by Mary Hughes
He led them to the glassed-in grooming booth. Just outside it, King balked. Sophia cajoled him and scolded him and finally picked him up and carried him. He stopped fighting at that. He really seemed to like it when she hugged him to her breasts. The sweetie.
The grooming table was metal topped with grooved vinyl. Clamped to one corner was a tall pole, a short crossarm at the top making a half-T. A leash hung from the arm. It swung uncomfortably like a hangman’s noose.
The groomer unhooked the loop from the table’s arm. “Let’s just get your little man secured.”
King growled at the leash and tried to squirm out of Sophia’s arms. He wouldn’t let the man put the loop over his head. She finally had to threaten the dog with leaving him at the store while she searched for Aunt Linda to get him to cooperate.
Yes, he probably couldn’t understand her. But it worked.
The groomer dropped the loop over King’s head and tightened it, two fingers between the leash and fur for space. “We’ll leave it a little loose for him,” the man said. Then he led Sophia, carrying the dog, into an attached room smelling of shampoo where he clipped the leash to a wall hook beside a sink. “Set him in here.” While the groomer washed and rinsed the dog, he adopted a sugary voice. “Who’s a good puppy? Is Kingy-wingy a good boy?”
A low thrum threaded the air, King growling again.
The man laughed. “Good news. Just scrapes under the blood. I can treat them.”
She let out a relieved breath. “That’d be great.”
He unclipped the loop from the wall and indicated Sophia should take King back into the grooming booth, where she set the dog on the table. After anchoring the loop to the half-T, the groomer used a foot pedal to raise the table’s height. Then he turned to a selection of bottles on the nearby counter top and picked up an amber one. “Tell you what. I’ll throw in a trim and style for the little fella, no charge.”
King’s low growl developed a distinct knife-edge.
Sophia tapped his nose. “King, be nice. He’s helping you.”
Casting a doleful eye at her, the dog quieted.
Her mind wandered as the man applied antiseptic. Why had Noah left in such a hurry this morning? Where had he gone, what was he doing? Was he thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him?
Mooning over a man she’d just met. She shook her head at herself. She was here to find Aunt Linda.
Okay, she’d talked to Noah, Mason, the Misses Jamies, and Marlowe. She didn’t know who else to talk to. Maybe she should just give in and use her Witch’s Sight to survey the scene of the crime. Although Noah had given her a pretty thorough rundown on what had happened, there were traces she could pick up with the witch’s eye that he wouldn’t have seen.
The groomer finished treating King’s scrapes and turned the dog around on the table. “My my, this little man has quite a big package.”
King shot him a look that would’ve frozen fire.
The groomer simply smiled as he toweled, blow-dried, and brushed out. Then he thumbed on the clipper, releasing a burnt dust scent.
King’s low growl promised serious mayhem.
The groomer laughed. “Just a trim, little man. No big deal.”
With a grumpy yip, King turned forward.
The man pursed his lips as he worked. He had gorgeous lips, very kissable.
The groomer shot Sophia a look out of the corner of his eye. Somehow she forgot about lips.
As the clipper buzzed and growled, her mind turned back to Noah. He hadn’t wanted her to interview Marlowe, concerned about his brother Killer. It occurred to her that anybody who concerned Noah Blackwood had to be pretty damned dangerous. Was Killer behind the wall of the trailer weeping blood?
She shook herself. Not thinking about Noah anymore.
Or any less.
She sighed.
“All done. What do you think?”
Sophia looked up. The groomer had given King an adorable, fluffy trim, complete with a pink froufrou of a bow clipped between his perky ears. She smiled. “Cute.”
“What do you think, puppy?” The groomer picked up a mirror and held it before King’s face.
Odd that the man would show the dog his image, like a hairstylist to a client. But no odder than her thinking King answered her.
In the mirror, the small dog’s bright eyes fastened on the frilly pink bow—and went very, very narrow.
Dead silence.
Suddenly King went ballistic, snarling and snapping, the loop lead whipping.
The man danced back, barely keeping body parts out of teeth-stapling range. Sophia alternately shouted and soothed, but the dog refused to calm down.
King’s paroxysms loosened the table noose. He slipped free, jumped off the table, slid past their frantic outstretched hands, and ran directly to a file cabinet. With a hump and twist, he used the cabinet handle to pry off the bow.
Sophia’s jaw dropped. The dog was amazingly facile about it, as if he’d planned the whole series of maneuvers. Cool once he was loose. No wasted motion.
Just like a certain alpha.
Damn it, she had Noah on the brain, a fever, and the only cure was more Noah. Or cowbell, she wasn’t sure.
She rested her forehead in her palm and sighed.
* * *
As they left the pet store, King strode ahead of Sophia, a gait which should have been impossible with his short little legs, but he managed it. He also managed to keep perfect tension on his new black leather leash while completely ignoring her. Yes, he was a dog and couldn’t talk. She knew from his stride and the way his nose pointed in the air that he was ignoring her in offended dignity.
“I don’t see why you didn’t like the bow. It was cute.”
King stomped on, the extra swing to his male parts a clear, I do not do cute. She smiled.
As they walked, her smile faded. Where to go next? The bookstore was the obvious answer, but for Killer. The wolfman hadn’t followed her to the store, and there was no reason to think he’d know she was staying there—except for the fact that Matinsfield was a small town. It wouldn’t take much digging to find her.
But she still needed to locate her aunt, so she headed back to the Uncommon Night Owl to do her duty. Besides, that was where her suitcase was, and she was smelling a little ripe.
Inside the store was cool and dark, but her gut was churning. Worried about Killer, but also uneasy about using the Sight. Frankly, she’d rather pet a porcupine. She shut the door. Locked it. Removed King’s leash. Fed the animals. Put fresh water down. Answered all her emails and updated her social statuses in three places before she knocked the phone between her eyes.
Avoid much? She shut her eyes and reached mentally for the etheric.
Witch’s Sight rode a magical gray line. While mundanes could do Sight, it took a whisper of power. So when she opened her third eye, because of the way she’d sealed off her magic, her head tingled unpleasantly. She gritted her teeth and pushed through it. It’d only get worse.
With her third eye focused, she lifted her physical lids and scanned the store.
A red ring pulsed where the mushroom had been, Aunt Linda’s version of a theft-reporting device. Too bad Auntie hadn’t put a locater spell on the thing—or on herself.
The doorway was tinged bright yellow-red. Someone had gotten a surprise bordering on shock here, enough for the emotion to bleed onto the etheric. The thief? Or Auntie?
Sophia’s head started throbbing. The eye was taking its toll. She didn’t have all day. She started walking the store.
Midway in, another splotch of gold-red surprise floated just above the floor. Jagged skid marks leading to the splotch lit the air, evidence of a cast spell. Frowning, she stopped.
Magic potential couldn’t be seen, which was why even a witch couldn’t reliably tell another witch on sight. But actual magic was visible, whether it was injected into a thing like an amulet, pulsed within a living being like a shifter, or cast raw by a witch as a
spell.
A thrown spell left traces of its path.
This skid was from a spell—and it was fairly fresh. Probably Aunt Linda, but strange, because as a single-element witch, she didn’t often throw spells because of the fast power drain. Auntie preferred potions and amulets which drew over time.
But if not Aunt Linda, that left the mysterious hooded man, and Sophia didn’t like that idea at all.
She tried to glean more information from the skid, peering more intently at it. The intense concentration gave her a bigger headache, like squinting too long.
But she was able to tell by the jagged nature of the skid that the spell was a hex.
Her hands started aching, bone-deep. She followed the skid. It led her to a glass case of pictures. She bent and peered inside. Scratch that. It had hit her picture.
Her heart started misfiring. She knocked a fist into it. It hiccupped and caught. Even the trickle of magic she drew for her third eye was catching up with her. Time was running out. She moved faster.
The skid made a V out of the case. She trotted the length of the trace to a cloth-draped piece of furniture—from the shape, a freestanding full-length oval mirror.
She reached for the cloth to uncover it.
An etheric eye as big as a house zoomed in on her. One searches for Noah.
Her heart stuttered. A second eye, behind the first, lanced into her. One hunts him.
She fell to her knees, dizzy, gasping, hands clutched to her chest. Her whole body felt weak and fluttery.
Her last impression before she lost consciousness was King, yapping frantically and licking her face.
Chapter Nine
She was Sleeping Beauty, her prince kissing her awake. Sweet and coaxing, male lips smooth, enticing…hot and wild…
Sophia’s brain came online. That wild taste didn’t belong to a fairy-tale prince. It was Noah.
She was on the floor, on her back. His strongly muscled body was hard and heavy beside hers. It felt like heaven. She sighed in pleasure. This was what it would feel like, waking up to him every morning.
Well, except for the being on the floor bit.
Unless he liked things kinky. At the thought, she wriggled happily.
“Sophia,” he murmured against her mouth. “I was worried. Are you all right?” He started to lift his head from hers.
“I’m fine.” She captured his head with one hand, stopping him, her fingers threading his silky hair. “Keep kissing me and I’ll be better than fine.”
His head remained stubbornly raised. “You collapsed…I mean, you were sprawled against the floor as if you’d collapsed. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Explaining about her third eye and the hex was a sexual non-starter. And she wanted him with a shocking need. Maybe waking to his kiss had shortcut around her inhibitions, or maybe, having already experienced one Noah-induced orgasm, she wasn’t so worried about Council prohibitions. She said, “I overdid it. It may have looked like I collapsed, but all I needed was some serious sleep. Got it, and I’m okay now…unless you stop kissing me. Then I will not be okay and you will have serious problems.”
He chuffed a laugh and bent to press his lips sweetly to hers.
Sweetly, from the alpha. What was she, his little maiden aunt? Pulling his mouth hard onto hers, she wrapped her other arm around his ribcage and tried to lever him on top of her.
Something in Noah’s big body changed at that. Heated red-hot. It reminded her that this wasn’t a mere dream prince kissing her, but a wilder royalty, more dangerous and elemental.
He eased himself on top of her. As he did, his hand slid behind her neck to clasp her nape. She’d felt a dozen men do that, but with Noah it was different. As if, instead of fingers, hot teeth closed on her neck, to hold her firmly in place for pounding sex.
Lust gushed through her at the thought.
“Sophia, your scent…” He groaned and drove his tongue deep into her mouth.
She moaned and opened to him, both lips and legs. Gravity did the work, bringing his hot torso nestling between her spread thighs, warming, then scorching her sensitive flesh.
He’d feel even better skin-to-skin.
She slid a hand between them to fumble with her slacks. His fingers came to help. Strong yet nimble, they made quick work of her fastenings. When he lifted off her to ease her pants and panties down the curve of her hips, she groaned with the loss of his weight.
Almost immediately he returned to nip down her jaw. His body pressed against the naked flesh of her exposed belly, only his flannel shirt between. She wriggled happily as he nipped to her throat.
Pinned by his weight, his teeth sharp along the tender flesh of her neck, she could almost feel the predator’s bite. But the wolf was tempered by the man as his sharp nips alternated with warm kisses and licks. The combination along with the heat of his breath on her neck sent shivers riding along her flesh from crown to toes.
Her heart thudded faster. She lifted her chin to give him better access. At the same time she hunted for his waistband. His jeans button came open with a hard push-tug. She cranked on his zipper, lost patience, and dived in, expecting boxers or briefs.
Shocked, she felt satiny warm flesh instead—his cock, peeking up to greet her.
He shifted his hips so that she could shoehorn her palm past his waistband into his pants. She glided along the length of his hard, growing erection. It was thick and sleek and she yearned to feel it inside her.
As she rubbed, his breathing got ragged. His mouth pressed to the crook of her neck and sucked gently. His hand was busy flipping open blouse buttons. A multi-tasking male, ooh.
But while his touch on her naked nipples would be nice, she was burning up elsewhere. She abandoned his pants to grab his fingers and tried to redirect his hand to where she wanted it, between her legs.
His growl revved darker. “Not yet. I want you totally naked.”
She thrilled. Shivered. “You too.”
He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. His were a silver so bright they burned. “Oh, yes.”
His mouth seized hers. She gasped, her jaw falling pliant and yielding to him. He plundered her to the limits. And when she was insane with want—he stopped.
“Damn it, Blackwood—”
“Naked, remember?” Straddling her hips, he rose to his knees over her and made short work of her blouse and bra. She half-lifted to strip them off. He grabbed them from her and tossed them to the side.
And then he was suckling her breast. She sank back to the floor as her nipple surged up to meet him. He suckled it then started plucking the other until she arched with a moan. Until her urgency drove her to thrash against the floor. “Naked,” she gasped.
“Yes.” He completely stripped off her pants and panties, then fell on her breasts again, suckling. Desire flaming through her, she rolled her hips into him.
“Naked,” she shouted, then panted, “You.”
That ripped a dark growl from him. He surged to his knees above her and without unbuttoning, stripped off his flannel shirt with a rise of chest and biceps, a long stretch of muscle along his ribcage and a flaring of his lats. The man was all lean, luscious muscle. She petted everything she could reach, delighting in silky skin and a light dusting of hair that tickled.
His jeans were already unbuttoned, the top of his erection straining in the gap. He tore his zipper open, rolled one hip onto the floor then rolled onto his back, peeling the pants off as he went. He came up on his knees, the pants in one hand.
His erection strained eagerly for her.
She nearly lost it at that. The monster cock jutted proudly from his body. What will that feel like inside me…?
Tossing the pants, he came to lay beside her, his body flush with hers, and leaned over her to kiss her. As his tongue mated with hers, he slid his other hand between her legs.
She was already so wet his fingers sank deep. They both moaned.
He stroked her sex, gently at first and then with inc
reasing insistence. Her hips began to jerk in excitement. A mini-explosion rocked her. He kept stroking and she built higher and higher. Dizzyingly high.
Achingly close to the peak.
Winched to the point of no return, she grabbed his hips and tried to lever him to where he’d do the most good. He chuckled and moved to accommodate her, kneeling between her parted thighs. He lowered himself slowly until his erection bobbed against her mound, on the cusp of making everything perfect.
The wall phone jangled.
She groaned and tried to ignore it. Grabbing his head in both hands, she brought their lips together and kissed him as if she could deafen them both with her enthusiasm.
The ringing stopped.
She sighed and reached between them to circle his cock, lovely and thick in her hand. She stroked, feeling it grow even fatter. He’d feel like heaven sinking in—
Brring.
“Damn it.” She clunked her head on the floor in disgust.
“Who is it?” Noah’s growl was just as frustrated.
“I don’t know. Could be a supplier—or a customer.”
“Or a telemarketer. Don’t answer it.” He slid a tongue along the sensitive tendon of her neck.
“Not a telemarketer.” Auntie’s phone was spelled to reach down the line and zap any telemarketer with a twenty-four-hour truth spell. They’d learned to stop calling long ago. She raised her head again. “It might be important.”
“Might not.” He followed that long glide of tongue with a little gentle sucking. “And you’re close…” He slid a hand onto her clit.
She arched into his hand, the crown of her head clunking the floor again. Yes, please.
As if it agreed, the phone stopped ringing.
“They’ll call back.” She pumped her hips against his clever fingers. “Right?”
“Certainly. In the meantime…” He reversed himself, threw his leg over her head, pushed her thighs apart, curled strong arms around each and dropped his head between her legs.
She’d barely comprehended their reversed position when the hottest mouth in the universe assaulted her sex.
“Aaahrgh!” Her legs tightened in response. Her thighs wrapped around shoulders so broad they could have been redwoods. His breath scorched her. She moaned.
