by Lisa Plumley
Decisively, T.J. opened the door.
At once, a sensation of yearning swept over him. His heart, still weakened, ached with it. Confused, he stopped in the open doorway. The breeze played over his bare skin. His feet lodged on the threshold. His scarred fingers clenched the door frame as he considered the new pain in his chest. It felt different from the pain he’d experienced after Garmin’s disloyalty last night.
It felt…bittersweet.
Dismissing it with a frown, T.J. moved forward. Avery wasn’t in the bed, as he’d hoped, but he could hear the shower running in the bathroom. With easy warlock devilishness, he pictured her, wet and curvaceous beneath the shower’s spray, her arms outstretched in an invitation to join her.
His brain offered up an image of Dayna Sterling in that pose instead, identically welcoming…and identically naked.
That sense of yearning increased. He almost shook with it.
Swearing, T.J. moved on. He had to focus. The room was dim and quiet, its atmosphere hushed with secrecy. Expectation. Desire. Reasoning that those emotions were moving from him to Deuce’s sister in anticipation of their meeting, T.J. edged past the bureau. He stepped on something hard and tubular.
A Magic Marker. A short distance from it lay a plastic pencil case. More markers. Spilled crayons. And a backpack.
Too late, T.J. realized who had slept in this room.
And why he’d kept picturing Dayna, eager and ready for him.
Fuck. He was going to pound Deuce for this. When he’d asked him to keep an eye on Dayna for him, he’d meant from a safe distance. Not from a few feet away, near the sunny patio where T.J. routinely slept. What had Deuce been thinking? With T.J. and his bonded witch in close proximity like this, it was only a matter of time before one of them yielded to the power of their bond.
The shower shut off, stealing his attention. Holding his breath, T.J. listened. Water sluiced over the tiles. The tub drained with a guttural swirl. Bare feet squeaked against the rubberized petals Deuce had glued in for safety. More than anything else, realization of that mundane detail brought T.J. to full awareness of what was happening.
He was standing just a few feet away from his seductive bonded witch. She was naked. So was he. They could be joined within moments, hot and sweaty and needful and complete.
Complete. Just like they were destined to be.
Groaning with raw need, T.J. fisted his hands. His birthright mark glowed, warming as rapidly as his cock. Another wave of yearning swept over him, this time coupled with a vague sweetness that felt completely foreign. And unwanted. He’d be damned if he’d be sweet. He’d be damned if he would need this way. He refused now, just like he’d refused three days ago.
But the thought of Dayna standing there, rubbing beads of water from her bare skin, inch by succulent inch, made him feel nothing but need. He closed his eyes to shut it out. That only made the image more vivid. He could almost feel the yielding softness of her skin against his mouth, could hear the breathy gasp she would make when his hands slid over her hips.
He thought of her calling his name—his true name, the one no one knew except his parents, Deuce, and his magus. He wanted that. He thought of her smiling at him. He wanted that, too. He thought of her seeing him—light and dark, warlock and Patayan—and staying with him anyway. He wanted that most of all.
At the intensity of his craving, his knees buckled.
What the fu—? Wide-eyed, T.J. righted himself with a hasty warlock spell. He had to get out of here.
He started to move, heading for the glass-paneled patio door he’d entered the bedroom through. It wasn’t until he’d made it halfway there that he realized he’d already broken the IAB’s suspension. He’d already practiced unlicensed magic with the spell he’d used to keep himself upright. The dam he’d constructed between his old self and his agent self had broken at last…and he had no idea if he could rebuild it.
Just when T.J. stood on the brink of a future he could no longer be sure of, Dayna rounded the corner and saw him.
Chapter Fourteen
The tracer looked even better, Dayna decided with a shiver of anticipation, when he was awake.
Even though he was standing motionless, obviously caught unaware by her appearance in the hallway, T.J. still emanated a certain sense of power. Authority. Unmistakable vigor. Every cell in his warlock-Patayan body seemed to pulse with vitality, ready to meet any challenge, defeat any enemy…or simply sweep a curious runaway witch off her feet.
Intrigued by the notion, Dayna stepped nearer. T.J.’s eyes widened, his gaze dark and magnetic beneath his furrowed brows.
Helplessly, she smiled. At the sight of him, her heart simply…opened a little wider. She couldn’t explain it. The plain truth was, she loved everything about him. She loved his tousled hair, his agile fingers, his crookedly worn amulets on their leather strings. She loved his cleft chin. She loved his full lips, his magnificent arched cheekbones, his acres of golden, sun-kissed skin. She wanted to be closer to all of them.
She needed to be closer to all of them.
“I was hoping to surprise you,” she said. “And yet, before I could, here you are. I guess I’ll have to amend my plans.”
My plans to seduce you…exactly the way a bonded witch should. She didn’t know how she knew that; she just did. She knew it the same way she knew T.J. could read her plans in her eyes, in her expression, in her parted lips. Dayna had never felt witchier than she did in that moment. She’d never felt more seductive either. She knew T.J. could tell that, too.
“No. I was just—” He hooked his thumb toward the patio.
Leaving hung in the air between them. I was just leaving.
“You’ve got a way of turning up unexpectedly.” The gap between them diminished with every footstep Dayna took. Feeling herself quiver with expectancy, she adjusted her damp towel and then kept going. “I didn’t like that at first. But today—”
“I was just leaving,” T.J. said with more force.
His deepening frown should have lent credibility to his threat. And yet he only stood there, like a classical statue come to life, not moving one way or the other. Dayna dropped her gaze from his face to his torso. This close, his muscles seemed even more defined, compacted with strength and hard use. A primal need gripped her—a need to touch him that felt so strong, she could scarcely keep talking. Somehow, she did.
“Today I do like that. Later we can talk about why you were camped out there, outside my bedroom.” Privately, she thought it was because T.J. was still assigned to her. He’d shadowed her to class last night, then he’d followed her home. It was obvious. “But right now, I’d rather test a theory I have.”
His gaze narrowed. His posture hardened. His shoulders turned partly away from her in a forbidding stance. “I don’t care about your theories. I’m leaving.”
She smiled. “So you keep saying. Yet you’re still here.”
It was because he wanted her. Dayna knew it as plainly as she knew she wanted him. She could feel the emotions rippling from him to her, the same way she had in the shower a few minutes ago. The same way she had on the day they’d met.
Desire. Need. Curiosity and…resistance?
That wouldn’t do. Not when her own body felt hotter already with the need to join with him. Not when her heartbeat raced and her breath caught in her throat. Not when the core of her—so recently beaten down by failures and mistakes, with more of the same to come for sure—desperately needed to feel whole.
Needed to feel wanted and strengthened and warm.
T.J. could give her that, Dayna knew. Somehow she knew. But she might have to take it from him. She was prepared to do that. Especially now, when she felt infused with magical allure.
Maybe there were perks, she decided, to being a witch.
“You’re not leaving.” She stopped at arm’s length from T.J. He smelled delicious. The combination of fresh air, sunshine, and magical practice had imbued his skin with an intoxicating aura. I
t was indescribably appealing. “Not until I say so.”
T.J. raised his arm. Upon his command, the shafts of sunshine she’d noticed earlier swept across the room. They fell in her path like bars on a prison cell, either keeping her out…or keeping the tracer in. She couldn’t tell which.
Magically, transparently, they prevented her from coming closer. And this time, fear was the emotion she sensed from him.
It seemed impossible. T.J. McAllister was practiced, commanding, and gifted with a presence that most magical males would have killed for. His body was chiseled, his demeanor calm, his appeal unavoidable. Why was he keeping himself from her?
Impulsively, Dayna swept her arm sideways.
The barrier of sunshine fell away.
Astonished, she could only stand there for an instant. Dropping that barrier hadn’t required a charm or an incantation. She hadn’t had to conjure a familiar or call upon some obscure spell. All she’d had to do was think of what she wanted and it had happened. Just the way it did for trueborn legacy witches.
“You shouldn’t seem so amazed. You’re a witch, first and last.” T.J. gazed at her, unabashed in his nudity. “Practicing magic is your birthright. It’s what you were born to do.”
He was wrong; last night had demonstrated, all over again, how little magical ability she really had. Publicly. It was plain to Dayna that she was still stuck between worlds—not human, but not a practicing witch either. It was equally plain that the tracer hadn’t had to ease her feelings about that.
He still had. His kindness meant a lot to her.
“Thank you for saying that.”
His frown eased a fraction. “I believe it.”
“Thank you for that, too.”
A shared amity rose between them, subtle and new, fueled by his unexpected generosity and by her welcoming of it. It shifted all of Dayna’s perceptions. Suddenly, what she was about to do felt even more momentous. What had begun as a lark—as a treat to herself after two long, tough days of witch-world reentry—became something much deeper. Something fated and real.
“Do you feel that?” she asked him. “Between us?”
With his jaw clenched, T.J. shook his head. It was obvious he was fighting…something. “No. I don’t feel a thing.”
“Liar,” she teased, coming a few steps closer.
“Stop.” T.J.’s voice sounded hoarse, rough with a dark warning that matched his battle-scarred body. “I’m not leaving. I…can’t. So you should. Go right now, before it’s too late.”
“Nope.” Dayna stepped nearer. “I’m not leaving either.”
Why should she? This was inevitable between them. The proof of it was in the way she felt, in the way he looked, in the way the tracer’s body heat pulled her even closer. Enveloped by it, she gazed up, beginning at his chest and moving in a slow arc to his face. His breath feathered across her forehead, as soft and gentle as a caress. She felt blessed by it, crazy as it seemed.
“This is a bad idea.” He closed his eyes. “I need—”
“You need me,” Dayna said, and brought her mouth to his.
Their breath mingled, intimately. Their lips touched, provocatively. Before she could think of a single coherent thought, all her thoughts fled. The whole world shifted. Dizzy and needful, Dayna grabbed T.J.’s shoulders and held on tightly.
She needed this. She needed him. Now. Now. Acting on that need, Dayna nudged her tongue at the seam of his mouth, urging him to open to her—to open to what had to happen between them.
Instead, T.J. ended their kiss. Filled with dismay, Dayna cried out as he reared back, his expression somber.
A sense of warning rolled from him like waves, coupled with the merest inkling of release. She knew he would give in to her soon. His resolve was crumbling, inch by tight-fisted inch.
“Now.” His face, beautiful and rugged, hovered above hers. “Go now. I didn’t know it was you. Otherwise, I never would have come in here. I never would have started—”
“Go?” Dayna couldn’t help laughing. “Not on your life.”
“On yours,” T.J. said seriously. “Go on yours. Leave now.”
“Hmmm. That’s some kind of sweet talk you’ve got there.” She brought her hand to his head, touched his spun-silk witchfolk hair, and nearly purred with eagerness. “I’m beginning to think you warlocks are overrated in the romance department.”
“Are you taunting a warlock?” He jerked his head, ending her caress. He frowned. “Don’t ever taunt a warlock.”
“How about a Patayan guardian? Can I taunt him?”
“Not advised.”
“Oh? Your body tells me differently.” Coyly, Dayna swiveled her hips against him. They could both feel him, rising hard and ready against her towel-covered hip. “I think you like it.”
“Oh yeah?” He growled. “I’ll tell you what I like.”
As proof, T.J. lowered his head. On another harsh indrawn breath, he brought his mouth to hers. His raw need bordered on roughness, thrilling her with its intensity. Yes. Yes.
“I like your mouth, opening to me. Give me more.”
She did. His beard stubble scraped across her cheek. Dayna didn’t care. Because an instant later, his tongue swept against hers, soft and erotic and unbelievably skilled.
“I like your eyes, watching me. Watch me now.”
He flattened his palm against her back, arching her spine. Eagerly, Dayna bowed herself upward in his arms. She watched, transfixed, as T.J. brought his mouth to the modest cleavage above her wrapped towel. With his gaze fixed on hers, he kissed her there. Softly, then with heated intent. Ripples of goose bumps rose on her skin, following his mouth like a wave.
“I like your breath, catching in your throat as you feel me against you. Feel this. All of this.”
With a purposeful move, T.J. brought his pelvis against hers. The fullness of him crowded the apex of her thighs, making Dayna catch her breath exactly as instructed. Barely shielded by her bath towel, her body pulsed against the tracer’s in an insistent hidden heartbeat that demanded more. More more more.
“I like your voice, telling me what you want. Tell me now.”
“I want you.” Moaning, she flexed her thighs. The movement only made her more aware of how hot she felt. How wet, how ready, how close to the edge. “I want you. Please. Now. I—”
“More.” Arching his brow with a confidence she knew was wholly deserved, the tracer slid his thumb across her cleavage. With full absorption, T.J. studied her chest as she panted for breath. “Tell me more. I want everything.”
“I want everything. You. Me. Now—”
“Soon.”
He sealed his promise with a kiss—a greedy, openmouthed kiss that made Dayna sway in his arms. She moaned, desperate for more of him. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t taste enough, couldn’t touch enough. If she could have, she would have climbed his body, absorbed him into her, merged with him, skin to skin. Instead she squeezed his shoulders, feeling his sleek muscles bunch beneath her palms. She panted and rose on tiptoes. Higher. Higher. The only thing that mattered was having more of them, together, exactly as they were meant to be.
But T.J. wasn’t going to dictate all the terms.
“Not ‘soon,’” Dayna said. “Now.” With a power she hadn’t known she possessed, she focused, then nodded at the tracer.
At her command, he rose from the floor, lifted by the force of her desires. For an instant, he lingered there in midair with an expression of utter surprise on his face. Probably, Dayna knew, her expression matched his. She could scarcely believe her magic worked so well—especially on a powerful warlock like him.
Then he fell backward on the unmade bed, and she quit wondering about her magic and its vagaries altogether. T.J. was just too distracting. And now she had him—almost—where she wanted him. In her bed. Waiting for her. Against the whiteness of the sheets, his skin looked twice as sun kissed, his muscular body a long, lean lure that only she could take advantage of.
&nbs
p; “Yum. That’s more like it,” she told him.
A new sense of alarm rushed from him to her. It was combined, this time, with an even stronger anticipation. In evident denial of it, the tracer pushed up on his elbows. He frowned, clearly intending to get to his feet again.
Dayna shook her head. “You’re not the only one who finds something to like around here. Let me tell you my favorites.”
“No. You don’t know what you’re doing. We can’t—”
She leaned over and silenced him with a kiss. She meant it to be authoritative, wanted it to be hers, with exactly as much control as T.J. had shown her. But when her mouth touched his again, all her plans scattered. All she could do was savor the slow glide of their lips, their tongues, their mouths. With a sound that was almost pain-filled, T.J. grabbed her shoulders.
He broke off their contact. His face seemed stippled with beard stubble, coarser and longer than just a few seconds ago. It reminded her of the instant shadow beard that had appeared on his face in Deuce’s car on the day they’d met. Dayna didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t have time to wonder. She felt mesmerized as his dark-eyed gaze bored into hers, filled with regret and longing…and something with a harder edge to it.
She didn’t want to know what that was.
Before he could speak, Dayna did. Stubbornly and softly, she said, “I like your voice. I like the way it goes all rough when you talk…but only when you’re talking to me.”
“Dayna—”
“Yes.” She smiled in approval. “Exactly like that, husky and sweet. I like it. I like your strength. I like the way you want to protect me with it…whether I need you to or not.”
“Oh.” A telling smile quirked his mouth. “You need me to.”
She inhaled, barely begun and definitely not finished. “I like your eyes. I like the way you look at me. I know you can’t believe I’m really here with you…but you’re so happy I am.”
