Her Imaginary Lover (6 page)

"Omelet
all right for you, Macie?"
Kaylom's
deep
voice right next to her ear made her jump. "You haven't exactly got a lot
of choice in your cupboards for anything else."

Macie
put a hand out, and he grasped it and guided her to a chair. Normally she would
have balked at the help, but with
Kaylom
it just
seemed natural to accept it, and she slid onto the chair he pulled out for her.

"Well,
excuse me, I wasn’t expecting some big ass man for company this morning,"
she said, and
Kaylom
chuckled.

"Watch
who you're calling big assed, woman.
I let you know I'm in perfect
proportion."

"Unlike
me, you mean?" Now why did her voice wobble while she said that? But it
seemed terribly important to know what he thought of her, all of a sudden. Why
her old insecurities about her larger figure should raise their ugly head now,
she had no idea. She had long come to terms with the fact that she would never
be skinny, and she certainly seemed to turn
Kaylom
on, yet she needed to hear him say it. To have that reassurance that he liked
what he saw.

"Baby,
you're stunning, just the way you are, and I'll deck anyone else who says
otherwise,"
Kaylom
said, and Macie's anxiety fled.
 
"Now sit there, be a good girl, and
look pretty, while I finish our breakfast."

The
edge of command mixed in with his teasing froze her snarky comment on her
tongue, and hearing him call her a good girl set off the butterflies in her
tummy. She really ought to object to that, but instead she did as she was told
to do, and just murmured a flippant, "Yes,
Sir."

Kaylom's
groan brought
her head up, and she hid her grin. She knew that he was watching her. She could
practically feel his gaze on her, and her heart beat faster. Her skin heated
under his silent regard, and the very air around them grew charged with
tension.

"Don’t
call me that unless you mean it, Macie." The odd note to his voice gave
her pause for thought, and then the scrape of a chair broke the moment. He
guided her hand to a cup of coffee and slid a plate across the tiny table to
her. "Here, eat your breakfast."

Again
she did as she was told, and she couldn’t help making appreciative murmurs. It
might only be an omelet, but it tasted divine. By the time she'd finished
eating and washed it all down with her cup of coffee an awkward silence had
fallen between them. The air once again crackled with tension, and Macie
reached across to find
Kaylom's
hand. He sighed, and
she gave it a squeeze.

"What
if I did mean it?" she asked in an effort to break the god-awful tension
between them.
Kaylom
tried to pull away, but she
wouldn't let him. She knew her death grip on his hand must be leaving her nail
indents behind, but she needed this contact right now. The physical reminder
that he was really here, that he was her
Kaylom
.

A
rumble escaped his chest. Something between a groan and growl, the vibrations
of which traveled up her arm and seemed to settle right in her pussy. She
crossed her legs to hide her body's instant reaction to the virile masculinity
Kaylom
exuded, and his unique scent of spices and aroused
man increased until she had to fight the urge to lean across and lick his skin.
It was the oddest notion, this effect he had on her, yet it just felt so right.

"You
can't possibly mean it. Where I come from that word uttered by one's mate only
means one thing." His voice had taken on the quality of rough sandpaper,
and it sent shivers of need all over her body. The fine hair on her neck rose
in response, and her nipples chafed against the soft cotton of her robe as she
grew wet for him again.

"And
that is?" She whispered the words, utterly unable to project her voice
with any authority at this moment. "Where do you come from,
Kaylom
?"

He
cupped her face in his free hand and ran his thumb over her lips, and she leant
into his touch.

"You're
so utterly beautiful, Macie. Have I ever told you that?" he asked and she
smiled.

"I've
never seen myself, so I'll take your word on it …
Sir."

His
fingers dug into her chin, and she groaned in delight at his low growl in
answer. She could get addicted to that sound.

"Now
you see
,
being bratty would earn you a spanking in my
realm. Sir is a sign of respect that means you're bowing to your mate's
dominance. Our females are strong, fierce, and capable, but they're always
submissive to their mates in a sexual sense. The rules in our world are simple.
When we mate, we mate for life. There is no divorce, no second mating. Once
fate has chosen for us, there is no running away from it. We have a choice not
to act on our desires, but we'll never reach our full potential unless we're
with our mate. It's why
we
can never be, Macie. You're human, and I'm
Athuron
. We live in different dimensions, which is why
humans can't see us. Our races have co-existed for centuries. Mating with a
human is strictly forbidden, as is harming them in any way, it's—"

Macie
frowned and put her hand up to interrupt him.

"That
doesn't make any sense. If you're not meant to harm us, then why do I have a
traumatized little girl in my practice, whose imaginary
friend,"
she
let go of
Kaylom's
hands and made quote marks with
her fingers, "drove her brother to kill his parents and then himself,
and—"

"
What?"
That one word sliced through
the air with whip-like force, and Macie jumped when
Kaylom's
chair fell over and screeched across the stone tiles of her kitchen floor.
Kaylom's
anger hit her in the face like a blast of cold
air, and she swallowed hard.

She
heard him pace. Even the pad of his bare feet sounded angry, and she reared
back when she suddenly sensed him in front of her.
Kaylom
nudged her chin up, and his harsh breaths blew tendrils of her hair across her
face. He brushed them away with a far from steady hand, and took a deep breath
as if to calm
himself
.

"What
little girl, Macie, and how do you know she's not making it up?"

Macie
swatted his hand away and did her best to glare up at where she thought he
might be.

"Don't
take me for a fool. I knew the instant you stood in front of me, didn't I?
Okay, I didn't know you were real, not just a figment of my imagination, but I
sensed you. Same way I sensed Ava's rather evil presence. I see lots of
disturbed children in my practice. Not all of them have a presence with them,
and most presences are just slightly mischievous, but Ava's one gives me the
chills every time he accompanies her, which he doesn't always, thank goodness.
Now, I don't believe in ghosts, and his presence has the same substance, if you
like, as I sense from yours, so it makes sense to me that he's like you."

"No,
don't ever compare me to someone like that."

She
flinched at his harsh tone, but she pushed on nonetheless, determined to get
her point across.

"Why
not?
According to you, you're just a monster, and I should run away from you screaming,
should I not? And that's the other point where you don't make sense. If you're
not allowed to mate with a human, then why did you say
your
kind fuck with our bodies all the time? Surely that isn't allowed either?"

"I
… fuck, it's not that simple, Macie."

He
started to pace again, and Macie banged her fist on the table in frustration.

"Oh,
I get it. We humans are okay to use as convenient fucking holes, we're just not
good enough to be deemed worthy of your love. That's it, right?"

Her
voice broke, and she furiously blinked her tears away. She would not
flipping
cry over this. She might as well wear a big neon
sign over her head, proclaiming she loved him.

"Macie,
baby, that's not—"

"Spare
me,
Kaylom
. You can't have it both ways. You're
either an evil race or you're not. I'm not stupid enough to think it's that
clear cut either. I've met enough of your kind over the last few years to know
that the majority of you, at least the ones who seem to attach themselves to
human children, are kids themselves or adolescents out to cause mischief. I
guess us clueless humans must be rather amusing to you lot.
Going
about our daily business with no idea that we're being watched.
That
we're sharing our homes, our fucking beds with some randy
Athuron
out to sow his wild oats. The ultimate no strings attached sex, right?"

She
ran out of steam and wiped the tears off her face.

Instantly
she felt herself lifted, and then she was set on
Kaylom's
lap, with her head cradled against his bare chest as he dropped a kiss on her forehead.
He was still wearing his towel around his hips, but nonetheless the solid
evidence of his hard cock dug into her ass, and she wriggled her hips on
purpose.
Kaylom
groaned, and she poked his chest.

"I'm
sorry,
munchkin,
I've made a hash of this. Please
don't cry. I never meant to hurt you. By all of
Athuron
that's the last thing I want to do. Stop crying."

Macie
smiled through her tears at the near panic in his voice, and
Kaylom
sighed and wrapped his hands in her hair as he
tilted her head up.

"So
explain it to me then," she said. "Why did you come over all those
years ago and stay with me, and what am I to you, really?"

Kaylom
swore, and her
grin deepened as the force of his turbulent emotions wrapped itself around her
like a blanket of hope.

"The
love of my fucking life, that's what you are, dammit."

Macie
ran her index fingers through the swirls of his chest hair and tugged slightly.

"Now,
that wasn't so hard to admit now, was it, my big, bad
Athuron
?"

Chapter Five

It
was official. This little human minx was going to be the death of him.
Quite possibly literally, if the elders got wind of their renewed
relationship.
Kaylom
tightened his hold on her
hair, and the dominant side of him surged forth as she went limp and pliant in
his arms. Her mouth opened, and her little pink tongue darted out to moisten
the plump flesh, and he bent his head to suck the muscle into his mouth. Her
little feminine sigh of surrender was music to his ears, and his fangs dropped
and grazed her lips. He could no more stop himself than he could stop
breathing, and it was his turn to groan when she wrapped her tongue around his
incisors. His cock jerked up, and he broke the kiss, panting as though he'd run
a marathon.

Macie
didn't fare much better. Her beautiful dark blue eyes, so like an
Athuron's
in color, had a glazed look, and she ran her
hands up and down his torso until she found the knot of his towel and yanked at
it with fumbling hands. He stilled her movements and ran his fangs up and down
her neck. Her heartbeat went wild, and she angled her head to give him better
access.

"Tell
me this is okay, baby. You have to stop me if it's not, because I can't undo
this once it's done." His voice came out distorted, and Macie slid her
hands back up his chest one agonizingly slow inch at a time, until she could
wrap her fists in his hair.

"
Kaylom
, I love you. I've always loved you, and I want to be
yours in whatever way you'll have me. Please make me … oh—"

Her
voice broke and turned into a long drawn out scream as he sank his teeth into
the soft column of her neck, and sucked. Her life essence flowed into his
mouth, and his wrist caught fire with the scribe of the mating tattoo. Macie
tensed and whimpered, and he knew she was experiencing the same sweet painful
agony that only one thing could cure.

With
his incisors still firmly lodged in her skin he undid he belt of her robe, and
grinned around his precious mouthful as she cottoned and helped him. With both
her robe and his damn nuisance of a towel removed his cock jerked up to seek
her wet pussy. With frantic movements she straddled him, and he grasped her
hips to hold her poised above his dick. Releasing his hold on her neck, he
licked the tiny wounds left behind, and a shudder went through her.

"Grab
my shoulders, baby, and ride me.
Shh
, it's okay. I
know it hurts. I'll make it better I promise."

She
whimpered and leaned forward to grasp his shoulders. The move slid his cock
through her slit, and they groaned in unison. Her fingernails scored his skin,
and her head fell back as her juices coated his dick and helped in the lazy
slide though her labial lips. He kept this up, bumping into her clit on every
upstroke until that little bundle of nerves was hard and engorged, and clearly
visible. Only then did he allow the head of his cock to enter her channel, and
he grit his teeth against the exquisite sensations of her slick, tight walls
clamping down on his shaft.