“Then I’ll just have to convince you,” he said, sliding his fingers into her slick channel.
She arched her back, thrusting her breasts high, and he leaned forward to take a jutting nipple into his mouth. She moaned as he stroked her, his finger caressing her clitoris. He sucked on her breast, drawing her nipple deep into his mouth, letting her scent swirl around him. He closed his eyes, feeling his cock harden painfully as she writhed against him. He toyed with that secret pleasure spot between her thighs, swiping over her nub and away, only to return to it over and over. Her breath caught and he could feel her muscles tightening.
“I love you, I love you,” she panted.
He nipped at her breast playfully and growled softly in satisfaction as he felt her tremble, her orgasm washing over her and feeding his own desire. He lifted his head from her breast and rose up over her. She looked at him, eyes alight as she rolled him over onto his back, surprising him with her strength. She leaned an arm on his chest.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
* * *
Lucien’s eyebrow rose in a sexy arch, his eyes glittering with desire. “You can tell me anything,” he said, a sexy smile curving his lips.
She smiled back as she leaned forward and kissed his nipple, licking it before nipping at it lightly. She felt him shudder beneath her and she trailed her fingers down his gorgeous chest. He really was a stunningly beautiful man.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” she asked as she watched the muscles on his ridged abdomen dip and ripple at her touch.
“Uh-huh,” he nodded, then closed his eyes as she trailed her nails across his navel to grasp his hard length. He was so firm all over. He could be so determined, so focused... She slid her hands along his length, enjoying the feel of his silken strength. She reached for one of his hands, entwining her pinkie finger with his.
“Pinkie swear?” she challenged.
His eyes opened and he curled his finger around hers. “Pinkie swear.”
She gently forced the claw out from her index finger and lovingly raked it over his nipple. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in pleasure as she repeated the action.
“Null blood doesn’t work on me,” she whispered, drawing her claw back in and returning her attention to his lengthening cock.
He frowned, as though it was hard for him to focus. “I don’t understand,” he said and then hissed as she leaned down to kiss his length. She gripped him as she met his eyes.
“My original transfusion had a little null blood,” she reminded him, a knowing smile curving her lips. “Full-strength null blood is like a virus for me. My body fights it off like an infection.”
She took him into her mouth, enjoying the sound of his moan. “You...you knew?” he gasped finally.
She nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” His hands twisted in the sheets as she played him with her hands and lips.
“I love the way your mind works,” he said in a sensual sigh. His stomach muscles clenched and then he reared up, grasping her and pulling her over his body, rolling with her and entering her in one smooth, slick motion.
Her eyes widened at the sensation, the feel of him stretching her. He moved his hips against hers, his eyes on hers as he touched the deepest places within her.
“Forever starts now,” he whispered.
She nodded, unable to speak with all the sensations bombarding her. If this was forever, she’d take it, thank you very much. Her eyes closed as he rocked his hips, thrusting against her with increasing force. Tension coiled inside her and she writhed beneath him, meeting him thrust for thrust. Panting, she opened her eyes, enjoying the sight of his washboard abs rippling as he moved, the bulge of his biceps. She slid her hands up his arms, her nails raking his back as she climbed higher and higher to that summit she knew was waiting for them.
She reached the peak and tipped over, muscles clenching at the tide of bliss that swept over her, and she cried out at the sheer ecstasy in Lucien’s arms. He cried out, head thrown back, as he reached his own pinnacle, and she had a few mini explosions as he gradually slowed.
He lowered himself to the bed, sweeping her into his arms so that she was nestled against his body. She traced her hands over his chest, sighing in pleasure. Right here, right now, for the first time in her life, she felt truly, wholly connected to someone. With that sense of intimacy came a confidence and security she could only associate with family. She stretched up to kiss Lucien on the lips tenderly, then met his intent gaze.
“I love you,” she said softly.
“I love you,” he said right back, leaning down to kiss her just as tenderly. He slid his hand along her back and cupped her butt. She lay her cheek against his chest and smiled. True and utter contentment.
Lucien’s hand continued to stroke her hip and butt, and she snuggled up against him, surprised to feel some movement between them.
“Natalie?” His voice was husky and laced with humor.
“Yes, Lucien?”
“Can we start forever all over again?”
She chuckled as he rolled her over, kissing her as his hands stroked her body.
“I can see forever could be a very, very long time,” she said, smiling as he kissed her neck.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I’m hoping,” he said, and then there was no more talking as they made love in the light of the setting sun.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE WITCH AND THE WEREWOLF by Michele Hauf.
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The Witch and the Werewolf
by Michele Hauf
Chapter 1
Feet floating up so her toes peeked out of the frothy bubble bath, Mireio Malory wiggled the little pink beads as she sang to the music filling her bathroom. She sang along with the Meghan Trainor tune about loving herself and not having time for a man because she was all about having fun. A fitting theme song for Mireio at the moment.
Guys were great, but she didn’t have the time to focus on a relationship if her plans to achieve immortality came to fruition. A simple spell could prolong her life a hundred years, guaranteed. But to actually perform that spell—which involved drinking the blood from a live vampire’s beating heart? She’d been avoiding the spell for years, but she couldn’t do that anymore. It was time to honor her departed mother, and to take back her power.
Baths were a common ritual for her in the evenings, after a long da
y of work at the brewery, or after she’d flexed into a few yoga moves and watched an episode of Bones on Netflix. Born a witch, yet pretty darn disappointed she’d not been born a mermaid, Mireio honored her water magic by feeding her body’s innate craving for water. Surely she owned the biggest bathroom in the city. It was hexagonal, tiled like a Moroccan temple and the big round marble bathtub sat at the center of it all. It was the size of a hot tub, but there were no bubble jets in this tub beyond the sensory explosions from her homemade bath bombs.
Singing loudly, she blew a handful of bubbles skyward and laughed when some landed in her pinned-up red hair. The water was starting to cool, and she’d been in for forty-five minutes. Her fingers and toes were pruned, providing her traction—if she were an amphibian. Or a mermaid.
With a reluctant sigh, she rose from her watery haven and reached for a toasty towel hung over the towel warmer. It wasn’t the wet porcelain tile floor that almost caused her to slip upon exiting the bath—it was the scream.
And a very familiar scream at that.
“Really?” Mireio wrapped the towel around her ample curves and padded wet tracks to the back window to peer out, though she knew she couldn’t see into her neighbor Mrs. Henderson’s yard from here. The windows were also fogged.
She often mentally compared her neighbor to Mrs. Kravitz, the nosy neighbor on the 1960s TV show Bewitched. They didn’t look at all similar, but they possessed the same snoopy, and unwelcome, curiosity and annoying voices.
Yet another scream, this one curling the hairs on the back of Mireio’s neck, prompted her to use the side door in the bathroom that walked out onto the patio.
Pushing open the screen door, she leaned out into the cool spring air and scanned her backyard. It was close to midnight, yet her yard was always illuminated from the house light above the door where she stood, and the dozen solar lights pushed into the lawn at five-foot intervals that framed the backyard.
Suddenly something ran into view. A deer? Wildlife always dashed through the neighborhood yards. Raccoons, beavers, deer, once even a black bear.
Mireio stepped out onto the bamboo patio rug, holding the screen door open with two fingers. She peered into the night, thinking her species, witches, had gotten ripped off because they didn’t have cool night vision like vampires and werewolves. Suddenly an animal stopped, twenty feet away, in the middle of her yard.
She recognized the creature with an ease that made her heart sink.
“A werewolf,” she gasped.
Removing her hand from the screen door to put her fingers to her mouth, she suddenly felt a cool breeze skim her bare skin. More skin than should have been exposed. The towel had gotten caught in the door and fallen away, leaving her standing naked beneath the house light, unable to form words as she met the werewolf’s golden gaze.
The creature, who in fully shifted form was half wolf, half man, thrust back his shoulders and lifted his chest, looking ready to howl. But when his gold eyes dragged away from hers and down her body...
Mireio tried to cover herself as she actually said, “Eek!”
The wolf snorted and a low growling noise rumbled in the night. It didn’t sound threatening. In fact, to her it sounded...amorous.
Mrs. Henderson’s scream sounded again. It was the catalyst to setting the werewolf off in a dash out of the yard.
Released from the spell of the creature’s piercing gaze, Mireio grabbed the door pull and opened it, reaching for the towel and quickly wrapping it around her body.
Just in the nick of time because from around the corner of her backyard appeared a policeman, and in his wake, Mrs. Henderson.
“Did you see it?” Mrs. Henderson, wrapped in a thick white terry robe, scampered over to the patio, the ears on her bunny slippers bobbing.
Tugging the towel up higher and this time clasping it firmly, she stood before the elderly policeman, whom she knew lived on the other side of Mrs. Henderson. Mireio nodded. “Uh, yes?”
“I told you!” Mrs. Henderson slapped the policeman’s back, who shrugged and winced. He was accustomed to answering Mrs. Henderson’s cries of wolf at all hours of the day.
But had this been a true cry of wolf? Best not to let humans know that.
“It was a deer,” Mireio hastily tossed out. “Or maybe a moose. Yes, I’m sure that’s what it was.”
“A moose?” Mrs. Henderson jammed her bony fists to her hips. “It was Bigfoot!”
“All right, all right,” the policeman said, placating his neighbor with a pat to her back. “Miss Malory here says it was a moose. She’s got very good eyesight, and her backyard is well lit. So if she says it was a moose, I believe her. Let’s go home now, Mrs. Henderson. Leave Miss Malory to...her bath.”
To his credit he didn’t eye her blatantly, only tipped a nod to her and turned Mrs. Henderson around, walking her back to her yard. All the way they argued over why a moose would be wandering through the tulips when it had very obviously been Bigfoot.
Mireio stepped inside the bathroom and closed the door and locked it. She peered out the now-defogged window, attempting to sight the werewolf. Perhaps spy a wolfish shadow backlit by the moonlight.
Whispering a protection spell to encompass her yard, she sent it out with a blown kiss.
Why had a werewolf been wandering through the neighborhood? That wasn’t common. Too risky. And it wasn’t even the full moon. Werewolves were much smarter than that. They knew to stay away from humans when shifted.
“It was a good thing for him I scared him off.”
Mireio winced. She had scared the wolf away with her naked body? Not one of her finest moments.
On the other hand, that look it had given her. Definitely animal, but also...maybe kind of...sexual.
She shook her head. “You’re a silly witch. Just be thankful you didn’t flash the whole neighborhood. Ha!”
The music now blared Taylor Swift. Dropping her towel, Mireio performed a hip shimmy as she reached to drain the tub and then blew out the candles one by one, blessing the water goddess Danu as she did so.
* * *
Three nights later, Mireio stayed late after her shift at The Decadent Dames. She and her three witch friends owned the microbrewery in Anoka. Mireio was the master brewer. They all brewed and worked shifts and took turns scheduling, but Mireio was the early riser, so she generally arrived around six in the morning to start the day’s brew and finished about an hour before they opened in the afternoon. Today, she’d gotten a late start so had finished the brew hours after opening.
A local band that covered current pop hits was set up before the front windows and the house was packed. At the moment, the lead singer belted out a cover of Meghan Trainor’s “NO,” which was an anthem to a woman not needing a man.
Singing the chorus, “Untouchable, untouchable,” Mireio danced by herself amid the crowd on the dance floor, arms thrust high and hips swaying her short red-and-blue-tartan skirt. Nothing felt better than a beer buzz and dancing. And she had new, red, five-inch heels to break in, so much dancing was required. Tossing her bright red corkscrew curls over a shoulder, she let out an exhilarated hoot.
Eryss, the brewery’s principal owner, danced up to Mireio. She and her boyfriend, a former witch hunter who lived in Santa Cruz, California, split their time between cities during the year and soon she’d be headed for the sunny West Coast. Her friend’s long skirts dusted the hardwood floor and she grasped Mireio’s hands and the twosome danced for a few seconds.
“You look happy,” Eryss said over the noise.
“I am! I’m always happy!”
“It’s contagious!” Then Eryss leaned in to speak close at Mireio’s ear. “Did you notice the hunk at the bar who has been eyeing you up fiercely for the last ten minutes?”
“What?” Mireio abruptly stopped dancing and glanced to the
bar, which was fronted by rusted corrugated tin in keeping with their rustic theme. She scanned from the left end of the bar to the right, and there at the end a big, beefy man with a mustache and beard, and long brown hair tied behind his head, lifted his pint glass to tip toward her. Handsome. “Huh.” But. “Didn’t notice. I’m in my zone, don’t you know?”
“Yeah, I got that. I wish I could find the zone so easily nowadays. Whew!” Eryss blew a strand of long hair from her face. She had a six-month-old at home who lately had been keeping her up nights because of teething. “But don’t be too untouchable tonight, okay? That man is sexy times two.”
“Don’t tell me that, Eryss. I’m not in the market for a—Oh, my goddess, he’s coming over here.”
“Then I’m going to leave you to him.”
“No! Eryss!”
The man pushed by two people and deftly avoided a bull terrier sitting beside his owner’s table. (Yes, the brewery was dog friendly.) He was halfway across the room.
“Please don’t be a creeper. Please don’t be a creeper.” Mireio performed a hip swinging turn and he stood right before her. “Oh!”
Big brown eyes looked into her soul almost as deeply as if he could do a soul gaze. Of which, only witches were capable. And no one in town knew the owners of The Decadent Dames were witches. Well, mostly no one.
“Oh, hey,” she offered.
Eryss had been right in her assessment of the man. But more like sexy times infinity. His dark brown hair was tied behind his head and his beard was trimmed neatly to reveal a snow-white smile. Chocolate brown eyes? Dreamy. Dimples? Oh, mercy. And he smelled like a forest after the rain.
“My name’s Lars.” He leaned in to be heard over the music. “I don’t normally walk up to pretty girls and introduce myself.” He looked aside briefly, then cast his eyes toward hers for only a few seconds. Nervous? “But there’s something about you. Do I know you?”
“I’ve never seen you before. Unless you come to the brewery often. I work here,” she said, unable to keep her hips from swaying to the beat. “You like to dance?”
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