The building roar burst from him, and he broke their kiss to stare into eyes as feral as blue flame. Her eyelids were heavy, half-open and dazed.
Savage pleasure rampaged through him at the sight of her kiss-swollen mouth, more satisfying than blood on a battlefield. She had been branded by him, rubbed raw and pink by the stubble of his jaw. Marked by his teeth, his lips. Lust pounded a primal drumbeat through his veins as he imagined scraping similar patches on her stomach, her breasts, the insides of her thighs. A victory sweeter than any he had ever known.
And he had known many.
He stripped her hand away from him and grabbed her beneath both slippery thighs, hooking her knees over his hips. Her ass came to rest on the guardrail, the ocean below her surging as if in response to her proximity. The panties tore far more easily than the apron had. The red scrap darkened to crimson before the waves swallowed it entirely.
His fingers skimmed up her thigh until they found the dark curls beneath her skirt.
He claimed her mouth and her sex simultaneously. Both hot. Both wet. Both wanting for his cock. He wanted to bury himself in her until kingdom come. Fill every space. Own every want. Coax every sigh. Wring from her every scream of pleasure.
Parting the folds of her flesh, he drew the ample moisture upward with long, luxurious strokes, grazing the tight bud with his thumb much the same way he had her nipple. His tongue mirrored the fluid flicks, plundering her mouth with no less abandon.
Protracted moans shortened into mewls of pleasure. Her hips bucked against his hand. Her eyes squeezed tight as if against waking from a dream. Her pulse quickened beneath his fingertips. He could taste the building orgasm mingling with rainwater on her lips.
Shock descended upon him for the second time in his life when she grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away, pushing him back by the shoulders at the same time. A wicked smile creased her face as she slowly, deliberately reached for his belt and unfastened it, followed by the button and zipper.
He watched in breathless silence as she brought her hand to her face and languidly licked her palm, then stroked it up the length of him.
Using knees and thighs, she drew him back into her until he rested not inside her, but against her.
She moved. Sliding her swollen clit against him. Using him for her own pleasure.
He would have killed to be inside her then. Would have crushed throats with his bare hands just to split her in two and punish her with relentless, brutal thrusts.
But one look at the wild, worshipful expression on her face robbed him of all such thoughts. Only one remained.
He wanted to watch her come.
His fingers dug into her hips, angling her so the blunt head of his cock stroked her again and again, the heat between them building like kindling for a fire the jealous heavens sought to douse.
Lightning scorched the clouds with brief, blinding light. Thunder startled the water spreading out around them into roiling white-capped waves.
They moved together against this drama of sky and sea. Or maybe because of it.
Moira clawed at his back, bit his ear, whispered curses and blessings into the wind as it whipped her hair against his face.
Her scream was shattered by thunder, carried away in the ceaseless roar of waters. Her body folded up against him as her legs shook. Dark lashes resting against her cheek, her forehead furrowed like she studied the internal sensations. Like she—
It couldn’t be. Not her—
“First.”
As had been their pattern, Nick wasn’t sure she had spoken until she spoke again.
“Yup.” She nodded. “Never had one before. Truth to tell, I’d always wondered what made folks’ eyes roll back in their head.”
Nick’s own need still pulsed between his legs, throbbing against the insult of words when only fucking would do. “You mean, out of all those men, you never—”
“Nope.”
“Oh, Moira.” His temporary irritation was banished by the thoughts of hours they would spend sweaty and naked as he introduced her to every single pleasure his long life had brought him. “We have some serious catching up to do.”
She hopped down off the guardrail and shimmed her skirt back down her hips. “’Fraid we can’t.”
“Can’t?” Nick turned the word over like the mystery it was. Words like can’t and won’t didn’t exist in his vocabulary. “Why not?”
“’Cause of that.” She looked at something in the distance. Something over his shoulder.
He turned just in time to greet the oncoming wall of water. “Oh, fuck,” were the last words he managed.
Chapter Eleven
“Well, that was impressive.”
Moira whipped around to find Tierra standing a few yards down the dock. Rain dripped from her umbrella and puddled at her sandaled feet. The hem of her long peasant skirt was soaked and soiled. Her eyes shone from the shadow a deeper shade of green, like leaves washed vibrant by a storm.
How much had she seen? A pang of guilt stabbed Moira between the ribs.
The downpour ceased abruptly, disappearing like some faucet in the sky had been shut off, which Moira supposed was as good an image as any for what had transpired. The sudden silence left in its wake was broken only by the ocean’s steady hush. “It was an accident.” She slid Tierra a small, sly smile. “Mostly.”
They stared out at the shifting green-gray seascape. The squall had all but disappeared, and taken Nick along with it.
“What you just did…” Tierra shook the umbrella and folded it at her side. “That wasn’t because of what happened at the shop, was it?”
“What I did?” Unable to decipher what all Tierra had seen, answering a question with a question seemed the safest route.
“Blasting Nick Kingswood off the dock, for starters.”
“Naw. Though he had it comin’ about eight ways from Sunday.”
Tierra didn’t seem inclined to argue. “What about what happened before that?”
“What about it?”
“You weren’t…trying to get him not to…” Tierra trailed off.
Moira raised an eyebrow at her sister, confident she could wait out a silence much longer than the woman fairly bustin’ at the seams from the effort of not saying something.
A frustrated exhale came seconds later. “You didn’t try to hump him out of evicting Ambrosia’s, did you?”
“Nope.” Moira wrapped her arms around her own goose-pimpled flesh. “It don’t work like that.”
“How does it work?”
Moira looked at her sister, trying to read her expression like some women back home did tealeaves. Never before had anyone asked her this question. Not once. Not ever. “You really wanna know?”
Tierra nodded. “You tried to tell me earlier, and I cut you off. I’m sorry for that.”
“What I done today at the shop, it’s how I help folks.” She waited a beat to see how these words would sit with Tierra.
“What kind of help?”
“All kinds. Hurt feelins’, broken bones. I can bring around most anybody. Lots of times it’s just somethin’ needs drawin’ off. I take it from them, and then they’re better.”
“So how long have you known you could help people like that?”
“’Bout the same time I started my period and all that. Before that it was just takin’ care of my uncles. Talkin’ fish into the boat and keepin’ everyone fed.”
Moira watched Tierra wrestle with this information, struggling to form words that were neither bossy nor harsh.
“Moira,” she said at last. “You’ve spent your whole life taking care of other people. Healing them. Giving to them. “
“I ‘spose.” Moira shrugged.
“Listen to me,” Tierra insisted, dropping the umbrella and taking Moira’s cold hands in her warm ones. “I know you do what you do out of kindness. Out of love for the people around you. But you’re more than just what you can do for other people. Do you know that?”
&n
bsp; A gull’s call in the distance sounded exactly as displaced as Moira felt. “I don’t know if there’s much left, once you take away the helpin’.”
“I do,” Tierra said.
“No offense,” Moira snorted. “But you don’t know an awful lot about me besides what I told ya.”
“I know the only thing that matters.”
“What’s that?”
Tierra’s hands tightened over hers. “You’re my sister. Nothing you could ever do or say is going to change that.”
“You didn’t seem all that thrilled with what I was doin’ or sayin’ earlier,” Moira reminded her.
“I know.” Tierra’s gaze floated out over the water, mining the depths of some unseen past. “I’ve spent my whole life feeling like something was missing. Like someone was missing. Then suddenly you’re here. But it’s nothing like I thought it would be.”
“Tell me about it. In the course of twenty-four hours, I found out I was separated at birth from my twin sister, dumped in a bayou, and raised by a bunch of drunks that pulled me out in a catfish net. Not to mention, I got an aunt that hates me more n’ whores hate church.”
“Aunt Justine doesn’t hate you. She’s just scared.” Tierra exhaled and dropped her sister’s hands. “I guess I was too.”
“What for?”
“I saw the way everyone in the shop was with you. The way the men watched your every move. The way the women judged you. You let them take whatever they wanted from you without so much as a word of protest.”
Moira made no attempt to deny this. Such had it always been.
“You’re better than that, Moira,” Tierra continued. “I just wanted you to see it.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Say you’ll try.” The pleading note in her sister’s voice left Moira’s heart feeling bloody and bruised. It was so raw. So vulnerable. So not Tierra. “Say you’ll stay.”
Moira shivered. “I guess I wouldn’t mind a bubble bath in that claw-foot tub upstairs.”
“Yay!” Tierra hugged her with such force that the air was knocked clean out of Moira’s lungs. Whatever chance she might have of recovering was compromised by the bone-crushing squeeze of her sister’s arms around her shoulders.
So this is what it was like to be hugged by another female. Such a strange combination of softness and strength.
“I ain’t wearin’ a bra though,” Moira said.
“Will you at least wear this?” Tierra slid out of her shawl and wrapped the still-warm garment around Moira’s shivering shoulders. “You’re soaked to the skin and cold as death.”
The simple kindness of this gesture set Moira’s bottom lip to quivering. She pulled the fabric tighter around her, not wanting to lose even a trace of warmth from her sister’s skin. “Thanks.”
They turned together and angled back toward town.
“Just out of curiosity,” Tierra probed. “What kind of help were you giving Mr. Kingswood just now?”
“Not a lick.” Lick. Moira felt regret stir up like silt from a river bottom. She’d have liked to lick Nick Kingswood a little. Probably there was a lot on him that would taste pretty good, if that wicked mouth of his was any indication.
Tierra’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “So if you weren’t trying to help him and you weren’t trying to help me, why exactly where you examining his tonsils?”
Heat flooded Moira’s cheeks at the fresh memory. “On account of he’s more fun to ride than a rodeo bull. He told me to take what I wanted. So, I did.”
“That’s great,” Tierra said. “I mean, he’s a cocky sonovabitch and he’s definitely going down in a big way—if he’s not already drowned. Still, if he managed to get you to take something for yourself, I might just consider calling the Coast Guard so he can have a proper burial. Ooh! Then I would have a tombstone to spit on.”
“Don’t think you need to worry about the Coast Guard,” Moira said. “Nick Kingswood ain’t dead.”
“How can you be so sure?” Tierra asked.
“Cause he ain’t…” Even as the words left her lips, Moira felt their truth echo in her soul. She could feel him. As surely as she could feel the air she breathed, and with no less insistence. “He ain’t human.”
“I’ll say,” Tierra snorted.
“I mean it. He’s somethin’ else. Somethin’…more.”
“Well, that sucks. Any ideas what he might be?”
“Other than a giant pain in the ass? Not a clue. But I have a feelin’ it might be in our best interest to find out.”
“I think you’re right. But first we need to get you dry and warmed up,” Tierra said, dropping an arm around Moira. “Let’s go home.”
“Home,” Moira repeated. “I sure do like the way that sounds.”
Chapter Twelve
“Somethin’ ain’t right.” Moira froze on the porch. A few lone candles flickered in the windows like eyes in the shadows.
“Damn straight,” Tierra said holding up the shredded fabric she had retrieved from the dock. “That bastard ripped my apron.”
The first wave washed over Moira—as thick and hot as tar. Hate. Fear. “No. Somethin’s in there. I can feel it.”
Tierra clasped Moira’s hand, freezing them both in place. “I feel it too. Whatever’s in there is with Aunt Justine.”
Unless it is Aunt Justine.
The front door sighed open without their help. “Ugh,” Tierra grumbled, pocketing her keys. “I hate it when that happens in the movies.”
“This ain’t a movie,” Moira pointed out. Though it certainly looked like one. Candles played hide and seek among the plants on the living room’s many surfaces, sending shadows dancing up the dim walls. Wax dripped down the slim tapers and pooled on polished wooden surfaces.
“Aunt Justine!” Tierra called down the hallway. “Are you home?”
An indignant squeak echoed through the eerily silent house.
“Cheeto!” Moira cried. Still barefoot, she took the stairs two a time, racing toward the bathroom where she had left him with bowls full of food and water earlier that morning. Scarcely had her hands closed around Cheeto’s warm body, when her own was pinned to the wall by an unseen force.
It was the stuff of nightmares.
She fought to move her limbs, but the air might as well have been concrete. Even the scream in her throat remained frozen in place. Cries built up behind it until she was choking on her own panicked breath.
Had Tierra met a similar fate in the kitchen?
Aunt Justine’s gnarled fingers clawed out of the oily darkness. The hand she held at throat level preceded her like a flashlight in the darkness. Behind it, the pale moon of her face and wild corona of fading red hair floated into focus. Shadows seeped into the hallway after her, additional faces coming into view, their chants a low, threatening hum.
Pain shook Moira’s body. She had never before considered screaming a luxury, but she would have given anything in that moment to send her agony vibrating through the night.
Justine was close now. Close enough that Moira could smell dried herbs, incense, and spices that announced her presence. Something else lurked below the surface. Something metallic. Blood?
“You,” Justine whispered. “You should be dead. As long as you were dead, we were safe.”
The thin skin of hope Moira had grown over the course of this afternoon was stripped away as easy as that, leaving her stinging and sore.
“I should have done it myself,” Justine continued. “She was my sister. She was my responsibility. But I wasn’t strong enough. I’m paying for that now. I’m paying dearly, as will we all.”
A gentle pat, pat, pat drew Moira’s gaze to the floor where a small, dark stain spread at Justine’s feet. The curved, wicked blade of a dagger slid out of the robe’s pocket. The fingers grasping the ornately carved handle were slicked with blood. Dark rivulets branched down her arms like veins on the wrong side of her pale skin.
“I will do now what I should have done th
en. I will bleed that others may live. And so will you.”
The chant redoubled in power and speed, driven perhaps by the smell of blood thick in Moira’s nostrils. Fresh anguish ripped through her and the dagger’s curve ceased to be a threat. A silvery smile. The promise of an end. She willed the cool, sharp weapon to find a home inside her troublesome shell.
Her dark thoughts were burned away by a flash of bright orange reflected in the blade before it engulfed Justine completely. It wreathed her in a flaming halo before licking up the robes of the women surrounding her. Their sudden, startled shrieks of pain made Moira realize her own had vanished.
She could breathe. She could move. And she had Cheeto to thank.
“Tierra!” The scream had been loud enough to scrape her throat. She tucked her porcine savior to her chest, tripping and sliding down the stairs.
Chanting echoed down the hallway from the kitchen. Moira flattened herself against a wall and set Cheeto down on the wood floor. “Make momma proud.”
The sound of his little hooves clicking was quickly swallowed up as he turned and scooted through a gap in the kitchen door.
Moira didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until it filled her lungs in a hot, dizzying rush when shrieks broke out in the kitchen.
Cheeto came flying out of the kitchen with Tierra on his cloven heels.
Words tumbled from Moira’s lips in a configuration that resembled shrapnel more than sentences. “Blood—Aunt Justine—tried to kill me.”
“I know,” Tierra panted. “It’s the coven.”
“The what?”
“The coven,” Tierra repeated. “Oh, shit!”
Shadowy figures were now oozing toward them from two directions.
Tierra’s hand slid into Moira’s with the ease that breath found her lungs. A vibration rocked the house on its foundations when their palms met. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling like snow.
“Stop!” Aunt Justine hissed, her charred edges making her all the more frightening. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“But I sure as hell know what you were tryin’ to do,” Moira accused. “I ain’t fixin’ to die today, if it’s all the same to you.”
Which Witch is Which? (The Witches of Port Townsend) Page 8
