“I used to think that hot and bothered meant annoyed.”
“When was this? When you were seventeen? Eighteen?”
“Funny. No, I was six. I walked up to my mom and Asha and said, ‘You know what gets me hot and bothered?’ Mom got this weird look on her face like she’d swallowed something the wrong way, but asked me what.”
“And you said?”
“People picking their toe nails.”
I snorted, my fork clattering to my plate. “That poor woman. Thinking she had a little foot fetishist.”
“It gets worse. Years later, when I was dating Lily, unbeknownst to me, Asha dropped that little tidbit into a conversation with Lils without saying I’d been a kid when I said it. And she did it on the very night Lily and I were planning to sleep together.”
I tried to keep a sympathetic expression on my face, but my shoulders shook. “Your cousin was an evil genius. Please keep over-sharing.”
“I had this whole romantic night planned.”
“Dude, you were sixteen when you lost your V-card. How romantic could you have been? A black candle, a hotel room, and Morrissey crooning sweet nothing matters on the CD player?”
“Morrissey is more post-organismic.” He smirked at me. “Did I use that correctly in a sentence?”
I shot him the finger.
“So Lils comes in and things are happening and then she asks me if I want her to take off her socks. Thinking it was go-time, I said yes, super enthusiastically, and took off my socks. I also took off my pants and my shirt and when I turned around, naked, she was trying to trim a toenail with this determined look on her face.”
I choked on the mouthful of wine I’d taken.
“Probably jumping back in horror and yelling ‘What the fuck, Lily?’ wasn’t my finest moment.”
“You think?!”
He knocked my leg with his knee under the table. “She yelled back that I was the one who got hot and bothered with toenails to which I really cemented my chances of never getting laid by telling the A.P. Honor Roll student that she was an idiot because hot and bothered meant aroused, not grossed out.”
I put my foot in his lap. “Wow. And yet she did eventually have sex with you.”
“After two months of me groveling.” He massaged my instep, exactly how I liked it.
I sighed in delight. “Did you get Asha back for that?”
“Hell, yeah. I left a herpes test kit in her open purse for Drio to find.” His smile faded and his massage stilled. “Did killing Oskar help?”
“In the moment. But taking a life for a life didn’t give me any closure.” I brushed some crumbs off the table into my palm, sprinkling them on my plate. “What a stupid idea. Taking his life isn’t going to heal my heart. It isn’t going to bring Esther back.” I stared out into the indigo night. “It hammered home one thing though. I finally understand on a visceral level that this is war. The first shots have been fired and they won’t be the last. And even though I feel like I have this permanent taint inside me, guilt isn’t going to do me any good.”
“What is?” Ro asked.
“Winning.” I gathered the plates, but Rohan shook his head, motioning for me to stay seated. “It’ll be different for you,” I said. “Hybris isn’t human.”
“Human or not, you killed a monster.” Ro stacked dishes. “I’m not sure killing Hybris will bring me any peace around losing Asha.”
“What will?”
Rohan kissed the top of my head. “Finish your wine. I’ll draw a bath.”
This may have been a guest bungalow but even the bathtub was deluxe, wide and deep.
I sank into the steaming hot water with a sigh, leaning back against Rohan. For a while, neither of us spoke. He played with my hair while I raked my nails along the soft dusting of hair on his inner thigh, our legs tangled together.
“I’m sorry about Esther,” he said. “But it wasn’t your fault. I heard you in the pool. No. Wait.” He put his hand over my mouth for a second. I nipped his finger and he pulled it away, playing with my hair once more. “You think that you brought her into this fight, but you didn’t. The witches were never going to be passive bystanders.”
“I only just got to know her and there’s this giant hole in my heart. What if…”
His arms tightened around me. “I’m terrified of who I could lose, too.”
I flipped over to straddle him, my arms draped around his neck, falling into the sensation of being wrapped around his hard body with the water softly lapping against my back. Our gazes locked.
He rocked into me ever so slightly, rubbing himself against my clit, his eyes never leaving mine.
Deeper and deeper I fell.
My heart jumped into my throat. We’d hit a point of intimacy that would usually have me making a joke or reframing the action into something I could handle.
I didn’t want to “handle” anything. I wanted to be lost in him, let that undertow drag me under and revel in how gloriously deep this went.
I stood up, water sluicing off my body, and held out my hand, catching sight of myself in the partially fogged up mirror. Hair in wet curls, eyes glassy with a drugged dizzy need, I looked like a sex-crazed Botticelli.
No. I looked like a woman deeply in love with the man before her.
From the way Rohan’s eyes darkened, making a very slow and very thorough sweep of me, it worked for him. He rose and twined his fingers with mine, letting me lead him into the bedroom.
My hand shook slightly as I pushed him back on the cool sheets.
Rohan reached for the small lamp, but I stopped him, my eyes adjusting to the dark enough to see.
Reverently, I traced his jawline, his stubble prickling my fingertips, following up with kisses pressed to the softness of the underside of his jaw. That secret vulnerable spot that Rohan exposed with no hesitation to me.
He raked one finger blade slowly up and down along my spine, pressing my chest against his.
“Do you have any idea what you mean to me?” I said.
His mouth found mine with an urgency I matched kiss for kiss, our lips sliding together messily, tongues dancing.
I pulled away. “Final frontier.”
“What? You want to watch Star Trek? Now?” He glanced down at his very hard cock with a pained expression.
“Yes. It gets me hot and bothered. Did I use that correctly?”
He barked a laugh.
I slid off the bed, opened my suitcase, and pulled out the object I wasn’t sure I was going to have the nerve to try. I tossed it on the bed, along with a small bottle of lube. “Final frontier.”
Ro’s brows wrinkled then his eyes lit up and he reached for the butt plug. “Is this for me or for you?”
“Me for now, but we are definitely coming back to that statement. I, uh, thought we could start with this and work up to larger things.” I flicked a glance at his hard-on.
“Oh yeah, we will.” Ro held the plug in one hand like he was weighing it. He chewed on his bottom lip, studying me. Then he shook his head. “Not yet.”
My eyes darted from the plug to him. I wasn’t sure if the hollowness in my chest was relief or disappointment. “Why not?”
“Because even the Enterprise didn’t just rush out to the furthest reaches of space on their first go. It’s a journey.”
“Yeah? How’s this work then?”
He smiled widely, slightly impish. “First, I’m gonna make you see stars.”
He put his mouth to the side of my neck, his lips cool on my flushed skin.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer to me as I fell to the mattress. I sucked on his lip, then did it again, just to elicit his low growl once more.
He cupped my face. “I love that I get to look at you whenever I want. Touch you.” He caressed my breasts and I arched into his touch. “Taste you.”
He suckled my stiffened peak.
My breasts grew heavy and sensitive and I let out a breathy sigh.
Rohan t
railed kisses down the length of my body, nudging my knees apart so he could show Cuntessa some love. He lavished attention on every inch of me, bringing me to the brink time and time again until I was trembling beneath him.
He grabbed the lube. There was a squirt and then he slid his finger into my ass.
I dug my heels into the mattress, coils of pleasure rippling through me under his stellar multitasking and highly talented tongue.
“This is lovely,” I gasped, “but I’m not seeing stars.”
Rohan lifted his head. “Demanding much?”
“I was promised stars. Shame if it was false advertising.”
“I’m gonna enjoy making you beg.”
“Oh no. Please don’t threaten me with mind-blowing sex.” I fluttered my hands. “Scaaaary.”
He squirted out a very generous handful of lube, oiling up both me and the butt plug. “Get on all fours.”
I eyed the friendly green plug that suddenly seemed way too large to fit into me, even though it was a slender starter model.
He slowly inserted it, letting me catch my breath through the stretching burn. “Should I stop?”
I exhaled and shook my head. Except about five seconds later, I was ready to pull the plug myself, so to speak.
Before I could, Rohan said, “there” and things started vibrating.
A wrecked moan tore from my throat.
Rohan’s face popped up upside down in my field of vision. “You like?” he purred.
I could barely nod, awash on a sea of intensity. Every pleasure-inducing nerve ending had lit up.
“We can stop here,” he said. “Or–”
I stretched my neck forward to kiss him messily. “I want ‘or,’” I panted.
The answering grin he trained on me, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth from between closed teeth, had me reaching for him again, but he ducked away to stand behind me. He gripped my hips, sliding inside me with a powerful thrust.
Rohan fucked me hard, his hips slapping against the base of the plug. I was so full and everything was vibrating and then he brought Cuntessa into the mix and holy fuck.
Sweat trailed down the back of my neck. I dropped onto my bent elbows, rubbing my breasts against the blanket, my right cheek pressed to the mattress and my ass in the air.
“You like that?” he said.
“Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.”
The Bullseye pendant thunked against my collarbone with each thrust. My inner thighs shook. A spark caught in my core, detonating outward in shockwaves.
I growled deep in my throat and fell face first onto the bed, decimated by the most explosive orgasm I’d ever had.
Ro came at the same time, then fell on top of me. He moved my sweaty hair aside to kiss my neck.
My body was all pleasantly throbby and warm and boneless. I checked the hairline fracture on the box, because talk about big bang, and if anything could have woken Lilith it would have been that orgasm, but all was well.
Squirming out from under my boyfriend, I pulled the plug out with a slippery and vaguely uncomfortable pop and put it on some tissue. “Next time we scale up.”
I expected a chuckle or a fist bump, but Rohan was uncharacteristically silent. I propped myself up on one elbow to look at him. “You okay?”
He caressed my cheek. “Killing Hybris isn’t going to heal me, because being with you already is.”
In that moment all was clear. I’d be fine without magic if it meant having Rohan like this for the rest of my life.
Tell him.
I smoothed a lock of floppy silky hair back from his still blown-out molten eyes. “Ro. I–”
Pound! Pound! Pound!
“Open up!” Baruch roared.
Rohan jackknifed off the bed. We each grabbed a blanket to cover ourselves and sprinted for the front door.
I threw it open and stepped back at the fury twisting Baruch’s features. “What’s wrong?”
He clutched the door frame hard enough to crack it. “Benjy’s been taken.”
26
The way Ro blew through every light en route to the chapter, it was a miracle we didn’t end up being chased by a line of cop cars. Baruch and I held the Shelby’s “oh shit” handles, careening into our doors and praying Ro didn’t flip the car.
We ran inside to the conference room where Bastijn was keeping a close eye on Benjy’s parents.
Cisco motioned for Baruch to come into another office.
Benjy’s mom Eun Ha was pale, her eyes glassy. Jung, his dad, wasn’t doing much better. He stumbled when he tried to get to his feet at Rohan’s entrance.
Rohan hurried over to them, giving each a hug and vowing that we’d find their son unharmed.
Bastijn came over to me.
“How are they?” I asked.
He launched into rapid, agitated Spanish, but caught himself mid-tirade at my look of confusion. “¡Discúlpeme! ¡Cristo!” He took a breath. “We gave them sedatives. I tried calling Ro the second I got off the phone with Jung, but it went to voicemail so I called Baruch.”
“What do we know?” I said.
“Pustema!” Baruch roared from the other room.
“You need to see this.” Danilo poked his head into the room and motioned for Ro and me to come into the other office.
A kitten with a snapped neck lay on a blanket on the desk.
“Their place is warded,” Danilo said, “but the kid’s only five. The demon lured him out with the kitty.”
Cisco held out a note. “This was stuffed in the collar. We’re not sure what it means.”
It was a rough sketch of a square with a heart inside it. The words “sorry I missed you” were scrawled inside the heart.
“Asha’s grave. It’s Hybris.” Rohan crumpled the note and dropped it on the table.
“You sure?” Danilo said.
“We’re sure.” I twisted my hands together. What had we brought about?
“I’m not losing anyone else to her,” Ro snarled. “Nava, portal us.”
“You want back up?” Cisco said.
“No. We’ve got it.” From the icy menace in his voice to the rigid line of his shoulders and the deadly glint in his eyes, Rohan was a lethal predator, hell-bent on taking Hybris down.
I snapped the men a small salute, took Rohan’s arm, and portalled.
Cemeteries were creepy in the middle of the night. The artwork and gardens in this one only made for more looming shadows and places for monsters to hide.
Hybris was filing her nails, carelessly sitting cross-legged on Asha’s grave. Her red hair flowed around her shoulders and her red trench coat billowed out behind her.
Rohan bladed up instantly.
“Ro–” I reached out to stop him, but he was too fast for me.
He strode toward her. “Get your filthy ass off her grave.”
“You’re more worried about ancient history than a little boy who’ll be dead within ten minutes?” Hybris cocked an eyebrow. “You’re no hero, Rohan. Not to anyone who matters.”
“Just–” Rohan visibly tensed, trying to calm himself as Hybris flicked another shred of fingernail onto Asha’s gravesite. “Where is he?”
He grabbed her by the collar of her trench coat, tracing the curve of her neck with the blade of his index finger.
She laughed and flicked her hair off her shoulder to give him better access.
My eyebrows shot up into my hairline.
Rohan jerked her head back. “Tell me where Benjy is.”
Tia was too unconcerned. Too certain he wouldn’t find her kill spot. Some demons literally did have to be taken apart to get at their kill spot, but while Rohan was more than capable of ripping her in half with his bare hands right now, the demon just looked bored.
She flashed out, far away from us. “You’ll never get me, Rohan, and do you want to know why? I’m not your worst enemy. You are. Your self-destructive streak after Asha died, your inability to finish your album. You’ve framed yourself a
s the wounded hero determined to save the world. Do you know how much power I draw off all that lovely pride? I’m going to feed off you for your entire, pathetic life, and when the end comes, my face will be the last thing you see.”
Rohan flinched and stumbled backwards. “You’re wrong.”
Hybris laughed. “What? You thought you could escape by quitting music? That you’d beaten all the perils of fame? How sad. There will always be more temptations, and there will always be more ways for me to make you fall. Eventually, you’ll give in.”
His eyes were wild with panic. “No.”
Hybris spread her hands. “You’re only nervous because you know you won’t be able to last forever against me. At the end of the day, you’re the same person you were at fifteen.”
To me, her words merely sounded like typical head games. Ro had heard worse, so the only reason he was acting this way had to be because of some magical influence.
Was this how she’d gotten Gary to step in front of a car?
I fired a series of lightning strikes at her, attempting to hit her flickering form as she dodged from tree to tree. “Let him go.”
“I’m not doing anything. He’s fine. Alone with his thoughts.”
Given the stark bleakness etched on his face, he was drowning in them. Neutralize Tia, snap Ro out of it, find Benjy.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You want to destroy him.”
“True, but…” She stopped suddenly, her trench coat swirling around her legs and widened her eyes theatrically. “You think Rohan is my endgame?”
“I know it. You have no idea how much compassion and love this man is capable of.”
“Do you?” She looked genuinely curious. “Or do you just want to believe that because it makes you the person who saved him? Newsflash. You’re no savior either.”
Her words lashed me, slithering inside me with an insidious whisper.
I clapped my hands over my ears.
Tia stood over Ro’s prone form. “He’ll never be able to destroy me, because he’ll never be able to forgive. I will always win where Rohan is concerned. Him and his revenge fantasies, trapped into believing that if he stamps out the offender, he’ll finally feel good. That his world will be this happy little place.” She caressed one cheek, crooning at him. “You lost your cousin, you lost your creativity, and now you’ll lose that kid.”
Nava Katz Box Set 2 Page 56
