His hot mouth on my peak makes me writhe with a pleasure that blinds me. Any remaining thoughts are banished, leaving only Calder and the feeling of his body against mine, his tongue laving my nipple.
As I rock my hips, Calder’s heat lengthens and hardens against my thigh. He groans, moving his mouth to my neck. “Bryn.”
My magic wakens inside me, stretching out, reaching for him. I run my fingers through his hair, holding him to me. “Calder,” I murmur. “I want more.”
Something like a growl escapes his lips as he kisses his way down to my right breast. His left hand slides down my stomach and over the waistband of my pants until it cups my mound. I push against the pressure as he begins rubbing my tight bud through the denim.
His masterful fingers make my body hum as his measured nips on my breast send extra jolts of pleasure through me. Something inside me builds as I grind harder against his hand. I’m nearing a precipice and everything in me is desperate to tumble over to the other side.
When the constant rhythm of his fingers ceases, I whimper. But when his hand settles on the button of my jeans, a new wave of need overtakes me. Before he can voice a question, I slide my hands between our bodies and undo the fly of my pants. I need more of him.
He lifts his head from my chest, giving a wicked grin before tugging at the waistband of my pants. In a flash, he pulls both them and my underwear off in one fluid motion. His gaze travels the length of my exposed body, but the look in his eyes doesn’t make me feel dirty or afraid. Instead, I feel safe, protected, wanted.
Loved.
We exchanged the word only once, minutes before the guards found us together and reported us to Mona. I can’t help wondering if after all this time the feeling is still as true as it was then.
Calder parts my thighs and settles himself between them. My body hums with anticipation as he lowers his head to my center. When his tongue slips between my slick folds, I can’t hold in a moan of desire. This isn’t too far. It’s not nearly far enough. His fingers rub my apex as his tongue darts into my aching hole. When he licks his way upward, closing his mouth around my clit, I grind into his face. “That feels so good.”
His right hand ventures upward until it cups my breast, tweaking my nipple in time with his suckling of my nub. When he slips two fingers into my slick hole, I rake my fingers against his scalp.
Colors swirl behind my eyelids as he builds up a rhythm with his fingers. In and out, in and out. All the while, the relentlessness of his tongue against my clit and his fingers tweaking my nipple push me right back up to the edge, beyond where I was before he first pulled his hand away. And when he crooks his fingers inside me, I tumble straight over the cliff, grasping the back of his head to keep him locked over my apex. His name falls from my lips again and again as I ride wave after wave of pleasure.
When I release him, he crawls up and lays out beside me on the mattress. I kiss him, tasting a lingering spiciness on his lips. My heart pounds so fast I’m afraid it might break through my chest. If I did, I’m sure it would find a home right beside Calder’s.
As he tucks some hair behind my ear, I nestle closer to him. “That was… I don’t have the words for what that was.”
A grin spreads itself across his face. “I’m glad I could give that to you.”
I shift closer and the scratch of denim against my thigh draws my attention. His bulge strains against his pants and I bite my lower lip. As much as I want to touch him, to explore his body the way he did mine, part of me is afraid. No matter how much I want to pretend nothing has changed between the two of us, the truth is he’s had a life outside the walls of Mona’s prison. When we were younger, my inexperience wasn’t an issue because neither of us knew what we were doing. But now the fear of doing something silly or wrong fills me with dread. “Um… Should I… I mean, do you want me to…”
His fingers lift my chin until I’m staring into his eyes. “I think it’s time to go to sleep. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
I tilt my head. “You mean, you don’t want…”
His lips curve into another smile. “There are so many things I want, but at the top of that list right now is falling asleep with you in my arms.”
I plant a kiss on his lips. “I want that, too.”
He kicks off his jeans but is careful to leave on his boxer briefs. I try not to look at the tent he pitches in them, but it’s impossible to avert my gaze entirely. Still, as much as I’d like to know how it would feel to have his length inside me, Calder’s right: we need to sleep.
Besides, there’s always tomorrow. For the next three weeks, at least.
I don’t bother locating my clothes before settling under the covers. Calder slips in behind me and presses my back to his bare chest. His hard length nestles in the crack of my ass and his hand cups my breast. My whole body relaxes, spent in the most delicious way.
But long after Calder’s breathing evens out and his body relaxes into sleep, my mind is still buzzing. I extract myself from beneath his arm and press a kiss to his cheek before slipping off the bed in search of my clothes.
Chapter Fifteen
Poe
I’ve paced so long I’m starting to wear a path into the grass.
It didn’t take long to locate a suitable spot to sleep in the woods behind the bed and breakfast. There’s enough cover that someone glancing out a window won’t see me curled up on the ground, but I’m still close enough to have a good vantage point of the building, in case someone unfriendly comes calling.
Not that I should care if someone comes for the girl or one of the guys. Especially that damn daemon. It should be him sleeping out here in the cold, not me.
The woods are thick with the scents of sap, new leaves, and overgrown weeds, but the forest floor looks soft enough. I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to choose something that’s more than simply enough. At some point in my adult life, I’d like to be in control of my own destiny. I’d like to go somewhere or do something because I want to, not because I have to. I want something to be mine.
But for now, all I get is this patch of weeds choking out the last vestiges of thriving grass.
But, loathe as I am to admit it, I don’t know much about how spells and curses work, so if there’s any chance of getting this mark off my hand, I have to make sure all of us stay alive.
And if we can’t… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Or when I fall off it and die.
I’ve heard enough talk around the elders’ mansion that I know how dangerous Lillian is—and that’s without mastery of all four kinds of elemental magic. She’s got a penchant for employing daemons, and those suckers range from nastier than she is to positively witless. But if she doesn’t need daemons to do her dirty work anymore, there’s no telling what she’s capable of.
The back door creaks open, putting my muscles on high alert. But a scent on the wind brings my defenses down pretty quickly.
My dick, on the other hand, perks right up. As Bryn steps down the wooden stairs that lead into the back yard, her arms loaded with blankets, the musky scent of sex wafting off her is strong enough to attract every horny shifter in a mile radius. My cock swells as I imagine how slick she must be.
Despite myself, I sniff again in an attempt to detect another scent. My money’s on the Englishman or the sandy-haired one. I don’t care how rough of a day she’s had; I can’t see a girl like her giving it up to the daemon.
Unless he used his persuasion on her…
She smiles when she glimpses me standing in the woods, staring at her like an idiot. She’s crossed more than half the distance between us when I finally catch a whiff of a man on her. Calder, the blond. Given the strength of the scent—or rather, the lack thereof—I can form a pretty good picture of what they got up to that’s making her skin glow the way it is.
“Good, you’re still awake,” she says, coming to a stop in front of me. “I felt bad about you sleeping out here, and I thought you could use these.” She rai
ses the blankets as if she’s not sure I’ll make the connection on my own.
I stare at the load in her arms. I was so pissed at that smug little daemon when I left the house that I didn’t even think about grabbing some kind of bedding. Even with the night air growing colder, I should be warm enough even without shifting. But it’s nice to have some padding on the ground. Her gesture is kind—maybe kinder than I deserve, given how I attacked her earlier.
“Thanks.” I relieve her of the bundle and settle it on the ground at my feet. “So, ah… No hard feelings, then?”
She chuckles. “I guess you could say life’s too short.” She winces. “Too soon?”
The corner of my lip quirks in spite of me. “Maybe a little.”
She shrugs. “I suppose if I’m going to give Silas the benefit of the doubt, you deserve it, too.”
I almost miss her words. Without the blankets shielding her from the night air, her nipples pucker against the thin fabric of her t-shirt. Or, more accurately, Calder’s t-shirt. And if the strength of the scent wafting from her slit is any indication, she didn’t bother pulling on her underwear before slipping into her pants. The thought makes my pants uncomfortably tight in the groin. “I appreciate it.”
I expect her to bid me goodnight and head back inside. After all, it seems she’s got Calder waiting in her bed. But she remains still, her head tilted and her brow knit as she studies me. “How’d you become a bounty hunter?”
The question is so out of left field it shakes all the other thoughts from my head. No one has ever asked me that before. Then again, who would? Other bounty hunters have their own lives to worry about, and it isn’t as if the people I bring back to the elders are typically chatty. I try to swallow, but my throat’s gone dry. “I, um… I work for the elders.”
She nods. “But why?” Her gaze dips to the forest floor for an instant. “I’m sorry if I’m prying, but this is all so new to me. I don’t know much about supernaturals beyond witches, and even that’s a pretty shallow well.”
I sigh. Rivers help me, I believe her. What’s more, something in me wants her to know. I don’t have much information on her, but the facts I have make me wonder if we don’t have at least a little bit in common. “I ran into some trouble when I was younger,” I say, pleased with the vague description. She doesn’t need to know the details, doesn’t need to know that even my own pack was about to turn against me because of the things I’d done. “The elders intervened and sentenced me to service. Every bounty I bring in gets me that much closer to paying my debt and getting free from the elders.”
She shakes her head. “I had no idea. I’m… I’m sorry Poe.”
She steps nearer and the scent of her sex awakens something deep inside me. It’s not just the way she looks—which in itself is more than enough to explain the semi I’m sporting. It’s the way she looks at me. It doesn’t matter that earlier tonight I was a monster come to haul her in for a crime that wasn’t her fault. She’s not even holding against me the fact that I didn’t intervene on her behalf at the tavern. She’s offering me a clean slate I haven’t earned, and she’s drilling down to figure out who I am, not who she imagines me to be. And even though the first rule of bounty hunting is to not let the target rattle you, I can’t deny I’m shook.
It isn’t that I haven’t tracked down attractive women before. I have—and many have done their damnedest to use their wiles to convince me to look the other way so they could escape. But not one has ever gotten away—despite my getting balls-deep with more than one target.
And technically, that’s what Bryn still is. Even though I decided not to spend my last days on this Earth hauling her back to the elders and waiting around for them to send me out on another assignment, she’s still a wanted criminal. If we manage to break this curse, I can’t go back to the elders empty-handed.
But I’m not sure I can turn her in, either.
Everything in me wants to know what her mouth tastes like. Imagining bending her over and plundering her pussy from behind makes my balls clench with desire. After Calder’s opening performance, I could get her screaming my name in no time.
“You know,” she says quietly, “you don’t have to sleep out here.”
I take a half step forward until I’m so close I can practically feel her diamond-hard nipples against my chest. Too close, but she doesn’t back away. “Why? Is there an opening in your room?”
She exhales a shaky breath as her lips try—and fail—to twitch into a smile. But there’s no joking away the fact that her spicy-sweet aroma thickens the air between us. “No,” she murmurs. “But… But I’m sure Silas is asleep by now. And I’m sure you, better than most people, can understand what it’s like to be forced to follow orders.”
I swear, it’s like she’s fucking hypnotizing me, standing there, smelling so damn sweet. I find myself nodding before I take a step back, shaking my head. “Look, it’s not that I don’t understand where you’re coming from—I just don’t trust the guy enough to want to share quarters. I’m fine out here—especially with these.” I toe the blankets on the ground, wanting little more than to spread them out and lay her down on top of them.
I roll my shoulders. It must be the threat of impending death from this damn curse that’s got me horny as a teenager. I don’t remember the last time a woman has had this effect on me.
But when she still doesn’t make a move to leave, I wonder if I’m having a similar effect on her.
“Anything else you want?”
Dammit if her eyes don’t flick down my body. She bites her plump lower lip. Even in the silvery moonlight, I can detect color creeping into her cheeks. “I just… I wanted to make sure you’d have a good night’s sleep. You said it’s best to leave bright and early tomorrow, right?”
There’s one thing guaranteed to make me sleep like a baby, and I half wonder if she’d give it to me if I asked. But no. This has been a fucked up night, but not so fucked up a girl who’s been a prisoner for most her life would want to spend it riding the cock of a virtual stranger. Blondy going down on her makes sense—I gather they knew each other years ago. If anything, she’s probably imagining heading back upstairs and putting his wood to good use.
“This isn’t my first night sleeping under the stars, and it won’t be my last,” I say, dropping to a knee and spreading out a bed behind a couple of witch hazel bushes. Mostly I just need something to do with my hands to keep from either rubbing one out in front of her or pulling her tight and sucking her tit through her shirt. “You should probably head to your room. You need to be rested, too.”
She’s quiet a long moment before nodding. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.” But before retracing her steps back to the door, she squeezes my shoulder in a way that sends an electric pulse straight to my cock.
I don’t so much as blink until she’s crossed the back yard and shut herself safely inside the house.
By the time I find a suitable spot a few yards farther into the woods, my balls are screaming for release as I unzip my jeans. As I slide my hand up and down my length, I imagine it’s Bryn’s hand—her mouth, her pussy. Anything and everything connected to her. When I come, shooting thick ropes of my seed onto the forest floor, it’s all I can do to keep her name from rising to my lips.
Fuck me, who is this girl?
I barely have the energy to remove my clothes as I stumble back to the blanketed area I’ve selected. I curl up on the nest I built for myself, Bryn’s spicy scent still on the air as I drift off to sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Bryn
Birds chirp as the sun filters through the bedroom window. The soft mattress cradles me, and the fluffy blanket doesn’t scratch my skin. I sigh, willing myself not to open my eyes. As soon as they’re open, the dream will be over and I’ll be back in my dark cell, hoping that this time when the door opens, it’s Taj, not Aldridge who…
My eyes snap open, but the birds keep singing and the light filtering in through the gauzy cu
rtains doesn’t fade.
It wasn’t a dream.
Calder shifts on the mattress behind me and memories from last night flood my senses. Heat warms my skin as I recall how he made my body sing.
I fight the urge to kiss his puffy lips, not wanting to wake him. As quietly as I can, I slip out of bed. I almost pull on his shirt again before deciding on my own, plus my white cotton underwear.
The bathroom is open and I treat myself to a hot shower. Every cascading current sluicing down my body is a gift. At the compound, I was permitted one shower per week, and the trickle of water was always a few degrees above tepid. But here I crank the temperature up until steam swirls around me.
The only thing that keeps me from outright euphoria is the mark on my palm. I do my best to ignore it, but it’s as if my eyes are drawn to it. A reminder that I’m not free—not yet.
By the time I step out of the bathroom, the energy in the house has changed. People are awake.
The door across the hall opens and Taj steps out, his lips drawn to the side with confusion. “Have you seen Calder? His bed hasn’t been slept in. I crashed pretty hard last night, and when I woke up…”
His voice trails as my bedroom door opens to reveal the man in question. Something flickers across Taj’s face, but the expression is gone before I can decipher it. “Ah. Never mind.”
My stomach twists. It’s not guilt. I don’t regret my night with Calder, and although I hadn’t exactly planned on broadcasting it, I didn’t intend to keep it a secret—not from Taj, at least. The ache inside me is something else entirely.
By the time Taj emerges from the hall bathroom and Silas exits his room, his black hair sticking up at odd angles, Calder returns from the downstairs bathroom to announce breakfast is served.
The meal is a quiet affair. Whatever persuasion Silas used on the owner last night is still in effect this morning. The older woman’s fine curls are bunched in a hasty bun atop her head, and her blue eyes are glassy as she serves sausage, waffles, and an assortment of fruit. She doesn’t even blink when Poe enters through the back door carrying the two blankets I brought out to him last night.
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