Jackson: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance, page 14
“It doesn’t sound like it.” They found the trunk of dishes. Actually, there were two of them full of the dragon design. Bloom had the faeries take them to the house and clean them up. “I would really like to see her dresses. Also, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have this set of hers put in the house as well. Just as it is. I want to go through all the drawers and look at what she would have worn.”
The bed set had a four poster high bed with stairs to get into it, two tall dressers, a wardrobe, as well as several other pieces. Bloom said that she’d make sure that all the things within were taken care of as well. Jackson found where the dresses and his father’s suits were stashed away.
“I have no idea why, but I thought that your father would have been a much bigger man.” The suit looked like it would have fit a teenager before his first shave. “He wasn’t all that tall either, was he?”
“No, now that I think about it. He was only about five foot five, and hated that my mom was so much taller than him. I think I got my height from her.” The suit that they were looking at was made of the finest wool, and the shirts with them were all silk. “These would have been a fortune back then. Now as well, but the money that he would spend on shirts and his shoes was astounding. When he saw his first suit, somewhere in Paris, I think, he had himself three of them made. My mother was outraged at such a cost.”
“What did she do to retaliate?” He laughed. Jackson thought of the thing that his mother had purchased. “Oh, this must be very good.”
“It was, and made them a great deal of money on top of that. You see, my mom was forever investing in things. Not that they allowed women to do that much back in the day, but she would take her pocket money and help someone along on a project or two. There was this very unknown painter.” He turned to find where all the art from the house was stored. “She gave this man some money—it couldn’t have been much—but he took it and bought himself some paints and other items. He wanted to do his first one for her. So, this is what my mom purchased with her money.”
“Holy shit, Jackson, is that who I think it is?” He showed her the signature in the lower corner. “That has to be worth millions by now.”
“I think it is. But she would never part with it, nor would she allow it to be taken from the house each season. If it was, she’d go down to wherever they were storing things at the time and bring it back. It got to the point where my father finally let her keep her doodles. But she loved it because someone had made it just for her.” Putting the painting back, Nicole told him that she wanted it with her bedroom suite, in the house. “You’re a wonderful person, Nicole. My mother would have dearly loved you, I believe.”
“I think I would have worshiped her. After giving me you as a mate, I wouldn’t be able to thank her nearly enough.” The dresses were found next, and he spent an hour picking out the one that Nicole would try on. They were all beautiful, he thought, and could remember some of them on his mom. She had been so regal and so much fun. Jackson missed her all the time.
Bloom and several other faeries came to help her dress when he found one that he liked and remembered. As he wandered around the big room, he could see only a few things that he would like to have kept for their home. Not many pieces of his father’s, really, but there was his sword that his rider at one time used. A piece of armor that had been pierced by another. When Nicole cleared her throat for him to look at her, Jackson was glad that there had been something for him to sit back on when he fell.
“It’s very lovely, isn’t it? And I feel so beautiful.” Jackson told Nicole that she was. “But this, this makes me feel like I could be the most beautiful woman in the world. Where on earth did your mom wear this to? I would so love to keep all her dresses, Jackson. Just to be able to dress up and feel this way at times. No wonder she was so empowered. This dress alone would make a person feel like they could negotiate world trade deals.”
The dress was one that was inspired by Marie Antoinette, if he didn’t miss his bet. The color was purely his mom’s—a blood red that showed the black to be only a minor color in the pattern of it. It had stiff ruffles, and long sleeves that flowed around the hand at the wrist. It was tiny waisted, as she had been, and flared out in a way that made any man wonder at the treasures that might be hidden beneath all the fluff and lace.
The hat, the same red, was small, and Nicole had set it jauntily at the side of her head. Her hair was pulled back, then was hanging down in a single long braid as it had been before dressing up, but it suited both the dress and the woman very well. He shifted his clothing so that he matched her in both period and color of her clothing.
“My dear wife, you swoon me in your beauty.” Nicole giggled and Jackson smiled. “Would you allow me this dance, please?”
They waltzed about the room, and Jackson could swear that he heard music. Holding her closer than was proper, he looked down at her as she smiled back up at him. He loved her. Jackson loved her with his life, and he didn’t care who knew it. When she pulled away, complaining about the heat in the dress, he smiled when she went to change. He’d make sure that the dresses were in the house someplace so that they could play like this again. Jackson had enjoyed himself as much as Nicole had.
Everything that they wanted was taken back to the house for use as soon as they made the decision to keep it. He was glad now that he’d not tossed it when his father had died, and was glad to have been able to bring a little of his history, some of it not that wonderful, into his home with Nicole. They’d have each other forever, and this was something that they could pass down to their children someday.
Spending most of the morning and into the afternoon at the storage place, they had some lunch. Jackson had made plans for them for the next couple of days, and was looking forward to it just being the two of them. As their food was brought to them, Connor sat down and pulled half of Nicole’s sandwich to himself.
“I found a house.” Nicole asked him if he was going to have a kitchen in it where he could feed himself. All he did was grin at her. “I’ve talked to the faeries here, and they’re going to fix it up for me. I’ve decided that it should be all the way back to the original looking house. But they’re going to keep the added on rooms and floor with it.”
“Where is it?” He told Jackson where it was. “I know that house. It’s said to be haunted. I don’t know if that’s true, mind you, but I have heard that around town.”
“It is. I saw them today. They’re going to cooperate with me or be put out.” He ate two more bites of Nicole’s sandwich before Connor looked at her. “Oh yeah, I can see ghosts. I should have perhaps told you that. But it never came up.”
“No, I don’t think that it would, now would it? What do you mean, you see ghosts? All kinds of them?” Connor said that as far as he knew there were only dead ghosts, but he could look if she knew more. “Don’t be a prick, you know what I mean. Do you see them now? With us here in this room?”
“Yes. They’re everywhere if you want to look for them.” She said that she didn’t. “All right. But should you like to meet the ones at my home, I’d be glad to allow that with you. I do have one, however, that I might have to banish. She’s making a ruckus. April, her name is. She fell asleep with a candle burning, and died by the flames.”
“You’re joking, right?” Connor asked Nicole about what. “This ghost. You said that she’s causing you trouble because.... Why is she causing you trouble?”
“Oh, she wants to be alive again, and thinks it’s the fault of the original owners of the house that she was killed. He’s still there, Duncan. But he swears that he didn’t harm her. He’d have to tell me the truth, too.” Nicole put down her half of sandwich. “Are you going to eat that?”
“No, have at it.” Jackson laughed as he finished his own sandwich. He’d been friends with Connor for a very long time, and knew just how much Connor saw all the time. Jackson hoped that Nicole would be as accepting as he’d been. “Why can you see them? Is it that you died and came back or something?”
“No, it’s my magic. It’s very helpful. When we were plentiful and the humans decided to kill us for our magic, I would be guided into corners of the earth that no man would enter. They’d know, you see—the ghosts would know of those places because they had died there. It’s why, I think, I’m alive today.” She asked him what else he could do with ghost. “Banish them, should I need to. I’m not a necromancer or anything like that. And I can only work with the ones that live with me. Over the years plenty have lived with me off and on. Most, after a time of living as long as I have, would decide to fade. I don’t know if that would be the same as just not existing anymore, but they don’t return to me.”
“Do the others know?” He nodded, and said that he was not shy about what he could see, but he didn’t share with humans. “Yes, well, I can see where that would get you in a white jacket and padded room.”
“They’d never be able to hold me there either.” Nicole glared at him. “You are such a breath of fresh air, my dear. But, I’m sorry to say that we’re to have a visitor soon. I don’t know, at this point, what sort of visitor she plans on being. Nor her plans when she arrives.”
“Who is she?” Connor said her name was Aisling. “That means something. Let me think. Yes, it means a vison or a dream. Is she? A vison, I mean?”
“I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean anything. She’s not my mate either, before you ask. I’ve been to see her a few times while she rested. For seven hundred years or so, she’s been in a cave resting after an injury. I haven’t any idea what woke her now, nor do I care, but she’s on her way here. Her mother too.” Jackson asked what she was. “Dragon. Both are, as a matter of fact. I have to do some digging on things. From what one of the people that I know told me—yes the dead—one of the two betrayed the king.”
“Not Devon.” Connor said that he didn’t think so, as she’d been resting for so long. Jackson waited to continue while Connor ordered more lunch for all three of them. “Do you know anything about her? I mean, either of them?”
“Nothing. I do know that the feel of the newborns pulls her here. Because she’s dragon she’d feel it before anything else would. I don’t know her mother at all. Not even a name. I’m going to talk to Devon after I leave here, to see what he can find out for me.” Nicole asked how he knew she was coming. “I’d like to tell you that I’m all powerful, but all I did was ask, a very long time ago, for someone to watch over her. Not that she meant anything to me, but she was on a battlefield that I’d been on. So, when she woke, he came to talk to me at the house. He told me that she continues to talk about the pull of the dragons. To her faerie, Dak, I guess.”
They talked for a bit more, eating more than they should have at one sitting. When they rose up, both he and Connor were stuffed. Nicole made fun of them both for eating so much, when it was only the second meal of the day. Jackson could not wait to show her how he planned to burn off those extra calories.
~*~
The hotel was very nice, and she was having so much fun looking out all the windows. Nicole had been to Paris before, several times in her career, but this was different. This was with Jackson. He’d made all the plans for them, and she had no set schedule that she had to follow in order to do well. Also, since he’d seen the country develop, he was going to show her the treasures that she would have missed coming to school here.
“We have dinner reservations at nine. I’d forgotten how late people eat here. I think it’s because they have so many other things that they can do before thinking of food. Tomorrow we’re going to go to the market and find all sorts of treasures to bring home with us.” She nodded as she watched the flow of traffic work around all the people that were walking about. “Are you glad that we’ve made it here?”
“Oh yes. There is so much I want to do that I know that I’m never going to see it all in just a couple of days. But I’m so happy to be here. With you.” Jackson told her that they could return at any time without any trouble. “Yes, I noticed that getting here was a piece of cake, and so fast.”
He’d wanted to bring her with his dragon, but she hadn’t wanted to fly for that long. So, he just talked to a friend of his and suddenly they were in the hotel with luggage all around them. He’d told her a little while ago that he knew that was what she’d want, and had had it brought yesterday.
“Come here, Nicole.” She turned to look at him, her body heating up so much that it took her breath away. “We have plenty of time between now and dinner should you just want to take a nap.” Jackson wiggled his brows at her.
“You are such a flirt.” She made her way to the bed, taking off her shoes first, then unbuttoning her blouse. “I have thought of nothing else but having you in bed with me since—well, since we left the bed this morning.”
“I know. I can smell you right now, and you smell ripe to me. Like the nectar from a ripe peach. The dewy morning dew that clings to the leaf of the grass before falling.” Jackson certainly did have a wonderful way with words, Nicole thought. “There are so many things that I want to do with you. And to you. But I fear that you will wear down before I am completely finished with you.”
Nicole was naked before she got to the bed where he was lying. She wanted to jump on him, ride his cock until she got to scream out her pleasure. But he had other things in mind, and put her in the middle of the bed and tied her hands to the bedposts.
“You distract me too much when you touch me.” She moaned when he tied her ankles the same way. “Do you have any idea what it is like to have you spread before me like this? To have you looking like a feast that is only mine to have? Christ, woman, you make me hard just thinking about having you come for me.”
Jackson ran his hands up and down her ribs until she was sure that she was going to die just from that. Her arms were massaged, her throat too. When he touched her breasts, cupping them in his hands so that he could feed from them, she cried out when he nipped at her bud, screamed when he watched her face as he suckled from them.
As he moved down her body, she couldn’t stop the trembling, her body more than on fire now. Nicole felt like liquid heat, molten. When Jackson settled between her thighs, she wanted him to both finish her and to leave her alone. She knew that if he did anything to her, she was going to explode.
“You’re so tense.” He touched her knee with his fingers, then kissed her there. “I bet that if I were to take you into my mouth right now, I’d be filled with your cream. Do you have a lot for me, Nicole, my love?”
She moaned and rode his fingers as he fucked her, never touching her clit, Nicole tried very hard to get him to just brush over it. Just a single touch, she thought, would be enough. But he was good at what he was doing, making her cry out with just enough release that it was neither fulfilling nor satisfying for her.
“Please, Jackson. I’m going to die if you don’t help me.” He laughed. It sounded sexy and full of humor. “Jackson, I want you to know that turnabout is fair play. If you make me suffer now, I’m going to give you double that when it’s my turn.”
“Really? I hope so. When I’m at the mercy of you, all I can think about is how I’d love for you to make me suffer. Make me cry out in pleasure when you touch me.”
She wanted to murder him. Wanted to pull free of the bonds that he’d put on her and strangle him. Just as she was ready to do just that, he touched her in a way that she would always be sure was an electrical current that had been set on the highest setting.
Nicole passed out twice while she screamed around the climax. Her body was bent hard, her arms strained at the silken bonds. Even as she tried to catch her breath, even to get her heart beating at a normal, all be it fast, beat, she screamed again and again as he brought her over and over.
It was all from a single touch, his finger brushing over her womanhood. She tried to wrap her mind around the fact that he’d be finished soon, that she’d rest a bit before he’d take her, but he continued to make her scream. Continued over and over to make her body his. Then, he did the most incredible thing—he bit down on her clit, and the world just seemed to buzz out.
She’d not been ready for it. Not that she thought that a body would ever be ready for such a feeling, such a thing. Nicole saw stars, rainbows, and unicorns. It was a strange thing, she thought, but they were real, these creatures in her mind.
“Please, no more.” He laughed. Her body turned into a tight string of need once again. “Jackson, I’m going to die if you touch me again.”
“Nay, you will not. You are mine, and I wish you to be totally satisfied before I begin again.” She looked at him with one eye, not sure that she was seeing things correctly. “Yes, love, this is the real me, the me that the dragon needs when he is ready to come out to play.”
He entered her hard. Nicole hadn’t been prepared, and despite the fact that she came several more times, too many for her to count, she knew there was more. Not just from her, but from Jackson as well.
Jackson felt larger, thicker than ever before. His cock didn’t just fill her, but it seemed to become a part of her. As he moved slowly in and out of her, his hands touched her, nails scraped along her body, until she thought that he was tearing her apart. It was too much and yet not enough. Even as he took her throat, she knew that when they came, it was going to bring the hotel down around them. That no one would be safe inside or out of this place.
“Come.” It wasn’t a request but a command. Coming for him, not for herself this time, she felt teeth, long and sharp, enter her throat. Blood moved down her body, but before she could even think she was going to die, her body bowed up and Nicole felt as if she simply disappeared.
