But seriously, did Donald think Knox—er, the wolf—was dangerous?
Obviously, for his next words were, “How can you say that, after what they did to your parents? Your sister—”
“Donald,” Shaw boomed in a threatening voice. “That’s enough. I thank you for the warning, but I’m retired from hunting. Keep your traps away from my home. If something threatens my family, I’ll handle it. Alone.”
Tension oozed into the hallway from the kitchen as a brief silence followed. Then a chair scraped across the floor. “Fine,” Donald muttered. “Have it your way. But don’t say we never offered you our help when you come home to find your triplets bloody and slaughtered across your backyard by that monster.”
“Don’t worry; I won’t.”
As footsteps approached the entrance of the hall, Jaycee scurried into a nearby doorway and ducked out of sight. She held her breath as she listened to Donald storm toward the front door, then slam it shut.
Wondering what that had been about, she bit her lip as she waited for a more-quiet Shaw to pass through the hall and return to his office. She’d had no idea her employer had ever been into hunting. There were no pictures of him with a gun and some wild game he’d killed, no stuffed animals hanging on the walls. Donald had always been off “hunting” when they’d lived together. Deer, bear, squirrel—you name it, he shot it. But Shaw had never shown such tendencies.
Humph. Strange.
* * * * *
Jaycee still wondered about the odd conversation she’d overheard that evening as she whipped up a salad for supper, bypassing dressing. Seeing the ex again made her realize just how much she’d been slipping on her diet. Sprinkling crumbled egg over the top, she jumped when a knock came on her front door.
Not expecting visitors, Jaycee frowned and sat down her bowl of diced boiled eggs before she hurried to the living room. She barely glanced at the nightgown she’d changed into as soon as she’d arrived home; like there would actually be anyone she needed to impress on the other side of the door.
When she saw Donald standing on her front porch, smoothing his sleek blond hair back before breathing into his hand and sniffing to check his breath, she blinked. What the hell? Looked like he was ready to pick up some woman for a date. So why was he standing on her porch?
Curiosity getting the best of her, she opened the door and stared out at him.
His gaze gobbled her whole as if he could see straight through her nightgown. “God,” he hummed out the word. “You really do look good. Have you lost weight?”
Ire rising in her chest, Jaycee folded her arms and cocked a hip. “No. In fact, I’ve gained. About twenty pounds.”
He frowned as if he wanted to disagree but checked himself at the last moment. Finally managing to tear his stare from her breasts, he made eye contact and offered a rueful grin. “Can I come in?”
Jaycee didn’t budge. “Why?”
“God, Jaycee. You always gotta make a man beg, don’t you? I haven’t seen you for six fucking months. When you opened the door today, I…I don’t know. I suddenly realized how much I’ve missed you.”
Totally unmoved, she cocked an eyebrow to tell him how lame he sounded.
“Please,” he added, his voice cracking with the humble request, his eyes filling with sadness. “At least give me a chance to explain myself.”
Jaycee sighed and rolled her eyes but stepped aside. “Five minutes,” she grumbled, thinking how sweet it would be to throw him out on his ass when his explanation failed to sway her in the least.
Chapter Eight
Knox fidgeted, his wolf whining, as he watched the male enter Jaycee’s house. Donald, his beast sneered, showing a row full of savagely sharp teeth. After listening to the male talk with the cubs’ father this afternoon outside the jaguars’ house, he now had a second reason to hate Jaycee’s ex. The douche was a shifter hunter.
Not only had he broken Jaycee’s heart, but now he was after Knox to boot. Growling, Knox itched to tear inside the house and rip the fucker’s worthless hide from his equally worthless body.
He couldn’t believe she’d actually let that pathetic excuse for a male inside her house. Creeping closer in his stag form, he listened to what Donald had to say.
“I was going through a bad point in my life six months ago. Things at work, and…and other stuff.”
“What other stuff?” Jaycee demanded, making Knox grin at her unwavering tone of voice.
“I can’t…one of my friends was killed, okay.”
Knox ground his teeth when Jaycee’s sympathetic gasp reached him. “Oh my God, Donald. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…I couldn’t, all right. We both belonged to an organization I can’t talk about. And—”
“Okay, stop right there. If you try to tell me you’re some kind of super-secret espionage spy for the government, you can just leave right now.”
“I’m not—”
“And besides, even if you were, I fail to see how any of this induced you to stick your cock into another woman.”
Grinning, Knox edged even closer, cheering his female on. That a way, baby—tear the douche bag to pieces.
“For Christ’s sake,” Donald boomed, “will you just shut up and listen to me? I was out of my mind with grief when Daria showed up that day. When she came on to me—and yes, she came on to me—I wasn’t in my right frame of mind. I needed all the comfort I could get.”
Knox had heard enough of this bullshit. Before he could stop himself, he made the decision. No male was going to sniff around his mate without being put in his place.
Shifting into his human, he streaked to her bedroom window and pushed it open. After crawling inside, he raced for the door to the hall. He entered the living room seconds later, still butt-ass naked, where good ol’ Donald looked like he was about ready to fall to his knees and do the whole begging bit.
“Baby?” Knox said just before he hit the opening. “What’s keeping you— Oh. I didn’t hear anyone knock.”
Both Jaycee and the human male stood frozen, their jaws coming loose and falling as they each ogled him, skimming their gazes down his body. Even limp, his cock hung an impressive length as it brushed the inside of his thigh. As Jaycee’s ex gawked, the scent of intimidation radiated off him, clashing with self-conscious jealousy.
Knox smirked as he continued to stand there, letting them both see all.
* * * * *
Jaycee barely managed to close her mouth. But what the—
She lifted her eyes from Knox’s junk and finally noticed the victorious smirk in his gaze. Oh, he was loving this.
She had to admit, so was she. Though, honestly, she didn’t remember going to sleep tonight. This was the first time someone else had been in one of her Knox-dreams. These dreams were really beginning to take over her life. Maybe if she was lucky, they would consume her entirely and she could sleep forever, just being with him.
“You’re coming back to bed soon. Right?” he asked, his voice smoky and seductive, making her legs tingle.
As if he could smell her go wet, Knock reached down to clutch his cock, which she noticed lengthened the more he looked at her.
Next to her, Donald made a choking sound. He spun to her even as he pointed to the naked dark Adonis. “Who the fuck is he? Knox?” he sneered the name she’d given him early in the day.
Jaycee blushed, mostly from glee. “As a matter of fact, yes it is. Knox, this is Donald. Donald, Knox.”
“Hey,” Knox greeted with a lazy drawl to his voice, looking completely comfortable in his skin. But what was better, his hungry gaze never left her body.
Donald pinched his eyebrows together. “Do you mind covering yourself?”
Knox wrinkled his brow. “Why? Feeling insecure?” Donald flushed and blustered, but Knox merely shrugged. “You’re the one who interrupted us.”
“Fine. I’m out of here,” Donald muttered, spinning away. He stomped toward the door, only to pause at the last moment, like he
suddenly remembered what he’d been doing here in the first place. “Jaycee,” he said, spinning back around, his eyes imploring and pathetic.
“Hmm?”
She gasped when Knox came up so suddenly behind her, pressing his chest against her back and his erection against her ass. With Donald still watching, he moved her hair to the side so he could bend his head and kiss her neck. Inside her clothing, her nipples pearled and her soaked cunt quivered. Eyes fluttering shut, she moaned as his teeth and tongue lavished her.
She barely heard Donald mumble, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m out of here,” followed by the sound of the front door opening and banging shut.
“Thank God,” Knox muttered in her ear even as his hard dick pressed the cloth of her silky nightgown deeper between the crack of her ass.
“What?” she asked, rolling her hips and grinding backward.
“He’s finally gone.” He bent her forward. “I have to have you. Now.”
“Wha—” Her eyes flew open wide as he lifted her nightgown and cool air brushed the backs of her legs. Snapping her panties in half as he ripped them off, Knox pressed himself at the opening of her vagina. “Oh, my God.”
She gasped and began to pant, growing even wetter, soaking to the point that the head of his cock slipped inside her without either of them pushing.
This was the first time they’d done anything outside the bedroom. Everything felt different, in fact. She didn’t remember going to sleep.
He was in a frenzy to master her, show her and the entire world whom she belonged to.
“You’re mine,” he growled and thrust deep into her body. “That male is never to talk to you again. He had his chance. Now it’s past.”
His penis seemed to push deeper and deeper into her with each plunge. “Knox,” she cried out.
He looped a hand around her waist, and without breaking rhythm, he took her to the floor until she was propped on all fours on the carpet; then he mounted her from behind. His chest covered her back, and the fronts of his thighs lay along the backs of hers. His penis tunneled deeper.
“This is how wolves do it,” he growled just before biting the back of her neck and holding her in place with the light grip of his teeth as he pounded into her from the rear.
For some reason, it felt unbearably erotic, and Jaycee came, heaving back against him and screaming his name.
“Again,” he demanded even before she’d completely settled from her high. He continued to thrust into her, no mercy, just whiplash after whiplash of pleasure.
Jaycee bowed her face down, her hair sliding over her shoulders as she shook her head. She tried to sink her fingers into the carpet and hold on for dear life. Her knees were already stinging from rug burn. And yet the pressure on her pussy, the amazing sensation of Knox filling her, had her rearing backward every time he shoved himself home.
“Oh my God, I can’t—”
“Take it.” His growl was pure wolf. His pumping became frantic, without style, and all about pure need. Just before he latched his teeth back around her shoulder, he commanded, “Don’t you fucking pass out on me again.”
Then he came, roaring as he poured into her. The flex and grind of his dick, expanding as it spent its passion, ignited her cunt into contracting and squeezing him tighter, tearing an orgasm from her in the most pleasurable pain she’d ever experienced. Her vision went blurry and gray, her head went light, and her body felt strangely muzzy, but she remained conscious in a hazy kind of realm.
Time stretched on. Either that or Knox’s orgasm lasted particularly long, as in minute after minute, he pulled taut and groaned, bucking in that turbulent climaxing sort of way.
“Jaycee?” he finally rasped when the ripples from him came every couple of seconds.
“Hmm?”
He growled out a canine sound of pleasure. “Good.” He smoothed his hand over her hip. “You’re still with me. There’s hope for you after all.” Then he kissed her shoulder where he’d left a distinct love bite and slowly pulled out of her. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Confused, she shook her head and let out an amused laugh as she rolled around and plopped onto her back to stare up at the ceiling of her living room.
He nestled himself beside her, tucking his cheek next to hers so they could study the ceiling together. “You only came twice.”
She snorted. “Oh, you poor wolf, you. Here. You can make it up to me now.” Rolling on top of him until they were lying belly to belly on the floor, she kissed him once, then grinned and crawled up his body until she sat on his face.
His chuckle vibrated against her thigh. “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled back and then licked her. She arched her back and sucked in a surprised breath. Dear Lord, the wolf had one talented tongue.
The sofa was only a foot in front of her, so she reached out and clung to a couch cushion as Knox separated her pussy folds and lapped at her clit. She bit her lip and squeezed her legs around the sides of his head.
He latched a hand around her thigh and tugged her loose. Worried she might’ve been suffocating him, she glanced down and apologized. But he merely grinned. “This is for you, baby. Spread ’em wide for me.”
She tried. He helped her, lifting her legs in his hands so she sat suspended above him, resting solely on his forearms, nearly doing the splits above him as he ate her pussy, humming his approval and diving his tongue deep into her vagina before coming out to bat at her clit.
She strained, feeling a mighty orgasm mount. “Oh, God, Knox. It’s coming. It’s coming. Oh…”
She screamed. She simply opened her lungs and let it all out. Restless yet unable to move her legs to alleviate any of the pressure, she felt the entire release flood out of her cunt, so strong she could only wail as she swamped his tongue with her flavor.
Once she finished, she collapsed her face into a fluffy cushion and concentrated on breathing. Knox set her on the carpet next to his shoulder and sat up so he could cuddle his chest to her vertebrae and kiss her hair. Smoothing his fingers around her waist, he softly stroked the womanly swell of her belly until he moved north to cup her weighty breasts.
“You’re mine now. You realize that, don’t you?”
Jaycee closed her eyes and pressed her cheek deeper into the cushion. “If only I could be yours in reality.”
For a moment he was quiet, silently petting her. When he said, “You can. All you have to do is wake up,” his voice was hoarse and almost afraid.
Jaycee lifted her head from the couch and turned to look at him. His large, brown doe eyes were full of uncertainty. Cupping his cheek, she smiled. “Then take me to bed, lover. The faster I wake up, the sooner my dreams can come true and we can really be together.”
He grinned and pressed his forehead to hers. “Our dreams; not just yours.”
He pulled back, slipped his arms around her, and lifted her off her feet. Jaycee yelped and latched her arms around his neck. She wanted to warn him that she wasn’t a feather pillow. But he carried her with such ease to her bedroom, she figured her weight wasn’t a problem.
After laying her on her mattress, he covered her with his hot body instead of a blanket. Settling on top of her, he sighed and buried his face in her throat. “For twenty years,” he murmured, “I’ve searched for a place to belong. And finally, here in your arms, I feel as if I’ve come home.”
Jaycee stroked his black hair, frowning over the sadness behind his words. “What happened twenty years ago?”
He sighed out a mournful sound, as if simply remembering his history hurt. When he pulled back to meet her gaze, she saw a haunted past in his eyes. “I’m an anomaly, Jaycee. A freak. Not just because I’m a shifter. I’m an outsider to them too.”
Her lips parted. “I don’t see a freak. How are you a freak?”
He sighed again. “I’m three-fourths wolf shifter and…and one-fourth stag shifter.”
“Stag,” she repeated the word, suddenly realizing where his big chocolate-brown eyes came from. “You mean,
a deer. You’re a deer as well as a wolf.”
He nodded.
When she pushed against his chest, his eyes flared with surprise, but he pulled back, allowing her to sit up.
She tentatively touched his chest, awed. “Show me.”
His brows crinkled with confusion, but he nodded and shifted. It happened instantly. One moment he was a man, and the next a deer stood beside her bed.
She gasped. “Oh my God. That’s just plain cool.” She reached out, her fingers hesitant. The deer—Knox—tilted his head down, letting her touch his antlers. Her hand trembled slightly as she caressed the boney protrusion. The ivory tines were warmer than she thought they’d be, a living extension of the man inside. She petted his pelt next, charmed by the coarse fur and the feel of his muscles bunching and moving underneath.
Sitting back, she winked up at him. “You probably get this a lot, but…nice rack.”
The deer flashed back into a man who tackled her onto her pillows with a wolfy growl. “Always gotta be the smartass, don’t you?”
His lips spread and eyes twinkled as he spoke, so Jaycee figured she’d said the right thing. Puckering her lips with a fake pout, she sniffed. “But I thought you liked my ass just as it is.”
“I do. Oh, I do.” Without much struggle from her, he flipped her onto her stomach and began to nibble on her fleshy cheeks.
The lovemaking that followed totally rocked her world.
Afterward, she wrapped around Knox like a second skin, loathe to fall asleep because no matter what he’d told her earlier, she knew he’d be gone when she opened her eyes.
Stroking his sleek, tanned skin, she asked the question again, “What happened to you twenty years ago?”
He didn’t answer immediately; she wondered if he’d already fallen asleep. Just when she was sure he was out, he murmured, “Half-wolf, half-stag shifters are rare in my world…like unheard of. To a wolf, deer is lunch. Not a life partner. But my grandparents mated anyway, and created my mother. After she became an orphan, she stumbled across my father’s wolf pack, and he took her as his. No one ever knew about her other half. After I was born, she had to keep my stag side hidden as well. I was raised always knowing I needed to keep it hidden but never understanding the importance behind it.”
Dreams of Wolf [Half-breed Shifter Series Book 2] Page 6
