Chapter 6
“ I t doesn’t always have to be about ink collection.” Dallan’s words echoed through my mind as his tongue kept my mouth busy.
He paused in the doorway, holding my spine against it as every inch of his broad, muscled stomach pressed against mine, forcing my knees open and around his waist so that my core brushed against the button of his pants.
I really needed to stop wearing dresses that provided this man easy access because, despite still being angry with him, I found myself thawing under his touch.
We’d never, in the nearly forty years of our little deal, had sex without ink collection. Sometimes there would be a few more rounds after, but it always had to start with the collection itself.
And here Dallan was trying to throw all of it away with just a few words and a kiss so spine tinglingly good that I also wanted to throw caution into the wind.
But then there were all of the reasons why we shouldn’t cross this boundary line, the one that up until a few months ago, I’d been so damned good at keeping.
First and foremost, I was a halfling and Dallan was part of a basically extinct species. I wasn’t even sure if I could have children let alone if I wanted them. I didn’t have very good role models for it after all. Dallan deserved someone who had their shit figured out, and that definitely was not me.
At that thought, I started to pull away from Dallan’s seeking lips. “Dallan—”
“Effie, just shut up for tonight and I promise we can work through all of the reasons you’re about to tell me no in the morning,” the Cthulhu said, ignoring my interruption as our next kiss kept me from pushing him to stop, his sharp teeth nibbling on my bottom lip.
All of my burning questions seemed to fade away as my brain urged me to just let it happen and that I could deal with all of the complicated stuff later.
With a groan, I slipped my hands behind Dallan’s neck, accidentally knocking the backward baseball cap he was wearing away from his head as I finally leaned into the kiss and gave in.
The combination of my back pressed up against the doorframe and my legs around Dallan’s waist freed up his hands enough so that he could slide them up my bare thighs and underneath the frothy tulle of the polka dot poodle skirt I was wearing.
“Have I ever told you I fucking love these skirts?” he growled against my mouth as his fingers tightened on my ass, his thumbs sliding underneath the elastic of my underwear .
I shook my head, grinning at him with swollen lips. “No. Not nearly enough.”
I’d always favored the frilly girly outfits from the fifties and sixties when I was a young girl—yet another thing that made me stand out amongst the members of my father’s coven who all preferred duller, more muted tones… the prudes.
It would be a lie to tell Dallan that I never noticed his gold eyes trailing me through the shop when I was wearing dresses and skirts like this—and that it made me preen like some kind of stupid, twitterpated bird.
Because that’s what I was. Completely stupid.
This was a bad idea. Monumentally bad. I’d spent enough time telling myself that our little deal meant nothing more than business… even if Dallan had made it very clear that it was not. Not to him, and if I was being honest, not to me either.
Dallan must have noticed my attention fading because I felt his hand slip in between my thighs and nudge the gusset of my panties aside. “You’re awfully distracted for a woman who’s about to have my fingers deep inside of her.”
I was just starting to frown at him when the tip of his index finger began to press inside of my already wet, traitor of a pussy.
No matter how much I denied it, all Dallan had to do was look at me with those gold eyes of his and I was wetter than the damned rainforest.
“Do you like that?” Dallan asked, his eyes crinkling in the corners as he shot me a shit-eating grin .
I almost wanted to be a brat and tell him no, but as soon as the ridge of his knuckles brushed my clit I let out an involuntary moan that answered his question for me.
“Of course you do,” Dallan practically purred, pleased as punch because he’d drawn that reaction out of me.
Normally, when we collected ink I was in charge. Dragging the ink out of him at the same time that I dragged out his pleasure. But today we weren’t collecting ink and now it seemed like it was Dallan’s turn to take the lead.
A second finger slid in along the first, stretching me. I threw an arm around his neck, my legs starting to shake and wobble as his thumb brushed along my clit and sent a zing of sensation rippling up my back. I was worried if I didn’t hold on, that I’d fall, but I should have known better.
Dallan would have never let me fall. Not in a million years.
“Hang on, Lass,” he growled, his free arm wrapping around my back as he lifted me away from the doorframe and turned to drop me onto the bed.
It was like our last ink collection except somehow it felt completely different as I watched Dallan bring his two damp fingers to his mouth, tasting them before he began to yank at his clothes.
His gold eyes were hot as he slowly unbuttoned each button on his shirt until he was able to shrug out of it and tug at the white tank top underneath. Then he went for the dark jeans.
I began to sit up to pull the fuzzy sweater I was wearing over my head but Dallan stopped me .
“Don’t, leave that for me.”
My insides fluttered as I let myself flop back into the bed to enjoy his little strip show.
Clouds of a deep scarlet color flowed underneath Dallan’s skin, darkening the tattoos inked on his chest and ribcage. Attraction, desire, need. I wasn’t sure what the color signified as Dallan had never explicitly told me, but at the very least I knew the color meant he wanted me.
Kicking off his boots and jeans, my eyes slid down the rigid muscles of his stomach and down to where I could see his boxers tented away from his body, showing off the hard length that I’d been able to feel when he pressed his hips in between my thighs moments ago.
Much to my chagrin, Dallan left those on as he dropped one knee into the bed, weighing it down as he gently pulled my sweater over my head and then began to slip the straps of the dress I was wearing underneath it down my shoulders.
“Sit up a bit, lass,” he directed, his fingers fiddling with the zipper of my dress and tugging it down. “And now for my final trick.”
Then I couldn’t help but laugh as Dallan tugged the dress down past my hips like a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a table full of dishes.
Had it been anyone else I would have cringed, but Dallan’s silly smile seemed to chase away the last bit of nerves I was feeling as I lay underneath him in just a pair of soaked panties .
“Gorgeous,” Dallan murmured, his voice deepening as gold eyes raked down my body. I glanced down, realizing with a blush that I’d forgotten to trim the freckles on my arms and they were starting to sprout into their usual clovers. For a moment, flashes of all of the people who sneered at my weird halfling body filled my mind. The way Alexander’s coven used to flinch away from my vines or avoid me entirely because they viewed me as an oddity that should never have been created in the first place.
Lifting an arm, I moved to cover them but Dallan stopped me, his fingers threading through mine to keep me from hiding them. “Don’t, you know I don’t mind them.”
“Everyone else seems to,” I whispered, my heart hammering in my chest.
Dallan’s lips twitched up as he lifted our entwined hands up to his jaw, letting one of the tentacles there wrap around them. “Do you mind the way my tentacles feel?”
I shook my head with a frown. “No, not at all.”
Dallan’s lips pulled up into a smile. Then he brought our hands down to where his cock tented inside of his boxers. He pulled my hand inside and wrapped my fingers around his ribbed length. “Then do you mind how different my member is from a more humanistic man?”
I shook my head again, tightening my fingers and watched as he stiffened. “But it’s different for me.”
Dallan leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. “I don’t deny that, Lass, but I’ve also had my fair share of rejection because of what I look like—even from the supernatural community as a whole. There aren’t many out there that look like me too. To me, you are everything and I think you know that. Effie, I—”
I stopped him, my vines coming up to cover his mouth.
Dallan’s eyes flashed with irritation at me keeping him from telling me out loud how he really felt yet again.
“Not yet,” I whispered, my eyes wide.
“Effie…” Dallan’s words were still muffled by the vines.
“Can we wait until after things settle down with Daphne’s pregnancy and Alexander?” I asked, watching his expression shift. It was the first time I’d ever acknowledged that I knew Dallan had feelings for me and that I felt the same.
I felt him sigh before he finally nodded.
The vines slipped away from his mouth. “I suppose I can wait a little bit longer, Lass, I’ve been doing it for years after all.”
He was definitely trying to make it sound like a joke, but there was something in his tone that made me pull him down to me for a kiss.
While I couldn’t promise him everything right now, I could at the very least provide a nice distraction.
Dallan’s tongue slid desperately along mine. I released my hold on his cock in favor of pushing at the waistband of his boxers until they slid down his legs and then began to push at my own underwear.
I needed him and judging by the heat of his kiss, Dallan needed me too .
“Please,” I begged, pressing hungry kisses along the line of where his cheeks met his tentacles.
Dallan ignored me, continuing to slip his hands up and down my bare ribs. Impatience filled me and I rolled my hips up to meet his, feeling the tip of his cock brush against my clit. “Dallan!”
“You’re so impatient,” Dallan huffed, but he still notched the head of his ribbed cock at my entrance and began to push inside anyway.
We hadn’t done nearly enough foreplay before this, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care as I wrapped a leg around his waist and pulled him in deeper, groaning at the slight burn that the stretch brought.
Sitting up slightly so I could watch as each inch of the stubbled surface dipped inside of me, only letting my head drop back with a moan once I felt his hips press fully against mine and we were as linked together as we could get.
“Too much?” Dallan asked, his voice soft as his arms slipped underneath my back to pull me up and flush against his chest.
“Not nearly enough.”
I could tell his hearts were beating just as fast as mine, creating a mottled drum beat that was accented by the ragged breaths slipping out from between our lips as we stared at each other.
Moving my hands, I let my vines take over so that I could cup his face and kiss him. I didn’t even need to form the thought of what I wanted them to do, they were already sliding underneath Dallan’s arms and around his torso, tethering us together .
Dallan’s hips started to roll back with an aching slowness, allowing me to feel each raised row on his length in reverse before he slammed home again with enough force that both of us shifted up further up onto the bed.
Dallan didn’t say much after that and neither did I. There was no space between thrusts for words, just the sound of our skin slapping together and each moan and groan that we seemed to pull from each other with ease.
This was my favorite space to be in with Dallan. Just the two of us and none of the complicated shit of the outside world.
I wasn’t a halfling with so much baggage I didn’t even know where to start unpacking it all, and Dallan wasn’t one of the last of his kind tasked with continuing his race.
We were just Effie and Dallan and that was perfect.
Even just the thought of that made my vines tighten around Dallan’s torso and biceps, urging him to move faster as the roughness of our lovemaking pushed us across the bed until my head was nearly hanging off the other end.
Usually we would pause at this point and readjust, but Dallan didn’t seem like he was going to stop any time soon and I didn’t want him to.
Instead he just cupped the back of my head in one of his massive hands and tucked his face into my neck, the tentacles along his jaw caressing my face as I felt his thrusts start to stutter and his breathing become more ragged.
Dallan growled and muttered something under his breath and suddenly we were flipped into a kneeling position in the middle of the bed, my thighs pushed astride his lap and shifting my clit into just the right position that the shaft of his cock brushed against it with each thrust as he continued to move.
Come for me, Lass, Dallan’s voice rang in my head, his hands dimpling my ass as he pushed me down further than I thought possible. His teeth brushed the side of my neck, right where he knew I was the most sensitive and that was all I needed to tumble right over the edge.
I came with a scream, throwing my head back and letting him continue to trail hot kisses down my collarbone and on the tops of my breasts.
The sensation was almost electric, like a wash of hot-then-icy fire was whipping through me as I sucked in a harsh breath around the thrum of my pulse in my ears.
Dallan wasn’t long after me, the muscles in his thighs tightening as he thrust up into me once, then twice, and finally a third time before he spilled deep inside of me, my body heat quickly warming his normally cool seed.
Then we collapsed together, Dallan flipping us both sideways so that we were laying amongst the ridiculous amount of fluffy pillows I kept on my bed.
We stared at each other for a long time after that, catching our breaths as the only sounds in the room could be heard from the nightlife on the Wharf down below.
“Are you going to kick me out now?” Dallan asked after a few minutes, his thumb tracing circles on my cheek as he yawned, clearly tired from all of the work he’d just done .
I thought about it and my knee-jerk reaction was to put the walls back up in order to protect myself… but that was starting to get old, even for me. I still hadn’t forgotten the sheer force of my regret at not letting him sleep next to me last time and it had nearly done me in.
So I shook my head. “No, not this time.”
The gold of Dallan’s irises swelled with an emotion that made me want to cry. He looked relieved, his shoulders sinking with it as he pulled me in closer. He opened his mouth to say something but the movement he’d just made caused an avalanche of pillows to rain down around us, keeping him from doing so.
Dallan pushed them away with irritation, sending them falling onto the floor. “I’ve always meant to ask this, but why do you have so many damned pillows? You can’t possibly sleep on them all.”
I grinned at him, reaching up to pat one of the ones that had survived. “For the aesthetic.”
Truth be told it was definitely a pain in the ass to remove all of the cute little throw pillows and stick them in the cedar chest at the end of the bed every night… but the look on Dallan’s face suddenly made it all worth it.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand that,” he grumbled a yawn before tucking his face into the side of my neck. It was clear our mid-afternoon romp was definitely about to turn into an early evening nap.
And somehow the thought of it didn’t send a bolt of panic rushing through me .
Maybe that one therapist I saw in the mid-eighties was right. Maybe I did need to face my fears head on and move past them.
Who’d have thought?
I snuggled in close to Dallan, inhaling a lungful of his scent and finally let each muscle in my body relax until I fell fast asleep, comfortable in the arms of the man who’d spent decades trying to coax me out of my paranoid, anxious shell.
“So, I’m just organizing all of our invoices for the tax audit that isn’t happening yet but definitely will?” Daphne asked, scrunching her nose with confusion as she glanced between me and the computer screen in front of her.
It was the morning after Dallan had slept in my apartment with me, and surprisingly enough, there had been no feelings of regret or like I’d fucked everything up. No, on the contrary I’d been woken up by Dallan’s cock slipping in between my thighs from behind for a slow and glorious lovemaking session.
I was still practically glowing with it and trying to ignore Daphne’s curious but all knowing gaze as we went over what the upcoming tax season was going to look like.
When we’d first hired her I’d made sure to have her go through all of the invoices that the artists had haphazardly entered into their tablets when working with clients and organize and digitize them. Now we just needed to use that for what was going to be our usual and inevitable tax audit .
“We’ve been audited nearly every year since we opened up our doors,” I told her dryly. “The IRS does not trust a supernaturally run business. Those pencil pushers constantly think we’re trying to pull a fast one on them and steal tax money.”
Which we definitely were. How the fuck does one pay taxes on a pot of leprechaun gold, anyway? Or the set of enchanted keys that a pixie used to pay for her tattoo that were hanging on a hook upstairs because I still had no idea where the fuck they were supposed to go or even what the strange enchantment on them was.
All the damn woman had said as she admired her full back tattoo, courtesy of Ambrose, was that ‘the person who needs them the most will know what to do with them.’
Whatever the hell that meant.
It had gotten to the point where I’d told the guys that if the clients didn’t have cash or debit then we couldn’t serve them. The monsters who came into our shop needed to get with the times and by times I meant currency that could be exchanged so that the IRS would stop breathing down my neck every year.
“I see, so should all of Fiero’s invoices that say ‘arm,’ ‘leg,’ and ‘pec’ be updated and more detailed? Some of them don’t even have dollar amounts…” Daphne trailed off, clearly feeling guilty about snitching on the biggest pain in the ass at Monstrous Ink.
I had talked with him about this several times after the last IRS agent for the audit had whipped the damn things out like I’d killed his firstborn child .
Fiero was definitely a bureaucrat’s nightmare and I couldn’t even blame them.
A growl left my lips as I turned to yell through the curtained doorway. “Fiero! You better get your furry ass out here with your tablet and fix these damn invoices. You absolutely know better!”
I heard someone, probably Heath, whisper ‘uh-oh,’ but my attention was quickly diverted by the bell over the shop door tinkling with someone coming in.
I turned, pasting a smile on my face as a tall, broad shouldered lion beastman walked through the door. “Hi, do you have an appointment?”
The beastman was dressed in a pair of boardshorts and a tank top that gave off the vibe that the man knew his way around a surfboard, they also showed off his lightly furred arms and legs that were completely free of any ink whatsoever.
No, other than the silver studs lining the man’s furry ears he looked completely clean cut—even if he looked a bit like a beach bum.
“Um, no,” the man said in a surprisingly deep voice as he put his hands in his pockets. His gold, feline eyes took in both me and Daphne as he seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts. “I’m actually here about the job ad for a full time body piercer?”
I blinked with surprise. I’d put that ad out months ago to little avail because, while tattoos were hard to ink into the skin of the various supernatural creatures, piercings were even worse to try to get done .
In all of the craziness of the past year I’d forgotten completely about my desire to have a piercer in-house so that all of the artists at Monstrous Ink could focus on their actual tattoo clients rather than sticking needles into supes at random.
My eyes went to the silver studs lining the man’s ears. “You’re a piercer?”
The man nodded. “My family has passed down their techniques through the generations and I worked at a tattoo shop when I was in Uni.”
Despite his clearly American accent, the way he said the word Uni told me that he’d probably studied abroad.
The man was already a conundrum and he’d only been here for a few minutes.
“What’s your name?” Dallan’s voice came from behind me, nearly making me jump clean out of my skin. I hadn’t heard him come from the back hallway but now he was standing with his arms crossed as he glared at the lion beast man in front of me.
“Byrne Leonidas,” the man said, holding his hand out to me instead of Dallan.
Hearing his last name, a ping of recognition sounded off in my mind. The Leonidas beastmen clan was one of the richest, if not the richest of the beastmen clans in the world.
I lifted my hand to shake his but never got the chance because Dallan beat me to it, sliding in between us and grasping the man’s hand.
“Dallan Elder,” Dallan introduced himself, a deep, grumpy frown on his face. “And tell me, why is the heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the world trying to get a job at a random tattoo shop in Northern California?”
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees and I heard Daphne shift uncomfortably in her seat as her eyes bounced from person to person at the sudden tension.
“Why don’t you give me an interview and find out?” Byrne growled as the two continued their stupid masculinity contest. Men. No matter the species they always seemed to try to find a way to be territorial.
Rolling my eyes, I dropped my hands over their clasped ones.
“Okay!” I said loud enough to make both men jump with surprise. It was as if they’d forgotten anyone else was in the room with them. “We just cleaned the floors in here, so if you two are going to engage in some weird pissing contest, may I suggest you do it in Dallan’s office? He hasn’t cleaned there in years.”
Dallan’s head snapped to me as he turned his frown on me instead. “I do clean, Lass.”
“Using some Lysol wipes and running a Swiffer in there every once in a while does not count as cleaning,” I scolded and turned to head back down the hallway, pausing when I realized that neither of the men had moved. “Are you two coming or not?”
That got Dallan moving as he released his grip on Byrne’s hand and turned to follow me.
I began to walk with a bit more pep in my step because this day was going better than I ever could have imagined. Morning sex followed by actually having someone who could organize our taxes, and now an interview for a full-time piercer ?
Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
And then Byrne had to open up his big, dumb lion-toothed mouth.
“Damn, you’re quite the bombshell, aren’t you?”