Kaleb (Samuel's Pride Series) (8 page)

Last night after they got back from Samuel
’s house, he’d taken her to bed. Christ, the woman may be a novice at making love, but she certainly made up for it with her willingness to learn. She might just kill him before too long. When she stopped moving and turned to look at him, he felt his cock thicken. His need for her rolled over him in strong waves as he watched her.

“You think you’re going to distract me from what you’re doing
?” There was no sense in denying it, so he nodded. “I don’t want to have sex with you again.”

“Now that’s a lie if I ever heard one. I can smell you.”
He stood up and pulled his shirt over his head. “Come here, love, and let me have you.”

Her backing up
made him smile. There was nowhere for her to go, and he wanted her.

“Leave me alone. I’m not finished with this.”

“We’ll take it up later if you want. Take off your shirt for me. I want to see you.” She shook her head, and he reached out a hand to touch her breast. “Your nipples are hard, and your pretty pussy is wet for me.”

“You
can’t solve everything with sex.” He leaned into her throat slowly and kissed her pounding pulse. “Kaleb, I’m serious. You need to stop this so we can talk.”

He pressed his body to hers
, holding her against the wall. Lifting her hands up, he held them in his left hand while he cupped her ass with his right. She was flush against him now, and his cock ached to be inside of her.

“Talking is overrated anyway.
Besides, for as much as your lovely mouth is saying no, your body is begging me to take you.” Pulling her up, he rocked into her. When she moaned, Kaleb nipped at her neck before looking down at her. “I really need to be inside of you.”

When he let go of her hands
, she put them on his shoulders and he lifted her up. Both her legs wrapped around his hips, and he fit himself in the cradle of her thighs. She moaned when he moved deeper into her.

“I hate
that you can do this to me without any effort.” He laughed at her statement, wondering if she realized how hard he worked at keeping from taking her every twenty minutes. “Do you have any idea how you make me feel when you do this?”

“I
do. I feel the same.” He put his hands down the back of her jeans and cupped her bare ass. “These have to go.”

The sound of her pants tearing from her body made him hurt. Taking her mouth savagely
, he stabbed his tongue into her mouth like he wanted to do with his cock. When she was gloriously naked from the waist down, he tore her shirt off her, too. Moving his mouth down her neck to her breast, he continued to fuck her through his jeans.

“Please, Kaleb, fill me.”
Panting, he looked down at her. Her need was right there where he could see it, almost taste it. Pressing her harder against the wall, he reached down to free his cock and moaned when she wrapped her hand around him. “I want to taste you again.”

“I
can’t, love. If you take me into your mouth right now, I’m going to hurt you fucking you.” Pulling her up enough that his cock was just to her entrance, he lowered her over him and slid into her wet heat. “Christ, you’re hot. And tight.”

When he
was buried to his balls in her, he paused. His climax was so close that if he didn’t, she’d be left high and dry. Nipping at her breast and suckling on her nipple, he reached between them with his free hand and found her hard clit.

“Do you have any idea what it does to me to have you wrapped around me like this?”
He rocked his hips slowly and rolled himself harder against her. “It’s like having everything good come to me, and knowing you’re all mine makes it all the better.”

Her breasts rubbed against his chest hairs
, and he felt her tighten around him. Taking her ass into both his hands, he fucked her slow and easy. Watching her face while her own release moved to the edge and then over was the greatest thing he’d ever witnessed. And when his own climax took him, it felt as if he’d been given a gift. A great and wonderful gift. Kissing her as he filled her, Kaleb felt his heart open, and he fell in love, head-over-heels in love with his mate. There could be nothing better in the world than this, he thought.

Feeling her head on his shoulder as her body continued to spaz and tremor
, Kaleb moved them both to the bed. Laying down with her still wrapped around him, he felt his cock jerk to life again. Moving slowly inside of her, he waited to see if she could take him again. When her legs tightened around his hips, he pulled her hands up to the head board.

“Don’t touch me just yet.”
She curled her fingers into the iron work, and Kaleb ran his hands down her arms to her waist. “I want to mark you again, but this time I want to let my bear take you.”

“You mean him have sex with me?”
He might have laughed at her incredulous tone, but his bear perked up at that moment, and he had to calm him.

“No, I was just going to let a little of him go for now so he could bite you. But when you’re changed, if you want to be, he’s going to take you as
many times as you’ll let him.” His bear snarled at him. “You’ve made him very needy.”

“Tell him to behave.”
Her body bowed up off the bed when he moved down her with his mouth. “Is this him or you? Because I have to tell you, this is fucking fantastic.”

“It’s me and him.” Kaleb let his
bear go enough that she could see him along his face. “He wants to taste you.”

Thor opened her thighs
, and he sat up. Kaleb felt like he was being torn in half. His beast wanted him to let go so he could take her, and Kaleb wanted to bury himself deep inside of her again and again. Leaning down to her apex, Kaleb buried his nose deep into her.

“Kaleb.”
He chuckled when she screamed, and he entered her with his tongue. He knew it was going to be different for her; his bear’s tongue was longer and a good deal thicker than his. When she screamed again, this time flooding his mouth with her cream, Kaleb drank greedily from her as they both, he and his bear, took their fill.

When she came a third
, then a fourth time, riding his mouth as she did, he pressed his finger into her pussy and licked a path along her thigh. When she came the next time, he let go enough that his bear could mark her. Her scream let him know that she was hurt, but she came again as he bit her more deeply.

“Change me.”
He started to look up at her to see if he’d heard her correctly. “Now, do it now. Change me into you so I can run with you.”

“I have to hurt you more than I am now.” She moaned when he tore at her flesh.
“Baby, I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She jerked her leg
, tearing open her vein there. Lapping quickly at the blood as it flooded his mouth, Kaleb felt his bear take more of him. There was no way he could save her as a human. Her only chance of survival was for her to be taken. Letting his beast go, he felt his nails dig deeply into the mattress as he held on. Christ, he never meant for this to happen.

Chapter 8

When she opened her eyes
, she had to shut them again. Thor peeked beneath her lids and saw that she’d seen correctly. There was a small person on her chest. Before she could swat it away, someone spoke to her left.

“She wanted to see your face up close.
Don’t ask me why they do that, but they’re harmless enough and they do make life interesting.” Thor looked at the woman curled into the chair next to the bed. “Hi. I’m Gab Burger. You and I met the other night at Samuel’s house. And my husband is Jimmy, Jimmy Burger.”

“
I remember...hi.” The little person moved when Thor sat up. “Do you know what this is? And how I get her to stop staring at me like this?”

“She’s a pixie
. And no, you’ll find out that once they know you’re awake, they’ll all be in here. But you don’t have to worry, they aren’t allowed to change the bedrooms.” Gab stood up, and Thor noticed that she was very pregnant. But instead of looking like a bloated cow like some women she knew did, she looked like a goddess. “Thanks.”

It took Thor a few seconds to realize Gab had read her mind.
“I guess I should have known that. I mean why not? You have a pixie in the house.”

The door opened
, and a man carrying a large tray walked in. As soon as he cleared the door, the room seemed to come alive with sparkly wings. There must have been over five hundred of the little suckers flying all over the room. Thor turned to Gab.

“If you just let them hang out a little while
, they’ll leave you alone.” The tray was put across her lap as Gab continued. “They’re part of this house they built. Jimmy and I are sort of used to them, but there are times when I’d just as soon they moved out. But they do have their uses.”

Taking a look at the food in front of her
, she looked at Gab. “Who the hell was he thinking to feed with all this?”

There were two thick roast beef sandwiches and a salad twice the size
of any she’d seen in a family-style restaurant, as well as a bowl of buttered potatoes, a pile of green beans, and half an apple pie. Along with three bottles of water, there was a carafe of what smelled like coffee, and another of what looked like juice. All in all, there was enough food for a half dozen people.

“You’ll be surprised at how hungry you are now and how much you can pack on. The best part is you never gain an ounce.”
Gab moved to the door as she finished. “I know you’re a bit overwhelmed because of the pixies, but I’m to assure you that Kaleb is fine.”

“He brought me here.”
She nodded. “Why? And where the fuck is he?”

Gab laughed.
“I knew you’d get around to it. But he’s at a meeting with the others. It seems that you were right in your assumption that Sweeney had something to do with your being hurt. He and the others, most I think you know, are working to get a better security system put in at your home. And just so you know, yours and Kaleb’s home, not the little one you lived in before.”

“And why is he assuming that I’m going to be living in his house?”
Gab laughed again, this time sending the pixies up in the air for a moment. “Why are there so many of these things here anyway?”

“They helped Vinnie build the house to protect me. And they’re not all pixies. Most of them are faeries
, as well as a few brownies.” She seemed so serious that Thor hesitated before laughing. “You should see the ones that didn’t want to come in here to bother you.”

With that
, she moved out of the room, closing the door behind her. Thor looked around at the dozen or so people, or whatever they were called, that were left behind. One of them landed on her tray and sat on her roll. It was everything she could do not to pinch herself.

“You should know that we love Kaleb. He’s been our champion for as many years as we can count.”
She smiled at Thor and then stood to bow before her. “I am Ana, a faerie. You’re the Lady Jonas.”

“I’m just Thor.”
There was giggling to her right, and she looked at the person flying there. “Do you think you could, I don’t know, sit somewhere? And what do I call you? People? Faerie? Figments of my imagination?”

“We’re all faerie
, but you can call us by name.” Ana pointed to the girl that was just settling on the pillow next to her. “She’s Calina. And she is a brownie. We’re to serve you.”

“Serve me?
How does that work when I could smash you without thinking about it?” Calina squeaked, and Thor felt bad. “I’m sorry. I feel…well, I feel really weird. I wish Kaleb was here.”

“We can assist you in many ways.
There are many of us, and we can do much more than move furniture. Though that has been a delight, we have come to realize that we may be helpful in other ways. Such as the Lady Gab. She will birth her babe here and we will help her.” Thor wasn’t sure how that was supposed to work when she was reasonably sure that the kid would weigh more than them even at birth. But Ana continued as if she’d heard her thoughts. “We’ll take her pain away, not assist with the birth. You are very literal, are you not?”

“I am. Especially when I’m stressed.
There are a thousand thoughts going through my head right now, and it hurts.” Calina moved to her and touched her head. The pain was immediately gone. “Thanks. How did you do that?”

“We are to assist you. And it is a pleasure for me to take away your pain.”
Thor leaned back against the pillow. There were more faeries in the room than she’d first thought, maybe five or six dozen of them. And they were all staring at her.

“Okay,
let’s get this thing worked out.” She shifted on the bed. “First, I guess I’d like to get a shower and get dressed. If we’re going to have a conversation, I’d rather not be naked.” One of them giggled, and she pulled the sheet around her as she stood. As soon as her feet were under her, she started to pitch forward. Tiny hands held her upright or she might have fallen on her face. “Thank you.”

“It is the shift that has weakened you. Perhaps you should eat something first.”
Nodding, Thor sat back down and picked up the sandwich. It was nearly to her mouth when she realized what Ana had said.

“Shift?”
Several of the faeries that had joined Ana and Calina nodded with them. “As in it worked? I’m a bear?”

“Well, right now you are human.”
Ana looked at Calina. “Well, she is. Does she not know the difference?”

“I believe she was speaking that she can shift into one. Now who is being literal?”
Ana tisked as she landed on her hand. “You are now a shifter, as is his lordship. You will need to await him to shift, however, as we are not equipped to help you with that. Do you understand?”

“It worked.”
Ana nodded and smiled. “I’m a bear, and I can shift into one whenever I want. This is amazing.”

“It is.”
Ana smiled and told her to eat. “In the coming weeks you will need the extra food until your body adjusts to its new self. His lordship said that many times a female will be fertile when she first becomes her other. But sadly you are not.”

Thor ate the sandwich while she thought about being pregnant with Kaleb’s child.
There wasn’t any way for her to raise a child on her own, and as soon as this thing with her boss was finished, she had to move on. Yeah, she thought, she was a bear now, but that didn’t mean that the two of them would ever make it.

As she finished off the half a pie without any problems
, she leaned back and looked around the room. Everyone but she and Ana were gone. She started to ask her about it when she felt someone touching her mind.

“I was wondering if you’d ever wake.”
Kaleb. Ana must have known because she flew off the side of her tray where she’d been sitting and under the closed door
. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been abandoned.”
Flushing, she realized how clingy she sounded and told him she’d just had the biggest meal in her life.
“I didn’t think I’d ever eat all that.”

“You’ll notice that you’re going to be really hungry for the next few weeks. Eat when you feel the need. You won’t get heavier
, but your body needs the extra bulk. Not that you’re heavy now...I think you could stand to put on a few more pounds.”

“Like that’s going to happen.”
She reached for her clothes that she’d just noticed at the foot of the bed.
“Why am I here and not at your house? Or mine for that matter?”

“Your house is
at my house now.”
Trying hard not to bristle at his tone, she waited for him to continue.
“And your other house is being watched. I’ve had Vinnie and Stephan and a few of the faeries go in and get what they could find. But the furniture will have to wait. There’s a car there as well as a big Harley that Vinnie wants to ride someday.”

“The bike is in the middle of being rebuilt and isn’t running. The car? I don’t have a car.”
She tried to think about who would be parking in her garage when she thought of her father.
“What kind of car is it?”
Closing her eyes, she just knew he was going to tell her it was a piece of shit something and didn’t have any plates. Fuck.

“POS Pontiac.
I think it’s older than you.”
Her father always drove pieces of shit since he couldn’t afford anything better that someone else wasn’t paying for, unless he’d stolen it.
“If it’s not yours, then whose is it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“My father
’s. He’s more than likely moved in when I didn’t tell him he couldn’t. Fuck.”
She turned on the water and stepped under the spray as soon as it was hot enough. Washing her hair with quick strokes, she scrubbed her body with the big sponge she’d opened that still had the wrapper on it and the bottle of vanilla-scented soap that also had never been used
. “I don’t suppose you could have one of those guys transport me there or whatever they call what they do. I need to kick his ass out.”

“Yeah, Samuel told
me what a bastard he is. I can take you there, but we’ll have to wait until later. The house is nearly finished, but we might have a few guests for a while. I would count on forever.”
She asked him if they were faerie.
“I see you’ve met them then. Ana has been with me for centuries, and Calina is her cousin. And yes, we’ll have them living with us much the same as Jimmy and Gab have them. I think we would do good to have them stay with you for a while. At least until we can get this thing with Sweeney figured out.”

“I can take care of Sweeney on my own.”
Thor jerked on her clothes after drying
. “I’m not completely stupid, you know. I can handle one fucking prick.”

Kaleb was very quiet for a long time
, and she knew she’d pissed him off. His emotions were tied with hers so tightly that she was having a hard time figuring out whose were whose. When he spoke, she knew that he was trying his best not to be pissy with her and to hold onto his temper.

“I never thought you were stupid. In fact
, I would say you’re the smartest person I know. Most of the time. But how long do you think you’ll be able to hold onto your sow if he pisses you off? Not long at all, I would imagine, and a sow can be pissy when she’s upset. And once you’re a bear, a pissed off one, how soon after you tear him to shreds do you think it’ll take the local cops to find you? Ten, maybe fifteen minutes? Then what?”
Thor felt tears fill her eyes. This was an emotion she wasn’t familiar with, feeling inadequate and foolish. Not that she didn’t make mistakes…she made thousands of them daily, but in this she was ignorant, and she hated that. But he was not yelling at her like she’d done to him. And for some reason, it made her feel twice as stupid.

“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t say anything, but she could feel something float over her, something she would swear was love.
“And my father would piss me off. He’s good at that. And he’ll rob me blind if I don’t go in there and see to this. I have guns there. They’re in a safe, but I don’t trust him not to try and get into it. I’m not worried about the money. I never had much of it there anyway, but the guns he’d sell to some kid, and then I’d feel responsible for their death.”

“All right. I’ll come there to get you now.”
He didn’t sound any less pissed at her, and she felt badly about that.
“I’m not your enemy, Thor. I’m your mate. And when you hurt, I hurt. When you’re pissed off, I’m pissed off. But I have control over my bear; you do not.”

“I’m sorry.”
She made her way down the stairs. Ana was there at the bottom waiting for her.
“Ana is with me now. When you get here, will she stay here?”

“No, she belongs to you. It’s her choice
, not mine. But she said that she would be honored to serve you, and she and Calina will be with you always.”
She felt his laughter.
“I would say that you’re stuck with them, but I’m thinking that once you get to know them, you’ll be glad for them. Ana is the straight one to Calina’s goofy one.”

She wasn’t sure if she could handle that
, but said nothing. Thor would have to learn to curb her thoughts if this thing was going to last for very long. Following the faerie into what happened to be a kitchen, she met with a big man, Milford, the butler to the Burgers, and he was making her a light snack. Kaleb told her he was on his way.