Present Tense: Pleasure Times Four (Out of the Fire Book 3) Read online

  When the morning meeting was over, a nice werewolf named Ranger drove her home, walked her to the door, and literally handed her to Eunice.

  “I heard from Nathan,” Eunice said as he closed and locked the door after Ranger left. “You seem to have made quite an impression on your first night.”

  She nodded, and he crossed his arms. “Practice makes perfect, dollface. No nodding. Talk to me.”

  Kelsey was five foot seven, and Eunice was perhaps three inches taller. She weighed a hundred and fifteen pounds, and she doubted he weighed more than a hundred and seventy.

  And yet, he scared her, when James, at nearly seven feet tall and probably at least three hundred pounds, didn’t.

  And it felt like dollface was supposed to be a slam. Like she wasn’t real because she was pretty.

  “I shot two paintball guns. Rifle and handgun. It wasn’t terrible.”

  “That wasn’t what impressed Nathan and the other geeks. You did good.” He looked at her shirt and smiled. “Gondor University? Nice touch with the tree in the center. I haven’t seen that one.”

  Now he was being nice? He was going to give her some kind of emotional whiplash. She used the same tone she’d used before. Logical. Not unfriendly, but not friendly. Neutral.

  “I visited most of the sites in New Zealand. Took some finagling, since I couldn’t go during the day, but I got to walk through Hobbiton, see Edoras, some of Mordor. Tongariro National Park was worthy of goosebumps.”

  “Nice. Is there anything you need before you turn in for the day? You have, what, about thirty minutes until dawn?”

  “Did you draw the short straw? I can hear the heartbeats and breathing of the other two. They’re asleep.”

  He shook his head. “I wake at four and either work out or go for a run. I ran this morning, came home, showered, and I’m about to fix breakfast. The big guy will likely get up when he smells bacon. Fancypants sleeps in when he can, so I don’t expect to see him until sometime well after noon.”

  “Fancypants?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  She had to think back to remember his question. Did she need anything before she turned in?

  “No. I noted a steering wheel setup in your den. I’d like to practice driving on the right side of the road virtually before I try it for real.”

  “Drake will send you to an out-of-state specialty driving school before you can be insured to drive a company vehicle, but some virtual learning would be good. Collosa can get you into our gaming systems when you rise tonight.”

  She could get herself in if she wanted, but figured it was best not to point that out. “I’ll be working from ten until five in the coming weeks. Shorter than a human’s hours, since I don’t break for snacks, meals, or bathroom breaks. I assume this means I’ll see you most mornings?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t want to like me.” It needed to be said, but now that she had, she kind of wished she hadn’t. She didn’t let it show on her face, though.

  He stared at her a few seconds. Zero emotion, but he was clearly considering how to answer.

  “No. You looked like the kind of woman who annoys me. I agreed to set your boundaries and rules, but I assumed the other two would incorporate them and check in with me as needed for changes to your program.”

  “And now?”

  “You don’t annoy me.”

  So pragmatic, she couldn’t help but like him. “I’d like to find a good D&D game to join. It’ll obviously need to meet at night.”

  He crossed his arms. “You have a favorite character to play?”

  More tests. She’d passed the first one by knowing Elvish, and she’d bloody well pass this one too.

  “Yeah. Dragonborn Bard — Gṛṇāti of the Magnusingens clan. She goes by Tia. Most of her spells are healing spells, though she has Dissonant Whispers in case she needs to fight. She attended the College of Lore, but just barely made it through, since she was more interested in her writing and partying. Not drinking so much, though she did that, but waxing poetic and entertaining people with her art. She has a gorgeous songblade, passed down from her great-aunt on her mother’s side. Her voice is magical, as is the case with many dragons from lore, but she can also use a variety of instruments. In a pinch, she can use a blade of grass between her thumbs.”

  “Okay,” he broke in before she could keep going. “You’ve done this a few times. Which rules do you play under?”

  “My favorite group stuck with three, but I’ve played under five. I can easily work with either. Do you have a favorite character?”

  “I like to keep it simple. I have a human fighter, an elven wizard, a dwarven cleric, and a half-orc barbarian. The latter is my favorite, but I usually wait to see what will best round out the group.” He frowned. “You graduated from University of Melbourne at something like sixteen, right?”

  “A few weeks from my seventeenth birthday, but yeah. Went to work for a video game company because when you’re seventeen you think that’s the pinnacle of how to have fun at work. Turns out, working with a team is a bitch. I finished the project, resigned, and started my own antivirus company. Working with a team isn’t a bitch when you own the company. I hired people I liked who knew their shit, and then sold it for a few hundred million dollars before I was turned.” She sighed. “I was out of my mind for most of the first five years, but I was supposed to be out of my mind for two decades. I put the funds into...” She growled. “The details don’t matter. I won’t have access to those funds or assets for another couple of decades.”

  “But you came out of the insanity in record time.”

  “I did, but I’m smart and I’m talented. I started out without a fortune once. I can damned well do it again. The agoraphobia I developed when I came back to myself has proven to be a pain in the ass, but I find I’m not terrified to go out when I’m with one of you. That isn’t a solution, of course. I’ll need to learn to drive on the right side of the road so I can go out on my own. It seems to me, I should do this before I get too accustomed to staying in this new home.”

  He uncrossed his arms and put them on his hips. “I play D&D on Sunday evenings when I’m in town. The timing should work for you to play with us in the winter, but probably not the summer. You’ll have to explain why you never eat or drink anything, though.”

  “Not usually a problem. Most people expect me not to eat much since I’m thin. I’ll drink some whiskey occasionally if alcohol is acceptable.”

  “Bring whatever you want to drink. It’s JB’s house, and he has a rule about not drinking if you have a real-life weapon on you, so I stick to water out of respect for his rules. They’re human and don’t know about us, so I can’t explain it’s okay to drink even though I’m carrying.”

  “He’s okay with you bringing a gun into his home?”

  Eunice shrugged. “He has a carry license. Most everyone who’ll be there does. Most will probably leave their weapon in their vehicle though, so they can drink beer. No one gets drunk. It starts at six, which is only fifteen minutes after sunset right now. Ten-minute drive. I’ll let them know I’m bringing someone and we might be five or ten minutes late. We don’t usually get started until quarter after, so it should be fine.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. I should head downstairs and get a shower before I go into my hole.”

  She’d almost said have a shower, but remembered at the last minute to use the American terminology.

  9

  Collosa had told Kelsey he’d be in her room waiting for her when she rose, and sure enough, he was naked and in bed with a sheet over him, doing something on his phone when she came out of her hidey-hole.

  He turned his screen off, set the phone on a shelf above his head, and rolled to his side to look at her. “There you are. Everyone was talking about the adorable new member of the nerd herd when I went into the office. Thanks to you, we’re finally able to move forward on an op that’s been on hold for much too long.”<
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  “Nerd herd?”

  He smiled. “You saw them.”

  She had, and he was right. All but two were serious nerds. Still, Kelsey wasn’t happy being lumped in with that description.

  “I’m a geek, possibly a minor dweeb, but never a nerd.” Occasionally a dork, but she was trying hard not to let that out in this new identity.

  “Dweeb?”

  “Anime and manga. I’m not into it enough to be a complete dweeb, but...” She took her robe off, draped it over a chair on her way to the bed, and slid between the sheets.

  And she sensed he was nervous. Or perhaps unsure of himself. She still had trouble sensing the intricacies between similar emotions and reactions. Either way, if he’d changed his mind, she didn’t want to hold him to it.

  “If you offered in the heat of the moment and you aren’t feeling it anymore, I’m sure Fabio would be more than willing to step back in.”

  The truth was, her body had used a boatload of energy to begin the healing process from being caned, and she’d been looking forward to feeding from the grizzly. She could easily take eight or ten more ounces from James than she could Fabio. However, she didn’t want to force him to open an artery if he was having second thoughts.

  He propped his head on his left hand and used his right to touch the center of her chin. The heat of his finger trailed down the front of her throat, over her chest, and between her breasts.

  “No. We connected, and that isn’t something that happens every day. Not for me, at least. I have some reservations about sex being something relegated to feeding and not just being for the sake of having sex, and you need to know that up front, but I have no reservations about—”

  She took his hand, kissed the back of it. Waited for him to finish. He had reservations, but he hadn’t known until he said he didn’t. She gave him time to sort it out in his head.

  “Okay, so I’ve never been bitten by a vampire, and I’m a little nervous about it, but that doesn’t mean I’m changing my mind. I like the idea of feeding you.”

  “I propose to bite you twice. Groin first, after a little bit of a blow job, and I’ll make you hard but no orgasm. Then, after we’re finished, I’ll top off by drinking a little from your neck, and I’ll do the hard-on cocktail again, followed by the orgasm cocktail, and then we can chill for a bit before we have to get up.”

  “You can drink more from me than the others, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay then.” He grinned and looked stern at the same time. “Why is your mouth still up here? Get yourself down to my cock.”

  Kelsey’s insides flared to life and her mouth watered, but she didn’t let her fangs drop down yet.

  Instead, she kissed her way down his chest, over his rock-hard abs. She licked down his Adonis belt, around the root of his cock, and then up its length, to the top. She’d known he’d be huge — it’s a grizzly thing. He wasn’t just thick, but long, but that was okay because she didn’t mind having her cervix slammed.

  He smelled perfect. Testosterone and bear and unscented soap. He was on edge, waiting, anticipating, so she only played with him three or four minutes before she positioned near the fold of his leg, let her fangs drop down, and soaked the tips with pain killer.

  This would’ve been easier if she could’ve taken control of his mind to make him relax, but she didn’t dare try. She needed to build trust, and that meant staying out of his head.

  Her fangs slid in, and he tensed, but not enough to throw her angle off. She’d planned for him to, so a minor adjustment was enough to keep her on target. She closed her eyes and drank him in when she hit the artery. She didn’t have to be super careful with him, but she kept track of how much she drank. She input the hard-on cocktail towards the end, and then the clotting compound as she pulled out, to make sure everything sealed back up the way it was supposed to.

  “Fuck. I was hard before you did that. Feels like I could hammer nails with it now. Shit, Kels.”

  She took the head of his cock into her mouth again, but he reached down, grabbed her around the ribcage just under her arms, lifted her, sat up, dumped her on the bed on her back, and looked down at her from inches above her face.

  “Biting me, making me hard, that gets your body ready for me, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, because I might die if we needed foreplay today.” His voice was rough. Tires on gravel. He settled his huge dick at her entrance. “It’s gonna hurt. House safewords are yellow and red, but I gotta tell you I hope you don’t use them. If I’d known what this would feel like, I’d have negotiated them away.”

  Kelsey trusted the huge grizzly bear. She’d been in his head briefly, and she’d liked what she’d seen. He might hurt her sexually, but he wouldn’t hurt her for the hell of it. Truth was, she was completely on board with the kind of pain he seemed to want to give her.

  “Then consider both a yellow, no matter which I use.”

  He froze. “You sure?”

  “Yes, dammit. Fuck me already.” Before she begged. She hated begging.

  And with one hard, deep, massive thrust, he was inside her, when she hadn’t thought it possible for anyone half his size to make it in all at once.

  Their pelvic bones touched, and the skin between them seemed to sizzle. An erotic lightning strike. He filled her completely, crushed against her cervix, her pussy spread wide. The heat of him branded her from the inside.

  She sucked air in. Then sucked air in again. And again. She couldn’t push air out, could only gasp it in, and couldn’t seem to stop.

  “There we are.” His huge hand cradled her cheek. His voice was deeper still, and seemed soaked with pleasure. “Can’t risk that with a human. Usually doesn’t go well with small shapeshifters, either. It’s just diaphragm spasms, tiny vampire. They’ll fade. Focus on my cock.”

  Another inhale, but it wasn’t as big. Another, a little smaller. Her lungs were beyond full, but she couldn’t blow air out.

  And his cock filled her. Stretched her. Sharp pain around his granite ginormous dick, but she needed it to be there.

  She finally managed to blow air out, pull more in with some manner of control, and told him, “You’re gonna have to give me a pass on speaking Aussie.”

  “Sorry. Can’t. It’s too important you sound like you belong here. Give me a nice American sounding Fucking A.”

  “Fucking A.” She said it with feeling, and he kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and then her mouth. He had to bend himself to reach her face while his dick was buried in her, but he managed it.

  Kelsey tried readjusting her legs, but it was difficult when she was so damned full of him.

  “Fuck, you’re big.”

  “It’s taking all I can manage to be still and let you get used to me. When I start moving, it isn’t going to be gentle. I’m not certain the extra bit of hard-on was the best idea you’ve had.”

  “I like it rough, James. I know some women can’t handle having their cervix pounded, but I’m good with it. It’s a good pain, for me.”

  Collosa had only been with two women he’d been able to fuck without having to hold back. One was a pro, a Kodiak bear shifter, six feet two inches tall, and built to handle a huge dick. She was expensive, and she lived in Virginia, in the suburbs of DC, but he visited her and paid completely unrealistic fees for her services when he was in the area because he got so frustrated with being careful. Even masochistic shapeshifters couldn’t handle him.

  Years before, he’d dated a submissive eagle shifter who could handle him at full strength in her ass, but not her cunt. Unfortunately, she was incredibly high maintenance and nothing was worth her temper and her jealousy.

  And he was all the way inside this tiny woman. He closed his eyes and sank into the sensations. Fully sheathed. He owned her now, in a way he couldn’t fully explain, but both the bear and human were in agreement.

  But he was almost afraid to start moving. The little vampire was handling him when
he was fully inside her — was it too much to hope she’d be able to handle a full-on fucking? Only one way to find out.

  “You still mean it about the safewords?” He wouldn’t blame her if she changed her mind now that he was fully inside her.

  “Yes. Check in with me, maybe slow down or back off, but I can’t make you stop completely. Yellow, no matter what I say.”

  He could scent her pain, and he knew she was bleeding a little, but she was still horny as fuck, which was a good sign.

  And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was falling for her. Despite her anxiety issues, the little thing was being brave. She was holding up.

  With a final kiss, he braced his hands above her shoulders, his weight on the mattress, his wrists positioned to keep her body from scooting away from him on the bed, and he pulled out, slammed in, and then fucked her fast and hard, hammering her into the fucking mattress. The murphy bed was special made to handle shapeshifters fucking, but he heard the joints creaking and groaning.

  He wanted to go deeper, and harder, so he lifted her legs, grabbed her ankles, pressed them into the bed above her head, and changed angles, fucked her harder and deeper. Reaming her with his dick. She was plenty wet, but heat built up from the friction despite her natural lube.

  She screamed louder, and louder, but nothing in her scent told him she was in trouble. The pain and pleasure scents battled it out for first, so he didn’t even consider slowing.

  And then she came. Her cunt muscles tightened and spasmed around him, and he had no choice but to slow a little, but he didn’t stop. When her orgasms waned, he pounded harder, and didn’t fuss at her when she played with her clit.

  Three orgasms later, she screamed, “Yellow!” but he merely shook his head. “You’re okay. You lost your edge when you came. You need to get that back. Need to learn to ration your orgasms.”