His Witch To Keep (Keepers of the Veil)

by Zoe Forward

  He groaned and gripped the back of her head to get deeper.

  She gasped and pulled off him.

  He lifted her quickly into the air and pinned her against the wall, supporting her with a thigh between her legs. He lowered his head and pressed his open mouth to the skin of her neck.

  She chuckled. “Still can’t stand to lose control?” Her body arched toward him with a moan when he gently nipped her.

  Her panties-shielded core slammed into his cock. Alexi growled deep in his throat and bit down on her shoulder and rolled his erection against her. He was going to rip that cloth away. But first, a little tit for tat was called for.

  He slid one hand up her thigh and whispered, “Tell me what or who threatens you.” His other hand he slid to cup her ass. He kissed his way to her ear. Gently he bit down on her earlobe.

  She gasped.

  He ordered, “Spread your legs.” His hand slid beneath her panties, fingers parting her folds. She was so wet. So slick for him. A few strokes across her clit and she moaned. She pulled his head down to hers for a deep kiss. Her hand squeezed the nape of his neck as he increased the speed of his stroking.

  “I want you,” she whispered. “I can’t wait anymore.”

  “You will tell me.” He bent at the knees and lifted her into his arms.

  “First, tell me more about what you are,” she demanded.

  They stared at each other in a standoff.

  Finally she said, “Fuck me again. Then tell me later.” She rocked against his cock, eliciting a moan from him.

  He carried her into the bedroom. The few rooms of the apartment were dim, shadowy, and filled with stuffy, overheated air. The unassuming queen bed had been left partially unmade. He never left it unmade. Normally he’d care. Little details such as cleanliness and perfection drove him. This signaled someone had been in here. Someone sloppy or obvious. It could only be his brother. No one else could’ve gotten past his security system and then have the audacity to leave a big fuck-you.

  Right now, it didn’t matter. He’d future checked to ensure no one was here to attack them in the next little while. All that mattered was this spectacular woman.

  His knee dented the mattress, and the old springs groaned complaint as he placed her beneath him. His thigh nudged between her legs.

  Her hands fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer. She whispered, “I need you. Fast and hard. It’s been too long.”

  “I’ll give you what you need. But…” He kissed her hungrily and then pulled away when he drew a moan from her. “I can’t give you more than tonight.”

  Chapter Ten

  Serenity’s heart beat so hard and so fast that she wondered if he heard it. This man turned her on in ways she had never before experienced. She dreamed about sex with Alexi. Ached for it. In the past she’d taken any mission that might bring her near him. Even though she’d avoided him for the past few months, that need for him hadn’t diminished.

  He stared down at her, a myriad of emotions playing out across his striking face. Then he arched her back upward and unzipped the dress. It was off her body before her relieved sigh ended.

  He leaned back and removed his shirt, revealing his hard, cut muscles. The sight distracted her. She reached out to touch him, to trace the lettering across his chest. “What does it mean?”

  His head moved in toward hers. “It’s just a mark. An involuntary brand.”

  “Is it about you being a death—”

  His mouth slammed onto hers, cutting her off. A groan rippled from deep in her chest. He hooked his fingers over her underwear to peel them off her in a smooth move.

  Then he stretched her hands above her head, her breasts now close to spilling from the miniscule cups she’d used with the dress. His thighs spread hers. The hot length of him teased her naked sex. From her perspective of his broad shoulders, corded muscles, and powerful arms, he looked like he could break her in half if he wanted to.

  His lips latched onto her shoulder, and he bit her. She jerked when his teeth grazed her flesh. His tongue then lapped over the bite.

  She licked the exposed column of his neck. The salty taste of his skin exploded in her mouth. He tasted so friggin’ good. She felt bound. Helpless. She’d never wanted to feel this way until she met him.

  His green eyes smoldered as the only point of color on his face. He moved to contain both of her hands in one of his. With his free hand, he caressed her breasts through the bra. One flick of his fingers and her breasts spilled free, nipples hard and pointed. He leaned in and stroked his tongue across one of her nipples. Then he nipped. White-hot need funneled straight to her core. With a cry she arched her back off the bed.

  He wasn’t gentle, and she didn’t want him to be. His tongue lashed each nipple, bringing her to a desperate edge. She tugged to free her hands. She needed to touch him.

  Long moments later his head lifted, and he stared at her chest. “I know you seek long-term, but I cannot promise that.”

  “But you want to give me more.”

  “Do not put words in my mouth. There’s just now. There can only be now.” His lips moved back to her breast. He nipped at the side of one breast, his free hand moving to her hip. God, this was what she’d craved since the first time he’d touched her. He didn’t touch her like she’d break. He touched her like a woman who could satisfy the dark drive within him. “I know you want the future. You want everything. I don’t want to hurt you, if you have your heart set on happily ever after. That’s not to be my destiny.”

  “Now you’re putting words in my mouth.” She stretched upward beneath him, arched closer to rub against his erection seated so firmly against her. “All I want is you inside me.”

  His mouth returned to hers. His tongue stroked and curled along the length of hers. She wondered if she could come just from his kiss. She’d never done that, but what he did to her pushed her close to that edge. He teased by licking her lips, and then he gently bit her.

  Her head jerked back. She glared. No way would she submit. He chuckled, which just drove her pissed-off higher. She returned the favor and bit his lower lip. His hand tightened on the wig and jerked her back. The pins holding it in place had her head screaming, which somehow made her moan harder. He slammed his lips over hers and released her wrists.

  She raked her nails down his chest. He didn’t flinch. But she felt his lips curl into a sexual smile of acknowledgment.

  She loved this. There was no male irritation because she wasn’t submitting. Just hunger and challenge. She said, “I’m not giving in.”

  “I’m stronger,” he promised.

  She wanted to control the kiss, and that was what she fought for. His arms surrounded her, his head bending, forcing her backward against his powerful biceps. She shook and trembled, everywhere throbbing for him. Only him. Desperate groans of pleasure tore from her throat.

  “Just tonight. I’m going to fuck you until you’re out of my head. And then we’re over.”

  “We’ll never be over,” she vowed.

  He kissed down her neck to her collarbone.

  She said, “Us together will always be in your head. You can’t run from it.” Pleasure like this just didn’t go away. It tormented. She’d been plagued for months. She had to believe he’d been in the same hell as she.

  She smoothed her palms down his chest, running her hands along him. She closed one hand around his arousal. With the other she stroked his balls. His eyes darkened, pupils dilating so wide that the green disappeared.

  He halted, darkness overshadowing him.

  She bit her lip to prevent a full-fledged grin. She’d pushed him to his tolerance limit. Like her, it’d been too long since they’d been together.

  He pawed at the end table beside the bed. With a smooth upward roll he covered himself with a condom in record time. His lips slammed back onto hers.

  She tore her lips away. “Does that mean you bring a lot of girls here?”

  A low chuckle erupted from his ches
t. “You are so easy to make jealous.” He ran a hand down her naked side. “I like it.”

  Irritation crested. She struggled to get away from him, but he locked her tight beneath him.

  “As I said before, there’s only you. No one since Bulgaria. In fact, no one since Israel.”

  “What about Camille?”

  “That’s the past. The long-ago past. Now there is only us.” He kissed her.

  She pulled away. “I will kill her if I ever meet her.”

  “Sexy.” He elevated her hips and thrust between her thighs in one powerful move. So deep inside her.

  “Oh, God.” A momentary sense of relief at their connection swept through her, followed by urgency. She squirmed to inspire him to move.

  Then he did.

  She buried her hands in his hair. Her knees lifted and bent, clasping his hips as she dug her heels into the bed, seeking that perfect angle for each of his thrusts. He pulled her to the edge of the bed so he could stand. He raised her pelvis to his level and thrust harder. “Hold on to the edge of the bed,” he ordered.

  Stars illuminated her peripherals.

  “Say my name,” he panted.

  Wild hunger rocked through her, seared her senses, spiraling. “I know who you are.”

  His thumb slipped into the folds between her thighs to caress that hypersensitive nub.

  She tossed her head backward and thrashed.

  “Say it,” he ordered.

  God, she hated giving him what he wanted, but her body jerked as his thumb concentrated on that hypersensitive bud. She screamed, “A…Alexi.”

  “That’s my graži ragana.” Beautiful witch. His thumb disappeared. He cradled her butt slightly higher to hit that spot she’d been seeking. His breathing turned harsher as he hammered into her. “Damn you. Just for tonight, I will own your soul.” His gaze burned into her, glazed over with passion and torment.

  Her explosion detonated. She clung to him as he followed behind her. God, what an expression he had with his neck muscles straining and eyes squeezed shut. When his eyes finally opened, she stared into his hazed-out bliss. She clung to the desire for more time, which he denied, but she suspected he wanted.

  Lying face-to-face, Serenity touched the stylized letters on his chest. “Tell me about this tattoo.”

  His gaze cut to stubbornness.

  “Please,” she added.

  “Many have asked over the years…”

  “As in many women?” She instantly hated the faceless females who had lain like this with him.

  His lips turned upward. “I didn’t say that.”

  She scowled at him. “I don’t handle sharing very well. I sucked at it as a child and never quite mastered it as an adult.”

  He chuckled and brushed hair off her forehead. “It is dangerous…to know a lot about me.”

  “According to you, after the hotel tonight I could be linked to you, which is dangerous enough. I’ve been to the edge. I’m not afraid of dying.”

  His finger traced her earlobe, sending chills skittering down her arms. Softly he said, “There is a difference between not fearing death itself and being ready for it. Are you ready for death? Ready to give up everything?”

  She wanted this. Him. And wherever this was going between them. She didn’t want to give up living. “Are you threatening to kill me if you tell me about this?” She smiled at the cliché.

  “There are gods involved. Us together is complicated by the unpredictability of their intentions.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I am the descendant of a Pleiades goddess. I can hop to a different dimension. You don’t need to lecture me on gods and the bizarre.”

  “True.” He gazed at her for a long few moments and then released a long sigh.

  “This lettering…” She traced her fingers over the unfamiliar words in stylized lettering. It was raised like a brand instead of a tattoo. Yet it had colors of blue and red.

  “When my uncle died, this mark appeared on my chest.” He traced a finger over one of the most prominent raised areas. “I don’t know what it says, but I assume it marks me for what I am.”

  A god mark. Very cool. When she married, her destined guy would get a god mark. She wondered what it would look like. “Did it hurt?”

  “What?” His hand dropped away from the letters. He gazed at her.

  “Did it hurt when it appeared?”

  “Yes. It burned.”

  “Can you choose not to be a death reaper?”

  He shook his head. “Like you, we have little choice in this. It’s hereditary…the first son.”

  “It sucks. The eldest Pleiad descendant daughter inherits the curse to be the one that has the big gifts. I assume you know this, working for the OLM.” She ran her tongue over her lip scar.

  He traced his forefinger across the scar in the wake of her tongue. “It’s beautiful. A badge of courage. It drives me crazy.”

  “The healers always want to fix it.”

  “Why do you keep it, then?”

  She shrugged. “I like the reminder of what they did. Of what I lost. Forget it.”

  Darkness passed over his features. “Their time will come.”

  “Why are you working for those witch hunters? I can’t believe…how can you participate in what they do?”

  “Vengeance.”

  “For what? Me?” A seed of joy sprouted in her chest.

  He traced her lip scar. “You’re pasirinktas vienas.” A Chosen One.

  “What does that mean?” She narrowed her eyes, suspecting she wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “It means you have an important destiny. And I protect you as a part of my code. I am obliged to protect you. No one gets to hurt you. I had to learn what the OLM did to you to learn how to prevent it from happening to you again. And how to make them pay for what they did.”

  The seed of happiness in her chest withered and died. “So there’s nothing personal about your freaky stalking of me? It’s all about your boss forcing you to do this?”

  “I have few choices in my life.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “But Hades never forced me to protect you. I wanted to.”

  “What does a Chosen One mean to you? That I’m the descendant of a god, or something else?”

  “You are unique.” His face hardened.

  At this point she might as well return to her original question. Maybe she could get an answer. “What exactly do you have to do as a death reaper?”

  He remained mute. Another brick wall of stubbornness.

  She slow smiled and rolled on top of him, kissing along his jaw and down his neck. “Tell me about what you must do for Hades.”

  “It will not work. Serenity…” He ended with a hiss when her tongue circled his nipple and then she gently bit the peak.

  She treated the opposite nipple to similar attention. Then began a slow kissing descent, tracing her tongue over each ridge and depression. “If you won’t tell me what you do, then you being the eldest means, if you’re like me, you have to have children. At least one son?” Her mouth closed around his straining cock.

  He cursed in his native tongue.

  She paused. “So…if you aren’t allowed a relationship, do you leave some poor mother to raise your kid alone?”

  Hoarsely he gritted out, “No.”

  She raked her teeth down the side of his cock and then surrounded him again. She felt him swell. She pulled back and stared up at him in a silent demand for an answer. Finally she said, “I’ll get up and leave this bed right now if you don’t tell me how it works.” She ran a finger over his straining length.

  “They should hire you to torture people.”

  “You want my mouth on every other guy’s disgusting—”

  “No,” he snarled. His body bowed toward her when she licked him. “Fuck. The eldest son of my lineage inherits the duty but does not have children. No family for me. No kids. The duty to have the child successor falls to the second son, my brother.”

/>   “Nikolai? Why can’t you have children?”

  He groaned when she licked him. “The rules.”

  Such a lonely existence. “Hades’s rules?”

  He shrugged. “Rules are rules.”

  She took him deep into her mouth. He gripped the back of her head as his hips pumped his release.

  Afterward she rested her head on his abdomen and absently traced the lettering across his chest. “Why do you think the gods are throwing us together? I haven’t heard of god-descended families mixing. Well, I didn’t even know there were other descendants caught up in bullshit like us. There’s no way this…us…is random.”

  “I don’t know.” He ran a hand over her cheek. “I don’t like that.”

  “You don’t like the fact they threw us together, or not knowing why?” She propped herself on an elbow to stare at him. God, he had a beautiful body. All lean muscle and angles.

  “The why of it. I don’t regret. I only know what I was taught and what I have been ordered to do over the decades. I don’t think we’re supposed to be sexually involved. I suspect my only purpose in your life is protection. I don’t get forever. Only right now.” He traced her chin down to her collarbone. “Hades would never allow anyone but himself to control me.”

  Denial ripped through her mind to the point she almost vocalized it. But she needed what he said to be true, right? She needed to find proof they were not supposed to be together. And to break this bond so she could move on and find her right man. Why, then, did her gut clench in rejection of his declaration he didn’t get long-term? “I’m not allowed to be with you, either, at least not for the long haul. My destined is supposed to be druid, not…you. Everyone’s pressuring me to get on with finding my druid.”

  His gaze darkened, betraying the depth of his emotion on the subject. That pleased her. He might want more, too, even if his vocation denied it to her.

  She said, “I guess this is just a fling, then. Maybe a few days of heavy sex and then we’ll be bored of each other.”

  He leaned in and took her nipple into his mouth. “You believe that?”