by Coralie Moss
I set my glass on the deck, held tight to the railing, and leaned over to see if I could figure out what was going on underneath the back porch. For years, the shaded space had been a catch-all for yard tools, wood scraps, the kind of stuff most homes accumulated without knowing how it got there, stuff you didn’t want to throw out, just in case.
Freshly poured concrete formed a floor, complete with a French drain. The rectangle didn’t look like it would house more than one bed, but who knew what the guys were planning. At the far end of the yard area, stakes and string marked the footprint of a larger structure.
I’d have to remind Christoph and Wes to get a proper building permit, especially if they were planning on adding electricity to whatever was going up in that spot. Or maybe the outbuilding would wear a magical cloak.
None of the building activity mattered when the man who’d snuck up behind me glided his hands down my arms and circled my wrists. I wanted to snake my free arm behind me and press his front to my back, but words came first.
“Why did you leave me at the Pearmains’ without telling me where you were going and why?”
Tanner pressed his forehead to the back of my head. “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?”
“I want the truth.” I wriggled one wrist loose, bent to retrieve my glass, and sipped at the beer. My taste buds soaked in the cool liquid’s memories of summer days spent curling up and around the tall string trellises supporting row after row of hop plants. I took another sip, grateful for whatever I’d done to deserve this new ability to taste a food or drink’s lineage.
“My ability to shift in and out of my wolf at will was compromised by my relationship with Jessamyne. The choice I made to pursue her without you was made by wolf, not by me.”
“Don’t you have an override mechanism?” I asked, genuinely curious. My knowledge of shifters was scant.
“She hurt him, and he wants retribution.”
Tanner rested his lips against the side of my neck, made a line of kisses to just underneath my ear lobe, and lavished the same amount of attention on the other side.
“I missed you,” he said, molding his palm to the side of my ribcage, just under my breast. I’d gone braless, and as he cupped me, his thumb and finger teased at an alert nipple.
“Picking up where you left off?” I asked. The last time he’d kissed my sensitive neck like that, he’d been helping me choose what to wear for my party.
“Mm-hm,” he murmured, bringing the heat of his chest against my back.
After all the input I’d had today, and the day before, and the weeks before that… Ever since I’d stepped across the threshold to Rowan’s clinic and left with life-altering information, life had worn me out.
The one and only thing I wanted to say to Tanner was, “Yes.”
“Yes what?” he asked, taking both my breasts and nipples into his palms and drawing me tight against his chest.
“Yes to whatever you want tonight because I am tired of fighting and planning and—”
Tanner pressed a finger to my lips.
“Shh,” he said. “You can always say no, but let’s go explore that yes.” He took the glass from my hand, steered me inside, and slid the door closed. I grabbed at the handle, turned the lock, and allowed our dance to continue, down the hall and into my bedroom. I locked that door too.
I had no condoms. I had no stashes of personal lubricants or sex toys.
My desire went into overdrive as Tanner peeled off my T-shirt and his, wrapped his arms around me from the back once again, and undid the closure on my pants. He shimmied the linen over my hips, planting slow kisses over my butt and down the backs of my thighs. I stood naked, facing my bed. His skin brushed mine as he finished disrobing, tangled his fingers in my hair, and pressed himself against me.
I didn’t want to say words, but I could make noise. With no one home, I could make a lot of noise. I moaned as Tanner dug his fingertips into my scalp and massaged away at least twelve layers of tension.
“When I imagine making love with you, Calliope Jones, I…” Tanner stopped working on my head and wrapped both arms across the front of my shoulders. “I imagine us in a different place. Somewhere neither of us has been before.”
I touched his forearms. His skin was roughened by a light layer of scabs from his encounter with the Apple Witch. I didn’t shy from touching his wounds. He was healing on the outside and, I hoped, healing on the inside.
Someday, his wolf would heal too.
“Somewhere without friends and family.” His soft laugh moved through his belly muscles. “I love them all, Calli, I truly do, but there are times when Wes and Kaz can be a little too watchful of me.”
“They love you,” I whispered.
“Yes, they do.”
His cock pressed against my backside. I reached up and behind to run my fingers through his unbound hair.
“I said yes to you, Tanner, yes to whatever we have time for tonight. I have no expectations,” I added, spinning in his embrace so I could wrap my arms around his waist. “Other than honesty. Honor me by being honest with yourself. And I’ll do that too.”
The necklace—his necklace—warmed from being pressed between Tanner’s chest and mine, became more than a pouch filled with magic seeds. Its presence was palpable. Tanner leaned away, lifted the cords off my neck, and placed the pouch on my desk.
“There,” he said, “now we’re both completely naked. Shall we get to know each other’s skin?”
When I slid across the fresh cotton sheet, air-dried in the sun, I could almost imagine Tanner and I truly were in a new place.
I lay, belly up, and stretched, my gaze on my druid. He crawled the short distance to my side of the bed and placed himself over me, knees to either side of my hips, hands to either side of my shoulders, a wicked glint in his eyes. He slid one knee against my outer hip, crossed the top of my thigh, and nestled it snug against my sex. I pressed down and around, my arousal immediate and urgent.
“I see you,” he said.
He tucked a stubborn hank of hair behind his ear while running his gaze over my body.
“I feel you,” he continued, placing one palm on my forehead.
Tanner stroked my face and the front of my throat, squeezed gently, and smiled. He placed his palm on my sternum, spread his fingers, and pressed down, all the while watching me, then ran the same hand over my ribs side to side, into the curves of my waist and over my belly. His thumb ended up hidden in the patch of crinkly hairs nestled against his knee. He backed off enough he could explore my clit.
I moaned, tried to show him the movement I most enjoyed, especially when I was pleasuring myself. He grinned at me and shifted his body until his nose was buried where his thumb had been.
He inhaled deeply, eyes closed, and said, “I smell you.”
Tanner separated a path for his tongue and licked me.
“And now I want to taste you.”
I reached my hand to part my own lips further and came up onto my elbows. “I’d like to watch.”
His grin was the good kind of wicked, promising trouble ahead if I didn’t do as he wanted, which was spread my legs enough to accommodate his shoulders. I bent my knees slightly, pressed my heels into the mattress, and gave him the go-ahead to explore.
I didn’t know I liked to watch a lover licking me, to see my reactions to his giving me pleasure mirrored on his face. To see my juices streak his nose and cheeks and react to the pinch of pain as he gripped the fleshy part of my thighs to lift me higher.
My arms gave out. I closed my eyes, fumbled for a hold in the headboard’s spindle frame, and let go into a world of pure sensation.
Let go, Calli. Let go.
The voice in my head was all mine. I reaffirmed my two-fisted grip on the rounded wood, gave in to the rhythm of Tanner’s tongue and the fingers he’d teased inside me. I lifted a little and sank, reveling in how wet I’d become.
Tanner withdrew most of his first two fingers,
introduced a third, and within a few hard strokes, I came, riding wave after wave until it hurt to have him inside me.
Blood flow returned to my hands and arms, once I let go of the bedframe. I pressed my fingertips to the top of Tanner’s head and nudged him aside so I could see better. He swiped his mouth across my inner thigh, wiped his face with the clean sheet, and pounced, straddling me as he had earlier.
“You taste like everything I’ve ever wanted,” he whispered.
Flecks of gold, the ones I’d seen the day we’d met, returned to light amber irises and tips of mussed hair. Tanner stood on his knees, grabbed mine, and folded my legs in toward my chest. He hugged my bent legs, lowered his head to kiss wherever he could reach from my knees to my ankles, and took a playful swat at my ass.
He looked so pleased and happy, and I could almost ignore the external reminders of what happened between him and the Apple Witch.
Let it go, Calli. Let it go. He’s here, with you, because this is what he wants.
I listened to myself. Sometimes, I was pretty smart.
“Do you think you taste like everything I’ve ever wanted?” I asked, letting the tip of my tongue fan against my upper lip. I even batted my eyelashes, something I had never consciously done in front of a man. In front of a mirror, yes, but never a man.
“Only one way to find out.” Tanner made no move to shift positions until he reached over to my desk and lit up my phone. “We have about ninety minutes to see if I meet with your taste buds’ approval.”
“Does that give us time to clean up and air out the room? Because you smell like sex, Tanner.”
“I smell like your sex, Calliope.” He grinned, and whatever blemishes Jessamyne might have left on his warm skin faded. All I saw was an aroused, eager, playful man.
I pushed against his hands and rolled onto my belly, intending to get up and make room for him, but he lowered himself onto my back. Reaching between us, he adjusted his cock. My ass still stung from his gentle smack.
“It’s a little hard for me to taste you from here.” My voice was muffled by a pillow, which helped absorb my squeals when Tanner began to nip at the skin around my ribs and growl.
I play-fought by lifting my hips and trying to wiggle away, but that got him harder. I turned my head, my hair covering my face and getting in my mouth.
“Tanner. I like the feel of having you behind me,” I added, “but I’m not on any kind of birth control and you’re not wearing a condom and I’m afraid of going farther with you than I’m ready for.”
He pushed away and rested his forehead between my shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry.” He sat on his heels, giving me room to roll onto my back and face him. The glow in his eyes was cooling. My druid was slipping away when all I wanted was to keep playing until both of us were as sated as we could be, given the multitude of constraints. I curled up and rested my palm over his heart.
“Is this okay?” I asked.
He stared at me, nodded.
I wiggled out from between his legs and placed both hands on his chest. I spread my fingers. My thumbs rested on the narrow line of black hairs that began below his navel, meandered up the center line of his torso, and ended between his pecs.
“Is this okay?” I found his flat, dark brown nipples and brushed my thumbs across them back and forth, until the soft erectile tissue pebbled.
Tanner’s lips parted and his eyes flickered, a tiny ember of arousal waiting in whatever dark place he’d retreated to. He leaned into my thumbs. “Yes.”
I moved my hands down the front of his chest until I could cup the underside of his cock. I slowly tightened my grip.
“That’s okay too.”
Chapter 17
I wanted to explore Tanner with my mouth. His breath caught as I lowered my head, licked his length, and sucked the tip gently into my mouth. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged.
“What?” I asked, once the head, rounded and aroused to a deep reddish brown, popped from my lips. I gave the underside another lick and sighed. I was blissed and, at some level, all too aware our time together was ticking away.
Tanner grabbed me under the arms, flipped our bodies like I weighed next to nothing, and hovered me above him.
I went limp as the dishrag I’d left on the kitchen faucet. I pushed my hair out of my face, and giggled. “I can’t move.”
I finally opened my eyes to see Tanner staring up at me, his arms straight, my knees brushing his hips.
“You’re a mess,” he said. “A fucking beautiful witchy mess.”
“Can I be your witchy mess?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he said, breaking into a smile and lowering me onto the front of his body. “I thought you’d never ask.”
There was a musky, sexed-up male underneath me. His quiet matched the quiet inside the house, and out. I wasn’t sure what was next.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he said, holding me closer. “This is what I need right now.”
Chest-to-chest, our breathing synched. We both might have dozed off.
I pushed my hair out of my eyes and checked the time. Much as I wanted to lie there, everyone was due back soon. I nudged Tanner. “Shower?”
“Probably a good idea,” he said, “because you smell like you’ve been rolling around in bed with a naked druid.”
* * *
Water sluiced over my shoulders. I handed a washcloth to Tanner and asked him to soap me up.
“You trust me to stick to your back?” he asked.
I nodded, trying to keep my hair out of the shower spray. “I trust you to have my back too.”
I rinsed off the soap. Tanner’s arm appeared around my side, washcloth and soap in his palm.
“I trust you to have my back,” he said, “especially if you scrub it first.”
I lathered the cloth and set the bar of soap in the metal wire holder. The phrase we’d repeated back and forth, about trust and having each other’s back, had given me an idea.
“Tanner,” I said. I steadied myself by holding onto his shoulder and used my other hand to scrub circles down his spine and across his shoulder blades and ribs. “I want to get a tattoo.”
He planted his palms on the walls in front of and to the side of the tub. Water splashed everywhere. For once, I didn’t mind.
“What inspired that idea?” he asked.
“You did. Well, your tattoo.” I scrubbed his butt, cautiously gliding the washcloth over the seeds implanted in the branches of his sepia-colored tree. I loved the unusual shade of ink. Moving the cloth back and forth, bumps glided under my fingertips. I stopped. Swept my fingertips over the design again. Chills rippled up my arms. I pressed my palm between Tanner’s shoulder blades to keep myself from slipping. “Tanner?”
“What, Calli?” He tried to turn around.
I kept my hand where it was and stared at the tree.
“Does this tattoo have anything to do with your connection to Jessamyne? Is this tree…her? Because if it is, I…I can’t do this with you.” I dropped the washcloth and wiped my eyes, soap adding to the sting of my suspicion.
Tanner turned off the faucets, bumping into my front as he bent forward and reached through the shower curtain for a towel. He wiped his face and handed the towel to me when I tugged.
“What the hell just happened, Calliope?” he asked, cupping my face. “Look at me.”
“I can’t,” I mumbled. “Soap. Eyes.”
“Switch places.” He let go of me, turned the water back on, and gave me room to stand under the water.
A few seconds was all I needed. I stayed a few seconds more, eyes closed, until I knew the question I wanted to ask.
“Is your tattoo connected in any way to your relationship with the Apple Witch?” Crossing my arms only accentuated my breasts and nipples. I went to cover them with my hands and ended up feeling even more awkward. There was no way to have an emotional conversation while showering.
/> “Early in my druidic training, I had a dream about Yggdrasil, the tree of life.” He reached for the bar hanging from the ceiling, his arms spread wide. The metal shower curtain holders clanked. “Because dreams hold weight within certain Magical circles, it was suggested to me that I wear a rendition of the tree somewhere on my body to remind me of the dream’s importance. I chose a tattoo.”
Tanner shifted his weight to one side. Standing this close to him, with his arms up and out, I could see every defined muscle from the deep V rising from his groin and flaring over his hips to his ladder-like abdominals and rock-hard pecs. I wanted to mimic his relaxed, confident posture. If only his past would reveal itself to me as clearly as his musculature.
I dropped my gaze from his face to navel and below. His arousal was clearly not affected by my concerns.
He continued. “The seeds I agreed to carry under my skin are part of an agreement I have with someone you have never met, someone with whom I have never been lovers. I do, however, owe this person a debt.” He traced the contours of my face, around my jaw, and across my collarbones. His gaze followed the path of his fingertips. “I don’t like it when you’re upset with me. I don’t like it all.”
I had started to dry and expected shivers would come next, not the opposite. My skin grew flushed, and my sex clenched at the sight of Tanner’s growing erection.
“And I don’t like it that your past contains so many mysteries, including what you just said. I mean, who says stuff like that when they’re naked in the shower with someone who just…who just came on their fingers?” I had to use both hands to sluice away the water blocking my eyes. “You’re not just one story, Tanner. It’s like you’re multiple volumes, and Jessamyne’s this pain in my ass recurring character and I am so ready for her to be edited out.”
Ugh. Exes were just the worst. And being a little pissed off lit the tinder of my desire, soaked as it was with the water continuing to cascade over my body.
Then and there, I kneeled on the white porcelain surface of the tub, bringing my mouth level with Tanner’s erection. He palmed his balls, hooked his thumb over the base of his cock, and traced my lips.
