Bedtime Story

(Name note: this is NOT the Chloe who’s married to Mayor Gil. This is the other Chloe, the human ex-reporter turned paranormal romance writer who’s married to wolf shifter Dale Hancock. Mrs. Gil is NOT messing around on her husband. Just so we’re straight on that.)

Dale Hancock stretched out in bed, waiting for his wife. All he had on under the covers were a pair of boxers, and he didn’t expect to be wearing those for long. Chloe was buried up to the eyebrows in her current magnum opus. Every time she hit a sexy part—which was often, given the kind of books she wrote—Dale got to reap the benefits. Repeatedly, if he was lucky.

Looked like he’d be getting lucky tonight. Chloe wafted into the room in a skimpy, cobwebby thing that’d probably fall off her if he breathed on it. She waved a sheaf of papers in front of her face like a fan. Dale sat up. “Is that … ?”

“Your bedtime story,” Chloe purred. “I’m going to read to you and then tuck you in. Unless you feel like tucking something, which is more what I’m hoping for.”

Dale fluffed a pillow for her, then fluffed his own. “I never turn down a shot at a good tuck.”

“Don’t I know it.” Chloe climbed into bed beside him, settled in and started reading. “Sebastian stared down at the helpless woman crouched before him. For a moment he simply stood there, drinking in her beauty. His fingers curled, as if already curving around the white globes of her breasts. His enormous prong stretched forward, eager to claim the ripe prize so tantalizingly—”

“Yuck. Less prong, more tit.”

“I’m writing this for women. They like prong, the more the better.” Chloe grinned wickedly. “Like me.”

“Yeah, okay, can we just skim over the guy parts? Get back to the lady. Is she naked?”

“Almost. She’s got a few scraps on. He’ll be ripping those off her shortly. I’d better make that clearer.” Chloe snatched a pen off the nightstand and scribbled in the margin. Ever since they’d married and she’d moved in with Dale, there wasn’t a room in the house that didn’t have at least one pen in it. Dale had once replaced her desk-drawer stash with a dildo. Hadn’t that night been fun!

“This Sebastian, is he a shifter?” Dale asked. “What kind? Prong that size, he’s gotta be a wolf.”

“Not this time. He’s a cat. I’m not sure what kind yet. I was thinking lion maybe, but that’s so overdone.”

“Fffft. What good’s a cat? Half the time they can’t even get it up.”

“And you know this how?”

“I’m a spy for Dante. Y’hear things.” His face heated. He ducked his body under the covers. “Read the story.”

“If you insist. Cassalandra clutched the rags of her garment closer to her body. Sebastian’s masculinity swamped her like a wave. Never had she encountered a man so undeniably, overwhelmingly male. God, that sounds lame. I’ll have to fix that. Her thighs quivered at the thought of him kneeling between them and—”

She flipped to the next page. Her voice had gone thready under the spell of her own prose. Perspiration dotted the tops of her breasts. Dale slid his hand under the covers and ran it over the top of her thigh. “Faster,” he growled. “Read faster.”

“Kneeling between them”—Chloe’s breath hitched—“and took Carlos’s big thick prick in his mouth and clamped his lips around it and what the hell?”

They said this last in unison. “Who’s Carlos?” Dale asked.

“Hell if I know. I didn’t write any Carlos.” Chloe flipped through the pages. Her face got redder and redder. “That scaly son of a snake!” she burst out.

Dale sank into his pillow. “Lemme guess. Lamar.”

“We both read from our works in progress at Wednesday’s book club meeting. He must have switched pages on me. The bastard!”

“What’s he want with your book? He don’t even like girl sex.”

“He likes to see what the competition’s up to. Plus he knows you don’t like guy sex, and that I read my books to you.” Chloe disgustedly tossed the pages to the floor. “The next time I see him, I’m going to tie every inch of him into a series of very tiny, very painful knots.”

“You’ve still got a copy of your story, though, right?”

“Of course I do, on my laptop. This is just a printout.”

“Tell you what,” Dale said. “Lemme tell you how the story ends. Cassawhatsie looked at Sebbie’s prick and said, ‘Y’know, a wolf’s is just so damn much bigger I don’t even bother with other species any more. You know any wolves?” Well, lookie here, says Sebbie, here’s my buddy Dale and he’s all revved up and ready to go. But first he wants to lick those big white globes of yours.” Dale ducked his head under the blanket. His voice continued, muffled. “Her cute little nipples sat up like puppies and begged for the treat of Dale’s tongue. He went for the smaller one first—”

“My breasts are too the same size, you—oh!”

“Yep, they are now. While he had her distracted … ” Dale kneed Chloe’s legs apart. “He figured he knew just how to make her forget all about puny cat prongs and show her why wolves were the best. Right after he tested the waters.” He squeezed her thigh, then caressed his hand along its inner reaches, and upward. “Whoa! Regular flash flood going on down there.”

“Hurry, please. My globes are shrinking.”

“Yeah, okay. She told him he was handsomer than any dumb cat and the best humper ever and then he—” Chloe bucked against him and he lost his train of thought. What the hell, he never wanted to be a writer anyway. However, rodeo bronc rider was something else again.

# # #

Eventually Chloe’s and Dale’s tousled heads emerged from beneath the covers. “Whoo! Now that’s what I call an exciting climax,” she gasped. “You tell one hell of a bedtime story, Mr. Hancock.”

Dale grinned. “Wait’ll you see what I got lined up for the sequel.”