by Kathryn Moon
Bryce was pacing the grounds in front of the library like a an overgrown wildcat and froze as we approached. Isaac spoke to them as I swayed in place and then we were all walking. Or Bryce and Isaac were walking and I was floating along despite feeling like a lead weight.
“Did Callum charm me?” I mumbled to Isaac, and he pulled me into his side.
His hand spread out over my back and he hummed. “He has a tendency to do that.”
“I think it’s all that’s keeping me upright at this point,” I said. Although the cold air kept my eyes open at least.
“I was going to carry you but I thought you might be mad,” Isaac whispered and then, even quieter, added, “Bryce would do it if you asked.”
I snorted and it turned into a cracking, panicked laugh. Isaac squeezed me and Bryce glanced over their shoulder at us.
“We’re going the wrong way,” I said, suddenly realizing we were walking in the opposite direction as the campus staff houses.
“Sorry,” Isaac said. “But Callum would have a fit if you weren’t with us tonight…we all would, really. We have a guest room you can use. And the four of us won’t fit in that little house.”
Thinking on it, I didn’t really want to be alone in my house either. And their home had felt warm and beautiful and magical and safe. “I want to use that massive bath of yours,” I said as we got close to the house.
Isaac’s lips brushed my temple. “That can be arranged,” he said.
Bryce took a deep sniff of the air as we reached the house, back tight for a long moment, their lips parted slightly. Then they relaxed, turning to us and nodding.
“Thank you, Gast,” Isaac said. Bryce passed him with a sideways glance and then stepped up to me and left a dry hot kiss to my cheek. There was a funny smell in the air as they left and Isaac pulled me inside.
“What is Bryce?” I whispered as the door closed behind us.
Isaac grinned, weary but bright, and looked at me. “Would you believe me if I said a dragon?”
“Yes,” I said.
He chuckled and shrugged. “It’s only a rumor but I believe it too.”
We were smiling at one another and then my chin was wobbling and my eyes were stinging. Isaac’s smile sagged and I was folded up in his arms with my hands clutching at his back.
“What was it? In the library?” I whispered against the skin of his neck where I pressed my face and the tears that were spilling.
“We don’t know yet,” he rasped. “Callum’s been tracking it, but this was…it’s bigger than he thought. We’ll figure it out. Everything will be okay.”
Except that someone had already been killed.
16. Joanna
It occurred to me, watching Isaac fuss with the faucets of the tub with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, that I had never seen him look nervous before. He was fidgeting and his knee was jiggling and he hadn’t looked me in the eye since we’d walked into the bathroom. I was too tired to be nervous or self-conscious, and still too shaken to be alone. We had stood together in the entrance for a long time before he’d remembered my request for a bath.
When Isaac cleared his throat for the third time, sitting on the edge of the tub, I started to unbutton my blouse.
“Will you join me?” I asked, deciding I could settle the matter.
He looked up from the water filling the tub and blinked at me and then at the peek of my plain gray slip.
“Are you sure?” he asked, rising.
“Yes,” I said, tugging my arms free of my sleeves. I winced at the smell of my clothes, the sour sweat and bitter burn of the events of the library.
He crossed the tile as I left my shirt on their sink counter. His hands folded around my bare shoulders and I sighed at the touch as he bent and kissed the skin next to his thumb. “I don’t want you out of sight,” he said, almost a whisper with the roar of water behind him. “But if it’s pushing or…”
“I’m asking you, Isaac,” I said raising my hands to wrap my fingers around his wrists. “I want you here with me.”
He lifted his head and we were kissing, something between comfort and desire. I found the buttons of his shirt with my fingers, which were still shaking, and his hands circled the waistband of my skirt, content to hold me there for a long moment before releasing the zipper. Our lips parted and we watched each other as we finished, him shrugging out of his shirt and letting his pants fall to the floor as I pushed the straps of the slip off my shoulders and tugged it down my waist.
Isaac was built like the men at home, with wide shoulders for tossing hay bales in the wagon and narrow hips to suit their wives tastes. But he was refined as if he had studied the chiseled statues of men in art and become one himself. His eyes were pale as he tracked the path of the slip down to the tile, and then traveled up again, slower, to my face. He was wearing a faint smile and nothing else and I mimicked him. Studying the cut lines of his stomach, the dark hair between his legs and the length of him stirring there. His legs were lean and strong and I imagined fitting him between mine, the way we might twist together.
“Come here, love,” he said, words rasping like a touch on my skin.
It was only a step or two and then he was warm against me, our stomachs and chests brushing together and my breasts aching at the contact. Our gazes locked, noses bumping and I twined my arms over his shoulder. His hands spanned my back and travelled down to my waist and then over the swell of my ass, cupping underneath. I could feel him growing against me at the same lazy pace of his smile.
“The tub will overflow,” I said. There was a dull ache left lingering at the back of my head, and now a pleasanter one growing in my belly.
Isaac’s smile stretched and quirked and then he lifted me up in his hands and carried me over to the tub. I bent my legs up as he climbed in and we both hissed at the heat of the water before sinking down, letting it flush our skin. Isaac stretched a leg out in front of us and switched the water off with his toes as I settled at his side. The heat and steam clung sticky but warm enough to burn away some of the fog in my head.
“I can’t tell if I’ve just been seduced or vice versa,” Isaac murmured, scattering kisses over my nose and forehead.
“Haven’t even gotten that far,” I said and he made a small choking sound in surprise.
I turned in the water, stretching my legs out to bob behind me, and studied the planes of Isaac’s stomach and chest with my fingertips and the line of his jaw with my teeth and lips. He gave me a moments head start before gripping at my hips to guide me over him, then pushed my knees apart with his. His hands skirted the back of my thighs, traced a line behind my knees that had me squirming closer, my breasts resting just below his chin and the sensitive skin of my sex teased against the narrow trail of hair leading down from his belly.
His head was resting back against the rim of the tub, eyes closed and teeth gleaming in a narrow smile as I scratched the back of his neck and tried to soothe the growing itch in my skin with small shifts of my hips. As if I could find the satisfaction and keep it secret from him. He nuzzled his face down into my wet skin, nosing at the arch of my breasts while his palms squeezed me closer by the backs of my thighs.
Just as I thought I might start to beg for more, his lips parted and his mouth latched onto my breast just above a nipple. The pull drew deep into my skin and down into my belly, making me throb and cry out while his hand slid forward, fingers teasing where I wanted them most. I tugged at his hair in response and he released me, a red mark blooming on my skin where his mouth had been.
“That’s better,” I said, looking down at him, as he set his chin on my breast bone to gaze up.
“What would help?” he asked, hand cupped between my legs and fingers pressing in soft pushes against my folds.
“More,” I managed, ducking down to swallow his laugh.
There was more but at an idling pace as we floated in the tub, hands and lips mapping a terrain of touch, guided by hitched breaths and hums of plea
sure. Isaac’s hands travelled more than I wanted them to, always returning back to my core to build me up and then move on again before they had finished their work. I repaid him in kind but he seemed too patient, too happy to be turned weak and moaning at my explorative touches and then denied again.
“You’re teasing,” I said, panting slightly. Isaac had me arched back over the edge of the tub, tracing his tongue below my breast and across a rib as his thumbs stroked right at the inside edges of my hips. The pressure was beautifully stirring and yet nowhere near enough to satiate me.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. He rose up on his knees, his cock brushing between my legs where I wanted him and our stomachs sticking together.
I braced myself up on my elbows and we stared at one another for a long moment. His lips had just started to twitch, and he was about to pull away when I called the game to an end.
“No more teasing,” I said.
His eyes darkened and then he was pulling me up out of the water and out to the bath mat. “Do you want to see your room or mine across the hall?” he asked.
Guest room, I thought, correcting him. But I busied myself by fitting closer against him, nipping up his throat to his ear and feeling him groan against me. A warm towel wrapped around us both, doing a perfunctory job of drying away the water and then he had me scooped up in his arms.
“Closest,” I managed, still tasting at his skin.
The hall was cool and we were half laughing as he crossed it in a great rush. A door swung shut behind him and then my back was on a soft mattress and I was pulling him down with me, our bodies pressing heavier together without the buoy of the water around us. His skin was hot on mine and his kiss was deep, tongue seeking and stroking and licking. My legs were hanging off the bed and my hips were arching up, nudging and begging against his.
“Joanna,” he groaned, and an arm burrowed beneath my back to hold me tight against him. His pelvis pressed to mine and my head fell back with a sigh, relief and need pooling together at the pressure. “We should slow…” he started, mouth panting wet breath against my neck.
“Not for my sake,” I whispered. He chuckled but his back shook under my hands for a long time after the sound.
The library, I thought, and I placed a hand between us and pushed him back. His face was dry but the lines were deep on his forehead.
“We’re safe,” I whispered.
His breath came out unevenly and he pressed back down, lips just barely set to mine. “I want you to remember what you did tonight the next time you’re thinking you don’t belong with us,” he whispered. “We would not have made it out of the library without you.”
I didn’t think that could be true and I wondered what he had seen. What the destruction I had seen the end of had looked like in action. I was ready to pull him down to my side, to curl up together and let the night be made of up of a different kind of closeness, when his fingers found my center again, one digit dipping in while his thumb swirled over my clit.
“Is this better?” he asked, pushing up on his free hand to look down between us to where he was touching.
My breath caught in my throat as I tried to answer him.
“I need you,” he said, and when my head rolled to the side he pressed a kiss at the corner of my jaw by my ear. “If you’ll have me.”
I laughed at that, turning my face back and pulling him down to me, sucking at his bottom lip and fumbling a hand between us to wrap around his cock. My hips were rolling into his touches, a fluttering heat building in my core and spreading out like waves lapping under my skin. His mouth travelled down my neck, pausing at my pulse and groaning into my throat as I squeezed and slid my hand over him.
I’d had lovers growing up but they’d been brief relationships with couplings to match. Isaac pressed a second finger inside me, crooking them gently and the stretch and angle was better than anything anyone had tried before.
“I-Isaac, yes.” My legs stretched wider, feet bracing at the edge of the bed and Isaac’s thumb swirled again as his head ducked down and his lips wrapped around my nipple.
With a pull of his mouth and a deep stroke of his fingers my body was turning loose and tight all at once, my mouth falling open and broken words falling free. The tug at my breast vibrated with Isaac’s hum, the rhythm matching the pump and twist of his fingers, the circling pressure of his thumb, all of it a rising pressure building in my bloodstream. I was rocking into his hand, begging without instruction. When Isaac pulled back, his teeth scraping at too sensitive skin, and the pressure broke apart. My fingers clutched at the sheets and my voice cracked and a spiraling flying feeling flooded through me.
Isaac’s fingers pulled away before I wanted them to and then he was pushing in, smooth and deep before I could come down from the high. My feet lifted and wrapped around his back to hold him tight and still against me, studying the full feeling as I adjusted to the gentle burn of him inside me. The hair at his groin brushed against my swollen clit and I whimpered as he ducked down, kissing at my closed lips.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, and his arms framed my shoulders, fingers digging into my curls.
My skin was still at a simmer, limbs soft and relaxed and I loosened the grip of my legs around his hips. I skimmed my fingernails up his back, scratching lightly and hiccuping a moan as he shifted deeper.
“Your turn,” I said, kissing at his chin.
His eyes narrowed and a smirk curled at the corners of his mouth at that but instead of speaking he sipped at my lips. His hips rocked in shallow, soft thrusts that stirred the remains of my orgasm. My thighs squeezed and I rolled in closer, trying to stir him into action but he only kept his pace and alternated slow teasing kisses with pulling away to nuzzle and watch my face.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, grinning and sliding my hands to clutch at his ass and try and gain control.
He grinned back. “You’ve had very lazy lovers,” he said.
Which was true, I supposed. And with little spikes of heat growing in the stretch and push of where we were joined I could guess his aim.
“What if I wanted to watch you fall apart this time?” I asked. I scratched up his spine again, a little harder, and noted the way his hips kicked in response. But he was watching my face and caught the flash of aching pleasure that snap sent reeling through me.
“Trust me, love,” he said, breathless and half-laughing. “You will.”
He drew back farther that time, thrusting in deep and quick. My back arched and my eyes slammed shut and there was something like a chuckle or a groan from him. One hand slid down from my hair to the base of my spine and he lifted me there, holding me just so, every push landing his hips against me. I could feel the head of his cock high inside me, tapping at a spot that left stars in my eyes and my brain turning to liquid.
“Isaac,” I said without meaning to, voice high and pleading.
“Does it feel good?” he asked, and at least he sounded strained too.
“Please don’t stop. Please.”
He hummed and then his other hand came down to my hip, fingers fitting between us just so. Not teasing or scraping but only pressing.
“I would do anything you asked, Joanna,” he whispered in my ear and I moaned. “Especially that.”
I couldn’t answer, the feeling inside of me was deeper and tighter than before and it stifled any thinking but the need to hold tight to Isaac. My fingers dug into his shoulder and my legs crossed at his back even as he plunged with longer, deeper thrusts. I was cresting higher but I could not break, only cling and I didn’t have the words to beg for relief. Isaac was pouring sweetness into my ears, praises that were turning into pleads as his strokes broke rhythm. His fingers rubbed, gentle and quick, between my legs and I shattered.
