Something Wicked This Way Comes: Vol 1
The process of shifting took less than a minute. And yet, for Grace, watching his painful transformation was akin to watching a car crash in slow motion.
His eyes grew large and glowed like red fire. His face expanded, twisted. He snarled as his face elongated with a snout, his hands fisting at the pain. Even above the noise of the shrieking alarm she could hear the snap of his bones as his arms and hands extended, became legs and clawed feet.
A massive tail formed from his tailbone as huge, paper-thin wings pushed through his skin then folded like pleats down his side. His skin changed texture and pulsed with a chameleonic rainbow of colors before his mottled scales settled into pitch black, like the darkening night outside.
The
entrance door blasted off its hinges and skidded across the floor. Grace
turned as five members of her team—the best operatives in the business—stalked
through the door in standard formation, their faces fully masked.
Oh, shit.
Grace sucked in a deep breath and held it as she sprinted for the crouched dragon that was easily the size of a Clydesdale. His nostrils flared, going from pink to deep red as he roared a warning at the intruders.
The operatives paused briefly, probably stunned at the beast before them—then fired a thunderous round of teargas grenades into the room.
Grace knew she was in trouble. The team would need to use a gas many times more powerful than normal to have any effect on the dragon. Easily enough chemicals to kill a human…kill her.
Did all the years living as a tight-knit unit, protecting each other’s backs, count for nothing?
She shut a door in her mind to block the pain of her team’s betrayal and leapt, snaring hold of Benson’s smooth-scaled neck before closing her eyes to the toxic fumes and slinging a leg over his back.
One of her spiked heels jabbed into his scaly flesh. His skin shivered. Then he rose, and for just one moment faced the team. If he truly was able to breathe fire, he didn’t—perhaps because he understood the flammable risk with the chemical compounds misting the air.
With one last roar he spun around and lunged toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. He took just two powerful bounds then Grace heard windows pop and shatter as the full force of his weight hit them. A rush of air—fresh, crisp and oh so welcome—blasted her face. Sucking in a breath, she jerked her eyes open as the world tilted and they went into freefall.
Red-Hot Lover
It seemed he knew exactly who stood behind him even before he slowly turned to face her.
Her heart stilled as his intense, dark stare isolated her, drank her in. “Zee,” he said huskily, almost uncertainly.
Love swelled from somewhere deep inside. “Saul,” she whispered.
He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. “You came back.”
She took a half-step forward. Heat flooded through her body like a raging fever, flushing her skin with its warmth. Oh, god. Her feelings for him hadn’t changed. Not one bit. She nodded. “Yes.” She only wished she could have come sooner.
Her answer seemed to rouse him, to send him into action. “Everyone out,” he said hoarsely. “Now!”
All the men except Lewie, his second-in-command, scattered, leaving behind their winnings. The women stayed put. The blonde threw Zahlee a poisonous glare but she was all honeyed sweetness when she turned back to Saul. “What about us, sweet cakes?”
He brushed her off and then shrugged free from the brunette’s clasp on his shoulders. “Our business is done.” He snapped his fingers to the much-older Lewie. “The girls are yours now. If they’re willing,” he warned.
Zahlee all but shuddered at the idea. Odds were, the girls would stay. They weren’t about to give up their lavish lifestyle anytime soon. She only hoped the blonde and her brunette friend enjoyed rough sex. In the time, many years ago, when she’d been with Saul, she’d seen plenty of women bruised and sore from Lewie’s sexual peccadilloes.
Lewie nodded, not bothering to hide the wicked gleam in his eyes as he ushered the women out.
Zahlee stepped away from the old thug. She was aware that age probably had not mellowed Lewie’s sexual penchant for violence, and was even more aware that displaying anxiety would only invite his interest.
Saul stood then, tall and striking. He wasn’t classically handsome but he possessed a powerful aura that drew the eye. Even now, so many years later, his whole persona screamed danger—perhaps more so. But it didn’t repel. He was utterly charismatic.
He strode toward her. His brilliant gray eyes studied her, ate her up, as he clasped her hands and drew her farther into the room. “Tell me this time you’re staying,” he croaked.
Her breath caught. All these years later and he still really did love her, despite what she’d done. She’d hurt him so much, possibly even more than she’d hurt herself when she’d left him. Left her son. “I am.”
Some of the tautness left his face as he nodded once. But determination as quickly set his face into tough, uncompromising lines. “Promise you won’t leave again.”
“I…yes. I promise.”
His eyelids swept low, concealing his thoughts. His doubts? Then he leaned forward with a throaty growl, claiming her mouth with his.
Oh, Saul. She settled into the hard planes of his body, her mouth opening under his like a flower in full bloom. It’d been so long, too long.
Had he lain awake at night, every night, thinking about her? Had he touched himself, wishing it was she who touched him, wishing it was she who brought him to climax? Had he gone to sleep with her name on his mind, her face in his dreams?
Somehow she knew he had, in just the same way she had for him.
She couldn’t withhold a moan as his tongue found and tangled with hers. He tasted of Cuban cigar smoke, whiskey and spices. She sighed, savoring his vitality, his maleness, even as the stubble on his jaw scraped over her delicate skin in a familiar caress.
No one else had ever made her feel like that. No one else had ever really made her feel. Period. She’d never connected with anyone emotionally, mentally, as she did with her human lover.
Saul’s large hands cupped her ass, his fingers brushing up and down the slippery texture of her dress. He pulled back, his dark eyes alight with desire. “I never imagined lime green could look so damn good.”Identity Shift
The music shut down. A baby wailed a few apartments down, a small dog yapping into life inside another. Heavy footsteps approached from the other side of the door.
“Yes.”
One word. One deep, masculine, primal intonation.
Her pulses jerked in response, her nipples beading tight beneath her black leather jacket and tight burgundy singlet.
If this is what he could do to a woman with one monosyllable behind a closed door, she could only imagine what he could do with a whole sentence, and up close and personal.
She cursed under her breath. She’d clearly been too long without a man, someone to ease the heavy ache of her breasts, the deep throb between her thighs. Just as well she wanted nothing more from him than answers.
Hesitating for a beat, she asked, “Mr. Powell?”
She closed her eyes at his long, drawn out silence. Then she heard him release a heavy sigh before returning wearily, “Who wants to know?”
Impatience drummed a loud tattoo behind her skull. A migraine was all she needed right now.
“I’m here on behalf of my father. He is—“ she swallowed back a wave of bitter loss and grief ”—was an archaeologist. You may have heard of him? Professor Thomas Leigh.” At the thick, almost suffocating silence that followed she continued more loudly, “He believed in the existence of human-panther shape-shifters—”
Her sentence ended on a startled gasp as the door flung open and she was jerked unceremoniously inside.
“Enough already,” Blake growled.
She hissed out a breath at the current of electricity sizzling through her arm’s every nerve ending; at the cheek of him dragging her inside. She tugged free, and looked up…and up.
Beneath scruffy dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt the man was a mountain of fluid muscle and sinew, repressed energy that vibrated with emotion and patently raw sex appeal.
“Are you mad?” she said through gritted teeth. “All I wanted was a civilized discussion, not to be dragged inside like I’m nothing more than…than a cave woman!”
He slammed the door shut behind her and pushed home a large bolt. When he peeled off his dark sunglasses—ludicrous inside the near dark room lit only by a naked bulb—she took an involuntary step back. His eyes were an unnatural gold-yellow. Beautiful, but deadly.
She sucked in some oxygen, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. Damn it all to hell, he really was sinfully delicious, with more vague hints of darkness beneath his honey-warm skin that tantalized and teased even as it repelled.
“I know who you are,” he said.
Galactic Burn
The man towering over her had to be close to seven feet tall and all primitive power. His long, mocha-dark hair was also tied at the nape by a leather clasp.
For one fleeting moment that felt like an eternity, she gawked. Another alien. But oh so different from the others. Bigger, more commanding and powerful. Magnetic.
She swallowed hard and dropped her gaze from his piercing golden stare. Her eyes skittered along the bare expanse of his torso and rippling abs before she paused on a strangled gasp of air. The alien’s skin-colored pants, made of some kind of delicate, stretchy material, clung to his burgeoning cock like a lover’s caress.
She forced herself to breathe, to drag her gaze away from his cock, which was surely much bigger than any human’s.
“You came to me,” he said in English. His deep, lilting voice was oddly erotic, entrancing, and caused unwelcome shivers to pulse down her spine.
“No. Don’t be insane! Of…of course not! I’m looking for my people.” She turned her head, searching for an escape route. But running was impossible. The other aliens had surrounded them, their yellow eyes gleaming with carnal need.
“Then you’re wasting your time. All of your men are dead. And only a few hundred of your women survived.”
“What?” There was a roaring in her ears. Dizziness assailed her. Her pulse surged into a gallop. “No! That’s impossible.”
In one effortless move, he swept her into his arms, snapping out his incomprehensible language to the other men as they moved within touching distance around them. The aliens stepped back with obvious reluctance, their eyes narrowed slits as he carried her toward a large, domed building made of the same or a similar substance as his pants.
In that moment she hardly cared where he took her.
Most of the human race dead? It was inconceivable and yet, somehow she knew it was true. But why had she been spared? She swallowed. “What happened to them? To…to my people?” she asked hoarsely.
His eyes, much more golden than the other aliens, studied her face. “Nearly all your people died of the same virus that killed all our women and a good many of our men.” He shrugged. “It seems, in your race, it’s the women who have a much stronger resistance to the virus than men.”
She closed her eyes, faint with the knowledge that she was one of only a small number of human females left. She grew fainter still from the unmasked need etched into every line of his handsome face.
She should be afraid of this man, and she was, to an extent. Only, something much more powerful pulled at her senses—a fascination that overrode fear.
“The virus will have wiped your memory,” he said matter-of-factly, ducking his head a little to shoulder his way through the hanging double doors. “But once your immune system kills the virus, most of your memories will return.”
“Most?” she asked weakly.
“Yes. The ones you want to remember.”
Oh. Why did she get the uneasy feeling she wouldn’t have too many recollections she’d want to dredge up?
She only absently noted the flimsy hangings of assorted colors that seemingly parted before them as he carried her inside and which she guessed were room dividers. She was all too aware of his exotic scent, something vaguely citrus and earthy, woodsy, that sent warmth through her blood and to places she didn’t want warmed.
Her heart was pumping hard when he set her on her feet. She swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
“In your language my name is Darrius Yethala Merle. You may call me Dar.”
“Dar.” Such a simple word, and yet it made her think of something erotic. It made her think of sex. “You…speak English.”
He nodded, explaining, “It took us many years to travel to your Earth. In that time our…airwave transmitter-receivers allowed us to learn your language.”
Her mind whirled. What did he mean, exactly? That they had some kind of satellite dish to listen in to humans’ televised programs and radio shows?
“So…what…what do you want?”
His eyes smoldered, almost replicating the color of the leaping flames atop the tall wooden spikes that were their only light source. “You know what I want,” he said softly. When she shook her head, vehemently rejecting his claim, he cut in, “No need for denial. I feel your interest. And soon you will wish we had found you much, much earlier.”
“We?” she gasped.
His lips curled at one corner. “Our men still outnumber your women at least forty to one. An unfortunate occurrence since we’re fundamentally a possessive race.”
She stepped back. “So what are you saying? That you…you share women?”
His nostrils flared. “Yes.” His smile was pure seduction. “Though only the prime males of our species get to mate with Earth women.”
Even as
horror filled her mind, her womb clenched with need, her pussy moistening.
“That’s not going to happen. Not ever! Bad enough one of your kind, but multiple men—”
He stepped toward her. “It will happen,” he said softly, decisively. “We Carèche people are of the same likeness as human. You won’t be disappointed.”
Moon Thrall
The werewolf sank onto his belly among the tall, brittle grass, staying motionless and ever watchful as he peered over the rim of a fissured escarpment knotted with weeds.
A log cabin some forty yards below sat smack bang in the middle of a bare paddock, scorched dry by a long gone Australian summer and a seemingly endless drought. Only a distant line of gum trees broke the desolation, framing the night sky like shadowy sentinels.
He shifted restlessly. His werewolf muscles, used to the flex and shift of a loping run, were stiff from his vigil that had seen him return here these last two nights.
Beneath his thick black pelt his skin prickled with anticipation. The waiting was the hardest. Sheer willpower alone kept him frozen in place even when he was primed to explode from the thicket of yellowed grasses. But there’d be no racing against fate.
With the moon big and fat on the horizon, soon there would be no more waiting, no more hiding.
There were no signs of life inside the cabin. No lights broke the darkness, no television screen flickered. Not even a wisp of fireplace smoke lingered in the crisp winter air.
A mortal would assume the dwelling was unoccupied. The werewolf knew better.
He slunk lower still in the tall, dry grass, whining low as his ears pricked forward, alert to the sudden movement inside the cabin.
The woman, his weren, had awakened.
Seconds later the door swung open. She appeared in the doorway, very much alone, the moonlight turning her long red-gold hair to flame.
The werewolf’s tongue slipped out, sweeping a semicircle around his whiskered muzzle.
She looked surreal in her virginal high-necked and long-sleeved sheer white dress. The full moon lit up her slender silhouette and showcased the swell of her breasts, her almost flat belly and the dark triangle of her pussy between her thighs.
A growl rumbled deep in his chest, his belly tightening.
But still he didn’t move, though he could feel the vibrations of her emotions—anxiety, confusion, lust. The latter would intensify very quickly after her change, until every other sentiment would cease to exist, cease to matter.
He had hoped she’d come to realize she wasn’t dreaming, hoped her subconscious would come to terms with her psyche long before she’d arrived here. But it was obvious she was clueless.
Most werewolf parents chose not to break the news to their children of their birthright, preferring they enjoy a normal childhood—and indeed, for a short time, adulthood—for as long as possible.
But in his experience, it was better a werewolf knew and accepted who they were well before their first complete transition on their twenty-fifth birthday. Well before the thrall of the full moon, and its sexual pull, overcame them.
Even now, unbeknownst to her, the male in him was stimulating her senses, inciting her change and a deep yearning for her wolf-mate.
His hunger for her was twofold.
He whined again, watching her stumble outside, her hands pressed to her belly. He lifted his snout, scenting the air, tasting her pheromones. Need lanced straight to his loins, turning his whine into a barely restrained howl.
But he would not approach her now. Her transition was almost upon her. The agony of change would, for a few minutes at least, override all else.
The woman abruptly flung back her head, the moonlight flooding her pale face. She spread her arms wide and laughed aloud, spinning like a top to a rhythm she had yet to understand.
His eyes narrowed, distorting the vivid abstract colors of his werewolf sight.
It was time to make himself known.
Elyse Wellston laughed again, the sound even more discordant and shrill. No surprise. She’d known these last few days she was going stir-crazy. Her emotions, already shot to pieces, had been seesawing right off the charts.
After close to five years living with a possessive, carefully masked madman, she’d chosen now to fall to pieces? She was only glad Caleb, her monster of a fiancé—ex-fiancé—hadn’t yet succeeded in tracking her down to witness her slide into insanity.
She swallowed. If she stuck to her plan, stayed solitary, invisible, she had at least half a chance to outmaneuver his far-reaching tentacles, his powerful influence.
Her belly cramped, much more painfully than what she’d experienced just minutes earlier. She bent over double. Laughter skidded into a strangled gasp, sweat beading on her forehead and upper lip. Pain, sharp and intense, exploded behind her eyes, a tunnel vision of swirling, too-brilliant colors.
Her legs collapsed beneath her and she slumped to her knees with a groan, her throat convulsing, her skin rippling.
What is happening to me?
Discovering Sofia
“I think you’re totally delectable.”
She snorted inelegantly and accelerated the last eight kilometers toward town but inwardly, a different warmth infused her. Warmth she hadn’t felt for anyone—straying husband particularly—for too many years to contemplate.
“Sorry,” he apologized again. “I have a habit of speaking my mind.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she managed in an even tone. “You’re really quite the charmer.”
And probably a decade younger.
He chuckled. “My mother used to say I could charm the birds right out of the trees.”
“I believe that,” she said, smiling now too. “What else did she say?” She resisted clapping a hand to her mouth. She wasn’t a nosy person. She was a shy and gauche, I-don’t-make-waves kind of girl. But just this once, she wanted to know a little something extra about a man—this man. Discover what made him tick, what made him who he was today.
He shrugged and she glanced over to see his ever-widening grin, dimples appearing on his lightly whiskered cheeks. “She said I was a lover, not a fighter.”
She turned away, hardly seeing the cream-colored Brahman cattle grazing in the big, grassy paddocks to the right or the endless rows of sugarcane on her left. It was as though his words had pushed the temperature up another three or four degrees, pushed her mind into thrilling places it hadn’t been since…before Stefan.
They topped a rise and in the valley below, the small town of Marshville awaited, shimmering beneath a late afternoon sun.
“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” he noted with a shake of his head. “I guess I’m not used to a beautiful woman being so insecure.”
Heat burned her cheeks. She bit her bottom lip, feeling his eyes study her profile, her body, as if he were a connoisseur of women. She shivered then, goose bumps prickling her sweat-dampened skin. She held no doubts he was well practiced in the art of seduction, though he certainly didn’t try to hide a hard cock behind smooth lies and twisted slurs. “You really are forthright, aren’t you?”
He plucked off his hat, and from the corner of her vision she saw him run an outspread hand through the blond-tipped waves of light-brown hair. “It’s the way my mother raised me,” he said, plunking the hat back onto his head and glancing out the side window.
He must miss his mother, she realized, and guessed that she’d just recently passed away. Sadness engulfed her at his loss, followed as quickly by envy. What she’d have done to have known her mother and father before drugs and alcohol had decimated their minds and tainted their souls. Instead she’d done the rounds of foster homes, where ill will and mistreatment too often waited.
Townhouses appeared on either side of the road and as the first intersection loomed ahead she said almost reluctantly, “I can drop you off anywhere in town. Just let me know where.”
He nodded. “Thank you.” Turning back to her, he asked throatily, “Any motel you care to recommend?”
She immediately understood his bold suggestion, if she wanted to take it.
Don’t even think about it!
Yes!
No!
Looking straight ahead, her hands fisted the steering wheel as her pussy seeped with anticipation. “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “Yes, I do, actually.” Holy smokes, she was doing it! She was going ahead with it! And she knew just the motel to use.
Jake’s hand was suddenly on her bare thigh, his fingers caressing the flesh just below the hem of her butter-yellow skirt. “I’m glad you stopped back there and picked me up,” he murmured huskily.
Carnal Moon
Hell. This wolf was big. Intimidating. And he meant business. His silver-gray eyes flashed as his tail arched high, his snout compressed.
Pheromones thickened the air and sharpened acute need. The flex and bunch of his muscles revealed his impatience a split second before he surged toward her.
She leapt forward, meeting him halfway, her teeth bared as she went straight for his throat. Canines sank past his thick brown-black pelt and through corded muscle and skin before drawing blood.
The metallic tang filled her mouth, intoxicating as any drug. She whimpered even as he broke free and whipped around, the dominant male ruthless and barely restrained.
His near shoulder rammed her hard and knocked her flying, and she thudded onto the dry-baked earth, air whooshing out of her lungs.
Shit. She could do nothing but wait for the oxygen that finally wheezed back into her lungs. And the male, damn him to hell, prowled forward, completely aware of her plight.
He was in his element, his prime, and she squirmed helplessly when his weight pressed her hard against the earth. Rotting vegetation and pungent eucalyptus filled her nostrils, quickly replaced by his raw male scent.
Every cell demanded she rut with him, seek the satisfaction she craved. But she wouldn’t be an easy lay. She wanted foreplay…at least, the werewolf version of it.
She faked collapse from oxygen deprivation, and as he shifted to snuffle her face with his wet nose, she made her move. Twisting free, she shot forward. Now she was in her element. Even as a lycan, she was swift, a fact that enhanced the chase, the rough and tumble.
Hard and fast was the order of the day, especially for a male who knew he might have a rival to contend with, one who could challenge his claim to sire future generations. But Holly could scent no other males as she used all the inherent agility and grace of the wolf to outrun and outmaneuver her counterpart.
He was up for the game and closed in fast. The brewing storm crept upon them. Overhead, heavy black clouds concealed the moon and plunged everything into darkness. She knew that either of them could have changed back to human in that moment. Neither did. It seemed that this was a challenge he relished as well.
Lightning split the sky and briefly illuminated the ground but Holly used her exceptional lycan sight as she jumped from a rotting log and belly flopped into the creek she’d earlier crossed. Her legs moving like pistons, she swam to the other side, scrabbling for purchase on the slippery bank even as he splashed in from behind.
The adrenaline of the hunt, the chase, was fast dissolving. In some primeval part of her mind, Holly knew only the strongest, fleetest and most powerful lycan—one who could better her, master her—was worth mating. Having a future generation of smart, tough, fast werewolves was paramount.
Heavy raindrops splattered the earth when the large male caught up and pinned her to the ground, his jaw clamped to her ruff.
A lycan in lust was no gentleman.
A menacing growl rumbled deep in his throat—the male making his intentions clear. He wasn’t to be messed with. Only when she willingly surrendered, staying passive beneath him, did his weight abruptly change, his form becoming lighter and more compact as paws became hands and his lycan body became human.
Holly felt the change come upon her immediately after and she tried to relax as she endured the pain. To resist was futile. Fighting the change made it almost intolerable. As with all lycans, she had little control when changing from human to beast as a full moon climbed the sky.
When sexually aroused, and with fulfillment close, lycans invariably changed back into human form. None really understood why they became human again—fear of bestiality? Fewer cared. When hormones raced out of control, the instinct to mate took over all logic.
Holly whined low in her throat, yielding quickly to the stranger and to her own change. There was little time to pacify the beast within. She needed to copulate, and she needed to now.
Her fur abruptly withdrew into skin that contracted like vacuum wrap. Her bones shifted and popped, her skull growing even as her snout retracted.
He was a master at change. The process had been all but over in seconds and hadn’t seemed to bother him one bit. Clearly he had grown immune to the torment of change.
She sagged, hardly aware the hurting had gone and that she was human once more, until his fangs retreated, his bite became a kiss.
Facedown, she moaned. Electric shivers pulsed through every nerve ending that his mouth touched. His tongue flicked her ear, his cock nudged between her thighs.
Ice-Cold Lover
The smell of money, and lots of it, permeated the air of the Sydney Casino as Celeste Diamond stepped out of the elevator and onto its lavish third floor. Booked exclusively for invitation-only guests, it was here the rich and powerful, the famous and not-so-famous, came to flaunt their splendor.
She scarcely noticed. Instead, every one of her senses isolated the man who’d gone to great lengths this last month—with little success—to get to know her.
Pascal Daniels was a name synonymous to power and wealth, with murky undercurrents linking him to the seedy underworld of organized crime. Add notorious playboy to the mix and he was one black sheep she’d do well to avoid—if only she wasn’t a heartbeat away from tearing the clothes right off his magnificent body!
Heat crept up her throat as high-voltage lust zapped straight between her thighs. Her nipples pebbled beneath her white sheath dress and the corset bra under the many layers of gauzy material encircling her torso.
Pascal would never see the physical evidence puckering just for him. The corset disguised more than just her gargoyle wings.
She watched him push to his feet in one smooth, fluid movement. He towered above the blackjack table and a pair of scantily clad women who’d been hanging over him. He ignored them both. Instead, his hot stare feasted on her, swept her up and down like a lover’s caress, his attention hers alone.
She swallowed convulsively. When he abandoned his chips with a careless wave, the breath wedged somewhere low in her throat.
Oh, dear god. Am I ready for this?
Her spine snapped tight, subduing the hideous, bat-like appendages quivering beneath their bonds. And for just one moment self-doubt iced the carnal heat flowing like lava in her veins. Would this man be so fascinated if he saw her in all her naked glory, with her unbound wings stretched high and wide?
She’d never give him the chance to find out.
Oh, they’d be intimate this night, except it would be strictly on her terms, when she was ready and not before. She would never be one of his easy conquests.
With slow provocation, she turned her back on him, a gesture that made her shiver even as she burned. Had anyone ever had the nerve to snub this man?
Snatching a flute of champagne from a passing tray, she sipped the bubbles of decadence while dancing her way around the milling crowd of glitterati. She needn’t look behind to see if he followed—her every molecule screamed that he did. A gurgle of laughter spilled free, a dizzy excitement from the thrill of the hunt. She hadn’t felt so alive, so utterly aroused…ever!
Kallie Revealed
He was here again. Kallie knew it the moment she strutted onto the stage in a white cowgirl hat and matching, sleek tasseled dress. Even as the Sydney club echoed with wolf whistles and lewd cheers, from somewhere in the crowd she felt his stare.
Seth Masterton. A man going to the stratosphere in the corporate world. A rising star. He could have any woman he wanted, and yet here he was, watching her.
Her skin tingled, her pulse thudding like a freight train quickly gaining speed. She smiled, hoping he liked what he saw! And hell, she wasn’t one to disappoint.
Not anymore.
Heavy bass flooded the stage. A spotlight dazzled directly above her, the spectator’s faces now dim in the crowd as she threw her head back and then strode forward, hips swiveling to the beat before she grabbed hold of the center pole and executed a turn.
Ha. The audience would expect more, but she liked to tease, liked the pretense of innocence before she showed her true self. Literally.
Shoulder blades bracketed against the pole, Kallie leaned back, tan, thigh-high, heeled boots spread wide and arms above her head as she slithered down and then ever so slowly up. It was just her and the music now. The men, and probably a few women, were all silent, salivating as she did her thing.
A delicious thrill zapped straight between her thighs. Yes, she danced for everyone who’d paid to watch. But in reality, Kallie danced for only one person—Seth.
She straightened and the tips of her fingers traced the outer rim of her cowgirl hat. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she launched it through the air, her arrow-straight blonde hair immediately cascading to her waist.
A roar of approval met her performance. The room pulsed with energy and crackled with lust and Kallie couldn’t deny the excitement leaping within.
She stilled, closing her eyes to soak it all in. She could have any man or woman here tonight—married, gay, rich or poor. The knowledge licked through her veins and made her pussy wet.
She’d fuck Seth tonight.
With a smile of anticipation, she opened her eyes and sashayed forward. A hidden, industrial fan ensured the sudden gust of air whipped back her long hair and pressed the white dress against her straining breasts.
A chair waited for her at the front of the stage and she stilled behind it while she looked out into the darkness to her left, sensing Seth’s presence. She shivered with longing.
This is for you.
One hand resting on the high-backed seat, she gyrated to the music while her other hand lifted. Her fingers, one by one, released the studs at the front of her dress. It peeled open to reveal glimpses of gold-tanned flesh and barely-there crimson lace underwear.
The music peaked and then went silent. She heard someone moan even before the light slipped away and ran over the crowd.
She stepped out of her dress and kicked it to one side. And in the cover of shadows she allowed her smile to fade while long repressed grief stirred and swelled.
It was bizarre how life had panned out. Sorrow had catapulted her onto this journey of self-discovery, this exploring of her fantasies, where for the brief moments when she was on stage, she felt whole and beautiful again.
Oh god. Don’t think about it. Not now!
Her Dark Lord
“It isn’t over
between us. Not by a long shot.”
Kia Montana hid a smile as she rolled up her sheer stockings and clipped them to her lace suspenders. Pushing her feet into the heeled shoes she’d tossed aside so carelessly the night before, she glanced over at the gorgeous man sprawled out on her hotel bed.Passion emanated from him, scorching and hot. She gave him a cool smile, resisting an impulse to sashay over, lean forward and trace her tongue along the salty warmth of his collarbone, and down over the hardened buds of his dusky nipples.
Even harder to withstand was the urge to sink her fangs into his delectable throat, taste the pulsating warmth of his essence while he brought her to climax just once more.
She breathed slow and deep, and his glittering, gun-metal eyes held her gaze when she said, “Sorry, I don’t do relationships.” “Don’t apologize,” he drawled. And as she slipped into her crimson lace bra, a savage light sparked deep in his stare. “I know just how to change your mind.”
Her breasts, still tingling from his mouth, his clever hands, hardened under his scrutiny as she clipped the bra into place. Her pulses jumped, but it was his declaration that kick-started her heart into high speed. She inhaled slowly, gaining control. “Oh?” she queried with an Oscar winning note of boredom.
“You want access to all of Sydney’s underworld places. As your escort, I can offer you that.” He smiled at her silence. “A ticket to where only an exclusive few have been.”
Her heartbeat surged into a frantic gallop as excitement writhed deep inside. When she’d seen him at last night’s shindig, moving through the crème de le crème of the Sydney crowd like he owned each and every party-goer there, her instincts had clamored.
He held the key.
She kept her face an impassive mask. This could be her one opportunity to get close to Sean Maximillus, the reclusive, centuries old Vampire Lord.
She managed an idle smirk. “Running short of eager, beautiful young women to parade around?”
A crack of laughter shot from his sexy mouth. “Never. Quite the contrary.” His eyes drank her in. “Apart from your obvious charms,” he shrugged, “you intrigue me.” He sat up, dark hair tousled. Abs rippled beneath his golden skin while he ran an outstretched hand over a strong jaw already shadowed with growth.
Such masterful hands, she mused. They’d stroked and caressed in all the right places, until she’d quivered with lust, then undulated with pleasure. She forced back the memory and a sudden, feverish ache. Arching a brow, she queried throatily, “Really? I guess you’re bored with simpering women?”
A muscle jerked along his unyielding jaw. Then he grinned and pushed to his feet before taking a few strides her way. The pad of his thumb brushed beneath her chin. “You’re extraordinary, do you know that?”
Something passed between them, some kind of magnetic pull that held her breathless and still. “You have no idea,” she whispered.His eyes widened, and his hand dropped. Spell broken. “You’re so sure of that?”
She looked away, disorientated. Never before had it felt as if all her highly-developed senses had short-circuited, leaving her vulnerable. Exposed. She swayed, perversely thankful for his hands that immediately lifted to frame her hips, steadying her.
“Kia?”
Her vision blurred, and she closed her eyes for a second before stepping out of his hold and looking back up. “I never told you my name.”
Hardness lurked
beneath the brilliant shimmer of his stare. Without warning, his head dropped
to hers. His mouth covered her lips in an open-mouthed kiss that jump-started
every nerve ending in her body and made her forget for just one moment, her
single-minded purpose.
As quickly, he pulled back, expression fierce. “Amore. You didn’t need to tell me who you are.”
Stone-Cold Lover
“Go away,” she mumbled, even as her eyes devoured all six feet five inches of him as he stood taut and moody at the end of the four-poster bed.
She shivered, less with unease and more with longing, though one could be forgiven for feeling the former. His black, military-style cropped hair and the scar running straight from the bridge of his nose to the hairline of his wide brow added to his sinister aura.
“Why, am I interrupting something?” His frosty, gray-blue eyes swept the scene and it was pure reflex when she touched her swollen mouth before curling a hand around her mussed hair. His eyes darkened. “Because from where I’m standing, your latest lover is out for the count.”
She dropped her hand and sat up. The bedcovers tumbled to her waist, revealing the globes of her breasts, her nipples, which hardened under his gaze. “It was a big night.” And not in the way you think. She managed a shrug. “He’s recovering.” She swung her legs to one side of the bed. Turning her back on him, she asked dryly, “Are you jealous?”
Feigning indifference to the simmering quiet, she rose and padded across the soft beige carpet. She stooped, retrieving her discarded clothes strewn in a trail from the bedroom door.
Cray would imagine the worst. Who wouldn’t when it looked as if her clothes had been all but torn from her in a fit of passion? It might have started off that way, but ardor—at least on her behalf—had quickly dulled.
She wanted her gargoyle, or no man at all.
She felt the burn of his eyes scorch the air, spiking her nipples harder still. Her pussy contracted as the whole of her body reacted to his predatory hunger. Yet even in her high state of arousal her mind whirred with a far different kind of longing as she awaited his reply.
Dear God, did nothing get under his skin?
She tugged on her black lace thong, chilled by his shot of mirthless laughter and then as quickly burning hot when he closed the distance with just a stride. She dragged in a breath when his arms encircled her from behind. His large hands cradled her aching, heavy breasts while his fingers skillfully stroked her sensitive nipples.
“Should I be jealous?” he asked.
Despite her best intentions, she reveled in his touch. She caught her breath as waves of sensation melted her against him like a long-lost piece of a puzzle. “You tell me.”
Wry amusement overlaid a hardness she’d yet to crack as he said, “We could dance around a straight answer for hours but I don’t have the luxury of time to play mind games.”
His erection nudged the small of her back, indicating what game he’d really like time for if he’d just once forget his guardian role and relent to their attraction.
She wriggled, brushing against the impressive length of his cock and losing herself in his unyielding strength as she tucked her head beneath one of his arms.
“Don’t you ever just let yourself go, enjoy the moment?” She hated the breathlessness in her voice, hated how he could be physically aroused but emotionally unaffected.
He stiffened. “Nice sentiments. But I’m never intimate with the one I protect. You know that.”
She jerked free. Thrusting her head and arms through the floaty folds of her crimson designer dress, she pivoted to face him. “I never asked for your protection.”
“No one ever does.”
If she’d been anyone else, she’d have shrunk back from the latent coldness in his stare. But she wasn’t anyone else and she’d known nothing but sacrifice from this man…this gargoyle.
Cray dropped into a crouch and grabbed her high-heeled shoes from beneath the bed. He motioned her over and this time she knew better than to argue. She’d pushed him far enough.
His hands cradled first one foot then the other as he slipped on her shoes. Diamonds winked along the straps crisscrossing her toes. Her eyes fluttered closed as flames licked from the soles of her feet and leapt straight to her already burning core.
“Such a thankless job.” She cleared her throat and opened her eyes to his downturned head, almost giving in to the need to run her hands over his spiky hair. “Don’t you ever wish for something in return?”
With one fluid motion, he stood, making Loretta glad she wore stilettos. At five-foot-three, she barely reached his chest but heels brought her eyes to his chin level. She tore her gaze away from his sexy lips and studied his unnerving face.
Stone cold really was an apt description for his unyielding expression. She should know. She’d tried for nearly three years now to bring his impervious emotions to heel.
A large hand snared the crook of her elbow before he escorted her toward the balcony’s locked, sliding door. With a faint chink, it yielded to his force and slid open in a whisper of sound.
“I wish for many things,” he growled, guiding her out onto the small platform nestled high atop the eighteen-story apartment block. “But wishes and dreams are wasted on a gargoyle.”
I don’t believe so.
She twisted to face him. Tilting back her head, she watched the intensity on his face as he blocked his human awareness and focused his highly developed, gargoyle senses. His nostrils flared as he scented the air, his large frame taut and still while he took in the sounds of the night.
With eyes that glowed feral and bright as ice chips, he swept the area, double-checking for insomniacs and early risers—for anyone who might potentially witness his change and their unconventional exit.
Apparently satisfied at their privacy, he shrugged off his black, ankle-length coat and draped it over her shoulders. She tugged the folds around her in a gesture of long practice, surreptitiously inhaling his brandy-and-spice scent.
And not for the first time was she aware of just how safe she felt, enfolded in his jacket, cocooned from all that was bad in the world.
Lights dotted the cityscape of Sydney, a faint awareness of dawn in the air when Cray shifted from human into a winged creature of the night and folded her into his arms.
The change was effortless. If Loretta hadn’t known about his ability—his curse—she’d hardly have noticed the slight hunching of his shoulders, or the broadening of his body as bat-like, eight-foot-span wings sprouted from either side of his spine as he gripped her tightly. Only the wrench and give of his clothes, which fell to the floor in tattered wisps, betrayed his true shift of identity.
Shame it was dark, she’d have appreciated the sight of his masculine charms in the flesh. Even etched in stone, she’d not been disappointed.
Unlike the ugly and inanimate carved gargoyles that littered many gardens and lawns, Cray retained much of his human looks.
Oh, she knew he didn’t see anything remotely handsome in his gargoyle form but he was so wrong. From the large and rather fine-boned sweep of his wings, to his more subtle physical modifications, he was fascinating.
The remnants of his shirt and pants fluttered over the balcony and she twined her fingers behind his neck when he climbed the railing and stretched his webbed wings with a barely audible swish.
Her heart thumped, her senses in overdrive as she went giddy with anticipation for the buzz to come.
Cray leapt high. Her belly dropped as adrenaline skyrocketed, the ground a blur of lights beneath them as the winter air whipped her long gold-brown hair into her eyes and bit into her skin.
He wrapped her close to his chest, pressing the coat fully closed to deflect the worst of the cold, and Loretta wondered what it would feel like to have him really care about her.
She fought back a sudden, weary sigh. He was honor-bound to ensure her well-being. She was his top priority, but only as her guardian, nothing else. Besides, if he did care, he would’ve retrieved her long before she fell into yet another stranger’s bed.
Her grip tightened. She was a fool to wish he saw her as anything more than a spoiled heiress.
