A Monster and a Gentleman (2 page)

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“I need to reshoot a scene with Akta and Henry, so maybe we can talk after this?”

A slow smile worked its way across Seling’s face. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Cali narrowed her eyes, not sure if he meant the innuendo or if he just couldn’t help but be sexy and inviting. “I’ll find you.”

Seling ambled away, nodding and greeting crewmembers by name as they did final checks for the shot. Cali turned to the trailers as Akta darted out, moving fast. She pulled off the hoodie, revealing the thin hooded jacket and jeans she wore beneath. Henry, a monster once more, followed.
 

Shit.
 

Their body language was off; they looked pissed, not passionate. There were places in the script for angry kisses, but this was a reunion—a time for a long, romantic kiss. Cali looked grimly at the sky before pulling the mic piece of her headset down and barking orders. They had to get the shot.

Seling scrubbed his fingers on his scalp, eyes squeezed shut to keep the shampoo from getting in them. He hadn’t quite gotten the hang of bathing as a human yet, and the number of things he had to do to his human body—wash the skin, wash the hair, shave the face, clip the nails, put on deodorant, put on sunscreen…

The list was endless. He missed the hot mineral water that ran in the bathing pools in his Clan’s home high in the Rocky Mountains.
 

He rinsed the shampoo—he wouldn’t make that mistake again—and got out. The bathroom and shower in his trailer were tiny, and he was sharing it with one of the human actors, a man playing a military general. They’d created trailers he could use in his true form, but he was taking this as an opportunity to learn how to live as a human, so he’d decided to forgo a larger truck trailer.
 

The human actor wasn’t in the same scenes as Seling, so he had the trailer to himself. He’d waited over an hour for Cali, but she hadn’t stopped by. The sun would be coming up soon, and not long after that drivers would come and drive the trailers and trucks away to the next location.

Since Seling didn’t have a car and couldn’t drive anyway, he had to wait for a driver to get him and bring him to the condo he was sharing with his Clan-mate Henry. When he first came to L.A., after Margo and Runako rescued him, Henry, Luke and Runako had all been living in the large condo, which was on the penthouse level of a building Cali’s dad owned.
 

Cali.

He wanted that human.

She was dark and intense, and when she looked at him he felt her focus and attention, as strong and potent as if she’d reached out and touched him. Seling liked females who knew what they wanted and were willing to tell him…and who wouldn’t balk when he told them what he wanted.
 

From the few things he’d heard the others say, it seemed that human women were just as sexual and adventurous as the females of other species he’d been with. There were very few monster females, so most of Seling’s partners had been outside his own species—creatures who, unlike his Clan and the other clans of beings humans would call “monsters,” weren’t ready to make their presence known.

Since Runako had brought him to L.A., everything had moved very quickly, and Seling hadn’t spent as much time with Cali as he would have liked. She and the other human females had been busy hiring the crew to help make the movie, while he and the males had trained with Tokaki, the best warrior in the world, in preparation for the battle scenes. He’d never had a chance to get her alone.

They were into their fourth week of filming, and the days seemed to have developed a routine. He’d been watching her, noting her schedule and looking for a time to get her alone.

Despite their earlier conversation, it seemed tonight wouldn’t be the night.

Naked except for the towel he was using to rub his wet head, Seling bumped his way out of the bathroom at the same time as the trailer door opened.
 

“Seling?” The door banged shut behind Cali, who froze when she saw him. “Oh.”

Seling blinked in surprise, hooking the towel around his neck and holding the ends. “Cali. You finished the shot?”
 

She looked tired, but still sexy. She wore jeans and a creamy white shirt with a light jacket over the top. Her headset hung around her neck and the battery pack weighed down one side of her waistband, exposing a strip of brown skin.
 

“I—yes. Actually, they did it in one take and it was spectacular, but I had to take a call from Margo.” She took a deep breath. “Are you going to put on some clothes?”

Seling looked down at his naked body. “I’m still wet.”

“You’re distracting me. Get dressed.”

“What do you mean, distracting?” Seling grinned. Maybe tonight was the night after all.
 

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t. At my home I spend most of my time naked.”

“That must be fun for the girls, but you’re in the middle of a human city, so—”

“I don’t care about girls.” Seling took a step, then another, Cali’s body tensing a little bit more with each move he made. “But grown females, females who want to receive and give pleasure, interest me very much.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

Seling jerked back, confused as to why she would ask that when he clearly wasn’t hitting her and wouldn’t, unless that was her kink of choice. Then he remembered that was a way of asking if he was trying to entice her to bed.

“Yes, I am hitting you.”

“Hitting on. Hitting on me, and we can’t do this.”

“We can. I’ll show you.” Seling grabbed her hips. A shudder went though her and Cali closed her eyes, licking her lips.
 

“We can, but we shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s unprofessional, because it might mess up the movie, because—”

Seling kissed her. Fusing their lips together, Seling used his hips to push her back against the door. His cock swelled on contact with her body and he felt the heat of her skin, even through her clothes. He’d had sex in his human body a few times—for scientific purposes, of course—but he never remembered this electric thrill. His need for her was not just a heavy ache in his loins, but seemed to lick across his skin like fire.

Fire was something he knew.

Fire was something he liked.

She jerked her head away, panting. Seling gave her a moment to breathe, deciding to take that opportunity to slip his hand under her shirt, roaming up her chest to cup her breast, which was encased in silky smooth fabric.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you like, what you want.”

“I can’t think when you do that.”

“What? This?” He rubbed the tip of her breast with his thumb and felt the nipple pebble behind the barrier of fabric.
 

“God, yes, that.”

“Don’t think, just talk. Tell me what you prefer. Do you like to be bound, give up control?” She twitched in his arms, turning wide eyes on him. “Do you like pain, whips?” He pinched her nipple, increasing the pressure until her eyes closed in surrender. “Maybe you want me to fuck you in the water, making you come before you surface for air. Or do you like to be in charge, acting like the goddess you are?”

Seling himself was panting after that, and Cali was rubbing her hips against his cock. Normally he could tell by a female’s reaction to his words what she preferred, but Cali seemed to react to everything.

He hoped that meant she would let him do anything he wanted to her.

“Seling, I don’t know. None of it, all of it, it shouldn’t matter. We’re not going to have sex.”

“If you don’t want me, say so. If you really believe it will destroy the movie and ruin my people, say so.” Seling took a step back, holding his hands up by his shoulders so she’d know he wouldn’t touch her until she answered.
 

Cali opened her eyes, the lust-haze fading a bit. “I want you. You know I do.”

“I hoped you did.”

“Yes, I think…” She blew out a breath. “Okay, I don’t really think that the movie will be destroyed if we have sex, but it’s not a good idea.”

“So it’s a bad idea?”

“Yes.”

“My best ideas are always bad.”

She laughed. “I bet they are. But I’m not into—” she waved her hand in the air, “—all that stuff you mentioned.”

“Yes, you are.”

“What?”

“You are. I felt it.”

“I mean, it sounds hot, but I’ve never done any of it. And I don’t want to.”

“You do want to. I felt it.”

Cali narrowed her eyes, fire flashing in their depths. “I also like a man who listens, which clearly you don’t. Buh-bye.” She turned to leave.

Seling leapt forward. He pressed his hips against her ass, caging her body with his. “If you don’t want that tonight, then we won’t do it.”

“If we’re not having sex, then get off me.”

“I didn’t say we weren’t having sex.” Seling slid his hand between her body and the door. “Just that we’re not going to have complicated sex.”

“Is that what you call kinky sex?”

Seling slipped his hand under her shirt. Her skin was smooth and hot against his hand. Cali pushed away from the door, covering his hand with hers. She didn’t try to stop him—she pressed his fingers harder into her breast, shuddering.

“Kinky sex can be simple,” he whispered in her ear, tangling his fingers with hers and sliding their linked hands under the waistband of her pants. “And plain sex, what do you call it? Vanilla sex, that can be complicated.”

Cali turned in his arms, their hands slipping away from her body. She examined his face, and Seling felt the intensity of her gaze. Cali grabbed his head and pressed her lips to his. Pleasure rocketed through Seling. She tasted sweet, and different—a human taste, he supposed. Grabbing her hips, he lifted her, sliding his hands under her ass when she wrapped her legs around his waist.
 

Cali broke the kiss, and their gazes met. “Fuck it. Let’s do this.”

Seling’s hands kneaded her ass as he carried her across the small trailer and set her on the counter. Cali hooked her arms tighter around his shoulders while kissing his neck. He smelled like soap and something wild, something foreign. She took a deep breath, wanting to identify the scent, but he set her down on the small counter before she could.
 

Cali leaned back, keeping her hands on his shoulders. How delightful that he was already naked. She slipped the towel from around his neck and rubbed the terrycloth over the hard muscles of his chest.

“Am I dry?” His voice had deepened. She felt the rumble of his words through the contact with his shoulders.

“You are.” Cali tossed the towel away.
 

“Are you?” Seling’s hands kneaded the insides of her thighs. Pleasure tingled up and down her legs.

One thumb pressed against her core and Cali hissed out a breath. “No. I’m wet.”

Seling growled a moment before he captured her lips in a kiss. Even as the kiss deepened, he was pushing her jacket off her shoulders. Cali jerked the battery pack from her pants and pulled the headset from around her neck. It tangled in her hair and Cali tugged, her hair falling out of the messy ponytail to spill around her shoulders.
 

Seling took a piece of her hair between his fingers, pressing it to his lips.
 

“Sweetness later,” Cali gasped, “sex now.”

“Your bad ideas are good too.”

Together they pulled her shirt off. Seling’s hands went to her breasts, cupping them, rubbing her nipples through her bra. Cali slid from the counter and toed off her shoes as she unfastened her pants. As she started to wriggle out of them, Seling stopped toying with her breasts and dropped to one knee. She was treated to a view of the tribal-style tattoo on his back. He only had the tattoo when he was human, though the flames of the tattoo represented the very real fire he commanded when he was in his other body.

Cali braced one hand on his shoulder as he pulled her jeans and underwear down and off. When she was naked before him, Cali had a moment of doubt, of uncertainty. The moments were rare for her, and sharper because of it. She’d barely had time to sleep, and she probably needed to shave her legs and get a bikini wax, plus she’d been eating craft services for all three meals for a month and had put on a few pounds.
 

Seling gripped her hips, pulling her pelvis towards his face. He kissed her bellybutton, then trailed kisses down to her pussy.
 

“Get back on the counter.”

Cali slid her ass onto the counter. Seling kissed his way up her thigh even as he spread her legs, hooking them over his shoulders. He touched her pussy with one finger, tracing the seam of her sex over and over until her body swelled to his touch. His finger slipped inside, stroking the inner lips of her sex, finally grazing her waiting clit.
 

“Ohh yes, that’s it.” Cali’s toes curled in pleasure.

He slid his middle finger into her, pumping it in and out as his lips and tongue went to work on her clit. Cali reached up behind her head, grabbing the shelves there as pleasure tingled through her. Her desire had come on her sharp and hard, and she could tell the orgasm would be just as sudden and intense.