by Ashley Black
Why was Thornton Darko invoking this old protection? I shivered. Who was it for? Did he seek protection from me? Or, I shivered over the possibility. Him?
Twelve
“Thorn?” I asked again as he remained unmoving after the incantation was spoken. He was staring into nothing, his hands clenched by his sides.
“Nothing,” he dismissed me.
“It was clearly not nothing,” I disagreed. “You should have seen your face.”
He just blinked at me.
I rose from the sofa and placed a hand to his trembling chest, and he flinched at my touch. “Thorn, don’t play with me now; be serious, I know that incantation. My Grandmother spoke in this tongue; it’s a protection spell.”
“I knew it. You still practice your craft,” he laughed bitterly, eyes flashing angrily. He looked as if I had betrayed him.
I shook my head, peering up at him through my lashes. “No, I don’t. I vaguely remember things she said and did, but I’m not a practicing witch. I’ve forgotten a lot of that shit,” I admitted.
“Except for that,” he snapped.
“Well, I don’t remember it very well clearly because I don’t know who you just summoned the protection for.”
“Who else would the protection be for?” Thorn relaxed, looking amused now.
I shrugged.
“Me!” he sighed. “You… do things to me Elena. I…” A shaking hand rose to his head as he pulled at his longish dark hair. “I need protection from you.”
“I am not a fucking demon, Thorn.”
“I know,” he breathed. “Chill. This is a good thing.”
I couldn’t understand in what universe or reality, it was a good thing that my death metal rock star, a man who was supposed to be the most powerful warlock in his line, needed protection from me.
“Sexist.” I bit my lip, disappointed. “Like all those stupid fucking songs that blame the lady for the man falling for them. I hate them.”
Thorn wiggled his brows. “Like ‘Devil in Disguise’ by Elvis.” He hummed a few bars of it, and I tried to ignore what the sound of his delicious voice did to my mind and heart.
“Exactly. Actually, I really fucking hate that song.”
“Gathered that,” he muttered, and sat down beside me on the day bed, his head fell into his hands, and he sighed. “Forget it.”
“Oooohhhh, Mr. Warlock, I am bespelled to forget that you spoke in the demonic tongue,” I smirked. “I am feeling like you are soooooooo not full of shit at all, right now.”
“We are all full of shit,” Thorn shot back defensively. “Like you, I remembered stuff from the past. I don’t practice this magic, and shudder at the thought if I did because I would most likely fuck it up.”
I nodded. Yes, he’d probably do exactly that. Fuck it up. But I still didn’t believe him. The language… how fluently he spoke it.
How fluently you grasped it, my mind snarked back at me.
“I’m gonna undo the spell,” I said petulantly, mostly to see what reaction that would get, and as part of my drunken misguided schemes to test his true warlock authenticity.
Thorn shrugged. “Go for it, I haven’t a clue if it worked.”
He sounded nonchalant and unconcerned.
I found myself relaxing. Men like Thorn without warlock status were intimidating, men like Thorn with warlock status were, well… just fucking terrifying.
“Why are you worried if I was, purely hypothetically of course, a practicing warlock?” he mused, his dark green eyes flashing in amusement. “I would never use my powers to hurt you or anyone. Everyone knows, you hurt someone with the gift, you only end up hurting yourself, after all.”
I nodded.
“So?” he prompted. His hand slid to the back of my skull again, and his fingers rubbed there hard. I liked it. I felt my entire body respond at his touch. Damn it.
“Power,” I muttered. “It scares me when a cock is attached to it.”
His hand retracted from my hair at once. “Elena,” he whispered. “Have you been… interfered with?”
I felt my eyes widen. “No! Thank God. I just don’t trust men having too much power, and being a practicing warlock is too much power for me.”
“You want your men powerless?” His dark brows rose quizzically.
I shot him a look. “Clearly fucking not.”
“You like my power, then?” he mused.
“When it’s used for good, sure,” I shrugged. Oh no, please, the man’s stare was making my head spin. Oh wait, shit, that could very easily be the alcohol.
Thorn moved closer. “I would always use my power for good.” His eyes dropped to my breasts. “For the good of your body, of course.” His gaze snapped back to my face again. “Besides, I like your power. In fact, I think I’m addicted.”
“Then why did you just invoke a protection spell against me?” I asked. exasperated.
“I already explained, you do things to me,” he muttered, gaze sliding away from mine.
“Like what?” I challenged. “Prove it.”
“What would you have me do?” he asked, looking taken aback. A man like Thornton Darko was probably not used to being told what to do, at least by his admirers. But then again, my heart flared with excitement and hope. Perhaps, maybe, I was becoming more than that to him, as he was for me. Senseless. Amazing. I was in a permanent thrall with this man.
“Let me see you stripped.”
He nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “Of course.” He rose from the day bed and shrugged out of his black shirt, then peeled off his boots and black jeans. I bit my lip in disappointment when he left the briefs on. I found myself staring at the impressive outline of his cock pressing rather urgently against the material, I even spied the tip of it peeking out the top of the band of the pants. I had to sit on my errant hands to stop them rising to touch the thing. Then I had a better idea. I fetched my phone from my little bag I had left beside the day bed, and leapt up, wrapped an arm around him and held the phone out.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, sounding pissed.
“Can’t I get a picture of this moment?” I complained.
He shrugged and kissed me so hard that I nearly fell over, I snapped a few pictures of us while he was doing his worst with that hot tongue of his. Then after we parted, and unable to help myself, I fired off a text to Brett with several of the images of Thornton Darko sucking my face. My muse is so fucking hot! I am ok with this. Not my best effort, for sure. I was a little drunk. It would have to suffice. Fuck Brett. I hoped those images made his stupid cock cower.
I was smirking at that thought, but Thorn’s voice made it fall right off my lips. “Are you done?” he asked coldly.
I nodded. He pushed me, and I collapsed onto the day bed, tossed my phone aside, and stared up at him, biting my lip hard to stop from babbling a million apologies. I resisted with everything I had inside of me not to reach for him. He was punching a hole in my senses and restraint, just standing there before me like this. I yearned to touch him.
“Take it all off,” I invited him. Distraction had always been my default weapon. Fuck me, such an asshole. I can’t believe I revenge texted my soon to be ex-fiancé in the mesmerizing presence of Thornton Darko. I had clearly lost my damn mind.
His eyes glittered strangely. “Not yet.” He slid into the sunken spa, emerald eyes practically glowing in their arousal from the steam that wafted and curled around his massive chest, making his ink and skin all pretty and shiny. His hands flashed around my ankles, and I cried out as he lifted me high into the air and settled me about him, so my legs wound around his neck, and my pussy was right there… at the mercy of his mouth. His hand pressing hard between my shoulderblades, he drifted backwards into the corner of the spa, set me gently down on the edge of it. He began to kiss my thighs hard. I felt my eyes roll back in my head at the sensation of his mouth caressing and sucking my skin so insistently. I would have love bites after he was done. I groaned, grip
ping the tops of his muscular shoulders, and trembled violently when one long index finger hooked inside my panties and deftly slid them down.
I was almost wincing at the thought of him applying the same violence of his lips at my entrance, but he began an infuriating teasing soft caress upon my trembling lips, and occasionally his pointed tongue, with the round ball of his tongue ring, would flick between them and rub against my clitoris, then it was back to the soft suckling and caresses. There was no rhyme or reason to when that tongue would come, but I became rather desperate for its touch.
I found myself rocking gently against his mouth as he covered my pussy with kisses, and then I felt foolish and felt my ass shudder, and my whole body jolt in surprise when his tongue and its silver round stud rubbed up and down, only ever three times, and then it was back to the mind bending caress of his mouth. My pussy was left in a blissful twitching and convulsing in the absence of the tongue and that tongue ring.
“Thorn, please keep doing that,” I begged him.
“Doing what?” he mumbled against my pussy, and the vibration of his voice through me felt perfectly wonderful.
“You know what!” I sighed in frustration.
“You mean this?” His tongue flicked out again and he worked one side of the nub of my clitoris; the heat and the friction from the smoothed round metal from the ring was going to kill me, and then slid over to the other side, giving one, two, three hard strokes that made everything inside of me clench hard, before he rose his gorgeous head from between my quaking thighs and smirked up at me.
“Yes,” I barely whispered. I was so hopelessly aroused.
“You want more?”
I nodded. His tongue had stolen my voice.
“Then you’re going to have to catch me!” he laughed, and I whimpered in dismay when he slid my panties back in place and lowered me to the spa floor. Then he lifted his powerful body out and entered the expanse of the red lantern-lit water I had seen in the cave. His hand hit a panel on the dripping cave wall, and the bottom of the floor was lit up in a brilliant, dazzling winding path of red LED lights. It was like the yellow brick road on crack. ‘Long Hard Road out of Hell’ by Marilyn Manson crept into my mind, and I shivered.
“Where are you going?” I complained, congratulating myself for not sounding as if I was puffing, because the man had literally deprived me of air. I wanted that tongue back doing its thing between my legs right now.
He motioned for me to follow him, and I stared hard at the carpet of red lights to see an opening in the cave –I hadn’t seen it in the murk before. But there it was, so clear and utterly stunning to me now, the silk midnight blue sky dotted with stars, the distant sound of the ocean pounding the beach, and sand rendered pale blue in the glow of the night beyond.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” He bobbed in the water, his head just visible, as his dark green eyes invited me to fuck him immediately.
I was beside myself to get his mouth on mine again, so I slid into the water after him, and surprised him when I blew him a kiss, slipped beneath the surface of the warm sparkling red warm depths, and shot toward him like a rather clumsy, drunk dart. I found his muscular legs parted, crouched before me, and I exploded out of the water and splashed him playfully.
His mouth opened and closed in shock, water dripping down his face, dark brows raising in outrage.
I splashed him some more.
He did not splash me back.
Hmmmm, Mr. Serious, I mused, and instead knelt between his parted thighs and pressed my body against his, my arms seizing his neck roughly, and pulling his mouth down to mine, closed as it was in a firm, uncompromising line. The moment my lips touched his, I felt him relax, and give himself over to the kiss. Surrender. It tasted good on him.
His powerful thighs closed around my body, pinning me against him. I felt my hips slam urgently against his as I rubbed myself over his thickening shaft, feeling my pussy twitch and pulse for him to fill me. His hands moved to my ass and gripped hard, fingers digging right into the flesh, kneading and pulling. Pleasure and pain collided, and I liked it. I was literally going to have bruises if I survived the night with Thornton Darko. Meanwhile, his kiss was nothing like his touch; it was actually the sweetest caress, like silk brushing against my lips. I wanted more. I wanted the hard, urgent, hungry kisses we had enjoyed at the bar, but his tongue with the ring that had so maddened my pussy before, reverently traced the inside of my mouth and pressed gently to my tongue. This was so unlike him. I peeked at him, and felt myself pull back from him, then gave him a shy smile.
That tongue with the flash of a ring was running over his lips as he considered me. “What am I going to do to you?”
“I can think of a few things,” I sighed, and reached behind me, taking one of his hands on my ass and moving it to the front. “You started something, remember?”
“How could I forget? I want to lick you out. You were getting so wet– I was going to make a meal out of you,” Thorn poked his tongue out at me through a V in his fingers.
Oh, now he wants to be playful.
I laughed, but felt my bravado falter; the thought he had put in my head pushed a wave of bliss right down to the tips of my toes. I didn’t want to beg.
“You’re blushing. It looks so pretty.” His hand pressed the side of my face. “You would like that, though?” he smirked. “If I ate your pussy?”
“Yes,” I whispered. God, I was pathetic. “I would like that very much.”
His hands fell from me and he pushed me away from him roughly.
I spluttered when I fell backwards in the water, and choked on some of it.
He was swimming away from me.
Damn him. Not this again! Frustrated, I shot after him, and was within a breath of catching him, but he was already lifting his magnificent body from the water and sauntering out onto the moonlit beach.
I had to admit, the rear view was damn fine. I hesitated, just allowing my perverted stare to drink him in. His physicality, his round muscular ass pressing against the wet black briefs, that crazy muscular body, his formidable height, and that back – I hadn’t noticed the scars there before. What the fuck? But there they were, a mess of fine faded white and pinks lines.
He must have sensed me watching him, for he threw a questioning look over his inked shoulder. “Are you coming?” I hoped he didn’t see that I had been cringing at the the canvas of pain his otherwise beautiful back resembled.
I rose from the water and stepped right up to him, forcing a smile instead. “Not yet.”
“Is that so?” His dark green eyes flared with warmth and amusement. “My mouth can change that.”
I was threatened and aroused all at once.
Thirteen
Later, Thorn and I sat beside each other, a huge cashmere black blanket wrapped about us, before a crackling, well-contained, perfectly non-insane fire, with the surf pounding the wet stretch of sand before us. We fed each other the delicious Mexican tapas one of his many willing dutiful minions had thoughtfully left us. A nice impromptu picnic. We were enjoying a rather decadent bottle of red wine, but I noticed a strange emerald decanter with black glittering liquid inside – it sat innocently enough propped against the picnic basket with two pewter goblets. It looked badass. It looked like the drink of a death metal rocker.
As Thorn’s mouth took a miniature chicken enchilada from me, his warm lips sliding momentarily over my fingers, and sending a riot to my already rioting pussy, I asked, “what did you want to show me?”
He chewed thoughtfully, snuggling closer to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, and staring deep into my eyes. He swallowed. “You’ll probably think me strange,” he admitted.
I rolled my eyes, managing to stuff the laughter that threatened back inside of me. “Of course not.” I silently congratulated myself for keeping my voice even, and not laughing in his face. Because strange and Thorn were intimately acquainted, and that ship had sailed long ago. But it was cute that h
e was worried about me thinking of him in that way. Because really, wasn’t it he who so often said that he didn’t give a fuck what people thought about him? I watched him expectantly. “Why would I think that?”
“I want to take you to see my family,” he said quietly, his voice trembling slightly.
Nope. Not strange at all. Family dead, yes, but seeing them - not strange.
“Aren’t they buried some where on your grounds?” I remembered that not far from here, the act of mass suicide had occurred, and I was pretty sure Thorn owned the small forest reserve half the town-folk wiped out from the ‘sick drink’ had been buried in.
He nodded and rose, and then I screamed when he stepped into the flames licking at the driftwood, kicking them out with his bare feet.
“Thorn!”
He shrugged and sat back down, pulling out the strange emerald decanter with the two goblets.
“I meant really see them.” He poked his finger amongst the charred remains of driftwood that had been only moments before being devoured by flame. He took up some blackness on his fingers and rubbed it thoughtfully between them. His hands moved beneath my jaw and tilted my chin. “May I?” he asked, holding out his finger smeared with black residue.
“What are you doing?” I asked, confused.
“Have you heard of animal companions?” he asked.
As he began smearing the warm soot beneath my eyes, I was at a loss for words for a moment. I hadn’t thought about my old black carpet snake Moggy for ages. She had been struck with a pitchfork between the eyes, and thrown in the well at the edge of our property by a bunch of drunk, drug-fucked teens. I’d wanted them all dead. I may have even hissed and tried to take one of the kids’ eyes out when I set upon them in a rage. It was like I had shifted for a moment – channeling the energy of my beloved Moggy. I shivered. I had been so traumatized by the incident, I hadn’t been able to replace her with another snake again, which Brett had been eternally grateful for, since he hated snakes. Most folks did. I found them calming, even the poisonous ones. They never bothered me.
