Damn.
He started pacing again.
“She’s very nice. She let me go for a ride, took me out to eat and-”
“I paid for you both to go out,” he pointed out.
She smiled. “No, you didn’t, Christofer. Cloe paid, not you.”
He eyed her, not liking that smug expression on her face one bit. “She can’t stay and that’s final.”
“Why?”
Because if Cloe stayed he would end up breaking the vow that he’d made to his sister and the one that he’d made to himself. He wanted Cloe’s blood so badly that he actually ached with the need to go after her. He also wanted to fuck her while feeding from her then fuck her again and then probably fuck her again, he thought, but he couldn’t tell his sister that. So he gave her a lame answer instead. “Just because.”
She snorted as she stood up and headed for the door.
“Good, go tell her to leave,” he said, confident that his word was law.
She laughed at him.
Good God, what the hell?
“I’m going to bed, Christofer. I will see you and Cloe in the morning.”
“She won’t be here!” he called after her.
“She better be.”
He growled softly as he watched his sister disappear into her room. That woman was not staying. He didn’t care what Marta threatened him with. If Marta tried to move out he would either drag her back here or follow after her. Either way Cloe was not staying a moment longer. He couldn’t tell Marta this, but she was risking the young woman’s life by keeping her here. He’d never wanted anyone’s blood or body more in his life. His self-control was good, but it wasn't perfect.
Cloe had to go.
He walked into the kitchen only to find it empty and….clean? What the hell? His eyes dropped to the floor. It was shiny and white with rose petals. He frowned down at the floor. He could have sworn that it had been a dull gray this morning. The room no longer smelled of old food, dust and a thousand other odors. It smelled of chemical and oranges. Every surface was clean and shining. He could have done that, he thought with a grumble.
He closed his eyes and listened. He heard two heartbeats. One on the first floor, which was Marta's and the other was on the second floor, which meant that Cloe had made herself at home.
Oh, hell no….
He took the back stairs two at time and raced towards the sound of her heartbeat. It came from a closed door at the end of the hallway. Without slowing down, he threw the door open and quickly stumbled forward, tripping over his own two feet from the sight that greeted him.
“Don’t you knock?” Cloe snapped as she grabbed a towel to hold up in front of her.
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. His eyes were fixed on that damn towel that she was now using to cover up heaven. He glared at the damn thing, willing it to drop or shift to the side a foot or two so he could see that beautiful body again. Large breasts tipped with dark pink nipples, a flat stomach with just the slightest swell, wide hips and soft (he was willing to bet his life they were soft) butterscotch curls between her legs that were just begging for his devotion and he would give it too.
Gladly.
“The towel’s not going to disappear and I’m not dropping it.”
She couldn’t know that for sure, he decided as his gaze on the towel intensified. For another moment he stared, more like silently pleaded for it to move.
“You really need to get laid,” she said dryly.
His eyes snapped up to hers. Holy shit! Was that an offer?
Cloe rolled her eyes as she managed to wrap the towel around herself and tucked it in between her breasts without giving him a show.
Damn.
“Is there something that you wanted?” she asked.
You. “I-I wanted to…” he stammered before his voice trailed off. His gaze had dropped back down to the cleavage that he wanted to run his tongue over and he was back to willing the towel to drop.
She sighed as she walked over to him. Thank God because his feet wouldn’t move and he was practically screaming at them to go to her. She was taking the initiative. That was fine with him. He’d let her set the pace and then he’d take over and probably take her on every surface in this room.
Cloe gripped his arms, tightly. Oh, yeah. He leaned down to kiss her when he was unceremoniously shoved from the room. A split second later, the door closed in his face.
“But…but….”
He heard her soft laughter from behind the door. He stared at the door for another moment before he came to his damn senses. It was probably a good thing the door was between them so that his blood, well most of his blood, could return to his head. He was fucking weak, he thought with disgust.
For fifty years he’d been able to keep the promise that he’d made to himself for his sister’s sake, but one look at a woman’s beautiful body had him ready to say the hell with it and take what he wanted, what he couldn’t have. It only proved that she needed to get the hell out of this house and out of this town before he lost his good sense and gave in, destroying his sister’s life in the process.
He pounded on the door. “Cloe!”
With an exasperated sigh, she answered the door. Thankfully, she was dressed. His gaze skimmed over the tight tank top and oddly arousing green and blue flannel pajama bottoms. To his utter delight, the two pieces of clothing didn’t meet, giving him a glimpse of that taut little stomach and navel. Damn, he’d love to trace that with his tongue.
He was fucking pathetic, he thought helplessly.
Two warm fingers gently gripped his chin and pulled his attention away from his new obsession. He may have whimpered.
“Hi, nice to have you back,” Cloe said with a wry smile. “Now, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?” She released her hold on his chin and he had to fight not to drop his eyes back down. From the look on her face he knew that if he did that he would be looking at the door again.
He gave himself a mental shake. Right, he needed to get her out of his house and soon.
“You’re fired,” he said firmly in a tone that brokered no argument.
She yawned. “Okay, see you in the morning.” She moved to close the door.
Christofer pressed his hand against the door to stop her. “Didn’t you hear me? I said you’re fired.”
“That’s two times,” she said with a small smile.
“Yes…yes, I did say it twice.”
Was she insane?
“I’ll make sure to tell Marta that in the morning.”
“Wait, what?”
Cloe gave him a coy smile. “Marta told me to tell her if you tried to fire me and how many times. Something about a cane….not really sure.” She shrugged.
Aw, shit.
This was not happening. He was the man of this family. This was his house goddamnit.
“You’re fired!”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s three.”
Damn it!
“Are you going to let me go to bed or not? I have a big day tomorrow.”
“No! You’re fired.”
“And you’re repetitive,” she snapped back. With another sigh, she released the door, walked into the room and shut the light off. He was on automatic when he followed her inside.
“What are you doing?” he asked although he could see everything without a problem, even in a supposedly pitch black room. Everything took on various shades of blue in the darkness, making it easy for him to see. He watched as she climbed into bed.
“Going to bed,” she answered as she curled up on her side.
His hands fisted with the need to climb in behind her and hold her. That startled him. As much as it pained him to admit it, he’d never had a problem keeping his vow to himself to put off living his life for his sister’s sake before. It was one of the reasons he didn’t want her here. His baby sister was asleep downstairs, defenseless. Allowing this woman to stay here would be exposing his sister to a possible t
hreat.
He sighed. “You’re fired.”
“Five,” she muttered into her pillow.
He growled his frustration as he stormed out of the room. Somehow he was going to get her out of his house sooner rather than later. Perhaps if he showed Marta that Cloe wasn’t needed around here she’d agree to let Cloe go. A slow grin spread across his face as he headed down to the basement. Oh, the little smart ass was as good as gone.
Chapter 5
Williams Mansion
“We’re going to be late,” she moaned, arching her back and lifting her ass off the bed so that she could ride his tongue in a sensuous move that had his fangs sliding down and the head of his cock pushing past the waistband of his jeans.
“Don’t fucking care,” Ephraim said, tilting his head slightly to the side so that he could leisurely lick his wife out.
“Ephraim!” Madison gasped in pleasure and pain, tilting her hips and trying to force the tip of his tongue inside her core, but other than sliding the tip over it to tease her, he didn’t give in to her demands.
“They can wait,” he said, refusing to be rushed.
Thanks to a slow night on patrol, he’d had plenty of time to fantasize about all the very naughty things that he wanted to do with his wife. Licking her out was phase one. Fucking her with his fingers was naturally phase two and that would bring him to phase three where he planned on fucking her in nine different, fully thought-out, positions before he pulled out and allowed her to finish him off with her mo-
“Hurry the hell up!” Kale suddenly demanded and Ephraim didn’t need to use his Pyte abilities to know that the annoying shifter was standing right outside their bedroom door.
Madison whimpered as she moved back and tried to close her legs, frustration pouring off her in waves. He didn’t bother telling her to ignore the bastard, because he knew that she wouldn’t be able to do that. Even though she could normally ignore the fact that there were at least three people living here that could hear what they were doing no matter which room they used, she wouldn’t be able to ignore someone with razor sharp hearing standing right outside their bedroom door.
“We’ll be down in a minute, asshole!” Ephraim snapped, grabbing Madison by the ankles and pulling her back where she belonged.
“Are you crazy?” Madison hissed, slapping at his hands as she tried to crawl away from him, but he wasn’t having that.
He yanked her right back and leaned down, sliding his tongue through her wet slit. She let out a choked moan as her fingers threaded through his hair, alternating between pushing him away and pulling his mouth tightly against her.
“I’m still waiting!” Kale growled.
“Keep waiting!” Ephraim shot back, beyond annoyed with the pain in the ass shifter. Next time the bastard left for one of his trips, Ephraim was having all the locks and security codes changed.
The bastard had to go, Ephraim decided as Madison once again tried to shove him away as she attempted to crawl out of his reach. He’d waited all night to touch her and he wasn’t about to let that bastard wreck this.
“Just ignore him,” he hissed as he pulled Madison back towards him.
“Are you kidding me?” Madison hissed back, slapping at his hands.
“He’ll get bored and eventually leave,” Ephraim hissed back, managing to pull her closer.
“No, I really won’t,” Kale announced cheerfully, effectively ruining what had promised to be a very satisfying morning.
He wasn’t exactly surprised when everything suddenly took on shades of red as he watched Madison scramble off the bed and race for the bathroom. He practically shook with rage as he slowly got to his feet, his arousal a thing of the past as he focused all of his anger on the soon-to-be dead bastard on the other side of the bedroom door.
Killing the shifter would piss Izzy off, but he was pretty sure that she’d eventually forgive him if he kept her well supplied with sweets. It would probably take her a few years to forgive him, but tearing Kale apart with his bare hands would be worth her cute little glares. Then again, he could just simply lie to his daughter-in-law and tell her that he’d gone into bloodlust and “accidentally” torn the bastard apart.
At the moment it sounded like a reasonable plan, so he decided to go with it. He unlocked the bedroom door and yanked it open, smiling grimly as he spotted his prey leaning against the far wall.
“About fucking time,” Kale muttered in disgust as he pushed away from the wall and started heading down the hall, taking him by surprise.
The fact that the shifter hadn’t taunted him over the interrupted sex and goaded him into a fistfight caught him off-guard. Putting off his need to kill the bastard for the moment, he reluctantly followed.
“What’s the rush?” he asked, realizing that this was the first time since the shifter had invited himself to move in that he was not only willingly attending a meeting, but that he was in a rush to get to it.
“A member of the council is here,” Kale said, not bothering to slow his pace as he turned down the left hallway.
“Are you in a rush to beat the shit out of this one too?” Ephraim asked, catching up with the shifter as he descended the stairs to the main foyer.
“He shouldn’t have come between me and the last cupcake,” was all Kale said, lying his ass off and trying to downplay the real reason why he’d made a bloody and bruised Sentinel Council representative flee from the mansion as fast as his dislocated knee would carry him.
The representative had been sent to the mansion to check on their security, look in on the children, and to make sure that their newest inhabitants, a Pyte couple, were following the rules. Caine was still on probation for the destruction he’d caused years ago as well as for turning his mate, Danni, without the Council’s permission.
Not that they would have given him permission had he asked. From what he’d heard and knew about the Council, they didn’t trust Caine. The only reason that he wasn’t at this moment encased in cement and rotting for eternity in the bottom of the ocean or in a volcano somewhere was because his mate was the daughter of Sentinels and had been a well-respected member of their human squad. They also wanted to keep her now that she was a Pyte.
They all knew that the Sentinel Council had released Caine in the hopes to use his mate to control him and keep him working for the Council. As long as Danni depended on the Council to supply her with demon blood to keep the cancer that had followed her into immortality at bay, the couple didn’t have much of a choice. He hadn’t said anything, but he seriously doubted that the Council was in much of a rush to cure Danni and lose the only hold they had over the Pyte couple.
The representative the Council had sent last time had made it more than obvious that the Council didn’t trust Caine. The little bastard followed him around, taking notes on everything that Caine said or did until the Pyte finally had enough, grabbed his mate and took off for a few days. With his main reason for visiting gone, the representative had turned his attention on the rest of them.
When the little bastard had started to pay a little too much attention to his sons and made suggestions that he should talk to Madison and consider sending their young children to one of the Sentinel compounds in Europe for training, Ephraim had calmly listened to the man before he grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hung him upside down from the second floor balcony.
After that, the representative had focused his attention elsewhere for the remainder of his stay, not that it had been very long once the dumb bastard had made the mistake of describing Izzy as a useless cripple in what he probably thought was a private phone conversation with one of his superiors. Then again, if the representative had known that the shifter had been standing behind him at the time, he probably would have waited until he was well away from the mansion before he called his superior to give his report.
“I don’t understand why you don’t believe me,” Izzy said with an adorable pout as Chris carried her into the hallway and joined them as they
headed towards the large conference room in the basement. “It was him!” she said in exasperation as she pointed an accusing finger in Kale’s direction.
“Uh huh,” Chris sighed absently, obviously not believing the little sugar addict.
Ephraim didn’t need to ask to know what the two of them were fighting about. He’d caught part of the conversation going on in Kale’s room about an hour ago when he’d walked into the foyer. When he’d realized that Izzy had been caught binging again, he’d blocked out the rest of the conversation and focused on a hot shower and getting his mate to do all the naughty things that he’d been fantasizing about all night.
“I’m really hurt that you don’t believe me,” Izzy said softly, sounding upset as she looked up at his son with doe-like eyes as she allowed her little chin to tremble.