Breeders, page 7
Fuck. I was screwed, but I could never give up on Cassie. Not now that I knew how good it felt to be inside of her. That tight pussy clenching hard around me, her eyes rolled back, and lips parted in a perfect ‘o’ as orgasm after orgasm crashed into her. But it was more than that. She touched my heart like no other. Her natural warmth and care for others was something special. Something to be treasured.
Tristan whispered in her ear, pulling her in so close that his lips brushed against her skin when he spoke. Damn, he was smooth. All I could do was look on, staying at the outskirts of the group, but not so far I couldn’t hear the melody of her voice. Just like when we were fucking kids.
Bash came over a few seconds later with the bottle opener and took Cassie’s beer, but the moment he snapped the lid, frothy white foam poured out, splashing all over her light blue dress, leaving navy splotches. She hunched forward, the cold liquid dripping off her soaked chest. Her nipples quickly became erect and visible through the thin material of her shirt.
Shit, I looked at Tristan, but he wore a look of shocked confusion himself. Becca, on the other hand, looked about as satisfied as a dog with a fresh butcher’s bone.
Poor Cassie’s mouth worked, and I moved quickly to take off my shirt and offer it to her, only to be beaten to it by a few of her more admirers. Tristan had his horror movie shirt off in a heartbeat. His was the first to go on followed by a ridiculous striped polo with a chewed-up collar. A moment later, Cassie found herself wrapped in a variety of shirts and surrounded by a group of half-naked men watching her eagerly.
Freezing, I waited to see what she would do. This was too much. Fucking Becca. What a bitch. She must’ve shaken up the bottle and given it to Tristan. That idiot never thought past the next move.
Thank fuck Cassie tucked a loose strand of her long blonde hair carefully behind an ear and reached out to take the now mostly empty bottle from Bash. With a small brave smile, my girl held up the bottle.
“Cheers.” The resulting whoop was nearly deafening as everyone around her raised their beers together in a loud clink.
I held mine back, not much wanting to participate. It was tiring always being the loner, but whatever. At least I was here if Cassie needed me.
She took a sip. The way her little mouth wrapped neatly around the bottleneck made me half-hard. Great, now I was jealous of a bottle. I had to get it together.
“It’s bubbly.” She giggled, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I wasn’t prone to emotional displays, but something about Cassie always got to me.
Shit. I was in so much trouble.
Everyone was so nice. I couldn’t remember what I’d been afraid of, but to be fair, I couldn’t remember much of anything. The world tipped and turned like a top on its point, never settling on one spot. Everything was a blur of handsome faces and hard muscles, all of them staring at me, wanting me. Never would I have imagined anybody would want me, and now there was a room full of men looking at me with hunger in their eyes.
Laughing at the absurdity of my situation, I stumbled, catching myself from falling at the last minute and felt a steadying hand on my shoulder.
“Whoa, Cass, maybe take a break there, Babe.” Was that Jace’s voice? I struggled to focus on the man still holding my arm. Yes, Jace. Hot Jace with that cocky little smile of his.
“Babe? I’m Babe now?”
His smile widened. “Only if you want to be. I’d also consider, Sexy, Baby, or Bae.”
I laughed violently enough that I needed to cover my mouth to keep from spitting all over him.
“Baby, Bae, Babe? Aren’t those all kind of the same? Why don’t you just call me Ba like a sheep—ba, ba.” I snorted, nearly falling over when the force of it made the world spin like crazy.
“This is your first time drinking alcohol, isn’t it?”
I peered up to see his brow crinkled, his green eyes soft. “Nooooo, I’ve had lots before, and I’ve been to lots of parties, and had lots of sex.” I gave him a toothy smile, hoping he bought my bundle of lies. The hard set of his jaw told me he didn’t.
“Come on, Ba, I think maybe we should set you up a nice little spot next to Mr. Toilet.”
I laughed at that, Mr. Toilet. How silly.
But he was right. After stumbling down the hallway towards the bathroom, I realized just how affected I was. The damned world just couldn’t keep still. The porcelain toilet beckoned me, and I fell in a heap beside it, pulling myself up to the edge as my stomach heaved and I threw up.
A little more clear-headed after losing half my body weight in fluids, I looked up to find Jace holding a neatly folded piece of toilet paper out to me. I took it from him, delicately patting my dirty mouth. How embarrassing. Really embarrassing. The more my mind sobered up, the more I wanted to somehow retract my promise to be done hiding and go back to my room forever.
But Jace still looked at me with a heat in his eyes that made me blush. That intensity. Could Jace be The Ram? Then he came up behind me, looped his arms under mine, and hoisted me to my feet.
I turned to see he still wore that self-confident smirk, his lips curling seductively. He reached out to stroke my cheek, and I knew. There was no way Jace was The Ram. Something about his touch didn’t feel right, and I pulled away from his fingertips.
“Come on, Ba, I’ve got some space in my bed for you tonight.”
What? Like I should be honoured to fuck him? What a pig.
“No, thank you.” My voice was weak, and he moved in closer, looming over me.
“Are you sure about that?” He didn’t seem at all put off by rejection. If anything, the heat in his gaze had only grown. My mouth opened and closed as I fought through the remaining bits of drunken haze for something to say. Something more clear than no?
The bathroom door swung open, and I looked up to find Dame in the entryway, his normally handsome face contorted into a feral scowl.
“Back off her, Jace.” The words came out in a low growl, and it was impossible to ignore the threat in his blazing eyes. With his dark hair spiked up and rage pouring off of him, he’d never looked hotter. I thought back sadly to my failed attempt to kiss him. He was definitely not interested.
“Whoa, whoa, D. What are you talking about? She wants me, don’t you, Ba?”
Horror-stricken, I drank in the casual way he leaned against the sink. Could he convince Dame to go? My throat worked, but no words came. I was working up the nerve to tell Jace to go to hell and fuck a demon if he was so horny when Dame stepped between us, getting in Jace’s face. I took one tottering step to the side and watched the conflict nervously, unsure of what I could do to help diffuse the situation. Dame was a few inches shorter than Jace, and he had to look up to meet his eyes, but I admired the stony glare he gave Jace as though the size difference between them didn’t matter. Dame had always been so shy and unsure, but seeing him now, I could see the wolf deep within.
Both men appeared completely relaxed the longer they faced off, but I could see hints of tightly controlled muscles ready to spring into action. Their arms and shoulders might be loose, but it was there in the stiffness of their necks and the fists at their sides.
“I didn’t know you cared so much about what I did, D.”
“Well, I do.”
Jace held Dame’s gaze for an extra moment before taking a step back and holding up his hands in apology.
“Well, okay then. I hope you know what you’re doing, buddy.” The last word was practically spit at Dame, and then Jace was leaving, turning to smile and wink at me once before the door shut behind him.
Adrenaline fled my body, leaving me woozy and dizzy once more. I tried to take a step towards Dame, but somehow my wobbly legs got tangled up, and I started to fall. Strong arms caught me and pulled me into a rock-hard chest. I looked up to find Dame’s midnight eyes.
“Cassie, Cassie, Cassie, what do we do with you now?”
Chapter 7
Watching Cassie sleep was the most wonderful thing I could imagine, and also, the most exquisite torture. Could you die from a hard on? Because it felt like you could die from it. I sat at my desk, only too aware of the stunning creature passed out on my bed. I’d needed to carefully remove her vomit-soaked clothes, and while she was tucked neatly beneath the blankets, I’d seen enough to know my memories from her breeding party were not mistaken.
Cassie was easily the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen, with creamy soft skin, delicate limbs, and pouty lips more often twisted up into the sweetest smile. Breeding parties be damned, I wanted to see those lips wrapped around my dick, her beautiful smile replaced with one of lust. I wanted to touch her and make her come outside of the shackles and desperation brought on by her heat.
A breathy sigh from the bundle of blankets she was buried in caught my attention, and I turned to see she’d pulled down the blankets, exposing the top of one perfectly round breast. I couldn’t touch her, wouldn’t touch her. She was passed out, but the need to do so was hard to ignore, and I pressed a hand onto my painfully stiff cock.
We’d have her again. Later.
Pregnancy had failed to take, and Cassie reeked of the telltale blood. She’d be here for at least one more breeding party, and then maybe she’d go. My heart clenched in my chest at the thought. One more time with her, and then she could be pregnant, she could leave, off to have children that could be mine, and raise them far away from me. I wouldn’t see her with the children and would almost certainly never see her again. The administrators preferred to choose new sets of breeding pairs for each pregnancy to encourage diversity.
Frizzy blonde hair covered her face, disturbed from her tossing and turning, and the strands came to life with each of her sweet breaths. Tenderness—not lust—pulled me to her bedside, and I carefully disentangled her from the hair, tucking it behind an ear. Fuck, even her ears were pretty. I wanted to suck on the lobe and find out if she was sensitive to it outside of her heat. Everything was heightened in that state. I was pretty sure she would’ve been turned on if I’d touched her elbow, but she had liked it when I’d focused on her earlobe and maybe she still did.
The memory haunted me, and my cock twitched painfully in protest, not understanding why we couldn’t take her right now. The fucking thing had found its home, and it was eager to get back.
Not today. Even if Cassie was awake and asking for it, I didn’t know if I had the strength to take her to my bed outside of the breeding party, to have her look at my face, and know me. The thought was terrifying. What if she didn’t like what she saw? The vulnerability wasn’t something I could face, and I found myself pulling the blankets up to cover her exposed breast.
She wasn’t mine, not physically or emotionally, and never would be. My issues aside, starting something real with her was forbidden, and would only end in heartbreak. If for some reason she did like me and we were caught, I would be dismissed from the guard. My life’s purpose as a protector would be lost, and I’d be sent to the fields to work. I wouldn’t have my respected role within the pack, and I certainly wouldn’t have Cassie. That lonely future meant Cassie could never know how I felt about her.
With a sigh, I returned to my desk, pulling out a fantasy book from some old human author. Life would be so much simpler if we were elves or orcs, hell, even humans. There wasn’t any romance in this particular story—reading romance novels was forbidden—but I could imagine it. They had married couples within the story, though they never showed their beginnings.
Marriage was a human concept, but with Cassie asleep a few feet away from me, her beautiful face smooth and peaceful in sleep, one I could well understand. To have someone for the rest of your life, to have them be only for you and you be only for them, my heart ached at the unfairness of never knowing what that felt like.
Pain stabbed from behind my eyes, and my head ached as I fought for consciousness. With a groan, I flung an arm over my eyes to filter out the light coming from the window next to me. That helped, but only just. My head still felt like someone was inside trying to bust their way out.
The window next to me… wait, what? My window was on the other side of the room. With a start, I sat bolt up, ignoring the flare of pain as the sunlight continued its assault on my retinas, and looked around.
This was not my room. Oh, shit, shit, shit, where did my dress go? I pulled the thick coverlet across my naked chest and scanned the floor. No dress, but there was a cream towel neatly folded over the only chair in the room, and it looked like salvation. Some part of my brain processed how incredibly sterile the room felt, with no personal identifiers and everything cleaned with military precision, but that was as far as I got before the panic took hold. I needed to get the hell out of here before the owner of the room came back. I struggled to pull myself from the bed, snatched up the towel, and wrapped it tightly around myself, pleased it was large enough to reach almost to my knees.
Moving with urgent caution to the door, I listened for a moment to ensure no one was there, before whipping it open and dashing out into the hall. But I was disoriented. Where was my room? I stumbled down the hallway, searching each name tag for my name until I found it halfway down on the opposite side. I couldn’t breathe until I was back inside the familiar white walls pressing my back to the thick wood of my door.
My heart pounded almost as hard as my head, and I dropped the towel to the floor as I fought for air. I was in someone’s bed? In only my underpants? What happened to my dress? The last thing I remembered was Dame showing up to rescue me like one of the heroes in my books. Was it his room I’d ended up in, or Jace’s?
With a shudder at the memory of Jace’s insistence, I took stock of my body. No, no one had done anything to me. I wasn’t sore, and nothing stained my thighs. A quick check confirmed that my tampon was still in place. I sighed, the stress draining from my body and leaving me to feel the full aftermath of drinking.
Head spinning, I kept a hand on the wall and made my way over to my dresser, pulling out my favourite cotton nightdress with its familiar pink rosebuds and fitting it over my aching head. I never wanted to drink again. Never. Or eat, or well, anything really. The neatly made bed I’d left when I’d foolishly gone out to attend the party called my name, and I slipped beneath the soft blankets, nearly asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
Thoughts of Dame filled my mind. How fiercely protective he’d been confronting Jace. If he could react that strongly, maybe there was something there, or maybe, he’d just been being my friend. A genuinely good guy.
Of one thing I was certain, after my encounter with Jace last night, I knew there was no way he was The Ram. I had a few weeks left before I’d go into heat again and see him in the breeding chamber—the one who played my body effortlessly, like it was an instrument he’d spent his life practicing on. Memories of the way he had run his hands over my skin teased at the edges of my mind, and I felt myself react, my skin growing oversensitive in anticipation of The Ram’s touch. I traced the soft cool fabric of my silk pillowcase—brought from home to keep my hair smooth—and imagined I was pillowed on The Ram’s hard chest.
My body jolted awake, and I sat up in alarm before remembering I was back in my room now. My pillow had a wet spot on it I could just make out in the waning light. A swipe at my cheek revealed drool, and I rubbed it away, hoping I hadn’t been drooling in whoever’s room I’d slept in before.
It was past seven o’clock when I looked at the unforgiving numbers on the clock, meaning I’d missed my chance to talk to Dame and find out what had happened after I’d blacked out.
I sighed. My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, and my stomach was rolling painfully, at once demanding and rejecting the idea of food. But I’d gone all day without, and I knew I needed to eat so I padded my way to the door on bare feet hoping against hope.
Yes. A tray of buttery croissants and sausages sat alongside two tall glasses of water. Thank god my mysterious benefactor had decided to visit me once more, and based on the food, he knew just what kind of a state I’d be in. Not surprising since I’d made a fool of myself in front of everyone who lived here. Peering out into the hallway to make sure no one was there first and finding it empty, I crouched down and pulled the tray towards me, all the way into the room before shutting the door. I didn’t want to see anyone now, or worse, talk to them.
I ate until I was stuffed, feeling an intense amount of gratitude to whoever had left it for me. The flaky croissant had a satisfying crunch to its exterior, and the grease of the sausages soothed my roiling stomach. I finished eating, wiping my face with the cloth napkin, and drank down both glasses of water. Expecting my stomach to revolt at the sudden influx of liquid, but it sat well now that I’d had some food. I breathed a sigh of relief, sitting back against the headboard. I’d eaten in rapidly dimming light in tribute to my poor abused eyes, but if I wanted to read, I’d need some light.
The lamp turned on with a click of the wall switch next to me, but I flinched away, disturbing the plates on my tray and nearly upending it. Arm shielding my eyes, I switched it back off. Carefully moving the tray to my bedside table, I lay back down. I’d slept all day, but I was still exhausted and not quite recovered. With a full belly and a dark room, it wasn’t long before I drifted off to sleep once more.
Chapter 8
“Cassie, reports of your behaviour are troubling.” Tapping his pencil, the man leaned forward in his desk chair and tried to catch my eye. Administrator Samson must’ve been sixty, with a pair of glasses so thick his eyes appeared huge and a kind face. He’d long ago lost his hair, with only a few remaining white wisps clinging to his scalp. Why he didn’t choose to trim them and neaten it up was an oddity, but then, his tiny office was filled with old books and DVDs. Perhaps he was clinging to the past.
