Nightmare Ink

by Marcella Burnard

  She glanced at the dragon circling the room. It explored the recliner without any hint that it realized that Kelli Solvang had died there.

  Isa couldn’t bear to use the dragon as a guinea pig. She folded the pages and tucked them into the inside pocket of her rain jacket.

  “Okay,” she breathed. “I don’t know that magical critters need beds, but here.” She pulled a couple of ink-stained blankets out of a cabinet and piled them on the floor.

  While the dragon inspected the makeshift nest, Isa cast a circle, locking the creature into the room. It looked up when she closed the bubble.

  She couldn’t tell if she shifted into the etheric or if Murmur pushed her over.

  “Sleep,” she urged the dragon. “You’re safe here. I’ll be back. Okay?”

  Feathered whiskers caressed her left wrist.

  Fresh from Murmur’s healing demonstration, Isa pulled in a deep breath, closed her eyes in both worlds, and drew energy into her from every direction. The shadowed gold built at her center until it shone, and burned, like the sun. Picturing her wrist smooth as it had been before she’d cut her skin to feed the rogue Ink, she aimed her intent and released the pent-up magic.

  Heat seared a path through her chest and down her left arm.

  Murmur gasped. Pain? Or surprise that based on his excellent example she’d learned fast?

  The dragon twined around her etheric body, scales ringing.

  Isa opened her eyes. On both planes, only a smear of blood and magic remained on her wrist. The cut was gone. She returned to her body and closed her other sight.

  Grudging approval and maybe a smidge of admiration seeped from Murmur. He tried to scoop it up, to keep her from feeling it.

  She pretended the warm glow in her chest in response was a result of the magic she’d called. Rather than grounding, she released excess energy into the room for the dragon’s benefit. It burrowed into the blankets.

  She opened a door in the circle, let herself out, and then sealed it again before exiting the studio. She sealed the door and took the only key with her. She absolutely could not risk someone deciding to check out the studio.

  Yawning, she mounted the stairs, locked the basement door and set the alarm system again.

  Still no Patty in front of the shop.

  She’d forgotten all about the Live Ink high she’d ridden all afternoon and evening. Hunting the dragon had dulled the arousal burning in her blood.

  Murmur hadn’t forgotten. He wrapped around the pleasure centers of her brain and dumped hormones on the embers. Simple sensual awareness vanished in a roar of superheated lust.

  Isa squeaked in shock at the rush of moisture dampening her underwear. “What are you—?”

  If I cannot drag you down in nightmare, then I will make you live it.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Stop it! You still need me.”

  The dragon will make an excellent diversion. He played through a plan that called for sacrificing the creature while he closed in to kill Daniel.

  Isa’s breath caught on a sob.

  Did you imagine you were charming the monster? he taunted. Taking my apparent interest in other Live Tattoos so seriously as if we were partners? Equals? You are so gullible.

  She clenched her fists, sucking in bursts of needle-filled air.

  Play nice with the monster. Maybe he won’t rip your throat out, he mocked

  “You are a work of art,” Isa gritted. “Don’t make me destroy you.”

  He laughed. The sound carried the threat of vile, obscene pleasures and pain.

  She lurched for Nightmare Ink, then froze. She wavered, warring with Murmur for mastery of her body. The arousal racking her sharpened to pain. She doubled over and lost the fight for her motor control. He jerked her upright like a puppet. Spurring her to the street, he sent another rush of damp heat low into her body. He tossed her brain, coaxing forth her fears, and seized on the biggest.

  Intimacy. Steve.

  “No!” she snarled.

  Murmur delivered a punishing flood of hormones. She could barely breathe for the ache. “Not him! Not someone who matters!”

  Triumph surged from him.

  Isa refused to move. It wasn’t magic. She didn’t have the strength or presence of mind for that. Terror, maybe. The determination to spare Steve came from a part of her she hadn’t known until that point. She didn’t imagine that Murmur wanted to experience physical release through her body. He wanted to debase her, to break her, by hurting Steve. If he could shatter her mind like Daniel had shattered her hands, he wouldn’t have to kill her. He’d own her.

  “I gave Daniel my virginity years ago,” she wheezed. “I can’t stoop any lower than that.”

  It was why she couldn’t let him involve Steve. She couldn’t ever be good enough for someone like him. Not after Daniel.

  Growling, Murmur raked lust through her until she expected to be left shredded and bleeding beside the car. Her breath came in shallow, too-fast hiccoughs. The shrill of panic and denial inside her heart paralyzed her will.

  Murmur easily levered her into the car, yanked forth everything she knew about driving and, commanding her body, drove to a little house in Northgate.

  The damned Ink propelled her up the walk, heart pounding.

  “No. No. NO!” she wailed internally. Twisting in his grasp had no effect.

  Laughing, he stoked the fire in her system while he played through what to have her say or do to cut Steve the deepest after Murmur had thrown her at him.

  Gasping, eyes burning, Isa flailed in Murmur’s grasp.

  He snickered and rang the bell of the white cottage trimmed in dark green.

  “Don’t be home,” she pleaded. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Want racked her body. She thought she’d lose her mind. If she hurt Steve, or let Murmur hurt him, she would lose it. Funny that Murmur could accomplish in a night what six weeks of Daniel’s pain and deliberate cruelty hadn’t.

  Murmur recoiled momentarily. She didn’t have the brain cells to wonder why.

  The porch light winked on. Rumpled with sleep, Steve opened the door and did a double take. Hope lifted the shadows from his gray eyes.

  For everything Murmur had done to make her a slave to lust, it was that glimmer in Steve’s face that slammed the trap shut. She saw it and was lost.

  She threw herself at Steve and kissed him. Assaulted him, maybe.

  Murmur twitched as if surprised that she’d initiated the contact.

  Steve’s arms went hard around her, pulling her closer. He took control of the kiss and demanded entry into her mouth.

  Breath catching, pulse stumbling, she opened to him. He tasted like spring water flowing over moss.

  He backed into the house, taking her with him. One hand left her back. The door slammed. She heard the bolt run home before he pulled free.

  She uttered an inarticulate protest.

  “Wow,” he said against her lips, “great to see you, too.” He broke off, grabbed her wrists, and brought her hands between them to stare at them.

  “Your hands! Isa, what the hell . . .?”

  “Later. I need you now.”

  Murmur laughed as if delighted by the admission. He kicked another surge of lust into her middle.

  Desire and hope flared in Steve’s eyes.

  “Please!”

  “Easy,” he said into her hair, his hands smoothing the skin of her back. “We’ll take this slow.”

  The ache in her lower belly spiked, taking her breath with its intensity.

  “I don’t want slow,” she gasped.

  Steve pushed her away to arms’ length. Suspicion creased the downturn of his mouth.

  “Is this you or is this him?”

  No matter how crazed with lust Murmur made her, she wouldn’t lie to Steve. Especially
if she could no longer spare him Murmur’s machinations.

  “Yes,” she said, reaching for him.

  He released her and stepped back shaking his head. “No, Isa. I’d do anything for you, but not him. I won’t do this to you.”

  “He insisted on you,” she choked out through the tiny space of rage where she preserved her faltering sense of autonomy.

  It was the wrong thing to say. Steve jerked backward as if she’d struck him.

  Murmur laughed low. He deliberately thrust the image of him licking the primitive centers of her brain controlling the desire consuming her. The caress passed over the surface of her skin in a smoldering wave, touching every part of her that hosted Ink.

  Her knees buckled. Too late, Steve lurched to catch her. She crumpled to the floor. The slick moisture dampening her panties, jeans, and thighs surpassed mortifying. It had become ridiculous.

  “Tell you what,” Steve said, his voice simultaneously rough and pressed tight. “I’ll start the shower. We’ll get you in . . .”

  “Don’t make me beg,” she interrupted, staring at the olive carpet. “He’d love that. It’d be a hell of a crowbar if I did and you still sent me away.”

  Steve crouched to her level. She caught a glimpse of the regret pressing lines into his forehead and couldn’t bring herself to meet his eye.

  “Isa, I can’t take advantage of you,” he said. “Damn, I want to. Once upon a time, I thought I’d take you any way I could get you. But this . . .”

  The want in his voice gave her the courage to meet his gaze. Desire darkened his eyes. Anticipation of coming hurt hovered at the corners of his mouth. She lifted a hand to trace that line.

  His gaze searched her face, but he leaned into the touch.

  “He insisted on you,” she murmured. “Because this terrifies me.”

  He took her hand and pressed a kiss into the palm. “There’s no need. I’d never hurt you.”

  Nerves sparked from the point of contact all the way up her arm, nudging her heart rate up. “I know. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  He smiled. “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t weighed potential pain against getting inside your defenses,” he said. “I already know you’re more than worth it. No matter what happens.”

  Hope opened in her chest.

  Black anger swamped her.

  “We’ve annoyed the monster, I see,” Steve said.

  “Yes.”

  He grinned. It was different from anything she’d seen on his face before. Promising, sexy. A part of her Murmur hadn’t yet reached melted in response.

  Murmur growled in disgust.

  “He’s going to try to make me shock you,” she gasped out in warning as the tattoo redoubled his assault on her composure.

  Interest, tempered by amusement, sparked in Steve’s gray eyes. “Oh, I so look forward to being shocked. How does he feel about me bending you over the arm of the sofa?”

  Murmur envisioned her vulnerable, her genitals stretched and open, her backside exposed, Steve in the position of dominance. The tattoo recoiled.

  The picture tripped another surge of want that made her squirm. She drew a shuddering breath. It was her own.

  She wanted Steve. How long had she been suppressing that?

  Steve stilled, watching her face, waiting.

  “He hates it,” she whispered, reaching up to hook an arm around his neck to draw his lips to hers.

  He resisted, but the gleam of amusement in his face morphed to satisfaction. “What about you?”

  “Oh, yes, please.”

  Triumph fired through Steve.

  She felt it ripple through the muscles supporting her as he drew her into his lap and held her, her backside nestled between his thighs and his arms locking her right side against his chest.

  He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. No. He consumed her, feasting, taking his time, ignoring her pleas to hurry.

  Murmur returned with a vengeance, his anger scorching her synapses. He dumped a mental bucket of ice water over her. She shivered, but he’d driven her biology so far down the path of lust that not even he could overcome a system awash with hormones.

  His curse reverberated inside her skull as Steve stripped off her shirt, threw it aside and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth.

  Her back arched, and threading her fingers through his hair, she moaned.

  Murmur fought for control of the desire blazing in her belly.

  Already mindless in the grip of the pain Murmur had instigated and the pleasure Steve applied like a balm, she couldn’t hope to win that battle with her trespasser.

  Murmur shoved desire through her like a sword.

  She cried out.

  Steve climbed to his feet, hauling her with him. He pulled her to the couch, tugged open her jeans, shoved them down her hips, taking her sodden panties with them and urged her facedown over the cushioned arm of the sofa.

  Murmur raged against the position and ordered her body to fight.

  Helpless in the throes of biology, she couldn’t countermand him. She jerked upright, feeling like a puppet on Murmur’s string. She hated it. A cold tear slid down her cheek.

  “Oh, no,” Steve growled. He pushed her back down with a hand on her shoulder. The palm of his other hand landed hard on her bare butt.

  She jumped and squeaked into the cushions.

  “Do I have your attention, Murmur?” Steve demanded, running his palm over the stinging flesh. “Shut up, you got me? You made this bed. I meant what I said. You can’t have Isa. You just handed her to me.”

  White-hot rage exploded through her skin and blood and bones until she thought she’d pass out from the onslaught.

  As if he sensed it, Steve wasted no time.

  She heard the crinkle of a condom packet torn asunder. It hit the cushion beside her head. Empty.

  She had a moment’s warning as Steve settled himself against her. She was wet and engorged to the point of pain. Murmur had seen to that.

  Steve thrust home and shuddered against her.

  Drunk on overstimulated senses, she moaned, desperate to urge him into motion. She seemed to have misplaced the capacity for speech.

  Murmur railed at her to fight, to close off, to shove Steve away. Her desire-scrambled brain barely registered him as a buzz. Her entire awareness focused on Steve inside her.

  Running hands up either side of her spine, Steve tarried, as if savoring being buried in her body.

  “Hang on, beautiful,” he urged. “It’s going to be a rough ride.”

  He wrapped long fingers around her flanks and withdrew.

  She whimpered.

  He slammed home. Then he did it again. And again. Faster.

  The first orgasm caught her by surprise. She screamed into the cushions of the couch. The climax eased the ravening lust Murmur had engendered, but she still ached.

  True to his word, Steve didn’t pause. His grip on her hips tightened, and his thrusts came faster, rougher.

  Velvet brocade brushed her nipples with each impact of Steve slamming home. Sensation rose like a tide of ecstasy over her head. She drowned in it.

  Murmur dwindled as the swirling undertow of passion caught and subsumed even him.

  Steve slowed.

  She rasped a protest.

  His chuckle sounded diabolical. Who did he think he was torturing? Murmur? Or her? He slid a hand under her right hip to stroke her slick, swollen clitoris.

  She shuddered and gasped.

  Gently, he pinched the nub between thumb and forefinger, shifting his pace to long, slow strokes that took her breath away.

  When he rolled her flesh in his grasp, she came apart.

  Steve slammed home, rocking her with short
, sharp thrusts.

  An animal wail ripped from her as she convulsed around him.

  He groaned and locked his hips tight against her as he continued massaging her intimate flesh, prolonging the convulsions rippling through her until she could only get her breath in sobs.

  He released her and eased away. He helped her stand, then he scooped her up and carried her with him into his shower.

  “To think I offered you a latte,” he said once he lowered her legs so she could stand with him in the flow of warm water. “I much prefer your way.”

  Isa burst out laughing.

  Murmur froze, crouched and defensive, like an escaping prisoner caught in the sweep of a spotlight.

  What is that? A tinge of—was that jealousy?—colored Murmur’s demand. What is that?

  “It’s laughter, Murmur,” she said.

  “Why are you answering him?” Steve asked, picking up the soap and scrubbing his skin. “He doesn’t deserve your consideration.”

  “You don’t have to like one another,” she told them both, “but one of you is stuck with me . . .”

  “And the other one wants to be,” Steve said. “I’m here for you. Not him.”

  “Murmur is a part of me. I didn’t ask for him. He didn’t ask for me. There is no me without him. Not anymore.”

  Murmur started and pulled back the way someone does when he wants a better look at the whole of someone.

  She wondered if that worked from the inside the way it did from the outside.

  He steeled himself, tensing her muscles.

  What didn’t he want to feel? Or let her know he felt? Maybe, more to the point, he didn’t want to know what he felt, either. Or that he felt at all.

  “As for you,” she said aloud to Murmur.

  He lifted one of her eyebrows.

  “You’re stuck with me insisting that everyone respect you as they respect me.”

  Or don’t.

  “Or don’t,” she agreed.

  Steve ducked under the water, rinsing away the soap. She took the bar from him and washed.