Dark Haven Found (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Book 49)

by I. T. Lucas

  She’d never thought that she could be that sexually active and still have energy left over for other things. But making love to Leon was invigorating instead of tiring, and she wondered if it was because her engine had been revved up and had never been allowed to slow down.

  She also was never sore, which was another oddity given their frequent and long bouts of sex and Leon’s impressive size. She hadn’t had the pleasure of actually seeing his manhood, but she’d held it and licked it enough times to have a good idea of how large it was.

  Later tonight, she was going to uncover some of the mystery when she pulled the blindfold off. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too mad at her.

  Finishing up quickly, she toweled off and stepped out of the bathroom wearing absolutely nothing.

  Some women might have felt sexier wearing skimpy lingerie, but Ana loved the effect her curvy body had on Leon. Her figure might not be fashionable, but according to him, it was made for sex.

  “Hello, beautiful.” His eyes roamed over her body. “Come here.” He lifted the silk scarf, holding it in front of him and blocking her view of his glowing eyes.

  The strange light his eyes emitted in the dark never failed to unsettle her and excite her at the same time. She had to wonder, though. If he was wearing specialty contact lenses, then why did the glow intensify when he was aroused?

  31

  Leon

  “Hello, beautiful.” Leon’s shaft twitched under the blanket.

  Nude Anastasia was a sight to behold. Her large breasts were topped with pink nipples that had already hardened into tight nubs. She was aroused before he even touched her, and the scent of her desire grew stronger the longer he gazed at her.

  Leon lifted the silk scarf that he used as a blindfold to block her view of his glowing eyes. “Come here.”

  He heard her breath hitch.

  Anastasia knew something about him was different, but she couldn’t imagine what it was. That she wasn’t scared of him despite her suspicions was a testament to her strong intuition. The oddities she’d noticed hadn’t made her trust him any less.

  As she climbed on the bed, he wrapped the silk scarf around her head and then laid her out on her back. “Spread your legs for me.”

  She obeyed without a moment’s hesitation, her lush lips parting and begging to be kissed.

  Unable to resist, he leaned over her and kissed them softly, sliding his tongue inside her welcoming mouth while capturing her hands and pulling them over her head.

  She tensed. “Don’t tie me up.”

  He had no intention of doing that tonight, but he was surprised by her request. She’d never objected to it before.

  “I’m not going to tie you up, but you need to pretend as if I did. If you don’t, I’m going to secure your arms to the headboard and feast on you until you beg me to stop.”

  Sliding one finger along her slit, he coated it in her wetness before pushing it inside her. “I love how quickly you are ready for me.”

  Chewing on her bottom lip, she rocked her hips, silently begging him for more.

  “Not yet, love.” He slid down her body until his mouth was aligned with her lower lips.

  “Oh God,” Anastasia murmured as he blew over her heated flesh.

  He chuckled. “Shouldn’t it be, oh Leon?” He flicked his tongue over her swollen clit, eliciting a strangled moan.

  She was trying to keep quiet, but in a few moments, he was going to make her forget all about her friend sleeping in the next room.

  Retracting his finger, he pushed back with two, closed his lips around her sweet little nub, and sucked.

  Anastasia bucked up, but the little whimper she let out was not what he was going for. Reaching up with his hand, he cupped her breast and then rubbed his palm over her hard nipple.

  She was fighting the orgasm bearing down on her, and he didn’t know whether it was because she was afraid to make too much noise or because something was bothering her, or whether she just needed more stimulation. Normally, she was super orgasmic, coming like a firecracker with hardly any effort on his part. But maybe the novelty of bondage was wearing off?

  He needed to up his game.

  Replacing his fingers with his tongue, he folded it into a spear and swirled it inside her. As the taste of her overwhelmed his senses, he groaned, sending vibrations to her core.

  She was so sweet, and her juices so copious, and it was all his doing.

  This woman was his perfect match, delivered to him by the Fates.

  “Please,” she murmured. “I need you inside of me.”

  “Well, if you ask so nicely.” He planted a soft kiss on her dewy petals and then slid up her body and kissed her.

  She moaned into his mouth, and as he gripped his shaft and pushed the first inch into her tight heat, she shuddered under him.

  He pulled out and teased her clit with the head of his shaft before pushing it back in, a little farther this time.

  “More.” Anastasia arched up, taking him deeper.

  Leon surged in the rest of the way, burying himself to the hilt inside his woman.

  “Yes!” she hissed through clenched lips.

  Gripping her ankles, he pushed them up to open her even wider for him and pounded into her, hitting the end of her channel with each corkscrew thrust that he knew would bring her over the edge in no time.

  Some women could only orgasm from oral stimulation or the venom bite, but his Anastasia needed to be filled and fucked hard to detonate like a rocket.

  32

  Anastasia

  Anastasia was on fire, but she couldn’t climax and plot at the same time. It just didn’t work.

  Orgasming required her to fully concentrate on her body and clear her brain from disturbing thoughts, and that wasn’t happening while she was planning to betray Leon’s trust.

  The thing was, she knew that he wouldn’t allow himself to climax if she didn’t explode first. It was like her pleasure was the key to his, and without it, he was struggling as much as she was.

  Fuck it. Maybe she should just forget about taking off the damn blindfold and let go so they both could reach that elusive peak.

  Except, she couldn’t.

  She’d been obsessing about it since the thought had entered her mind, and if she didn’t do it tonight, she would keep obsessing about taking off the blindfold until she did it.

  “Come for me, baby,” Leon groaned against her ear and reached between their bodies to massage her clit.

  The coil inside her belly tightened, but she knew it wouldn’t spring free.

  Maybe she could fake it?

  Leon loved it when she made a lot of noise, and if she moaned and called out his name, he might be fooled into thinking that she’d orgasmed.

  Crap. She didn’t want to be that girl. Faking orgasms was low. It was deceitful, and it was demeaning to both partners. A woman didn’t need to orgasm every time, and it was fine to admit when it just didn’t happen.

  The stimulation to her clitoris was becoming too much, Leon’s breathing against her ear was becoming laborious and sounded frustrated, and for the first time since they’d become lovers, she wanted it to stop.

  “I can’t do it.” She yanked the blindfold off and screamed.

  The face hovering above hers belonged to a monster. Long fangs dripping with saliva, and eyes that looked like they had flashlights instead of irises.

  “Get off me!” She closed her eyes and pushed on his chest with all her might, half expecting it to be covered in fur, but finding only smooth muscles.

  “Stop screaming.” He clamped a hand over her mouth. “You’ll give Margaret a heart attack.” His speech sounded slurred. Not surprising given his monstrous fangs. “I can explain, but you need to promise that you won’t scream.”

  She was about to bite his hand as the door burst open and Bowen rushed in. “What happened?”

  “Go away, Bowen.” Leon kept his hand over her mouth. “I’m handling this.”

  Ana str
uggled under him, groaning into his hand loudly enough for Bowen to hear.

  “Good luck.” She heard the door close.

  What the hell? Did he think it was part of their kinky sex?

  “Look at me,” Leon demanded.

  Afraid of what she was about to see, she cracked one eye slightly open. His eyes were still glowing, but not as brightly as before, and the fangs were gone, but his lips were tightly pressed together, so they could still be there, just hidden.

  Except, the monstrosities she’d seen were too long to fit inside Leon’s mouth. He wouldn’t have been able to close it without them protruding over his lower lip.

  “If I remove my hand, are you going to scream?”

  Even if she yelled murder, no one was coming to her rescue. Bowen would just assume that they were engaging in more kinky fuckery, and Margaret couldn’t help her even if she wanted to.

  In fact, the poor woman was probably scared shitless.

  As Ana shook her head, Leon lifted a couple of fingers experimentally, and when she didn’t scream, he let out a breath and removed his hand.

  “What are you?” she whispered.

  “I can explain.”

  “Then start talking.” She pushed on his chest again, and this time he rolled off her.

  “I need a moment.” He lay on his back and draped an arm over his eyes.

  Shifting to her side, Ana lifted on her elbow and looked at him. His chest was inflating and deflating as if he’d just finished the hundred-yard dash, and she could hear his erratic heartbeat.

  Had she given him a scare?

  Now that was a joke.

  She’d just discovered that the guy she’d been shacking up with for almost a week was a werewolf or a vampire, and he was acting as if she’d put a gun to his head?

  Strangely, once the shock wore off she wasn’t scared of him. He hadn’t hurt her yet, so she had no reason to think that he would do so now.

  The disappointment though, that was a killer. Her heart ached with the realization that the man of her dreams was not a man at all, but a creature of legends that shouldn’t exist.

  Maybe she was having a nightmare? Because this couldn’t be real. Even someone like her, who’d heard voices in her head for most of her life, didn’t believe in werewolves or vampires.

  Perhaps she was going to wake up in the morning and realize that it had been only a bad dream?

  Regrettably, the clues that had led her to this moment had been accumulating for a while. The so-called love bites that hurt like hell for only a moment and left no mark, the glowing eyes that shone brighter when Leon got excited, even the strange encounter with the baby bear that Leon had hypnotized to turn around and find its mother.

  “Your minute is up, Leon. Start talking.”

  33

  Bowen

  “What happened?” Margaret stood on one leg in the doorway, leaning on her crutches and shaking like a leaf.

  If he couldn’t smell her fear, Bowen would have thought that she was cold.

  She was about to keel over, either because her heart was going to give out or she was losing her balance.

  “It was just a nightmare.” He rushed to prop her up before she fell on her face. “Did it scare you?”

  She nodded. “I came out as soon as I could.”

  “Come on.” He lifted her into his arms. “Let me get you back in bed.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep. I’m too shaken up.”

  “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He carried her to the couch, trying to ignore the feel of her naked bottom through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

  He put her down gently and handed her the throw blanket. “Wrap it around your shoulders. It’s cold in here.”

  The fire in the fireplace had died out a while ago, and the central heating had been set to low.

  From the other side of the wall, he could hear nearly every word of the conversation, especially Anastasia’s side. She wasn’t even trying to be quiet as she hurled accusations at Leon.

  Bowen didn’t want to intrude on their privacy, and what was being said was definitely not for Margaret’s ears.

  “I’ll put on some music.” He grabbed the remote and turned the television on, clicking on the first channel on the list.

  “Thank you.” Margaret wrapped the throw blanket around her like a shawl.

  “I’ll start the fireplace, and it will get warm in here in no time.”

  She tucked a pillow under her cast. “I didn’t know that Anastasia suffered from nightmares. Do you know what it was about?”

  He shook his head. “She might tell us in the morning, or she might not.”

  “I heard her scream at Leon to get off her,” Margaret whispered.

  “It must have been part of the nightmare.” Bowen covered the logs with kindling and lit them with a long match. “Maybe she dreamt about being assaulted.” He lit another match and poked at the kindling until it caught fire. “Sometimes, people suppress bad memories, and they come out in dreams.” He straightened up and turned to look at her, gauging her reaction.

  “That could be it.” She didn’t look convinced at all. “I know a lot of Ana’s past, though, and she’s never mentioned something like that happening to her. Despite her father’s emotional neglect, she’s lived a pretty sheltered life.”

  “Wasn’t she on her own for a long while before joining Safe Haven?” He walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water.

  “When Ana was in college, she lived in the dorms, and during law school, she shared an apartment with a couple of friends.”

  “Regrettably, bad things can happen to girls even in dorms.” He pulled out two mugs and a box of assorted teas.

  “I hope nothing like that happened to Ana. She’s suffered through enough. Losing her mother the way she did was awful. She watched as they tried to revive her, and she was just a little girl.”

  “That must have left a scar on her soul.” Bowen filled the mugs with boiling water and brought them to the table. “But she seems okay. She doesn’t strike me as fragile.” He went back for the box of teas.

  “Unlike me,” Margaret chuckled softly. “Most people think that a gentle breeze can break me, but that’s a misconception. I’ve survived hell.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” He handed her the box.

  “Not at all.” She smiled feebly. “I want to talk about happy stuff. Do you know any good jokes?”

  “A few.” He sat next to her. “But not as many as Ricky Gervais.” He picked up the remote.

  “Who is Ricky Gervais?”

  Life in Safe Haven had been like living on a Martian colony. Poor Margaret had so much catching up to do. He wasn’t sure she would even get half of the jokes. The world had changed a lot since she’d escaped her hell and hidden away in the cult.

  Perhaps one day she would feel comfortable enough with him to tell him about what had chased her into the cult's clutches, and then he could kill whoever had caused her pain.

  “He’s a British comedian whom I enjoy watching.” Bowen flipped through the comedy channel selection until he found what he was looking for. “His humor is a bit sarcastic, but that’s what makes him so funny.”

  Leaning back, he draped his arm over the back of the couch. He wanted to put it around Margaret’s slim shoulders and lend her his strength, but they weren’t a couple, and despite living in a community that practiced free love, she was skittish and reserved around him.

  Besides, he was not there to romance her. His job was to keep her company and take care of her, so Leon and Anastasia could focus on deepening their bond and inducing Anastasia’s transition.

  Things had calmed down on the other side of the wall, and he wondered how Leon had handled the situation. Had he told Anastasia the truth? Or had he invented more lies to explain what she’d seen?

  It was a difficult position to be in, and Bowen didn’t know how he would have handled it. Woul
d he have told her the truth?

  Probably not.

  The clan’s safety overrode any other objectives. They couldn’t allow anyone who didn’t have a vested interest in it to walk away with the knowledge of their existence. And since Anastasia was immune to mind manipulation, whatever she’d learned tonight could not be erased. Lying was Leon’s best option. If she knew the truth about them and didn’t transition, they would have to keep her imprisoned in the village for the rest of her human life.

  34

  Leon

  “Your minute is up, Leon. Start talking.”

  Anastasia no longer sounded panicky, which was good, but the minute Leon had taken to calm down and collect his thoughts hadn’t been enough to come up with a good story, which was bad.

  The only thing he could think of was what Greggory had told Eleanor. If a skeptical and jaded woman like her had believed it, then Anastasia might as well.

  The problem with that was that it was a complete fabrication, and not a variation on the truth that he could backtrack from when the time came to tell Anastasia everything.

  Provided that it came.

  If he were absolutely sure that she was a Dormant and that she would transition, he could tell her everything now, but he wasn’t. Curiously, the voices she’d heard had stopped bothering her. Perhaps they hadn’t been real after all?

  Her traumatized child’s mind could have splintered, producing realistic hallucinations. There could be a logical explanation for the conversation he’d translated for her. She might have had Hungarian neighbors who she’d overheard without registering it, and she could have stored their conversation in her subconscious.

  Many people heard voices, and some of them could even communicate with ghosts, but he knew of no one other than Anastasia who heard people talking between themselves and not to her, which reinforced her own suspicion that those were stored memories that her conscious mind didn’t remember.