"So, he's ok?"
"As far as I can tell." He wrapped his arms around Hailey's waist and nuzzled into the crook of her hair. "He's welcome to stay as long as he needs and then I'll find him something to do. Maybe head of security unless he wants something more low key."
"And Silas?"
"Nothing. He's hiding for the time being. Not sure why. That isn't like him at all." Almost as an afterthought he added, "He'll let us know when he wants to be found."
"I still find it weird that he was at the hospital but didn't do anything. He could have taken me at any point, but he didn't. That's weird, right?" Hailey twisted in his arms to look up at him.
"Yes." He smiled and took advantage of her position to kiss her. "Would you like the tour now?"
She only really needed to know where the bedroom was. Everything else was inconsequential. "Yes, please."
She had seen most of the first floor. He showed her the dining room, bathroom and study before going upstairs. Hailey rushed him through it all. With each room she peeked her head in and said, "Nice!" then kept moving. She sensed the change in him, but ignored it. Hailey figured he was just excited to show her the bedroom; she was definitely excited to see it.
After another ten minutes of rushing along, they ended up in the doorway of the master bedroom. Hailey looked like a five year old about to enter her first ball pit. Giddy and excited, she bounced into the room and gaped. It wasn't the enormous bed with the carved dragon headboard, or the fireplace that took up an entire wall; it was the pictures of the two of them hung everywhere that had her dazed. Most of the photos she never even knew were taken. Hailey turned in a circle and took in every picture there. She was overflowing with love at that moment. Fuck her plan, he needed to tell him now.
"Dak, I lo-"
"Let me guess. You like it? It's nice?"
Oh, he's grumpy, she thought. His arms crossed over his chest, he watched her with a scowl. "It's beautiful," she said sincerely with a smile. So maybe rushing through the tour wasn't a great idea on her part.
He leaned with his arms crossed against the door frame with a scowl etched into his brow, "Hailey, you will be sharing this house with me. So if there is something you don't…what's wrong?" He frowned. "What is it?"
"Living here? Me?"
"Yes, you are my Mate," he said it so matter-of-factly that it raised her haunches.
"You didn't think to ask me first? Just bang your chest and throw me over your shoulder while yelling MATE!"
"I didn't think I needed to ask." His voice was like steel, hard and cold. "Was I wrong in thinking that you wish to be with me?" Dak raised an eyebrow and watched her squirm.
"You know that's not true. But how can I move in when we barely know each other?"
"I thought I proved you wrong on that point weeks ago."
"Ok, so you know me," she rolled her eyes, "but I don't know you very well yet." She knew random things but not the kind of stuff that comes with time. She was certain that if they were on the Newlywed Game they would lose horribly. Hailey worried her bottom lip between her teeth.
"What do you need to know that is imperative to moving in?"
"Your last name," she immediately shot back.
Dak scowled. "You know that."
"I don't."
"MacKenna. Dacea Renny Quinlan MacKenna. But, like all sept leaders, I only go by my first name. Is that all?"
She said it a few times in her head to let her mind find familiarity with it. "No, that's not all," Hailey sighed. "Dak, besides not knowing each other well we are skipping a vital step." She glanced at the bed and back to him. "Sex," she clarified when he still looked confused.
"What's that got to do with it?" he asked and pushed from the doorway.
"Well, being that I thought we might be having it…tonight…" Hailey waved her hand toward the bed. "Right fucking now."
"What?" His head tilted to the side, confusion clouding over the anger.
"Never mind. I should go." Hailey knew if he wasn't so baffled she never would have made it out of that bedroom, let alone the house. She found the closet by the front door with her coat and shoved her arms through the sleeves. Out, her mind said, just get out. Her gloves and hat lay on the floor but she could hear Dak coming down the steps. She'd get them later. Or not, her mind added. Either way, Hailey needed to leave before he had a chance to stop her.
Chapter Two
The front door closed and Dacea paused on the steps. Knowing Hailey, she'd be half way down the driveway by now. Running, as he found, was a favorite past time of hers when things got tough. Not that he couldn't call the guards and stop her. No, Hailey needed a minute to calm down and he needed one to figure out what to do.
Hailey wanted sex. "Why the hell didn't she just tell me?" He picked up the unfinished glass of wine on the coffee table and downed it. "Because she is a woman," he answered. If he had known she was ready for anything more than what they had been doing, then he would have never let her over the threshold with all of her clothing on. Dacea probably would have taken her once in her car, then again in the foyer; followed by the kitchen island, couch, floor, coffee table, and finally their bed.
He looked down at his erection. "You got any ideas?" His cock twitched. Yeah, it had ideas alright.
He could call her, but he doubted she would pick up. His texts would go unanswered as well. Short of going over to her apartment, there was nothing he could do at the moment. Even so, she wouldn't let him in if he did show up. Tomorrow he would apologize for not seeing the signs that she didn't make and for not being a mind reader. Right now he would shower and see what he could do about his erection.
His cock seemed to glare at him.
Maybe, Dacea thought, he could go over there and she would let him in. If he made enough of a commotion in the hallway, her embarrassment would win over and she would open the door or face her neighbor's knowing glances. Dacea's body liked that plan. All he had to do was get her face to face, the rest was simple.
An idea formed in him mind. It wasn't anything special, but would definitely solve both of their problems. Dacea found her hat and gloves on the floor of the foyer. He pocketed his keys and bent over to pick her things up. "Well now, you guys might come in handy."
*****
Tonight was a night for reindeer fleece pajamas, Hailey thought as she pushed aside all her sweatpants looking for the one particular pair. They were big, comfy and shapeless. The bonus was Dak hated them. Finding them at the bottom of her drawer, she slipped them on and grabbed a hoodie that was just as big and shapeless. Hailey would test their elastic capabilities tonight with a trial in ice cream. As in, how much could she eat before her fat pants became too tight?
Hailey's freezer was a bit bare at the moment. Her only option was half a pint of Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream. Not her first preference for this kind of emotional turmoil, but it would do in a pinch.
"It's not like I expected him to come after me," she told the carton of ice cream, "but you know every girl secretly wants him to. The romantic in me had hoped he would run after me and caught me before I got into my car, then told me he loved me and then carry me up to the bedroom where he would tear open my corset and ravage my naked breasts."
Hailey frowned at her spoon. "Don't judge my love of smutty books. It could happen."
The spoon gave no more complaints as she dug it into the carton. The first bite was a tasteless disappointment. The second was no better. By the third she had lost any motivation to try and pretend it was hitting the spot. Hailey was putting the lid back on the carton when someone knocked on her door.
Most people in this situation would drop what they were doing and politely go answer the door. Hailey would stop what she was doing and drop to the floor. If she was low enough then no one would see her and they would just go away. She irrationally thought that everyone at her door had x-ray vision and could see her no matter where she was, hence the dive to the ground. Usually by the third knock they would a
ssume no one was home and leave.
This knocker was persistent.
Crouching with a spoon in her hand, Hailey crawled out of the kitchen and looked at the door from behind the safety of her couch. "You can go away now," she told the knocker in a whisper. They only knocked again.
"Hailey! I know you are in there," Dak's voice yelled from the other side of the door. Her shoulders slumped in relief, then dread. She looked down at her outfit, fat pants and a sweatshirt. Now was really not a good time.
"HAILEY! Open this door."
"I'd really rather not," she said from the floor.
"Alright, then I'll have my say from here." He wouldn't, she thought horrified. "Earlier you left because you thought I wouldn't have sex with you-."
"Get in here!" Hailey swung open the door while grabbing his shirt and in one hard tug she pulled him inside. "What the hell is your problem?" she whispered in case. "The whole floor probably heard—ummpppff."
Dak cut her off with a kiss. One minute he was grinning like a boy who just discovered that dirt and water made mud, then he had her pinned against the door and assaulted her mouth in a very satisfying way. Hailey tried not to succumb to his lips, but they were just so firm and demanding.
When he backed away, she kept her eyes closed. That was the single most fantastic kiss of her life and she didn't want to ruin it with the face of the man who put her in her reindeer pajamas.
"Oh Logan, you know you shouldn't be here. If Dacea ever found out about our love, I would die." Somewhere along in that sentence she became a southern debutante.
"Cute," he said with a nip to her ear.
"Piss off," Hailey responded and pushed him back.
"Oh, this is worse than I thought. Are those the reindeer pants?"
Hailey opened her eyes and glared at him. "What's it to you?"
"I just didn't know you were bringing out the big guns. Good thing I came prepared." Dak held up a bag of gummy bears and her forgotten hat and gloves. "A peace offering."
She wanted to smile. Her mouth tipped in response but she quickly turned it into a scowl. This is where things got tricky. If Hailey accepted the bag, would Dak think she had forgiven him? Because there was no amount of candy that could make her humiliation less horrifying, however gummy bears were the perfect snack for this kind of occasion, a much better choice than coffee ice cream.
"Fine." Hailey grabbed the bag then turned towards the couch. She sat down on the very end and covered herself with a blanket. "Talk."
Dak raised an eyebrow. "Very well, I have come to speak about the reason you left earlier." She motioned with a decapitated red gummy bear to go on. "While I am more than pleased to give you hours of endless pleasure—and I think only of that for hours each day—I had not wanted to rush you into anything after your ordeal. However, I see now that I have been blind to your…needs." Dak hit her with a look that had her toes curling beneath the blanket. "I apologize if I mistakenly took your eagerness to get to our bedroom as dissatisfaction in the rest of the house."
In all honesty, Hailey was embarrassed by this whole fiasco. Never had she acted so brashly and wanton about sex. So to make it go away, she nodded her forgiveness and would never speak of it again.
Dak sat in the middle of the couch and pulled her towards him. "There's something else, isn't there?"
Yes. "No."
"Liar," he spoke against her neck.
The thing he was doing with his tongue rendered her incapable of speech. It swirled over her skin again and again, tormenting her. Under the blanket, his hands found her waist, then slipped under her sweatshirt onto her heated bare skin. A long, low moan drew from her lips.
"Céile," Dak whispered on her flush skin. Key-le, as he pronounced it, was more than another word for Mate to her. When he said it, it wasn't a title. It was a promise, a whisper, a declaration of what she meant to him. "Do you still want what you had earlier?"
She hesitated, "Yes."
"But," he continued for her, his thumbs still drawing shapes along her ribs.
"But I had a plan and now I'm not even wearing my sexy panties."
Dak began to laugh. "Hailey, I don't care what you're wearing. It will all be on the floor in the end. Besides," he shot her with a grin, "I just want you. The rest is inconsequential."
"Oh," her breathy voice whispered, "ok."
His hands traveled up over her ribs and brushed the underside of her breasts. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?" His thumb glided over her nipple. It stroked back and forth until her nipple was a hardened bead.
She couldn't think much less respond. His finger circled over the outside of her breast, slowly making its way back toward the center. Just as he brushed against the spot she wanted him to touch, he withdrew. Hailey pouted.
"I believe I asked you a question."
"Fine, yes, you are forgiven." Hailey grabbed his wrists and moved his hands on top of her breasts. "Now continue."
Dak chuckled but complied.
It was hot, too hot for her to be bundled in so many layers. Gripping the hem of her sweatshirt, Hailey pulled it over her head and let it drop to the floor. In that second, when her arms were stretched above her head, tangled in the sleeves of clothing, Dak lowered his head and began to kiss down her chest. His soft lips sucked and nibbled. Every touch was one she had imagined many times before. When he was satisfied with his work, her breast flushed and heavy, he moved across her chest to the other and repeated the torture.
Hailey slipped into his lap and straddled his thighs. She ran her fingers through his hair and tugged. When he broke free from her breast, she devoured his lips in a wet kiss. This is what she craved earlier at his place. Her body didn't care about the setting, or what she was wearing, only the man underneath her.
Usually she was clumsy when in a rush, but tonight her fingers were light and nimble as they unbuttoned and shred the shirt from his body. As Hailey ran her fingers down over his chest, she traced the scars from his old life. How they were on his new body was something only the magic knew the why's of. He'd need to explain some of them to her sometime.
Everywhere her hands touched, a ripple of muscle followed. She could feel the skin beneath harden to scales and back to soft flesh.
Dak panted breathlessly in her ear, "You keep doing that and I will have to bind your hands."
"Doing what? I'm not doing anything." She slowly rocked against him, rubbing her sex over the bulge in his pants.
"Tease," he smiled.
Hailey began to move faster. She wanted to earn the title of Tease, but it just felt too damn good. Her thighs quaked with strain, needing to move faster. The rhythm was lost to the pleasure. Each rock of her hips rubbed his jeans right over her sweet spot. The friction of their clothing only added to her enjoyment, she lost herself in the frenzy, her mind tunneling toward climax. She was so close. Only a little more…
His hand wound in her hair and pulled her head backward. With his free hand he held her hips steady with a firm grip. "Easy," he growled in her ear.
Hailey sat with her back arched and head back as he continued to hold her hair hostage. It was doing nothing to calm her overly excited body; one that had been moments from release, now in a painful state of need. Naked from the waist up, her breasts exposed and inches from his face. She could feel his eyes roam over her. It made her tremble.
Dak let go of her hair and stood up with her wrapped around his waist. Hailey licked the sweat off his neck.
"Bedroom," he grunted.
"That way." She pointed toward the hallway.
"I know."
"Oh, I thought you were asking for directions."
He laughed and dropped her on the bed. She bounced, which usually would leave her giggling, but Hailey missed his body instantly. Dak grabbed hold of the waistband of her reindeer pants, looked her straight in the eye and said, "Never wear these again," and tugged them off, panties and all.
His look of utter delight calmed any self-conscious thoughts trying to
overtake her mind. Dak unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down. There was no time for teasing or foreplay. There was only a mutual need that had to be fulfilled. Right. Fucking. Now. Next time, she silently promised his body as it settled up against hers, next time she would explore him properly.
She was vibrating, every part of her humming with energy as he stepped between her legs. His sculpted chest begged to be touched. She reached forward and let her fingers drift over the curves of his muscles and down over his abs. Each valley and peak led further downward to the V that pointed to his hardened state. He grabbed her hand before she could touch and pinned it to the bed.
Dak pushed his hips forward and slid through her wetness. Her head rolled to the side as a long moan echoed in the darkened room. So close to where she wanted him, but he just kept sliding past.
"Daaaaak," she whined when he did it again.
His reply was to wrap an arm around her back and lift her up. Hailey held on while he crawled into the middle of the bed, then lowered her down and kissed her till she forgot her own name.
She was ready for it but still quaked in shock when he thrust forward into her. Hailey cried out as he pushed, inch by inch, until he was settled fully in-between her thighs. Dak paused, their breath staggered.
Fullness. Gloriously, insanely full. Her hands ran up and down his back, urging him on. Instead, he stayed put and pulled a hair that had become stuck to her lips off to the side. She needed him to move, but as always, he was set in doing things his own way. Dak nibbled on her bottom lip, ran his tongue over hers, and when she was lost in his mouth he began to move once more.
She couldn't look away, nor did she want to. Dak was a thing of beauty hovering above her. Hailey held on to his shoulders and moved her hips to meet his. Over and over again their bodies came together, bringing pleasure to the other. She couldn't breath as he brought her higher towards release. Every moment hit all of her nerves, and send her body into sensory overload.
The Hailey Holloway Complete Series Page 19
