Then he opened his eyes again and looked his fill of her. The barest hint of moonlight in the room was enough for his still sharp vision. It followed the curve of her cheek, and gleamed in her shadowed gaze. As he watched her lick her lips, his erection grew full, hot and tight.
As she hesitated, he remembered she had a human’s senses, and he said quietly, “I’m here.”
There, that catch in her breath. He drank it down as if it were the finest wine.
Then suddenly he was angry. He was so angry, he was filled with rage. Rage at his dead enemy, rage at himself. He didn’t want this. He needed to be selfish right now, goddamn it, yet he could not exorcise regret.
“Where are your friends, and why aren’t they looking out for you?” he snapped. He stalked toward her. “What are you doing here with me? Don’t you know you have no
business
being with a man under a curse? How foolish can you get?”
The dark room reverberated with the lash of his anger. She stood quite still. He grabbed her by the shoulders, and only then did she move.
She lunged forward, knocking clumsily into his chest as she threw her arms around his neck and clenched him tight. “It’s okay,” she said. She sounded quiet and strong, and very sure of herself. “I’m okay. You are going to be okay.”
Astonished, he let her hold him. “You don’t know that.”
She stroked his hair. “I know that I didn’t give you permission to look out for me,” she said. “I can and will look out for myself, and I will be okay because I say so.”
He moved his hands compulsively down her back. She was exquisitely shaped, nature’s violin, playing that invisible, ineffable thing that was her spirit. He did not know that he could feel such anguish at her beauty, or such…exultation.
“You’re pulling me out of my body,” he muttered.
“Shhh,” she whispered. She cupped the back of his head and drew him down to her, and when she kissed him, their lips nestled together again just as they had that morning. He experienced a weird, sensual sort of synesthesia. Their kiss was like a hug, and as he slipped his hands underneath her sweater, the touch of his fingers was like a kiss on her warm skin.
Their bodies shifting together made a delicate, intimate sound. He drew her sweater up, and she helped him by raising her arms over her head. As he reached for her again, he discovered that her soft, round breasts were already bared for his touch. He cupped them, exploring their weight and shape. The velvet jut of her nipples pushed into his palms.
When he flicked the sensitive, delicate flesh with his thumbs, she let her head fall back as she made a muffled sound, gripped at his wrists and shuddered.
The line of her slender, exposed throat cut him loose. Control skidded away, and he turned into an animal. She cried out as he grabbed her by the waist, lifted and threw her onto the nearby bed. Then he sprang. He was on her so fast her body didn’t have time to bounce on the mattress. With rough, jerky movements he undid the fastening of her jeans and yanked them down her hips.
While he worked on undressing her, she took hold of his T-shirt and pulled, her hands shaking with urgency. He barely noticed until it restricted the movements of his arms. Then he had to pause, growling, to yank his shirt over his head. As he did so, she sat up and ran her palms down the extended length of his muscled torso to the fastening of his jeans. Her trembling fingers fumbled at the button.
He put his hands over hers and squeezed. “I’ve got it,” he muttered.
“Hurry.”
That single word, said in such an agonized whisper, sent a line of fire down his spine.
He rolled away from her and tore off his clothes. When he reached for her again, he found that she had finished kicking her jeans and panties off and was naked too.
He fell on her ravenously. The sense of her naked, curvaceous body against his sent a wave of heat over his skin. He yanked her thighs apart and felt between her legs. Under a soft tangle of short hair, her private flesh felt plump and swollen, slick with wetness, and his erection tightened until it was an actual pain. She smelled and felt like an invitation. He came down on her and positioned his cock at her drenched, fluted entrance.
Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he knew this wasn’t the way to go about doing things. He hissed, “Foreplay.”
Way to class it up, dickhead.
She gasped, “Next time.”
She pulled at his shoulders and arched her pelvis up. He threw back his head and thrust into her. Her slick passage gripped him tighter than a fist. He shook his head, growling as he trembled all over, trying to give her time to adjust to his abrupt invasion.
But then she squeezed him with her inner muscles and undulated her sexy body so that he slid out partway and then back in, and he descended completely into madness.
He grabbed her by the hair and rutted on her. She cried out and clawed at his back, trying to draw him in deeper as she lifted herself for every thrust.
“Are you going to bite me or not?” he snarled.
She bared her teeth at him. She looked as crazed as he felt. Then she twisted at her torso and sank her teeth into his biceps. She bit him so hard he felt her little teeth break the skin.
Delight suffused him, along with a fierce, feral satisfaction. Still fucking her, he slid an arm underneath her shoulders to lift her up. Then he bit her too, sinking his teeth into the hollow where her neck met her shoulder. He pumped in, and in, and she clenched her arms and legs around him as her body jerked and shuddered, and he felt her climax in a ripple of intense contractions.
She brought him along with her. Bending his head to the pillow beside her head, his own climax spewed out of him convulsively. As she shivered and groaned, it pulled more of him, wave upon wave of frenzied pleasure.
Gradually they stilled, their bodies slick with sweat. Her breathing sounded in his ear, ragged gasps like shallow sobs. As he buried his face against her, she hooked an arm around his neck to hold him loosely.
She had linked her ankles together at the small of his back. He lifted his head and looked down at her. She gave him a vulnerable, luminous smile. Her expression was utterly gorgeous. When she started to open her legs to let him go, he gripped her thigh.
Her breath hitched.
He whispered against her lips, “I’m not done yet.”
Chapter Eight
He broke her wide open, until something raw and trembling and utterly new crawled out of her old, outdated skin, and it was more fierce and possessive than she had ever been before.
She watched out her window as predawn gradually lightened her bedroom. Then she curled on her side facing Sebastian. He slept stretched out on his stomach, his head half buried by pillows. Even though the room was chilly, he had pushed the blankets down to his hips.
Her gaze followed the peaks and hollows of his wide shoulders and biceps and down his muscled back. His tanned skin bore the marks she had made on him, long scratches on his back and the reddened bite mark on his arm, already fading.
She lifted the covers to look at herself. He had marked her too. Bruises dotted her hips and thighs, and the bite he had given her, at the juncture of her neck, felt tender and sensitive to the touch. But she was only human, and the marks on her body would not be as quick to fade.
She slipped a hand between her legs. She felt throbbing and sore below too. He had spent himself on her again and again, and he had wrung more climaxes out of her than she had ever thought possible. And she was fiercely glad for all of it.
She also knew what that could mean. It was possible—just barely possible—that he might be beginning to mate with her. It was too soon to know, of course. It was too soon for everything. Only time could tell if he would mate with her, or if he would pull away, or if this complete, full-blown obsession she had developed for him would turn out to be love.
But she thought, at least in her case, that it was the beginnings of falling in love. She really thought it was. He was fine and fierce, complicated and quite extraordinary, and the strength of emotion and vulnerability he had shown to her surpassed anything she had ever experienced from anyone else. He engaged all of her senses, emotions and intellect in a perfect trifecta.
Yes, I think I could grow to love you, she thought, as she looked at the back of his tousled head. I think I could grow to love you so much, I would do anything, give up anything, for you. So don’t back away from us. Give us time.
Of course she didn’t say any of that aloud. A sensible, sane person wouldn’t dream of saying any of that after spending just one single night with someone, however extraordinary that night had been.
So the new, trembling, fierce thing inside of her would keep silent for now, and watch, and pretend to be sensible and sane.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder. He stirred and rolled over, his tough face eased from sleep, and he gathered her into his arms. She went gladly, curling her tired, sore body to his. He cupped the back of her head, fitting her to his shoulder, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She stroked her flattened hand along his lean chest, which was bare of hair.
Then she drifted with him, lightly along the edge of sleep, until the smell of brewed coffee wafted up from the kitchen, and the morning sunlight shone full and bright.
Breakfast was another quick, simple affair of coffee, leftover chicken, cheese and crackers, and fruit. After carefully inspecting the sealed jars in the huge pantry, Derrick declared that he might have fresh-baked bread for them later in the day.
Derrick, Tony and Bailey all made a point of smiling at Olivia and doing a dozen little things that said they were welcoming her into the fold. She was warmed by it, not only for her sake, but also for Sebastian’s. They cared about him, and that spoke volumes for the quality of his character and leadership.
Dendera’s attitude remained the same, reserved but not unfriendly, and Steve kept himself aloof, which, as far as she was concerned, was just as well. If he tried to tell her any more negative gossip she might haul off and hit him.
Once they finished the morning meal, Derrick and Tony took care of cleaning up. The three symbologists gathered the first batch of hermetically sealed containers and headed down the path to the cottage. Sebastian and Bailey insisted on accompanying them.
“There’s no need for you to do that,” Dendera told them.
“There’s every need,” said Sebastian. In full sunlight, he looked suntanned and vital, his personality as forceful as ever. As always, he wore his sunglasses, but now Olivia could read the subtleties of his expression behind the barrier as he looked at her and gave her a slight smile. “Your safety is my responsibility, and I reserve the right to yank all of you out of there if things get out of control. Carling said to stay sharp and be careful, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Olivia smiled back at him. Then, as she turned away, she caught sight of Steve. He was staring at Sebastian with an expression of such naked hostility it caused her to stop in her tracks.
What on
earth
?
But in the next instant the expression was gone, leaving her to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing as Steve turned to follow Dendera down the path.
Finally, after months of hard work and planning, they approached their destination. The area around the cottage was overgrown with weeds. The building itself looked humble and ordinary, but tendrils of uncontained magic ghosted through the air.
Dendera took the lead and opened the cottage door. There was a large workroom just inside. It hadn’t been tidied after its last use.
Dendera said, “We’ll stack the containers in here until we fill them.”
Bailey and Sebastian remained wary, their eyes sharp. Olivia set the two containers she carried alongside the others. She straightened to assess the erratic magic calmly. She met Dendera’s gaze. “We’ll have to follow each thread back to its source.”
The other woman nodded. “Once we get those works contained, we’ll be able to pack up the rest of the collection at our leisure.” She took a deep breath. “For now it’s probably safest if we work in pairs.”
Olivia couldn’t help it. She looked at Sebastian, who said immediately, “I’m your partner.”
Perhaps it was silly to feel such happiness at his words. Certainly it was silly to read too much into it. Despite scolding herself to be sensible, she did both.
Dendera said, “Steve, you and I will pair up today.”
“Right,” said Bailey, as she bounced on the balls of her feet and looked around. Her long, elegantly pointed ears peeked through the curls of her short, tousled hair. “And I’ll…just…keep an eye on this room, shall I?”
“The only way to start doing this is to pick a magical thread and follow it,” said Olivia. She picked one of the strongest, most erratic magical threads and began to trace it to its source.
It led her down a hall, past rooms with filled bookcases. Sebastian followed on her heels. He stayed so close that she could sense his body heat on her bare arm. With an effort she had to turn her attention away from his presence and focus on the task at hand.
She followed the magical thread to a leather-bound book in a corner bookshelf.