Playing Their Parts: A Kindred Tales Novel

by Anderson, Evangeline

  She hadn’t known what to expect while watching porn with her partner. It was, after all, the exact opposite of the kinds of things they usually watched together.

  Cassie had never been much of a “girlie-girl” so she never inflicted rom-coms on her partner. She also avoided weepy, long winded features where the heroine “finds” her true self again, after a prolonged vacation at an exotic local. She much preferred action-adventure films, and though she sometimes had to explain the humorous parts to Stone if there was any comedy involved, he seemed to enjoy them too.

  But her partner was not taking well to the porn they were viewing—not at all. What they were seeing on the laptop was affecting him in ways that not even the most exciting car chase or tense action-packed blockbuster could.

  She supposed she had gotten used to thinking of the big Kindred as though he was a living machine—Stone was extremely smart, exceptionally strong, and coldly logical. But now his face was set in a grimace of angry distaste, as though he couldn’t decide if he wanted to shout at the screen or get sick to his stomach.

  All-in-all, her partner had showed more emotion tonight than Cassie had seen from him during their entire partnership.

  And she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

  “The son-of-a bitch,” he said thickly, pointing to the laptop screen. “He is hurting her!”

  Indeed, the girl on the screen—a petite blonde with her hair in pigtails to make her look even younger than she probably was—was grimacing and gasping as The Beast attempted to fit his mammoth cock into the tiny, tight mouth of her shaved pussy.

  “That’s part of this, uh, type of porn, I think,” Cassie tried to reassure him. “It’s the idea that his dick is so big and manly that the girl can’t take it.”

  “But why?” Stone demanded angrily. “Why would humans want to watch a male hurt a female like this?”

  “I think it’s mostly human men who like it,” Cassie told him. It certainly didn’t do anything for her. “Not all of them, of course. But the ones that do, they live vicariously through it. When they’re watching this scene, they can pretend that it’s them that has the massive dick, so big a girl can’t take it.”

  “I don’t understand—why would that be a good thing?” Stone shook his head. “If a couple was so physically mismatched, it would be very difficult for them to make love. How could a male give his female pleasure if every time he tried to enter her, he gave her pain instead?”

  “Look, I don’t fully understand it either,” Cassie said flatly. “But you can’t tell me this isn’t a problem your people run up against on a regular basis—especially if you’re mating with human women. I mean, The Beast is massive, but aren’t most of you Kindred warriors supposed to be, uh, on the large side?”

  They were getting into territory they’d never talked about before—mostly because it seemed wrong to ask such personal questions, Cassie thought. But this case seemed to have skewed everything. All bets were off and everything was on the table so screw it—she was going to ask. Especially after Stone had made her admit to playing hanky-spanky with her ex.

  “Yes, we are big—much bigger than human males—though I do not know many males as large as that.” Stone indicated the screen with distaste, where the girl was moaning and gasping as the massive shaft pushed slowly into her.

  “So what do you do about it?” Cassie wanted to know. “Since the idea of just plowing your way in clearly upsets you.”

  “We make certain the female is ready to receive us, to start with,” Stone growled. “This ‘Beast’ didn’t even attempt to make her ready. He didn’t taste her or pleasure her to orgasm even once—he simply started forcing his way inside her!”

  “And is that something most, uh, Kindred would do?” Cassie raised an eyebrow at him. “’Taste’ their female first?”

  “Of course.” He frowned. “Any Kindred male would want to taste his lover and prepare her for his shaft before making love.”

  “It sounds like that’s really important to you. Is it…is it something you really like to do?” Cassie squirmed a little in her seat. She couldn’t help imagining Stone down on his knees, with his face between someone’s thighs…

  Your thighs, whispered a little voice in her head. But she pushed it away—she didn’t think of her partner that way. Or she tried not to, anyway.

  “Tasting a female isn’t just something we Kindred ‘like’ to do,” Stone told her, seriously. “It’s a biological need.”

  “Wait—so you’re telling me you need to go down on a woman?”

  Cassie couldn’t help sounding skeptical. She hadn’t been with a ton of guys, but most of them, including her ex, didn’t seem to feel any need—or even much of a desire—to give a woman oral. It was hard to believe the Kindred were that different from human men. They were, after all, still male.

  But Stone was nodding his head emphatically.

  “It helps us bond our mate to us more tightly. It brings us closer to her both emotionally and physically. If I am ever privaleged to Claim the female the Goddess has destined for me, I will spend hours between her thighs, learning her secret flavor and pleasuring her with my tongue until she comes again and again for me.”

  He was looking Cassie in the eyes as he said this and his pale gaze was so intense she didn’t know what to say. Her partner had never spoken so erotically before to her. In fact, Stone rarely said anything to do with sex at all. And now he was basically telling her how much he loved to go down on a woman, not to mention the way he was looking at her while he said it…

  Cassie shifted in her seat again. Damn it, there was his scent again! Masculine and hot with notes of some dangerous, dark spice that seemed to invade all her senses and make her tingle in really inappropriate places. It made her want to lean towards her partner, to get closer to him. To…kiss him?

  Stop it, Cassie! Don’t be an idiot—you’ll make a fool of yourself! You know he doesn’t mean you.

  Of course not. Her partner was talking about some mythical future woman he hadn’t met yet because he believed—as all Kindred did—that their deity, the Goddess, took a special kind of interest in match-making and had just the right female in mind for every one of her warriors.

  And Cassie knew she was definitely not the female for Stone. For one thing, there was no way she could be Stone’s type. He belonged with a supermodel—one who didn’t have thighs like tree trunks, as Keith used to say.

  Though to be honest, it was hard to imagine the big Kindred with anyone. He had spoken of his “future mate” from time to time but he’d never expressed an active desire to find a wife and settle down. In fact, he was usually so cold and logical, it was hard to imagine him opening up and allowing himself to be vulnerable to a woman—hard to imagine him expressing his feelings and desires.

  You mean like he’s doing right now? whispered a little voice in her head. Admitting how this kind of porn bothers him and saying that he wants to be married someday?

  It was all too confusing. Cassie scooted over, putting a bit more space between herself and her partner. Time to get back to the matter at hand.

  “Look, all the foreplay in the world wasn’t going to help that situation.” She pointed at the screen. “That’s like trying to shove a six-foot salami into a tiny keyhole—it’s just not going to work without some damage being done somewhere.”

  “In that case, he should have used some bonding fruit,” Stone said. “To simply force your way inside, knowing that you are hurting your lover, is disgusting and wrong.”

  “Bonding fruit?” Cassie frowned and cast a sidelong-look at her partner. “What’s that?”

  “A special fruit which comes from Twin Moons—one of the Kindred home worlds,” he explained. “It was first developed and cultivated by the Twin Kindred because of their need to share a female between them in order to bond with her.”

  “What is it? Some kind of aphrodisiac?” Cassie asked, frowning.

  Stone nodded.

 
; “It is. But it also allows a certain…elasticity on the part of the female who eats it. Which enables her to allow her Kindred mate—or mates—to penetrate her completely and bond with her. Hence the name, ‘bonding fruit.’”

  “I see.” Cassie nodded. “Well, that makes sense.”

  “What would make sense, is for ‘The Beast’ to use it in scenes like these. If he truly is a Kindred, he would have access to it.”

  Stone leaned forward and touched a button on the laptop, freezing the scene with the girl only half-impaled on the monstrously thick cock, her mouth frozen in a grimace of sexual agony.

  “I can’t watch this anymore,” he rumbled, his deep voice thick with disgust. “It turns my stomach to see a female in pain. How can anyone derive pleasure from watching what is essentially torture?”

  Cassie thought of trying to explain it to him—how human males were so often insecure that the idea of having a dick big enough to physically hurt their partner made them feel powerful and strong.

  But she could see that it would just make Stone even more disgusted with her species. The Kindred were so careful and respectful of their females and so secure in their own masculinity that the ideas behind this kind of pornography weren’t just incomprehensible to them—they were actually repulsive.

  “Let’s move on,” she suggested, leaning forward. But just as she was about to move to another file in the laptop, Stone put a hand on her arm.

  “Wait!” He leaned forward excitedly. “Look!”

  The scene they had frozen on showed a side view which managed to display The Beast’s entire engorged shaft. But other than its immense size, Cassie really didn’t see anything unusual about it. She squinted, trying to see what her partner was pointing at, which seemed to be somewhere near the base of the monster cock.

  “What? I don’t see anything.”

  “Exactly!” Stone exclaimed triumphantly. “The Beast is not a Kindred—or at least, he is not a Beast Kindred.”

  “He’s not? How can you tell?” Cassie looked more closely at the screen.

  “Because all Beast Kindred have a swelling at the base of their shafts called a Mating Fist,” Stone explained. “It fills the female they are making love with completely until their bonding is finished. All true Beast Kindred have it!”

  “But ‘The Beast’ doesn’t. I see…” Cassie nodded her head.

  “And there is something else—something to do with Beast Kindred.” Stone put a hand to his forehead. “Goddess, why didn’t I think of it earlier?”

  “What? What?” Cassie asked anxiously.

  “Beast Kindred—real ones—secrete a kind of compound. It’s found in their saliva and their precum both and it acts in the same way as bonding fruit—allowing their lover to stretch to receive them. Otherwise no female would ever be able to take a Beast Kindred’s Mating Fist.”

  “I see.” Cassie nodded. “So ‘The Beast” wouldn’t have to, uh, force his way in at all if he really was a Beast Kindred.”

  “Exactly.” Stone pointed to the frozen screen. “This scenario would never happen with a true Beast Kindred—the compounds in his precum would simply allow him to slide right in with no pain to the girl at all.” He shook his head. “Why did I not think of that at once? It should have occurred to me at the very beginning of this scene.”

  “Maybe seeing the girl being hurt upset you so much you weren’t concentrating on the facts,” Cassie suggested carefully.

  “You’re right, Cassandra.” The big Kindred shook his head. “From the beginning of this case, I have been allowing my emotions to get in the way of clear thinking. I must do better.”

  “It’s all right, Stone.” She patted his arm awkwardly. “I mean, this is a really upsetting case. It would put anybody off their game.” She frowned. “But if The Beast isn’t a Beast Kindred, then what the hell is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Stone said grimly. “But we’re going to find out.”

  Fourteen

  Cassie yawned as discretely as she could into her cupped hand. Captain Perkins liked early morning meetings and conferences and she and Stone had been up almost all night examining the contents of Frank Yarrow’s laptop…

  Most of it had been more of the same—huge dick into tiny pussy, as Yarrow had told them. But there was also a fair amount of BDSM footage they had to examine and the contracts to look at. Cassie had noted down all the names of The Beast’s “co-stars” but none of the girls they saw The Beast working with had looked anything like the victim they had seen on Bayshore.

  Most of the porn did nothing for her, but Cassie had found herself squirming during some of the scenes. During one, especially, The Beast had been working with a girl with long blonde hair and brown eyes, which looked a little like Cassie’s own. They had been playing a scene where The Beast was a stern boss and the girl was his naughty secretary.

  “Miss Lexie,” he had growled at her, stalking into the office. “Can you explain to me why this paperwork I left for you yesterday still hasn’t been filed?”

  “Oh, dear!” The girl had widened her eyes in mock-alarm. “I thought I had filed those papers, Mr. Thornton! I am so sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it around here, you know that,” The Beast growled. “Now I’ll have to punish you to teach you a lesson! Pull up your skirt and bend over my desk.”

  Eagerly, his “secretary” complied—showing in the process that she wasn’t wearing any panties.

  The Beast proceeded to paddle her until her generous ass cheeks were cherry red while the “naughty secretary” yelped and moaned and begged for more because she had been a “bad girl.”

  While the scene was going on, Cassie could feel Stone’s piercing gaze, which was directed at her almost as often as it was to the screen in front of them. She wished like hell that she hadn’t told him about her little foray into kink. What must he be thinking of her now?

  At last he had spoken.

  “So this is the ‘role playing’ you were talking about?” he asked, looking directly at Cassie.

  Stiffly, she nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  “He is hitting her, but the female doesn’t appear to be in much pain—or to mind very much.” Stone had sounded thoughtful.

  “That’s because this kind of, uh, sexual play isn’t just about pain,” Cassie had tried to explain. “BDSM is about power—who’s got it and who’s willing to give it up. She’s giving him power over her body to do whatever he wants—she’s being submissive.”

  “You said that you tried to be submissive to your ex-mate but you could not do it. Correct?” Stone asked.

  “That’s right.” Cassie nodded again and shifted in her seat.

  “And this was the kind of thing you did?” He motioned to the screen, where The Beast had stopped paddling the girl and was now standing behind her, ramming his cock into her pussy as she lay over his desk and moaned and writhed.

  “Well, I mean, I think the production values were higher on this scene,” Cassie said dryly. “But essentially, yes, I guess so.”

  “And did you truly enjoy it?” he wanted to know.

  “Geez, Stone!” Cassie exploded. “Are you seriously asking me if I liked being spanked? I’m your partner.”

  “I am just wondering if I could bring myself to ‘spank’ a female in the context of sexual play,” Stone had said seriously.

  “Oh, and what was your conclusion?” Cassie asked.

  She tried to make her voice sarcastic, but somehow it came out breathy instead. She could imagine Stone dressed as a Dom all too well. He already wore black leather trousers and high black boots most of the time, as most Kindred warriors did. And he was so tall and commanding. All he would need to do was take off his shirt to show his muscular chest and pick up a paddle and…

  And she had to stop thinking this way about her partner, Cassie had told herself sternly. Sitting so close to him, breathing in his arousing scent while they watched porn was really getting to her!


  But Stone still hadn’t answered her question—which he now proceeded to do.

  “If I knew it wasn’t really hurting her and that she enjoyed it, I think I could spank a female—if she wanted me to,” he’d said, giving Cassie a piercing look. “But I would have to know I wasn’t being too rough—we would need some kind of a signal that she could give me if I went too far.”

  “That’s called a ‘safe word’,” Cassie told him.

  “Oh?” Stone looked surprise. “Such a signal already exists?”

  Cassie nodded. “It’s a word the submissive can say to slow down or stop the action. A lot of people use the words ‘green,’ ‘yellow,’ and ‘red.’”

  “Like a stoplight!” Stone exclaimed.

  “Exactly. ‘Green’ means keep going, ‘yellow’ means that the scene is getting kind of intense and you might want to slow down.”

  “And red must mean that the, uh, submissive wants to stop the scene entirely—correct?” He raised an eyebrow at her and Cassie nodded.

  “You got it.”

  “And were those the words you used with your ex-mate?” he wanted to know.

  Cassie sighed. Clearly she and her partner had now crossed some kind of invisible line where nothing was off-limits. Or at least, where questions of a very personal nature were permitted, she corrected herself.

  “Yes, those were our words,” she admitted. “They were what the dominatrix we were working with recommended.”

  “And did you ever have to use them?” Stone inquired.

  Cassie shook her head.

  “Not even once. Keith just wasn’t a, uh, very effective Dom.”

  “Dom meaning Dominant right?”

  “Exactly.” She’d nodded and raised an eyebrow at him sardonically. “Any more questions about my sordid past, partner?”

  “None that come to mind,” Stone said seriously. “But I’ll let you know if I think of any.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Cassie muttered.