Big, Bad Red

by Avery Flynn

  He yanked hard and the sound of shredding lace sent a shiver down her spine. The tattered remains of her panties fell away, leaving her bare and exposed under the skirt’s minimal length.

  “God, this skirt.” He stared at the gingham material with such intensity, Red couldn’t believe it didn’t spontaneously combust.

  She inched it up. Liam’s jaw hardened and his grip on her fleshy hips tightened. Another inch. He gulped, his eyes going from light blue, the color of the Caribbean Sea, to blue as dark as the deepest point in the Atlantic. Another inch. Every sinewy muscle in his arms bulged as he fought the same urges building inside her. She pulled the skirt up as far as it would go without showing her bare pussy. It wasn’t nice, but she wasn’t a nice girl.

  He growled; honest to God growled.

  “You don’t like the pub’s uniforms?” she asked, loosening her legs wrapped around his chest.

  Heady anticipation electrified the air. Desire seeped out from her core to her limbs, making her languid and ready for whatever came next.

  Rotating his hands from the outside of her hips to her inner thighs, he pushed her legs wide, the move sliding her to the middle of the table. He rose from the bench seat and loomed over her. “I don’t like other people getting to look at you in it.”

  He reached behind his head, grabbed the back of his shirt collar and pulled his T-shirt off in that signature male way. Lines of solid muscle and full-color tattoos covered his chest down to his six-pack abs and the V lines above his hips. There wasn’t an ounce of softness in him as he stared down at her, looking every inch the predator.

  But he needed to know, no matter how much slick need he inspired, she wasn’t prey. She slipped her fingers into her wet folds and rubbed, relishing the way he went rigid as she pushed herself closer to the edge. “How very territorial.”

  He came back to himself with a sexy smirk. “Werewolf, remember? It’s our nature.” He lowered his mouth to her core and blew a hot breath against her fingers. “Now it’s time to stop talking.”

  The world went dark the moment he slid his tongue against her wet folds, trailing over her fingers and around her clit. She shut her eyes tight. The sensations were too much, too intense, for more than one sense at a time. His fingers pushed past hers, sliding inside. Before she could adjust to the welcome invasion, he sucked her sensitive nub into his hot mouth and scraped his teeth gently against it. Color exploded in her vision as bright as a glimpse of the sun from the dark side of the moon. The magical force field, the love spell, the missing Caladbolg sword—none of it mattered at the moment. How could it in the face of the pleasure vibrating up her thighs as she arched her back and gave him a better angle to work his own kind of magic? The buzzing grew stronger and she strained toward it, knowing that when it hit her center, she was going to burst into a million pieces, and she couldn’t wait.

  She slipped her fingers away and sank them into Liam’s thick hair, pulling him deeper into her. So close. So fucking close.

  He made some sort of twisty move with his fingers that took her so high, her lungs forgot how to function before he lifted his mouth from her, leaving her teetering on the edge of orgasm. It took a minute to claw her way through the fog of lust. The Liam she saw when she opened her eyes was a stranger. Hungry. Hard. Hot. There wasn’t just a feral air to him, he was wild.

  “I want to be inside you when you come.” His fingers dropped to his zipper.

  Unable to wait any longer, she slapped his hands out of the way and made quick work of getting his pants open and halfway down his hips, revealing his long, hard cock already wet at the tip. She leaned forward and licked him clean. He sucked in a ragged breath and his hands fisted. She doubted she’d be able to take all of him in her mouth at once, but damn she wanted to try—next time. Right now, she needed him somewhere else. “Who said I couldn’t come more than once?”

  “Who said you weren’t going to?” He shucked his pants the rest of the way off and retrieved a condom from his wallet and rolled it on.

  Fates preserve her because she was going to hold him to that even if she spontaneously combusted during the process.

  He gripped her hips and pulled her to the table’s edge. Looking down at her, his face softened and he hesitated with the head of his cock at her entrance. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after tonight.”

  “When does anyone ever know that? We just have to work with what we’ve got.” She wrapped her legs tight around his lean hips and drew him forward until he filled her completely. “And tonight I’m glad I have you.”

  Whether it was her words or the feel of her surrounding him, whatever darkness that had made him hesitate evaporated. After that, they both gave up thinking. The whys, the hows, the what ifs—they’d deal with them tomorrow. For once the fates had thrown something good her way and she was going to grab hold of it with both hands.

  With each withdraw and thrust, the need grew, curling tighter in her stomach. She arched her back and he pushed inside her deeper, rubbing up against the bundle of nerves and pushing her higher. Colors danced on the edge of her vision as the vibrations took over her body. “Liam, if you stop now, I’m going to kill you.”

  The bastard had the gall to chuckle in the middle of fucking her into oblivion. “Oh we’re not even close to done yet.” He slid his hands under her ass, each finger digging deep as he lifted her so only her shoulders touched the table. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be done with you, Red.”

  He pulled her up and forward in his arms until she was boob to chest with him, her hard nipples rubbing against his pecs. Fucking while standing up had never been one of her favorite positions, but Liam was big enough and strong enough to make her feel secure. Then again, maybe it had nothing to do with his size, but with him.

  Holding on to his broad shoulders, she twisted her hips, bringing her clit in contact with his pubic bone. That was all it took. She climaxed hard and fast without warning, screaming Liam’s name as the world turned Technicolor and her muscles dissolved.

  One long, deep thrust and his orgasm hit. His entire body tightened and he squeezed her close as he buried himself to the hilt.

  “I need more time.” He whispered the words into the crook of her neck as he sank down to the bench seat, taking her with him.

  The urge to ask him what he meant hovered on the edge of her consciousness, but the need to know couldn’t compete against the warmth of his skin and the heaviness of her eyelids as she basked in the comfort she’d found in Liam’s arms.

  Chapter Seven

  The first light blues of dawn painted the sky outside Granny’s Pub and Liam sat fighting off the last vestiges of sleep weighing down his eyelids and slowing his breath. He refused to give in to it. Dawn would break soon, the streetlamps would flicker off, the magical force field bubble would pop, and the clock would count off the last hours of the love spell keeping Red tied to him.

  He should tell her the truth, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d had plenty of chances last night before he’d lain down on the booth seat with her draped over him like a blanket and his arms curled around her, holding her tight. Still, he hadn’t been able to say the words. Now his time with her was nearly up and he didn’t have the balls to admit it to her. What had he told Max the other day? That no one messed with a bad ass like him? Glancing down at Red, her eyes closed and her breathing soft, he realized just how fucking clueless he’d been.

  “If you don’t stop thinking so hard, you are going to disturb my beauty rest,” Red groused, barely moving her lips to get the words out.

  Liam swore he could hear a stopwatch ticking in the background and it twisted him up inside. It may not be no-need-for-a-spell love for either of them yet, but it could be—a possibility he hadn’t considered before meeting Red and couldn’t stop thinking about now.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not a morning person.” He kept his tone light, but the stiffening in her limbs said she’d noticed the undercurrent anyway.


  “What gave it away?” She cracked her eyelids and stuck out her tongue. “You thinking about how we’re going to track down Derry and get your sword back before you go forever furry?”

  Grabbing ahold of that excuse with both hands rather than admit what he’d really been thinking, he nodded. “Do you really think he’d take it to the king?”

  She sat up, the pinks and blues of almost-dawn highlighting her skin and giving it a warm, gossamer appearance, as if a photographer had worked hours to get the light just right and the camera focus soft enough to show her at her best. But Red didn’t need all of that. All it took to make her look perfect was her hair going haywire from spending the night snuggled against his chest, sleep creases that went from her jaw to her razor-sharp cheekbones and the upturn to her full lips promising a smartass comment was on its way.

  “Derry got something like a bazillion on his SATs, but he flunked the school of hard knocks. Twice.” She grabbed her phone and punched in some numbers. “I knew he couldn’t keep news like this to himself. Lookie here.”

  It took a lot to get him to turn his attention from the freckles across her shoulders that he’d tried to count last night after she’d had her fifth orgasm and onto the phone she held out, but he managed it. She had pulled open her Fairybook social media account and scrolled the latest updates in her newsfeed, stopping on one photo. There was no mistaking the man in it or the sword he held. Derry stood in front of the Royal Flush Toilet Emporium. A security guard stood off to the side, giving Derry the side eye while the big man stood in the bright glare of the building’s security light, grasping the Caladbolg sword’s hilt in his meaty paw. The timestamp above the photo listed the post time as four hours ago.

  Well, finding the big oaf asleep under the covers with the sword by his side would have been too easy. He did a quick scan of the photo. At least six armed guards stood post. Security cameras hung from mounts on the brick fence surrounding the complex. The gate blocking the entrance was as thick as Derry’s head and more than likely warded against magic.

  Red pulled on her shirt and he handed back the phone and squeezed his hands into fists, needing to do something that didn’t involve crushing Red’s phone into bits. “Do you think he got in?”

  “Yep. The king loves his son, pumpkin spice Oreos and weapons—not always in that order. All he had to do was spot Derry with the Caladbolg sword on the closed-circuit video feed and he would have let him through the castle gates and started negotiations to sell the sword to someone else or lock it up in a treasure room we’ll never find.”

  For once in his life, being a wannabe Boy Scout paid off, because he’d arrived in Dublin ready for just about anything. The saddlebags on his Harley were stuffed with enchanted daggers that always found their mark, sonic sounding balls that hit notes so high glass shattered, pixie dust for all of those unexpected moments when invisibility was the only option, and more. Add to that the arsenal he’d spotted in Red’s back room and it would take an army of bridge trolls to stop them.

  It wasn’t exactly how he’d like to spend his last guaranteed day with Red, but the only alternative was to surrender to the inevitable and go full wolf. If the king sold the sword, it would take more time than Liam had left to track it down again. “Hope you’re up to storming the castle.”

  A spit-and-vinegar grin transformed her face from the sleeping beauty who’d woken up in his arms to the femme fatale ready for battle. “Just try and stop me.”

  “Is that even possible?” He palmed her cheek and tilted her face upward, loving the way her breathing quickened and her eyes darkened.

  She blew him a kiss. “Not once I make up my mind.”

  He was hard in an instant, hungry to taste her and desperate to make her his without the magic binding them together. “I believe it.”

  A wet pop sounded as the bubble burst around them. Fresh air rushed into the booth, the cloying scent of magic and the malty smell of stale beer swirling around them. Golden sunlight filtered in through the window. Liam’s gut twisted. The tick-tock of the mental stopwatch grew louder.

  Red leaned up and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Looks like we’ll be finishing this later.”

  Damn, he hoped so.

  ###

  Red had changed out of her gingham skirt and Granny’s Pub T-shirt into form-fitting black pants with plenty of stretch and an equally tight and dark T-shirt. Liam had snickered when she’d strutted out of the pub, but if she was going to play commando and storm a castle for the first—and hopefully only—time in her life, she was going to dress the part. Ten minutes later they were hunkered down behind a reeking Dumpster, staring at a live-video stream on Liam’s phone coming from the firefly drone camera buzzing around above the Royal Flush Toilet Emporium.

  “See that?” He pointed to the unguarded door on the emporium’s roof. “They don’t think anyone can get there.”

  “And for good reason.” She leaned back and peeked around the edge of the Dumpster. Four armed guards stood at attention by the gate. Sentries were posted at intervals around the perimeter. Security cameras dotted the brick fence surrounding the emporium’s courtyard. Returning to her position thigh-to-thigh with Liam, she shook her head. “There’s no way to get to it.”

  He shot her a grin that made her heart shimmy. “There’s always a way.”

  “Oh yeah, and how’s that?” For a guy with a curse dangling around his neck, he must have lived a charmed life to still be so damn cocky. And hot. And talented when naked. And... Red reined in her drifting thoughts and scooted a few inches away from Liam to help in that effort.

  He pulled out a small, thin silver dog whistle and blew. Red didn’t hear a thing, but the air fluttered around them, beating against her and scattering the bits of trash that hadn’t quite made it into the Dumpster. A whump sounded, the ground shook beneath her feet, and the out-of-the-blue windstorm stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Peeling a fast-food wrapper away from her shin, she watched Liam making hand signals to the nearly deserted street.

  Squinting, she looked closer. Nope. Nothing there. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t turn around or stop with the hand motions. “Talking to Harold.”

  The pressure of trying to lift a curse that had been on his furry family for hundreds of years must have finally broken his brain. She kept her tone soft and friendly, “Okay then.”

  “Harold.” Liam tapped his left biceps three times then brushed his hand across his forearm. “This would go easier if she could see you.”

  Or if you weren’t imaginary. Red managed to keep from saying that out loud, but there was no doubt he could see it on her face. Then, the air shimmered and a hot-pink dragon the size of a minivan appeared in front of Liam. She scurried back until her ass hit the metal Dumpster.

  “This is Harold and he owns me a favor.” Liam waved a hand at the dragon so bright it could induce epileptic seizures. “He’s gonna fly us to the top of the roof. Once we’re inside, we’ll find the sword and get the hell out before the guards with the semi-automatics even know we were there.”

  “So we’re going to ride a bright-ass dragon into the Royal Flush Toilet Emporium complex, find the sword before anyone shoots us and then ride a dragon into the sunset?” It actually seemed even more ridiculous when she said it out loud—if that was possible. “Sounds legit.”

  He pivoted and stole a kiss as if it was his to take before tweaking her on the nose. “Sometimes you just gotta let your brain take a backseat to your gut.”

  Everything from her hair follicles to her toenails tingled. All from a barely there kiss. “I’m going to get that embroidered on a pillow when all of this is over.” Maybe she’d give it to him for his birthday, whenever that was, once they retrieved the sword and broke his curse.

  At that exact moment, when everything inside her was bright and bubbly and absolutely unlike her normal bitchy self, she realized she didn’t care if they broke the love spell. Maybe what was between them wasn’
t one-hundred-percent real, but it worked. It made sense in some crazy kind of way. For a girl who’d never had anyone, finally having someone felt really fucking good, and it scared the ever-loving shit out of her.

  “You don’t have to make that face.” Liam laughed and climbed up on the dragon. “Once we’re on Harold and he goes invisible, so do we.”

  His plan was crazy. Certifiable. Totally nutters. And she was going to do it anyway, and not because of the love spell that made her head pound like a pneumatic hammer when she was more than half a room away from him, but because she trusted him. It was a new experience that left her a little jittery. In the completely bizarre series of events that had started when she’d touched the Caladbolg sword, this stood supreme.

  He held out his hand. “You coming?”

  That’s when Derry’s laugh boomed through the alleyway. Loud, deep and sounding vaguely like a braying donkey. She didn’t have to look around the side of the Dumpster to confirm it was him.

  “So,” Derry said. “She’s been tied to this guy for two days now thinking that a love spell could actually work when everyone knows it’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo.”

  “I don’t know, my Grams swears they can work.” This from someone whose voice she didn’t recognize.

  “Oh yeah, they work about as well as using a Wiffle ball as a goldfish bowl. I minored in spellcraft and witchery, I know what I’m talking about,” Derry rambled on. “At most it’s a lust inducer and those expire after a few days. I’m telling you, without me helping her out, Red’s operation will fold. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Derry’s voice faded away as the two men passed through the gate. He was full of shit, telling lies to make him seem more important than he was. What an asshole. Shaking her head, she turned back toward the dragon, which smelled like cinnamon jelly beans, and Liam.

  The guilty look on his face cracked her chest in half. She’d trusted him. Let him in. Imagined the possibilities. All things she’d never done with anyone before. Ever. And the whole time he’d been just another lying bastard. After the way she’d grown up, she didn’t think she could break emotionally. She was wrong. The phantom pain squeezing her lungs and threatening to snap her bones in two defied description or comparison. It was pure agony and she’d done it to herself.