[Kingdom 01.0 - 03.0] Kingdom Series Collection Read online

  Gerard stiffened, glancing at the boys chubby fingers within his own. Betty sucked in a sharp breath, her hands over her mouth. Gerard’s eyes grew wide, knowing something had just happened, but not understanding what.

  But Lydia leaned in to whisper, killing the moment. “You should know, Eclipse, the Rockers have a booth next to ours. The bastards…”

  “There is a child present,” Gerard growled, feeling oddly protective of Briley, an astonishing thing considering he’d never particularly been fond of kids. Though he found he kind of liked this one.

  Betty again whipped around to face him, this time a smile crooked her lips.

  “Oh my bad.” Lydia zipped her lips. “Sorry, squirt.”

  For his part, Briley seemed completely oblivious as he happily sucked away at a lollipop he’d dug out of his bag. He’d pushed his mask half way up, it now bunched around his cheeks, his lips were coated with the red candy.

  Betty pulled some wet wipes from her pocket to clean up his face, and then gestured for Lydia to lead the way. Gerard barely held his groan in check. Were it not for the fact that Betty looked damnably delicious in the costume, he’d demand they head back home now. He hated the crowds, hated this world, and wanted her attention all to himself.

  They walked to a booth well in the back of the monstrously large building, a gaggle of silver and blue bedecked ‘heroes’ gathered around it, reminding Gerard of a flock of geese. Some short, tall, fat, slim-- but all deferring to Betty. Bowing and pontificating about how wonderful it was to see her, and ‘all hail the Queen’, then they each took turns rubbing noses. Honestly, Gerard found the entire affair ridiculous, but he couldn’t deny watching her smile and laugh flooded his body with a warmth that ripped through him like a spear.

  “Mr. Gerard,” Briley looked up at him, the candy dangled from his hands. “I’m tired.”

  He sighed. “Me too, garcon.” Spying a row of white fold up tables, he pointed. “Let’s sit.”

  The moment they sat, Briley went back to sucking his candy, and Gerard watched her. What was happening to him? Acting like a girl the way his eyes constantly sought her out, watching her every move like a man entranced. Pulse quickening when she laughed, when even the tinkle of her laughter reached his desperate ears.

  Drumming his fingers on the table, he shook his head. The pendant had very little crimson in it now. She was falling for him, but it still wasn’t enough. Because no matter how much he wanted to slide his shaft deep into her willing, hot body, he couldn’t harden. If he couldn’t harden, she didn’t love him, and if she didn’t love him, he’d die.

  One week. T’was all they had left. What more could he do? What hadn’t he done? He cooked for her, listened to her, watched her repulsive cartoons, and still something inside her resisted him. Should he attempt a seduction? Would that push her over the top?

  “Do you love, Aunt Betty?” Briley’s small voice broke his musings.

  “What?” he growled, staring down at the boy.

  Briley licked his lollipop. “I said--”

  “I know what you said, boy,” Gerard snapped, grabbing his pounding skull.

  “Then why did you ask me to repeat myself?” Briley rolled his eyes and gave him a goofy grin.

  Gerard snorted, it was very hard to stay aggravated with the boy. He was completely unfazed by anger. “It’s not as simple as that, garcon.”

  “Yes, it is.” He nodded and snatched his hood off. The sweaty strands of his blond hair stuck to his forehead. “I love her.” He shrugged. “Easy.”

  Briley’s fingers glistened with pink stickiness. On the next table an almost empty bottle of water sat alone. Gerard snatched up a napkin, and uncorking the bottle, wet the tip of the napkin. Whoever left their water shouldn’t have.

  He cleaned the boy’s hands.

  “I like her,” Gerard reluctantly admitted, and shifted on his seat. Saying it, acknowledging it, didn’t help his dilemma. It only made it worse. Because he would still leave. He had to. She was of Earth, he of Kingdom. What if she didn’t like it there? He couldn’t stay in Earth forever, he loved his world, and whoever he wound up with had to love it too. What if she didn’t want him?

  He frowned, the thought making him rough as he rubbed harder at Briley’s hands, using yet more water to get the worst of the mess off.

  “You’re going to leave aren’t you?”

  Gerard stopped, and turned his face to the boy’s. Clever brown eyes studied him, not the eyes of a dullard, but a human who saw more than others would, or could, ever know.

  “Who told you that?” he growled.

  Briley shrugged, yanking his hands back and licking what Gerard hadn’t taken off. “Because you didn’t say it.”

  Gerard wadded up the disgusting napkin and tossed it into the garbage. When he looked back at her, it was to see her smiling at him. His heart clenched, like an ogre had taken a ham fist and smashed it in. He jerked and turned away.

  “Who are you?” A rough masculine voice pierced his skull.

  Gerard looked up. A massive beast of a human-- muscles bulging on top of muscles-- stared down at him from behind a full mask. Green eyes, like deepest moss, pinned him hard to the chair. Blond hair hung long and loose down the things back.

  “I said, who are you? What class do you belong to?”

  Gerard had heard the greeting all day. Though not directed at him. Dressed as he was, he might as well have been invisible in this circus of freaks.

  The Green thing (as it was dressed entirely in green from its patent leather boots, to its green halter top) flattened a work roughened palm against his chest. Then the voice turned husky, throaty.

  “Only the guild can walk these halls, mortal.” Blunt fingers walked up his chest, toward his neck. “State your business. Or…” the voice hit an octave lower, going even more throaty. Was this creature attempting to seduce him? Bloody hell. “Have you come to visit, Gargantuan?”

  Full red lips curved into a large grin.

  Gerard couldn’t decide whether he spoke to a male, female, or a creature of Kingdom itself. He’d never encountered anything so masculine and yet at the same time, feminine.

  He narrowed his eyes. Betty had taught him much of her language. “Notta chance,” he said calmly.

  “Mmm. Really. Never heard of you, Notta.” The fingers traced his jaw, sexual light flared hot and bright from Gargantuan’s eyes. “What is your guild?”

  “In hell.”

  The hands stopped moving. “Get out of here, only heroes are wanted back here, puny mortal!”

  Betty’s hands clapped onto his back. “He is my slave, Gargantuan. You are not to molest my toy.” Her voice cut like a blade, breathing hard Gargantuan looked between him and Betty and then stomped off.

  Betty’s laughter was a balm to his rattled nerves, she kissed his cheek nonchalantly, and then flew to Briley’s side and did the same. Her kiss excited Gerard, sizzled electric, rocked him to his core and pissed him off all at the same time. Gerard didn’t like this, didn’t like wanting her in this way. As a dying man desperate for water.

  “That was hilarious, Gerard,” Betty’s electric blue eyes touched off a firestorm in his blood. “I’ve never seen her so pissed! I’ll remember that forever, stupid Gargantuan, always throwing her big, fat weight around. Serves her right.”

  Briley frowned. “You said a bad word, Mr. Gerard.”

  “Sometimes a bad word is the only thing you can say, Briley.” Gerard grumbled, but it was impossible to resist Betty’s teasing light, or Briley’s infectious laughter. Gerard laughed, and for the next two hours forgot just how badly he wanted to maim something.

  Betty curled around him. The room danced with shadow, starlight shone in the navy canvas of sky, and Gerard felt his world closing in on him. He’d read to her for hours, his throat raw from repeating over and over stupid nonsensical phrases of ‘See Spot Run’ and ‘Run Jane Run’… though he knew his abilities were improving, it was slow and irksome all the same
. And though the very notion of cuddling had induced a riot of bile in his gut before, he found this was the part of their day he most enjoyed.

  “That was fun today,” she said, her smile evident in her tone.

  He rubbed her back and she moaned. “Glad you thought so. I found it a detestable act of nature.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” she giggled and sat up, her warm brown eyes seared him, and his heart clenched. Her skin was so silky soft, so smooth, sliding along his hairy one. He squeezed his eyes.

  “Why do you work in a library, Cherie?”

  She tilted her head. “Where did that question come from?” Her fingers framed his face.

  “You’re so smart. You have a degree. I know what that means. Why are you stuck here? Why do you work for so little, when you could have so much more?”

  She thought for a moment and then smiled. “Briley. That’s the simple answer. When Kelly got divorced I knew he’d need help. Our parents died years ago, we only have each other. He needed me and I came.” She shrugged.

  Why could he not find one flaw in the woman? Why was everything about her so good, so nice? It would be so much easier to leave if there were even one thing wrong. “Didn’t it make you angry? To be forced to put your life on hold? Resentful?”

  She shook her head. “It hurt. I worked hard to get that degree. But all I’ve got to do is look in Briley’s wide guileless eyes and I know I did the right thing. I’d do it again.”

  She said it so matter of factly, and he knew he’d never be half as good as her. Hadn’t been. Gerard was a beast, a man who got what he wanted, when he wanted it, and he wanted her. Now.

  “Tell me about your world, Gerard,” she asked hesitantly.

  He sighed, knowing for some time this conversation would happen. “What do you wish to know?”

  She smiled. “Do you know the Beast?”

  He growled. “Dog face, oui, I know him. Next time I see the arrogant bastard I’ll punch him in the face.”

  She laughed. “Okay, let’s not talk about dog face then. Who else do you know?”

  Gerard thought of the bad five. She might as well know the crowd he ran with. “I’m particular friends with Hook, Jinni, Hatter…”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh man, that’s awesome, tell me more!”

  Gerard chuckled at her child-like enthusiasm, and wanting to continue seeing her smile, told of some of their raunchier exploits. Betty cried with laughter at some of Hook’s debauchery, winced in sympathy at Wolf’s unfortunate problem, and sighed happily when he’d told her of Hatter’s successful mating. They talked for hours, and the more they talked, the more aware Gerard became of her. The way she sighed, how she would unknowingly curl closer to him, how her tiny hands touched him constantly, her scent, her warmth-- Betty Hart flooded his senses and his mind, and he could no longer remember stories.

  “Betty,” he said, urgency lending a hint of violence to her name.

  She shivered, as if sensing his mood. “Yes?”

  “I need you.” The words tore from his soul. Vulnerable, exposed, Gerard sat up, pushing her away. “I cannot touch you each night, and pretend it isn’t so. I want to slip inside you, Cherie. I want to lick you, touch you,” make love, he refused to say the last.

  Her eyes widened, as her breathing grew ragged. “I want that too,” she admitted softly.

  With a groan, Gerard rolled on top her. Grabbing her by the waist, digging his fingers into her firm flesh, he pulled on her blouse with an impatient tug until her breasts popped free.

  Her moans spurred him on.

  She had the most amazing breasts. His hands shook a little as he traced the swell of each one. Pink tipped nipples poked like tiny daggers into the air. Leaning down, he blew a moist breath across one tip. The darkened skin puckered and her legs spread. Gerard lay between her spread legs, even through her shorts, the warmth of her body speared his.

  He trembled, never remembering a moment he’d ever felt this wild, this crazy with wanting.

  “Gerard,” she moaned. “But I thought…”

  “Shut up, harpy,” he moaned and dipping his mouth, suckled her nipple. The sweet jewel tickled the roof of his mouth and he groaned at the salty, flowery scent of her nude skin. His tongue swirled and danced over and over, head dizzy and swimming with thoughts of Betty.

  Only Betty.

  His beautiful, harpy-tongued shrew.

  She rocked on him. “Oh yes,” she moaned, “so good. Love...”

  Gerard smashed his lips on her mouth, cutting off the lie. Knowing it for what it was because his cock was still a limp noodle. He didn’t want lies, he wanted truth. Just this once, just this night.

  He coaxed her mouth open with his tongue, slipping in when she parted on a tiny pant. His hand slid down her flat belly, slipped under her shorts and found the wet center of paradise.

  She grunted, pushing down, and he couldn’t think anymore. Gerard slipped a finger in.

  “Harder,” she shoved down.

  He slipped in another digit, stretching her, filling her. Wishing it was his cock, and not his damn fingers. Her earthy scent tickled his nose. He inhaled deeply letting it fill his lungs. “Mon belle, mon belle,” he murmured.

  Her nails scored his back, but it felt good. So damn good. He pumped harder, and she writhed on him. “So good,” she cooed, and then her body seized, and a delirious expression wreathed her face.

  Her soft center rolled with her orgasm, squeezing his fingers as her rocking slowly subsided. She laughed, kissing his chest, his neck, his face. But he wasn’t done with her, not by a long shot.

  Gerard pushed her shoulders back onto the mattress.

  “Gerard?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Open your legs, mon belle,” he said, voice thick with his need.

  Her breathing stuttered, but she dropped her legs open, and with a deft flick of his wrists, slipped her small shorts off. The sight of her swollen pink nub made his head reel. He touched her with just the tip of her finger and she surged up in response.

  “Gerard…”

  Breathing hard, Gerard bit and nibbled his way up her thigh until he reached the apex of her pleasure. “Betty,” was all he could choke out before he drew her nub into his mouth and sucked hard.

  She screamed, her thighs immediately clamped to the sides of his face. Gerard pulled harder, a low aching spiraled through his gut, made him woozy and weak. He wanted this woman, wanted to slam his cock into her slick warmth, and never come out again.

  He rolled her nub around his tongue. Her scent flooded his mouth, better than any wine. She tasted of tart strawberries.

  “Oh, Gerard,” she moaned over and over, making his blood heat to a fevered frenzy.

  Her thighs shook, and he lapped at her like a cat with cream, then he shoved two fingers back inside her and flexed so that his fingers massaged the center of her pleasure, and she yelled his name as she ground her hips hard against his face.

  Moaning, twisting, she pumped on him up and down. Her thighs shook violently, but he didn’t dare move, accepting her gift, only wishing her could give her so much more.

  After what seemed an eternity, she flung her hand across her face and laughed, pain flooded his testicles and he hissed, needing desperately to relieve the ache of being pent up for so long. But relief would not be his, and the reminder of the curse pissed him off, cleared the fog of lust, and brought with it an agony of searing pain.

  “Gerard, that was…”

  He jerked back, and with a withering glare, stalked to the bathroom, shutting the door. Shutting her out.

  He slammed his fist against the wall. His flaccid cock offered him no release. His blood sang, his head swam, and the throbbing was excruciating. His balls were tight orbs against his body, pulsing hot and hard down his legs, making him weak in the knees.

  “Gerard,” her soft voice echoed hollowly through the door.

  Gnashing his teeth, he slammed his fist into the wall again. He wanted her. She
’d called him her slave earlier, and gods he was. He hated himself. Hated her.

  “Go away, Betty. Just go the hell away.”

  Chapter 30

  Betty stuck a book on a shelf.

  “Betty! Wrong shelf, for like the thousandth time!” Trisha snapped Betty from her mournful thoughts.

  “What?” She frowned.

  “This is a medical reference book,” Trisha dangled the red hardbound book in front of Betty, malachite eyes bright with annoyance, “so why the hell are you putting it in with the Encyclopedias?”

  Eyes burning, throat working hard not give in to the tears threatening to let loose, Betty could only stare.

  Trisha’s eyes grew wide. “Betty?”

  The question in her name tipped her over, and leaning against a bookshelf she covered her eyes. “He’s leaving, Trisha. It’s all over tomorrow.”

  Trisha grabbed Betty’s arms. “He dumped you?” she snarled. “That low down, worthless pathetic...”

  “No,” Betty shook her head, “no, he didn’t dump me. I just, I can’t even. Oh Trisha, I’m falling for him hard and fast, and I can’t stop this, and I don’t want to.” She stared at her friend, knowing her eyes were blood shot.

  Since the night Gerard had given her the best orgasm of her life, he’d been ignoring her. Refusing her entrance to his bed at night, refusing to let her even touch him. He still cooked for her, but left her food on the counter, no longer eating with her.

  Betty didn’t know what she’d done wrong. She’d tried to talk with him several times, but he would turn cold and distant, and she refused to humiliate herself further. But if he wouldn’t talk to her, she couldn’t help him, and why she even still wanted to… let her know just bad she had it for him.

  “I don’t understand then,” Trisha’s lips turned down in a plump frown.

  Betty gave her a weak smile, and wiped up the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just… he’s got to go home, and I’ll probably never see him again.”

  Trisha’s lips tipped. To her credit she never once told Betty I-told-you-so, just enfolded her in her warm arms, and patted her back. “I’ve got a date tonight. We’re headed to Charley’s. Why don’t you guys come?”