Page 18 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)

Leona…

The world is still mostly dark when I crack my eyes open a smidge the next morning.

Hate to disappoint you and all your romantic notions, but the pillow wall is still up, I’m fully dressed, and I am not the little spoon with Erik’s arms wrapped around me and holding me close while his hard cock is nestled up against my ass.

I’m not bitter about it though. Quite the opposite. I’m glad. Happy. Thrilled. Joyful. I am abso-fucking-lutely euphoric—so much so that my jaw is sore from clenching my teeth with glee.

Letting out the quietest of slow and steady calming breaths, I squint at the wall across from the bed. It takes my vision a minute to adjust. I can just pick out the hands on the clock shaped like a toadstool. Five thirty. It’ll be dawn soon. Then I can stop pretending to be asleep.

I’ve been lying in bed for what feels like all night trying to coax, bully, and bribe my brain into shutting off. It would not do so. Instead, it kept giving me information I most definitely did not need and most assuredly did not want.

Oh, did you hear that? Erik mumbles in his sleep. That’s cute.

No. It’s not. It’s annoying.

Take a deep inhale. Go on. You know you want to. See? He has a nice woodsy, warm scent mixed in with a hint of fresh-brewed coffee.

My nose is stuffed so I can’t smell a thing.

Wonder if he is going to wake up too? A little full arm stretch placed just right and that pillow wall would go tumbling down.

I’m not moving a muscle. I’m going to lie here in absolute perfect stillness until it’s late enough that I can get up without it being weird.

A tired sigh comes from the other side of the pillow wall, followed by a sleep-roughed, “Good morning, wife.”

That sandpaper timbre in his voice makes my breath catch and my eyes snap all the way open. “How did you know I was awake?”

Erik mumbles a quick spell before he snaps his fingers and the lights turn on. “A husband knows.”

I blink about a million times at the sudden brightness filling the room, and my heart’s racing.

There’s something about how he sounds in the morning that just gets to me.

Every time we woke up together in Vegas, he pulled me in close until he was spooning every inch of me and told me stories in this voice.

Some of the stories were obviously made up (really, how much trouble could one goat familiar cause) and others brushed the edges of a jagged sadness, but they were all completely engrossing.

I could have spent a good portion of my life listening to him tell me stories. Erik really does have a gift.

If only I’d realized in the beginning that he was using that gift to spin tales for evil; if only I’d realized he was a Svensen, then I wouldn’t have been such an idiot and believed.

Ouch. That little reminder makes my heart pinch.

“I think you do that just to get under my skin,” I grumble as I yank up the covers to my neck like a shield even though he can’t see me.

“What?” he asks, his amusement clear. “Breathe?”

I fight it, but a goofy grin pulls up the corners of my mouth anyway. A guy who can make me laugh is always my downfall.

“Aha!” Erik lets out a maniacal laugh. “I knew you were a softie.”

How did he know? My gaze bounces from the pillow wall (still intact) to the ceiling (no mirrors, thank you, house) and lands on the window, where I can see our reflection because it’s still dark outside.

The man has no right to look that good at this time in the morning.

His dark hair is longer than it was in Vegas and it’s going every which way, including hanging in his eyes, giving him a sexy disheveled look and making him seem more imp than nemesis.

He must have kicked off the velvet comforter during the night, because the only thing covering him is the sheet resting on his hips.

I get an eyeful of broad shoulders, sinewy arms, and washboard abs.

Fuck. I don’t have to close my eyes to remember what it felt like to glide my fingers over that stomach or kiss my way across his chest. It’s all right there, a nearly tangible, hot desire that leaves me keyed up and needy for the last man I should ever lust after.

It’s hard, and honestly, I don’t want to, but I yank my gaze back up to Erik’s face.

The bastard grins and winks at me.

Asshole.

You mean hot, sexy asshole.

Shut up, brain.

“If you don’t mind,” I say, glaring at his reflection. “I need to get up and go shower.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I’d never stop you.”

Then he just stares at me. I swear he doesn’t even blink. I can practically feel his gaze traveling over me, stopping at all the places he’d spent so much time kissing in Vegas.

There is a lot of stopping.

The room is getting warmer (especially under the comforter), my skin is becoming more sensitive, and the act of putting thoughts together is harder because my body is screaming at me to knock down that stupid pillow wall I’d insisted on last night.

I try to take in a calming breath, but all that does is inflate my chest so my hard nipples rub against the sheets, a teasing reminder of what it is like when Erik delivers those featherlight touches that drive me to the edge.

I bite down on my lip to keep myself from saying anything I’d regret later—like “fuck me right this second”—but all that little bit of pain does is make me want some pleasure even more.

It’s almost more than I can take (celibacy has never been my brand), but someone must be looking out for me, because the sun rises just enough that the light glints off the Sherwood signet ring on my thumb.

The reminder of what’s expected of me and what my duty to my family is hits at exactly the right moment, and I’m relieved. Yeah, that’s right. Relieved.

Gathering myself up, I stare at the spot on the window just above Erik’s reflection. “Close your eyes.”

Petty? Whiny? Ridiculous? Yes to all of the above, but I just can’t seem to help myself around him. He drives me to it.

One of his eyebrows shoots up. “Really, wife?”

I don’t have to look at him to know he’s doing that signature smirk of his—the one I hate and love in the same breath.

“I need to get up and go take a shower,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster considering I have a blanket pulled up to my neck like a Victorian-era virgin. “We have a long day ahead.”

Bracing myself for battle (yes, even a small one like this), my mind is already spinning coming up with what I’ll say next when his smile softens around the edges. Then he grabs his pillow from behind his head and places it over his face and throws both arms crisscross over top of it.

“So you know I’m not peeking,” he says, his voice muffled by the heavy down feathers.

It’s over-the-top, way too dramatic, and—I hate to admit it—kinda sweet. I bite back my groan of disgust. What is wrong with me when it comes to this man?

I know he’s only doing this to make me forget about the divorce, and yet it still makes me smile. Thank the fates he can’t see it.

Doing my best to ignore all that, I quickstep it around the bed and into the tiny en suite bathroom.

There’s enough room in here to turn around, but not much else.

I twist on the water in the shower and crank it to blistering—or at least that’s the way Erik described the temperature I like my water when we showered together in Vegas.

It was supposed to be a sexy shower, the kind you see in the movies.

Instead it was a negotiation in water temperature, with him swearing his skin was melting at my preferred heat level and me turning blue when he adjusted the water to frigid.

By the time we found an acceptable medium, we were both laughing so hard that we almost slipped and fell on our asses multiple times.

One giggle led to another, which led to me clinging to him for support and then him pulling me close and then we were kissing and the next thing I knew he had scooped me up and carried me soaking wet to the hotel bed.

The inn’s bathroom is full of steam when I strip off my clothes and step into the shower.

Like the rest of the bathroom, it’s tiny, but the water pressure is hard enough to massage the knots out of my shoulders.

Normally I don’t carry my tension in my shoulders, but then again, normally I don’t have to spend every waking—and sleeping—moment with the guy who duped me into marrying him.

The shower is good, but as I flip open the mini bottle of pomegranate-scented bodywash, I can’t get the Vegas memories out of my thoughts.

Even worse, I’m not sure I want to. I tip my head back so the water can soak my hair and glide the soap over my body, lingering on my breasts the way Erik always would.

Cupping them gently at first, a mere tease of what was coming.

Then he’d push them together before he’d suck one hard nipple into his warm mouth.

His teeth would graze the sensitive peak, teasing and tempting me until I was ready to beg for more.

All the annoyingly self-satisfied man would do, though, would be to move to the other nipple and start the whole process over again.

By the time he was done with that one, I wasn’t a woman so much as I was the personification of jelly-kneed lust.

The warm water beats against my shoulders as I rub the bodywash over my skin, slowing and taking my time covering my breasts, cupping them, brushing my nipples to taut peaks, and then pinching them.

Closing my eyes, I give in to the fantasy that it’s Erik doing this.

It’s Erik kissing his way down my stomach to the apex of my thighs.

As I slip my fingers between my legs, it’s his face I’m picturing looking up at me from a kneeling position, that damn smirk of his on full display.

His shoulders are slick with the water from the shower and I have to brace my hands against the tile walls as he leans forward, burying his face in my pussy.

My fingers circle my clit faster and faster as I imagine the feel of his tongue against me, the addition of his fingers pumping into me as he sucks and kisses and licks me right to the edge of the known world.

I’m lost in this fantasy and I don’t care.

All I want is to embrace the pleasure, let it build, and ride that sweetly demanding tension until I break apart.

I’m close, so fucking close. I can barely breathe.

My whole body feels like it’s pulled into itself to the point where I can’t take it anymore.

That’s when I hear Erik as clearly as if he were standing next to me, whispering in my ear, urging me on in words that I can’t formulate.

The fantasy is blurring as the tension inside me builds and I slap a palm against the shower wall to keep my balance before my orgasm explodes through me, a rush of pleasure that leaves me gasping.

I stand there for a minute under the shower spray to just enjoy that melty, easy, satisfied feeling that makes my limbs heavy in that good way.

The usually invisible handfast mark encircling my wrist is glowing and warm.

It doesn’t burn, exactly, but there’s a tingling sensation that’s more than a buzz and less than the pain of trying to walk when your foot falls asleep.

I trace my fingertips over the line that’s already beginning to fade as I catch my breath.

My thighs are a little shaky and my pulse erratic, but I get back to what I was supposed to be doing in the first place and grab the tiny bottle of inn-provided shampoo.