Twelve
Had he gone too far? Stone didn’t know—and part of him didn’t care. He had wanted to show Cassandra once and for all that he wasn’t like her ex-mate—or like The Beast, for that matter. What they had seen today in the murder scene cast a pall over all Kindred—unless he could prove that The Beast wasn’t what he seemed, that was.
Which is exactly what I’m going to do, he told himself. Somewhere on the laptop they had confiscated from Yarrow he was certain to find proof that the murderer wasn’t really Kindred.
He hoped, anyway.
“Hey, Stone?” Cassandra’s voice broke into his thoughts.
“Hmm?” He turned his head to look at her.
“Where are you taking me?” She nodded out the window. “This isn’t the way to the station. We’re going to your house.”
“Exactly.” Stone nodded.
“But we need to write up a report,” she protested.
“And we will. But first we’re going to go through this damn laptop and look for evidence of The Beast’s true identity,” Stone said firmly.
“But…” She trailed off, as though uncertain of what to say.
“Do you have a problem with my plan?” Stone asked, frowning.
Cassandra bit her lip.
“It’s just…getting a little late. That’s all.”
“If we had gone to the concert, like we planned, we’d still be there right now,” Stone pointed out. He looked at her directly. “Are you afraid to be alone with me now? After seeing what that other male who calls himself a Kindred did?”
“Of course not!” Her cheeks flushed angrily. “I know you could never do anything like that, Stone!”
“You probably thought I would never go after a possible suspect the way I did with Frank Yarrow, either,” Stone said in a low voice. “I have surprised and frightened you more than once tonight, Cassandra.”
He wasn’t only talking about the way he’d gone for Yarrow and he could tell she took his meaning by the way her cheeks grew even pinker. But she lifted her chin, a determined look on her lovely face.
“Stone, you’re my partner and my best friend. I’m not afraid of you and not afraid to be alone with you. I just thought the report should come first.”
“This way we’ll have more to put in the report.” He was pulling into the drive of the modest but neatly appointed domicile he had chosen when he first knew he would be stationed on Earth permanently. It was in the North Tampa neighborhood called “Carrollwood” although no one that Stone had met here was named Carroll and there weren’t many woods to speak of—unless you counted the oak trees which lined the streets.
“All right then.” Cassandra sighed. “Looks like we have a long night ahead of us then. Guess I’ll pop some popcorn if we’re having a ‘movie night.’”
“I doubt the ‘movies’ we will be viewing will be anything like our usual fare,” Stone remarked darkly as he followed her to his front door.
He didn’t know what exactly to expect from the laptop, but he didn’t think he was going to like what he saw.
Not one damn bit.
Thirteen
“Oh, Daddy—it’s too big! You’re hurting me!”
Cassie cast a wary glance at her partner’s face as they watched the scene on the laptop together. They were sitting side-by-side on the couch, where they usually sat to watch movies when it was Stone’s turn to host. The laptop was sitting on the coffee table in front of them.
She hadn’t known what to expect while watching porn with her partner. It was, after all, the exact opposite of the kinds of things they usually watched together.
Cassie had never been much of a “girlie-girl” so she never inflicted rom-coms on her partner. She also avoided weepy, long winded features where the heroine “finds” her true self again, after a prolonged vacation at an exotic local. She much preferred action-adventure films, and though she sometimes had to explain the humorous parts to Stone if there was any comedy involved, he seemed to enjoy them too.
But her partner was not taking well to the porn they were viewing—not at all. What they were seeing on the laptop was affecting him in ways that not even the most exciting car chase or tense action-packed blockbuster could.
She supposed she had gotten used to thinking of the big Kindred as though he was a living machine—Stone was extremely smart, exceptionally strong, and coldly logical. But now his face was set in a grimace of angry distaste, as though he couldn’t decide if he wanted to shout at the screen or get sick to his stomach.
All-in-all, her partner had showed more emotion tonight than Cassie had seen from him during their entire partnership.
And she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
“The son-of-a bitch,” he said thickly, pointing to the laptop screen. “He is hurting her!”
Indeed, the girl on the screen—a petite blonde with her hair in pigtails to make her look even younger than she probably was—was grimacing and gasping as The Beast attempted to fit his mammoth cock into the tiny, tight mouth of her shaved pussy.
“That’s part of this, uh, type of porn, I think,” Cassie tried to reassure him. “It’s the idea that his dick is so big and manly that the girl can’t take it.”
“But why?” Stone demanded angrily. “Why would humans want to watch a male hurt a female like this?”
“I think it’s mostly human men who like it,” Cassie told him. It certainly didn’t do anything for her. “Not all of them, of course. But the ones that do, they live vicariously through it. When they’re watching this scene, they can pretend that it’s them that has the massive dick, so big a girl can’t take it.”
“I don’t understand—why would that be a good thing?” Stone shook his head. “If a couple was so physically mismatched, it would be very difficult for them to make love. How could a male give his female pleasure if every time he tried to enter her, he gave her pain instead?”
“Look, I don’t fully understand it either,” Cassie said flatly. “But you can’t tell me this isn’t a problem your people run up against on a regular basis—especially if you’re mating with human women. I mean, The Beast is massive, but aren’t most of you Kindred warriors supposed to be, uh, on the large side?”
They were getting into territory they’d never talked about before—mostly because it seemed wrong to ask such personal questions, Cassie thought. But this case seemed to have skewed everything. All bets were off and everything was on the table so screw it—she was going to ask. Especially after Stone had made her admit to playing hanky-spanky with her ex.
“Yes, we are big—much bigger than human males—though I do not know many males as large as that.” Stone indicated the screen with distaste, where the girl was moaning and gasping as the massive shaft pushed slowly into her.
“So what do you do about it?” Cassie wanted to know. “Since the idea of just plowing your way in clearly upsets you.”
“We make certain the female is ready to receive us, to start with,” Stone growled. “This ‘Beast’ didn’t even attempt to make her ready. He didn’t taste her or pleasure her to orgasm even once—he simply started forcing his way inside her!”