Ordinary Charm

by Anya Bast

  He walked toward her. “C’mere, beautiful,” he purred. “Shall we find the bedroom?”

  “Uh—” her gaze flicked away from his and then back. “Shouldn’t we find the library instead? The one where we can find the information about Ashmodai?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Serena, I’ll have my memory back fully by morning. That’s what Alana said. It’d be much more time efficient to wait until I can remember where everything is, don’t you think?”

  “I guess that’s logical. It’s just that Ashmodai is loose right now and we’re doing nothing to stop him.”

  “Yes, and he’s been out there for the past week while I cavorted in the forest and spent some time in cold iron cuffs with no memory. I hardly think a few more hours while we wait for my memory to come back is hardly going to matter. Not to mention the fact that Alana told me that Ashmodai needed some adjustment time, just like I did, and wouldn’t be kicking for a while. So, my question remains…bedroom, Serena, my sweet?”

  She stiffened. Her face twisted in an expression of confusion. “Cole, how could you want me?”

  He stopped in front of her. Ah, so that was the problem, her self-deprecation again. “Darlin’, I think the better question is how could I not want you?” He stopped in front her, reached out and fingered a tendril of her hair. “You don’t need worry about that. Not at all. My question is do you want me?”

  She looked up at him. “So much.”

  He took her hand and dragged her further into his apartment before she’d even finished uttering the words. Where the hell would his bedroom be? He could’ve just taken her right on the floor of the foyer, or up against the wall, but Serena deserved better than that for her first coupling with him. He wanted to see her naked amid a soft comforter and pillows. He wanted to wrap her in his embrace in complete comfort.

  They walked through the hallway, passing an office crammed to bursting with state-of-the-art computer equipment. Bookshelves absolutely overloaded with thick volumes lined all the walls. Cole made a mental note as they passed. That was undoubtedly the library. They passed large bathroom, and, finally, the master bedroom. He barely noticed the ponderous dresser along one wall, the entertainment center containing a TV and other electronic equipment. His awareness instantly centered on the brass four-poster bed with the fluffy navy-blue down comforter and pillows that dominated the middle of the room.

  The only thing beyond the bed that drew his attention was the line of mirrored closets along one wall, in perfect relation to the bed for— “Damn. I’m a kinky bastard, I guess,” he mused.

  Serena looked at the mirrors and then the bed. “No doubt.”

  He led her to the bed, took off her glasses and set them on the bedside table. “Can you see without them?”

  She nodded. “I have astigmatism. I can see, but everything is blurry.”

  “That’s okay. Mostly, you’ll just be feeling.” He pulled her into his arms. “Ah, Serena. I can’t wait to have you,” he breathed as he lowered his lips to hers.

  She stiffened against the dominant possession of his mouth, and then relaxed. Her hands came up, fluttering against his upper arms, over his shoulders, to finally twine through the hair that curled at his nape. She sighed against his mouth and parted her lips for him.

  Christ. His cock couldn’t get any harder.

  He reached under her shirt and ran his fingers along her soft skin to cup a breast through her bra. Her swift intake of breath and the hardening of her nipple through the material told her she enjoyed his touch.

  He smiled against her mouth. “Like that, do you, beautiful?” he murmured.

  “Ah, yes,” she hissed.

  “Want more?”

  She bit her bottom lip and nodded slightly. “I want to touch you.”

  He stepped back and spread his arms. “I’m yours for the taking.”

  She bit her lip in concentration. Lust shadowed her dark blue pupils, dilating them, letting him know just how aroused she was. He was glad to see that her desires had eclipsed her fears. She stepped toward him and began unbuttoning his shirt. With every button she freed, she kissed the exposed skin of his chest. Lower and lower she went.

  The sensation of her sweet lips on his flesh, her fingertips and nails raking over his skin nearly made him insane. Cole’s breath hissed through his teeth and he wound his hands through her hair in an effort to prevent himself from pushing her back onto the mattress and mounting her like some frenzied beast.

  She laid a line of slow, deliberate kisses from his belly button to the top of his jeans, and finally his shirt was completely open. He shrugged it the rest of the way off and let it fall to the floor as she began unbuttoning his pants.

  She purred somewhere deep in her throat as she pushed his jeans just far enough down to free his erect cock to the air. Soft fingers stroked it tentatively.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. “Enough,” he growled. He pulled her to her feet and pushed her back onto the mattress. His fingers itched to get those clothes off her, but he didn’t know if he could manage the task without imploding first. He felt such an urgency to be inside her.

  * * * * *

  Oh, she’d wanted to taste him. She’d been about to do just that when he’d pulled her up. He was outrageously beautiful everywhere. His cock was long and wide. Delectable. Her pussy was swollen and aching for him and her own sense of urgency was reflected in his eyes and actions. She wanted, needed, him inside her right this very minute. He appeared to need to be inside her just as much.

  Brian had receded to the farthest corner of her mind. He was still present—the pain he’d inflicted on her would always scar her emotions, her self-image. The hurt he’d caused he’d been irreparable to some extent…but Cole burned a large part of it away in his lust for her.

  He came down between her thighs. Settling his hips against hers, he kissed her hard and possessively. Serena arched her back and moaned when he unbuttoned the top buttons of her shirt and unhooked her bra. When he wrapped his beautiful lips around one of her nipples, she tipped her head back and thanked the universe she’d worn her front-hooking bra today. He laved and sucked each nipple to a hard, rosy tip, all the while making noises deep in throat like he was starving and her nipples were delectable morsels.

  He slipped a hand down to smooth up her thigh, dragging his fingertips up her skin toward her pussy and pushing her skirt up as he went. Finally, his hand curled around the edge of her sensible underwear and she felt the tickle of magick shimmy along her skin. “Off,” he rasped through clenched teeth. Her underwear rent easily at the seams in response to the small spell and he threw them to the carpet.

  Now there was nothing between her and his cock.

  He ran his fingertips up her swollen, wet pussy, flicking at her clit gently until she moaned and tightened her hands in his hair. “Ahh, you feel perfect, Serena. I knew you would,” he murmured right before he kissed her.

  “Please,” she gasped. The thought of his shaft inside her consumed her every thought. It was all she wanted right now.

  His cock. Her pussy. Now.

  She tipped her head up and caught his darkened gaze. “Cole, please.”

  He didn’t hesitate to comply with the erotic demand in her eyes and her voice. He pushed her skirt up to her waist, his gaze hungrily taking in her spread thighs and her sex. “Ah, you look perfect, too,” he purred. “More lovely than I’d imagined.”

  He came down on her, fastening his mouth over hers, even as he shifted his pelvis in place and set the head of his cock to the entrance of her slick, waiting pussy.

  Yes, she breathed in her mind.

  Abruptly, he looked stricken and pulled back. Fear rushed through her. Had he finally realized his mistake?

  “Condom,” he rasped.

  She eased. He was only worried about having unprotected sex. It wasn’t that she suddenly disgusted him. “I’m clean and on the pill, Cole,” she said.

  “I’m not worried about you. I’m worri
ed about me. Didn’t you hear the messages?”

  She bit her lip. It was true he got around a bit and since he had no memory… “True,” she answered.

  He rifled through the bedside table and immediately came up with a whole box of condoms—extra-large, ribbed for her pleasure. He grabbed one and ripped the wrapper off. Then he fumbled, trying to roll it on in haste.

  Serena stifled the wild laugh bubbling up in her throat. This gorgeous man was all worried and impatient for her? How absurd. She sat up, took the condom from him and stroked her fingers down his length. “Let me,” she said.

  He tipped his head back at her touch, and his Adam’s apple worked as he groaned. “God, Serena, I want you so much that you’re going to make me come just by putting the condom on.”

  Carefully, she rolled it down his cock, taking a moment to hold his lovely set of balls in her hand. In an impatient gesture, he pushed her onto her back, spread her legs and set his cock to the entrance of her pussy.

  She settled back, feeling the large crown of his shaft breach her. “Oh,” she breathed as her muscles stretched with the invasion. She hadn’t had sex in so long. Five whole years. Sure, she’d used a vibrator once in awhile, but Cole was far larger than any toy she owned. Could she even take Cole into her body? Her whole body tensed.

  “Shh, Serena. Relax for me, baby. Come on. It’s okay.” He scattered kisses across her cheek and mouth and caressed his hand up and down her thigh. “I want you so bad. I’ll be honest, I want to just push myself inside you and feel all that tight, hot flesh wrap around my cock, but I’m not going to hurt you, okay? We’ll take this one inch at a time.”

  She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

  He eased himself in a little more, up to just past the crown. Serena gasped and wiggled her hips. God, he felt good. She felt spread and full and…possessed. And he wasn’t even completely within her yet.

  Another inch wrung a long moan from her.

  Another and another.

  Cole bit his bottom lip, curled his fingers into the bedding and groaned. “Serena, you’re so damn tight. You feel so good. You don’t know hard this is, baby.” He pushed in another inch. “So hard to go slow,” he bit off on the tail of another low groan.

  She no longer wanted him to be careful with her, to go slow. Right now, all she wanted was him filling her up. She grabbed his ass and thrust her hips toward him. The rest of him slid inside until he was seated to the base of his shaft.

  “Ah, baby,” Cole rasped. “Awww, fuck, yes.”

  Serena gasped at the sensation of being completely impaled. No other man she’d ever been with had been large enough to give her this sensation. Serena threw her head back into the pillows, dug her nails into Cole’s shoulders and hissed, “Yes.” It felt exquisite to be so stretched, so filled and so possessed by this man.

  He shafted her slow at first then faster and faster. She wrapped her legs around his waist and enjoyed the way he pressed her into the mattress with every thrust. Her climax came fast and hard, overwhelming her—both in mind and body.

  “Serena,” Cole breathed above her. His big body stiffened and he thrust as far as possible within her as he let loose.

  Breathing heavily, they collapsed in a tangle of limbs and clothes. Damn, they hadn’t even managed to get fully undressed. She glanced at Cole. He lay beside her with his hair covering his face.

  She pushed her exposed breasts back into her shirt and sat up with the intention of getting dressed. “I don’t normally do this kind of thing,” she stammered. Good God, she’d just slept with some man she didn’t even know! Rowan was rubbing off on her. Serena never behaved this way. Not even once in her life had she ever been so impulsive and careless. What strange spell had possessed her?

  Oh, yeah. Colin Peter Striker. Better known these days as the physical vessel for Cernunnos. That’s what had possessed her.

  Cole’s hand snaked out and caught her wrist as she straightened her shirt. “The clothes should be coming off, not going on, beautiful.”

  “Cole—”

  He sat up and pushed gently onto her back. “You’re mine ‘til daybreak, Serena.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Do I get a say in this?”

  A wicked, sexy smile curved his mouth. “I’d have a mind to tie you to the bed if you denied me, but, yes, you have a say. ‘Course you do.”

  As he spoke, he rubbed her collarbone lazily with the pad of his thumb. Back and forth, back and forth, back and… A moan caught in her throat. The man was a menace. Even the look of heat in his eyes made her breath hitch.

  “I’ll admit that was a bit intense,” he continued. “It was fast and intense like that because I’ve been dreaming of having you since I first saw you. I had to be inside you. Now I want to get these clothes off you and take it slower. Real slow and easy. I want to take my time with you. I want to make love to you ‘til dawn, Serena.”

  Ack. She couldn’t form words again. He undid the buttons she’d done up and pulled off her shirt.

  “What do you say?” he purred in her ear as he unhooked her bra. “Say stay,” he whispered. “Stay with me, baby.”

  “I-I guess I can stay.”

  “Ah, good.” He smiled that wicked, heart-stopping smile again. The one that made her stomach flutter and her clit pulse. “Can I still tie you to the bed?”

  She shivered…hard. He could do just about anything he wanted to her.

  “Mmmm. I heard that.” He pulled her bra off, leaving her nude from the waist up. “I’ll remember it, too.”

  “Wha-what?”

  He pushed her back and fastened his luscious lips around one nipple. His smooth, hard chest rubbed against her stomach. The sensation had her closing her eyes in ecstasy. “Your thought,” he said around a mouthful. “You said you’d let me do anything to you.”

  Oh. She nearly forgot she’d asked a question. He licked her nipple into a taut point and she tried desperately to hang onto to her train of thought. “You’re telepathic?” she gasped.

  “Appears so. That’s the first time I’ve heard a thought from you, though.” He smiled and glanced up at her with dark, hooded eyes. “Must’ve been particularly loud.”

  Man, she was in trouble.

  He eased her shoes off and her skirt down her legs, leaving her completely bare to his gaze and touch. He took her in from head to toe like she was a work of art. She cringed and curled her fingers into the blankets, fighting the urge to roll the comforter around her body, to hide herself from him.

  He took her hand in his, wrenching her grip free from the blankets. “Get up,” he said. He helped her up off the bed and guided her to the mirror-lined wall of closets.

  “We need to get around this right now, Serena,” he murmured in her ear. Pushing her hair to the side so he could kiss her neck, he stood behind her and put his hands on her hips. She looked at her reflection and blushed. There was her size fourteen body bared to his gaze and her own. No clothing to hide her, no blankets. Nothing at all.

  He rubbed his hands over her hips, stroking his fingertips through the patch of hair at the apex of her thighs. Then he brought his hands up over the plump of her belly to her breasts. Serena watched his large hands work her breasts. He rolled the nipples between his index fingers and thumbs, causing her pussy to quicken and heat.

  As if he could feel the ache in her sex, he let one hand drift down and rubbed her clit. Her breath hissed out of her hard and fast.

  “Look at me,” he whispered.

  She glanced up into his eyes and saw his thoughts reflected there. He truly did think she was beautiful. By some glorious miracle, he thought she was gorgeous and alluring, and he wanted her…badly.

  He laid a kiss to her neck, and licked her skin. The action shot a bolt of want straight to her pussy. He circled her clit around and around with deliberate slowness. “Do you comprehend what I mean, beautiful?” he murmured.

  She wet her lips. “Yes.” He’d made his point abundantly clear without utterin
g a word. She was the one thinking she wasn’t fit for him, not Cole. Unlike Brian, Cole thought she was alluring and attractive. A measure of healing licked through her—a balm for her injured psyche.

  “Good.” He increased the pressure at her clit, deepening and increasing the pace of his touch. She watched his hand working at her sex with excited interest. At the same time, he kissed and sucked on her earlobe. “Then come for me, beautiful,” he whispered. He parted her thighs, inserted two fingers into her pussy and ground his palm on her clit.

  Her climax tore through her as if on his command. The pleasure rippled through her as the muscles of her pussy convulsed around his thrusting fingers.

  “Oh,” she breathed. Her knees felt weak.

  He pulled free from her body and drew a wet finger up her stomach to trail around one of her hard nipples. She watched his gaze follow the path of his hand. His gaze was dark, taut, and hungry. He wanted her again.

  A flicker of confidence curled through her stomach. He wanted her. She turned, twined her fingers into the waistband of his jeans and drew him toward her. He’d pulled his pants up, but not buttoned them, so she could see a bit of his dark pubic hair and the jut of one lean hip. Her gaze roved his six-pack abs and the dappling of dark hair across his chest. It still awed her that this man would even look in her direction. “Let’s see all of you now.” She flicked her gaze at his jeans. “I didn’t really get to, you know, see it before.”

  He smiled and kept his gaze locked with hers as he toed his boots off, then pushed his jeans and boxers past his hips to pool around his ankles.

  She glanced down at his cock, which stood hard and erect from a bed of curly coarse dark hair. Twining her fingers around its length, she raised an eyebrow. “Not bad.” It took effort to sound cool, since every part of him made her breathless. It was hard to sound cool when you couldn’t breathe. Seeing him fully unclothed nearly stopped her heart.

  He playfully swatted her butt, and then gave her a look of sexual intention that was so intense it made her train of thought have a wreck. “Been wondering what you taste like, Serena,” he murmured. “I have a mind to take a taste and satisfy my curiosity.” He dropped down, wound his hands to cup her buttocks and pulled her pussy to his mouth.