He slowly withdrew, the movements sending gooseflesh skittering over her limbs. Her hands fisted in the sheets and she held on for dear life. “More, Jack.
More.
”
“I’ll give you more, honey.” He pushed into her anus again, and the stretch was just as exquisite, more pleasure than pain now. He thrust into her again and again, picking up speed and force. Each time, it rubbed her clamped nipples against the bed, adding to the already overwhelming sensations that swamped her system. His hard belly slapped against her ass with each plunge, the carnal sound shocking in the quiet room. Their breathing rushed in heavy pants, the bedsprings squeaked under them, the headboard thudding against the wall.
The only magic between them was the reciprocal pleasure spell she’d initiated when they started. It didn’t seem to matter. With Jack it was good with or without the magic. The way he craved her sluiced pure fire through her, and her own desires fed his in an endless loop that made her sex clench on emptiness, that drove her right to the very edge of climax. She slid one hand down her belly to tease her clit in time with his swift plunges into her anus.
“I can feel how much you like my cock in you, and how much you like playing with your clit while I fuck you. I love this spell of yours.” He’d said he loved several things about her tonight, and a pang struck her every time he did, a longing she refused to recognize.
She swallowed. “Me too.”
“Good.” He ran his palms in circles over her back, her buttocks, then drew one back to slap the fleshy part of her upper thigh.
She squealed, jerking forward. His hands closed over her hips and hauled her back into his thrusts. He sank deep into her ass and rotated his pelvis, setting her off like a bursting rocket. Her inner muscles clenched in an enormous rush that sent her spinning. He continued thrusting, milking her orgasm for all it was worth, groaning each time another wave of climax hit her. Moving her fingers down, she shoved them into her pussy, grinding the heel of her hand against her clit.
Jack slammed deep into her ass, deeper than he’d ever been before. “Come for me again, Selina. Give me everything.”
She shouldn’t, she couldn’t. She didn’t have everything left to give to anyone. It didn’t matter, because she was screaming for him, her body turning inside out with the pleasure streaking through her. She came so hard, her skin flushed, tingles breaking out over every inch of her flesh.
One, two, three more thrusts and he emptied himself inside of her, filling her with hot fluids. His fingers dug into her hips while he held her in place, and he made guttural sounds of ecstasy as orgasm gripped him as fiercely as it had gripped her. She knew because the spell still wove between them, twining deeper than she should let it. She shuddered, collapsing to the bed with him, and slowly managing to reel her spell back in. Using a last pop of magic, she cleaned up any mess they’d made on the sheets. She was too spent to deal with showering, so a spell was just the thing. She grinned. It was good to be a Magickal sometimes.
“That’s the way to unwind from a long day at the office.” She stretched against the sheets, her back bowing off the mattress.
“That’s my kind of post-date celebration.”
Her euphoria diminished a bit. She sighed and pushed a hand through her disheveled hair. “It wasn’t a date, Jack.”
He was quiet for a long time. “I’ve been telling myself all along that I don’t want to date, that you’re far too dangerous to my peace of mind to be someone I date formally. I told myself I just wanted friends with benefits—or colleagues with benefits, as it were.”
Too dangerous for his peace of mind to date. What the hell did that mean? What exactly was he saying? Her heart tripped and she sat up, clutching the sheets to her breasts. She realized they were still clamped and she pulled the clips away, a shudder running through her as sensation roared back into her nipples. “I—I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Everything I was telling myself ... it was all bullshit. I like you. I want to date you.” He took a deep breath and folded his hands behind his head. “I don’t know where this thing with us can go, but I want to find out.”
It couldn’t go anywhere. Her time was ticking down like some bomb about to go off. Her insides squeezed, her throat tightening until she almost couldn’t breathe. “I’m not in a place in my life ...”
“That’s bullshit, too.” He turned his head a bit to look her directly in the eyes. “Give me a good reason why.”
What could she say? She couldn’t tell him the truth, that when they figured out who this killer was, he was going to murder her, too. And that was the positive outcome. The worst possible scenario was she died before they found out his identity, and she was gone before he was caught. She’d rather take the bastard with her. And there was no way she could tell Jack that.
He lifted his eyebrow at her silence. “Are you seeing anyone else?”
Throwing her hands in the air, she sighed. “When would I have time to do that? We’re in the middle of a murder investigation. I’m kind of busy.”
“So, we’re in an exclusive sexual relationship, we had dinner together at a restaurant, and then we came home and shagged like rabbits hopped up on speed.” He remained calm and relaxed against the pillows. “Sounds like dating to me.”
“It wasn’t a date, it was food followed by anal sex.” She folded her arms and glared down at him. “Don’t make it more romantic than it actually was. You finger-fucked me in a parking lot.”
His dark brows arched upward again, a wicked grin slashing across his face. “And you got off on it, so apparently my nonromantic approach does something for you.”
“Shut up.”
“Selina ...”
She frowned. Desperation began to crawl through her. She needed to deflect him. “Why are you pushing this? You said you’d been married before. I would assume that divorce would make a man leery of relationships.”
“I didn’t get divorced.”
Oh, shit. She closed her eyes as that deflated her. If he’d been married and was single now, without having been divorced, that only left one ugly option. “I’m sorry for your loss. I just assumed ... I shouldn’t have.”
“I didn’t specify, and it’s hardly odd for marriage to end in divorce these days. What is it now? One in two? Two in three? The odds were pretty high that you were right.” He sighed and sat up, propping his forearm on his bent knee.
“What happened?” She shouldn’t ask. She knew she shouldn’t, but she hadn’t been able to shut down her fascination with this human so far. Now was no exception. “How did she die?”
“She killed herself.” The words were blunt, and his gaze was locked on her face, waiting for her response.
The shock of it hit her, jolted her deep within. “
What?
Oh, gods. Jack.”
“It was a long time ago.” His tone was flat, empty, and that made her ache deep inside. His very lack of response dragged at her soul.
She had to reach out to him. She had to. Slipping her hand into his, she squeezed his fingers. “There’s no such thing with something like that. It lives with you.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “It really does live with you.”
Much like her cousin’s death had lived with her. On so many levels, they were so alike, and that was going to make leaving that much harder. Emotion she hadn’t let out in decades built up inside her, and she wanted to lay her head against his shoulder and sob for him, for herself, for everything that she’d lost, and for everything that she’d never have.
But she couldn’t. She’d locked so much of herself down when she’d lost Bess, just to stay sane and not let the guilt eat her alive. She’d iced over her heart because she’d
had
to. When had that protection become a prison? And did it really matter, since she was already on a collision course with Fate?
10
H
e’d never told anyone about his wife. Never. Not once in almost twenty years. There were people who knew, of course. People who were there through it all, like his mother and Darren, and people who’d read his personnel file, like Luca. But he’d never told anyone, point-blank, that his wife committed suicide. How could he talk about it and not relive the nightmare? All of it was better left behind him. He huffed out a laugh. It looked like Selina wasn’t the only one who’d put up walls.
“Is the coffee almost ready?” she called from somewhere in the depths of her house.
He slid the carafe into position and clicked on the machine. “Just about.”
“
Most
excellent.” The way her voice echoed told him she was probably in the bathroom.
A few seconds later, the sound of the shower spraying confirmed it. He smiled and continued moving around the kitchen, finally making her that French toast he’d promised. He cracked the eggs into the bowl, added a little milk and cinnamon, and mixed them together, only half his mind on the task. The other half still chewed over what had happened the night before. It felt like something fundamental inside him had shifted, some weight he hadn’t even realized he was carrying around had lifted.
Whatever walls he had, this thing with Selina was making him break them down. He’d admitted—out loud—that he wanted more than just sex. He’d admitted—out loud—that his wife had taken her own life. It hadn’t even been that bad. Of course, Selina’s reaction to the little bombs he’d dropped on her had been mixed.
She hadn’t pitied him or fawned all over him, she’d given him tough sympathy, and it was the reaction he’d needed. No babying anyone and no bullshit, that was his Selina.
However, she’d also completely rejected the idea of anything other than an affair. It had taken him a long time to find a woman who made him want to try relationships again. He didn’t want to let that slip away.
Maybe it was that he was mortal, but he didn’t have five hundred years to get his shit together. His time was limited, so when he saw something he wanted, he went after it.
And he wanted Selina.
He’d tried to hold it off, tried to deny it, but it had been no use. It hadn’t been a lie when he told her he didn’t know where this was going, but he was going to pursue it and find out. If working with him on this case made it harder for her to avoid him ... Well, he was ruthless enough to take advantage of that.
His first wife hadn’t called him a relentless bastard for nothing.
The egg on the French toast sizzled when it hit the hot pan, and the tantalizing smell of it filled the air, mixing with the rich aroma of brewing coffee. His stomach rumbled in anticipation. It only took a few minutes to have a pile of piping hot slices on a plate.
“Ooooh.” Selina moaned as she came in the kitchen door. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair in damp strands around her face.
He grinned at the sight. “Didn’t even bother to get dressed before you came to breakfast, huh?”
“Are you insane?” She flipped open a cupboard and pulled out two large coffee mugs. “After I smelled that, you’re lucky I bothered to throw on a towel. I could have just walked out here dripping wet.”
“It’s your floor that would get messed up, not mine.” He used a spatula to fish out the last batch of French toast before he turned off the stove.
She slanted him a quick smile. “That’s why I grabbed the towel.”
They sat at the small table and chairs she had tucked into the sunroom off the kitchen. He divvied up the food on their plates and slathered his with syrup. She put sugar in his coffee and handed it to him, then drank hers black. He sipped it and found that she’d put just the right amount of sweetener in it. Well, she’d been paying attention during the time they’d been together, though he doubted she’d care to have him point that out.
“This is good, thanks.” He set his mug down and applied himself to his food.
“Yeah, it is. Thanks for cooking.” She grinned, but it faded quickly. She sat with her fork poised over her French toast, her coffee still clutched in the other hand, and a flash of guilt darted across her face. “We should hurry. We need to go in.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “We were up early. We have some time first. As you said, running ourselves into exhaustion makes for shitty investigation.”
“Hoisted by my own petard.” She saluted him with her coffee. “Maybe I’m getting senile in my old age. You can’t hold things I say against me.”
Her expression said
beat that,
but he was caught on the age reference. He knew she was a lot older than he was, but that didn’t meant she wouldn’t outlast him by a couple of centuries, too. “So, if you’re getting senile now, how many years do you have left before old age gets you?”
The look on her face went wary. “If I were to make it to the end of a Magickal lifetime ... maybe fifty or sixty years, give or take.”
“Same as me. Give or take.”
She shifted in her seat, her eyes narrowing as if she were trying to figure out what angle he was working. “Yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“Well, you were talking all crazy about not using what you say against you. As if that might actually happen or something.” He shook his head. “That swift slide into dementia ... it just breaks the heart.”
“Brat.” She huffed and sipped her coffee.
Chuckling, he went back to work on his food, and she did the same. They chatted about this and that. Work, clues for the case, his parents, Grim, Tess and Peyton, Tess and Luca. Just whatever came to mind. The normalcy of it was ... nice. Something he hadn’t let himself have with any woman since his wife, and that had only been on the good days. Toward the end, those had been few and far between.
“Can I ...” Selina hesitated for a moment. “What was her name?”
His wife. He knew who she was asking about, and knew she had questions. Familiar dread curdled in his belly at the thought of talking about it, but he forced that down. If he wanted to be with Selina, he had to be straight with her. As she’d said when they first began working together, she liked to know what she was dealing with. And whether he liked it or not, what had happened with his wife had defined how he dealt with relationships with women ever since. Keep it light, keep it easy, walk away before it turned serious and anyone got hurt. Never trust a woman with your soul, or she’ll crush it. He took a breath. “Heather. Her name was Heather.”
Selina remained silent, just watching him, but he could feel her waiting for him to tell her more. Or not. She wouldn’t push, he knew, but he suspected it was more because she understood that to push him to get more personal meant that he’d push her for the same.
“I was still in the marines when she died, and I think it’s safe to say she
hated
being a soldier’s wife.” There was bitterness to the smile that twisted his mouth.
“Being a soldier’s wife is no reason to end it all.” The elf’s fingers tightened on her coffee mug. “She could have just left you for some nine-to-five office stiff.”
“But she didn’t. She killed herself.” The words came out flat, harsh. There wasn’t a nice way to say it, so he usually didn’t. Suicide was ugly and harsh. “And she blamed me for it.”
God. He closed eyes that burned, swallowing hard. That truth was one he’d never, ever told anyone. Not even his mother knew. He’d kept it locked inside him, the guilt a thorn that festered and made it impossible to move on.
“Shit.” Selina’s slim fingers curled into his, holding his hand as she’d protested doing the night before.
He barked out a laugh. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“I mean, I’m sorry. I mean ... shit.” Her hand tightened, and when he met her eyes, he saw sympathy there that he’d never accepted from anyone else.
He shook his head, the self-loathing hitting him in a wave that threatened to choke him. “The damnable part is ... I should never have married her. My mother even told me it was a bad idea.”
Which meant he’d never been able to confess just how right his mom had been. He’d been too ... ashamed. Of himself. Of what had become of his marriage. Of having put Heather and himself in a situation he’d been warned would become a problem.
“My mother told me Heather wasn’t strong enough to be a military wife. She said it took grit to handle your husband leaving for months or years at a time and knowing he might come home in a body bag.” He gripped Selina’s hand as if it were a lifeline. “She’d lived through that and she hadn’t tried to stop me from joining up, so if anyone knew about that kind of forbearance, it was her, but I was in love and I didn’t listen. And in the end, she was right.”
Selina snorted a short laugh. “Like that helps.”
“Not really.” No, it just made him feel more responsible, as if he’d helped put the gun in his wife’s hand. And maybe he had. He didn’t know anymore. He’d obsessed over it for a long time before he’d forced himself to get on with his life. “I thought if my mom could handle it, then any woman could.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure if that’s sheer stupidity or just that my mom gave me a lot of faith in the strength of women.”
“Your mom is a pretty awesome woman, and I only talked to her for an hour.” Selina shrugged. “But people handle things differently. What can break one person won’t break another and vice versa. Did you know Heather wasn’t doing well before it happened?”
Such a simple question, with such a complicated answer. “The thing about Heather was that when she was up, there was no one happier, no one more fun to be around. But when she was down, there was nothing that could drag her out of it. I felt so damn helpless during those days, and they only got worse and lasted longer as time went on. I just didn’t know what to do for her, and she refused to get help. I tried to push her into therapy, but ...”
“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.” Selina folded her legs up to her chest, more of that tough sympathy reflecting in her gaze.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” Just that. No pity, no recriminations about whether or not he should have gotten married.
“Me too. It may not sound like it, but she was a really nice girl. Normal ... and we never told her about Darren and Mom being werewolves. I think somewhere deep down, I knew Heather wouldn’t handle it well. I met her sophomore year of college. I was in ROTC and she was a sorority girl.” He grinned, and it was bittersweet. “I loved her.”
What had started out so well had ended so badly. It was hard to remember that shining beginning sometimes. He’d spent years telling himself he never should have proposed, and he sometimes forgot how he’d imagined having a life with her. Kids, grandkids, the whole works. It was difficult for the good not to be buried under the onslaught of ugliness.
“Please tell me she wasn’t selfish enough to do it while you were there. Tell me someone else found her.”
“Someone else found her.” Which always made it a little bit worse. It had been three days before anyone had noticed that she wasn’t around. He’d seen pictures of the scene, had forced himself to look at how the flies and the summer heat had gotten to her body, how the bullet had caved in one side of her skull, how her blood and brains had dried in dark splatters on their bathroom walls. How her blood had pooled around her in the tub. He’d made himself look at what his choices had wrought. “Even that made a point, didn’t it? All the way to the bitter end, I wasn’t really there for her. I was deployed overseas, and I didn’t give her what she needed or wanted.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Selina’s grip was almost painful on his hand, pulling him out of his memories.
“She blamed me, though. It’s hard to ignore that. And part of her reasoning was true.” He winced. “I didn’t even make it home in time for the funeral. She’d left a suicide note for me to find in our safety deposit box. Along with her wedding ring. Before she blew her brains out with one of my pistols.”
“Oh, fuck me.” Her jaw clenched hard enough that the tendons stood out on her neck. She shook her head as if she had no other words for him. And, really, what could she say? What could anyone say? Nothing would ever make it better.
Selina stood and came around the table to cup her hands around his face, her dark gaze compelling. “It was
not your fault.
You didn’t put a gun to her head and you sure as hell didn’t pull the trigger. I want to hear you say it out loud, Jack. It wasn’t your fault.”
Her fierceness made something snap inside his chest, made hot moisture burn the backs of his eyes. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“A part of me ...” He cleared his throat, looked down, and scuffed his shoe against the floor. “A part of me will always wonder if things might have gone differently for her if she’d chosen another guy. Some nice nine-to-five office stiff who would come home to her every night and push her into therapy when or if things ever got bad. She could always blow me off because I had one foot out the door. Once I was gone again, she didn’t have anyone there to try to get her help.”
“If she had wanted help, it would have been available to her. She didn’t want it.” Selina’s voice went soft, her fingers still curved around his face. He snagged them with his hands and brought them to his lips to kiss them. He ran his thumb over her knuckles, and shook his head.