Chapter Eighteen
~Katarina~
Breed the fuck out of you. Katarina sat at the kitchen table, the day after family dinner, still thinking about it.
Still reeling over it. It’s just a kink!
His knot thing talking! Not that there was any way that Jessie Bonesaw would ever want her in his life like that.
Right? It was one thing to have chemistry and enjoy the sex…
it was a whole other to want to make a family with someone.
It took her years of being with Gill, and Isabella was still an accident.
A happy accident, but Katarina realized, had she been more keen, she’d have seen getting her pregnant was a manipulation tactic for Gill.
He didn’t want a family, he wanted control.
Katarina was the one who wanted a family.
But Jessie, after a week? Maybe more? Wanted to…no that’s silly. It had to be the heat talking. And I made it awkward by acknowledging he’d said some post-nut clarity silliness. Katarina groaned, hanging her head in her hands.
“Don’t tell me Mama Bonesaw fed you too much wine last night?”
Katarina only groaned louder as Nik joined her in her pity-party at the kitchen table.
It was still early, but Isabella was already at school, and she’d not made the journey down to the shop to work on the car.
While she had feelers out to potential new jobs, and Sera was doing some sleuthing for her, she was facing a whole day—more like a whole week—of nothing to do but wait for her doom.
Gill’s time clock was ticking, and short of ransacking the house just to be petty, she’d done all she could.
The council wouldn’t give her full custody until Gill was out.
Their excuse? That wasn’t the Enforcement department’s area.
That particular fight was under family services, which apparently didn’t give a shit that Gill put hands on her.
He’s still employed and his lawyers are smooth talkers…
and I’m a jobless, homeless, carless ex-wife.
Ouch.
She needed to stop doing that.
“It wasn’t the wine,” she fessed up, finally looking up as a mug of coffee was slid under her face.
Katarina expected Nik would go in with Jessie, who was up before the sun and out the door with a single sticky note to the fridge.
He also told me last night he needed to get in early, so…
Katarina could tiptoe around the elephant in the room.
Or…She sighed, “Jessie told me last night he wanted to breed the fuck out of me.”
Nik spewed hot coffee out of his mouth into his palm as he rushed to cover his face.
That made me feel better. She snorted to herself as she reached over the table to the napkin holder at the center and whipped him out one to dry up his dripping face. Nik cleared his throat while dabbing at his face. “Uh, yeah, well…what? You don’t want to have more kids?”
Katarina’s eyebrows shot up on her forehead. “What?”
“What?” His shoulders were extremely high. He was basically pinning his floppy ears to the side of his face with them. The baffled expression was completely earnest. “You’re not into that?”
Katarina sputtered. Into it? I mean… She went quiet.
Gaze falling to her cup, she stared at the steaming life juice with swirls of cream before her.
Am I into it? Do I want kids? She sighed, “I told him last night I just got out of a bad relationship. I’m worried I’ll lose my kid to my abusive ex, I don’t have a job, and I don’t have control of my life yet. ”
“Hmm.” Nik tentatively took another sip of his coffee.
“And, I mean—sure! Okay, sure, I’m into it.
I won’t lie, when it first came out of his mouth I was thinking about it because I do want more kids.
I had Isabella and I’ve always loved the idea of a loud, rambunctious family.
I want to have family dinner like Jessie does.
I want Bella to grow up with other siblings who look up to her, who steal her shirts and I have to stop them from beating each other with shoes.
I never had that. I was my parents one and done, and I guess…
I don’t know. I just panicked when he asked me.
” The words just spilled out of her mouth, one after the other till the whole confession laid out before her.
Nik snickered into his coffee as he put his mug down. “Now you know how I feel.”
“He confessed his desire to breed you against a rusty minivan too?” she teased with a wink.
A deep from the belly chuckle rose up through his body as Nik shook his head slowly. “Not exactly…but the panic.”
“Oh,” Katarina exhaled, “right, you’re in love with him.”
“Hey!” Nik huffed, raising a palm at her as if to ask her to lower her voice.
“Well? Are you or aren’t you in love with your roommate?
” She leaned over the table more, grinning smugly.
Nik scowled at her. They both took long, quiet sips of their coffee, not looking away from each other for a long time.
Eventually, Katarina relented. Gaze falling back to the mug she cupped in her hands for warmth despite the fact she was a burning inferno, she searched it for answers.
There were none. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“You apologize too much,” Nik grunted. Katarina’s attention lifted from her mug as long, firm fingers reached over hers.
They pried her fingers off the mug as delicately as they could.
Nik studied her from his side of the table before he brought her fingers to his lips.
Her knuckles brushed against his tusks then his kiss left zaps of electricity running through her body.
“Look at us both…helpless romantics pining after the same himbo mechanic,” she snorted sheepishly.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Nik murmured, pressing his lips hard against her fingers again. He used her fist as a chin prop as he stared her in the eye. “Katarina, being with us? It’s messy. You deserve better than us.”
“How could anything be better?” she blurted out in disbelief.
Was there anyone better? Jessie’s endless smile and jokester attitude?
Nik’s soft spoken, grumbly disposition? She’d spent so long in a loveless marriage, maybe she was seeing them through rose-colored glasses?
Or maybe she saw them for what they offered.
A messy life? Pfft! Katarina smiled warmly. “I like messy.”
Nik’s lips curled up into a wicked smirk. He gave her knuckles another kiss before putting her hand back down on the table. Throwing back his coffee, he raised a brow without glancing at her. “You wouldn’t happen to be hungry, would you?”
“Hmm?” Katarina’s lips curled up with giddy excitement as he took her coffee from her. “You know, I do feel a little peckish."
Nik scooped her out of her seat, kissing her roughly.
Katarina hummed happily as he walked her back into the kitchen counter.
His hips pressed against hers and she almost teased him about trying to dry hump his way to victory again…
then his hands dropped from her cheeks to her jeans and popped them open.
He snaked his big hand down the front of her underwear and cupped her greedily.
Their kiss traveled from their lips chasing each other to him nipping all the way down her throat.
He nuzzled his nose against the crook of her neck before chomping down on it like a hungry vampire.
“You and Jessie sure don’t like using beds,” she yelped in surprise.
He chuckled against her jugular but didn’t stop.
Instead, his other hand climbing up her back.
With a flick of his wrist, her bra was undone and he was free to torment her needy, aching nipples.
Her hands rushed to pull the straps out through her t-shirt sleeves while Nik caught her nipple between two fingers.
The pressure from the way he squeezed them made her thighs clench around his other hand.
A moan vibrated against her throat as he bucked against her.
Between his fingers curling around her clit and his teeth at her neck, she was weak at the knees.
She was forced to plant her palms back against the counter to keep from dropping to the floor like a limp puppet.
No strings to hold her up, no bones in her body, she was putty that he molded with every brush of his fingers.
Warmth bloomed in her belly and she breathed in woodsmoke, a whiskey from an old barrel, and honey.
It coated her throat as the room filled with dark, amber aura.
Nik’s aura was softer than Jessie’s, not explosive due to the heat, but it was thick.
Gulping down a mouthful didn’t even put a dent in it.
There were a few things she learned as a succubus growing up in a metropolis that others might not.
She was hyperaware of other’s auras, as she knew the smaller the aura, the less she could feed.
Anything less sturdy, she could permanently damage their constitution.
There was nothing more freeing than seeing a room full of aura and knowing she didn’t have to worry.
She couldn’t eat more than he had to give.
Katarina sucked down another mouthful of his liquor-like essence and felt her skin break out in goosebumps.
Every touch was intensified and her toes curled against the linoleum.
“Hungry girl,” he snickered, kissing back up her face.
“Oh, like you don’t eat like a starved boy,” she teased right back.