Chapter Seven
Conrad worked the farm most of the day and wondered why he even bothered. He didn’t get anything accomplished on schedule. Then again, why would he? He tried to milk a horse, shoe a cow, and wring a pig’s neck. His heart wasn’t in farming, and his dick determined the only place he wanted to be was in bed.
Giving up the task of doing a rancher’s chores, Conrad left a few buckets of grain on the edge of a foaling stall and headed up to the loft. He’d just started down the ladder with a bale of hay when he heard the clopping sound of hooves.
Damn! One of the mares must’ve been feeling frisky and knocked down the gate again. He was going to have to get that darn fence mended in the lower fields so he could make sure he kept his stock secure.
Jumping across a few planks, he divided the bale into sections and fed the horses on the left side of the barn. He’d fool with the darn runaway in a minute. He’d just rounded the corner and started down the other side of the stable when a beautiful Palomino pony practically ran him over.
“What the hell?” He gaped at the small creature and wondered which of the neighboring farmers perhaps lost the adorable four-legged animal. “You must be a renegade,” he said, grabbing a halter and lead rope.
In an attempt to secure the pony, he slid the halter over the small horse’s head and started toward the front of the barn. “I’ll let you stay the night here,” he said, speaking to the animal like he expected the pony to put up a fight. “I have some special guests to attend to or else I’d try to find your owner.”
He only deserted the four-legged creature for a moment. The time away from the cross-ties was long enough to leave him surprised when he returned. Where the Palomino once stood, Kimberly was on her knees, laughing hysterically.
She was naked. That wasn’t necessarily a problem.
“What are you doing, pray tell?” he asked, eyeing the best breasts in the country.
“Talk to me about those special guests you’re entertaining, and I’ll tell you all of my secrets.”
With the oversized red halter dangling from her neck and the lead clipped to the end, Conrad didn’t have to ask. “You’re a horse?”
“Pony,” she corrected, crawling toward him and seemingly unbothered by the pebbles her knees skimmed across.
“And a man?”
“Not anymore,” she reminded him. “You more or less took care of that problem when we became a unit.”
“A unit?”
“Yes.” Kimberly smiled, fingering his zipper.
“And what is a unit, exactly?”
“A family,” she informed him, easing his belt away from its loops.
“And you’re looking for a family, aren’t you, Kimberly?” he asked, stroking her cheek.
“Beats living in a barn,” she told him, tearing away at his denim like a hungry little thing.
“And you’ve been living in a stable?”
“You surely don’t think sex shifters are only able to shift from one sex to another. Gender shifters generally hide inside their animal counterparts. We can disguise ourselves better.”
“By living with other animals?”
“You should try it sometime.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, Conrad. There’s a good time to be had scattering hay.”
“You’re all about having a good time, aren’t you?” Conrad asked, loving the way she approached him. Kimberly was always ready for sex, something Conrad didn’t think would change as she aged. It was a sex shifter’s most appealing trait.
“I’m all about you,” she promised, licking his dick.
He growled when she tugged him between her lips. Her attentive tongue eased up and down his shaft, and he felt the explosive impulse to grab her by the hair of the head and sink between her cheeks at a rapid speed.
Since he’d dealt with those cravings all day long, he went with it. The consequences left him more sated than he could’ve ever imagined…and yet he wasn’t completely satisfied. He was hungry, but the blood he wanted wasn’t Kimberly’s. He had one man on his mind.
* * * *
Conrad had been tiptoeing around his emotions. When he saw Kimberly in the barn in her animal form, he realized he really didn’t know much about his shifter mates, and that bothered him. They didn’t know much about him either, and he found that fact equally disturbing.
After Kimberly gave him one hell of a blow job, she ran off, shifting into her pony form and galloping away before he asked questions. He wondered if this relationship he’d started with Kim and Kimberly was a commitment they wanted developed on their terms.
Frustrated, Conrad returned home to mope. He wondered where Kim had been all day and decided until they reached a decision between the three of them, what Kim or Kimberly did in their free time really wasn’t any of his business. They weren’t exactly formally committed. They hadn’t taken vows. They sure hadn’t promised to love and protect one another, or whatever they were supposed to swear once they became mates.
“We’re already mated,” Kim told him when he entered the kitchen. He handed him a beer and a heated gaze to match.
“I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“Where else would I be?”
Conrad shrugged. “Running with Kimberly?”
Kim laughed. “I wondered when she’d finally show her true colors.”
Great word choice, Conrad thought, considering she was a gorgeous golden Palomino. He suddenly had a sensational urge to ride that little pony.
Kim backed against the sink and, gripping the basin, he said, “I think there are a few things you should know. Kimberly is young. She doesn’t understand as much as you and I do.”
“How young?” Conrad asked, sensing and fearing he might be robbing the cradle.
“She’s thirty-two.”
“Thank God,” Conrad breathed. “For a minute there, I thought I might have stripped her from her diapers.”
“No, but keep in mind, she’s a sex shifter and a horse shifter, which means she’s as volatile as a young, untrained filly.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Kim grinned. “You have to ask,” he growled, working his strut enough to make Conrad’s butt clench.
“I’m curious. I really don’t know much about the shifters. I’m a vampire, remember.”
“A sexy vampire,” Kim whispered, stripping his shirt over his head. “A hard and capable vampire,” he continued, unfastening his pants and stepping away from them.
Conrad’s breath caught. God, he was so attracted to Kim. There was something about being with Kim that made him feel complete, loved, and so fucking sexy.
“Good,” he said, gaping at Conrad’s lower half. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say those very words.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You thought them, and that’s good enough for me,” Kim replied, pulling Conrad into a loving embrace, complete with bracketed arms around his waist and a mouth willing to open and accept his heated kiss.
Conrad was a goner. He lowered his head and took Kim’s kiss, delivering his tongue like an arrow, greedily wedging his way through Kim’s bow-shaped lips.
The bloodlust had been burning in his system all day. He’d thought of Kim and Kimberly, but he’d longed for Kim’s blood and wasn’t sure he had the resistance to postpone the bite.
Kim arched his neck and shot Conrad a smile. “Do it, Conrad. Drain me. Then, train me. Let me become your protégé. I want to be your lover, your mate, and your vampire shifter. Change me, Conrad.”
Conrad snarled. For generations, he’d vowed to never turn a human. He’d never wanted another person to face the kind of doom he’d felt when he’d walked the earth a hundred years, and then another hundred more. He didn’t want someone he cared about to be standing at the end of time, wondering if he or she had an afterlife or if he deserved one because of the crimes his bloodlust required he commit.
Kim
drew him in for a deeper kiss, working his hands up and over his arms and chest. “Bleed me, Conrad. Don’t just bite me. Let me know what it feels like to have your blood in my veins. Bleed me dry. Turn me. Then feed yourself to me as I offer to let you feed from me.”
Conrad shook his head. He wanted to taste Kim, but with the proposition of bleeding him to a near-death experience and then turning him, he wasn’t sure he could resist once his fangs broke skin. The craving would intensify once Kim’s sweet, plasma-enriched syrup oozed down his throat.
He wrapped his hand around Kim’s cock, threading his length in and out of his hand, pumping him, enjoying the feel of him, ready for him. “Not now,” Conrad whispered, yanking his own pants away from his hips and thighs, stepping away from his clothing and shoes while shrugging out of his shirt, a real catastrophe because to lose his polo, he was forced to leave Kim’s lips. Even temporary desertion brought him enormous pain.
Kim’s mouth covered his ear. “You can’t live without me,” he whispered. “So turn me.”
Conrad grabbed Kim’s cock again, pushing his own erection into the palm of Kim’s hand. Clutching Kim’s penis, he toyed with him, rubbing the tip of his prick with a deliberate touch, dying to feel his cum leaking onto his flesh so he could taste him.
When Kim’s excitement dampened Conrad’s fingers, he brought them to his lips and sucked. “Mhmm…” he groaned, more driven than before.
Without warning, the heat of his lust took hold. Conrad lunged forward, pressing Kim’s back to the kitchen table and snapping his wrists over his head, bounding him to the table by force, not that he resisted because he certainly didn’t. Kim enticed him, like his whole purpose in life was to taunt and torment him, using whatever means necessary—love, lust, obsession, and devotion—all the elements Conrad had been missing in his life.
Their kiss became hotter, and Conrad whispered, “Don’t tempt me to bleed you, Kim. I need to fuck you but…”
“But what?” Kim demanded, biting at Conrad’s bottom lip.
“I can’t turn you,” he said, rubbing his cock against Kim’s leg. “I won’t.”
“You can. You will.” Kim’s mesmerizing eyes turned a shade darker than the blue Conrad found so impressive. Kim smiled as if he understood and raised his knees, parting his legs. “We can talk about that later,” he remarked, acting like he didn’t have a problem with the postponement of any discussion.
That delay suited Conrad just fine. He flattened his hand against the table surface and towered over Kim, bracing himself over his body and positioning himself between his beautifully spread legs.
“That’s it, lover,” Kim coaxed him. “I belong to you. Now I want you to show me that you belong to me, too.”
Conrad thrust between Kim’s cheeks and screwed him like he might never have another opportunity, fearing, in fact, he wouldn’t. And almost as soon as he began loving him, he realized…if Kim wanted Conrad to turn him, he would.
Somewhere along the way, loving Kim had become essential for his continued survival. Making sure Kim was satisfied would be crucial if he planned to keep him around.
Letting him go wasn’t an option.
Chapter Eight
The imminent need to satisfy Kim became second nature. When Conrad plunged inside Kim’s body, he recognized something more profound than his need to bleed his mate. He wanted Kim sated. Knowing he pleased his lover became more important than finding his own satisfaction.
Kim’s desire to become more like Conrad would only intensify. True mates were driven to become vampires. Kim had been gracious about Conrad’s request to wait. He hadn’t tricked him into bleeding him in the heat of their passion. Conrad had expected a little deceit during foreplay. Other vampires often turned their mates unexpectedly. He’d heard the stories.
He also knew why the shifters craved a vampire’s full bite. They had a shorter lifespan, and some said, and fables were often thought to be true where lifespans were gauged, that shifters suffered long deaths, often unable to come to terms with their demise because they were obsessive about their lovers. They found separation inconceivable.
Conrad loved on Kim a while longer after they were intimate. He nuzzled his cheek and inhaled his minty breath as he dropped a few passionate kisses on his lips.
“I’m in love with you,” Conrad finally admitted after they’d cuddled for a while.
“I know,” Kim said, smoothing his palm over Conrad’s shoulders. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Conrad watched the blinking lights on the Christmas tree and eased away from Kim’s embrace. “It is wonderful,” he finally replied, unsure why he first resisted the idea of mating with the sex shifters.
“You still have some level of uncertainty, don’t you?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it uncertainty. I have some anxiety,” Conrad explained. “I’m a little confused.”
Conrad gave Kim another quick peck and then left the table, retrieving his pants but only putting them on. He stuffed his cock back in the denim, making a point and a show out of not zipping them again. He hopped on the counter parallel to the table, and Kim sat, facing him and never bothering to dress.
Kim was comfortable in his own skin. That was a shifter’s nature. Whenever a shifter transformed into another body, they transitioned without their clothes, which presented countless problems but, in the end, evidently helped with body acceptance. Kim and Kimberly weren’t modest.
Then again, Conrad mused, looking at the most perfect pecker he’d ever seen, why would they be?
“Thank you, by the way,” Kim rasped, grinning down at his cock. “Maybe we can arrange a nickname?”
Conrad chuckled. For the first time in a long time, his skin heated. Was he blushing? He imagined so.
Kim tilted his head right and then left, taunting him somewhat. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“You can read my mind.”
“I’d rather have an open talk. It’s not easy playing around in your cluttered head.”
Good, he mused.
“But it’s not that difficult either,” Kim said quickly.
“I’m more attracted to you than Kimberly.”
“Of course you are,” Kim fired back.
“Why is that?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m new and exciting. You’ve never been with a man. I’m assuming you don’t have many male companions since you live out here by yourself. By all accounts, you live a somewhat mundane life.”
“I’m crazy about you,” Conrad blurted out, trying to make sense of the confession. He possessed strong feelings for Kim. He was wild about him, in a way he couldn’t explain. His obsession deepened by the minute, and that couldn’t be normal, could it?
He shook his head, thinking how much he’d love to fuck him again sometime within the next five minutes. Kim was his new obsession, his new drug, and so help him, he’d go to the end of one lifetime anxiously contemplating the next because now he had a cherished mate at his side.
“The feelings are mutual,” Kim assured him, licking his lips and eyeing Conrad’s dick.
“It’s more than sex for me.”
“Me, too,” Kim confessed. “But you have to understand something about those of us who swap genders. We’re called sex shifters for several reasons. We shift from male to female, but we’re also sexual creatures, extremely driven to love and be loved in every way possible. We’re shifters not only because we can shift from a man to a woman and back again but because we also have an animal form as well.”
“That was my next question. I assumed you and Kimberly possessed the same talents.”
“Would you like to see?”
“Sure,” Conrad quickly answered him.
Kim hopped down and patted Conrad’s leg on his way out. “Don’t get up. Just peer out the window there. Let me show off a minute.”
Kim disappeared. Conrad immediately felt his absence, and a profound loneliness swept over him. He stretched his neck and tried to see w
here Kim might have gone. A few minutes later, Conrad heard a loud neighing coming from the barn.
The gorgeous Palomino—Kimberly—rounded the corner and galloped toward the house, pressing her front hooves forward and coming to an abrupt halt right next to his large country porch. About the same time, a wild looking black stallion pranced across the yard, stopping in front of the window.
The stallion took a parked position, extending his front and hind legs at the same time, looking as lovely as any horse with the finest of bloodlines. He bobbed his head up and down, and the Palomino raised her tail and tempted him, prancing around in order to make her intentions obvious.
Conrad gasped when he saw the horse’s large penis drop toward the ground. He immediately mounted the Palomino. The two animals bred like any other horses, only the noises were quite a combination, ranging from animalistic to explicit and carnal near-human grunts and groans.
Conrad was extremely jealous, longing to join them in an animal state but slowly coming to terms with their predicament. While Conrad could easily change Kim into a vampire, Kim couldn’t convert him.
Conrad gazed at the Christmas lights and wondered. Did he have enough love in his heart to give Kim what he wanted now even though the gift he’d give was one the recipient might later resent?
Hearing an indescribable thrashing, Conrad’s head snapped toward the window. The stallion began humping wildly at the Palomino. His hooves fought at the air like a wild being out of control, and then as quickly as the act began, it was over. Kimberly shifted into her human form, looking frazzled and a little irritated.
A few moments later, they entered the kitchen and, without a word, motioned for Conrad. And who was he to turn down a good thing? He followed the couple to his room and waited on the bed while they showered.
By the time they joined him, he’d reached a decision. If Kim wanted Conrad to turn him, he would. He loved him enough to allow him the freedom of choice on his own. Conrad never wanted Kim to know the disappointment of being an outsider looking in.
* * * *
Avery, Addison - Sex Shifters and a Vampire: An Unlikely Christmas Match (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 5