by Leslie Kelly
“Birth control?”
“Covered,” she said, grabbing his hips and tugging him forward. “Please, Lucas, fill me up.”
“With pleasure.”
Despite his obvious hunger, he went slowly at first, as if worried he might hurt her. Even while almost cooing with pleasure at the feel of him sliding in, making a place for himself inside her body, Penny found herself amazed by his self-control. She could see the quiver of his every muscle as he strained to ease into her rather than thrusting hard, fast and deep.
But Penny wanted it hard, fast and deep.
“More!” she insisted, curving her hips up.
He groaned, and seemed to lose his ability to take it slow. As if the last tether had broken, Lucas drove into her, burying himself to the hilt. Penny threw her head back on the pillow, crying out as yet another orgasm washed over her.
Sex had never been like this. So intense. Earthy. Delicious.
“Perfect,” he muttered against her hair, staying still.
Perfect. Yes.
He wasn’t able to remain still for long. Murmuring heated whispers, he began to move, pulling away, emptying her, only to fill her, again and again, with long, devastating strokes. They found an immediate rhythm, totally in tune with each other, exchanging deep, ravenous kisses with every thrust.
Penny became lost to time, lost to place, lost to self. Nothing existed except the feel of him. His scent, his weight, his thickness, his groans of pleasure.
Finally, his climax. She felt it rise in him, felt the strain of his powerful muscles as he tried to fight it.
“Penny….”
“Yes,” she cried, feeling, unbelievably, another climax washing over her as well. And only when she was in the throes of it did he let himself go over, joining her in a soul-stirring moment of pure ecstasy that she sensed would be a turning point of her entire life.
THOUGH she had worked an eighteen-hour day, endured an assault, been told the mother of all bedtime stories, and had the most incredible sex of her life, Penny couldn’t sleep.
Lucas didn’t seem to have the same problem. He was lying beside her in the bed, naked, gorgeous, gleaming with sex-sweat. All hard, rugged male, still half-erect—wow—as if he were taking a break before starting all over again.
Fine by me.
But she didn’t wake him up. She needed to catch her breath, not to mention get her thoughts in order. Her brain was going a mile a minute and she wanted to figure out what she’d done…and what she intended to do. About a number of things.
“Starting with you,” she whispered, looking up at the shelf above her head. At the package. The last gift she would ever receive from the only parent she would ever know.
Since the day Callie had given it to her, she had never been tempted to untie the ribbon, or let her fingers tear through the paper. Any curiosity she’d felt had been overpowered by the need to hold on to her dad for a little while longer.
But you couldn’t really hold onto things forever, could you? Not anything. Not jobs or homes or friends. Not loved ones.
Everything came to an end sooner or later. Journeys, relationships, lives. The echo of words left unsaid and the dreams of moments left unshared…all had to end eventually.
Knowing what she had to do, Penny sat up and grabbed the box. A kitchen light provided enough illumination, not that she needed it. She’d memorized the shape, the corners, each crease in the paper, each loop of the bow.
Her father had wrapped this final gift himself. She recognized the crooked seam, the overuse of tape. He’d written her name on the envelope and sealed it with love.
She couldn’t open the card yet. Couldn’t read his final words to her. That was one step beyond her capabilities.
Instead, she reached for the ribbon. Her hand seemed distant, far away, as if someone else was untying the bow. A drop of moisture appeared on the paper. Penny saw it, knowing, of course, that hers was the hand doing this heartbreaking thing she had tried to avoid. Hers were the tears marking the moment.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered. “I miss you.”
She pushed the paper off to reveal a plain cardboard box. Inside was a sea of tissue paper…and something that shimmered and gleamed. She immediately knew what it was. That gleam had been too bright to be anything but a precious stone, and the object too large to be a piece of jewelry. It was a crown. She didn’t need to know anything about fairy tales to recognize that.
The thought that her father had been playing a practical joke occurred to her. But the crown was too heavy, and appeared too old. Ornate and intricate, it was made of some solid metal and decorated with dozens of jewels, including one enormous amethyst cut in the shape of a heart.
Tucked inside the box was a note. The handwriting was not her father’s.
My Dear Penny—
Happy 21st birthday. I wish I could have been there to share this day with you, and so many before it. I love you so much. Please try on your gift and you’ll see how much. It’s belonged to the women of our family for hundreds of years.
With all my love—Mother
Even as sadness stabbed into her at seeing her mother’s handwriting for the first time, she also felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of peace. Because, suddenly, she knew who she was. Where she came from, who her people were.
It was true. All true. Everything Lucas had said.
Although it was beyond belief, she could do nothing except believe. The proof was right here in her hands.
She glanced over at him, saw how still he was, how deep and even his breaths. How dark, dangerous-looking. Fierce. If the rest of the story was true….
No. Don’t even think about that. Not yet, anyway.
It was one thing to have mentally acknowledged the almost animalistic strength of the man, the power, the sexual heat of him that was more potent than any human male she’d ever known. It was another to openly admit he was truly…what he clamed to be.
“Later,” she mumbled. She’d think about it later.
There was something else she had to do first. Her mother had made a request of her. Grasping the crown, she lifted it toward her head. Emotions and fears, thoughts and wishes sped through her, and she already knew, somehow, that from this moment on, she was not going to be the same person, ever again.
She closed her eyes. And lowered the crown into place.
There was a charge of static, a jolt of energy. She almost yanked it back off, but before she could do it, a collage of images poured into her mind. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, focusing on whatever magic was laying out these scenes.
First, a landscape, the grass so green it looked artificial. Here and there, spring flowers grew in scattered clumps—huge tulips and daffodils and some she couldn’t name that were as big as dinner plates and as rich in color as the jewels on the crown.
Then someone came into focus. A small figure, dark-haired, running through the grass, carrying so many flowers she looked ready to fall over. When she did stumble over the hem of her long dress, a man swooped in to grab her and set her on his shoulders, both of them laughing as the blooms rained down on his head.
She knew him immediately, of course. “Dad,” she whispered.
He looked familiar, but not as she remembered him from his final years. Here he was vibrant, strong. Just a young man, untouched by the currents of life that would slowly drain his youth out from under him the way the tides took the sand.
He carried the child closer. Close enough for her to see the nearly black curls, the violet eyes, the slightly up-tilted nose.
She was seeing herself. But not as an impartial observer. It wasn’t like looking at a photograph, or a home movie through the anonymous, impersonal perspective of a camera lens. Because as she looked at the father and child, she was suffused with such an overwhelming sense of love and gratitude, she knew she was seeing someone else’s memories, feeling someone else’s emotions.
Penny heard the echo of a woman’s laughter. Then, in the
movie of her mind, a slender hand reached out and touched the girl’s soft cheek, smoothing the dark hair off the younger Penny’s brow. A voice crooned something sweet. A lullaby that traveled through time, awakening the melody that had long been buried inside Penny’s own mind.
Her mother’s hand. Her mother’s voice.
Her mother’s gift.
“Penny?”
The images faded, as if the reel had come to its end.
“Penny, are you all right?”
She nodded, hearing Lucas’s concern. Opening her eyes, she smiled at him. He sat beside her, watching her closely.
“I’m fine, Lucas,” she admitted, meaning it. “And I’m ready to go with you as soon as you want to leave.”
7
THEY GOT on the road by mid-afternoon.
After the long night of steamy sex and conversation, Lucas hadn’t needed to press Penny to get an early start. The crossing to Elatyria was in a marsh between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The journey on his bike took only a few hours.
They’d spent the morning getting ready for the trip, packing some clothes and Penny’s crown in a small backpack. He didn’t imagine she’d need the clothes for long…the crown was another story. While they packed, Penny asked a million questions about his world. He shared as much as he knew, including telling her about his family—his father and half-brothers. She’d been interested, but her questions hadn’t delved too deeply into his gene pool. Not ready to go there yet, he supposed.
She had, however, wanted to hear more about his job. “So you hunt people, huh?”
“It’s not so unusual. My human brother has a similar job over here. He calls himself a bounty hunter.”
She eyed him thoughtfully. “Another brother?”
“Half-brother. We have the same mother. As I said, she was human, not a Wolf.”
“What’s her name, Helen of Troy?”
“You really don’t know your stories, do you?” he asked with a grin. “The natural question would be to ask if her name was Snow White or Rapunzel.”
“Sorry. Never had any use for fairy tales.”
He didn’t try to convince her that in his world, those fairy tales were called history. Once she got there, she’d see the proof. Like the statue honoring Queen Sin, a vicious bitch—with a definite b—with a glass-shoe fetish. Her story hadn’t been as nice as the one the Grimms had told. There had been no pumpkin coach. And only one stepsister, who had lost her head sometime during Sin’s reign.
The fairy godmother part, though, had been true. He’d often thought being a fairy godmother—granting the wishes of selfish, undeserving princesses and the like, without ever having one granted for yourself—had to be the worst job in any world.
“So your human half-brother lives over here all the time? How come?”
He quickly told her about Hunter and their mother. Including the fact that she had chosen to leave Lucas behind when she’d left Elatyria.
“How could she do that?” she asked, sounding stunned.
He shrugged, long since having gotten over any resentment. “She was miserably unhappy. But she knew my father and I would both be even more unhappy over here. I don’t imagine it was easy for her.”
Penny shook her head, sadness visible in her eyes. The princess would deny it but he knew she had a soft heart under that brazen shell.
Lucas quickly changed the subject, telling her more about Elatyria. Having had her mind opened to the existence of another world, she’d become voracious on the subject. He’d found himself dredging up old school lessons—things people over here had learned about in Disney movies. Except for Penny, who said she had never seen one.
There had only been one thing she’d asked about that he hadn’t answered to the best of his ability.
“So what’s the deal with this Queen Verona? If she’s such a bitch and has control over some prime real estate that I might decide to claim, why’d she send you to find me?”
“Who knows why royalty does what they do?” he’d replied. “I’m just glad they occasionally do it.”
Penny’s wicked smile said she was distracted by the answer. As he’d intended.
He could have told her the truth. But admitting to a woman who’d slept in his arms last night that he was supposed to bring her home to marry another man didn’t seem wise.
It doesn’t matter.
There would be no marriage. Penny had given herself to him freely and Lucas wouldn’t let her go. Not ever.
She was his now.
No, he hadn’t had the chance to tell her that his kind usually mated once, for life. He’d intended to before taking her to bed, but the woman had so infuriated him, he hadn’t gotten beyond his explanation of who he was and where he was from.
At least he’d told her that much.
They had time to get everything else in the open. After they made it through the border tonight, the last night of the full moon, they could slow down. Their journey to the castle could take as long as they damn well needed it to once they were across. He’d explain everything then.
And he’d make sure she never wanted to leave him.
“I feel so bad about leaving Callie in the lurch, though she was great about it,” she said as she climbed up onto his Harley.
“She said last night she wanted you to go.”
“You heard that? Our conversation?”
“Of course I did.”
“You must have been close by.”
He made sure she was firmly settled on the tiny back seat. “I was a block away.”
Her eyes flared as she took that in, but she didn’t respond. Penny seemed to have decided to deal with his wolfness by ignoring it for now.
That was all right. It was a lot to digest. She’d made it clear during the night that she wasn’t bothered by his genetics. Because, even after she’d tried on her mother’s crown and accepted everything he’d told her, she’d climbed on top of him and ridden him into near oblivion.
His mouth going dry at the memory of it, he ran a hand over his lips. His skin still carried her scent, as hers did his. They had marked each other, even if he was the only one who knew it.
“Ready?” he asked, knowing they had to leave before he did something stupid like drag her back inside for another game of let’s-find-Penny’s-tattoos. She had one on her hip, one on her ankle…and one left to find.
He hadn’t done a thorough explanation of her back side. And he wanted to. Badly.
“So ready.”
“Then let’s go, Princess,” he said as he climbed on.
She whacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t call me Princess.”
“Fine. But feel free to continue to issue royal requests. I like granting them.”
Her shapely thighs, clad in black jeans that were more suited to the motorcycle than one of her skirts would have been, tightened around his hips and she slid closer. Her sex was pressed into his back and through their clothes, he felt an instant rush of heat.
She wouldn’t object if they went back inside, either.
He ignored that thought. Smothering a groan, he kick-started the bike, suddenly wishing he had a car. Despite how much he hated being trapped inside one of the reeking machines, he had the feeling that flying down the highway with her sweet legs wrapped around him was going to be pure torture.
Over the next few hours, he was proven right. Penny curled herself around him, gripping him with her legs, her arms wrapped around his waist. Though the wind whipped across them wildly, he could still feel every inch of her and he burned.
“You probably shouldn’t have told me how good your hearing is,” she whispered against his neck as they neared the turnoff.
He didn’t respond.
“Because I know you can hear me.” Her warm lips pressed against the pulse below his ear. “I want you, Lucas.”
He swallowed.
“I wish you had put me on your lap to straddle you. Mm, what I wouldn’t give to feel your cock buried inside me
as we ride and ride.”
“Wench,” he muttered.
“What?”
He didn’t repeat it.
Her soft chuckle was decidedly evil. Her hand dropped to his lap and he quivered as she felt the way his body had responded to her words. He was rock-hard and ready.
“Or maybe I wouldn’t have to straddle you,” she added, stroking him lightly, maddeningly. “I could face away from you, lean forward over the handlebars, let you slide into me from behind.”
He groaned. “God, woman, are you trying to kill us both?”
“I’m horny,” she admitted with an impish chuckle.
“Hold that thought.”
Taking the poorly marked exit almost without slowing, he skidded onto a back road that was rarely traveled. The bike didn’t have much traction, spewing gravel in its wake, but he didn’t slow down. Pure sexual energy drove him and the powerful engine between his legs only served to rev him up harder. As did the rising moon.
“Hurry.” She sounded as desperate as he felt.
Night had fallen, the moon was full, the border open. But they had enough time. Just enough for what he wanted to do to her.
Spying the small, decrepit shack where he stored his bike and other belongings, he roared toward it. He had barely pulled up outside before Penny was shifting around, climbing onto his lap. She pressed her mouth to his, kissing him wildly, her small hands cool against his hot, windblown face. Writhing against him, she said, “Don’t make me wait.”
“I don’t intend to.”
Damn, of all times for her to give up her skirts. He hated wasting the precious seconds it took to tug her jeans open.
Kissing her again, he maneuvered the button and zipper until he could reach inside to touch her. Pushing her panties out of the way, he teased her hard little clit until she cried out. Penny was creamy with readiness, and she thrust against his hand, wanting more. He gave it to her, sliding his finger between her lips and into her tight channel.
“More, more,” she mumbled, kissing his face, already pulling her shirt up and off.
He slid another finger into her, making love to her with deep, fast strokes, and she rocked back, taking every thrust.