Page 8 of Taken for Granite
None of the other females his captors had brought for him had ever triggered his mating fever, though.
Absently, he palmed his hardened cock. It felt hot and heavy, and Tas found it difficult to think beyond the aching need of it—how it would feel to be buried deep in the hot, wet warmth of the female.
He should not have accepted the female’s bottle of water. It must have been laced with some chemical to cause this reaction in him.
The Rose starved him. Deprived him of sunlight and water. Then a lone female gives him the water he desperately needed?
Another warrior who didn’t have rocks in his head would have spotted the obvious trap. It stank of Rhododendron.
Still, Tas had little choice and he resisted the female. His will was stronger than the Rose’s snare.
Another piece of iron dissolved on his tongue. He needed to replace depleted minerals if he wished to restore his strength. Marginally better than nothing, Tas focused on consuming the oxidized iron. Once that took the edge off his hunger, he’d seek a better source of nutrients. He had endured many mating fevers before. This one was no different.
4
Juniper
When Juniper returned the van to the diner, she expected Mickey to be waiting for her. Instead, Chloe climbed into Juniper’s old Honda, slamming the door. The car had been their parents’, and while the new car smell had been gone for a decade, it got them from point A to point B.
“What happened to your hand?” Chloe flung herself down onto the front seat and shoved her school bag to the floor. Her hot pink headphones hung around her neck, ready to slip on and ignore her big sister.
“I got caught on a nail,” Juniper said. Scarlet soaked through the tissues she placed over her hand. “I’ll clean it when we get home.” Hopefully, the wound wouldn’t get infected.
“Tetanus shot.”
“What?”
“That’s what you need, if it was a nail. Don’t want to get lockjaw.” Chloe pulled her headphones on and stuck her nose in a book, not saying another word, totally unlike her normal, chatty self.
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” Juniper mentally added a tetanus shot to the list of worries, along with gargoyle venom and monster bacteria. “How was the diner?”
“Fine,” Chloe said in an uninterested grunt.
“Did anything happen?” The diner was relatively safe, and Jack would keep the creepers away from Chloe, but Juniper still worried. She didn’t want to be one of those helicopter parents, but the world was full of unsavory people, her boss being one of them.
“No.” Chloe moved the book closer, her nose nearly touching the page.
Juniper pulled the headphones down. “That’s not good for your eyes.”
“Ugh. Fine.” She snapped the book shut and hugged it to her chest. “I don’t like you working for Mickey.”
“That’s part of my job,” she lied.
“That’s why your hair is messy and your knees scraped? Part of your job.Sure.” Chloe rolled her eyes.
A quick and hot blush rose to Juniper’s face. When Chloe said it like that, it didn’t look good. “Whatever you think you’re suggesting, young lady, that’s not my job.”
“Let’s pretend that it’s yourcoffeeMickey likes so much.” If eye-rolling were an Olympic sport, Chloe would have the gold.
“First, don’t talk to me with that tone. Second, Mickey has never once made a pass at me.” Or anyone who Juniper knew. Rumors about him with gals or guys just didn’t exist. Mickey was either extraordinarily discreet or completely uninterested in sex with anyone.
“Whatever.”
Never in her life had Juniper wanted to smack her kid sister. Fourteen was a trying age. “Give me strength,” she muttered.
“I don’t like him,” Chloe said, voice softening as if she sensed her attitude went too far. “Why can't you find another job?”
“It’s not that simple,” Juniper said. Good jobs didn’t grow on trees and she had an astounding lack of qualifications being a college dropout.
