Rock Hard And Wet (BBW Paranormal Romance) (Nymphs Of New York) by Jennifer James Page A

“Did my skirt piss you off too?”
    “Absolutely.” The beat of his heart in
her ear soothed Callie. “I think you should stay naked for the next few days so
I don’t rip anything else.”
    “Okay.” Sleep beckoned and she closed
her eyes. The rumbling purr she’d heard earlier that he’d tried to suppress
came back again, and she smiled. “I like that sound.”
    Theo didn’t reply. He squeezed her in
his arms once more, brushed a kiss onto the top of her head, and tangled her
legs in his before she drifted to sleep.

Chapter Six
    When Callie eased into deep sleep, he slipped away from the soft
curve of her body and tucked the destroyed bedding in tight to her. No reason
for her to get cold while he dealt with Booker. The air conditioning might give
her a chill without him there to warm her.
    He gave himself a mental shake. Worry
for a female of another species who shouldn’t even be here? Stupid.
    Some members of the aerie would tell him
he’d always been ruled by his cock when it came to females. But none of them
mattered anymore. They’d shunned him. Only his brother dared speak to him in public.
The ones who didn’t believe he deserved the punishment he’d received were too
afraid of being outcast themselves to approach.
    Once upon a time, he’d thought them
cowards—before the long years of being trapped and frozen in his hunting form,
transported from one building to the next, unable to do nothing but watch and
listen.
    Now he understood their fear. How much
loneliness and living outside the lines cost.
    A satisfied Callie slept soundly, he
checked the deadbolt on the door and the window locks in the other rooms. No
human could enter the apartment from a window unless they rappelled down from
the roof. The reinforced door and frame were strong enough to protect her from
all but a small battering ram.
    A supernatural being could gain entry,
but with Booker on the roof, only the boldest would dare try to enter his
apartment.
    Nothing left to do but change and start
the long climb up. Once he would have flown, but that option had been torn from
him centuries ago. Still, he felt his missing wings when he transformed. He
still flexed and folded the phantom limbs, could still beat them in the breeze.
    The roots in his back muscles twitched
and spasmed under the specialized cement bandaging. It blended in with his
skin, part of the natural camouflage of a grotesque in their human form. The
rents in his flesh only showed when he changed.
    However, the sensation that part of his
body was missing never left him. It had taken weeks after he awoke from being
frozen to adjust his balance and learn to walk without the weight of his wings
on his back.
    He strode to the sliding glass doors,
slid them open, and stepped outside. Once assured no one would spot him, he
changed into his hunting form. Tingles continued to spark over his skin as the
magic faded and he shook his head, the living stone of his mane swishing. He
flicked his tail to the side a few times and stretched, digging his claws into
the metal grating beneath his feet.
    His back legs accepted his body weight,
and he hooked his claws into the stone wall of the building well above the top
of the doors, climbed a few feet to get his back legs into the stone, and then
shuffled to the side to clear the bottom of the balcony above. In this form,
Theo was much larger than a typical male lion—fifteen feet long from his fore
legs to his rump, with a five foot tail whose tuft hid a sharp spine he’d used
in more than one battle as a deadly weapon.
    When he’d still had his wings, he’d been
a truly fearsome creature.
    It took a few minutes to crest the top
of the building and hop to the roof in silence. He weighed in at several tons,
but his magic allowed for absolute silence, even while engaged in battle.
    Booker crouched on the far wall,
crushing stone between his palms. The sound of the rocks grinding into dust
reached Theo’s ears. He laid them back