In the Company of Witches(29)

She stilled. Her tongue still caressed him, but the rest of her was tuned in to the fact that barbed energy was now crisscrossing over her back, under her arms…around her throat.

It lifted her chin, brought her off him, tilted her head back to look at him. “Come up here,” he said.

She rose as those bindings tightened around her breasts, framing them and constricting them for his pleasure. The rope wound around her throat again and again, forming a wide cuff like the corset collar. By the time she was standing, she was nearly wound up in his magic, and he was free, though sparks of her energy still smoked on his skin, little pinpricks like a kitten’s claws he was sure she could turn into the talons of a lion in truth. But her attention was riveted on him, her breath short, waiting.

Too short. She swayed and he caught her waist, flexing his hands to draw her attention from the deep well into which her mind was falling. “Breathe,” he ordered. “Stay with me, and breathe. I’m not him, Raina. Say it.”

“You’re not him,” she whispered, her gaze clinging to his face.

“I’m taking you now. I’m not waiting another fucking moment.”

Pulling her onto his lap, he guided her thighs around him. When he angled his cock and thrust hard into her, he found her all slippery heat. She moaned, leaning back against his hands, her inner muscles spasming against him. Hell, she was as close to coming as he was. He held her on that point of decision, felt her convulse around him, heard the catch of her breath as she raised her head to stare at him again. Her eyes had gone the green of Ireland, with mere flickers of the gold, those thick mink lashes framing them. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, inside and out, the dark and light twined in a way that would keep him searching all the shadows for centuries to understand her.

She was starting to panic, feeling those bindings coupled to the strength of the climax that would take away all control. “Fuck me,” she demanded, but her voice broke. She was warring between what she thought she needed to be and what she truly desired.

In answer, he pulled her off him, despite her struggles, her vicious protest. Turning her around to lay against him, he collared her throat with his hand as held her up against his shoulder. Her feet scrambled for purchase, but he stretched out his legs, pinning them between his calves, so she was lying back against him, legs held closed, dependent on his strength to hold her in the awkward position. His bindings adjusted to the new position. Shifting his hips, and gripping himself with the other hand, he worked himself inside her again, a difficult angle that didn’t make contact with her clit, denying her the pleasure of that friction. He pushed her down on him, hard, kept himself there, moving a hand up to squeeze her breast, pinch a nipple. Then he dropped to stroke her clit, denying her the full thrust of his cock as she squirmed and panted, cursed and called him names.

He kept it up until she ran down and figured it out. “Please,” she gasped. “Please.”

“That’s better. Ask me, Raina. Ask me the right way.”

The wet mouth of her sex pulled at him like a vise, her backside quivering against him and breasts pressed against his forearm. Fuck, he was dying here, but he wasn’t giving up on what he wanted most.

“Accept me as your Master for this moment, Raina,” he said, low. “Do it honestly; let yourself have that. Don’t be afraid to do it.”

He felt her anguish then, the warring of the past with the present, the fear that rose like a dark tide. It was going to take her over, and they would both lose. They weren’t quite there yet. Muttering a quiet curse, he shifted his hold, releasing the magic that held her so the bindings disappeared, flickering away like tongues of flame from a bonfire. Flipping her so fast to a front straddle she gasped, he reentered her in one thrust. When she cried out, he held her there, still and tight, his hand gripping her hair so she stared into his eyes.

“No,” he said. “He doesn’t come between us. I won’t allow him to touch your mind, your heart or your soul when you’re with me. Not now, not ever.”

She gave a short nod, the only acknowledgment, but it was a significant one, because she obviously wanted to mean it. He was used to terrible things happening to others, because that was his world. He would have killed Elceus for harming her, because Elceus had crossed the line. But here, seeing it so personal in her face, it wasn’t about balance. It was about his desire to fucking destroy anything that caused her a moment’s pain.

She was on a dangerous edge, and she needed him to keep her from falling off the wrong side. Banding his arm around her waist, he slid his hand from her hair to her nape and brought her down to meet his lips. Hot and demanding, his tongue tangling with hers, driving her mind only to desire. As he began to stroke inside of her, he controlled her movements so she was like a doll in his arms. She could only hang on, make tiny, pleading cries, her wet heat clutching him until his release shot forth. She let go a moment before him, so that he swallowed her cries into his own mouth as his body shuddered.

As he plunged into the pleasure of it, his last thought was that, yes, he’d never been so hard, never been so aroused. But most important, he’d never felt so closely bonded with a woman as he did at this precise moment. Not in nearly thirteen hundred years.

That was a serious problem.

SO HE WAS REALLY GOOD AT SEX. IT DIDN’T MEAN unicorns would spring out of his backside and the world would be bathed in rainbows. She told herself that, a reality check, when they were done and she was wondering if she was ever going to breathe normally again.

But he had a way of distorting reality. She’d strained against his magic in those climactic moments, sought pain to spice the pleasure. Now he touched her upper thighs where the energy binding had cut. When he rose, holding her around the waist to steady her, he let her feet touch the ground, then surprised her by dropping to one knee and brushing his mouth over those abraded places, using his tongue like an animal salving a wound. His jaw pressed against her mound, and when he passed over her thigh, he laid gentle kisses on her sex, still convulsing from the shattering climax. She held on to his shoulder, not sure what this was, feeling strange about it, but not able to say anything. Then he rose.

“Do you think there’s any bacon left from breakfast?”

It was such a change of paradigm, his face so serious, an odd chuckle bubbled up in her. It made her feel better. She wondered if it was calculated. If it was, he was kinder than she’d given him credit for.

“We can go see,” she said. Glancing at the clock, surprised to find it close to three, she added, “The rest of the staff is usually upstairs preparing this time of day.” Something she needed to do as well, but not quite yet.

“All right.” He pulled on the jeans, no underwear, which was distracting enough. Groping for her clothes, she came up with his shirt and her panties. It seemed fairly natural to slide it on, button a couple buttons. She liked his scent.

He glanced at her, stopped. Coming to her, he buttoned a few more buttons, until the panties were fully covered, since the shirt fell to her knees. She noted he was okay with a couple buttons at the top being open so he could gaze down the front fairly easily.

He looked down at the burn marks across his jeans. “You owe me a new pair of pants.”

“When they pay top dollar for that effect on the runways? Not a chance.”

He rolled his eyes, looped his arm around her neck and pulled her to him. She braced herself on his chest, wondered as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Then he dropped a hand and squeezed her ass hard enough to earn a yelp. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

The main library was on the second level. One set of stairs shouldn’t do her in, but when she stopped on the landing, she swayed a bit. She’d fed well last night, hadn’t fed off his energy this time, merely twining it around them to launch their coupling to an even more intense level, even though she wasn’t sure if that had been at all necessary.

He’d filtered the dangerous aspects of the magic just as he had before, almost as an afterthought, as if it was no active threat to him at all. Did he realize what a gift that was to her? Of course not. Unless he’d experienced years of being unable to release during sex, he couldn’t really understand. But he didn’t have to understand to make it the best experience she’d ever had. Twice in a row.

Now, though, she was wondering if she should have fed. Her legs were shaky because of the workout.

“Here.” He presented his back. “Hop on.”

Smiling, she looped her arms around his neck as he bent a knee to lower his height. Catching her legs, he lifted her onto his back with a quick hitch. “For such a badass witch, you’re short,” he observed as he took the winding staircase with ease. “Though nicely top-heavy.”

She snorted at that. “You can’t even feel where your wings come out.” She pressed against his back. “Are they magical or anatomical?”

“A little of both. Happily, I can feel your tits no problem at all.”

“Barbarian.”

He squeezed her thighs where he held them secure on his hips. Her calves were crossed low over his abdomen.

“Let’s go to town tomorrow morning,” he said.