Things That Go Hump In The Night (27 page)

"That's quite an offer, Mr. Amestra," she said coyly, in a fake English accent as she tugged him in the direction of the bedroom. "I shall require proof of your intentions, good sir."

They left a trail of clothing all the way up the stairs.

"Mmm, Hello Kitty, brings back memories," purred Gabriel when they finally made it to his bedroom after frequent stops.

Those panties were her last remaining item of clothing.

He pushed her down on the bed and deftly slid them down her legs. He was already naked, so he simply lowered himself to her waiting embrace.

Nicole wrapped her arms and legs eagerly around him, rubbing herself against the hard, cool length of his cock.

"Fuck me," she panted, wanting him too urgently for their usual extended foreplay.

"Say please," he teased her, holding himself poised so that the blunt head of his cock pressed tantalizingly against her wet, aching pussy.

"Don’t be such a tease," Nicole growled.

"Oh?" he challenged her.

Oh, you've done it now.

With a feral smile, she let her wolf out to play with Gabriel.

His eyes widened as he saw her eyes go gold.

She rolled them over, until he lay supine beneath her.

"
Mine
," her wolf said huskily, straddling him and pinning his arms above his head.

As she pushed herself down on his rigid shaft, she bit his throat and licked the earlier mark she had left.

Gabriel gasped with pleasure and his hips thrust up, impaling her.

Nicole sat up and rolled her hips, reveling in the sensation. He felt so good inside her without the barrier of a condom.

Then, with her wolf in control, she rode him hard and fast. His hard, bare cock slid in and out of her, caressing her clit with long, firm strokes, winding her up to a climax.

Her orgasm sent pleasure rippling through her inner muscles, squeezing his shaft. The familiar slight chill of his feeding moved over her skin as she relaxed against him.

Gabriel started to embrace her, obviously thinking it was time to cuddle a little before the next round. He was still inside her, still hard, and he hadn't climaxed yet.

"No," she growled, and pushed his arms down. "Now it's
your
turn."

She kissed him hard, fucking him with her tongue, sensing how much he was enjoying her take-charge approach. He tried to embrace her again, and she caught his wrists in a steely grip.

"Do that again, and I'll spank you," she said.

He flushed, and she smiled wickedly down at him.

"Or maybe I'll just spank you, anyway. Seems like you'd enjoy it. But for now—just lie back and enjoy this."

"Oh believe me, I am," he said, his eyes dilated with need as he gazed up at her.

She worked her way down his body, nipping and biting at him, feeling his arousal mount higher and higher.

He was enjoying her rough lovemaking. She'd have to remember that for next time...She was enjoying this, too, desire throbbing to renewed life between her legs, where he was still inside her.

He squirmed and gasped when she reached his sensitive nipples, so she lingered there for a while.

First she licked them into stiff points, then she drew them into her mouth with fierce suction. Finally, she bared her teeth and hovered over them, teasing.

Gabriel groaned and arched upwards in a silent plea. She took one nipple delicately between her teeth, and bit down. He convulsed in pleasure beneath her.

Ooh, fun.

She crouched over him, playing with his nipples, alternating between biting and pinching them, until they were darkened and swollen and so sensitive that the lightest brush of her lips across them made him shudder and arch.

Reluctantly, she let him slide out of her, his cock flushed midnight blue and glistening with her juices.

Gabriel's belly was flat and hard with muscle...and sensitive despite the layer of scales. Through their bond, she sensed how much he liked it when she worked her way down in a series of bites that left dark marks but didn't break the skin.

Finally, she reached his proud cock. She played with him for a little bit, running her fingers through the dark, wiry hair around his groin, stroking his balls, and even circling his anus with her fingertip as he panted and moved restlessly beneath her teasing touch.

"Nicole,
please
," he begged, finally, his voice gone deep and hoarse with need.

Nicole grasped his shaft, warm now with their play, and lowered her head.

Letting her lips brush the tip of his cock with each word, she said, "I want to see you come, Gabriel."

"Anything you say," he panted. "Just—"

She didn't let him finish his words, just swallowed him whole. He tasted of her, tangy and musky, with his own salt and musk underneath.

She caressed him with her tongue, letting it swirl around his swollen tip, and enjoyed sharing his pleasure with what she was doing to him.

He was already close to the edge, so it didn't take long to coax him to release.

Gabriel stiffened, every muscle in his body tightening, and then thrust up into her mouth. She tasted salt and something faintly bitter as she swallowed his release, letting her wet mouth and tongue milk him through his orgasm.

Gabriel subsided, panting, and she grinned down at him, seeing the marks of her rough pleasuring in an uneven pattern over his throat, chest, and belly.

Her wolf settled down, satisfied that they had served her mate well.

"Thank you," he said, his breath still uneven. "That was
amazing
."

"Good," she said, leaning over him to kiss him, gently this time. "I enjoyed that, too."

"I know," he said, his voice suddenly deep again, sending a thrill through her. "So...it's my turn now. And I'll take my time."

He was true to his word, drawing out his caresses until she was the one arching beneath him and begging him to fuck her.

Turnabout might be fair play, but it was a lot of fun, too.

When he entered her at last, she cried out in satisfaction.

He fucked her hard and fast, driving her through more two climaxes before he finally came inside her.

Shivering but sated, Nicole lay in Gabriel's arms.

"So, did it work?" she asked, timidly.

He looked at her carefully and nodded.

She blinked, digesting the implications. "Holy shit, I'm really going to live forever?"

"Are you having second thoughts?" he asked cautiously.

"No! I just realized that I'll get to see what computers look like in a hundred years...in two hundred years. How cool is that?"

His smile dazzled her. "Good." he said. "In that case, I have one more thing to ask of you."

"Anything," she said, settling her head comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder.

"Nicole Evelyn Chasseur," said Gabriel softly. He kissed her with slow enjoyment. "Will you marry me?"

Epilogue

A year later, in June, Nicole stood on the verandah of an inn on Martha's Vineyard, waiting for the music to begin.

The inn was surrounded by gloriously blooming flowerbeds and wide lawns that went all the way down to the beach. In the distance, across the sparkling blue waters of the sea, she could see a lighthouse and an island.

She wore a wedding gown and was crowned with white roses and baby's breath woven into an elaborate hairstyle. As she waited, standing arm-in-arm with her beaming father, she felt eerily calm.

No one was trying to kill her or put her into a cage. She just had to walk up a short aisle, surrounded by the smiling faces of family, friends, and co-workers. And then she would exchange vows with the person she loved.

Easiest thing in the world, right?

As Nicole waited for her cue, she reflected on the past year, which had been insanely busy but wonderful.

Korinna
Vélos and her team
's daring rescue of the Sigil Oil hostages in West Africa had made international headlines. It had also garnered Archangel's
Physical Site Security division
more new clients than it could handle, which meant they had to actually turn away business for the first time in the company's history.

Mark Aquila had been kept busy recruiting and training new staff for Archangel's expanded operations. Most of the new hires were ex-military, but three were shape-shifters.

He and Korinna had rented a house in a quiet, upscale suburb not too far from the Archangel offices. There, he had continued to work on training Nicole.

Nicole had finally met Korinna about two weeks after Erik's death. She had instantly taken a liking to the reserved, almost shy Child of Lilith. It was hard to imagine the slender, delicate-looking brunette kicking the asses of heavily armed rebels, but she had heard plenty of stories about Korinna doing just that.

And it was funny to see gruff, no-nonsense Mark Aquila being, well, gooshy around his wife. Or as close to gooshy as Mark ever came. It was clear that he adored Korinna and that she returned his regard. 

Version 2.0 of the Archangel software security suite had been released on schedule, though not without a lot of late nights and last-minute crises.

As they'd hoped, the release was a huge success, garnering rave reviews and gushing articles from security industry websites and publications. As a result, Michael Amestra, the CEO of Archangel Security Networks, was able to take the company public three months later.

All nine of the original Archangel employees, whose stock options were fully vested, had become filthy rich.

Those who had joined the company later, like Nicole, had their stock option prices locked in at very low rates, which meant that they, too, would be filthy rich, once their shares vested over the next few years.

Gabriel had purchased the house that Nicole was renting, and after some extensive renovations to restore the Victorian to its original nineteenth-century glory with a few subtle modern touches, he and Nicole had moved there.

His loft had been nice as a bachelor residence, he told her, but her house felt like a
home
to him...minus the horrible wallpaper in her living room. On his orders, that had been the first thing to fall victim to the contractors when they showed up to start restoration work. 

And Nicole had finally been able to return home to Boston to visit her parents and to introduce Gabriel to them.

Freed of the
geas
that had silenced her for so many years, she told them about her ordeal at Erik Asura's hands and about the Children of Lilith.

Her mother and father, scientists both, had been openly skeptical about the supernatural parts of her story until Gabriel dropped his glamour and showed them what he was.

Their reactions had been...
interesting
...but they had quickly gotten over their initial shock at his strange appearance and quickly took a liking to their future son-in-law.

The wedding march music started—Mozart, at Gabriel's insistence—and Dad turned to her.

"Ready, baby girl?" asked Raymond Chasseur, looking like he was ready to cry at any moment.

Nicole smiled at him. "Never been readier."

They began their walk down the aisle, to where Gabriel stood waiting for her, magnificent in top hat and an elegant gray morning suit with a pearl-colored vest.

He was flanked by Rafe and Michael, both of them also wearing morning suits and looking like male models.

Standing across from them was her brother Brian, who had dressed to match the Amestra brothers, declaring that the morning suits looked "totally steampunk and cool."

Brian had tamed his wildly curling mane of brown hair into a tight ponytail and wore a top hat, although his was adorned with an antique pair of brass-rimmed motorcycle goggles to complete the steampunk look.

At Brian's right stood Betty Chang, who had flown in from her new home on Oahu to serve as Nicole's matron of honor. She, too, was wearing a morning suit and top hat, but with a long skirt instead of trousers.

Mom was seated in the front row, next to Stephen and Ianthe Jadikira. Gabriel's mother was blonde and elegant, her fine-boned features reflected most strongly in her youngest son, Rafael.

Raymond Chasseur guided Nicole carefully to her place next to Gabriel. He kissed her cheek and gave Gabriel a hug before taking his seat next to his wife.

As she waited to exchange her vows with Gabriel, Nicole looked over the assembled guests.

She spotted Mark Aquila and Korinna
Vélos almost immediately
, as well as Michael's wife Marissa, and Gabriel's former neighbors, Andras and Katie
Vélos
.

In addition to Betty Chang and her husband, most of the Archangel 2.0 team had also flown to the East Coast to attend Nicole and Gabriel's wedding, and there were many familiar faces looking back at her and smiling.

The press had been barred from the wedding, but just outside the border of the inn's grounds, she saw a couple of photographers with cannon-barrel-sized telephoto lenses mounted on tripods. The idea that she was now a sort-of celebrity had taken a bit of adjustment on Nicole's part, since she was so used to flying under the radar.

"You look beautiful," whispered Gabriel, taking her hand as the officiant opened his book and cleared his throat.

She laced her fingers through his and squeezed. "So do you."

Then it was time for her next adventure to begin, with Gabriel at her side, and a bright future stretching ahead of her.

— The End —