Jerik rubbed his jaw and closed his eyes. “I already know that.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Medora was loving her nano-device. She’d managed to avoid the press and get several errands accomplished. Now she sat at her island, hunched over her project. So intent was she, that she didn’t register the sound of a nano-device opening a portal in her apartment. Suddenly she felt someone’s presence. She smelled overpowering perfume. Sat up and turned on her stool.
A gorgeous Amazonian woman stood before her. She wore layers of chiffon and feathers. A hint of her naked body showed, depending on the light. Medora had about had it with these overbearing Krinar and their lack of manners. But Medora hid her annoyance better than a politician.
Medora slid off the stool and approached the woman. She held out her hand. “I’m Ariella Rothchild. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“Well aren’t you precious?” The woman took her hand in a gentle shake. “My name is Jaz.” She looked down at her. “How would that even work?” She murmured to herself. “Never mind. I heard the happy news and wanted to congratulate you in person.” Jaz bounced onto the dove sofa. “You have a lovely apartment.”
Medora narrowed her eyes for a second, then replaced her expression with a bland one. “Thank you so much. I don’t often get visitors.” Except for incredibly nosy Krinar ones. Some more desirable than others.
She perched on a chair opposite to Jaz. “Are you affiliated with a news organization, may I ask?”
“Oh, my goodness no, how droll.” She sat up, crossed her legs and spread her arms across the sofa. The woman was not self-conscious about her body. At all. “I’m here to vet you.”
Medora smiled and cocked her head.
Jaz scrutinized her. “I’m not sure you’re the right human for Jerik.”
Medora’s heart skipped a beat. Who was this Krinar? “Are you his keeper?” She kept her smile in place, careful and patient. Medora was not a stranger to scheming machinations among the powerful. “Because I can’t say he’s mentioned you.”
A cold fury bloomed in Jaz’s eyes, but she remained smiling as well. “Certainly not. Jerik isn’t the kind of Krinar who can be kept. You’ve discovered the crux of the matter, Ariella darling.”
Medora didn’t hate anyone or anything. Except cancer. But this Jaz was in the running. “Is that so?”
“Yes, it’s so. Jerik is a creature of varied interests and abilities.”
“So he tells me,” Medora mumbled.
“What makes you think you can in any way satisfy a Krinar of his appetites?” Jaz leaned so far forward Medora feared her bosoms would fall out. “If what I’ve read in the press is correct, you’re a virgin. Your fumbling attempts at seduction, if you manage to pull off the marriage, will only embarrass yourself and humiliate Jerik. Do yourself and him a favor. Call it off.”
Years of training hadn’t prepared Medora for such an assault on this particular vulnerability. Her smile faltered. She blinked a couple times. “I don’t see how it is any concern of yours at all, Jaz darling. Tell me,” Medora herself leaned forward. “Why do you suppose he never mentioned you?” She was tempted to bring up Jerik’s mate and child to show just how intimate they had become without breaching sex but decided that was beneath her. “Is it because you were just like all the others?” Medora flicked her finger in the air. “A blip on the screen?”
Jaz rose to standing. She glanced beside her at the trinkets on the side table. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.” She held her personal nano-device up. “One last thing. If you were hoping for the Great American Happy Ever After,” she gestured to the crayon art and sundries, “there will be no children from your union. It’s a fruitless endeavor.”
She popped out with her parting shot, and Medora sat back on her chair, nonplused.
She reached the table beside her chair and grasped at whatever her fingertips touched first. It was a snow globe. Medora smiled.
Ah, sweet Maxine. It was a triumph of teamwork, but they had managed to get her and her medical equipment up to the Willis Tower Skydeck. Maxine held on for three more days after the outing. This globe sat at her hospital bedside for a year. Her father gifted it to Medora at the funeral. “You gave this to her. Thank you.” Medora caressed the round glass and watched the hypnotic eddies of the silver and gold glitter. A knock came at her door. From the elevator? It slid open before she could stand.
Jerik stood just inside the door.
“May I come in?”
Her lips slid into a sideways smile. “Please do.”
He stepped over the threshold. Inhaled deeply. Concern softened his face. “I smell sadness.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I suppose I surround myself with a bit of melancholy,” she answered and stood, walking to him. “Are you well, Jerik?” She offered both hands to his. “I was worried about you.”
He took her hands, frowning.
“I don’t know how to do these things, Medora.”
“What things?”
He sighed but didn’t let go of her hands. Rather he caressed knuckles with his thumbs. “The things that make a couple a couple. Aside from fucking.”
She felt her face grow warm.
“Well,” she said with a swallow. “I could teach you those things now…”
“And?”
She looked down at their clasped hands. “And if we actually go through with the wedding, then you could teach me the—the other—things.” Her voice quieted to a whisper.
He squeezed her hands. “That sounds reasonable.”
“Ah, well, I am all about reasonable.”
He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. Then he feathered kisses across her cheek to her ear. He whispered so quietly she almost missed his next words. “However, I have it on good authority that you like impolite and dangerous.” Then he bit her neck.
Chapter Twenty-Six
He smelled Jaz as soon as he stepped into Medora’s apartment. Whatever Jaz had said or done was written all over Medora’s face. He could see the hurt behind her eyes. He could imagine throttling Jaz to within an inch of her life. “I smell sadness.”
Medora gently placed a round glass item on a table when she stood to meet him.
“I suppose I surround myself with a bit of melancholy,” she replied. She held her hands out much like she had done at the Winter Ball. So welcoming. Bringing him into her circle of life and vitality. She had called him vital. But she—she brought the world to life, even while courting Death. “Are you well Jerik? I was worried about you.”
She did it again. Concealed a hurt of her own and asked how he was doing. What was that? What did she see in him?
“I don’t know how to do these things, Medora.”
“What things?”
He sighed but didn’t let go of her hands. Rather he caressed knuckles with his thumbs. “The things that make a couple a couple. Aside from fucking.”
She blushed under his gaze.
“Well,” she said with a swallow. He watched her throat bob. “I could teach you those things now…”
“And?”
She looked down at their clasped hands. “And if we actually go through with the wedding, then you could teach me the—the other—things.” Her voice quieted to a whisper.
He squeezed her hands. “That sounds reasonable.”
“Ah, well, I am all about reasonable.”
Riotous visions of tangled limbs rushed his brain. He wanted to taste her. Just a little, harmless taste. Harmless. Harmless.
“However, I have it on good authority that you like impolite and dangerous.” He smelled her blood just below her translucent skin. He bit.
Her yelp excited him, and he tugged just enough for two drops of blood to pull up through the punctures. Then he licked the tender spot and closed his mouth, savoring the taste of her for a full minute while her blood slid down his throat and into his system. It was more divine than he had ever experienced. W
ith instant arousal, he pushed himself against her; she would feel his desire rampant against her belly.
With a hoarse voice he spoke. “I’ve wanted to do that since the moment you stepped into my penthouse.” He kissed her neck, licked, suckled, and she whimpered, grasping the lapels of his blazer with both hands, as if only her grip held her up. He felt her hot breath on his neck.
“What—what’s happening to me?” She gasped between words. Began kissing his neck, then frantically ran her hands under his jacket, slipping them along the brushed cotton of his shirt, reflexively kneading his body like a cat. “You smell so good.”
Jerik buried his nose in her hair. Through layers of hairspray and mousse and conditioner he found the essence of her soul. Easter lilies. He inhaled her like she was his last breath. “You’re coming alive for me,” he uttered. “And I’m dying to be with you.”
She gasped and pulled away, searching his eyes. He let her look, holding her tiny waist with his big hands. Let her read his mind; let her dip her hand into his soul and drink from him forever.
Her look of wonder shot need through him. Already her blood was coursing through him, raising his temperature, heightening his already keen senses, driving him closer to the edge of a precipice. He took her lips with his own. He swiped his tongue across the closed seam of her mouth. An invitation spiraling into a demand. She opened for him, and he growled affirmation. Slipped his tongue into her mouth and danced. She was so sweet, so vibrant. He sucked the very tip of her tongue, imagining her clit pulsing in his mouth, and he groaned.
She cried out. “Jerik, you—you—I don’t know what…” He seized her mouth in another firm kiss, taking command. Squeezing her tighter to himself with his arms, tasting her mouth, breathing the air she breathed, becoming one before either one of them had removed a stitch of clothing.
He released her mouth as she gasped for more air. “Don’t try to talk,” he whispered. “I won’t take you farther than you should go.”
“But!”
“Shh,” he hushed her and kissed her again. Now his hands roamed over her body through her clothes. She wore a jersey T-shirt and snug jeans. He felt her bra strap beneath his fingers, passed over it, but didn’t release it. Slid his hands along her sides, feeling striated muscles. She was lean and firm under his hands; she had a dancer’s body and strength. Slipped his hands around her back and cupped her ass with his big hands. Round and firm. Groaning with desire he squeezed again and again, bringing her belly against his hardness. “Can you feel how much I want you?”
“Yes,” she mewled into his mouth. “How can I ever…?”
“Hush Medora,” he whispered into her mouth. “This is about beginnings.”
He pulled back and roved his eyes over her face and body. Her dark eyes were wide and wet; her emotions on bold display. Fear, desire, anticipation and the raw aphrodisiac effect of his saliva played across her face. Her body was pliant in his hands, ripe for him. He smelled her wetness wafting up, and noticed her breasts swelled, surely aching for his hands or mouth to touch and play with them.
He pictured all the things he would do to her and dove to that hollow in her throat to lick and smell. He buried his face between her breasts, inhaling her sweat through her shirt and bra. “You’re heaven.”
Gasping for breath, she tried to talk. “Krinar don’t,” pant, pant, “believe in heaven.”
He mumbled between her mounds, “I do now.”
His hands could no longer be stayed. He swiped them up the sides of her breasts while his face burrowed between, and he heard her moans of pleasure. Then he felt her straddle one of his thighs. He moaned with a hard smile on his face. “Good girl.”
She rubbed against him and whined, panting and kissing whatever she could reach with her mouth. The top of his head, a shoulder. Suddenly she screamed, surprising them both with her cataclysmic shudder.
Raising his head to her face, he watched the flush that swept from her neck to her cheeks and forehead. She was beautiful, unspeakably so. She collapsed in his arms, smiling languidly.
“That was,” she gestured a delicate hand. “It was…”
“Don’t put a word to it,” Jerik said, cradling her to the couch. He sat with her in his lap. His raging hard-on relentlessly sought something for relief. She wiggled her butt, and he threw his head back with a moan. “For the love of Krina.”
She giggled. Then she leaned to his mouth and began kissing him. He felt her tongue touch the corners of his mouth, then play with him, all the while moving her ass sensually around and around.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he panted. He closed his eyes. Her blood singed his insides. He was on fire from the inside out. “Don’t.”
She put her small hands on his pecs, sucked on his tongue, and then rubbed his cock in a rhythm he couldn’t deny. His orgasm burst beneath her ass, spewing into his pants with unprecedented force. He was like a damn adolescent around her. His shout echoed in her apartment, and she hugged him tight, speaking into his chest.
“Was that okay?”
“Fuck, Medora. That was so much better than okay.”
She pulled back. “Really?”
He didn’t answer but looked into her eyes. He saw that tenderness he loved but also insecurity. When he still didn’t say anything, a shadow fell over her expression.
“What is it?”
Tears brimmed. “Jaz was here. I assume she’s one of your, uh, paramours?”
Jerik nodded and used a large hand to wipe the tear that fell. “For a short time. She’s the reason I moved here. But,” he said and raised her chin with a finger. “That was a few years ago.” His words didn’t change her expression. “What did she tell you?”
Medora shivered. Jerik spied a chenille throw and snagged it to wrap around her.
“Many things. But what bothered me most was,” she stopped and looked at him from under long lashes. “She said I would embarrass myself on our wedding night.”
Jerik’s mouth tightened. He rested his forehead against hers. “It is a lie.” He gazed into her brown eyes, saw the uncertainty there. “You’ve done something wonderful to me, Medora. Our wedding night will be all that we could ever dream of.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Well,” she said. “Our hypothetical wedding night.”
Jerik ran scenarios in his mind. Imagined, just for a moment, returning to his previous lifestyle. And never seeing Medora again. It sickened him.
“If you were, hypothetically, going to have a real wedding with me,” Jerik posited. “Would you want the big society wedding? I’ve seen press coverage in my studies.”
Medora looked like she was trying not to smile.
“What?”
“Jerik,” she said with the tiniest grin. “I’m trying to imagine the Almighty Jerik reading wedding blogs and society pages.”
“I take my studies very seriously,” he growled and nipped at her lips.
She laughed. “Your studies?”
“Advanced Medora Rothchild.”
She rolled her eyes. His cock hardened at her playfulness. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Big wedding? Oh no. Never,” she said, in all seriousness. “The media already knows I’m a virgin. Can you imagine the fallout with a huge wedding and then honeymoon trip?” She smacked her forehead and moaned, affecting a dramatic pose.
He wanted to bury his face between her breasts again but restrained himself. Barely.
“Justice of the Peace wedding at the courthouse?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Jerik?”
Jerik felt sweat drip from his hairline down the side of his face. “I believe we both meet your qualifications.”
She cocked her head the other way, a small crease appearing between her eyes. “Which are?” He thought she might be holding her breath.
“You love me,” he said. She raised a brow. “And I love you.”
Watching Medora’s flushed face, Jerik saw galaxies an
d parallel universes. He saw the future swirling in the dark abyss of her eyes. He saw her fine teeth bite her lower lip. He saw anxiety and want. He saw her throat rise and fall.
“But she’s right,” she whispered. “I don’t know anything, and you’ve experienced so many…”
“Stop now.” He gripped her arms beneath the throw. “Not another fucking word.”
She closed her mouth.
“Yes, I’ve been with countless. I’ve never tried to hide that. But none of them was you. You are it for me, Medora. I can’t explain it,” he growled. “And I don’t want to.” He grabbed her hand and put it where they were wet together. “Does this feel like we were embarrassed or disappointed?”
She blushed and looked down. “No.”
His voiced deepened. “Something tells me you will be a natural. But if you’re not,” he held her face with both hands, staring deep into her eyes. “Then we’ll just have to practice until we get it right.”
Her eyes had grown wide. She whispered, “I can’t wait.”
And his heart soared.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Medora woke alone in her bed. She patted the bed behind her where Jerik had spooned her when she fell asleep. The sheets were cool. Her fingers touched paper. She grabbed it and rolled to her back.
If you meant it, we’re getting married today. I would like my friend Sharkur to attend. I called a Justice of the Peace. Meet me at the City/County Building at 1pm. I studied your tradition and will be bringing written vows to speak aloud. I don’t suppose I’ve been very “romantic” by your terms, and yet you’ve agreed to marry me anyways. I suspect there will be a lot of practicing of all kinds going on. Thank you for bringing a peace to my life I haven’t felt in millennia.
Ever yours, Jerik
Medora clutched the paper to her chest. He wasn’t romantic. He was bossy and blunt. But he had done something to her as well. He brought adventure and spice to her very staid existence.
The Krinar Chronicles_Krinar Covenant Page 9
