by Arizona Tape
“Speechless, Tate?”
I bit my lip as I drew in a shaky breath. “Damn, you look... Wow.”
“Wow? That’s not a very grown-up word,” she teased, pushing my chin up. “My eyes are here.”
I gulped as an actual whimper escaped my lips. Damn it, pull yourself together.
“I heard we have a birthday girl in the house, do you happen to know where I could find her?” Sian sang, flicking my nose.
“H-Here,” I croaked, embarrassed at how enchanted and mesmerised I seemed to be by a little bit of flimsy lace. Well, mostly, about what was underneath the lace, but hey.
“Happy birthday, Tate,” she whispered into my ear, her breath tickling on my skin. Tentatively, she swung her leg over my lap and pressed herself into me. With two fingers, she pulled me towards hers and I happily complied. I wrapped my arms around my vampire and melted into her kiss. She was soft, seductive, and everything about her made my heart race. She ground herself against me and I could feel myself grow hotter, just from the little sighs falling from her lips. Gods, she was the perfect tease.
“I think someone’s a little excited,” she sang, trailing a whole string of butterfly kisses down in my neck.
“Why would that be?” I tried to joke back, but I cursed my voice as it came out more like a soft whimper.
She hooked her finger in my collar and pulled me up from the couch. Without any resistance, my body followed hers. Yes, I was lost. So lost. In her. And I didn’t mind. At all.
In fact, this was everything I always wanted. She was everything I always wanted, I just never knew it until I met her.
With my heart beating out of my chest, I followed my blonde into our bedroom. It was almost surreal to think that only two months ago, she was sharing her bed with another woman. Well, more or less. With the same body, but a different mind. A different soul.
“I just want you, Tate. I promise,” she whispered, as if she could read my thoughts. I pushed Ayra and Devon to the back of my head and concentrated only on what was playing in front of my eyes. Sian.
The air crackled with electricity as she unhooked the lacy set and dropped it to the floor. I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it didn’t make any difference. She was breathtakingly beautiful and I could but stare. For a moment. And then, my body finally started to work and I moved. To her. So I could claim what was mine. What was always supposed to be mine.
I captured her lips in a wild kiss and we fell onto the bed. As if it had a mind of its own, our limbs entangled as we intertwined. I hitched my leg up and Sian moaned underneath me. I channelled all the passion I had and dragged my teeth over Sian’s skin. She sighed as she unraveled herself for me, exposing the soft flesh in her neck.
With pure excitement running through my veins, I teased the spot right underneath her lobe. My blonde moaned and I could tell she was growing impatient. Almost a little desperate. But she didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t one to wait.
I curled my lips up and without any hesitation, sank my fangs into the soft flesh.
The effect was instant, immediate, overwhelming. A sweetness burst on my tongue and greedily, I drank in Sian. If I thought we were close before, I was wrong. This was it. The ultimate connection. I moaned as I felt her graze her own teeth across my skin and beggingly, I turned so she could access my own neck.
Silently, desperately, I begged for her to bite me.
“I love you, Tate.”
A sharp pain shot through me, but it was immediately overwritten with an immense pleasure. Raw, uncut ecstasy shot through my veins and I lost myself. In Sian. In us. But if this was how it felt to be lost, I never wanted to be found.
Epilogue
I curled into the warm body next to me and an immediate shiver ran through me. Oh no, this was all sorts of wrong.
“Sian?” I muttered, still hoping this wasn’t what I thought it was.
“Ayra?”
I growled in disappointment and rolled away from the hard man next to me.
“Tate?” he tried again, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Bingo.”
“Happy belated birthday?” he tried, awkwardly, tugging on the sheets to keep himself covered up. That was rather uncharacteristic. Devon never had any trouble showing his body. Which meant...
“The ceremony was a success?” I asked, trying to hide my feelings. I hadn’t woken up next to Devon in weeks now and I wondered if Ayra made us swap back, or if she was as confused as I right now. The dragon fished his boxers from the floor, and quickly slipped them on. Alright, so Ayra hadn’t planned this, there was no chance in hell that she’d deliberately want to miss out on Devon and his naked bottom. She was far too smitten with him. So that meant we accidentally swapped back?
Wait...
I peeked under the covers and groaned. Yup, I was naked. Very naked. Just like Devon was, a second ago. Which meant...
“Devon?” I asked, panic bubbling up inside of me.
“Yes?” he sheepishly replied, holding out a big shirt for me. Happily, I threw it over my head, glad to be covered up again. Even if this wasn’t really my body anymore, I still felt a bit too exposed to my liking.
“Did you and Ayra...” I trailed off, not really wanting to ask the question burning on my mind out loud.
“Ummm...” His silence was a pretty clear answer.
“You were safe, right?”
“Ummm...” he repeated, scratching the back of his neck as he looked rather lost.
“Don’t tell me,” I grumbled, swinging the blankets away so I could hurry to the bathroom. I studied myself in the mirror and let my hands roam over my body.
“Devon!!!”
The end. For now.
Can’t Get Enough?
If you've enjoyed Tate & Sian's story, but haven't read Ayra & Devon's, you can download Soulshift here: books2read.com/Soulshift
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About Laura Greenwood
Laura is a USA Today Bestselling Paranormal Romance Author. Whether it’s witches, shifters or princesses, she writes the stories that just won’t leave her head.
While she’s not writing, Laura loves to read, bake and cook…apparently successfully!
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You can find her books on her website:
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About Arizona Tape
Arizona Tape is quite a chaotic, young adult that shares her house with a cactus plant and has sleep dates with her bed. She makes up stories in her head all the time like a crazy person and occasionally writes them down too.
But only if the mood is right.
In her spare time, she enjoys discovering new places with her friends, making all kinds of food as she waltzes through her kitchen like a tornado or likes relaxing on her couch with a movie and a cosy blanket.
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What You Wish For by Gina Wynn
Read on for an excerpt of another time and soul bending tale, What You Wish For by Gina Wynn.
His knee rested against the back of my leg. A possessive arm wrapped over my waist, and a forehead nestled against my hair. Jake must have arrived home earlier than he expected from the stag weekend and melded to me during the night. We lay skin against skin, and I relaxed into his hold as warmth and familiarity seeped from him. The bubble of safety only my husband could provide surrounded me.
A smile tugged the corner of my lips as naughty thoughts of pleasure yet-to- come flashed through my head. I didn’t even bother to open my eyes as I wriggled around to return his hug, being sure to inject enough movement to bounce him awake. His chest rose and fell against my cheek with his every breath, and his heartbeat thudded in my ear. Home was where that heart was.
“Good morning, Maggie.” His melted chocolate voice, still drowsy with sleep, tickled my neck.
Not Jake.
Panic jolted me as my eyes flew open, and I launched over the side of the bed, failing in my attempt to look away as I did so. With the long glance I took by mistake, I’d require brain bleach to scrub him from my mind. I huddled out of his line of sight with my stare—strong enough to have burnt a hole through the man—firmly fixed on unfamiliar carpet.
Bloody hell. My boss. All of him. In the bed I’d exited at warp speed.
I risked another quick glance in his direction. He lay propped on his side, dark hair tousled, smiling at me in a new lazy way. Bloody, bloody hell. I repeat, my boss. My boss, Will Brian.
Never Will Brian, always Mr. Brian. I corrected myself to the office formality he insisted on as I tried to look at him without seeing anything but his face. Holy chest skin, Batman. Well-defined muscular temptation in flesh form. Mr. Brian with really sexy bedhead. Bloody hell, again.
The horror crawling through me shut down all rational thought, narrowing my entire focus to the bedroom. His bedroom?
One room.
Me.
Him.
Nothing else.
The devil had woken up with frostbite. It was the only possible explanation to my world going mad. I inhaled a shaky breath, my brain stuck on one thought. Mr. Brian. Surely, I harboured zero attraction to him? Especially as he favoured issuing orders to me in a snappy coffee-breath voice in our usual day-to-day routine. Waking in his arms was quite the quantum leap from our normal yes, Mr. Brian, of course, Mr. Brian, I’ll hold all your calls, Mr. Brian relationship.
I closed my eyes against the view, although it didn’t help me ignore him. His image had seared itself to the inside of my eyelids, and no girl wanted a permanent reminder of her boss.
Really. No attraction, whatsoever. None at all. Because I’d never noticed his tight, firm… Never mind. Or the way he walked as I followed him along the corridor at work. Okay. So, I’d taken a non-existent—or maybe ever-so-slight—inappropriate boss fantasy right to sleeping in bed with the man. I’d come a long way.
I’d have said my wisdom was on the line, except ending up in his bed rated way worse than unwise. Spelling Mr. Brian as Mr. Brain on company documents was unwise—and stupid. Filing January invoices in December was unwise—and, according to Mr. Brian, worse than stupid. This…this verged on being very, very bad—and so much more than stupid. Unforgiveable, if I forced myself to be honest.
Note to self: Career suicide—never the way to ask for a pay increase.
“What, no ‘good morning, Will’?” He chuckled, and I didn’t know if my sudden goose bumps came from extreme lack of blankets or the unnervingly attractive sound of his amusement.
His laughter, somehow hauntingly familiar and comforting, wrapped me in unexpected safety. He never laughed at the office or, if he did, he went somewhere private to do it. Either way, he never seemed to find anything funny about working.
In our office.With me at his professional beck and call. The fact I relaxed a little in his presence must have been the result of my aspirations to find my inner Zen one day. I channelled Yoda and did imaginary breathing exercises, then clamped down on my bubble of hysteria before it rose any further up my throat. Relaxation, inner calm, and enlightenment? Not likely. I flashed a quick grimace, hoping to trigger the off-switch to my inner-monologue.
“Um. Hi…Will.” My voice came out part mumble, part squeak, as I crouched by the bed, still refusing to look at him as I referred to my always-formal boss by his first name in the most ridiculous of situations.
“Did I scare you?”
I dared a hasty glance, and he arched an eyebrow in amusement. Heat rushed through me, then cold horror as fresh awareness dawned. My buttocks rested on my calves as I squatted. My nipples hardened in the cool air as I huddled outside the covers. I was naked.
The situation couldn’t get worse.
Trying my best for nonchalance, I grasped the closest corner of the duvet and inched it towards me, intent on hiding as much flesh as possible. I released a slow, shallow breath as each fractional movement concealed more of my awkward form.
“Hey!” With laughter in his tone, he snagged the high thread-count covers back to his side of the bed. “You’re making me cold!”
I risked another peek over at him before searing afresh at his identical extreme lack of clothes. Naked…in bed. Oh God, naked in bed with my naked boss. No memory of getting there. And I’d started to grow cold again, too.
Note to self: Things could always get worse. Always.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
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