I laughed and looked him over. “Is that all the clothes you had in your cell?”
“Aye,” he said and regarded his naked torso.
We were both regarding his naked torso, but my gaze wandered from the tatts on his chest to his large biceps, noting the intricate rune designs that banded both.
“Interesting tatts,” I told him. “Have something to do with your magic?”
“Aye,” he said, giving me a funny smile. “Ye could say that.”
I eyed him questioningly. “What? And if you are a wizard … no wand? Or did they take it away from you? Do we need to retrieve it from them?”
“No, they didn’t, and m’wand is a part of me, though no one knows that—not even m’brother.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Francis began seeing Tanna, I got a bad feeling … so I took m’wand and made a mash of it with spelled ink.” He flexed his muscles and arched a brow.
“And inked yourself with it. The wand is a part of you!” My hands flew to my face. “Brilliant.”
“Would ye like to do the same? I can help ye with that,” he offered.
I thought about Ebony, so much a part of my hand when I performed magic. “I don’t know. I’ll ask Ebony and see what she thinks.”
He laughed. “Ah, ye have a rapport with yer wand, eh?” He shrugged. “Aye then, ask her.”
I eyed him. “In the meantime, we need to get you some clothes.”
Grinning wickedly he said, “Tomorrow, for I won’t be needing them tonight.”
I felt my entire body blush and turned away from his scrutiny.
Before I completed that turn, he was up and off his chair and had my hand in his large one. He pulled me in close. “What are ye afraid of, lass?”
“Your bite, and the after-effects.” I couldn’t believe I’d said that. I wanted to be with him, in his arms, touching him, letting him touch me. I honestly wasn’t thinking about a future in that moment—or at least not much. I was thinking of now, and the now was all about the electric sparks that sizzled between us.
His blue eyes sparkled, and that other-worldly me came to vibrant life. Yes, she and I, we both wanted him, and she—I kept telling myself—was me. I felt her take over, and there was no resisting who she was—who I was, down deep. Lyla had raised me as though I were a human witch, but the simple fact was, I was not human—not even close.
“Calico … yer eyes,” he said. “They are all a-glitter, like tiny diamonds, and in their center—”
“What … what’s in their center?” That surprised me. I had never seen anything but the glitter.
“A flame with m’name on it,” he said and crushed me in his embrace.
Primal need rushed through my senses. I had never felt this with anyone else. I melted into his kiss, taking as I gave. It felt as though an invisible cord from his heart seeped into my body and wrapped itself around my heart. Absurd, I know, yet it was what I felt. And that cord was zapping my blood with pleasure, so much rippling pleasure that I wanted to stay in his arms forever.
He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he said, “Lass, lass … what ye do to me … och lass.”
His kisses were unending and made my entire body burn for more. I was ravenous for his kisses, his touch … all of him. Everything—that world out there, ever threatening—receded into nothingness. It was only the two of us.
Who was I? My behavior in his arms was nothing close to who I thought I was, who I knew I was, and, yet, it was right. It felt so right. I had turned into a wanton savage, giving what he would take, begging for more of what he was giving, and with no thought to consequences.
I don’t know how we got back to my room, but I opened my eyes, pulled away from his sizzling kisses, and saw the bed. It was what I wanted, but there would be no going back … only forward from this moment on.
I know I didn’t take my clothes off. How could I? I was still wrapped around him, my legs still hiked on his slender hips.
But he was a royal wizard, wasn’t he? All he had to do was blink, and all my clothes were gone. Magic. Oh, I loved his magic. He was a force of energy in every conceivable meaning of the word.
He was naked and beautiful, and my body rubbed against his body as I slid down and felt my bare feet touch the carpet.
His voice burned through me when he said, “I want ye, lass … but ye need to know what ye are getting yerself into.”
“And what is that?” I answered and stood back to have myself a look at him from top to bottom. Oh yeah. “Just what am I getting myself into?”
He growled and whispered, “This.” And then he pulled me into his arms again.
His mouth murmured into mine, even as his tongue licked my lips, “Calico … lass, do ye feel it? Do ye feel the enchantment between us—like a thing apart, pulling us together? It’s not like anything I have ever known.”
I did feel it, but at that moment I was lost in a tumultuous sea of hungry waves, and they were lapping at me, taking me on a thrilling ride. That need overrode all other thoughts. His touch was my lifeline. It was all I wanted, and all I could answer was, “Uh-huh.”
He picked me up and laid me on the bed. This was what it meant, really meant to be hot for a man. You can’t think. Your body burns. Your thighs and tummy clench. You stare and need and whimper until your need is fulfilled.
He climbed onto the bed and straddled me. He ran his fingers over my lips, down my neck with reverence. Oh … oh, his fingers on my breasts drove me wild. I felt savageness take over my body as he flicked and teased my nipples, already hard and yearning. My sex clenched for him, for his touch, for his cock, and made me pump myself against him.
Damn, hot damn! His response to that made me lose whatever inhibitions I thought I might suffer. He worked me until I quivered from the top of my head right down to my toes. I arched my back, wanting more, needing more, and told him without reservation, “Now, Prince … now, take me now.”
Instead, he smiled a small, satisfied smile and stroked his erection. He murmured my name and said, “Ye want this, Calico love? Do ye then?”
“Yes, yes, damn it, now,” I told him.
I couldn’t stop my tongue as it skimmed across my lips. Reflex action, my body was in reflex action mode, responding to every single thing he did.
His cock was big and thick, and when it brushed against my flesh, I trembled all over.
He bent in close and nipped at my ears before he made a path down my neck with his tongue, with his lips, nibbling, nibbling, and then he cupped my breast as he prepared it for his tongue.
His shadow beard rubbed across my nipple, and then his tongue grazed it before he lapped at it harder and then sucked it in. His tongue did a lap dance over my nipple even as he suckled there.
He made sounds of pleasure, and those sounds rolled through my blood and made me shudder with passion. My thighs clenched, and I felt a pulsating need—one I had never really known before this big, hot prince had entered my life.
I whispered his name. “Brodie,” was all I could say.
“Aye, delicious lass, m’sweet beauty … m’own dear lass,” he answered me, and his husky, low voice swept through me like an electric surge.
He lips glided over my body, branding me his own with his kisses, and then his hands were at my thighs, parting them. The next thing I knew he’d scooped my butt up with his big hands to meet that talented tongue of his. And oh, the touch of his tongue and finger on my swollen sex sent me over the edge.
I made sounds I never knew I was capable of making with such intensity. Was that me? I was so damn loud. I grunted and shouted out, “Oh … oh yes …” and then I collapsed in a heap of shudders as he brought me to sweet release.
He whispered, “Aye, lass, let it go … aye.”
Even as his breath filled my ear, his finger worked inside me still. My body responded to him, and I turned into a mass of trembling nerve endings. I just wanted him to go on touching me forever.
I wanted more. I had never been a prude, but I had never envisioned I could be so abandoned with a man. I had listened to my friends talk about their sexual encounters and wondered … but now, oh holy hell, now!
He climbed back up onto the bed and put my hand around his erection. Oh my. He was big, hard, and dripping. “Would ye like to taste it lass? Would ye … now?”
I nodded. What the hell was I doing?
I did want to taste it. He put his swollen cock to my lips, and my first lick was tentative; the second, not so tentative. After that, I was licking the length of it as I squeezed my hand around him, jerking him into my mouth.
He moaned my name and pushed it gently but further into my mouth. As I sucked the tip of his dick and then took it in deeper, over and over, his voice became more frenzied and demanding. He was sexy as hell when he said, “Suck it, lass … och aye … like that … ye fine beauty ye.”
I saw his face as I did what he asked. I teased my tongue around the tip of his cock and then took it in deeper and then deeper still. I liked the look of pleasure on his face.
He growled and said, “Perfect, lass … ye are so damn perfect.”
He took his cock in hand, and I could see the restraint it took when he pulled out of my mouth and laid me just a bit roughly on my back.
“I need to fuck ye, Calico. I need to fuck ye now.” His voice was hoarse and hungry.
He spread my legs wide, and once again my butt was in his hands as he lifted me to receive his hard shaft.
In one, swift thrust he rammed into me and then just as quickly stopped. Stopped might be too mild a word: He froze mid-motion. Dead still.
He was inside me, but motionless.
I had felt the pain almost as soon as he drove into me and knew he had taken my virginity. But it was what I wanted. The time had come, and all I knew was that I didn’t want him to stop.
Blue eyes opened wide, and he moaned my name. “Calico … I didn’t know, lass … I … why did ye not tell me? A virgin … if ye had told me, I would have—”
“Would have what? Not made love to me? Hush now and finish the job,” I whispered. “I want you … so finish what you started.”
It was so true. I wanted him, more of him. I wanted this to go on for an eternity. In fact, I had made my decision. He was my one. He was the one I chose to give my virginity to. What happened tomorrow was for tomorrow. Right then, I wanted more of what he could give right then.
He kissed me softly on my lips. Then, hungrily and as his erection was still hard and huge inside me, he began to slowly, gently pump me full of his amazing self.
I worked him, meeting his thrusts until he realized he could move hard and fast, until he saw that was what I wanted, and then all at once I saw that elusive bright star and felt its heat grab hold of my body and rocket me into the dark sky. I reached for it all and, hell yeah, connected, and my entire body exploded with trembling satisfaction.
Relief came like an implosion that swept into every inch of my body and mind. It was different than the first climax he had given me. It was stronger and lasted it seemed forever as the aftershocks surged through me.
I shuddered, and my body jerked on its own all around his cock still inside me, still quivering inside me as my muscles clasped it, released, and clasped it again. He moaned my name and then said, “Ye drive me wild, lass, but I want more. I don’t want this to end.”
He pulled himself out of me, and I looked at him. “What … what are you doing?”
“I want to please ye every way I can. I want to please ye all night,” he said and turned me over, raising me into position by putting my palms and knees on the bed. He came at me from behind, and oh, my word, he slammed into me and pleasured me as he leaned over my back just enough to take hold of my breasts and tell me hoarsely, “I love yer fine tits, Calico … I love the way they look and feel and, hell, lass … I can’t get enough of ye.”
That did it for me. I reached yet another peak and burst from inside with such gratifying relief that all I could do was act feral and buck back against him as deep, primal sounds came out of my mouth.
As I did the grind against him, he called out my name and came inside me. “Calico … aye … aye … Calico …” he breathed as he held me tight and collapsed onto his back, pulling me with him, against him.
A moment later he was snuggling me to him, and then he said, “Ye know what this means, don’t ye?”
“Does it mean something more than what it is?”
“Och aye. It means, lass … ye are mine.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I laughed. “I am not yours like a piece of property,” I objected.
“Not property, lass … but mine all the same. Do ye not feel it? Yer heart is connected to my heart. Yer life is forever now connected to me, as is yer soul … to my soul. Do ye not believe such things are possible? Ye must feel it—we are bound, lass, bound.”
Feel it? Damn, but what I was feeling pounded through me with bull-stampeding power. Sure, I felt it. No denying that, yet this was all new to me. Bound?
I had never experienced the art of giving myself completely to a man.
I had never known what it was to have a real relationship with a man. He was virtually a stranger to me, though I felt as though I had always known him. How odd was that?
He was talking about being bound. Bound? Was that a good thing? I needed time to figure it out. So I just didn’t answer.
His kisses traveled over me once more, and that cock of his, ever hard, made a wet route over my body as he worked me into a frenzy.
“What do ye want, m’wee love? What do ye want, because I need ye to tell me,” he murmured hungrily as he nibbled at my flesh and made me tremble for more of him.
I wanted to talk dirty, and I knew, just knew that was what he wanted as well, so I told him, “I want you to fuck me now with everything you have in every position you can.”
He grinned. “Aye, little virgin wants it all … well then, shall we begin? Because that is what I am going to do, fuck ye, lass … and make ye go off all night and until ye say it—I want ye to say that we are bound and ye know it.”
Chapter Eight
I COULDN’T GET BACK to the abbey fast enough.
The village was only ten minutes away, but the drive back seemed like forever.
I had hurried into town for supplies and purchased clothes for my prince as well. I had to guess at his size, but I had a pretty good ‘feel’ for that.
I hadn’t stopped grinning all morning.
We slept late because we’d made love well into the early morning hours, napping in-between, only to start again.
I couldn’t believe his stamina.
I suppose it had something to do with his being a powerful, immortal sorcerer. That was what they called it in his realm, a land of sorcery and wizardry.
Home! At last.
I parked the car and ran to the front door. He had it open already and took me in his arms as though we had been parted for more than the hour I had been gone.
“Calico … I have to leave.”
The packages in my hands landed with a thump to the floor. “What? Where—what?”
“Ye know, lass, I have to go back. I have to prove my innocence and prove Tanna was lying. I can’t allow my people to think me guilty of killing m’own father. Ye must see that.”
“I’m coming with you,” I told him and put my head on his chest.
He put his hands on my butt and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around him. He said, “No, no, ye are not. I can’t put m’own dear-heart in that kind of danger.”
“You said we are bound,” I told him. “If that is true, I have to go with you.”
He squeezed me hard, and I returned the favor. He said, “But, Calico … I can’t do what I have to do while I am worry
ing about ye getting hurt.”
“Who got you out of that prison? Who, mister, who?” I snorted to emphasize my ability at supposedly unfeminine activities.
He chuckled and then leaned back to stare into my eyes. “Point taken, but even so.”
“Even so? What does that mean? Listen to me, Princey-Boy. I’m not a piece of fluff. You aren’t the only one fighting against dark magic and time. I know how to protect myself. I’ve been doing it for a while.”
He frowned. “And now, I’m asking ye what does that mean?”
I rested my head in the crook of his neck and nibbled there a moment. I still had my legs wrapped around him, and he pushed the packages out of the way of the door with his foot and closed it before carrying me to the library.
He sat with me wrapped around him. He was very agile for such a big hunk of male. I clambered over him and sat beside him. He took my hand and put it to his lips. “Right, then, tell me now what ye meant. What is it ye have to protect yerself from?”
I told him everything then.
It poured out of me like a faucet that had cracked open. Whoosh, it all came out. Everything. From the moment Lyla found me as a child to the moment Warren took over our coven. I told him everything, and he, bless him, listened. He didn’t interrupt. He simply listened to every word, and then I told him I wasn’t human, just like he had already surmised. I wasn’t from this realm but from another. Then he asked, “Is Calico yer real name, lass?”
Of all the questions he could have asked, he wanted my real name? I laughed right out loud and threw myself into his arms.
He held me so tightly and so comfortingly that all the problems I had seemed to melt into nothingness. I whispered. “Yes. I forgot to say a note was pinned to my clothes, and on it was boldly written … this is Calico.”
“Do ye still have the note?” he asked.
“Sure … it’s in my keepsake box up in my room. Why?” So was the letter Lyla had given me to read. With everything that had been happening I had forgotten completely about it.
“I’d like to look at it,” he said quietly.
“Why?”
Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More Page 52
