Deny Me: A Paranormal Romance (Legends of the Ashwood Institute Book 2)

by Jayla Kane

  And then there was the other matter.

  I felt like a dick; I was acting like a jealous boyfriend, and I had absolutely no right. But…

  We did have sex. Several times, just last night—that’s what she was washing off of her right now, the scent of our bodies blending together in blistering, blissful heat.

  And in spite of my history… I felt that in my soul. I was never going to have sex with anyone else, and I knew it, in that moment—the pit of my stomach told me the truth. I was done. I didn’t want anyone else—couldn’t want anyone else. Ever.

  And no man in the goddamn world would brush off her little coffee date as harmless in that situation, no matter the history, no matter that she hadn’t committed to me in any way, shape or form.

  I was committed to her.

  I belonged to her.

  I stalked into the bathroom and watched through the frosted glass as she leaned down and turned on the water, an arc of shower spray landing on her and filling the room with damp heated air. Raven, I said, and the sound of my thought snapping between us was barely more than a snarl. She turned her head in my direction.

  I started to move. Couldn’t even stop myself if I tried.

  The waves of steam parted in front of me as my power extended out and smashed through them, stopping just in front of the glass before I shattered it. I yanked the door open and saw Raven standing in the hot water, defiant and furious.

  I sank down on my knees in front of her naked body. Reached for her, the water billowing into clouds of steam around me as fire wreathed my head and sloughed away in a bank of steam. Sank my fingers into the delicious meat of her hips and pulled her to me. To my mouth, my fingers. My need.

  And she let me.

  I knew she would—Raven didn’t belong to me, sure. But I made her body sing. I knew it, and she knew it. All the same, I heard her gasp and raised my face to look at hers, staring down at me, still defiant, still furious. “What are you doing?”

  Fuck you, Raven. You know what I’m doing. I jerked her hips forward just enough to settle her pubic bone on my face and sank my tongue inside of her, listening to her gasp as she rode my mouth involuntarily. Her hands gripped my hair and roughly pulled me back. I said what are you doing, Jake?

  “I’m not going to stop you from going,” I growled up at her, sliding my hands along the inside of her thighs as she shivered. “I’m not even going to try and make you feel bad about wanting to go.”

  “Well, then, why—”

  “You don’t belong to me,” I snarled. “Fine. But I’m going to make damn sure you remember me while you’re with him.”

  “Fuck you,” she hissed, her jaw immediately dropping open as I slipped two fingers inside of her; she was soaking wet, her clit a damp pulse in my hand. I slid a third finger in her ass and watched as she moaned, her head falling back against the wall, her eyes closing as I moved them in and out, just barely, just enough.

  “I’ll stop if you want me to stop.”

  Raven snapped to attention, staring down at me, her eyes hard. Her nostrils flared, her cheeks reddened; fuck you, she said again, but this time it was more of a murmur. I added another finger to her tight ass and felt her whole body thrum with awareness, with desire.

  “You know I will. You don’t even have to say it out loud.” Say it, Raven, I dared her. Tell me to stop. Go ahead.

  Say it.

  Instead, she moaned my name. My hunger answered hers, and I forced her legs apart with my chin and found her clit, sucking it, biting it, making her grind into me so hard I almost fell. One of her legs wrapped around my neck and she leaned her shoulders against the wall; I fucked her harder with my fingers, deeper, shuddering when I felt her body stretch as she arched into it. Wanting it. When she came in my mouth, I heard her scream my name—but only in my head.

  Not good enough.

  I stood up; I hadn’t taken my boxers off before, and they were soaking wet. I didn’t have the patience to pull them all the way down, instead just tugging the waistband below my stiff cock and reaching under Raven’s limp body to lift her into the air. Her legs opened for me and I slid inside, all the way, as far as I could get. “Jake!” That time her cry was perfect—loud, anguished, needy. Her pussy was swollen and hot. I made her wait, pinned there, and sank my teeth into her shoulder. “Fuck!”

  Yeah. It hurt. I felt it through the bond, the sting of it, and I felt her getting close to coming again already. I withdrew a few inches and licked her white skin as she moaned into the air, then pounded her from below, holding her upright with my hands as they dug into her ass.

  You can’t just do this whenever you’re mad at me, she thought; she couldn’t talk, I realized. She was still furious and she even hated me a little bit, right now—but she couldn’t form words with her mouth because her body was already preparing to cum on my dick.

  I’ll ask for forgiveness later then, I told her, leaning back so I could watch myself sinking inside of her as she began to writhe. I’ll never be able to beg you— “fuck, Raven, fuck”— I’ll never be able to grovel, you’ll always get to be a self-righteous bitch—

  “Oh—Oh, Jake, ohhhh---”

  —And I’ll always be the asshole that loves you more than anything— “Uh-uh-uh-uh…” I was fucking her so hard her teeth were clicking together whenever she didn’t have them slammed shut, her face now an unabashed grimace of pure, rigid ecstasy. I felt her coming so long and so hard that I had to physically hold her up, keeping her from falling as her legs slipped from around my waist. I fucked her against the wall of the shower, the entire room bubbling with clouds of steam and smoke as she moaned long and low in my ear, her entire body clenching, over and over, until she finally milked me dry. I couldn’t let go of her when it was over, and we stayed there, the wall holding us up, until I relaxed enough to lean back and hold her upright in the shower’s spray.

  “I hate you,” she whispered, and I bit my lip until it stung, staring down at the top of her head. The water started to cool; I warmed it up. She recovered enough to push away from me and stare up at my face. “I mean it—not all the time. But right now? I fucking hate you.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Her forehead wrinkled as she considered her answer, but when I poured shampoo into my hand and reached for her long hair, she let me. I ran my fingers through it, enjoying the silken feel, and when I massaged the shampoo into her scalp she leaned into my touch, her eyes closing, her face still pensive and angry. Lots of reasons.

  That’s the closest I can get to groveling. I can get on my knees in front of you and tell you I belong to you, and then I can show you that I do.

  Fucking me isn’t your way of… Of submitting to—

  No. I don’t submit. If you want that, I’m going to have to apologize again… But I don’t think you want that, Raven. Not at all. You want me right where I am. And maybe you’re a little mad at yourself, because it sucks when you—

  “Don’t pretend to understand my position,” she snapped at me, but I just shrugged and kept at it, enjoying the feel of her.

  “There’s a lot about what you’re going through I can’t imagine. But I know exactly what it’s like to want someone so bad it feels like you’re starving all the time, and hate them too.” We locked eyes. I remember it pretty fucking vividly.

  But just doing whatever you want, when you want it—

  “I didn’t do what I want,” I growled in her ear, spinning her around so I could rinse the suds out of her beautiful hair. “If we were doing what I wanted, you’d be chained to my fucking bed and I’d be systematically filling all of your holes for the rest of the goddamn afternoon. But that’s not what we’re doing. Is it.” She was silent, facing away from me; when I told her that, though, her back arched, her lovely ass lifting ever-so-slightly, an involuntary offering. I sucked in a breath, looking down at her narrow waist, at the handprints and scratches I’d left on that perfect skin, the almost faded stripes from the belt, skin so opalescent
it gleamed in the steamy, dim light. I was hard again, instantly. Both of us held perfectly still. “Raven?”

  You’re here to do what I want? Raven twisted her head and blinked up at me, her whole body as taut as a bowstring. That’s your line?

  It’s not a line. “Tell me what you want.” I waited as long as I could, then moved into position behind her. Raven sucked in a breath when she felt my cock slide along the groove of skin where thigh meets ass, as the head nestled right between her labia, as my hands reached down—so goddamn hungry I couldn’t even stop them—and stroked her white skin. “Say it, Raven.”

  “Fuck my ass, Jake,” she whispered…

  So I did.

  I was careful. Even though I opened her up a little bit earlier, she needed to be wetter—I needed to be—so I slipped into her pussy and stroked gentle and slow, our bodies moving in perfect unison. I leaned over her, sliding my hands over her hips, down across her damp belly… Her clit was already fluttering, already begging to be touched. I circled it with my fingertip, pulling out and guiding the head back towards her forbidden entrance. I brought my head down so we would be cheek to cheek; I could see her from there, so beautiful, so tense and so ashamed and so ready. I sucked on the soft skin of her neck, rubbing her clit so that it was swollen and close, and pushed inside.

  I didn’t last long; Raven came immediately, a blast of tight white heat that rocketed through both of us so hard that I couldn’t resist. It was fighting gravity. This time, though, I was careful and slow—I wasn’t going to make her sore, not there. I wanted her to cum while I fucked her ass, fucked her deep and felt her fall into it—the way she didn’t want to want it, but she did; the same way she didn’t want to want me. But she did.

  And I understood her feeling of being used, last time, too.

  But I didn’t give a fuck—this time, it was right. This time it was my turn. Use me, I thought, and she shivered and cried out, her clit throbbing under my finger. Do it. Use me.

  When we were done I picked her up and held her in my arms while we showered. She tucked her face under my neck; I’m pretty sure she didn’t want to look at me. I held us under the water—now entirely heated by my power—to rinse off, then carried her into the bedroom. I sat her down on the edge of the bed and toweled off her feet, her legs, her back and arms, and then she seemed to wake up a little bit. Raven tugged the cloth out of my hands and blinked up at me as she rubbed the damp from her hair a little bit, then sat there on the edge of the bed, worrying her bottom lip.

  “We need to figure this out,” she whispered, but I stopped her with a wave of my hand.

  “I don’t need to figure anything out,” I told her, and she prepared herself for battle again until I continued, stymying the withering look on her face with a brief touch that sent a reminder of my love through the bond, sharp and hot, on her shoulder. “I told you: I’m not going to stop you from going. I’ll wait outside in the truck, and listen. If anything goes south, I’m going to burn that fucking place to the ground, Raven, so you might want to let Percy know ahead of time I don’t mean that shit figuratively.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “You’re not mine,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my words; I stood up and faced the window, also unable to look at her for a moment. “I know that. I get it. I totally… I understand. I hate it, but I think I deserve it. That’s what that Lit professor called irony, right?” I couldn’t look at her then, either, and waved off the questioning tendril she sent towards me; my own shield was back, now, and although I knew she could shatter it to pieces she let me be. “So I meant everything I said, and you can do… You can do whatever you want to do. But that’s what I wanted to do—and you did too, Rae, which is more than fine with me—and it is what it is. No explanations required.”

  “You mean you get to give a speech, and I sit here and listen, and then—”

  “Jesus, Raven,” I muttered, crossing my arms and staring out at the beautiful day, now ruined by the endless tide of missed connections and opportunities. By time. Bad luck. By me. “You know that’s not what I meant. At all. But okay,” I said, turning to meet her gaze, letting my hip prop me up on the windowsill and hooking one of my ankles over the other. Classic frat boy asshole pose, but being naked kind of ruined the effect. “I’ll listen. What do you want to say?”

  Raven stared at me from the edge of the bed, her anger fading away. I wasn’t sure how I felt about things either, but it wasn’t my job to sort through her feelings about sex—I couldn’t, or I would. I’d take that shit on in a heartbeat. But that’s not how emotions work, and I knew it. I just needed her, in a way that made me ache and shiver and starving and fucking crazy—unromantic as ever, but there you have it. I loved touching her. I loved making her cum. I loved it. But I knew why she didn’t—not all the time, not like I did. And I couldn’t make that contradiction work for her.

  She hadn’t been able to make it work for me.

  “I have no idea how I feel right now,” Raven finally said. “I’m… I’m overwhelmed.”

  “Okay,” I said, and now that we were back on less hostile ground I had to fight the urge, once again, to go over and pull her onto my lap, to somehow make her happy again. She blew out a long frustrated sigh. “Whatever you need, Rae,” I said, and she twisted her mouth, assessing, her eyes narrowing in on mine.

  “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Of course I fucking did. I was definitely shit at something she needed—groveling, for instance—but I was willing to ask for forgiveness for anything I couldn’t be for her, and try my damnest to do it anyway. I definitely wasn’t trying to hurt her any more, and she had to see that.

  She could see everything in my head now. Hopefully some of what was in my heart, too.

  “You can wait outside,” Raven finally told me, swallowing as she did and bracing for my reaction. I held still; the fireplace brightened, just for a second, but otherwise I held myself in check. “I’ll scream if anything happens, and I wasn’t ignoring you—I think it’s a good idea to be cautious. I don’t want you to burn Delta down, though, Jake.” Her next words surprised me. “We don’t know enough about who’s got it out for us—and I don’t mean the Society. All of this secrecy must mean something. And I don’t… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  I can’t describe how good that made me feel—that microscopic admission, the kind of thing she might say about a stranger. I felt like I was glowing inside.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a hesitant step towards her. When she lifted her chin, her eyes raised to meet mine, I couldn’t stop myself from going over to her—one blink, and I was there, and I realized I used the air in the room to push me closer, faster—and then I was wrapping her tightly in my arms.

  “I still hate you,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah,” I said. Fair enough.

  “But I—”

  There was a knock on the door. It broke me out of the cloud I’d been floating on, the one where Raven and I saw eye to eye, where she might allow herself to care for me at least a little bit. I snarled, turning towards it and wondering if it would be too rude of me to throw the damn thing open naked and bite whoever was waiting on the other side. “Down boy,” Raven murmured, laying a hand on my chest, and I felt the surge of warmth in her touch and let it soothe me. We got off of the bed and rustled up some clothes—Sarah had apparently deposited more of Raven’s in one side of the closet, we just hadn’t noticed earlier—and when we were dressed I walked over and yanked the door open.

  Lucas was standing there, a strange little smile on his mouth.

  I knew that face.

  “Lucas, you fucking bastar—”

  He grabbed me by my arms, and I felt the sweltering heat inside of his skin—his touch burned me down to the bone, the air rapidly filling with the scent of sizzling flesh, and that was all I saw, all I could smell or think or feel, before he hurtled me through the air, smashing me against the opposite
wall.

  And the world went black.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Raven

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen—like so many things recently, it couldn’t be real.

  But it was.

  “JAKE!” I immediately started running towards him, then halted at the threshold of the room as Lucas turned towards me, his delicate face a withering white, his brain seething. I sent out a tendril, shooting for Jake’s mind, and found him in total darkness. “Wake up! Please!” I couldn’t keep the sobs from my mouth, stumbling back and hoping Sarah’s presence was holding the door for me… After a second, whatever her power was, my guess proved correct. Lucas sneered at me, shaking his head, unable to walk into the room. I made sure to stand far back, unable to shake the image of Jake’s massive body flying through the air.

  “You just stay there then,” he hissed. Lucas’s mind rippled with malice, the stench of him filling my nostrils even at this distance. He smirked at me. “When I kill him, it’ll be me again, and you won’t be safe then, Keller.” He started to move away, then spun on his heel and snapped his jaws at me, breaking into laughter at the yelp that left my throat. I could barely look at him right now; the magic that leaked out of his brain was scalding hot, blood and wrath and… Cruelty. Just pure, unadulterated cruelty. “Maybe I’ll keep you around for a little while,” he murmured to himself, his eyes running over me with naked assessment, dwelling on my breasts until I shivered with revulsion and took yet another step back.

  Should I keep him talking? That worked in the movies. “Why?” I sent out another tender brush to Jake’s mind; he stirred, as if waking up. Baby please, please come back to me. Please!

  “You tell me,” Lucas snapped, his eyes narrowing. “I always wondered how her daughters were so damn chaste when the elder Keller threw her pussy at anything that moved.” Lucas gave me a horrible smile, so gruesome I winced as I watched the frothing laughter in his brain. He seemed… Rabid. Diseased. Definitely not human. “Now I know, of course. If you’re passing the time with Jake, you’ll do just fine to entertain me for a while.”