She had loved her family all her life. He was just the new cop in town that wanted something that might have been out of his league. He was already set up for failure and he didn’t even know it.
The doorbell rang, and Krystal jumped. Devin stayed fixed where he was as she moved to answer it. He didn’t have to look when he heard a few kids scream, “Trick-or-treat.”
Despite the turmoil she must have felt, Krystal managed to put on a smile and coo over their pretty costumes as she dropped candy into their bags from the bowl that sat by the door. The parents thanked her and they hurried off the porch. Devin wanted to call after them and tell them to get off the streets. After all he pieced together about the two murders, he figured that innocent children would be safe. It was the sinners and social outcasts who were in danger. Aaron’s theory was beginning to hold water.
Krystal stayed by the door and he turned to hold her gaze and the debating expression fixed on her face. Her breaths came heavy, her chest rising and falling, so enticing, but still forbidden until she gave him an answer.
He came toward her, his footfalls tapping against the floor as he came closer. Devin stood before her and the air around them seemed balmy, thick with the shared emotions they suffered for the decision she had to make. He hoped, he prayed that she wouldn’t let him leave. The longer they stood like that, eyes locked in an unnamable struggle of unspoken morals, Devin lost it all.
He reached for the doorknob. “I’ll show myself out.”
Before he could turn it, Krystal leapt at him, her mouth claiming his with undeniable longing. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in tight, so he had no choice but to return the kiss. This wasn’t his answer, not by a long shot, but Devin would take it.
He locked the doorknob and deadbolt without having to even look at it, and then enveloped her in his arms so he could feel her supple body against his. As if reading his mind, Krystal’s hands got to work on his jacket, stripping it off and he helped her with his belt.
His cop gear fell to the floor. Neither of them thought of the scuff the hard plastic and metal would make in the wood. Without any communication, he picked Krystal up, his hands cupping her ass against him. Her legs hooked around his torso so he could easily carry her into the living room.
Even if this was the last night they could be together, he wouldn’t question it. Devin was going to enjoy this and he had a feeling that Krystal would too. Whatever disaster waited for them in the morning, could wait until the dawn.
Chapter Fourteen
Passion swirled in Krystal’s core as she felt her nipples harden against Devin’s chest. She moaned as he took her down onto the couch. Now that his jacket and cop belt were out of the way, she could explore that body she had been fantasizing about during her elemental training.
Her hands snatched at his shirt, tugging it free from his pants as his hands roamed just as they had the other night. Without a bra to encumber them, Krystal could feel every scintillating brush against her chest that made her sigh with pleasure. The familiar heat and electricity shot through her, setting her blood on fire.
She didn’t want to think about everything he had said just a moment or two ago, about leaving or staying. The universe knew Krystal wanted him to stay, to be with her for as long as he’d have her. The excuse about her parents was true. They wanted her to date a warlock, not a non-magic cop. They wanted so much from her, but she had to disappoint them. Her heart demanded it.
The bigger question, the one that had stolen away her sleep, was if she should listen to the demands of her heart or her magic. Being with Devin would be nothing short of a thrilling adventure. A kind of small town fairytale that she couldn’t resist. Her dark magic, this fire that steadily grew within her the moment she saw him standing on her front porch, was what threw a wrench in her plans.
How long would it take before she could trust herself around him? How long before the fire could be contained and controlled – if that was even possible. Could she risk him, or should she give herself more time? Devin wasn’t giving her more time, so this was the next best route. Test the waters, see if she could master this passion without it consuming the thing she loved most. If she could, then they could get right back to where they started.
She worked at the buttons of his shirt, breaking off a few in the process and she heard them patter upon the carpet by the sofa. Devin’s mouth moved along her jaw and down her neck as he did before. She could feel his fingers tug down the waistband of her pajama pants. The cool air of the house crawled across her flush skin.
Krystal wanted this more than anything else. She needed him near, to have him hold her. There was another reason why she couldn’t sleep. Thoughts of Devin had danced through her brain to the point she couldn’t stand to be still any longer. She got up to cook and clean, hoping to expel some of that energy that had been building up inside of her since the night before. She needed that release and no amount of touching herself and fantasizing about him would bring it. She needed him. All of him.
She tugged his button-down uniform shirt over his shoulders, his arms nearly trapped at his sides. When he took the time to sit up and strip off his shirt, she curled her legs up to free herself of her pajama pants. It was moments like this that she should have been wearing any of her flowing skirts. That would have been easier than tugging off her pants to have them join his shirt on the floor.
Devin was more built, more magnificent that she had ever dreamed. She longed to touch every hard, sculpted muscle across his chest and abs. She wanted to feel the ridges and lick them all, one by one.
Her eyes caught something that she hadn’t been privileged to see before. The skin across his left shoulder and a bit down his chest, looked puckered and scarred, as if he had been burned. Krystal quickly sat up to touch that wide, snaking patch marred flesh, but Devin wouldn’t let her.
He leaned back down and pressed his lips into the hallow at the base of her neck. She moaned as his tongue and lips glided across every sensitive spot of her chest. Her thoughts drifted back to the scar. What happened to him? Was this what he didn’t want to tell her about Boston?
All rational train of thought was shattered when he pulled down the front of her camisole to release one of her breasts. His tongue teased at her nipple and she bucked at the flood of ecstasy that rushed through her. More powerful than anything her magic could give her. More consuming than any of her fantasies.
Krystal cried out as he continued to excite her. One hand gripped at his hair, begging him to linger there while her other caressed the rigid muscles of his unblemished shoulder and arm. The heat and wetness between her legs came in tandem with the tantalizing movements of his mouth on her chest. She rocked against his pelvis and she could feel his hardness pressing through the front of his pants.
She rocked faster, moving her hips in time with his so that she could drive him mad with the promise of what it would be like when they didn’t have any clothing there to hinder them. Devin took a break from flicking at her nipple to yank her camisole over her head. Now, she was completely bare to him and she no longer felt cold, but white hot, warmed by the passion that they shared.
He sat up to gaze at her, taking in her mostly naked body with smoldering, hungry eyes that she had missed so badly over the last few days. She reached down to seize the front of his pants, so she could unbutton them, but his hands beat her to it.
In one breathless moment of anticipation, he stripped off his pants and underwear, sliding his shoes off somewhere in the mad dash to get naked. His cock, glistening with his own wetness and throbbing for her touch, called to her. Krystal wrapped her hand around him and slowly moved her hand along his silky shaft. The way he closed his eyes and sighed made her even wetter, knowing that she could pleasure him just like he had her.
His hands refused to be idle and he moved down once more to tantalize her nipples. Both of them. The heat within her grew hotter and Krystal didn’t care. She enjoyed this too much to think of what mig
ht happen, though she remembered exactly at what moment she knew to stop. Right when she was ready to climax. Krystal bit back the moan that came when she wished that moment would never come, that she could just enjoy this forever with his hands all over her and her hand around his cock.
He wouldn’t allow it though. Devin kissed along her chest and down her core, toward the center of her desire. His cock slid from her fingers and she groaned at the unfairness. Yet, when his fingers hooked the fabric of her panties, she couldn’t openly complain.
“Damn, you’re wet,” he whispered as he pulled them down. The evidence of her arousal was plain when the crotch of her pants clung to her folds before exposing that which he searched for.
Krystal grabbed for the edge of the sofa as his tongue lapped up her juices. She cried out once more. She was sure that the neighbors would hear their lovemaking. His mouth covered that most sensitive bit just above her folds and his tongue played with her.
Subconsciously, her hips began to move against him, his palms pressing into her butt cheeks as he lifted her off the couch cushion. Heat exploded within her and she knew that moment was drawing close. The more he teased her, bringing her closer to the end of her pleasure, she wanted to rebel, to pull back and make it last an eternity.
At the same time, she whispered, “Yes, just like that.”
Her skin tingled, her core tightened. She could feel the climax travel up to her very soul, caressing it and pulling her dangerously close to insanity. She was insane for wanting this so badly, for carelessly playing with that fire that would devour them both.
But in that moment, she realized something so transcending. He was her fire. Just as she had fed upon the energy of the candle flames the night before, so now she drew on him for that overwhelming heat that sent her through this spiraling of ecstasy. And he drew upon her. She could feel it now, the warmth and fire channeling between them as he touched her and pleasured her.
Krystal grew dizzy, breathless, and she didn’t know which way was up or down anymore. All that existed was them and this amazing moment as she came. She cried out, loud, and she bucked against his mouth, begging for more as the shocks rattled her body.
But Devin wasn’t done. His tongue brushed in and out between her folds, prolonging the climax in the most amazing way. His mouth slowly detached from her and he moved up to trail kissing across her quivering core.
“I love it when you scream,” he said before kissing her parted lips. She could taste her own cum upon his lips, and she didn’t care.
When Devin’s tip brushed against her pulsating folds, hot and slick from his own arousal, Krystal managed to hook her legs around his thighs. “Take me,” she begged.
He complied, and slid into her with one, agonizingly slow push. Krystal sighed and threw back her head as the grips of passion took her once more. She never imagined she could be ready for another organism, but Devin continued to prove her wrong. She thought she could never love a man and still be successful at business. She thought she could never need something so completely that she would do anything, short of murder, to obtain it. She thought she’d never be so willing to cast aside the traditions of her magical family for something as primal, as eternal as the love of a man.
Yet, here she was, realizing all of the sudden that she did love him. Krystal loved Devin with every cell in her body, with every ounce of the magic that coursed within her. How could she have ever thought that she could let him walk out her front door, forever?
Devin moved within her, pushing and pulling his cock in and out between her folds, filling her and leaving her yearning for more. She arched her back, making her taut nipples brush against his chest as he slowly, but forcefully pumped into her.
“Harder,” she begged, whispering in his ear as he nipped at her neck.
At first, he didn’t. He did the exact opposite. Slowing his movements until she pleaded for it in the way she rocked her hips toward him. Her legs tightened around his waist, pulling herself clear off the cushion until she felt him fill her again.
Only then, when she grew frustrated with the mounting tension within her, did he do as she asked. Devin’s hard cock pounded into her, jostling her body and sending the most unimaginable sensations through her.
His skin was hot to the touch, just as hers was, but the second organism came just as powerfully as the first. She shuddered and cried out as she came again, and she could feel his own member pulsate within her as he came at the same time.
Krystal fell slack against the sofa, weak and shivering from the wild high Devin had just sent her on. Devin, too, eased down, his arms still supporting his own weight, so he wouldn’t crush her. They panted together as one, trying to catch their breaths as the last tingling thrills of their lovemaking faded away.
The heat, however, did not fade as she had expected.
Krystal opened her eyes and rolled her head toward the fireplace that was blazing. The tips of the flames escaped through the metal screen to lick at the wooden mantle. She had never started a fire that evening.
Her eyes went wide. Her mind was suddenly clear as she looked around and saw every candle in the living room boasted a tall, rigid flame just like the ones from the night before during her training. Her senses came back to her and she smelled both the scorched meat in the skillet and the heard the boiling water in the pot on the range.
Krystal began to hyperventilate as she reached out to calm the flames before Devin noticed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, lifting himself up a little more. His cock eased out and she shuddered at the feeling of total disconnect. She wished he could have stayed in all night, but there were more pressing matters.
The flames weren’t going down. None of them were. She tried to focus and wouldn’t answer his question.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Devin finally looked up and turned toward the fireplace. “Was that lit before?”
Krystal tried to act as if she were simply stretching her arm muscles, so he wouldn’t suspect what she was really trying to do. “Uh, yeah. I started it just before you got here.”
Yet, there was something in the way he watched the fire that reminded her of the first evening they shared together in the house. That troubled, almost panicky look in his eyes made her even more desperate to control the flames in the room.
She was really fucked when his gaze jerked toward the candles on the table on the far wall of the room. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed and scrambled off of her. Krystal’s face wrinkled with worry as she didn’t try to hide it anymore. There was no way he was going to just ignore two-foot-tall candle flames.
Krystal rolled over on the sofa cushion and outstretched both of her hands toward the candles, seeped the life from the fire until they were completely snuffed out. Tiny wisps of smoke curled upward from the wicks. Thankfully, they had never turned the smoke detectors back on.
Devin was on his feet, staring at the fire that wasn’t completely out of control, but almost. The paint on the mantle began to chip and flake away, dropping onto the rug and smoldering there with residual heat.
Once more, Krystal reached out to quell the fire. It took a bit more effort, but she got it down to a reasonable level to the point that it wasn’t going to eat away at the mantle any more. She didn’t even want to look at Devin. She didn’t want to see the fear and questions in his eyes. And she definitely didn’t want to think about how much it would cost to touch up the wood on the mantle.
Instead, she readied herself for the inevitable shit storm that was about to come barreling through her living room. Krystal reached down to retrieve her clothes and tugged them on, her hands trembling as she waited for the explosion.
Nothing.
When she finally slipped her panties on, she looked to Devin. His crystalline blue eyes watched in wide fascination. His mouth hung open as he stood completely naked and vulnerable by the sofa. The scar across his shoulder and chest drew her attention again, but now wasn’t the time to ask about it. She
could make her own assumptions. By the way he had been terrified of the out of control fireplace, Devin must have been involved in some accident that burned him while in Boston. The details weren’t important right now, but it made her feel even worse about losing control like that. He was afraid of the one thing that would follow her for the rest of her life.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, his voice carefully soft, so unlike what she had expected.
Krystal blinked back the tears that pricked at her eyes, wishing it hadn’t come to this. She thought she was being careful. Thought she had it under control, but hindsight showed her that even during earth-shattering sex, she still didn’t have any restraint.
If given the chance, she wouldn’t have done anything differently. The utter bliss that came with his touch, his caress, his sex, none of it could be regrettable. She’d do him all over again if he’d let her. After this night, he probably wouldn’t.
“It’s hard to explain,” she replied.
“Try,” he demanded, the boldness in him resurfacing. That same boldness that presented her the ultimatum earlier.
There was no easy way to say what needed to be said now. There was no way to break the news gently to someone who must have never even entertained the idea that there was anything supernatural in the world. Devin was a realist. He appreciated honesty and openness, but he didn’t show it to others. He didn’t want anything to water-down his reality. Would he try to shun the truth when she spoke it?
Taking a deep breath, Krystal said, “I’m a witch.”
She had never said those words to non-magic folk before. Whenever she met another witch, there was an instant connection. They already knew what she was, and she didn’t have to tell them.
Even fae and other magical creatures could sense the magic within her and didn’t need an explanation. But to a human, she would have appeared just as normal as any other. Devin would have never thought she was anything magical. Not until now.
Bewitching Fire Page 21