Grace Goodwin - The Virgins - Complete Boxed Set

Soft, feminine laughter floated down from somewhere above me and I turned, lifting my head to spy my mate seated atop the roof. Her smile was genuine, the sight making my heart lurch.

Mine.

“Better be careful or Miss Wallace will follow you home.”

“Miss Wallace?” What was she talking about? I spun in a circle. There were no other women nearby. My senses would have alerted me to—

“The chicken.” Cassie sat with her head resting on top of a bent knee, looking down on me like a queen. Even in her simple blue dress, she was lovely. Regal, even. “I’ve named them all.”

I did not care about her names for these birds, but she was talking to me and I did not wish her to stop. “May I join you?”

She studied me for a long moment, her blue eyes inspecting me from the boots on my feet to the base of my neck where I’d pulled back my long hair and tied it with a strap of leather. I wondered what she saw, if the desire that invaded me at first sight of her affected her as well. She rubbed her palm up and down the rough boards on the roof as if her mating mark were simply an itch to be scratched, a nuisance. She did not appear to recognize me at all, to recognize our connection. She spoke of chickens, not touching. Kissing. Claiming.

Strange. Had I made a mistake? Why did she not acknowledge the pull between us? Why did she pretend not to know who I was? I had touched her wet heat, stroked her body to release with my cock buried deep in her pussy, stifled the sound of her cries in my kiss. I belonged to her, would die to protect her, beg for permission to touch her once more, and she didn’t remember me?

Maddox

Perhaps the dream was different for her. Perhaps she truly did not know who I was.

By the time she answered me I’d nearly forgotten the question.

“All right.”

All right. She was inviting me to sit beside her.

Eager as an untried youth, I leapt on top of the strange wood hut and jumped up to sit beside her. Careful, so very careful not to touch. Touching would awaken the fire in my body, and I didn’t want to scare her, or take her on the roof of a house built for walking birds. I crossed my arms over my chest to remove the temptation to reach for her and looked down upon the odd animals. “There are too many of the creatures. I do not believe you gave each of them a name.”

A sparkle came to her eye and I knew I had won, even before her full, pink lips formed her next words.

“We have a dozen. There’s Annabelle, Alice and Annie, they’re sisters from the same clutch and named for their father, a rooster we used to call Alexander the Great.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I listened, wanting to know everything about her and how her mind worked. She pointed at the various birds, but I had no hope of keeping them straight as the scent of her skin taunted me along with the fragrance of the red flowers crawling along a trellis on the side of the house. I’d asked a traveler the name of the flower on my way to this place, as I recognized the sweet smell. Roses. They were called roses, their petals as soft as I dreamed her flesh to be. “Used to?”

“Mr. Anderson grew tired of his morning litany and I baked him into a rather delicious pie.”

I shook my head. “Poor Alexander. Always the males who suffer the worst of fates.”

She raised her eyebrow at that, but didn’t take the bait. Instead, she returned her attention to the animals. “There’s Maude, Charlotte and Mary, they’ve got the orange feathers. They strut around like they’re royalty, so I named them after the new little princess born a few years ago in London.” Cassie’s laughter was contagious and I chuckled as the three birds strutted and clucked as if they knew they were the center of their lady’s attentions.

“Sunflower, Daisy, Rose, and Tulip were such lovely, happy little chicks that I named them after flowers.”

I counted. “That’s only eleven.”

I was damned. I realized that now. I’d hunted dozens of men, killers and thieves, and never been this unsettled. I was a hunter, and yet, sitting next to my mate in the fading light of early evening, I was unsure. Awkward. My nerves strung so tight I counted her every breath, knew the pace of her heart as it beat inside her chest. Her scent wrapped around me until I felt like I was drowning in it, like her very essence squeezed my cock and made it weep.

Her gaze grew distant and a bit sad and I felt my own smile fade. I’d never felt like this before, as if another’s happiness was the source of my own. I lowered my hands to my sides and settled my palms on the warm wood slat roof, so close to hers. An alien. An intruder in her innocent, childlike world of princesses and flowers.

“The last will be hiding in the coop. She’s terrified of her own shadow, really, and extremely unhappy unless she’s sitting on her nest.” Cassie turned away from me to look down at the odd construct of wood that had been built to house the strange birds. “Her name is Claudia.”

“And did you name her after someone as well?”

“Yes.” Her gaze snapped back to mine, a mask I did not care to see hiding her true feelings from me. “I named her after my mother.”

I did not know what to say and tried for something that surely would offer no offense. “It is a beautiful name. I would like to meet your mother.”

Cassie made a strange sound I did not recognize and lifted her shoulders in an odd shrug. “Me, too. But she’s dead.”

I heard pain in her voice and my hand moved closer to hers, close enough that I felt her heat. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I didn’t know.”

“How do you know my name? And why did you follow me out here?” She rose to her feet, brushing off her skirt with unnecessary vigor and I cursed myself a fool for ruining our time together. I was supposed to seduce her as quickly as possible, throw her over my shoulder and carry her off to bed. She wouldn’t be safe from Neron until she was mine and safely aboard my ship. That sounded more of duty, of protection, than courtship, but right now all that was pushed from my mind. I simply wanted her. My mate. But now, facing her, I realized Earth was truly an alien place, and she rubbed the mark on her own palm not as a welcome heat, but as if it actually pained her.

“Mr. Anderson speaks highly of you. That is how I know your name. Please sit again before you fall.”

“And the other question?” Her eyes darted around as if she were looking for an escape, but chose to sit as I asked. Torn, I wasn’t sure what to do. If she were an Everian woman, I would simply lift my hand and show her my mark. No words would be needed. But Cassie was not from my world, and I suspected that she had absolutely no idea about the marks or what they meant.

But the dreams! I refused to believe I’d experienced them alone.

“What is wrong with your hand?” Her answer would be telling.

She’d been rubbing it vigorously up and down her skirt, but stilled at my question. “Nothing. I have a birthmark there and it’s been itching.” She stood once again, completely unsettled, hopping easily onto the pile of wood resting against one wall of the structure. She was too quick, for I stood to offer her assistance, but she’d already nimbly returned to the ground. I had hoped she would pause and look back, perhaps ask me to join her, but she didn’t even glance over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Yes, it is a birthmark, but it isn’t nothing. It’s a mark that has awakened by my presence,” I called from my high spot on the chicken house. My voice was nearly a shout, but my ire rose as she walked away from me as if I were nothing and no one.