by Molly Harper
He walked forward, never slipping out of her. She plucked at the front of his uniform shirt and realized that it didn’t button up. She leaned back and pulled at it, but it refused to open. He smirked at her and reached up for the zipper hidden under at the button flap. He lowered the zipper to reveal his white undershirt.
“Sorcery!” she gasped as he walked through the door. She shoved the shirt off of his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. He knelt on the bed, carrying her with him, and the momentum swung the bedframe against the wall. Still kissing her, he glanced up and then he was goggling at the ropes suspending her bed from the ceiling.
He broke away from her mouth. “The hell?”
She nodded as she pushed his pants down his thighs with her feet. “Yeah, my bed swings.”
“Interesting.” He nipped at her chin, her neck, then between her breasts while she pulled his tank over his head. Pulling away from her, he rose to his knees, dragging her up with him. She took him in hand and slid down the length of him, humming as the hot flesh parted hers.
“That should not feel as good as it does,” she sighed, rolling her body against his.
He guided her hips up and down with his hands. And with every thrust, the bed swung and bounced off of the wall.
It sounded just as dirty as it felt.
She could feel his talons sinking into the globes of her ass and the sting only made her pleasure spike higher. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung tighter as his movements sped up. She angled her body so that he ground against just the right spot, sending those lovely little ripples fluttering through her. Bael’s hips moved more erratically and the frame knocked against the wall even harder.
She lost track of time and the thumping against the wall. All she could feel was the warmth inside her and pressed against her skin. And when he fell over the edge, dragging her with him, the blossoming heat was less of a shock than it had been the first time.
She went limp against him, barely registering as he laid her gently on the mattress and flopped down next to her.
Jillian turned to press her face to his shoulder and noted the dents in the plaster wall.
“I’m going to lose my security deposit,” she panted.
“The town is renting the house, not you.”
“Well, the town is going to lose their security deposit. I hope they make you explain why at the next parish commission meeting.”
“I’ll plead the Fifth,” he said, kissing her shoulder.
“As much as I appreciate you popping by for a cup of sex, what was that about?”
“Zed said you got a package from an ex-boyfriend. He said that you were sitting in your van, cooing and cuddling a stuffed animal while stuffing a cupcake into your mouth.”
She lifted her head and stared at him. “How the hell would Zed know?”
“Enola overheard you and told his mom, who told Zed, who ran into my office to tell me. I mean, literally ran, with a smile on his face. Because he’s an ass."
Jillian slapped at his chest. “So, you came over here because you thought I was cuddling a stuffed animal from my ex-boyfriend? And eating his cupcake? And you thought you would come over here and bang the desire for another man’s stuffed animals and cupcakes out of me?”
Bael hesitated and then admitted, “Well, it sounds weird when you put it like that.”
“Yeah, the phrasing is the problem.”
He rolled over her, pressing her into the mattress “I don’t share. This isn’t a dragon thing, though my nature definitely doesn’t help. But I won’t share you with some drole.”
“I’m not asking you to share. There was a package of cupcakes from my ex-boyfriend, which I didn’t want because he’s my ex-boyfriend for a reason. I sent them home with Bonita to sugar up her grandchildren. The stuffed animal—” Jillian paused to pick up the plush Drogon from where he’d been shoved aside on the mattress. “Is from my best friend, Sonja, because we haven’t been able to binge-watch Game of Thrones together while I’ve been gone. She also sent me her mother’s special spice cookies, which is what I was stuffing into my mouth when your not-so-confidential informant spotted me. And I’m not even going to apologize for it, because they’re amazing.”
“So…no interest in the ex-boyfriend or his cupcakes?”
“No.”
“Can I try the spice cookies?”
“No,” she told him, rolling and straddling his hips even as he pouted. “Because much like some shifters I know, I don’t share.”
“Fine.”
“How was the public information meeting?”
Bael grimaced. “Some people are mighty scared. Some are taking it in stride. Nobody openly blamed you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I was, a little bit, yeah,” she admitted. “So really, neither of us has anything to worry about. You don’t have to worry about me accepting cupcakes from other suitors. And I don’t have to be worried about being run out of town as murder bait.”
“Right, nothing to worry about, except the murders.”
“You and your downsides.”
He picked up the stuffed dragon. “Cut it out, small fry.” And put it on the nightstand, facing away from the bed.
“Why would you do that?”
He pulled her on top of him and kissed her soundly. “Because you already have a dragon in your bed.”
12
Jillian
Jillian turned her cart down the hot sauce aisle at the Boone Mercantile, looking for presents for Sonja and Mel. She’d decided to send them both care packages of local foods to thank them for the earbud cozies and cookies.
Even with its harsh fluorescent lights, the grocery store was a welcome respite from her kitchen table isolation. She’d spent most of her week writing. Almost every appointment she had for the week was canceled. The subjects were all perfectly polite about it, but they each found some very plausible and unavoidable reason why they couldn’t meet with her. It turned out the local people didn’t want to be interviewed when people who agreed to interviews turned up dead.
The good news was that the extra time had given her the opportunity to polish her progress report, so the moment her supervisor, Jan Wallace, called demanding an update, Jillian was able to immediately counter the check.
“No problem. I can email it to you by this afternoon. Would you like me to cc the board?” she’d asked.
Jan spluttered on the other end of the line. “Well, don’t rush the job. We want careful analysis.”
“Oh, I’ve been keeping notes on my progress the whole time I’ve been here. Do you not do that when you’re in the field?” Jillian’s voice was so pointedly guileless, Sonja would have collapsed in giggles to hear it. Because Jan Wallace was a human with a lengthy laundry list of allergies and as long as ragweed existed, she would not be doing field work.
Jillian conceded that this might have been a little mean. She thought maybe she was spending too much time around apex predators. Nevertheless, she’d submitted her report, addressing each of the bullet points Sonja had sent her. And since no one had sent her follow-up questions, Jillian assumed it was satisfactory. Surely Sonja would have sent up a warning flare if it wasn’t.
Jillian realized she was standing in the middle of the aisle, staring off into space. She shook off her daze and took two bottles marked DuFrane’s Devil Drops with a fire-breathing demon on the label. Mel, who occasionally indulged in gut-destroying spicy food, would love it. Sonja would see it as a challenge, and she never backed down from a challenge.
Due to the wide array of diets among the magique, there was a pretty impressive range of products available—everything from Russian caviar to Irish butter. She shuffled along the aisles knocking staples into her cart. With her limited cooking skills, Jillian stuck to sandwiches and cereal. Sonja did most of the cooking at home, out of self-defense. And if Jillian kept getting carry-out from the pie shop when she was in town, she wouldn’t be able to button her pants.
She turned into the pasta aisle and ran smack into another cart.
She gasped. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry—”
And then she realized mid-sentence that she’d collided with Bael’s cousin, Balfour, who was grinning at her with that creepy politician’s smile of his. This reminded Jillian that she needed to stop by the cleaning products aisle and pick up a couple of gallons of bleach.
“Miss Ramsay, our northern flower, how are you this fine afternoon?”
Jillian forced her face into a blandly pleasant expression, despite Balfour’s refusal to call her, “Dr. Ramsay.”
“I’m fine, thank you. And you?”
Balfour tossed his dark hair and stepped closer in what Jillian was sure was meant to be a casual, sexy gesture. She had to suppress the urge to visibly shudder. “Always so polite and formal. I bet you’re not so formal with my cousin, now are you? I bet you’re real relaxed whenever he’s around.”
She stared at him for a good long beat. “That’s none of your business.”
He stepped way too far into her personal space bubble, backing her against the grocery shelf. “Is that what you like about him?” he purred. “That southern drawl of his whispering dirty things into your ear? Or is it his claws? You like him digging those long, sharp claws into your skin, threatening to make you bleed, but not quite?”
She stared at him, her lip curled in disgust, and pictured ramming his face into a frozen side of beef in the meat section.
He reached for a lock of hair that had fallen over her shoulder. “Bael’s not the only dragon in town, you know, if that’s what you want. I could do all that and more for you.”
She pushed his hand away from her and moved away from the grocery shelf. “I wouldn’t touch you for all the gold in the parish.”
She pushed the cart past him and he caught her arm. “You know, the way things are going in town, I would think you would want to make as many friends as possible. People are starting to think maybe you’re bad luck. I could persuade them to think otherwise.”
She snorted, thinking of the way Balfour was ignored at Clarissa’s party. People might have tolerated Balfour, for his family’s sake, but they kept their distance. “I don’t think you have nearly as much personal power as you think you do.”
He squeezed her arm harder. “Is that what you like? Power?”
“Why do you even care? You’ve barely spoken two words to me since I arrived in town and I haven’t done anything to give you the impression I’m interested.” She realized she was whispering, preventing a scene, which only served to protect Balfour, so she raised her voice to add, “Back off.”
“But I want to know what makes you tick. I want to know what happens inside your head to make you do the things you do.”
She yanked her arm away from him, then reached into her bag to flip the switch on Bael’s Taser. “Stay away from me. Don’t come near me. Don’t come near my house. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even think of me.”
His grin seemed to have more teeth than she remembered. His eyes flashed a sickly yellow as he lowered his mouth near her ear. “And what are you going to do to stop me?”
She pulled the Taser out of her bag, fully charged, and blindly shoved it at his crotch. Balfour’s eyes went wide and he turned just in time for her to catch his hip instead of zipper. She pulled the trigger and the contacts fired. He shrieked, jerking and flailing before collapsing on the floor.
“I’ll do that,” she said, stepping over his twitching body and continued on to the next aisle.
Her face burned as she walked away from her full cart, realizing that the dozen or so shoppers in the store were staring at her. Let them stare. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t over-reacted. And if they didn’t want dragons having full body seizures in their grocery store aisle, maybe they needed better store security.
Jillian sighed, remembering her expectations were too high. Also, she just remembered that Balfour’s family owned the grocery store where she’d Tased him.
She was going to have to start going to the Walmart in Slidell.
She was shaking by the time she reached the door. She had a cold sinking dread of what was behind her, that if she turned back she would find Balfour running at her, claws and fangs ready. Just as Jillian reached the sidewalk, a hand closed around her shoulder and she shrieked. She whirled around with the depleted Taser in hand, because smacking Balfour in the face with it would work.
Simon Malfater held his hands in a defensive posture. “Don’t shoot!”
“Simon,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry. I just—”
He smiled, patting her on the shoulder. “I know, I saw. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. Balfour can be a little aggressive sometimes. I don’t think he realizes his own strength.”
“I don’t think he cares about his strength.”
Simon chuckled. “There’s that, too. Can I walk you to your car?”
She didn’t want to be that girl, the one who needs some man to protect her from the consequences of confronting an asshole. But at the same time, there was a good chance that her adrenaline would drain away and her legs would collapse underneath her if she tried to cross the parking lot without the buddy system.
“Thank you, that would be very thoughtful of you.”
He smiled warmly. “Aw, no problem, cher. If you’re feeling shaky, I could drive you home.”
“Jillian?”
Still holding Simon’s arm, she turned toward the voice shouting her name and saw Bael running full-tilt down Main Street in his uniform. Simon’s hand was whipped away from her while Bael scooped her up and carried her almost half a block away.
“Ooof,” she wheezed. “Bael, what are you doing?”
He stopped running at the sound of her voice, wrapping her legs around him and supporting her butt with his hands.
“Junior Claymore was in the market, buyin’ fish fry. He called my office, told Theresa that Balfour tried to hurt you.” He leaned back, looking her over for injuries.
“I will never get used to the magie grapevine system,” she muttered into his shoulder as he carried her back toward the store. “He didn’t really try to hurt me. He barely touched me. He just kept asking what it was about you that I liked, telling me that he could do that and more for me. He was just creepy and aggressive. Clearly, he learned how to flirt from Charles Manson.”
Bael glared at the door to the grocery. Balfour was standing just behind the glass doors, smirking at his cousin. Bael set her gently on her feet, though his expression was thunderous. Jillian pressed her hands to his chest and, despite the fact that she’d planted her feet, Bael just kept walking toward the door, sliding Jillian’s sneakers across the pavement. “Bael, don’t. It’s not worth it, causing a public scene. It will only make things worse with your grandfather.”
She pushed her shoulder into his chest as she scrambled against the blacktop. “Bael! Please, I just want to go home.”
Then Bael glared at Balfour, while wrapping an arm around Jillian. “All right. I’m sorry. Come on, sweetheart. I’ll drive you home.”
Jillian turned to Simon. “Thanks for your help, Simon.
“Any time,” Simon said, shrugging his shoulders.
“I haven’t forgotten about interviewing you. I’ll give you a call soon, OK?”
Simon grinned and waved at her as Bael opened the passenger door of the van and lifted Jillian into the seat.
Bael opened the driver’s side door and held his hand out for the keys. “You’re coming to my place. You’re going to stay with me.”
“Rephrase, please?” she told him. “Also, why do none of my invitations to people’s homes include the words ‘please’ or ‘you have the option’?”
“I would feel better if you stayed with me while there is a murderer on the loose. And Balfour.”
“Have you considered that Balfour is a suspect in those murders?”
“What, why?”
“Because he
’s creepy and he doesn’t respect personal space. And some of the comments he’s made. He scares me, Bael.”
“Balfour’s all right. He just doesn’t understand how to…people. He doesn’t understand why I’m with you.”
“Hey.”
“You’re human. And he knows that means I could suffer consequences with my family, but I’m choosing to be with you anyway. And to him that means that you have some sort of secret that he needs to find out.”
“So you’re locking me up in a vault. Like a princess. In a tower. That you’re guarding. Like a dragon.”
“I’m not trying to lock you up in a vault. I treasure you. But you’re not my treasure. I know that.”
Jillian pressed her lips together in a frown.
“I will sleep better at night, if I know you’re safe. And you know how important it is for me to sleep at night, with my dangerous and fast-paced job.”
“Zed said you only wrote one ticket last week. And it was to Zed.”
“Do you want to see a dragon pout? Because I will lower myself to pouting. For you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine, but I’m bringing my stuffed dragon.”
“I am going to burn that thing.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she shot back. “Also, for the record, I consider Zed a suspect.”
“What?”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t trust anyone who is that consistently cheerful.”
“Zed would be hurt by that. He and his mother have practically adopted you.”
“Fine, but I’m still going to keep an eye on him,” she said.
Bael’s house looked completely normal from the outside, a two-story brick Georgian style with white shutters. It was pretty big for one person, but Zed had mentioned to Jillian that most of the Boones lived in mini-mansions around town. By comparison, he was living modestly.
She tugged her laptop onto her shoulder while Bael grabbed her duffel from the backseat. She supposed she should be grateful that he’d stopped by her house so she could pick up more clothes. Also, she didn’t have any groceries in her house, so she hoped Bael stocked up at some point.
