by M. L. Briers
“W-ha…?” she managed to push out before she was silenced.
Jorge soft, warm lips came down on hers, and in a heartbeat, her brain and body turned into a fiery mush that didn’t know which way was up and didn’t have the inclination to find it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
“Why’d you do that?” Nancy said and then wanted to kick herself up the backside for such a stupid question. Of course, the wolfish grin on his lips said it all.
“Just thought we needed a little perspective on the matter,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows and making her groan inwardly.
“Sure, slobbering on me really put things into perspective, thanks,” she muttered, wiggling back away from him and out of his grasp. “More arms than an octopus.”
“Slobbering?” Jorge asked, chuckling.
Nancy wanted to make her escape from him. Anywhere, any room, any planet that didn’t contain him was just fine with her.
The man was becoming a homing beacon for all of those feminine feelings inside of her, and eye candy she could handle, but touchy-feely-kissy-kissy – not so much. “Oh, did I stutter?”
Jorge took a mini-step, closing the distance between them once more, and noted the way she snapped to attention – like a deer in the headlights. “Maybe I should try that again.”
“Oh no you bloody well don’t!” she rushed out, sidestepping him, and was off like one of those startled deer.
Nancy had no idea where she was headed. The outside world was a bust. The upstairs with its double bed was a no-no, and she’d already been to the bathroom once – which didn’t work out well for her.
She quickly changed direction and veered off to the kitchen – nothing sexy about a kitchen – not with all the sharp pointy things in it.
“You can keep on running, or you can face facts,” Jorge said, following on behind her as she led him through the small cottage.
“Fact,” she snapped back over her shoulder. “You slobber when you kiss,” she lied. He didn’t. The real fact was that he kissed like a bandit trying to steal her heart. “Fact, I don’t even like you…”
“Now that’s a lie too far.”
Nancy stopped just inside the doorway and turned back to him. “You really do have enough ego for two, don’t you? What did you do, eat your twin in the womb?” she said, challenging him in the doorway.
Jorge raised his hands in mock surrender. “Listen, sweetheart…”
“Sweetheart,” she muttered on a grumble of annoyance.
“I’m just calling it as I see it,” he said, shrugging.
“Ha! We’ll tell yourself you’re delusional and end the conversation,” she hissed.
The man was getting under her skin in more ways than one, and the longer she spent with him, the more the mating pull was going to get at her. Not on her watch, it wasn’t. She was a free spirit, and she wouldn’t let any man clip her wings – not even him.
“Delusional?” he asked, raising his dark brows and letting another slow-to-boil sexy smile stretch his lips. “Really?”
“No, I’m lying – apparently, and according to you, I do that a lot,” she said, mocking him with a cheerleader tone to her voice that amused him even more.
“Your words not mine…”
“Oh, bite me!” she snapped, starting to turn on her heels away from him, but she grimaced as the sound of a deep hungry growl rumbled around her. “Or not,” she rushed out.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Jorge said, and she noticed that his voice had a lot more bass to it. That bass vibrated right through her bones.
“I did not wish for…”
“You said it.”
“I…”
“Can’t take it back.”
“Yes, I…”
“Sounds like a plan I can get behind…”
“You stay away from my behind!” she snapped out, spinning in place and trying to make her escape when one large hand snagged around her wrist, and he yanked her right back towards him.
“You really need to stop with the teasing, sweetheart,” Jorge said, laughter dancing in his eyes and a wolfishly hungry look on his face as she glared up at him.
Nancy yanked her body away from his. “You need to stop twisting everything I say…”
“Because that’s your job, right?”
“Right!” she snapped and then groaned inwardly. “No!”
“Too late,” he said, teasing her. “I find snap answers always get to the heart of the matter.”
“Snap this!” She clicked her fingers, let loose her magic, and bam! His backside hit the floor like his legs weren’t even there to hold him up. “Oops, did someone fall on their pride?” she said, babying him.
Jorge felt the rumble of his wolf within him as the beast made its feelings clear – not about her, but him. They were supposed to be wooing her after all.
In one quick moment, he reached out, wrapped a large hand around her wrist, and yanked. The look of surprise on her face was priceless as she fell face-first towards him – why, he didn’t know, she seemed to fall over a lot and should be used to that feeling by now.
This time, however, she was caught and eased down against the length of his body as he lay back against the floor. “Honey, if you wanted me flat on my back you just had to say the word, but I like initiative as much as the next guy,” he said, the bass in his voice rumbling through her bones, even as she scrambled to push her upper body away from his.
There was a promise of death or, at the very least, maiming in her eyes as she harpooned him with a fiery glare, but he just let loose with another slow to boil sexy grin that had her questioning her sanity on every level. “Yooooouuuu!” She let that word roll over her tongue because her brain was away with the faeries and she couldn’t easily find more than one word that wouldn’t make a nun blush.
“Now don’t be shy, Sugar. I like a female that knows her own mind and isn’t afraid to jump on her mate when…”
“I did not jump – you yanked me!” Nancy said, biting down on the fact that her body was betraying her. She should have been running the other way at lightning speed, why then did she like it just fine where she was?
“I helped you down.”
“That’s helping?” Nancy said, remembering that she was supposed to be protesting with her body and her words, and she wiggled and shimmied against his body in an attempt to do just that.
There was a low hungry groan that came from his lips and a rumble of a growl that rolled through the broad expanse of his chest beneath her hands, and as her mind kicked into gear once more – it recognised just what she was wiggling and shimmying against – that hard press of his manhood between them said she was on shaky ground.
Nancy looked him right in the eyes, and that sexy grin turned into a sexy smug smile that sent a flush right to her cheeks. “Oh no, don’t stop on my account…”
“I can not believe…!” Her voice was so shrill that his ears could have been bleeding for all he knew, but his little brain was in control right then, and he didn’t give a flying duck if they were.
She huffed, she puffed, and then pushed her upper body upwards, which only sandwich his hard length between them even more.
Jorge groaned, a good groan, a groan that made her ears prick up and her brain rush to full alert … with thoughts of him naked again. What the Hades was it with him and naked, she wondered. She wasn’t a sex maniac or anything, why-oh-why did she want to become one?
“A little too your left would be…” he said, teasing, and groaned in a different way when she embedded her elbow in between a couple of his ribs and tried to angle her body away from him.
There was just so much of him that she didn’t know how or where to start to get herself off the big oaf!
“You are no gentleman!” she snapped and realised once she’d said it just how stupid that sounded.
“Says the woman who is lying on top of me like…”
“Do not finish that analogy!” she snap
ped. “How am I supposed to go through life with a knucklehead for a mate?”
In truth, she didn’t care. Mr Right was Mr Right, and she shouldn’t be sticking two fingers up at fate – oh no, that wasn’t right – she should be sticking two fingers up at fate.
“Knucklehead or not, I promise to be all the man you’ll ever want or need,” he said with a cocky grin.
“I need a drink!” Nancy said, trying to sidestep answering him.
How could she come up with a good argument when she wasn’t even sure in her own mind exactly what the question was?
Being a mate was confusing – being a mate was insane, and she’d jumped on board that crazy train when she’d met him. It was a train that was only going to one destination, and it had no stops and no chance to get off unless she jumped – or threw him off a cliff.
Funnily enough, that thought wasn’t at all appealing to her anymore. Dang, it! Was she really succumbing to his charms? Ugh!
“I’m not that bad that you have to turn to the bottle.”
“Looking for some kind of validation of your worth? Pathetic, but here you go – you’re not that good that I don’t,” she said, pushing up to her hands and knees and glaring at him once more.
“So, you admit I am good in some small way that tickles your fancy?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows and hitting her feminine regions with another wolfish grin.
Nancy opened her mouth to speak, but there were no words – no words that wouldn’t put her other foot in her mouth.
“Ugh,” she said, starting to back down his body and caught the flare of his eyes when she realised exactly what hard part of him she was leaning over. “Not one word,” she said, warning him with her tone and a death glare.
“That would be ungentlemanly of me,” he said, playfully wiggling those eyebrows once more.
“Perish the thought that anyone should think that,” Nancy said, and she was reciting every curse word she’d ever learnt under her breath as she pushed up to her knees and he pushed up onto his elbows. She pointed her witching finger right at his nose. “No false moves or the wolf gets it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
~
“Gets what?” he asked, knowing he could throw his beast under the bus if the need arose – it was only fair in love and wooing, and his beast was the one berating him for every misstep along the way so far. His wolf offered something of a Scooby Doo-esq questioning sound that made the man want to laugh.
“I don’t know, but I’m a witch – I’m sure I can come up with some dreadfully bad curse that would make the wolf hate you forever and a day,” she said, her eyes flashing with mischief.
“I’ll bet you could,” Jorge said, agreeing that she certainly looked as if she had something deviously evil in mind. “But maybe my wolf thinks it’s worth it.” Strangely, his wolf didn’t agree.
“Oh, and you speak for the wolf, do you?” she said, placing her balled up little fists on her curvy hips and eyeing him with contempt.
“Well he can’t really speak for himself, now can he?” Jorge said with a dollop of sarcasm in his tone and saw her flummoxed by the answer.
“Not the point,” she hissed, scrambling to her feet, and he was right there in front of her by the time she brought her gaze up. “Speedy little sucker, aren’t you?” she bit out, wrinkling her nose.
“Not always,” he said, and that grin was growing again. This time it was so cocky she’d like to have shoved it down his throat.
“Is everything about sex with you?” she hissed in annoyance that she couldn’t seem to gain any good ground with him. He had a comeback for everything, and she wished he’d stop talking, stop insinuating because then she might have a chance to stop thinking about it – probably not – the man had sin written all over him.
“Nope,” Jorge said, shrugging his broad shoulders and making all of his muscles move under the fitted shirt that clung to them in much the same way that she was thinking of doing – or not, she told herself because that would be bad. “Some things are about making love…”
“Pah!” she snapped back, unsure why she’d done that, except for the fact that his words had started another round of x-rated thoughts in her mind that she didn’t appreciate. “Don’t make me laugh.” In truth, there wasn’t much to laugh about. Maybe if she pictured him naked with a big clown nose on … nope, even that seemed strangely sexy somehow, and she hated clowns with a vengeance.
“You don’t think?” he asked, and she groaned inwardly – that was the trouble – she did think, and even now she was thinking about it, about him naked – oh, her misery knew no end.
“I’m trying hard not to,” she said, and that wasn’t a lie. Nancy yanked down her shirt and started to turn away when she stopped, eyed him up and down, and narrowed her eyes on him. “I’m watching you, pal.”
Jorge held his hands up in mock surrender. “Good to know,” he said, teasing her with that cocky smile.
Nancy wagged her witching finger at him. “Just you keep your paws to yourself,” she warned.
“I won’t lay a paw on you, I swear,” he said, chuckling. It wasn’t his paws he wanted to lay on her, it everything human.
“Just keep it that way,” she said, finding that thought left her slightly disappointed and kicking herself for feeling that way. She started to turn away.
“Got it,” he said, and she snapped another suspicious look at him.
“Grrr,” she muttered, and he couldn’t help but chuckle some more at her expense, at the expense of his wolf, and because for the first time he felt they were making some progress – at least he was – his beast couldn’t lay a paw on her. His wolf growled.
One thing was certain; life with a witch mate wasn’t going to be dull.
~
“I don’t see why I had to drag my cookies all the way out here,” Delta said, announcing her entrance to the vampire as she made it up the last slope of the hill and sighed at the hard-earned victory.
It wasn’t like she needed to announce her arrival; Sebastian had been following her climb for most of the way up. The woman was huffing like a dragon for most of it, and he did feel a slight sense of guilt at making her meet him in the middle of nowhere – but not enough to do anything about it.
“You called me,” Sebastian said, turning towards her.
Delta huffed out another breath and drew a bigger one in. Although, her lungs did feel as if they were encased in a brick wall, but that was age, and she was used to that. She just wished she could take a real full breath the way she used to. “To find out if you knew anything, not to have a rendezvous on a mountainside.”
“It’s a hill…”
“Tell that to my body,” Delta snapped, she would have hissed, but she needed all the breath she could muster.
“Perhaps I have something that would make you a little fitter…” he said, leaving that offer opened ended.
“Perhaps I have something that would make you a whole lot deader,” she tossed back, bending forward and bracing her hands on her knees as she willed away the slight pain in her side from the climb.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Good idea, you do that,” Delta said, pushing up and regretting it. She much rather let her wobbly legs do that they willed her and collapse into a heap on the ground, but she was determined to look that man in the eye. “So, what do you know?” she asked, adding. “And so help me if you say nothing there is going to be one very dead as a Dodo vampire lying where you’re standing.”
“I should move then,” Sebastian said, sidestepping just a little. “Wouldn’t want him to fall on me.”
“Spit it out,” Delta hissed. “I need a drink – a big one – and something full of chocolate and cream to counteract all this exercise you made me do.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said, fisting the air. “Kill yourself with kindness.”
“Better than being a bean-eating, chocolate-avoiding, alcohol-hating gloomy pants, and don’t even get me starte
d on people who yo-yo diet,” Delta grumbled. “Now get to it – what have you heard?”
“It’s what I haven’t heard,” Sebastian said, and she scowled.
“Huh?”
“Oh, I’ve known Father Wolf for a very long time, and that man might be protected somehow from my vampire-ly charms and wicked ways,” he said, tapping his temple, and she couldn’t resist jumping right in.
“You’re nuts, we know, keep going,” she said, mocking him, and waving an absent hand in his direction – too tired to even try to control it, and getting a devilish grin back from him in return.
“And I know when the good Father is keeping something back,” he said, ignoring her jibe, and dangling that little bit of information in front of her like a tasty chocolate treat.
“Like what?” she asked, her interest had certainly piqued.
“The truth,” Sebastian said, raising his eyebrows and offering her a smug look.
“Hmm,” she said and snorted. “What’s he lying about?” she muttered to herself.
“That’s a different matter entirely and one, at the moment, that I can’t help you with,” he informed her.
Delta was about to ask another question when she heard the rustle of the bushes and eyed the area. She also noticed the way that Sebastian cocked his head to listen hard. “Didn’t hear that coming,” he said, a moment before the elder nun appeared.
“Well, that’s an unholy alliance if ever I saw one,” Sister Margaret said as she glided out from behind the bushes as only a nun could, and eyed Delta and Sebastian with a whole lot of suspicion.
Sebastian rolled his eyes at the sight of the grumpy nun. “Good evening to you too, Sister Margaret, and how is God treating you this day?”
“Don’t blaspheme,” she snapped, scowling at the vampire as if he already had his fangs down.
“And how is that blasphemous?” he said overplaying the disbelief in his tone.
God could have forgiven him his sins and bestowed a halo on him, and the nun would still have looked down her nose at him. He loved it in an odd sort of way.