Oh my. I had dreaded making this call, expecting to have to deal with a complete bitch, and I’d actually encountered a really lovely person. Now she'd put in context and reminded me what cupid reps were all about, it did seem stupid to have thought they might have started the Withernsea war. We said our goodbyes, and I went downstairs and updated my mother on the contents and outcome of my conversation with Rebecca.
“Well it’s great there’s not going to be any protests outside the dating agency.” My mum said. “However, it means we are no nearer to finding out who is behind the war.”
“True, but it does prove that the person or persons responsible are already setting forth their mission to unleash war or evil upon Withernsea. The message sent to Rebecca was done with malice and to cause friction in the community. They were obviously intent on causing trouble or to divert our attention away from their own dastardly plans. So, Mum, we really do need to be extra vigilant. To be looking for anyone acting strangely, any newcomers to Withernsea; particularly anyone who might suddenly join the dating agency to get close to us.”
“I’ll make sure your father does deep research on any new application from either human or supernatural before they are taken onto our books.”
I thanked my mum, grabbed some lunch, and then headed to Alyssa’s where she was going to give me my first combat training of the day.
When I returned home on Saturday evening, I felt battered and bruised. After seeing Alyssa, I’d visited Tristan, then gone through to Frankie’s for some further teaching on supernatural species' strengths and weaknesses. I didn’t know which was harder: combat, or trying to keep up with Lucy’s sarcasm. To say she was no longer a demon, and had been given the job as an earth angel, she was still a force to be reckoned with. I returned with a list of dos and dont’s for Friday’s wedding reception, including that if the DJ played a single bar of Gangnam Style, she would light a match under Jax’s sprinklers. I didn’t bother explaining that the music was coming from my iPod attached to a speaker because it was the cafe, not a nightclub, but I quickly deleted Gangnam Style from the wedding playlist, along with Celebration, Saturday Night, and The Birdie Song.
A large part of Sunday daytime was spent in bed because my muscles screamed every time I tried to move myself. I'd thought having such a mix of supernatural ability, I’d get away with aches and pains, but I guess like with anything you had to use it or lose it. After a nice long soak in the tub, I went downstairs where I consumed double my usual amount of O-neg. I felt it run along my system, repairing torn muscles and easing the ache in my joints. A future lesson had been learned, double the blood before and after combat training.
Tomorrow, I would be back seeing different supernaturals for more training, and seeing Frankie again for more lessons on my peers, or should that be subjects? It still seemed very strange to comprehend that I was the Queen of both Withernsea and Wyvern Sea. But now it was time to forget the woes of Withernsea and go underwater to see my man.
I don’t know which made me more nervous.
Chapter Sixteen
Charlie
Daniel once more brought me to the door of Kai’s cottage. Kai opened the door, a beaming smile across his face. The same smile was no doubt mirrored in my own face. My cheeks were aching with it. It had only been a couple of days since we had last seen each other but it had felt like a lifetime.
Kai directed me straight through his living room, through his kitchen, and out of the rear door, onto the patio where we walked towards his workshop. Just inside the outbuilding I could see a large shape wrapped in a sheet, with a large ribbon around it tied in a bow.
“I missed you, but it gave me a chance to finish your gift.” Kai grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the gift.
“Wow, Kai, I was expecting you to have a big package, but this is really something.” I winked and watched as my beautiful man blushed. I had obviously spent too much time in Kim's presence and wanted to bite out my own tongue.
I stood in front of the gift and turned to him. “Can I open it now?”
“Yes, of course.”
I reached to the bow at the back and unwrapped the ribbon. Then I removed the sheet. Below, I found the most exquisitely carved chair. Made of driftwood, it had a smooth seat and back but gnarled legs. It was a sheer thing of beauty, and a testament of his talent at his craft.
“Oh, Kai, it is stunning.”
“Not as stunning as the woman I made it for.” He told me. “I know you wear no airs and graces, but I believe that my queen needs a throne. Therefore I have made you this chair that you can either keep here, or have transported back to the farmhouse. You can use it as a dressing table chair or a desk chair, whatever you want, but I want you to know that as far as I’m concerned this is the throne for my queen.” He moved closer to me, taking me in his arms, and staring down into my eyes. “Charlie, I love you.”
My knees went weak, and I had to sit on the chair. “Is this why you made it? Did you know you were going to make my legs turn to jelly and I'd need somewhere to rest?” I looked back at him, “Kai, I love you too.”
Kai moved towards me, lowered himself onto his knees, leaned forward and crashed his mouth to mine. We became a tangle of lips, and teeth, and tongues, until after a few minutes Kai broke our kiss and moved back.
“My apologies, Charlie, for my getting carried away. I wish to respect you, but you have to appreciate, it’s hard for me to resist.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” I joked as my gaze fixed upon his groin area. Kai blushed again and I found it so endearing that he was a little shy around me when I was the virgin. I knew Kai had not had many lovers and this made me happy, because I might be Queen of Withernsea but I was still insanely jealous of anyone who had been with my man. Standing up from my seat, I grabbed hold of Kai’s hand and led him back across the patio, through the kitchen, and into the living room, where I paused at the bottom of the stairs. My heart thudded so hard in my chest, I didn’t know how Kai couldn’t hear it and how the walls weren’t shaking with the ricochet from it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. I turned back to Kai, swallowing before I uttered a word, my mouth was so dry.
“Kai, I also have a gift for you. My gift is to be given to you in your bedroom; therefore, I need to lead you upstairs in order to give it to you.”
I could see he was about to protest, to say he was prepared to wait, like the gentleman I knew he was.
“Kai, I don’t want you to be gentle with me. I want you to make love to me and hold nothing back. I fear the war is coming and I don’t want to regret not having lived my life fully. Kai, I belong to you. My heart belongs to you. My soul belongs to you. Now please, don’t make me beg, well, not at first anyway. Take me to bed, Kai.”
He nodded. And he didn’t need any further encouragement. He picked me up, put me over his shoulder and ran with me up the stairs. Placing me down outside his bedroom door, he opened the door, put on his bedside light to create ambience, and moved over to his docking station where he put on some soft background music. Then he walked back over to me, lifted me off my feet and slowly walked with me towards the bed where he placed me down with reverence.
Kai removed my clothes oh-so-slowly, kissing, nibbling, and trailing his tongue over every revealed inch of my skin. I was a puddle of goo. My nerves had completely disappeared. It all felt so right. I opened my eyes and watched as Kai removed those shell decorated leggings, and what he revealed did not disappoint. He joined me in bed and returned to kissing every single inch of my body. His fingers dipped down low where he played me like a musical instrument. He was the musician, and he showed me he knew how to play well. Before long, I erupted around his fingers, my entire body shaking as I came down.
“Are you okay?” He checked with me.
“I am more than okay, Kai.” I reassured him before leaning forward and pulling his face back towards mine where I kissed him within an inch of his life. There was more kissing, licking, nibbling, touching, and the
n I felt Kai’s hard length as he positioned himself against my entrance. Once more he checked that I was okay and ready. I was more than ready. I knew that at first it could be uncomfortable and hurt, and sure enough at first his thrusts felt like small burns as he entered me. Kai remained gentle, until I reassured him that I was okay and then his arousal took over and he began to increase his pace. Pleasure burst through the pain of before and I met his thrusts, raising my hips trying to get him deeper inside me.
“Oh God, Kai. Don’t stop, don’t stop.” I screamed.
He increased his thrusts further and placed a finger on my clit. That was it. I became a bomb of lust and then I detonated, climaxing hard around his cock. With a groan, Kai came inside me.
We collapsed back against his sheets, and Kai pulled me into his arms, pulling the duvet cover over us. “How was that for you?” He asked. “You’re not too sore are you?”
“No. I’m a little sore, but Kai, it was everything I had hoped for. I feel even closer to you now.”
We fell asleep in each other’s arms and when I woke Monday morning, I realised I wasn’t that sore after all. So we did it all over again, three times!
It was after I managed to extract myself from my cloud of lust, that I realised I’d not gone home, or even called or messaged home to let them know I was staying over.
Oh my god, my dad…
Chapter Seventeen
Shelley
It was a given to hate Mondays, but this Monday really was the pits. So my body could exist with the barest of sleep, but being kept up all night by my husband, and not in a good way, meant I felt like death warmed up.
Theo had spent the entire night and all the hours of dawn pacing the house and asking me how he could get permission to go under the sea to drag his daughter back home. It had taken me hours upon hours to get Theo to realise that his now grown-up daughter could do what she wanted. However, I did agree with him we were presuming that she had stayed out with Kai, and a text from her would have been appreciated to stop her father from alternately going between apoplexy at Kai taking her innocence and worry that the Queen had been abducted and wondering when we were going to receive a ransom note.
I sent Charlie a text asking her to just let us know she was okay when she received the message. I was about to leave the house to go to the office when I received a return text.
Charlie: I am so sorry. I fell asleep at Kai’s. I didn’t mean to worry anyone but I appreciate I will have done. Back soon, just want to check first if Dad is all menacing vampire and threatening to kill Kai.
I texted her back.
Mum: your dad was a mess... Try to remember to send us a quick text in future. I know you’re grown up now, but we’d worry anyway, impending war or not. Hope you had a lovely evening. I’m off to work now xo
She sent another.
Charlie: Best evening ever! Kai has crafted me the most beautiful chair. I’m going to bring it home with me. He says it’s my throne lol!
I had a feeling that my daughter was beyond happy from sitting on something, but that it wasn’t the chair. However, I wouldn’t share my musings with her father.
Theo returned to the kitchen after yet another perimeter check. “Have you heard from her yet?”
“Yes, she just texted. She apologises but said she fell asleep at Kai’s. She is on her way back now. Apparently, he has made her a chair, and she’s bringing it back with her.”
Theo let out a deep exhale, something I always found amusing bearing in mind we didn’t breathe. “Oh, this is good, she fell asleep. Hopefully, Kai covered her with nice warm blankets and looked after her. I can’t wait to see the chair. It seems Kai is very talented with those hands of his.”
I placed my hand over my mouth, and made sure my mind was shuttered off, so that Theo couldn’t detect my amusement. I didn’t know whether my husband was really being stupid or had just decided to live in a land called denial. Either way, he had calmed down, and I had no intention of setting him off again.
Theo excused himself and finally went off to bed. I headed to the hallway where I shoved my feet into my shoes, grabbed my bag, put on my coat, and whizzed off to work.
No sooner was I sat behind my desk than my phone rang. I answered the call from my adoptive mother before having to hold the phone away from my ear as she screamed down it hysterically.
“Mum, calm down. I have no idea what you are saying. Take a deep breath; what is the matter?” Then I listened as my mother informed me that she had been at the hospital all weekend after my father had been found unconscious at the back of the library.
“I don’t even know what he was doing there, Shelley. He was certainly not doing the puzzles. That in itself is a puzzle. He never does puzzles, he refuses point blank to watch Countdown in an afternoon if he’s on a day off. So I don’t understand why he was there. So far they have diagnosed he is suffering from complete exhaustion, but he’s yet to say a word. But it’s his eyes, Shelley, they just seem filled with fear. Do you think I have worn him out with too much sex and now he’s scared of me?”
Of all the things I expected my mum to say, that had not been one of them, and it’d filled me with a mental image far scarier than anything I had envisaged thinking of war in Withernsea.
“Oh, Mum. I’m sure that’s not it. Maybe he hadn’t been feeling very well and so had gone into the library to rest and the only seat free had been near the puzzles? Did the librarian say anything?”
“Huh, the librarian had no idea he’d even come in. She only noticed him when locking up for the night. She panicked when he wouldn’t stir.”
“What have the doctors said about how exhausted he is? Have they seen this before?”
“They just said he’ll need to rest at the hospital and that they've placed him on a vitamin drip. His levels are slowly coming back to normal and they said hopefully, in the next day or two, he’ll start to come around and tell us what he has done to become so tired.”
“Perhaps it’s just been all the stress of late? You know, all this threatening to go to the press. Maybe he just wound himself up so much his body decided it needed a rest. The mind is a peculiar thing, maybe this exhaustion thing is connected to the arguing with Polly and me.”
“It’s true he has been making more of an effort at home: cooking meals, doing a little housework, and then doing me. Sorry if that’s a little too much information, but it’s true. We’ve had more sexy times in the last few days than we have in the last few years. He also joined a gym, so it is possible that along with his paranoia about supernatural creatures and falling out with his daughters, plus my threat of divorce, that everything just overloaded him.”
“Well he’s in the best place. Hopefully, he will continue to improve. I’ll try to get over to visit him tonight.”
“There’s really not much point at the moment, Shelley. Not while he’s unable to speak and sleeping all the time. I’ll let you know when he comes round and we can arrange for you to visit then. I know you have a lot on your plate at the moment what with arranging the wedding reception, running your business, and keeping an eye out for potential war, but thank you for offering.”
We said our goodbyes and ended the call. It was proving to be a really weird morning. I decided that before I did anything else today, I would pop down to Jax’s and grab a coffee and a chocolate doughnut, because I needed some normality to my day. I grabbed my purse and left my office, knocking on Lucy’s door to see if she wanted anything.
My co-worker had been unusually quiet this morning. She yelled, “Come in,” so I opened the door and entered her office. She was banging at her keyboard with such ferocity that I was surprised it was still intact.
“Is everything okay with you, Lucy?” I kept to the back of the office so I wasn’t in danger of being hit by a keyboard missile if she managed to smash through it.
“Fine.” She said in that way women do which means things are most definitely not fine.
“Clearly, things are
not fine. So what’s going on?” I asked her, “and get on with telling me because I’ve already had a bitch of a Monday morning and if I don’t get a coffee soon, I’m likely to blow, and right now you’re the one in my firing line.”
Lucy stood up from her desk, narrowing her eyes at me. “If I was still a demon right now, this situation would be even more heated than it is already. You, Shelley Landry, are currently interfering with my life and I’ve just about had enough of it.”
“What are you talking about, Lucy?” I placed a hand on each hip. Lucy did the same. All we needed were cowboy hats and pistols and we were ready to duel.
“You decide you’re throwing me a wedding reception. Then you decide it’s time for Charlie to learn all about supernatural history. Therefore giving my husband an excuse to take himself away from all the wedding preparation.”
I sneered at her. “What preparation? We are doing everything for you. The only thing you have to do is decide what you are wearing and Ebony is helping you with that. Then you just have to choose which Tom Hardy DVDs you want. It’s hardly taxing is it? Talk about ungrateful.”
“And that shows just how out of the loop you currently are. Ebony is hardly making it into the store because she’s too busy shagging her husband. Instead Alyssa is there and her choice of outfit for me is a leopard print micro dress. Every time I try to talk to Samara to ask how she is decorating the coffee shop, she just whinges on about this other Cupid rep called Rebecca and bores me to death about fucking sausage rolls when I’m not involved with the buffet. I have Jax asking me of the dietary requirements of all the different species invited, which is something Frankie could do easily, but every time I go to ask him he’s too busy finding out information or teaching your daughter. I didn’t ask for this goddam reception, and I’m finding it all a large ball ache just to end up with 14 tin openers and 32 tea towels as wedding presents from all the tightwad attendees who won’t spend a tenner on a DVD.”
The Complete Collection: Supernatural Dating Agency Books 1-6 Page 73
