He held a hand out to her, pulling her to his lap when she took it. Sliding splayed fingers into her hair, he brought her lips to his. “You’re so incredibly lovely, Torrey.” The words fanned across her lips, as he intended, and she trembled in his arms.
The kiss he brushed across her lips was gentle, restrained. He didn’t want to rush this. She had to know how she affected him.
Shifting her, he repositioned her so that she straddled his legs. “Touch yourself, Torrey. Let me watch.”
Heat rose to her skin, staining it a delicate pink. She closed those beautiful chocolate eyes.
Shade lifted a hand to take her chin, tilting her face to his. “Don’t hide from me, Torrey. There is no part of you I don’t love. Give me this.”
She stared at him forever. He didn’t know what she saw, and he didn’t know he’d been holding his breath, but he exhaled for a long time when her hand came up to cup a breast.
Her palm grazed the nipple, pebbling that deep rose peak. Her heart beat faster, something his wolf sense had no problem hearing. He folded his hands over his stomach to keep them from reaching for her, from helping her out.
She watched him as she gave her other breast the same treatment. He didn’t attempt to hide his reaction from her. He knew the slits in his eyes were narrowing as the bulge in his pants grew.
Her breathing rate increased again, and a new wave of moisture pooled between her legs, making her scent that much stronger. He wanted to lift her until she knelt on his shoulders and lick away every drop of cream until she screamed his name.
But first, he wanted to see her make herself come.
A hand slid down her stomach, covering her mound. She shifted, spreading her legs wider and tilting her body back to reveal her most intimate folds. The taste of them tingled on his tongue, a remembrance from the early dawn hours when he had first transformed back and a powerful need for her had been the first thing to slam into him.
One finger flicked across the tip of her clitoris. A hiss issued from between her teeth. The point of the nub disappeared beneath its hood, hiding from stimulation. She chased it, pressing to the side, rubbing around it to coax it back into the open.
Her hand dipped lower, tracing a path between her clit and her hole. The blush on her chest returned, and her hips moved in time to the rhythm of her fingers.
Shade loosened his pants. He was going to rip them if he didn’t, and the pain was becoming unbearable.
The motion caught Torrey’s attention. The forgotten hand that still gripped her breast snaked forward. She wrapped it around his shaft. He closed his hand over hers to stop her movement.
“Not yet, honey. I want to watch you first.”
“I want to touch you.” The breathy confession did much to undermine his resolve.
“We’ll get to that,” he promised. “If you don’t take your hand away, we’ll get to that sooner rather than later.”
Her smile was downright salacious. “I want to feel you inside me.”
“Come for me first.” How he managed to keep his voice firm and steady was beyond him.
The reluctant easing of her grip brought him a measure of relief. The fingers exploring her labia moved with frenzied motions. Moans escaped from between her lips. Her hips rocked harder and faster.
The sight nearly sent him over the edge. A hand clamped onto his leg just above the knee as she leaned back and came. Thank goodness. His ability to hold out for much longer was seriously in doubt. Now he didn’t need to use that restraint anymore.
She didn’t tense or startle when he lifted her. Deep down, she trusted him. Her body accepted his touch, and her subconscious accepted his decisions. He settled himself on the long sofa and set her over his face. He had to taste her again.
He didn’t wait for her pulsing vagina to stop pushing out her cream. Plunging his tongue deep, he drank her essence. Her scent and her flavor filled his senses, and he was lost. The insistent throbbing in his dick forgotten, he fucked her with his tongue and fingers. He teased her with his teeth and tongue. He couldn’t get enough of this. He lost track of how many times her juices flooded his mouth, and she shouted her release.
It wasn’t until his wolf threatened to take over that he gave up his position. Flipping her to lie on the sofa beneath him, he plunged into her body. Her tight warmth welcomed him. That delicate sheath stretched to accommodate his larger size, squeezing and pulsing around him.
One hand slipped beneath her ass and held her to him. The other pressed against the cushion to keep the bulk of his weight from crushing her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down to crash his lips against hers. She opened him, licking and sucking her flavor from his mouth.
The mews and squeaks she made as she pulsed around him, pulling him deeper to cradle him against her womb, pushed him over the edge. They came together.
He rolled as he fell, taking her with him so that she lay on top of him. She clung to him as her body cooled, trembling in the aftermath of their lovemaking. He caressed her lightly, holding her close and pressing occasional kisses to her temple.
Her stomach growled, echoing in the silence.
She buried her face in his neck, but he only chuckled. “I’m going to start dinner. Is there anything special you want? Steak? Medium?”
Torrey smiled and shifted, pushing to her feet. “I’ll help,” she said, crossing the room to retrieve her clothes. “I don’t want you pawing through the cupboards and throwing around all the stuff I just put away.”
“That’s probably the best idea,” he agreed. “Unless you want everything to look even worse than it did last night.”
Torrey peppered him with questions as she scurried around the kitchen to find the ingredients and items he requested. He liked that she was more relaxed around him now. He wanted her to be comfortable.
“Why don’t you use glass-fronted cabinets? If you could see everything, would you still feel a need to take them out?” She placed a blocky cutting board on the granite countertop.
“It wouldn’t make a difference,” he said, neatly slicing a cucumber for the salad. Hope had loved salad. After she was gone, Shade found he had picked up a taste for it as well, though he liked it better topped with ham or sausage. “The compulsion is to empty the cupboard, or the drawer. It’s with me all the time. I lose the fight when I want a particular item and I have to actually go into a container for it. The compulsion disappears completely once everything is emptied out.”
She thought about that for a minute. “What about open cupboards? You don’t seem to have a problem with shelves. And you could put in a larger closet and hang up your clothes.”
It went on like that, with Torrey offering suggestions. Shade took her inquiries in the spirit she intended. Hope had tried to help him conquer his compulsion as well. At the very least, she attempted to help find ways to mitigate the urges. Finally, Shade pulled Torrey into his arms. The move was designed equally to bring her body close and to stop her questions.
“Torrey, I’m one hundred and sixty-three years old. There is literally nothing that hasn’t been tried. When my compulsion first set in, my parents did everything they could to find a way around it. My compulsion was especially bad because my father’s compulsion made him need to clean up the mess.” He laughed at the memory. It had been a pain for his father, and Shade had used his compulsion to annoy his father on more than one occasion. “They hired a servant to pick up after me. It didn’t stop me, but it did free up a lot of my father’s time.”
She blinked up at him. Then her eyes dropped to where her hands had come to rest on his chest. She blushed and picked at imaginary lint. “Why didn’t you just tell me I was being annoying?”
With one finger on her chin, Shade lifted her gaze to meet his. “You aren’t annoying, Torrey. I like that you care.” Before she could say more, he lowered his lips to hers.
The pressure of his kiss was light, but the meaning behind it was heavy. Torrey responded to the affection of
his touch, leaning closer to absorb the warmth and comfort of his body. When he ended the simple act, she stared up at him, a little dazed and a little confused.
One delicate hand drifted up to press against her lips, but she said nothing.
Shade lifted the corners of his mouth in a sad smile. “After dinner, I’ll take you outside so you can practice your magic.”
She was quiet while they ate, and Shade almost regretted kissing her the way he had. He hadn’t meant to shut her up. It wasn’t until he led her away from the house that she voiced the question that must have been whirling through her brain.
“Was it a charm?”
She had fallen behind him. He adjusted his long stride to match her shorter one. Looking back at his cabin, he said, “The charm on the house only prevents physical and magical violence. That’s why we have to go into the woods to practice. You would need to break the charm in order to cast any spell.”
Torrey looked away from him, her gaze peering around the tall trunks of naked trees. Fall had come and stripped the leaves away. The setting sun rendered the few bright colors on the ground a dull brown. “I meant when you kissed me.”
He stumbled, something he hadn’t done out of clumsiness since he was very, very young. “Why would you think that?”
She still avoided looking at him. “Because I…” Her cheeks burned crimson. “Never mind.”
He stopped her then, with a firm hand on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. “Torrey, you can say anything to me.”
Her eyes stared at the detritus material creeping up around her shoes. “I’m paying you to find my sister.”
“You’re not paying me,” he said.
The smile was small and sad. “Not in money,” she said, “but I’m definitely paying you.” Now she raised her brown eyes to meet his. They were large with regret. “I agreed to your bargain, Shade. You wanted me. I’m here.”
Tense with trepidation, he waited, knowing there was more.
“I knew what I was agreeing to do when I said I would come here with you.” She swallowed and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “I knew what you wanted from me. You were very clear about that. You don’t have to pretend to feel something you don’t, and you don’t have to try to fool me into thinking I feel something I don’t feel. I prefer honesty.”
The words hit Shade like a fist in the gut. He reeled from the force of what she implied. When he told her he wanted her, he never meant to coerce her into thinking she had no choice but to barter her body for her sister’s safe return. He had simply wanted her.
“I didn’t mean…” Oxygen wasn’t obeying his attempts to breathe it in. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I never meant for you to think you had to sleep with me in order for me to find Riley. If you had refused me, we would still be here, Torrey. I would still be searching for Riley and I would still teach you magic. You’d likely spend time fending off my attempts to seduce you, but I…”
He ran a hand through his shaggy black mane of hair. There was no good way out of this bind. “Damn. I’m sorry.”
She stared at him for a full minute without changing expression. The sun rose and set in that time. Finally, she shook her head. “Then why are you helping me?”
How could he answer that and retain his credibility? How could he tell her she was the woman he loved and lost when she didn’t remember a single thing? He struggled to find an answer for too long. She turned away from him, heading deeper into the woods. Night had fallen too completely for her human eyes to be able to see where she was going, though Shade could see with perfect clarity.
In less than a second, he caught her, caging her in his arms. He pressed her back to his chest and dropped his head to her shoulder to hold her close. “Please don’t be angry with me.”
Something in his tone grabbed her attention. Maybe it was desperation. “Is it because of Hope?” she asked. “Is it because I remind you of her, or is it because she was sort of a sister of mine?”
Shade inhaled deeply, memorizing her scent. It wasn’t the same as Hope’s. That was something he would never have the occasion to smell again. Torrey was the future. She asked for honesty. He wasn’t sure she could handle complete honesty, so he settled for something in the middle.
“You are like Hope in some ways, but you’re different in more ways than you’re alike.” Lifting his head, he turned her to face him. “At first, I agreed to help you because of her, because she would have wanted me to help you, but that’s not why I’m helping you now. That’s not why I’m going to teach you how to fight a werewolf. That’s not why I refuse to give you to Soren.”
Hope, fear, and more fear flashed through her eyes. “You can’t refuse.”
“I will kill him before I let him harm you.”
She stared at him. “But he’s your brother.”
It would kill Shade slowly from the inside, eating at him until there was nothing left, but he couldn’t let Soren take her from him. Not again.
Shade’s nod was brief, and he didn’t feel the need to explain himself. He knew she understood his conflict but not his decision.
Turning her toward the east, he bade her raise her arms, palms up. “Call the power of nature to you, little witch. Let it build up inside.”
She struggled for a few moments, and he knew it was because she was debating whether to pursue her line of questioning or to give in to his directive. The dormant magic that sputtered and sparked the previous evening roared to life. He watched as her aura turned from a glow to a blaze.
“You used force against me last night,” he said, careful to keep his voice a whisper. Interrupting a novice witch’s concentration wasn’t a wise move. “Do you remember the position of your hands?”
Torrey’s eyes focused on her hands. Energy streamed to them, concentrating there. “Palms facing out,” she said with a brief nod. “I pushed you.”
Shade jerked his head in the direction of a large white pine twenty feet away. The circumference of the trunk was about four feet. Branches full of needles ringed the top near the forest canopy. “Push it over.”
He felt her hesitation. Destroying nature went against a witch’s nature. “I’ll help you restore it when we’re finished.”
With a brief rotation of her wrists, Torrey changed from peace to force. The tree lifted from the ground, ripped from the roots to hover in the air. Slowly, gently, it fell to the ground with a minimal disturbance of the surrounding trees.
Torrey’s arms dropped to her sides. “I’ve never done anything like that before. The feeling, the power… It was incredible.”
The skill she displayed after only a day left Shade speechless. He wondered if Daughters of Circe became more powerful with each pass through life. It might explain why Hope was willing to die. Perhaps she knew she would come back stronger.
Pushing away thoughts of the past, Shade nodded in the direction of the tree. “Replant it.”
Concentration showed in the strain on her face. She turned her palms skyward to draw more power. The massive tree trembled, and so did Torrey. He wanted to reach out, to lend his strength, but he held back. After all, there was nothing he could do to increase her power.
He watched, silently urging her on.
Chapter 10
Torrey felt like rubber. The ligaments and muscles holding her knees in locked position gave way. She collapsed to the ground. Shade made no move to catch her.
At first, his inaction irritated her. How could he have shown such affection and care for her all afternoon as he prepared dinner and talked her through the basics of spell casting?
Then she realized she needed contact with the Earth. If Shade had kept her from touching the ground, energy wouldn’t be flowing through her, replenishing what she used to rip the tree free without damaging the roots and lay it down gently.
The spell itself was nothing she hadn’t already known. Showing her how to call forth the power to accomplish the feat had been the key to activating her powers. Sh
ade had done all of that, just as Caiden assured he would.
Heat invaded her body, beginning with her shoulders. Shade’s large hands rested on each one. He rubbed her tired muscles.
“How are you feeling, little witch?”
From the beginning, he’d used it as a term of endearment. After reading Hope’s diary, Torrey knew it was his term for her. She wondered what Hope had looked like, and she wondered if she reminded him of Hope. Did that explain why he was helping her? Did he mean her to be Hope’s replacement?
“Torrey?” Concern edged his question.
Turning to him, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m okay. That was draining. I don’t think I’ll be able to put it back tonight.” She stared over her shoulder at the fallen tree. Closing her eyes, she reached out to it. Tingles rushed through her system, carrying messages from her senses to her brain and assuring her the tree would survive while she recharged. “It will be alright until tomorrow.”
Shade followed her line of reasoning. “It might take a few days for you to recharge, little witch. What you did tonight was spectacular and it took much from you. There is no shame in needing to rest after expending so much energy.”
Something shimmered on the other side of where the tree had been. Its width had blocked the sight before. Pointing to the reflection, she tugged on Shade’s shirt until he looked where she wanted. “What’s that?”
A cocky half-grin lifted one corner of his mouth. “That, little witch, is a spring-fed pond. Would you like to swim? The water would do you much good.”
Though his arms were around her, and his heat flowed into her, Torrey shivered. “It’s the end of October. A little cold for swimming.”
Shade shook his head as he released her. “Trust me, Torrey. I’ll keep you warm.”
She took the hand he offered. It enveloped hers with searing warmth. The temperature in the mountains, under the canopy of the trees that blocked the earth from absorbing heat during the day, was decidedly cooler than it had been next to that little stream they watched the night before. Now that the sun was gone, so was the ground’s feeble attempt to radiate heat energy.
Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 12
