Page 30 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

29

SHRINE

A comforting warmth was pressed along the length of Genevieve’s back, and a heavy weight was wrapped around her waist. She’d never been more comfortable. Then something rough and wet dragged across her cheek.

Umbra’s tongue.

“Ugh,” she whined, opening her eyes and swiping the Familiar’s saliva off her face.

“Umbra, enough.”

For a moment Genevieve went rigid as her mind registered that it was Rowin pressed behind her. He lifted his arm to allow her to face him, and she was grateful that the room was dark enough to hide her flushed cheeks.

“You’re on my side of the bed,” she rasped.

“Flawless observation,” he murmured.

She swatted at his arm, which he still hadn’t removed from around her waist. “What the Hell happened?”

“You lost a lot of blood. Your body temperature dropped dangerously low for a mortal.”

“And blankets couldn’t have helped that?” she wondered as she began giving herself a once-over. Her dress had been removed yet again, replaced with one of his shirts, her skin cleaned of any blood.

“This was an easier way for me to make sure you warmed up properly,” Rowin explained.

The smile that slowly took over her face earned her a glare, but she simply wasn’t buying the excuse.

“Well, thank you for being so considerate ,” she told him.

“After what you did for Umbra, you deserve it,” he said quietly.

The reverence in his eyes was so open and genuine that it made her throat tighten.

She reached out to lightly touch her fingertips to his cheek. “Thank you for saving me from certain death. Again. Or convincing your sister to do it, at least.”

“You don’t need to say thank you,” he told her. “You and I are partners. We’ll save each other.”

Her heart stopped.

We’ll save each other.

It had been less than four days, and yet he was the first person other than her sister to ever show up for her when she needed him to. Every single time. He was the first person other than her sister that she wanted to save as well.

She’d come to Enchantra to find someone like her, someone who might understand what it was like to be an outcast in their own family. But she’d found all of them—a family that was funny, and loud, and brutal, but that she knew was fiercely loyal and might be able to do great things if they weren’t pitted against one another.

“But I would like to say thank you,” he continued, his voice slicing through her thoughts in that way it always did. Like her mind was always waiting for his next words, whether she wanted to hear them or not. “For saving Umbra?—”

“You don’t need to say thank you,” she repeated back to him. “You don’t owe me anything, Rowin. Umbra is a part of you, and you are…”

He’s what? Not mine. Not really. Not in any way that counts after this game.

“I am what?” he pressed.

“If you and I are partners, that includes your furry little menace,” she finally answered.

She glanced over at Umbra, who was staring back at her, unblinking, with adoration.

Great.

Rowin flashed a smile at his Familiar before shooing her away and refocusing his attention on Genevieve to say, “Fine. I won’t say thank you. But can I at least show you how grateful I am?”

Her breath hitched at those words, at the anticipation that suddenly fluttered through her body, but he didn’t move. Only watched her expectantly.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Please do.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, he shifted their bodies until she was on her back, and he was hovering above. He leaned down to press a gentle kiss against the underside of her jawline, leaving a trail as he moved toward her throat. She saw his shadows begin to unfurl around them and nearly moaned with the anticipation of them touching her skin again. She felt him smile against her clavicle when they began to slither over her body and beneath the shirt, drawing a whimper from her lips. Her heart thundered as his hands began sliding over her as well, gripping the hem of the shirt and pushing it up and up, until it was over the swells of her breasts. His eyes darkened as he took her in, a hunger gleaming in them she had never seen in anyone else’s.

She knew what he’d said, about hearts not being logical and that they couldn’t be trusted, but she didn’t fucking care. She wanted him so badly in this moment that she’d let her heart lead her into whatever perilous fires it wanted if he would just keep touching her forever.

Without warning, he leaned down and flicked his tongue against one of her taut nipples, sending a shot of pleasure right to the apex of her thighs and making her twist her hands in the sheets to keep herself from writhing beneath him.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t be sweet,” she gasped as he began placing scorching kisses from one breast to the other before laving at her other nipple in turn.

“Oh, I won’t be sweet for long, trouble,” he vowed.

“Because we’re just fucking , right?” she tested.

He lifted his head to look into her eyes, and for a moment he didn’t respond.

Just before a spark of hope could ignite inside her, however, he said, “Right.”

When a wave of disappointment crashed through her, she knew that her promise of being okay with having no strings attached between them had been optimistic of herself at best. She also knew she could stop him right now if she thought she’d changed her mind. But then she would miss out on whatever experience he was about to give her, and that almost seemed more painful.

Before the disappointment could drown her, he leaned down and gently sank his teeth into her nipple. Her back began to arch off the bed as a moan of pleasure finally escaped her lips. As he moved to pull at her other nipple, his shadows wrapped themselves around her wrists and ankles, pulling her limbs taut until she was at his complete mercy.

He looked up at her again. “Can you snap your fingers?”

She lifted a brow. “Yes?”

“Demonstrate,” he demanded.

She snapped a couple of times, his shadows never loosening. “Why?”

“You can tell me to stop at any time. And if you can’t speak, snap, got it?”

She wondered what sort of things he was into to make such a system necessary. And am I going to get a firsthand experience of them?

As if he knew exactly what she was thinking, he explained, “Covin’s a large proponent of the snapping. His tastes are a lot more sadistic than mine, but extra forms of communication are never a bad thing when mouths are…preoccupied.”

She had to swallow another moan at the images his words conjured, and it made her realize just how wound up she really was. He huffed a laugh and ducked back down to lave at her breasts once more, making her rosy buds tighten almost painfully as her arousal began to soak the sheets beneath her. He was careful to keep all his weight on his forearms as he worked her into a frenzy with his mouth, which meant she was not getting any friction where she needed it most.

“Touch me,” she pleaded.

“I am touching you,” he said, giving a lazy swirl of his tongue.

“ Fuck me , then,” she growled.

He had moved his hand between their bodies, his fingertips brushing ever so lightly over that most sensitive spot at her core. She tried to writhe closer, but his shadows only pulled her tighter, moving her wrists together and stretching her arms above her head as they spread her legs apart. He laughed again as he pushed himself up to kneel between her legs, roaming his eyes over her figure as he basked in her torment.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” he told her as he splayed a hand over the plump curves of her belly. “Yet.”

“But—” she began to protest.

“I’m supposed to be thanking you, remember?” He shifted his gaze back to hers. “Let me show you what it’s like to have my gratitude, trouble.” He moved the hand on her abdomen down, agonizingly slow, until his thumb brushed against that heavenly spot once again. “If you thought I was a tireless opponent, wait until you see me as a lover.”

She could hardly focus on what he was saying as he finally gave her the friction she needed, pressing his thumb down onto her clit and rubbing tight, languid circles over the bud of nerves. She mewled in pleasure as she jerked against his shadowy bands, but they didn’t give an ounce of mercy, and neither did Rowin. Without lifting his thumb, he slid his index and middle finger inside her, curling them forward and pumping them until she soaked his hand with her arousal.

“Please,” she panted. “I need…”

“What do you need?” he murmured as he watched her squirm. “Be specific.”

“I need you to taste me,” she told him, the sultry voice coming from her lips nearly unrecognizable to her own ears. “I need to feel you worship me.”

He smirked. “I’m a creature of Hell, worshipping is not usually in my nature.” Then he lowered himself between her legs and flicked his tongue out to taste her. “But for whatever time you remain in my bed, I will make it your shrine.”

“ Fuck ,” Genevieve cried.

Several new tendrils of his shadows split from the others to begin stroking themselves over her skin, tightening around her nipples and tangling in her hair as Rowin worked his tongue over her over and over again. His technique was masterful, the tip of his tongue flicking slow circles over her clit until she was at the precipice of ecstasy. Just before she could crash over the edge, however, his shadow limbs tightened, just enough to be painful, cutting her pleasure and pulling her back from her climax. She felt him smile as he dipped his tongue toward her entrance next, working to build her back up to the edge.

He continued to devour her until she worried she wouldn’t be able to take it anymore, his attentions as relentless as he claimed they’d be. And when she approached the threshold of her climax once again, he had his shadows pull her back once more.

“I swear I will kill you,” she snarled, but he only laughed as he pulled away.

“Deep breath, trouble,” he told her, his voice gruff with lust. “You’re about to need it.”

As he spoke, his shadows began to slither down her body—except for the ones holding her wrists and ankles—until they reached her sex. Rowin watched, on his knees before her, through half-lidded eyes as his magic began to pleasure her, working her back up into a moaning mess. And when they plunged inside her, giving her the fullness she was desperately craving, she screamed.

Waves of ecstasy crashed over Genevieve over and over and over again as his shadows pumped in and out of her, wringing out every last bit of breath she had to give.

When she finally started to come back down, the inky magic dissipated like smoke, and Rowin replaced their hold on her ankles with his hand, gently massaging the sting of their grip from her skin. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath. Tried to form a single coherent thought.

When he moved to lie back down by her side, still fully clothed, she could feel the hardness of his arousal against her hip as he reached over to massage her wrists next.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She turned her face toward him. Her eyes still a bit unfocused. Dazed.

His lips curled into a smug smile, and she glared.

“You’re much too proud of yourself,” she muttered.

“And you’re much too satisfied to be complaining,” he retorted.

She glanced away from him. He was right. She was much too satisfied for something that was supposed to be just fucking . He might be able to switch the character he was playing on and off, in and out of this bed, but she suddenly had a feeling that no one else would ever be able to make her feel that incredible ever again. And that was a very dangerous feeling.

I will not let him ruin me.

“I need to take a bath,” she said as she sat up, ignoring how her legs felt like gelatin, and slid out of the sweltering bed. As she pulled her shirt back down and padded toward the bathroom, she heard Rowin stand from the bed himself.

She twisted to look at him with a raised brow. “Where are you going?”

He pushed past her and went right for the black claw-foot tub that took up the entire back wall of the bathroom, running the water as he said, “Grave doesn’t know about the opening between our rooms. But even so I won’t take the risk of leaving you alone in here while you’re still recovering.”

She huffed. “I am not letting you watch me bathe .”

He smirked. “It’s me or Umbra. She’s refused to leave your side since you rescued her, anyway.”

Genevieve eyed the fox, who was, in fact, currently nuzzling her head against Genevieve’s legs.

Sighing with defeat, Genevieve grumbled, “ Fine . The fox can stay.”

“Towels are under the sink. Use whatever soap you’d like,” Rowin said as he left Genevieve and his Familiar alone together.

“At least look away until I’m in the tub,” Genevieve said to the fox.

Umbra dipped her head as if to nod and spun in a circle to face the linen closet. Genevieve relaxed ever so slightly and turned to the tub as she unbuttoned Rowin’s shirt. She peeled the garment away from her feverish skin and let it drop to the floor. Wasting no time, she stepped into the steaming tub, sighing in pleasure as the water lapped at her skin and relaxed her aching muscles. She immediately opened one of the small vials of soap sitting on the tub’s ledge and poured some of the pearlescent concoction into her palm before lathering it across her skin. As she inspected her body for any remnants of the piranhas’ horrifying bites, she noted that there was not even a single scar.

Ellin is definitely my favorite.

The mental scars were still there, though.

Genevieve wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to scrub the flashes of pain from a hundred little pointy teeth ripping into her flesh out of her mind. She certainly never wanted to see another fish again.

She sank deeper into the tub, until she was completely submerged, but the moment her face went under the water, the memory of being in the river with the piranhas flooded back, and panic began to claw at her chest. She let out a bubbling scream and thrashed in fear as she grasped the side of the tub to pull herself up. Before she could, however, two strong hands were there, grasping her arms and pulling her above the water.

She spluttered as she blinked away the droplets clinging to her eyelashes, her chest heaving with effort as she sucked air into her lungs, her face tight with the pain of unshed tears as she tried to keep them back.

“Genevieve, you’re safe,” Rowin assured her as he crouched next to her, swiping water and hair from her eyes. “I’m here. You’re safe. No fish. No river. You’re right here.”

His words were an instant balm, as was his touch, and it only made her want to cry more. How had she let herself become so reliant on him?

She worked on settling her breathing for a minute before she could respond, and he waited patiently, his eyes never leaving her face to dip lower . It dawned on her then that she was still naked.

She brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms tight around them as she requested, “May I please have a towel?”

He nodded, returning a few seconds later with the largest towel she’d ever seen. He unfolded it and stretched it open between himself and the tub, turning his head to the side to make her more comfortable as she stood from the water; then he wrapped the plush white fabric around her.

Once the towel was secured around her body, he offered a hand to help her out of the tub, and she accepted, sending water sloshing onto the white marble floor as she moved.

“Sorry,” she said as he sighed and drained the water from the tub. “I swear I don’t mean to always make such a mess.”

He gave her a doubtful look but didn’t seem too perturbed as he got more towels to clean up after her. Something about seeing him do such a mundane, domestic task made her belly warm, and she instantly spun away toward the vanity, to distract herself with her hair. She moved the corner of the towel covering the mirror to the side to see her reflection. One look at the horrifying state of her hair and she let out a piercing shriek, re-covering the mirror before anyone else might catch a glimpse at the atrocity as well.

“What happened?” he questioned, appearing behind her.

She pointed to the impossible clump of knots in her brown curls. “My hair .”

She began pulling at the strands to try to work them loose, but the more she pulled, the worse the knots became, and her stomach twisted with despair. There was no way she’d be able to get them out without cutting it, and that tragic thought made the tears she’d been keeping locked away for the last few days spill onto her cheeks.

“No, no, no ,” she cried, sniffling hopelessly as her hands began to shake.

It was all a little too much. A little too on the nose. Her emotions were a tangled mess. Her sex life was a tangled mess. Even though she’d promised there wouldn’t be any strings to tangle in the first place. And now her hair .

Rowin’s shoulders heaved with the weight of his exasperation as he brushed her hands away from the tangled tendrils and muttered, “Stabbed through the shoulder with a magic dagger and almost bleeding out: no tears. Nearly eaten by piranhas: no tears. But a few knots in your hair and?—”

“Easy for you to say when you wake up every day looking like that ,” she huffed as she whirled on him.

He lifted a brow, a smirk playing on his lips as he taunted, “Like what?”

Her tears ebbed as her frustration spiked. “You know exactly like what . I’m not going to stand here and tell you how attractive you are when you definitely already know.”

“As long as attraction is all it is.” He nodded as he placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to face the covered mirror once more. As he moved to take a fine-toothed comb out of the vanity drawer, her skin prickled at his words, the implication of them, and her anger only grew stronger.

“Because it would be so terrible if I actually enjoyed the company of my husband, wouldn’t it?” she asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm, but she held her breath as she waited for his reaction.

Maybe it was the fact that she’d almost died, or the pleasure he’d given her afterward, pumping too much adrenaline in her system, but all she knew was that being around him made her feel something , and it wasn’t just because he happened to be so sinfully handsome.

“Keep still,” he told her. “And, yes, it would be terrible. For so many reasons. We’re playing a game, Genevieve.”

She turned toward him again, and his shadows suddenly whipped out into the air, circling around her wrists and waist to pin her back against the counter as he leaned over her with an exasperated look.

“Stop moving, or you’re going to make it worse,” he demanded.

She tried to shake off the hold of his shadow hands, but they wouldn’t budge.

“For fuck’s sake, trouble. What happened? Your mood changed before you even got out of bed—what happened? What did I do?”

“ Nothing ,” she told him, her words nearly sticking in her throat. “You were—are— ugh . I don’t know when you started to become tolerable in the last few days, but I hate it. I told you I wasn’t the girl for this. I’m not good at pretending. I can’t act like you didn’t just give me the best pleasure of my life—oh, stop grinning .” She glared as he tried to hide his smile by coughing into his fist. “This marriage is supposed to be a game, but I feel like a pawn and not a player.”

“What is it you need from me?” he asked, sincerely. “Tell me and it’s done.”

She swallowed. The intensity in his gaze, his current proximity, and that strange, vibrating feeling of his shadows clasped around her skin—it was all too much for her to form coherent thoughts.

“I tell you that you can ask anything of me and now you want to be quiet?” he murmured.

“I don’t think we should be intimate anymore,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I can…”

Handle it , she almost said, but then Knox’s earlier proposition came back to her, and she thought maybe what she actually needed to do was reframe things in her mind.

“Everything we do from here on out is for show,” she decided. “No thanking each other unless it’s for an audience. When Knox sought me out before you found Grave attempting to murder me in the library, he made a proposition for you and me—to give his audience a little more excitement . So, if you’re going to ruin me for all my future lovers, I at least want something out of it. I want to win Favored.”

At least this way I’ll have an excuse for craving his touch.

His expression went entirely smooth at her request. “If that’s what you want.”

She nodded and let his shadows turn her back around, giving him access to her hair once again. His shadow limbs pulled the towels away while he worked, so she could watch his progress.

“If you interrupt me again, though, you’re going to have to deal with these knots on your own,” he told her.

By how gentle his touch was, she knew he didn’t mean it. But she didn’t say another word.

It took almost an hour for Rowin, and his shadows, to smooth out her hair. Watching his shadows work was fascinating, and she thought that she also might be an unbelievable lover if she had five extra pairs of hands.

But the tenderness in which he worked made her furious, honestly. One moment it was clear she meant nothing to him, and then he took care of her like this ? She wanted to bite him again.

When he was combing through the last few tendrils, she finally asked, “How did you get so good at that?”

He hadn’t pulled too hard even once, and she was well-known in her family to be awfully tender headed.

“I used to do it for Ellin,” he said. “Our mother couldn’t always be around, and the rest of my brothers were too impatient.”

He set the comb down on the counter and finally let her turn around again.

His eyes lingered on her face for a beat longer before he finally stepped away and admired his work. “There, you’ll be perfectly presentable for dinner.”

“Dinner? What time is it?”

He dug beneath his waistcoat to pull out a pocket watch, flicking open its lid to read, “Nearly five. You really didn’t sleep very long.”

“I must say, the worst part of nearly dying every night is the fact that it’s impossible to keep track of time,” she told him. “I couldn’t even tell you what date it is anymore.”

“The twenty-third,” he supplied as he began to cover up the vanity’s mirror once more.

When Genevieve froze, Rowin lifted a brow in concern.

“Tomorrow is my birthday,” she realized.

“ What? ” He gave her a hard look. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Would you have cared before? And I do recall mentioning that you should look for a super-rare birthday gift for me.”

He frowned. “I thought that was a code you were using to talk about the cure .”

“It was,” she confirmed. “But it’s also my birthday.”

“Alright, well, I need to get a few things together,” he said as he strode for his bedroom. “You should get dressed. For a celebration.”

“What about a performance, as well?” she prompted as she followed after him.

He lifted a brow. “A performance?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Perhaps winning Favored can be my birthday gift this year.”