Nisa pulled off her sandals and dug her toes into the silt. Being in Willa’s house had suddenly felt claustrophobic. Now that they were out in the sunshine, she’d started to gain perspective again. It also meant they could have a conversation without it devolving to grunting and moaning.
Arlo carried the lunch bag as they walked hand-in-hand. For the first time they felt like a real couple—not just a man and woman fused by passion, but two people who belonged together just as much in the average everyday as they did in the world of Lycans.
They’d decided not to fuss with blankets or chairs but to simply sit right down in the sand. Arlo picked a spot about a hundred yards past the lifeguard station. Someplace not too close to the smattering of other beachgoers, but that still brought the thrill of being together in public.
Nisa dug in the bag for containers then looked up to see that Arlo had pulled his hair back. She popped the salmon open and smiled. “Are you sporting a man bun?”
Arlo reached for the brussels sprouts. “Your hair is in a bun.”
“I’m a woman. The only men I know who put their hair in buns are hipsters.” She feigned shock. “Are you a hipster, Arlo?”
He took the salmon from her and divided the food between the two containers. “I’m a man with long hair who doesn’t want it to get in his lover’s food.”
“That’s too bad. I hear hipsters are good in bed.”
“I also chop wood and churn my own butter.”
“I bet you do.” Nisa leaned in for a kiss. Arlo happily obliged.
She tucked her legs to the side and took a bite of her salmon. It was heaven. How they’d gone so long without eating, she didn’t know. She took another bite. And another. Arlo was doing the same, only he wasn’t bothering with his fork. He was grabbing pieces of fish and sprouts, and eating them with his bare hands—casually feral.
Arlo opened up the lemonade and they shared, drinking directly from the bottle.
“How old are you?”
Arlo spoke between bites, “Thirty-two.”
“I’m thirty-eight.”
Arlo chewed some more and swallowed. “I know.”
“How?” Nisa giggled.
“Benny.”
Her face soured. Benny was Shane’s agent and, in Nisa’s eyes, a clown. He was good at his job. But, where decency was concerned, he was an oaf. “What else did Benny tell you?”
“He’s the one who told me you were pregnant.”
“When?”
“Last night. He came to the house warning me to stay away from you. He thought I already knew.”
“I thought the baby was why you came to LA.”
“I came here because of work, but I’ve been working on a plan to get Willa on my side. Maybe offer Shane a deal good enough to get you out of this marriage. Then Benny told me you were pregnant.” He twisted the bottle down into the sand. “I kind of lost it for a moment. I just shifted and ran.”
“All the way from here? That’s thirty-five miles.”
“In Lycan form, that isn’t so much. I just had to get to you.”
“And somewhere in that discussion you asked Benny how old I am?”
Arlo dropped more salmon into his mouth. “Nahhh. He told me that in Mill Valley. You’d gone upstairs to rest before dinner. Shane was chewing Callum’s ear. So I pumped him for information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Your age. Where you were from. What your marriage was like. It probably doesn’t seem like it, but Benny isn’t exactly Shane’s biggest fan.”
“Maybe, but Benny enables him. The sooner I’m done with both of them, the better.”
“That’s fair. Just don’t underestimate Benny. I’ve known him a long time. He can sometimes be an ally when you least expect it.”
“So long as you won’t either. The man spent years groping me and forcing his tongue down my throat. If he touches me without my permission again, a body part is getting ripped off.”
Arlo’s mouth pulled up in one corner. It was hard to tell, but he almost looked proud.
“So.” Nisa grabbed another piece of toast. “What do you do for a living?”
Arlo sipped more lemonade. “Guess.”
“Hmmm. What requires travel . . . A high-end escort.”
Arlo barked a laugh. “No.” He’d finished eating his food and scooted closer to finish Nisa’s.
“Oh! An international art thief.”
“You’re getting warmer but, no.”
“Okay, tell me.”
She stretched out her legs, and Arlo put his head in her lap. “I conserve and restore murals.”
“Really? Arlo, that’s amazing. How did you learn to do that?”
He shrugged. “School. Apprenticeships. Then hands-on experience.”
Nisa stroked his hair. “How long have you been doing it?”
“Maybe eight years?”
“You must be very artistic then.”
“I paint and draw a little. But I prefer restoration. My favorites are old churches. They tend to have these really fascinating histories, and when I restore one of their murals I get to be a part of that.”
“So they let your kind in churches then . . .”
“Once we stopped drinking infant blood the clergy were fine with it.”
Nisa laughed and held his face. She tasted lemonade on his lips, and he held the back of her head, deepening the kiss.
“Nisa? Nisa Lennox?”
Nisa’s head jerked up to see a woman standing about fifteen yards away. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled under her breath. Then more loudly, “Hi, Rosanna.”
CHAPTER Four
Seagulls screeched and dive-bombed for fish.
Nisa didn’t have a lot of friends, but she did have a lot of acquaintances. Men and women whose husbands and partners were friends with Shane and who deemed her a “friend” by proxy. Rosanna was one of those women.
The sun was at Rosanna’s back, yet she was still shielding her eyes, trying to make sure she was seeing clearly. She came a few steps closer as Arlo slowly righted himself.
“I thought that was you.” She looked over at Arlo and waited for an introduction. When none was forthcoming, she stuck out her hand. “Rosanna Conrad.”
Arlo took it and gave a polite nod. “Arlo.”
She put her hands on her hips, displaying a perfect bikini body. Whoever her surgeon was, he’d earned his money. “Is there a last name?”
Arlo pushed to his feet and brushed the sand from his pants. “Silva.”
It again was not lost on Nisa that, after four months, she’d only just learned his last name. Rosanna had barely said “hello” and she already knew it.
Arlo picked up the tote bag and the lemonade bottle. “It was nice to meet you, Rosanna. We should be going.”
Nervous laughter tore from her lips. “Give me a call, Nisa. We’ll set Shane and Wyatt up for golf, and you and I can do lunch.”
Arlo was already walking away and he’d taken Nisa’s hand with him. She trailed after him. “Will do, Rosanna.”
Rosanna’s eyes flicked toward Arlo then over to Malibu Colony—the direction in which they were clearly headed.
Arlo wrapped his arm around Nisa’s waist, pulling her close for a kiss. Nisa gave it to him, inviting him deep into her mouth as they walked. When Arlo finally pulled away, Nisa’s knees were weak. She looked to see Rosanna watching them over her shoulder and trotting back toward her nanny and kids. And her cellphone.
Arlo never looked back—just smiled and kept moving forward. “Now she’ll really have something to talk about.”
Nisa sighed. “Of that I have no doubt.”
#
It was nearly three o’clock when they got back. Arlo tried to coax Nisa up to the bedroom, but she was ready to go home. How often (or not) Willa came to the Colony was irrelevant. It was still Willa’s house and she didn’t feel comfortable there.
She also didn’t want to irritate Shane by being gone too long. She
hated that where she and Arlo lived and how they spent their time could be dictated by him. But, until she had a better solution, she wanted to play it smart.
Arlo was packing his things. Not all of them, but enough to get by for the next few weeks. He also had to work, so he wanted to double check that he had all of the equipment he needed.
Nisa had unpacked the tote and, even though Arlo assured her a housekeeper would come by the next day, she had washed and put away the containers they’d used.
She and Arlo getting to know one another would be a marathon rather than a sprint. When she’d asked him what he did for a living, mural restorationist wasn’t even on her radar. He was so physical and pugnacious, he could have been in demolition. Instead he reveled in the beauty of crumbling things and making them glorious again. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.
They’d agreed it’d be better if she got a head start for home while he finished up. They would need to drive separate cars anyway, so why should they both be stuck in traffic? Nisa didn’t actually want to leave him nor did he actually want her to leave, but they’d been through a lot today and still had a lot more to discover about one another. It’d be good if they each had a moment to themselves.
Even if it made her stomach ache.
“Arlo?” she called from the front entry.
He appeared from around a corner. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
He walked her out to the driveway and held her car door. “I need maybe another hour here. Then I’ll be right there.”
“If you want to come later, skip the traffic, I’ll understand.”
“No. I’m going to pack up, make a quick call, then I’m on my way.”
“Okay.” Nisa smiled.
She slid into the driver’s seat. Arlo closed the door as she started the engine. Then he knocked on the window, and she rolled it down.
“I had fun today. Just the two of us.”
“Me too,” she said.
One long last kiss and she pulled out of the driveway.
She was back out on PCH grinning like a fool before she realized she hadn’t checked her phone. So when she came to a stoplight, she took a quick peek. She had fifteen missed texts. One was from her OB/GYN, reminding her that she had an appointment the next day. There was one from her pharmacy, and two were funny memes from friends. The other eleven were from Shane. Each and every one of them said the same thing:
“BITCH.”
#
Traffic was as expected—a slow, steady haul down the 101 until she reached Laurel Canyon. She felt queasy as she wound her way through the neighborhood, but when she arrived at the house, Shane’s car was gone and the windows were dark.
She’d stopped at Danielle’s Wood Fired Pizza and picked up three large pies: a pepperoni, a veggie, and a Danny’s Delux. She didn’t want any argument over there not being enough of a certain kind. Not that Shane deserved pizza after his “bitch” tirade, but the more Nisa could be the bigger person, the better off all three of them would be.
She carried them into the kitchen. “Alexa, turn on the house lights.” Alexa’s automated response triggered lights in the family room, den, hallway, and yard. The pool lights had come on too.
The pool was what made Nisa want to buy the house in the first place. The backyard wasn’t huge, but it was spacious. They could have BBQs and pool parties. The towering hedges made the space feel private. People could swim or hang out on the loungers . . . On occasion Nisa even swam naked.
That’s what she wanted to do right now. Not naked, but she wanted to be in the water. To be weightless and submerged. She didn’t bother going upstairs. Just dropped her purse and keys next to the pizzas then went to the laundry room and stripped.
She pulled an old bathing suit out of the cabinet. A gold one-piece she’d bought for a ’70s-themed party a while back. Then she grabbed a towel from the dryer and went to get wet.
CHAPTER Five
Nisa burst through the surface of the water and gasped for breath. She normally heated the pool for night swims, but that could take hours. Tonight she’d walked to the edge and dove right in. She bobbed for a minute, letting her body acclimate to the cool temperature, then began to swim laps.
She touched the farthest wall, pulled up, and rested her chin on the edge. A bee meandered inches from her face. Angry and lost. She watched it for a moment before shoving off and doing a backstroke to the steps. Then she stood up and again dove in.
The pool’s fiber-optic lights created pinpoints of radiance that glowed like distant stars. For Nisa it felt like swimming through the universe—one that existed just for her.
Her heart skipped a beat as something glided beneath her.
It was Arlo, naked as a jaybird. His muscles defined and hair rippling in the water. Then suddenly he was elongating, getting bigger. Short black hair sprouted from his flesh. Claws stretched from his fingers. He was graceful and savage, and when he surfaced in the deep end, he surfaced as the Beast.
Nisa surfaced too, eager to prove that she hadn’t been mistaken. That her eyes had not deceived her. But there the Beast was in all his Lycan glory. She’d forgotten how huge he was—how powerful and virile.
“Hi,” she said, at a loss for words.
The Beast’s eyes crinkled, then he circled like a shark. Nisa turned with him. She knew this was Arlo—knew him as both man and Beast. And yet four months had made the Beast a stranger. She tried to swim back where her feet could touch the bottom, but he grabbed her waist and pulled her in deeper.
Nisa clung to him, her feet treading water. Then he raised her into the air as though she weighed nothing. She stared down into his eyes and at the moonlight dancing there. This was it. Their beginning of forever . . .
Then he threw her. One second she was swooning, and the next she was soaring ass-backward.
Nisa hit the water with a monumental splash. Then she pushed from the bottom and came up with a vengeance. The Beast half wheezed, half barked with Lycan laughter. She flung hair from her eyes, incredulous.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re gonna get it!”
Nisa dove. She wasn’t Lycan, but she could be fast too. Her legs kicked hard to swim around behind him. The Beast turned as she emerged, and she splashed him in the face. He violently shook his head, slinging water from his muzzle. Undeterred, she hit him twice more.
He reached for her but she dove again, darting between his legs. So he went under too, easily overtaking then moving to block her path. She flipped, pushed off his thighs, and swam the other way. Bubbles trailed as he again shot beneath her, too fast for her to escape. So, she grabbed him by the scruff this time and rode on his back.
They both came up panting. Nisa kicked around to his front as he gripped the wall, then wrapped herself around his torso and neck. “Don’t stop now,” she teased. “Show me what you can do.”
Challenge accepted.
Nisa yelped as the Beast plunged them underwater. They spiraled along the bottom, her body fastened to his. Then suddenly they were aloft and tumbling through the air. He’d launched them into somersaults, and for seconds she was weightless. Then they crashed back down and were engulfed by the water.
They separated and Nisa burst back to the surface. “Holy shit!” she laughed. The Beast swam toward her, graceful as ever. “Did we really just do that? Did we really just fly?” His eyes were alight as he draped her over his shoulder then stood to full height. He’d run with her like that through the woods in Mill Valley, and Nisa grew warm knowing what came next.
The Beast carried her like a prize. Then careful of her baby bump laid her in the grass. One hand on her chest pushed her body flat, while his other hand’s claws shredded gold spandex. Her breasts sprang free from the ruined fabric. Then he gathered her wrists and pinned them above her head.
He made himself comfortable, water dripping in rivulets as his tongue first circled, then dragged over her nipples. It was how they first met—under a
nearly full moon with the Beast licking her tits. She strained against his grip, rubbing against his thigh like a dry-humping teenager. The Beast lapped water from the crook of her neck. Then he reached between her legs and tore her swimsuit at the crotch.
Nisa spread her knees, ready to be fucked. For the Beast and his cock to command her flesh. She braced herself as he gripped his erection. As a man he was sizable. As the Beast he was ridiculous. The tip breached her labia and swirled in wetness, but instead of pushing in he teased it against her clit.
She yanked against his grip in a fit of desperation. If she could get her hands free, she could make him fuck her properly. The Beast kept the pressure light, unfazed by her struggle—moving his penis in methodical circles. He moved between her legs and for a moment she thought she’d won. But instead, he thrust his shaft along her swollen nub.
It was just enough friction to drive Nisa crazy. Her body jerked from the sensation as she tensed and found release. She’d come, but not how she’d wanted to—with him inside of her. She rolled away from him then got on her hand and knees. “Please,” she murmured. “Please.” Then collapsed her arms beneath her and pushed out her ass.
The Beast was done teasing. His cock twitched as he kneeled behind her and in one deft move invaded her pussy. Nisa gasped, stretching around his girth. Then closed her eyes, her body trembling. A growl rumbled in his throat and he began to thrust.
His body formed a cage, his knees on either side of hers and his hands on the ground at her shoulders. She squeezed his forearms, urging him to go faster. Then he curled his hips into her and began to lick her back. She turned her face into the grass. This wasn’t going to last long. “I’m going to come, Arlo. You’re going to make me come.” Her cunt fought to pull him in further, to make their bodies one. She pushed up onto her hands again, her tits slapping in time, her cries getting louder as they slammed against each other.
Night Creatures: Book 2 Page 3
