Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Michele Zurlo

  He mumbled something in a language she didn’t understand. Torrey wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he said. She knew he had enjoyed her body and he wasn’t finished with it. After four orgasms, she was fairly tired, but she had no intention of refusing him anything he wanted from her.

  And it had nothing to do with his pledge to find Riley. It had everything to do with a nagging bit of her subconscious trying to surface, to tell her something important about Shade. Torrey ignored it because she already knew there was something fated between them. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to have much more than a day or two to experience this transcendental journey with him.

  One hand traced a path up her thigh. Searing heat flared in its wake. He splayed his hand over the rounded part of her stomach. The move set alarm bells ringing in Torrey’s head. Did he hope to impregnate her? It would serve no purpose. She would be dead in less than two weeks.

  She didn’t have to wonder for too long because his hand moved again, stopping only to cup her breast. He pinched her nipple. The sharp sting stirred her from the languorous haze of pleasure that stole her energy, and it banished all thoughts from her head. She squeaked, but she didn’t smack his hand away. A flood of desire pooled low in her abdomen. She wanted more of his touch.

  As if he knew his effect on her—likely his advanced sense of smell informed him of the chemical changes in her body brought about by the pleasure he gave her through his rough touch—he rolled so that his torso covered half of her body. Torrey wanted to look at him, but Shade had other things on his agenda.

  His head dipped and he took the nipple he had just abused into his hot mouth. She purred, a kittenish sound that didn’t make it much further than the back of her throat, and her hands came up automatically to grip him hard and hold him close.

  His silky locks brushed between her fingers and curled around to tickle the back of her hand. She arched into him, but her moan turned into a squeak as he ripped her hands away from his head. One hand wrapped around both of her wrists and held them prisoner above his head.

  “Shade,” she protested. She wanted to touch him so badly.

  A warning growl was his only answer. He sucked her nipple harder. The sweet edge of pain made her buck against him. She didn’t want him to stop, but there was no way she could stay still for this exquisite kind of torture.

  But his growl reminded her of another hard fact. He was a werewolf, every bit as powerful as Seth had been. Shade was an alpha male, and he had claimed her as his female. The temporary nature of their relationship wouldn’t matter where sex was concerned. Torrey relaxed. She trusted him. She understood that he needed her to submit to him.

  Shade released her wrists. With his newly freed hand, he plumped the globe of her breast as his mouth sucked and stretched her nipple and his teeth grazed and bit the tip.

  Torrey’s hands came down, too. Wary of doing something he wouldn’t like, she avoided holding his head in place. She traced a caress across his broad shoulders and down his back. His skin was smooth and his body was hard everywhere.

  The tip of his growing erection nudged her thigh and he growled again. This time, he released her breast to turn the heat of his gaze on her face. “Torrey, I’m trying to go slow. I’m trying to be gentle. When you touch me, it drives me wild.”

  She swallowed. This was gentle? Make no mistake, she liked the way he touched her, but she would never have called him gentle. “I want to touch you, Shade. I want to know your true name.”

  She shouldn’t have asked that last question, but she couldn’t stop herself. She would need to know it in order to bequeath her powers to him when she died, but she didn’t need it now.

  Keeping his eyes locked to hers, Shade felt for the remnants of her shirt. With quick, deft hands, he fashioned slipknots and secured them around her wrists. “The more you pull, the tighter they’ll get.” He reached up and tied the other ends to a spindle on the headboard.

  Angling her head to look up at the bindings, she realized they weren’t very secure. She could reach the knots. It would be easy to loosen them and slip free. He hadn’t done this to keep her from moving. She would have help remembering not to touch him, but staying bound or going free was to be her choice.

  He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “Shaden. Nobody except my brother calls me that anymore.”

  Torrey nodded, accepting in that moment that Shade trusted her. His name gave her power over him. She wasn’t sure how to use that power, but he didn’t quite believe she was as ignorant as she claimed.

  He kissed her again, plundering her mouth with his tongue so that she had no choice but to submit to his passion. The desire simmering inside her was no less fierce, but she lacked the necessary physical strength to counter him. This was the first time Torrey had ever been overpowered by a lover and she was finding it a heady experience.

  She closed her eyes and relaxed. If he wanted to pamper her by doing all the work, she was going to let him.

  His lips moved down her throat. He nipped and licked at her pulse points, setting small fires everywhere he touched. Torrey moaned and turned her head to give him better access.

  One hand squeezed her breast. He teased her nipple back to a peak and pinched it until she gasped and arched. She thought his mouth would replace his fingers when his head moved down, but Shade had other ideas. He kissed, nipped, and licked the skin over her ribs. She hadn’t known how sensitive she was there until that moment. While he never abandoned her breasts, his free hand moved over her, exploring and claiming every square inch of her body.

  So many sensations bombarded her that she moaned in protest when he nudged her legs apart and shifted his body to lie between them. She was on fire for him, but she wanted more of his expert foreplay before he had her again.

  He made a soothing sound in the back of his throat that sounded like a cross between a purr and a growl. His fingers found her clit. He played with it, pinching and caressing the same way he manipulated her nipple. Torrey writhed, wanting so badly to hold onto him, to dig her nails into his muscles and to feel his muscles moving beneath his hot skin.

  The orgasm came suddenly, washing over her and sapping her energy. She didn’t know how much more she could take, and she had no doubt he wasn’t close to being finished with her.

  She cried out and her hips lifted from the bed, trying to get closer to him and to move his fingers down to her hole.

  Thankfully, he got the message. One finger slid into her dripping channel and came right back out. Two fingers slid inside and the next thrust brought three. Then they were gone. His caress moved down until, without warning, his cream-coated finger plunged into her ass.

  Nobody had ever attempted to touch Torrey this way. She hadn’t expected it from Shade. Caught off-guard, she bucked and screeched in protest.

  “Shhhh.” He whispered soothing words in her ear. She didn’t understand a word he said and she hoped it wasn’t a spell.

  “Shade!”

  “You’re mine, Torrey. Every part of you belongs to me. Calm down for a minute and just concentrate on the way it feels.”

  It felt weird. It felt foreign. It felt surprisingly good. His thick finger stretched her tight muscle, but it didn’t pinch or burn like she thought it would.

  Then it was gone.

  His face hovered over her. The early morning light filtered through her cheap blinds and fell across them in long, thin bars. “Tell me, Torrey. You liked it, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I—”

  Two fingers plunged into her ass. She arched, shooting into the air, trying to escape. It was a reflexive movement.

  “Relax. I would never hurt you, Torrey.”

  Relaxing was easier said than done. What he was doing felt good. Shards of pleasure spiked through her body, and cream gushed from her pussy. However, she wasn’t used to this feeling. She had no experience with it. She had no idea where it would lead.

  Slowly, she coaxed her body back into a compliant position
. He withdrew his fingers, but this time she was ready when he added another finger as he pushed his way back into her ass.

  The hand on her breast abandoned its position. He reached up and freed her hands.

  “Hang on to me.”

  She did as he commanded. Her fingernails dug in as Shade wasted no time. Positioning himself at her entrance, he plunged deep. His large cock stretched her pussy wide. The fingers in her ass only added to the feeling of being possessed and filled by him.

  He alternated the thrusts of his cock into her pussy with the thrusts of his fingers in her ass. Torrey didn’t know which rhythm to follow. The sensations overwhelmed her and she came, screaming his name.

  The orgasm went on and on, the pulsing of her pussy lingering even after he pulled out of her completely. Before she had a chance to ask why he hadn’t come, he pressed her knees as high and wide as they would go. She felt the tip of his cock at her back entrance. Her eyes opened so wide she thought her eyeballs might fall out.

  “Shade.”

  “Mine, Torrey. All mine.” He captured her mouth in a searing kiss and pushed against the tight sphincter guarding her ass. He used her own cream as a lubricant. After the way he had stimulated her, plenty was there.

  She made a concerted effort to relax that muscle. As soon as she did, she felt it stretch wider than it had when he fucked her there with three thick fingers. With a pop and a release, his head gained entrance. There was a little bit of pain. Torrey whimpered even as pleasure made her eyes roll back into her head.

  The act of subduing her accomplished, he released his hold on her legs and pushed himself completely into her.

  Sounds ripped from Torrey, animalistic, feral noises over which she had no control. Shade grunted and she knew it cost him much effort to not fuck her fast and hard. She also knew he wouldn’t be so gentle next time.

  He set a slow pace. Because he faced her and because her legs were so splayed, his body brushed against her clit with every thrust. The combined sensations drove her past the point of her previous climax. Bright white light glowed on the periphery of her vision. For a second, she thought it was coming from her, but the orgasm stole her sight too quickly for her to process what was happening.

  Shade’s shouts mingled with hers as his hot semen filled her ass. He withdrew, sliding out hastily as he shifted his weight and collapsed on the bed next to her.

  Torrey lay in silence, her hand over her heart as the organ’s beat pounded in time to the orgasm still throbbing through her body. As it subsided, blackness closed in briefly before giving way to a soft light. She was no longer in her bed.

  Caiden Quinn stood before her, an amused smile on his face as he looked at her. Torrey looked down to see what he found so entertaining. She was naked. Of course. If her mind was going to have a vision while her body was naked, why would it think to bring clothes?

  Embarrassed, Torrey crossed an arm over her chest and positioned the other over the thatch of hair hiding her pussy.

  He threw a robe to her. It was coarse, thick, and black, and it rubbed against her skin, but she had it on with a quick flourish. Somehow, it fit perfectly.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time? It’s easiest for me to call you when you’re relaxed.” Caiden’s knowing smile revealed he already knew the answer.

  “Call me?” Torrey looked around at the vast nothingness lit by the hazy glow. “You’re doing this?”

  “I assure you, Daughter of Circe, you do not yet have the skill to do something like this. Soon.” He came closer and lifted a hand. Gentle fingers tilted her face to his. “I chose well. You are every bit as beautiful as your mother. How is Hillary?”

  Torrey was blunt. “She’s dying. She has cancer.”

  Caiden’s grief was genuine, but he wasn’t surprised. “I sensed the sickness in her long ago. There was nothing I could do to save her, Torrey. There is nothing you could have done. I gave you as many years with her as I could.”

  If there had been a chair nearby, Torrey would have sunk into it. Caiden knew. He knew everything. “How?” She had no need to elaborate on her question because he knew.

  This time, Caiden’s smile was poignant. “Because you require me to know.”

  She tilted her head to the side, wondering what that could possibly mean. Caiden didn’t seem inclined to enlighten her. He seemed to enjoy her state of ignorance.

  “What is this ‘Daughter of Circe’ thing?” She opted not to mention she planned to be the main attraction at a werewolf ritualistic sacrifice. Likely Caiden already knew.

  He shook his head. “We’ll save that for later, after your wolf helps unleash your powers.”

  There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but she somehow knew her time with Caiden was short. “Why did you call me?”

  “Remove the medicine from your mother’s body, Torrey. It’s time to let her go.” His brown eyes were soft and sad. “Then go with your wolf. He will teach you, Torrey. You are his Hope.”

  Remove the medicine? How? Torrey opened her mouth to ask, to protest the directive, but Caiden was gone. She was home, lying on her bed next to Shade. The black garment Caiden gave her still enveloped her body.

  Shade’s legs were tangled in hers, and he was sound asleep. He slept facing her, on top of the covers, where he crashed after having sex, completely naked. Trapped in the urgency of his need, he hadn’t given her a chance to study his body.

  The black cotton shirt and the light denim jeans he’d been wearing hid nothing of his physique. Naked, he was just as long and just as powerfully built. Only the textures were different. Torrey knew the firmness of his hands on her body, and she knew the softness of his cock in her hand. She knew the strong male texture of his shoulders and chest, but that was all. He hadn’t allowed her time to explore his body.

  Though he had given her many orgasms, what he did was all about filling his needs. He had fucked her, purely and simply. Torrey wanted to return the favor, to touch him, to taste him, to ride him until they both passed out.

  Unfortunately, she only had twenty minutes to make it downtown to her job at the main branch of the Emerson Library.

  He didn’t move when she extricated her legs, and nothing in him flickered as she moved around the room, dressing for work. Not knowing what to do with the unexpected robe, she shoved it in her backpack and took it with her.

  She was only ten minutes late, and that was because her car was still in Rick’s parking lot, four hours away, forcing her to take the bus. Nobody noticed. Her shift was a short one, only three hours, too short to be allotted a break. With her mind preoccupied on how she might remove the medicine Seth gave her from her mother’s body, the time flew.

  Afterward, she walked to the hospital. Frank wasn’t in the room with her mother when she arrived. Hillary Quinn was alone with the beeps and the blips and the antiseptic odor that never quite smelled clean or fresh.

  She both liked and hated arriving to find her mother alone. Part of her didn’t want her mother to ever be alone, to be afraid. A more selfish part of Torrey wanted Frank gone so she could have her mother to herself. The square plastic cushion on the plastic-covered chair had been forced into a curved shape to fit the rounded back support. Dropping down on the uncomfortable furniture next to her mother, Torrey wrapped her hand around Hillary’s pale one.

  Their hands were the same size. They both had long fingers that managed to appear both strong and delicate. Torrey’s height and athletic build came from her mother. Though she had now met Caiden, she wasn’t sure what she inherited from him, other than her powers. The surreal quality of their encounters made it impossible to measure his height or his build. The shapeless robe he wore didn’t help, either.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Deep down, Torrey knew her mother couldn’t hear her no matter the volume of her words. “I really messed up.”

  A glance to Hillary’s face showed nothing had changed. She was pale. Her mouth was slack around the profusi
on of tubes taped in place, distorting and camouflaging her tremendous beauty.

  Suddenly, Torrey knew why she was certain her mother couldn’t hear her. Hillary wasn’t there. The body in the bed was nothing but a shell. A single tear tracked down Torrey’s cheek, followed by dozens more. Sobs squeezed her chest painfully, and she fought for breath.

  The arms that closed around her were strange and familiar at the same time. She accepted the solace offered without looking up. She cried until nothing more would come out. Numb, she let Shade hold her.

  Somehow, he was sitting in her chair, cradling her on his lap. She couldn’t recall when he arrived, or when he switched their positions, but her cheek rested against his chest, and she took comfort from his strength and nearness.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked. She hadn’t left a note. She meant to, but it slipped her mind.

  Lazy fingers caressed her hair, drawing it away from her tear-stained face. “Your scent was easy to follow.”

  She’d taken a bus. “You tracked me?”

  He nodded, never pausing the soothing strokes through her hair. “You were gone when I woke up. I wanted you again.”

  A reluctant chuckle escaped. He was so black and white. Wolves were simple, driven mostly by instinct.

  “I packed your things,” he continued. “I was going to bring you home with me. The man who took Riley lives closer to my house.” He watched her mother’s chest rise and fall to the rhythm of the machines pumping air into her lungs. “But I think it would tear you to leave your mother. I didn’t realize…”

  Torrey shifted, sitting up to peer closer at Hillary. “She’s not in there.” Her voice was gravelly and raw from crying. “The machines are keeping her body going, but she’s dead. Frank just doesn’t want to face it. Neither do I.”

  Shade’s hand played up and down her spine. “When my parents died, I avoided going into the room where their bodies were being prepared for burial. I was going to skip the funeral. A part of me thought that if I could just avoid seeing them dead, then somehow, they wouldn’t be dead. They’d walk through the door and Mom would yell at Soren and me for a dozen different things. Dad would stand behind her and roll his eyes, then kick our asses if we didn’t move fast enough to make Mom happy.”