by Khloe Wren
I couldn’t help but laugh at her throwing my own question back at me.
“Yeah, Bri. That’s what I’m telling you.” I kissed her briefly on the lips. “I love you more than life, lady. You’re mine.”
Then I grabbed the bottom of her shirt and lifted it, nearly tearing the material in my rush to get it off her. Once I had her bra off too, I lifted her while she giggled and tossed her onto the mattress before attacking her pants, pulling the leggings and panties off in record time.
As I finished stripping out of my own clothes, she reached out hands toward me, her eyes begging me to hurry the fuck up. Seconds later I was crawling up the bed until I was over her, caging her smaller frame under me. She loved me. This amazing woman actually fucking loved me. Fuck, I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been that she didn’t reciprocate my feelings until she’d uttered those sweet words just now. I needed to hear them more than once.
“Say it again.”
My voice had gone deeper than normal and she responded with a wide grin and a mouthful of sass.
“My man’s so needy.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down until I was close enough that I could feel her breath against my lips.
“I love you, Spark.”
With a growl, I crushed her lips under mine, desperate to devour her. Claim every inch of her. I kept kissing her, stroking my tongue in to dance with hers until she was whimpering and squirming. Only then did I pull back to grin down at her.
“Fucking love you, rohi. So much.”
Grabbing her right leg, I hitched it up over my hip and lined my cock up with her slick heat. Once I had the head lodged in her entrance, I looked up to lock our gazes.
“I’m claiming you, Brianna King. From now until the end of time, you—” I thrust all the way in on one stroke. “—are mine. Forever.”
Her back had arched up when I’d slid inside her, but she hadn’t looked away from me. Now I held still, waiting for her to say something. To respond in some way to my claiming.
“Yours. I’m all yours. And you’re mine. Forever.”
Her eyes glossed over with tears but before I could do anything about them, she tightened her leg around my waist and tilted her pelvis up, grinding against me. The sensation of her slick, hot channel tightening around my shaft was more than I could resist, and I pulled my hips back to start a rhythm of long, slow strokes as I made love to my woman. My heart and soul.
Brianna
As much as I loved how Spark was staring into my eyes while he made love to me, he was killing me with the slow way he was moving inside of me. I needed him to increase the pace, to touch me with his hands, his mouth… I needed more. Shifting my legs, I gripped his shoulders and shoved until he rolled to the side then over onto his back. With a grin, I pressed my hands against his ribs and got my legs situated into a comfortable position. He rested his palms on my hips.
“My turn on top.”
As I started to shift my hips, sliding up and down his thick length, I wrapped my hands around his wrists, moving them until his palms covered my breasts.
Smirking, he thrust up into me as he began to knead the flesh he now cupped.
“You want me to touch you, rohi? Want my hands on your sexy body?”
“Uh huh.”
Putting my hands back on his ribs, I swiveled my hips and he hissed and tugged at my nipples in response.
“Fuck…”
He let me keep control over our lovemaking for another minute before he sat up with a growl. In one move, he ran a hand up my spine to support my weight as he forced me to lean back so he could lift a breast to his mouth. Wrapping my arms around his neck, my whole body clenched when he sucked then bit down on my nipple.
“Hmm. Do that again, Bri. Fucking love it when you clench around my cock like that.”
He shifted to the other nipple, giving it the same treatment as I clenched around his shaft as tightly as I could. He groaned again and released my breast from his mouth. As he moved his hand to wrap around the back of my neck, he shifted to gaze directly in my eyes. The moment our eyes locked, he pulled my body down so I took him deep inside me, and he slid over my g-spot, making me groan in pleasure. He then stopped holding me down so I could slide back up his length, setting a cycle in motion of him pushing me down and me lifting back up. Without breaking eye contact, we kept moving like that, speeding up until I was right on the edge of climaxing. Opening my mouth, I panted out a few breaths.
“I’m close, Spark. Please…”
“Take me with you, rohi.”
The hand not on my neck slipped between us and flicked my clit on the next down slide and that was all I needed to go over. Bliss overcame me and I called out his name as I felt him kick within me, filling me with his seed. A burning sensation on the back of my neck, beneath his palm, brought me out of my afterglow.
“Ouch!”
I shoved at his arm until he pulled his palm away, then reached my own hand back to touch where it still hurt. When I felt raised lines, I began to panic. In a rush, I lifted myself off Spark and scrambled to get off the bed. I nearly face-planted onto the floor when my leg got tangled in the sheets.
“Whoa, Brianna, slow down. You’ll hurt yourself. What happened?
I turned to glare at him. My vision was blurry, and my thoughts were a mess. Had he hurt me? Marked me somehow?
“You did something to my neck. I need to see what you did.”
With my palm covering the injured flesh, I snatched my phone from where I’d left it earlier beside the bed and fled to the bathroom. Pulling up my camera app, I spun around and after gathering my hair up in my other hand, lined things up to see what was going on.
“Oh, hell no.”
There was a brand burned into my skin. It was a perfect circle that had a snake head coming off one side and a tail off the opposite side.
“Spark! What the fuck did you do to me?”
“I have no fucking idea. Let me take a look.”
Dropping my hair, I spun around and stepped away from him. I didn’t want him to touch me, didn’t want to risk another burn. The look of agony that crossed his face hit me like a knife to the gut, but I couldn’t help my reaction. He’d somehow branded me. That was not okay.
He held his palms up like I was going to attack him. I shook my head as my tears started up.
“Just get out of here! I can’t believe you’d do this!”
Another pained expression that had my heart clenching passed over his face, so I shut my eyes against the sight. This wasn’t about him being hurt, he’d hurt me!
“I’m going to get Aaron. Could you put on a shirt or wrap a towel around you before I get back? I don’t want any other man seeing what’s mine.”
When I heard the bedroom door shut, I opened my eyes and knowing I wouldn’t have much time, rushed to grab something to wear. One of Spark’s t-shirts lay discarded on the vanity, so I grabbed it and pulled it on, trying my best to ignore how the sage scent that rose from the material soothed me.
What was I going to do? This was so insane. Setting my phone aside, I quickly braided my hair and wound it up into a bun out of the way. Then repeating what I’d done earlier with the mirror and my phone, I set about taking another look, snapping a couple pictures as I tried to get as close to the mirror as I could to get a better angle on it. The redness was already beginning to fade, which made no fucking sense since it’d only just happened.
I was still examining it when Spark returned with Aaron on his heels. Unfortunately, Stone and Falcon had also joined the party. While Spark’s shirt covered me down to mid-thigh, I would have found some knickers to put on had I realized all the men were going to come and look at me. A wave of shyness hit me and I tugged at the shirt, trying to make it cover more of me as I backed away further into the bathroom.
Why couldn’t they all just leave me the hell alone?
Chapter Seventeen
Spark
She was scared. No, it was more tha
n that. She was fucking terrified of me. She’d not once been this shy little mouse around me or my brothers, not since that first day. But she was falling back on old habits now while she was confused and in pain.
“Brianna, you know none of us would ever harm you. Can you take a couple of deep breaths for me? Get your heart rate down, if you can. It took a hell of a beating yesterday and hasn’t had that much time to recover.”
She blinked her big green eyes at Aaron but obviously wasn’t tracking what he was saying. Dammit. She was going into shock. I turned to whisper near Aaron’s ear.
“Can you control her heart? Calm her down? She’s gone into shock.”
He shook his head. “I can, but I’d prefer not to. If I do it for her, it’ll only confuse her more. She’s honestly not in any danger with her heart, I just wanted to give her something to focus on to calm down.”
I rubbed my palm over my face before lowering it to stare at my unmarked palm. Clearly, I’d somehow marked Brianna, but it hadn’t left on evidence on my body. What the fuck was I supposed to do?
“How about you three leave me with her for a little while. Go to the living room and I’ll bring her out when she’s ready.”
I shook my head, my stomach cramping at the very idea of abandoning her while she was so upset. “No way am I leaving.”
Stone looked torn about going and winced when he looked to Brianna. “We’ll go. Keep us updated.”
When it was just Aaron and me, he turned his attention to me.
“Since she’s not able to explain things at the moment, how about you tell me what happened?”
Before I could begin to answer, he held his hand up. “And I don’t need to know you were having sex. Everyone under this roof knows you two were doing that. I mean after.”
I’d laugh at his discomfort over my sex life if I wasn’t so worried.
“Well, it’s linked to that, so suck it up, brother. Toward the end, instinct took over and I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck. After we both came, she cried out in pain saying I’d burned her. I felt a tingling sensation in my palm, but nothing painful. She ran in here to look at it. I only caught a glimpse before she told me to get out and I went to get you.”
“Give me a look at your palm.”
I held it out for him to examine. “There’s nothing there. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Aaron dropped my hand and looked back to Brianna, who had slid down the wall to sit curled up in the back corner of the bathroom.
“Brianna? Can you tell me what it looks like?”
She held her phone out. “I took photos.”
I started to step forward to take it from her but when she stiffened, I halted, pain tearing through me at her rejection. Aaron’s palm clamped on my shoulder and gave me a squeeze.
“We’ll fix this, brother. I vow to you we will.”
Dropping his grip, he moved past me to carefully take the phone from her before quickly returning to my side, giving her space again. I hated this shit. She was mine. My woman. And she was hurting. I’d fucking marked her, made her scared of me. A knife through the heart would hurt less than this.
Fuck.
Aaron’s voice brought me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“Brianna, does it still hurt?”
“Only a little now.”
“Spark, wet a washcloth with cold water for her. That’ll help take the sting out.”
I groaned and moved toward the basin. She was still in pain. How had I not thought to ask her that? To give her something to help it subside. She’d said it burned and I didn’t fucking pull the heat from it.
I did as Aaron instructed then slowly crept over to her, getting down on the floor to slide in even closer. She’d tensed up but wasn’t shivering anymore.
“Bri? Will you let me take a look? Put this cold cloth over it? I promise I won’t touch your skin with mine, not until we work out what happened and know it won’t happen again. I swear, Brianna, I would never knowingly hurt you, not for anything. I love you. Please… let me help you.”
She stayed silent for a close to a minute, just blinking up at me and breaking my fucking heart even more for her. Then, thankfully, she moved around so her back faced me. She’d put her hair up, so I had a clear view of the brand. A symbol I knew all too well.
I put the cloth over it and laid my palm over the cloth, drawing out the heat with my powers. Something I should have done earlier.
“You recognize it, Spark?”
I looked over my shoulder at Aaron who was staring at her phone screen.
“It’s the symbol for Ra. A sun disk and serpent.”
He nodded. “Yes. That’s what I believe it is. I think it’s some sort of mating mark.”
I shook my head, “Why didn’t it happen the first time we had sex then?”
He looked up into my eyes. “Because there wasn’t love yet. You hadn’t fully accepted each other. I believe after Brianna’s brush with death yesterday, you both had to examine how you felt about each other. Did you say things earlier that you hadn’t said before? Like declarations of love?”
I nodded. “Yeah, we both spoke of love and I claimed her for my own.”
Brianna had relaxed more since that I’d taken the heat out of her wound, but she was now shivering, and goose bumps were rising on her arms and legs from being on the cold, hard tile for so long.
“Brianna, let me carry you to the bed where you’ll be more comfortable.”
Her head jerked in a nod and I didn’t give her time to change her mind. Pulling the cloth free, I handed it to her and scooped her up against me. Something deep inside eased at having her snuggled in against my chest again. I needed this woman as much as I needed air.
Aaron moved back to allow me into the bedroom where I could deposit her on the mattress, once more taking the cloth and putting on the back of her neck. I’d taken all the heat I could out of it, but the process of doing something so human and normal would hopefully help her feel like it was getting better.
Brianna
Moving to sit against the headboard, Spark tugged the blankets up over me then after pressing a kiss to my temple, settled himself beside me, on top of the covers. I wanted him underneath, wrapping his arms around me and holding me together. But at the same time, I just wanted to be alone. I wasn’t used to having to involve other people when I had shit to deal with.
Aaron pulled the chair up near the bed, still holding my phone and looking at my brand.
“Because you are the first of the brothers to pair off, we’re in uncharted territory. But from what I know of other supernaturals, and with how the mark was made, I’d say it’s a safe bet to call it a mating mark.”
“Why doesn’t Spark have one then?”
“Did you hold the back of his neck?”
I thought back. “No, I had my arms around his neck, but not my palm against it.”
He shrugged but before he could say anything, Spark spoke.
“Next time we’ll make sure you’re pressing your palm over the back of my neck, see if it happens. I’ve worked with a lot of different supernatural species and there are some where only the female wears a mating mark.”
This was all crazy. Like something I’d read about in a fictional novel. This shit was not meant to happen in real life.
“So, I have an Egyptian hieroglyph branded into the back of my neck forever now? That’s the price for falling in love with one of you?”
Leaning forward, I brought up my knees and dropped my face in my hands to hide my tears, to block out everything. Spark’s large palm stroked down my spine as he rested his head against mine.
“Does it still hurt?”
Before I could answer, his hand returned to rest over the cloth on my neck and the area grew cooler as he drew the heat from it again.
“I’ll go and leave you two to it. Let me know if you need me again.”
I didn’t respond to Aaron, and neither did Spark, at least not that I he
ard. Once the door clicked shut, he lifted the compress off my neck. I turned my head to the side so I could watch as he went to the bathroom and rinsed out the cloth with more water before coming back toward me.
“C’mon, rohi, slide down and get comfortable. Try to get some sleep. We’ll sort all this out afterward. I hope you believe that I had no idea this would happen—”
He looked so damn sad standing beside the bed holding that stupid little washcloth I didn’t even need because he’d used his magic to take the heat out better than any cold bit of material could ever have. Rising to my knees, I shuffled over until I was in front of him. Reaching up, I cupped his face between my palms and guided him down. He tossed the cloth on the table and wrapped his arms around me as our lips met.
I let Spark take control and allowed myself to relax against him as he devoured my mouth with his as though he’d thought I’d never let him touch me again. When I pulled back to take a breath I hummed in pleasure, feeling so much better.
“I know you wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose, Spark. I do. It was just a shock when it happened.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Shocked both of us. Fuck, babe. I want to fix this for you. Tell me what you need. Anything. I’ll do anything to make this better.”
I snuggled in tighter against his chest. “Lie with me? Just hold me till I fall asleep?”
I was so tired now the shock had mostly worn off. I couldn’t think, I just wanted to sleep.
“Sure, rohi. I’ll do that anytime you want.”
In seconds he had us both under the blankets and I snuggled up against his side, one leg over his, my palm over his heart and my head in the crook of his shoulder. Snuggling down, I took a deep breath, taking the scent of sage deep inside me.
“Hmm, I love that way you smell. So soothing.”
He murmured something in response, but I was already drifting off to sleep, too worn out to stay awake another second.
Within moments of closing my eyes, I realized it wasn’t tiredness that had pulled me into sleep, but something else. I found myself in the center of what appeared to be basically a crop circle. There were tall reeds all the way around the outside while the area around where I stood had flattened plants forming a sort of mat beneath my feet.
