Taka

by Miranda Bailey

  David had stopped touching him but Ron heard him right next to them and he saw Julie reaching her hand out. The thought of Julie jerking off David while he was inside her got him moving harder and faster, with Julie moving harder and faster to keep up. All three of them were panting when Julie screamed out her release, both Ron and David following soon after. This time it was Ron who was in the middle in the bed, Julie snuggled up in front of him and David behind him. David was stroking his thigh and he enjoyed the comforting feeling as he glanced down at his ring. “This is beautiful. Thank you.”

  “It was time,” David mumbled. “We are perfect for each other. Just don’t expect me to ever let you take me up the ass.”

  “Hadn’t even thought of that.”

  “You can go up my ass,” Julie mumbled. “David is a bit big for that.”

  Ron looked over his shoulder at David whose eyes had grown wide at the possibilities that provided, and Ron knew they would be just fine. The three of them had learned to not only live together but to love one another and he still had no idea how he had ever gotten so lucky. With David’s hand on his thigh, he thought it was time for him to misbehave again. It had been several weeks and he quite enjoyed the rough, fast and hard sexual experiences afterwards. He loved gentle and slow, but every once in a while he wanted it rough. Last time those big hands had held him down as Julie had sucked him to completion, stopping and starting frequently to draw it out, and as David had tied his feet to the bed he had been unable to move. Completely at their mercy he had been forced to focus on what was being done to him and he had loved it. Each time David came up with something new, Ron was excited to go along for the ride and it was time for David to be challenged for something new once again. With that in his mind, Ron finally dozed off to sleep, thinking of everything that would be coming his way in the years to come.

  Thinking back on that night five years later, he knew that walking up to that doorstep to rent a room had been the right choice. He had never paid a dime in rent, and in return he had two people he loved dearly. They did everything together and as he looked at Julie while she was asleep on the couch, her head in David’s lap, he couldn’t help but think he had hit the jackpot. He shared a smile with David before turning back to the movie they had been watching, his hand on the slightly rounded belly Julie was sporting. The baby was Ron’s, which they had found out after a DNA test, and they were about to find out if the baby would be a vampire-dragon. It hadn’t been planned, but the baby was going to be welcomed with open arms and would grow up loved beyond belief. And whether the baby was a vampire, a dragon, or a vampire-dragon, it wouldn’t matter. Their family was growing and if it was up to Ron, this would not be the only child they had. That thought alone made him smile again and as David’s hand covered his on Julie’s belly he knew that this was happiness. This was what life was supposed to be like

  The End

  III

  Jaguar Mated

  Shifter Romance

  About the Book

  Mira Clark has lived a lonely life. Then her grandmother dies, leaving her feeling even more alone in the world. A lifetime of boarding schools, university, and being on a different coast, have left Mira with a strong sense of self-reliance, but with an emptiness that she thinks can never be filled. Being a BBW doesn’t help matters as most of Mira’s relationships have ended when her partners grew bored with her.

  Then Salvador Perez walks into her life, stunningly handsome, and jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and even stalwart Mira can’t resist turning into a giggling teenager around him. But he has a strange tale to tell her, and even she can’t help but think the man calling himself a were-jaguar is insane. Then he tells her that she’s one too, and that she has a long family history she didn’t know about in Mexico. If she’s brave; if she’s willing to take a chance, she might find far more than she’d bargained for in her ancestral home. But then again, she might find the heartache of a lifetime.

  A moment of passion with Salvador is far more than Mira can resist, and the trip of a lifetime is more than she can pass up. Mira follows Salvador not knowing if her future holds happiness or more loneliness, but sometimes you have to take that leap to find out, or risk facing a lifetime alone regardless.

  1

  “History shows that mankind is very unkind to those they deem different. Every human settlement on earth has brought about destruction to native populations or to nearby populations. Subtle differences in religion or gender found in peer-groups have even led to death, expulsion, or other forms of abuse for those deemed too different, or out of the norm, of so-called civilized society. Because we are so very different, so very strange to those that do not have our abilities, we have to hide who we are and what we are. We are natural animals, the same as any other animal on this planet, but because we can change our shapes, our appearances, we would be hunted, killed or used for warfare as a weapon in some way. For our very survival we cannot go public; we must hide in the shadows, and we must not allow the world to know we exist. Our nature must be hidden if we are to survive.”

  Mira closed the dusty old book, wondering if it was a work of fiction or that of a deranged mind. She could tell by the age of the cover and the paper that the book was at least one hundred years old, but the last few entries had been done in ball-point pen; which is not that old. The older entries were certainly done with a quill and ink; that much was obvious by the scratches and blobs of ink found on some pages, but the newer ones were definitely modern ink pens. Mira thought the books strange, there were three of them that she’d found so far, hidden in her grandmother Angelica’s mattress, but she wasn’t able to translate the older writing yet. It appeared to be in Spanish, and though she could read Spanish, every time she looked at the pages her eyes went blurry, and she was unable to make out the words. The portions written in English were as clear as day, but the Spanish portions just made her eyes water.

  Putting the book down on her grandmother’s nightstand, she looked round the room. She’d never been allowed in this room as a child and it was only now, after her grandmother’s death, that she was able to walk into the other woman’s sanctuary. The room looked like it had been decorated around 1930 and left as it was. The furniture consisted of period pieces that were simply made, but serviceable in a pink color that apparently appealed to ladies back in the day. Mira called it ‘bismuth pink’; it reminded her of stomach ailments, but her grandmother must have loved the color because the whole room was painted the same shade.

  Mira thought about the lines she’d read again; she was certain she had found a hoax, an early example of fictional monster writing, anything but the true account of a nineteenth-century shape-shifting were-person. Were-people! Mira thought if this type of person truly existed now, science would have discovered it, examined it, and published numerous articles on the discovery. Such a discovery would have been reported world-wide, surely!

  Mira picked up the book she’d been reading and looked through the pages again. She decided to read through the last few pages, as those were the only ones she could truly read without her eyes going all fuzzy, and found that her name was mentioned on the last page. She read the line and thought perhaps the books were some kind of deranged family history, as the words only mentioned her parents and her name along with her date of birth. She knew her mother’s mother had been Hispanic, but not that the woman knew how to read or speak Spanish. She’d always assumed her grandmother, born and raised in California, did not know the language because Mira had never heard her speaking it. The only reason Mira knew any Spanish was because of friends and her classes in school. She wouldn’t know any of the language otherwise.

  Thinking the whole thing odd, Mira put the book down again as she heard cars arriving in the driveway. That must be her father’s cousin Monica and her daughter Alice. They were the only family Mira had left and she didn’t remember either of them, but they had offered to drive her around when she got back into town, once they found out she was here. T
hey’d come over to her grandmother’s house not long after she took a taxi from the airport, and offered their help then. The ladies were both older than Mira, and she hadn’t really had anything to do with them since she was a child.

  Mira’s grandmother had sent her off to boarding school as soon as she was old enough to travel to the east coast of America on her own. The years apart had caused a distance to grow between Mira and her grandmother, and she hadn’t even known her grandmother was ill when the older woman had passed away. Too many family secrets, too much time apart, it’s no wonder I stayed in New York for so long, Mira thought to herself. There simply wasn’t anything here for me.

  Leaving the room, she walked down to the foyer and let the two women in who came to take her to the funeral. Each woman embraced Mira, embraces she returned awkwardly and asked them if they needed to freshen up or needed a drink before they left to go to the funeral. Both women declined, and they all walked out to the car.

  The drive was filled with chitchat, with Mira explaining that she’d been given a month off from her job as a historian for a museum in New York so that she could get her grandmother’s estate in order. She explained that she was planning on going back as soon as she could, and that she was going to sell the house as quickly as possible also. She had no wish to stay in California, as she felt no real connection to it and was eager to get back home. Mira learned that both ladies were married and spent their lives devoted to the men in their family. This much was obvious to Mira as the women bragged about the exploits of their men but said very little about the female offspring they had produced, other than to say they had married well. Whatever that meant, Mira thought, as she looked out the window. This type of woman was an oddity to Mira and held little interest for her. She was not a homemaker and never would be.

  At the graveside later, Mira noticed more people were there than she expected. She had a catering service setting up refreshments back at the house, but she hadn’t expected this many people to show up. A range of beautiful people, young and old were present and each came to her to express their condolences. Mira was pleased that her grandmother warranted such a large turnout but hoped the catering service could keep up.

  Shaking away the strange thought at a time like this, Mira walked over to her cousins and asked if they were ready to go once the service was over. She wanted to get back to make sure everything was set up. Before she could get to them though, Mira saw a man that made her stop in her tracks. Well over six feet tall, the man was not only handsome; he was gorgeous with tan skin that just begged to be touched and kissed. His dark hair was pulled back into one of those man-buns that should look silly, but on him, it made Mira want to tear his clothes off. She also noticed he had dark-green eyes, an unusual emerald shade that made her wonder if he had contacts in. Mira felt an urge to walk over to the man and introduce herself, maybe ask how he knew her grandmother but talked herself out of it.

  Looking into the blacked out window of a nearby car Mira saw that she herself was tall, but not as tall as this man, with blonde hair and brown eyes, but she wasn’t very attractive. At 26, some might still call her an old maid, or boring, uninteresting and other such words. The only part of her that ever seemed to draw attention was her large breasts but when people noticed the rest of her was rather plump; their interest seemed to wane. She wasn’t the beautiful model type this man had to be used to. She tried to shake this strange, overpowering attraction she felt towards the man and walked away, reminding herself she was at her grandmother’s funeral, not a pickup bar.

  Mira found her cousin and the woman’s daughter but still couldn’t quite take her eyes off the man. Turning to Monica, she asked if her cousin knew who the man was. Both Monica and Alice shook their heads and said no. Monica asked if she was alright, and ready to get back to the house. Mira said that she was but even after getting into the car, she couldn’t quite take her eyes away from the man. Her eyes followed him until he was out of sight, far behind her and miles away, and even then her eyes seemed to scan for him in the people she passed by. Rubbing her head, Mira wondered if she was getting sick or just desperate for male attention. What a weird time to become infatuated, she thought, as the car pulled up to the house. Well, it’s time to forget him now and plaster a smile back on your face; people will be here soon enough.

  2

  Mira wandered around the room, greeting the two dozen people who all seemed to know Angelica at some point in her life, but Mira could not remember any of them. She knew the lawyer’s voice because Herman Childers had been the one to call her, but other than him and her two cousins, she didn’t know any of these people. Because of that and the distance that had grown between Mira and her grandmother, she felt as though this funeral and reception were more for these other people than it was for her. She felt no real loss, only sadness that she had not known the woman better. That was partly Angelica’s fault, she was the one that hid everything and kept so many secrets, Mira told herself, but still she knew she could have made more of an effort in the last few years of the woman’s life. There just didn’t seem to be a reason to do it. Angelica had rejected her granddaughter and packed her off as soon as she possibly could; Mira had taken the rejection for what it was and not bothered the woman.

  Walking through the gathered crowd of people Mira thought about how strange her life had been. Her parents died when she was young, a plane crash in Colorado took their lives, and her grandfather has passed well before Mira was born. Mira’s parents had both been only children so the one cousin she had was actually her father’s cousin, not her own. Her father came from a wealthy family of white people, while Mira’s mother’s side had been Hispanic. She didn’t know much more than that except that her grandmother had controlled the money her father had left her until she was 21. She spent it wisely and judiciously, using a portion of it to pay for a master’s degree in history. The rest she’d left in a bank account. She wanted to use it to buy a house one day, maybe when she had a family of her own. For now, she was happy with her tiny New York City apartment, even though it cost a good portion of her wages. She loved being able to look out high above the city and see it spread out before her.

  Mira stopped in front of a couple she hadn’t spoken with yet and introduced herself just as the man from the funeral walked in the open front door. She couldn’t break away as she’d only just introduced herself, and pretended to listen as she heard one more story about her wonderful grandmother that all of these people loved. Mira tried to hide her thoughts behind a mask of polite interest but inside, she was battling her own brain. She was seething at how much love her grandmother had shown so many other people while also trying to keep track of the man from the funeral. He was standing by the fireplace in the sitting room now, watching her with a strange look on his face. Mira wasn’t sure if it was concentration or bemusement. Then her eyes widened as she realized he was watching her! The sex-god was watching her!

  Mira continued to make her way around the room, and people slowly began to leave. She still hadn’t managed to make it to the sex-god, but as the people thinned out she was edging closer. Part of her wanted to run right over to him while another part of her was holding back. Sex-god he may be and yeah he might be watching her, but that didn’t mean he wanted to date her or anything. Maybe he was just one of those weird people that crashed family occasions knowing nobody would pay attention to them while they robbed the house blind? Perhaps, but he wasn’t hiding his interest in Mira at all.

  Another thought occurred to Mira then, and she looked around the house, wondering if this one was a decoy and there was someone else wandering around picking up her grandmother’s silver. She didn’t see anyone else and other than her two cousins; it appeared like she was finally going to get her chance to meet the sex-god because everyone else was gone. Taking a deep breath and preparing herself mentally for the meeting by repeating, “don’t be a dork,” over and over in her brain, Mira stepped over to the man with her hand held out and a
smile on her face.

  “Hi, I’m Mira Clark, and you are?” She asked with a smile.

  “Hello, I’m Salvador Perez, I’m head of the Jaguar Clan.” He said with a smile.

  “Oh, the Jaguar Clan? Is that a biker gang or something?” Mira asked blankly. She reminded herself of her don’t be a dork mantra and made her smile wider.

  “Excuse me, Mira honey, we’re going to head home now. Alice has to get her boys ready for school tomorrow, oh and little Amy as well.” Monica said with a smile and another awkward hug. “You take care of yourself and give us a buzz if you need anything. And don’t be a stranger, alright? Keep in touch.” With a breezy wave good-bye, Monica and Alice disappeared through the front door into the night.

  And just like that Mira was alone with the man of her dreams. She gave him an awkward smile and asked if he’d like to sit down or needed another drink. She ushered him over to a recliner and sat on the edge of the couch facing him. She looked over at him expectantly, wondering what exactly had brought him here.

  “So you were saying about this Jaguar Clan?” Mira prompted him when all he did was watch her with the smallest of smiles on his face. Mira wondered if there was something wrong with her makeup or if someone was standing behind her, he was staring so intently.

  “Yes, our clan. We are of the Jaguar people; your grandfather was head of the clan but abdicated to move to America a long time ago. My father took over and now I am the head. But surely your grandmother told you about all of this?”

  “Um, no, abdicated what exactly? From where?”