Instead of pulling away, Kyle stepped up the pace of the kiss, teasing at her lips with his tongue. Now Meaghan knew what to do. Tongue kissing she knew about. She parted her lips, welcoming the sensual invasion.
He tasted wonderful, dark and musky and salty. There was another flavor, a familiar one she couldn’t place. Out of context, maybe. Kyle pulled her closer. His tongue danced with hers, and as it retreated, Meaghan, daring greatly, followed it, exploring his mouth.
His teeth felt sharp to her tongue. That undertone of ocean and musk and fur was stronger now, and it was so delicious she moaned. A door in her head blew open, one she’d always kept shut with Shaw to protect herself. Kyle overwhelmed her senses fully then—his arousal, his need, his confusion. She couldn’t read his actual thoughts, but she figured the confusion was because he wanted Deck. No, was in love with Deck, a hot, roiling knot of pain and delight in the center of his spirit. At the same time, he enjoyed kissing her, wanted to do more than kiss her.
What the hell was she supposed to do now? From all she’d read, a good romance heroine would pull away if she knew the guy kissing her was in love with someone else. But she’d never been kissed like this—Shaw had ravaged her mouth, and she’d enjoyed it at the time, but Kyle’s kiss was something new—and might never be again. And Kyle wasn’t exactly pushing her away. Straddling his lap as she was, she could feel his cock hardening against her. Even through clothes, the sensation was too much to resist.
She had to enjoy that pleasure just a little while longer. Just a little more kissing and she’d make sure Kyle came to his senses. She hoped Kyle’s boyfriend—if Deck was a boyfriend and not a hopeless crush—wouldn’t be too upset over a dying woman stealing a few smooches, dreaming a few dreams.
Though maybe she was kidding herself about that. What did she know about relationships, other than everything she’d learned from Shaw was a lie? Even Becky emphasized romance novels weren’t much like real life. She needed to come to her own senses so she could help Kyle find his.
Kyle’s hand brushed her nipple. The touch was so tentative it seemed accidental, but she instinctively knew it wasn’t. The little bud tightened, and bright, refreshing ripples of pleasure ran over her.
That light touch started a craving she couldn’t resist. She groaned into his mouth, “More.” He applied more pressure, and from ripples the pleasure grew to a wave, crashing over her. Her body arched like she was about to seize, but her mind remained clear. Clear and needy.
And she was being selfish. She wasn’t an innocent virgin, though she was acting like one. Kyle wasn’t demanding, but she could feel his cock pressing against her. She knew what she should do. Knew what Shaw would have made her do some time ago, if he wasn’t going to fuck her, wasn’t going to make her come to trigger a vision. Men had stronger needs than women, Shaw always said, and got aroused more quickly. If she was this aroused, Kyle must really need attention. It would be wrong not to help him out.
She repositioned herself and reached for Kyle’s cock. At her angle, she couldn’t actually get his shorts off, but she managed to work her hand inside the waistband. He wasn’t wearing underwear. He was hot and alive in her hand, hard…and big. Maybe it was just the awkward angle, but she could barely close her hand around him. She imagined him filling her. Kyle would be gentle at first, she sensed, waiting for her body to catch up, but with that lithe, strong body, he’d be able to drive into her hard.
She dreaded trying to get that big cock into her mouth, though. Oral sex was obviously fun for guys, but despite the arousing descriptions in some of the books she’d heard, it had never been anything other than unpleasant choking for her.
She flashed to a memory of Shaw using her mouth, fucking it as roughly as he did her sex.
And then another image came to her, a delicious one. Kyle on his knees, sucking, devouring, all his attention focused on the cock that was in his mouth, soft, damp grass under his knees, green-garden scents under the oceanic electricity and musk of his partner. The cock was rough in his mouth, but that was good. He wanted it that way, needed to feel overwhelmed by the other man’s passion and strength.
It wasn’t a fantasy and it wasn’t exactly a vision. It was Kyle’s memory, lived in vivid, erotic detail through her body.
That was the taste Meaghan couldn’t quite identify, and the thought that she’d tasted another man’s come in Kyle’s mouth made her body threaten to explode. Kyle’s hand slipped between her legs, stroking her through the soft sweatpants. Primed as she was by the kisses and the images in her mind, she couldn’t hold out, couldn’t keep from coming.
And she couldn’t afford a seizure and its accompanying visions right now.
She pulled away, reluctantly. “You just had sex with Declan, but it’s left you horny,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, the way Shaw always liked if they talked about sex. “Would you like me to suck you off?”
She didn’t want to choke on his cock. She wanted to keep on with the kissing, the gentle, mutual exploration that she’d always dreamed of experiencing. But that would just get him more aroused and since she couldn’t afford to let herself come, she had to make sure he did. That was the polite thing to do.
Kyle’s brain threatened an aneurism as a less painful alternative to dealing with the situation.
He’d assumed Meaghan was a virgin based on her life as a glorified lab rat. She’d felt so damn good snuggled against him, though, so small and sweet and sea-and-amber scented, that he couldn’t resist kissing her. He’d meant to leave it at one soft kiss, one taste of her lips. Her awkward kisses hadn’t suggested anything other than inexperienced arousal, but they were passionate enough that he’d pushed a little and was delighted by her responsiveness. And when she’d started stroking his cock with surprising expertise, his body just plain didn’t care where she’d picked up that unlikely skill. His boggled brain decided to roll with it. All his instincts prompted him to use his body and his passion to claim the sweet little witch, at least for now.
But he couldn’t trust himself to be gentle. Otter duals were wired for dominance or submission, or, like him, for both, depending on the partner. It came from their animalside. Sea otters, the furry animals, might be cute and playful, but otter sex was rough, violent, occasionally deadly. Otter duals transmuted the instinct into consensual kinkiness. Which was fine with people who liked that kind of thing, but not with someone like Meaghan, a relative innocent with Powers only knew what psychological scars.
And unfortunately Meaghan made him feel very, very dominant.
Maybe she wasn’t as innocent as he’d thought. But the way she’d asked if he wanted a blowjob, like she was asking him if he wanted more coffee, suggested something ugly in her past. He didn’t want to do anything that would traumatize her further. And that meant backing off until he knew for sure he could control his instinct to play rough.
It was also odd she’d figured out he’d been with Deck not long before he started making out with her, yet she’d taken it as a matter of course. Otters weren’t monogamous, but he thought he’d been impulsive and kind of rude. Why didn’t she?
Basic otter good manners. If you were playing with several people, you spaced out the hookups so no one felt like they were getting sloppy seconds, or you set up a threesome.
An image he wished he hadn’t come up with because, Trickster’s tits and testicles, it was hot. The two blonds, honey and strawberry, male and female, with him sandwiched in the middle. Better yet, the two guys sandwiching Meaghan, because she could use some spoiling. The poor thing didn’t even seem to know that sex was supposed to be mutually fun.
He mentally shook himself. He was so not riding that wave of thought, however tempting it was.
“I’m not a player,” he said, wondering as he said it if she’d even know what he meant. “I’m not. I just… Powers, Meaghan, things got crazy really fast. I’m sorry.”
Kyle knew he should say something, but his voice caught in his throat. All the things he wanted to say would sound lame: that she was beautiful, that he definitely wanted to take her up on her offer but there were a host of reasons this might not be the best time and place, that it was silly for a witch to talk about normal to a part-time otter. All things that might have helped if she were a more ordinary girl—even a more ordinary witch girl—having a lapse of confidence. But this wasn’t someone needing reassurance that her butt wasn’t too big or her tits weren’t too small or that Kyle being bisexual didn’t mean he wished she had a dick.
This was a woman who was seriously bruised, someone with a probable history of sexual abuse.
And he was the kind of guy who was likely to hurt her more if he didn’t back off.
All he could do was kiss the top of her head, say, “This isn’t about me. It’s about what you need,” and draw her close.
For a second, she was stiff and frozen in his arms. Then she said in a small voice, “Thank you for worrying. My mouth is safe, though. Nothing strange happens if you use my mouth.”
He had no idea what she meant by that, but all the possibilities that came to mind made him want to dismember the Agency—not just one or two agents, but the whole twisted lot of them, including ones who had no idea Meaghan existed.
The only upside was that the grim images suggested by her words made his cock go limp and his balls try to crawl back up into his body. The lack of arousal made it easier to whisper to Meaghan, “I’m supposed to be getting you relaxed and centered, and I don’t think making out is doing the trick. Just snuggling would probably be smarter, because I certainly don’t want to let go of you.” He shifted her on his lap so the position was more cuddling and less all over each other. She smelled upset over the luscious fragrance of her arousal. Kyle stroked her hair, wondering what he could say that might help.
Then it came to him. She didn’t understand the real world and had probably never developed a concept of privacy, not if she’d spent her life being experimented on and abused. This might be the first time in years she’d been in a house, other than the few minutes at his raft’s communal home, so she might not get the distinction between public and private spaces. Even otters had private spaces for sex, unless they wanted to signal that others were welcome to join. “I’d love to play more with you, but we got carried away in a bad place. It’s not polite to have sex in someone else’s living room. Anyone could walk in here. Witches are more relaxed about sex than normies are, but they’d still get flustered if they walked in on us fooling around.”
She mustered a smile. “Declan in particular.”
“Declan in particular. There’s something going on between us…we just haven’t figured out what yet.”
“Oral sex, for one thing.” Meaghan’s voice sounded calmer now, and she smiled slightly as she added, “Even I can figure that out.”
Kyle couldn’t help laughing. “Yes, that. We aren’t exactly a couple but…” He paused, not sure how to explain this.
“But you’d like to become one, and that won’t happen if he catches you with someone else. Perhaps if you talked about it first, it would be all right, but I imagine no one likes that kind of surprise.”
Kyle sputtered. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear—though it might be true. Deck, like him, was bi and open to experimenting. And Meaghan was a seer, so who knew what she might pick up in passing?
“Sometimes it works in novels. I don’t know about the real world.” She shrugged. “I listened to a lot of audiobooks in the hospital.” It made sense she’d learned much of what she knew of life via fiction. That explained some of her combination of innocence and knowingness. “I wondered when you kissed me if you were doing something that would upset Deck, but they say duals don’t lie or cheat.”
“But we can make mistakes. I don’t mean kissing you was a mistake,” he added quickly. “Kissing you was great. But going farther would have been one. I’m not sure if Deck and I are in a relationship or just fooling around once in a while. And your body seemed to know what it wanted, but the rest of you should take some time to think. You’ve been through a lot the past few days.”
“Time,” Meaghan sighed. Then she set her face against his shoulder and whispered into it, almost inaudibly. “I thought I wanted…I did want…but now I’m just tired. Exhausted. I need quiet now, please.”
“It’s all right. You curl up and I’ll take care of you,” he said and was surprised to realize he completely meant it. She made him feel dominant, but not just because she was petite and pretty and eminently fuckable. Dominance could also involve wanting to protect and nurture. Admittedly, it was the first time he’d ever experienced that side of it, but there had to be a reason he felt that way now, just like there was a reason he responded to Deck on a deeper level than he did to other dominant types. There were a host of reasons he couldn’t hold Meaghan down, bite her neck and fuck her senseless, even if both his body and hers thought it was a great idea. But he could do his best to take care of her.
Kyle held her and stroked her hair. At first she was tense and he thought she might be about to cry, but then she relaxed and her breathing changed. She’d fallen asleep curled up in his lap.
Sleep was good, Kyle reasoned. She hadn’t sustained any physical damage from her ordeal in the ocean, but she must be mentally and emotionally drained. So he stayed as still as an otter could, holding her soft, slender body against him, and tried not to think too much about anything that was going on.
Deck. Her. Magic. The Agency.
He’d wanted to live a life that mattered, but suddenly everything seemed to matter way too much. He made a mental note to tell Deck that he understood Deck’s deal, the shying away from commitment and seriousness, better now.
Which might make a difference to the two of them somewhere down the line—if the Agency didn’t hand them all their asses.
Chapter Eight
Meaghan awoke, not quite sure where she was but curiously fine with the confusion. The last thing she remembered, she’d been curled up in Kyle’s lap in the living room. Now she was near the rush of ocean. Kyle was still holding her, but they were lying down on what she thought was soft grass, or maybe herbs of some kind, and they were no longer alone. “What…”
“I hope you don’t mind, dear,” a familiar, accented voice said—Roslyn. “You were sleeping so nicely I laid a wee charm on you so you could continue your nap while we set up for the ritual. Kyle carried you out. Would you like him to stay with you? We’ve cast the circle, but we can open up long enough for him to step outside.”
Meaghan hesitated. She wanted him to stay. Despite the shared awkwardness of their almost sex, Kyle’s body felt good next to hers; his strong arms and the sense of something sleek and oceanic under his human-seeming body were comforting. But she had no idea what was about to happen in this ritual. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that she could even ask. “I’m here as long as you want me to be,” Kyle whispered.
A male voice—she hadn’t heard Deck talk a lot, but that laid-back tone definitely belonged to him—added, “It’s a public service to keep Kyle here. Do you have any idea how much trouble an unattended otter can cause?” He didn’t sound serious. Meaghan hadn’t heard a lot of teasing in her life, but that sounded like an affectionate poke rather than an insult. Deck’s voice moved over her skin, cool and caressing as water, but with an underlying heat that must be intended for Kyle.
She clenched in Kyle’s arms, remembering the visions or dreams of Deck and Kyle making love to her.
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady over the confusion in
her head and the reawakened need in her body. “What’s going to happen? I guess you know it’ll help me in the long run or you wouldn’t do it, but will it be safe for Kyle if there’s a lot of magic flying around?” It hadn’t seemed important to ask for her own sake, but she wanted to know for his.
Roslyn’s light brogue seemed to stroke Meaghan’s hair. “I’m afraid you’ll feel like the top of your head is blowing off while we remove those lingering spells. Having your powers reawakened is bound to be alarming, but it’s far worse to keep them locked as they have been. Kyle won’t feel a thing, though.”
“Wouldn’t matter if I did,” Kyle said, holding her closer. “Not if the ladies think I can help.”
“Duals are great to have around when you’re dealing with sorcery.” Elissa’s voice was soft and husky, sexy, even to Meaghan. Her presence was fresh and sharp, but at the same time spicy. “Even though we’re removing a latent spell, sorcerous magic is strange, stubborn stuff. If it lingers when the caster’s dead, it’s even more stubborn. We’ll free you of the spell safely—” a light touch on her shoulder, which Meaghan found reassuring, though it tickled her spirit, “—but things may get weird. Kyle won’t feel the magical echoes the way we do, and he’ll help you stay grounded.”
A deep, masculine voice boomed from over Elissa’s shoulder, “Which is why I’m here too, to help Elissa. Rafe’s keeping the baby calm while this is going on. Jocelyn’s a seer of some kind too, so I’m sure you understand she picks up way too much.” Jude’s voice was unmistakable, with that deep, rumbling edge from his lion side, a tone that could shift, she sensed, into a roar or a purr with equal ease. He must be very tall—his voice came from higher up than anyone else’s. “Even though he’s dead, I don’t trust Shaw not to try to fuck with you, or the rest of us, one last time. And I’m sure our last sorcerer enemy is involved in this somehow too.”
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