WickedBeast (7 page)

Soft hands grabbed fistfuls of shirt and wrenched it out of
his jeans. Finding the moving flesh of his back at last, she was desperate to
touch all of it.

His hands remained fisted in the couch cushions beside her
body. Bulging biceps trembled with the effort of restraint as he kept most of
his weight off her. His hips and mouth engaged her with pounding response, but
he would let her see where they were going. This one time.

Friction on her sensitive folds drove her up the sensual
ladder. Her response sank into his starved body and it felt better than
anything he’d experience before. It had been so long since he’d indulged sexual
hunger. Then it had been good, this was nothing like that. Bursting spears of
pleasure pierced every cell in his body.

Her legs locked around him, heels digging into his ass, and
he felt the electric flash fire wash over her. She was close and exactly where
he needed her to be. His hips slowed. Pressing his cock down on her clit, he
let the material tease, keeping her on the edge of release. His mouth ate her
as her hands grew more demanding. She raked down his back with nails, and Cord
growled in satisfaction.

He gave her several hard thrusts in reward and she arched into
him, trying to get more, needing the push over the edge. He withheld it.

Her hands thrust down the back of his jeans, greedily
clenching into his ass, pressing him into her. He lifted his crotch off her as
her hands raked up to the small of his back. Yes, that’s what he needed from
her.

The power of her desire poured into him with each twist and
pull of her body. She was more, so much more gratifying than he’d thought a
woman could be. Pleasure snaked around his brain, infused his body, jumping
with the snap of electric current from unused muscles to sleeping bone. She
ignited him and they were fully clothed.

She wrenched her mouth from him, but he couldn’t give up
contact. Open mouthed, he dragged his tongue down her neck, seeking the
sensitive nerves he knew were there. He was rewarded as soon as he licked over
them. Her response speared him and his mouth smiled into her neck, licking
lightly. The feathering strumming resulted in her head arching back and her
hands clutching the back of his nearly shredded shirt in frustration.

The sound of material ripping and woman hissing through
clenched teeth was an interesting mix. He liked it. His lips fastened down and
he sucked that bit of flesh into his mouth as his hips thrust hard up the
valley of her legs. One hand shot up over her mouth, the other reached down and
clamped around her hip to hold her as he push his hips over her clothes-covered
crotch.

He could feel the lightning racing through her body.
Drinking it, he tasted how close she was. His lips lifted and the hand at her
hip skillfully worked snap and zipper. The soft flesh of her belly met his palm
and he slid thick fingers under damp silk to reach the center of her. Two
fingers spread plump folds, uncovering her clit for a third finger’s attention.
Strumming that sensitized group of nerves, with each touch he enjoyed the burst
of pleasure she couldn’t contain.

He held her on the edge with light contact. Her hips rocked
up into his grasp, but he wouldn’t let her take control. Pleasure was white hot
and ripping through her. Still he refused.

Kelly’s teeth closed on his palm and Cord jerked in
response. As she bit down, his long forefinger left her clit to slide into the
tight opening clenching below. The heel of his palm slammed down on her clit,
grinding in a circular motion as he invaded her.

Kelly exploded. Her body clenched in ridged shock then
convulsed under him. His hand on her mouth muffled her vocal response but he
was pretty sure there were a few curse words in the screaming moan.

She came into him with such a punch of power he nearly lost
control. Fire raced through every joint and muscle. It burned deep in his back
and lanced down his legs. For a moment he was drunk with it. Intoxicating,
excruciating in this volume.

His mouth let go of her neck as he clamped it shut to hold
back the roar of fulfillment and cut off his own answer to her release. Not
this time. This one was hers alone. Eyes squeezed shut, the pleasure became
pain as he refused his response to her gift of power.

Their bodies gradually stilled, his hips resting heavily
between her legs. His hand released her mouth and he opened his eyes to look
down at the woman beneath him. She was looking back. He might be mistaken but
the round eyes and slightly slack mouth as she panted looked a lot like shock.

He held her with his weight and let her work through it.
There was no way he’d crawl off her now and pretend they’d just been necking
and indulging a little heavy petting. They’d been doing a lot more than that,
and she needed to face it head-on. He’d be taking more than that from her very
soon.

“Kiss me,” she whispered into the silence.

He gave it to her, slow and deep. She wanted to feel
cherished and he had no problem with that. He cherished the hell out of her.
There was no adequate way to express how deeply he valued her, but nor was he
capable of what she was looking for now, and that burned deep in his mind. He
could pretend though. If it made her happy, he could be any freaking thing she
needed. Ruthlessly, relentlessly.

She melted into the kiss, meeting him with gentle hands and
closed eyes, soaking in his act. She wanted to him to pretend they were falling
in love. She needed that emotional human validation for what had just happened.

He would create an illusion of anything she wanted, anything
at all, but he couldn’t give the real thing. He wasn’t capable of it. The
bitter reality smoldered in useless anger. He was not capable of the one thing
she wanted desperately. Soulless creations could be a shitload of things, but
all of them were hard and demanding. Love was not something that could be mixed
in a lab and added to the beast.

Illusions were easy though. Reading her desires and using
them to create what she needed was one of the things his kind was very good at.
Sly, deceptive, manipulative, all natural abilities that were part of being a
predator who took what he wanted by any means. A dragon always got what he
wanted from a human and most animals.

For a dragon there are no rules, no morals, no regrets a
soul would hamper them with. But his creators had found a way to leash him.
They’d wrapped it up in pretty words and high ideals, convincing him that he
was different, cruelly giving him the illusion of choice.

Holding this woman, drinking her, he knew with complete
clarity that there was no choice and there never would be. He would do anything
to keep her in his arms, giving him this. Any deception, any lie, any act of
violence. For her, he’d be as fully dragon as any killer from that bygone age.
And that was exactly what they’d built him for. It was working perfectly. He
hated them with the same intensity he needed her.

She deserved more, and in making him, they had stolen her
future as surely as they’d written his into the biological cement of DNA. She
would never be free. Her choices would be manipulated, bent to his will. Even
if she eventually suspected it, there would be no freedom for her. By that time
she would crave what he gave her.

A soft light broke over the dark path his thoughts had taken
him down. Above them in a blindingly pink bedroom, hope stirred in her bed.
There was the one thing the old ones could not control. The reality they hadn’t
thought big enough to conceive. Proof they could not be in command of every
life. Dangerous, incomprehensibly precious, a miracle who would make the future
one that belonged solely to this age.

Her mother and he might not have a choice, but Minuet had
every choice imaginable.

Cord lifted his head, feathering kisses over Kelley’s face.
Her eyes opened in lazy pleasure as he licked down her neck.

“That was not nice,” Kelly murmured.

“No? I was pretty sure you enjoyed it,” Cord growled back,
unwilling to lift his head off her skin very long.

“I was lonely.”

That did jerk his head up to look into her eyes. “Lonely?
Honey, there is only one way I could have been closer to you.”

“Uh-huh, and you ran away from me,” she accused.

Cord regarded her as he tried to understand what it was she
thought he’d done. “I was being careful not to rush you.”

“You were being a coward.”

“Because I didn’t bang you within hours of meeting you?”

“Because you were afraid to trust me emotionally,” Kelly
told him.

Cord sat up slowly, pulling her up as he did. “What makes
you think that?”

Those lovely eyes were a little sad as she opened her mouth
to respond. She abruptly shut it as little feet pounded down the stairs. Cord
stealthily adjusted Kelly’s clothes telepathically, closing shorts in the nick
of time.

Without hesitation Minuet ran in beaming, launching herself
from a few feet away. Cord shifted slightly to make sure his body took most of
her weight as she landed on them. Laughing, she was totally confident she’d be
caught.

“Cord gow’ed big,” Minuet exclaimed as she lay across them.
“Now you pretty.”

“I am not pretty, little woman,” he corrected in mock seriousness
while making sure Minuet and Kelly could feel his humor in the air around them.
“Guys are never pretty.”

Kelly was laughing and holding Minuet’s shoulders as Cord
wrapped an arm around her kicking legs and threatened to tickle. “Say I’m not
pretty or the tickle dragon gets you.”

Shrieks of wiggling laughing met his threat. Cord let her
struggle out of his hold and wrap little arms and legs around her mother.
Regarding him triumphantly, she laid out the rules as she saw them.

“No tickle when Mommy holding me.”

“That’s not fair,” he challenged.

“I no tickle when Mommy holding you.”

Cord nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

“Time for breakfast,” Kelly interrupted them.

“Is Cord eat too?” Minuet wanted to know.

“If he wants to,” Kelly agreed as she stood, letting Minuet
slide to the floor.

Cord stood with them and smiled down at Minute. “I’d like to
see you and Mommy a lot now. How do you feel about that?”

Minuet looked up at her mother a moment. Kelly smiled and
raised a brow, giving Minuet permission to say whatever she liked.

At her request of raised arms, he quickly scooped her up and
set her on his hip as he smiled into her serious face. Minuet placed two small
hands on his cheeks to hold his head in place.

“I happy. Bad birds all gone.”

“What?” Kelly questioned in concern.

“You have bad birds?” Cord asked casually as he took Kelly’s
hand and sauntered toward the kitchen with his little armful.

“They gone,” Minuet assured him as he sat her in the kitchen
chair with a booster seat.

Kelly sat down beside her daughter, worriedly taking her
hand. “Honey, tell Mommy about the bad birds. What did they do?”

Cord gave them a little space. Getting a bowl from the
cabinet, he carefully cut a biscuit in it then poured gravy over it, heating it
for twenty seconds in the microwave. At the table, Minuet tried to explain.

“They fly an talk. I not talk birds. They bitey.” She made
snapping motions with her hands as if they were clicking beaks.

Grabbing a spoon, Cord brought the bowl to the table and
handed them to Kelly. He sat on the other side of Minuet as her mother tested
it for heat.

“Bighty?” Kelly asked “What is bighty?”

“Bitey. They big moufs. Scary.”

“Good girl,” Cord approved. “Never talk to strangers, even
strange birds. Mommy taught you that, right?”

“Yes. I hide pillow. But I hear dem.”

Kelly inserted a spoonful of food in Minuet’s mouth. “I’m
very proud of you. But you should have told Mommy about the birds.”

“You not hear?” Minuet asked in surprise as her mother
raised the spoon again.

“No. When were they here?”

“Comes wif boxes truck. Talking all a time. Go wif truck.
They come back. Flying, flying.”

“Well, they are gone now. I’ll make sure they don’t come
back,” Cord assured Minuet. “But in case I don’t hear them first, be sure and
tell me when they come back. Don’t tell me in my mind, they might hear that.”

Minuet chewed and swallowed before she could reply. “I know
dat. They wanna hear in my head.”

Her tone told him she thought that was evident to anyone.

“Exactly right,” he agreed. “We don’t let anyone hear us in
our heads. Right?”

Minuet glanced at her mother and shook her head while
chewing the next spoonful. Cord looked up over her head and raised a brow at
Kelly, asking what the look was about.

“We’ve been very careful not to use the other ways,” Kelly
explained conversationally. “It’s a big no-no.”

Well, that explained a lot. These two actually worked at not
testing and controlling their skills. Cord got up and moved to the sink,
turning on the water to do the dishes. Mostly he needed to keep out of the conversation
until he had a chance to talk to Kelly. Not contradicting her rules in front of
Minuet was important. He knew that much about parenting.

Kelly didn’t give him a lot of room to work with though. She
wanted Minuet reassured that she was safe, so she pressed him.

“Cord is going to take care of the nosy birds. Aren’t you?”
Kelly stated confidently.

Cord turned from the sink to face her. “I’ll protect you
from them, but it would be best if we left them alone. Minuet had the right
idea when she was quiet. They can’t know you ladies are here if you don’t give
them a sign.”

“Why they talk us?” Minuet wanted to know.

Kelly’s hand trembled slightly as she shoved another
spoonful in Minuet’s mouth.

Cord considered his answer. “I think they are looking for
anyone who can hear them. You said they are birds because they look like birds?
Or do they just feel like birds?”