by E A Price
“Will wait,” she panted between kisses. “Nut roast lasts forever; I, however, won’t.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He stood up, picking her up, his mouth still glued to hers, and carried her to the bedroom. He set her down on jelly-like legs and began to peel her out of her clothes. His fingers traced almost every inch of her and the lust on his face made her shiver.
Gerry unzipped her dress and let it fall to the ground. She was standing before him in bright red underwear. Kneeling before her, he slowly unlaced her boots. A bemused smile quirked his lips. She really needed some new shoes.
He smoothed his hands up her legs, massaging her thighs. She’d always found them a little large for her taste, but as Gerry kissed and nipped them, they seemed about right. He hooked his fingers into her panties and slowly slid them down her legs.
“Hmmm, natural redhead,” he purred as his fingers tickled her dark red curls.
She giggled but squeaked as he pushed his mouth against her sex, his fingers gripped her thighs to stop her from toppling, and his tongue delved into her wet core. His moans and sighs almost matched her own as he tasted her nectar. He nibbled and suckled on her flesh making her writhe and pant with desire.
Jessie curled her fingers into his hair pulling him against her. He moved his hands to her ass, kneading the soft orbs, and as he moved to nibble on her clit, she felt an orgasm ripple through her body. She cried out as her squirrel whimpered, and her body went limp. The intensity took her by surprise, and the next thing she knew was that strong arms were moving her to the bed. She tried to say something, but it came out as a coo.
Gerry smiled triumphantly, as he slipped out of his clothes, and god he was beautiful. Tall, lean and ripped with muscles. He wasn’t too big, or too thin, and his pale skin seemed luminescent in the waning light.
“You’re beautiful,” she breathed. “I don’t date men who are more beautiful than me,” she added teasingly.
His eyes roved her flushed body. “Trust me, you’re not.”
He knelt on the bed, his manhood, hard and almost menacingly bobbing in front of him. Her eyes widened. He was a little on the long side. Admittedly she had assumed he had a big snake – and she was thinking euphemistically – but he was considerably larger than previous boyfriends.
“Don’t worry,” he crooned, “you were made for me.”
Her squirrel melted. “You really believe that?”
“I do. I thought it the moment I met you, your scent, your beauty, your body – everything about you called to me.”
“What about my personality?” she asked, sweetly as he slowly crawled up her body. She shivered in anticipation.
“Oh, especially your personality. You have a gorgeous ass,” he murmured as he kissed her naval. “And lovely breasts.” He sucked one into his mouth for a moment before releasing it. “But I think it’s your big sexy brain that I love most.”
“Oh, I think I like your ass best.”
“Well, you have good taste.”
He kissed her, and she pulled him down to her, the weight of his body comforting and perfect. His member pressed against her slit. He ran a hand down her left leg and lifted it, pressing it back against her and opening her fully to him.
Halting breaths shuddered from her body as he slowly thrust inside her. She clutched at his back and arched against him as he filled her, the pressure dancing the line between pain and sublime pleasure.
He pressed deeper and deeper until he finally buried himself inside her. Before she could even catch her breath, he started plunging in and out of her, grinding himself against her tingling sex and sucking on her breasts. He took one and then the other into his mouth, teasing the rosy bud of her nipple between his teeth before moving to the other.
Her hips moved to meet his as her body warmed. She’d had sex before, and it had been good. But it had always been quick fumbles that felt like races to the end – and ones that she didn’t always finish. Foreplay involved getting out of her clothes – which she didn’t always manage.
The way Gerry ensured she got her pleasure, the way he was carefully taking her, rubbing against her clit, his mouth on her breasts, the way he filled her, was wonderful. She was sure he would wait for her to reach her completion again before he did.
People said he was cold, but they couldn’t be more wrong. He was warm and passionate and above all, loving. And hers. He was hers. He wanted her. He’d said he loved her – in a roundabout way. And he’d called her his mate. He belonged to her. That fact turned her on more than any caress could.
Her beast mewled. Something broke in her, and she started trying to rock against his body like her life depended on it. She was seconds away, a whisper away from what she knew would be the most marvelous release.
“Gerry,” she panted, “so close, please, I need…”
He growled and drove himself inside her forcefully. One thrust, two thrusts and she was gone.
She threw back her head and screamed as the orgasm hit her like lightning. Her body convulsed, almost throwing him off, but he held onto her and with one last violent thrust he roared his own release. He continued slamming inside of her as her tight muscles milked the release from his body. As they came down from their high, Gerry rolled them, so her body was draped over his. His softening member gently pulsed inside her as her inner muscles fluttered around him.
“Am I heavy?”
His chest vibrated as he laughed. “Not at all.”
“Good, I don’t want to move.” She yawned and then sighed. “At least, not for a little while.” Eventually, they’d both have to go home.
Gerry buried his nose in her hair and murmured the word ‘mate’. Jessie smiled as her squirrel preened. She rested her head on his chest, enjoying the thud of his heartbeat. What they had wasn’t perfect – there were a lot of things they were going to need to work out. But, for now, she was content to enjoy whatever moments she could snatch with her mate.
Chapter Sixteen
December
Madam listened to the tears from her latest client. She wasn’t sure what to make of her. But she hadn’t had a client in months, and she was starting to get itchy. She wasn’t entirely sure how deserving this female was, but the more she talked, the more Madam realized that the males who had wronged her deserved to pay.
“He told me he loved me!” she wailed. “My husband never treated me right, he was always so possessive and wouldn’t let me go out on my own. And one time he hit me! So when that damned snake turned up and told me that we could be together, I thought he was serious. But now I’ve left my husband, and he doesn’t want me and my husband wants nothing to do with me. What am I supposed to do?” She blinked at Madam, who patted her hand. “Now my husband plans to remarry a cougar shifter twenty years younger than me, and I’m stuck in a dingy motel with three kids and that bastard snake has moved on to his next victim. It’s not fair!”
“No, it’s not fair,” said Madam with force.
She was right. Why should men be allowed to go around hitting their wives, or seducing them into ruining their lives – surely that was equitable to murder? Madam realized she had been thinking too small. She had been concentrating on big crimes, but there were lots of other crimes, considered less important than murder, that deserved attention and definitely deserved punishment. Why, if this poor creature hadn’t found her way to Madam, her husband would surely have remarried and mistreated his new wife, and the snake would have ruined even more lives with his pathetic seductions.
Yes, Madam had to help. Clearly, these men needed punishing. It was Madam’s job to ensure this woman got her vengeance.
*
“I’m not available for any calls,” snapped Gerry as he strode past his secretary.
Norma, the middle-aged warthog shifter gave him a disapproving glare. “Zane Matthews has called twice in the last twenty minutes.”
“Not. Available,” he reiterated while trying not to grind his teeth. His snake hissed. It ha
d been a hell of a day. Thank all that is holy that it was gone five, and he could actually throw in the towel and leave. The last thing he wanted was to listen to the bear shifter begging him down the phone to give him his job back. That could damn well wait.
Norma clucked her tongue. He could be as cold, rude or angry as he wanted and his secretary was never impressed. “Well, then I wouldn’t advise going in there.”
He ignored her and slammed into his office. Both he and his snake growled as twenty people yelled surprise, happy birthday and threw some streamers at him. His immediate reaction was to snarl at everyone. He hated celebrating his birthday. But as his eyes sought Jessie’s and he saw the mischievous glint taunting him, he calmed, and his raging beast virtually turned into a simpering puppy. Oh, she would pay for this.
He loosened his tie and tried not to glower at everyone as they started singing happy birthday. He swore he could hear Norma’s cackling laughter over all of them.
“Cheer up! You’re not that old,” laughed Isis, a tiger shifter with a death wish.
Crap. Forty-five. Well, it wasn’t young. And it just seemed so much older next to Jessie’s twenty-four. The age difference wasn’t astronomical, and they certainly hadn’t encountered any problems in the bedroom – both when he was redecorating it and when they were having energetic and frequent bouts of sex. But she was such a young and vibrant twenty-four while he seemed to have been born middle-aged.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you all for coming, now feel free to get the hell out.”
“Lighten up, Gerry,” purred his vampire boss, Juliet. “Birthdays are things to enjoy.”
Well, she would say that. She was, at least, four hundred years old. At least – she wouldn’t give up her real age. She was an expert at celebrating birthdays. He grunted and allowed his hands to be filled with a glass of cheap wine and a slab of banana cake with salted caramel icing. He tried not to smile too widely at that. Undoubtedly Jessie had picked the cake. She knew what he liked he thought fondly. His eyes strayed to her and the moment he caught sight of her luscious body, the fondness morphed into something much more thrilling.
His barely restrained beast howled at him to go to their mate. He had hardly seen her over the past few days. As the director in charge of investigative teams at the Los Lobos branch of the Supernatural Enforcers Agency, work, his time had been monopolized away from his little mate. And since Jessie had a sensible yet completely unnecessary rule about no office sex, he was, quite frankly, horny as hell. But, today that would change. It was his birthday, and he was damned if he wasn’t going to spend as much of it with her as possible. Besides, there was really only one thing he wanted for his birthday he thought, as he watched the round globes of her ass sway as she walked. And they certainly didn’t sell a gift card for it.
He made some tedious small talk with a couple of his other directors and avoided talking to Barry Sayles, who was scowling and telling everyone Gerry looked really tired. He navigated around Hester and Cora who appeared to both be arguing in favor of the death penalty against Erin, who looked like she wished she’d never opened her mouth. Finally, oh-so-casually, he happened to find himself standing next to Jessie as the young, wet-behind-the-ears, bobcat shifter complained about some kind of convention for comics or something like that. His snake chuffed - like it matters. It was the damn Robbie boy again. Despite all the times Jessie told him that she didn’t want a romantic relationship, the damn cat kept sniffing around her.
Gerry tried to listen politely, but it was obvious that the young man could care less whether he was there or not. No, all of his attention was completely on Jessie. He had to restrain his snake from not forcing the shift and strangling the boy on the spot. It didn’t help that the boy happened to be Jessie’s age, held a similar job to her and shared similar interests. In spite of his snake’s superiority complex regarding most aspects of his life, he did feel somewhat lacking in some departments. He’d tried to watch Doctor Who, he really had. But come on! A guy who time travels in a police box?! Please! And The Twilight Zone? Why Jessie insisted on watching reruns over and over was unfathomable. But, try as he might, he couldn’t force himself to like the same things as his little mate. Not that she seemed to mind. She was happy for him to read while she watched one of her shows.
After a while, Robbie became a little nervous and drifted away to talk to someone else. Huh, must have been the baleful glare Gerry had been directing at him for the past ten minutes. The boy should be proud he lasted so long. Greater men had crumbled at three minutes.
Jessie beamed at him, and his jealousy melted away as his snake swooned for her. Her hair was dyed black with hot pink streaks that matched her current pair of glasses. She wore a black mini skirt, which although it showed off a divine amount of her curvy legs, was really far too short to wear in public. It should really only be bedroom attire. He would happily allow her to model it for them when they were in her bedroom. The look was complete with a pair of purple Ugg boots and a t-shirt that stretched across her generous bosom with a picture of a banana and the slogan ‘this t-shirt is bananas’. He assumed it was in honor of his cake, but in truth, it was one of his favorites. It was just the right side of too clingy.
“Enjoying your party?” she asked coyly. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and gave him a wickedly naughty look.
“I’ll get you back for this, Jessica,” he murmured her name in warning. He was the only one who called her by her full name, and he managed to curl it around his tongue in such a way to show his displeasure or his horniness. Usually, those things went hand in hand – whenever he was annoyed at her he wanted her more than ever. His snake groaned as images of spanking her perfect rear came to mind.
“Are you having a happy birthday?”
He bent and whispered in her ear. “Ask me again when we’re alone tonight and you’re riding my...”
“Someone will hear you,” she chided softly, as an adorable pink flush rosied her cheeks. She took a tiny step away from him, and he ignored the sound of disgust from his snake. It wasn’t her fault she kept her distance from him in public – she was only doing as he had very stupidly asked. “How was lunch?”
His whole body wound in tension. At the nagging insistence of his wife, he had been forced to dine with her, her brother and her father. In a word, it had been hell. Spending time with his vapid wife, her blockhead brother, and her bullish father was always awful, but knowing his actions caused a modicum of pain to his mate was intolerable. She said it didn’t bother her, but she couldn’t hide her true feelings from him.
“Dire,” he muttered. “How was your lunch?”
Jessie raised her eyebrows in surprise. What? Had he never asked her that before? “I ate my sandwich in the cafeteria as usual. Your girlfriend Tammy says hi, by the way.”
“Funny. Not out to lunch with your… friends?” Specifically, he wanted to know whether she spent time outside work with Robbie. Although Jessie had no interest in the young bobcat shifter, the same could not be said in return.
“No, you know me - I always bring a packed lunch. It’s much more economical. The restaurants around here are so overpriced. Il Lupo across the street charges fifteen bucks for a ham sandwich. It’s a total rip-off!”
Gerry forced himself not to chuckle at his little mate’s frugal outrage. Growing up with seven younger siblings, while surviving on the income of a postal carrier and a dog walker had instilled a sense of fiscal responsibility in Jessie. She shopped at thrift stores and never, ever threw anything out unless she was absolutely sure she wouldn’t use it again. While he found her moral outrage adorable, it was unnecessary. “If you need money for lunch, I would be happy to give you some. You only have to ask.”
Jessie puckered her lips in irritation. “I don’t need money for food.”
“But you just…”
“I was complaining that the restaurants around here are expensive; I wasn’t begging for charity.”
His snake sigh
ed in frustration. “I’m not trying to give you charity.” He was a male; she was his female. Wasn’t it the most natural thing in the world for him to provide for her?
“No, just turn me into a kept woman. It’s bad enough I live in your apartment.”
“Jessica…” he hissed in warning. He definitely didn’t want to get into this argument again. His snake growled unhappily. Under no circumstances was she a kept woman. They were mates. Whatever money he had was hers too as far as he was concerned. As for the apartment thing, that was necessary. There was no way he would tolerate her living with those three, single meatheads. It was crucial for his own sanity that he got her out of there.
“Hey, happy birthday!” Rick, the medical examiner, bounded over to them. He tossed his head making his floppy blonde hair ruffle. A couple of the female directors – including Juliet - almost swooned. Huh, fucking lion shifters – always preening. “What are you guys talking about?”
Gerry’s face tightened. For a smart guy, the lion was terrible at reading situations. His body and face were screaming at the lion to fuck off.
Jessie, the minx, beamed like nothing was wrong. “I was just complaining about the prices at Il Lupo.”
“And I was saying,” said Gerry with a cold smile that definitely did not reflect the heated annoyance of his beast. “That Il Lupo sells excellent food, and it’s not such a great expense when you do have the money available.”
“Yeah, they do a great lasagna,” enthused Rick, ignorant to the fiery looks darting between Gerry and Jessie.
“Some of us are on a budget,” said Jessie, snippily.
“And some of us have more money than we think if we’d just stop being so stubborn.”
Rick frowned at them, not understanding the conversation in the least. “Uh, I like their garlic bread, too. They put something in it that I can’t put my finger on, but whatever it is really makes the flavor pop.”
“Excuse me, I’m going to get some cake,” she declared, sauntering away. Gerry watched her go through narrowed eyes.
