In the Company of Witches (9 page)

She sent animal cries out into the night, though the spinning sky was in here, shooting stars, the moon exploding into pearls. She felt the iron restraint he held on his own body, making sure he took her to completion.

Goddess, it was a good thing they both knew this was temporal, because in this moment, she would have done anything for him, died for him…loved him until the end of his days.

She was on the final hill of the wild coaster when he released, sending her up with him again. It was an infusion of undiluted power, his climax total nourishment for her. Despite what she’d already had, it was like drinking after a long, long thirst in the desert.
More, more, more…

It was the ultimate sexual experience of her life. Even with no emotion involved.

A
S SHE STARTED TO COME DOWN, SOME ANXIETY CAME
with it, but he had an answer for that as well. He began to lift her free, then, with a gleam in his eye, brought her back down on him deep and hard. A moan broke from her lips as the unexpected move set off aftershocks, more of those blue sparks glittering off her skin. One of them landed on his chest and she watched it burn there against his skin, turn to ash.

She put her hand on his face, his hair. She wanted to wrap her arms around his head, hold him to her heart. Which meant she needed to pull it together, be what she was expected to be. Good thing she had a lot of practice in that respect.

Her fingers curved into his chest as she gave him a feline smile. “That last bit was…diabolical,” she said breathlessly.

“Want me to do it again?” He was gazing at her with those eyes that saw too much. She wet her lips, cocked her head, her hair brushing his thighs.

“Do
you
want to do it again?” she asked.

She could see the whites of his eyes again, but the pupils were still large, unfathomable. “No courtesan games, Raina.”

“No games,” she returned. “I want to know.”
I want to hear that you want me.
She’d had hundreds of men say it, but what they wanted had nothing to do with her, not really. If he said it, she knew it would mean something different with him.

Putting his hand on the side of her neck, he slid her off his cock, eyes darkening further at her murmur of response. He laid her down on his body, cradling her inside the sprawl of his thighs. When he brought her face up from under his jaw, there was a painfully honest distance between their eyes. “I do. And I will.”

But instead of proceeding with that sensual threat, backed by the still substantially firm organ against her hip, he put his mouth on hers. It was a long, lazy trip, and just when she thought she was floating away on the residual energy lingering in the room, he shifted her off him, but only to turn them both.

His body pressed into the angles and curves of hers. She let out a soft sigh as a wash of power swept across her skin, and his wing curved over her. Mikhael was okay with postcoital spooning. Who knew?

The wing was like a bat’s, just as she’d suspected, but as he brought it down around her, along with his arm, it provided a warm and safe cocoon.

“Sleep,” he murmured against her ear. “Just sleep.”

She did, some. But she also remembered what they’d shared, such that as she drifted in and out of a doze, she rubbed her bare bottom against his groin, his hard cock pressed against her cheeks as she teased him in her half-drowsy state. When he stilled her with a hand against her stomach, his fingers trailed the top of her smooth mound, then lower, to play in the residual stickiness, the remains of their release. His seed still marked her. She hadn’t considered birth control, since succubi conceived only with humans, and only on blue moons…literally. But Mikhael was extraordinary in many ways. She wondered if she should be worried about conceiving ruthless little bats with solid dark eyes. She pressed a smile against his muscular biceps, caressed his forearm. The man was built like a brick house. No wonder Ruby had been intoxicated by him.

For some reason, she wasn’t pleased with that thought, so she pushed it away to notice he was looking at her TV table. He dropped his head to the pillow behind her, puffed a breath on her neck that sent a shiver down her spine. Almost…playful.

“
Titanic
,” he said. “Is there any female who doesn’t like that movie?”

She tilted her head to look at him. She had a desire to caress his jaw, but she quelled it. “Only the ones without estrogen. Is there any male who doesn’t hate it? And why is that, by the way?”

“It’s a chick flick on steroids.” He made a pained expression. “A male watches a ninety-minute romance with a woman because he anticipates sex as payment for his attention. Ninety minutes is a fair exchange. A three-hour movie, with a tragic ending that leaves the woman sobbing, needing consolation, not sexual pleasure? That’s above and beyond the call of duty. He has to be flat-on-his-ass in love with her to put up with that shit.”

She elbowed him in the gut, wasn’t at all surprised when he caught it before it could make contact. Wrapping his arms closer around her, he nuzzled her neck. It was all so intimate and familiar…so pleasurable, and it was starting to make her uneasy, now that the sex was done. Cuddling was something she’d provide, if the client paid for it. But there was a big difference between sex with a client and this.

“You’re thinking too much, Raina,” he said. “You can give yourself this, the pleasure with the emotions. It doesn’t have to be dissected.”

“I don’t understand what you want.”

“Just this. No more, no less. Go to sleep, or I’ll give you a spanking.”

Amusement unfurled among all the other less settling emotions. “
That’s
supposed to inspire me to sleep?”

His arms tightened. “My mistake. If you go to sleep now, I promise you a spanking later.”

She shut her eyes right away, smiling at his snort against her neck. And gave a yelp as he turned her over and gave her a smack right then and there.

Apparently, sleep was going to wait.

5

R
AINA WOKE LATE
. A
PPARENTLY HER PARANORMALLY
sentient house had decided she needed to sleep in. It had adjusted her bed so the early sunlight that normally served as her alarm clock couldn’t reach her until midmorning.

The intensity of the previous night seemed surreal. She’d surrendered blatantly to him, to a seductive stranger from the Underworld who’d given her an incredible, over-the-top night. However, today, she might have to kick his ass to keep him from gutting Isaac. Reality could be an energy-sucking bitch. The house was right—she’d need the extra rest to face whatever challenges came her way today.

However, as she struggled free of the tangled sheets, it brought back memories of how creatively he’d tied her up in them. He’d left her the illusion that she could get free, playing at the edge of her darkest fears just as he had with the silver chains, but she’d never had a chance to test either restraint, had she? She could still smell Mikhael on those sheets, had woken up burrowed in them, nesting in that scent.

During one half-drowsy moment, she’d stroked her fingers along his wing. There was a bonelike protrusion, a sharp hook at the widest part. He’d closed his hand over hers, helping her feel the shape of it, protecting her until she figured out it was sharp enough to draw blood, rip flesh.

It gave her an odd feeling, the way he’d prevented her from coming to harm. “I don’t want to mark that soft skin,” he’d murmured. “Not unless it’s intentional.”

Apparently she was going to have to lobotomize herself. Or get moving to get past this. So she got dressed. Did her usual quick meditation to make sure all of her usual protections were in place, a thorough perimeter check she did every day, reaching out to the corners of the property. Cathair arrived on cue, flitting through the window to land on her shoulder, lending his energy and focus as he always did, his body pressed against her.

Isaac was still in the house. So was the Dark Guardian.

Hell, she was really off her game. It was past time for Monday brunch. She hadn’t formally introduced him to the staff. But she hadn’t expected him to be up before she was, not after a night of strenuous fucking. Irritating male.

Since they rested on Sunday, the staff shared a brunch on Monday, a family get-together. Maintaining the house protections took considerable energy, so they were used to her sleeping deep on Sunday night to rebuild her strength, coming in a little later to join them. Not this late, but there was no reason for her to be flustered. Monday was also the day she spent on Craft, reinforcing spellwork and feeling for any weaknesses or cracks in the house protections, using her rejuvenated energy to double-check everything.

That would have to wait, because the possibility of her new brunch guest annihilating one of her staff took higher priority.

When she got to the dining room, Cathair still with her, she saw all dozen of her incubi and succubi were there, intact and gathered at one end of the antique dining table that sat twenty. Isaac was among them. Mikhael was on the corner chair at the other end, eating by himself, reading today’s paper. Apparently, he tracked local news.

She subscribed to the paper because her staff liked passing around the comics and reading horoscopes. Or exchanging local news tidbits from the police blotter and front page. She herself nursed the private pleasure of cutting coupons, pestering Li to use them when she sent him and Gina out on supply runs in town. It never hurt to save a dollar.

Given that Gina had spread the news a Dark Guardian was in the house, Raina was surprised to see everyone present, none of them chickening out and staying in their rooms. However, Gina would also have shared Raina’s statement that he was a guest and they would not be harmed. Their faith in her judgment, coupled largely with their passion for Monday-morning brunch, had apparently overcome any wariness. It was flattering, but a little disturbing as well, knowing they had that unwavering confidence, even in the face of a Dark Guardian’s presence. She hoped she could live up to it.

Nonsense. Of course she could. It irritated her that she allowed herself a moment of doubt. They had a balance in her household. Her spells allowed her staff to feed on the sexual energy of clients without taking their life energy, which was a win-win. The clients were more exhausted afterward than they might be with a human escort, but they also had the sex of their lives, and a desire to return for more. She had only a few rules, but they were nonnegotiable. Her staff knew that if any one of them went outside of her house to feed, therefore resulting in a kill, they were expelled, out the door for good. As Isaac’s circumstances starkly demonstrated, most sex demons never found the safety her house offered, the stability and quality of life that existed here.

Monday brunch merely punctuated that fact. Though they didn’t live on human food, succubi and incubi had taste buds like anyone else. Eating human food was like eating candy. No nutritional value, but they liked it, and it whetted their appetites for the real nourishment, arriving later in the evening.

Matilda, their cook, was an unflappable black woman who could talk to spirits, and did so quite often. In fact, she preferred to talk to them, such that Raina often found out what Matilda was thinking or demanding only by her loud conversations with the spirits none of them could see. She ignored any menu Raina told her to prepare, doing what the spirits told her instead. Which was fine, since she had a flawless track record for providing the perfect thing for every occasion. She also knew when someone needed a comforting bowl of soup or a steaming hot cup of tea. As such, Raina had decided that, just because she couldn’t see Matilda’s spirit pals, there was no reason not to defer to their wishes in menu choices. It took meal planning off her to-do list, after all.

Matilda went home each afternoon to her shack, built deep in the swamp on Raina’s property. She always left Sweet Dreams before they opened for business. The one time Raina had asked her to stay, to help cater a party event, Matilda had come to a full stop. Banging her wooden spoon on the edge of the chowder pot, she’d turned toward the potato and onion bins, where her spirits apparently preferred to congregate while she cooked.