by Rhea Watson
Her heartbeat quickened beneath my palm before I slowly smoothed it up her neck and over that miserable collar. Utterly bewitched, I lost myself in those sapphire pools, in the depth they promised, the acceptance they offered, until finally I cupped her cheek, cradling her head in my hand. What a precarious position: one sharp jerk and I could snap her neck. Funny how intimacy and brutality shared so many common threads.
But there was no brutality when I kissed her. No selfish taking, no indulgent tongue-thrusting on my part. Our lips met softly, tentatively. Romantically. After centuries of fucking with no one of real importance, I had long since given up on romance. Yet heat flared in my chest, my gut somersaulting in the most pleasurable way, my cock hard against her belly. Easy to confuse a twinge of romance for outright lust, but as our mouths opened to one another, slowly and surely, I finally felt the difference.
Lust was all frantic fire and greedy caresses.
Romance was sugar and spice, taking one’s time because you savored the moment, every minute detail of the act itself.
The idea for this morning’s little fling came about when I considered all the times I’d seen Katja after her interactions with Elijah and Rafe. Sex seemed to make her feel better—and who could blame her? She had been hauled off to the warden’s office twice since my prison stint began, and each one battered her spirit, ground it into the dirt. As I lay in my pathetic cot, trying to think of ways to brighten her mood, sex had seemed obvious. It always made me feel good, after all, but as she sidled closer now, I realized that feel-good from past lovers came from the physical release alone.
Not from… this. Not from the closeness or the intimacy.
Her tongue was a tease, a natural flirt, darting into my mouth and coaxing mine to play. I tasted her smile, saw it stretched all the way to her eyes even with her lids closed and relaxed, and I seized the opportunity to catch her by surprise again. Spiderwalking my fingers up her side, I found the top of her towel and yanked, ripping the final material barrier between us from her body and tossing it away. She gasped into my mouth, the hand in my hair tightening and twisting with admonishment, and my dark chuckle had little telltale bumps exploding across her exposed flesh.
Katja arched against me, pebbled nipples brushing my chest, and I jerked her closer with a growl. The sugar gave way to spice, our kiss quickening, deepening, like we were in a race: Who could consume the other first?
Me. I was more motivated.
Unfortunately, she had a leg up on me—not literally… not yet. But with my steely shaft caught between our bodies, even the slightest movement was fucking agony. It took everything in my power not to grind against her creamy skin and spill myself all over her tits. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have cared. Usually, I went straight for the gold, especially if I was this hard and wanting. But with Katja, I took my time, stroking her, mapping her curves with hungry hands. She had a mole on her right hip—raised and a little sensitive when I brushed over it. A dimple on her left ass cheek. Some cellulite on the backs of her thighs. An adorable little pouch above her cunt…
Womanly perfection.
Need more.
Exploring her with my eyes closed was one thing, lost in the kiss, never wanting to part, but seeing her was another. Innocently, my left hand climbed her body, smoothing over her heated flesh, cupping her breast in passing, wandering up, up, up—until it cuffed her throat. Hard. Just below the magicked leather, I collared her and thrust her back. Greedy eyes roved her figure, from her tits that trembled with every ragged breath to the delectable flush that stretched from her cheeks to her navel, to the dip between her thighs, the abstract watercolor tattoo—black and blue clouds swirling around her left calf, unexpected and artsy and somehow rather fitting—and then up again to the patch of fiery red hiding my prize.
Exquisite.
Mine.
The declaration appeared out of nowhere, and I clenched my jaw, slightly unnerved by the possessive flames unfurling inside me. Her hands went to my wrist, especially when I squeezed just a little harder, panic flashing in her eyes at my predatory grin. I let it drag on a little longer, grasping her like she was a catfish wriggling on the end of my line, before closing in and kicking apart her lovely legs. Katja’s breath hitched, but she steadied herself, knees slightly bent and feet flat…
Until I lifted her onto her toes.
Her eyes rounded a touch more, only to flutter shut as my free hand delved down her belly and between her thighs. I stroked her entirety at first, massaging her slickness, smearing her arousal over her nether lips. A caress light as air across her clit had her eyes snapping open, and I made her watch as I licked her desire from three of my fingers, slowly, one at a time. When those fingers returned to her sex, I found her wetter, her pale thighs trembling as I held her up.
I could have had this alone and been satisfied. Sure, my cock jutted out between us, desperate for closeness, starving to plunge into her inferno, but I would take a savage case of blue balls just to keep her on her toes and finger-fuck her through as many orgasms as we could fit in the next hour.
A heady, albeit strained, moan tumbled from her lips when I thrust a finger into her—then another, eventually working her cunt with three while the base of my palm smothered her clit. My little witch was so responsive to me, her hips bucking, her legs shaking with every torturous thrust. She fought to stay up on her toes, digging her claws into my forearm as she used me for balance. While hooded, she kept her eyes on me—on my gaze, and as tempted as I was to take mental pictures of her flushed, quivering body, of her toes all pink at the ends from the exertion and her tightened nipples dancing for me, I couldn’t look away either.
Especially when she came.
Katja’s knees buckled as she writhed and clenched around my fingers. I tracked the pleasure ripping through her, from the blush exploding across her skin to the sagging of her limbs, the climax milking what strength she had and leaving her limp.
Leaving her entirely at my mercy.
Fuck.
Jaw clenched, I dragged us across the space, not stopping until my back collided with the cold—grungy—tile beneath the shower head. Katja collapsed against my chest, her arms folded between us, her elbows driving into my torso and my cock stabbing at her belly.
“Ugh, sorry,” she whispered shakily, taking in our backdrop. “I can—”
“Shut your beautiful mouth,” I hissed, then plucked at her lower lip for good measure. “It’s worth it… I can take it.”
“My hero.” She wiggled her eyebrows and smirked, her sarcasm positively dripping—just like her cunt. Taking her firmly by the hips, I spun her around so swiftly, with such ease, that she gasped.
“Tell me to stop, darling,” I urged, planting a hand between her shoulder blades and slowly bending her over, “and I will.”
“Noted,” Katja fired back. She folded at the waist, following my lead, offering herself to me, and braced on her knees. No, no, that wouldn’t do. An idea sparked—somehow, because literally every drop of blood in my body was currently in my cock—and using the grimy wall for support, I lunged and grabbed her arms. Yanked them behind her back. Trapped her wrists in one hand while the other darted around to pluck at her nipples.
“Fintan.”
“You know the words,” I growled, bending her further. She adjusted with a whimper, widening her stance, preparing, arching her lower back so that I had access to everything. The corners of my mouth kicked up. One hole a day, I think. While my thumb brushed her puckered little asshole, a caress that made her stiffen with a sharp breath, I had my sights set elsewhere.
And I claimed my treasure—vehemently. Steering my cock with my free hand, I teased her pussy with a few insufficient pumps, just the silken tip delving in, until she tried to push back with a frustrated whine. I tsked down at her, then gave her ass a pair of light—sharp—love taps.
“Patience is a virtue, Katja.”
“Not in prison, Fintan.”
I snorted. “Tr
ollop.”
“Fuck you—”
I bucked hard, filling her to the hilt and forcing a long, aching moan from her. My eyes all but rolled back in my head as she clamped down around me, sweet relief on the horizon, but then took a deep breath to steady myself—to come back to the moment and remember that this wasn’t about me.
It had always been about me before.
And the change felt oddly powerful.
Threading my fingers into her hair, I wrapped her red mane around my fist and wrenched her head back, absolutely obsessed with every little noise she made. Katja whined, her sex rippling around my cock, and pushed back into my hips the longer I stayed still. In time, darling. Just to be cruel, I waited as long as I could, holding her in place by her wrists and hair, snapshotting her lovely figure bent over and contorted in front of me, utterly at my mercy. She tried to seek her own satisfaction, writhing against me, trying to move, but I kept her still, tormented her a little while longer.
Only when I couldn’t take it anymore, every cell in my body on the verge of imploding, did I move.
Hard.
Fast.
Punishing.
Yet somehow this pace, this pounding into her and watching her jiggle, had the same romantic air to it as our first kiss. Strange. Rough sex had never struck me as romantic before, but somehow, I couldn’t fathom any other way with Katja.
And from the way she squeaked and groaned and whimpered, from the stomping of her little feet and the flailing of her fingers, she loved every damn second of it.
In fact, she spurred me on. For the first time, I let my lover set the pace, call the shots, using the pitch of her cries and the clench of her body to drive me onward. The second I abandoned her hair, her head lolled forward, bobbing with every buck of my hips, cock pistoning in and out of her. As soon as I found her clit, tough as it was to maneuver, she was gone again. She scream-whispered my name, her hands in rigid fists, and I offered no mercy, no quarter, pummeling her through another climax that turned her words to babbling nonsense.
Waiting had never felt so exquisite. If we had the luxury, I would have kept her in this room all fucking day and spent at least a few hours edging her. Katja would hate it, hate me, but it would only make her downfall all the sweeter.
Unfortunately, we had a limit. One hour alone and the guards’ silence—assured in blood, their word unbreakable—for twenty thousand dollars, and the thought of being hauled out of here immediately post-coitus set my teeth on edge. So, I adjusted my angle, grabbed her hair again, and pounded through to my own nirvana. Muscles tensed, pleasure sharpened in my core, igniting, spreading like wildfire until it consumed every part of me. I came with a hiss and a groan, spilling myself inside her as fireworks exploded behind my lids.
Fuck. It was like I’d never orgasmed before her. Like all previous climaxes were a trial run leading up to the real thing. Panting, I folded forward and dragged an openmouthed kiss over her rounded back. Knees weak, fingertips tingling, vision spotted with black dots, I could have easily collapsed onto her, both of us crashing to the floor—and in a cleaner setting, I might have. Instead, I forced myself upright and released her wrists, both bruised from my hold, then her hair. Gently as I could, I helped her straighten with a shaky arm around her waist, then let her lean on me, head tucked under my chin as she caught her breath. Behind me, I groped around for the shower nozzle, then turned it and shielded her from the meager assault of a barely lukewarm spray.
Katja yelped, sheltering in my chest, until it warmed just a fraction more to her liking. Only then did I feel secure in letting her stand on her own two feet, leaving her for a few moments to shuffle over to my toiletries hamper—which was the envy of the cellblock and one of the most expensive items at the store. Still struggling through the sluggishness of my climax, I dug around inside for what we needed, then sauntered back to her.
Bruised and flushed, Katja was a vision. Standing beneath the shower’s halfway decent water pressure, she watched my approach while nibbling on her lower lip, looking neither guilty nor ashamed—but relaxed. Possibly even… content?
“Right.” I held up a tiny travel-sized bottle of shampoo. “I will trade you one deep-throating blowjob for this full bottle. Note the seal is unbroken—”
She smacked my chest with a carefree laugh, shoving at me while I chuckled, both of us halfhearted in our play fighting. As I fended off her attack, I steered us back under the water—then kissed her, all sugar and very little spice. With my eyes closed, I could pretend we were kissing in the rain somewhere far, far away from Xargi Penitentiary.
Katja had taken my mind off this shithole, and as I kissed her, as I cracked open my shampoo and washed her hair, then let her wash mine, I hoped this had distracted her too.
That I hadn’t failed now that I’d actually tried at something.
Because if I could make her happy, even for a short while, then…
Well, then that made me happy.
And all things considered, that was a victory worth savoring.
19
Katja
“It must have been terrifying,” Lloyd mused, finger slowly circling the rim of his coffee mug, that hawkish grey gaze never once leaving my face, “to be hunted within a lake he knew so well… To feel the predator nipping at his heels with the shoreline so very far away.” He leaned over his obviously-compensating-for-something mahogany desk, fighting to catch my eye. “Did you hear him screaming that fateful day?”
Even though I was almost too aware of him, I focused on the huge windows across his office. Lightning skittered through a black sky, a storm sweeping across the terrain and pounding into Xargi like a battering ram. I’d only just walked back into Cellblock C, trailing along behind a forever grinning Fintan, both of us soaked to the bone, when Cooper grabbed me by the arm and hauled me back out. At the time, I hadn’t bothered to ask where we were going. I knew, dread mounting with each step deeper into corridors stamped with upscale décor and tiled floors.
Today was the story of Ewan’s death. Practically giddy, Lloyd had been waiting for me by his ostentatious hearth as Cooper shoved me into the same chair as last time, even dried me off with a lazy flick of his wand, the rush of hot air wicking away rainwater making my stomach turn.
He had offered the same out: accept the blood contract signed by my mom, acknowledge him as my lord and master, and leave Xargi with him this evening. Biting down hard on my cheeks, bones weary from a full day of harvesting sunflowers, I had planted my elbow on the armrest, my chin on my fist, and tried to lose myself in the storm. Tried to track the fattest rain droplets as they parachuted down the windowpanes, all the while wishing the thunder would drown out his smoker’s rasp, his husky baritone.
Hating that his cologne was so strong, like he had put on more just for me.
Sure, he smelled great—all masculine and spicy and rich—but Lloyd Guthrie was rotten to the core, and no amount of paint on his shiny exterior could change that.
Surprise, surprise: he had orchestrated Ewan’s death. Only a year older than me, the middle child, the second Fox son, my brother had drowned on a hot July afternoon at our family’s cottage. Back then, Jackson had been all about kayaking. Dad had been obsessed with chopping wood and making the best bonfires after sunset. I used to enjoy flitting around between all of them, going wherever the wind would blow me.
And Ewan was usually in the lake from morning until dusk, swimming and leaping off the tire swing and cannonballing from the edge of the dock.
Lloyd had hired a shifter assassin—a seal shifter, different from a selkie in that they could shift from man to beast and back again at will. The assassin chased my brother around the lake, herding him away from the shoreline, exhausting him, then grabbed his ankle, dragged him to the murky, mushy bottom… and drowned him. Just like that, this piece of shit with all his money and his grudge and his bruised ego stole my best friend from me.
I’d been eight at the time.
While I rem
embered the aftermath, Dad finding Ewan’s pale, limp body washed up on the shore, the hours before were a haze. At some point, I’d been in the lake with him—then climbed on Jackson’s kayak and took a tour of the smaller inlets. Back to the cabin for lunch. Watermelon slices in the hot afternoon. A book in my hands, bathed in sunlight, my hair drying into tight red ringlets that I’d since outgrown.
But beyond that—
“Kitten.” Lloyd snapped his fingers as another bolt of lightning cut over the black, a gust of wind splattering the windows with rain. Seriously, could he have chosen a more ominous day? The warden—gangster, kingpin, villain, bastard—cleared his throat and tapped the mahogany top of his desk. “I asked you a question. It’s rude to ignore a superior.”
My teeth sank into my cheeks, but I unclenched when the pain became too sharp, on the verge of flooding my mouth with a metallic tang. Was he my superior? As far as I was concerned, Lloyd Guthrie was no better than the dirt—a step below the sludge on the shower walls. Slowly, I forced my gaze in his direction, and I let him know precisely what I thought about him with a glare…
Which only seemed to delight him.
“Well?”
Still angled away from him, body language reading loud and clear that if I wasn’t trapped in this chair with thinly veiled threats, I’d be all the way across the room plastered against the windows. Grey light spilled in through the huge panes, the room lit only by Lloyd’s twin desk lamps and the odd blast of lightning. He cocked a greying eyebrow, then fished out a pack of cigarettes from the inside of his jacket.
“No,” I croaked tersely. The first time I sat in this chair, I’d ended our little meeting by vomiting all over the hardwood. Today, I had a better grasp on my anxiety, months of prison time bolstering my confidence—but not enough to quell the churn of my gut and the pounding of my heart. Being in the same room as him, even if Lloyd and I didn’t exchange a single word, made me wish the ground would just open up and swallow me whole. Palms slick with a nervous sweat, adrenaline had been stabbing through me for the last half hour, my body primed to bolt. It left me light-headed and nauseous, all that fight or flight wasted while I was stuck in this damn chair. “I don’t remember hearing his screams.”