on the floor at Mr. Washington ’s feet.

Jasmine nodded and stared into her cup.

“You’re not in a scene now, Jasmine,” Mr. Washington corrected. “Look up and look me in the eye when you answer me.”

She met his eyes across the table and forced a weak smile. “You were right, sir. The vampires, the werewolves-they get inside your head somehow. I’ll get over it.”

“So you’re still committed to living this lifestyle, to finding a master?”

She nodded, very determinedly.

The older man was silent for a few minutes. She waited, wondering if he had another man in mind for her.

“Stafford Ingram and Hayden Griffith came to look for you,” Mr. Washington said.

She blinked at him. “They…” Jasmine could feel the colour drain out of her face.

“You’re not quite over them, then?” Mr. Washington asked.

She looked back to her tea, her hands were shaking. She wrapped them around the cup and let the heat from the tea seep into her palms.

“It’s your choice if you meet with them. It’s your choice if you leave the club with them. But, if you doubt your ability to say no to them and mean it, I would suggest you think very carefully before you agree to speak with them. They both appear quite…” he paused, searching for the right word. “Quite intent upon making some sort of arrangement with you.”

Jasmine took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as her pulse raced. “They want me to belong to them?”

“Vampires and werewolves don’t often take on human submissives,” he said. “I can’t guarantee what sort of arrangement they have in mind or how long it would last for.”

Jasmine’s mind swirled with different possibilities, some of them amazing, some of them terrifying and every single one of them worth risking if the end result was one of the only two men she’d ever really be able to think of as her master taking her on as his submissive.

She looked up. The moment their eyes met, she knew Mr. Washington saw the decision in her eyes.

“Very well,” he said and stood.

“I should go and get ready,” she said, setting her tea aside.

Mr. Washington looked her up and down. “You’ll do very well as you are now.”

“Sir?”

“I doubt either of them would be impressed by an outfit which makes it clear you came to the club tonight to meet a man that wasn’t either of them,” he told her gently. “It appears both… gentlemen seem quite possessive of you.”

Jasmine nodded. She swallowed down her nerves and followed Mr. Washington out into the main part of the club.

She saw Stafford first-standing by the bar and glowering at everyone who walked past him. He looked at his watch.

“Five minutes since the last time you checked,” she heard Hayden say. The werewolf had his back to her, but he turned suddenly, inhaling deeply.

Stafford turned to face her a second later. He strode across the room and took hold of her arm, immediately moving her away from Mr. Washington.

Hayden grinned and put his arms around her waist, pulling her in close to his body and nuzzling her neck.

“Has he hurt you?” Stafford asked her.

He wanted her to say yes, she could hear it in his voice. He wasn’t looking for a reason to launch himself at Mr. Washington right then, just an excuse.

“No, sir, he’s never hurt me. Mr. Washington has never been anything but very kind to me.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Hayden reported as he kissed her neck. “She’s not afraid of him.”

“You didn’t choose either of us,” Stafford said.

Jasmine looked down.

Hayden and Stafford both reached for her face to make her look up at the same time. She looked from one to the other. In that moment, she realised that even if Mr. Washington hadn’t taken her out of the hotel, she wouldn’t have knocked on either of their doors. Perhaps in the back of her head, she’d always known that and it was why she’d walked out of the hotel with barely a word of protest.

“I can’t choose,” she blurted out, pulling away from them both.

Each man held onto her, stopping her retreat.

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t choose between you. Everything rests on you two forming an alliance and…”

Stafford put his finger tips over her lips to stop the sudden stream of words. “We have an alliance, Jasmine, and you’re right in the middle of it. You are part of our alliance. Vampire, Human, Werewolf.”

Jasmine shook her head. “Mr. Washington was right. This is a bad idea.” This wasn’t going to work.

Hayden growled.

Jasmine looked from him to Stafford, the vampire looked equally unimpressed with the idea Mr. Washington had ever been right about anything.

“His opinions are irrelevant. You don’t belong to him. He told us he’s not your master, he’s just your trainer. He has no claim on you.”

“Trainer yes, but I still have a contract with Jasmine,” Mr. Washington corrected him.

Hayden’s growl went up a notch. Jasmine automatically reached out to him to stroke his skin and soothe his nerves.

“One week,” Mr. Washington decided.

“What?”

“You may both consider yourselves to be her master for the next week. At which time she will be brought back to this club. Jasmine will then be given a free choice, if she still wishes to belong to one or both of you, then perhaps the next scene will last a month, and so on and so forth.”