by Michele Hauf
But running into Daisy’s arms wouldn’t do that for him. It would only...
“Feel good.”
He touched the door. Images of Daisy in his arms, kissing him, her bare skin against his, were so sweet. He needed sweet right now. Something soft and pink in his life to counter the dark and unsure.
The door opened to a bright smile and gorgeous pink hair. “I thought that was you. You are all kinds of sexy-smelling, you know that?”
She grabbed his hand and led him inside. Beck reluctantly closed the door. And when Daisy turned to kiss him, he kissed her back, but his body wouldn’t completely surrender and allow him that treat. The ghost wolf yet hummed within him. And it wanted out. But since he’d sated his desire to run free last night, he was hoping it would be easier to control tonight.
“And you smell like...motor oil?” he tried.
“Sorry. Just got done working with the bike chains. Taking the grease off them. I haven’t had time to shower since you called. I popped some enchiladas in the oven, and they should be done in ten minutes. Do you mind if I shower quickly?”
“I like you smelling like motor oil or Mexican food.” He pulled her in for a hug. Her arms wrapping about his torso worked like some kind of therapy he hadn’t known he needed. Beck buried his face in her pixy flame hair. Her body melding against his was insanely luxurious. It was everything the ghost wolf was not. Sweet, soft and so giving. Not dangerous. Loving.
“Tell me about last night?” Her bright violet eyes blinked up at him.
Raking his fingers through his hair, Beck walked over to the couch with Daisy attached to him, her legs about his hips. He never wanted to stop touching her. She kept his wolf tamed, and he desperately needed that right now.
Sitting, he curled her around to sit with her back against his chest and her bare feet propped on the coffee table. He wrapped his arms around her, bumping his fists together over her stomach.
“I don’t remember anything,” he confessed.
“Nothing?” She tilted a look back at him, her eyelashes dusting his cheek. “Is that weird for you? I mean, I can usually recall bits and pieces from my werewolf’s adventures.”
“I can, too. But since I’ve been shifting to the ghost wolf...nothing.”
“I think you should give this gift back to the sidhe who granted it to you. It seems as though it’s getting stronger.” She turned on his lap and met his gaze. “More powerful?”
He hated to admit it, but he was losing control of it. He must be if he’d attacked a hunter.
“He was okay though, right?” he asked. “The guy on the news?”
“I think so. Looked like he’d had stitches. Do you always get that close to them?”
“I don’t think so. I just scare them. They run. My werewolf feels some sort of triumph. Everything is good.”
“Except not anymore.”
He bowed his forehead to her shoulder. She stroked his cheek. The tenderness shamed his inner wolf, yet his were tilted closer to her.
“Daisy, you’re so good to me. I feel safe with you. I know that sounds weird, coming from a guy.”
“I understand. It’s become something you hadn’t expected. Bigger.”
He nodded.
Turning on his lap, she dipped her forehead to his and bracketed his face with her warm palms. A few breaths. The touch of her mouth against his wasn’t quite a kiss, but so much more. An understanding. The silence was comforting, because it was accompanied by the calm pulse of her heartbeats.
“Will you talk to the faery who did this to you?” she asked.
Beck sighed. “I can’t. It’s not finished yet.”
“When will it be finished? When the ghost wolf has killed?”
“You know I don’t want that.”
“You obviously can’t control it. Whether or not you want it isn’t key here. Be smart, Beck.”
“I will be. I have to be. But I can’t give up looking for the man who killed my father. I won’t. I refuse.”
“No, you shouldn’t. But maybe you need to make a new plan?”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” He stroked her hair. “Can we just be together tonight and not talk about the ghost wolf?”
“I thought you wanted to talk about this?”
“I do. We just did. I don’t know, Daisy. This is tough for me. I feel like you’re pushing me.” He leaned forward, catching his elbows on his knees and his forehead against his palms.
“Do you know you can trust me to tell me anything?”
He nodded and sighed. “I don’t trust easily, Daisy.”
She nuzzled her nose along his jaw and up to his earlobe, and whispered, “Trust me.”
“I do trust you. But I don’t want you to get hurt by trusting me.”
“That’s up to me to decide whether or not I want to trust you. And you know that I do.”
Something dinged in the kitchen, and Daisy jumped off his lap and skipped toward the oven. “Supper’s ready!”
* * *
After supper Daisy excused herself to take a shower, because even if Beck didn’t mind the motor oil that smelled as if she’d dipped the tips of her hair in it, she did. She was just rinsing off when the shower curtain slid on the metal bar and Beck stepped into the tub, naked.
He moaned near her ear and tugged her against his body, sliding his hand down her slick belly to land his fingers at the apex of her thighs. “Now you smell like candy. Makes me want to eat you up, but you fed me so much.”
“I do like to cook. My one feminine grace.”
“You are all woman, Daisy.”
His fingers worked lazily at her clit, and she jutted back her hips and shifted her feet wider to allow him access. She slapped her palms to the wet tile wall. His other hand cupped her breast, massaging, softly tweaking and squeezing. She wiggled against his hard cock, until it nuzzled between her thighs.
“That’s nice,” she said. “Slow like that.”
“I want you facing me. Turn and sit on that ledge.”
The ledge at the back of the tub where she usually propped her head when bathing was just wide enough to sit on comfortably without slipping on the slick surface. Daisy barely got situated when Beck knelt beneath the shower stream and bowed his head to her. He licked his way down to her folds and danced the tip of his hot tongue teasingly, then made his movements more promising, and finally, focused.
She slid a leg over his shoulder and gripped his wet hair. Sucking in her lower lip, she closed her eyes and took what he gave.
* * *
Beck rolled to his side and stroked his fingers down Daisy’s back. She cooed a murmuring noise that sounded exactly how he felt. Satisfied. Exhausted. Extremely blissed out.
Pale morning light shimmered on her skin. The delicate hairs lifted in the wake of his strokes, then settled. Scents of the candy shampoo, remnants of the sugar cookies they’d eaten for dessert and the erotic aroma of her sex curled in his nostrils.
He had never been happier.
Yet he felt guilty for it. Had he a right to such happiness when his mother was alone and pregnant? When innocent wolves continued to be slaughtered for sport by idiot mortal hunters? When his father’s death was yet unavenged?
No. But he wanted to steal a few more moments to himself. Be greedy and bask in Daisy Blu. He had to. He needed this quiet sanctity with her. Because it was a warm respite amidst the darkness that had haunted him lately.
He closed his eyes and held his hand millimeters above her skin. The heat from her rose, pleading him closer.
“You are like no other woman,” he said.
She turned to face him. “I hope not.”
He chuckled. “You have rammed into me, punched me and kicked my ass on the ice. You cook like freakin’ Julia Child. You wear grease smears like some kind of Alexander McQueen fashion statement. Your hair always smells like my favorite childhood memory of candy binges on Halloween night. And...you kiss like you mean it.”
She kissed him. Firm
ly. Intently. “I meant that.” Another perfect kiss. “And that one, too.”
“I like you, Daisy Blu,” he whispered.
It was the truth. And it was real. He liked spending time with her, talking to her, listening to her, just being with her. Definitely stronger than love.
“I like you, too, Beckett Severo. And what are we going to do about that?”
“Do we have to do something about it?” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Let’s just go with the like. Take it for what it is, and enjoy it.”
“Goddess, but I like you.” She nuzzled her head against his collarbone and spread an arm across his torso, finding her place, legs curled up to her stomach, against him. “Do you think it was just the whole moon thing? Us needing one another, and being there for one another, that makes us feel this way?”
This thing he felt for Daisy ran deep within him. And it had been brewing since the first time she’d bumped into him in the forest.
“Do you think it’s that?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. This is real. I want it to be real.”
“It is, my pink faery wolf.”
Closing her eyes, she landed a kiss on his mouth with precision. “One question.”
“Shoot.”
“Who is Alexander McQueen?”
Beck smirked. “He’s some designer guy whom Sunday is always going on about.”
“Sunday talks about fashion?”
“She has a serious fetish for all the fashion shows. Plays them all the time when she’s working in the shop. She’ll talk my head off about sparkly shoes.”
“Seriously? Sunday, the one chick who may be more of a tomboy than me?”
“Oh, hell. I did not tell you this.”
“Oh, yes, you did. I so have to tease her—”
He kissed her hard enough to steal her words. “You’ll go to your grave with that info, or Sunday will never forgive me. Promise.”
She sighed. “Fine. But only because I don’t want you to get beat on by a girl.”
“You’re the only girl allowed to beat on me.”
She punched his arm gently. He faked a wounded grimace.
Beck smoothed his hand over her back, tracing down the curve of her spine and the fall of her hair. “Show me your wings?”
Her lips parted. She exhaled.
“I mean, if you want to,” he said. “What you told me about having trouble shifting... If it’s a problem...”
“It could be. If I bring out my wings, the wolf might take over. But I want to show you. Now that we’ve declared mutual like for one another, you need to know all of me.”
She sat up and scooched to the end of the bed, but turned as he leaned up on an elbow. “Promise you won’t laugh if it goes wonky?”
“Daisy, the only thing that could ever make me laugh at you is the fact that you are a cheesehead.”
“And I have the foam cheese hat to prove it,” she said proudly, pointing to a shelf below the clothes rack where, indeed, a bright orange wedge of foam cheese had been tucked. “We are so going to a game together some time. My team will kick your team’s ass.”
“If that’s the way you want to play it. Wings, lover. Stop stalling.”
“I’ve never shown anyone but my family my wings.”
“Really? Not even...?”
“Other lovers? Beck, I’ve only had human lovers. I would never reveal my true nature to them.”
“No, that wouldn’t be smart.” He sat up against the pillows and scruffed fingers through his hair. “I suppose it’s not like you can walk down Main Street with them out. Kind of like our werewolves.”
“Exactly. I only use my wings when I’m in the forest on my parents’ property and feel like flying. But then, I usually get small.”
“You can get tiny?” He held up his fingers in a guesstimate of her size.
“About twice the length of your hand,” she said. “You’ve never seen a faery small before?”
He shook his head. “Werewolves and vampires. That’s it for my experience with the paranormal breeds. Oh, and a demon one time. My father pointed him out to me. I’ve led a sheltered life, Daisy. And it’s not like Minnesota is spilling over with all sorts.”
“You just need to know where to look. All breeds are everywhere.”
“Maybe I’ve never wanted to look.”
“Yeah. I get that about you. You’ve been protected by your family.”
“Says the princess whose dad stalks her lovers.”
“Touché.”
* * *
Knees bent, Daisy sat back on her haunches and shimmied her shoulders. Dare she?
She wanted to share herself with Beck, but the wings thing was intimate—beyond getting naked and having sex. Never had she shown her human lovers her wings. They hadn’t been aware she was anything but a chick with pink hair. And they had surely suspected the pink had come from a salon. It was never wise to bring up the fact that she was an entirely different breed than human. Secrecy was her best means to survival.
But secrets weren’t necessary with Beck. Heck, he’d shown her his deepest secret with the ghost wolf, albeit accidentally. So she would give him this. Because she wanted to, and because she wanted to take their intimacy to the next level.
He liked her. And it felt wondrous.
Fingers crossed the wolf wouldn’t horn in on the action and turn her into a freak show.
“All right.” Daisy slid off the end of the bed and stood naked before Beck’s ice-blue gaze. “Close your eyes.”
He did so.
Daisy sucked in a breath and closed her eyes. Bringing out her wings was different than shifting to wolf. And she didn’t do it often. When shifting to wolf, she pulled her focus inward, but her wings required she move part of her vita outward. Shoulders back and head down, she felt the tingle along the upper part of her spine. It tweaked painfully, and she winced. Her mother had commented that she didn’t shift to faery often enough; that was the reason for the pain.
With an inhale and a hopeful wish that things went well, Daisy sent out her vita in the form of wings behind her shoulders. And they curled out from her body and unfurled, stretching out seven feet at their highest.
All faery’s wings were different, some shaped as the insects she had seen in the mortal realm, such as the butterfly, cicada or dragonfly. But others were unique, like no insect or creature she had ever seen, and she could only imagine they were common in Faery.
Daisy had never been to Faery. She didn’t have the compulsion to visit as her brother Kelyn did.
A sifting of faery dust sparkled in the air about her and landed on the end of the bed and Beck’s legs. Another good thing about not shifting to faery often? No constant sweeping up of dust.
“Open your eyes,” she whispered.
Beck sat forward, arms resting on his knees as he opened his eyes. He immediately said, “Wow.”
Hands to her hips, she twisted side to side. When Beck motioned she spin about, she did so, pausing to look over her shoulder to gauge his reaction.
“Those are incredible. They look like something from a fantasy painting. Pink and silver. Gorgeous.”
The filaments on the peaks of her wings curled in appreciation at his admiring tone. Daisy ran her fingers over the edge of one wing, which looked silver under certain lights, and then clear or iridescent in the sunlight. Sheened over in pink, the upper sections resembled an arabesque butterfly wing, and the lower sections were closer to cicada wings. She gave them a flutter, and they dusted Beck’s face and arms.
“Mmm...smells like winter.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, crisp and fresh. Like an ice-covered meadow I’d like to run through in wolf form. Is this faery dust?” He rubbed his fingers over his forearm to display glinting fingertips.
“If you were vampire,” she said, “you’d be high right now.”
“I am high on you, Daisy Blu.” His grin burst off the scale. “Come here. Can I touch them?”
“At your own risk, lover boy.”
“Right, because there’s something about touching a faery’s wings...”
She straddled his lap and curled one wing forward and around behind Beck’s shoulder. He ran his fingers gently along the top of it, and the touch sent shivers through her wings. The veins flashed bright pink briefly before the erotic sensation entered Daisy’s pores and scurried over her skin.
“Mmm...” She dipped her head against Beck’s. “I can feel that as if you were stroking my skin.”
He blew a hot breath over the sheer wing fabric. Again the veins brightened. Daisy moaned as that one moved lower. It was almost as if he’d blown on her loins. She felt his heat there. She’d never gotten intimate with a man while her wings were out. Could this be the start of something new and exciting?
Spreading his palm, he pressed it carefully against her wing, tracing tiny circles along the ridged cartilage that formed the structure.
Daisy pushed a hand over her mons and gasped. Putting pressure against her clit, she arched her back, and her breasts skimmed Beck’s chest.
“That really turns you on.”
“Oh, Beck, you have no idea. If I would have known, I would have done this sooner...”
“With a human man?”
“Oh, no, never.”
She curled her wing along his back, and the heat of his skin permeated her wing. She felt it all over her body.
Beck lashed her breast with his tongue, sucking in the nipple. His hands carefully traced her wings as if he were exploring her skin, and he mined a delicious deep pleasure that Daisy had not before felt. It focused on her core, and yet sent out tendrils to her extremities. It was as if an imminent orgasm wanted to explode at the end of every nerve in her body.
Gripping his hair as he suckled one breast and then the other, Daisy tilted back her head, unable to form words. She surrendered to him. To the heady, overwhelming sensation and flame and cool and giddy and gasping, panting, racing, thundering—
The orgasm struck with surprising force, capturing her body in a glamorous shiver of pleasure. Faery dust glittered out from her pores. Her muscles constricted and danced and then loosened and again tightened. Beck held her across the back as she soared in his arms, her wings spreading wide behind her and shivering in joy.
