by M. L. Briers
BETTING ON HIS MATE
By
M L BRIERS
Copyright © 2014 by M. L Briers
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BETTING ON HIS MATE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
Kiera took a long drink from the bottle of beer and swallowed hard. Tonight wasn’t about getting drunk it was about having a good time, catching up with friends and letting her hair down. But she was out in what passed for a pub-come-club around these parts, and she was with Teri and Caren, so a little Dutch courage wouldn’t go amiss. These two could try the patience of a saint, and she was no saint.
“He’s still starring.” Teri twisted her head on her neck and gave Kiera a pathetic pouty look.
“And I’m still not interested.” Kiera couldn’t help it when her eyes flicked down the bar to where he sat. It was the same kind of thing as when your best friend said ‘don’t look now, but…’ How could you not look? And she had to admit that the guy was well worth a second and third, and yep, even a forth stare…look…glance…oh hell, he was eye candy of the very best kind.
“How could you not be interested in that…?”Caren raised her brows and pinned her with a look that questioned her sanity. Here we go again, Kiera thought, she was going to have to argue her corner and they were going to belittle her life choices, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go another round of that.
“Looks aren’t everything.”She lifted her beer and hoped they’d get bored really quickly.
“She’s right…”Teri shrugged just one shoulder, conceding the point. Caren’s head twisted on her neck so she could direct her glare at Teri this time.
“She is?” She sounded surprised at being surprised.
“Sure. A nice muscled body, which he has, I might add, is always a must.”Teri’s grin was of the devilish kind and Kiera had to roll her eyes and look away from her friend as she bit her tongue and didn’t follow through on what she was thinking.
“Oh, he does have a nice body.”Caren nodded her agreement with a little more enthusiasm than was entirely necessary. Her eyes shone with the mischief that Kiera knew only too well.
“A little broody for my tastes, maybe…”Teri offered and Caren shrugged a shoulder.
“Sure, but the whole rest of the package makes up for that, don’t you think Kiera?” Caren caught her off guard as she sneaked a peek at him again and found his eyes were still firmly on her. Her brain was elsewhere, caught up in his stare.
“Sure…”She answered quickly. Tearing her eyes away from the man and bringing her attention back towards her friends. “What?”She asked absently as both of her friends stared back at her with knowing grins spread across their smug little faces.
Bloody-well-busted. Kiera would have grinded her teeth on that one, but that would only have given the terrible twosome extra ammunition, and the way Caren was grinning at her, she knew she given her enough already.
“You-like-him.” Caren said it so slowly that she might as well have just spelt each individual letter out. It probably would have been quicker.
“I can’t like him, I don’t know him.” Kiera shot back. Six months after they had parted ways for the girls to come to this backwater town, she felt as if she was back on an alien planet where the only things that mattered were having a good time and chatting up guys. That was their idea of fun. Hers was a good book, a soft blanket and peace and quiet. But she had missed them, desperately sometimes. They always seemed to manage to liven things up, even if it wasn’t to her liking sometimes, like now.
“Well, if you’d accepted his drink that wouldn’t be an issue, would it?”Teri offered with a small sigh. Neither of them could ever understand why she chose not to do the ‘party hard and die of a hangover’ thing that they both liked so much, but each to their own.
“Can we drop it…?”
“No!” Both of them said in unison and she had to roll her eyes. They’d spent the better part of their adult life trying to convince her that she should partake of men as much as possible, but she wasn’t buying it. She’d had enough of men to last her a lifetime, maybe even two lifetimes…
“Look, I read your cards before you got here…”Teri admitted, knowing that Kiera was about to roll her eyes for possibly the hundredth time this evening, and probably even bury her head in the sand to all things Fae. But it didn’t matter whether she believed or not, the cards didn’t lie…”And it said that a tall, dark, handsome man was coming into your life…”
Kiera turned on her stool and held out her index finger towards her friend. “You know, it’s funny how they never say a short, fat, bald man will sweep you off your feet, isn’t it? Do you not find it odd that everyone is tall, dark and handsome in the world of your cards?” Kiera knew the two of them fancied themselves as witches, and that was fine, she just didn’t need to hear about it, especially when they tried to use it against her, like now.
“Oh ye of little faith…”Caren shot back and Kiera swivelled around towards her.
“The last time she read my cards, she told me I was going to achieve all I aimed for…” Kiera swivelled back towards Teri and pinned her with her eyes. “Go on, what happened that day?” She challenged her friend and Teri pouted her lips and silently conversed with the ceiling. “No answer? I failed my final exam, blew up my toaster, spectacularly I might add, and got fired from my job.” The look of smugness on her face matched the look of sheepishness on Teri’s as she brought her eyes back down.
“But, you did win the darts match at the local pub with a perfect one eighty.”Teri offered triumphantly.
Kiera couldn’t help the strangled groan that came from her lips. If there was one person she wanted to strangle, it was probably Teri. The pair of them needed their heads knocked together over this witchy thing. The sheer fact that they’d moved from the city into the back of beyond to open a damn witchy shop was ample proof of that.
“You are insane, and deluded, and worse than that, you’re…”Her eyes flicked to Mr-Tall-Dark-and-Perfectly-Handsome at the end of the bar. He’d moved, not a great deal, just enough to catch her attention, and those dark eyes were back burning a hole deep into her very soul. Shake it off…She snapped her eyes back to Teri who was now grinning at her.
“Can’t keep your eyes off him, can you?”Teri teased and saw the flicker of annoyance in her friend’s face.
“Can too.” Kiera shot back and Teri looked decidedly smirky.
“Give it your best shot.”
“I’ll bloody well shoot you in a minute.”Kiera growled back, dismissing her friend and turning back towards Caren. If she wasn’t looking Teri’s way then her eyes couldn’t possibly wander to the stranger with the dark, intense gaze… Her eyes caught sight of him in the long mirror that ran along the back of the bar and he held her gaze for a long moment… Damn it to hell! She berated herself for that small indulgence, but no harm done, it wasn’t as if she was really looking at him, was it?
“Told ya.” Teri was staring at her in the mirror and she felt her cheeks burn hot. Oh, she didn’t need to look at her reflection to know they were shining like a lighthouse in a storm. Bugger, bugger, bugger and
sod it! She wanted to groan again. She wanted to bury her face in one of those large snow drifts outside the pub to stop her cheeks from glowing. She wanted to dig a hole and not stop until she reached Australia. What was a little molten lava when her pride was at stake? She may become a crispy critter, but what the heck…
“Bite me!”Kiera snapped back at Teri, but it was Caren that choked on the mouthful of beer she had been attempting to swallow. Gulping and spluttering, her eyes grew wide as she looked past Kiera towards where the gorgeous stranger was sitting.
“Don’t look now, but…”Caren leaned in towards her as if sharing a secret and Kiera couldn’t help herself, her eyes snapped to where he had been sitting and found the spot vacated. “I think you’ve got a taker on that request.”She snorted happily as Kiera’s eyes snap-searched the room around them with the help of the mirror.
“Oh, for the love…”Kiera bit down on the last of her words as her eyes locked with his. He was making a beeline straight for them. “Tell me he’s going to the men’s room.”Kiera hissed, not caring which one of her friends was going to reassure her first, but painfully waiting for that glimmer of hope.
“Not a chance in hell.”Teri hissed back against her ear and Kiera literally felt the heat peak in her cheeks before she felt the colour drain away. When he stopped directly behind her stool he just stared back at her in the mirror. But it was just his sheer presence that close to her that had her body doing all the kinds of things that she didn’t want it to be doing. Intimate things, hell, he could have had his hands all over her naked flesh right there and then and she didn’t think her body could have responded any more to him than it was. Maybe a little more…
“Let me buy you that drink.”The depth of his tone would have put Barry White to shame. He tilted his chin down towards that expanse of a chest, chest enough that it could have fitted two of her side by side against it quite comfortably, and regarded her under pitch black brows. Wow…No, whoa…He looks like he wants to devour me whole…and God forgive me, but I think I’d bloody enjoy it…
“No…”She heard the shrill of her voice and the chuckles of the others and clamped her lips shut for a long moment, right in that moment she could have Hexed the both of them, if only she knew how. Clearing her throat she hated to try again, but… “Thanks, but I have one.”She still didn’t sound right to her ears, but what did that matter when his eyes were so bloody intent on her? God, he could undress me with those eyes, but it’d be better with his teeth…Kiera’s back snapped upright as she perched on the barstool. Where the hell did that come from?
It wasn’t enough that he was standing that close behind her. He leaned in, placed one hand on the bar beside her and turned his lips towards her ear. His hot breath caress her cheek and her mutinous body shivered from head to bloody toe. He’s going to eat me alive given half the damn chance…
“Then let me buy you dinner.”His tone had gone from deep to a deeper growl as every hair on her body stood to attention. His eyes hadn’t left hers, and heaven help her but she just couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his. Buy me dinner or make me your dinner…?
“Already eaten…”She swallowed down the need to raise the white flag. Roll over and play dead…oh the hell with that, roll over and enjoy what he was offering…but what was he offering? It felt like excitement, like pure carnal sex on a stick, like…like trouble with a really big capital T…
“I want to get to know you…”He growled again. It was a sound that reverberated through every cell in her body, and maybe even the ones that her body hadn’t even made yet. Future generations of cells danced to his tune. “Better.”He added after a long pause, and this time she thought she might have swallowed her tongue because there was a bloody great lump within her throat.
“We can’t always get what we want.”Kiera decided to knock this right on the head. This wasn’t some city banker that she could verbally fence swords with and then pat him on the head and send him on his way. This guy was dangerously hammering on some unseen chink in her armour. He was taking a battering ram to her drawbridge and…He might even possess the key to her damn chastity belt.
“Are you certain of that, Kiera?”Those eyes were all that she could see. There was a whole room full of people and things in that mirror in front of her, but those dark eyes were so intense, intent on her that she couldn’t possibly look anywhere else. No…Yes! She berated her moment of weakness.
“Yes.”She was certain, she was adamant, she was…a duck. Calm on the surface, but paddling like a lunatic beneath the waves. She just didn’t want to be a dead duck. Oh, but if this was heaven…Wowza! Ka-ching! Jackpot! Sirens, flashing lights and bright shiny coins spilling out in front of her…Oh God, get a grip… She mentally rolled her eyes and forced her tongue back into her head. Lord only knew that it wasn’t going back it of its own accord.
“Dance with me.”He growled against her ear. That’s not fair. That growling-gravely thing is seriously…
“I don’t dance.”Kiera needed to focus. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t played this game before, but before she would have just walked away, but her damn legs wouldn’t let her and her feet were firmly super glued to the bar stool, or at least it felt that way. Or maybe she would have come up with a firm and nicely timed put down, but her brain had long since rolled over and played dead. Or her damn friends would have stepped in and helped her out, and she knew they were still there gawking, but helping…? About as much as using a fork with porridge.
“Then press your body to mine and sway…”Holy….! There wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t find that offer entirely appealing. Help…! If she had an inner Goddess then the woman was panting along with her…Cow! Talk about make me an offer I really, really, really, don’t want to refuse.
“I’m entirely too sober for that.” Kiera managed to slam the brakes on her libido, something she hadn’t even know had a pulse let alone an engine, and take a step back. Well, not back, because that would bring her body up against his and… There goes my libido again…
“And we’re back to me buying you that drink.”He teased and she flushed. It wasn’t a blush, because her cheeks were already brighter than the sun. It was a head to toe flush that was probably what she had to look forward to in menopause…If only it was menopause at least that would mean that I wasn’t drooling and getting so bloody aroused by a complete, gorgeous stranger in a pub…
“If you have to get a girl drunk to get what you want, what does that say about you?”Kiera saw his eyes narrow and for a moment the spell was broken. There was a definite flare of his nostrils and he looked a little angrier than he had moments ago…And that’s a good thing…Now run along like a good boy…man…God.
“I would never…”His rush to denial startled her. The sound of his voice as he pulled slightly away from her ear had changed its quality from a gentle growl to one of an angered beast. He certainly looked angry, not to mention affronted by her words. Score one, direct hit. You’re battleship is in danger of being sunk…thank God.
“Good to know. Now you’ve asked and I’ve declined, so take the hint.”Please take the hint before I’m a mushy mess again… She didn’t know how long she could possibly hold her breath for, but she was giving it a damn good go of beating any world record, she thought, as he chewed that one over. It gave her a chance to try to clear her mind as the cogs turned within his, but all she could do was say the one word over and over again…Please, please, please…
“You’re denying me?”He drew back away from her. His eyes narrowed and he didn’t look so much affronted right now, as confused. But not as damn confused as she was…
Denying me? Who spoke like that? And what the hell did that mean exactly? And when did all activity cease around them and the room become so damned quiet that she could hear her own heart beating?
“Thanks, but no thanks, we were just leaving.”Kiera got the feeling that nobody had ‘denied’ him before. Ok, so he was God’s gift to women, but that only mad
e things worse. She didn’t want a man like that, hell, she didn’t want any man. Not after Charlie, not after…
“We were?”Caren’s voice hit her mind like a ton of bricks, shattering the illusion of him and her being the only two people left on the planet, and allowing her that moment of clarity to drag her eyes away from him.
“We are.”Kiera was adamant. This evening in this bar was done, over, and pronto.
“We weren’t…”Teri piped up and Kiera hit her in the ribs with her elbow. “Staying for the final bell…”Teri ground out between clenched teeth as the pain shot through her body.
Now that she wasn’t looking at him anymore, Kiera’s legs found the strength to move and she dropped down to the floor, pushing the stool back away from her with enough force to send it backwards towards him. The ridge of the seat connected with his groin and he let out a long growl of pain as his upper body clenched and jolted forward. The palm of his hand slammed down onto the top of the stool and he looked a little flushed, to say the least…
CHAPTER TWO
“That had to hurt…”Teri’s eyes grew wide with amusement, but she knew better than to fall on the floor laughing, even if she did so desperately want too.
“Ooh, direct hit.” Caren’s features couldn’t quite make up their mind if they were going for a wince or a snort of laughter and it brought Kiera’s attention around to where the man was hunched over her stool holding his groin.
Holy cow! Battleship well and truly sunk. Full speed ahead in getaway mode I think before he really does kill me…
Kiera grimaced as she elbowed Caren out of the way. She needed to leave before he regained himself and Caren was doing a really good impression of a brick wall…
“Oops, sorry. No hard feelings…”Kiera kept nudging at Caren as she edged her further and further over to find her escape route.
“No hard feelings for a while, I’d say.”Teri snorted and that brought his head up slightly and his dark eyes onto Teri. “She’s right, we gotta go.”Teri spat out. Two stepping it around the man and grabbing a handful of Kiera’s chunky top, she dragged her along with her.