“Hey, chickie, lemme let you go. I’ve got to get to work. M’kay, love you, bye.” Katie didn’t give Honey time to object. They’d been friends for so long, she hoped—prayed— that the Incubator of the Baby didn’t get pissy. Or cry. God, the woman could cry at the drop of a shot glass.
Pregnant women dropped a lot of shot glasses.
Emotionally bracing herself, she climbed from her little car. Nerves dogged her steps as she approached the front door. Her keys jangled in her hands, fingers twitching with apprehension and worry. It’d been a week since she’d stepped foot in the house. Seven days ago she’d walked into a quiet home, finding Old Man Kenton slumped in his favorite recliner. She’d never forget the feel of cool skin against her fingertips. Never.
The lock was smooth as always, door swinging wide on silent hinges, but the floors still creaked two feet over the threshold. That’s how the old man always knew she’d arrived. He couldn’t hear too well, but that groan of the wood got him every time.
Dust motes danced in the air, reminding her it’d been a while since she’d dusted. Avoiding the family room, Katie headed straight back to the kitchen. She needed to clean out the 1970s fridge and unplug the appliances. Then she could sort through the pantry and cabinets. She doubted the new—but hopefully temporary—owner would want the pots and pans, but she’d box ’em regardless.
The temporary owner… From what the attorney had let slip, Old Man Kenton’s grandson would be taking possession of the estate with a few exceptions being the pieces Katie claimed.
Joseph Kenton. The man hadn’t even bothered returning Katie’s calls or shown up to the funeral.
Asshole.
Hell, the bar’s regulars attended and they hadn’t even known the man. They’d been there to support Katie.
Spying the moving boxes delivered by Old Man Kenton’s attorney—the man was sweet as pie and older than dirt—she was quick to put one together and begin. Old, stained dishrags went into their own pile to be trashed. Random kitchen utensils were packed away, joined quickly by the man’s mismatched dishes. Her favorite plate had been the one with tiny yellow roses along the edge and she set that one aside. It was silly, saving a forty-year-old plate, but she wanted it, dammit.
The boxes continued to fill—scratched frying pans, bent cake pans, a brand-new looking Bundt pan and a few things she couldn’t identify. Though, she did come across one other item she wanted. Heavy as all get out, she hefted a cast-iron skillet from a bottom cabinet. She could hardly count how many meals of fried bacon and eggs she’d made in that skillet in the past few years. Then there was lard laden corn bread and the occasional steak.
Yeah, this was coming with her, too. Old Man Kenton had taught her how to clean and season the iron and she’d finally managed not to screw it up a few months ago. She stroked the shined surface, remembering the old man yelling at her as she cooked… or tried to.
“For the love of all! Are ye washing the thing? How many times have I told ya you don’t wash a skillet? You’re ruining it, you waste of a woman!”
Which was about the time she’d slam the pan down and tell him just where he could stick that skillet and he’d hush if he wanted his damn eggs on a plate instead of up his ass.
Smiling, she set it aside and moved on to the next cabinet. Then the next. And yet another. The kitchen was large and spacious. One that she could envision filled with Blake and Honey and their children. And maybe Katie occasionally. A pang speared her heart, a jolt of jealousy tearing through her. Would she love to imagine her and her mate cooking side-by-side? Their hoglets sitting around the table? Sure. But it was hard to afford buying half the place on her pay, let alone the whole thing.
A stray strand of her black-dyed hair drifted over her eye and she blew it aside. God, how had a man accumulated so much? Shaking her head, she bent and got back to work, anxious to finish at least one room before it became fully dark.
Katie tugged open a cabinet and then froze. A distant, familiar creak wove its way through the house. Two feet past the threshold. And not a soul raised their voice in welcome.
No one was supposed to be in the house and she was pretty sure she’d locked the door after she’d come in. Another whine of the wooden floor. This one was from the spot in front of the hall bathroom.
Her car’s presence was unmistakable—whoever it was knew she was there—and still the person came. No, the person snuck through the house. Locals knew her car on sight.
It’s not a local.
She glanced at the back door and grimaced. She’d been promising to hire someone to come out and fix the stupid thing for weeks but hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. So, not counting the windows, the house had one way in and one way out—the front door.
Dammit.
Looking around for some sort of weapon, she grabbed the cast-iron skillet. At ten pounds or so, it’d hurt like hell and hopefully knock the intruder out. She edged toward the kitchen doorway, standing just to the side so she could attack from behind.
Heart racing, she leaned against the wall, watching and waiting. The tense anticipation dumped adrenaline into her bloodstream and her damned inner hedgehog twitched and twittered its displeasure. As a whole, hedgehogs were not known for their aggressive natures. Nope, her inner beastie wanted to crawl into a little ball, preferably somewhere deep within a cabinet where a big bad evil man couldn’t get them.
In a word, her hedgie was a pussy.
Katie listened to the footsteps grow closer, the slow thump of feet on the aged wood announcing the intruder’s journey. The heavy sounds indicated a large man invaded her space. Her grip tightened, knuckles turning white as she waited. Another thud, the toe of a boot appearing. She raised the skillet above her head, intent on her target.
She rationalized what she was about to do. If the person had permission to be in the house, they would have announced themselves, right? She wasn’t about to assault a good, normal person. A good, normal person would have at least yelled a “hello” or two. Right.
One more step brought the man into range and she struck, bringing the heavy iron down on his head with a solid ring of reverberating metal. The blow vibrated through her arms, jarring her very bones and chattering her teeth.
The stranger turned toward her then, wide, blue eyes locking on hers while his mouth hung open. She took that moment to look him over, note his massive height and muscled body. His jaw was square and strong, his nose slightly bent.
All in all, if he hadn’t scared her shitless, she’d call him a hottie. Instead, she said the first thing that came to mind. It wasn’t “I’m sorry,” or even “oops.” Nope, she wasn’t that nice. As he crumpled to the floor in a heap of arms and legs, she shouted a single word. “Timber!”
*
Smack.
Something slammed into Joey’s nose with the force of a freight train and pain became sound and sensation. Bone crunched as his roman nose imitated a pug’s and blood splattered down his face to stain his shirt.
What the fuck?
Staggering backward, he held his hands to his face. Agony radiated from his nose. He hadn’t felt pain like it since the time he’d piled into the side of an office building when tracking a rogue a couple of years back. Nose first.
They’d been dodging and weaving between buildings when the rogue had banked left. Joey had been a fraction of a second too late, his larger size meaning more momentum, and discovered that buildings didn’t dodge and weave. He’d ended up plastered across the windows for several floors like some cheap stick-in-the-window car toy, then slid down to land in a crumpled heap on the sidewalk.
“Timber!”
Joey landed on his ass in a totally undignified sprawl of arms and legs. Quickly he backed up, scooting on his backside across the polished wood to get away from the threat. Normally his first instinct when attacked would be to fight back, to respond with a gout of flame that would deep-fry most creatures in their own juices. For the moment though, all thought of how he
looked—and his reputation as one of the most feared fighters in the twelve—was the furthest thing from his mind as he put distance between himself and his attacker.
His small attacker.
His small, very female attacker.
Who smelled gooood.
His dragon surged to life within, using his human eyes to peer out at the small woman in the doorway. Her skin was pale, nearly ghostly white, but a continued perusal told him all he needed to know. From the worn combat boots to her ripped fishnet stockings and on to the tight, layered midnight clothing… This delicious-smelling female was of the goth persuasion. What the hell did he care about her packaging? Everyone was the same once they were stripped naked. Naked.
She was scrumptious and curvy in all the right places and… brandishing something over one shoulder.
“Is that a skillet?” Joey blinked, then sneezed as his dragon physiology repaired the damage to his nose in an instant. There were advantages to being a dragon other than his immense sex appeal. “Did you just hit me with a skillet?”
Chapter Three
Oh, shit. It was quite possible she’d signed her own death warrant. Katie skittered back and around the table until the rickety piece of furniture separated them.
The stranger glared at her, his eyes flashing a deep midnight. His nose straightened without any medical assistance or a quick snap of his hands to jerk the bridge into place. He sneezed again, shaking his head with the action, and she was reminded of a dog she’d had as a child. Except the man before her was anything but a puppy.
Katie took in his appearance beginning at his polished shoes, along his thick legs, impressive package, flat stomach, wide chest and a seductive grin that was way too panty-dampening sexy.
He was also a shifter. No human could heal that way, obviously. But the rate of repair told her something else. Not only was he a shifter, he was very, very strong. As a regular werehedgie, she could recover a lot faster than a human, but this guy… whoa.
And he was a predator, no doubt about it. From his midnight irises to his large, sculpted body, he screamed, “I’m gonna eat you, little girl.”
The stranger cleared his throat and she realized she’d been staring. Crap.
Well, she figured short and sweet was the best approach. “Yes, it is a skillet.”
He raised a single brow. She wasn’t going to think about how sexy that was. Who got turned on by an eyebrow?
Her apparently.
He breathed deeply and his eyes shifted fully black, darkening until they held no color whatsoever. His gaze turned predatory and she swallowed hard. Oh God, she was going to become dinner.
She let her gaze flick to the microwave clock and then refocused on the man. Well, maybe she’d be brunch. She wondered if she’d get to see his entire beast before she died or if he’d only pull a half-shift to tear her apart.
Then she wondered when she’d become such a pushover. She might not be the biggest, baddest shifter, but she was Katie Carmichael, dammit.
Katie squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. “Yes, I hit you with a skillet.” She dug deep and found some courage. “Now, if you’re going to rape or murder or eat me for brunch, can we hop to it?”
She would face imminent death without a tear.
“Eating you does have appeal.” Stranger-man grinned and flicked out his tongue. His kinda sorta forked tongue.
She had the odd feeling that his idea of eating had more to do with naked than a dining table. She also had a matching odd, yummy feeling between her thighs.
She was such a freak. She was turned on by some guy she didn’t know who broke into Old Man Kenton’s house and…
Katie narrowed her eyes. He hadn’t attacked her and she still had her weapon in hand. A cast iron skillet had done the job the first time around, it’d work if she needed it a second. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he countered.
“I asked first.” She jutted out her chin. With the space between them and the skillet in hand, she grew a tiny set of werehedgie balls. Super tiny.
The man chuckled and shook his head and she reminded herself that wasn’t sexy either.
“You break into my house, assault me, and break my fucking nose and you—”
“Your house?” She narrowed her eyes and realized that seemed to be her permanent expression with the stranger. “Your house? I don’t think so.” She shook her head.
“Yes, mine. I’m Joseph Kenton.”
Shock filled her, the emotion overwhelming her in a sudden rush. She dropped the skillet, the heavy pan slamming into the aged floor, denting the wood beneath the linoleum. The reverberating clang broke through her shock and she quickly snatched her weapon from the ground once again.
“Shit.” Squatting, she ran her fingers over the impression. “Good thing I told Honey we’d need to replace the flooring.”
“Who’s Honey and why are you doing anything to my floor?”
“Your floor? Hell no, it’s not your…” Katie looked up into a pair of ice-blue eyes. This was probably his normal color while the black represented his beast.
His beast… Katie swallowed hard. She remembered the stories about Joseph Kenton.
Joey to Old Man Kenton. There was also the fact that he was a deadly black dragon and had a seat on the Council of Twelve. He was the baddest of the badass.
And in her kitchen. Well, not hers, not yet. But it would be.
Maybe.
She probably shouldn’t have hit the owner of the house with a skillet when she expected something from him.
“It’s not my…”
Sometimes she should keep her mouth shut. Strike that, lots of times. Especially those times when she was faced with a black dragon who could eat her tiny, shifted body in barely a bite. She wasn’t even snack-worthy when it came to a dragon.
“Old Man Kenton wanted me to have this house. He wanted me to live in it, raise a family here.”
“Hmm…”
That was it. “Hmm…” He didn’t say another word.
“And yet, he left it to me.” His smile was smug and suddenly the anger she’d carried when he’d walked through the doors returned with a vengeance.
“And God knows why.” She popped to her feet and slammed the skillet onto the rickety table. She was amazed it didn’t crumple under the force. “You hardly visited once you hit puberty. You sure as hell didn’t visit when you joined your hoity-toity council. You couldn’t even be bothered to come when he was dying. And then,” she stomped around the table and right up to him, getting in his face with a pointed finger and a roar on her lips. “You didn’t even bother to show up for his funeral! Honey, Blake and I are buying this place and you’re going to let us since you couldn’t care less about your grandfather or his memory.”
Breathing heavily, inches separating their bodies, Katie realized two things—Joseph Kenton was livid and… he was her mate.
Sunshine and the warm heat of an early morning sunrise washed over her. It carried the alluring scent of his musk and crisp morning air. A spring morning. He smelled like a spring morning and her little hedgie wanted to come out and play with the gorgeous male.
Bad, hedgehog, bad.
Joseph grinned at her, pure sex in the smile, and Katie fought the sliver of arousal that snaked its way through her body.
She wanted him, her inner beastie wanted him, but she also hated him more than a little bit. She could have used someone to lean on, someone who endured her same pain as Old Man Kenton was lowered into the ground.
Instead, she lived through it alone, carried by her alpha, Blake, and her best friend Honey. Neither of them could ever understand the depths of her grief.
And now he just pops up? She felt a growl building in her chest and her animal’s small teeth pushed against her gums. It wanted to bust free and gnaw on the man’s Achilles tendon. Let’s see him walk then!
“There were extenuating circumstanc
es.” He pushed the words past gritted teeth.
“Extenua— He asked for you until the end. The. End.” Her mate or not, he needed to realize what he’d done, what he’d lost. “So take your scaly ass on out of here. Tell your lawyer what you want for this place and the three of us will get the money together.”
“Three?” He growled, and Katie felt the vibrations into her soul.
He didn’t deserve an explanation, but she gave it anyway. She needed him to leave, needed him to go far away and as fast as he could. She didn’t want a mate who couldn’t be bothered to be there for a loved one. How often would he disappear on her?
“Yes, I’m in a polyamorous relationship with a man and a woman. We have wonderful threesome sex with our threesome-ness!”
Ha! Take that, Mister Dragon man!
“Mine.”
That was it, her only warning before suddenly she was consumed by Joseph. Not in an owie that hurt way. No, it was more of the kiss her senseless version.
*
Like fuck was she in a threesome relationship with anyone.
Jealousy rose hard and fast. Joey moved in with all the speed his kind were known for. One second he stood a few feet away, and the next he had her tiny, curvy little body right where he wanted it. Up close and personal, her curves rubbing against his freaking rock-hard body. Rock-hard was the right word for it. As soon as he’d caught her scent, that delicious little note in it making his dragon sit up and take notice, he’d been as stiff as a fucking post.
He took a second, directing his magic to reabsorb the blood coating his skin before his lips crashed down over hers. No gentleness with the dragon riding him hard. Fucking asshole. He wanted soft and gentle, but her words about getting down and dirty with another guy and a woman stole his control.
One kiss to teach her a lesson, then he’d let her go. At least, that was what he told himself. The reality was totally different.
As soon as his lips touched hers, the little witch softened and pressed herself against him, her lips parting in invitation. Never let it be said that Joey Kenton was slow to accept such a come-on from a member of the fairer sex, much less one whose scent wound around him like a magician’s spell.
Dragon Her Feet Page 2