Morgan's Mates (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read online

  Morgan’s Mates

  Morgan Richards’s boyfriend Nathan McLaughlin is a shape-shifter. This has sometimes caused problems in her relationship, but things take a turn for the worse when he contracts a rare shifter illness. He has shifted into his wolf and can’t change back into a man.

  That’s when Hunter Cole and Drake Sinclair, two lusty shifter cowboys, enter Morgan’s life determined to take the place of her lost boyfriend.

  Morgan is frustrated with struggling on her own and desperate for a change, so she reluctantly enters a relationship with both men. The sparks begin to fly between them, and what started out as a temporary relationship of convenience turns into burning sex and then passionate love for all three.

  Though Nathan gave her permission to take a man into her bed while he was away, what will happen when he returns to find two shifters living in his home and loving his woman?

  Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifters

  Length: 59,792 words

  MORGAN’S MATES

  Dani April

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  MORGAN’S MATES

  Copyright © 2013 by Dani April

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-192-3

  First E-book Publication: January 2013

  Cover design by Christine Kirchoff

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Morgan’s Mates by Dani April from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

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  This is Dani April’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. April’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  MORGAN’S MATES

  DANI APRIL

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  Life was good for Nathan McLaughlin and his girlfriend Morgan Richards.

  They’d worked hard to make things right in their lives. Now things were starting to pay off.

  Nathan held Morgan’s hand as they walked across the fairgrounds. They had been to the rodeo that night, and it was a nice diversion from the normal routine.

  An early spring had arrived in Wolf Creek, Wyoming. It was still March, and technically still winter, but the temperature was unseasonably warm, meaning the crowds at the rodeo only had to wear light jackets.

  Nathan felt Morgan’s body at his side and knew he had all he needed to keep him happy that night and for all the nights to come.

  The smell of the livestock in the rodeo pens wafted intensely past their nostrils. This was the aroma of the earth and the land both Nathan and Morgan loved and had worked so hard to return to.

  One of the bulls gave a loud grunt as they passed its pen. Morgan laughed and gave Nathan a smile that could have melted the glaciers. It made him feel joy inside whenever he knew he had succeeded in making his lady smile and laugh. It told him he had done something right, that he was succeeding in life, and his hope for a future with this incredible woman soared.

  “You should let me take you out at night more often.” He let go of her hand and put his arm around her back to help ward off any chill she might feel.

  “It’s all right. You’ve got to work.” Morgan snuggled up against him as they walked toward his truck. “Anyway, in a small town like Wolf Creek, there isn’t always a lot of nightlife.”

  “Which is exactly why I love it here.” He leaned down and gave Morgan a quick kiss on her lips. “We always find a way to make our own night life anyway.”

  They walked a little more in silence. Nathan enjoyed the heat of her body next to his contrasting with the cool night air blowing down from the mountains in the distance.

  “Are you going to shift tonight?” Morgan asked.

  “I don’t know. I might.” Nathan could detect the lack of enthusiasm in her voice.

  “Come back to the house with me, and I’ll make it worth your while not to shift tonight.”

  Nathan wanted to shift. He wanted to shift into the form of a wolf every night and go running out deep in the forest and in the mountains. He was a shape-shifter. Everyone in his family had always been shape-shifters. The town of Wolf Creek was known for its population of shape-shifters, and Nathan was proud of his heritage.

  Morgan was not a shape-shifter. This had come between them and caused problems more than once over the course of their three-year relationship. However, they had been able to slowly reach a comfortable truce where Morgan could live with his ability, and Nathan had learned to give of himself and his time the way she thought he should. It was a give-and-take situation, but Nathan reasoned that was how all strong relationships developed.

  For all the problems it had caused them, their differences were what made them who they were, and at the moment they were doing pretty well, all things considered.

  “Are you trying to seduce me tonight?” Nathan asked her.

  “No. You’re going to seduce me,” she told him confidently. “I’m going to fuck you.”

  Nathan held her tighter against his body and ran a hand down the back of her jeans. He could hardly wait to get her home and into that marvelous king-sized bed he had bought them last summer.

  “I’m just thinking how I should proceed with your seduction,” Nathan said as he blew a kiss into her ear.

  But she looked up at him with a worried look. “Thin
k I keep you from shifting too much?”

  “No,” he whispered back. “I think we’ve learned to develop a happy medium. However, I do think I should fuck you more.”

  “I’m not going to say no to that.”

  “I wouldn’t let you if you tried. Us shifter men can be very demanding of our females.”

  Morgan gave an irreverent laugh. “Oh, I have learned that much over the years.”

  Nathan regarded her beautiful body under her denim jacket in the dim light of the parking lot for a moment.

  “What?” she asked him with the cutest girlish expression on her face.

  “Oh, I was just thinking of all the things I want to do with you when I get you into bed tonight,” Nathan told her mischievously.

  Morgan gave him a half-annoyed, half-loving slap against his chest.

  They were approaching his truck across the gravel of the parking lot. Nathan reached into the pocket of his jeans for the keys.

  “Fuck!” he cursed into the empty night around them.

  “What is it, baby?” Morgan asked him.

  “I don’t have my keys.” Nathan was angry and wanted to hit himself over the head for being foolish. “I left them back at the concession stand. I was playing with that key chain you got me on my birthday last year, and I set them down when I bought our beer.”

  Morgan gave him a soothing touch to his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’m sure they’ll still be there. Go on back and get them, and I’ll wait for you here.”

  Nathan leaned down and gave her a kiss. “How can you put up with my absentmindedness?”

  “Maybe because you’re a great lay,” she told him and then slapped him on the butt. “Now go back and get them before some Good Samaritan turns them into lost and found.”

  “Sure you don’t want to come with me?”

  “I’ll wait for you here.”

  “Behave yourself while I’m gone,” Nathan told her and gave her a return swat on her butt and ran back across the parking lot to the concession stand on the other side of the rodeo.

  * * * *

  Morgan watched Nathan run back across the parking lot.

  He is a pretty good man, she thought. They’d had their problems, and there was a time when she thought being the lover of a shape-shifter was just too hard. But he had that cute butt, a kind heart, and a brilliant mind that earned them a comfortable living with his software business.

  She often mused over the fact that he told her shape-shifters normally did not get married. But if they had, she thought she probably would have married him. Someday perhaps the two of them would tie the knot, but in the meantime, living together out here in the mountains was a pretty good compromise.

  A cold wind from the snow-covered mountains blew against her body, and Morgan shivered. It was still winter, the temperature was dropping from its daytime moderation, and Wyoming could be cold at this time of the year. She hoped Nathan would hurry back to her as he had promised, because she wanted to get naked and under the covers with him back in their home. Nathan would always keep her warm on even the coldest winter night.

  “Hey, baby,” a strange cowboy greeted her as he stepped out of the shadows. “You need someone to keep you warm tonight?”

  Morgan took a step back against the truck.

  “Don’t frighten the lady, Hunter.” Another cowboy stepped out from the opposite side. There were two of them. They were approaching her.

  “I’m waiting for my boyfriend, guys,” Morgan informed them.

  This didn’t deter either one of them. The one named Hunter stepped up to her and took a strand of her hair between his fingers. He sniffed it and gave her a crooked smile.

  “You smell nice, baby.”

  “Listen, guys, don’t start any trouble,” Morgan told them and tried to calm her racing heart. “My boyfriend will be back any minute.”

  “Hey, Drake, I think I frightened her,” the big cowboy named Hunter called over his shoulder to his friend.

  “Your boyfriend shouldn’t have left you alone out here,” the one named Drake cautioned her. “It isn’t safe around these here parts for a pretty lady to be left unattended by her man. Anything could happen.”

  “That’s right,” Hunter agreed with him. “Kind of gives cowboys like us ideas.”

  Morgan remembered the warnings Nathan had given her about Wolf Creek when they had first moved out here. The shifter population of females was very small in comparison to the males. The men protected their womenfolk, because if they didn’t, there was always a shifter cowboy around to claim a woman on her own.

  “Are you guys shifters?” Morgan asked them. She wanted to keep them talking until Nathan got back.

  Her question seemed to give them pause for a second. “You know what we are?” the one named Drake asked her.

  “My boyfriend is a shifter,” Morgan explained. Hunter was still handling her hair. It made her feel damned uncomfortable. The look of unrestrained lust in his eyes made her feel like she was about to explode inside.

  “Your boyfriend’s a lucky man,” Drake told her. She watched as his eyes roamed her body.

  Hunter rested a hand on her shoulder. “Does your boyfriend ever share?” he asked her. He was up so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin.

  Morgan didn’t know how to respond. They were young, overly sexed shifter cowboys. Wolf Creek had a lot of them, and she didn’t think they meant any real harm. They were just playing a little too rough.

  Suddenly Hunter was pulled off her. A punch to his face sent him sprawling down to the gravel of the parking lot. Nathan stood over him, his fists balled and a look of pure anger on his face.

  Drake made a move to try and protect his friend. Nathan was too fast for him. A punch to his gut sent Drake down to the ground next to Hunter.

  Nathan was at her side, his arm around her protectively. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.” Morgan put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, Nathan. There was no harm done.”

  “You two goddamn assholes get out of here unless you want some more from me!” Nathan shouted at them. Morgan knew he was seeing red now and in no mood to be reasonable. Over the years she had come to realize he could be quite a jealous, even overprotective boyfriend.

  Hunter got up and came forward. Morgan thought he was going to try and keep things going. But Drake put a restraining hand on him, and cooler heads prevailed before a full-fledged fight erupted in the parking lot.

  “I apologize,” Drake told Nathan. “We didn’t mean to pick on your woman.”

  “Get out of here!” Nathan ordered them.

  Again Drake had to hold back the hotheaded Hunter. “Come on, man,” he told him. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “But she’s worth it,” Hunter said to his friend.

  “I know, but she’s already taken.” Drake pulled the younger cowboy away with him, and the two disappeared into the night.

  “You sure they didn’t hurt you?” Nathan asked Morgan, bending to check her over for possible injury.

  Morgan put her arms around him. It felt good to have him back with her.

  “You always told me Wolf Creek could be dangerous for women.”

  “It is,” Nathan assured her. “Come on. Let’s get you back home, baby.”

  He took the keys he had gone to retrieve out of his pocket and got the door to the truck open for her.

  Morgan was glad to climb inside with him. She was happy for the warmth of the truck and grateful for the protection of her man.

  Chapter Two

  That night set off a chain of events for Nathan, although the sickness had been growing in his body for some time. Up to the fight with the two shifters in the parking lot, he had tried to ignore his condition. Foolishly, he had thought it would go away on its own.

  He never wanted Morgan to find out. For months he had thought he could beat this thing. Now he suddenly wasn’t so sure.

  He
fucked Morgan hard and long into the night, his cock deep inside her pussy until the wet fold of her pussy squeezed his dick and they both came. When it was over, she pushed away from him under the covers of their bed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he lied. They were both out of breath and sweaty from the hard sex, his heavy weight still on top of her, his body held up over her by his arms. She crawled out from under him and to her side of the bed.

  “You’ve never been like that before.”

  “But you got off, didn’t you?”

  “I did, but that’s not the point.” She ran a hand over her face and curled up into a little ball, her back to him. “You were so rough with me tonight you scared me.”

  He flipped over onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry.”

  “Is it what happened tonight with those two men?” she asked him.

  “I didn’t like them touching you,” Nathan admitted. “I could have killed them.”

  They lay in silence for a few minutes. This was the middle of the night and the quietest time. It should have been the most peaceful.

  Nathan knew he didn’t have any more to say because he didn’t trust himself. He was too angry, and he didn’t want to let lose any of that anger on her.

  Finally he felt her body relax under the covers next to him. She relented from her upset mood, turned over, and moved closer to him. Nathan still didn’t look at her. He only watched the ceiling overhead. He felt embarrassed. He had showed too much emotion.

  “At least you could hold me after fucking me like that, you bastard,” Morgan told him, cuddling up next to him beneath the blanket and nudging his arm.