by Jodi Redford
Shoving from the seat, he journeyed to the front vestibule and stepped outside. The neighborhood was unusually quiet, allowing him to hear the steady roll and shoosh of the Atlantic behind him. He leaned against the doorframe. A breeze rustled past, ruffling across his torso and caressing his nipples. Gritting his teeth at the resultant throb in his groin, he rushed back inside and spent five minutes cursing his luck to hell and back as he frantically searched for his cell phone. He finally located it beneath the bed, where some devilish gremlin had no doubt stashed it to string out his torture.
He tried Clarissa’s cell, but it went directly to voicemail. Feeling like a junkie who was one fix shy of a meltdown, he punched in the number for the coven house. Fiona picked up and kindly informed him that Clarissa had decided to stay a little later at the shop.
Well, wasn’t that fucking thoughtful of her. While he’d been climbing the walls, desperate to have her in his arms, she’d chosen to pull an all-nighter at work.
Or maybe she’d just used that as an excuse not to see him.
The possibility gnawed at the already frayed, vulnerable edges of his psyche. As if that weren’t enough of a kick in the balls, his fucking tattoo started acting up. Damn thing hadn’t given him any grief for the past few days, and now it was back with a vengeance. The inked wire and barbs itched to the point he swore they were physically digging into his skin, twisting and tightening in their unrelenting hold on him. It would have been beyond easy to take it as an omen—him forever snared in Clarissa’s defensive shields, his hope for their future slowly bleeding from his veins.
Thankfully he was too much of a stubborn jackass to sit here and wallow in misery.
Stalking to the dresser, he yanked out the first flannel shirt he came to and jammed his arms through the sleeves. Not bothering to button the shirt, he wrenched on his boots. Palming his keys, he barreled outside once more and jumped into his pickup.
He broke every land record—and a few traffic laws—reaching the city. By the time he slammed on the brakes outside Charmed Moon, the cab of the truck had been overtaken with the smell of burnt rubber from his tires. He leapt from the vehicle and, after kicking his door shut, stormed to the store’s entrance. Catching his reflected image in the shop’s window, he slowed his steps. Jesus. The only thing he was missing to complete the picture of a crazed madman was foam coming from his mouth.
Realizing he stood a good chance of Clarissa fleeing in terror at the sight of him, he dragged in a deep breath and finger-combed his hair. Deciding that’d have to do as far as his appearance went, he tried the front door and found it locked. Setting his jaw, he rapped on the glass.
Two minutes passed and still no Clarissa.
The lights were on, so he damn well knew she was in there. His beast threatening to rattle his cage again, he pounded harder on the door. A shadow fell across the floor near the back hallway, and a moment later Clarissa popped into view. She gaped at him, blinking.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood there, feeling like a big, lovesick dope.
Clarissa hurried forward, the click-click-click of her heels echoing on the wood floor. The tumble of the deadbolt sounded, and she pulled open the door. “Oh, sweet goddess. I totally forgot about—”
The remainder of her words falling victim to his mouth, he tugged her against him, his hands burrowing in her hair. He kissed her with all the pent-up frustration and lust combusting inside him. She gasped, his shirt wadding beneath her fingers as she clutched his waist. Without breaking the kiss, he walked her backwards, clearing the threshold of the entry. Blindly reaching behind him with one arm, he reset the door lock.
His fingers stroking the nape of her neck, he lifted his head. He pulled his focus from her kiss-swollen lips, and their gazes crashed into each together. “Unless you want to give passersby one hell of a window-shopping experience, kill the lights.”
Her eyes widened, but he didn’t fail to notice the telltale rapid rise and fall of her chest. Seemed his Rissa might be a closet exhibitionist. Tucking that interesting tidbit away for later exploration, he stripped out of the flannel shirt and popped the tab on his fly. Clarissa licked her lips, her scrutiny like a visual caress along his chest and abdomen. His cock surged against the placket of his jeans, impatient.
“The lights,” he prompted, his voice rougher than sandpaper. If she hesitated again, he’d take that as an open invitation to rip her clothes off and fuck her against the windows for the entire world to see, making it damn clear to one and all that she was his woman.
Just as the anticipation of doing precisely that crested to a hot peak within him, she spun and trotted to the opposite wall. The track lighting dimmed before extinguishing completely. Enough light still came in from the streetlamps to give the interior of the shop an otherworldly glow. Clarissa halted next to a small table draped in dark blue velvet and plucked an item from the display. She walked toward him, and he recognized the bottle of massage oil. His inner wolf howled in resounding approval.
Tapping a finger against her lip, she surveyed their surroundings. “This would be a lot more comfortable with a bed available, but it’ll take me at least ten minutes to conjure one. All that wood and such.”
“Shug, at this point I’d settle for a damn air mattress and a sleeping bag.”
“Now that I can do instantly.” Chanting one of her materialization spells, she held out her hand. A swirling ball of lavender light began forming in the middle of her palm. When the orb was roughly the size of a baseball, she hurtled it toward the ground at her feet. It collided with the floor and bounced before morphing into the aforementioned air mattress. A black satin spread covered its surface.
“What, no sleeping bag?” he teased.
“Please. I do have standards.” She curled a finger in his belt loop and towed him closer. He reached for the bottle in her hand, but she tossed it on the mattress and unzipped his pants, peeling the denim down around his hips. Her fingertips grazed along his happy trail before skating lower and encircling his cock. He jerked in her grip, the air jamming in his lungs. She met his stare, her eyes shining with a purposeful gleam. “Do you know what the best thing about our massage oil is?”
He couldn’t remember how to formulate a coherent word.
Thankfully, she took pity on him. “It’s edible.”
Fuck. With her fingers wrapped around his cock, it didn’t take much effort for his gutter mind to decide exactly where she should drizzle the first drop.
Her nails lightly grazing the rigid length of his shaft, she traced the curve of his breastbone with her free hand. She bit her lip, her expression of vulnerability in sharp contrast to the wicked activity she was engaged in south of his waistline. “Am I…is this right? I don’t have a lot of experience in this particular department. I always worry I’m somehow doing it wrong.”
He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Any way you want to touch me is right.”
Both of her hands slid free of his body. At first he worried she hadn’t believed his reassurance, but she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and briefs and rucked both down his legs. That’s when he realized she was dead serious about getting him nekkid and slathered in massage oil. He had no idea how he’d survive it. Shit, just the thought of her hands slicking all over him had him on the verge of blowing. But there was no way he’d deny her this. Particularly not after she’d revealed her insecurity over whether or not she was giving him a proper hand job. Hell, as if there were the remotest chance he wouldn’t love every minute of it, whatever she did.
At her urging, he sat on the mattress and wrestled his shoes and clothing the rest of the way off. She dropped onto her knees beside him, and he reached for the hem of her top. “It’s better if you’re naked too,” he assured her, inching the fabric upward.
“Is that in a massage rulebook somewhere?”
“Yep. Mine.” He whisked her shirt over her head and tossed it behind them. The rest of her garb quickly followe
d suit. He stared at her nipples, his mouth watering. Apparently reading the direction of his thoughts, she shoved him flat on the mattress and reached for the massage oil. The click of that cap opening was one of the most erotic sounds he’d ever heard. Groaning, he stretched his arms behind his head, his wrists cradling the back of his skull.
She squeezed out a generous amount of the oil and warmed it between her palms. He began mentally reciting the alphabet. Backwards. When her palms smoothed over his rib cage, he moved on to baseball stats. The second her fingers dipped toward his bellybutton, he knew even envisioning Tully naked wouldn’t help him last much longer. “Rissa—”
Her motions jerked to a halt, and he noticed the worry in her eyes. Ah, hell. Biting the inside of his cheek to give himself something to concentrate on other than the throbbing in his cock, he relaxed his shoulders. “You’re doin’ awesome.”
A beautiful smile lit her face, more than making up for the innocent torture she was inflicting on him. Her hands ghosted upward, sweeping in small circles over his pectorals. The tips of her nails raked his nipples, making him suck in a hissing breath and his cock bob against his abdomen. Clarissa noticed both actions. Her irises darkening with that determined glint again, she abandoned one nipple and glided down his torso to stroke his straining cock. He bucked within her grip, his eyes crossing. Aw shit. He was staring down the barrel of the gun here.
“Baby, why don’t you come straddle my face while you’re doin’ that?” he suggested desperately, his voice hoarse.
“No, I have something else in mind.”
That “something else” involved her crawling between his legs and engulfing him within the scalding heat of her mouth. Her tongue traced the main vein in his cock before curving around the head. With one smooth, descending stroke, she sucked him down her throat. His eyes rolled back. “Sweet Jesus.”
She hummed, the vibrations tripping him over the edge.
“Rissa, I’m gonna come,” he warned frantically, giving her a chance to disengage in case she wasn’t one who cared to swallow.
But apparently she was. Cheeks hollowing and her suction intensifying, she massaged his balls. His legs shaking from the freight-train force of his oncoming climax, he gripped the sides of the mattress.
And came like there was no tomorrow.
Once the last quake rocking his body dissipated, he slumped into the bedding and held out his arms to Clarissa. She snuggled into him, her lips sliding along his jaw. “I liked that.”
He chuckled. “Not half as much as I did.”
“Don’t be so sure. You’re delicious, after all.”
“Mm, so are you.” He ducked his head and licked the hollow at the base of her neck for emphasis. When she shifted restlessly, he gently tugged her upward until her thighs bracketed him just below his rib cage. Cupping the soft swells of her breasts in either hand, he licked and sucked her nipples, loving the feel of them swelling and pebbling against his tongue. She squirmed and gasped, her wetness leaving damp trails on his abdomen. He loved all of that too. “You gonna allow me a taste of that sweet pussy now, shug?”
Her whimper all the answer he required, he clasped her hips and lifted her in the same motion that he scooted lower on the mattress. His mouth and her pussy met somewhere in the middle. A shuddering cry broke from Clarissa. He savored the sound as much as he did the honey rolling down his tongue and throat. Holding her firm against his face, he ate her with a leisurely thoroughness that offered the side benefit of renewing life to certain parts south of the border. By the time he suckled her swollen, juicy clit between his teeth, he was practically sporting more wood than he had ten minutes ago.
Clarissa panted, undulating on his mouth. The tension in her body hinted how close she hovered near climax, and the liquid heat of anticipation that gripped him at the promise of her breaking apart on his tongue ripped a moan from his chest. She stiffened, her thighs going taut beneath his hands. And finally it came—the pulsing of her clit and the keening cry of her release. He continued devouring her through the storm of it, prolonging her pleasure for as long as he could, but eventually she slid from his face. Rather than slump into a boneless heap as he had moments ago, she wiggled down his length and fisted his cock. Her breaths ragged and wispy, she stared at him. “Condom?”
“Front pocket.”
She scrambled for his jeans and dug out the protection. Thank the gods she was quick about sheathing him, because if he’d been deprived one more second of her pussy, he feared he would have bawled worse than an infant. She impaled herself on his shaft, her slick, inner muscles squeezing him tight enough to make him see shooting stars. Arching her back, she began riding him slowly, her hips rolling as she took him deep. He encircled her waist, luxuriating in the sinuous flex of her pale, silken skin. Coasting north, he kneaded her breasts, the pads of his thumbs grazing through the light sheen of oil that coated her nipples, causing her to shiver.
An undeniable truth clanged in his head and heart.
There would never be another woman who made him feel this way. Never be another woman he belonged to like the vibrant goddess astride him. “Do it, baby. Ride that cock like you know you fuckin’ own it.”
Her breath stuttered in her throat, but she tried to break their linked gazes. He wasn’t gonna have that. Scooching into a sitting position, he wrapped one arm around her lower back while his other hand tunneled into her hair, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You know it’s true, Rissa. You’re the queen of my everything. You have me. All of me. Heart, body and soul.”
She got that panicky look, and he kissed her, his pelvis rocking upward.
“No,” she whispered, even as her pussy fluttered around him.
“Yes.” He thrust again, and her nails dug into his shoulders. Her head fell back, exposing the graceful line of her throat. Splaying his fingers on the curve of her tailbone, he buried his face in her neck, her scent drenching him in intoxicating waves. Her pulse beat against his lips and around his cock, a heady siren song to the wolf within him. His vision hazed, his incisors tingling. The mating call was so strong and fierce, it nearly cramped his insides. It would be so easy to claim her in that moment, with beast dominating his senses and her tender flesh unguarded.
He couldn’t do it. No matter how much he hungered to. Taking what she didn’t freely offer would destroy the fragile balance of their relationship. She would belong to him, but she would hate him for it.
Her pussy vised around his cock, sucking him deeper into her channel and milking the come from him, even that essence of him blocked by the barrier of the condom. He was left with the only thing he had left to share—his heart.
It was hers. Always.
Chapter Thirteen
“Sweet Clarissa.”
The familiar, sibilant voice called to her in the murky recesses between the waking and dream world. She opened her eyes. A vaporous mist swirled around her, thick with a strange, briny scent. It cleared enough to reveal the rocky outcropping she stood upon. She stepped forward, but a heavy weight buckled her legs. She fell on her hands and knees, the impact jarring. Her pained yelp didn’t quite cover the metallic clank that reverberated throughout the rock. Twisting, she spied the chained manacles banded around her ankles.
Seven’s form disengaged from the fog, the ends of the chains wrapped around the creature’s fists. “Four days, and you will be mine. Ours.” Movement disturbed the mist, revealing the six remaining personalities that flanked her khaki-and-polo-clad captor.
She stared into each matching set of those cold, reptilian eyes, shuddering in the face of their magnetic draw. “I know what you are. What you’re all about.”
Their mouths fell open, the evil, mocking laughs that rolled free one and the same. “You comprehend only a miniscule piece of the puzzle of what I am. You humans and your simple little brains are incapable of grasping the fullest extent of my glory. Even that moron, Dante, barely scratched the surface of my mystery.” The voice rumbling between the lips
of each personified sin that towered in front of her was not familiar. For that reason, along with the obvious sneering contempt in that sibilant tone, she hazarded to guess that she was speaking with the dominant creature that comprised Seven. The head kahuna, for lack of a better title.
“And yet that doesn’t stop you from preying on us, does it, you sick, demented psycho.” The loose grit of silica dug into her feet as she struggled to stand.
The wielder of her chains suddenly yanked her forward, leaving her no time to wonder at the oddness of having sand where there was no beach. “Do not test me. My fondness for you is not in league with Envy’s. I would not think twice about condemning your soul to the pit of fire.”
She digested the creature’s words, her mind spinning. Her average-Joe, stalkerish captor was Envy? She stared at the figure still clutching her chains, its covetous eyes practically devouring her. A shiver coursed through her limbs. What could this…thing…possibly be envious for in regards to her?
Another chilling laugh boomed from the septet of personalities. “Your inept brain betrays you. It’s not only what Envy hungers for in you, it’s that which you seek for in it. We’ve seen the way you gaze upon those who so selfishly hoard everything that you desperately want but cannot possess. Love and trust. A family that will cause you no pain. It slowly eats away at your very core, this envious desire to be more like them.”
The last three words of that damning condemnation hammered into her with blunt force. She wanted to deny their validity. Proclaim that she was above such pettiness.
But it would be a lie.
Suffocating shame swamped her as she recalled the countless times during her childhood when she would sneak off to Forsyth Park and watch the many parents laughing and playing with their children, while her own mother and father were passed out drunk in their bed.
Those were the years the insidious yearning had begun to spread, its diseased compulsion threatening to consume her. The crushing weight of her bitter longing had grown to the point of almost becoming the entire scope of her existence. Until the moment came, many years later, when her obsessive pilgrimage had blown up in her face, delivering the most devastating and painful of blows. The vicious betrayal that’d ripped her apart that fateful day had nearly decimated her. In the aftermath, she’d caged the ugly beast of her envy, locking it behind the bars of complacency.
