I put my plan into action the next morning. “Up and at ’em, birthday boy.”
Ro reached for me. “Do I get to pick my present?” he purred.
“Nope. I have things to do.” I gave him a peck on the cheek.
“This birthday sucks,” he grumbled.
“Well, you’re old now. Twenty-four.” I clucked my tongue. “It’s all downhill from here. Get used to it. ’Kay. Bye.”
I didn’t return until almost dinnertime, loaded down with packages. “I brought Thai!”
Ro padded out of the kitchen with a beer. “Want some help? Ooh. You went to Kin Kao.”
I handed him the take-out bag. “Among other places. Spent a small fortune in Lyft fees.” I put our dessert in the fridge and my other purchases on the table. Ro tried to peek in the gift bag but I slapped his hand away. “After dinner.”
The meal was incredible: spicy soft-shell crab, fragrant pineapple rice, and savory beef noodle soup. Our banter was light-hearted, though my leg was jiggling. What had been a brilliant gift idea last night seemed really stupid now.
“Cake,” I trilled.
Ro loved his Batman ice cream cake. He ate two pieces and didn’t even share.
“You didn’t finish your piece,” he said, sneaking another sliver. “What gives? Are you breaking up with me? Because that is totally shitty to do after Batman birthday cake.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re stuck with me. It’s just…” I fiddled with the zipper of the hoodie that he’d given me after the fire. “Meet me in the tap studio in five minutes.”
I took the gift bag and bolted.
When Ro arrived, I’d paired his hoodie and my flowy mini skirt with my new Jason Samuel Smith Bloch tap shoes. They didn’t compare to the custom taps from Rohan that I’d lost, but they were good shoes.
“You’re going to dance for me?” Rohan said.
“For your first present.”
He rubbed his hands together. “I like the sound of that.”
I pointed to the middle of the floor. “Sit. And don’t say anything until I tell you to.”
My iPhone was already in the dock. I hit play and the opening strains of Bobby Darin’s “More” came on. I’d first heard this song when I was a teen during a summer boot camp that taught us classic tap combos and I’d sworn to one day dance to it for someone I loved.
Bobby sang about a love that was more than the greatest love the world had ever known and how he lived to love this person more each day, all to this jazzy up-tempo swing.
At first, I was kind of hesitant—the cheesiness potential was high—but when I snuck a glance at my boyfriend’s face to find it lit up as he followed my progress around the floor, I threw off all my inhibitions and danced my heart out. My smile grew larger and larger as I let out every single iota of my giddy adoration for him, from the way his head bobbing got more intense the more he liked a song, like now, to the dozens of tiny ways he took care of me, especially when he was all grumpy about them, to his wicked sense of humor and intelligence. With steps as light as air, I wrapped Ro in my dancing, twirling around him.
Saucy trumpets underscored Bobby’s celebration of his love, and as the song built to its final crescendo, I busted out a flurry of one-footed wings, because Rohan made me want to soar.
Bobby sang his closing line of how no one could ever love this person more and the final notes crashed into silence. Chest heaving, I threw the hoodie off, leaving me in a pink bra dotted with tiny sparkly hearts that I’d bought off Raquel earlier.
Ro whistled. Then did a double take at the snowflake tattooed over my heart.
“I wanted to have some skin in the game,” I said.
He stood up slowly, gingerly tracing the tattoo through its clear breathable band-aid. “Can I say something now?”
I nodded.
His mouth crashed down on mine, all frenetic heat. I abandoned myself to its demands, the kiss hard and aggressive.
Our tongues tangled and my brain lit on fire, devoured by this all-consuming kiss. I curled my hand around the back of his neck, my fingers threading through his silky locks, and pulled him closer. I nipped his bottom lip, his stubble a shivery rasp.
Rohan hiked my legs around his waist, walking us backward until I was pressed into the wall, trapped there by his hips. He nodded at the tattoo. “It’s going to be sensitive so if I’m hurting you, tell me.”
“Uh-huh.”
He arched into me, and a coil of dark, lush desire snaked down to my toes. His lips drifted down my throat, his tongue dragging against my skin.
I gave a helpless moan and clutched at his biceps.
“Nava.” My name tripped off his tongue with a sultry groan. “Fuck, I love it when you make noise.” He palmed one breast, pulling a gasp out of me.
My eyes slid shut and I raked my nails along the ridged planes of his abs.
Rohan grabbed my greedy, grasping hands and pinned them above my head. He claimed my mouth again, biting, sucking, marking me.
My body pulsed. The fiercest surge of magic paled against the power of this kiss.
“Second present,” I gasped. “In bag.”
Rohan slid me off him. He crossed the room in two strides and pulled out the bottle of lube with a bow stuck on top. The curve of his swollen mouth tilted up in a filthy smile. “What would you like me to do with this, sweetheart?”
“Fuck me please,” I said in my most polite voice.
“How?”
My cheeks flamed and I mumbled my reply.
Rohan cocked an eyebrow, smugly enjoying this.
I jutted out my chin. “I want to try butt stuff.”
It was like I’d poured gas on a fire.
With rough, impatient motions, he wrenched me around and pushed down my skirt, which fluttered to the ground at my ankles.
I kicked it away.
One of Rohan’s finger blades traced up the outside of my bikini briefs. I shivered, but when it slid under the elastic, I stopped him and wriggled out of them.
“This is a set. No wrecking them.”
“Got it.” He planted my palms against the wall, the blunt edges of his fingernails digging into my skin. “Keep them there.”
There was a sucking pop, then a cold, gooey liquid dripped down the crack of my ass.
I yelped.
“Relax.” He kissed the side of my neck, suckling the skin until the tension drained from my shoulders. “You want to stop at any point, say the word.”
I nodded and pressed my forehead to the wall, sighing as he slid one finger into my ass, easing me into readiness.
One finger became two. My entire body tightened, not in pain, but in this dangerous, luxurious eroticism.
Rohan pulled his fingers out. “Do you want to stop? I can happily get you off another way.”
I turned around, cupping his face in my hands. “I want all of you.”
I could feel Rohan’s pulse thrumming against my skin, a staccato rhythm that danced through my blood. All other thoughts—about my future, my lack of magic—flew away, scattered to the four winds. All that existed, all that mattered was the two of us, filling me with a headiness that left me cotton-headed and unsteady.
For years, I’d run from this exact type of moment, and now I couldn’t run to it fast enough and grab on for all I was worth. I smiled at Ro, because I was too far gone to do anything else.
His eyes glittered. “Get in the bedroom.”
I jumped on him, my legs wrapped around his waist and my arms draped around his neck. “Take me there.”
“Doing all the work as usual,” he grumbled, shutting up pretty damn fast when I dragged my lips along his. His hold on me tightened, our kiss a drugging, maddening needy mess. He crashed into furniture twice and hit his toe once, but we made it to his bedroom where he deposited me on the mattress.
Snapping on the warm bedside lamp, he arranged me on all fours, my ass up in the air. There was a click and whoosh of his belt coming free, then the metallic rasp of his zipper. He sw
ore when his jeans didn’t come off fast enough.
His impatience to fuck me made me giddy. I pressed my cheek to the cool mattress, lust blazing like wildfire through me and stroked Cuntessa, who was peeved at having been ignored this long.
Ro’s hand covered mine for a brief instant. “I’ll make this good for you, I swear.”
“I know.” My heart thudded.
More lube ran along the crack of my ass and the blunt tip of his cock pressed against me.
I puckered. Stopped. Exhaled. “Okay.”
Slowly, he worked his way inside me, one hand stroking along my spine, while I teased Cuntessa. I held my breath because how could I possibly have room for him? But he was so careful and patient, and then he was inside me with a sweet burn that stole my breath with the intimacy of it.
Ro froze and gave a shaky sigh. He curled his body over mine, his hands over my breasts and rocked his hips.
The feel of him buried deep scattered my wits. I slammed back against him, drowning in raw, unquenched desire. “Please.”
Ro planted one knee on the bed, working me with a steady rhythm that made me see stars.
My fingers on my clit matched his tempo, all of it growing more frenetic and desperate. We were one body, one soul. All that existed was prolonging this building starburst. My babbles became incoherent moans. My knees were splayed, the bedframe rocking underneath us.
Ro’s hands roamed my body with a wild ferocity, murmuring how right this was, how much he loved me.
As my orgasm grew, I threw him a filthy smile over my shoulder, the twin to the one he’d shot me earlier tonight.
Ro’s cock pulsed inside me, his hand tensed on my hip and he came with my name on lips.
It sent me over the edge with a wild cry, the big bang supernovaing through me. I tumbled to the mattress in a boneless daze, tingles quaking like aftershocks.
Rohan pulled out and crashed onto the bed next to me, blinking stupidly.
I rolled onto my side and looked at my boyfriend, with his gaze unfocused, his hair sticking up every which way, and an utterly enamored grin on his swollen lips. He’d never looked hotter.
I would suffer through everything I had five times over, if it led me to that look. Even when we were both wrinkled, I’d never tire of it. My heart expanded out to fill every part of me.
“There’s one more gift in that bag.” I moved only enough to pull the edge of the covers over me. “But you have to go back and get it.”
He nuzzled my cheek, then rolled off the bed and swaggered to the bathroom.
I laughed, enjoying the clench of his glutes when he strutted. Naked Rohan on parade. We’d be working that into our regular routine.
Ro washed his hands and brought me a damp towel before going to retrieve his gift. I’d washed myself off by the time he returned.
He rapped his knuckles against his present. “What’s this?”
I shrugged and he tore off the wrapping paper revealing a thin blue binder.
Rohan settled himself on the bed, propped a pillow behind his back, and flipped it open, snorting when he saw the handwritten title on the lined loose-leaf paper. “‘One Night with a Rock Star?’ I knew it! You totally wrote fanfic about me.”
“As I’ve told you, many times, I found you insufferable back then. My adolescent heart belonged to Zack. I wrote this yesterday in the style of the stories I wrote those many years ago.”
Two paragraphs in, Rohan slapped his hand over his mouth. By the end of the first page, his face was frozen in a grimace. “I just met you! This is the worst instalove.”
“You think when I was fifteen I was writing a slow, mature relationship where we got to know each other? No. Dude met me, I rocked his world, and he couldn’t live without me by the end of that first night.” I grinned smugly. “Much like your real-life experience.”
Rohan flipped the page. “Yeah, I guess that’s how it was with Lils.”
I smacked him and he snickered.
“‘I plundered your mouth with my tongue, my throbbing manhood pressed to your vajeen!’” The binder slipped from his hand, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
“The ‘j’ is soft. I do have a thorough French education.”
“My mistake.” Rohan got himself under control, more or less, and continued reading with the gravity this work of art deserved.
A few minutes passed, a few more pages rustled.
“A duel?” He peered at me over the top of the binder. “Am I fighting my band members all at once for you or is this a one-at-a-time situation?”
“Clearly you’re not reading closely. I let you take them individually. Wasn’t sure you could handle all of them together.”
“Yeah, that’s the believability issue.” Rohan flipped back to the first page. “Are we in a time loop? Meeting my soulmate, fighting to win her, writing her the ‘song of my heart that would become my most famous chart-topper’—this is a very long night.”
“I give you a gift of my tender fifteen-year-old girl feelings and you mock me?” With a huff, I took the binder away, but he snatched it back.
“You made me an eighteen-year-old guy macking on a kid, which is creepy.” He pretended to beat me with the binder, before continuing to read. “‘Falling in love with you is not an option. I love you. I love you. I love you.’ Fucking hell. It’s two lines of badly written porn, one line of mush. Rinse and repeat.”
“Hardly porn. We don’t do more than kiss.”
“You kiss. I plunder.”
“You can stop reading at any time.”
Rohan clutched the binder to his chest.
I pulled the covers over my mouth so he wouldn’t see my smile.
There were no more comments from the peanut gallery, only a lot more laughter.
Until he got to the end. “Are you kidding?”
“It was a very satisfying and realistic end to our passionate love story.”
“You reject me because you’re too young and you want to follow your dance dreams, so my eighteen-year-old, internationally famous, rock star self agrees to wait for you?”
“Yes.”
“And stay celibate until you’re ready for me.”
“Sacrifices must be made for love.”
Ro pulled my legs out of the covers, yanking me across the mattress. I shrieked, giggling, and tried to fight him off. He caught my wrists, pinning them between our bodies as he stretched out over me.
“Best. Birthday. Ever.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” I said.
“Can I give you something?” he said.
“Always.”
“Get under the covers.”
Was this sexytime round two? I was a little sore, but what the hell. I made myself comfy.
Ro left the room, returning shortly with his phone and a pair of earbuds. He climbed into bed with me and shut off the lamp. Plugging the earbuds in, he cued up a song then handed me the phone and both earbuds.
“What am I listening to?”
“My album. I want you to hear it before anyone else.”
I curled my toes, a goofy smile blossoming across my face. “Really?”
I snuggled into Ro’s side, my naked limbs tangled up with his, and hit play.
Best. Night. Ever.
Chapter 29
Wednesday was filled with phone calls. I touched base with my parents since I hadn’t done much more than fire off quick texts recently. Then I played telephone tag with Raquel, finally grabbing her after a meeting with representatives of the Russian government. She had lobbied hard for some kind of official status to any Rasha or witch living and hunting in that country declaring them free from prosecution. They’d just granted it.
Raquel was elated. “With Russia onboard, the rest of the Eastern bloc will fall in line, and I’ll get my meeting with China. Speaking of which, how much longer are you going to laze around? There’s a seat waiting for you on the council.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Is this
because of the no magic thing? Sienna took her seat.”
“I know. She texts me once a day, threatening to poison me for inflicting this on her.” I outlined my plan to mentor at-risk young witches. “We’d have to meet with the different covens and see what they propose, then I could develop a training plan. Baruch is busy, but Ari could oversee it. If there are funds, I’m going to ask Clara—yeah, I can call her that too so there—to get a space that could work as administrative offices for her and a training/schooling/hang-out place for my girls. We could have bedrooms if we decided that they should stay for stretches at a time, and I was even thinking that down the line we could expand their training to dance or art or other sports that have nothing to do with hunting. Pursuing something I loved and getting better at it was so incredibly fulfilling. I could find that for these girls. What do you think?”
“I think you need to take a breath,” she said. “But I also think you’ve found your calling. It’s perfect, and I’ll find the money to get this up and running. The council is all for folding Brotherhood assets into this new venture, but it’s a corporate entity, and everyone on the board is either dead or in jail. One of our witches, Mathilda, is a hotshot corporate lawyer, and she’s working on it with a couple Rasha who had passed the bar. Meantime, I’m slogging away at securing government contracts to keep us afloat. It’ll be lean times for a bit, but we’ll eventually sustain everyone working under our umbrella.”
There was a burst of loud voices on Raquel’s end of the phone call. “Gotta run. Need to grab the American delegates.”
“I’ll see you at Rohan’s show tomorrow?”
“Obviously.”
Flush with success, I called Leo and my brother to see how they were doing. All was well in their respective worlds. I wrapped up my calls and padded into the kitchen for a coffee top up.
“Everything good?” Rohan placed fresh grounds in the filter.
“Better than good.” I filled him in while the pot burbled merrily. “Have you heard from Drio?”
We hadn’t seen or heard from him since the plaza battle. I’d tried to respect his space, but I was getting seriously concerned.
Ro got the sugar out of the cupboard. “Drio’s…processing.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 176
