We slowly got closer to the kitchen and then ducked inside with the rest of the catering staff. We were assaulted by different smells and steam billowing from huge pots on top of the stove. The staff were dressed mainly in black and white with vests to match.
We sidestepped a few carrying trays loaded down with a fresh supply of champagne glasses filled to the brim. I snatched one and drank it in one swallow to mute the influence of the bear inside.
“I have to say this party wasn’t what I was expecting,” Roseanne said. “I thought that I was going to be a little fish in a big pond, but I was the toast of the party. Your friend, Logan, made sure to pull my fat out of the fire when I felt a little overwhelmed.” Despite specifically telling Logan to steer clear, he just couldn’t help himself.
“He has always been the life of the party. I’m sure you noticed the way that he had the crowd buzzing with curiosity. The tricks of his sleight of hand are something of legendary status.”
We found the exit in the back, clearly marked, and went outside to find the car waiting for us. We drove away, but this time I was a little more conscious about her fear of dying in twisted metal at the bottom of the ravine. It still handled like a dream, but I was no longer going at the kind of speed which would terrify most people.
I didn’t mind bringing her right to her door, but she didn’t want that. I stopped a few blocks back and put my jacket over her shoulders on the walk to her apartment. It was at her request and I felt obliged to follow her directions to the letter. She didn’t want to be the subject of conversation around the water cooler the next day. I didn’t blame her.
I saw somebody looking quite dapper and carrying a bouquet of red roses at her door. Her hand grabbed mine a little tighter than necessary. It dawned on me this was someone who had tracked her down to the Big Apple. The confidence in his stance was a little unnerving.
“Jason… how the hell did you find me?” Her tone was rather defensive and made me put my arm in front of her to protect her from someone she didn’t want to see.
Chapter Nine - Roseanne
“Who the hell is he and why does he have his hand around you?” There was a bottle in his other hand, which was already open.
“I asked you a question and I’m damn well going to get an answer. How did you find me and don’t give me that smirk.” I was angry, but I was afraid at the same time, which made it hard to make the distinction between one and the other.
“I came here to get you back and I’m not leaving without you.” His words were amazingly well put together considering his inebriated state of mind.
“I left for a reason and coming here doesn’t solve anything. If I were you, I would turn around and go back to Montana. There is no place for you in my life anymore. I thought I made myself pretty damn clear the last time you put your hands on me.” I touched my face and I was happy to feel the bruises were slowly fading away.
“You bring it on yourself by constantly arguing with me black is white. I don’t need to be berated by a woman. I get enough of that from my father.” His issues with his father were enough for a therapist’s wet dream come true.
“Blaming your father for everything has always been your go-to move. It’s a vicious cycle where you have this desperate need to lash out at the first person you see. You hide your true face and only allow the ugly side of yourself to come out when you’re in my face. I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m through being your punching bag.” It was as if I was talking to the villain Two-Face from the comic books.
“You are coming with me and I’m not taking no for an answer. Do you have any idea of how embarrassing it is to tell people you are on some kind of sabbatical? They know I’m lying, but they are afraid to say anything.” In his eyes, I was his possession and if he couldn’t have me then nobody could.
“I need you to listen to me very carefully. I left to get away from you. My family misses me, but still, I give you the power to keep me from them. I should call the police and get a restraining order like my parents did. I never thought I would be in the position of seeing some of those horror stories become a part of my life. I always thought it happened to other people.” I was slowly trying my best to finally get it through to his thick skull it was over.
“If you think that you can hide behind him then you are sadly mistaken.” He smashed the bottle and held onto the neck with the sharpened end outstretched in front of him menacingly.
Tom made a grunt and I saw him grab his hand where Jason had slashed him with a shard from the bottle. He turned away from me, bent over at an angle with his back heaving. His shoulders looked bigger than they previously were, but it had to be a trick of the light. Jason took advantage of Tom’s distraction and grabbed my arm.
“I’ve always been the Alpha even when I was on the football field. I have a taxi waiting down the block to take us back to the airport.” He was quite insistent and his grip on my wrist was causing me some concern.
I tried to pull away, but it was an effort in futility. His anger was boiling inside him and he was close to hitting me, I could feel it. I wasn’t going to snivel and cower. I was through being a victim, no matter how much he outweighed me.
“I would seriously consider taking your hands off of her if you know what’s good for you,” Tom growled.
I didn’t want Tom to fight my battles for me. I did notice his voice had changed. It had lowered to a register like he was somehow masking the pain of the cut to his hand. I didn’t want anything to happen to him.
Suddenly, the hand attached to my wrist was no longer there. I turned and saw the two men exchanging a verbal diatribe of obscenities.
Jason pushed him into the wall and began to pummel him with those fists I knew so well. “I’m going to make you pay for getting involved in something that was none of your business. I hope you like eating out of a straw for the next few months.” He was raining blows on the man I had found to be one of the good ones. I wanted to intervene, but my feet were frozen like the earth itself was holding me hostage.
I cringed every time Jason reeled back with his fist poised in the air. He was showing Tom no mercy and then his fist was caught in midair. The sickening crunch of bones breaking had Jason falling to his knees crying like a little girl. His fist was bloody and gnarled.
Jason wasn’t the only one surprised. The sound of clothing ripping and the body of Tom expanding into something otherworldly was hard to wrap my mind around. There was a bear in place of the man. Long jagged claws slashed in the air, I could see them brightly illuminated from the overhead light on the street.
The blood splatter against the brick wall had Jason scrambling backward with a look of terrified wonder on his face. The marks of the claws were clearly defined, burned into his left cheek. He kept pointing and then ran off without saying another word.
The low growl coming from the shadows should have made me hesitant to take a few steps forward. I saw the bear lumber forward and fall once, before gathering enough strength to stand on all four legs.
“Tom… is that you?”
My question was answered by the bear falling flat, but still breathing.
It diminished in size and the bear turned back into a man. His clothes were tattered, with pieces of fabric barely hiding his shame. One piece was strategically hanging over his manhood. I could’ve easily extracted it to get a better look, but I thought it would be in bad taste.
“I’m sorry… you shouldn’t have seen me like that. It’s forbidden.” He tried to stand, but he stumbled.
I took pity on him and helped him the few steps up to my door. His blood was staining my blouse. “I have so many questions, but they can wait until we get you patched up. I’m still not sure what I saw, but my eyes have never lied to me in the past.”
I carefully escorted him down the hallway with my arm around his waist and his over my shoulder. I put him on the bed, but he was reluctant to lie down and close his eyes.
“I don’t know what you… what yo
u want me to say. You have… seen too much and I’m going to catch hell for it.” I backed off and he teetered, threatening to fall flat on his face on the floor.
“Stay there. I’m going get what we need to patch you up. I should have a first aid kit around here somewhere.” I quickly dashed to the bathroom, rummaging underneath the sink until I came across the kit.
It had a layer of dust, which made my nose twitch from my allergies. I went in and stopped in my tracks to see him without a shirt on. His wounds were mostly deep bruises made by Jason’s fist before his transformation. I knelt at his feet and touched the tender spots to see him cringe in discomfort.
To be on the safe side, I wrapped his ribs tightly in bandages and taped them so that there was very little room for him to maneuver. There was a cut underneath his eye, but it was healing quickly without any support of antibiotics.
“I didn’t mean to bring this to your doorstep. I have a pet peeve of men thinking that they can put their hands on a woman. I lost control when I should have learned to turn the other cheek.” He was lambasting himself for his behavior and there was no reason to.
“My life has always been a little crazy. A little more isn’t going to hurt me.”
“I don’t want you to be scared of me. It’s the last thing I want. I can assure you the bear is sleeping soundly and will only emerge when I want it to. It’s a little different during the full moons.” He got off the bed and pulled me to my feet.
I was slightly shell-shocked and even more so when his hands grabbed onto my ass. My eyes widened with surprise and then his lips came closer until we were kissing with wild abandon. The feeling of him squeezing my cheeks and the kiss made my resolve weaken.
I felt one hand gliding to graze his fingernails on the small of my back. We were pressed together, with our lips making short work of any kind of resistance. I feigned innocence, but my body betrayed any kind of discouraging words on the tip of my tongue.
I felt a little overwhelmed and completely bewildered by everything that had transpired during the evening. It had started with my hopes and dreams unfolding before me. The surprise ending of witnessing him manhandling my ex-boyfriend was an unexpected treat. It was also quite an eye-opening experience to see him transform from man to beast in a matter of seconds.
The kiss lasted for well over a minute before he lingered a little bit longer by pulling on my bottom lip with his teeth. I couldn’t seem to get my fill of his body. Those vivid images in my fantasies were something I was never going to tell a soul about. I still couldn’t believe he was kissing me with such passion. It was hard to contain my excitement.
Whatever strength he had, diminished, and he fell onto the bed flat on his back. Looking at him with his shirt wide open gave me obscene ideas of how to mend him back to health.
Chapter Ten - Tom
I was lying there contemplating the kiss and how this was going to change everything. It wasn’t just that we had embarked on a physical relationship, but she had uncovered my truth by no fault of her own.
Roseanne walked back in the room. I hadn’t even realized she left. “I hope you don’t mind. I was saving this bottle for a rainy day, but I need something to soothe my nerves.”
I was starting to regret the kiss.
She must’ve been wondering how it was even possible. I could almost sense what was going to be her first question. I wasn’t sure how much I could tell, her even though the proof was clearly seen with her own two eyes. Logan wasn’t going to be very happy and would think this was a mess he was going to have to clean up.
“I would probably have a drink if I were in your shoes.” I tried to get up, but the pain was still severe enough to keep me immobilized. “I have to know what you’re going to do with this information.” I was worried she wasn’t going to be able to keep her mouth shut. I feared what that could mean for her continued survival.
“I’m not going to say anything to anyone.” It was good news.
“I can control it most of the time, but I am left with the animal instincts lurking within. It’s the reason for my many trips to Montana. I fight the natural urge until the wild calls my name. I unleash the beast with a month of pent-up aggression, ready to explode.”
I saw her drinking steadily from the bottle without the necessity of a glass. With the bottle in hand, she jumped onto the bed and straddled my waist. I could feel the heat of her sex against my love muscle. I was looking at her and seeing that the liquor had dulled her senses enough to lower her inhibitions.
“I’m through talking when actions speak louder than words. How do you feel about a strong woman? I only ask because most men feel intimidated. I don’t feel this is the case with you.” She lowered the straps on her dress and let it fall, with gravity doing the rest of the work.
It was down around her waist and I had my hands on her bare legs. I was inching the dress a little further up so that I could see how her excitement was staring me in the face. She grabbed my hands and pinned them over my head, somehow not spilling a drop of alcohol. She continued our earlier passionate kiss. It was almost enough to take my breath away.
Her lips found my neck and I had no idea that it was one of my erogenous zones. She circled the spot with the tip of her tongue and made me jump practically out of my skin with pleasure. I tried to buck her off of me, but she was quite insistent on staying exactly where she was.
“I want you to be sure of what you are doing,” I said huskily. “We might be two of a kind, but there are obvious differences. This is not a perfect world and there are things in the shadows you don’t know about. This is not the kind of secret for the squeamish.”
She was grinding back and forth along the shaft of my manly persuasion. “I want to feel something again. I don’t care about tomorrow, when the present is the only thing that matters.”
She upturned the bottle and poured some of the contents in my mouth. She chased it with her tongue, the bottle still dribbling what remained down my chest and following a direct trail to my healthy anatomy. She followed the same path, briefly making contact with my shaft, teasingly leaving me on the edge of sexual insanity. Her kiss was enough to make me breathless. It fired me up to turn the tables in my favor.
We rolled from side to side on the bed, until she suddenly gave in with me on top of her.
I was dripping champagne onto her body and I found it a necessary thirst-quencher for what was to follow. My tongue traced expectantly down her taut stomach. Something big was happening between the two of us and I was going along for the ride.
I spread her open for a visual inspection. The glistening lips of her sex were beckoning me forward. I peeled back the puffy pink lips to see what was waiting for me. The bubbling cauldron of her desire was forcing me to take a moment. A pause for the cause was necessary to remind myself of how lucky I really was to be with her.
“I would tell you to take a picture, it will last longer, but I’m not going to do that. I want you to feed on the combination of the champagne and what is currently dripping out of… MEEEEEEEE.” Her last word punctured my eardrums loud enough to leave the presence of an echo in the room. It probably had something to do with my tongue slipping inside the heat of her oven.
Her legs clamped shut around my ears, making everything sound like it was coming from inside a dark tunnel. My tongue snapped forward to bury its length in the embrace of her sex. She lifted her body with no will of her own. I had no choice but to hold her down for my oral attack. It was compounded by a heavy dose of her cream coating my lips.
“I don’t know where you learned that, but somebody deserves a fruit basket. I’ve had my fair share of lovers, but none with your enthusiasm. I hope this isn’t some kind of Nightingale Syndrome.” I was thinking the same thing, but the idea sounded preposterous.
I darted my tongue in and out of her, hearing her cries of ecstasy and feeding on the sound like my own personal drug. My eyes were wide open, and her taste lingered on my palate. I was ravenous, like an ani
mal completely unhinged. I was unable to pull myself away from the feast in front of me.
The sheets were practically lying on the floor from the thrashing of her body on top of the bed. She was pulling at my hair and the pain was fueling my craving to satisfy my hunger.
“I’m not going to last for very much longer. I know you can feel it building up inside me. The walls vibrating against your tongue is an obvious sign of an imminent orgasm. I’ve never had it this good and finding another to duplicate what you’re doing would be foolish.” Her wail of contentment was followed by her legs falling wide open in obvious invitation.
“I love the mask of euphoria on your face. I want you to always wear that in the bedroom. Your smile lights up the room.” My hand grazed her inner thighs and she jerked noticeably from how sensitive her skin was.
I was soon hovering over top of her, fisting my organ and wiping it lightly over her clit to make her eyes widen with surprise. I was contemplating every word that had come out of her mouth. The very thought of sealing this consummation by banging her into submission was drawing me to her like a moth to a flame.
The spark I had seen in her eyes upon our meeting was nothing compared to the blazing inferno staring back at me now. I held her gaze and moved to where I was about to do some obscene pushups. My pleasure was secondary compared to hers.
“Don’t think for a second you’re going to get off that easy.” She reached down and coiled her hand around the base keeping me from forging ahead. “I’ve seen what you can do with your mouth, but you have yet to see what I can do with mine. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I was that damn good.”
Daddy In Charge_A Billionaire Romance Page 6