by Anya Bast
She gasped in surprise and intense pleasure at the possessive bite. Her fingers fisted against the wall in front of her and her body reacted, her sex becoming slick and warm.
Still biting her shoulder, he slid his knee between her thighs and forced her to spread them. Then he shoved his cock against her opening and thrust the head slowly within. His hands found her breasts and cupped them as he eased himself deep inside her inch by delicious inch.
Isabelle’s breath came in short, hard pants as her body stretched to accommodate him. The pleasure of having him inside suffused her. Then he began to thrust and the pleasure became sharper. He teased her nipples, pinching and rolling them between the pads of his fingers as his cock tunneled in and out of her sex.
Just the thought of how they must look excited her to the point of orgasm—her pressed face-first against the wall, Thomas’s hard, fine body working behind her, his buttocks flexing as he thrust deep within her and his big hands possessively controlling her breasts.
The first skitterings of climax rose along her spine and nerve endings. Thomas sensed it rising, slipped his hand down her abdomen and between her thighs to stroke her clit. Her orgasm exploded, heady and overwhelming. Her back arched as it washed through her, making her sex pulse around his thrusting cock.
While the last remnants of ecstasy still clung to her, Thomas turned her to face him. Her expression was lusty and satisfied, she knew—parted lips, eyelids at half mast. She wanted more of him. Thomas’s expression was serious, almost severe.
He cupped her cheek and stared into her eyes. “Isabelle.” It was just one word, but there seemed to be a world of emotion in it.
She covered his hand with her own and fought to divest herself of her initial desire to reject that emotion, to run away. You care about him, too. Let it be.
At least for now, she could let it be.
Thomas slid his palm from her waist, down her thigh and hooked her leg over his hip. Then he pushed within her again. Isabelle’s eyes widened as he thrust slow enough that every inch of his cock registered a ten on the pleasure scale. Then he slowed the pace of his thrusts even more. The entire time his gaze held hers intimately, until he finally came deep inside her.
After it was over, they stood motionless, breathing heavily, still coupled at the pelvis, their gazes locked on each other. To Isabelle the connection felt much deeper. That soul-deep union terrified her to the bone. This time her fear was not because of the connection itself…but because she might lose it.
She had a demon gunning for her.
Thomas gathered her against him after a moment and they went to bed. He held her close, stroking her arms and back for a long time until, even as disturbed as she was, sleep caught her.
WHEN ISABELLE AWOKE, IT TOOK HER A MOMENT TO remember where she was. She opened her eyes to the morning sunshine filtering in through the sheer curtains covering the window in Thomas’s bedroom. Her body felt tired and achy in a way that signaled she’d been well-loved the night before. It was a lovely sensation. She stretched like a cat, feeling Thomas move on her other side.
His arm came around her waist and he pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair and inhaling. “Mmmm, it’s better waking up with you in my bed. I’ve wanted this.”
She snuggled back against him and smiled. For a moment she pretended that nothing lay between them. No demon. No responsibilities to anyone else. No slavery to her own fears. For a moment she pretended she could remain with him, that he loved her and she loved him…and she could stay.
Isabelle turned over and pressed her nude body flush against his, wrapping her arms around his waist. He did the same, locking her against him. She liked to be locked against Thomas Monahan.
After a while, unable to resist, she ran her palms over his body, enjoying the powerful flex of his muscles, the hum of his magick and the feel of his long silken hair. With a groan, he rolled her beneath him, parted her thighs, and slipped the head of his cock inside her.
Her breath caught at the natural, easy way he’d done it. Like they were meant to fit together. He dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her softly. At some point they’d gone from fucking to having sex to making love. The change had been seamless. Isabelle’s breath left her in a long, slow sigh when they finally broke the kiss.
He held her gaze and rolled his hips forward, sliding within her another delicious inch. The head of his cock hit her somewhere sweet inside, somewhere that made passion rush through her veins and that curious lust-haze begin to settle over her mind.
“Are you sure you never use magick on your women, Thomas?” Her words came out laced with sexual need, heavy and halting.
“I haven’t with you. Not once. I wouldn’t unless it was agreed upon beforehand.”
She’d heard that some of the more powerful earth witches could use magick during sex, though the skill was rare. The earth witches who possessed this ability were sought after as lovers. There were some people who became addicted to the power of it. “So you can, then?”
His hips rocked back and forth, in tantalizing, pleasurable little jabs into her sex. “Of course. Want me to show you?”
“I’m curious.”
“Put your hand on my tattoo.”
Feeling like her bones were made of warm honey, she slid a hand to his tattoo and splayed her palm against it. It pulsed with his magick and her skin tingled in response. The magick intensified, rippling up her arm and through her body. A drugged-like haze settled over her mind and her hand fell away.
Thomas rolled his hips so his cock penetrated her as deeply as possible. A long, slow easy climax flirted with her body instantly. It tickled her and teased her as Thomas rode her. Then it burst over her and lingered, racking her body with spasm after spasm of pleasure. It was enough to make her near insane, enough to make her cry with the intensity of it. On and on it went.
He spilled inside her with a low groan followed by her name on his lips.
“Holy…” Isabelle breathed into the curve of his neck. “You completely overpowered me with your magick.”
He raised his head to look at her. “Did you like it?”
“One continuous unbroken orgasm?” She snorted. “I hated it.” Her body still hummed from it, her nerve endings tingling. She felt almost drunk, sex drunk. “I could see how someone could become addicted to that and yet…”
“What?”
“It was too much, too intense. It was delicious, but I want to focus on you, not only on my own pleasure. I want to feel your cock moving inside me, the scent of you, the slip of your skin against mine. When you’re giving me one long, unbroken orgasm, as nice as that is, I can’t enjoy the rest of it, all the parts I like most.”
He laughed, a low, silken sound she loved, and rolled to the side, bringing her with him and tucking her against his body. “You’re incredible, Isabelle.”
She sighed and murmured with mock arrogance, “So everyone tells me.”
“I’m glad you stayed the night with me. I’ve wanted to wake up next to you for a long time.”
She nuzzled his throat and gave a kiss to the sleep-warmed skin. “It’s not like I had a lot of choice.”
“True.”
“But I’m glad I’m here, too.” She sighed and tried not to think about the demon and failed. “So what’s the plan for today?”
“The usual. Later, once the sun goes down, we’ll hunt him. Take all our collective leads and search the locations where he’s known to hang out. At this point it’s the only thing we can do.”
“I hate just waiting around.”
“We’re doing all we can. I’ve got the few air witches in the Coven scanning for any whisper of his presence, all the water witches and earth witches using their skills to locate him. Until we get a break, that’s our best plan of action since we have no way to predict which witch he might target next.”
“Did Micah find anything else in the texts?”
Thomas sat up abruptly.
Isabell
e pushed up onto her elbows. “What is it?”
He pushed a hand through his hair, his bicep flexing. Dark strands caught between his fingers. Thomas turned toward her. “I forgot to tell you last night. Once we got to my room—”
“We were occupied. What did he find?”
“Micah’s been scouring the texts for any hint of demon spells that open doorways. While you were out with Adam, he finally found something. There are several ways to do it, all requiring the type of blood magick Boyle is using. The spells work like combination locks. The demon consumes and stores the energetic magicks of the witches, much in the same way an earth witch consumes and stores spells. Each witch must have a certain magickal makeup and they must be killed in a certain order and at certain times. If the demon takes the right witches at the right times, it unlocks a doorway.”
Isabelle sat up straighter, pulling the sheet around her. “Magickal makeup?”
“As far as Micah can tell that means the witches must possess a certain kind of magick and a certain level of power. The power patterns of all the witches registered with the Coven have been documented.”
She pushed a hand through her sleep-tangled hair, thinking. “Can you get all the files on the witches the demon has killed?”
“Yes…why?”
I have work to do before you. That’s what Boyle had said in the library. Did that mean other witches to kill before he came for her?
“I want to see if there’s a pattern.”
He shook his head. “Even if we could find a pattern, I doubt we could predict the next witch he might go after. There are too many witches with similar power patterns for the information to be relevant. Micah has already thought about this. We wouldn’t be able to narrow it down enough for it to be useful.”
“Maybe not, but I still want to check. The more information we have, the better.”
“I agree.” He kissed her shoulder. “I’ll have Micah look into it.”
“Thank you.”
He gave her another lingering kiss while running his palm down her arm and over her exposed breast where she’d pushed the blankets away. Isabelle closed her eyes. Her body, even after so much recent erotic attention, reacted to him.
He dragged her lower lip between his teeth. “Now, shower time.”
She grinned. “What if I want to take a shower in my own bathroom?”
“You can’t leave here until I lick the water rivulets running down this gorgeous body. After that I’ll release you.”
Isabelle couldn’t for the life of her find a flaw in that plan.
SIXTEEN
THOMAS WATCHED ISABELLE GO OVER THE RECORDS of the demon’s four victims, her hair a strawberry-blond curtain around her bent head and her tongue tucked firmly between her teeth as she concentrated. Thus far she’d been businesslike about the whole thing, even though her sister’s records were in the batch she studied.
Along with Micah, he and Isabelle had spent the morning examining every piece of information they had on the flow of power of the four victims. Luckily, all the victims had detailed Coven records. Otherwise no type of analysis would have been possible.
Micah had entered the data into a software program he’d developed to look for patterns, but analysis would take some time. He was fussy with his numbers and had to tweak the recently created software to run the info through various sets of algorithms or whatever it was he’d been mumbling to himself about. His cousin had thrown himself into the project, heart and soul.
Someone knocked on the door. Thomas called enter and Adam stuck his head in. “You’re not going to believe this.” His gaze went to Isabelle.
She looked up at Adam and frowned. “What?”
Micah seemed oblivious to everyone and everything except the keyboard and the flickering computer screen in front of him. He never stopped typing.
“Your mother is named Catalina, right?” Adam asked.
Her frown deepened. “Yes…why?”
“She’s here.”
Isabelle blinked once and went very still. “As in at the Coven?”
“Yes. She’s asking for you.”
“Great. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, Catalina shows up.” She pushed her chair away from the desk, stood and gave a heavy sigh. “Where is she?”
“We put her in the second-floor receiving room.”
“Thanks, Adam.”
“She’s, uh, interesting.”
“Interesting, yeah. That’s one word of about five hundred you could use to describe my mother. All bad.”
“I’ll come with you,” Thomas broke in.
She glanced at him. “Please. You can play wrestling referee if she pisses me off.”
“Sure thing.”
They headed out the door, leaving Micah crown deep in his analysis. If Thomas knew his cousin, he’d be awake all night running numbers and rearranging the input. He probably wouldn’t even notice they’d left for a good hour.
Adam walked through the foyer and opened the front door. “Later. I’m off to meet Amy.”
“Amy! What happened to Elizabeth?” She waved a hand, cutting off Adam’s answer. “Whatever. I don’t want to know.”
Adam just grinned, shook his head and closed the door behind him.
“Oh, Lady, I don’t want to do this,” she muttered as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. “What the hell is she doing here?”
Thomas let his hand glide along the banister. “Maybe she’s here for you.”
Isabelle snorted. “That’s optimistic. Clearly, you’ve never met my mother.”
They walked down the corridor to the formal room they used to receive visiting witches from other Covens or members of the Council. She stood for a moment outside the door as if gathering her strength, then entered the room, Thomas behind her.
A thin, polished blonde with a ram-rod straight spine rose from where she’d been sitting on a wine-colored couch. She turned toward them, her gaze going from him and fixing on her daughter. Apprehension showed on her strikingly beautiful face for a moment before haughty pride took over.
He’d met Catalina Novak once before, years ago, at a Coven dinner. She still looked the same, five foot seven inches of woman who would have looked her age but for the wonders of modern plastic surgery. Catalina had spent a bundle on it, too. She passed for forty when her records put her age closer to fifty-five. Expensively dyed honey blond hair hung to her shoulders, framing a face with hardly a wrinkle or laugh line to be seen. It was a face that most men would fall for. It was a face most men had fallen for. Catalina Novak had made a fortune snaring wealthy men. She’d been widowed twice by rich elderly men and divorced once from an oil baron who should have insisted on a prenup.
It jarred him to see Isabelle’s eyes staring from that face, with its collagen-enhanced lips and artificially sculpted eyebrows.
Were Catalina’s eyes the only original part of her chassis?
“Mother.” Isabelle’s voice could have frozen the balls off a snowman.
“Isabelle.” She took a step forward and then stopped near the edge of a glass coffee table. “I came as soon as I heard.”
“You missed her funeral.”
Catalina looked at the floor. “A man named Micah tracked me down in Rome and got a message to me. I came as soon as I could.”
Isabelle pursed her lips. “I’m glad someone was able to locate you. I had no idea where to start looking. I left messages with all the men I could remember you having…congress with.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” Catalina glanced up at Isabelle, but seemed unable to hold her gaze.
“Are you? Are you really, Mother? You not only missed her funeral, you missed her entire life. I’m surprised you even bothered to come now.”
“Do you think so little of me?”
Isabelle considered that for a moment. “Yes.”
She turned and gave Thomas a withering look. “Mr. Monahan, please excuse my daughter and the massive chip she ha
s on her shoulder. This is an old issue between us. She hates me because I wasn’t your regular Leave It to Beaver kind of mother. I gave her everything she needed but—”
Isabelle snorted.
Catalina turned that withering gaze back to her daughter. “Everything she needed, and yet—”
Thomas broke in, even while he knew he shouldn’t. “Maybe children need more than just material things, Catalina. Maybe sometimes they need parenting, sometimes they need affection and love.” This was not his affair, but he cared too much about Isabelle to keep his mouth shut.
Isabelle’s gaze shot to his face and locked for a moment. Then she gave him a smile that made his heart clench and warm at the same time.
Catalina blanched and looked away. She probably didn’t like being reproved by the head of the Coven. Catalina was an extremely class-conscious type of person and he represented the head of the class itself.
“Why have you come, Mother?” Isabelle asked.
Catalina finally looked up into Isabelle’s face. “I came to see you, Isabelle. I wanted to find out if you were holding up all right.”
Isabelle took a step toward her mother and then halted. “Really?” Hope and wariness warred in that one word.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I do care about you, you know.” The words sounded genuine but were spoken awkwardly.
Thomas watched Isabelle shift her weight and frown, unsure how to react to her mother’s admission.
“I know I’ve made mistakes, Isabelle.” Catalina took a couple steps toward her daughter. “Maybe I’ve only made mistakes. One of the reasons I came was to find out if there’s a way we might be able to mend things between us.”
Isabelle shook her head. “I think I’m getting a headache. Did hell just freeze over?”
“Isabelle—” Catalina started.
She held up a hand. “We can deal with all that in a minute. What was the other reason you came?”
“To see if there was anything I was supposed to do as a result of Angela’s death.” The older woman glanced away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The funeral was months ago. Angela, what’s left of her, is in the ground. I’ve met with the attorney and all her affairs have been dealt with.”
