Bought for Christmas (7 page)

“Give
me a color, kitten—now.” His voice sounded more distorted than ever, and Emilia
wasn’t all surprised at the clawed hand that grasped her chin. She blinked
through her tears when she saw his toothy smile. Looking more animal than human
right now, he studied her from under hooded lids, his harsh features drawn
tight, yet she wasn’t afraid.

There
was rigid control in the way he held her.
His claws just
resting on her skin without breaking through and really harming her.
 
She knew without a doubt that he would stop
if she cried red. How she could be so sure, she couldn’t even begin to explain
to herself, she just did, and she somehow managed to croak her answer past her
parched lips.

“Green,
Sir, please don’t stop. Let me see all of you.”

Hunter
blinked, astonishment on his face, and he shook his head, and released her.

“You
don’t know what you’re asking of me, and you’re not ready to meet the real me.”

He
slid her off his lap, and bereft without his control over her, she scrambled
into a sitting position and brought her knees up. The action stung like crazy
on her hot ass, and she bit her lip to stop herself from crying out.

Hunter
paced the wooden floorboards like a caged lion in the zoo, and when he turned
Emilia couldn’t suppress her gasp. The scars on his back were far worse than any
of the others she had seen. They covered his shoulders and ran half way down
his back. Thicker on one side that the other, she recognized them for what they
were.
 
Blast injuries, either from a fire
or an explosion. They looked very similar to the ones one of the pregnant
ladies under her care bore. She had been involved in a car crash as a child,
and despite multiple skin grafts had been left with large areas on her tummy
covered in scars. It had and still was cause for concern as her pregnancy
progressed, as no one could be sure how far that skin would stretch.

Hunter
stopped pacing when he noticed her reaction, and she offered him a watery
smile.

“Don’t
presume to know me, Hunter Monahan. You have no idea what I am ready to hear.
Tell me the truth or contract be fucking damned I’ll cry red and make you take
me home. And I don’t mean to my father’s place. Home to my flat, and if that
happens I don’t ever want to see you again.”

To
his credit he didn’t react in any other way than to blink several times, and
then he turned and shrugged into a pair of worn jeans that he pulled out of one
the wardrobes taking up the entire opposite wall of the room.

Despite
the situation Emilia sighed inside at seeing the denim hug those tree-trunk
thighs, and muscled behind. Scars notwithstanding, Hunter was a prime specimen
of male whatever species he might be.

“I can’t do this on an empty stomach.
I’ll be in the kitchen. You’ll find some clothes in that wardrobe. I don’t want
you getting cold.”

With one last searching glance in her
direction Hunter stalked from the room, shoulders hunched as though he carried
the weight of the world on them. And maybe he did. Hunter was clearly a very
private person, and Emilia had just challenged him to not only let her in, but
bare his soul.

Letting her see his scars had pushed
him, but demanding that he share his secret with her…. Emilia shook her head,
wincing as she slid off the bed. By the way her butt felt she would carry some
spectacular bruises tomorrow. The thought made her grin, and her determination
grew to get Hunter to truly open up to her.

She had set out to make this Christmas
different, hadn’t she? Perhaps it wasn’t exactly turning out like she had
envisaged, but the glimpses of the real Hunter she’d managed to snatch made her
hungry for more.

Emilia padded across to the wardrobe
he’d indicated and gasped.

****

 
Hunter smiled grimly when he heard her
reaction to the content of the wardrobe. Clearly she had expected to spend the
weekend naked and on her knees, but that had never been his intention. Well,
not his only intention. While the thought of keeping her like that made him
hard as nails again, he had brought her here to get to know her.
To make her…

Hunter
swore and slammed the carafe into the coffee machine with much more force than
necessary. Make her do what exactly?

Make
her like him enough so that he could eventually tell her who he was? Had that
ever been a viable plan? He should have known that Emilia was far too
perceptive. She might be young, far too young for him in fact, but his kitten
had always had an old soul. Even as a child she had floored him with her
questions, and his lips curved up into smile again. Life had been so much
simpler back then, before the disaster had torn them all apart, and before she
had come back from boarding school all grown up and his bear had swallowed his
tongue.

He
should just take her home, and forget this ever happened, but fuck him, he
couldn’t do that either. Come what may, he had to see this through.

“Don’t
start to frown again, Sir. I much prefer it when you smile.”

Emilia’s
soft voice startled him, and he was surprised at the fact that he hadn’t sensed
her approach. She stepped up to him and snatched the pan out from under the
grill.

“And
you’re burning the toast. I don’t know about you, but I rather prefer mine
edible.” She glanced up at him and nudged him with her hip.

“Go
and sit down. I can do this. What do you want on yours, and are there any eggs?
I could rustle us up something more substantial than toast. A big bear of a man
like you can’t just have toast for breakfast, now.”

Hunter’s
bear grumbled his approval, and the man sat stunned, and pointed toward the
fridge.

“Cat
got your tongue, Sir?” She grinned at him and sashayed across to the fridge
swinging her hips in such a way Hunter’s mouth grew dry. She got out what she
needed, and he watched her put together the ingredients for an omelet with
practiced ease.

Fuck,
she looked way too good in his kitchen. The simple blue jeans she’d chosen to
wear clung to her luscious ass, and the loose fitting tee-shirt kept slipping
off one creamy shoulder. It made his jaws ache with the control needed to not
step up to her and bite her.
To force the connection between
them.

She
whisked the eggs, and Hunter couldn’t stop staring at the way her tits jiggled
under the tee. Fuck, he wanted her so much it hurt.

The
pan sizzled as she poured the mixture into it, and, tea towel flung over one
shoulder, she turned round to look at him.

“So,
am I close? My first thought was bear, because of your size, and then I thought
maybe a large cat? Is that why you keep calling me kitten?”

Instead
of waiting for his answer she sauntered across and poured them both two
steaming mugs of coffee. Placing one in front of him she inhaled deeply as she
wrapped her hands around hers and took a sip.

Hunter
shook his head.

“I
call you kitten because you always wanted one when you were little, and you
turned into a rather outraged version of one when your father told you, you
couldn’t keep the one I bought you.”

A
sad smile lit up her face, and she put the coffee down and turned the omelet
over while putting fresh toast under the grill.

“He
said Leo was allergic to the fur and she had to go.” A tear slipped down her
cheeks, and Hunter crunched his teeth as he, too, remembered that day. He’d
offered to take the kitten and re-home it, but her father had thrown it against
the wall in a fit of temper instead.

“Yes,
he did.”

“I
found her body, you know, after…”

Another
tear fell, and this time Hunter got up and enveloped her in a hug from behind.

“Jesus,
I would have stopped him, but it all happened so fast. He was supposed to bury
her.”

“I
found her in the rubbish bin. I guess he thought I wouldn’t look in there.”
Emilia turned in his arms, and he reached across to turn the heat off on both
the gas ring and the grill. She swiped another tear off her face and looked up
at him.

“I
guess it doesn’t matter anymore. It all happened so long ago.”

Hunter
drew her closer into him, and her eyes widened when she seemed to notice his erection
digging into her belly. Barefoot as she was she reached up to his chest, and he
cupped her chin with his free hand and tipped her head up better to see her.

“Of
course it matters. What he did was unreasonable, and cruel. If it helps, your
mama gave him grief over it.”

A
brief smile flitted across her pale features.

“Oh,
I know. I heard them that night. They had a terrible row, but it didn’t really
help. It just meant that I was to blame for that as well.” She put her hand up
over his lips when he was going to interrupt her. “And I know I wasn’t, but I
was a child then, and they see things differently. We should eat before this
gets cold.”

She
pushed against his chest, and he reluctantly let her go. Her emotions battered
against him like a turbulent whirlwind, so he sat back and let her serve up.
The action seemed to ground her, to give her a purpose, and he didn’t speak
again until he sensed that she had her emotions under control.

“How
long have you known?” he finally asked, after he ate the last mouthful of food
and had helped himself to another cup of coffee.

Damn,
he could get used to this. Sitting across from her at breakfast time, her face
bare, her hair a rumpled mess about her face.

“Not
about the kitten by the way, about me, I mean.”

A
curious smile played around her lips, and she made a great show of spearing the
last bit of egg onto her fork and chewing slowly before she answered.

“I
didn’t, not really. It was only this morning when you half shifted, that it
clicked. That’s what you are, right.
A shifter?
At
least that’s what they call it in the books. You might call yourself something
different, for all I know. I…”

Her
voice trailed off when he didn’t answer her, too amazed by her quiet acceptance
to be able to utter a word.

Silence
fell between them, and Emilia jumped when a log in the fire place fell and
sparks singed the rug in front of it.

“So
what are you?” she asked. “And can you please show me, because I’m still not
entirely sure I am not dreaming all of this.”

Hunter
smiled, and stood. Her eyes went wide when he yanked his jeans down and stepped
out of them.

“I’ll
show you, kitten.”

Chapter Six

Emilia
would never have believed it, had she not seen it with her own eyes. One minute
a very naked, very aroused Hunter towered over her, the next he had dropped to
his knees and changed into a big brown bear.

His
scars weren’t as pronounced in his animal form, but they were there
nonetheless. Not that it took away from the majestic beauty that was Hunter in
his bear form. His intelligent golden eyes looked at her, and he trotted
closer. His wet nose nudged her arm, and taking a deep breath she put both of
her hands in his fur. It was the exact same shade as his hair in human form,
and she stroked him. Wonderfully soft and warm under her digits, he was the
equivalent of a real life teddy bear, and Emilia giggled at the thought.

His
bear rumbled in answer and nudged her again.

“You’re
beautiful, Sir.”

She
whispered the words, and then the massive bear stepped back. The air shimmered
around him, and seconds later Hunter was back in his human form. He didn’t look
at her when he yanked his jeans back on. He didn’t manage to button them back
up again over the enormous erection he still sported, and he sat down gingerly,
and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

“So,
now you know,” he said, and Emilia nodded.

“Now
I know. Thank you for trusting me enough to show me.”

Hunter
groaned and ran a hand through his dark hair. It made it all stick up on end,
and Emilia gave into the need to be close to him and straddling him, sat down
on his lap. She dropped a kiss on the raised skin on his shoulder, and then
reached up to tidy his hair.

“How
did you get the scars, Sir?”

Hunter
shook his head and tugged her shirt up until her breasts were exposed. Her nipples
beaded in the chilly air, and he chuckled and ran his knuckles across them
while pulling his legs up. The action tipped her forward slightly, and in the
next moment he had the shirt pulled off her entirely and twisted around her
wrists at her back in makeshift restraints. As soft as it was on her wrists,
Emilia couldn’t move, and she gasped when he unsheathed one of his claws, and
ran it along her jaw line. Her eyes widened when he ran it over her throat, and
she swallowed nervously as he trailed it down towards her breasts. Once there
he increased the pressure, and allowed more of his claws to emerge. Tiny
pinpricks of painful sensation they dug into her breast tissue as he molded it
between it his fingers, and then bent to suckle first one and the other into
his mouth.