Page 99 of Witchbane

I groaned. He worked in again, slow, deliberate, with a long draw out. It was almost painfully good. My body was gasping for sensation and trembling with need.

“Focus on us. Every nerve is going to burn with pleasure.” He nipped the skin on the back of my neck. I already burned for him. And with his slow roll I couldn’t do anything other than focus on where we were connected. All the way in, full, happy, and all the way out, empty, needing. I fell into a daze of focus, almost reaching orgasm a dozen times, only to be denied when he pulled out. My entire body trembled, clenching and unclenching, trying to hold him close while I gripped the bed and tried to remember to breathe. Nothing had ever been so good and so frustrating all at once.

Didn’t he understand I needed him?

“Years without you,” Liam muttered. “Only memories and my hand for company.” He paused, deep inside, lifting me onto all fours and shoving the pillows away. “Going to go hard now. Show you how much I missed you. Means you’ll be sore and messy tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I agreed as long as he kept going.

“I’ll make you come again before my knot,” Liam promised.

I liked that idea since the edging was driving me into insanity.

His grip tightened, claws emerging from his fingertips. His control was slipping, but he didn’t cut me. This time when he slid back it wasn’t all the way, and he slammed forward, rocking me hard enough that if he hadn’t had a good grip on my hips, I’d have gone sailing into the headboard. And with that he set the new pace. Hard, almost brutally intense, bruising friction that felt so good, I completely lost words. I came, not once, but twice. Stars were popping around my sight and I almost lost consciousness with the intensity. I gasped for breath and gave back as much as I could, letting him slam into me, pressing my hips back into his, driving him deeper. His heavy pounding not stopping and dragging me back to life within a few strokes. I hadn’t thought it was possible to drift in the universe while still being on earth, floundering in the afterglow all while the orgasm began to build again.

The second time I came I felt him begin to expand inside me, the knot forming. His pace didn’t slow, and the erotic slap of us coming together over and over, my balls smacking against his, pulled sounds from me I wasn’t sure I’d ever made. The base of him grew in size, large enough that my body had to work to stretch around him, pleasure and pain one tiny teetering edge.

He had to stop moving as we locked, and rolled our hips together, pressing himself into one side of me, and then the other. An infinitesimal change, and yet each movement had me bouncing between orgasm and afterglow. Was I still alive? I gaped like a fish, and it was Liam’s strength that held me up.

I felt him come, and did black out for a few seconds, vision vanishing as my body spasmed as if it were trying to milk him of every last drop. The bond wrapped so tightly around us I wondered if the orgasm could spread to the pack bond. It would have worried me if the stars hadn’t expanded, and yanked me down into the pleasant warmth of safety, satisfaction, and sleep in Liam’s arms.

Chapter 28

Waking up to find not Liam beside me, but Ari, was a bit disconcerting. I was dressed in pajamas and the bed had been changed. All the windows in the room were open, likely to air out the scent of sex, and leaving a bit of a chill. I felt like I’d gotten real rest, which I guess was good.

“What are you doing?” I asked Ari.

“Coloring.”

I wiggled myself into a seated position hoping Ari wasn’t coloring on the bedspread. Kids did weird things like that, right? I never thought I’d have a kid. I’d have to see if there was a book somewhere I could read about how to do it right. At least Liam had a bit of experience in that department. He had done okay with Korissa.

Ari was coloring in a book, but I couldn’t make out what sort of coloring book it was. Peering over Ari’s shoulder I tried to make out a bit of bubble writing that was below the scribbles of Ari’s colors.

Did that say…? I gasped and slapped my hand on the book. Ari looked up at me with wide eyes.

“Where did you get this?”

“Uncle Carl gave it to me. Says it has your favorite words in it. When I asked him what they meant, he said to ask you.”

I gaped at my kid. Carl was a dead man. He just didn’t know it yet. I reached over and carefully closed the book which was a coloring book full of swear words. I guess it could have been worse and been filled with lude sex scenes or something. “How about we find you some better coloring books.”

“Papa says we can’t leave the house.”

“Where is your Papa?” I got up, cramming the crayons back in the box and picking up Ari, who thankfully wasn’t that heavy. They wrapped their legs around my waist, and arms around my neck. I’d never been all that keen on having a small person, but having Ari in my arms felt right. And every bit of me knew Ari was mine. Whatever magic had created them, they were real in every way that I could tell. “Anyone else supposed to be watching you, or justUncleCarl?”

I clutched the coloring book to my chest to keep them from reading it. How much was already in their head? I admitted being more than a little irritated by Carl giving that to my kid and no one catching it. Where was Liam? Shouldn’t someone have been watching Ari? Okay, I was now, but I’d been asleep.

And funny how fast my temper heated up. That hadn’t happened in a while. Too many years running from emotion, I guess. But now I was inflamed and suddenly the book in my grasp burst into fire.

I gasped, chucking it away from Ari and me without much thought. It landed on the floor rug, flames slowly eating away at it. “Fuck!” I cried, setting Ari on the bed and grabbing a blanket to try to put out the fire. I didn’t even know how it happened. Had I set the book on fire? With my temper? That couldn’t be a good thing. This whole growing into my power late in life thing really sucked.

I floundered, trying to recall old lessons about fire. Stop, drop, and roll didn’t seem like it would help in this instant. I didn’t have sand like you’d use to put out a campfire. I did have water though. I rushed into the bathroom, trying to find anything to hold water. The flames began to lick at the carpet.

“Fuck!” I couldn’t help it. There wasn’t anything to hold water. Not bigger than the tiny mouthwash cup. I filled it anyway, rushing to the room to douse the flames. The tiny splash did little, and I did it several more times, racing back and forth. Only the fire was growing.

Ari sat on the end of the bed with wide eyes staring at the growing flames. Was I going to burn Liam’s house down? What did I do? I met my kid’s gaze and wondered if they saw the panic there, because Ari stretched out a hand and the flames froze as ice rippled over the carpet.

I sucked in air and fell to my knees. I should have thought of that. Called the ice. If I could set things on fire at random, I could do that with ice too, right? Kiran had said kitsunes were creatures of fire by nature, so maybe not?