Rookery Cove: Pixie’s Prisoner Read online

  His groan carried through the back alley. He held her prisoner against the wall while he waited for her to adjust to the intrusion stretching her cunt.

  There was no need to wait. He’d driven her out of her mind with need. She was more than ready.

  Laela began to move first, proving there was no reason to hold back. She wanted no restraint, no hesitation. She only wanted him. Every inch of him, hot and heavy and pulsing hard inside her.

  With a growl, he pinned her into place, cupped her cheeks in his big hands, and forced her to look into his eyes. “I don’t know who you are, lady, or what you’ve done to me, but this isn’t like anything I’ve felt before.”

  She whimpered, unable to answer. Her pixie heritage shouldn’t have been able to affect a human male this way. Whatever had happened between them, whatever bit of magic had gone haywire and had heightened this fairly ordinary experience from mere sex to mind-blowing ecstasy couldn’t be blamed on any pixie charm she knew.

  Thrusting up slightly, she felt the brick façade scrape her back as she hovered at the top of his cock. Then, before he could say anything else, she let herself fall.

  Her pussy took all of him — every last inch. They cried out together as her clit scraped his pubic bone so hard, it sent an intense jolt through her body that unraveled the final remnants of her restraint.

  He had only to swivel his hips a fraction of an inch and she was breaking into a million pieces. Thankfully, the tight grip of her thighs around his waist held her grounded enough so she didn’t fall apart when pleasure careened through her.

  He rocked against her, finding his release as she crested hers. A myriad of sensations bolted through her at once. She’d never felt anything nearly as intense as this man’s potent cum flooding her core.

  She clung to his shoulders, inner muscles fluttering madly. The reckless rush of orgasm demanded all her concentration. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to it.

  Laela’s head fell forward. She buried her face in his neck, breathing deeply, imprinting his scent on her senses. For a moment, she forgot she’d never see him again.

  His heartbeat thundered against hers, its powerful rhythm challenging the music spilling out into the alley. Laughter and gleeful shouts invaded the privacy of their unlikely cloister.

  When he scooped her in his arms and drew her away from the wall, all she wanted to do was sag against his powerful chest. She yearned to let him carry her away. Somewhere dark and private and quiet, somewhere they could get to know each other.

  She could spend a lifetime discovering what made him so damned irresistible to her —her! — a pixie who prided herself on listening to her father’s advice and never, ever, ever letting a male of any species get inside her perfectly logical brain. Not to mention anywhere close to her closely guarded scientist’s heart.

  In the back of her euphoric mind, logic still reigned supreme. Letting this man get close would be the end of her future as she knew it. If she let him, he’d burrow inside her very soul. He wouldn’t back away, wouldn’t let her have a moment of independence. He’d overwhelm her, possess her, until he stripped away everything that made her who she was. Until he left a mere husk of a paranormal being where a strong, self-reliant woman should have been.

  She’d seen another relationship unfold in this manner, and she’d be damned if she let this devastating man turn her into her sister.

  “I could stay a little longer,” he whispered in her ear. “I could call my Lieutenant and tell him I have a family emergency. You could stay, too.”

  Fear warred with desire. Her body called out to him, begged him to remain here. Forever.

  Or you could come with me. To Rookery Cove. Only… you don’t belong there. And I’m so scared —

  Reality came crashing back hard as that thought struck. Logic returned to take its rightful place front and center.

  Panic careened through Laela in the span of a skipped heartbeat. She splayed her palms against the man’s chest and pushed — hard.

  He stumbled backward, clearly caught off guard. She used that moment of imbalance to pull herself off his rapidly hardening cock and land on her feet.

  Sucking in a deep breath as her cramped muscles groaned in protest of the abrupt movement, Laela barely took the time to straighten her skirt before whirling around and breaking into a run.

  Halfway down the alley, she came to a guilt-ridden stop.

  She could still taste his kiss on her lips. Her stomach twisted into knots. Remorse, regret, and rancid fear rose in the back of her throat.

  When she looked back, he stood where she’d left him, head hanging low, dark eyes piercing through the shadowy alley to bore into hers.

  “Thanks,” she called out. It sounded as absurdly stupid to her as it must have sounded to him, yet she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t even move. He simply faded into the red brick façade of the wall and vanished from sight, leaving Laela to wonder whether the bartender had slipped something into her glass that had made her imagine the entire encounter.

  The next morning, only the scratch marks on her back told her otherwise.

  Chapter One

  Eighteen months later…

  “It failed. Again.”

  Laela hovered in mid-air, her small frame floating two inches above the door handle to her boss’s office. She’d been flying by on her way to the laboratory when Éliane Salina’s no-nonsense voice stopped her short.

  She’d barely had time to process the woman’s words before her spine stiffened and her chin shot up in an instinctive response she recognized all too well. Three little words from the pixie who signed her paycheck and Laela’s body had gone into defensive “fight or flight” mode. Considering they’d had the same discussion half a dozen times in the past two weeks, she didn’t think she was overreacting.

  Éliane stared at Laela over the rim of her gold-framed glasses. “Well? Come in here and close that door. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Laela’s first reaction was to fly over the sleek metallic desk and jab her right hand into the woman’s eye socket. Since Éliane preferred to work in her human guise, it wouldn’t be difficult for Laela to use her tiny pixie figure to her advantage.

  Thankfully, the impulse to maim her boss quickly vanished. It was a damned good thing, too. She wanted to keep her job. She loved her work. She only wished Éliane believed in the Cum-a-Chameleon formula as much as Laela did. Then she wouldn’t have to continually justify the reason she’d spent the last eighteen months cooped up in a laboratory, working on an aphrodisiac that hadn’t earned the company a cent.

  It would, though. The moment Cum-a-Chameleon went on the market, it would take the paranormal world by storm. Rookery Cove Aphrodisiacs would be hailed as the most innovative company of all those who catered to magical beings. They’d accomplish what no other corporation — paranormal-led or otherwise — had ever managed. And she, Laela Léa, lead product development analytical chemist at Rookery Cove’s Pixie Pharmacology Institute, would finally get the credit she deserved.

  Until then, though, she had to play nice with her boss.

  “We’re testing on the wrong subjects,” Laela said as she kicked the door closed with her heels. She then flew to the desk where she landed lightly on the stack of papers Éliane had been perusing. “I’ve been telling you that for weeks.”

  Éliane gave a frustrated sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Grow up. It’s impossible to have a normal conversation with you when I’m worried about where I place my coffee cup.” As though to demonstrate, Éliane picked up a black mug with the words World’s #1 Boss etched in gold lettering and took a sip.

  Laela begged to differ — on both counts. Wanting to avoid a bigger argument, she fluttered over to the leather chair on the other side of the desk. To avoid the disorientation that always came with gaining five-foot-two inches in two point four seconds, Laela closed her eyes before beginning the pro
cess of shifting into human form.

  With a low hiss that sounded like a vacuum bag being opened, her wings disappeared while her muscles elongated. As she focused on reshaping her appearance, she paid particular attention to lengthening her magically constructed lab coat so that it reached to mid-thigh. She’d be damned if she’d give Éliane another reason to voice her disapproval.

  When Laela’s toes hit the ground, she opened her eyes to find Éliane watching her intently.

  “Maybe the real problem with the formula is the fact that your measurements are out of whack. How can you expect to conduct proper experiments when you’re no bigger than a test tube?”

  Irritation simmered inside her, but Laela forced a patient smile onto her features. “I have better perspective when I’m small. You should try it sometime. Your budget numbers might even make more sense when you’re looking at them up close.” And you won’t feel the need to shut down my project before giving it a real chance, she added silently.

  Éliane shoved her glasses on top of her head. Without them, she looked fresh-faced, wholesome, and much too young to have already climbed up the corporate ladder to this level. But she had, and as much as a part of Laela wanted to think she’d done it on her back, Éliane was clearly there because she deserved to be.

  Whether Laela liked it or not, Éliane was one smart pixie. Her business sense more than made up for whatever she lacked in personal skills.

  “This project isn’t successful, Laela, and you know it. Zwiffle has been conducting all the testing himself, and there’s no doubt about it. The formula does not work.” She said the last three words slowly, punctuating each one as if speaking to a child.

  The urge to poke her in the eye reared its ugly head again. “How can Zwiffle test the product properly if he’s not testing it on the client who will be using it? Even the head of QA is bound to make mistakes if he’s not given the proper tools to do his job.”

  Éliane rearranged her glasses on the tip of her nose. “You know, I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  A spark of excitement leapt to life in Laela’s belly. It was quickly tempered by a flood of suspicion. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying,” Éliane murmured sweetly, “that you were right. We’re testing on the wrong creatures.”

  Laela instinctively reached out and covered the other woman’s hand with hers. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that. I have a simulation running in the lab. It’s not perfect, but if you’ll take a look you’ll see that the chameleon genes will react positively when they come into contact with the formula. The chameleon prototype’s erection is almost instantaneous. He goes wild at the first touch of Cum-a-Chameleon, and the effect is only tempered by —”

  “You have seventy-two hours.” Éliane returned her attention to the papers in front of her.

  Staring blankly while her thoughts raced, Laela opened her mouth to continue, then quickly shut it again. Clearly, she’d missed something. “The simulation is complete. You can see for yourself.”

  Éliane’s pretty heart-shaped face seemed at odds with the glint of determination shining behind her glasses. “I have no interest in your simulation. The only thing it proves is that you spend way too much time in that laboratory, fantasizing about a cyber specimen who may or may not have anything in common with a real chameleon.”

  Blood rushed into Laela’s cheeks. It was true that she’d designed the prototype to be pleasing to the eye, and she’d taken some measure of enjoyment from experimenting on his digital physique, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t on to something.

  “But a real chameleon is impossible to find. You know that as well as I do. They’re recluses, blending in perfectly with humans whenever they must interact with them, and becoming one with their surroundings at the slightest hint of a threat. If we could find one to use as a real test subject, we’d have done so already.”

  Éliane shrugged. “Seventy-two hours. Find me a real chameleon and prove the formula works, or I pull the funding on your project. Are we clear?”

  The shrill ring of the telephone saved Laela from having to answer. Éliane’s eyebrows rose in unmistakable dismissal before she reached for the receiver.

  By the time Laela got to her feet, she was already shrinking, her wings flaring from beneath her shoulder blades. She jumped on the door handle with both feet, dislodging the latch before pulling on the edge of the door. The gap widened just far enough to allow her to fly out into the main hallway.

  There, she hesitated. She’d been given seventy-two hours to find the equivalent of a needle in a haystack. Chameleons were as real as pixies and werewolves, yet she hadn’t been able to find anyone who’d seen one — much less interacted with one — since she’d begun working on the Cum-a-Chameleon project. If she’d known it would be so difficult to validate her work, she might have reconsidered pursuing her wild idea in the first place.

  But there’d been something so alluring about reaching such a huge, untapped market. Chameleons were out there by the hundreds of thousands, just waiting for someone to create a product that worked with their unique physiology. Sure, the shadowy creatures might have been loners by nature, but they still had sex. And that meant they needed Rookery Cove Aphrodisiacs’ products as much as anyone else.

  Three days.

  She was three days away from flushing eighteen months of hard work down the drain. She owed it to herself to at least attempt to accomplish the impossible, if only for the immense satisfaction of seeing Éliane’s jaw drop when she dragged a real live chameleon into the woman’s office.

  Whirling in the opposite direction from her laboratory, Laela flew out the side window. Cool air and the salty spray drifting in off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean brushed her skin, causing a light shiver to dance across her flesh.

  Sunlight glinted off an oddly shaped octagonal roof in the distance. After taking a moment to orient herself, Laela headed toward it.

  Only one person could help her now.

  —

  “Would you stop pacing for two minutes? You’re giving me a headache.”

  “Huh?” Laela brought herself up short. She hadn’t realized she’d been walking back and forth across the top of Okibi’s keyboard.

  “Better,” Okibi said. Her red-tipped fingernails whirled across the black keys.

  Laela fisted her hands at her sides and willed herself to be still. She’d come here two hours ago looking — all right, begging — for help. The least she could do was try not to disturb Okibi while she worked.

  But it was impossible not to be restless. She could practically hear the clock ticking down seconds in the back of her mind.

  With a sigh, she plopped herself down on the smooth surface of Okibi’s desk. Directly ahead from where she sat, a holographic projection of Okibi as the filling in a Branimir and Viktor sandwich flickered briefly before returning to its full glow.

  “Sorry about that,” Okibi said, glancing at the holograph from the corner of her eye. A fond smile tilted the edges of her full lips. “I need to replace the batteries.”

  Laela picked at the hem of her lab coat. Try as she might to avoid glancing at the flashing image, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the darn thing. The two men pressed up against Okibi from the front and back, as though attempting to protect, seduce, and possess her all at once.

  Laela’s heart skipped a beat. The euphoric expression on Okibi’s face contrasted sharply with the intensity on the faces of her men. The sensual phoenix’s lovers had powerful, incredible bodies. They exuded confidence and masculine allure.

  For a brief, logic-free moment, she wondered what it would be like to be loved and cherished by such men.

  In varying states of undress, the stunning trio made an astonishing impression. Still, despite the two perfect specimens standing on either side of Okibi, Laela’s focus kept shifting back to the phoenix’s face.

  A grimace tugged at her mouth. Lae
la didn’t think she’d ever looked like that. Nor had she ever had anyone gaze upon her that way… like his entire world revolved around her at that exact moment.

  Sure you did, a small voice taunted her. That night outside Club Surge. You remember… I know you do.

  She swallowed hard. Oh yeah, she remembered all right. She’d even modeled the digital chameleon prototype after the mystery lover who’d so expertly fucked her in that back alley all those months ago.

  But that was a one-time thing. Okibi’s bliss was lasting — which was a completely alien concept to Laela.

  Okibi hadn’t seemed any worse for wear after mating with Branimir and Viktor. She certainly hadn’t lost her sense of self-worth or her ambition the way Laela’s sister, Aline, had.

  Since coming to live and work at Rookery Cove, many of Laela’s preconceived notions had been tested. She’d seen a number of relationships form over the past year and half. And while she’d kept her distance from the couples as she waited for the inevitable disintegration of the relationships to occur, she’d been stunned when it didn’t happen. In fact, as impossible as it seemed, every union she’d witnessed had lasted. More puzzling yet, each half of a couple seemed individually even more… complete than they did before finding their mate. Or mates, as in Okibi’s case.

  None of it made any sense at all. Maybe there was something in the ocean spray that kept lovers in a constant state of infatuation. But that didn’t compute, either, since Okibi and her mates balanced their time between Rookery Cove Island and a mysterious castle in Western Europe.

  “Aha!”

  Okibi’s triumphant shout pulled Laela out of her reverie. She leapt to her feet and peered up at the computer monitor that dwarfed her small frame. “You got something?”

  Okibi smirked, the expression at odds with the delicate features of her face. “Maaaay-be.”

  Something about the way the pretty phoenix’s eyebrows wiggled made a knot of excitement form in Laela’s stomach. “You’re kidding. You tracked down a chameleon? A real chameleon?”