Crimson Cove

by Eden Butler

  “I…this…” my words got stuck somewhere around the back of my throat, clung tight against the hot breath that fanned out when Bane rested his forehead against mine, when he moved his mouth to kiss between my eyebrows.

  “This isn’t normal, Jani. This…” he paused, shuddering when that pulsing red light shot across his skin, hovering near his fingertips. “Someone spelled us.”

  Blinking, nodding, it was all I could manage. Bane was too strong, the heat in the room too full, the air too thick. Yes, someone had been spelled—him. Someone had done the spelling—me. But really I was a coward, scared of what he’d think, say, damn well do if he found out I’d taken his memories from before. Even if it was for the best, I’d still lied to him—the lie of omission. I’d blocked him and kept for myself something I had no business hiding away.

  But Bane seemed content to ignore the past. He seemed mesmerized by the moment, fascinated by the play of reddish light on our skin and that whip of succulent heat that warmed us every time he moved his fingers across my collarbone. “I think I know what this is, Jani, but, it makes no sense. Nothing between us, then or now, ever made sense to me.” And it wouldn’t, not to him, not with the understanding I’d taken from him when I blocked his memories. He kept flirting closer to the truth, skating the surface of what that light meant and where he’d seen it before. I couldn’t let him find out, not like that. Not just then.

  “Bane,” I said, pulling him closer, loving the low, deep throttle of his voice vibrating when my nails slid up his neck. “You watched over me. Protected me.”

  “Did I scare you then?”

  “Always,” I said, feeling brave, reckless. I exhaled, staring in his eyes like I wasn’t a coward. “But I loved you for it.”

  One swift nod, as though he’d made up some silent decision on his own and Bane picked me up, pulling me closer, his arm around my waist and that busted ankle injury forgotten in his smooth haste to kiss me.

  His look was feral and possessive, and even though some loud, loud voice in my head told me to stop him, reminded me that it was my job to stop him, I was powerless against the rush of his mouth against my neck and the greedy hold of his massive hand cupping my hip.

  “This isn’t…this won’t lead anywhere…” There was little fight in my protest, my words meant to stop him, only contradicted by how I stretched my neck, giving him greater access to my skin.

  “It already has. It started a long time ago.”

  “It didn’t…”

  “Yes, Jani,” he said, shutting me up with that wide mouth, with the slip of his tongue along my bottom lip. “Every look back then to right now, I was saying the same thing. Every single one.”

  My body felt electrified, stunted by Bane’s confession, crippled by the light heat collecting around us. If I asked and was disappointed, I’d lose nothing. I had claimed him long ago and had lived with the empty feeling of that for years. If he claimed me now, not remembering a thing and discovered later how badly I’d betrayed him, could I stand the notion that I was his and he no longer wanted me?

  Risk and rules. My life existed around both and just for a moment with Bane watching me, with him waiting for permission he didn’t seem familiar with ever having to wait for, I wanted to take something for myself. Just once. “Do I have to ask?”

  “No,” he said, his bottom lid twitching as he watched me, “just look a little deeper.”

  And I did as Bane held my face in his hand. I looked beyond the veneer he wanted the world to see. I saw pass the expectations, the certainty of what his life was meant to be. There was no alpha wizard, training to lead his coven to the future. There was no looming, angry man keeping everyone away in some bland effort to protect himself from the world around him.

  Right then, there was only Bane. That open, real nexus that had touched mine ten years before. The protector who guarded me from threats that weren’t real, and those that were.

  Propriety required that I back away. Tradition, adherence to the way of things in the Cove, told me I had no business touching him. But I was damn tired of doing things I should do instead of things I wanted to.

  “Bane…” there was a pause in the name, a small reluctance I wasn’t sure I’d ignore and when he moved my head, tilting my face to look down at me fully, I thought for a second he expected me to reject him.

  There was only enough time for two blinks as he watched me, his scrutiny all encompassing, making me tremble, before Bane shook his head, then gripped my face to kiss me. It began simply, tenderly, then his deep breaths grew labored the longer his kissed me. The desperate, greedy noises he made set off something ancient and wild in the pit of my stomach.

  His fingers went near my scalp to grip my hair, preventing me from moving away from him—as if I would. His tongue dipped hard and certain, his teeth sucking in my bottom lip. He pulled away, resting his forehead on mine, exhaling hard, labored breaths, only for a moment before he took to staring at me again, giving me that same genuine expression, the same piercing concentration that could have been anger but was most likely desperation.

  Swallowing, Bane released a breath. “Tell me you want me. Not because I’m asking you, but because you mean it.” His voice was soft, but I could hear the quiet frenzy in it. “Tell me the truth.” Bane pulled me closer, placing his hands on either side of my face, making my heart drum in wild, hard beats. “Tell me, Jani. Tell me now.” He wasn’t begging, though the tone of his voice, the low gruffness of the timbre and the narrowed slant of his eyes told me how badly he needed to know.

  We take life as it comes. The challenges set in front of us become hurdles we must jump. And when you are a lower coven witch in a town obsessed with breeding, when the people you love most in the world are part of that obsession, you take what little you can, when you can.

  Bane was all I wanted. He wasn’t for me. He wasn’t mine, not in the way that our world determined. But just then, I forgot. Just then, I let myself keep forgetting.

  “Never wanted anything more.”

  His hair was thick, curled with a wave and it slid between my fingers as I yanked him close, an insistent jerk that would bring his mouth to mine. The response was immediate, heady and my loud whine echoed around the room when Bane gripped me, his touch penetrating.

  Counter and counterpoint we came at each other—me clinging to him, him insisting, gripping as we kissed, as we moved together against the walls of that tiny cabin, onto the rough wool rug on the floor. My clothes gave way in his desperate, eager movements, his mouth touching each inch of exposed skin he uncovered. Bane was just able to stay upright, then stretched as he gripped me tighter, twisting our bodies so that he hovered over me. I smiled, watching him tear away his shirt, dislodge his body from fabric in a frenzy of movements, until he was naked above me—so beautiful, so male with wide shoulders like looked like marble, a chest and stomach fit and fierce from the labor of effort. Runes covered his chest, zigzagged between the small patch of hair on his chest. He smelled wild, like the forest and my fingers ached to touch every beautiful inch of naked skin. Bane stared down, his lips rolled between his teeth, his nostrils flaring as his gaze moved over my skin.

  My fingernails ran along the deep indentions of his torso, across the considerable sinew of his chest, down to the lean ridges of his stomach, admiring the form of him, the etched precision of his body and he let me, enjoyed my touch, his eyes rolling up, his hands guiding my wrists over his chest, his hips, within the soft hair trailing down his stomach.

  All around me was sound and sensation. It was there, drumming in my ears, Bane’s heart beating. I was aware of his desperation, his eagerness and the knowledge had me swallowing knotted clutches from my throat, had me pulling him to me, loving the slick feel of our skin touching. Bane’s fingers smoothed along my ribs, flirted against my stomach, descending, as he kissed me, a controlling, pressing touch.

  “So damn warm,” he growled against my ear. I shivered at the vibration of the sound, skimmin
g my fingers along his naked back, smiling at the small work of red light that collected in the friction of our touching. His movements quickened—mouth on my flesh, on my breasts, cupping, licking along my stomach, and I sucked in a harsh breath when his fingers jarred me into a moan. “I love you making that sound.”

  I was speechless, anxious, my thoughts becoming inconsistent and unorganized. Bane’s mouth, his teeth and tongue, met every inch of my skin, trailed over my body to draw me into a fury of hard pants and a desperate requisite for completion. It was the same drugging sensation I felt that day in the English Lit classroom, stronger than the kiss that night in the forest when simple touches and insistent kisses had me lightheaded and high, like some rogue chemical was coursing through my veins. In a flash and quicksilver of movement, he growled again, a rough, dire rumble and then we shifted, coming together, our bodies arching to join, to connect in a smooth sweet pleasurable pain.

  “Finally,” he hissed as he buried himself in me. He was larger than I’d ever had and fit me securely, filled me up with the strength of his body and the deep, pleasurable jarring of his body inside me. We moved together, breaths seaming to moisten our faces, his body stretched out over mine, his hands on either side of my head. He stared at me and I could only manage to blink back. His mouth went to my neck, suckling.

  “Bane.” My whisper was breathy and weak, and I disregarded how desperately my body shook, how the sensation of him inside me, over me, should have made me scared, should have filled me with guilt. It didn’t, I wouldn’t let it, and with each juddering movement, each plunge, I shuddered, my skin humming with sensation, with the inexorable feel of him reaching up within me, piercing me so hard I could feel him near my womb. Yet, I needed more, still felt incomplete. I pushed on his shoulders, making him frown, then kissed him, tracing my fingertips over his skin.

  I didn’t have to speak, to demand. Bane followed my lead, went down onto his back easily when I moved over him, smiling, happy, giddy when my knees went to his hips and I slid onto his dick.

  Eyes rounded, he obeyed my silent command, not hastening to grab my hips, his fingers pressing into my waist, sitting up to fasten his mouth to my breast. The room filled with noises—the rhythmic creaking of the wood floor, my harsh whines and Bane’s low growl, assimilating to form a liquid song; the sound of life, of inevitability. When he reached a hand to my breast, his fingers shook, grazing my ribs, and I saw the low glow of red light swirling over my body. The heat coiled beneath me, rose to crest through my knees, up my torso until it exploded below my stomach, a dulcet, aching stab that had me pulling away from his mouth and leaning my head back as I cried out, racked by wave after wave of searing heat. I could feel Bane’s smile on my chest as he rested his forehead against my collarbone, the sensation only helping along the complete satisfaction of my finish.

  Boneless in his arms, I fell on the rug, with Bane’s impatient hands pulling my hips, settling me over him again so that my back arched, just touched his leg as he sat in front of me, my weight centered over his lap, his still hard dick pushing up deep inside of me. His movements continued, and I could hear our echoing heartbeats, thundering in time with one another and the smell of us, thick and feverish as we moved together. Bane’s attentions went back to my stomach, holding me at the waist, while pushing me up and down on his cock, so that he could rub his lips over the flat plane of my skin, across my ribs, near my breast, to pay tribute to the small birthmark next to my left nipple.

  With a kiss, small and gentle, I squeezed tight around him, desperate to feel him slip out of control and Bane jerked, roaring as his head fell back and I watched him shudder and jerk under me. He held firm to my body, pushing down on my shoulders. His body tensed and convulsed as he filled me up, straining, shuddering to completion. Slowly he relaxed, and, staring back at me, that fierce, red light faded as Bane’s breath slowed, fanning along my skin to kiss me.

  “Better,” he said, his face buried in my neck. “So much better than the daydream.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  There in the lull of buzzing, naked skin and the cool comfort of Bane’s arm heavy against my back, the cabin grew quiet. We were inside a bubble of our own making—one that protected us from what lay beyond those walls. As long as we did not move, as long as we kept to the silence and the soothing hum of our limbs tangled together, then nothing would dissolve that bubble.

  I had wanted him, it seemed, always. Just then, I had him. My hips still ached. My womb felt full and swollen and deliciously used. Bane had cornered and caught every available sensation I tried to hold back; he’d shaken loose the hold I had on my own control. Letting him know my thoughts, those raw emotions, had not been my plan and still he took them, wrangled them loose until he caught sense of what I’d felt wrapped around his body.

  We weren’t sleeping. Breaths too labored, too cautious came and went as I rested on top of him, his palm firm and steady on my lower back. For a moment I thought pretending would suffice. Not speaking, not breathing too quickly might make Bane believe I’d drifted off, that our time in the cabin could be prolonged.

  I didn’t want the spell to weaken. I didn’t want the bubble to burst.

  “All things end, Jani.”

  He curled that large arm tighter around my waist, a possessive, comforting movement that I wanted to resent. I couldn’t. It felt too good.

  “Stop reading my mind.” My body still hummed, still felt stretched and languid. I wanted the moment, to live inside it, keep it between my fingers.

  “Not your mind,” he said. “Emotions.” Bane moved his fingers up my back, brushing the ends of my hair between his knuckles. “I can’t read your mind.”

  “I disagree.” When Bane looked down, eyebrows pinched together, I smiled. “Anyone that touches me like the way you did has to be a mind reader.” The crystal glint in his eyes and the brilliant blue flecks danced in the firelight.

  “Emotion, little witch. It’s the best compass,” he sighed, kissing my shoulder.

  We’d leave soon and the thought wrenched my insides, coiled knots in the center making a dull ache spread into my chest. To be, just there, comfortable, as though it was usual for Bane to hold me, as though it wasn’t some disruption of our reality, was a kind of bliss I’d only daydreamed about. And so, apparently, did he—or thought he had.

  The quiet room, the warm, sweet scent of our bodies all stirred something elemental, something that could match the lines’ power. Something that could level its reach.

  I’ll always want you. He’d sworn that ten years ago. It’d been a vow I imagined he’d forgotten and laying there, thinking of that day, I wondered if some part of him remembered making that promise.

  Whatever Bane thought, whatever he remembered about the past got cast aside by the slow movement of his fingers over my skin, by long, liquid feel of his tongue against my shoulder, down the slope of my breasts when he kissed me there.

  “You taste like jasmine,” he said, moving over me, mouth open against my hip, hand gripping, fingers sliding inside me.

  Bane tasted me again, his body strong over me, his slow, soft words reminding me that he wove spells with a touch, that he could shift the tides with a kiss timed perfectly. And when he lifted me, settled me over his lap again, urged me on top of him to take and take and take, that sweet, quiet fragile bubble protecting us expanded. We clamored for taste and touch, swimming in sensation—Bane sitting up, guiding me, my fingers tugging on the wavy strands of his hair, him thick and large, pulsing and deep inside me until I could only cry out. Then Bane atop me, arms shaking as he stared down, his body large, his breath heavy, was all the sensation that mattered in the world.

  But time spun quickly; it sped us toward an end we knew we couldn’t avoid. No matter how long we stayed there—Bane still inside me, me clinging to his shoulders—reality would come knocking, insisting, reminding us that our obligations had already been set.

  Still he held me like I was precious, like just movin
g away from me meant a goodbye he didn’t want to speak, and I could only inhale, etch the smell and feel of him right in that moment to the sharper points in my memory. “We could run away,” I said, knowing that would never be an option.

  “Where would we run?” Bane would play a while, humor me while we fantasized.

  “The beach. Some place remote.” I smiled against his chest when he pulled me close. “Some place where I can walk around naked, roll around in the sand with nothing on.”

  “Wouldn’t mind that.” He moved his fingers down to cup my ass. “You with white sand dusting all over those plump nipples.” He demonstrated, holding my breasts in his hand, testing the weight. “I could invent other things…things I’ve imagined for years.”

  “Like what?” I asked, sliding up his body.

  Bane pulled on my waist, gliding his hands up my ribs. “You on my mouth, wrapped around me, holding me, gripping me…God, Jani, do you know how you looked to me back then?” When I shook my head, Bane got a little lost in the memory. That small unfocused stare of his shifted, and his voice took on something akin to wonder. “You nodding off in class, you staring at me like you were both scared and turned on and utterly at a loss how to deal with any of that? All of those months came to a head in that classroom when you kissed me.” He snapped his fingers. “One minute I’m thinking about what you’d taste like, the next there you are, answering a call I didn’t make and I’d never felt anything like it. I’d never wanted something so much and then wanted it even more after I’d had it. I want it again, Jani. Fuck, how I want it again.”

  “Bane…”

  “No, don’t make excuses. I know what’s in your head.” He followed when I shuffled to my feet, reaching for me as I disengaged. “Why is it you? Why is it always you, Jani? What is it about you that keeps me wanting you?”

  “I don’t…it doesn’t matter.” My shirt caught on my elbow when I lifted it over my head and Bane held me still, trapping me against the wall when I refused to look at him. “Your coven…they won’t care about anything between us. Your uncle…”