Hunter paced the wooden floorboards like a caged lion in the zoo, and when he turned Emilia couldn’t suppress her gasp. The scars on his back were far worse than any of the others she had seen. They covered his shoulders and ran half way down his back. Thicker on one side that the other, she recognized them for what they were. Blast injuries, either from a fire or an explosion. They looked very similar to the ones one of the pregnant ladies under her care bore. She had been involved in a car crash as a child, and despite multiple skin grafts had been left with large areas on her tummy covered in scars. It had and still was cause for concern as her pregnancy progressed, as no one could be sure how far that skin would stretch.
Hunter stopped pacing when he noticed her reaction, and she offered him a watery smile.
“Don’t presume to know me, Hunter Monahan. You have no idea what I am ready to hear. Tell me the truth or contract be fucking damned I’ll cry red and make you take me home. And I don’t mean to my father’s place. Home to my flat, and if that happens I don’t ever want to see you again.”
To his credit he didn’t react in any other way than to blink several times, and then he turned and shrugged into a pair of worn jeans that he pulled out of one the wardrobes taking up the entire opposite wall of the room.
Despite the situation Emilia sighed inside at seeing the denim hug those tree-trunk thighs, and muscled behind. Scars notwithstanding, Hunter was a prime specimen of male whatever species he might be.
“I can’t do this on an empty stomach. I’ll be in the kitchen. You’ll find some clothes in that wardrobe. I don’t want you getting cold.”
With one last searching glance in her direction Hunter stalked from the room, shoulders hunched as though he carried the weight of the world on them. And maybe he did. Hunter was clearly a very private person, and Emilia had just challenged him to not only let her in, but bare his soul.
Letting her see his scars had pushed him, but demanding that he share his secret with her…. Emilia shook her head, wincing as she slid off the bed. By the way her butt felt she would carry some spectacular bruises tomorrow. The thought made her grin, and her determination grew to get Hunter to truly open up to her.
She had set out to make this Christmas different, hadn’t she? Perhaps it wasn’t exactly turning out like she had envisaged, but the glimpses of the real Hunter she’d managed to snatch made her hungry for more.
Emilia padded across to the wardrobe he’d indicated and gasped.
****
Hunter smiled grimly when he heard her reaction to the content of the wardrobe. Clearly she had expected to spend the weekend naked and on her knees, but that had never been his intention. Well, not his only intention. While the thought of keeping her like that made him hard as nails again, he had brought her here to get to know her. To make her…
Hunter swore and slammed the carafe into the coffee machine with much more force than necessary. Make her do what exactly?
Make her like him enough so that he could eventually tell her who he was? Had that ever been a viable plan? He should have known that Emilia was far too perceptive. She might be young, far too young for him in fact, but his kitten had always had an old soul. Even as a child she had floored him with her questions, and his lips curved up into smile again. Life had been so much simpler back then, before the disaster had torn them all apart, and before she had come back from boarding school all grown up and his bear had swallowed his tongue.
He should just take her home, and forget this ever happened, but fuck him, he couldn’t do that either. Come what may, he had to see this through.
“Don’t start to frown again, Sir. I much prefer it when you smile.”
Emilia’s soft voice startled him, and he was surprised at the fact that he hadn’t sensed her approach. She stepped up to him and snatched the pan out from under the grill.
“And you’re burning the toast. I don’t know about you, but I rather prefer mine edible.” She glanced up at him and nudged him with her hip.
“Go and sit down. I can do this. What do you want on yours, and are there any eggs? I could rustle us up something more substantial than toast. A big bear of a man like you can’t just have toast for breakfast, now.”
Hunter’s bear grumbled his approval, and the man sat stunned, and pointed toward the fridge.
“Cat got your tongue, Sir?” She grinned at him and sashayed across to the fridge swinging her hips in such a way Hunter’s mouth grew dry. She got out what she needed, and he watched her put together the ingredients for an omelet with practiced ease.
Fuck, she looked way too good in his kitchen. The simple blue jeans she’d chosen to wear clung to her luscious ass, and the loose fitting tee-shirt kept slipping off one creamy shoulder. It made his jaws ache with the control needed to not step up to her and bite her. To force the connection between them.
She whisked the eggs, and Hunter couldn’t stop staring at the way her tits jiggled under the tee. Fuck, he wanted her so much it hurt.
The pan sizzled as she poured the mixture into it, and, tea towel flung over one shoulder, she turned round to look at him.
“So, am I close? My first thought was bear, because of your size, and then I thought maybe a large cat? Is that why you keep calling me kitten?”
Instead of waiting for his answer she sauntered across and poured them both two steaming mugs of coffee. Placing one in front of him she inhaled deeply as she wrapped her hands around hers and took a sip.
Hunter shook his head.
“I call you kitten because you always wanted one when you were little, and you turned into a rather outraged version of one when your father told you, you couldn’t keep the one I bought you.”
A sad smile lit up her face, and she put the coffee down and turned the omelet over while putting fresh toast under the grill.
“He said Leo was allergic to the fur and she had to go.” A tear slipped down her cheeks, and Hunter crunched his teeth as he, too, remembered that day. He’d offered to take the kitten and re-home it, but her father had thrown it against the wall in a fit of temper instead.
“Yes, he did.”
“I found her body, you know, after…”
Another tear fell, and this time Hunter got up and enveloped her in a hug from behind.
“Jesus, I would have stopped him, but it all happened so fast. He was supposed to bury her.”
“I found her in the rubbish bin. I guess he thought I wouldn’t look in there.” Emilia turned in his arms, and he reached across to turn the heat off on both the gas ring and the grill. She swiped another tear off her face and looked up at him.
“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. It all happened so long ago.”
Hunter drew her closer into him, and her eyes widened when she seemed to notice his erection digging into her belly. Barefoot as she was she reached up to his chest, and he cupped her chin with his free hand and tipped her head up better to see her.
“Of course it matters. What he did was unreasonable, and cruel. If it helps, your mama gave him grief over it.”
A brief smile flitted across her pale features.
“Oh, I know. I heard them that night. They had a terrible row, but it didn’t really help. It just meant that I was to blame for that as well.” She put her hand up over his lips when he was going to interrupt her. “And I know I wasn’t, but I was a child then, and they see things differently. We should eat before this gets cold.”
She pushed against his chest, and he reluctantly let her go. Her emotions battered against him like a turbulent whirlwind, so he sat back and let her serve up. The action seemed to ground her, to give her a purpose, and he didn’t speak again until he sensed that she had her emotions under control.
“How long have you known?” he finally asked, after he ate the last mouthful of food and had helped himself to another cup of coffee.
Damn, he could get used to this. Sitting across from her at breakfast time, her face bare, her hair a rumpled mess about her face.
A curious smile played around her lips, and she made a great show of spearing the last bit of egg onto her fork and chewing slowly before she answered.
“I didn’t, not really. It was only this morning when you half shifted, that it clicked. That’s what you are, right. A shifter? At least that’s what they call it in the books. You might call yourself something different, for all I know. I…”
Her voice trailed off when he didn’t answer her, too amazed by her quiet acceptance to be able to utter a word.
Silence fell between them, and Emilia jumped when a log in the fire place fell and sparks singed the rug in front of it.
“So what are you?” she asked. “And can you please show me, because I’m still not entirely sure I am not dreaming all of this.”
Hunter smiled, and stood. Her eyes went wide when he yanked his jeans down and stepped out of them.
“I’ll show you, kitten.”
Chapter Six
Emilia would never have believed it, had she not seen it with her own eyes. One minute a very naked, very aroused Hunter towered over her, the next he had dropped to his knees and changed into a big brown bear.
His scars weren’t as pronounced in his animal form, but they were there nonetheless. Not that it took away from the majestic beauty that was Hunter in his bear form. His intelligent golden eyes looked at her, and he trotted closer. His wet nose nudged her arm, and taking a deep breath she put both of her hands in his fur. It was the exact same shade as his hair in human form, and she stroked him. Wonderfully soft and warm under her digits, he was the equivalent of a real life teddy bear, and Emilia giggled at the thought.
His bear rumbled in answer and nudged her again.
“You’re beautiful, Sir.”
She whispered the words, and then the massive bear stepped back. The air shimmered around him, and seconds later Hunter was back in his human form. He didn’t look at her when he yanked his jeans back on. He didn’t manage to button them back up again over the enormous erection he still sported, and he sat down gingerly, and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
“So, now you know,” he said, and Emilia nodded.
“Now I know. Thank you for trusting me enough to show me.”
Hunter groaned and ran a hand through his dark hair. It made it all stick up on end, and Emilia gave into the need to be close to him and straddling him, sat down on his lap. She dropped a kiss on the raised skin on his shoulder, and then reached up to tidy his hair.
“How did you get the scars, Sir?”
Hunter shook his head and tugged her shirt up until her breasts were exposed. Her nipples beaded in the chilly air, and he chuckled and ran his knuckles across them while pulling his legs up. The action tipped her forward slightly, and in the next moment he had the shirt pulled off her entirely and twisted around her wrists at her back in makeshift restraints. As soft as it was on her wrists, Emilia couldn’t move, and she gasped when he unsheathed one of his claws, and ran it along her jaw line. Her eyes widened when he ran it over her throat, and she swallowed nervously as he trailed it down towards her breasts. Once there he increased the pressure, and allowed more of his claws to emerge. Tiny pinpricks of painful sensation they dug into her breast tissue as he molded it between it his fingers, and then bent to suckle first one and the other into his mouth.
“You, sweet kitten, ask too many questions, but I do you a deal. Every time you ask me something else, you owe me an orgasm. How does that sound?”
He pushed her breasts together so that he could lave both her nipples at the same time, and Emilia tightened her thigh muscles to rub herself against his heavy erection.
“Oh no, you don’t. Up you come. We’re doing this on my terms.”
Guiding her by her bound wrists he took her over to the long dividing counter and pushed her down with a hand on the small of her back, while he lifted her feet off the floor and pulled her ass back into his groin.
“Hmm, yes perfect. Put your feet in those.”
Completely helpless and at his mercy, Emilia had no choice but do as she was told, and a shiver went through her when he yanked her jeans down to mid-thigh and then guided her feet into some form of foothold. Soft leather went round her ankles, and she found herself slip deeper into her submissive headspace as her movements were restricted.
Hunter slapped her ass lightly, and she groaned as heat flared anew and moisture seeped from her pussy.
“Beautiful. Your ass is lovely and red, and you can’t move. Now, shall we start our little game? What did you want to ask me, kitten?”
Did she want to? Emilia struggled to get her brain to work, especially when he swatted her ass again and then moved away.
“Now don’t you go anywhere.” His laugh could only be described as pure evil. “I’ll need to get a little something from my toy box. I’ll be back before you can miss me.”
Oh, God, what now?
True to his word Hunter was back before she managed to draw more than three shuddering breaths into her lungs. He reached across her to plug something into the electrical socket, and every muscle in her body tensed when she heard the loud vibrations kick on.
Hunter ran the thick head of the Hitachi slowly down her spine, avoiding her bound wrists, and Emilia jumped as far as her restraints would allow when he guided the vibrator across her stinging ass cheeks.
“I believe you were going to ask me a question, kitten? What was it again?”
He trailed the torture object lower, and lower still holding it just over her labia, and Emilia groaned. Already the wicked vibrations travelled through her and made her pussy clench in desperate need.
“Nothing, not a thing. I don’t want to know anything if you’re going to use that thing on me ... oh God, noooooo.”
Hunter laughed and held the head right over her clit.
“Wrong answer, kitten. For that I demand three orgasms from you, right now.”
Emilia wailed and bucked, but it was useless. There was no hiding from the relentless vibrations that pushed her headlong into an orgasm so forceful she saw stars.
Hunter gave her no respite. It was only after she came the third time, that he took the toy away and helped her to ride out the aftershocks with his rough tongue gently bringing her back down to earth, as he licked her clean. The appreciative murmurs he made as he lapped at her pussy, while his claws dug into her hips, made her giggle. A swat to her ass was her reward, and she groaned long and hard when he dug his oh so talented tongue into her pussy hole and then licked a path up to her anus. He repeated the action time and time again, while spreading her ass cheeks, and when the warmth of his tongue finally breached that dark hole, Emilia was so aroused again that her juices covered the tops of her thighs.
She tried to push her ass higher to give him better access, and Hunter chuckled, delivered a stinging swat to her butt, and stepped away.
Out of the corner of her eyes she could see him step up the kitchen sink and wash his hands, and rinse his mouth out. Heat climbed into her cheeks at the thought of where that mouth had just been, and then he stood in front of her, and held up a glass with a straw for her.
“Hydrate, kitten. I’m not done with you yet.” His tone of voice brooked no argument, and Emilia dutifully sucked on the straw until the glass was empty. Hunter smiled at her, and warmth suffused her at his approval.
“Good girl, now you were asking me a question I believe?” He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip and leant over her to check her wrists.
“You’re still good there, kitten? Wriggle your fingers for me. Good girl, color?”
“Green, Sir.”
“So, your question.” He perched his butt on the counter right next to her head while keeping one hand on the small of her back. The heavy weight grounded her, and this close to him his spicy musk invaded her senses. He’d undone another button on his jeans, and the thick mushroom tip of his erect cock glistened in pre-cum. H
e adjusted himself slightly, and Emilia’s cunt clenched in need. She wanted him inside of her, claiming her and making her his.
“Only one, Sir. Will you please fuck me? Make me yours.”
****
Hunter froze mid cock adjustment hearing her breathy question, and his bear roared in triumph. She couldn’t mean that the way it sounded, and besides they hadn’t had that particular discussion yet, but his beast took no notice. His incisors ran out in readiness, and Emilia’s eyes widened when she noticed. Not in fear, but arousal. He could smell the renewed wetness between her legs, and his balls drew tight. Groaning he freed his cock, and used the lubrication of his pre-cum to fist himself slowly. It was torture and ecstasy all rolled into one when Emilia licked her lips.
“Please, Sir. I need your cock.”
The whispered words proved his undoing, and he jumped over the counter, yanked his trousers off and drove into her pussy without further warning. Hunter groaned as her wet heat surrounded him like a tight fist, and Emilia hissed and arched up as far as she could.
“Yesss, God…” The rest of her exclamation was lost as he anchored his fists in her hair, and pulling all the way out slammed back into her again. Her hips banged into the counter, and Emilia whimpered, but the rhythmic clenches of her vaginal muscles told him how close she was once again. The knowledge she was with him every step of the way, threatened to send him over the edge, too. His claws ran out, and he stilled inside of her, trying to catch his breath, before he gave into the instinct to sink his teeth into the pale shoulder in front of him.
Emilia moaned and wriggled her ass, and he bent forward until she was utterly flattened underneath him.
“Do. Not. Move.” His dick pulsed inside of her tight sheath in tune to every grunted word, and a high pitched whine escaped Emilia.
“Please … I need to … please.”
“No, for the love of God, no.” His bear’s growl came through as he forced the words out, and Emilia froze when he licked her pulse point, and allowed his teeth to graze her skin. Not enough to leave a permanent mark, just enough to take in her scent, the very essence of her, and to calm his agitated bear. When he claimed her as his mate, he wanted it to be with her in full knowledge of the facts.
Bought for Christmas Page 5