Andromeda's Reign

by K. S. Haigwood

  She laughed against his mouth when he claimed ownership once again. “You are such a king.”

  Lowering his head to explore more of what she had to offer him, he looked from one tempting mound to the other, and finally decided to take the left rosy nub between his lips and softly massage the other with his hand. Decisions, decisions. It was a tough job being a man in love. He often thought he needed at least one extra mouth. Wondering vaguely whether Ariana might be able to witch it on his body, somewhere, he focused on the task in hand.

  Ariana’s lips parted, and he smiled when a rush of pleasurable sounds echoed off the walls of the bathroom.

  With his other hand free, he ran his long fingers over the cheek of her ass, down the back of her thigh and pulled her right knee up to his hip. He wasn’t worried about her getting off balance and falling. He had her. He had all of her.

  His head jerked up and he crushed his mouth on hers just as he slid through the soft folds of her sex and into his most favorite place to be.

  His jaw clamped shut and his hand shot out to brace them against the shower wall when her muscles tightened around his erection.

  “Yeeees!” The cry escaped her throat and her nails clawed the skin on his back, but he pumped into her, keeping a steady rhythm and watching her expression as the orgasm threatened to rip through her body. “Abe…” she said, winded, and grabbed his biceps, squeezing the thick muscles and making him grin, “I—I need…”

  “I know, baby. Just let it go.” He jerked his hand from the wall, pulling her other leg up, and just like a pro, she hooked her ankles at the small of his back and took all of him. His knees damn near buckled.

  Aiming to get his own release by the time Ariana’s climax was over, Abe growled and quickened his strides. Her body quaked all around him. He was almost there. He was there.

  “Take my vein,” Ariana whispered.

  Pulling a bit back from the rush, he blinked the water out of his eyes and looked down at her in confusion. Sure enough, her head was tilted to the side and her wet hair was moved away, baring her neck and that throbbing vein to him. He jerked his head away, trying to ignore the instant bloodlust and the anger that was quickly boiling up inside him.

  “No,” he said shortly.

  “Abe, please. You need it. I want you to.”

  He stopped moving inside her and set her feet on the wet tile. Grabbing a towel from the hook on the wall, he threw it around his waist, tying it extra tight, so just maybe it would cut off the circulation in his erection and deflate the damn thing.

  “Abe! Where are you going?”

  “Not now, Ariana.” He threw open the bathroom door and walked into the bedroom, and wasn’t a bit surprised to hear she had followed.

  “What did I do? I don’t understand why you’re acting this way. Talk to me, damn you!” she shouted when he only stood at his closet and shoved hanger after hanger to the right. Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.

  He stopped and let his arm fall, but didn’t turn around. “You know how I feel about using you as a meeker while you’re pregnant. We’ve had this discussion before, Ariana. Hell, we’ve even fought about it a few times, but you don’t seem to understand or maybe you just don’t care; I don’t know—”

  “You think that I don’t care about my child?” she said, and Abe turned around, the muscles in his jaw doing the same workout they did every time their conversation led to him feeding from her. “How can you even say that?” she snapped. “If I felt, in any way, that you taking the amount of blood from me that you need would hurt the baby, I wouldn’t ask you to do it.” She pointed to her chest, and fury burned throughout Abe’s bones. “I know it won’t hurt the baby—”

  “But I don’t!” he roared, causing her to flinch. He shook his head and reached into the closet, grabbing a random shirt and a pair of jeans. When he looked back at her, he was a little calmer, but not much. “I don’t know what is good or what is bad for the baby, Ariana, but I can’t imagine taking anything from you that the baby needs could ever be a good thing. I won’t do it.”

  He ripped the towel away, and to his delight, either the terrycloth or his pissy mood had done the job, because Mr. Happy wasn’t so happy anymore. Without wasting time going to the dresser for boxers, he just shoved one leg at a time in the jeans then buttoned and zipped the fly. After throwing the shirt over his head and pushing his arms through the armholes, Abe finally made his way to the dresser to grab socks.

  “Abe,” Ariana whispered, but he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t look at her when he was this mad, especially when it was her that he was mad at. “Abe, look at me. I have to go to work, and I don’t want to leave you upset.” He still didn’t say anything.

  Abe put his socks on and located his boots by the bar. Tying the sons of bitches wasn’t going to happen with his hands shaking so badly, so he just shoved his feet in, grabbed his keys from the bar and headed for the door.

  “Abe! Where are you going? The sun is out!”

  “Go to work, Ariana. I’ll see you later.”

  He jerked open the door, then slammed it shut behind him.

  A look inside Four Winds series – Falling for Heaven

  Uri managed to quell the rising nausea threatening to overwhelm him, as his eyes roved the club searching out his target. The nearly naked women pranced around, hips swaying to the pulsating beat of the extraordinarily loud music, while lights flashed. These women, with their exposed flesh, were taking advantage of man’s innate weakness for it, and it sickened him a little to see the callous satisfaction in their faces. He averted his eyes when one woman approached him.

  “Showtime?” She stood next to him, her leg rubbing his, as her hand reached out to stroke his arm.

  “No thanks.” He replied, unwilling to look at the woman’s breasts or the only article of clothing she wore, a red g-string. It wasn’t that Uri was uncomfortable with nudity, he wasn’t. He was uncomfortable with the fleshpot he was in and the business itself, which catered to humanity’s weakness for flesh.

  “Okay.” She smiled at him but he didn’t notice, as he was busy peeling off the label of the water bottle sitting on the table in front of him.

  When she had gone, his eyes roamed the room once more, trying to find his target so he could get out of this place. Every woman was naked, save for a tiny scrap of cloth over her pubic region, leaving nothing to imagination. It was desensitizing. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to work with a target that came to a place like this. What could he possibly have to offer The Boss, other than a distorted view of love and women? That’s what these kinds of places propagated, that’s why fornication is a sin. It objectified the act, taking the emotion out of making love, one of humanity’s most treasured behaviors.

  Apparently during this part of the evening, known as Showtime, the dancers all came out to give brief dances to individual patrons for tips. Each time he raised his eyes, a woman would come over and offer to dance for him. He declined each one.

  When the DJ came over the loudspeaker announcing that Showtime was over, Uri breathed a sigh of relief and began searching for his target once more.

  His hyper-alert senses were on overload. The music was too loud, the lights were flashing too brightly, and the oil that these women used on their bodies had a cloying smell. He couldn’t seem to shake the sense of unease that continued to plague him.

  He wondered what it was about this assignment that bothered him so much. Was it the fact that he was going to find the target here, in this cesspool of lust? He wasn’t exactly naïve. He understood that humans were weak, and they tended to give in to their weaknesses more often than not. He just didn’t enjoy picking up his targets in places like this. Why couldn’t he pick them up at work or something?

  This assignment was different. The Boss hadn’t told him exactly what he was supposed to do. He usually knew not only the target but their purpose as well. This time, Uri only knew where to find him. That was all.

 
The club, appropriately named Bottom’s Up Cabaret, was filled with inebriated patrons. The dancers didn’t appear to be under the influence of alcohol, but a lot of them had the familiar hazy look of some sort of drug in their eyes. Uri couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be doing here. He felt like he was flying blind.

  The DJ came back over the speaker system to announce the next act, a dancer named Heaven.

  As she came onstage, Uri was a little shocked to feel the familiar burning in his gut, which signified he had spotted his objective. Surprised to realize that he wasn’t here for a patron, he leaned back, letting the white-hot burning fill him, and watched the dancer to determine why The Boss had sent him.

  She wore more clothes than most of the other dancers, although Uri held no illusions about them actually staying on. Sure enough, she slowly removed her spandex dress before grabbing a towel from the side of the stage. He watched as she stalked out with the towel and seductively wiped the pole with it. As she rubbed it up and down the pole she looked out at the audience, giving the helpless men a sultry pout. Tossing the towel to the side of the stage, she launched herself on the top of the pole and began spinning around it, her body writhing to the music.

  In spite of his feelings about the establishment, Uri found himself captivated by the dancer’s movements on the pole. Other dancers used the pole in their routines, but this one seemed to have a certain skill that the others lacked. He studied her, as she effortlessly suspended herself with her legs, spinning around, while touching herself in various places. She hadn’t removed her bra yet, so she was still wearing more clothing than most of the others.

  Her twisting frame cast a spell over Uri, mesmerizing him. He couldn’t look away from her toned flesh, despite all his years of discipline and self-control. The familiar intense burning in his gut was joined by a foreign feeling, a tingling that started at the base of his groin, and worked its way up through his stomach. He shifted in his chair, suddenly uncomfortable with the sensations coursing through his body as he watched the dancer.

  She was tall and curvy, with black hair that fell past her shoulders. Even from across the club, with lights bouncing around the room, he could tell that her eyes shone an impossible shade of green, as if they were jewels. Uri could see that her body was a temple, she wasn’t drunk or stoned, and he felt a little better about his assignment. He hated having to sober people up.

  Although, as he watched her remove her bra and toss it backstage, he knew he would have to get her dressed.

  He watched with fascination as his target lithely extricated herself from the pole, and stalked over to the edge of the stage where a man was waiting with a fistful of dollar bills. His large body swayed to the music, and alcohol flushed his face. Uri watched as she gyrated for the man on the stage, while he tossed dollar bills onto her body. The woman stood, letting the bills fall to the floor. She then danced around the stage, enticing more men to come up and slip bills into the string that held the impossibly small triangle of cloth over her pubic area.

  Uri thought about the tight feeling in his chest. He hadn’t noticed it before she’d pranced over to the man on the side of the stage. As the strange man fed her money, Uri’s heart sank deeper in his chest, causing his blood to rush around his body. It suggested something personal about this target, but that was ridiculous. Uri didn’t get personal. He wasn’t capable of it.

  Examining her audience, Heaven’s eyes flickered around the room, before landing on Uri. He could see her reaction, although subtle. Her abs tensed, and her mouth opened slightly, before her eyes moved on. Uri wondered about that. Usually the targets didn’t pick up on him that soon. He noticed her eyes continued to flicker back to the other corner of the club, but he couldn’t see who she was looking at and could only assume it was a boyfriend or a regular patron. The sinking feeling in his chest intensified, and the blood pounded in his ears, causing the loud club noises to diminish somewhat.

  Uri continued to survey her, as the song ended and she bent to collect the money off the stage tossed there by men eager to show her favor. Carefully tucking it into the waist-string of her panties, she went off stage, making room for the next dancer as she went to “mingle” with the crowd.

  Uri watched her smile and laugh with the patrons as she artfully worked her way through the packed club. She never stayed at one table long before moving on, usually with more money stuffed in her underwear. It appeared that she carefully avoided looking in his direction. Uri wondered if it was intentional, if she was avoiding eye contact with him as he stared at her, willing her to look at him, to watch him as he watched her. He also noticed that she didn’t approach the corner where her eyes had been tracking during her dance. He questioned that, too.

  Above all else, he was curious about the sensations in his body. He knew The Boss had a reason for everything, and the tingling in his gut, as well as the sinking feeling in his chest had to mean something.

  Uri stayed until the club closed, watching Heaven as she continued to work the crowd and dance. Occasionally, she would go into a back room with a customer, and Uri speculated about what exactly she did back there. The men would always emerge flushed with obvious arousal, and a wistful smile on their face.

  Determined to gather more clues as to his purpose, Uri cloaked himself in the shadows outside the club and waited for her to leave. The bouncers had been very careful to make sure that all the customers were gone, but they were unable to see Uri.

  He watched as Heaven exited the club, kissed an enormous black bouncer on the cheek, and started walking down the street. Slightly alarmed that she was walking home from a strip club in the early hours of the morning, Uri kept himself invisible as he followed her.

  She walked fast, keeping her head down. When she passed a homeless man, sleeping next to a boarded up building, he saw her slip a handful of one-dollar bills into his coat pocket and murmur something to him.

  Normally, he should have been able to hear what she said, but his senses must have been frayed from being over-stimulated at the club because what he heard sounded like, “Good luck at the races, Sam.”

  Soon, she turned a corner into a nice residential area, where Uri followed Heaven a couple of blocks until she went behind a large house to let herself in over the garage.

  Having seen her safely home, Uri stayed and watched the building she had entered. It was separated from the main house by a small yard, but obviously belonged to the large, stately home. They were both built from rust-colored stones with wrought-iron accents. This was a nice area of town, and Uri was a bit surprised to find that she lived in a place like this, even if it was over a garage.

  Before he had a chance to leave, she re-emerged from the apartment to let out a miniature dog, who waddled out into the yard to do its business. While she was watching the dog, a police car slowly drove by, and she waved to the driver, who smiled back at her as if they were friends. When the dog was finished, they returned inside.

  As the door shut gently behind her, he felt the white-hot heat subside, while the tingly feeling remained, as Uri pictured her face. Heather. The name came to him, as her green eyes and long brown hair resonated in his brain. Still not having an inkling of what his purpose with this target was, Uri felt confident that his work for the evening was finished. Tomorrow he would try talking to her.

  Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She’s been writing for public consumption for the last four years. Currently she is writing two romance series. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God’s four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head. Check out her blog, www.anneconley.com
for updates, book blurbs, and more.

  Pierce Securities:

  Craze

  Wire

  Click

  Grab

  Murmur (Coming Soon)

  Stories of Serendipity:

  Neighborly Complications

  Chef’s Delight

  Dream On

  Hot Mess

  Falling for Him

  Gambling on Love

  My Mistake

  Wrecked

  Saving Charlie

  Four Winds:

  Falling for Heaven

  Falling for Grace

  Falling for Hope

  Falling for Faith

  Falling for Cyn

  Falling for Eternity

  Stand Alones:

  Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men

  The Fixer Upper

  Other Series Coming Soon:

  Book Bitches:

  Power of Love

  Master of Love

  Hunt for Love

  Fostering Love

  Will to Love

  Love’s Ward

  About the Author:

  Kristie Haigwood (a.k.a. K.S. Haigwood) is currently writing her 10th novel. She lives in Arkansas, US. She is the mother of 2 awesome kids and 2 great dogs. She is happily married to her soulmate who thinks reading is a solid waste of time. Opposites attract. Kristie’s works include ‘Save My Soul’, ‘Hell’s Gift’, ‘Good Side of Sin’, ‘Forbidden Touch’, ‘Eternal Island’, ‘Eternal Immortality’ and ‘Accepting the Moon’. ‘Eternal Illusion’, ‘The Last Assignment’, ‘Midnight Moonrising’ and ‘My Sweet Purgatory’ are all releasing soon.